Fuelled by caffeine! Electric Mini Cooper has to charge up in motorway Starbucks after car charging points stop working

  • The driver had tried to use a Genie Point charging point while traveling on the A1
  • But the points were faulty and the car had to be charged at the Starbucks nearby
  • Andrew, who sent the pictures to MailOnline, said he had ‘seen it all now’ 
  • This comes as data revealed six per cent of points were faulty on a given day
  • This falls way below the Government’s target of 99 per cent reliability 

An electric Mini Cooper had to be charged up in a motorway Starbucks after the car charging points stopped working. 

The car was supposed to be charged at a Genie Point charging point but they were faulted so it had to be plugged in near the front door of the Starbucks instead.

Andrew, who sent the pictures to MailOnline, said: ‘Customer service going above and beyond at Starbucks this afternoon on the A1 driving home from Heathrow. 

‘Car charger out of service and our ridiculous planet saving government teaching us how to go green … everyone in the car park laughing … I’ve seen it all now …’

An electric Mini Cooper had to be charged up in a motorway Starbucks after the car charging points stopped working

Images showed an extension cable going from inside the Starbucks out of the front door in order to connect the car to its electricity supply

In order to reach the plug in the coffee shop, the Mini Cooper had to mount the pavement and park between two bollards.

Images also showed an extension cable going from inside the Starbucks out of the front door in order to connect the car to its electricity supply.

There were also several caution signs put in a row to cover the cable. 

MailOnline approached Starbucks and Genie Point for comment.

The car was supposed to be charged at a Genie Point charging point but they were not working so it had to be plugged in near the front door of the Starbucks instead

This comes as data from EV driver app Zapp App showed that on a single day sampled in February, almost six per cent of the total amount of UK electric car charging points were faulty and out of service.

This figure was far from the 99% reliability rate target from the Government. 

In May, MailOnline exclusively revealed that the UK’s rollout of electric car chargers had stalled, with the Government set to fall massively short of its target unless it ramped up monthly installations. 

In order to reach the plug in the coffee shop, the Mini Cooper had to mount the pavement and park between two bollards

Between October 1 last year and January 1 there were a total of 2,448 electric car chargers installed, but in the first three months of this year that had slowed to 1,915.

Despite the glaring figures, the Department for Transport (DfT) insisted its rollout was ‘accelerating’, citing data that over 1,000 charge points had been installed in April to May.

Though an increase on the quarterly monthly average, that was still way off the desired target rate, which would require a three-fold jump.

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