303 The Q-Park Episode

Gary Comerford (: 00:00

I've long been of the opinion that AC destination charging is the secret source of EV adoption. If you can plug your car in wherever you stop for an hour or so, that means the need to have lots and lots of ultra rapid DC charges everywhere is reduced. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not adverse to ultra rapid DC charges, but I definitely think that cost wise, it'd be cheaper and quicker, to put AC charging in rather than the hugely expensive DC hubs that many people seem to like.

Remember, Adrian Pike from Instavault told me recently that the Winchester Superhub costs £7 million to build. I imagine you'd be able to install a tremendous number of AC chargers around the country if you had that amount of cash. One area that's ripe for exploitation from this point of view is public, multi-story, and underground car parks. in fact, in my day job recently, I had to drive into the centre of London, park up in an underground car park for 12 hours.

And that car park had no charging provision. But an AC charger, even if it was a relatively low-powered one like 3.5 or 4 kW, would have given me more than enough power to get home without an issue. So why aren't there more chargers in car parks like this?

I'm Gary, this is Eeve Musings, a podcast about renewables, electric vehicles, and things that are interesting to electric vehicle owners. Today we're looking at car park charging. But before we do,

A quick favour, if you could like, subscribe, leave a comment, hit the notification bell, all the usual things. That would be great. Thank you. Now on with the rest of the show.

One company that runs hundreds of car parks across the UK and Europe is QPark. I figured they'd be a great company to chat with about this topic, so I'm delighted to be joined today by John Denton, who is the commercial director for QPark, UK and Ireland, to talk just about this.

John (: 01:59

Yeah, hi, I'm John Denton. I'm the commercial director for QPark in the UK and Ireland. So my role within the business is to focus on delivering the commercial strategy, obviously including EV charging and and mobility hubs and as well as parking, which is what we're probably most known for. QPark are a a European leading parking business.

Started in ooh nineteen ninety eight, to today we've we have five and a half thousand parking facilities, w over a million spaces and and we operate in five hundred cities, so yeah, so we're quite a scalable parking business.

Gary Comerford (: 02:38

Fantastic, because you've then answered three of my follow-up questions, which are where are Q Park operating geographically? How many car parks do you have in the UK? what you didn't talk about, which I think is is quite important for the viewers and listeners of this podcast, because we're we're very much interested in the charging aspect. So of the X million parking slots that you were that you've just mentioned, how many of those actually have a charger attached to them? Do you know that number?

John (: 03:04

Yeah, o overall across across Europe we have around five thousand charging points across Europe. In the UK, to answer your your one of your first three questions was w in the UK we have around a hundred facilities. We we entered the UK market in two thousand and one, so we have seventy thousand spaces, but right now in the UK we have just over seven hundred charging points

Gary Comerford (: 03:28

Which then leads on to my obvious follow-up question, which is where do you see that going in sort of five years' time? Are you gonna gradually increase? Is there a plan for a big rollout of EV charging or are you gonna just kinda see what the market does? What what are the thoughts on that?

John (: 03:43

Yeah, so we we s we s we really started installing E V points around two years ago. So we are I would still say we're in the still in the early stages. we we we basically took a a phased approach where the first phase was was was about how much power do we have actually within the facilities that we we have. What yes, what the demand was, both from a par from a customer parking perspective

But also for some of our partners who we work with.

So we we do a lot of different activities in our facilities which also need EV charging. So for example, we have a lot of the car hire, car share operations, which clearly for them to be a sustainable business, they need charging in the in in city centre parking facilities and we fulfil that need. In terms of what does the next step look like? Well, obviously we do have the usual constraint of power. That is is clearly an important one.

The majority of our facilities are really in city centre locations across the UK. So you can only imagine the the difficulties that that brings in terms of acquiring more power. We are now looking at the the initial phase where we've installed in the majority of our locations, and we're now looking to see whether whether we can have more power.

by speaking to the DNOs and them releasing more power or whether there's more structural grid works that are required and and we we've we've got yeah we've got plans for for both of those outcomes which which we're going through right now.

Gary Comerford (: 05:18

I want to touch briefly on because I I I imagine I haven't looked in detail at every single one of your your locations in the UK, but I know that there are a number which are what I would deem to be underground parking which have EV charging attached to them. And I think the the big one is the Q park in in Park Lane in centre of London. Now there are some places around the the globe that have decided they don't want

EV charging in underground locations, they see that as being a safety issue. Do you have any thoughts on that for me, please?

