Charging Site Review

[fshuk1]

Dear All,

We can use maps and charging apps etc etc but nothing takes place of experience/local-knowledge. As our numbers grow and as we are using the same manufacturer charging system, if it works for you it will work for me. I searched the site and I don't think we have such a thread. I am hoping someone will make this sticky and I am hoping over time this is the place that we turn to, to plan our journey.

I will start. If you are coming to London using A3, before you get to the heart of London there are two charging points that have always been working. I recommend ESSO MFG Robin Hood North Service station 51.416323343750605, -0.25113592438081445 . they have 8 150W CCS at 79p/kwh and usually there is a free slot. There is also a nice shop you can buy stuff while waiting. (///random.toned.jobs)

Also near here is a Tesco super store KT3 4PJ. They are two type 2, 22kw chargers at 49p/kwh, two type 2, 7kw chargers at 44p/kwh and finally one CCS 50kw charger at 62p/kwh. The advantage of course is that it a Tesco superstore with a coffee shop and a big store to shop. (///melon.snake.laptop)


I hope, this will be useful.

Now who can tell me where to charge in Swindon near M4.

Cheers

 

[Ian Key]

To help with the precise location of the chargers as some are hidden round the back and out of sight could we use What 3 Words?
It is available as an app and as a web site.

 

[fshuk1]

To help with the precise location of the chargers as some are hidden round the back and out of sight could we use What 3 Words?
It is available as an app and as a web site.

Sounds good.

But I'm hoping if someone wants to use my recommendation, they send me a message. There is a lot of local knowledge required to get to these sites. If you are going north or south the routes are different, local one way systems, no u-turns etc .

We should help each other.

This thread was moved to General Chat !! Hopefully that will help. So here goes my question again.

"Now who can tell me where to charge in Swindon near M4."

 

[Rolfe]

If it's any help, here is my experience with my "maiden voyage" to Halifax and back, staying there for three nights.

The distance wasn't much more than the range of my car, so while I knew I would have to stop, I had plenty flexibility. As well as charging in several places I also drove into several motorway service stations to see what the setup was like, for future reference. Here's what I encountered.

Southwaite southbound. Several Gridserve chargers (at least four connectors), nobody else charging. No problem getting connected using my debit card. Only about 50 yards to the food court. When I disconnected I thought the charger was refusing to release my car, but then I realised I had been so slow it thought it had a new customer! I showed it my card again then pressed "abort charge" and it released the car.

Killington Lake. Another four Gridserve chargers, one in use. Right next to the restaurant, which from past experience I know is better than average for these places.

Kirkby Lonsdale. Four Instavolt chargers in the car park of Booth's (upmarket) supermarket. Parking fee is refunded if you buy something from the shop. This is about six miles from the motorway, but very useful if you are setting out across the Pennines on the A65 as there's not a lot after that until you get to the big conurbations east of the hills. I charged again here and again had no trouble, using my debit card.

Halifax Manor Road. Type 2 only, and you need your own cable. These do not take contactless. However I had downloaded their app a couple of days before I set off, and in the end it worked. My main problem was that I couldn't see the screen of the chargers for the sun. However at one point I phoned their helpline and the girl who answered was very helpful and friendly (which is more than I can say for whoever answers - or rather doesn't answer - their emails). I charged there three times, as the chargers were only about 50 yards from my friend's house, and I wanted to start each day with a full battery.

Gretna. Twelve AppleGreen connectors and four Gridserve, again sited next to the food court. I tried AppleGreen first and it was a disaster, although in fairness I have to say others were charging from these things without any apparent problem. Each time I tried to charge it took a £30 pre-authorisation fee from my card, then didn't start charging because "the car did something unexpected". I didn't get a single electron from them, so I will have to see how I get my money back (if they have indeed debited me). I moved the car to a Gridserve connector and got connected without any problem. However charging stopped abruptly when the car had reached 67% charge and the charger was saying it was out of order! I stopped charging using the iSMART app, which caused the car to release the cable, and moved on. I had enough to get home anyway.

