Luckypants

Burton in Kendal motorway services Gridserve hub went live last night. Note the 4 x 350kW chargers, in addition to the 2 x 60kW devices. One 100kW CHAdeMO added.

Don't you think all this should be in one of the (many) charger / charging threads? Not particularly about the Cupra Born is it?

In depth review by Autogefuhl from the launch day

AFAIK there are no 'hubs' after that on the M6 until after the M62 junction. The nearest thing would be the MfG EV Power site in Stretford if going to that part of Manchester. There is the Osprey hub near Wolverhampton (WV4 6LQ), but its not handy for the Motorway. Banbury seems to be getting some special love from the charging networks for some reason

You mean Corley services? Both North and Southbound have 7/8 chargers but only 50kW each.

The VW ID cars have that feature too. Some see it as penny pinching, others (like me) see it as less clutter. I don't find it a problem in my car (ID.4).

Probably cable in a conduit, especially metal conduit.

Osprey hub in Wolverhampton and Banbury now open. Instavolt in Banbury now open.

On the subject of hubs, Gridserve opened their new 350kW charging hub at Exeter services today. 12 (twelve) new chargers in addition to the 4 60kW chargers there already. Gridserve recently opened a hub at Swansea services too. The Wetherby hub and Burton-in-Kendal hub almost ready by all accounts. And although not in England, worth mentioning the Cross Hands hub that opened last weekend.

Good. MfG seem to be one of the better providers of EV charging. They get that a single charger don't cut it and some weather protection would be nice. The one in Stretford, Manchester looks great. They also listen to customers, when users complained the charging cables were too short, they fitted longer cables and adopted that as their standard. I look forward to trying out the one at Crow Orchard if needed on a trip North.

Yes I mean the armoured cable. I'm not qualified to suggest anything electrical, so I won't. My Wallbox has a very short run of normal cable from it's connection run in trunking into the bottom of the box. done by a Wallbox installer so should be fine. I would suggest rear entry would be best, no cable on show to tempt the light fingered brigade.

Avoid chargers with fancy LED lights or illuminated screens, as these advertise its presence to thieves. As mentioned above keep it out of sight if possible. I don't think any kind of lock will work on a cable, they will cut it and slide it out of the lock. You might also consider the amount of cable feeding your charger. If a long run is on display they will try to take that too.

Similar at my local Tesco in January. We have a "Parking Like a T@*t" page on Facebook for the area, so got put on there....

I don't have either, so no comment on choices so far. You might want to add Hypervolt to your list as they seem popular on the ID.4 FB group for solar integration.

Interesting that the guy clearly doesn't like EVs nor VW's haptic buttons, but gets to go the product launch of something that has all of those. I really like the Buzz, they've done a good job of styling and packaging. The ID ride and handling are excellent IMO, so this will be a great family bus. I can also see them becoming beloved of Taxi drivers....

Some background on hybrid car users experience. https://octopusev.com/ev-hub/disadvantages-of-hybrid-cars

Same here. If the boot works for the dogs, I could see us downsizing to one. Range is not quite what I'd like (250), but close.

I'm fairly new to EV and so far found this to not be the case in the 12 months / 11K miles we've had the car. We charge mostly at home and always have the range to go where we want. We plug in at the local free chargers when we visit the supermarket and un-plugged when done shopping, no 'finding things to do' - occasionally we go for lunch during the shopping trip just like when we had an ICE car and the car gets extra charge while we do. This free charging will cover the trip to the supermarket and a leg of my wife's commute. Never have I needed to 'find stuff to do'. Doing a long trip over the Storm Eunice weekend we found that stopping at our usual stop (Tebay) and plugging the car in to a 50kW rapid the 50 minute charge while we ate dinner gave ample charge to complete our journey. Same on the return trip, a planned coffee / comfort stop covered any additional charge needed. The bug bear on that trip was the screw in the tyre......

Many new EV drivers think that speed of charge is related to speed of charger only. They have no idea of the difference in AC and DC or the limits of charging speeds on their vehicle. The face on the guy at Aldi charging his older (new to him) Leaf when I explained he wouldn't get 22kW or 7kW at Tesco as his car charges at 3.6kW max on AC. I explained he needed a Chademo rapid to speed things up, but he didn't have the range to get to the nearest rapid. He genuinely thought it just had two charge ports so he could drive it abroad.

Hmmm never considered voltage drop with a long type 2 cable. (I'm not electrically well educated) I bought the 10m Screwfix granny charger and it works very well, but I'm guessing the losses might be higher? For the amount I use it, I'm not overly worried TBH. I went for the longer cable for the convenience of being able to reach plugs further from the car. Used it in anger for the first time over the weekend and was happy with the boost an overnight 16 hour charge gave. Sorry wandering off topic....

My first Gridserve experience last night as we made an unscheduled trip to the Borders. Two 50kW Gridserve chargers at Tebay, one in use when we arrived. Plug in, flashed the credit card and off we went. Excellent. 48kW for the full 50 minutes while we ate. Fingers crossed all public charging is like this.

Gridserve are good at talking the talk, will reserve judgement on how they walk the walk. Wetherby likely next hub to go live, currently 6 hubs in build. Instavolt claim to have 200 new chargers this year including hubs (just opened Banbury). Osprey ditto (using the excellent Kempower chargers). All making big claims, lets see if reality backs that up. My money is Instavolt will deliver, but will remain the most expensive.

Yes of course Tesla will only open up the quieter sites to begin with, this is new territory for them. The way I look at it, the more chargers available the better. Although I've been surprised how little I've even needed to consider public charging in my 10 months of EV ownership so far. 2022 is being dubbed 'Year of the hub' by many EV commentators and this announcement from Gridserve proves that somewhat "GRIDSERVE is delivering the biggest upgrade to motorway EV charging infrastructure in UK history. Over 20 Electric Hubs – each consisting of 6-12 x 350kW ultra high-power chargers – are due to open at motorway services across the UK by the end of Q2 2022, with large numbers of additional Electric Hub sites being lined up to follow. Since GRIDSERVE’s acquisition of Ecotricity’s Electric Highway in June of last year, the company has already invested tens of millions of pounds in upgrading the network. In addition to opening the first Electric Hub at Moto Rugby, the company has replaced more than 300 historical Ecotricity DC rapid chargers and has installed 130 additional AC chargers, ensuring that the charging needs for all types of electric vehicles are catered for." Taken from this press release https://www.gridserve.com/2022/02/17/gridserve-and-moto-open-first-high-powered-electric-vehicle-charging-hub-in-wales-tackling-charging-disparities-across-the-uk/?fbclid=IwAR0VBWc112etVPVpt7XqZCZDVGLE8TWIvz3aWOE6_NnpqxDNGa0PS1E23HI

On a note of costs to charge, Instavolt have announced yet another price rise. They'll be 50p / kWh after 22nd Feb. This follows on from their rise in November and their correction of the VAT in May. https://instavolt.co.uk/instavolt-responds-to-continued-rise-in-wholesale-energy-costs-16-february-2022/ We can expect Gridserve and Osprey to follow suit. The smaller networks will also follow.

Tesla are already opening up their network to non-Teslas in more mature EV markets. almost all SC open to all in Netherlands and trials going on in France and Norway. https://www.tesla.com/en_GB/support/non-tesla-supercharging#:~:text=Launched in November 2021%2C our,world's transition to sustainable energy. The rate is about 5 eurocents more than the Tesla rate. Good speeds seem to be got by other brands too, so definitely worth considering using when they open them up in the UK.