Footy trip From Southampton to Newcastle

[Stuwit46]

So far started with 100% 330 mile journey
100 miles in, stopped at Cherwell Valley, Electric Highway, had breakfast and charged to 97% upon return, Leaf driver was waiting to charge so promptly left. The charge cost £10.50

Next scheduled charge was Trowell services, 2 x Ecotricity chargers, one busy one broken so dr

Now at North of Chesterfield off M1 at local services, 2 x Instavolts in use but 2 x Osprey chargers available so currently on that @ 40pp kw/h

142 miles to go, 155 on the GOM

Going to stop and do one more charge nearer Newcastle.

 

[ALANB]

So far started with 100% 330 mile journey
100 miles in, stopped at Cherwell Valley, Electric Highway, had breakfast and charged to 97% upon return, Leaf driver was waiting to charge so promptly left. The charge cost £10.50

Next scheduled charge was Trowell services, 2 x Ecotricity chargers, one busy one broken so dr

Now at North of Chesterfield off M1 at local services, 2 x Instavolts in use but 2 x Osprey chargers available so currently on that @ 40pp kw/h

142 miles to go, 155 on the GOM

Going to stop and do one more charge nearer Newcastle.

1 point better than none, how's the trip going?

 

[Lovemyev]

How did the trip go ?.
A long way for a draw .
Hope you enjoyed the game !.

 

[Stuwit46]

Continuing the journey north drove to Durham services, an old Ecotricity charger only managed 1.8kw on a CCS plug that only supplied ac costing 57p.



Time was getting tight, so managed to get to Newcastle city centre with 12% left.



After long delays, bank holiday traffic, Moto GP traffic at Silverstone and Leeds Festival traffic etc we climbed the 140 steps to just about make kick off. Good game a good away point and a return journey to Southampton to be had.



I found a city centre charging station (Fastned) had to download the app as it wouldn’t accept contactless payment. Bit of a faff to download, plugged in and went for food before leaving Newcastle on 85% costing £17.



The first scheduled charge 80 miles away at Wetherby was completed at an Ecotricity charger for 20 mins £10



Continued to Leicester Forest services getting there on 20%. The old Ecotricity charger was a slow but free of cost charge up Charged enough to get to Cherwell Valley services for final charge to get home on the same Gridserve charger as the morning charge 85 miles from home. Charged with a 25 mile buffer on the GOM.



Whilst driving the final leg the temperature dropped to 8° and the buffer moved to under 20, so slowed to 65 mph. By the time we got to Sutton Scotney services 25 miles from home the GOM showed 35, so, a tactical charge on a new Gridserve charger for appx 10 mins gave us plenty to get home costing £2.00



Finally home at 0200.



To summarise my first big journey away from home was a mix of easy to frustrating. I used ABRP app for most of the journey there but the 2 services in a row when I couldn’t charge messed that up, but it’s a good guide.

One thing for sure, I wouldn’t drive to low SOC before charging as I may need 2 back ups!

I drove most of the 700 mile trip on Economy mode with A/C on. I stuck to 70mph as and when I could. I reckon the charging cost was around £60-£65 if I was driving my last car it would probably have cost around £130 so a significant saving & a comfortable 700 miles driven. I think it was an hour each way longer than if I had driven an ICE car. My friend who travelled with me said he wouldn’t consider getting into an EV yet as he could see the charging away issues, he cites too much planning and too few chargers for the amount of EV’s on the road.

 

[Stuwit46]

1 point better than none, how's the trip going?

A very good point I’ve updated the trip

 

[Stuwit46]

How did the trip go ?.
A long way for a draw .
Hope you enjoyed the game !.

I’ve updated the trip, a long way for a draw but a great point. I did enjoy the game and the day

 

[RichardC]

How did the trip go ?.
A long way for a draw .
Hope you enjoyed the game !.

A very good point I’ve updated the trip

We was robbed. Glad you enjoyed the game and your trip to Newcastle.

 

[GavinJ]

Continuing the journey north drove to Durham services, an old Ecotricity charger only managed 1.8kw on a CCS plug that only supplied ac costing 57p.



Time was getting tight, so managed to get to Newcastle city centre with 12% left.



After long delays, bank holiday traffic, Moto GP traffic at Silverstone and Leeds Festival traffic etc we climbed the 140 steps to just about make kick off. Good game a good away point and a return journey to Southampton to be had.



