Disappointing journey home

Abaker Mk2

Abaker Mk2

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Location
Coventry
Driving
MG ZS EV
I guess I just want to vent a bit, I went to visit family near Cardiff on a 95 mile journey. I set off fully charged in the standard range 175 miles on the GOM.
Arrived with 30 miles range left but that’s ok as I was on cruise control all the way enjoying aircon and radio on averaging 3 miles per kWh.

There is a 50kW ccs charger within walking distance that I’ve used before with success so I was happy enough to take the car down at 9am for an hours charge and then set off home this time being more conservative with the driving style.

This is where it seem to go wrong, that 50kW charger was swarco and at the time (18th September 2022 9am) the app wouldn’t let me login and there own map showed that they had no chargers in the country. Couldn’t charge by contactless bank card and ten minutes ringing for support went unanswered.

Went back to the house for a plan B.

IKEA had a 50kW charger so my family member had to follow me there as it was a 15 minute drive, I plugged in a went back to the house for a cuppa.
Checked the mg app and the charge rate was 15kW, that’s slow but at least it’s charging, maybe I’m staying for lunch!

No, after an hour and a half I checked the app again too see if it had speeded up to my dismay find it had stopped charging all together! 45% battery I had. I wasn’t going to go back and just start up the charge again so decided to head home.

I’ve used Gloucester services before so headed there, it was 65 miles away and had 75 miles range. Arrived and found three of the four bays in use and the second car in front of me taking the last bay of course. This is the way for us ev driver at the moment!

I decided to head into Gloucester and use an instavolt which had a spare bay. Arrived and started charging, got 30kW rate which was okishand charged to 100 mile range. Spent about 45 minutes getting a snack and window shopping. Completed the journey and got home with 33 miles left.

I did call grid serve about the ikea charger and they will refund the charge but could not explain why it stopped. The guy did mention that all the other vehicle charging logs showed a similar 15kW charge rate.

I did not contact swarco.

Quite disappointing as with my old car I could have don’t the round trip with a third of a tank!

Thanks for reading, I’m still learning and have only done 2k miles in an EV.
 
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kbfern said:
At the moment electrons on public chargers are more than petrol since Osprey are now charging £1 per kWh.
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I've used Osprey charger twice since they upped price to £1 and on both occasions just used Bonnet App for charging, this meant 45p per kwh which although not the cheapest is the best option if only Osprey charger available.
 
I know the cost is a concern but what affects the rate of charge? The ikea charger was rated at 50kW but could only deliver 15. I was at 18% battery not in the 80s where I know it slows down.
That is a lot of lost revenue for gridserve and holding up the next customer.
The gridserve agent I spoke to on the phone did say all the cars on that charger were only achieving 15kW.
 
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Some Rapid chargers are limited by load sharing with the location - in this case the store. Some are also modular and some modules may have failed - I'd suspect that this is the issue for that charge point. To be honest 2x 7kW AC charge points would make more sense (or 7x if 50kW is available).

I'd suggest that you consider finding AC charge points near your relative's for the future. They are much more numerous, reliable and cheaper to boot. If you leave the car there overnight you'll get a full charge. Only use Rapids when you have to, e.g. when you need a lot of charge in an hour.
 
Although inconvenient and a pain in the prevervial, at least there were plenty of alternative chargers around so that you weren't stranded. A few years ago would have been a different story. :)
 
Gadget Geek said:
Although inconvenient and a pain in the prevervial, at least there were plenty of alternative chargers around so that you weren't stranded. A few years ago would have been a different story. :)
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The early adopters were a brave bunch!

I’ve slept on it now and no harm done, 100 miles northbound tomorrow, got my eye on the free chargers at Tesco as we’ll be doing a moving in shop!
 
No laws on running a cable across the pavement if you're charging 😁

I've not needed to since upgrading from 30kwh leaf to MG5 EV but if I did need to charge at home I'd probably use a cable cover.

But can definitely feel your pain, being in that leaf in 2019 it was quite rough... Having to get towed to a Tesco 7kw (so 3kw in leaf) because both north and southbound chargers at Taunton were broken 🤦.

