EV Owners Thread

[mikeIow]

A weekend up in the North Yorks Moors then across to Reeth to visit friends.....
Great views on the tops:

Plus a new PB for regen: 3.5miles!
Picture taken by passenger near end of drop off the Moors towards Whitby

One 'fun' moment in Pickering, when the ConnectedKerb pole refused to release our cable after use. Had to get to their second line support, where they rebooted the thing to let us continue our journey. All the fun of EV ownership 😜

 

[icowden]

Made my first long distance journey into the unknown last weekend (well the one just gone). My youngest daughter decided we should all climb Snowdon to raise money for JDRF:-
https://support.jdrf.org.uk/fundraisers/RubyCowden/climb-1-for-type-1-snowdon

For us this involves a 5.5 hour drive (give or take for traffic) to an AirBNB in Llanberis (North Wales). Total distance is 250 miles or thereabouts but no charging available at the AirBNB.

Outbound
This worked really well. I calculated that Oswestry was about 200 miles into the journey and they have two carparks with 120kw Superchargers in. So the plan was to park up, put the car on charge and have dinner. We would be leaving on Friday lunchtime, so we should reach Oswestry about 4.30ish. Of course the M25 and Birmingham (M6) had different ideas and we arrived 5.30ish. That said Horsemarket Carpark had two empty bays for CCS turbocharging (win!). They were Instavolt chargers which meant downloading the app and then finding out that there was no integration with Google Pay, and having to beg a card from my wife (I didn't bring any actual cards with me). Once logged in, signed up and hooked up however the chargers did their magic and we were at 100% by the time we finished dinner (Griffin Inn - absolutely excellent food and only 5 mins walk from the chargers. Highly recommend).

The Return
This was where it went a bit pear shaped. We didn't know what time we would leave - the plan was to do a bit of sightseeing etc. So after a wander around the old prison and old Courthouse on Anglesey we set off for the return leg. This time, I let the car decide where we should stop. We were on about 60%, so it picked a pair of 350kw chargers at a Porsche dealership just off the M56. Worst Chargers EVER. No instructions or clues. A chap in a Tesla found out from the dealership that you could use the Shell app, so I set that up (needed the card again). There was no way to distinguish the two chargers within the app - the Tesla guy gave up. I managed to get one of them responding but not the one that my car was parked at. So I moved the car, and hooked it up. Charging started! yay! Headed in to look at Porsches and let the kids go to the loo. Message on phone "Charging complete".

No it bloody isn't. Back to the car, unhook, find the app, click the charger - I now get THE OTHER CHARGER. Find the first one on the map again get it going. Take the kids into the loo. "Charging Complete". Did this until we had about 60% charge and my wife was looking at me like I wouldn't live much longer if we didn't set off soon.

Nice drive, but of course we start running low again near Birmingham. Tried the Roadchef motorway services but all chargers occupied and family want somewhere better for dinner. Car again wants to go to a Porsche dealership. Not happening. My wife finds Resorts World Birmingham is about 5 mins away. Ideal as we are now on about 7%. We park up, but PodPoint chargers are all 7kw. Useless for my purposes. BUT - I spot that NEC CarPark 3 is the BP GIgahub. 30 150kw chargers and 150 7kw chargers - and only 4 minutes drive!. So the family go off for a nice dinner, I go to the Gigahub.

WHICH IS LOVELY. Although again - the Supercharger cuts out. Happily when I reconnect it, it stays connected. Even more happily you can just use contactless payment. Quickly up to 65% while I get a drink and croissant at the Starbucks in the middle of the car park.

Then back home with about 15% left.

Lessons learned
Birmingham has the BP Pulse Gigahub.
Take a card with you.
Take the Octopus Electroverse card with you (may have made charging at the Porsche dealership easier and definitely would have made it cheaper).
When you get home the home charger cable feels really dainty.

Definitely an adventure - especially with aching legs from the Snowdon climb.

