Do you Remember the First Time?

We’ve got the lyrics from that particular Pulp song on a loop in our heads, because our Head of Delivery (EV Charging), Graeme Patton, has recently got his first EV. Over the next couple of months, we’re going to be finding out all about that experience and asking you to share your first EV experiences with us too – on our social channels, using the hashtag #firstEV.

 

 

For Graeme, going out and about to installs and (socially distanced) site meetings is a regular part of the job and turning up in an ICE vehicle just doesn’t cut it! When we talk about “leading the charge” we mean it and that’s why as well as transitioning our fleet, we were keen for Graeme to experience things from an EV driver’s point of view.

Graeme’s First Electric Car

What Graeme doesn’t know about charging infrastructure isn’t worth knowing, but as he says,

“I really wanted to incorporate a first-hand driver’s perspective. A lot of the charging infrastructure we’re putting in for local authorities is three-phase, so it was also important to have a car that could accept a three-phase charge… step forward the Renault Zoe!” 

Graeme’s also eager to bust some of the common myths around uptake – like range anxiety, reliability of the charging network and the number of chargers out there, so we’re looking forward to sharing that.

 

 

First Home EV charger

For now though, at Graeme’s home, we installed a zappi from myenergi and as Graeme says,

“It was the natural choice because we have solar on the roof and the zappi means any excess energy generated by the solar can be diverted to charge the EV, instead of going out to the grid. The myenergi app and hub means you can really get to grips with your home energy consumption, as it shows how much your solar is generating, how much of that’s being used in the house and how much is being imported from the grid. It definitely puts things into perspective and since having the app, we’ve thought a lot more about what we’re using and when. Installation was really straightforward too, taking less than a day”.

 

 

Tell us about your first EV

That’s what we love to hear, and we’d love to hear your views on switching to an electric vehicle as well. Have you made the change and never looked back? If not, what’s stopping you? Email us with your experiences or share them with us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook or LinkedIn using the #firstEV hashtag.

 

Find out more

• Discover more about EV Charging
• Check out some of our EV Charging Case Studies
• Watch our Technical Director Dr Chris Jardine, talk about Electric Vehicle Charging in the UK in 2021