Road trip to Edinburgh -Part 1

[lightboxcar]

This Easter 2023, we did a road trip from London to Edinburgh in the bZ4X, having never used a public EV charging point before !

Installed the following apps before the trip:

ChargePlaceScotland, Shell Recharge, BP Pulse, Tesla, Electroverse, Instavolt, ABRP, ZapMaps ( paid for Premium )

Installed the following apps during the trip:

PodPoint, Osprey Charging, Evyve

Got the bZ4X charged to 100% the night before we left.

Pre-planned journey uisng Zap Maps and was surprised the estimated journey time was about 12 and a half hours, believed/hoped that it could be quite a bit less.  The approximately same trip took 9 and a half hours last time in an ICE vehicle.

Departed London at a leisurely 10.20hrs. Friday 31 March 2023.

Weather was fairly dreadful, almost constant rain , but still reasonable temperatures around 12 degrees C.

Had to use the demisting blowers quite often, as three occupants plus dog in the car.

Traffic on M25 and M40 being the Easter holiday getaway, was awful as expected .  Used M42 toll road to save time, cost about £8, worth every penny.

Started to try and locate a charger when the estimated range on the dash got down to about 65 miles, thinking we had a good safety margin.  This is where our problems started !

The Zap Map App was utterly useless.  First it suggested a charger 1.7 miles away.  As we had the Premium Zap Map, it could be used on the in car display, and there was the option to 'navigate' to the selected charger using Waze or Apple Maps.  Chose Apple Maps and away we went, only to glance at the naviation a few minutes later to see 27 miles to the charger !!!

Stopped to check navigation, and started again with Zap Maps which again showed charger within a couple of miles.  This time selected Waze for navigation, and once again within a couple of minutes the navigation showed the charger being 26 miles away.  However by this time we had already rejoined the motorway and could only come off at the next junction.

During all of this time the "65 miles of safety margin" had been dropping much faster than the actual miles driven, so much so we were all of a sudden on the motorway with 12 miles of range showing , PANIC TIME !!!!!

By good fortune and sheer luck we got off at the next junction quite soon and parked up to compose ourselves and try and calm down.  Then decided to forget using the so called "premium" features of Zap Maps, and find a charger manually, then simply punch the postcode into Waze directly.

Eventually with enormous relief , we arrived at an Ionity charging station near Stafford.   Parked up and tried for about 5 minutes without success to get the charing started. Then a very kind chap came over to explain he had the exact same problem and had to phone them up to get it working, and suggested we do too, which we did.  Call was answered very promptly, and the service was excellent.  Once the charging got going, seeing 114kW of charge rate going into the bZ4X was a huge relief and a truly joyous moment.  About 20 minutes later the next EV driver arrived, and duly had the same problems that we and the driver before us had.  We repeated the favour given to us and advised him to call the number on the charger which he did and shortly afterwards was happily charging.  We managed to get up to 87% SOC in 56 minutes ( 50.8kWh added to Battery ).

We wanted to arrive with a decent amount of SOC as the destination was remote and charging possibilities were unknown, so we made a third charging stop near Lockerbie and quite easily found a Gridserve charger and charged up to about 81%.  This charger was much slower than the Ionity, only about 30kW to start and at 60% SOC we were down to a rate of 19kW.

Finally arrived at destination at 22.36hrs, remarkably similar to the Zap Maps estimate that was made way back on 16 March, about 12 hours total.  This included an extra 40 minute stop for dog walking.

 

[lightboxcar]

Road trip to Edinburgh -Part 2

During the stay, it was a case of charger hunting, which was interesting to say the least.

First experience was at the impressive St James Quarter shopping mall in the centre of Edinburgh.  They boast no less that about fifty two EV charging points in the multi storey car park !!  They all seem to be run by PodPoint.  We parked up in a bay, and had to use our own charging cable, as they do not have them attached to the chargers.  Virtually zero information or instructions shown on the charger, apart from a couple graphics showing how to attach the cable, which we duly did.  Seemed no way to pay or start the charge.

