driving

Difference between level 1, 2 and 3 chargers

by
A photo of my Nissan Leaf, with the car charging port open and a Type 2 cable plugged in.

This is one of those blog posts where I’d wondered something, looked it up, and am now sharing what I’ve found out. When it comes to charging your electric car, you may hear the terms ‘level 2’ or ‘level 3’ charger being used. They’re not common terms in the UK, but you may encounter them in other countries – especially the US.

Level 1 chargers

A level 1 charger is, essentially, just a standard 3 pin plug like you have at home. Your electric car will probably come with an adaptor cable, with a 3 pin plug on one end, and a Type 2 plug on the other end. There’s usually a chonky box on the cable, known as an EVSE (Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment), that regulates the power flow. Colloquially, these are known as granny chargers.

In the UK, our standard power supply is 240 volts and 13 amps. Going back to GCSE Science, we know that power is the product of voltage and current (amps), so the maximum output is 3.1 kW. An electrician may be able to fit a waterproof external plug socket for you which is rated at 16 amps, upping the maximum power output to 3.8 kW. One of our neighbours had this done for charging their plug-in hybrid as it was cheaper than a dedicated car charger (level 2, as we’ll encounter in a bit).

In the US, the voltage is lower (typically 120 volts) but the current can be as high as 20 amps, depending on how it’s been wired. However, even a 20 amp socket in the US can only output a maximum of 2.4 kW due to the lower voltage.

A level 1 charger is therefore going to charge your car quite slowly – especially if you have a big battery. I have also seen photos of plug sockets that have melted due to continual use for charging electric cars. And it’s (probably) the least efficient; some tests suggest that 25% of the electricity doesn’t make it into your car’s battery and is lost as heat.

Level 2 chargers

Level 2 chargers are the dedicated electric car chargers that you can get fitted at home. In our case, we have a Rolec EVO unit, and this will be fitted to the outside of your house. In the UK, it’ll have a Type 2 connector, and will be capable of much higher current – up to 32 amps. That equates to (almost) 7.7 kW, which is the maximum that you can get on a single-phase electrical supply that is standard in UK homes.

My Rolec charger lets me vary the current, so I can set it below 10 amps if I’m not in a hurry and want to make the most of my solar panels. Level 2 chargers also incorporate EVSE inside them, so the cables just tend to have a standard type 2 plug on each end.

Many public chargers are also level 2 – especially older ones. Some may be connected to a three-phase electrical supply, which triples the power output to 22 kW. You’ll generally find these at places where you can park your car all day.

I personally describe level 2 chargers as ‘medium’ speed, but a full charge at 7 kW will take a long time for larger vehicles. For our Nissan Leaf, a full charge (from 0 to 100%) would take 6 hours and 30 minutes, although that’s partly because it can only accept 6.6 kW from level 1 or 2 chargers.

Level 3 chargers

Level 3 chargers are the rapid and ultra-rapid chargers that can output 40 kW or more – some can do up to 150 kW. Unlike level 1 and 2, these chargers use DC (Direct Current) rather than the standard AC (Alternating Current) that you would get from a standard 3-pin plug. They also use different plugs – CCS2 is the most common, but some cars, like our Nissan Leaf, use a competing standard called CHAdeMO. You’ll also find that these are almost always ‘tethered’ chargers that include their own cable, so you won’t need to plug your own cable in.

I doubt you would be able to get a level 3 charger installed at home, as they’re expensive and would probably need planning permission and authorisation from the electricity distribution network operator (DNO). But increasing numbers of these rapid chargers are available when out and about, and especially at places like motorway service stations where you need to charge quickly whilst en-route somewhere.

How fast your car will charge will again depend on its maximum charging speed. Our Nissan Leaf, when using CHAdeMO, can only accept up to 46 kW. Still, that means a full charge in less than an hour.

DC chargers are also more efficient, in that you’re less likely to lose power as heat than AC chargers. As these chargers are generally the ones you pay a premium for, that’s a good thing as almost all the electricity you pay for will make it into your car’s battery. However, regular use of rapid chargers can degrade the battery more quickly.

Regenerative braking in electric cars

by
My Nissan Leaf dashboard showing that it has regenerated enough energy through regenerative braking to add three miles to the range

One of the benefits of most electric cars (and many hybrid cars) is regenerative braking – recovering the energy created from braking to charge the battery. It’s something that most petrol and diesel cars can’t do, and it allows electric cars to extend their range slightly.

