Osprey – Pulpaddict

Major EV milestone reached by Osprey Charging

Osprey Charging now has more than 1,000 live public EV chargers available for use by the UK’s EV drivers.

Osprey’s network, which according to ZapMap is the third largest in terms of the number of public rapid and ultra-rapid chargers, has grown by more than 150% over the past year.

Flagship hubs have opened in key locations such as Devon, Cumbria, Essex, Dunbartonshire, Carmarthenshire and Nottinghamshire.

“With over 1,000 public rapid EV chargers now available on the Osprey network, we are providing the essential infrastructure that drivers and industry are calling for to support the electric vehicle revolution,” said Ian Johnston, Osprey Charging CEO.

“The rate of growth is matched by the highest standards of service offered to our drivers, through a reliable and easy to use nationwide network.”

With hundreds of locations spread across both rural and urban locations throughout the UK, Osprey chargers have an outstanding reliability rate of 99%, while its straightforward charging experience has seen Osprey recognised as a ‘Driver Recommended Network’ by Zap Map for a fourth time.

At the 2023 Transport and Energy awards, Osprey was named Best EV Charging Network, shortly followed by winning Chargepoint Network of the Year at the 2023 Electric Vehicle Innovation and Excellence Awards (EVIEs).

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Play your cards right with cinchCharge

We test the “faff-free” app and card that makes charging an EV much easier…

The great switch to electric vehicles is not without its issues. The high upfront cost of EVs, range anxiety and finding a public charger, to name but a few.

Then there’s the multitude of different companies providing chargers, each requiring registration, meaning some EV drivers have phones packed with apps or wallets loaded with (RFID) cards.

Anything that can smooth things along helps, which is why car marketplace, cinch, is on to a winner with cinchCharge.

Marketed as “faff-free EV charging”, cinchCharge is a payment card and app which gives cinch EV buyers access to more than 30,000 public chargepoint connectors across over 18 networks.

In one fell swoop, electric car drivers who’ve bought via cinch can pay for charging using the cinchCharge card or app without having to shuffle cards and flick through different apps.

We’ve been testing out cinchCharge for ourselves over the last couple of months and we’re impressed.

The cinchCharge app helps you find and filter accessible public chargers by availability, speed and distance from your location.

What’s more, the cinchCharge app is free to download, there’s no monthly subscription and no fees.

When you stop at the charger, simply tap the cinchCharge card or use the app to start charging. Then you end your charging session and payment is taken from your linked debit or credit card, so you only pay for what you use.

The cinchCharge card worked perfectly on every public charger we used, including Gridserve, Motor Fuel Group, Osprey and Ionity.

Typically, there were also a couple of occasions where we were miffed because we weren’t able to use fast chargers on the Instavolt and BP Pulse networks, because they are not cinchCharge providers, but on the whole, the coverage is impressive.

The app is fine, though perhaps not the slickest out there, but it is integrated with Google Maps, Waze and Apple Maps, meaning you can easily get directions to chargers, once you have located them.

What’s more, the interactive map within cinchCharge shows you whether the chargepoint is available, compatible, the speed it will charge your car, as well as highlighting the price.

Our only suggestion is that would be a great bonus if the kWh prices were discounted a little for cinch owners.

So, overall cinchCharge works and certainly alleviates one of the key “faffs” of owning an electric vehicle (ie registering with various suppliers and needing multiple cards).

It’s just a shame that all EV drivers can’t benefit from cinchCharge and you have to buy a car via cinch in order to be able to access it!

Revealed: UK’s best electric vehicle charge point networks

Gareth Herincx

16 hours ago
Auto News

Zap-Map reveals UK’s best electric vehicle charge point networks

Zap-Map, the UK’s leading electric vehicle mapping service, has released its annual public charging network satisfaction rankings.

The league table, now in its fourth year, comes from Zap-Map’s annual EV charging survey, which had more than 3,000 respondents and is the most established and comprehensive survey of EV drivers in the UK.

As part of the survey, respondents rated their overall satisfaction for the networks they use regularly, which is then used to rank each network out of a maximum of five stars. They also rated their level of satisfaction with the networks in four key areas: reliability, ease of use, cost and facilities

In first place overall this year is InstaVolt. The rapid charging network scored particularly highly for reliability and ease of use, securing its ‘Best EV Charging Network’ badge.

Taking the ‘EV Driver Recommended’ second and third places respectively are two other rapid charging networks, MFG EV Power and Osprey.

Zap-Map user ratings for public EV charging networks in the UK

EV network	Overall rating
InstaVolt	4.4
MFG EV Power	4.2
Osprey	4.0
Pod Point	3.8
GRIDSERVE Electric Highway	3.6
Shell Recharge	3.6
NewMotion	3.5
IONITY	3.5
Ubitricity	3.4
Swarco E.connect	3.3
GeniePoint (includes ENGIE)	3.1
ESB Energy	3.0
ChargePlace Scotland	2.9
Source London	2.7
EV Charge Online	2.6
bp pulse	2.5

“Despite significant changes over the course of the year, there are some things that remain the same,” said Melanie Shufflebotham, co-founder and COO at Zap-Map.

“EV drivers are clear about the factors that make for a good charging experience, namely reliability and ease of use – and these should be key priorities for the UK’s public charging networks.

“The Zap-Map survey shows that while this is being delivered by some, others are falling short and there needs to be improvement. As we move from the early adopters towards mass EV adoption, making public charging simple becomes more important than ever.”

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