Yes, 5hrs a bit ott! There is apparently an (unwritten?) etiquette in EVland that says that you don't monopolise a charging point. Trouble with Leaf and some other earlier tech cars is that they can only charge slowly. My observations at a rail station with charging points is that the same two BEV owners tend to park there for several hours while either working at the station or away on a journey. (Leaf and a Zoe....) Not the way it is supposed to work. The latest DC-CCS chargers that the i3 can use will give virtually a full charge (from around 30%) in 30 minutes. The 'pump' timer only allows you to be connected this amount of time before switching off, which is great at Mway service areas, where they are mostly utilised. The display shows how long the car has been charging, so anyone arriving can see how long they may have to wait. Said services virtually all now have '2hr time limit' for free parking, and most won't want to stay in one any longer than absolutely necessary, so there is less chance of not being able to charge immediately or within a short space of time.
A Norwich multi-storey car park has just been refurbed, and has a row of 8 charge points. That's impressive. They are 7kw, which defines them as 'fast' in the industry definitions of slow, fast or rapid. As owners will be paying to be in the car park, the cost of parking is likely to define how long they are plugged in, rather than the charge itself.
You also get the problem of 'ice-ing', where a non electric car parks in a charging space. I looked in a new Asda car park for the charging points, and found them just randomly fitted in normal parking places. Only the post itself with a small sign to show. Guess what, 3 of the 4 places had normal cars parked in them...... That's down to Asda and the post providers- rubbish positioning!
So far I've only had 'range anxiety' once, but it's really no different to running low on petrol or diesel late at night and then realising that all the fuel stations on the rest of your journey are closed. I've had that many times in 50 years!