Regenerative braking is something that electric trains have done for many years (indeed most electric passenger trains in the UK have regenerative braking), but it’s something that is probably new to car owners.

The first law of thermodynamics

If you’ve studied physics, you may be familiar with the first law of thermodynamics. This law dictates that energy can’t be destroyed and it can only be changed from one form to another. When you press the brake pedal to slow your car down, the energy from the brake force has to go somewhere.

On a internal combustion engine (ICE) car powered by petrol or diesel, your car will slow down by the friction created when your brake pads are pressed against your brake discs. The energy is therefore wasted as heat, and braking gradually wears your brake pads down over time.

Electric cars brake slightly differently. They still have brake discs and brake pads, but when you want to brake, the electric motor can work in reverse. The resultant kinetic energy can then be converted into electrical energy that is fed back into the battery, rather than being wasted as heat. From what I understand, this is done using magnets; if you think back to GCSE Science, you’ll remember that a magnet, combined with motion, produces electricity.

Additional range

That additional energy flowing back into the battery can therefore extend the range that your car can achieve on a full charge. We’ve actually noticed the charge level go up whilst driving downhill. An example is when we’re heading home from Manchester; to reach Sowerby Bridge, we exit the M62 at its summit point which is 372 metres above sea level, and descend around 300 metres. Typically, the charge goes up around 2% over the 8 miles from the M62 to Sowerby Bridge.

One thing to note is that your battery needs some capacity to accept the extra charge from regenerative braking. Therefore, if your car is 100% charged, there won’t be any regenerative charge. On our car, regenerative braking is limited above 80% charge.

Overall, depending on the types of roads, regenerative braking tends to add between 5 and 10% more range, which equates to between 7 and 14 miles. As well as allowing you to drive further on a full charge, it also saves a bit of money.

Reduced brake wear

Because you’re using the car’s electric motor to slow down, you should also find that your car’s brake pads and brake discs suffer less wear and tear. Again, this will save you money, as the discs and pads won’t need replacing as often as they would in an ICE car. It also reduces your car’s emissions; not only do electric cars not have any tailpipe emissions, but the particulate emissions from your brakes is also reduced compared to an equivalent ICE car.

How much regenerative braking your car will do, will depend on its mode. On our Nissan Leaf, in standard and eco driving modes, it will do a moderate amount of regenerative braking. But if we pop it into e-pedal mode, which is its one-pedal driving feature, the motor brakes more aggressively to regenerate more energy. We tend to keep it in e-pedal mode almost all of the time, although it’s of less use on motorways, for example.

Regenerative braking is a nice bonus feature of electric cars, and helps them be more efficient. It also adds to their lower maintenance costs, through lower brake wear. It’s certainly something to consider when weighing up whether to buy an electric or hybrid car.

Some thoughts on the state of public electric car charging in 2025

by
A photo of my Nissan Leaf, with the car charging port open and a Type 2 cable plugged in.

So we’re about a month into owning an electric car, and in that time we’ve taken it on two long distance trips – our holiday in Wales, and to the Midlands and Oxfordshire for a family birthday. As our Nissan Leaf only has a 150 mile range on a full charge, we were therefore reliant on public chargers to be able to continue our journeys. This post is therefore some collected thoughts on our experiences, in case you are thinking about switching to an electric car.

Availability of charging bays

Across the UK, there are almost 42,000 places you can charge an electric car, according to ZapMap, with each location offering an average of two chargers and three connectors. However, sometimes you would encounter a charger with two bays, for two cars – but the charging machine could only charge one car at a time. This was a particular problem with the faster ‘Rapid’ chargers. There were a couple of occasions where we arrived at a charger, and could plug in a cable, but would have to wait because another vehicle was already charging.

Other times, we would get there and all the chargers would have been taken. On the way back from Wales, we visited Chester Zoo, which I’ll blog about later in the summer. There are 26 charging bays available, but on a summer Saturday in August, all were taken by the time we arrived at 10:30am. Thankfully, I could check their availability on an app, and was able to move our car around when one had become free around lunchtime.

There is a degree of etiquette when it comes to charging a car. For example, if your car has finished charging, then, if you can, it’s best to go back to it and move it to a standard space to free it up for someone else to use. Also, don’t hog a rapid charger if there’s a slower charger available that you have the time to use.

