UK charging

[ianto999]

Just for self entertainment it's interesting to plan a route using Abetterrouteplanner from London to Edinburgh for an iPace ... then recalculate the same but changing the car to a Tesla ... any Tesla ... even the SR+ arrives at destination an hour and a quarter before the iPace ... and as for the long range 3, MS and X ... well it's just embarrassing (and that's assuming that the iPace chargers actually work).

 

[MaDProFF]

Thanks for replies, I will route via M42, I am going early, so might stop at nearest super charger to top up before I get there, and then slow charge to 100%, in theory I should get back on a full charge about 150 miles???

 

[WannabeOwner]

might stop at nearest super charger to top up before I get there,

I'm sure obvious (and may well be what you said), but in case not: your best bet is to charge at the furthest (from you "now") charger that you can reach safely.

You will arrive with lower state of charge (compared to stopping sooner); car charges fastest 10% to 70%-ish

The "arrival percentage prediction" will be more accurate the closer you are to your destination, and if you have been held up in traffic / roadworks, and thus consumption was more frugal than expected, you will need less top-up charge to "reach destination"

 

[arg]

Does the card cover Instavolt and Polar as well as ChargPlaceScotland chargers?

The card definitely doesn't cover Instavolt, but that's no big deal as Instavolt take contactless bank cards and you don't need any kind of scheme membership there.

I fairly sure Polar don't take CPS cards, but I am not 100% certain, as this is mired in politics.

CPS is an organ of the Scottish Government, which has (wisely IMO) retained ownership of the 'brand'. Compare with England where similar funding gave away the brand ownership to private bidders who either frittered it away wastefully (Source East) or sold it out from under them (CYC).

The actual operations of CPS are subcontracted to CYC, and the CPS card is in effect a CYC card with different branding on it - both cards work equivalently both in England and Scotland. Shortly after the contract was renewed in 2016, Chargemaster (Polar) bought CYC.

In England, they immediately enabled use of Polar cards on CYC points but not CYC cards on Polar points - evidently with a view to pushing customers onto their monthly subscription product for the Polar card (their profits from the CYC locations come from the fees paid by the site owner rather than the end user, so this lets them earn both ways round).

In Scotland, CPS refused to allow that so Polar cards are not accepted on CPS points.

Chargemaster/Polar have always avoided roaming agreements on their network (again, driving subscriptions for their native cards); indeed CYC used to have a roaming agreement with TheNewMotion but Chargemaster terminated it soon after the takeover.

 

[MaDProFF]

I'm sure obvious (and may well be what you said), but in case not: your best bet is to charge at the furthest (from you "now") charger that you can reach safely.

You will arrive with lower state of charge (compared to stopping sooner); car charges fastest 10% to 70%-ish

The "arrival percentage prediction" will be more accurate the closer you are to your destination, and if you have been held up in traffic / roadworks, and thus consumption was more frugal than expected, you will need less top-up charge to "reach destination"

I maybe could have worded that better I actually meant the nearest to my destination, charge to about 80% at Warwick, then top to 100% at NEC on slow charger, and hope to get home on a full charge, will be more traffic so slower driving

 

[Spacey73]

Sadly not a particularly uncommon experience. My experience of non-Tesla public charging networks over the past few years has been that they are universally dire, and that some ICE drivers seem to have a chip on their shoulder about designated EV parking spaces alongside charge points, and go out of their way to block them.

On one occasion I managed to squeeze my i3 into a triangular space that wasn't a designated charging one, and use my 10m lead to reach an ICE'd charge point. When I got back to the car there was a car park attendant in the process of writing out a penalty notice, not for the ICE car parked in the EV space, but for my car being parked outside a designated parking bay. He was reasonable enough, and cancelled the notice after a chat, but told me that there was nothing he could do about the ICE car blocking the EV space, as there was no rule to prevent it.

Jeremy Harris, fancy seeing you here. (Sam here from the old ebike forum...we spoke a few times a few years backand we live pretty close also).

I went the Leaf to i3 to S85 route also.

 

[Spacey73]

Part of the reason I traded in my 90Ah i3 Rex was due to the pain in the butt charging in UK is, constantly broken and long charging times at high prices. When you only have 100 mile useable (way worse on a 24kwh Leaf) you can't really plan long journeys, although the 600cc backup generator in i3 helped a few times.

With free supercharging and a very quick 10% to 70% charge rate on an S85 the extra cost of upgrading to Tesla was worth it for this alone. Still charging at home on 5p kwh between 00:30 and 04:30 still gives 90 miles of super cheap charging.

Looking forward to the new A303 Supercharge supposedly being installed at the end of this year...but I hold my breath really for it to happen anytime soon.

 

[Glan gluaisne]

Jeremy Harris, fancy seeing you here. (Sam here from the old ebike forum...we spoke a few times a few years backand we live pretty close also).

I went the Leaf to i3 to S85 route also.

Hi Sam - you're the second person I've "met" here from somewhere else! Must be shared interests.