First long distance journey coming up - a few questions if anyone can help?

[Jonoffun]

I've had my Trophy for a couple of months but haven't done any decent distance journeys yet (just local commute stuff). Got an overnight drive coming up (300 plus miles). I've a couple of concerns / questions.

1) I'll need to charge en route but I've not used any public charger to date (only granny lead at home so far!).
I've got the ionity and chargemap apps already but should I get others like Bonnet / or join pre-pay schemes etc.? Anyone got thoughts on this?

2) According to the info in wiki page on this forum, pre-heating the battery using the intelligent battery heating option prior to using a rapid charger is a good idea. I'll be starting my journey on 100% charge but I will be charging when it's about at 40-50% (as it'll be appox. in line with stopping at services). Is it okay to rapid charge from this point back to 100% (if I've pre-heated the battery en route) or should I only go to 80%?

3) Should I check tyre pressures at the garage air pump prior to heading out (like I used to do with my old diesel) or can I / should I just rely on the car's info? So far my tyre pressures have remained mostly consistent according to the car, I've only noticed an occasional .1 Bar fluctuation in the front right tyre when looking at the app info.

Sorry if these questions have been answered, I did search first.
There's so much still completely brand new (and a tad daunting) to me with EVs and like I say, this'll be my first "proper" longer distance journey.

Many thanks for any input guys.

I tested a few charging brands before my journey to check they worked. Top tip. Take lots of different bank, credit, debit cards with you. Out of all the payment methods I set up I only got my Santander card to work. No idea why, but it seems to work whenever I charge. Use card to start and stop the charge. Google maps seems to show some chargers now. 50% seems a bit cautious. You only need to find one charger. Don't worry about price/kwh. If you have problems change charger. My car kept saying it was broken but it was the charger. Enjoy the trip. Travelling at 62mph on ACC is relaxing. You go a lot further and don't get overtaken by trucks. I managed a 247 mile trip in the Trophy down to 11% then charged - but I would suggest 20% minimum as I had to find 3 chargers before one worked! Also I had problems with the car bonging that I was tired as I did not stop for 4hrs @62mph - you can switch that off somewhere in the settings.

 

[Jomarkh]

We will mostly be rapid charging and not relying on the granny it was just for a back up and top up.

 

[Macadoodle]

I find the ChargePlace Scotland card works pretty reliably. Even when the charger's bank card facilitiy is broken.

Despite their name, they've yet to charge me for anything for a trip I made to see my wee brother in Kelso a month ago
Outward and return 45 min squirts at Broxden park & ride and another at Newtown St Boswells but no charge to date.
Have had the current card since our leaf days many years ago, but everything was free then. I did phone CPS before I left for the journey to double check they had the correct card details on record lest I get stranded... Odd.

 

[DB00nowthen]

For route/charge planning, of the apps that have a subscription—Zapmap and ABRP are the ones I’ve downloaded and played around with—which if any do people think worth paying the monthly or yearly subscription and why? I have my first two long distance trips coming up: Devon to N Wales and back, then Devon to the Lakes. I downloaded a slew of of other apps to have in my phone in case I need them (eg Ionity, Genie … etc), not registered a credit card with them, but downloaded in case I find them needed at a charger. I have a new Electroverse card arrived linked to my Octopus account. Probably over-preparing/thinking …?

 

[NewtoEV]

Probably over-preparing/thinking …?

I don’t think we can be over-prepared for this stuff!

 

[Rolfe]

Despite their name, they've yet to charge me for anything for a trip I made to see my wee brother in Kelso a month ago
Outward and return 45 min squirts at Broxden park & ride and another at Newtown St Boswells but no charge to date.
Have had the current card since our leaf days many years ago, but everything was free then. I did phone CPS before I left for the journey to double check they had the correct card details on record lest I get stranded... Odd.

Mostly they have charged me, but on one occasion on a car park type 2 charger the app came up saying that I hadn't drawn any charge while connected. This was wrong, the car was full when I came back, but I didn't get charged.

If you're just looking at your bank statement though, I've noticed that their debits are a long time delayed from when you actually used the charger, so it may come through yet. I note on the web site that the most recent invoice I've had from them is dated 1st July but still marked as unpaid. The most recent paid invoice is dated 1st June, and that didn't actually come out of my bank account until 29th June.

So any charging during June seems likely to be debited at the end of July.

 

[siteguru]

I've just logged in to my CPS account to check. It shows the £10 I paid 01-May-22 for the card, and it shows an unpaid session for 12 kWh on 12-Jul-23 at Arrochar for £3.24.

 

[Macadoodle]

Yep, the sessions are recorded correctly but the status is unpaid. Oh well, they can take it when they're ready.
Anyone know who's going to run the bank of covered chargers being installed at Broxden ?

Wasn't overly impressed with the single working 50kW charger that only gave out 28kW while I sat there watching legions of Tesla drivers drive past me to the top of the hill and pull megawatts in a jiffy ( probably )

 

[okohll]

Just returned from my own first long distance journey from Bristol to North Wales (and later back). Great holiday, amazing place, but from an EV point of view, it did make me more comfortable with the process. Previously the longest trip I'd done was Bristol to Swansea return, which can easily be done in a single full charge.

On the way up, I was overly cautious really, as I wasn't keen on potentially running out of charge half way across Snowdonia. Started off with 100%, 80% at Abergavenny where we charged up to near full again whilst having lunch. Stopped at Elan Valley reservoir in Mid Wales, charged from 80 to 90% on an AC charger whilst having a short walk, unfortunately it started pouring during that but anyway stopped again at Machynlleth around 70% but there were no rapid chargers available. A bit pointless in retrospect anyway as that was plenty to get through Snowdonia and to the coast to the west. Just carried on and arrived at 51%.

The holiday place had a couple of Rolec chargers - the first one didn't work, not sure if it was something to do with the fact you had to use the app and there was no phone signal, so that entailed nipping back and forth from the charger to the building where there was wifi. The second one did seem to work fine, basically charged it up every night to 80%. With a heck of a lot of driving, never used more than 40% per day.

On the way back I was more confident. Took a longer way back to see some more sights and some relatives near Wrexham. 260 miles so we definitely needed a charge. Started from 100% again, reached 40% near Birmingham and thought we'd pop of to the next services but missed them due to a signpost covered by a tree. The next were ages later, getting a bit worried now, eventually found the next at 24%. Charged up there to about 70%, on a 50kw charger, the first I've used since getting the car in March. Although there are faster ones, it actually seemed really quick, we took our cups of tea to the car to finish on the journey. Was parked next to another MG4. In fact the 50kw charger was the only one there so quite lucky, the other MG was on an AC charger, I hope they hadn't been there too long.

The one thing I would do differently next time is get a bluetooth dongle and pay for premium ABRP so you can use it connected to the car. When getting to around 20% I really wanted to know how far the next services / charger would be and had no idea, so just for peace of mind.