First long road trip

[securespark]

We are planning our first long trip down South to various locations in Surrey, the South coast, South London and Hants. We will be away 6 days and will cover in excess of 750 miles.

Mrs S is well miffed today. We are on day one of a 700 mile multi-family visit trip. Went to Warwick services South. Never seen Applegreen chargers before. Applegreen offers a discount (if you download the app). So she downloads it. Then after installing it and entering all her details, the app tells her the nearest charger is Warwick services South.

Yes, I know, she grumbles, but how do I start charging?

Took ages and meanwhile, there was a sign that said if you are here not charging for longer than 10 minutes, you will be fined 100 nicker....

She moaned that petrol stations have the prices displayed so you know what you're paying before you dispense and they have a roof over your head.

(She) Hated that it took ages to charge. We have charged away from home before, I'm not sure why she was so cross this time, but she swears she's never buying another EV again.



Edited for clarity.

 

[securespark]

I'll let you know if we get an invoice for £100.00....

It took ages because, once the app was downloaded, it then showed a screen which displayed that the nearest charger was where we were.

But there was no obvious button saying "Tap here to charge" or whatever, so we asked a couple of other people if they knew how to do it. Luckily, one bloke had worked it out.

Where it said Warwick Services South was our nearest charger, we needed to tap on that and then we were able to start the charging process.

But it was absolutely not intuitive at all. Quite the opposite.
It would have been better if we had just ignored the 5p discount and tapped the debit card on the reader...

There's no point signing up for a 5p discount if it's going to cost us £100 more....

 

[Anon70]

she's never buying another EV again.

This really has nothing to do with the car and everything to do with the infrastructure. At the moment it makes sense to pre plan all charging stops with contingencies for any long trip. We are still not at the point where you can randomly choose any fuel stop as you can with ICE cars and expect them to work in a similar or the same way.

This is where and why Tesla owners have a much smoother charging experience, with everything being just plug and go at EVERY Tesla charging point (of which there are enough to cover a majority of trips)

 

[securespark]

No, I agree. It's everything to do with the infrastructure and in particular, this motorway service station setup where you have a camera watching your every move under the threat of a massive fine.

But, I have to admit, Mrs S is a bit impatient, and that doesn't help.

 

[securespark]

Left Woking for Southampton today. Searched for "high speed EV charger" online.

Found rapid charger at Lidl in S.hampton. Only one proper rapid one there and it's in use. Wait till it's free. Charge to 50 pc, then set off for Beaulieu.

Some nice motors there, but my OCD twitches at an Allegro which, while it strictly has a correct "1970s" label, as it is the Allegro 3, it squeaked in right at the end of 1979.

Disappointed there were no EV chargers at Beaulieu.
Also disappointed there was no separate display of electric vehicles, from the early ones 1899 onwards to the milk floats, Enfield's etc to the current day.

Edit: there was a hacked open Tesla, showing all the HV stuff, but it was kind of on its own, with no context.

Mrs S took some pics of some MGs. I shall post them soon. Spent some time in the New Forest (always a thrill with the wildlife) and tomorrow we are off to see a relative of Mrs S in Worthing.

 

[securespark]

Bit of catch-up to do.

In the New Forest, we found an Instavolt charger in the grounds of a hotel.

Bit more expensive than the usual 79p, but - tadah - it worked!

Spent a bit of time the next morning at Furzey Gardens. Very pretty. Unfortunately, my phone is very temperamental and the battery dies randomly, even with a goodly percentage, so I didn't get pics. Saw some BoPs flying overhead. Very majestic looking with a lovely feather pattern underneath the wing.

After visiting Worthing and Lancing we went to a Shell nearby which had lots of unoccupied rapid chargers, but we couldn't get any of them to actually start charging.

I'd follow all the instructions and it would then say "Finished. Unplug vehicle." Just after plugging in.

Mrs S tried charging via QR code, but that was unavailable.

So we went to Brighton for food and then on to Crawley, where Mrs S had looked up a newly installed bank of Instavolt chargers. Which worked. Without apps or mucking about, just a tap of the debit card.
But funnily enough, both Instavolt chargers only charged to 97 pc.

Today we went to Worth Park in Crawley then on to Croydon for a birthday party tonight.

 

[securespark]

MGs at Beaulieu:

 

[salty]

Nice pics.

 

[Ian Key]

After visiting Worthing and Lancing we went to a Shell nearby which had lots of unoccupied rapid chargers, but we couldn't get any of them to actually start charging.

I'd follow all the instructions and it would then say "Finished. Unplug vehicle." Just after plugging in.

Mrs S tried charging via QR code, but that was unavailable.

I'm having to use my local Shell garage for charging at the moment due to the CCU fault. I had the same problem with the "Finished. Unplug vehicle" message and I think it's because when you swipe your payment card for some reason it thinks you've swiped it twice. Once to start and the second to stop charging.

I've found using my Electroverse card to start and stop charging works every time.

 

[JonnyG]

Hope you get the CCU fixed soon, sounds like a typical MG drawn out procedure from your other posts !!

I usually do public charger start / stops from the app itself now, as long as I have phone signal. Sometimes the chargers card readers are faulty but will start with app.

 

[securespark]

Thanks, Ian. That's really helpful.

