Fragile infrastructure

[Sparci]

I have just completed a return journey from Bristol to the west coast of Scotland, roughly 400 miles each way in my MG ZS EV. The trip up was fairly straight forward and I was fortunate enough to access the CCS units at the various service stations that I stopped at.

However. The return journey was not straight forward and involved a rather stressful final leg just north of Birmingham last night as all the Ecotricity charging units were 'offline', meaning only a trickle charge of roughly 0.1 kWH every 2 mins was able to charge my vehicle via the AC port.

Not an ideal situation at 11:00 pm at night and thankfully the family had gone ahead of me in a ICE vehicle. The final leg involved crawling along the A38 at 35 miles per hour last night, with the GOM flashing the dashes and the battery in very low state of charge.

Okay, so it would be fair to say that the MG ZS EV is not designed for long journeys and that's a fair point, but I had done my home work and planned out my routes via ZapMap and built in a range buffer into my journey etc. This experience demonstrates how fragile the EV charging infrastructure is on our motorways and the government needs to seriously invest if more EVs are going to be on the roads.

The Ecotricity charging network was partly funded by EU money and whilst I don't want this post to be about Breast etc, where is the Government's Road map for the future EV charging infrastructure for the masses who don't have Tesla EVs and access to their banks of chargers?

I made it home with 2% left on my battery, I saw this value when I plugged the car in at home.

Hope sharing this experience on the forum is helpful and thanks for all the posts, it's a great forum.

Marc

 

[shikoku14]

Hi Marc, since I switched away from CHAdeMO (my Leaf and Soul both had it) to CCS I have exclusively avoided Ecotricity as their CCS implementation is poor and has a terrible track record (have a look over on speakev.com for a lot of chat on this).

If I have to do multiple rapids on a long trip I’ll pick (in order of preference)

• instavolt (yes expensive at 35p per kWh but reliable as we have outside of owning a Tesla)
• Polar (when I had a Polar plus subscription)
• Lidl PodPoint rapids
• Engenie
• Shell
• Engie / GeniePoint
• At a pinch I’d also pay through the nose and use an IONITY charger over risking Ecotricity.

They seem to have rested on their initial investment from the EU/Nissan and it’s almost like they are letting the network die, while hogging the rights to prime locations on Motorway Service Stations, some MSAs are getting around this but not all seem to be willing to go with a second vendor, as the DSo installation issues to get power to new units can be fraught. My local MSA in Brighouse has had a Tesla Supercharger that has been waiting to be commissioned for nearly two years, but a right of way issue to connect up across a local field has mothballed the project.

 

[Kpa]

Going for my first drive to Scarborough.Please does anybody know of chargers in that area?..Or how to plan the journey so I don’t run out!,,

 

[shikoku14]

There’s a rapid at the Lidl on your way into Scarborough that would be your best bet, thats what I did last year when I drove up from Leeds. That part of North Yorkshire is a bit of a rapid charge desert, so its wise to plan A, B and C options (and those B and C options maybe a 7kWh fast charger, so it needs to be factored into your trip timing).

 

[Kpa]

There’s a rapid at the Lidl on your way into Scarborough that would be your best bet, thats what I did last year when I drove up from Leeds. That part of North Yorkshire is a bit of a rapid charge desert, so its wise to plan A, B and C options (and those B and C options maybe a 7kWh fast charger, so it needs to be factored into your trip timing).

Is the charger at Lidl free to use and do Lidl charge for parking?Thanks

 

[Mgkev]

It looks like you pay for parking and need an app to access the pod Point charger.
If you’re going to travel any distance you really need to check the Zap-Map or similar Apps.

 

[shikoku14]

Is the charger at Lidl free to use and do Lidl charge for parking?Thanks

It technically free to park (although you should buy something in Lidl) 23p per kWh on the PodPoint app, one of those annoying ones where you need to load money in £5 increments onto the account when you are at one of their chargable posts (when I charged last year it was when they all used to be free, good news is its less likely to be being abused by a local getting free charge when their battery is at 90%).

 

[KasEV]

Hi Folks,
My wife recently completed a 700 mile round trip to Cornwall. Charging was such an issue that since her return she has dumped our ZS EV and gone back to ICE.
Her experience with charging was so frustrating she really doesn't feel it worth bothering with EV now until a range of 500miles is the standard range available.
Clearly there are more charging stations than out there but most are not reliable and each one seems to have a different way it operates.

 

[Frank]

Hi Everyone,

I love driving my MG ZS EV and I am sure that I would love driving other EVs as well but it has become increasingly obvious that the charging infrastructure is, to put it bluntly "shit". Its not that there is not enough chargers but they are in the wrong places. If you want to make EVs acceptable you will have to make sure that ALL service stations on Motorways/Dual Carriageway's (as that is where most longer journeys take place) have banks of Rapid Chargers (same a Tesla) available to EVs and also more importantly have resources in place to ensure that in most cases they are always available (i.e. working).

All my journeys outside of the MG ZS range is fraught with concerns that the chargers I have planned for are actually working, (I can accept them being used but NOT not working) and this makes it stressful for the occupant's of the car, even if the apps you are using state it is working it is still a worry.

