Just returned from an 1000 mile road trip after getting my M3LR last week.
Absolutely fantastic car, really pleased all round... and seeing as the car is just so damn good, I thought I'd share some of my charging experiences in the first 1000 miles....
Day 1
Departed Bristol with 80%, arrived Canterbury with 9%. No stops. Plugged in overnight to families 7kw SyncEV. Took an hour of resetting SyncEV charger and app before it would charge but eventually got it to give us some juice, left overnight and charged back to 85%
Day 2
Departed Canterbury, arrived Cambridge 46%.
One stop at a services with an Ecotricity charger that was full, with a queue. Skipped a top up...
Cambridge City Centre, found a car park with 4 EV bays. All full. Two of the four cars plugged in were not charging...
Back to hotel with 40%, no charging facilities installed.
Day 3
Departed for Wyboston Supercharger. Arrived 24% and got back up to 80% in 29 minutes. Plenty of free bays and a nice location.
En route to York. Stopped at Ferrybridge services. 3 chargers, 2 in use, 2 cars waiting. 1 unit out of order (Ecotricity).
Arrived Q-Park York (2 EV spaces in a car park of 248). Arrived to find car park was 1 in/1 out and EV spaces both occupied. No space to wait....
Departed for Leeds, arriving with 13% - Citipark Leeds Dock with 3 EV spaces.
With both fingers crossed, we arrived to find 1 available Tesla destination charger, plugged in and set to 100%. Free charge...
Next to us was a Peugeot 5008, plugged in - not charging, occupying the 1 single space that was an "any EV" Type 2.
Day 4
Early morning, notification that car was charged to 100%, so being the considerate EV driver (!), I walked back to the car park, unplugged and moved my car.
Mr Peugeot was still there hogging the charger some 15 hours later, still not charging.
Took a break from driving and got about by train.
Went back to car park in the evening, Mr Peugeot had finally gone presumably after trying to charge to 300%.
Tesla destination charger I vacated was now hogged by Mr iPace, yes you guessed it, plugged in but not charging.
The other remaining Tesla destination charger now occupied by Blue Model 3 registration BN21 - and yes, you guessed it, not charging!
Day 5
Model 3 BN21 and Mr iPace still hogging the chargers, not charging, as we departed.
Stopped back at Cambridge services, briefly considered a topup but not at Ionity at 69p/kWh!
Continued onto Gridserve Braintree.
WOW - What an experience! If Carlsberg did EV charging hubs...
Plugged in, contactless, peaked at 180kw and we were back up to 80% in the time it took to grab a coffee and sort the toddler.
Clean toilets, good facilities... it's more like a top end hotel... The longer it can be kept a secret, the better - hope it doesn't go the way of every other motorway services in time!
Arrived back in Canterbury with 38%. More SyncEV issues but after 30 mins it trickled in at 7, then 6, then 5kw for a few hours.
Departed and got held up 2 hours on the A2, necessitating a toilet break at Maidstone - so chose to top up at the SC.
All stalls full, but we waited just 5 mins and got onto one to add 20% in 13 minutes.
Was all we needed to get back home so stopped the charge and moved to allow a waiting X in whilst the family were still in the loos!
Arrived back in Bristol with 9%.
Initial impressions
Absolutely fantastic car, really pleased all round... and seeing as the car is just so damn good, I thought I'd share some of my charging experiences in the first 1000 miles....
Day 1
Departed Bristol with 80%, arrived Canterbury with 9%. No stops. Plugged in overnight to families 7kw SyncEV. Took an hour of resetting SyncEV charger and app before it would charge but eventually got it to give us some juice, left overnight and charged back to 85%
Day 2
Departed Canterbury, arrived Cambridge 46%.
One stop at a services with an Ecotricity charger that was full, with a queue. Skipped a top up...
Cambridge City Centre, found a car park with 4 EV bays. All full. Two of the four cars plugged in were not charging...
Back to hotel with 40%, no charging facilities installed.
Day 3
Departed for Wyboston Supercharger. Arrived 24% and got back up to 80% in 29 minutes. Plenty of free bays and a nice location.
En route to York. Stopped at Ferrybridge services. 3 chargers, 2 in use, 2 cars waiting. 1 unit out of order (Ecotricity).
Arrived Q-Park York (2 EV spaces in a car park of 248). Arrived to find car park was 1 in/1 out and EV spaces both occupied. No space to wait....
Departed for Leeds, arriving with 13% - Citipark Leeds Dock with 3 EV spaces.
With both fingers crossed, we arrived to find 1 available Tesla destination charger, plugged in and set to 100%. Free charge...
Next to us was a Peugeot 5008, plugged in - not charging, occupying the 1 single space that was an "any EV" Type 2.
Day 4
Early morning, notification that car was charged to 100%, so being the considerate EV driver (!), I walked back to the car park, unplugged and moved my car.
Mr Peugeot was still there hogging the charger some 15 hours later, still not charging.
Took a break from driving and got about by train.
Went back to car park in the evening, Mr Peugeot had finally gone presumably after trying to charge to 300%.
Tesla destination charger I vacated was now hogged by Mr iPace, yes you guessed it, plugged in but not charging.
The other remaining Tesla destination charger now occupied by Blue Model 3 registration BN21 - and yes, you guessed it, not charging!
Day 5
Model 3 BN21 and Mr iPace still hogging the chargers, not charging, as we departed.
Stopped back at Cambridge services, briefly considered a topup but not at Ionity at 69p/kWh!
Continued onto Gridserve Braintree.
WOW - What an experience! If Carlsberg did EV charging hubs...
Plugged in, contactless, peaked at 180kw and we were back up to 80% in the time it took to grab a coffee and sort the toddler.
Clean toilets, good facilities... it's more like a top end hotel... The longer it can be kept a secret, the better - hope it doesn't go the way of every other motorway services in time!
Arrived back in Canterbury with 38%. More SyncEV issues but after 30 mins it trickled in at 7, then 6, then 5kw for a few hours.
Departed and got held up 2 hours on the A2, necessitating a toilet break at Maidstone - so chose to top up at the SC.
All stalls full, but we waited just 5 mins and got onto one to add 20% in 13 minutes.
Was all we needed to get back home so stopped the charge and moved to allow a waiting X in whilst the family were still in the loos!
Arrived back in Bristol with 9%.
Initial impressions
- Ecotricity is just as reliable as I had read. Best avoided!
- People like to park their EV's in EV spaces, even if they are not charging.
- Those same people, once charged, are happy to just leave their cars parked and to hell with everyone else that might need to charge up. (thank god for idle fees on the SC network).
- Subject to 2 and 3, this likely exacerbates the reason all the other public chargers are full with queues at peak times (bank holiday weekend)
- Tesla SC network is fantastic and proves to me what I had long thought - that if you want to go electric, a Tesla is really the only choice if you want to be able to do long distances without hassle.
- Gridserve is seriously impressive and the 100 hubs can't come soon enough.
- The range of the LR means you can do a road trip like this using the SC network without having to rely on other public charging (thankfully)
- Road trip was great fun and stress free - and it wouldn't have been in any other EV.