Jan Stannard and her husband were travelling in their electric car to Dartmouth to visit friends in Above Town. They could not find anywhere to charge their car.

This problem was the genesis of a new service for charging electric cars.

Jan explained, “At New Year we were talking about 2017 trips down to stay at our friends’ house in Dartmouth and whether we would be able to come in our electric car, a BMW i3.

“Then we found out there are no public charging points in the town and, as far as we can discover and no plans to install any.

”The house we were to stay in, in Above Town, doesn’t have an off-street drive.

“What we needed then, we realised, was to find a fellow EV owner with a compatible (untethered or Type 2 tethered) charger, ideally 7kw to get technical. And that’s how Chargie was born.

“It works like Uber but for charging electric cars, said Jan.

“It’s a web-site where people register. If you have an electric car, you will have a charging point. By registering this point with Chargie, you can offer others a chance to charge their cars.

“It costs about £3 to charge an electric car. Chargie users set their own prices but we think between £3 and £6 will be the charge set by those offering the service.

“The big advantage of Chargie is that it is bookable. You don’t have the problem of turning up to a ‘public’ charging point and finding it is busy or broken.

“It is estimated that there will be 5 million electrically-powered cars in the UK within 10 years.

“We did ask Dartmouth Council but they said they had no plans to put in charging points. So we think a private individual will register with Chargie and provide the service.

Chargie will be ‘open’ next week for bookings. If someone wishes to sign up in Dartmouth just go to our website: www.chargie.net “