GavinJ
Standard Member
Just completed a 2000 mile road trip. Was a bit nervous as I am an EV newbie and had never done any journeys that required me to charge away from home. The trip was from our home to Orkney and back with a stopover in Stirling and Edinburgh.
The car performed very well with 2 adults, a lanky teenager and a boot stuffed to the gunwhales with kit for an outdoors/birdwatching holiday. Overall consumption for the trip was 4wh/mile. We cruised at 68mph on the motorway and kept up with local traffic on A roads (that can be pretty rapid on the A9!). The car was really comfortable, a/c worked when we needed it and the family were impressed. The speed of recharge seemed good, we were charging from 20% to 80% much faster than I had expected (often we would return to the car with 85+% on board). None of the chargers gave a charging speed so could not confirm highest speed.
Some niggles: infotainment with android auto patchy. Also at one charge stop, I had an indicated High Voltage battery issue (solved by locking the car, going for a 10 min walk and then unlocking). This was after trying a longer charge on a rapid charger than I would normally because I was nervous of the journey to Thurso through a wilderness with no rapid chargers (I had a ferry to catch!)
My main gripes are reserved for the chargers. They were tempramental in several instances. I forgot my CYC rfid card and so getting Chargeplace Scotland chargers to work was hit and miss (mainly due to weak data coverage). The call centre (shared with CYC at the time) was fairly unreliable - hold times of 15 mins were not uncommon. Also, as an Edinburgh man, I was astonished how few chargers there were in the city - ended up charging in Drumbrae. By contrast, Orkney had an abundance of chargers.
Another point, I used ABRP (full licence on a trial). I was not impressed. There were too many charge stops (my consumption was way better than the app predicted) and it did not seem to offer any significant tangible advantage over a pen and paper approach.
So, would I do this sort of trip again? Absolutely. I have learned a lot. I plan to go to my inlaws in N Ireland later in the month and will let you know how that went. I am a bit nervous about the charger network there as it seems pretty sparse though.
If anyone else has advice/recommendations on doing long roadtrips in an MG5 (eg optimum cruising speed, best SOC% to recharge, route planner apps etc) please share.
The car performed very well with 2 adults, a lanky teenager and a boot stuffed to the gunwhales with kit for an outdoors/birdwatching holiday. Overall consumption for the trip was 4wh/mile. We cruised at 68mph on the motorway and kept up with local traffic on A roads (that can be pretty rapid on the A9!). The car was really comfortable, a/c worked when we needed it and the family were impressed. The speed of recharge seemed good, we were charging from 20% to 80% much faster than I had expected (often we would return to the car with 85+% on board). None of the chargers gave a charging speed so could not confirm highest speed.
Some niggles: infotainment with android auto patchy. Also at one charge stop, I had an indicated High Voltage battery issue (solved by locking the car, going for a 10 min walk and then unlocking). This was after trying a longer charge on a rapid charger than I would normally because I was nervous of the journey to Thurso through a wilderness with no rapid chargers (I had a ferry to catch!)
My main gripes are reserved for the chargers. They were tempramental in several instances. I forgot my CYC rfid card and so getting Chargeplace Scotland chargers to work was hit and miss (mainly due to weak data coverage). The call centre (shared with CYC at the time) was fairly unreliable - hold times of 15 mins were not uncommon. Also, as an Edinburgh man, I was astonished how few chargers there were in the city - ended up charging in Drumbrae. By contrast, Orkney had an abundance of chargers.
Another point, I used ABRP (full licence on a trial). I was not impressed. There were too many charge stops (my consumption was way better than the app predicted) and it did not seem to offer any significant tangible advantage over a pen and paper approach.
So, would I do this sort of trip again? Absolutely. I have learned a lot. I plan to go to my inlaws in N Ireland later in the month and will let you know how that went. I am a bit nervous about the charger network there as it seems pretty sparse though.
If anyone else has advice/recommendations on doing long roadtrips in an MG5 (eg optimum cruising speed, best SOC% to recharge, route planner apps etc) please share.
