IONITY chargers

[Ledzep]

Hi All, can anyone give advice on using these? I’ve had the need to use them a few times now , and have always had issues getting them going.

Do you use the app? Use the QR code? plug in first ? Leave till told to plug in?

Outside of using home charger or Tesla’s supercharger, these are the ones I’ve used most , and find them sooo frustrating!!

Cheers

 

[GRiLLA]

I would use my Octopus Electroverse card which is something like 10% off, I think there are some other schemes that might give more of a discount.

Plug In, Scan card, wait to see if it's a broken one by other drivers sniggering

 

[pp61]

I would use my Octopus Electroverse card which is something like 10% off, I think there are some other schemes that might give more of a discount.

Plug In, Scan card, wait to see if it's a broken one by other drivers sniggering

You first need to plug in. After you indicate your payment. Creditcard, card scan etc.

 

[Ledzep]

You first need to plug in. After you indicate your payment. Creditcard, card scan etc.

I've never found an ionoty that had a working card reader !

Ok so definitely plug in first before doing anything else?, most sites say go through payment first, then plug in? does that just work better for a tesla, plugging in first?

 

[Dangerous Fish]

I tried an Ionity last week. Usually avoid non-Tesla chargers but this one was in a more convenient location for my trip. When I arrived, there was only one stall free and I wasted about 10 minutes trying to get it to work, without success. Got this from the app several times:

The last time I tried an Ionity charger I had issues with the app/payment and had to move to a different stall before I could get a charge. Don't think I'll bother with them again.

 

[Ledzep]

well at least I now know its not just me..... i always feel such an arse.....

 

[Dangerous Fish]

This last time, 5 out of the 6 stalls were occupied and supposedly charging but maybe mine was faulty which was why it was free? Difficult to know the way Ionity works. At least when a SuC isn't working you get a message:

 

[pp61]

I've never found an ionoty that had a working card reader !

Ok so definitely plug in first before doing anything else?, most sites say go through payment first, then plug in? does that just work better for a tesla, plugging in first?

I used Ionity in Switzerland, Netherlands, Germany, France and Italy. Always managed to charge. Sometimes had to move to other stall.
First connected to car, after handshaking it will ask to authorize, I use card but I think you can also add creditcard. Suggest using ionity app.

 

[Lee Davis]

Ionity's customer support is excellent. I arrived at chargers in Stafford. All but one were in use, and the last one wasn't working. A quick 2 min call to their support team, who rebooted it, and it worked fine.

 

[pdk42]

After almost three years of running an ID3, my wife has eventually admitted defeat with the charging infrastructure, the last straw being Ionity chargers. So, she’s getting an Audi A3 TFSi e - a plug in hybrid with about 40 miles of range on its 14kWh battery. It should do her most days from an overnight charge but without the stress of the UK charging network when she wants to go further.

 

[pdk42]

On the wider point of charger availability, here’s an interesting graph showing cars/charger over time in the UK. It’s not a good story:

 

[qwickshot]

On the wider point of charger availability, here’s an interesting graph showing cars/charger over time in the UK. It’s not a good story:

View attachment 957345

My challenge to this is what does good actually look like? E.g. how many rapids should there be per car?

Back in 2019/2020 there may have been loads more chargers per vehicle and it’s easy to complain that the number has gone down but if their utilisation was very low (it was indeed very low), then it’s not commercially viable.

Likewise a huge number of those chargers back then were 1-2 50kw units stuffed in the back of a pub car park which are not actually that useful, hence low utilisation.

 

[Adopado]

My challenge to this is what does good actually look like? E.g. how many rapids should there be per car?

Back in 2019/2020 there may have been loads more chargers per vehicle and it’s easy to complain that the number has gone down but if their utilisation was very low (it was indeed very low), then it’s not commercially viable.

Likewise a huge number of those chargers back then were 1-2 50kw units stuffed in the back of a pub car park which are not actually that useful, hence low utilisation.

Keep in mind that the graph is not just rapids .... it's all public chargers including rapids. Rapids have increased enormously over the past 4 years whilst other public chargers have lagged. The reality is that until now the great majority of people buying EVs have the ability to charge at home so the pressure on the slower public points won't have been as much as for the rapids.

 

[m3gt2]

Keep in mind that the graph is not just rapids .... it's all public chargers including rapids. Rapids have increased enormously over the past 4 years whilst other public chargers have lagged. The reality is that until now the great majority of people buying EVs have the ability to charge at home so the pressure on the slower public points won't have been as much as for the rapids.

Also it’s worth remembering that as the range on EVs increases you will find lees need to charge when away from home.

 

[FlyingTimbo]

Just use the Bonnet app. Never found a problem.

 

[FastLaneJB]

Also it’s worth remembering that as the range on EVs increases you will find lees need to charge when away from home.

Exactly the reason I've been saying that cars do need more range. You get many saying that you cannot drive that long without stopping but miss the point that you can stop and not need to charge. Ultimately more range means less need for public chargers and also larger batteries will charge at a faster miles per hour speed. Even if the battery takes just as long to fill if you want to fill it say, you often will only need x amount of miles which you'll get quicker. So turn around times on chargers will be faster also. Other than cost / weight which will come down, it's all win / win in my books.

 

[WannabeOwner]

You get many saying that you cannot drive that long without stopping but miss the point that you can stop and not need to charge

We used to drive to skiing "in one go" - 12 hours door-to-door. Stopped for a (decent) meal, and other than that only as long as it took to refuel (probably did that at lunch time) and other than for the 2 or 3 minutes it took to change drivers every 3 hours.

We've been choosing to drive to skiing (to avoid the cattle market of airport departure / baggage claim with skis and boots etc.) for at least 30 years. So we were a lot younger then ... and we always arrived knackered.

