Disappointing reliability from Ecotricity
Discussion
I was going to take the i3 to the Aston Martin PHSS this weekend.
It's 61 miles from my house to the Rapid Charger at Warwick Services South then a few miles more to AM. So I was going to drive to the services first, stop for half an hour to get a reasonable charge and then on to AM. After PHSS I was going to stop on the Northbound services to brim it with electrons before heading home.
Contacted Ecotricity and the Southbound is bust and no plans for it to be fixed this week.
Rubbish! It's not acceptable to have these units out of commission for days at a time!
Going in the M135i now instead.
It's 61 miles from my house to the Rapid Charger at Warwick Services South then a few miles more to AM. So I was going to drive to the services first, stop for half an hour to get a reasonable charge and then on to AM. After PHSS I was going to stop on the Northbound services to brim it with electrons before heading home.
Contacted Ecotricity and the Southbound is bust and no plans for it to be fixed this week.
Rubbish! It's not acceptable to have these units out of commission for days at a time!
Going in the M135i now instead.
Look at the charging points on the map on Zap Map - it seems to me about 1/3 are always broken - there was an article somewhere recently about infrastructure that basically says they don't get repaired because the responsibility is lost in the maze of contracts so no-one wants to pay for it
RossP said:
I was going to take the i3 to the Aston Martin PHSS this weekend.
It's 61 miles from my house to the Rapid Charger at Warwick Services South then a few miles more to AM. So I was going to drive to the services first, stop for half an hour to get a reasonable charge and then on to AM. After PHSS I was going to stop on the Northbound services to brim it with electrons before heading home.
Contacted Ecotricity and the Southbound is bust and no plans for it to be fixed this week.
Rubbish! It's not acceptable to have these units out of commission for days at a time!
Going in the M135i now instead.
Rybrook BMW in Heathcote Lane Warwick CV34 6SP are iDealers and have a charger, only 10 minutes from AM at Gaydon, not sure what charger they have though.It's 61 miles from my house to the Rapid Charger at Warwick Services South then a few miles more to AM. So I was going to drive to the services first, stop for half an hour to get a reasonable charge and then on to AM. After PHSS I was going to stop on the Northbound services to brim it with electrons before heading home.
Contacted Ecotricity and the Southbound is bust and no plans for it to be fixed this week.
Rubbish! It's not acceptable to have these units out of commission for days at a time!
Going in the M135i now instead.
01926 333888
As an aside the charger at Alvechurch on the M42 wasn't working without a 20 minute delay yesterday while they re-booted it after each use because it wouldn't read the card due to comms issues.
johnnyreggae said:
Look at the charging points on the map on Zap Map - it seems to me about 1/3 are always broken - there was an article somewhere recently about infrastructure that basically says they don't get repaired because the responsibility is lost in the maze of contracts so no-one wants to pay for it
How do you see on zap map which ones are broken please?ncbbmw said:
Rybrook BMW in Heathcote Lane Warwick CV34 6SP are iDealers and have a charger, only 10 minutes from AM at Gaydon, not sure what charger they have though.
01926 333888
As an aside the charger at Alvechurch on the M42 wasn't working without a 20 minute delay yesterday while they re-booted it after each use because it wouldn't read the card due to comms issues.
Already looked at that. Unfortunately it's a fast charger and I haven't got 3 hours to spare. 01926 333888
As an aside the charger at Alvechurch on the M42 wasn't working without a 20 minute delay yesterday while they re-booted it after each use because it wouldn't read the card due to comms issues.
Reading this (you may need to be a subscriber) from the Financial Times a couple of weeks ago would be enough to dissuade from any electric car due to the unreliability of the system
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ce705ad6-ad24-11e4-a5c1-...
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ce705ad6-ad24-11e4-a5c1-...
johnnyreggae said:
Reading this (you may need to be a subscriber) from the Financial Times a couple of weeks ago would be enough to dissuade from any electric car due to the unreliability of the system
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ce705ad6-ad24-11e4-a5c1-...
