Its not good enough, really

[AC43]

Monkeylegend said:

Maracus said:

What have the Torries got to do with installing EV Charge points?

The Labbours will sort it.

I thought Reformm had all the answwers

[Puzzles]

I find it’s pretty good with the Tesla supercharger network but if I was travelling on a bank holiday weekend etc I’d try to avoid charging at say lunchtime

[Evanivitch]

Otispunkmeyer said:

(75kW when its a 350kW charger)

I'd be quite disappointed with that on an EV6.

I only have a Niro, and trying to get peak charge of 74kW is hit and miss, even at low SoC.

I think it would help if people knew where to point the fingers. Or if cars declared their current charge speed status (which is usually a function of state of charge and temperature). At least then you'll know if you're on a dud charger.

[Oceanrower]

Ankh87 said:

Welcome to the North.

If you look to your right, you'll see what the Torries left behind for us as their last thought.
If you look to the left, you'll see this thing they call levelling up. No one is quite sure what it will actually do or even if it is a thing. We just know its a bunch of words.

If you look down towards the south, especially London. What you will see is Torrie land, where they have their limited eyesight to anything anyone actually needs elsewhere.


Moral of the story, if you own an EV and go up North you need to plan. Its the forgotten land that needs much more than EV chargers.

I is not no wot a Torrie is blud. U help?

[Diderot]

TheDeuce said:

Blue62 said:

Diderot said:

It’s all about planning ahead and having a plan a, a plan b and a plan c (just like the Ferrari F1 team does).

The only public charger issue I’ve experienced in nigh on 3 years of BEV ownership is a cable being jammed on the Volvo because somehow there’s been a comms error between the car and the charger - this was at Moto Exeter last year. Managed to resolve it (there’s an emergency release cable) which the guy on the helpline told me about. Oh I did have a slight issue with an Ionity on the way to Suffolk in January, but that got sorted by another helpful helpline guy in 3 mins (first time Ionity user).

Haven’t been further north than Suffolk since the pandemic, but been to west Cornwall numerous times (280 ish miles from here on the South Coast). 100% charge at home, 45-70% at Exeter for 15 ish minutes, then free charging at the hotel. Exeter on the way back for 15 mins or so. Whole trip public charger wise is £38, plus £8 at home. In a few weeks we’ll be doing the same journey in the XKR which I estimate will cost potentially £250 ish round trip. Mind you the 507bhp S/C V8 does sound better than the Volvo’s 408bhp motors. We’re stopping at some nice hotels en route so, pushing the boat out.

Edited by Diderot on Monday 17th June 20:02

I get all of that, when it works it’s great especially the charging at home. I’ve not had too many public charging issues, but when you do they make their mark! I have always had the option of an ICE car and found myself gradually moving back in that direction for any trip over 150 miles.

I know you have to plan and have a back up, I guess I just find that increasingly tiresome. When they hit good range values and our national network improves I’ll be back in and sell the ICE cars, probably!

I just don't get this plan a/b/c stuff tbh, I don't plan at all.

Take the example above, 280 miles, planned to add upto 70 miles en-route so the car must have 200+ range when fully charged. That means that from the south coast to west cornwall, they could have charged anywhere along that route as soon as they had used as little as ~70 miles range and until they were close to 0. That's 130 miles window of opportunity to charge.. Along that stretch a quick look ap zapmap shows approx 20 rapid/rapid+ charging stations, probably around 70 individual chargers in total, all requiring no deviation from the main route.

What exactly needs planning? Stop when hungry/needing a pee, if the charger happens to not work or not be available, sod it - shrug and move on to the next. The chances are you will know full well as you approach the next chargers if they're free and working as you can get that info as you travel.

I've driven this way for the last year or so, because there simply is no shortage anymore. Virtually all family EV's (IE capable of being the main or only car) have at least 200 miles real world range now - there is no route in the UK that doesn't have endless rapid chargers along such a distance.

