Use of Zap Map

[dgs99]

Took my first long range journey away from home this week. Most of my trips since buying the car have been within the max range, so I have always been able to return home to charge back up. Recent journey to Watlington, Oxford meant had to use a rapid charger for the first time. Pulled into Leigh Delamere Services M4 eastbound and CCS charger wouldn't work, said a communication error. There was an electrician in attendance on the adjacent station and he said try this one instead.
That wouldn't work either and he cursed them both saying he has a regular call out to them as they always get wifi connection problems there. No problem, Zap Map said I should get to my destination with 20% charge remaining, which it did and was a very accurate estimation. On my return journey, road closures meant I had to go on a detour but my nearest charger was at Lidl, Wallingford, which I got to with 8% charge left in the tank. Luckily this 50kW charger worked OK and I was on return journey home within the hour. How low can you go with the residual charge before the car comes to a stop?

 

[5teep]

I have no idea where you are/were in relation to public chargers but surely there were more choices within a decent range? Leaving yourself with less than 10% charge heading to a public charger is asking for trouble.
i.e. in Scotland you're rarely more than 15 miles from a rapid charger no matter where in the country you are.

 

[BugEyed]

Coverage in urban areas and near to main roads in Scotland is significantly better than England, particularly for Rapids. In England it is not uncommon to only have a either a single Rapid and no Fast charge points or vice-versa in a major conurbation, and often those are "out of service". Without being political, the approach in Scotland appears to have worked better than England or Wales.

 

[Geo68]

I live in Scotland and need to use public chargers and the rapid are not always working. Fortunately the 7kw work for me .

 

[dgs99]

I don't understand why so many public chargers have problems. I guess it is due to connectivity problems rather than electrical supply. The system needs to 99% reliable countrywide.

 

[w1bble]

I don't understand why so many public chargers have problems. I guess it is due to connectivity problems rather than electrical supply. The system needs to 99% reliable countrywide.

it's also really important to call up the 24x7 helpline number on a charger if it's not working properly. they can often reboot remotely or sometimes start the charging remote, if nobody reports chargers that have failed they never get fixed or rebooted. I've had a lot of flail with a lot of the different options and many occasions have had them resolved over the phone in a few minutes.
YMMV
(Notable that sometimes the calls can instigate fast free charging, instavolt have saved me loadsa ££ with their chargers)

 

[BugEyed]

The system needs to 99% reliable countrywide.

That'll only be achieved by significant amounts of redundancy and a tightening up of the CCS standard which is interpreted differently by all three of vehicle manufacturers, Rapid manufacturers, and charge point network operators. Currently when a new model of car or charge point is launched there is no guarantee that it will work across all of the network, so we all suffer a roulette of whether our car will charge when we first try to use it at a particular location. Add in then the risk of individual faults on vehicles or charge points and the whole thing becomes a lottery. IMO this is driving the trend towards large batteries to avoid the need to charge away from home - one of the attractions of the LR to me.

 

[Ozzie1989]

How low can you go with the residual charge before the car comes to a stop?

From previous reports on here it will go past 0% before stopping completely but will severely restrict your power so much a few people have reported very slow speeds and or complete standstill when attempting a hill.

 

[biffo]

How low can you go with the residual charge before the car comes to a stop?

The latest review from Planet Auto (which I think was filmed a good few months back) talk about what happens as the charge percentage drops and how the car throttles back the power. Also see James from Cleevely EV (on here and Twitter too) talking about regularly getting into low single digits.

From the data I extrapolated on the MG5LR, it looks as though the dashboard will show 0% when the SOC via OBD is really around 3.5% left - but that's not to say the car will allow you to use that residual 3.5% charge!!

 

[BugEyed]

EVs defend the driver from themselves far better than ICE - the whole process of reducing the rate of consumption both to increase range and further warn the driver doesn't exist in the latter. Couple that with much more accurate measurement of the remaining charge than exists in the measurement of available fuel in an ICE and we are much better protected. The key is that we have to take notice of the information and act upon it.*
* This is a do as I say and not a do as I do statement having tried to get to a Rapid in the next valley once when in Wales and had to turn back before reaching the top of the hill due to turtling to the point of not being able to continue uphill. Having then come downhill on Regen I had to spend an hour on a "Fast" charge point to get enough charge to reach a Rapid. If I had been in an ICE it is unlikely I'd have reached a fuel station as the charge gained from Regen on the way downhill gave me some needed range on the flat to reach the next fuelling opportunity.

 

[Shrink Proof]

Coverage in urban areas and near to main roads in Scotland is significantly better than England, particularly for Rapids. In England it is not uncommon to only have a either a single Rapid and no Fast charge points or vice-versa in a major conurbation, and often those are "out of service". Without being political, the approach in Scotland appears to have worked better than England or Wales.

Generally that's true. But in the far North of Scotland and the Islands there are sometimes huge gaps in mobile coverage. It's often somewhere between patchy and nonexistent, so if there's a problem with the charger it can be impossible to contact the helpline.

That said, ChargePlace Scotland have been reliable in my experience, even in seriously remote spots. The only charger I've had fail on me in Scotland was a Tesco/Podpoint "Fast" unit. In addition, having most of the chargers organised through one organisation (CPS) is a hell of a lot more straightforward than negotiating the myriad of outfits in England and Wales.

 

[MarkLynn]

I don't use rapid chargers much but in 8 months I have only seen one charger at a lidl store and one podpoint not working. So not working is not really an issue for me what I object to is Zap Map saying there are 8 charge points but as we all know when 2 leads come from the same charger you can only use one at a time so really there are only 4 chargers, come on Zap Map get you game together

 

[MichaelJHunt]

Generally that's true. But in the far North of Scotland and the Islands there are sometimes huge gaps in mobile coverage. It's often somewhere between patchy and nonexistent, so if there's a problem with the charger it can be impossible to contact the helpline.

That said, ChargePlace Scotland have been reliable in my experience, even in seriously remote spots. The only charger I've had fail on me in Scotland was a Tesco/Podpoint "Fast" unit. In addition, having most of the chargers organised through one organisation (CPS) is a hell of a lot more straightforward than negotiating the myriad of outfits in England and Wales.

I have just cycled around the NC500 route and there are Rapid Chargers all the way around in each village. That’s about as North as Scotland gets.

 

[smokie]

I have just cycled around the NC500 route and there are Rapid Chargers all the way around in each village. That’s about as North as Scotland gets.

Bet you wish you'd gone by car then...

 

[Shrink Proof]

I have just cycled around the NC500 route and there are Rapid Chargers all the way around in each village. That’s about as North as Scotland gets.

There's a fair bit more beyond the NC500. In my experience, the charger network's OK in Shetland too.

 

[MichaelJHunt]

There's a fair bit more beyond the NC500. In my experience, the charger network's OK in Shetland too

There's a fair bit more beyond the NC500. In my experience, the charger network's OK in Shetland too.

Excellent. I used CPS just the once and it was fine. They appear to have chargers all over Scotland. Maybe only one at a time, but they are there.