We're due to go to South Wales and Zap Map suggests the main operator in the area is "Dragon Charging".

Apparently the operator behind it is actually Geniepoint and you can use a Geniepoint account on the "dragon network", so am I doing myself a favour if I register at a more local Geniepoint charger beforehand? Not having used either before, I don't know how easy it is to get started and I'd rather not have to find out in deepest rural Wales with little mobile signal!

I'd recommend to register an account with GeniePoint, then register a RFID tag to it at a local charger - you aren't then reliant on a mobile signal. If you set your account to auto-topup then there's no need to touch it, so won't get stranded even if you have no Internet access until you get back home!

 

No idea if a Geniepoint account works with Dragon, sorry.

But if you plan to use Geniepoint anyway, it's certainly worth setting up a account and trying out a charge ahead of time. They're a bit of a PITA to use, especially if you're not familiar with them. You can set up a contactless card (eg credit card, old charging card) to use with Geniepoint, and that makes it a lot less painful to start and stop a charge. You also need to top up your Geniepoint account with money, so perhaps make sure your account is topped up before venture out of signal.

Edit: Cross-posted with @electric_dreams, but a good call about auto-topup.

 

I visited a 7kW Dragon Charger in Llandrindod Wells last month, and managed to register my ChargePoint rfid card successfully there, using the GeniePoint app. I couldn’t start a charge however, and the charger had no display, only a light that went red or green.
This was in a Model 3 though, and a good few chargers don’t like Teslas, such as the BP Pulse Rapid at the Metropole Hotel in Llandrindod.

 

Thanks all, I'll give that a try.

 

We're due to go to South Wales and Zap Map suggests the main operator in the area is "Dragon Charging".

Apparently the operator behind it is actually Geniepoint and you can use a Geniepoint account on the "dragon network", so am I doing myself a favour if I register at a more local Geniepoint charger beforehand? Not having used either before, I don't know how easy it is to get started and I'd rather not have to find out in deepest rural Wales with little mobile signal!

I've recently used dragon chargers in St Davids. First time was a bit of a hassle. I didn't have an RFID (Im a newbie and not sure how RFID cards work?!). However, I called the dragon customer service number who as able to register my credit card as an RFID card for the charger. I was then able to use this to start my charge.

One thing to note - you have to preload money onto your genie point account to start a charge and it only allows you to pre load £10 at a time.... you can't simply pay for what you have used using contactless. I preloaded £10 and used about £7 on my first charge. Before leaving St Davids I decided I may as well use up the remaning £3 I had loaded onto my account and assumed the charger would stop when it had used the £3 - but it continued charging and added about another 7 quid - so I am left with a negative balance which I will have to pay if I use genie point again

also - Charger was advertised as 22KW but charged at 10KW. Bloke on customer service said they very rarely run at 22kW.

 

If you go to the dragon charging website you can logon with your geniepoint account credentials. Think that makes sure anything you have set up with geniepoint works on dragon charging.

 

There’s a good 50kw at haveford west at the Pembrokeshire county council car park, it’s right next to the river so quite a nice place to stop for lunch. That ran on dragon and worked fine starting with the genie point app.

 

Dragon chargers work fine with a GeniePoint rfid. Some very useful 22kw points dotted about if y our car supports 3 phase to take advantage. Plus you needed a 3 phase cable of course. My i3 will charge at 11kw on these which makes a significant difference.

 

We're due to go to South Wales and Zap Map suggests the main operator in the area is "Dragon Charging".

Apparently the operator behind it is actually Geniepoint and you can use a Geniepoint account on the "dragon network", so am I doing myself a favour if I register at a more local Geniepoint charger beforehand? Not having used either before, I don't know how easy it is to get started and I'd rather not have to find out in deepest rural Wales with little mobile signal!

I had a rant on Twitter the other day after a dismal experience trying to charge on one of these, as did the (unrelated) person next to me who'd already been trying for a while. We both gave up and drove away.
I found out later that it seemed that had i tried Geniepoint i could have got a charge or at least it was obvious how to do so on the GP app/webpage unlike Dragons
So i would definitely recommend signing up/ registering with GP before, and maybe also Dragon as a fallback. Trying to get a charge through dragon was so unintuitive that 3 of us could not work out how to do it. TBF there were two other cars there charging, so its not impossible.

 

Now that GeniePoint have joined Octopus' Electric Juice scheme Zap-Pay, I wonder if Dragon chargers will work using the EJ card too?

EDIT - I got my charge roaming schemes mixed up.

 

@WonkoTheSaneUK

Octopus Juice don't list Geniepoint on their page. Octopus Energy

When was it announced?

Geniepoint have joined ZapPay though.

 

Ah. my mistake.

 

Used my Geniepoint card on there 22kW chargers around south Wales 2 years ago without a problem

There is a Connection Charge of £0.85 + £0.25 /kWh


About Dragon Charging

The Dragon Charging Network is an EV charging network that provides fast, reliable, easy access to EV charging across Wales. The service is available in the medium of Welsh via our Welsh language site www.gwefrudragon.co.uk
The network has chargers owned by local authorities, community groups and commercial organisations and is available to anyone with a compatible EV charger who wants to make their charger available to the public.

Geniepoint customers should use their existing Geniepoint account to access any Dragon Charging Network charger. Dragon Charging customers can use their Dragon Charging account to access the UK wide Geniepoint network.

New customers will need to create a Dragon Charging account (click on 'Start Charging' from the above menu) and register a credit / debit card (£10 will be debited from your card to your Dragon Charging account). You will then be able to start your charge (either via the web-app or with an RFID card registered to your account).
Once you have regsitered an RFID card with your account, you will be able to start a charge quickly and easily simply by touching it to the charger after plugging your car in.
The price for charging is clearly displayed on each charger and is shown online for those who start their charge using the web-app. Users may also need to pay for parking - check the signage displayed on the charging bay.

Charger Locations – Dragon Charging Network

www.dragoncharging.co.uk

 

Having just read through this thread, I've just been browsing around Wales on Zap-Map with GeniePoint and Dragon Charging filters on to see what's what. Came across this great comment for Haverfordwest:

 

Thank you everyone - following the advice I preregistered with geniepoint before leaving which made the whole trip really easy. Especially as there are very few rapids in Pembrokeshire, so we were mostly using the Dragon destination chargers which are a post with an RFID touch point, type 2 socket and a phone number/written instructions on the side...