Charge providers

[G4WFT]

I pick up my new M3P next week (hopefully!). Apart from Tesla's own supercharger network, what are the best charge networks to be equipped for when undertaking longer trips? I've got the Pod Point app, as my partner has had a BMW i3 for a couple of years. What else ought I to be looking at?

Thanks,

Tim.

 

[Jason71]

At the risk of being flippant I would look at the ones that are in the location where you need to charge. There are not so many yet that you can be choosy

but for the record.

Ecotricity have the worst reputation of any network by a long long way.
Ionity are the most expensive by about a factor of 300%
I would avoid both if you can

Other than that use Zapmap or Plugshare to check out recent status of particular charger you plan to visit and ideally make sure you have a backup nearby.

Most need an app which is worth installing and signing up for in advance. some are contactless.

you might find this interesting

Revealed: Britain's best EV charging networks 2019 | Motoring Research

 

[fancealot]

This may help, a good video on who are the typical providers over the UK, FWIW look on zap map for your commute and typical destinations to see which providers you may need, for me i'm going to try polar plus as there are a lot of charge your car chargers at the park and ride I use in Leeds and in Doncaster there are a lot of Polar chargers, all are free to use but usually charge a connection fee - this is negated by the polar plus membership it's also several months for free so you can see if you actually need it.

 

[Roy W.]

Hi Tim,

Zap-Map and PlugShare are your friend. I use both as often the comments in one are newer than the other. I’ve got quite a few charging apps on my phone, just in case. Much easier to install and set up a free account in advance.

The only card I pay for is the Charge Your Car (CYC) card at £20 a year, because that also works with the (mostly free) Chargeplace Scotland chargers, and up there the mobile signal can be iffy.

Plus one on avoiding Ecotricity and Ionity unless you’re really desperate.

 

[LukeUK]

I put together a spreadsheet, comparing the various 3rd party options for charging. You can find it in this post.

This is the direct link to the spreadsheet.

1. Select your model.
2. Enter data in the green cells.
3. Filter the charging options as you wish.
4. The cheapest option that meets your filtering criteria is shown in row 9.

Luke

 

[G4WFT]

Thank you chaps, that's all very useful. I'm in the happy position of being retired, so no regular commute for me, but we'll be doing some longer journeys in the M3P from time to time. At the moment I've only had experience of Pod Point and the i3 is one of the older ones with a range of only about 80 miles, so longer journeys in that haven't been very feasible!

Tim.

 

[tomorrowman]

Assuming you can home charge I'll be surprised if you ever need to charge at a 3rd party charger.

The navigation system is very good at including appropriate supercharger stops for long journeys.

Over 20K on primarily home charging, occasionall supercharging on longer journeys and opportunistic free charging at destination chargers at pubs and hotels etc

Not seen the need to sign-up to charge at 3rd party network (though to be fair as I have a PodPoint home charger I'm signed up with them)

 

[LongRanger]

Polar Plus membership might give you a coverage option (BP charge master, Geniepoint plus a few others)

Instavolt is Plug n Pay with a tap of a credit/debit card

I did actually see a working Ecotricity charger yesterday, nearly fell off the pavement - but between those above and your home charging/supercharger, and if you already have pod point then job done I reckon.

 

[G4WFT]

Yes, the home charger is Pod Point, so been signed up with them for a couple of years. Regarding destination chargers, I notice from Zap Map that a lot of them are labelled as "Customer/patron" only, where they are on a hotel premises. Does that literally mean what it says, i.e. that you can't top up unless you're staying at the hotel overmight?

 

[GRiLLA]

Does that literally mean what it says, i.e. that you can't top up unless you're staying at the hotel overmight?

It's up to the property, you are using their electricity. Being realistic you will be there hours in order to get a worthwhile charge from AC. Half a day of SPA treatments, a very long lunch, or an overnight stay.

 

[LukeUK]

Yes, the home charger is Pod Point, so been signed up with them for a couple of years. Regarding destination chargers, I notice from Zap Map that a lot of them are labelled as "Customer/patron" only, where they are on a hotel premises. Does that literally mean what it says, i.e. that you can't top up unless you're staying at the hotel overmight?