 

[SpokeyDokey]

Made my first long distance journey into the unknown last weekend (well the one just gone). My youngest daughter decided we should all climb Snowdon to raise money for JDRF:-
https://support.jdrf.org.uk/fundraisers/RubyCowden/climb-1-for-type-1-snowdon

For us this involves a 5.5 hour drive (give or take for traffic) to an AirBNB in Llanberis (North Wales). Total distance is 250 miles or thereabouts but no charging available at the AirBNB.

Outbound
This worked really well. I calculated that Oswestry was about 200 miles into the journey and they have two carparks with 120kw Superchargers in. So the plan was to park up, put the car on charge and have dinner. We would be leaving on Friday lunchtime, so we should reach Oswestry about 4.30ish. Of course the M25 and Birmingham (M6) had different ideas and we arrived 5.30ish. That said Horsemarket Carpark had two empty bays for CCS turbocharging (win!). They were Instavolt chargers which meant downloading the app and then finding out that there was no integration with Google Pay, and having to beg a card from my wife (I didn't bring any actual cards with me). Once logged in, signed up and hooked up however the chargers did their magic and we were at 100% by the time we finished dinner (Griffin Inn - absolutely excellent food and only 5 mins walk from the chargers. Highly recommend).

The Return
This was where it went a bit pear shaped. We didn't know what time we would leave - the plan was to do a bit of sightseeing etc. So after a wander around the old prison and old Courthouse on Anglesey we set off for the return leg. This time, I let the car decide where we should stop. We were on about 60%, so it picked a pair of 350kw chargers at a Porsche dealership just off the M56. Worst Chargers EVER. No instructions or clues. A chap in a Tesla found out from the dealership that you could use the Shell app, so I set that up (needed the card again). There was no way to distinguish the two chargers within the app - the Tesla guy gave up. I managed to get one of them responding but not the one that my car was parked at. So I moved the car, and hooked it up. Charging started! yay! Headed in to look at Porsches and let the kids go to the loo. Message on phone "Charging complete".

No it bloody isn't. Back to the car, unhook, find the app, click the charger - I now get THE OTHER CHARGER. Find the first one on the map again get it going. Take the kids into the loo. "Charging Complete". Did this until we had about 60% charge and my wife was looking at me like I wouldn't live much longer if we didn't set off soon.

Nice drive, but of course we start running low again near Birmingham. Tried the Roadchef motorway services but all chargers occupied and family want somewhere better for dinner. Car again wants to go to a Porsche dealership. Not happening. My wife finds Resorts World Birmingham is about 5 mins away. Ideal as we are now on about 7%. We park up, but PodPoint chargers are all 7kw. Useless for my purposes. BUT - I spot that NEC CarPark 3 is the BP GIgahub. 30 150kw chargers and 150 7kw chargers - and only 4 minutes drive!. So the family go off for a nice dinner, I go to the Gigahub.

WHICH IS LOVELY. Although again - the Supercharger cuts out. Happily when I reconnect it, it stays connected. Even more happily you can just use contactless payment. Quickly up to 65% while I get a drink and croissant at the Starbucks in the middle of the car park.

Then back home with about 15% left.

Lessons learned
Birmingham has the BP Pulse Gigahub.
Take a card with you.
Take the Octopus Electroverse card with you (may have made charging at the Porsche dealership easier and definitely would have made it cheaper).
When you get home the home charger cable feels really dainty.

Definitely an adventure - especially with aching legs from the Snowdon climb.

Sounds like a load of hassle to me.

On Saturday I met a friend who had an iX5.

Prior to that he had a Cayenne Turbo and he decided to give electric a try.

Range in the iX5 had been very problematic especially on some v.cold overnight trips.

The last straw was when his wife had major hassle whilst travelling to the John Lennon airport. Very low range left, charge station full, no time to charge car due to take off time etc. Returned next day to car, couldn't find an available charging point and the car became undriveable. Wife very distraught and rescue service called etc.

