Hi Brian, have you had any issues with chargeplace Scotland fast chargers? Only the 7kw or less work for mine. I've used faster chargers with Genie and Evolt.
I've got a ChargePlace Scotland fast charger only five minutes walk from my house and I've never had an issue with it. This evening I got home with only 19% charge, dropped the car off at the charger on my way, walked the last 400 yards, got the kettle on and the central heating going, then walked back to stop the charge just before the overstay fine would start to kick in.
The car was by then (54 minutes and 30 seconds later) at 85% charge. Now I only have to top it off on the granny charger and it will be ready for anything tomorrow brings.
I should say that the trip I just returned from was my own maiden voyage, having had the car for less than a month.
I arranged to stay with friends in Yorkshire for a couple of days. I drove A701-M74-M6-A65 to Halifax. I looked up all the relevant chargers on the way, and made a list of the distances involved. Because the journey was a
lot less than twice the practical range of the car, I had multiple options. I charged at Southwaite services, successfully, getting enough to take me to my destination. After charging I thought the charger was refusing to release my car, but realised that I had been so slow it thought it had a new customer! I re-presented my card then aborted the charge, and the car was released. I checked the chargers at Killington Lake and they were working, but didn't stop. I have that pegged as a good stop in future though - decent restaurant!
I also checked Kirkby Lonsdale and decided to charge again there so that I would arrive with decent range remaining in case I had problems with the public type 2 chargers outside my friend's house. However these chargers proved to be OK, because I had taken the precaution of downloading the app they needed on to my phone a few days before setting off (the motorway and Kirkby Londsdale ones all took my debit card).
On the way back I was getting more confident and decided to go as far as Gretna before stopping. Pro tip. Do
not leave the motorway at the Gretna exit and drive through the town, the service station is north of the town and the exit for it was
after I ended up back on the M74, slightly confused. It has four Gridserve connectors and 12 AppleGreen connectors (plus some Tesla-only).
I had a lot of trouble with the AppleGreen charger I parked at, although other people were charging happily at them. Twice or three times I got "the car did something unexpected" and charging didn't start. This charger took a £30 pre-authorisation fee from me each time, so I'm going to have to see how I get that back, as I didn't get a single electron from them.
I moved the car to a Gridserve charger and all seemed to go swimmingly. Gridserve did not require a pre-authorisation fee either. However, once the car was up to 67% charging stopped, and the charger had acquired a big "out of order" sign on its screen. I had to use the app to get the car to let go of the charging cable, but that was OK. I had enough charge to get home after that, so it was no problem. (I began to wonder if my car was jinxing the things, but it has just worked perfectly on the ChargePlace Scotland charger at the end of my own road, so I think not.)
In the interests of research I drove into Annandale Water and Abington as well (going home via the A702). Annandale Water has only two Gridserve connectors as far as I could see, but one was in use and the other was free. It's a nicer stop than Gretna. There was a lot of digging and activity going on next to the chargers and I wonder if the dreaded AppleGreen is installing a bank of the things there too. Abington had no less than 16 of these AppleGreen connectors, plus some Gridserve ones as well - four I think.
A few observations.
All of these charge points were situated handily close to the service station food courts. However none had any shelter from the elements or, as far as I could see, lighting. Fine on a sunny day in May, not so much fun at night or in the rain I don't imagine. A roof with lighting (like a petrol forecourt) would make one hell of a lot of difference and would make lone female EV drivers feel safer. (Actually the sun was sometimes a problem as regards seeing charger or phone screens.)
On the southbound leg I didn't see a single sign pointing drivers to the EV charging area. Take a good guess, really. On the northbound leg there were signs, best at Gretna, although they weren't very large. Half the reason for all this was to find out where the chargers were at these service stations so that come Christmas I would be able to find them in the dark. The answer seems to be, they're usually at the end of the car park nearest the food court entrance.
I'm realising that EV charging is likely to be pretty unpleasant in the rain. I'm used to driving in ordinary clothes, knowing that petrol forecourts will have roofs, and even if there is a gap between the roof and the shop area, it's only a quick sprint. With an EV one is going to have to be prepared to get out of the car and do everything necessary to get it connected to the charger and charging underway in the pouring rain with no shelter, then walk maybe 50 yards to the shelter of the food court. I'm going to look at some sort of waterproof coat and think about what shoes I should be wearing if the weather isn't fine.
We drove all round the Isle of Mull ( large island, tiny fabulous single track roads and VERY few chargers. Then headed for the last ferry of the day. With an hour or so to spare and running thin on electrons, we found it impossible to connect to the single charger. 
Panic