So tried the 'Ionity' method of calling the phone number on the charger, but quickly realised there was zero phone signal so phoning impoossible !  Next had the idea that maybe we need the  PodPoint App, but again no signal available so could not install it. Then has a brainwave,  in a modern plush centre like this with no phone signal they would surely provide Wi Fi.  Sure enough on scanning for available networks up popped PodPoint.  Connected to the PodPoint Wi Fi only to find the message "no internet" so impossible to install the app or even use it if we had preinstalled it.

At this stage decided to check the dashboard ( as My-T not working either due to no signal ) and voila car was charging !!  Having seen the quite high parking charges, £13 for 4 hours, we assumed the charging must be free.  Unfortunately on our return a few hours later no charge at all had been added.  We eventually discovered on a later visit that in very tiny print on the charger, a notice says 'activate charging withing 15 minutes...."  Seems the ridiculous procedure is to connect the cable, make a note of the weird charger name, travel by foot way out of the very large complex, find a mobile signal, launch the PopPoint App, add credit to account, enter the charger name and finally activate.  After all that you'll get a misery 7kW charge for your troubles.

Later that day we found an Osprey charger, very simple to operate, simply plug in the supplied cable, tap payment card and go, and at around 48kW, although it claims to do 75kW.  Got to 80% SOC in about 30 mins.

The next experience was astonishing.  A few days later  we found four chargers in a retail park, all run by an outfit called 'evyve' , who based on our experience should really withdraw from the charger market at once.  Tried three of the four chargers with zero success.  Went back to the 'Ionity' trick and phoned the number on the charger.  Pleasant and polite chap answered fairly promptly.  Explained to him we could not charge.  He suggested a whole bunch of solutions, including opening and shutting the car doors, connecting and reconecting the cables and more.  After about 15 minutes we suggested this seemed to be a bit of a dead end.  He then checked his system and explained the charger had NEVER been used, ever, and it was probably brand new and not commissioned.  We pointed out the the bolts attaching the chargers to the concrete were very rusty, and the chargers had a fair amount of bird poo on them.  The LCD screens were all lit up, the scanner successfully accepted payment and the app responded and said 'charging started'.  Nevertheless it was all in vain, around 40 minutes of wasted time.  We did ask him if a charger had never ever been used would they not wonder why and go out and check if it was working ?  He did not have a reply to that.......

For the rest of the duration of our stay we used mainly PodPoint and Gridserve, the latter being so much better and easier.

 

[lightboxcar]

Road trip to Edinburgh -Part 3

The return journey, Easter Bank Holiday Monday 2023:

The evening before departure to London, we used a Gridserve charger at IKEA to charge right up to 100% SOC, took 1 hour 38 minutes, which was quite good really.

As an aside we are using a dongle in the OBD port and a Car Scanner App on the phone, as recommended by a forum member.  It is quite interesting.  My-T and the GridServe charger both showed 100% SOC, but according to the Car Scanner App, the 'real' SOC of the Battery was only 92.94%.   Perhaps this is another Toyota Battery conserving ploy, like the buffer when range shows zero ?

Once again, on the return journey we started charger hunting when dashboard range was about 65 miles.  We should of course have learned from the previous experience, but as we now had used multiple public chargers, we were more confident, and surely the Zap Maps issue we had before was just a glitch.

Not so as it transpired.  Once again Zap Maps suggested a nearby charger, only to revert to over 30 miles away in the navigation, and in the WRONG direction, utter madness !!!  After realiing this we stopped and reverted to manual checking.  Found a 350kW charger a few miles away in place called Carnforth near the Lake District.  It took ages to get there as when we came off the motorway the local road were completely gridlocked.  Eventually we found the chargers, two of them outside a Porche centre.  We could not get either to work, and guess what, zero phone signal, Groundhog day !!!!  So back into the lunatic traffic jams and back onto the motorway.

Eventually managed to get to Lancaster Services.  It was rammed, literally hundreds of vehicles, they even had traffic wardens deployed to manage the traffic.  Got to the TWO chargers ( yes only TWO chargers for the entire place ).  Both in use. Parked up nearby and went over to chat to one of the EV drivers, who very helpfully explained the chargers were 'Dual' CSS and Chademo chargers that could be used simultaneously, and by a stroke of luck his car was Chademo.  We VERY promptly moved the bZ4X alongside and plugged in the CSS!