So far, we’ve not encountered a charging bay being ‘iced’, as in occupied by a standard petrol or diesel car with an internal combustion engine (ICE).

Only slower chargers available

Many public chargers are 7 kW ‘medium’ speed chargers. A full charge on one of these would take about six hours for our Nissan Leaf, and likely much longer for those with much bigger batteries. These chargers are fine for ‘destination charging’ – for example, at Portmeirion, where we were intending to stay for the whole day anyway. But they’re no good for a quick charge to continue a journey.

This problem will get better in time as more rapid and ‘ultra-rapid’ DC chargers are installed.

CHAdeMO, or the lack thereof

Our Nissan Leaf can charge from three types of plug:

  • Standard 3 pin plugs at around 2 kW for a slow charge
  • Type 2 plugs at around 7 kW for a medium charge
  • CHAdeMO plugs, for a rapid charge of around 40 kW

CHAdeMO is a Japanese standard, and a number of Japanese cars of a similar age to our Nissan Leaf were built with these sockets and sold worldwide. But it’s not the European standard for fast charging, which is CCS2. CCS2 looks similar to the type 2 socket, but with an extra bit on, and it’s DC rather than AC. We can’t use CCS2 chargers without buying a converter, and they’re expensive – at least £600.

A lot of rapid chargers will just have one or two CHAdeMO plugs. A good example was Northampton services on the M1, where a bank of 12 rapid CCS2 chargers have been installed, but only one CHAdeMO charger. Which, predictably, was already occupied by another Nissan Leaf. Thankfully, we managed to find somewhere else to charge.

I get the point that barely any new electric vehicles are being built with CHAdeMO connectors, but for those of us with such cars, it can be a pain when they’re not available.

All the apps

Public car charging apps are a bit like car parking apps, in that you may well end up with several of them installed. Early on, many public chargers could only be used using an app – I remember talking to someone who was a very early electric vehicle adopter, who said that having all the apps was the worst thing about it. Thankfully, many public chargers offer contactless payments with a credit card, which is much easier. And some accept an RFID card, which you can order from several places that you then link to a payment method. We’ve got one from Octopus Energy, which works most of the time, but not always.

But some still require you to download an app, sign up for an account, link a payment method and then start charging. The worst of these, in my view, is Pod Point, where you also have to top-up a balance before you charge. That means estimating how much you’re going to need to pay before charging, and then having any money left over held in a Pod Point account. Unfortunately, Pod Point are one of the bigger operators, having partnered with Tesco.

The other issue with apps is phone reception. We managed in Wales, but had we not had a signal, there would have been some places where we wouldn’t have been able to use the chargers.

No chargers where you need them

I mentioned ‘destination charging’ above, giving good examples of Portmeirion and Chester Zoo that allow visitors to charge whilst they’re there. This is one of the key advantages of having an electric car, in that you can charge at somewhere you were planning to stop at anyway, rather than taking a detour to a petrol station.

But not all ‘destinations’ have charging. Whilst in the Midlands, we visited Cadbury World, which doesn’t yet allow its visitors to charge their cars. Which was a shame, although we did find a rapid public charger at an art-deco McDonald’s in King’s Norton.

Thankfully, it looks like more places are investing in charging infrastructure for their visitors. The National Trust, where possible, is installing chargers at many of its properties. And they’re potentially another income source for these attractions. Whilst some may offer free charging, as an incentive, most electric car drivers do expect to pay to charge. So whilst there is the upfront cost of installing electric car charging infrastructure, and then maintaining it, in the long run it could make a good return on investment.

Broken infrastructre

At home, our nearest rapid charger is a short walk away. But it’s been out of order for months, and we’ve seen a number of public chargers that were broken on our travels. This particular charger is in a local authority car park, and I understand that the council got funding to install it, but not maintain it. And last weekend, when we needed to use a rapid charger in Congleton in Cheshire, all of them across the whole town were faulty.

I wouldn’t say faulty chargers are a widespread problem, and most mapping tools for finding public chargers will indicate whether chargers are faulty if they have this data. That should reduce the risk of arriving at a charger with only a few watt-hours to spare, to find it’s out of order.

Charging at home is (almost) always cheaper

Electric cars make the most sense when you can charge them at home. Your home electric supply will (almost) always be cheaper than using a public charger. We’re on a fixed electricity tariff with Octopus, where we pay 20p per kWh. And that assumes that we’re charging overnight, without any contribution from our solar panels.

