You pull up to the charger and there is already a car there. With 60% in the battery, that is a minor annoyance. With 8% it feels different. What you should do depends mostly on two things: how much margin you have left, and whether the car in front of you is actually charging.
First check whether the car is still charging
A plug in the car does not tell you whether it is charging. Sometimes the battery is already full and the car is just waiting for its driver. Sometimes the session failed and nothing is flowing. So look at the light or screen on the charger, and at the status in the app of your charging card or on the map. Usually you can see whether a point is occupied, free or out of service. That status can lag behind, so a point shown as free may still turn out to be taken.
Is the car’s battery nearly empty and has it just started? Then it will be a while. Is the power close to zero? Then the battery is probably full. With many operators an idle fee then starts running, which usually brings the driver back quickly.
Wait or drive on: a worked example
Say you are at 12% with a 60 kWh battery, and you use about 18 kWh per 100 km. Those are assumptions to calculate with. Two options:
- The next charger is 8 km away. That costs you about 1.4 kWh (8 x 0.18), a little over 2% of your battery, and a quarter of an hour of driving.
- You wait at the occupied charger. You do not know for how long. The car in front could have three minutes left or three quarters of an hour.
The alternative costs little battery and a predictable amount of time. Waiting only makes sense if you can see the session is nearly finished. If there is a queue, driving on is almost always better.
It is different if the next charger is far away, or your battery is so low that you cannot safely reach it. Then you wait, and you might call the operator’s helpline to ask whether the point is really in use.
What you can do in practice
- Check the status of the charger and of every other point at the same location. One occupied point does not mean they all are.
- Look on the map for an alternative nearby, ideally with several points, so you are less likely to drive somewhere for nothing.
- Check other operators too. Which charging card works there can differ, so check that beforehand.
- If you do wait, leave a note or your number if you are sure the car has been there too long.
Speak to the driver kindly when they come back. The car may really be charging, and then they owe you nothing. If the battery is full and they are not leaving, a calm question usually works better than a reproach.
A blocked bay with no charging
When an ordinary car sits in a charging bay, the charge point gets nothing. Take a photo of the car, its number plate and the charger, and report it to the car park operator or to the municipality. Whether that leads to a fine depends on the signage and on local rules, so a fine is not a given. The reporting point can tell you what the procedure is.
Reserving
Some operators let you reserve a charge point in their app. That helps mostly at busy locations. It does not exist everywhere, and the conditions differ: sometimes you pay a fee, or lose the reservation after a certain waiting time. Read those conditions before you count on it.
Prevent the problem
At 5% you have no choice, at 25% you have several. Start looking in good time, pick a location with several charge points on long trips, and keep a second option nearby. Use the fast chargers page to find locations with many points, and read our tips on charging etiquette for what you can do yourself to avoid keeping others waiting.