Another interesting note; whilst we were both charging , the charge rate was divided between us, initially giving us about 22kW.  The other chap finished charging quite soon and our charge rate then went up to 43kW.  We stayed until SOC was about 83%.

The next charge attempt was Tesco Solihul.  Complete failure , we could not find a single charger existing there.  After some more manual searching on Zap Maps we found a brillant Instavolt charger nearby at MacDonalds Solihul.  Charged at around 72kW, got to 83% SOC in 59 minutes.  This second charge got us all the way back to London with 15% SOC to spare.

Return journey time 13 hours.

Total driven during the trip was 1115 miles

Total energy used , allowing for the 100% start and 15% finish, was 355 kWh

Using demisting quite often, avarage temperatures 12 degrees C, 75% motorway, 25% urban.

Efficiency 3.14 miles / kW.

[lightboxcar]

Road trip to Edinburgh - Conclusions

Conclusions, what have we learned:

The bZ4X is a fantastic car, the seats are by far the most relaxing on a long drive we've ever done.

It is quiet, and the road holding is superb.  The mirrors give brilliant visibility on the motorway.  You feel instinctively safe driving this car during day and night.

The range is absolutely fine, we stopped more times than we needed to charge !  Just be careful when estimated range is low, it seems to drop faster then, no idea why.

Other EV drivers are very nice people and will often help you !

BUT the infrastructure for charging seems to us dreadful.  We consider ourselves very lucky, it could have been a lot worse, we almost got stranded !  This is no fault of the bZ4X.

We have this crazy situation were certain chargers will only work with an app, other take a normal payment card.  Chargers located where there is no phone signal , insane !

Many are broken, we saw loads of chargers on Zap Map with a status if 'out of service' in RED, some for weeks at a time.  Others it seems have NEVER worked ever, you can't make this stuff up.

Right now we EV drivers are by far the small monority of vehicles on the road.  You really notice that when you get out of town.  A major motorway service station having two chargers is surely ludicrous ?   Even a modest increase in EV's on the road and the exisiting charging network will absolutely not be able to cope, 2030 realistic ? Not a chance at it stands now.

If anyone asked us about getting an EV, the answer, for now, is yes but only, and only if you have a home charger.

 

[Malop]

Brilliant writer-up thank you for that.

That’s an interesting problem with zap-maps, I’ve just upgraded to premium so will try it out,I previously used your manual method of typing postcode into Apple Maps. 

I agree on the charging infrastructure, it’s very hit and miss and the coverage on motorways is shocking. I have found that McDonalds and InstaVolt are the most frequent and most reliable but am beginning to find them hogged by delivery drivers and most sites have 2 maximum.

I’m hoping the recently announced government investment actually turns into net new money for charging infrastructure but I have my doubts.

[Mojo1010]

I'm dazed part way into reading this, great write up. Just can't live with the stress/added hours of tiredness during a long distance drive holiday. No drive for a home charger so absolutely zero chance will be getting an EV. 

From my previous experiences of traffic during the holidays, try to depart a day before the rush, come back a day early or a day after. That's in a non EV car!

[Roy124]

Mojo, agreed or more.  Went to Netherlands over Easter.  The ferry fares were a good guide, we went the Tuesday before and returned the Wednesday after. 

In UK an alternative might be a night drive but you still loose a day at each end recovering. 

An opportunity to restore car trains? 

[PCM]

Indeed, a fascinating read.

The EV stress and uncertainty is not for me, I'm afraid...

I'll stick to petrol or self-charging hybrid.

Thank you for the write-up though!

What I HAVE noticed is previous blue-badge motorway parking, has been converted to charging points on occasions. 😞 

Glad you had a happy holiday! Whiskey?!

[philip42h]

7 hours ago, lightboxcar said:

Conclusions ...

The bZ4X is a fantastic car ...

The range is absolutely fine ...