By contrast, even the cheapest public chargers are usually more than double that. Rapid chargers, especially those at motorway service stations, cost even more – typically 88p per kWh, so more than four times more expensive than charging at home. Part of the reason for this is that public chargers must charge you a higher rate of VAT. At home, your electicity bill has VAT at 5%, but public chargers have to charge 20% VAT.

If you need to use a public charger to top up your charge to get home, then it’s worth calculating how much you need to charge to get home. That way, you only need to charge your car by that much (plus maybe a bit extra) to get home, where the rest of the charge can be done more cheaply.

I say ‘almost’ always cheaper because you may get lucky, and find a free public charger. There aren’t many, but we came across two in Wales. Admittedly, one was a 3-pin plug, offering a very slow charge, and the other was a medium speed 7 kW charger. But still, it’s free electricity, and as we were away and reliant on public chargers, it was very welcome.

Farewell to our old car

by
A photo of a black Peugeot 3008.

By the time you read this, we’ll have got ridden of our previous car, a black Peugeot 3008, after six years. We’ll have picked up our new electric car and I’ll write about that in future blog posts.

The Peugeot 3008 was our second car, and we bought it in 2019. It was not a planned purchase, but was necessitated by our previous car being written off in France. That car was a Nissan Note, bought in 2015 shortly after I passed my driving test. We were therefore limited by what we could get locally, and at short notice.

Trim and spec

As it was, the Peugeot 3008 has served us well. When we bought it, it was six years old and had clocked up around 80,000 miles in that time, which probably meant that it was cheaper than it would’ve been with a lower mileage. We didn’t expect to be able to buy such a large car within our price range.

In terms of trim, it was an ‘Allure’ model, which meant that it had some additional features. These included a transparent head up display showing your current speed, cruise control with distance alerts and dual zone climate control. However, it also had the most basic stereo system, with just a CD player, 3.5mm auxiliary port, FM radio and a single USB port which could be used as an iPod Dock Connector. It didn’t support Bluetooth at all. A couple of years ago, we added a free-standing CarPlay and Android Auto screen which helped, but also meant having various wires trailing across the interior.

Dirty diesel

The other big disadvantage of the Peugeot 3008 was that it was a diesel. At the time we bought the car, dieselgate was thought to just apply to Volkswagen vehicles, but it may well be that our car was affected. We’ll see what happens when the case against Peugeot finally makes it to court.

Its emissions mean that we would have to pay to access certain clean air zones, such as London’s ULEZ and the clean air zone in Birmingham. As it is, we’ve not needed to enter those zones whilst we have the car, but will be taking our new electric car into Birmingham’s clean air zone next month. Ironically, our previous Nissan Note would’ve been fine in the ULEZ with its petrol engine, despite being an older car.

That being said, it did have a six speed (manual) gearbox, and that sixth gear was great for motorway driving.

Getting expensive

I wrote last year about how keeping our car roadworthy was getting expensive. It had been in the garage for repairs four times in as many months, and would be back in again within a month.

What proved to be the turning point was finding a patch of rust on one of the doors. Getting this fixed would have cost a lot of money, and with the car’s mileage continuing to increase, we decided it would be beyond economic repair. There’s also a laundry list of other issues:

  • The tyre pressure monitor on one of the wheels has never worked in the six years we’ve owned it, and so the car beeps loudly at you after around 10 minutes of driving to tell you this.
  • Various squeaks and knocking noises, suggesting bits of the car are working loose.
  • The air conditioning hasn’t really worked in well over a year, despite being recharged.
  • It seems to burn out headlight bulbs quicker than it should do.
  • It’s always leaked very small amounts of oil, but it’s never been clear where it’s leaking from.

I spent about an hour yesterday getting our personal effects out of the car, which included £3.04 in change that had ended up in various nooks and crannies.

Trading it in

We are doing a part-exchange, so the value of the old Peugeot 3008 will be used as a discount on the new car. However, with our car now having almost 130,000 miles on the clock, it’s worth less than £1000. Indeed, the part exchange quote we got was about 10% what we spent on it six years ago.

It’s probable that the car will be sold at auction. After which, who knows. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s stripped for useful parts and scrapped. It would be a shame, as it’s been a good car for us. It got us through the pandemic, and we’ve taken it on three holidays, including two in France. But unless someone is able to repair it cheaply, I doubt it’s worth much to anyone.

