Recent IoW Trip
Discussion
Thought I'd just relay my experience of a fairly decent holiday trip with our EV6.
Nottingham -> Bristol -> Southampton -> Shanklin (IoW) -> Southampton -> Nottingham
Started off with 100% and had to go to a kids party first thing sunday. Left the party with 95% and pretty much got a clean shot straight down to Bristol. "Literally some speed" set on the cruise and we got there in around 2 hours. I can't remember the SoC when we got there but had somewhere between 50 and 60% remaining I think.
I decided to charge when we go there so it was ready for the next day. Topped it to 90% at a nearby Instavolt charger in 20 mins whilst we went and got some supplies. In hindsight, I didn't really need to do this I don't think, I could have left it and just charged later. Stayed with friends over night and then onwards to Southampton for the Red Funnel.
I planned to stop somewhere before reaching S'oton to charge as my plan was to get onto the IoW with a decent SoC and then not charge at all whilst there. There weren't any chargers near where we were staying and it seemed like there were sporadic availability elsewhere so it was just gonna be easier if we didn't have to think about it. ABRP app said we could charge somewhere called "Three Maids Hill Superhub" ( Linky) and then we'd reach S'oton with about 78%. As it happened we reached the terminal with about 84%, perfect.
By the way, that Winchester Superhub is rather good. Its not as spiffy as that mega one round Birmingham way, but its just simple and straightforwardly good; 44 x 160 kW DC fast chargers, all well spaced out, a Starbucks Coffee place and a playground for the kiddos. Perfect. No problem plugging in and charging. This place has only been open a couple of weeks I think so it wasn't in the EV6 nav and so the car couldn't precondition the battery but we still got most of the 160 kW out of it.
IoW was completely uneventful. We stayed 4 days and drove a fair few places: Ventnor, Blackgang, Needles, Ryde etc and we got back to the return ferry with about 45% remaining. ABRP wanted us to stop at Winchester again but that was only 40 minutes on the road. The car was suggesting Chieveley, but again that wasn't much further up the road. I decided we could make it to Cherwell services (Where the M40 and A43 mix). The car absolutely did not like this, asking numerous times if I wanted to charge the car en-route and eventually just giving me a list of chargers to pick from, which I duly ignored.
We made it to Cherwell with 45 miles remaining. No sweat. Don't understand the panic of the car. 3.6 mi/kWh average and we were doing NSL where possible. I experimented with coasting/sailing and using the downhills to gather speed for the uphills. If you've driven the A34 from S'oton you'll know its quite undulating. It was 87 miles total with 135 mi on the range when we rolled off the Red Eagle. So I'd pretty much kept that 40-45mi delta intact.
To be honest I was ready to cross the A43 over to the M1, I think we could have made it. But Cherwell is bang in the middle of our journey so was time for a stop anyway, stretch the legs, like the kiddo play on the slide etc. Plugged into one of the GridServer "High Power" chargers they have at the back of the carpark. I think there are 8 of these, and 4 "Medium" power ones.
I don't know what was going on but when I checked the app a few minutes later to see how long it would take, despite the car having preconditioned the battery, it was pulling just 40 kW. I went over to check the screen, and yep; 42 kW on the display. The Taycan next to me also doing the same (Old dude was also charging from about 85% to 100!! WHY?!). In fact I checked all the "High Power" units; at least 3 were not charging at all but were plugged in and given these were empty when I arrived, I can only assume these actually failed to charge. The ones that were working all showed 40 kW or there abouts. Less than the "medium" power ones! There were Peugeot 3008, BMW i5, Ioniq5, Ford Explorer... all these capable of well over 100 kW.
I cut my losses at 60% SOC and decided that was sufficient to get home. Which it was. Somehow, despite blasting along the car reported 3.8 mi/kWh average for that leg of the journey. I was amazed at that. I think these conditions where its fairly warm, but you can basically get away without using the HVAC are like peak EV driving conditions. That is really good efficiency from this car.
Also the new tarmac sections on the A43 are so smooth, it feels like rolling marbles across glass. IoW also had very very good roads and very good condition roads as well.
TL;DR = Uneventful EV journey to the IoW and back and only one duff charging experience.