Any AC charging (so 11 kW or less) isn't much use for a 'splash and dash' approach to charging. 11kW is about 40 miles an hour equivalent charge rate. Absolutely fine if you're going to remain at a location for some other reason, pretty rubbish if you just need to charge, compared to rapid DC charging.

As above, if you're going to remain at a hotel, spa, car park, sports club, anywhere with a visitors' centre, supermarket, etc. then it makes sense.

 

[G4WFT]

The other thing I wanted to ask, as a Tesla newbie, is how busy, generally speaking, the supercharger network gets. My only real nervousness about planning longer trips is whether chargers are working when you arrive at them (I know you can't predict or do anything about that) and whether they will be occupied. I guess any individual isn't going to be much above 30 to 40 minutes at a supercharger? I'm guessing though that some of the locations, on the M1 for example, get pretty busy at times?

 

[Drew57]

Your car/app will tell you how many stalls are currently available & Tesla impose waiting fees for stays beyond a cars' set charge limit. So even if all stalls are in use (not happened to me yet) or some are not working (not happened to me yet) one or more is likely to become available fairly soon.

 

[NewbieT]

The other thing I wanted to ask, as a Tesla newbie, is how busy, generally speaking, the supercharger network gets. My only real nervousness about planning longer trips is whether chargers are working when you arrive at them (I know you can't predict or do anything about that) and whether they will be occupied. I guess any individual isn't going to be much above 30 to 40 minutes at a supercharger? I'm guessing though that some of the locations, on the M1 for example, get pretty busy at times?

SuCs are the cheapest and most reliable rapid chargers out there, and I’ve tried a few. I’ve queued once for 10 mins in the last year because Northampton is woeful. Keele Southbound was a near miss. Other than those, I’ve not queued.

 

[fancealot]

The other thing I wanted to ask, as a Tesla newbie, is how busy, generally speaking, the supercharger network gets. My only real nervousness about planning longer trips is whether chargers are working when you arrive at them (I know you can't predict or do anything about that) and whether they will be occupied. I guess any individual isn't going to be much above 30 to 40 minutes at a supercharger? I'm guessing though that some of the locations, on the M1 for example, get pretty busy at times?

Your map will tell you how many stalls are in use and working, most supercharging stations should be working, it's not the ecotricity network thank goodness! If the supercharger is a small number of stations (Leeds South Village Supercharger/Tankersley Manor Supercharger both are a 2 station setup) that can be busy, some superchargers are busy, but most there is usually spaces to charge, just remember if it's a V2 supercharger (stalls are named 1a, 1b, 2a 2b etc) and there is room try not to share a number as the a and b share a mains supply so will increase charge times by halving the current.

 

[CMc1]

The other thing I wanted to ask, as a Tesla newbie, is how busy, generally speaking, the supercharger network gets. My only real nervousness about planning longer trips is whether chargers are working when you arrive at them (I know you can't predict or do anything about that) and whether they will be occupied. I guess any individual isn't going to be much above 30 to 40 minutes at a supercharger? I'm guessing though that some of the locations, on the M1 for example, get pretty busy at times?

You can also use Google’s Maps data to show the busy period as shown in screenshot below (Woodall Southbound Supercharger). Can then use this to predict how busy it may be on a given day/hour.

 

[Plagued]

Just thought I'd add that it's not just the network you are using but also the age of the equipment that's important. The polar network has some dreadful old unreliable chargers (most of them) and some modern more reliable ones dotted about. Companies like Instavolt and Shell have good reliable chargers mainly because they're all using fairly modern tech and all also support paying by bank card rather than needing an app. Ecotricity generally is at the bottom of the list because most of their chargers are over 6 years old when it was rare that any car could actually pull 50kw for more than about 5 minutes, so now they're mostly knackered and couldn't have coped with the continued load even if they were new.
The network availability in wales is dreadful, but I have found that as it improves it's all newer reliable kit, but I'll just leave you with my experience from a new polar charger just last week.
Arrive to new polar charger, impressed it takes both bank card and the polar card/app!
35p/kw on your bank card 25p/kw for the polar app .... er.... ok I'll use the polar app!
No phone signal .... it's wales .....
Luckily it's by a hotel with wifi! connect and launch the app!
App finds the charger ... "follow instructions on charger to start!"
Great ... options on charger are pay with bank card or use polar card ... er ... I don't have a polar card just the app ... press polar card button
"please present polar card to the right hand card reader" .... oh ..... then followed by a card acknowledgement and onto the negotiating charge screen ... clearly the app remotely pretends to be a card ... odd but ok ...
"CHARGE FAILED" .... bugger
App still says it's waiting for me .... I wait .....
2 minutes later charger returns to start screen ... I try the polar card option this time but no luck it just sits there waiting for me to present a card I don't have.
I go back to the app - Cancel charge!
"unable to cancel charge please follow the instructions on the charger"
I quit the app and log back in ... same thing, cancel charge ... no!
I wait for 5 minutes (it has a timer showing how long you have been waiting) to see if it will time out ... it does not (I later checked the app and 4 hours later it was still waiting)
I give up and press the pay with bank card button and tap my visa card .....the charge starts without issue.
Only 39Kw but that's fast enough.
I spent almost 15 minutes trying to get the polar app to actually work... due to my stubbornness to not pay an extra 10p/kw and having credit sat in my polar account that I've been unable to actually use.
However ... I consider that a successful charge at a public charge point!