Annandale Water. Only a few (two? four?) Gridserve chargers, but also a lot of construction activity beside them, making me wonder if AppleGreen is moving in here too. A car was charging and again the chargers were next to the restaurant, which again I know from previous experience is better than a lot of the others.

Abington. Again a relatively small number of Gridserve chargers and no less than sixteen (16) AppleGreen connectors. Once more next to the food hall.

Neither Southwaite nor Killington Lake had any useful signage for the EV charge-points that I saw. Gretna did, with the signs usefully starting early enough to prevent pointless detours. Both Annandale Water and Abington had inadequate signage, beginning so close to the chargers themselves that they still required searching out. The key seems to be to go for the part of the main car park nearest to the food outlets.

None of the charging stations had any shelter from the elements or, as far as I could see, any lighting. It was fine in the middle of the day in May in fine weather. It's likely to be hell on earth in the dark and in heavy rain. It seems advisable to carry a good waterproof coat and to think about what shoes you're wearing to drive in, because you may have to get out of the car, connect it to the charger and oversee charging starting, in torrential rain. Then go maybe 50 yards to the food outlets in said heavy rain, or wait in the car, steaming gently. These places need roof canopies with lighting, similar to what we expect on a petrol station forecourt, and they don't have them.

I am also confused about whether or not Blink Charging was taking some sort of pre-authorisation charge from my phone, when I didn't always get connected first attempt. I am confident that neither Gridserve nor Instavolt was at it. I may have a fight on my hands to get refunds from both AppleGreen and Blink Charging though. (I see no reason for these pre-authorisation charges. Read the card at the start, then charge at the end for what has actually been delivered, why not?)

I note that ZapMaps doesn't have a single word about the AppleGreen invasion on the site. Only the Gridserve connectors are marked.

West Linton. I should add this as I charged here after I got home. I arrived in the village on only 19% charge, thanks to the Gretna Gridserve charger giving up on me, and I needed the car next day. One single ChargePlace Scotland charge-point with both type 2 and CCS connectors, but limited to 45 minutes charging and no return for 90 minutes. There is a ten-minute "grace period" so in practice you can charge for almost 55 minutes. Takes contactless as well as the ChargePlace Scotland card. Again it's out in the open (under a tree by the river) and although there is a tearoom right beside it, that closes at four. It suits me though because it's only five minutes walk from my house. It brought my car up from 19% to 85% in just under 55 minutes, so that my granny charger could easily do the rest overnight.

 

[Gomev]

Well what a maiden voyage that was. You have gained more out there in the world charging knowledge in one trip than many achieve in years, and thanks for the report.
I hope that it has shown, for you and others that although far from perfect it isn't that scary to get out there.

 

[emmrecs]

@Rolfe

With respect to those pre-authorisations, you should see them disappear from your bank or credit card account (whichever you used) within the next few days. My understanding is that they "automatically" show as "Pending" but when, within a few days, the charger owner does not actually claim any money, the amounts are removed permanently. Until and unless such a claim is made there is no actual debit made against your bank or credit card, though clearly in the case of a CC this does reduce the amount of spending power remaining until the "Pending" figure is removed.

Certainly, that is what happened to me when I encountered a similar problem (can't actually remember where the charger was!!) and my account showed a pending £25 charge for about 4 or 5 days until it was obvious to my bank that neither this nor any other amount was actually going to be claimed by the charger owner, and the listing simply disappeared.

 

[Rolfe]

That's reassuring. I didn't actually have a pressing cash flow problem at the time, so as long as the debits disappear I don't really mind. I still don't understand why it's necessary though.

If I had known about the authorisation charge on the AppleGreen ones I'd have gone for the Gridserve ones in the first place. I'll know next time. That was what the trip was for.

 

[Cocijo]

Yes - they add a pending amount, which does disappear after a few days. It should not be necessary and compensates for inadequate billing processes.

