Anyone taken an electric car down to Penzance for a week

I was going to suggest this. My friends swapped cars with me when she was going on a weekend break down to the south coast. She took my car and I used hers over the weekend if I needed to.

@JitterbugFairy is there a fast charger in Mevagissey, or did you charge at Bodmin/Cornwall Services?

I could actually just holiday at bloody lovely Tebay services 😂😂 did you know there’s a sister one on the m5 too 😝

gloucesterservices.com/about/

Is there anyone you can swap cars with for a week? Hire one?
My brother in law does that. Has an electric but hires a car for uk breaks.

But that's only going to work if the chargers are free, no queues and none are broken.

The investment into EV charging points is going to have to be collosal. It looks like it was announced in Nov 2020. After 18 months chasing and asking we have no EV points in our ex council estate street of 200 homes and only a plan to install one charger. What should have happened is a handful now in place with a plan for at least 100 in the communal car parks.

We live in rural Scotland and have an electric car, we love it ! Home charger helps of course. Off on our usual trip to Devon this week, it’s so easy to plan our charges around our favourite Tebay/ Westmorland services. They were installing lots of new chargers last time we went, hopefully they’re up and running now.
Lovely car to drive, saves us a lot of money in petrol too .

Cornwall CC is not ahead of any curve. It’s pathetic. There’s 500,000 people living in Cornwall. It has 30% of its business derived from tourism. Tiny numbers of slow chargers in public places is well behind any curve.

@Springsnowdrops We have an electric car and Cornwall is a nightmare! Where we are, there’s a large new car park, but - no chargers at all! I asked Cornwall CC why not? Wrong electricity supply. The car park next to our place has 2 charging points. 2 for a well known and highly visited area. We can charge from our house because we own the land - it’s not public. Cornwall doesn’t have anywhere near enough fast chargers and if you need to charge whilst you are in Cornwall, it takes time! Welcome to Cornwall.

Hire a petrol car?

Au contraire, Cornwall Council is ahead of the curve when it comes to installing chargers (albeit it's a rather pathetic curve overall). Also, there's a greater percentage of people with their own drives round here, so easier to install a charger. Meaning that they can refuel at home- handy in an area where the nearest petrol station can be miles away. The only thing stopping more people from getting EVs down here is that we can't afford them yet.

Ignore the ICE naysayers! There is an evolt 50kW charger in Penzance.

I don't use zapmap anymore, get an electoverse account & the app (from octopus energy) add your bank card and also apply for their RFID card. It's my preferred way to charge now. You can use your account/RFID card to pay at multiple charge points with different owners. Just choose the chargepoint in the app and off you go. Also tells you if they are in use or broken.

I am doing similar 390 mile journey to Cornwall in a few weeks, not worried at all - my car didn't even come with a granny charger so I have to use public chargepoints.

Enjoy your break 😊

The good thing about EV chargers is that they tend to be open 24/7 because unlike petrol stations they don't need to be staffed.

Driven to Mevagissey and had no problems.

I live rurally and have driven solely electric for 4 year with no dramas!

You'll be lucky to find petrol stns open past 6pm down in the wild West, let alone charging stations. Probably quite a few at the Eden Project. Could you spend every day of the holiday here ?

We’ve taken an electric car to Penzance and the highlands and it’s been absolutely fine. We didn’t have charging at any of the properties and planned charging on our way home from day trips.
In regards to our Cornwall trip we stopped at Camborne supercharger a few times which is about 30 mins from Penzance.

The ionity chargers at Bodmin are good. They are all 150kw+ I think

The harbour long stay car park in Penzance has fast and slow chargers

Tescos and Sainsburys have 7kw which isn’t terrible for topping up whilst you food shop

Exeter has grid serve and Tesla fast chargers if you need to stop near there on route. ( I think some are 300kw+ ), so a 10-15 min stop fine.

It will depend what car you have as range will make a difference in convenience and how many stops.

We don't drive, go to Cornwall every summer. Penzance is good for buses and trains and taxis are competitively priced

We travel to Cornwall frequently from Wiltshire so not much closer than you. There are fast chargers at most of the services on the way down. Cornwall services and Exeter services are excellent as there are loads and all different providers.
Tesco in Truro has podpoint I think. There are chargers in most of the bigger towns. it just takes a little more pre-planning.

I would fill to full at Cornwall Services (Victoria, Roche) or a bit further along at Fraddon. Camborne and Porthleven have slower chargers but Porthleven is great for a day out so you could spend a while there.

How many miles does your car do on a full charge? If I am going somewhere where chargers are likely to be thin on the ground I tend to do a full or almost full charge just before arriving, and it's surprising how long that can last, particularly if you're mainly driving short distances. And then as PP have said, a 2 hr slow top up whilst you're at the supermarket, and another when you are at an attraction like Eden Project, you'll be fine.

If your coming from Oxford stop at the services on the way down
stop in bristol
then Exeter
then Plymouth

all around an 90 mins apart

your going to have to stop with the dogs anyway and let them out for a wee

Pretty sure all the services have fast chargers

We're having the same slight panic as I've planned a road trip in the middle of nowhere next week. Whilst we do have decent range in our car, it won't last the whole week. I think I will scoot off on my own to charge it in the evening in the towns Aldi/ McDonalds etc, I'll be ready for a bit of me time by then.

Take all charging cables you have (3 pin plus type 2 to type 2) in case you can use.

Top up on fast charger on a30. Use google maps to search for chargers. There look like there are new ones in harbour car park which are 50kwh and not in zap map yet