An electric car driver has hit back at critics, who said he should stop complaining about faulty public chargers and charge his car at home.

Lewis Fox, 22, who works in IT at a school, spoke out this week to call on BP to fix and maintain the chargers at Asda in Gillingham, which he said were constantly out of order.

But his thoughts drew a barrage of criticism online, with some stating the chargers were for Asda customers and others suggesting he should charge his electric VW Golf from his apartment

Among the critics commenting on KentOnline were Les Kennedy who stated: "Wow. Where to start? He can walk to work so why doesn't he do that anyway. Saves lots of cash and it's probably not much slower.

"Somehow he's doing about 200 miles a week though - if he plans to charge twice a week anyway - but none of those miles take him near another charger ? Really ?

"I love my EV and 99.9% of charging happens on the drive. I'd not rely on a supermarket charger. They're slow anyway and not meant for people to fill their tanks up from empty. He's basically bought the wrong car. Should have got a cheap run around and a bike to get to work."

More than 190 further comments followed on KentOnline alone, but for Mr Fox the most important one was from BP, which issued a statement apologising to him and saying they have sent an engineer to the site to fix the unit.

"We know that some of our customers have not had a good experience and we are truly sorry," added the statement. "We’re investing in people, hardware and upgrading our technology to help us deliver significant operational improvement for our customers.”

Mr Fox said the response showed he'd been making a valid point.

"It's been good to see that they've taken it seriously now and they've gone down and fixed it," he said, "but with all due to respect it's quite a late response considering how long it was going on for. It's good to see that they're investing and giving a promise to invest in engineers as well as charging points.

"They might try and keep on top of it now it's had a little bit of coverage."

As for those who criticised, Mr Fox said he had been amazed by the reaction.

"It certainly got everyone riled up, " he said. "Me and my boss at the school were flabbergasted at the response to it.

"I think the fact that they (the government) want to move people over from petrol and diesel to electric cars has made it a talking point.

"A lot of people have highlighted the fact that I should be able to charge at home, or on my driveway. That's not very handy when I live in a one bedroom apartment, and on my apartment block there's only one charging point which is quite regularly used.

"Obviously I think there should be more charging points put in on new developments, but not everyone has the luxury of being able to charge on their driveway."

Mr Fox said he bought his car in the knowledge there were four BP charging points close to his apartment, adding: "I did my homework and there were four charging units in close proximity. I can't always use slow chargers in car parks. A lot of people said there are charging points in Rainham and Strood but I live in Gillingham."

"You might need to wait five hours while they charge. I can walk back from the Gillingham chargers to my apartment and leave my car there.

"The point was to get BP to improve their infrastructure. It's clear electric vehicles have grown more popular recently, and in their statement they've sort of admitted the infrastructure isn't up to scratch, and needs to be improved."

Despite the critics there were several commenters who supported Mr Fox.

NoMoreHouses wrote: "VW will fit a home charging point with multi pin adaptor for free or a subsidised price with pre owned vehicles.

"Unfortunately they cannot move your home nearer to your parking place. They are still working on this."