I found a city centre charging station (Fastned) had to download the app as it wouldn’t accept contactless payment. Bit of a faff to download, plugged in and went for food before leaving Newcastle on 85% costing £17.



The first scheduled charge 80 miles away at Wetherby was completed at an Ecotricity charger for 20 mins £10



Continued to Leicester Forest services getting there on 20%. The old Ecotricity charger was a slow but free of cost charge up Charged enough to get to Cherwell Valley services for final charge to get home on the same Gridserve charger as the morning charge 85 miles from home. Charged with a 25 mile buffer on the GOM.



Whilst driving the final leg the temperature dropped to 8° and the buffer moved to under 20, so slowed to 65 mph. By the time we got to Sutton Scotney services 25 miles from home the GOM showed 35, so, a tactical charge on a new Gridserve charger for appx 10 mins gave us plenty to get home costing £2.00



Finally home at 0200.



To summarise my first big journey away from home was a mix of easy to frustrating. I used ABRP app for most of the journey there but the 2 services in a row when I couldn’t charge messed that up, but it’s a good guide.

One thing for sure, I wouldn’t drive to low SOC before charging as I may need 2 back ups!

I drove most of the 700 mile trip on Economy mode with A/C on. I stuck to 70mph as and when I could. I reckon the charging cost was around £60-£65 if I was driving my last car it would probably have cost around £130 so a significant saving & a comfortable 700 miles driven. I think it was an hour each way longer than if I had driven an ICE car. My friend who travelled with me said he wouldn’t consider getting into an EV yet as he could see the charging away issues, he cites too much planning and too few chargers for the amount of EV’s on the road.

Glad you had a good trip. I have just completed another road trip which I will write up, but as usual, issues we encountered were around charging infrastructure. I came across a few dud ones on my recent trip. However, I also came across inconsiderate users. ICE driver using CCS parking spot to change a nappy and stock up on McD; Phev blocking spaces to slow charge (why??) and Leaf drivers using joint CCS ChaDeMo chargers instead of dedicated Nissan chargers (operative btw) leaving CCS users with nothing. Maybe a revision to the highway code is needed...

 

[Stuwit46]

Glad you had a good trip. I have just completed another road trip which I will write up, but as usual, issues we encountered were around charging infrastructure. I came across a few dud ones on my recent trip. However, I also came across inconsiderate users. ICE driver using CCS parking spot to change a nappy and stock up on McD; Phev blocking spaces to slow charge (why??) and Leaf drivers using joint CCS ChaDeMo chargers instead of dedicated Nissan chargers (operative btw) leaving CCS users with nothing. Maybe a revision to the highway code is needed...

Seems to be the norm when doing road trips. I must admit at one charging station at Cherwell Valley on the M40 I didn’t realise that the 2 chargers consisted of one with 2 x CCS and one with 1 x CCS and 1 x ChaDeMo. I would have felt bad if I had denied the Leaf driver a charge.

 

[Brivel]

MG5 EV. Recent trip from Romford to location near Basingstoke. On the return trip charge down to 30% popped into MOTO services at Newbury near M4. Very surprised to see just 2 charging points each with 2 cables in a massive car parking area.
Theoretically you should be able to charge 4 vehicles at once. BUT astoundingly there were just 2 parking spaces !
It was not possible to park on the opposite side behind the charging units to charge up because that was the road Exit from the Services.
So only TWO vehicles could be charged at the same time !!?
If this is just one example of electric car charging infrastructure in Great Britain, God Help the Electric car industry and the car owners. Wrote to MOT as they had the franchise at this Motorway Services. Never got a sensible response.
.

 

[mj224]

Yes I have used the Newbury M4 services, only one CCS charger, worked well when I got my turn. To be fair to Ecotricity/Gridserv, they are in the process of upgrading their chargers at motorways. They SHOULD be installing at least 6 chargers at each location IMHO.

I have said before, the petrol stations should be installing chargers if they don't want to out of business (eventually!)

 

[DoIKnowYou]

Hi, thanks for your write up, really informative and just what I'm looking for with regards to charging costs.

I'm currently researching our next car, and am seriously considering an EV, which will either be an MG ZS Ev/ID3/Corsa, my budget is around £25/28k.
But other than the cheap home charging, & currently free VED, the charging costs at electric service stations seems rather expensive, I've seen 30p/35p/40p per KW not sure if there are additional connection fees or other hidden costs, like subscription fees etc.

