Luckypants

Apparently this is on the site of an old steel works, so lots of power available. Instavolt have 32 80kW chargers (400V vehicles), Osprey have 6 Kempower 150kW and Tesla have 12 250kW which are open to all. Here is a little review of the area I spotted on YT yesterday https://youtu.be/qfTBv7ikA4w

I didn't think the ID.4 was much bigger than the Karoq at 130mm longer but its really noticeable. Another 100mm on top is just too big. The amount of space internally that an a purpose built EV gives is much bigger than the equivalent ICE so going smaller is what I want to do and all manufacturers should go the same way.

This will be Skoda's offering to match the ID.7 estate. 4.7 meters is massive! 100mm longer than my ID.4 which is really too big for us. (Bought without seeing at launch, interior space is huge) and will not fit on our drive at that size. Hence my hankering for an Octavia sized EV estate.

If they produce an Octavia Estate EV a similar size to the current car, I'd be happy. They could probably make it smaller externally with the same interior space due to EV packaging advantages and that would be even better. Unfortunately, the line-up shown all seem to be SUV styled big cars. Even the 'small' EV is actually quite big.

I quite like his channel but he is very pro-German cars. Understandable but maybe a bit biased? He really likes Mercedes 🙂

Further to my comments on size, I've checked out the actual dimensions. This car is a FOOT longer than an ID.4, which is not a small car. When the estate version arrives, I expect it will be longer still. Neither the sedan or estate will fit on my drive with another car parked. This is truly limousine type length and probably not needed for most families. I was vaguely interested as an estate version is promised, but not at this size, and most likely price. Now the new 50% more efficient drive train in my ID.4 might be a game changer though.... hopeful that will come with an ID.4 revamp. Unless VW come up with an ID.3 / Golf EV estate. Its going to be interesting to see who buys the ID.7.

I'm thinking of going to the Harrogate event.

IMHO this is too big. People say its will appeal to Passat owners, its much bigger. It will turn out to be another Phaeton, great car for a market that doesn't exist. Put the fancy new drive train into the ID.3 and sell millions. Build something smaller VW.

Still a glaring omission on many more upmarket cars too, such as the I-Pace or Ioniq 5. Seems to be needless penny pinching as I certainly would not buy a car without.

This thread is about updating the Garmin Navigon portable units used on the earlier Skoda Citigo (hence it is in the Citigo section) so I agree, you are talking at cross purposes to this thread. There are many other threads on this forum regarding updates to the Columbus system, so I suggest using the search function.

Scroll to the bottom of the download page and there is a bit entitled 'need help with installation' with a link to a PDF giving instructions to install. Here is a direct link... https://www.myvolkswagen.net/weatweb/feature-apps/nmu/assets/installationGuides/en/garminManual-en.pdf This is answered in the above PDF, max size is 4GB. If anyone runs this update I'd appreciate knowing how it went.

Is it not the case that used prices for all cars are 'plummeting' as demand drops due to the cost of living crisis? Last year used prices were daft for everything - at one stage WBAC / motorway were offering me £8,750 for our 6 year old Citigo - mainly due to lack of supply of new cars, so demand was high for nearly new used cars and this had a knock on effect to lower priced cars. I think a lot of people have put off getting a new car due to uncertainty over their cashflow for the next year or so. For those under 40, 10% inflation is a new and scary phenomenon and pay is not keeping pace so belts are being tightened. Mortgage rates have gone up and is shocking those who were forced to max out to buy, so a new car is unlikely. I suspect we will see a 'crisis' in many suppliers of big ticket items over the next 12 months.