 

[LongRanger]

Decided to play the role of A.N. Other electric vehicle owner, we went out for a Sunday afternoon at the coast in Ceredigion, only a 45 mile round trip and I started with 65% charge so no need to think about charging.

Before we went I looked at charge point options and spotted a 22kw location around 100 metres from the main road turn off to where we were heading, so on the way back we stopped in there.

Excellent I thought, haven’t tried the supplied charge cable yet - perfect opportunity to try it out and simulate if I was really needing to charge.

2 points at the location - with one point showing as working and the other as out of service, this was accurate from ZapMap. When I got there I saw it was VendElectric, so downloaded the app, registered and added a payment card. The app recognised the charge point ID and told me to plug in to start charging.

Cable all good, plug in, turns to green on both car and charger, ramps up to 16A/12KW (decided this would be acceptable if an emergency), then 30 seconds later back to 1A and sits there. App showing no issues, updating every 60 seconds or so.

Thought I’d kick it off again, so re-started the session on the app. Nothing.

Disconnected everything, repeated app process, reconnected and ........ nothing.

Gave up trying to prove what life is like as an electric vehicle driver out and about in an unfamiliar charging area.

What a painful experience. Got home with just under 50% remaining, put it on charge and forgot about it.

When your own house is better than a public charge point, and this was my 4kw point not the beefier one, there is something wrong with the charging infrastructure......

 

[Roy W.]

Decided to play the role of A.N. Other electric vehicle owner, we went out for a Sunday afternoon at the coast in Ceredigion, only a 45 mile round trip and I started with 65% charge so no need to think about charging.

Before we went I looked at charge point options and spotted a 22kw location around 100 metres from the main road turn off to where we were heading, so on the way back we stopped in there.

Excellent I thought, haven’t tried the supplied charge cable yet - perfect opportunity to try it out and simulate if I was really needing to charge.

2 points at the location - with one point showing as working and the other as out of service, this was accurate from ZapMap. When I got there I saw it was VendElectric, so downloaded the app, registered and added a payment card. The app recognised the charge point ID and told me to plug in to start charging.

Cable all good, plug in, turns to green on both car and charger, ramps up to 16A/12KW (decided this would be acceptable if an emergency), then 30 seconds later back to 1A and sits there. App showing no issues, updating every 60 seconds or so.

Thought I’d kick it off again, so re-started the session on the app. Nothing.

Disconnected everything, repeated app process, reconnected and ........ nothing.

Gave up trying to prove what life is like as an electric vehicle driver out and about in an unfamiliar charging area.

What a painful experience. Got home with just under 50% remaining, put it on charge and forgot about it.

When your own house is better than a public charge point, and this was my 4kw point not the beefier one, there is something wrong with the charging infrastructure......

Been there, done that with the Leaf and the Kona. It’s scary!

 

[Mr Miserable]

I reckon the PodPoint app is worth downloading.
It's useful for some free charging while you shop at Tesco. It will start charging immediately but for it to continue charging beyond 15 mins you need to "claim" the charge on the app.
A nearby shopping centre has 22kW free Pod Point chargers that I have found to be particularly useful if Mrs M decides to just 'pop-in' for some retail therapy. It's about the only time my battery gets charged up to 90%.