Nightmare: Charging point apps, maps and Polar experience
Discussion
ZesPak said:
Really?
Almost everyone I know who owns a Tesla does over 30k km/year. I do 40k km myself, and it suits my needs perfectly.
I drive ~300km/day, plug it in at home and charge it overnight (takes 5h).
I've almost never need Superchargers (used them once or twice just because I felt like it) and I've used destination charging only a handful times as well.
Exactly that... home charging (and not to mention conditioning that helps with range significantly...) makes EVs ample for nearly all journeys apart from the cross-country trips that a relative few do.Almost everyone I know who owns a Tesla does over 30k km/year. I do 40k km myself, and it suits my needs perfectly.
I drive ~300km/day, plug it in at home and charge it overnight (takes 5h).
I've almost never need Superchargers (used them once or twice just because I felt like it) and I've used destination charging only a handful times as well.
I managed 360 miles in my iPace yesterday (a regular round trip Preston to Edinburgh as daughter is at uni there) but it was a bit stressful given the best charger (ionity at Gretna green) is 80-90 miles from Edinburgh and in cold weather 160 miles is a bit borderline - easy on our first attempt in September with 20 degrees. At least on the A701. If the same chargers were 30 miles nearer Edinburgh (so 130 miles from home in Preston) it would be easier. The stressy part is getting back to Gretna again as usable chargers in Scotland aren’t widespread and the chargers at daughter’s hall of residence (free chargeplace Scotland) are slow 7 kw units (less than a year old and at least three already don’t work). That said I added 60kwh in 50 minutes yesterday evening having arrived with 3% and 5 miles left (I deliberately burned some range as I was counting the last few miles down as I knew I would be ok) and half of my charges at Gretna have not been billed to me so free (though I suppose yesterday’s might get billed over next day or two - though 3 of previous 8 visits were not billed)
Will be doing the same trip for 5.5 more years yet so it’s going to be an ongoing issue for me. Still, I haven’t got stuck yet!
Done 10.5k miles in 8.5 months now. Love the electric driving but generally hate public charging - but the WattsUp app is very good for route planning - though I have only used chargeplace Scotland, ionity, instavolt and polar away from home. None has been perfect - first attempt at polar had a charger fault, one ionity took 20 minutes to get going, instavolt only delivered at 40kW, lots of cps failures. And ecotricity has not worked once yet (though I used a fair bit with the i3 I had before the iPace)
I really don’t like the thought of having a PHEV (what’s the point of an ev you don’t drive on electricity most Of the time?) although I do lots of local driving and work from home so lots of opportunity to charge between trips but the iPace isn’t quite big enough for teenage daughters’ holiday or uni requirements...
Will be doing the same trip for 5.5 more years yet so it’s going to be an ongoing issue for me. Still, I haven’t got stuck yet!
Done 10.5k miles in 8.5 months now. Love the electric driving but generally hate public charging - but the WattsUp app is very good for route planning - though I have only used chargeplace Scotland, ionity, instavolt and polar away from home. None has been perfect - first attempt at polar had a charger fault, one ionity took 20 minutes to get going, instavolt only delivered at 40kW, lots of cps failures. And ecotricity has not worked once yet (though I used a fair bit with the i3 I had before the iPace)
I really don’t like the thought of having a PHEV (what’s the point of an ev you don’t drive on electricity most Of the time?) although I do lots of local driving and work from home so lots of opportunity to charge between trips but the iPace isn’t quite big enough for teenage daughters’ holiday or uni requirements...
oop north said:
I managed 360 miles in my iPace yesterday (a regular round trip Preston to Edinburgh as daughter is at uni there) but it was a bit stressful given the best charger (ionity at Gretna green) is 80-90 miles from Edinburgh and in cold weather 160 miles is a bit borderline
If you had a Tesla Abington SCs would have been the perfect solution, one of the first SCs we used, great place to stop to stretch the legs 
.
andyalan10 said:
I'm calling custard.
All the locations you mention are within about 3 miles of each other, but you say you drove 50 miles. Is any of the rest of it true?