I must say I'm getting a bit sceptical of fuel savings with EVs, with regards the costs involved to charge on route. Obviously, I can see the benefits if your at home on Octopus go or similar 5p per KW costs.

We've just done a similar journey from Croydon, to Sunderland, plus driving around Newcastle and Sunderland for a wedding last weekend.

We covered 702 miles in total, left with a full tank at 5pm Friday, and filled tank back up at my local Tesco in Purley Sunday 10pm, one toilet/food break en route, in both directions.
Climate control on whole journey, and as we're southerners, heated seats were on front & back as soon as the sun disappeared...

Car is a Skoda Superb Estate, 2l diesel.

Total fuel cost for the 702 miles came at £71.11

So comparing to your on the road EV charging costs of £60/65 for a similar journey, the savings don't really stack up for me, and that's not to mention all the extra stops that were required to top up the battery charge.

Everyone just seems to bang on about the cost savings with EVs, but as I've said, other than the cheap home charging, the real time on the road charges are expensive. Also need to factor in the higher purchase costs of an EV compared to an equivalent ICE car.

Going forward, and with the newer faster charging infrastructure rolling out, I can only presume the on road charging costs will only be going one way, and that's up. Also not sure how long the current free VED will last, but I'm pretty sure it won't be around for too long.

 

[Rob Smart]

The main savings for me with an MG5 are for the 85% of the driving I do where I can charge at home for the equivalent of 4p/mile if I use daytime electricity, or 1.5p per mile if I use Octopus Go night time electricity., or free if I can charge with solar PV when the sun comes out.

Rapid charging at public chargers on a long journey/holiday brings the cost up to 9-10p/mile, which is aproaching the cost of running an efficient 60mpg diesel car, or 2/3 the cost of running a less effiecient 35mpg petrol car. With my annual mileage I probably only save £5-600 per year on fuel costs.

The servicing plan I have with the MG dealers is costing me 2/3 the cost of the equivalent service plan I had with the Ford dealers for my Ford Escort estate. The insurance cost is slightly less as well. Tyre wear will probably be a bit more expensive, but not for a year or two yet.

Overall for me the savings on running costs alone won't pay for the extra cost of buying a new electric car (even a relatively inexpensive MG5) for a very long time , but for me there are the additional factors of a much quieter drive, better accelleration when needed, not polluting the air wherever I drive, and not directly burning fossil fuel. Charging at night uses "greener" electricity.

The more miles you drive per year, the better the costings work out in favour of BEVs if you can charge at home.

 

[MickH]

I have to say I’ve never really tried to make any so-called savings stack up because I changed to an EV for environmental reasons rather than any short term monetary gains. However, that being said I agree that free VED will definitely be short lived as the government can’t afford to loose the income and I also suspect that as fossil fuels are gradually faded out they will start to charge some kind of levy each time you visit a charger to try and compensate for the loss of duty payments. Lets be honest, the motorist has always been an easy target for governments regardless of your politics!

I share everyone’s frustrations with the charging infrastructure, but these things can’t happen overnight so I’m afraid we’ll have to be patient. I found a change of mindset was needed in that I now plan my routes and always factor in extra stopping time and chargers so that I have a plan B & C just in case. It definitely helps to cut down on the stress and range anxiety.

 

[greentangerine]

MG5 EV. Recent trip from Romford to location near Basingstoke. On the return trip charge down to 30% popped into MOTO services at Newbury near M4. Very surprised to see just 2 charging points each with 2 cables in a massive car parking area.
Theoretically you should be able to charge 4 vehicles at once. BUT astoundingly there were just 2 parking spaces !
It was not possible to park on the opposite side behind the charging units to charge up because that was the road Exit from the Services.
So only TWO vehicles could be charged at the same time !!?
If this is just one example of electric car charging infrastructure in Great Britain, God Help the Electric car industry and the car owners. Wrote to MOT as they had the franchise at this Motorway Services. Never got a sensible response.
.

They've replaced the old Ecotricty units with the new Gridserve ones at Chievely but kept the same number of parking spaces - the units are too close together from recollection.

I'm also not sure the new Gridserve units can charge on both cables at the same time. Never seen that working yet; the other car just sits there and the unit says something about 'waiting for power' or in the case of the one I used at Cobham on Sunday when the 150kW charger was giving me 22kW (with 40% battery) the charging stopped when a Leaf pulled in next to me and plugged the Chademo cable into their car. Neither car would then charge.