Incidentally, our old Nissan Note is still on the road, as far as we can tell. After we left it behind in France, the insurance company arranged for it to be collected and sold it to a car breakers. However, it looks like they fixed it up and got it back on the road, and it passed an MOT as recently as this May. I can only assume the breakage firm had enough spare parts to patch it up and sell it on.

Our journey towards an electric car – part II

by

Time for a second post in this series about our journey towards an electric car – part one was last week. This time I’m going to focus on the ‘why’ and the ‘why now’.

Why an electric car?

In less than five years, unless something changes, it won’t be possible to buy a new car solely powered by an internal combustion engine in the UK. From 2030, sales of new petrol and diesel cars will be phased out; there will then be a five year period where new cars must be fully electric, or hybrids. Then, from 2035, sales of hybrid cars will end too – so in ten years time, if you want to buy a new car, it will need to be electric. Or some other form of zero emissions vehicle that isn’t yet on the market.

Last year, around 20% of new UK car registrations were for electric cars. And, more and more public chargers are becoming available for electric car owners to use.

That’s the wider context. For us personally, an electric car makes sense for the following reasons:

  1. We’ll be able to charge it at home. Being able to charge an electric car from your own electricity supply is pretty cheap – especially if you have a tariff that gives you cheaper overnight charging for example. Currently, I work at home 2-3 days per week, and so we can have our car plugged in for long periods to charge up if needed. And we generate our own electricity from our solar panels.
  2. Most of our usage is short distance. Whilst we occasionally drive longer distances, most of our usage is for short journeys, and so we don’t necessarily need a car with a massive fuel tank or battery.
  3. It’ll be better for the environment. Electric cars aren’t totally emissions free – you still get particulate matter from the brakes and tyres emitted into the air. But you’re not burning a fossil fuel, and the UK electricity grid is become more sustainable all the time.
  4. It’ll be better for air quality. Where we live, in Sowerby Bridge, is a hotspot for poor air quality due to being in a narrow valley. By driving an electric car, we’d be no longer contributing to this.
  5. It’ll be quieter. Traffic noise isn’t a major issue for us, but just imagine how much quieter the roads would be without noisy engines. Also, as I have issues with hearing loss, less noise inside the car should make it a nicer driving experience.
  6. It’ll cost less to service. Compared to cars with an international combustion engine (whether on its own or as a hybrid vehicle), electric cars have fewer moving parts and consequently require fewer repairs.
  7. We won’t have to pay the ULEZ. I’m not planning to drive in or near London any time soon, but our current car would incur a charge under the Ultra Low Emissions Zone. Whilst many petrol cars are exempt, an electric car is likely to remain so if the criteria change. It used to be that electric cars were also exempt from vehicle tax, but that’s no longer the case.
  8. No gear changes. Compared to other nations, especially the US, us Brits have a weird obsession with buying new cars with a manual transmission, rather than automatic, and that trickles down to the used car market. Meanwhile, almost all electric cars only have one gear – electric motors work differently and so don’t need to have gears. Therefore, no gear changes. I think Christine was a bit cheesed off when she found out that she could’ve learnt to drive in an automatic instead, but at least it means she can drive our current car until we change it.

Why now?

As for why now, the key reason is that we need a new car soon. Our current car has lots of minor niggles that are starting to get annoying, and are likely to be costly to repair.

But also, more electric cars are starting become available on the used car market. We can’t really afford to buy a new car, but there’s a reasonable number of electric cars available in our price range. Whilst the capacity of the batteries does go down over time, we’re still happy to consider a used electric car.

Our journey towards an electric car – part I

by

Christine and I have decided that we’re going to get a new (or rather new to us) care in the next few months, and we’ve decided that it’ll most likely be an electric car.

Last March, I talked about how our current car was starting to get expensive. It had been in the garage four times in as many months, and April made it the fifth consecutive month to clear the particulate filter. Since then, it’s been behaving itself a little better – so far, it’s only been in the garage twice this year. But there are still some issues. There’s various squeaks and knocks that, whilst not seemingly affecting our ability to drive it, are starting to get annoying. The air conditioning system doesn’t work any more – on a hot day, it just emits hot air. And, throughout the whole six years we’ve owned it, the tyre pressure monitor hasn’t worked properly.