Numpty. I'll entertain you for amusement. Yes, I made the whole thing up, and then typed it in because I hold massive stock in an oil company All the locations you mention are within about 3 miles of each other, but you say you drove 50 miles. Is any of the rest of it true?
If you bother to type that route into Google Maps, you will get about 11 miles. Add in driving round looking for the charge points. Add in stop-start driving having a more significant impact on RANGE than actually distance-over-ground. Add in the fact I visited once of the locations twice (omitted for brevity)
Leave aside for a moment that it would be impossible to demonstrate custard for something which happened in the past.
Interesting video from Harry Metcalf on YT covering his experience with an I-Pace. From his experience, it's not much good on the motorway (no regen so the range disappears pretty quickly), and the charging network is rubbish (3 chargers, 3 unusable).
Seems to be that for a non-Tesla EV, you're tied to a 60 mile range from a home charging point, and for an £80,000 i-Pace, that makes you wonder why anyone would bother.
Seems to be that for a non-Tesla EV, you're tied to a 60 mile range from a home charging point, and for an £80,000 i-Pace, that makes you wonder why anyone would bother.
untakenname said:
Unless you don't venture out of urban areas I don't see how an electric car can be feasible for anything but leisure driving.
https://www.thedrive.com/news/31274/more-teslas-on...
Haha Tesla owners moaning how popular their cars are. Shame. FeelingLucky said:
How can it be, that at the same time the anti-Tesla clique are telling us the Super Charger Network is no biggie and not a USP, actual EV drivers tell the exact opposite story, and long for a network the equal of Tesla's.
Genuine question.
Looking at the traffic jams over the holidays in the USA for Tesla superchargers as the uptake of electric cars increases then so will massive (50+) queuing incidents at charges like, this the video is mind boggling.Genuine question.
https://www.thedrive.com/news/31274/more-teslas-on...
I’ve had an EV for 2 years plus now. My mantra is don’t do a journey longer than your range. Here there is 1 fast charger 2 miles away at the motorway services and 1 at the main dealer 3 miles away only open business hours.
A fair few slow chargers where you can get a whopping 12 miles ish per hour of charge.
Recently 2 Instavolts have popped up. 35p per kw. And they kindly take £10 off your card for the charge and then top up when your balance is below £5.
It’s complete s
t.Imagine going to a petrol station for £10 of petrol and Shell say yeah £20 please but don’t worry we will always keep £5 off your money in case you use us again.
Downward said:
Haha Tesla owners moaning how popular their cars are. Shame.
I’ve had an EV for 2 years plus now. My mantra is don’t do a journey longer than your range. Here there is 1 fast charger 2 miles away at the motorway services and 1 at the main dealer 3 miles away only open business hours.
A fair few slow chargers where you can get a whopping 12 miles ish per hour of charge.
Recently 2 Instavolts have popped up. 35p per kw. And they kindly take £10 off your card for the charge and then top up when your balance is below £5.
It’s complete st.
Imagine going to a petrol station for £10 of petrol and Shell say yeah £20 please but don’t worry we will always keep £5 off your money in case you use us again.
Yeah, imagine that... https://www.bankrate.com/uk/current-accounts/petro...I’ve had an EV for 2 years plus now. My mantra is don’t do a journey longer than your range. Here there is 1 fast charger 2 miles away at the motorway services and 1 at the main dealer 3 miles away only open business hours.
A fair few slow chargers where you can get a whopping 12 miles ish per hour of charge.
Recently 2 Instavolts have popped up. 35p per kw. And they kindly take £10 off your card for the charge and then top up when your balance is below £5.
It’s complete s
t.Imagine going to a petrol station for £10 of petrol and Shell say yeah £20 please but don’t worry we will always keep £5 off your money in case you use us again.
Just had a quick scan of Harry’s video without sound (kids going to sleep). Looked like the Hammersmith charging hub which has been on free vend as an intro/promo/testing phase hence always busy with people who have cars to fill and time on their hands. If a big new petrol station was letting you fill your tank for free the queues would stretch for miles.
Harry Metcalfe just reviewed an iPace on his channel. But the key take away from his video really was the state of the charging network in the U.K.
