Last week, done 1560 miles from my home in N London all the way to Isle of Skye (Scotland) and back. The outbound weekend was bank holiday weekend. Sorry to say it was a fairly uneventful drive. None the less, I thought a recount might be useful for people to learn what's it like driving EV long distance.

 

For usual daily use, EV is extremely easy to use: never think about charging, never need to stop to refuel, never think about remaining range, ready to go every morning. Just plug in when parked on the driveway. 

 

But for long distance driving, charging will be required just as refuelling is required.

 

 

Fully loaded car, 4 adults and 1 child, luggage completely filled boot, under boot compartment and frunk.

Also travelling in convoy with another family driving a diesel Merc GLC for most of the trip. Their car is also fully loaded with 4 adults and 1 child.

(A pair of walkie-talkie is highly recommended, especially in no mobile signal mountains)

 

Summary stats:

1559 miles, 390 kWh and 4 mi/kWh counted by the car trip computer for driving.

Total used is 436.5 kWh according to TeslaMate data logger, this also includes sentry mode I had on 24/7, cabin overheat protection, etc.

Total cost of all public charging sessions + extremely pessimistic 80 kWh recharge at home back to 100% = £149.90.

 

I asked the other family with diesel Merc GLC, they estimated £220 diesel cost. Their car returned 42-48 MPG throughout the trip. They refuelled at least 6 times that I am aware of. But their refuel strategy is to do it at cheapest place they find and don't like to see it drop too low.

 

Remember, unlike diesel/petrol, same 1560 miles distance would have cost just £33 charged at home on EV tariff.

 

 

 

 

What I have found is that people needed more rest stops than the car. Here's a quick rundown of rest stops that also charged:

 

Friday 24th  312 miles

Left home 100%.

Hilton Park service (Birmingham) for lunch, 36min 57% to 94%.  1-4 other cars throughout my time there.

Charnock Richard service (after Manchester, before Preston) for rest stop, 18min 67% to 87%.  About 2/3 throughout (3 more where I am)

Carlisle for late afternoon stroll around and hotel, no charging.

 

Saturday, 25th  244 miles

Left hotel 52%. Start driving in convoy, other family drove up Friday midnight.

Larkhall Supercharger hotel for rest stop and introductory chat/planning, 34min 17% to 83%.   Quite busy, ~2/3 full throughout, but always space for cars arriving.

Overnight stay at a hotel near Fort William (all accommodation in the town were full when booking 5 weeks in advance), no charging. 

 

Sunday, 26th  144 miles

Left hotel 33%.

Breakfast at Fort William McD and buy supplies at Morrisons, also done Supercharging, 53min 28% to 98%.   No one around......

Portree main car park CPS rapid charging, only 3 chargers, this one was very busy, I was lucky to have a space available when arriving. There was 45min charging time limit to avoid overstay fee, so I came back at 30min and waited a bit, 2 more EV's came look for charging whilst I was there. The old knackered rapid charger only provided pitiful 30 kW and expensive at 70p/kWh. Ended up charging for 43min and moved the car, waited for others to come back from their stroll around Portree. 54% to 79%.

AirBNB near Portree, trickle charged at 5 amp to be safe, packed up the cable in the evening due to rain, 77% to 79%.

 

Monday, 27th  75 miles

Left AirBNB with 78%

Old Man of Storr parking had 11 kW AC and a 50 kW rapid, not on any of the maps, I plugged into 11 kW AC. 1.4 hours 75% to 95%.   No one else charging, forgot to take a photo.

AirBNB trickle charging overnight, with 6 amps, 10min on and 10min off to ensure no chance of house circuit overheating whilst I sleep. 69% to 82%.

 

Tuesday, 28th  69 miles

Left AirBNB with 82%

Back at 54%

 

Wednesday, 29th   252 miles

Left AirBNB with 52%

Fort William Supercharger whilst we eat lunch in town, 52min 18% to 97%.   This time it was quite full, 2 stalls available when i arrived but one was inaccessible due to non-Tesla and short cable. When leaving, I was only one there, guess most other drivers were also eating lunch.

Arrive in Edinburgh Park hotel at 48%, no charging.

 

Thursday, 30th   10 miles

City break, wonderful tram into city, no driving.

The older folks of the party wanted an afternoon nap. I've been to the city so I volunteered to take them back to hotel and I went for charging.

Tesla Edinburgh service centre supercharger, 38min 42% to 93%. I also had a sit in the new Model 3, I like the rear screen.  Only a few other cars at this 16 stall location.