John (: 05:52

Yeah, I I guess that does get a lot of noise, I I guess. but I think we w and you you're right, we have a number of car parks which are we which are underground and and typically most of those are tend to be in in central London, in in Westminster. and but clearly we have done a number of of activities to make sure that it is safe. So things like load bearing in the in the in the car parks which are above ground to make sure that we

We that the car parks are obviously well mount maintained and that they can actually structurally take significant increase in EVs in a specific area within the car park, which is important. the the design for the installations is really important. The property teams that we work with. And I think the other thing which people may not realise is most parking operators actually don't actually own the the facility itself. Often it's a it's a lease.

with with the with the landowner. So we clearly work with the landlord consultants and s and on occasions we've also brought the fire service in to to ensure that everybody's comfortable with with the the installation because clearly safety is is key. After the installation's taken place, it's then about how we monitor and and maintain. So thankfully we we work in an environment where we have regular

checks from our parking hosts and part of their daily role now is not only about making sure the the car park is safe, clean and secure, it's also making sure that the the charging points are all safe to use and and and obviously working in addition to using the the the back office which obviously highlights any any status issues. so we we do all of all of that as part of our our standard installation.

Gary Comerford (: 07:38

And I'm gonna come back a little bit and talk about or or ask you about the actual back office and and how you're working in with the people who are supplying the charging for you. But I wanna just loop back onto something that you said a few moments ago. So you've got your entity Q Park, you've got the landlords who are responsible for the the actual who actually own the structures that you're putting the the things into.

You've also then got the DNOs who are having to work out whether you've got the appropriate power going in there. How are you managing to deal with all that and make sure that the lines of communication are correct and and most appropriate?

John (: 08:17

I I mean b despite the fact that we're a scalable business with lots of different locations, every relationship, both legally and and and in terms of running the the the operation is different. So for example, we may have a facility which is attached to a shopping centre. And and actually then the power isn't managed by QPark, which therefore does bring some more complexity as we need to speak to the landlords to

to be the middleman between increasing the power to our our facilit our car park, which obviously may well then influence another issue with with the retailers. So that often happens with with a lot of communication with with with the landlords and the DNOs. Thankfully, the majority of our locations we do control the the the power and it's more about getting approval which

is often relatively easy because clearly where we're improving the asset. So why would the landowner want to stop us wanting to future proof his asset over the long term? the the the the biggest challenge in the parking sector of course is Q park are are known for taking longer leases. So we took w our ethos is about taking a a parking facility, improving the facility, but clearly to do that you you need to invest.

In order to invest, you need to have a longer lease period to get a some kind of return on investment, as it all makes sense. That is pretty unique in the industry. So I think we're well positioned and we therefore have the confidence to invest, install, and ensure that we maintain those those those that charging infrastructure.

Gary Comerford (: 09:59

So how complex is it, let's take, you know, any any of your locations in in Westminster, the underground ones, how complex is it to, for example, upgrade a grid connection in a dense urban environment like that to be able to support EV charging or expand existing EV charging in a current car park?

John (: 10:17

Yeah, it's it it's extremely difficult. and I guess hence the reason why we tend to then speak to consultants to help us along that journey. We we don't we are parking specialists and mobility specialists. We're not necessarily power specialists, although I guess all of our knowledge is be is becoming more and more eat as each year goes by. so we we work with with with our consultants, our energy specialists and and then the DNOs which

You know, it is is a yeah, a relatively slow process.

Gary Comerford (: 10:49

And how easy is it then to take an existing underground car park? Let's assume we've already got the the appropriate grid connection. How easy is it to take an underground car park that has no EV charging at all and physically put the cables in there? Do you have to sort of say, well, there's only certain places where we can put the cables in? We may have two or three levels deep and we're not going to electrify the bottom level because that's too much of a cable run. What what sort of discussions are you having with the consultants about things like that?

John (: 11:17

Yeah, I I think actually what what we like is is is to lead with the customer focus first in terms of w w where is best for that EV driver to to charge and and you always have this balance between do you want to put them at the entrance where it's the most convenient place to park? But the byproduct of d of doing that is that there's more h there's a higher likelihood of of of those

locate those parking facilities being or parking spaces being iced, which

Gary Comerford (: 11:47

Yes.