Could have been just a setup but he ended up limping it home in the end because everywhere he went chargers were either full, broken, wrong connectors or needed to faff about with apps. He made a great point about amazon... that when they made it easier for you to buy something (eg 1 click) they made stacks more money almost over night. Why can’t charging an EV be like that?
As an extra all he could do was sit and look on enviously at the Tesla super charger network. I matter what you think of the cars or the man behind them, Tesla have had that particular subject matter down pat.
Could have been just a setup but he ended up limping it home in the end because everywhere he went chargers were either full, broken, wrong connectors or needed to faff about with apps. He made a great point about amazon... that when they made it easier for you to buy something (eg 1 click) they made stacks more money almost over night. Why can’t charging an EV be like that?
As an extra all he could do was sit and look on enviously at the Tesla super charger network. I matter what you think of the cars or the man behind them, Tesla have had that particular subject matter down pat.
Otispunkmeyer said:
Harry Metcalfe just reviewed an iPace on his channel. But the key take away from his video really was the state of the charging network in the U.K.
Could have been just a setup but he ended up limping it home in the end because everywhere he went chargers were either full, broken, wrong connectors or needed to faff about with apps. He made a great point about amazon... that when they made it easier for you to buy something (eg 1 click) they made stacks more money almost over night. Why can’t charging an EV be like that?
As an extra all he could do was sit and look on enviously at the Tesla super charger network. I matter what you think of the cars or the man behind them, Tesla have had that particular subject matter down pat.
Indeed,Could have been just a setup but he ended up limping it home in the end because everywhere he went chargers were either full, broken, wrong connectors or needed to faff about with apps. He made a great point about amazon... that when they made it easier for you to buy something (eg 1 click) they made stacks more money almost over night. Why can’t charging an EV be like that?
As an extra all he could do was sit and look on enviously at the Tesla super charger network. I matter what you think of the cars or the man behind them, Tesla have had that particular subject matter down pat.
i have a model 3 and have never really conisdered range to be an issue and I've been as far as berlin. I just make sure I'm aware of availible chargepoints or park in car parks with chargepoints.
sjg said:
Downward said:
Haha Tesla owners moaning how popular their cars are. Shame.
I’ve had an EV for 2 years plus now. My mantra is don’t do a journey longer than your range. Here there is 1 fast charger 2 miles away at the motorway services and 1 at the main dealer 3 miles away only open business hours.
A fair few slow chargers where you can get a whopping 12 miles ish per hour of charge.
Recently 2 Instavolts have popped up. 35p per kw. And they kindly take £10 off your card for the charge and then top up when your balance is below £5.
It’s complete st.
Imagine going to a petrol station for £10 of petrol and Shell say yeah £20 please but don’t worry we will always keep £5 off your money in case you use us again.
Yeah, imagine that... https://www.bankrate.com/uk/current-accounts/petro...I’ve had an EV for 2 years plus now. My mantra is don’t do a journey longer than your range. Here there is 1 fast charger 2 miles away at the motorway services and 1 at the main dealer 3 miles away only open business hours.
A fair few slow chargers where you can get a whopping 12 miles ish per hour of charge.
Recently 2 Instavolts have popped up. 35p per kw. And they kindly take £10 off your card for the charge and then top up when your balance is below £5.
It’s complete s
t.Imagine going to a petrol station for £10 of petrol and Shell say yeah £20 please but don’t worry we will always keep £5 off your money in case you use us again.
Just had a quick scan of Harry’s video without sound (kids going to sleep). Looked like the Hammersmith charging hub which has been on free vend as an intro/promo/testing phase hence always busy with people who have cars to fill and time on their hands. If a big new petrol station was letting you fill your tank for free the queues would stretch for miles.
Just the same with many hotels and hire car companies and others. It’s not a charge just a form of guarantee that you can pay.
And if enough big new petrol stations giving free fuel were available there’d be no queues.
Planning this route back and forth.
In my past car never really travelled as we always had family/friends with company cars.
Now the Tesla is huge an comfortable inside (we're going to have 4 adults and 1 small child in our car).
Very interested to see how this pans out.
As I see there's a couple of SuperChargers I pass, and the entire route could be done with just other fast chargers (but then it'd be as expensive as a diesel).