 

Friday, 31st   248 miles

Left hotel with 87%

Extremely short toilet break at Adderstone service, the superchargers were busy but I didn't need to wait. 6min 57% to 67%. 1 car was waiting when I was leaving.

Another short toilet break at Washington supercharger hotel. 12min 42% to 66%.  It was V2 but slightly less than half full so got full speed.

Hotel at York, this one has destination charging but more expensive than supercharging. So arrived with 28% and only charged to 55%.

 

Saturday, 1st   205 miles

Left hotel with 55%

Railway Museum is worth a visit. Other family parted ways to go to Leeds.

Stopped at Newark on Trent supercharger for quick toilet break, 13min 19% to 53%. This one was completely empty and it was cheapest along A1, no brainer.

Arrived home with 14%.

 

 

All charging, taken from Tesla supercharging export spreadsheet and added other paid charging manually:

 

 

As can be seen, simply charged up whenever convenient. Only 4 times took on more than 50% of the battery, never needed people waiting around the car. At all times charging period is dictated by our needs to use eatery/facility nearby. Charging is often done before we are.

 

Also interesting to note, we only 200-312 miles each day. It is entirely possible to comfortably drive most days without needing to charge en-route. If every overnight location had well priced charging, this whole trip becomes completely effortless and doesn't even need so many expensive charging hubs to be built.

 

So my take-away:

- Destination charging at overnight stay can make trip effortless

- At busy locations, try to avoid meal time to avoid possibility of queuing

- Tesla supercharger are cheap and entirely dependable. ChargePlace Scotland charging is super expensive and not dependable

- Home EV tariff is super cheap

- UK roads don't allow travel fast enough to really need any longer range EV

- Long range EV already drive long enough and charge fast enough compared to people's needs

- Tesla Autopilot is awesome

 

I feel largely the same about long distance travel. Destination charging can make trips easy to do, so I'm always looking for B&B /  Hotels with overnight charging facilities. Rapids at hotels make little sense if staying overnight, I don't want to move my car once settled in.

 

VW Travel Assist rocks.

Edited 3 June, 20242 yr by Luckypants

@Luckypants others might want you to move your car after you get settled in even if you are just on a 7 or 11 kW AC.      If you can get a 90 mins rapid charge and then move the car great because there can be people that need on the AC and not someone plugging in for 10 hours.   At Premier Inn I have a choice of Osprey or Genie point within 100 yards and a reduced rate between 7pm and 11 pm. 63 pence instead of 79 pence.  Means nothing to many but when tight, short arms and long pockets it is worth the bother. Or no bother.   As it is loads of chargers popping up now are around the back, not showing in all Apps and not getting used much. 

Edited 3 June, 20242 yr by Ootohere

Why move it if its charging? This is my whole point about destination charging. If my hotel has a charger for overnight 7kW charging, plugging into that for many hours while I sleep is preferable to plugging into a rapid then having to get up / go out to move the car when charged. I'm not blocking the charger if I'm charging and I don't need to move it. I plan to arrive at such places at low SoC if on a road trip and charge up ready for the next leg - plug in last thing at night and leave it charging for the 10 or so hours it will need for the charge needed.

Nail on head. Many hours for you.  Others might get their battery full in 3 or 4 hours on a 7kW charger.  And go out and move the car.   Somebody can arrive and the 50 kW charger is available, start a charge, go out in an hour or 2 max and move the car.   Use their loaf and not assume that several of more other EV drivers will not turn up in the next 10 hours maybe.      The chargers might be out of view but really should not be out of mind.  Think of others.      10 hours to get under 70 kWh is only too common around Scotland with big battery cars.       Too common that the 7kW AC is cheaper than the 50 kW DC might have cost but would have been over and done in 90 minutes. 

Edited 3 June, 20242 yr by Ootohere

Multiple 3 or 7 kW destination chargers are much much cheaper to install compared to single 50 kW rapids. If four 7 kW charger isn't enough for hotel guests, they should install more. The ideal situation is for hotel car park to become slow charging car park for all guests.

 

I'm with Lucky on this one. There's 2 types of charging for 2 types of behaviours, destination and rapid. I wouldn't want to move my car at destination charger unless there's prior arrangement (eg. workplace lunchtime being asked by colleague in the morning). 50 kW rapid charger doesn't give much charge during a short stop but still require typical rapid charging behaviour: wait around to vacate. I typically stopped 15-30min mid-journey, the charger need to be able to replenish enough during that time. Waiting around for cars to charge really shouldn't be needed these days.

