Electric car public charging

[wizzler]

Ok.. so this may be a stupid question, but Mumsnet is where I come to ask them!!
I drive a company car and we are being very much encouraged to select an electric vehicle. I'm looking at the e-Niro.
Car would be parked on the drive so that's all fine for most of the time
.
What I can't get my head round is how do you cope if you go away. We holiday each year in a v rural location 200miles away from home.

Nearest charge point appears to be 15 miles from the village we are in, and presumably will take literally hours to charge.

I really don't fancy spending hours waiting for the car to charge up. I mean I can browse round shops as well as the next person but .....

There are lots of charging points in the conurbations but seem really scarce in more rural areas. I dong fancy spending my holidays obsessed with planning car charging!

Anyone else dealt with this. ?

At least if you're on holiday you're not on the clock like you are when you're working and having to get to appointments on time. Will the company car meet your needs when you're working?

My employer has also said that all new cars will be electric without any consultation about whether or not they meet business needs. In their heads people flit between meetings 10-20 miles apart so will only need to charge the car at home and then it will run for days.

Some of us regularly drive 4-500 in a day and don't want to be hanging round service stations waiting for cars to charge up and having to get our heads round all the different payment systems and finding the chargers broken when we're 40 miles from our destination with 20 miles left in the battery and no time to wait around.

www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/28/leading-the-charge-can-i-make-it-from-lands-end-to-john-ogroats-in-an-electric-car

And the car in that article cost far more than the petrol equivalent and charging it out on the road costs just about as much as petrol or diesel would - he did 843 miles on £88 worth of electric. On a long run like that, most petrol or diesel cars would cost about the same.

Thanks for the response.I don't do many business miles and the car would be fine for most of the time I think. The tax benefits are significant too

On the other hand I was talking to someone about range, and he was explaining about how the range reduces if it's raining or dark or cold... That would freak me out on a long trip I think

Also thanks for the article... really interesting reading

Yes, if you use the heating, lights, air con, stereo or drive over hilly terrain or in traffic, they all reduce the range.

The claimed range is basically driving at a constant speed in a straight line using none of the above. Real life ranges probably quite a bit less.

I wouldn't bank on the tax advantages forever. What happens when everyone has an electric car and the government is missing a huge chunk of revenue?

You just need to plan somewhat.

We are going in dh's car to Cornwall for a fortnight. We are stopping midway each way. Both hotels midway offer EV charging but only the slow chargers, so we will only use those if they are available for overnight charging.

Dh usually only uses the fast chargers when travelling. Most Morrison supermarkets have them, plus many service stations. So we can do a full charge whilst we use their cafe for a drink and snack, and maybe a wander round the area.

There are various apps you can use which identifies chargers, which are available, which type of chargers, etc.

For long journeys service stations have very fast chargers. Passenger is in charge of using an app to see if chargers are working/free.
Will your company car package pay for a charge point installation? Charging overnight at home is usually very cheap, but the car doesn’t usually plug into a normal 3 point plug.

If most of the driving you do on a daily basis is short journeys and you can charge at home an electric car will be ideal. We have one and will be changing our other soon (if I can decide what I want as there is such a choice now). The EV does around 80 miles as a daily commute and is topped up overnight to 80% (normal driving).
Then when visiting family or going on holiday we do a long range top up (100%) and then plan our stops to where there are fast chargers and coffee shops, we do 200-300 miles per charge so that makes it perfect for a comfort break, and if I look at my journeys now they are no different to when I had the petrol car.

We are from the London area and so far this year we have been to
The Lake District
Rural Norfolk
North Wales
Dorset
Devon
Scotland

Just did a trip to Lake District- you need to plan ahead but we found easy to use chargers at public car parks and several supermarkets are putting fast chargers in (morrisons, booths) on these an hour can charge you c80%. We have a soul which is the same underlying tech as the Niro. Range is officially 280 but easily get 250.

"Nearest charge point appears to be 15 miles from the village we are in, and presumably will take literally hours to charge."

This is incorrect.

A quick primer

There are three types of charging:

Slow (this is using a standard 3-pin plug). It'll take you about 36hrs to fully charge an E-Niro using this

Fast: This is using a dedicated wall plug, usually 7kw/hr or 11kw/hr. These are what you need to fit in your house. They will charge your car from flat to 100% (if needed) overnight.

Rapid: These are the ones you find at motorway service stations. They will charge your car very quickly. They start at 50kw/hr but go up to 300kw/hr. You can charge your car from 20% to 80% in less than half an hour using these.

I don't drive an E-Niro but I do drive a Tesla Model3. I never have to wait for hours to charge when on a motorway. I usually plug in, head to the toilet, have a quick bite to eat and the car is charged when I get back.

I hope this helps. Good luck with your new car.

Thanks everyone. We are the type of family who just want to get there.. will have to work on a change of mindset to stop on the way !