I'm not suggesting that ICE isn't still even easier, of course it is... but then there's the cost and general re-fuelling faff of running a daily ICE car. And if it isn't a daily, if it's only used for longer trips, there is the expense of a car that's hardly used vs the occasional pause in a journey a few times a year to just use the EV that you also use for everything else.

Obviously the above logic doesn't apply if you have a special ICE car that's worth keeping as cherished car, it makes complete sense to do that, and use the car for leisure trips. But I wouldn't swap back to ICE for a daily now, charging on longer trips is at last simple enough to not justify the daily drawbacks of ICE for all the shorter trips.

I can see both sides here. For the Cornwall trips we will normally either stop at Exeter Moto or if we’re taking the A38 rather than the A30 (most of the time) we have a back up at Buckfast (which is much nicer). There’s also a decent Sainsbury’s just outside Plymouth. And the MFG Tamar which I think is new this year. These for me are plan a, b and c, plus beyond that there are some other options - Bodmin for example. But do this trip in Winter, which we do at least once a year, and if you’ve been using the car’s performance (which I tend to), then it’s getting quite tight at Plymouth, very tight at Tamar. So ideally we’d be happier stopping at Exeter or Buckfast.

On the etiquette point that someone made, I agree. Came through Exeter a few years back on a Sunday in August and it was mayhem.

[Murph7355]

Evanivitch said:

I'd be quite disappointed with that on an EV6.

I only have a Niro, and trying to get peak charge of 74kW is hit and miss, even at low SoC.

I think it would help if people knew where to point the fingers. Or if cars declared their current charge speed status (which is usually a function of state of charge and temperature). At least then you'll know if you're on a dud charger.

AIUI low SoC (sub-20%) and low temps mean lower charge rates.

In mine, if I use the inbuilt satnav for pointing at charge stations en route, the car aims to get the car ready for optimal charging when you get to the charge point. It also has a good readout of how many charge points are available/in use on the way. It must work pretty well as when I use it I see it maxing out on charge rate more often than not (270kW).

(With the caveat that I'm not using the public charge network that frequently....though in my time with the car I've used it often enough to have a decent idea ).

[ATG]

Monkeylegend said:

Maracus said:

What have the Torries got to do with installing EV Charge points?

The Labbours will sort it.

It's in the national interest to have effective transport infrastructure. It is particularly important for regional development. The Tories recognise this hence they keep banging on about levelling up and mincing around with transport infrastructure projects like HS2. The problem is that they are incompetent and have signally failed to turn any aspirations into deliverable policy, let alone deliver any useful outcomes. We're not talking about building a state owned charging infrastructure. The government needs to be a facilitator. If you've ever tried to get anything done that requires state approval, you'd know how difficult that is. Ironically, if you've ever applied for a grant to do anything, you're pretty likely to have found his EASY it is to access the taxpayer's cash and how ineffective the scrutiny is. Pots of cash become available from central govt and they set themselves targets to spend a certain amount of cash by a certain date. And they often struggle to get rid of the cash quickly enough, so they start handing it out like Smarties. 14 years in power == a considerable degree of responsibility.

[TheDrownedApe]

Puzzles said:

I find it’s pretty good with the Tesla supercharger network but if I was travelling on a bank holiday weekend etc I’d try to avoid charging at say lunchtime

Used supercharge network for the first time last week in Pool (Cornwall). I arrived to be told chargers offline and they were for about 24 hours. Not an issue i will go use the "public" ones opposite but then card reader wanted a pin and nowhere to enter it. So i would try tomorrow. next day i charged in an empty supercharger lot and achieved 63kwh, then a MX came in and it went down to 43kwh.

I had only heard good things about Tesla until i went to use it same as all the rest then

[Monkeylegend]

ATG said:

Monkeylegend said:

Maracus said:

What have the Torries got to do with installing EV Charge points?

The Labbours will sort it.