John (: 11:48

then brings more problems. So I guess we we we try to balance it, but no parking facility is the same. So if you go to Glasgow, for example, Waterloo Street, we have a a superb hub which is in an area almost separated from the the general flow of the car park, which is is perfect because it's it's set aside

It's actually on the entry floor, which is great, but unique. And and we can really make a thing about that being a E V hub. which yeah, but but that you know, that that sort of set up in our infrastructure is is is not always possible.

Gary Comerford (: 12:23

So one ever so slightly contentious question, and I'll get this out of the way now, and I I generally ask a similar sort of question to everybody from a senior management team. How many people in Q Park at the senior management level who are working with the companies that provide EV charging actually drive electric cars themselves?

John (: 12:42

That is a great question. And there are five of a senior management team in in in the UK, of which two of us drive electric. What I would confess to is I never drove electric until I then took on the reins of running the EV business. And and I think that was really important. And I'm now the biggest supporter of EV. and yeah, and and they and they can't shut me up about it.

As much as they try. but you know, y y y you gotta drive E V and and test it and you know, all the things we talk about in terms of range anxiety, trying to find charging infrastructure, I I don't recognise any of those things. and and I think I probably speak for most people who drive E V.

Gary Comerford (: 13:23

Yeah. I remember attending a conference once and there was a panel up there of local government people who were all responsible for for putting EV charging in at the council level at local government level. And I asked exactly that same question. How many of you actually drive electric? Now there was one of them who didn't drive at all because he lived in central London, didn't need a car, but none of the others actually drove electric. One said, I've got a hybrid. I said, Is it a plug-in hybrid? No, no, it's

a self charging hybrid and it's kind of well you don't really know what you're talking about when it comes to E V charging because you haven't lived with an electric vehicle and you don't know what the problems are. So I'm very happy to see that you've you've gone down that line. What w what are you driving, can I ask?

John (: 14:03

Yeah, I've got a Mustang, which is yeah, I I mean I love it. I it obviously goes with my sporty yeah. Yeah. Sporty yeah.

Gary Comerford (: 14:12

Love it.

John (: 14:13

Yeah, no,

no, I love it. I love it, yeah. I mean I I think what what we'd also say, Gary, is people often say, yeah, but you you can't have the E V if you travel long distances and with my role I travel up and down the country and and and you y you you have to then plan your journeys. I I don't plan my journeys. And it's yeah, I mean it's they're at ever every corner, but but that that's why I think Q-Park are in a really great position because nobody wants to travel to charge. So the fact that

Gary Comerford (: 14:40

It exactly. Yeah.

John (: 14:42

But by virtue of being a parking facility, we are the destination. And you know, the the best for me the what I really love about driving EV is charging while I'm asleep. So that's my number one. And my number two is charging while I'm doing something fun, like being in a city centre, going to the cinema, going to a restaurant, etc. So yeah, yeah, very passionate about it.

Gary Comerford (: 15:05

Excellent. I've got a couple of other things I want to talk briefly about. and I want to digress ever so slightly and talk about third party companies monitoring parking and issuing PCNs. I'm assuming that Q-Park are linked in with a company such as that. So when people stay too long or or break the rules, they'll receive a a PCN from a third party company. Am I right in thinking that?

John (: 15:29

Thankfully, QPark's business is ninety nine percent from a Q Park brand perspective. It is about barriered parking.

Gary Comerford (: 15:36

Mm-hmm.

John (: 15:37

So everybody chooses to come and park in the car park and we don't therefore need to issue PCNs. However, the one discussion which we often have is about hogging. And and this is I mean this is this this conversation's been going on for for for many months and a couple of years I guess but

One thing our core business is parking, clearly. You know. So the thought of of of QPark, for me as a commercial director, asking customers to move their cars because they've charged is doesn't doesn't really add up with with what our core parking service is. So we do have this discussion about okay, how do we solve this issue where customers enter the car park at at nine o'clock, charge because they're in that they're work

working for the day, but the car's charged at midday. What do we do? And I think our our answer so far has been look, because we're charging we're we're providing a charging service for customers who are who have longer dwell times, it's not about the speed of the charging. So we we tend to install twenty two kilowatt AC chargers as as our sort of our standard.

Because speed doesn't actually matter in our environments. And we

Gary Comerford (: 16:52

Exactly.

