A difficult journey highlights issues with UK public charging infrastructure.

N2STY said:
This just reminds me of VHS (CCS)vs Betamax (CHAdeMO)
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In that they were both replaced by DVD, which in turn was replaced by solid state storage? Nowadays we rarely record anything ourselves and simply stream from preferred supplier.

We need a similar paradigm shift for charging where propriety sockets or protocols are not required.
 
WalkingBootWeather said:
In that they were both replaced by DVD, which in turn was replaced by solid state storage? Nowadays we rarely record anything ourselves and simply stream from preferred supplier.

We need a similar paradigm shift for charging where propriety sockets or protocols are not required.
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Ah, that would be induction charging then where you don't have to plug the car in.
 
Just driven from Welwyn Garden to Bruges then to Lille and back , Xmas markets in Brugge and Lille are really nice.

What a journey!!!!!

DO NOT drive to Ashford tunnel in hope that you will be able to charge there!!!
At the terminal there are 6 Tesla charges that do not work with ZS EV (despite having CSS plug) and 2 standard chargers (one of them is broken) for the remaining one - there was a stupid queue. So, use the charges just before the turning for chunnel tunnel.
I have attempted to use the Tesla charger but it would not work ( have tried two differest Tesla chargers ) - gave me an extra of grey hair – car did get stuck in Parking or Neutral mode for a few minutes, even when I had unplugged the charger. After dancing around the car in the rain, plugging and praying, swearing a lot, pressing buttons in the car and on remote (actually, did help in the end) locked the car and unlocked again, it realised that it is no longer connected and let me drive off, but with all that stupidity I have lost about 7% of charge in the battery and gaine quite a few extra gray hairs.

There are IONITY chargers 5 minutes from the tunnel on the other side (0.69 euro). They can give 150 Kw but I have seen highest 80KW on my ZS EV, loaded to 85%. That was more than enough to get to Bruges. But they were not the first chargers I have attempted to use ABRP has advised to use Elecra charges, well, DON'T bother, they do not accept a direct payment, requiring you to register ad receive special card (what sort of business would refuse to accept money for the service they provide!!!!!!!! unless you regiester and you can only reside in france!!!!).

Situation with chargers on the continent is the pain in the arse. There are tons of them, even the powerful ones up to 350kw, but every single provider insists on sending in you a charging card and most of them only deal with either France or Belgium only, most won’t let you charge even if you wanted to pay with your debit/credit card . So planning is crucial. I would suggest also to use Bonnet app if not for paying then for Identifying charges that would allow direct payments, also another app – “smoov” is good for identifying those.

So yeah, infrastructure in UK is by far more rubbish (slow chargers) and way more expensive fast ones that in Europe, main grudge is that if charger is broken it is unlikely will be repaired any time soon.

I think I will be buying a VW Tuareg for a long journeys and keep ZS EV for day to day drives. Infrastructure is just not there to support on demand charging for EVs especially on the drives to remote places like lake district or Cornwall.
 
I have had EVs, (MG ZS EV, two Konas and my current car a Kia EV6) since Nov 2019 and my usual long trips are usually only 160 miles round trip and only the MG had trouble doing it without a top up charge.

I have completed a couple of 300 plus trips but very rarely. If my choice of EV couldn't complete my usual 160 mile round trip without a charge then I would not buy it.

Anyway from the very start of my EV journey I have NEVER suffered range anxiety (running out of any fuel only requires one to fill up, petrol, diesel or electricity) so very quickly I came to realise that my only choice of filling point was to put it politely crap. So I suffered (every time) from Charger anxiety.

So I would advise anyone NOT to buy ANY EV if you regularly drive further than than the real time return range of your choice of EV until the charging infrastructure is improved. As well as this I would also advise anyone of buying one if they can't charge at home. Sorry, about those who can't have a Home Charger due to their living in homes without off road parking. I couldn't accept the massive inconvenience of trying to keep my car charged in the first instance and more importantly at a reasonable cost.

Other than that, I love EVS.

Merry Christmas all

Frank
 
JCFlippen said:
I was under the impression that the ChargeMap card was the one to have for planning EU charging.
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From what I can see on the Chargemap website they appear to be more expensive than ENBW at their sites. The pricing structure seems to be a bit vague the only advantage being if you already have their card you can use it to charge all over Europe including at the ENBW charging stations.
May be good for me if I take my car to the UK.
 
Frank said:
I have had EVs, (MG ZS EV, two Konas and my current car a Kia EV6) since Nov 2019 and my usual long trips are usually only 160 miles round trip and only the MG had trouble doing it without a top up charge.

I have completed a couple of 300 plus trips but very rarely. If my choice of EV couldn't complete my usual 160 mile round trip without a charge then I would not buy it.

Anyway from the very start of my EV journey I have NEVER suffered range anxiety (running out of any fuel only requires one to fill up, petrol, diesel or electricity) so very quickly I came to realise that my only choice of filling point was to put it politely crap. So I suffered (every time) from Charger anxiety.

So I would advise anyone NOT to buy ANY EV if you regularly drive further than than the real time return range of your choice of EV until the charging infrastructure is improved. As well as this I would also advise anyone of buying one if they can't charge at home. Sorry, about those who can't have a Home Charger due to their living in homes without off road parking. I couldn't accept the massive inconvenience of trying to keep my car charged in the first instance and more importantly at a reasonable cost.

