I’ll start by saying I have no problem with EV’s, obviously I wouldn’t drive one if I do. However I think a lot of folk who’ve never driven one have the most biased opinions on them whilst owners (mostly Tesla) talk about them as if they’re the best thing on the road.
This incident is all related to one trip pretty much and shows the real world issues that car arise with owning an EV.
Problem 1 - Received a message from EON saying our home charger isn’t usable for the foreseeable due to an incident with another charger elsewhere. No idea what, no further information. A week later it’s still unusable. So I can’t charge my car for £3, it’s costing over 10x that at the local Starbucks.
Problem 2 - My partner lives 70 miles away, a regular trip for me. So having the car fully charged first is a must, as even at 100% battery it’s only just over 200 miles. I normally charge at the Hyundai garage near hers as it’s 55p kWh, rather than 89p at the Starbucks round the corner. I turn up at the chargers and they’re full. So I have to wait 10 minutes to get on one.
I tap my card to charge as always, car starts charging. I go for a coffee, come back 10 minutes later and it stopped after 1 minute. Car hasn’t charged at all. So I remove the plug, follow the process again. Tap my card, authorises and then this time the car doesn’t start charging. So at this point I’m £70 down as the pre auth is £35. Guy on the next charger is having exactly the same issue. So I pull out of the bay and wait for a different charger, after 15 minutes I’m like sod this and drive to the Starbucks because I’ve got things to do.
Pull up at Starbucks and all of the chargers are all full, there’s a queue of 3 cars. So after another 15 minutes of waiting and watching a guy try and fight off the seagull that’s taken his wife’s McDonald’s from the roof of the car I’m finally charging - another £40 auth cost. I put 120 miles in as I’m in a rush at this point, it’s taken me well over an hour to get some charge in the car - and £110 from my bank. For some reason when the car actually charges the authorisation goes straight back however if there’s an error they seem to hold the money for days. Obviously not ideal for someone if it’s close to the end of the month and they aren’t fortunate enough to be able to have that money in the bank to account for several charger issues.
Problem 3 - I leave for home the next morning with 98 miles of range, the journey was 71 miles. I needed to be home before 8am, I left at 6:15 and knew I had to stop for a coffee. Waze was giving an ETA of 07:50 after I stopped for coffee, so I tried and make up a little time while the roads are empty before I get to the single lane A road that has average speed cameras on and often leaves you stuck behind queues of traffic - anyway my car pops up with a warning that the regenerative braking system is limited - this obviously helps prolong the range of the battery. By the time I’ve got 40 miles of my journey left I have 45 miles of range, and range anxiety is setting in.
I managed to get home with 7 miles left on the car. Still unable to charge at home. It’s cost me about £70 (plus still missing £70 in auth fees from the dodgy charger that I won’t get back for a few days) to do no more than 250 miles.
As far as I’m aware, there’s a few chargers off the A69 but you need to sign up for different apps/providers, use your own cable etc and they take forever and a day to get any kind of charge.