The destination is not far from a supercharger, I can granny charge it at our stay and there's a number of 11-22kWh chargers in the neighborhood.
If I plan my stops (kid and people go to the bathroom when we charge, no extra stops), it wouldn't add a lot to my journey, I just checked my timeline last year and we stopped for about 1h15 min in 3 stops as well. I'm not in a hurry to get there but I hope it won't be a faff.
In my past car never really travelled as we always had family/friends with company cars.
Now the Tesla is huge an comfortable inside (we're going to have 4 adults and 1 small child in our car).
Very interested to see how this pans out.
As I see there's a couple of SuperChargers I pass, and the entire route could be done with just other fast chargers (but then it'd be as expensive as a diesel).
The destination is not far from a supercharger, I can granny charge it at our stay and there's a number of 11-22kWh chargers in the neighborhood.
If I plan my stops (kid and people go to the bathroom when we charge, no extra stops), it wouldn't add a lot to my journey, I just checked my timeline last year and we stopped for about 1h15 min in 3 stops as well. I'm not in a hurry to get there but I hope it won't be a faff.
Depthhoar said:
Planning a 1200 mile round trip from the Scottish Highlands to Newton Abbot starting out next Saturday.
In my i3.
Gonna be an interesting charging challenge!
This video might help you then, someone doing the same but the other way around in an i3.In my i3.
Gonna be an interesting charging challenge!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qt0PwtUD0MA
In almost complete contrast to OPs experience and some YouTubers of taking EVs on long trips I've just planned our summer holiday trip to west coast of Scotland.
In total in will be around 1000 miles all done, that's traveling with a toddler and than fully loaded 6 people in car once past Glasgow.
The bulk of the distance is getting from Midlands to Fort William, my wife isn't keen to be doing 8hr+ in a day on the road so we are stopping to see relatives in Liverpool than again in Glasgow, on the way down we will stop at Leeds.
There are so many Tesla Superchargers enroute am not even going to bother charging at peoples houses. If you treat it as a single drive up most normal families would find 3 stops over a 8hr road trip fine. Once up in Fort William we will use a 3 pin plug over 4 days of sight seeing will be no issues.
With a reliable and well positioned EV Rapid charging network life really isn't hard. The fact each charging site is mulit bays, and we are not in a rush really helps. For us the cost of fuel once we leave home will be £0, so ineffect 1000 miles will cost me £5 for the initial charge at home, and no need to use any phone apps/cards/guess work about charging the car!!
The ability of Tesal Superchargers to take Tesla EV ownership into a different league compared to all other EVs really cannot be underestimated.
In total in will be around 1000 miles all done, that's traveling with a toddler and than fully loaded 6 people in car once past Glasgow.
The bulk of the distance is getting from Midlands to Fort William, my wife isn't keen to be doing 8hr+ in a day on the road so we are stopping to see relatives in Liverpool than again in Glasgow, on the way down we will stop at Leeds.
There are so many Tesla Superchargers enroute am not even going to bother charging at peoples houses. If you treat it as a single drive up most normal families would find 3 stops over a 8hr road trip fine. Once up in Fort William we will use a 3 pin plug over 4 days of sight seeing will be no issues.
With a reliable and well positioned EV Rapid charging network life really isn't hard. The fact each charging site is mulit bays, and we are not in a rush really helps. For us the cost of fuel once we leave home will be £0, so ineffect 1000 miles will cost me £5 for the initial charge at home, and no need to use any phone apps/cards/guess work about charging the car!!
The ability of Tesal Superchargers to take Tesla EV ownership into a different league compared to all other EVs really cannot be underestimated.
Monty Python said:
Interesting video from Harry Metcalf on YT covering his experience with an I-Pace. From his experience, it's not much good on the motorway (no regen so the range disappears pretty quickly), and the charging network is rubbish (3 chargers, 3 unusable).
Seems to be that for a non-Tesla EV, you're tied to a 60 mile range from a home charging point, and for an £80,000 i-Pace, that makes you wonder why anyone would bother.
Absolute rubbish, my Son in Law regularly pops down to us in Cornwall from Norfolk and only stops once to charge and feed the kids.Seems to be that for a non-Tesla EV, you're tied to a 60 mile range from a home charging point, and for an £80,000 i-Pace, that makes you wonder why anyone would bother.