Falkirk Stadium has just recently opened a bank of chargers which are ALL under cover (not a multi story carpark but shelters with solar panels providing the power (along with a national grid back up I suppose)) so why can't this be adopted up and down the arterial networks. It will HAVE to be done if the Government wants to go fully electric by 2035. I am even prepared to pay a little bit over the odds for this to enable stress free longer journeys even if it makes it comparable or even a little bit more expensive than ICE cars as my long journeys are few and far between anyway. I would argue with anyone who has bought an EV (even those with ranges up to 250 miles) where they are completing regular long trips required multiple charging on a regular basis will be better off with an modern ICE car until the infrastructure is more reliable. Even Tesla owners are complaining now that more people are able to afford their cars.

I am really thankful that almost 99% of my journeys is local and that I have a home charger, but the situation with the public chargers is pretty bleak and although I would be happy to accept the risks of running out of juice when travelling alone I do NOT want to subject my Wife to this, travelling is stressful enough nowadays anyway.

I am even thinking of buying the HS hybrid when it comes out as most of my journeys are as stated local and if the electric range is about 20 real miles then that would be ideal for me with the ICE bit for the longer journeys. We shall see.

Regards

Frank

PS Your Wife (Kasev) was really brave to attempt the 700 mile round trip on the MG, I take my hat off to her.

 

[shikoku14]

Well I'm going for a bit of a baptism by fire approach (not as much as @KasEV 's missus) by picking up my new MG in Burnely and driving to the Scottish Borders for a long weekend (at least north of the border its mainly one charge provider, and i'll have my CYC card with me that works on Chargeplace Scotland, I wish we had a nationalised system) at the start of September (although only neededing one stop each way where all my previous EVs would have needed two each way). But from past experience I'm planning a half hour rapid on an Instavolt around Durham/Newcastle, with a backup of the excellent Fastned multi head station in Sunderland and then probably one around York on the way back down. This will be only the fourth time in 2 years I've needed to do a trip that requires a rapid charge to complete the journey, which speaks a lot about how far we usually travel in the car. I did Brighouse > Reading last winter which was two rapids on the way down and three on the way back in my 30kWh Soul, but I was lucky as that had CHAdeMO so using Ecotricity wasn't the crapshoot it is in a CCS car.

I agree it can baffling and frustrating, but if you filter out the known rubbish networks, and as @Frank says it's not a regular thing. It is dooable, you just wouldn't want to be doing it every day/week.

 

[Stuart Wright]

If you do regular journeys where you need 250+ miles of range then you're into £35k for a Hyundai Kona or a Kia e-Niro. Otherwise it's a hybrid.
I'd never plan on using an Ecotricity charger, and they should have their monopoly of motorway service stations torn unceremoniously from their neglectful hands.
Polar (and probably other networks) have been deliberately installing new chargers (often in hotels and pubs) close to the motorway network, and these should be the first choice when planning a journey.

 

[Lambo51]

Fragile indeed, just got an email from GeniePoint the other day stating they are removing the local shell garage charging point and stating.

‘As we EXPAND the network, some locations need to be updated or removed ‘ .If they are removing the chargers then surely the word SHRINK would be more appropriate.

It seems if chargers are underused they will go. It’s becoming clear the government will need to step in sooner than later with a national subsidised charging scheme on top of the local council projects with fast chargers in towns/cities and rapids on all motorway services as these commercial networks will be unable to cope with the increasing demand

 

[Mark Brown]

I have just completed a return journey from Bristol to the west coast of Scotland, roughly 400 miles each way in my MG ZS EV. The trip up was fairly straight forward and I was fortunate enough to access the CCS units at the various service stations that I stopped at.

However. The return journey was not straight forward and involved a rather stressful final leg just north of Birmingham last night as all the Ecotricity charging units were 'offline', meaning only a trickle charge of roughly 0.1 kWH every 2 mins was able to charge my vehicle via the AC port.

Not an ideal situation at 11:00 pm at night and thankfully the family had gone ahead of me in a ICE vehicle. The final leg involved crawling along the A38 at 35 miles per hour last night, with the GOM flashing the dashes and the battery in very low state of charge.

Okay, so it would be fair to say that the MG ZS EV is not designed for long journeys and that's a fair point, but I had done my home work and planned out my routes via ZapMap and built in a range buffer into my journey etc. This experience demonstrates how fragile the EV charging infrastructure is on our motorways and the government needs to seriously invest if more EVs are going to be on the roads.

The Ecotricity charging network was partly funded by EU money and whilst I don't want this post to be about Breast etc, where is the Government's Road map for the future EV charging infrastructure for the masses who don't have Tesla EVs and access to their banks of chargers?

I made it home with 2% left on my battery, I saw this value when I plugged the car in at home.

Hope sharing this experience on the forum is helpful and thanks for all the posts, it's a great forum.

Marc

Don’t think you meant Breasts!! Your point is strong but other chargers are available off the motorway.

 

[Sparci]

Sorry I meant Brexit! Some great replies on here, thanks. Doing a 200 mile trip to Cornwall soon and on ZapMap I found the option to widen the range of chargers just off the motorway. Very handy.