Nottingham -> Bristol -> Southampton -> Shanklin (IoW) -> Southampton -> Nottingham
Started off with 100% and had to go to a kids party first thing sunday. Left the party with 95% and pretty much got a clean shot straight down to Bristol. "Literally some speed" set on the cruise and we got there in around 2 hours. I can't remember the SoC when we got there but had somewhere between 50 and 60% remaining I think.
I decided to charge when we go there so it was ready for the next day. Topped it to 90% at a nearby Instavolt charger in 20 mins whilst we went and got some supplies. In hindsight, I didn't really need to do this I don't think, I could have left it and just charged later. Stayed with friends over night and then onwards to Southampton for the Red Funnel.
I planned to stop somewhere before reaching S'oton to charge as my plan was to get onto the IoW with a decent SoC and then not charge at all whilst there. There weren't any chargers near where we were staying and it seemed like there were sporadic availability elsewhere so it was just gonna be easier if we didn't have to think about it. ABRP app said we could charge somewhere called "Three Maids Hill Superhub" ( Linky) and then we'd reach S'oton with about 78%. As it happened we reached the terminal with about 84%, perfect.
By the way, that Winchester Superhub is rather good. Its not as spiffy as that mega one round Birmingham way, but its just simple and straightforwardly good; 44 x 160 kW DC fast chargers, all well spaced out, a Starbucks Coffee place and a playground for the kiddos. Perfect. No problem plugging in and charging. This place has only been open a couple of weeks I think so it wasn't in the EV6 nav and so the car couldn't precondition the battery but we still got most of the 160 kW out of it.
IoW was completely uneventful. We stayed 4 days and drove a fair few places: Ventnor, Blackgang, Needles, Ryde etc and we got back to the return ferry with about 45% remaining. ABRP wanted us to stop at Winchester again but that was only 40 minutes on the road. The car was suggesting Chieveley, but again that wasn't much further up the road. I decided we could make it to Cherwell services (Where the M40 and A43 mix). The car absolutely did not like this, asking numerous times if I wanted to charge the car en-route and eventually just giving me a list of chargers to pick from, which I duly ignored.
We made it to Cherwell with 45 miles remaining. No sweat. Don't understand the panic of the car. 3.6 mi/kWh average and we were doing NSL where possible. I experimented with coasting/sailing and using the downhills to gather speed for the uphills. If you've driven the A34 from S'oton you'll know its quite undulating. It was 87 miles total with 135 mi on the range when we rolled off the Red Eagle. So I'd pretty much kept that 40-45mi delta intact.
To be honest I was ready to cross the A43 over to the M1, I think we could have made it. But Cherwell is bang in the middle of our journey so was time for a stop anyway, stretch the legs, like the kiddo play on the slide etc. Plugged into one of the GridServer "High Power" chargers they have at the back of the carpark. I think there are 8 of these, and 4 "Medium" power ones.
I don't know what was going on but when I checked the app a few minutes later to see how long it would take, despite the car having preconditioned the battery, it was pulling just 40 kW. I went over to check the screen, and yep; 42 kW on the display. The Taycan next to me also doing the same (Old dude was also charging from about 85% to 100!! WHY?!). In fact I checked all the "High Power" units; at least 3 were not charging at all but were plugged in and given these were empty when I arrived, I can only assume these actually failed to charge. The ones that were working all showed 40 kW or there abouts. Less than the "medium" power ones! There were Peugeot 3008, BMW i5, Ioniq5, Ford Explorer... all these capable of well over 100 kW.
I cut my losses at 60% SOC and decided that was sufficient to get home. Which it was. Somehow, despite blasting along the car reported 3.8 mi/kWh average for that leg of the journey. I was amazed at that. I think these conditions where its fairly warm, but you can basically get away without using the HVAC are like peak EV driving conditions. That is really good efficiency from this car.
Also the new tarmac sections on the A43 are so smooth, it feels like rolling marbles across glass. IoW also had very very good roads and very good condition roads as well.
TL;DR = Uneventful EV journey to the IoW and back and only one duff charging experience.
Edited by Otispunkmeyer on Saturday 12th April 12:21
Nice one, went there a couple of times recently in the Skoda Enyaq.
Only 75 odd miles from here, so no public charging reqd.
Last time we did take a detour on the way back, I filled up at the Tesla Supwrchargers at Havant as cheaper!
I set filter on mine to only look for the Tesla ones.
Do you have enode enabled on your ABRP, works on the Skoda. So battery soc is displayed on the nav, as is the destination charger status in (nearly) real time etc
Only 75 odd miles from here, so no public charging reqd.