BUT the infrastructure for charging seems to us dreadful.

I think that is pretty much what I would have expected from the outset and is, largely, the reason that I don't [yet] drive an EV.

I suspect that some of the 'anxt' arose through lack of experience on your part - that should ease as you use the car more. And, I suspect, that you should choose your waypoints / recharging options conservatively before you set off on the trip and more deliberately navigate to each of them in turn.

For regular longer journeys the stops should become routine - i.e. you always stop at a particular point and recharge (almost whether you need to or not). But for irregular / one-off journeys it is likely to be a while before you can just stop-off for a recharge in the way that I can in order to take on more fuel ...

[lightboxcar]

4 hours ago, PCM said:

Whiskey?

The cottage had a full decanter of whisky waiting.

The decanter was attended to before any luggage was even unpacked......

[lightboxcar]

4 hours ago, philip42h said:

arose through lack of experience on your part

Yes, definately correct !

 

4 hours ago, philip42h said:

choose your waypoints / recharging options conservatively before you set off

This would seem logical, however in our experience this strategy  had some problems.  The status of the chargers seems to change quite rapidly.  A certain charger will show up as available, but within a short period of time, it is no longer available.  Or as we noticed a few times, the charger suddenly went 'out of service'.

We also came accross a charger that was being used by a Tesla.  The display showed his Battery was at 100% and the car had been attached to the charger for about 5 hours....

For these reasons we felt it was more realitic to start searching for chargers only when we were in striking distance of them to give us the best chance of getting to the charger whilst it was still working and available.

The most dissapointing thing for us, was that the vast majority of charging points only has two chargers.  Image all petrol stations only had two fuel pumps, how would that work out ?

The Ionity charging station at Stafford was the exception, from memory they had at least six charging points, ad they were FAST !

One other disconcerting thing; if you drive into a motorway service station, the directions to the fuel pumps are very clearly signed, so it's quite simple to find the petrol pump.  During the entire journey, apart form tne shopping mall, we did not see a single sign showing the way to any EV chargers, it was just a case of arriving in the approximate location, and visually searching for the charging points.

As you say, more experience will certainly help, but in the meantime if many more EVs arrive on the road, even that experience will be of limited value as it stands now.

 

[Cyker]

Thanks for the writeup!

I find it hard to gauge what the state of play is as EV evangelists tend to gloss over the problems and paint a rosy picture while the EV haters just talk about the problems, so it's always valuable to get some real world unfiltered experiences!

5 hours ago, philip42h said:

I think that is pretty much what I would have expected from the outset and is, largely, the reason that I don't [yet] drive an EV.

I suspect that some of the 'anxt' arose through lack of experience on your part - that should ease as you use the car more. And, I suspect, that you should choose your waypoints / recharging options conservatively before you set off on the trip and more deliberately navigate to each of them in turn.

For regular longer journeys the stops should become routine - i.e. you always stop at a particular point and recharge (almost whether you need to or not). But for irregular / one-off journeys it is likely to be a while before you can just stop-off for a recharge in the way that I can in order to take on more fuel ...

That is one of the things that needs to be addressed - You need to have experience of where you're going already, or do a lot more planning; You can't just go somewhere on a whim like you can in ICE vehicles.

One of the things I value with cars is that carefree freedom of just being able to go anywhere when you feel like it, and it'd just feel like a step back until they can do something about that out.

TBH I'm still amazed at how unreliable chargers are and continue to be - We've pretty much figured out the distribution and transmission of electricity for the past few centuries yet they've somehow managed to smeg it up!

 

[swoop5511]

@lightboxcar big thanks for the write up! quick question, and apologies if you mentioned it on your review. Have you had the map update installed on BZ? Since the update I now see charging points on the car navigation, specifically noticeable on motorway driving. And a few times when i got below "a" threshold on the way home it promptly suggest chargers in my vicinity. If you had the map update installed, did the charger suggestions by the car match what you got from the app(s)?

[lightboxcar]

4 hours ago, swoop5511 said:

Have you had the map update installed on BZ?

TBH not actually sure.

