12/ EV and no driveway can work for many though not all. But it’s certainly not as bad as many in the press will have you believe and I’m now four years into full BEV ownership, which have been the cheapest, cleanest and most enjoyable of my driving years.

11/ Also worth stating that the gulley allows me to shift charging off-peak for greener, cleaner charging with Octopus Energy’s Go product and it also allows me to maximise use of my solar panels and complement my house battery with the car battery

10/ Fifth, though not relevant to me, many will also have workplace charging. And finally, if all else fails Oxford have several 7kw posts on streets around the city & we’re lucky to have the big new Fastned and Wenea hub mentioned above too

9/ Fourth, I have a long range and efficient EV for a reason (an e-Niro with ~290mile summer range / ~220mile winter). It means I certainly don’t need to charge every day or even every week sometimes and will likely get the space outside my house again before I do.

8/ Thirdly, neighbours are largely really nice and understanding and will try to leave the spaces free. And many are genuinely happy to swap spaces if I’m desperate for a charge. This will only increase as more own EVs and more share cars.

7/ Secondly, three other neighbours on the street have a cable gulley too- so we have a WhatsApp group and will use each other’s chargers if we are ever stuck. There are advantages to a critical mass of installations

6/ Firstly, we have resident parking permits, which means I get the space more often than not and reduces the number of cars. Before we did I had a PHEV as was less certain of being able to charge regularly. It was more difficult, put even then I could have managed with a BEV.

5/ The most common objection I get is that you can’t guarantee the space outside your house-this is true and will be better or worse in some places. Whilst it will clearly always be a risk wherever you are, there are a lot of things that can mitigate against it:

4/ There are also further solutions like Co-Charger (co-charger.com), lamppost charging (e.g. Ubitricity) & rapid hubs (like my local ESOxford) that complement the installation of gullies. It’s a crucial point often missed that a range of solutions is the answer, not one “superior” option

3/ I have been part of a couple of iterations of trials with Oxford City & OxfordshireCC and can say it works brilliantly using a cable gulley. I currently have the ODS Gul-E solution gul-e.co.uk

2/ I should state uprfornt that I get some of the concerns about on street parking and charging, but there are a lot of solutions that can make it better and councils (crucially with more central government funding) need to get their acts together and roll these out much faster.

1/ With an increasing number of negative news articles about electric vehicles, and the continuing misconceptions about home charging without a driveway, I feel it’s appropriate to re-share my (very positive) experience of charging on-street with a cable gulley.