Routing for longer trips

[RPC]

Is ABRP better than Google Maps?

ABRP does things Google Maps does not. ABRP allows you to enter ev details and your personal preferences for arrival state-of-charge (SOC) and departure SOC and predicts the state of your battery at the next charger. It is not good, though, at knowing if the next charger is faulty (I use Plugshare for that). I prefer Google Maps, perhaps simply due to familiarity, for tracking how we are going along the way.

 

[greeiig]

I use a combination of ABRP and Plugshare. The former is, in my opinion, hard to use (but I am learning to manage it better) but good for (conservatively) estimating what the state of charge on arrival at next charger. The latter is better for linking to Google Maps to help find that next charger. I have just returned from a Sydney - Melbourne environs - Sydney journey using those tools.

I did have a problem at one Chargefox station where I had a problem previously and there was one town where there was a queue of Teslas but, overall, it worked.

This was our first long trip by MG ZS EV, other than Sydney-Canberra return.

Didn't realise this forum was so international!

 

[greeiig]

Interesting. I guess it's a case of swings and roundabouts. I have had my 5 LR for a month and done 1000 miles. Vast majority of power has come from my home charger. If I was using petrol, I would have had to do 2 or 3 trip to a petrol station, so the occasional sitting about at a charger is probably of similar inconvenience. At least when charging you can read a book !

Yes - my post was really about how to handle longer trips. I am certainly expecting to do most of my driving without needing public chargers - just using a home charger.

I think that for most longer trips it should work fine - drive for 2-3 hours then take a break for 30-60 mins whilst charging. As long as the stress of searching for chargers is taken out of the equation that is !

 

[greeiig]

BTW, the archaic units are interesting . What is 120 "miles" in cubits? Or Stadia or Aṅgulas or Barlecorns or Jows or Unglies?
878km converts to 1.9204E+6 cubits, according to
convert km to cubits - Bing

In (part) jest,
RPC

That'll be all these Brits using Imperial measurments - it's taken me a while to get used to it. For some reason I measure my runs and cycle rides in Km but all car journeys are now in Miles. I've only been living here for 20 odd years!

 

[phillycee]

Personally I prefer google maps for navigation...live traffic updates etc... so I just use zap map to find a charger on route and google maps to navigate to it.

tbh most of my longer trips that have needed chargers have been served fine by motorway service grid serve chargers... So far they have always worked and contactless has also been easy... The bigger anxiety is about how long you and up queuing. A lot of services only have 2 chargers... so if you lucky you can be in and out in 20 mins or end up waiting for a spot.

I've had the ZS for 6 months now and mostly charge at home/work or Tesco's but I do find longer trips can be a bit nerve-wracking because of "working charger" anxiety then range anxiety.

It makes journey planning much harder if you don't know how long a charge is going to take... 30 mins or much longer queuing. The big service stations need to have 6 to 8 chargers right now as a minimum.

It's the only negative thing about owning the car and with ZS the range is a bit tight in winter. I'll be sticking with EV's but I'd really love something in the 200+ Miles range capacity, but need an SUV for family mobility issues...ruling out the MG5 LR...

But if every service station had 10 or so chargers that actually ran at 50kwh + rather then many of the ones local to me peaking at 30kwh (ish).. life would be a bit better

 

[greeiig]

Personally I prefer google maps for navigation...live traffic updates etc... so I just use zap map to find a charger on route and google maps to navigate to it.

tbh most of my longer trips that have needed chargers have been served fine by motorway service grid serve chargers... So far they have always worked and contactless has also been easy... The bigger anxiety is about how long you and up queuing. A lot of services only have 2 chargers... so if you lucky you can be in and out in 20 mins or end up waiting for a spot.

I've had the ZS for 6 months now and mostly charge at home/work or Tesco's but I do find longer trips can be a bit nerve-wracking because of "working charger" anxiety then range anxiety.

It makes journey planning much harder if you don't know how long a charge is going to take... 30 mins or much longer queuing. The big service stations need to have 6 to 8 chargers right now as a minimum.

It's the only negative thing about owning the car and with ZS the range is a bit tight in winter. I'll be sticking with EV's but I'd really love something in the 200+ Miles range capacity, but need an SUV for family mobility issues...ruling out the MG5 LR...

But if every service station had 10 or so chargers that actually ran at 50kwh + rather then many of the ones local to me peaking at 30kwh (ish).. life would be a bit better

Sounds like the main thing to do - which I stupidly didn't for my first trip - is to plan the charging stop in advance so the options are known. When I do trips it's mostly going to be motorway driving, so stopping in services would be best if possible.
As soon as I found a working charger all was fine. There were only two there as you say - likely to have been an issue if travelling at a busier time.

@phillycee - Interesting that you considered the MG ZS better for family driving - I got the MG5 LR as I thought the bigger boot would be more practical. I have three kids and they complain a bit more about sitting three abreast in the back than they used to with our Ford S-Max. Hopefully they'll get used to it!

 

[phillycee]

The Mrs has two knee replacements, so the extra hight of the ZS makes it easier to get in and out off, otherwise I'd have gone for the MG5...but in our case the extra height matters.

Gridserve is usually great... I was at Pease Pottage today on the M23.. I only needed an extra 8-10kw to get home comfortably...so was hoping for a 15 min splash and dash... but when I got there 3 cars were ahead of me... so it took over an hour, I could have driven on but I don't love hunting for random chargers and you never know they are going to work either, or be blocked... So I usually just wait it out... Wasn't a huge issue as I didn't have to be anywhere, but would have been annoying if I needed to be somewhere.

 

[greeiig]

The Mrs has two knee replacements, so the extra hight of the ZS makes it easier to get in and out off, otherwise I'd have gone for the MG5...but in our case the extra height matters.

Gridserve is usually great... I was at Pease Pottage today on the M23.. I only needed an extra 8-10kw to get home comfortably...so was hoping for a 15 min splash and dash... but when I got there 3 cars were ahead of me... so it took over an hour, I could have driven on but I don't love hunting for random chargers and you never know they are going to work either, or be blocked... So I usually just wait it out... Wasn't a huge issue as I didn't have to be anywhere, but would have been annoying if I needed to be somewhere.

Ah - makes sense. Yes, the ones I used were Gridserve and they were so easy to use