Most people who are contemplating an EV labour under the petrol station mindset.

It’s entirely understandable, because that’s how we’ve always driven. When the tank’s empty, we stop at a station, or even drive specially to one, and fill up. So when thinking about EVs, we worry about how long it takes to charge en-route, and how many chargers there are, and whether they’ll be occupied when we get there.

But once they’ve had an EV for a while, owners flip right out of that mindset. Only about three per cent of UK charging is done on roadside rapid chargers. That’s tiny. Here’s why. You’ve plugged in overnight at home. If your petrol tank was magically nearly full every morning, you wouldn’t often stop at a station.

We’re programmed to think about recharge times because with a petrol car, getting energy into the thing occurs only while we’re standing on a wet, greasy forecourt holding a hose. In an EV, energy can go into it while we’re sleeping or working or shopping. Even if we don’t shop for eight hours, it’ll still give enough juice for a useful distance. After all, you often see people putting in a tenner’s worth of petrol.

Slow charging is the EV world’s Cinderella. Forgotten but vital. The headline recharge times are the rapid DC roadside stops. But say you buy an EV with 250 miles’ range. Now look at a map and see how often you drive – in one hit – to places more than 250 miles from home. For most of us, a few times a year. That’s when you’d want a rapid charge of under 45 minutes or so. The rest of the time, slow charging is just fine.

It turns out most electric-car drivers don’t even bother to plug in every night, or necessarily to fully charge. People have regular driving habits, and if that means 40 or 50 miles a day, a couple of plug-ins a week is fine. Plus ever more shops and town centres are installing free chargers to tempt EV owners to visit.

Read more: Top Gear

If you’ve ever driven to an electric vehicle (EV) charging station only to find that all ports are occupied, you know that you could end up waiting in line for anywhere between minutes to hours—which can really put a damper on your day when you have places to go and things to do.

Starting today, you can see the real time availability of charging ports in the U.S. and U.K, right from Google Maps–so you can know if chargers are available before you head to a station. Simply search for “ev charging stations” to see up to date information from networks like Chargemaster, EVgo, SemaConnect and soon, Chargepoint.

You’ll then see how many ports are currently available, along with other helpful details, like the business where the station is located, port types and charging speeds. You’ll also see information about the station from other drivers, including photos, ratings, reviews and questions.

Read more: Google Blog

GRIDSERVE has unveiled plans to install a UK-wide network of ‘Electric Forecourts’, delivering ultra-fast EV charging for the public.

More than 100 forecourts are to be developed at strategic locations under a five-year plan valued at around £1 billion.

Each forecourt will feature dedicated zones for both private and fleet vehicles such as taxis, buses and delivery vehicles, and also incorporate a range of facilities for drivers to access while vehicles are charged including coffee shops, convenience stores and airport-style lounges with high-speed internet.

The firm has partnered with EV charging infrastructure specialist ChargePoint for the projects.

Chargers with speeds up to 500kW are to be made available for cars and light commercial vehicles, capable of fully charging modern EVs in less than 10 minutes. Multi-megawatt charging options for buses and heavy goods vehicles will also be accessible.

In addition, new solar farms to be constructed to supply the forecourts with clean power, while “multi-megawatt batteries” will be used to provide grid services. And it is this additional infrastructure which GRIDSERVE said would allow it to provide EV charging at prices which are competitive with home and destination charging.

Toddington Harper, chief executive at GRIDSERVE, said the intent was to make charging EVs as easy as using petrol stations.

“The latest generation of electric vehicles are awesome, and ready for mainstream adoption, but drivers still worry about if or where they can charge, how long it will take, and what it will cost.

“We plan to eliminate any range or charging anxiety by building a UK-wide network of customer-focussed, brand new Electric Forecourts that will make it easier and cheaper to use an electric vehicle than a petrol or diesel alternative,” he said.

Read more: Current News