Enough was enough, and the 6 month old iX5 was p/x'd for a new Diesel RR Sport with a Hybrid RR Sport on order (v.long lead times).

He has also cancelled an order for said wife for a new Merc EV (not sure which model).

Not going to go into the politics of the pushback decision last week as that's one for NCAP, but my mate was pretty scathing of the charging infrastructure, welcomed the decision and he wonders whether we will even be 'ready' by 2035.

Good to get some real life feedback that isn't always positive for a balanced view.

My guess is that regular route drivers get used to what services are available/reliable and adapt accordingly, but maybe one-off irregular trips are a bit more problematic?

 

[icowden]

My guess is that regular route drivers get used to what services are available/reliable and adapt accordingly, but maybe one-off irregular trips are a bit more problematic?

Yes. At the moment I think if you can plan, it tends to all work reasonably well. Hence the outgoing journey other than a slight blip with the Instavolt, was hassle free. Winging it was definitely more hassle, and the car kept favouring Porsche dealerships (even though at the dealership it stated the chargers could only be used during opening hours, it still wanted me to go to one at 18:30 on a Sunday).

The other real annoyance is the abundance of different companies all of which have their own apps and all of which haven't really got the apps working well. This is one reason why Tesla drivers tend to be happier. If there is a Tesla charger about, you just drive up and plug in. No hassle. That's one thing that the BP Pulse Gigahub has got right.

The infrastructure definitely needs to improve. It baffles me that providers think that what they are doing is acceptable given it wouldn't be accepted at a petrol pump if you had to download a new app at every single service station you went to.

 

[Jameshow]

Yes. At the moment I think if you can plan, it tends to all work reasonably well. Hence the outgoing journey other than a slight blip with the Instavolt, was hassle free. Winging it was definitely more hassle, and the car kept favouring Porsche dealerships (even though at the dealership it stated the chargers could only be used during opening hours, it still wanted me to go to one at 18:30 on a Sunday).

The other real annoyance is the abundance of different companies all of which have their own apps and all of which haven't really got the apps working well. This is one reason why Tesla drivers tend to be happier. If there is a Tesla charger about, you just drive up and plug in. No hassle. That's one thing that the BP Pulse Gigahub has got right.

The infrastructure definitely needs to improve. It baffles me that providers think that what they are doing is acceptable given it wouldn't be accepted at a petrol pump if you had to download a new app at every single service station you went to.

Still at the VHS / betamax stage I feel!

 

[BrumJim]

The charging structure is probably the most confusing part. If your turn up to Tescos hoping to have a decent boost to your range whilst you sit in their café having tea and cake, you will be sorely disappointed. And there are many points that were installed but haven't been profitable, so their maintenance has been poor or non-existent.

And there seems to be a further problem with national holidays (e.g. Christmas) when everyone sets off for Scotland (OK, not everyone), gets to Gretna Green to find that the chargers that are hardly used for the rest of the year now have a queue of 3-4 cars per charger.

There will be a rationalistion of the suppliers of chargers, but not convinced that the government are the best people to do this. The system will get simpler, although those that have seen the skit on buying a coffee from a shop using the same process as per the internet (you must set up a user name, password, and tell us various items of personal information before you can get your coffee), will understand that your data is so valuable that a turn-up and charge method will be resisted strongly by those providing the service.

But once you get the hang of Zap Map, then it becomes a lot easier. Chose between a fast, super or ultra fast, find a location type, or just hook up to someone else's home charger overnight / during the day and you can start every journey with a battery full of power. And once you have 10 apps on your phone for chargers, you can pretty much guarantee that one is applicable to your charge point.

 

[lazybloke]

Sounds like an experience that could have been avoided with better planning; next time should be fine.
Most of us rarely do long journeys anyway.

Perhaps a bigger issue is the ratio of chargers to EVs. Last time I looked, the charging infrastructure wasn't keeping up with EV sales.
Ultra charging exists already but, solid-state batteries will handle it better without the concerns about longevity, dendrites, and so on.

