Portsmouth is Rapid

Charged Parking

The Electric Instructor adventure is moving on as Portsmouth City Council have contacted me asking if a parking space they will be designating for EV charging would be suitable for me. It’s across the road from where I live so more than suitable.

A Rapid Solution

One of my big concerns using an EV to teach has been the lack of rapid charging in the city. My choice of car is going to be limited by the availability of dual controls for teaching. This means my most likely choice of car will be one of the previous model Nissan Leafs (or should that be Leaves). With a 30KW battery. It has enough range on a full charge for a days work with a bit of range left. However, on a busy cold winter day it might get a bit short of miles near the end of the day. There’s also the possibility of  the on street charger being faulty or being ICE’ed which would leave me flat for the next day’s work. This is a problem a quick rapid charge would fix.

Until now stopping at lunchtime for a 10 minute rapid charge on a busy cold day would have meant a 20 mile round trip to either of the nearby towns of Fareham or Waterlooville.  That is until now as we have a Polar rapid charger in Portsmouth at the Isle of Wight ferry port. This makes the possibility of stopping lunchtime or easily getting a charge in the evening if on street parking is not available a lot easier. I’m sure this is the first of a few rapid chargers in the city

Recently I attended a Portsmouth City Council Transport Stakeholders Liaison Meeting as a representative of Southern Driving Instructors Association. There was a presentation about the charging points they are going to install. Everything looks positive and I was impressed with the council’s commitment to introduce public charging in a city where off street parking is rare. It looks like a matter of weeks now and I can go EV shopping.