For those that don't http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ce705ad6-ad24-11e4-a5c1-...
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cac...
The UK charging network suffers from having had Government subsidy. So all the "Source X" networks - Source East, Source London, Source West, Plugged in Midlands, ChargeMaster - are really only there to suck up the government cash. They have no business model to actually turn a profit after installing the points.
Ecotricity's motorway network was funded by Nissan while CYC are quietly buying up large tracts of the points.
Both those companies plan to make money, eventually.
But right now, with no usage fees, none of the networks are reliable.
Except Tesla's! The Supercharger network is solid. Just wish I could afford a Tesla to use it ...
Ecotricity's motorway network was funded by Nissan while CYC are quietly buying up large tracts of the points.
Both those companies plan to make money, eventually.
But right now, with no usage fees, none of the networks are reliable.
Except Tesla's! The Supercharger network is solid. Just wish I could afford a Tesla to use it ...
The real problem isnt Ecotricity or government subsidy but crap DBT chargers and, believe it or not that everything is new and doesnt know how to talk to each other yet. EG theres only about 1000 i3s in the country and about 20 or 30 CCS units. Seems like once they started trying to interact the fan got messy.
I've worked out both the DBT units and the i3 are a bit fussy in the order in which things are done and theres a set routine to follow. But even then some of the units are really knackered and just wont get to the menu where you can initiate charge.
i was planning a trip from Midlands down to Poole this weekend and noticed theres a huge big hole between brum and er, Poole where none of the rapid chargers are working, Warwick, the one just on M40 south just after the A34 turn off, and Chievely are all out of action. A set of fixes started to roll out just over a week ago but was abandone when it had intermittent succes,
Still my daily commute of 120 miles is going ok, with a mix of REX and 7kW charging near where I work. About 65% electric 35% unleaded. if the CCS units at Corley were fixed then it could be 100%.
Fixing them isnt a case of a man with some spare parts coming out with a screwdriver. I know one of the fixes has needed a redesign to stop the fans pulling in condensation onto circuit boards.
What you maybe havent realsied is buying an i3 is youve gone beyond leading edge into bleeding edge. The car is ace but infrastructure is playing catch up. when it works its great, did an 11% to 85% in 30 minutes today at Newport Pagnell and cpuld have left earlier but wasnt watching the clock. 135miles round trip on electric.
I've worked out both the DBT units and the i3 are a bit fussy in the order in which things are done and theres a set routine to follow. But even then some of the units are really knackered and just wont get to the menu where you can initiate charge.
i was planning a trip from Midlands down to Poole this weekend and noticed theres a huge big hole between brum and er, Poole where none of the rapid chargers are working, Warwick, the one just on M40 south just after the A34 turn off, and Chievely are all out of action. A set of fixes started to roll out just over a week ago but was abandone when it had intermittent succes,
Still my daily commute of 120 miles is going ok, with a mix of REX and 7kW charging near where I work. About 65% electric 35% unleaded. if the CCS units at Corley were fixed then it could be 100%.
Fixing them isnt a case of a man with some spare parts coming out with a screwdriver. I know one of the fixes has needed a redesign to stop the fans pulling in condensation onto circuit boards.
What you maybe havent realsied is buying an i3 is youve gone beyond leading edge into bleeding edge. The car is ace but infrastructure is playing catch up. when it works its great, did an 11% to 85% in 30 minutes today at Newport Pagnell and cpuld have left earlier but wasnt watching the clock. 135miles round trip on electric.
Rapid charge went fine at Leicester Forest East South. Also at Warwick Services North. Decided to go the longer way home for a quick rapid at LFE North and it didn't work!! So had to use the adjacent charger and just get 7kW. Got bored of waiting so set off with just enough charge. Got home with 1 mile range remaining! 152 miles completed.
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