Last time we did take a detour on the way back, I filled up at the Tesla Supwrchargers at Havant as cheaper!
I set filter on mine to only look for the Tesla ones.
Do you have enode enabled on your ABRP, works on the Skoda. So battery soc is displayed on the nav, as is the destination charger status in (nearly) real time etc
Cobnapint said:
Interesting.
Muchly. I feel like its one for the dull mens club.Which I think says a lot about the general "using an EV" today i.e. it is mostly uneventful and entirely possible to drive about just like you used to with an ICE. Really its still the charging that starts to rub the wrong way, but you can't really fault the cars these days.
RotorRambler said:
Nice one, went there a couple of times recently in the Skoda Enyaq.
Only 75 odd miles from here, so no public charging reqd.
Last time we did take a detour on the way back, I filled up at the Tesla Supwrchargers at Havant as cheaper!
I set filter on mine to only look for the Tesla ones.
Do you have enode enabled on your ABRP, works on the Skoda. So battery soc is displayed on the nav, as is the destination charger status in (nearly) real time etc
enode? is that a typo?Only 75 odd miles from here, so no public charging reqd.
Last time we did take a detour on the way back, I filled up at the Tesla Supwrchargers at Havant as cheaper!
I set filter on mine to only look for the Tesla ones.
Do you have enode enabled on your ABRP, works on the Skoda. So battery soc is displayed on the nav, as is the destination charger status in (nearly) real time etc
I guess if you pay for ABRP you can enable that information transfer? as far as I know Android Auto doesn't talk to the car at all so it never knows anything about SoC. You can easily set a destination way beyond the range it won't complain at you. Does ABRP therefore require an OBD dongle?
Otispunkmeyer said:
RotorRambler said:
Nice one, went there a couple of times recently in the Skoda Enyaq.
Only 75 odd miles from here, so no public charging reqd.
Last time we did take a detour on the way back, I filled up at the Tesla Supwrchargers at Havant as cheaper!
I set filter on mine to only look for the Tesla ones.
Do you have enode enabled on your ABRP, works on the Skoda. So battery soc is displayed on the nav, as is the destination charger status in (nearly) real time etc
enode? is that a typo?Only 75 odd miles from here, so no public charging reqd.
Last time we did take a detour on the way back, I filled up at the Tesla Supwrchargers at Havant as cheaper!
I set filter on mine to only look for the Tesla ones.
Do you have enode enabled on your ABRP, works on the Skoda. So battery soc is displayed on the nav, as is the destination charger status in (nearly) real time etc
I guess if you pay for ABRP you can enable that information transfer? as far as I know Android Auto doesn't talk to the car at all so it never knows anything about SoC. You can easily set a destination way beyond the range it won't complain at you. Does ABRP therefore require an OBD dongle?
No dongle required, looks like it should work on yours, makes it a lot better tbh, far better than my inbuilt one anyway..
“ Enode acts as a backend service that links your Kia Connect account to ABRP, enabling real-time data such as battery state of charge (SoC), location, and charging status. This integration is available to ABRP Premium subscribers and requires linking your Kia Connect credentials through Enode’s interface. Some users have reported connectivity issues, such as persistent disconnections or lack of data syncing, even after successful account linking”
Edited by RotorRambler on Friday 11th April 15:54
I've had my EV 13 moths now, and am more confident about making longer journeys without an hour or two of pre-planning required. My eNy1 lets you run the battery down, no hissy fit. You just get a big orange 'low battery' warning at 15% and a tortoise symbol at 5%. Although the performance barely drops at all. 
Getting home on 1% with 2 miles of range is my record. 
I noticed that Gloucester services now has a hefty bank of chargers, on both sides. Using Electroverse, it's (relatively) reasonable at 66p / kWh.
Getting home on 1% with 2 miles of range is my record. I noticed that Gloucester services now has a hefty bank of chargers, on both sides. Using Electroverse, it's (relatively) reasonable at 66p / kWh.
Otispunkmeyer said:
I cut my losses at 60% SOC and decided that was sufficient to get home. Which it was. Somehow, despite blasting along at 80 (or maybe a bit more at times), the car reported 3.8 mi/kWh average for that leg of the journey. I was amazed at that. I think these conditions where its fairly warm, but you can basically get away without using the HVAC are like peak EV driving conditions. That is really good efficiency from this car.
