Yesterday I planned a quick round trip from Birmingham to York in order to collect something I bought online. 2.5 hours of driving each way and 4 charging stops of 30 minutes. If I leave at 4, I'll be back around 11, I thought. I thought!
I planned the journey at lunchtime, spotting that Tamworth and Donnington Services' chargers are out of order. No problem. I only have a 22kW Zoe but I can get back home from Tibshelf.
Everything started fine. I approached my scheduled stop at Tibshelf services with a surprising amount of range left, so I decide to hold on for Woodall. 81 miles in to my journey, I arrive at Woodall Services with 14 miles range left and I was quite pleased with myself, until I found that Woodall North has no type 2. Only Woodall South. Grr! So I sneeked out of the service road and in the service road to the south side to charge. Except the machine with the type 2 is out of order. Ecotricity customer services were quite disinterested.
Zap Map tells me there is a charger at a Harvester not too far away, so I head over there. That's not working either. Polar customer services are more helpful, even though their phone line makes you listen to a 2 hour recorded message before putting you on hold. Any way, when I get through, they're friendly but tell me there's no comms to the machine and they can't fix it remotely. OK, so Zap Map tells me there's a charger not too far away at KFC. It turns out that they don't have type 2 either and that Zap Map's connector filters don't work as well as you might hope. One last roll of the dice. Clowne village hall has a charge point. Let's try that.
Clowne village hall is more of a council offices and it has a Polar rapid charger in the car park. One with a touch screen that doesn't work. Another phone call to customer services and another recorded message that cannot be skipped before being put on hold. This time they are able to reset the machine. The touch screen worked, but there was not enough comms to verify my card. The helpful people at Polar tried twice to send my card details over the air. Nothing. Then the village hall care taker came over to say she's locking up the site now and I have to leave. I explain this to Polar and thank them for their help and the care taker takes pity. How long will it take? She asks? "15 minutes" I say. I quickly scan my card and surprisingly it is accepted. The care takes says she's popping over to Tesco and will be back to lock up soon. 20 minutes at 40kW gets me enough charge to go on to Ferrybridge services.
Ferrybridge has 3 rapid chargers with type 2 connectors. Hurray! It didn't have enough 4G for my phone app to start the machine up though. The charger has WiFi, but their WiFi doesn't have enough 4G either. This is a weakness in Ecotricity machines that I've had before. I try the app 3 more times and eventually it goes through. All charged up OK, It's a quick dash to York before stopping back in Ferrrybridge, though I'm an hour and 10 minutes late at this point.
Now the journey back is longer than the journey there as every road in northern England is closed for works. The extra distance is compounded by my miles per kWhr strangely dropping on the way back. Range is more of a problem. Then my car started playing up. At Tibshelf, the car started making a funny noise when the charge level got to 80% and the charger switched between "charging" and "waiting for the car to demand charge". I call it quits and leave, thinking I'll just make an extra stop.
The car's sat nav tells me the M42 is closed and should it take me via the A38? OK. Except the A38 is closed and with no diversion. The only way is back to the M1. So I stop at Tibshelf for more charge. The car does the same thing. Charges to 80% at full speed then goes on/off/on/off. Knowing that Donnington and Tamworth are broken, I soldier on to 90% and then the car goes no further.
It should be 54 miles home from here but with the diversion it's 61 miles and the car has 71 miles of range. Fine. I'd expected to be home an hour and a half ago and I've got an hour's drive to do. Whatever. Home we go. 10 miles in and my range has dropped by 20. There are no open charging points between here and the Sainsbury 1 mile from home. Everything else is a diversion and is no closer than Sainsbury, so I turn the heater down further and slow down a bit. It's after midnight and the motorway is very quiet so slow is not dangerous.
I keep an eye on the range and it stays 2 miles above the remaining distance home until I'm 18 miles from home. Then what happens. The remaining range stays at 20 for the next ten miles. 1:30 am. Two and a half hours late, I get home and the car is telling me I have 18 miles of charge left. Grr! I slowed down and shivered for nothing.