John (: 16:53

would rather have more chargers more chargers than have fewer charges with with with with faster speeds. That's our sort of strategy now. Now that will obviously that might change in four or five years time because we know that our E V charging sessions increase by forty percent every year. So it it might be a different discussion in five years' time, but for now that's our our sort of stance.

Gary Comerford (: 17:18

Now the other big thing that in my opinion something like a PCN would be useful for, and you've mentioned it already today, is icing. So with all the best will in the world, you get a nice busy car park like somewhere in the centre of London, and you're gonna get people who are going in and say, All right, this is an empty space. Okay, I'm driving a a petrol car and it's a E V charging spot. I'm not bothered, I've paid to park, I'm gonna park there. How are you dealing with that situation?

John (: 17:46

yes, that does happen and it's incredibly frustrating. How we deal with that is we we have parking hosts who do regular we monitor obviously the the the car parks on a regular basis. And frankly we we we we put a a polite note because they're obviously parking and paying us a a fee for this service, and we put a polite note on on on the on the vehicle to to ask them to be more courteous going forward and consider

that that that is for EV charging customers only. to be fair, we also get the occasional EV driver who parks in an E V charging space but doesn't plug in. Which to me is actually more frustrating because th

Gary Comerford (: 18:29

Yes.

John (: 18:30

they are the people who understand frustration of not being able to charge on on that occasion.

Gary Comerford (: 18:35

Yeah, that's definitely a bugbear of mine and you know, th you should know better as an E V driver. But as you say, it does happen. So not sure what we can do about it.

John (: 18:42

Yeah. Yeah. I

I think the the other thing, Gary, what we do is is obviously we've we've got A NPR and all on all our our our our parking facilities. So where we then have the number plate and it's a known customer, we can then also contact them outside of putting a note on a on a windscreen.

Gary Comerford (: 18:59

Mm-hmm. That's good. That's good. let's talk a little bit about how parking operators can work with charge point operators, local authorities, energy networks, et cetera. So who have QPark in the UK partnered with for EV charging?

John (: 19:14

So how we operate, and I'll try to keep this pr brief for you, but initially we our stance was we would work with a CPO, we would give them the space, they would pay for the asset, they would they would fund the charging infrastructure and the install, and then they would manage the charging business completely independent of parking. And then about three years ago.

we we clearly realise that that parking and charging for an E V driver is almost becoming the same thing. So and and despite the fact that we're working with a CPO

it's Q-Park who are whose name is on the is on the on the facility. So at that point we decided to actually invest ourselves and and so right now the actual charging the the charging point the install is all funded by QParc owned by Q-Park but then we work with Blink as a CPO to manage the the back end.

Gary Comerford (: 20:19

why choose I mean, there's there there are any number of CPOs out there that deal with the CPMS, the charge point management system in the back end. Monta, for example, Zest, for example. What was the specific reason you chose Blink? Was that a competitive tender that went out or what?

John (: 20:35

Yeah, we we we went to tender. we had we we were working with Blink in Belgium at the time. So th they were deemed as a as a safe safe option because we've got experience with them in in another country and and and therefore it was yeah, I mean it was it was about the you know the we had to be able to trust that the people we were working with were were were the right people.

Gary Comerford (: 20:57

Right. Well let's let's dig into the actual process itself a little bit because it correct me if I'm wrong on anything I say here, but I I I think that if I want to charge my EV at a Q part location, I can go in on the website, I can book the the slot, the the parking slot, and I can get there, I can find a charge point, I can plug in. I've got to use the Blink app to start and stop the charge. Is that correct?

John (: 21:23

No, we offer well three different ways to to to start a charging session. You can either use the use the Blink app, that's that's one option. But actually fifty percent of our our charging sessions are are completed via a payment terminal. Which are in b I'm in partly because a lot of the facilities are underground. So we we we we now have payment terminals at the majority of our of of our charging stations.

And then the third option is obviously roaming. So 50% are are completed through payment terminals, 25% are completed by app, and 25% are completed by roaming. That's the sort of sort of mix. One interesting point, which I'm still trying to get my head around, if I speak to my colleagues in mainland Europe, 80% of their charging sessions are completed via roaming.

We're in the UK it's twenty five percent. It is it is it's it's yeah, it's very bizarre.

Gary Comerford (: 22:23

Yeah. And that's a whole different ball game when you start talk to talk about the European way of of paying for

John (: 22:29

Yeah, yeah.