More recently, we’ve noticed a patch of rust on one of the doors. Getting that fixed is likely to be expensive, and it’s getting to the point where I don’t want to throw more money at the car. I’d rather save it, and use that money towards buying a newer car.

Going electric

I’ve deliberately made this ‘part one’ of a series, as I have a few blog posts in mind between now and after we finally get a new car. When I say ‘new’, I mean ‘new to us’ – I doubt we’ll be buying a brand new car. We also haven’t decided on a particular make and model, but what we have agreed is essentially the following:

  • It’ll be roughly the same size, or smaller than our current car.
  • It’ll be electric, or a plug-in hybrid.

We want a smaller car, because our current car (a first-generation Peugeot 3008) can be a pain to park sometimes. And 95% of the time, we don’t need such a big car – we’re just burning extra diesel to carry excess air around. For the times when we do need more space, we’ll look at buying a roof box instead.

We’ve also decided that it’s about time we made the jump to an electric vehicle. We have the ability to charge one at home (more in that in a future blog post in the series) and, as we have solar panels, we’ll be able to do so very cheaply. Plus, more electric vehicles are becoming available on the second-hand market, so we’re more likely to be able to afford to buy one.

Like I said, I’ll be posting more about this in future blog posts over the summer – especially once we’ve bought the car.

Cheques, postal orders and the DVLA

by

If you want to change your name and photo on your GB driving license at the same time, then, as I write this in November 2024, you have to pay the DVLA by cheque or postal order. You can’t pay online using a credit or debit card.

Indeed, there’s a number of reasons that you may need to pay money to the DVLA, and can currently only do so by posting a cheque or postal order. You may have passed your driving test in another European country, and now want a GB driving license. Or, you may need to get your license back after being disqualified from driving (for the absolute avoidance of doubt, no, I have never been banned from driving and have a full clean license). In all of these situations, it’s not possible to pay online.

As I mentioned in my blog post a couple of months ago, frustratingly there’s still a need for paper bank statements, and, it seems, cheques. Sure, almost every bank, including online-only ones like Starling, Chase and Monzo let you pay in cheques by scanning them into their apps using your phone. But what if you need to write a cheque for someone else? Online-only accounts do not seem to offer any way for their customers to pay by cheque.

It’s not a much better situation even if you do bank with a ‘traditional’ high street bank. I switched to a new bank account earlier this year, and whilst I got a new debit card through the post, I wasn’t issued with a chequebook as standard. And that should be fine – the last time I remember writing a cheque myself was about nine years ago. Most places accept bank transfers by BACS if they don’t accept credit/debit cards or cash. Sure, I can request a chequebook, but then the bank will need to print and dispatch it to me by post.

Postal orders

Thankfully, the DVLA also accept postal orders. In my 22 years of adulthood, I have never needed to request or send a postal order, but they have been around for years. Originally, they were a way for people without bank accounts to send money by post, in a way that means that only the named payee can use it.

To get a postal order, you go along to a local post office, tell them who you are paying and how much the postal order is for, and then pay cash, plus a fee. For £10-£99, there’s a 12.5% fee, and a fixed fee of £12.50 for postal orders of £100-£250. They’ll then print you a postal order which you can pop in your envelope to the DVLA, or whoever else you need to pay.

It’s certainly a solution if you don’t have a chequebook, but, as mentioned, you have to pay an extra fee on top which you wouldn’t pay using a cheque. Plus there’s the cost of getting to a Post Office if one isn’t local to you.

Ideally, the DVLA will drag itself fully into the 21st century, and enable more tasks to be completed online with card payments. But until then, some of us are stuck using cheques and postal orders.

How many parking apps do you have?

by
A screenshot showing the icons for six different iOS apps used for parking.

I was chatting to a friend last week as he downloaded and installed yet another app to pay for parking his car. He already had eight different apps to pay for parking on his phone, and yet the one used by this car park wasn’t one of them. So now, he had nine different apps installed to pay for parking.

I had a look at my own phone and counted six parking apps: Connect Cashless Parking, PayByPhone, Trust, RingGo, YourParkingSpace and NCP. And, from memory, I’ve used five out of the six over the past month; NCP is the only one that I don’t use regularly.

Then there are those that I’ve uninstalled – Flowbird, AppyParking and APCOA Connect. APCOA Connect seems to use the same database as Connect Cashless Parking thankfully, and I’ve only had to use the Flowbird app once for one specific car park. AppyParking was used by our local authority for a while but has been replaced with APCOA Connect/Connect Cashless Parking, and I haven’t needed to re-install it.