Honestly looking forward to my next long drive now I've got the MG, hopefully won't have to study zapmap quite so much!
 
Polaralias said
Honestly looking forward to my next long drive now I've got the MG, hopefully won't have to study zapmap quite so much!

At your peril, welcome to the forum bye the way but, the key to trouble free EV motoring is a bit of forward planning and a least one or two plan Bs IMHO.
Les.
 
Les burrows said:
Polaralias said
Honestly looking forward to my next long drive now I've got the MG, hopefully won't have to study zapmap quite so much!

At your peril, welcome to the forum bye the way but, the key to trouble free EV motoring is a bit of forward planning and a least one or two plan Bs IMHO.
Les.
Click to expand...
It’s just when both plan A & B goes tits up that you get a bit disheartened.
 
Les burrows said:
Polaralias said
Honestly looking forward to my next long drive now I've got the MG, hopefully won't have to study zapmap quite so much!

At your peril, welcome to the forum bye the way but, the key to trouble free EV motoring is a bit of forward planning and a least one or two plan Bs IMHO.
Les.
Click to expand...
100% agreed with you there.
 
Abaker Mk2 said:
It’s just when both plan A & B goes tits up that you get a bit disheartened.
Click to expand...
Welcome to the forum also, firstly off don’t get disheartened as you stated in your first post your new to EV motoring and it’s a learning curve that most people have gone through, as you are doing.
One thing I don’t understand is you said you started a 95 mile journey to Cardiff with 175 on the GOM ( Guess O meter ) and had 30 miles left after your trip so you used 145 Gom miles to do your trip of 95 miles.

So first thing you have learned is that you can’t really rely on the GOM as it changes in lots of ways, just some are the way and how fast you drive, also the types of roads you are driving on, another is what you are using, you said you had the A/C on well that alone will use around 15% of your Gom range radio won’t use much as that runs from the 12 volt battery, but HVAC for cooling or heating takes a lot from the main traction battery and will reduce your range quite a bit but you will learn what’s best for your car and the way you use it,
just give yourself time and don’t get disheartened, and as I have said above a little bit of forward planning gets you almost anywhere you want to go with an EV.

Les.
 
Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but for next time... Cardiff Tesla superchargers are available to non-Teslas. Currently 77p/kWh.
The Tesla sites are my goto for reliability and speed, if they're anywhere near my route. Also v useful in France where more are open to us plebs.
 
Polaralias said:
No laws on running a cable across the pavement if you're charging 😁
Click to expand...
Yes there is unfortunately;

Under the Highways Act 1980, Part IX Lawful and Unlawful Interference with Highways and Streets, it is illegal for any person to place or run a cable or wire along or across a public highway. Having the cable trail from your home, across the pavement to your car will cause a safety hazard

What you need is one of these;

www.theworkplacedepot.co.uk

External Cable Protector

The Bright ChoiceCable Safety Reimagined: The External Cable Protector offers robust protection and management for cables at events and construction sites, ensuring safety and efficiency.Enhanced Safety Ensured: This protector drastically reduces tripping hazards in high-traffic areas, making it...
www.theworkplacedepot.co.uk www.theworkplacedepot.co.uk
 
Gadget Geek said:
Yes there is unfortunately;

Under the Highways Act 1980, Part IX Lawful and Unlawful Interference with Highways and Streets, it is illegal for any person to place or run a cable or wire along or across a public highway. Having the cable trail from your home, across the pavement to your car will cause a safety hazard

What you need is one of these;

www.theworkplacedepot.co.uk

External Cable Protector

The Bright ChoiceCable Safety Reimagined: The External Cable Protector offers robust protection and management for cables at events and construction sites, ensuring safety and efficiency.Enhanced Safety Ensured: This protector drastically reduces tripping hazards in high-traffic areas, making it...
www.theworkplacedepot.co.uk www.theworkplacedepot.co.uk
Click to expand...
Yeah I got one of these - they are very heavy and very strong smell of plastic/rubber. They are very good though. To avoid people ‘tripping over’ it and suing you for injuries, you’ll also need a sign warning pedistrians to take care…
 
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