Gary Comerford (: 22:30

things. Roaming absolutely I've had conversations with any number of people who are based in Europe and they're all they can't understand why we've got to download a thousand different apps for all the different charge point operators and all that sort of stuff. It's kind of just use use your roaming app. And yeah, I'm a big fan

John (: 22:45

Yeah.

Gary Comerford (: 22:46

of roaming apps, I've got to say. I do have to say. Now the what the one thing that you didn't mention there, and again, correct me if I'm wrong, there is a

Q Park app, I believe. Is there a reason why that's not linked in with the charging? So you can use the app to pay for the the parking and the charging.

John (: 23:02

Not yet. It's it's on our roadmap. it's definitely something which we we we want we want to do and we want to achieve. So yeah, and and it and it comes to the question of of currently it's two separate transactions. You you you pay for your parking and you pay for your charging. Now, will there be a time where two becomes one? Sounds like a s is that spy scales, isn't it? Yeah. And two becomes

Gary Comerford (: 23:23

Ha ha ha.

John (: 23:25

one. and and that would that will happen. In fact

In the last couple of weeks, my colleagues in the Netherlands have have just started a a pilot where if you charge two hundred and twenty five kilowatts in a month, you get some kind of free parking benefit. So that's the sort of thing which we will no doubt migrate to as we start to understand more about our our E V charging patterns.

Gary Comerford (: 23:50

And one of the things that I have to talk about, and I talk about this whenever I interview anybody who is related to physically paying or providing a charging service to anyone, whether it's a CPO or someone like yourself, is how do you determine the price, the charging tariff that you're levying on the people? Now I I I've done a little bit of research on this. I believe Blink in Cupark offer anything between about 72 and 79 pence a kilowatt hour, depending on the location.

Where did that figure come from, or those figures?

John (: 24:21

Yeah, so we control the pricing, so I think we should be upfront about that. and and and currently it's seventy two pence a kilowatt at all locations in in Q-Park now we're still learning I mean I what I think the other thing I would add, and it's sort of a side question to what he just asked is is we we don't believe that the return on investment for E V charging is anything spectacular, yeah.

and and clearly our primary goal for this is is that parking and charging is becoming one. So what we're we're not I suppose we're in a fortunate position that we're not when that's not our core core business. and we believe that that 72p is is a is a fee which is gives us a return to make it sustainable. but yeah it's it's it's

You know, in in in the in the market range, I guess.

Gary Comerford (: 25:10

Well let let me challenge you there. I don't disagree. There are other charge point operators who charge that. They tend to be fossil fuel-based. It companies like Shell and BP, or Ubatricity as as they deem their AC charging. They do tend to be quite high up in in the 70s, maybe even the eighties for AC charging. But there are companies out there such as Chargy who will provide

Pretty much exactly the same service that you're offering at thirty nine pence a kilowatt hour. So just talk me through how you've decided that we're gonna pitch ourselves at, you know, seventy two rather than thirty nine.

John (: 25:52

Yeah, I think if you I mean what what I think we should acknowledge is the cost of installing EV infrastructure in city centre underground parking facilities is infinitely more expensive than than than installing charge points in in you know next to a a restaurant in the in the outer town on a surface car park. so I think that there's there's an element of of of that. I think secondly, I mean

It's seventy two pence, it's sixty pence excluding VAT, of which over half of it is is actually what we pay in electricity alone, without the costs of actually running the, you know, r having the CPO fees and and and obviously we want to we do want to make a profit because we want to we want to then rein reinvest that in into the into having more charge points. It has to be sustainable both from an environmental perspective but also from a commercial perspective.

perspective.

Gary Comerford (: 26:47

one of the benefits of a charging infrastructure is the possibility of capturing excess electricity overnight and storing it for dispatch during the day. And this helps relieve strain on the grid and it can make some good financial sense. Have you had any conversations with anyone about maybe adding batteries in at car parks to help facilitate this?

John (: 27:05

Yes, we have. We are we we are currently carrying out a number of pilots, two in Germany if I'm if I'm correct, where we're we're looking at both solar and and and also battery storage as well. One of the challenges we we do have is often they they need to place the the batteries, the battery storage unit in in in a space which clearly we don't have a lot of space outside of our demise in city centre parking facilities.

