Hi Hiroshiy - thanks for your reply.
Most common journeys for me are return journeys from Wisbech to: MK, Bicester, Swindon, Birmingham, Northampton and occasionally Devon way.
So the longest trip in a day is likely to be Swindon and back, which is straightforward enough with Superchargers as are the other journeys.
Swindon is actually the tiresome one on that list, as Oxford supercharger is on the M40 and a big diversion if you are taking the cross-country route via Oxford. I normally stop at Peartree services on the A34 where there is a single Ecotricity unit (so slightly risky of being in use - I always have a plan B in mind).
Your usage and location seem similar to mine, and IMO for us the CHAdeMO adaptor is still a key piece of kit to make the Tesla a go-anywhere car. If you are prepared to take another other car for tricky trips, or if you live somewhere on a node of the motorway system like London, then it's less important.
Essentially, apart from Superchargers, CHAdeMO (using the £400 adapter) is the only charging method that is fast enough to be worth using while you sit and wait. It's still slower than Superchargers, but it's really useful for precisely the sort of trips you are talking about here: out-and-back-in-a-day business trips that are just a bit too far for the car's range without charging. A 20 minute coffee stop at a CHAdeMO station may only add 40 miles of range, but that's often all you need on top of a full charge when you left home. Given the shape and size of the UK it's hard to concoct a plausible business trip that doesn't work out OK - either you are driving fast up the main motorway routes (and so will pass Superchargers), or you are driving cross-country on relatively slow routes where your mileage can't plausibly be all that great in a single day (assuming you actually stop to speak to the clients you are visiting) and a modest CHAdeMO topup is all that's required.
What does bother me a bit is that we often do weekends away with the kids, or a few days during school breaks. If we go to Devon, for example, we stay in Kingsbridge. The nearest supercharger is 40 miles away and not even en-route by a long way; if we did ‘fill up’ there we’d have about 160m range left, which would be pretty much gone within a day of travelling around that part of Devon. A 10hr slow charge overnight wouldn’t, I don’t think, be sufficient to keep us going.
While I use my CHAdeMO often for business trips (as above), I more often use destination charging on these sort of leisure trips. Very often you can persuade hotels or holiday rents to allow you the use of a 13A socket - which only gives about 6 miles per hour of charging, but if you are on holiday you probably spend at least 10 hours overnight so that's 60 miles; I'm not quite sure how you manage to use up 160 miles in a day without going anywhere. Quite often you can find other charging options out and about (public carparks etc.) which mostly charge at the same rate as your home charger (so about 20 miles per hour of charging). Or you can stop at a CHAdeMO if you find one - less convenient as you need to hang around nearby and move the car once charged, but still workable.
I make life hard for myself by letting my wife choose the accommodation without any regard to charging, but in 4 years I've never had any significant difficulty getting charged on this sort of trip even though we've quite often stayed in places with no option to charge at the place where we are staying. I have however needed to keep on top of the constantly changing scene of charging network operators and what you need to access them.
Equipment wise, as discussed you probably need to shell out on the CHAdeMO adapter; you should have received with the car the "UMC" which lets you charge from a 13A socket, and also a type2-type2 cable which you will need for public slow chargepoints.
Personally, I use
Zap-map as the first choice website for seeing what charging is available in a given area;
Plugshare is also useful, but I normally look at Zap-map first and then check Plugshare for any gotchas and for help in finding exactly where the point is (sometimes this can be more tricky than you expect). For the sort of business day-trip routes discussed above, it's mostly Ecotricity units that I find useful; for other types of trip a quick look at the maps in advance of setting out lets you know which networks you need to be set up to use (coverage is highly regional due to historic government grants):
- Ecotricity is at pretty much every motorway service area (and a fair number on A roads), usually with two units that have CHAdeMO on them. You need an app on your phone to pay for the charge. Relatively poor reputation for reliability, but the most useful locations for an en-route pit stop.
- Instavolt is a new network with a rapid roll-out of pairs of CHAdeMO units, needing only a contactless bank card to pay for them.
- Engenie similarly needs only bank card; they've been around for years but only managed a handful of sites but now look like they may have found some cash for a meaningful roll-out this year.
- CYC has dense coverage in certain specific locations (council-owned sites). Needs either a card at £20/year or a somewhat clunky mobile app. Also gives you access to the publicly-owned network in Scotland, where the card is almost essential due to poor mobile coverage.
- GeniePoint (aka ChargePointGenie): again strong regional coverage (notably Cornwall). Mix of CHAdeMO and destination (slow) charging. Needs either a card or a webpage designed to access from a phone. No recurring charge for a card, and you can also use any other card you happen to have already by visiting one of their points and using the website to register it to your account.
- PodPoint. Mostly destination charging; controlled by mobile app, but unlike the others where you have to use the app to start charging, they have a scheme that lets you charge for 15mins just by plugging in and then you (perhaps later or from a more convenient location) use the app to pay, after which you can charge for longer. A fair proportion of their locations are free-of-cost, but at some of these you still have to sign in on the app to use for >15min.
- Polar. Mix of destination and CHAdeMO charging. They are aiming for national coverage, but don't really have it yet, and are mostly installing only single units (rather than the pairs for reliability offered by competitors). They really want you to subscribe to their card-based system at £7.85/month, though theoretically offering ad-hoc access (as required by law) with an extremely clunky phone app and higher fees. Card does also give you access to CYC points in England (but not Scotland).
- TheNewMotion Dutch operator with relatively few locations in the UK so far; currently you MUST have their access card to access their points, but the card is free-of-charge, just apply online and they'll send one. Card can also be used (unadvertised) at Shell-branded chargers at petrol stations.
- Shell. Operates some Shell-branded CHAdeMO units at company-owned petrol stations (not to be confused with units from other networks that happen to be at petrol stations selling Shell petrol). Advertised means of use is with a clunky phone app, but NewMotion card is easier.
My advice: download every app you come across to a spare corner of your phone, to save needing to download them in the field in an emergency. For ones that seem useful (particularly Ecotricity) set up an account straight away; others only bother if you think you will need it for an upcoming trip. Maybe apply for a NewMotion card.