The convenience of parking apps

A screenshot from the PayByPhone app offering additional insurance for £4.84 as an upsell.

Parking apps are a convenience. I tend to carry very little cash around, and frequently have no change for a ticket machine, so the apps allow me to make a card payment. They also remember your details, such as your car’s registration number, and so they can be quicker than using a machine.

Some apps, like Trust and MyParkingSpace, offer automatic payments in supported car parks. Automatic Numberplate Recognition (ANPR) cameras record entries and exits, and I get emailed a receipt based on the time spent there. It’s not widespread but it’s useful where it’s available.

Parking apps headaches

But the fact that there are so many of them, with different interfaces, is a faff. You have to register an account with each one, and not all of them support Apple Pay or Google Pay so you need to enter your card details each time. And there’s usually a ‘convenience fee’ thrown in; sometimes, as little as 8p but one car park I use regularly adds a 15% fee on top of the parking price for using the app.

There’s also the upsells – what Cory Doctorow may call ‘Enshittification‘. Every time I use the PayByPhone app, which is typically 2-3 times a week on the way to work, I have to decline additional insurance to cover my car whilst it’s parked. What’s worse is that the parking itself only costs £2 – the insurance is a 250% mark-up. I guess some people could find it useful as there’s no excess and it could avoid claiming on your own car insurance, but there’s no way to disable these prompts in the app. You have to opt out every time you park, and of course, the ‘not now’ button is smaller and less prominent. Meanwhile YourParkingSpace flogs a load of offers at you after you’ve parked.

And there’s the issue of how big these apps are. The Flowbird app is almost 200 MB, which could be 20% of someone’s monthly data allowance if they had to download it on mobile data.

Consolidation

I mentioned that Connect Cashless Parking and APCOA Connect use the same database and are therefore interchangeable, but every other app only works with certain car parks. Annoyingly, this is even the case where there’s a common parent company. Connect Cashless Parking, for example, is owned by PayByPhone, but you can’t use the PayByPhone app to pay for parking at APCOA Connect locations. Similarly, MyParkingSpace was taken over by Flowbird two years ago, but there’s been no integration of the databases and so you may need both apps.

This is why this blog post isn’t ‘which is the best parking app?’ because, as consumers, we don’t get to choose. The choice is made for us, by whoever owns or operates individual car parks. Right now, those owners and operators have plenty of parking apps to choose from, but whatever choice they make is then imposed on their users.

One parking app to rule them all?

Whilst I’m sure it would be very low down on the new government’s priorities, it would be great if there was just one, national app that we could all use. To encourage adoption, there could be new legislation mandating local authorities to use it once their existing contracts have finished. It could also offer onward travel options, such as bike hire, or even public transport to encourage park and ride schemes. And there could be an open API to allow some of the third party apps to continue to use it, with some kind of payment reconciliation for private car park owners.

That way, you could view all of your parking receipts in one place – great for people who may need to claim expenses – and not have to faff around with downloading a new app each time you park up. Hopefully, such an app would also be designed with best practice in mind, and not offer annoying upsells each time. I know this is very much a first-world problem, but we can dream, can’t we?

European motorway toll tag

by
An AI-generated image of a car passing through a motorway toll plaza

Today’s the first of a couple of blog posts about things that I’ve done to make our holidays a little easier. This blog post is about Emovis Tag, who sell a small electronic tag to pay for motorway toll plazas in France, Spain and Portugal.

Normally, we go to France on our summer holiday, and take our car with us. Unlike British motorways (with one exception), French motorways are usually privately owned and financed, and so most charge a toll for use. Since 2018, we’ve used a tag from Emovis Tag, which lets you drive through motorway toll plazas without having to stop and pay. Instead, your motorway toll charges are accumulated, and then taken from your UK bank account by direct debit each month.

A photo of a Liber-T tag in the windscreen of my car

For France, you get a standard ‘Liber-T’ tag, and there’s a separate tag that works for motorways in Spain and Portugal. That means that if you’re driving through France and either Spain, Portugal or both, you’ll need two tags. Emovis Tag will send you your tag(s) by post, and you fit them to the dotted area of your windscreen.