Since EV we have added 3x 20 minute recharging stops (in addition to a decent lunch stop), and now at retirement age we arrive in much better condition than when we were younger.

So personally, if the journey is more than 3 hours I recommend stopping for 20 minutes every 2~3 hours. Whether you choose to charge or not is a different issue, but once subscribed to this approach then IMO there is no point paying for the extra battery, nor hauling its weight around on all shorter journeys

 

[FastLaneJB]

We used to drive to skiing "in one go" - 12 hours door-to-door. Stopped for a (decent) meal, and other than that only as long as it took to refuel (probably did that at lunch time) and other than for the 2 or 3 minutes it took to change drivers every 3 hours.

We've been choosing to drive to skiing (to avoid the cattle market of airport departure / baggage claim with skis and boots etc.) for at least 30 years. So we were a lot younger then ... and we always arrived knackered.

Since EV we have added 3x 20 minute recharging stops (in addition to a decent lunch stop), and now at retirement age we arrive in much better condition than when we were younger.

So personally, if the journey is more than 3 hours I recommend stopping for 20 minutes every 2~3 hours. Whether you choose to charge or not is a different issue, but once subscribed to this approach then IMO there is no point paying for the extra battery, nor hauling its weight around on all shorter journeys

I think you are missing my point. There’s no reason you cannot do a journey with breaks like that in an ICE. Seeing as you wouldn’t have to charge, you're also free to stop at far more locations if you want. You were forced to try that way of travelling because you had no choice.

Look beyond this to the overall bigger picture. We cannot put rapid chargers everywhere, it’s just not going to happen. So the restaurant that has these nearby will be fine, the one that misses out a bit further down the road might no longer be a viable business if most of its visitors are people traveling on long journeys. Longer range batteries will save those other locations without charging if you don’t have to charge nearly as often.

The speed that cars add miles of range is faster when you have a bigger battery. Cars will not need to be on chargers as often so you’ll need less of them. We might not need chargers everywhere but maybe just a somewhat larger selection than we have petrol stations currently but not massively so.

Lots of people always say that they don’t want the extra weight or cost. They are missing that there won’t be extra weight or cost in the future. The Nio 150kWh pack is expensive as its new and low volume but it only weighs 20kg more than the 100kWh pack. I’m not talking about lots of cars doing this right now, it’ll happen as energy density increases and costs per kWh drop.

Thankfully I think increased range will happen even if there’s people on these forums that constantly say they don’t want it. It’s not just about if you need it for your trips but it also reduces the load on public chargers and the quantity you need. It’s just natural progress.

Frankly the ranges are too low currently, I could go further with a 6.6 litre twin turbo charged V12 than electric cars can do currently in summer and certainly far longer in winter. The range is low because of cost and weight of current batteries, not because they’ve decided this is the magic range figure.

It’s why I’ve no interest in owning an EV currently but just leasing / PCP, the rate of change is going to be vast over the next 10 - 20 years. Where as with ICE you go say 8 years from a 3 series to the next 3 series and you get 2mpg improvement and 15bhp more than the last model. You’d not kick yourself to not get but might when a new model comes with 40% more range and half the charging time say.

 

[m3gt2]

Exactly the reason I've been saying that cars do need more range. You get many saying that you cannot drive that long without stopping but miss the point that you can stop and not need to charge. Ultimately more range means less need for public chargers and also larger batteries will charge at a faster miles per hour speed. Even if the battery takes just as long to fill if you want to fill it say, you often will only need x amount of miles which you'll get quicker. So turn around times on chargers will be faster also. Other than cost / weight which will come down, it's all win / win in my books.

I do think that I’m probably talking more about Range going from 100 miles to 250-300 that’s the more expensive cars currently have. I could use 1000 mile range as it’s used for chauffeur work and my wife also drives it but I do think that for most people saying you need more than 300 miles (real world) is just something in the head rather than what they actually need. Obviously I’m not the only use case where more range/a battery would be useful, those that tow would be an obvious case that would benefit etc.

 

[WannabeOwner]

We cannot put rapid chargers everywhere, it’s just not going to happen

I agree. I went from an MS90 to a Raven, I was doing around 30K miles p.a. at the time, real-world range went from 240 to 300 miles, and for my mix of UK out-and-back journeys I went from Supercharging 2 days a month to a couple of times a year.

So (the maths is obvious, I know) travel further until first must-charge stop (in UK that might be the whole "Out and back home"), need less top-up than a lower-range vehicle to reach destination (unless journey is long enough for drive-charge-drive-...). And, as you say, when you stop the bigger battery typically fills at higher miles-per-hour - same time 10%-80%, but more miles gained in that time. Fewer, overall, Supercharger visits also means less chance of encountering a queue, and being forced to a particular route to accommodate the charging stop.

But for a long journey, well over 300 miles, with several charging stops I'm happy to stop and charge, and recuperate!

I take you point that if I want to stop at a particular restaurant I'm stuffed if I also need to charge. So, latterly, we have been stopping at "Most suitable Supercharger" and then taking pot-luck for a meal. Whereas we would prefer a fully haw-hee-haw French meal in a provincial restaurant ... with ICE we would drive off motorway into a nearby village and take pot luck. But now we want to use the hour to charge from <10% to 100% to stretch the next leg, so we take whatever food is available nearby. Its not often enough that I care and its just become part of our change-management

But for the additional 20 minute enforced EV-charging stops I'm happy to stop anywhere, an Aire on the French motorway is fine. All I am doing is stretching my legs, maybe having a pee, but definitely recuperating compared to the mad-dash that we used to do in ICE