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?

I the cold weather it's a fecking nightmare.

The rest of the time it's ok but you can never rely on accessing a public charger when you want too. Public chargers are regularly not working, busy for hours, extremely expensive or they need a card/app you don't have. Don't get me started on people who leave their car fully charged and don't come back for hours, or people who insist on changing to 100% even though charging that last 10% or so is extremely slow and there is a queue who are cold and tired.

The car itself is wonderful to drive.

Canofpop - it's changed and improved massively in the last few years I've had electric cars so I'd imagine it will continue to do so.

Most fast chargers have penalties for leaving your car too long. One we used the other day - there was a £25 fee on your card if you charged for longer than an hour. This seems much more,common now, especially fast chargers at service stations and supermarkets.

It would help if there was one common app.

My neighbour reckons the battery on his electric car is now knackered, takes ages to charge and trickles away charge overnight. Its only 3 years old and he has been told the replacement battery cost is really huge. He is hoping to use it for a few more months but is now in the situation where he dare not put the heater on or go far in it. His wife's ancient Ford Ka is doing much better.

Surely it depends how many miles you do a year?

Are the chargers actually at places you want to stop? I generally stop at National Trust or similar places for a picnic rather than a service station and I see very few of them have charging points.

Quick google tells me Tesla have opened up their supercharger network to non-Teslas now, and if car has CCS (both models I'm looking at do), you can use it.

I think I need to do a bit more research about locations of chargers on my regular route to/from London and on route to oft visited summer holiday spot.

The cars I'm looking at have 8yr warranty for battery charging to 70+%

Perhaps your neighbour doesn't but I'd be surprised if there was no recourse to the manufacturer for such shocking failing at such a short time span.

I usually stop at motorway services tbh, just for convenience. Do my nice stuff when I get there 😁

Last I looked, it was a fairly small number of Tesla chargers that were available to other cars in the UK - lots more in Europe though so it will spread I'm sure.
I suspect the motivation on Tesla's part is not altruism but because the infrastructure for other users is growing very quickly and they can't keep up with it. The various commercial companies are bringing out chargers that are at least as fast, if not faster than the Tesla network and you get a lot more choice. It was one of the factors that turned us off a Tesla when we were researching what to get in fact. Looking at the journeys we do regularly, we have a lot more chargers open to us with the car we chose compared to a Tesla, and there seems to be more every time we go anywhere. I suspect Tesla owners will start wanting to use other chargers and the only way they are going to get that is if Tesla reciprocate. The supercharger network was definitely a big plus for Tesla initially, but I don't think it is so much now. I'd imagine restrictions will be eased in both directions soon. As I understand it it's software that stops Teslas using other chargers and vice versa, not anything physical that needs to be done to cars or chargers so if they think it's commercially beneficial they'll change it eventually.

Interesting, thank you ☺️

We have two EV. One has 150+ range and the other 250+

I'd never buy ICE again if I could help it.
We regularly do 100-200miles to see family and to a regular holiday spot. Wales is a bit more challenging due to lack of chargers, but we stop in Shrewsbury before we cross the border and top up there if we think we may need it.
We've had maybe 2 difficult journeys - once on the first Saturday in whitsun goingdown the m5 to Dartmouth. We had to queue for a while for a charger. But tbh that was our own fault, we should have got off the motorway and found a supermarket near by instead. Lesson learnt.
The 2nd was my DH travelling for work, and he set off with only 60% battery. First charger didn't work, and then there was a road closure so he missed the second one he had identified. He got to his accommodation with minimal charge left and plugged in (granny charger) but because our battery is so large it couldnt fully charge by the time he left in the morning. So he had to stop and charge on the way to his destination in the morning which added extra time pressure. That was a mixture of poor luck and bad planning.
In my smaller battery EV I've never been bothered by having to stop and charge. If I'm doing a long journey 3/4 hours, requiring a charge, I use the time to have a quick cat nap as my eyes needs resting anyway. 20minutes and I'm on my way again.
The newer cars can pull so much on the fast chargers anyway its super quick. Its only my i3 which can't pull that fast that can be a bit of a delay.
We use zap map to find 100kw+ chargers most of the time now.