Many of the Tesla superchargers are hidden in weird places. Someone compiled a list…

Wiki - UK Superchargers - What3Words

Hi All, I am hoping to take advantage of the geographic spread and collective knowledge of this forum if i may please. I am trying to compile a list of What3Words locations of Tesla Superchargers, I did a search of the forums to see if something already existed but my search did not bring...

teslamotorsclub.com

What3words also have some general details are their website about EV chargers

Finding charging stations made easy with evway and what3words | what3words

what3words.com

 

[fshuk1]

My recent experience showed me McDonald's sites with parking have over 100kwh InstaVolt chargers. If you are stuck ask for nearest McDonalds. General public may not know about nearest charging sites but they all know where the nearest McDonald is. Good chance that they have charging

 

[Rolfe]

I've had a look at my bank statement and I see the following debits.

11th May Gridserve £14.18 - this will be Southwaite on 9th May
11th May Chargepoint Network £13.27 - this will be Kirkby Lonsdale on 9th May
11th May Blink Charging £9.86 - Halifax on the evening of 9th May
12th May Blink Charging £5.77 - Halifax on the evening of 10th May

At the moment that is it, no sign of the debits for Blink Charging on 11th May or Gretna on 12th May, however it seems as if these things come in a couple of days in arrears.

There are three £30 pending charges from AppleGreen Electric on 12th May which I presume will simply vanish into the bitbucket in the sky because the charger never established communication with my car. Similarly there is a £1 pending charge from Gridserve on the same day, which presumably relates to the charger I did manage to get some charge out of.

I presume the debits from the remaining two charges will appear after the weekend. I imagine the £1 pending from Gridserve might vanish, but who cares really.

This all appears to be fine, assuming the AppleGreen debits vanish as expected. Blink Charging were difficult to deal with before I set out, as regards the extreme difficulty of downloading their app (without which I couldn't have charged) and the lack of response from their email helpline. However I did manage to get the app and it did work. When I phoned their helpline from the charger the call was answered helpfully. Although I seemed to be authorising a debit of over £20 each time I tried to charge (and I had a couple of unsuccessful attempts to connect there) my original assumption was correct and I was actually only agreeing to the cost of the maximum stay of four hours - which I never went near. No sign of any phantom or pending debits. So now all I really have against them is that their electricity is a bloody rip-off for type 2 charging. Although not, it seems, all that unique for the Halifax area.

So that's all quite non-scary, given that I had enough in my account that having AppleGreen freeze £90 for a few days isn't actually an issue. None of it was exactly cheap, but I knew the prices before I set off and I wasn't bothered, not for a trip of a few days. It didn't stop me putting the MG4 through its paces on the motorway, and it coped exceedingly well.

 

[tsedge]

I've had a look at my bank statement and I see the following debits.

11th May Gridserve £14.18 - this will be Southwaite on 9th May
11th May Chargepoint Network £13.27 - this will be Kirkby Lonsdale on 9th May
11th May Blink Charging £9.86 - Halifax on the evening of 9th May
12th May Blink Charging £5.77 - Halifax on the evening of 10th May

At the moment that is it, no sign of the debits for Blink Charging on 11th May or Gretna on 12th May, however it seems as if these things come in a couple of days in arrears.

There are three £30 pending charges from AppleGreen Electric on 12th May which I presume will simply vanish into the bitbucket in the sky because the charger never established communication with my car. Similarly there is a £1 pending charge from Gridserve on the same day, which presumably relates to the charger I did manage to get some charge out of.

I presume the debits from the remaining two charges will appear after the weekend. I imagine the £1 pending from Gridserve might vanish, but who cares really.

This all appears to be fine, assuming the AppleGreen debits vanish as expected. Blink Charging were difficult to deal with before I set out, as regards the extreme difficulty of downloading their app (without which I couldn't have charged) and the lack of response from their email helpline. However I did manage to get the app and it did work. When I phoned their helpline from the charger the call was answered helpfully. Although I seemed to be authorising a debit of over £20 each time I tried to charge (and I had a couple of unsuccessful attempts to connect there, my original assumption was correct and I was actually only agreeing to the cost of the maximum stay of four hours - which I never went near. No sign of any phantom or pending debits. So now all I really have against them is that their electricity is a bloody rip-off for type 2 charging. Although not, it seems, all that unique for the Halifax area.