And whislt it's not great that Rishi has allowed 5 more years of ICE sales, I'm fairly sure that the 2035 EV models will be better than the 2030 EV models.

 

[CXRAndy]

This is the very reason I chose Tesla over any other make of EV. You don't need to worry about charging on longer journeys. It works perfectly

 

[CXRAndy]

The charging structure is probably the most confusing part. If your turn up to Tescos hoping to have a decent boost to your range whilst you sit in their café having tea and cake, you will be sorely disappointed. And there are many points that were installed but haven't been profitable, so their maintenance has been poor or non-existent.

And there seems to be a further problem with national holidays (e.g. Christmas) when everyone sets off for Scotland (OK, not everyone), gets to Gretna Green to find that the chargers that are hardly used for the rest of the year now have a queue of 3-4 cars per charger.

There will be a rationalistion of the suppliers of chargers, but not convinced that the government are the best people to do this. The system will get simpler, although those that have seen the skit on buying a coffee from a shop using the same process as per the internet (you must set up a user name, password, and tell us various items of personal information before you can get your coffee), will understand that your data is so valuable that a turn-up and charge method will be resisted strongly by those providing the service.

But once you get the hang of Zap Map, then it becomes a lot easier. Chose between a fast, super or ultra fast, find a location type, or just hook up to someone else's home charger overnight / during the day and you can start every journey with a battery full of power. And once you have 10 apps on your phone for chargers, you can pretty much guarantee that one is applicable to your charge point.

The government promised that charging would utilise contactless payment, so people didn't need to have a miriad of apps for each network.

The only one I use outside of Tesla network is Instavolt. They are contactless payment.

I know BP pulse requires an app and payment setup prior to use

 

[icowden]

The only one I use outside of Tesla network is Instavolt. They are contactless payment.

Not always. The ones I used in Oswestry were app only.

I know BP pulse requires an app and payment setup prior to use

Not always. The BP Pulse Gigahub is contactless.

 

[roubaixtuesday]

All these different apps is absolutely nuts. Can't imagine a better way to put people off going electric.

 

[potsy]

It's good to hear these kind of experiences from an EV owner though.
Anyone with doubts over making the switch will certainly be put off by these stories.
I was almost certainly going electric for my next car but the 5 year extension has made me want to wait and see how much things improve over the next year or two.

 

[Jameshow]

Sounds like an experience that could have been avoided with better planning; next time should be fine.
Most of us rarely do long journeys anyway.

Perhaps a bigger issue is the ratio of chargers to EVs. Last time I looked, the charging infrastructure wasn't keeping up with EV sales.
Ultra charging exists already but, solid-state batteries will handle it better without the concerns about longevity, dendrites, and so on.

And whislt it's not great that Rishi has allowed 5 more years of ICE sales, I'm fairly sure that the 2035 EV models will be better than the 2030 EV models.

Except when we do we all go at the same time down the M5 for instance! No hope of the charger at portishead services!!

 

[SpokeyDokey]

It's good to hear these kind of experiences from an EV owner though.
Anyone with doubts over making the switch will certainly be put off by these stories.
I was almost certainly going electric for my next car but the 5 year extension has made me want to wait and see how much things improve over the next year or two.

Ditto.

We were thinking of doing the same in 2026 when our PCP (crazy low interest rate) ends on the premise that ICE used vehicle prices may plummet as they get closer to 2030.

That pressure eases a tad now but we will assess the situation as it develops.

Still keen on EV's per se but not yet convinced about range (especially in cold weather) capability.

A friend of ours has a Taycan, not that we would want to shell out that much on a car, that manages around 80 miles on a full charge when driven hard and about 120ish when driven more gently. Nothing like the manufacturer claims.

Other cars/drivers do better but it's still not an ideal situation. Obviously the tech' is improving all the time and I guess we will eventually become EV owners - or 'custodians' if we stick with PCP's.

 

[PK99]

The technology/charging infrastructure has a looooooooong way to go before I will be happy to make the switch.