Jaaws said:
Totally agree with the OP. Long time EV owner here, 8 years now. Ditched all the cards, apps etc ages ago and just charge at home. I’ve given up taking take the zero-emissions vehicle on any round trips further than I can do on a single charge and use a petrol powered one instead.
The charging infrastructure in UK is a joke. I think there are even fewer in our locality now than there were a few years ago since NCP took them out of of two local multi-storeys recently. Shell demolished and rebuilt a nearby fuel station last year. You would have thought it a good opportunity to install charge points.....no chance.
Until, somehow, the Government ensures that an EV driver can set off on a long journey, in any weather, without fretting about actually getting to the destination, EV uptake will be largely restricted to people like me, lucky enough to have a driveway, the funds to run two vehicles and doing local trips only.
Well, I thought the Government had almost mandated the various energy 'companies' to allow chargepoints to work with ANY credit/debit card (much like we pay for fossil fuels!)? The charging infrastructure in UK is a joke. I think there are even fewer in our locality now than there were a few years ago since NCP took them out of of two local multi-storeys recently. Shell demolished and rebuilt a nearby fuel station last year. You would have thought it a good opportunity to install charge points.....no chance.
Until, somehow, the Government ensures that an EV driver can set off on a long journey, in any weather, without fretting about actually getting to the destination, EV uptake will be largely restricted to people like me, lucky enough to have a driveway, the funds to run two vehicles and doing local trips only.
THAT will make a massive difference. Instavolt are pretty decent - pretty well do that already, we discovered
But yes.....Tesla have the current leap on things with some decent SC infrastructure.
That said....."local trips only" ? Maybe on a Leaf or suchlike.....but EVs are moving on.
We've had our Kona for almost 9k miles now - first ever EV - & the range is currently over 220 miles. Pretty decent for a long run.
Back in summer we were comfortably getting 260 miles. Gentle drivers are known to get over 300 - it is our first EV, and we drive it far too much like we've driven all cars - so too fast on dual carriageways & motorways!
That said, I agree that for the time being, those of us lucky enough to have options (& driveways!) certainly have an edge.
We did a 1,500 mile summer jaunt round Scotland with the family - Kona would be too small for all of our gear, plus we didn't have the luxury of multiple hour+ stops to fit in our crazy schedule. Similarly, we head to the Alps in March, & don't want multiple long stops on our runs down and back!
Recently returned from my 1200 mile round trip from Scottish Highlands to Newton Abbot, Devon in our i3.
Verdict on charging?
On balance, it was just about OK but with some provisos.
Left home with a full charge.
1. Pre-emptive charge at Broxden Services, A9 Perth. 'Rapid' charging courtesy of 'Chargeplace Scotland'. A freebie. 6 chargers. (12 Tesla 'Superchargers' on the same site).
2. Abington 'Chargeplace Scotland' charger just off the A74, in the village, not the service station. Also free and a 'rapid' charger. Only one charger available here though. Fortunately, no waiting this time (last visit it was occupied so had to revert to charging at the nearby M-way service station - an Ecotricity charger which actually worked (not always my experience of this network).
3. Rheged services, just off the M6 and on the A66 not far from Penrith. Ecotricity rapid charger which worked, thankfully. (Didn't work on a previous trip).
4. Charnock Richard Services (southbound) on the M6. Ecotricity rapid again, and a successful charge.
Got a little flaky at the next planned stop...
5. Hilton Park Services M6 southbound. Ecotricity rapid charger fail. Wasted 20 mins attempting to get the thing to work by phoning their call centre. Fairly low on charge now and getting early symptoms of range anxiety (ie. moaning to my wife that I'd have settled for 70 litres of diesel in my E39 rather than the unfolding wild goose chase attempting to locate another charger.)
5. Consulted ZapMap which indicated a charger just off the M6 at Wednesbury, in some pub car park...'The Chestnut Tree', if memory serves. Left the M6 in search of said charger and instantly joined a long line of barely moving traffic. 20 mins later we crawl past IKEA (I should have guessed!) and reach the charger. Tempers are more than slightly frayed at this point. A single rapid charger provided by Engenie. No waiting to charge but were lucky as another BEV rocked up just as we plugged in.