 

[securespark]

Back down to the Hants coast to see a family friend we have not seen for yonks today in Stubbington. Hopefully, we will be taking her to lunch at Hinton Ampner, then back to Stubbington, then back up past Hinton Ampner to see my sister for a meal, then a rest stop on the A31 at Four Marks.

I know, we are all over the place!
Anyone else would plan to visit places in a logical fashion, but that wasn't possible for a few reasons.

If someone drew a red line on a map charting our route, it would look very silly!

We have 86%, which I calculate will not be enough to get us back to Four Marks, then from there to the brand new Instavolt charging hub near the junction of the A272 and the A34.

 

[securespark]

I really hope to be able to hang on to the dream of BEV ownership.

But at this rate, it's looking increasingly like, at best, a hybrid next time, or, at worst, a fossil car....


That potential £100 invoice will be the straw that breaks the camel's back though. Let's see.

Me, I'm still trying to keep chillin'...sure, there are frustrating moments with the network, but we shall overcome.......

 

[Brettus]

Ouch, sounds a bit of a rough ride.

I over-plan most things so I don't have an issue figuring out where I'm likely going to need a charge for a bigger day out. I'm also a skinflint so I mainly plan ahead so I can pick the better value chargers in the area I need.

If you haven't already you might want to have a look at abetterrouteplanner.com (ideally the app) on a phone. You can prefer certain chargers/networks (and opt to avoid certain unreliable/overpriced ones) and it'll take a lot of the effort out of it.

It's different to fossil fuel driving but only if you never cared for the price of fuel, if you didn't want to pay motorway prices for petrol then you'd generally find some off the beaten path one much cheaper so you'd sort of plan similarly (only it was never called range anxiety).

Sorry if this comes off as teaching anyone to suck eggs, I'm just reading this as a sub optimal experience that a lot of it could boil down to learning curve, I think it gets better, much better

 

[securespark]

The Instavolt charging hub was a beast!

44 charging stations, a Starbucks (not open when we rocked up at well gone 11) and a block of loos (which was).

Decided, much to Mrs S's annoyance, to put the IV app on my phone and got the charge for 50p instead of 89 per kWh.

Weird stuff happened again, though. As well as the usual screen full of warning lights after charging, towards the end of charging, the infotainment screen kept flickering then going blank, only to return, then flicker and go blank again. This continued several times until finally, it remained blank altogether and not return.

We did our usual routine of, bum off seat, lock car, unlock car, bum on seat, which reset the warning lights issue, but the infotainment screen was still blank.

So I long-pressed the home button and thankfully, everything was good.

If you're interested to know more about the site:

Electric Vehicle (EV) Charging Station – Winchester

DC Electric vehicle (EV) Rapid charging station in Winchester. Delivering a quick charge to get you back on the road.

instavolt.co.uk

 

[securespark]

Today we are heading to a village near Evesham to see a relative of Mrs S.

Reminds me of the time a rental car full of US tourists stopped me when I was working in Fallowfield in Manchester and asked, "Can you direct me to Everssssss Hayam?" The first part of the word sounded like "Evers", but had a long, drawn out "S" sound at the end.

It took me a while to realise they meant Evesham!

They had got off the plane at Heathrow and not bothered to buy a map (probably because England is tiny) and someone had told them to drive to Oxford and keep going and they would see a sign for it. Well, they must've missed it and ended up.in Manchester!

 

[Ian Key]

The Instavolt charging hub was a beast!

44 charging stations, a Starbucks (not open when we rocked up at well gone 11) and a block of loos (which was).

Decided, much to Mrs S's annoyance, to put the IV app on my phone and got the charge for 50p instead of 89 per kWh.

View attachment 36496

Weird stuff happened again, though. As well as the usual screen full of warning lights after charging, towards the end of charging, the infotainment screen kept flickering then going blank, only to return, then flicker and go blank again. This continued several times until finally, it remained blank altogether and not return.

We did our usual routine of, bum off seat, lock car, unlock car, bum on seat, which reset the warning lights issue, but the infotainment screen was still blank.

So I long-pressed the home button and thankfully, everything was good.

If you're interested to know more about the site:

Electric Vehicle (EV) Charging Station – Winchester

DC Electric vehicle (EV) Rapid charging station in Winchester. Delivering a quick charge to get you back on the road.

instavolt.co.uk

How do you stop the charging? I found when I stopped the charge using the button on the infotainment screen "funny things happened" as you put it, but if i swiped the card again or used the app to stop charging there were no problems.

 

[securespark]

Tapped the "STOP CHARGING" button on the app!

Then it said there was an issue and we had to use the screen on the charging station to stop the charge, but when I got back there, it was clear, as if I had already finished and the light above the unit was green. Also, the plug was able to be removed.

Once I installed the app, I didn't use the card to pay as I had put my card details into the app, and did not swipe or tap the card.

But previously, when we charged using Instavolt just by using our debit card, we still had warning light issues but no infotainment screen shenanigans and we just started and stopped by either using the debit card on the charging station or the button on the infotainment screen. The warning lights were given the heave-ho using the afore-mentioned bum shuffle method.

 

[Anon70]

Just back from another Edinburgh to Leicester round trip no issues with the Tesla chargers at Adderstone (Purdy Lodge) and Harrogate (Weetons Garden Centre). Turn up, plug in and start charge on the Tesla app, high 130kW/h under 50% state of charge and 70-50 kW/h when over 50%

The car has taken up a new hobby though, entomology

 

[salty]

Holy Splatter!