1020 miles summer holiday road trip, in an EV

[gangzoom]

Guy Martin recently said EVs are only good for 50 mile trips....We've just arrived home after a 1020 mile summer holiday road trip to the Scottish Highlands from the Midlands in our 4 year old EV.

We had rain, mini floods, road closures, traffic (lots of traffic), tantrums, and at various points 6 people in the car, but the car never set a foot wrong.

In total Google recons we spent over 18hrs+ in the car without traffic or some additional sight seeing, reality was probably over 20hr+.







For anyones whos not been Scotland is a beautiful place, and as memorable as the Swiss Apls. We saw plenty of EVs enroute, and the only word I can think of for the trip is EPIC.

I love road trips, but its never just about the car that makes road trips memorable, its the journey, destination and the people around you. In that regard our EV fulfils its role perfectly, and I can honestly say I LOVE the car more now than ever. Its well and truly earned its place as a 'keeper', unless financially forced too, I doubt I'll ever sell it!!















People 'worry' about EVs not been 'fun' to drive, but my daughter will happily tell you otherwise, and we are now planning our road trip to Norway next year

Edited by gangzoom on Sunday 15th August 07:17

[Phunk]

Thanks for sharing, did all of the chargers you use work, how many of them were the public charging network, and how many were Tesla?

[Chris-S]

I thought the Guy Martin thing should have been done with a Tesla as well as the Hyundai, so they could demonstrate the difference between good and bad charging networks, as that’s the key thing of course.

[gangzoom]

Phunk said:

Thanks for sharing, did all of the chargers you use work, how many of them were the public charging network, and how many were Tesla?

Only used x3 Tesla Superchargers enroute, actually could have got away with x2. Rest of charging was done via 22KW public charging posts and 3 pin plug at accommodation.

Whitelee windfarm was probably the 'best' charging place we found by accident!! Charging the car was far easier than I thought as Scotland was full of 22KW public charging posts very similar to France.

I would say however without the x2 Tesla Superchargers stops getting to Scotland would have been far more stressful.

[hiccy18]

Great pictures

One of the great benefits of living in Glasgow is having such beautiful scenery and wide open spaces within a short distance of us; when suitably motivated I can get to Glencoe in a little over an hour. There are plenty of EV's around here but, having just returned from an 1114 mile summer holiday road trip in Scotland, we saw very few EV's in the places we were at; I wonder how well most EV's would work? Two wheels (like we were on) would be hopeless! I'd like to think your Tesla would be okay*, but I'd be interested to see how the infrastructure would hold up in practice.

ETA: * although ABRP reckons the route would be "not driveable"! Overnight 3kw charging at each destination would make all the difference though.

Edited by hiccy18 on Sunday 15th August 09:53

[gangzoom]

hiccy18 said:

There are plenty of EV's around here but, having just returned from an 1114 mile summer holiday road trip in Scotland.......

ETA: * although ABRP reckons the route would be "not driveable"!

I persume you are heading west? I had wanted to go to Inverness but the rest of the occupants in the car wasn't having it!!

Once in Scotland I actually didn't use any Tesla Superchargers, and having a 3 pin plug meant range wasn't an issue, as each day we had 200 miles of range translating to 4-5hrs of driving on the lovely roads .

If you are really going out to the middle of no where you need to access a 7KW or 22KW charger overnight to top the range.

[hiccy18]

Yep, so-called NC500 plus trip to Banff and good potter around the Cairngorms before returning home via Lomondside again. We did 150-200 miles each day with tied in nicely with the tank range of the bike, and would suit an EV nicely if you could plug into a 3 pin socket each night. I would not want to be relying on the public charger at Durness, the place was jumping when we went through, thought I'd got lost and ended up at Blackpool....

[Phunk]

gangzoom said:

Phunk said:

Thanks for sharing, did all of the chargers you use work, how many of them were the public charging network, and how many were Tesla?

Only used x3 Tesla Superchargers enroute, actually could have got away with x2. Rest of charging was done via 22KW public charging posts and 3 pin plug at accommodation.

Whitelee windfarm was probably the 'best' charging place we found by accident!! Charging the car was far easier than I thought as Scotland was full of 22KW public charging posts very similar to France.

I would say however without the x2 Tesla Superchargers stops getting to Scotland would have been far more stressful.

I think what you’re highlighting here is how good the Tesla network is, if you had to rely on the public rapid charging network your experience could of well of been similar to Guy Martins

[JonnyVTEC]

Great pictures and impressive efficient for that Model X

Chris-S said:

I thought the Guy Martin thing should have been done with a Tesla as well as the Hyundai, so they could demonstrate the difference between good and bad charging networks, as that’s the key thing of course.

He did that with Ionity but the working one had 3 seconds of air time…

Edited by JonnyVTEC on Sunday 15th August 22:15

[redback911]

Excellent photos and write-up, thanks for sharing!

[Byker28i]

Wasn't that almost the point of Guy Martins experience, trying to use other supercharging providers, one which didn't work properly and they were 70p a kw, so expensive. Plus he was trying to do the mileage in one day, not spread over a road trip, so could use overnight charging at stops.

[gangzoom]

This summer isn't quite over yet, but got the go ahead to plan next summers road trip, I must be mad because EVs are only good for 50 mile trips .

[andy43]

gangzoom said:

This summer isn't quite over yet, but got the go ahead to plan next summers road trip, I must be mad because EVs are only good for 50 mile trips .

Great pics! Woooo but you're going north - that'll knacker the range you know?!
35 miles between charges if you have your heated seats on.
We were so concerned about the limited range in cold weather that we, erm, we went south.
Twice

[jonny996]

Are those dots every time you stopped to charge? If so approx how long did you stop for each time ?

[51mes]

Byker28i said:

Wasn't that almost the point of Guy Martins experience, trying to use other supercharging providers, one which didn't work properly and they were 70p a kw, so expensive. Plus he was trying to do the mileage in one day, not spread over a road trip, so could use overnight charging at stops.

The odd thing was he was in a new hyundai and it would have an Ionity premium subscription @25p/kw.

Perchance hamming it up for TV...

[RobbyJ]

Done 50 miles this morning and have 875 miles to do by Sunday night, I'm going to rinse that free supercharging!