So space is a real challenge and and clearly the these these are heavy units and and clearly we have load bearing on our parking facility. So never it's never ever as easy as you first think when you go into these things. But but certainly we we see that there sh there could be other options. in one of the locations we we we've we've installed a a canopy a solar canopy at the top of the the the car park, which we're now looking to see how much power that would help.

help us with. so the s I talked earlier about the different phases of our sort of installation and I think all of these things have to come into play for phases sort of two and three when we start running out of the the power that we need.

Gary Comerford (: 28:12

Excellent. When I asked you earlier, you said that QPARC have taken the decision that they're going to fund the installs of the chargers. and I'm assuming that that's done in the same way as other CPOs do, which is that becomes a a capex issue, and that needs to be, you know, that money needs to be.

paid back. Are you getting external funding for that or is this all being funded internally?

John (: 28:32

Nice, all being funded internally. Yeah.

Gary Comerford (: 28:35

Did you get

any benefit from the Levi funding rounds that recently that recently finished?

John (: 28:41

No, no we didn't. No, we didn't. I mean it ev everything's been totally funded by by Q Park. It's it's I mean I guess that's one of the the challenges for a parking operator where where if you are managing the the car park on the land on the landowner's behalf, it's obviously clearly much more difficult to to to make that stack up. And and our sort of ethos is if we've got a facility where you have a lease which is

you ten years and above, then it typically will stack up. If it's between five and ten, it then it depends on the on the location. and then under five years it's very difficult to to to to be able to fund. And at at that point we have discussions with with landlords. but thankfully we we tend to have more longer lease locations.

Gary Comerford (: 29:30

Are there any issues with lack of signal in an underground car park?

John (: 29:36

Yeah, and that's why we tend to use the payment terminals and we hardwire the the charge points in, especially in underground car parks. It it's

Gary Comerford (: 29:44

Mm-hmm.

John (: 29:44

it's it's fundamental that the obviously the charge the charge points have to work. and and that's that's our preferred route.

Which which again,

which actually goes back to your question about why is it seventy two pence? Well, it's because what we are doing is we're installing payment terminals in addition to just relying on apps, which again doesn't come doesn't come free. and then the other thing which we've not talked about is things like load balancing. So we do invest in in actually Smappy, load balancing because that's obviously an answer to our power challenge.

at many of our locations.

Gary Comerford (: 30:19

Okay, that's interesting. I I have a big bugbear about payment terminals, especially third party payment terminals, because in my experience, the majority of the problems I've ever had at an EV are when the payment terminal itself either doesn't recognize the card or it's not working because there's been some water ingress or something like that. and it, you know.

That's one of the reasons I like roaming more than anything else. You slap a card on an RFID reader and it goes, yes, I recognise who you are. Here you go. Do you do does QPark do a pre-authorization amount?

John (: 30:56

We do. Yes, we do. what what I would say just going back to t to your point and and I guess it's it's a real benefit of our environment that we don't tend to have water issues. if we've got a water issue then we've really got a problem.

Gary Comerford (: 31:09

Yeah.

John (: 31:11

I I listened to your your your your your your podcast the open table podcast where you're talking about canopies and again canopies is i it comes

comes as standard at a Q Park multi-story car park. so yeah, w we we tend to use Payter payment terminals. I I have to say the the the take up is much higher than I probably expected. As I mentioned earlier, fifty percent of the the charging sessions are are completed by payment terminal. And and that is that tends to be the preferred route. But like you, I I would always tend to to to to use roaming but

It's about customer choice and we let the customers decide on on on what we do in future installs.

Gary Comerford (: 31:50

When you've got a a payment terminal in, is it one per charge point? Or have you you taken the route that's I've seen some people do in Europe where they have a central payment terminal and that will mean that can manage payments on any number of of charge points. Which one have you chosen?

John (: 32:05

That's something what's definitely evolved over time. So when we first started installing payment terminals, they were they were one to one. then we went one to two, and now we do one to eight. But it it depends on the location. It depends on on whether there's the there's a there's a there's a a payment point which is central to let's say eight eight parking spaces. other locations w we we would tend to stick with a one to two or one to one even.

It's it's about the the location.

Gary Comerford (: 32:33

And I think that's that's one of the not necessarily the issues, but one of the things that plays into where you can put chargers in that is cause every single location you have will be different to every other one. So, you know, what works in one location may not work the same in another location, the layout may be different, the design may be different, the the structure of the car park may be different.

And it's it it sounds it's a little bit like a Jenga puzzle, isn't it? You know, you've gotta make sure that if you're taking things away and putting things in it's it just keeps it all structurally sound and it all works the best for everybody.