Then, once you’re in France, and come across a motorway toll plaza, you ensure that you’re in a lane with the ‘Liber-T’ icon (a lower-case ‘t’) and drive through at a walking pace. The tag should beep loudly at you, and the barrier in front should open to let you through. There’s usually no need to come to a complete stop.

Some motorway toll plazas have longer lanes where you can approach at 30 km/h (about 20mph) and so you don’t have to slow down as much.

Advantages

The key advantage of having one of these tags is that you don’t need to come to a complete stop, either to collect a ticket or pay a motorway toll charge. Whilst this may only save a few seconds, it adds up if you have a long journey.

It also overcomes an issue with British right-hand drive cars; most machines and booths at the motorway toll plazas are designed for left-hand drive vehicles. If you don’t have a front-seat passenger in the car, or they’re like my wife and have a tendency to sleep in cars, then you don’t need to reach over to pay. There’s also no risk of losing the paper ticket given to you when you join the motorway, so you won’t be overcharged if you do lose it. And you don’t have to worry about not having the correct change or having a foreign currency card declined.

Disadvantages

However, a key point to note is that this isn’t in any way cheaper. You have to pay for the tag, and there are annual and monthly account fees to pay (although the monthly fees are capped). There is a deposit for the tag which you can get back if you return it, which is worth considering if you don’t go abroad at least once a year. We’re staying in Britain for our holiday this year, and probably next year too, so I’m debating whether it’s worth returning the tag.

Therefore, you are paying more for an easier experience whilst on holiday. I think it’s worth it, but it’s up to you.

Something else to bear in mind is that, whilst the majority of French motorways have tolls, not all of them do. If you’re visiting Brittany and Normandy, then the main A84 autoroute is free throughout. On our 2022 France holiday, we didn’t encounter any toll-charging roads.

If you do decide to go ahead, you can sign up using this link to get a €5 credit on your account.

Is it worth using premium car fuel?

by
An AI-generated image of a superhero using a petrol pump with premium fuel.

Regular readers will know that I’ve been having some car issues of late, which has seen it spending a lot of time in the garage being fixed. So far, it’s been running okay for the past couple of weeks, and so I’m very hopeful that there’ll be no more expensive repairs due for a while at least.

At its most recent garage visit, to have the particulate filter cleaned, the mechanic asked whether I was using supermarket fuel. Because, in his view, this was why I was having problems with the filter. Premium fuels – the ones that you pay extra for – have additives which claim to help clean out your car’s fuel line. As well as preventing the filters getting full, they should – in theory – boost efficiency and result in you getting more miles per gallon of fuel. Once the car was fixed, I was therefore advised to stick to premium diesel for a few months.

This was a topic that the excellent BBC Sliced Bread podcast covered back in January last year. There’s also some information from Auto Express and Which? (for which you may need a Which? subscription to read). The consensus seems to be that premium fuels can help keep a car running better, but they only need to be used occasionally. Supermarket fuel – or at least, supermarket petrol – should be fine to use most of the time. And it is generally cheaper than even the basic fuel from branded petrol stations.

As instructed by the mechanic, I filled up with Shell’s ‘V-Power’ premium diesel earlier in the week. You pay quite a bit more – it was £1.76 per litre, as opposed to £1.58 per litre for their standard diesel. For context, £1.53 per litre is the current cheapest price locally for diesel, according to PetrolPrices.com. My tank was low – the fuel warning light had come on – so I paid almost £100 for a full tank. This was £12.65 more than if I’d filled up with regular diesel at the cheapest nearby petrol station.

We’ll see if it makes a difference. Although my car does track its fuel usage in miles per gallon, it doesn’t use a moving weighted average and so it’s prone to fluctuations, making it a bit useless. My car is over 11 years old, and so anything to clean out the fuel lines and injectors is welcome.

I’ve also used some engine cleaner from Halfords; you put this in once your tank is below a quarter full (i.e. three quarters empty) and then take it for a decent drive until the fuel warning light comes on. It recommends that you use it around four times a year, and this may be a better option. Theoretically, it does the same job as the premium fuel, but costs £10-20 each time. Overall, that works out cheaper than paying more for premium fuel.

So, in honour of Betteridge’s law of headlines, the answer to the question ‘is it worth using premium car fuels?’ is probably no. You can use supermarket fuels, but maybe pop some engine cleaner in now and again – especially if you have an older car. Or go electric – I’m sure our next car will either be a plug-in hybrid or a fully battery electric vehicle.