Other than that, I love EVS.

Merry Christmas all

Frank
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100% agreed
 
Frank said:
I have had EVs, (MG ZS EV, two Konas and my current car a Kia EV6) since Nov 2019 and my usual long trips are usually only 160 miles round trip and only the MG had trouble doing it without a top up charge.

I have completed a couple of 300 plus trips but very rarely. If my choice of EV couldn't complete my usual 160 mile round trip without a charge then I would not buy it.

Anyway from the very start of my EV journey I have NEVER suffered range anxiety (running out of any fuel only requires one to fill up, petrol, diesel or electricity) so very quickly I came to realise that my only choice of filling point was to put it politely crap. So I suffered (every time) from Charger anxiety.

So I would advise anyone NOT to buy ANY EV if you regularly drive further than than the real time return range of your choice of EV until the charging infrastructure is improved. As well as this I would also advise anyone of buying one if they can't charge at home. Sorry, about those who can't have a Home Charger due to their living in homes without off road parking. I couldn't accept the massive inconvenience of trying to keep my car charged in the first instance and more importantly at a reasonable cost.

Other than that, I love EVS.

Merry Christmas all

Frank
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Those EV owners without home charging will no doubt be far more skilled at public charging. The experiences of those of us with home charging doing occasional public charging are not really a useful reference point for potential EV owners without home charging availability.
 
Frank said:
I have had EVs, (MG ZS EV, two Konas and my current car a Kia EV6) since Nov 2019 and my usual long trips are usually only 160 miles round trip and only the MG had trouble doing it without a top up charge.

I have completed a couple of 300 plus trips but very rarely. If my choice of EV couldn't complete my usual 160 mile round trip without a charge then I would not buy it.

Anyway from the very start of my EV journey I have NEVER suffered range anxiety (running out of any fuel only requires one to fill up, petrol, diesel or electricity) so very quickly I came to realise that my only choice of filling point was to put it politely crap. So I suffered (every time) from Charger anxiety.

So I would advise anyone NOT to buy ANY EV if you regularly drive further than than the real time return range of your choice of EV until the charging infrastructure is improved. As well as this I would also advise anyone of buying one if they can't charge at home. Sorry, about those who can't have a Home Charger due to their living in homes without off road parking. I couldn't accept the massive inconvenience of trying to keep my car charged in the first instance and more importantly at a reasonable cost.

Other than that, I love EVS.

Merry Christmas all

Frank
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One caveat is if you can afford a Tesla, you get to use the supercharger network.:)

Also, if you don't have off street charging then it's no different to owning an ICE car. I don't know of any homes which have there own petrol pump in the garage. :)
 
Gadget Geek said:
One caveat is if you can afford a Tesla, you get to use the supercharger network.:)

Also, if you don't have off street charging then it's no different to owning an ICE car. I don't know of any homes which have there own petrol pump in the garage. :)
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Quite a lot of Tesla chargers now open to all cars now as well.
 
andrew26k said:
I have tried two different ones at ashford channel tunnel, they do not work with ZS EV!!!! By all means try it but be prepared for your car to be temporarily disabled.
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I read in some sites that Tesla has blocked certain car makers cars from charging, including MG...can't see it on Tesla app at all about this. I've got one close to me I was hoping to use on my trip back from London, but no point.
 
Ruislip Resident said:
Those EV owners without home charging will no doubt be far more skilled at public charging. The experiences of those of us with home charging doing occasional public charging are not really a useful reference point for potential EV owners without home charging availability.
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My fault for not explaining myself fully. I see no particular skill in using public chargers. The reason I had/developed charger anxiety was the fact that they were either broken (in most cases) and then the other problems such as ICE cars parked in the bags denying access, both problems still exist today, this caused my charger anxiety.

Nowadays another more prevalent problem due to the greater uptake of EVs is queues to use chargers. Even Tesla is not immune to this ( although I all agree that they have a much better chance of not having to queue than us).

So after 4 years of EV ownership I still suffer from Charger anxiety and not Range anxiety, but I still love electric cars.



Frank


PS I forgot to mention the thing that really gets my gander up with rapid chargers is that who thought it was a good idea that if there was a charger with multiple DC charging outlets ( talking about CCS and Ccademo (excuse spelling)) that only one of them could be used at any one time.

PLS I now know that the above is due to the limited power supply to the affected charger not being powerful enough to handle both DC chargers running concurrently, however still a poor design.
 
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Roldorf said:
From what I can see on the Chargemap website they appear to be more expensive than ENBW at their sites. The pricing structure seems to be a bit vague the only advantage being if you already have their card you can use it to charge all over Europe including at the ENBW charging stations.
May be good for me if I take my car to the UK.
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I think when travelling away from your own country convenience and reliability is more important than cost. When you get to know the ropes you can look for cheaper options.
 
JCFlippen said:
I think when travelling away from your own country convenience and reliability is more important than cost. When you get to know the ropes you can look for cheaper options.
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100% agree but what makes me mad is that business making artificial blocks in taking my money. Why do they need registration just take the freaking CC payments at whatever rate you advertise
 
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