So that's all quite non-scary, given that I had enough in my account that having AppleGreen freeze £90 for a few days isn't actually an issue. None of it was exactly cheap, but I knew the prices before I set off and I wasn't bothered, not for a trip of a few days. It didn't stop me putting the MG4 through its paces on the motorway, and it coped exceedingly well.

Yes, most likely these are just 'holds' on your card for the amount you could have used and will vanish. It is normal practice.

It can take several days for things to appear on a card, as you say.

 

[Rolfe]

Given what I'd seen on YouTube about people's cards being debited when the charger didn't connect I was a bit apprehensive, but nobody seems to be actually charging me for electricity that wasn't supplied.

 

[Rolfe]

I've had a look at my bank statement and I see the following debits.

11th May Gridserve £14.18 - this will be Southwaite on 9th May
11th May Chargepoint Network £13.27 - this will be Kirkby Lonsdale on 9th May
11th May Blink Charging £9.86 - Halifax on the evening of 9th May
12th May Blink Charging £5.77 - Halifax on the evening of 10th May

At the moment that is it, no sign of the debits for Blink Charging on 11th May or Gretna on 12th May, however it seems as if these things come in a couple of days in arrears.

There are three £30 pending charges from AppleGreen Electric on 12th May which I presume will simply vanish into the bitbucket in the sky because the charger never established communication with my car. Similarly there is a £1 pending charge from Gridserve on the same day, which presumably relates to the charger I did manage to get some charge out of.

I presume the debits from the remaining two charges will appear after the weekend. I imagine the £1 pending from Gridserve might vanish, but who cares really.

This all appears to be fine, assuming the AppleGreen debits vanish as expected. Blink Charging were difficult to deal with before I set out, as regards the extreme difficulty of downloading their app (without which I couldn't have charged) and the lack of response from their email helpline. However I did manage to get the app and it did work. When I phoned their helpline from the charger the call was answered helpfully. Although I seemed to be authorising a debit of over £20 each time I tried to charge (and I had a couple of unsuccessful attempts to connect there) my original assumption was correct and I was actually only agreeing to the cost of the maximum stay of four hours - which I never went near. No sign of any phantom or pending debits. So now all I really have against them is that their electricity is a bloody rip-off for type 2 charging. Although not, it seems, all that unique for the Halifax area.

So that's all quite non-scary, given that I had enough in my account that having AppleGreen freeze £90 for a few days isn't actually an issue. None of it was exactly cheap, but I knew the prices before I set off and I wasn't bothered, not for a trip of a few days. It didn't stop me putting the MG4 through its paces on the motorway, and it coped exceedingly well.

I thought I'd add up the total cost of the trip now that all the charges have been debited. Or that was my intention, but this is what happened.

Southwaite 9th May, £14.18
Kirkby Lonsdale 9th May £13.27
Halifax 9th May £9.86
Halifax 10th May £5.77
Halifax 11th May no debit
Gretna 12th May no debit
West Linton 12th May £10.74
Home granny charger (approx) £2.30

All the pending charges disappeared from my account, so I have no serious beef with AppleGreen I suppose.

The £1 pending charge from Gridserve also vanished, and no debit for the actual charge I took on appeared. That was the charge that aborted because the charger went out of order during charging. I can't honestly remember how much I took on board then, but the car was at 67% when the charge aborted. I'm going to take a rough guess that I should have been charged £10. It seems that the charge didn't register as a result of the malfunction, and it was treated the same way as the AppleGreen debits when I didn't get on at all.

I'm slightly more baffled by the absence of a charge from Blink Charging for 11th May, because I don't remember any malfunction that might have caused that. The car didn't take much on that occasion though - I wouldn't have bothered recharging if I hadn't been setting off on a 200-mile trip the next day. It was less than on 10th May for sure, so I'm going to give them a generous guess of £3.