We never use the built in navigation, instead using either Waze of Apple Maps

[tfc]

I think I would of had a nervous breakdown if that happened  to me 

[glencrannog]

Thanks for the honest review. While I think EV is the EVENTUAL way forward, not so much as at this point in time. Present day EV owners are like the advance troops! At the moment I've made my mind up that hybrid is the way forward until all the problems are truly sorted out, then maybe, just maybe......

[lightboxcar]

This is sort of what we mean about the state of the EV charger network that we have experienced.

The below pictured Shell EV charger seems to have been broken for so long that the garage have decided to just put a traffic cone in the bay to stop cars puling up and trying to charge.  It's location is 117 Whitehorse Road Croydon, CR0 2LG.

Zap Mas shows it as "Out of service 2 weeks ago"  That's a user report , so it's likely been bust for a fair bit longer.

This is CENTRAL CROYDON, the biggest borough in the UK.  And the company is Shell !!

If they can't get public EV chargers working here, the rest of you I'm afraid have little chance....

[lightboxcar]

 

And yet another

Supermarket EV charger fenced off with red tape to deter would be EV drivers....

[georgepilk]

I'm lucky to have a home charger. Without a home charger, I think this problem will certainly put people off from owning an EV. How on earth did we get to a stage where within a very short time, the space is crowded with EV charger apps/providers?  I believe there are simply too many apps available to download for EV chargers. Then there are RFID (Radio Frequency Identity Cards) that give the impression they can make charging and payments easier. e.g. Electroverse for Octopus customers added to your bill, or credit card if a noncustomer and Toyota Charging Network. I don't know how secure these websites are as you have to give credit card details when you apply.

Firstly you may be lucky if you have access to the net to download the specific app at a specific EV charge point you end up finding that's working. You have to download the relevant app first or go to their website to apply for this card, which then comes via the post. Some offer a subsidised charging rate, e.g. Bonnet.  Then the app freezes at the EV charger or simply fails to connect. Come on here it's 2023!!

Then some app services are free and others you have to pay for or take out a paid subscription. To find out more info about EV charging, RFIC cards, subscription apps and what they offer, etc, etc, you have to select your topic then read and read and read. Potentially you have such a huge choice to use lots of different networks, and having dozens of RFIDs clogging up your wallet isn’t exactly ideal. I only want to go out for a weekend away and stay overnight!! Like I used to do. So unnecessarily complicated. I have not charged anywhere yet having a home charger has rather tethered me to a certain distance from it until I can get to grips with this. Very annoying.

[ChrisON]

I think George's comments are pretty much spot on. There are too many companies wanting to be EV charging providers and there seems to be little or no regulation on how EV charging is delivered. Can you imagine the chaos if petrol/diesel supplies started going down the app route? Self serve pumps never really caught on. There should be at least some simple legislation forcing providers to have contactless payment on all EV charging points.

My experience of public charging points is limited so far. Used Instavolt 4 times (1, Northwich, 2 x Banbury and 1 x Frilford). I did have problems with the Instavolt app - signed up, added card details and it took the £1 test payment - all OK until l wanted to use it and it wanted to take the £1 payment again and would never start charging; had the same problem on all three occasions - gave up and used debit card/contactless worked perfectly.

I got the six months free subscription to the Toyota Charging Network when l bought my bz4x but l have no idea if I'll use it as long journeys will be the exception.  Do i want to start paying £5.99 a month for something I'll rarely use? Probably not. Same with BP Pulse - don't really understand the benefit. You don't pay a monthly sucscription for using fossil fuel so why should l do it for electric?

I had solar installed in March this year and it did have a big influence on my going for the bz4x; if l didn't have solar l would probably have stuck with a hybrid.

Chris

 

 

[Cyker]

Aye, I really hope the requirement for apps and stupid RFID tags goes away before I have to change to an EV; With contactless cards and phone payment there's absolutely no excuse for it - It's just a lame attempt at vendor lock-in.

This is also why I say home charging is essential for EV ownership, at least right now, as it takes a lot of the pain out of it. If you have to use public chargers exclusively it's such a massive ball-ache and really sours the ownership experience.