Driving along the ‘electric highway’

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The first public Quick Charger for Electric Vehicles (EVs) in Cornwall officially opens this week at Cornwall Services, Victoria.

The charger, installed by renewable energy supplier Ecotricity, is the first on a trunk route in Cornwall and forms part of its ‘electric highway’ network at motorway service stations nationwide, able to charge vehicles in less than 30 minutes.

The Quick Charger for Electric Vehicles at Victoria Services
The Quick Charger for Electric Vehicles at Victoria Services

On Friday and Saturday (January 16 & 17), independent EV expert ecodrive will be hosting an exhibition at Cornwall Services of the latest electric vehicles from Kia, Nissan, Renault, Peugeot and Mitsubishi. There will also be a demonstration of the new charger.

Matthew Trevaskis, Director at ecodrive, said: “This new Quick Charger is a fantastic addition to the charging infrastructure in Cornwall and will be very useful for existing EV drivers to get more out of their electric cars and vans.

“It also connects Cornwall to the rest of the electric highway network on the M5 allowing drivers to use their cars for longer trips and for visitors to drive to Cornwall in their EVs.”

The exhibition of vehicles will run Friday 10am-4pm and Saturday 10am-2pm.

1 COMMENT

  1. I spotted the new charger on Tuesday 6th whilst doing a Cornwall trip in my BMW i3. Sadly, this charger doesn’t include the latest European standard 20 minute CCS fast charging that I need for my BMW – just the older ChaDemo fast charge used by the Nissan Leaf and a 3-hour AC medium charge
    That’s a shame but I don’t blame ecotricity, the suppliers. Their CCS “pumps” elsewhere in the country are unreliable and DBT, the French maker doesn’t seem to want to help. ChargeMaster, another charger installer, have confessed they’d like to throw out all of their DBT made CCS chargers – they’ve just started to install a new model made by Siemens.
    The EU wants CCS to be the pan-european standard. Not at this rate! Good job my BMW has an emergency range-extending petrol engine. The next CCS charger is at Exeter services and that’s been out of action for weeks. Electric vehicles are great for local use but long distance driving is still a challenge!

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