Another point raised by my little trip out at the weekend. I was thinking I could charge at Hartshead Moor services, as something was telling me Applegreen had opened an 8 charger / 16 plug hub there recently, but could not find mention on the usual apps, so chose to charge early at Beverley. Today with some time on my hands I found the post about it and a link to the Applegreen charger map. They were operational and would have made an excellent stop. With low SoC and 180kW capable charger I would have been away in 10 minutes (or a bathroom break). I think this underlines how quickly things are moving now we have more players in the EV charging space and it is worth researching as much as possible before heading into an unfamiliar area. Link to Applegreen charger map

Talking about charging out and about. We also charged at Beverley MfG 100kW charger which is brand new (not on Zap-Map yet) where we briefly got 60kW before someone else plugged in to the other cable on the unit (2xCCS 1xChademo) and knocked speed down to 30kW. I'm assuming its a split charge system and I got a bum deal. As this was meant to be a quick top up to get home, I left as soon as I had enough with little buffer if things went badly. An hour or so later we needed a comfort break and I decided to get a splash and dash at Birch services. Three chargers and only one free, which I plugged into and was getting a measly 30kW but immediately a Mercedes EQE plugged in to the same charger and split the charge down to 15kW. So a 10 minute break added about 4kW. turns out a good decision as it rained and consumption increased and we got home with 3% remaining. My point is that unless implemented well, shared charging is ****e. I want to go topped up fast on the road and both these chargers were severely compromised by split charging. In the case of Birch, the charge was slow anyway before it was split in half. We need a lot more places like Washington I mentioned in my previous post so on route charging works for everyone. EDIT: I was also a bit ****ed at the EQE driver who has a 400 mile range capable car and plugged in to shared charger when they had 77% battery. Of course he may need every last electron to complete his journey and I'll never know.....

I used the new bank of chargers at Washington South services on the A1 yesterday. 6x350kW chargers that worked nicely. One was in use when we got there, by the time we had a comfort break there were 5 in use. Six chargers per services is probably a minimum now. for those interested I got 75kW with a cold battery and 25% SoC. Not lightening fast, but good enough.

Sounds like a thoroughly professional outfit I hope that hasn't taken to much shine off 'new car day' for you and also that it is sorted quickly and to your satisfaction.

How bad is the damage?

I agree, with the subscription price per kWh almost half that of Osprey, Instavolt, Applegreen et al. I don't charge much on the road, so no CPO subscription is worth it to me. However, we are driving to the South of France in September and Tesla look the cheapest with a subscription, which I can take for a single month. They are also the most numerous on the autoroutes now and ABRP shows I can make the trip purely using Tesla SC at about 42p / kWh.

Applegreen have burst on the scene also, installing hubs at Welcome Break services (same group) and now have HPC hubs at Abbington Services Gretna Services Hartshead Moor services Newark Services Sarn Park services (Bridgend) South Mimms https://driver.applegreenelectric.com/findCharger?53.6059337,-2.4951227,7z

5 Tesla SC locations have been opened to all since the original list was released Harrogate HG3 1EW Birmingham B10 0BW Carmarthen SA31 1GA Newport NP18 1HQ Romford RM1 3JT

I think they can up to 125kW but I'm not very sure about voltage. Here is the press release about the upgrades, which is about all I know. https://instavolt.co.uk/instavolt-announces-significant-upgrade-to-its-existing-charging-network/

The reason I popped onto this thread.... a new Osprey charging mini-hub for Inverness. This makes Inverness quite well served I believe.

Gridserve have implemented dual charging on almost all its chargers now. You can tell if a charger has it by the 'DUAL CHARGING AVAILABLE' sticker on the unit. Yes, some people have gotten irate about someone 'stealing' their charge but conversely it saves you waiting while some bozo charges to 100% but only drawing 10kW. This low rate of charge when dual charging is why Instavolt announced it was upgrading all it's older units (via software) to 250kW capable - which should be completed in April. However, its worth remembering when dual charging that the actual supply may be limited by legacy wiring and you may never get the headline speed.

According to the Electroverse app, they are Project-EV chargers and free to use. I find Electroverse more up to date than Zap-map.

Very useful @fatbelly. How are they managing in the current snowy conditions?