John (: 33:06

Yeah, it is. I mean we always we always say parking facilities are are very much like children and you've always got your favourite but you never want to say.

I think what I would say is is w where I mentioned, I think the most we've we've gone to is one payment terminal to eight charging points. And and I can't give you any science to that other than I think there can be a point where there's too many. so we we we we've we we've sort of drawn the line at one payment terminal for eight charges as being the maximum.

Gary Comerford (: 33:32

Well we're coming towards the end of the time, so is there anything you'd like the audience to know about Q-Park and your EV charging offering that we haven't discussed today?

John (: 33:41

when we when we embarked on this journey, we had a preconception that our EV charging points

were going to be used typically by people who are working in the city every day or people who are staying at hotels. What we've definitely found is that is absolutely not not not happening. What's actually happening is people who are staying in hotels, that's much greater than we than we even expected, but that sort of makes sense. People are travelling out of town into a city that they don't know and they want to charge for the following day.

But we are definitely getting a much higher percentage of people who are charging opportunistically and and and when they so when they go to the to the cinema or the restaurant and the ch you know the parking for relatively short periods of time, they're still taking that opportunity to to charge, which I you know, I th I think we were sort of surprised by that element, which you know we will continue to learn and we'll we'll make sure that we have the right charging points in the right facilities.

Gary Comerford (: 34:44

looping linking what you've just said to something that you mentioned earlier about the issue of people plugging in for all day but their charges finished by, you know, midday. Do you have any sort of utilization figures that you'd be willing to share with us about how how frequently your your E V charging is being used?

John (: 35:03

We we have our business analysts every month. We have a monthly we have monthly meeting where we we hold a threshold to say of all of our locations do we have any sites which reach eighty percent peak occupancy on the EV points at any at any point. If if we have a location which where that happens five times in a month, that instigates almost the next

phase of EV deployment. So I'm not sure whether that answers your question, but that that that that's the kind of data that we tend to look at in terms of making sure we've got enough EV charging points that that you know hogging doesn't become a a a problem and that we we do have enough EV charging points and we do obviously try to deal with those people who who aren't charging in in in a charging bed.

Gary Comerford (: 35:53

The flip side to that then is do you have a statistic or a a a management report that comes back and says, Hey look, we've got these three car parks here that have all got EV charges in and they're barely being used.

John (: 36:04

Yes, we do. Yeah, we do. And we we have we have a number of sites where we've we've significantly over invested in terms of putting charging points in. But having now done that investment, we are confident enough to know that it will come. So we're not yeah, that is not something for us, it's not it's not one of our top ten things which we which we worry about. We would rather have the right we would rather have charging points for the future.

than not enough charging points, which for me is much more of a problem.

Gary Comerford (: 36:33

Yes, yeah, hundred percent, totally agree. Excellent. John Benson, much appreciated for your time. Thanks for joining us today.

John (: 36:41

That's great. Thanks for your time, Gary

Gary Comerford (: 36:43

What did we learn from that discussion? Well, primarily that the challenges that companies such as QParc has around installing charging are not dissimilar to those faced by other companies with much larger installations. Limited grid capacity, identifying the best locations on which to spend CapEx to install the hardware, solving the issue of icing charges, pricing the offering appropriately.

Now I still think that the price Q park charges is a little higher than I'd like to pay for AC charging. Heck, it's more than I pay for DC charging with some charge point operators. But given that each parking location is a completely unique challenge with different ownership structures, different leasing terms, and different grid and install challenges, there's a case to say that this is hardly surprising. So over to you. What are your thoughts about AC charging in general and car park charges specifically?

Have you used a QPart unit? Did the Blink back office work for you? Let me know in the comments.

I hope you enjoyed listening to today's show. It was put together this week with the help of

John Benton and Rosie O'Rourke from Q Park, many thanks for their time.

If you've reached this part of the podcast and are still listening, thank you. Why not let me know you've got to this point by messaging me at musingtv.beastguy.social with the words, you can't part there, mate. Hashtag if you know you know, nothing else. And thanks as always to my co-founder Simon. You know, I asked him whether he ever thought he could see himself giving up the electric unicycles and taking up a different hobby like gardening. He said there's no way he'd do that.

He was committed to his current hobby.

John (: 39:48

and they and they can't shut me up about it.

Gary Comerford (: 39:51

Thanks for listening and watching. Bye bye now.