It's in the national interest to have effective transport infrastructure. It is particularly important for regional development. The Tories recognise this hence they keep banging on about levelling up and mincing around with transport infrastructure projects like HS2. The problem is that they are incompetent and have signally failed to turn any aspirations into deliverable policy, let alone deliver any useful outcomes. We're not talking about building a state owned charging infrastructure. The government needs to be a facilitator. If you've ever tried to get anything done that requires state approval, you'd know how difficult that is. Ironically, if you've ever applied for a grant to do anything, you're pretty likely to have found his EASY it is to access the taxpayer's cash and how ineffective the scrutiny is. Pots of cash become available from central govt and they set themselves targets to spend a certain amount of cash by a certain date. And they often struggle to get rid of the cash quickly enough, so they start handing it out like Smarties. 14 years in power == a considerable degree of responsibility.

I was only taking the mick out of the spelling of torries not expressing any political beliefs or voting intentions

[vikingaero]

Shirley all you need at a charging location is an arrow painted on the roadway with Queue Here? And site the arrow where there will be less inconvenience to other users.

[Maracus]

ATG said:

Monkeylegend said:

Maracus said:

What have the Torries got to do with installing EV Charge points?

The Labbours will sort it.

It's in the national interest to have effective transport infrastructure. It is particularly important for regional development. The Tories recognise this hence they keep banging on about levelling up and mincing around with transport infrastructure projects like HS2. The problem is that they are incompetent and have signally failed to turn any aspirations into deliverable policy, let alone deliver any useful outcomes. We're not talking about building a state owned charging infrastructure. The government needs to be a facilitator. If you've ever tried to get anything done that requires state approval, you'd know how difficult that is. Ironically, if you've ever applied for a grant to do anything, you're pretty likely to have found his EASY it is to access the taxpayer's cash and how ineffective the scrutiny is. Pots of cash become available from central govt and they set themselves targets to spend a certain amount of cash by a certain date. And they often struggle to get rid of the cash quickly enough, so they start handing it out like Smarties. 14 years in power == a considerable degree of responsibility.

The point was that a poster was suggesting EV chargepoints/hubs were a desert in the 'north', where in reality there are numerous 6, 8 or more hubs along the M1 and M6 already .

No idea where he/she had this poor experience in the 'north', could be anywhere north of London.

[Evanivitch]

vikingaero said:

Shirley all you need at a charging location is an arrow painted on the roadway with Queue Here? And site the arrow where there will be less inconvenience to other users.

Queuing arrangements are a bugbear of mine. It'll always be necessary at some point, but no chargers seem to care.

Reading services could easily have a queueing lane. Sarn services would come to a halt if there was any queue for Appleagreen or Superchargers.

[TheDrownedApe]

vikingaero said:

Shirley all you need at a charging location is an arrow painted on the roadway with Queue Here? And site the arrow where there will be less inconvenience to other users.

The few places i stop to charge there is no room to queue. At Beaconsfield services it's generally alright although at 0800-0900 it's always full. All of the folk I've come across in the queue have been polite and asked if we are waiting etc and no one has queue jumped so far.

Cullompton is room to queue but most think you are just waiting on the road and only realise as they drive past and see the chargers are full.

[JQ]

vikingaero said:

Shirley all you need at a charging location is an arrow painted on the roadway with Queue Here? And site the arrow where there will be less inconvenience to other users.

Queuing was absolutely my biggest fear before I got my EV, I think I even started a thread on here about it. There seems to be no systems in place, so I imagine at busy times it can be chaos. It should be really simple to create a system such as you suggest but it appears none of the providers seem keen. I'll admit I've been very lucky in that I've never had to queue or had any major issues.

I have had a couple of chargers that haven't worked but I've quickly learned that it's far simpler just moving to a different charger than trying to solve the issue. A few weeks ago I parked in a bay being vacated by a Taycan, and just as I was getting out of the car he told me my charger wasn't working, as he positioned himself on a different charger. Thought I'd give it a go and I was charging in around 20 seconds without issue. By the time I left to do some shopping he was still faffing around trying to get his new charger to work. I do wonder if sometimes user error or an issue with your car can cause many of the problems. By the time I can back, he had repositioned on a third charger and someone else way using the 2nd charger he'd clearly not managed to get working.