That total comes to £69.12, so I could round it up to £70, considering a couple of these numbers were guesswork. The purpose of the exercise was to compare this to what I think I would have paid if I'd done the same trip in my Golf GTi. My estimate for the petrol for that would be about £100. So despite the fact that I was bitching about the price on some of the chargers (particularly Blink, who charge 69p a unit for type 2 charging), it was still a significant saving on a petrol journey. The most expensive electricity was the Instavolt charger at Kirkby Lonsdale at 75p per unit.

The cheapest electricity was the West Linton charger at the end of my journey, at 30p per unit. Getting home quite low so that I could charge up cheaply on that one (and then on my home electricity, which is 31p per unit) contributed to the relatively low cost of the trip as a whole.

So I can confidently say that these anti-EV influencers who declare that the expensive motorway chargers will put the cost of your journey way over the cost of petrol for an ICE car are full of it. Even if all the chargers you use actually debit your account!

 

[Gadget Geek]

I wonder if these anti-EV influencers get a Patreon contribution from some oil companies to put out these FUD stories?

 

[Rolfe]

I wonder if these anti-EV influencers get a Patreon contribution from some oil companies to put out these FUD stories?

Could be. I watched a bit of a video with that idiot The MacMaster and at one point he declared that the prices being charged for electricity in some places pushed the cost of fuelling an EV to twice that of an ICE car. He might have been comparing it to a diesel, which I don't really know much about, but I was bleating a bit about the 65p and 69p and 75p charges I was paying and it was still significantly less than my GTi (which I admit wasn't the greatest as far as mpg was concerned) would have cost in petrol.

But who is going to believe that an EV can swallow twice the ££ for the same distance travelled? And then again, I don't see petrol prices coming down much more from where they are, but there's a decent chance electricity prices might see a significant fall in the coming months.

 

[Rolfe]

The non-charging thing is a bit odd. That's three times now, within the space of 10 days and after only about five weeks of EV ownership, that I've not been charged for electricity from a public charger that I have actually had.

Blink Charging, Halifax, type 2 connector, 11th May, no apparent reason.
Gridserve charger, Gretna, 50KW CCS connector, 12th May, connector failed mid-charge.
ChargePlace Scotland, Glasgow, type 2 connector, 18th May, no apparent reason.

In the third instance my ChargePlace Scotland account correctly recorded the time I had spent connected to the charger, and debited me £1 connection charge, but then declared that no charge had been delivered to the car and charged me £0 for electricity. However the charger was working perfectly well and brought my car up from 75% to 100% charge!

Has anyone else had this happen to them?

 

[Gadget Geek]

This may be down to communications. I know from previous experience that if a charger loses comms with the server it can go to free vend.

 

[Rolfe]

I wasn't terribly surprised when it happened with the Gridserve, because that had definitely malfunctioned mid-charge. To have it happen three times in the space of seven days, twice when there was no evidence of a fault, did surprise me.

 

[tsedge]

Mine costs £5.80 to fill to full from empty on Octopus Go with the 9.5p/kWh cheap rate. It will do up to 45% a night within the 4hr cheap rate. Planning to switch to Intelligent Octopus once Zappis are supported and then it will drop to 7.5p and £4.60 a fill up - I am omitting the standing charge because I am already paying that for the house.

 

[Rolfe]

That's impressive. I'm still thinking about whether it's worth paying the capital cost of getting a wall box installed to get that price. I have to think about the cost of installation, and the higher daytime electricity cost, and the inconvenience of running washing machine and dishwasher overnight.

At the moment I'm doing fine on a combination of 50 KW CCS charger five minutes walk away taking the car to maybe 85%, then two or three hours on the granny charger to get to 100% and balance the cells. Yes it's 30/31p a unit, but I haven't coughed up ~£1K for a wall box and made my daytime electricity more expensive.

I probably need to do some more sums.