Several users of electric cars in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, who contacted DIARIO DE AVISOS, denounce the frequent breakdowns suffered by the recharging points throughout the city, around twenty. Notices that they must manage themselves, calling the City Council technicians who are in charge of maintaining public lighting, who are the ones who go to the different points to resolve incidents, which, according to municipal sources, are about five a day .
The secretary of the Association of Users of Electric Vehicles (AUVE), Héctor Rodríguez, confirms this information, and points out that the Consistory has already put out to tender the maintenance, en bloc, of public lighting and recharging points for these vehicles, so right now in the capital there is no company that is specifically in charge of maintaining and repairing the incidents that arise in these facilities.
In addition, Rodríguez explains, it is a basic installation problem. “The electrical protections to which the recharging points are connected are not properly dimensioned from the beginning, which is why they frequently fail. The same thing happens when the differential jumps at home. The technicians come and lift the protection, but what is needed is a repair to provide an adequate service”, he indicates.
Although the City Council is committed to sustainable mobility by promoting the use of electric vehicles, the truth is that these charging points are not up to the task. And that is a reality when, in addition, AUVE points out that there are points such as Parque García Sanabria that “never work”.
The association assures that there is a lack of communication with the Corporation, because, although “there is a telephone for emergencies, when a point breaks down, the Consistory does not notify that it is already fixed. We have to go to see if it is already in operation.” This is the reason why it proposes to include this type of incident in the Santa Cruz Mejora application, through which citizens already report on the damage and breakdowns they find on public roads.
They applaud that the City Council is going to add new points, but ask that the places associated with each of them be doubled. “One of the initial ideas was that they could be duplicated and it has only been done in some. The points have two connectors, you just have to paint the other square next to it, because for this they were located in the middle of two. It is something that we have been asking for a long time,” he stresses.
The Consistory recognizes that the installation can be improved, that at the time a model was installed with a basic budget that has generated problems and that five incidents are reported per day. He confirms that right now there is no contract with any company that manages its maintenance, and that 45 new points will be installed soon, 30 for slow charging and 15 for semi-fast charging.
The capital now has 20 slow charging points associated with public lighting, which only work during the day, and three semi-fast charging points where you can only park for one hour.