6. Gloucester Services M5 southbound. Two Ecotricity rapid chargers on site. No queue but God knows what frustration there could be here in mid-summer when the tourist traffic kicks in.
7. Bridgewater - Morrisons supermarket: a single 'Genie Point' charger. The loudest charger I've heard to date. Thought the damn thing was going to start spinning and spit smoke & flames!
8. Exeter Services M5. Didn't really need to charge but filled up the tank with electricity since charger provision in Devon is very poor and we had no destination charging opportunities.
Notes:
We were quite conservative and opted for more charging stops rather than push our luck and risk even more range anxiety.
Conclusions:-
Verdict on charging?
On balance, it was just about OK but with some provisos.
Left home with a full charge.
1. Pre-emptive charge at Broxden Services, A9 Perth. 'Rapid' charging courtesy of 'Chargeplace Scotland'. A freebie. 6 chargers. (12 Tesla 'Superchargers' on the same site).
2. Abington 'Chargeplace Scotland' charger just off the A74, in the village, not the service station. Also free and a 'rapid' charger. Only one charger available here though. Fortunately, no waiting this time (last visit it was occupied so had to revert to charging at the nearby M-way service station - an Ecotricity charger which actually worked (not always my experience of this network).
3. Rheged services, just off the M6 and on the A66 not far from Penrith. Ecotricity rapid charger which worked, thankfully. (Didn't work on a previous trip).
4. Charnock Richard Services (southbound) on the M6. Ecotricity rapid again, and a successful charge.
Got a little flaky at the next planned stop...
5. Hilton Park Services M6 southbound. Ecotricity rapid charger fail. Wasted 20 mins attempting to get the thing to work by phoning their call centre. Fairly low on charge now and getting early symptoms of range anxiety (ie. moaning to my wife that I'd have settled for 70 litres of diesel in my E39 rather than the unfolding wild goose chase attempting to locate another charger.)
5. Consulted ZapMap which indicated a charger just off the M6 at Wednesbury, in some pub car park...'The Chestnut Tree', if memory serves. Left the M6 in search of said charger and instantly joined a long line of barely moving traffic. 20 mins later we crawl past IKEA (I should have guessed!) and reach the charger. Tempers are more than slightly frayed at this point. A single rapid charger provided by Engenie. No waiting to charge but were lucky as another BEV rocked up just as we plugged in.
6. Gloucester Services M5 southbound. Two Ecotricity rapid chargers on site. No queue but God knows what frustration there could be here in mid-summer when the tourist traffic kicks in.
7. Bridgewater - Morrisons supermarket: a single 'Genie Point' charger. The loudest charger I've heard to date. Thought the damn thing was going to start spinning and spit smoke & flames!
8. Exeter Services M5. Didn't really need to charge but filled up the tank with electricity since charger provision in Devon is very poor and we had no destination charging opportunities.
Notes:
We were quite conservative and opted for more charging stops rather than push our luck and risk even more range anxiety.
Conclusions:-
- Tesla have the best charging network. Whenever I saw Tesla Superchargers they were in ranks of 12 (or more) whilst, usually, there'd be only one or two on-site 50kW CCS combo chargers.
- The rapid charging network down in SW England is poor... No, make that piss poor.
- I'd have happily driven the i3 at 65-70mph on the motorway for 120 miles between charging if...and it's a big if...I could absolutely rely on getting a charge at the point when I needed it and not have to divert to another location for a charge (+ not have to wait in a 30 min queue, or worse).
- I don't want to use stupid apps or online accounts to charge my car. Contactless using my debit card, please.
- I like the i3. I really do. But charging is a hassle and quite often mightily frustrating. So I'd need a lot of persuasion to embark on another long distance trip in it when I've got the option of powering myself along on 120 litres of diesel or, better still, 200 litres of super-unleaded. (Hell, I could have done the outward leg on a single tankful in my E39 530d. I'd also argue that finding 98 octane for my M5 would be less stressful than finding a working, convenient and available charger!)
Edited by Depthhoar on Thursday 6th February 08:47
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