Electric car long distance journeys - real life experience?

[BewareTheBeardedDragon]

I have to change cars and looking at electric. Having a wobble as a dealer (admittedly one who doesn't sell electric) has been telling me horror stories and suggesting they aren't good for long journeys.

The vast majority of my driving is short distance but I do do a long drive to holiday (2-300 miles) in the summer every year. I thought, with fast chargers at service stations and a bit of forwards planning, this would be doable and not a nightmare.

Are they ok actually, or is it awful? He was talking about journeys that should be 3 hours taking 11, pack of chargers, chargers vandalised or otherwise not working. Was he just trying to put me off so I'd buy a petrol car from him?

Went on a work trip with boss in his electric car, the car was lovely and drove really nicely. But he hasn't fully charged it, planning to charge it at a nearby charging point whilst we were in the meeting.

The charging point was broken. The nearest working charger was nearly 20 miles in the wrong direction. It was a slow charge so he charged enough to get us to a fast charger

At the fast charger all were in use so had to wait.

All in all we arrived back 2 1/2 hours later than planned. It was stressful and the anxiety of watching miles tick off and having to switch off air con etc to conserve miles to get to the charger was horrible

It put me off for the foreseeable future

However that was a few years ago, things may have improved, I'm just not ready to deal with that level of anxiety when driving is normally relaxing and pleasant

I have one, which I've done a couple of long trips in (close to Heathrow to Bamburgh, Northumberland and Heathrow to St. David's, Pembrokeshire). It was fine. I needed a charging stop on each leg, but it was fine - traffic was slow both times, so I was ready for a loo break, anyway! I'd advise getting the longest range you can, though. Mine does 270 miles in economy mode (which I use for motorways), and I have max regen on. I imagine it would be a nightmare in a car which only does 100 miles.

There was a time when the makers of petrol cars used to boast about the high MPG their cars could do, it was only if you read the small print and realised this was only possible in ideal conditions (ie driving at a steady 56mph, no braking, no passengers etc).

EV's are in the same position now, their range is only theoretical, ie you drive at a constant speed (well below the 70 mph limit), in warm weather, with the heater etc turned off.
they are great if you only do short journeys and have access to a charger, ideally on your own drive. In the real world, many people will rely on paying to use chargers as they can't provide their own, and have to hope they are available to top-up on a longer journey.
No doubt over time a reliable and accessible network of public chargers will become available, maybe on some public streets, but until we get there the current level of petrol stations will continue to provide a better and quicker service for ICE vehicles.

Oh, yes - climate control does drain it quite a lot. I use my heated seats and steering wheel instead if I'm watching the miles! Lol.

I'd check Zap Maps for your immediate area, and places which you'll need to visit to see if there are suitable charging points available.

DH was on a course for 6 weeks where he could use a work car to get there and back each weekend. He chose the electric car and said we’re never getting one! A 2 1/2hr trip would take longer every week, he’d arrive frozen and would have to pull over for stops as he’d get tired through boredom as he couldn’t have the heating/ radio on as it would drain the battery too much. Charging points frequently didn’t work and we were both surprised by just how expensive they were. Totally not worth it if you ever drive any distances.

We have an electric car and the benefits are more than just the electric side of things, it practically drives itself! We’ve only done 2 really long journeys and one was a bit of a pain as it was rural Scotland and there weren’t many chargers around and it was a bit stressful finding one that wasn’t in use or broken when we just wanted to get home! The benefits far outweigh the inconvenience a few times a year though.

My advice is charge it to 100% before you set off, don’t drive like an idiot on the motorway (I’m looking at you DH!) and stop to charge at a services/ supermarket/ shopping centre before you get to any country roads, don’t leave it til the last minute!

We don’t find any issues. We live Central Europe, and regularly drive up to Germany or down to Italy, Croatia and Slovenia. We just stop every 2.5 hrs ish to charge, which is when we stopped with petrol car as someone wants toilet, stretch legs and food by then.
Ours does 300+miles, and it not a problem with cold weather or snow.

For what you describe it's probably fine. One long drive a year, for leisure, so you aren't against the clock.

The problem comes when you regularly make those sorts of journeys and it's for work so you have appointment times to meet and long working days, you simply don't have time to hang around at service stations queuing and charging, instead of just a quick toilet stop that you'd normally make if you needed to get to a meeting on time.

Plus you'd want to avoid service station charging as much as possible, as the cost is expensive compared with home charging.

Hire one for a week or two and see how you get on. Hertz, Avis, Sixt, Europcar — most of the big companies have quite punchy deals on just now for hiring EVs.

Also, check at the destination where you go on holiday — maybe they have fast chargers on-site, which might negate you having to use the public charging network?

I don't drive one myself (yet) but as a passenger I've had mixed experiences; friends of mine have two between them (a DS 3 Crossback and a Hyundai Ioniq 5) and they adore them both. But they don't generally do more than about 100 miles in one go, and can charge at home, so it works for them.

The Hyundai in particular is a lovely thing inside though. It's like a Swedish hotel suite.

We’ve only had electric cars for the past 8 years and done UK holidays all over every year without more than the occasional issue eg a chargers being broken. We’ve also done Holland and France on the ferry. Definitely got better with numbers of chargers over time. Although the critical mass of people getting cars now meant we’ve had to queue for a charger for the first time this year.

it needs some planning but on a holiday trip we’d be making stops for toilet breaks etc anyway. I appreciate there would be more challenges for someone driving long distances for work on a regular basis. You don’t have to charge to 100% at every stop - often the last bit of battery charging is the slowest.

I would love an electric car. And it would suit me really well. But thge cost abs the issues with finding a fast charger that doesn't have a queue or I'd broken are what put me off. Even on a busy day it doesn't take long to top up with petrol. And they rarely run out.

