Britain’s counterculture Glastonbury Festival is hiding a dirty little secret about their EV charging stations, and it isn’t that there aren’t nearly enough of them.
No, on that score, Glastonbury’s environmentally conscious organizers are quite open and honest: They don’t have nearly enough charging stations.
The festival just wrapped up on Sunday, featuring headline acts like Billie Eilish, Paul McCartney, and Kendrick Lamar for an estimated 200,000 or so attendees.
“Being in such a remote location,” the Bristol Post reported, “organisers informed electric vehicle owners before the festival that they have ‘very limited capacity’” for charging stations.
Britain is currently enduring a railroad strike, so more attendees than usual had to drive themselves.
Organizers urged drivers to top off their EVs before hitting the festival:
As a rural location, Worthy Farm has very limited capacity to offer electrical vehicle charging on site. Just as drivers of petrol or diesel cars need to make sure they have sufficient fuel for their journey, if you are travelling to the Festival in an electric or hybrid vehicle, it is important to make sure you have sufficient battery charge for your journey.
…
The AA will offer a limited – first come first served – emergency recovering charging facility (to members and non-members) onsite at Bronze car park only, off the A361. Emergency charging is at a fixed cost of £50 for up to an hour’s charge/80% battery (whichever is soonest).
The original charging fee was £80, but attendees complained so much that organizers lowered it to £50 for that partial charge.
“This service is for emergency use only,” the statement warned, “and cannot be guaranteed.”
Maybe you’re thinking this is no big deal, and I’m inclined to agree. You can’t just flip a switch and turn a rural area into a massive charging station for untold numbers of electric cars.
But you can flip a switch, so to speak, to turn on the diesel generator that powers those chargers.
Wait, what?
Yeah, those green batteries are kept powered by the farm’s diesel generator which is “switched on as and when it is required,” according to the report.
But wait just another moment because it gets even better.
“This system is thought to be better for the environment than installing a Tesla Supercharger.”
I’m not sure how to write a punchline here when the environmental movement just did.
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