Viability of Road Trips in EVs?

The place to discuss everything else..
Post Reply
ID3Owner
Posts: 17
Joined: Mon Feb 17, 2020 9:11 pm

Post by ID3Owner »

One of the big reasons that I’ve been hesitant on investing in an EV until now is because my spouse and I like to go on road trips. While I know most EV’s can last around 200 miles, we plan on taking much longer trips in the future. How long do you think it’ll take for EV’s to be a reliable option for road tripping? Would love to hear your thoughts. Or best advice for under taking longer trips.

For example, we live in North East England but drive to Disney Paris, how easy will this journey be?

Camellia
Posts: 12
Joined: Mon Feb 17, 2020 10:48 pm

Post by Camellia »

Well more and more charging stations are now available and which is improving every year. As more electric cars hit the road, we can expect to see more charging stations available each year. More stations are being added to the list every week, not just in larger towns and cities, but throughout the country.
I'm hoping the sat nav can do something clever and plan longer routes with charge stops in mind.
Rhevian
Posts: 53
Joined: Wed May 06, 2020 1:57 pm
Location: Cambridge
Contact:

Post by Rhevian »

I had been planning a holiday near Berlin this summer (until, you know...) and in the hope I might have the ID3 in time, I looked into charging options. There’s a really good website (and app) called abetterrouteplanner.com - tell it what car you have, and where you’re going, and it will suggest charging stops along the way, and predict charge levels at each one, and how long you need to stop at each point. Zap-map is another good site, for the UK only.

I expect to mainly use the car’s own built in software once I have it, But this site looks great for planning.
Rhevian
Posts: 53
Joined: Wed May 06, 2020 1:57 pm
Location: Cambridge
Contact:

Post by Rhevian »

Here’s an example route from a random point in the NW to Disneyland: https://abetterrouteplanner.com/?plan_u ... 5bd2f6674d
Stopping for charges in Stoke on Trent, Milton Keynes, just beyond Calais, and near Paris
A little over 9h driving, and around 2.5h charging
HeidiFlowerpt Driver
Posts: 251
Joined: Tue Dec 01, 2020 2:30 pm

Post by HeidiFlowerpt Driver »

On a road trip, how long are you in the habit of driving before stopping for a break? I certainly don't drive 200 miles without a break. It's just a matter of synchronising your own comfort breaks with charging the car. If the car takes 3/4 hour to recharge to 80%, that's about the right time for a pee, a coffee and perhaps a pasty. Perfect.
ID.3 1st Edition Manganese Grey - called Heidi Flowerpot
OllyExeterID3
Posts: 67
Joined: Wed Nov 18, 2020 3:45 pm

Post by OllyExeterID3 »

HeidiFlowerpot wrote: Thu Dec 03, 2020 2:29 pm On a road trip, how long are you in the habit of driving before stopping for a break? I certainly don't drive 200 miles without a break. It's just a matter of synchronising your own comfort breaks with charging the car. If the car takes 3/4 hour to recharge to 80%, that's about the right time for a pee, a coffee and perhaps a pasty. Perfect.
Agreed. Even in our last car with 100 miles average range, we reguarly did 300+ mile trips. The only anxiety I had/still have is reliable charging points - the Ecotricity Electric Highway ones (which I relied on when we first got our car) are now horrendous, and I have always found Polar/Pulse chargers to be hit and miss.

Example: Exeter to Cambridge journey, two charge stops, total time charging, about 1:05hrs. Fine, no problems.
Exeter to Bristol - 85-ish miles, issues with chargers all the way along so return trip required 10 mile detour. Total charging time: 40 mins but including detour, 1:05hrs!

The sooner there is parity with reliability across all parts of the UK, the better. It is getting there, ZapMap and others are a great help and you really do just have to plan the journey (and contingencies)
Purplemeanie
Posts: 20
Joined: Sat Oct 17, 2020 11:32 am
Contact:

Post by Purplemeanie »

On the subject of Ecotricity and Exeter... we had a poor experience with Exeter Services at the start of the last half term. When we arrived there were 6 people queuing to use the three charging stations and even then one of them was only delivering about 3kW.

The good news is that we wrote to Exeter services and they told us they are in the process of installing a 1MW power feed into the service station and six new 350kW charging points. That’s great news but also seemed a bit short sighted. I get that there are economics at play here, but six seemed a little on the light side. It’s also not clear whether that’s an additional 6 stations or whether the current ones are also being removed. There must be hundreds of cars in the Exeter services at busy times, and a lot of them are going to be EV in the coming years. At least there’s some improvement there.

The same can’t be said once you get past Exeter and on into Devon and Cornwall. The situation has improved with the new Cornwall Services on the A30, but it still has some way to go.

John
ID3 1st Edition
Delivered 30/9/2020
www.purplemeanie.co.uk
OllyExeterID3
Posts: 67
Joined: Wed Nov 18, 2020 3:45 pm

Post by OllyExeterID3 »

Purplemeanie wrote: Mon Dec 21, 2020 12:50 pm On the subject of Ecotricity and Exeter... we had a poor experience with Exeter Services at the start of the last half term. When we arrived there were 6 people queuing to use the three charging stations and even then one of them was only delivering about 3kW.

The good news is that we wrote to Exeter services and they told us they are in the process of installing a 1MW power feed into the service station and six new 350kW charging points. That’s great news but also seemed a bit short sighted. I get that there are economics at play here, but six seemed a little on the light side. It’s also not clear whether that’s an additional 6 stations or whether the current ones are also being removed. There must be hundreds of cars in the Exeter services at busy times, and a lot of them are going to be EV in the coming years. At least there’s some improvement there.

The same can’t be said once you get past Exeter and on into Devon and Cornwall. The situation has improved with the new Cornwall Services on the A30, but it still has some way to go.

John
Very true - prior to us having a driveway, we relied on access to the Exeter Services at the end of a road trip to charge our previous EV, sometimes adding an hour on to our journey to wait for someone to finish at the single CCS charger there and then charging. I think 6 rapid is fine - as long as there are some slower AC chargers for emergencies. In Norway, having this set-up helps enormously because if you aren't in a hurry, you can at least add 70-80 km of 'top-up' range either whilst waiting or instead of. I think this needs to become the norm to add a buffer for those who aren't in a hurry.

Thinking about Cornwall, just completed a 260 mile round trip, actually very impressed, new Shell 150kw chargers at Kingsley Village off the A30 are amazing. Only got 52kw speeds but I gather speeds can vary depending on weather/battery state (we were on 25% when we got there which should have been low enough to eke more out of it but....) etc. Refreshing to only need to charge once on that whole journey (did 144 miles 100% - 25% with 66 miles left at 25% which didn't feel too bad in rainy, windy conditions heading in to a SW headwind...., 25 min charge gave us an extra 80 miles of range or so).
Purplemeanie
Posts: 20
Joined: Sat Oct 17, 2020 11:32 am
Contact:

Post by Purplemeanie »

Good to know about the Kingsley Shell garage, thanks. We topped up at the Strawberry Fields farm shop on the way back and that worked well, but only one station there.

John
ID3 1st Edition
Delivered 30/9/2020
www.purplemeanie.co.uk
Post Reply