It may well be they can but the power supply to the units is limited/restricted somehow and the unit knows how much it can draw.

 

[Jake]

It does seem crazy to be installing double head chargers that can only charge 1 car at time but I do believe Gridserve are planning to improve this in the near future. They seem to be concentrating on upgrading the old ecotricity units first and then looking at parking bays to suit the double head units as a second stage ready for when the capability of 2 cars charging comes on stream.

It's the same old problem of being restricted by old infrastructure constraints but trying to future proof the replacements. You only have to look at what Gridserve have done at Braintree and Rugby Moto to see what the future will be when dedicated virgin sites are designed and developed specifically for EVs.

 

[mj224]

I must say I'm getting a bit sceptical of fuel savings with EVs, with regards the costs involved to charge on route. Obviously, I can see the benefits if your at home on Octopus go or similar 5p per KW costs.

The main aim of EV's is to reduce pollution! Assuming you buy your power from a "Green" supplier then you are achieving this. If not, you are making the general road scene cleaner.

Initially, charging an EV at service stations was free. I believe this was to encourage us to take up the EV style motoring.

But, in the long run, I see no good reason why WE should expect cheap motoring. Personal transport is a luxury, and its genie won't go back in the bottle. Someone has to pay for road building and upkeep etc.

What is a fair rate per Kw? The market will sort that when it is a major source of fuel...just like fossil fuels...

 

[Petriix]

Hi, thanks for your write up, really informative and just what I'm looking for with regards to charging costs.

I'm currently researching our next car, and am seriously considering an EV, which will either be an MG ZS Ev/ID3/Corsa, my budget is around £25/28k.
But other than the cheap home charging, & currently free VED, the charging costs at electric service stations seems rather expensive, I've seen 30p/35p/40p per KW not sure if there are additional connection fees or other hidden costs, like subscription fees etc.

I must say I'm getting a bit sceptical of fuel savings with EVs, with regards the costs involved to charge on route. Obviously, I can see the benefits if your at home on Octopus go or similar 5p per KW costs.

We've just done a similar journey from Croydon, to Sunderland, plus driving around Newcastle and Sunderland for a wedding last weekend.

We covered 702 miles in total, left with a full tank at 5pm Friday, and filled tank back up at my local Tesco in Purley Sunday 10pm, one toilet/food break en route, in both directions.
Climate control on whole journey, and as we're southerners, heated seats were on front & back as soon as the sun disappeared...

Car is a Skoda Superb Estate, 2l diesel.

Total fuel cost for the 702 miles came at £71.11

So comparing to your on the road EV charging costs of £60/65 for a similar journey, the savings don't really stack up for me, and that's not to mention all the extra stops that were required to top up the battery charge.

Everyone just seems to bang on about the cost savings with EVs, but as I've said, other than the cheap home charging, the real time on the road charges are expensive. Also need to factor in the higher purchase costs of an EV compared to an equivalent ICE car.

Going forward, and with the newer faster charging infrastructure rolling out, I can only presume the on road charging costs will only be going one way, and that's up. Also not sure how long the current free VED will last, but I'm pretty sure it won't be around for too long.

Firstly this is the MG5 forum. I wouldn't personally recommend the ZS, especially not for long distance travel.

Secondly there are much cheaper ways to travel than using the expensive rapid chargers. My most expensive journey was a 420 mile round trip from Norwich to Chippenham. It cost £18 using Podpoint rapid chargers at Lidl stores - that also meant cheap lunch too.

Our 250 mile trip from Norwich to London and back on Saturday was completely free. It used 117% of the battery which was topped up for free while we visited the Science Museum. Ok, we paid £16 to park so that we could use the free chargers and we paid £10 for the annual exemption from the congestion charge.

My MG5 is averaging about 1.4p per mile after 7,250 miles.

 

[lebelinconnu]

I think it depends on how you drive. I was spending £150 per month on diesel, and after switching to an EV (currently a Nissan Leaf but I'm seriously considering the MG 5) not only did I wipe out that cost, but also by switching to Octopus Go my fuel bill went down by £20 per month compared with the cost before I even owned the Leaf!! However I only ever charge at home or very occasionally do journeys where I might do one rapid charge