We have a Tesla. We mainly charge at home on a cheap EV overnight tariff.
Every other month we do a 450 mile each way journey. We charge using Tesla superchargers and that means two stops each way to charge. Maybe 45 minutes each stop? By the time we’ve been to the loo and bought a coffee time is just about up.
We’re driving around Europe in it this summer. Not forseeing any issues. I’ve never considered turning off the heating, heated steering wheel, radio, heated seats etc. Just not an issue.

The infrastructure and technology hasn't been upgraded enough yet to cope. The range dramatically reduces in cold weather, I would get a hybrid then in future when the cars and infrastructure have improved switch to EV.

I'm just about to change to full electric from plug-in hybrid. My longest journey is 220km so I only considered cars that had an advertised range of more than double that, the one I'm getting is 480km. In your case there aren't (as far as I know) any EVs that can go 600 miles as their advertised range and, as a PP has said from experience, it can be tense if you pull up to a charger to find it's out of order or there is a long queue. If you have a plan ahead of time it would probably be fine, eg find three places to charge that you can definitely get to with your real-life range. Then if the first doesn't work out you can still make it to the second, then the third.

Be aware that cars will usually charge to 80% as that works best for the battery life span. You can usually make it charge to 100% on the night before your journey to give a bit of extra range. Also, while your car is still plugged in before your journey, use your phone app to pre-condition it. It'll warm up the car so that you get optimum milage from the start.

If most of your journeys are short then also consider a plug-in hybrid. I've had mine for 2.5 years and overall I've done 21,000 km of which nearly 18,000 km was electric. That's because I do a school run, come home and plug it in, go to the supermarket, come home and plug it in etc. So although my range is officially only 50km and in real life between 27 and 36 km, I hardly ever go beyond my range on a single journey. At the moment my petrol tank is 48% full, I last filled it in November, so I really use very little petrol except for my regular longer journey a few times a year. The only reason I'm changing it is because I'm not that fond of the car itself and if it's at all icy or snowy it has the road holding of Bambi on ice and I have to borrow my DH's car.

It takes you 45 mins to go to the loo and get a coffee?

And you do 2 stops each way which means you stop for 1.5 hours each way of the journey?

This is what puts me off massively. I run in when I need the loo and run back out. If I buy a coffee (I normally just have a bottle of water in the car), it just sits in the car and I sip as we're going along

What a waste of time.

EV's are in the same position now, their range is only theoretical, ie you drive at a constant speed (well below the 70 mph limit), in warm weather, with the heater etc turned off.

All cars are tested to common standard; the Worldwide Harmonised Light Vehicle Test Procedure. WLTP for short. A variety of speeds and operating conditions are taken into account.

I have read articles about drivers getting arsey at motorway service stations because people connect up and then disappear for a long meal leaving their vehicle hooked up. There is no way that anybody can tell you that there won't be a long wait to recharge on a motorway. What happens if you get stuck in traffic for hours in the winter?

Also it’s worth considering depreciation. Obviously all cars massively drop the second you buy them but I’ve had friends with electric vehicles who’ve found they’re worthless after a few years.

Some of the issues relating to “broken” chargers I have seen have been the result of no mobile signal on a particular network. They work in conjunction with a phone app.

No signal, no charge.

I've had an electric car for 18 months. I charge at home most of the time but on longer journeys, do charge on public chargers.
Never had a problem?!
You do have to plan your stops but like others have said, a cuppa and a wee and you're pretty much ready to go again.

I could sell my car for not short of what I bought it for.
You're all doom and gloom! As an experienced electric car driver, I'm not experiencing the doom and gloom you're all predicting!

My DH's company car is an EV and he does long journeys in it regularly. Plus we use it for most of our visits to family etc which are all journeys between 150(easy on one charge) and 400 miles(need to charge en route).
When we first got it we had a couple of scares, but that is because we hadn't changed our mindset and expected to be able to drive it exactly like an ICE car.
You do need to plan more or you can end up with longer journeys. But if you plan your charging stops to coincide with meal or drinks breaks then it makes little difference as you're charging when you'd be stopped anyway.
We rarely use motorway service chargers. They are often first generation chargers so slow, plus they are often busy, and, like motorway fossil fuels, expensive. Wetherby services is an exception that we do use on some trips to our DC. It's still expensive but they have a big bank of fast chargers and its convenient. Normally though we pull off motorways and major A roads as you can usually find faster, cheaper charging elsewhere and the detours are small.
Our car has a feature built into the satnav that tells you charger locations but there are loads opening at present and the car doesn't update as often as some of the apps so we usually look at Zap Map and ABRP too.
The infrastructure isn't expanding as fast as EV ownership at present so it is a bit of a worry, but I think it will catch up. We have not had any significant waits since we ditched using the most obvious places to charge. And technology is moving on quickly. We do most of our charging at home but hardly ever use anything less than a 150kW commercial charger when we're out, and recently stopped at a 350kW one. It took 8 minutes there - not significantly longer than filling my ICE car in a petrol station and not even time to drink my coffee! With improvements in battery and charger technology I think long charging stops will eventually becime a thing of the past, but for now, you just need to plan ahead a bit and use the technology available to get your best journey.

One stop is usually coffee and one lunch. A waste of time? Nah. How often do you do 900 mile round trips?
The OP asked for real life experiences. Most of the replies on here are from doom mongers who think turning on the radio is going to mean the battery immediately goes flat 😂

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11583677/Why-Britains-electric-dream-driving-distraction-One-motorist-reveals-how.html

If you’ve driven to Cornwall recently, you may have witnessed people having similar problems. I have a self charging hybrid and that’s as ‘green’ as I’m going for now