With regard to reducing stress - the system I use when needing to charge when out and about (which isn't that often) is firstly to top up even if I don't need it. And secondly top up as soon as I need it - if doing a 275 mile trip and my range is 225 miles, once I've done around 100 miles I'll be looking to top up - gives me plenty of wriggle room if there's a problem.

Edited by JQ on Tuesday 18th June 13:38

[AyBee]

I can honestly say I've never experienced any of these issues in my Tesla. I know the looks are dull, but when it comes to being an EV, I still think Tesla is miles ahead of other manufacturers.

[distinctivedesign]

OP, welcome to public charging in the UK.

The apps can only tell you so much, and I found their information very outdated in certain instances (ZapMap, I'm looking at you) about which chargers were and were not in service (broken).

Also, I have yet to find an app that can tell you how many folk are queuing at a charger location.

Queuing etiquette is a nightmare - I witnessed scuffles once at a very busy location when somebody attempted to push in on someone else.

I found that often chargers were inoperative because the car reader was malfunctioning - going via the app would get them to work, but then you ended up with thirty-odd different apps. Also, nothing like trying to download a new app in the pissing rain with one bar of reception on your phone and you are already late for an appointment because you have already been to three chargers.

I went back to an ICE. I found the entire public charging process hateful and stressful in the extreme, and as I regularly do long journeys across the country there was no way to avoid it. The charge at home, local-ish journeys bit of EV motoring works like a charm, but introduce long runs and, God forbid, towing into the equation and the house of cards collapses before your eyes.

The number of hotels with destination chargers is also pitifully small, and often those that do boast having them actually only have one, or at most two units, which are invariably in use (or broken) when you get there.

I can't see me going back to an EV-only motoring lifestyle for a very long time.

[Otispunkmeyer]

Blue62 said:

I guess it depends on where you’re travelling to, there’s big variations around the U.K. Additionally, there are issues like deadlines and spontaneous events that impact on the experience, add in speed you’re travelling at and ambient and I think it’s worth planning.

Overall I’m sold on EV’s, but it’s still early days. I’m glad I gave it a go and I know we will have another soon, but it will probably be a runaround.

We were heading to Hadston and I think metro centre area was probably the last place there were proper fast charge options. Further up the road there were maybe a set of 50kW and then some 7kW (no good really). Once off the A1 there was nothing and no chance of destination so it was then or never because we'd have not made it back round to the Newcastle/Gateshead area. In hindsight I should have charged the night before and just sat in maccy D's car park for 30 mins.

[Otispunkmeyer]

Evanivitch said:

Otispunkmeyer said:

(75kW when its a 350kW charger)

I'd be quite disappointed with that on an EV6.

I only have a Niro, and trying to get peak charge of 74kW is hit and miss, even at low SoC.

I think it would help if people knew where to point the fingers. Or if cars declared their current charge speed status (which is usually a function of state of charge and temperature). At least then you'll know if you're on a dud charger.

Yeah it's capable of about 235kw and I've seen it do it before. On the instavolt machines we did get 160kW.

[Otispunkmeyer]

Murph7355 said:

AIUI low SoC (sub-20%) and low temps mean lower charge rates.

In mine, if I use the inbuilt satnav for pointing at charge stations en route, the car aims to get the car ready for optimal charging when you get to the charge point. It also has a good readout of how many charge points are available/in use on the way. It must work pretty well as when I use it I see it maxing out on charge rate more often than not (270kW).

(With the caveat that I'm not using the public charge network that frequently....though in my time with the car I've used it often enough to have a decent idea ).

Precondition is fine if you're going to arrive and hook up right away. I can't see the point of it if you need to park up and wait for a stall or you spend 30mins faffing about trying to get something to work!

Ours will kick the precon on with 30mins to go to the charger and will click off just before you arrive. But I reckon all the heat is gone if you then have a decent delay in actually getting connected.

Edited by Otispunkmeyer on Tuesday 18th June 12:38

[ds666]

Another issue with charging points is cars with low charge speed capability using fast chargers ..... like an I pace plugged into a 350Kw charger ...