I planned the journey at lunchtime, spotting that Tamworth and Donnington Services' chargers are out of order. No problem. I only have a 22kW Zoe but I can get back home from Tibshelf.
Everything started fine. I approached my scheduled stop at Tibshelf services with a surprising amount of range left, so I decide to hold on for Woodall. 81 miles in to my journey, I arrive at Woodall Services with 14 miles range left and I was quite pleased with myself, until I found that Woodall North has no type 2. Only Woodall South. Grr! So I sneeked out of the service road and in the service road to the south side to charge. Except the machine with the type 2 is out of order. Ecotricity customer services were quite disinterested.
Zap Map tells me there is a charger at a Harvester not too far away, so I head over there. That's not working either. Polar customer services are more helpful, even though their phone line makes you listen to a 2 hour recorded message before putting you on hold. Any way, when I get through, they're friendly but tell me there's no comms to the machine and they can't fix it remotely. OK, so Zap Map tells me there's a charger not too far away at KFC. It turns out that they don't have type 2 either and that Zap Map's connector filters don't work as well as you might hope. One last roll of the dice. Clowne village hall has a charge point. Let's try that.
Clowne village hall is more of a council offices and it has a Polar rapid charger in the car park. One with a touch screen that doesn't work. Another phone call to customer services and another recorded message that cannot be skipped before being put on hold. This time they are able to reset the machine. The touch screen worked, but there was not enough comms to verify my card. The helpful people at Polar tried twice to send my card details over the air. Nothing. Then the village hall care taker came over to say she's locking up the site now and I have to leave. I explain this to Polar and thank them for their help and the care taker takes pity. How long will it take? She asks? "15 minutes" I say. I quickly scan my card and surprisingly it is accepted. The care takes says she's popping over to Tesco and will be back to lock up soon. 20 minutes at 40kW gets me enough charge to go on to Ferrybridge services.
Ferrybridge has 3 rapid chargers with type 2 connectors. Hurray! It didn't have enough 4G for my phone app to start the machine up though. The charger has WiFi, but their WiFi doesn't have enough 4G either. This is a weakness in Ecotricity machines that I've had before. I try the app 3 more times and eventually it goes through. All charged up OK, It's a quick dash to York before stopping back in Ferrrybridge, though I'm an hour and 10 minutes late at this point.
Now the journey back is longer than the journey there as every road in northern England is closed for works. The extra distance is compounded by my miles per kWhr strangely dropping on the way back. Range is more of a problem. Then my car started playing up. At Tibshelf, the car started making a funny noise when the charge level got to 80% and the charger switched between "charging" and "waiting for the car to demand charge". I call it quits and leave, thinking I'll just make an extra stop.
The car's sat nav tells me the M42 is closed and should it take me via the A38? OK. Except the A38 is closed and with no diversion. The only way is back to the M1. So I stop at Tibshelf for more charge. The car does the same thing. Charges to 80% at full speed then goes on/off/on/off. Knowing that Donnington and Tamworth are broken, I soldier on to 90% and then the car goes no further.
It should be 54 miles home from here but with the diversion it's 61 miles and the car has 71 miles of range. Fine. I'd expected to be home an hour and a half ago and I've got an hour's drive to do. Whatever. Home we go. 10 miles in and my range has dropped by 20. There are no open charging points between here and the Sainsbury 1 mile from home. Everything else is a diversion and is no closer than Sainsbury, so I turn the heater down further and slow down a bit. It's after midnight and the motorway is very quiet so slow is not dangerous.
I keep an eye on the range and it stays 2 miles above the remaining distance home until I'm 18 miles from home. Then what happens. The remaining range stays at 20 for the next ten miles. 1:30 am. Two and a half hours late, I get home and the car is telling me I have 18 miles of charge left. Grr! I slowed down and shivered for nothing.