Other thing I would say, is I find it odd how people focus on the queues etc at motorway services. Drive a mile off most junctions and fast chargers are usually accessible in supermarkets, pubs and more. Much cheaper than the ones in the services as well
Absolutely. We very rarely bought overpriced motorway diesel in the past and we very rarely buy overpriced motorway electricity now. We do the vast majority of charging at home, but when we do need to use commercial chargers we just have a look at the map and find one close to a junction. We have never had to go very far to find one, even in fairly rural places.
There were stories in the news about huge queues at a particular motorway services at Christmas. We were on an almost empty bank of faster, cheaper chargers less than 5 miles away at the time this "crisis" was occuring. Without doubt the infrastructure needs improving but some of the problems you hear about are at least partially of people's own making.

I have rarely bought petrol at service stations, but we can drive about 360 miles on one tank of petrol. So don't need to fill up on the way either.

@AnotherDelphinium may I ask what it is about my requirements that make you suggest waiting? Is it the range on the vehicle I like?

I can't speak for other EVs but the infrastructure for Tesla charging is fantastic - (including Cornwall!).

Because you don't have to stop at service stations - they are also at for e.g. garden centres and pubs and colleges....which is useful if you are driving a more scenic route, (say on a holiday). You can just put in 'supercharger' in the satnav and it will navigate you to the nearest one while prepping the engine for a faster charge.

You are as likely to find a supercharger at the Dog and Bollocks in Lower Nowheresville as you are at the Delamere Services on the M4.

They have their own charging cables so you don't have to carry one. No unlocking on an app. If you can unlock your car you can use the cable. You can charge in as little as 10 mins. We can do a 300 mile trip before charging - you'd probably want a loo stop after 300 miles anyway. You can top up for 10 mins and carry on.

We used to go on day trips with BIL in his prized electric car. The fuel savings he thought he was making were far outweighed by the number of pub meals he had to buy his family whilst waiting for the car to charge for the return journey. False economy in the end.
He got rid of it.

There are 23 TESLA superchargers in my City, 12 in a paid car park. So fine if not many people drive evs. But they need to scale up very quickly.

(But you would charge at home before you set off so it's like heading off with a full tank of petrol)

Long trips are indeed a nightmare but if it's just once or twice a year then it's manageable. I've had 2 long trips in DH's EV car, both a pain, but as 99% of my driving is under 100 miles a trip it's not stopped me ordering my own EV car. When that arrives we won't have a petrol car in the household at all.

In my experience you need to plan to make multiple stops before managing to find a charger that is available and not broken. Start looking at 50% battery. Don't try and fast charge beyond 80% because it starts to trickle after 80% which means you wait ages and cause other people needing to charge delays too. Go off motorway to find chargers, McDonald's are good for this. It's worth a few miles of detour to avoid queues at the motorway services.

Unless you have a Tesla, Motorway services tend to have 1 or 2 machines which means maybe 4 cars can charge if they have had had dual charging turned on. If it is turned on and both in use, the speed drops. Expect 30kwh from a 50kwh machine if both cables are in use.

There's an emerging etiquette for queuing for chargers that is a bit difficult as people park close by then you have to remember who was immediately before you. It's not immediately obvious if people are in the queue.

I think it may depend where you live
I got an EV in December and love it . Im in Sheffirld and have done a couple of longish journeys south and it was great. Plenty of charging options .
However I've booked a weekend away in the Yorkshire dales and there seem to be no suitable fast chargers in the vicinity... so I am borrowing my mums Yaris for that trip!!

I know. Which is why it is mainly people with drive ways who have an ev car.
In my street like most others, you can not guarantee being able to park outside your house, and I rarely can.

We have a hybrid Golf which seem to be best of both worlds.

Seems at odds with everything I've seen and experienced...

I bought my tesla model 3 Performance, new, for £49950 in 2019 and sold it around 6 months ago for £43,000 with 55k miles.

Total cost for servicing, repairs and maintenance in that time was £860 on tyres.

I'd say that holds up pretty well.