 

EV charging works around the user. This is my point with this thread, apart from Portree CPS rapid charging and Edinburgh supercharging, all other charging were part of rest stops. I didn't have to do anything different compared to the other family in an ICE vehicle. In our EV, we stop and people stretches legs and use eatery/facility and the car recharges in parallel.

3 hours ago, wyx087 said:

Multiple 3 or 7 kW destination chargers are much much cheaper to install compared to single 50 kW rapids. If four 7 kW charger isn't enough for hotel guests, they should install more. The ideal situation is for hotel car park to become slow charging car park for all guests.

 

I'm with Lucky on this one. There's 2 types of charging for 2 types of behaviours, destination and rapid. I wouldn't want to move my car at destination charger unless there's prior arrangement (eg. workplace lunchtime being asked by colleague in the morning). 50 kW rapid charger doesn't give much charge during a short stop but still require typical rapid charging behaviour: wait around to vacate. I typically stopped 15-30min mid-journey, the charger need to be able to replenish enough during that time. Waiting around for cars to charge really shouldn't be needed these days.

 

EV charging works around the user. This is my point with this thread, apart from Portree CPS rapid charging and Edinburgh supercharging, all other charging were part of rest stops. I didn't have to do anything different compared to the other family in an ICE vehicle. In our EV, we stop and people stretches legs and use eatery/facility and the car recharges in parallel.

 

An AC charger is so much less to install and is more efficient of course, especially as 3 phase.

 

Please to see the new Scenic, European COTY, is still maintaining the 22 kW AC.   

 

Need to get all chargers to accept credit card, hopefully American Express and it will be heaven.

  

Thanks for the info, interesting read. Furthest I've driven so far is Birmingham to Bicester Village and back, which ended up being about 200 miles with faffing around picking people up etc. so I know my car can do that comfortably.

 

One thing I am curious about though is you sheet with the Quantity base metric, am I correct in thinking that's the average charge rate you got over the time you were parked up? My car can't charge above 90kwh, so I wondering if my average charge rate will be lower even though none of the figures in your sheet (if I'm correct and it is the average charge rate) are 90kwh. Still new to EV ownership but from what I read before I acquired my car the limiting factor is often the battery state and the peak charge speeds are rarely reached consistently in the real world, would be interested to know yours, and anyone else's, experience of that.

25 minutes ago, apd007 said:

Thanks for the info, interesting read. Furthest I've driven so far is Birmingham to Bicester Village and back, which ended up being about 200 miles with faffing around picking people up etc. so I know my car can do that comfortably.

 

One thing I am curious about though is you sheet with the Quantity base metric, am I correct in thinking that's the average charge rate you got over the time you were parked up? My car can't charge above 90kwh, so I wondering if my average charge rate will be lower even though none of the figures in your sheet (if I'm correct and it is the average charge rate) are 90kwh. Still new to EV ownership but from what I read before I acquired my car the limiting factor is often the battery state and the peak charge speeds are rarely reached consistently in the real world, would be interested to know yours, and anyone else's, experience of that.

 

Look on the EV Database and it should give the info you want as it does for most EVs.

 

25 minutes ago, lol-lol said:

 

Look on the EV Database and it should give the info you want as it does for most EVs.

 

Thanks, but it seems to only confirm the theoretical recharge rates, I'm curious as to how close real world recharge rates are.

Actually, I'll start a new thread rather than highjack this one.

 

This is data from TeslaMate which logs EVERYTHING Tesla mothership server provides.

 

As you can see, charge rate starts really fast but drops quickly. I'm sure it could be faster because I navigated to the service car park rather than supercharger. Tesla vehicles will start pre-condition the battery an hour before arriving, I feel that is unnecessary.

 

The fastest recorded charging session was 19% to 53%. It wasn't faster because I didn't navigate to supercharger until about 15min before arriving so battery didn't get pre-conditioned for it. The second fastest average was 17% to 83% at Larkhall SuC despite charge rate getting slower. I navigated to SuC and drove 44 minutes, so battery was spot on for fastest charging.

 

For this car (2022 Model Y long range) at V3 or V4 supercharger, I expect back to around 80% in 30min whatever the condition. If I want to travel fast, I'd let the car pre-condition and aim for 10-15% arrival and charge to 65-70% in 20min.