Electric vehicle (EV) drivers queuing to use chargers in car parks are inadvertently being caught out by penalty fines, the Association of Fleet Professionals (AFP) is warning.

Queuing EV drivers being caught out by car park fines, warns AFP

AFP chair, Paul Hollick, said that the situation was mainly occurring where automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) technology was in use, and it was easy for company car and van drivers to miss signs warning of the maximum free time.

He said: “If there’s a one hour free limit in an ANPR car park and a driver has to queue for 30 minutes and then connect to the charger for 40 minutes – which is by no means an unusual situation – they’re getting a fine.

“It seems that because they are queueing and not in a parking bay, drivers are forgetting that they are still liable for car park charges. It is something that is being flagged up by a quite a number of our members as an issue and dealing with fines such as this is always a time consuming and surprisingly expensive administrative process.

“Certainly, this seems to be sufficiently widespread that we think it is worth fleet managers communicating to drivers that they should bear in mind the maximum free time in a car park when they are charging.”

Paul said that the adoption of EVs by fleets was highlighting a number of similar issues that fleet operators were working through.

“It seems almost every week brings something new such as this which requires an adjustment by fleet managers and drivers, some small and some larger. They’re all part of the learning process of electrification and the AFP is performing an important service for its members by sharing best practice solutions.”