As you say, 20 degrees of so is essentially perfect for EV efficiency, as is the current daytime low humidity of around 30%. Nice warm battery, little need for AC and less aerodynamic drag. Won't get better than that.I wonder if this is how posts about road trips are all going to be in the future. Did anything interesting actually happen on this trip or was it all spent looking at apps and range & efficiency readouts? I appreciate that this is how EVs are in the real world but maybe we can just pretend that there is more to a trip than fretting about charging and will it make it.
“IoW was completely uneventful. We stayed 4 days and drove a fair few places: Ventnor, Blackgang, Needles, Ryde”
Surely the IOW is full of events.
C’mon, what did you do, why didn’t you charge there??
Pubs, cafes, attractions….what did you do?!
We used to let our cottage there for holidays, and popped a socket where a car could charge - figured nobody visiting the Island needs more than they can granny charge overnight, the distances aren’t that far!
Surely the IOW is full of events.
C’mon, what did you do, why didn’t you charge there??
Pubs, cafes, attractions….what did you do?!
We used to let our cottage there for holidays, and popped a socket where a car could charge - figured nobody visiting the Island needs more than they can granny charge overnight, the distances aren’t that far!
mikeiow said:
“IoW was completely uneventful. We stayed 4 days and drove a fair few places: Ventnor, Blackgang, Needles, Ryde”
Surely the IOW is full of events.
C’mon, what did you do, why didn’t you charge there??
Pubs, cafes, attractions….what did you do?!
We used to let our cottage there for holidays, and popped a socket where a car could charge - figured nobody visiting the Island needs more than they can granny charge overnight, the distances aren’t that far!
I meant uneventful from driving/car use.Surely the IOW is full of events.
C’mon, what did you do, why didn’t you charge there??
Pubs, cafes, attractions….what did you do?!
We used to let our cottage there for holidays, and popped a socket where a car could charge - figured nobody visiting the Island needs more than they can granny charge overnight, the distances aren’t that far!
We did a fair bit on IoW. It was great and we had great weather. We stayed in Shanklin right on the front / esplanade. Car park round the back which the EV6 barely fit in. No option to even granny charge, but didn't need to anyway.
Some absolutely fantastic coast roads round to the needles and black gang chine. Really smooth, nice flow.
We're pretty much beach people so we did just spend a lot of time on the beach.
DMZ said:
I wonder if this is how posts about road trips are all going to be in the future. Did anything interesting actually happen on this trip or was it all spent looking at apps and range & efficiency readouts? I appreciate that this is how EVs are in the real world but maybe we can just pretend that there is more to a trip than fretting about charging and will it make it.
Wasn't really meant to be a full road trip post. It was just about the EV part of it. We did loads of stuff, just didn't think anyone in the EV forum would be interested in a kids theme park and some national trust stuff.I do like the planning aspect of EV driving tho. Different strokes and all that.
Otispunkmeyer said:
mikeiow said:
“IoW was completely uneventful. We stayed 4 days and drove a fair few places: Ventnor, Blackgang, Needles, Ryde”
Surely the IOW is full of events.
C’mon, what did you do, why didn’t you charge there??
Pubs, cafes, attractions….what did you do?!
We used to let our cottage there for holidays, and popped a socket where a car could charge - figured nobody visiting the Island needs more than they can granny charge overnight, the distances aren’t that far!
I meant uneventful from driving/car use.Surely the IOW is full of events.
C’mon, what did you do, why didn’t you charge there??
Pubs, cafes, attractions….what did you do?!
We used to let our cottage there for holidays, and popped a socket where a car could charge - figured nobody visiting the Island needs more than they can granny charge overnight, the distances aren’t that far!
We did a fair bit on IoW. It was great and we had great weather. We stayed in Shanklin right on the front / esplanade. Car park round the back which the EV6 barely fit in. No option to even granny charge, but didn't need to anyway.
Some absolutely fantastic coast roads round to the needles and black gang chine. Really smooth, nice flow.
We're pretty much beach people so we did just spend a lot of time on the beach.
Next time, you need to do the “military road” from Niton to Freshwater in the West Wight - essentially along the bottom left edge of the Island. Perhaps one of the top ten roads to drive in Britain (even in an EV!)
Hope you enjoyed it!
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