A fully-electric coach has found itself stranded in Cornwall after being unable to charge at five different locations across the Duchy.

The Carbon Battle Bus is on a tour of the UK and this week travelled from London to Cornwall but was unable to complete its tour after finding charging points did not work.

They came to Cornwall to tie in with the G7 summit in Carbis Bay where world leaders have been discussing climate change and the need to reach targets for zero carbon.

Planet Mark, the organisers of the Zero Carbon Tour, successfully travelled from London to the Eden Project, a distance of 263 miles with one recharge, in the electrically powered Yutong coach.

However, in order to make the return leg through the South West of England the coach needs a recharge.

But with 60 to 70 miles it has found that there are no serviceable chargers left on the network and the five that they attempted to use in Cornwall were unable to charge the bus.

Planet Mark said that this showed why there was a need for more investment to be made in infrastructure to help meet zero carbon targets.

Steve Malkin, founder and CEO of Planet Mark, said: “The Carbon Battle Bus has the range and capability to easily make this journey, but the poor state of the UK charging infrastructure means that we only found one charger serviceable on our route from London to Cornwall. When Boris Johnson addressed the G7 today, he called on leaders of the advanced economies to “make bigger commitments on… low carbon vehicles…”. To do this he must help bring together central and local government with businesses to connect policy, investment and roll out of zero carbon technologies, like EV charging, and nature-based solutions.

“We are on the road to show that zero carbon is immediately possible for every community and organisation in the UK and beyond. We have identified an immediate issue in that only one in 10 charging points charges our coach, and met many EV owners at each stop with the same frustrations. Working together we will find the solutions and continue our journey solving other issues and showing what great work is taking place.”

As well as the five charging points in Cornwall which could not be used to charge the vehicle there were another five on the journey from London to Cornwall which could not be used.

In Cornwall the electric coach visited the following charging points but were unable to successfully charge the vehicle:

Bodmin Business Park – Genie Point – 50kW – machine not working, despite Zapp Map not reporting an issue.

Bodmin Morrisons – Genie Point – 50kW – recognised the coach but did not deliver the charge. 

Kingsley Village – Shell – New Motion – Tritium charger – 170 kW – registered coach and charge left on coach but would not charge 

Cornwall Services – Ecotricity – 50 kW – error with the charger, engineer informed but did not work. At 11pm we met a Nissan Leaf driver who had tried three other charging stations experiencing problems.

Eden Project car park – Genie Point – 50 kW – recognised the coach but did not deliver the charge.