To wonder how people can be bothered with electric cars on long distances.

[dixeypeach]

We've had to rent a car for a week, only one they had ready was a fully electric Mercedes, never drove one but we thought they must be alright as loads of people have them. Dear god. Since Tuesday it's had to be charged 4 times and the nearest fast charging one from us is 12 miles away. Full charge gives you 200 miles (219 max miles) which I think is rubbish also if you can't find a fast charging one some take 7 hrs to fully charge 🤦🏻‍♀️ Got caught short yesterday trying to find a charger that wasn't in use or blocked by someone parked in front (not using) the whole thing just gives me bad anxiety😬 at 3:30 today we've got to do a 370 mile round trip to pick our daughter up, we haven't even set off and it feels like a huge effort to find somewhere near her to charge it up to drive home 😳 I mean yeah people have them at home if they own one but surely when doing long journeys you feel the same panic I do!?

Not all traffic jams involve being stationary though!

@Lottaflowers I'm the same I'm not a stopper. I do this journey regularly in my diesel car and never stop because once I'm on the motorway I can't be arsed to get off.

@Andanotherone01 it really is. 1.5 hours into driving and I'm already a panicky mess constantly watching the range 🤦🏻‍♀️ don't help that we are on the m1 with no hard shoulder 🫣

We have an EV and most years we charge the car away from our own wall box fewer than ten times.

I was nervous of it until I got used to how it works. Yes, you need to plan a little. Are you really telling me that with young children in the car you don't plan to break up a long journey with a rest? That's the bit that needs reconsidering, not the EV.

On Zapmap you can sort it so it just shows fast chargers, and it says how many are at each site so you can judge better whether they might be busy.

We drove Southampton - Manchester in August and stopped part way for lunch, by the time we’d eaten (just in Costa, so 30 mins or so) the car was almost fully charged.

I appreciate the anxiety as I had it a lot when we first got the EV, but we’ve never had issues.

@TheFeistyFeminist nope they very rarely need to stop. Use toilet before leaving. iPad in hand. Don't hear a peep from them until we've got to our destination. Tonight tho we will be stopping to feed them.

And also how you reduce the DVT risk.

I’m not a stopper either unless 200 miles plus so would give me the rage. BIL stress when we go away for having to find a charger en route or At destination is not for me.

We currently have a diesel estate and a petrol/LPG hatchback.

Most modern EVs can do 200+ miles. In the 2.5 years I've owned my current car, there's only once I've done 200+ miles in a single journey.

So I'd be weighing up the possibility of mild inconvenience once every two and a half years, with never having to go and fill up with petrol, and never having to scrape the icy windows in the winter because I can just tell the car to pre-heat whilst plugged in.

I doubt I'm that atypical, I also think that the convenience factors of EVs that I mention would still win if I made longer journey considerably more often.

The thing which does put me off driving an EV is cost. I'm not going to get any EV as cheap as my £3k Insignia (which was almost 8 years old when I bought it), or a new EV as cheap as my £129/month Sandero.

I would love a Tesla, but sadly, don't have the £££ to buy one.

At the moment I still need a large car to transport all of DD's stuff. She is hopefully, going back into higher education next year, and I need something with a huge boot for her stuff. The main issue is finding somewhere to charge.

My current car is 10 years old and is brilliant, but it is diesel and I would prefer to drive something less damaging to the environment, so I keep looking at what would work for us.

Oh no, the 'anxiety'. 🙄What doesn't give people anxiety these days...?

I love mine, we often drive long distances. Have never had an issue. You just need to plan.

If you are anxious or don't like/can't manage planning ahead in regards to charging, then maybe an EV isn't for you.

That's because the charging network in the auK is crap. I live on the other side of the channel and there are charging stations at nearly every garage, in front of supermarkets, at larger shopping complexes, apartment buildings, office blocks... I live in a smallish town, and there are 3 charging stations within a 2 minute walk from my house.

Most of the supermakrkets have charging points, but only two or three at most.

Between charging bays being in use and unavailable, or not being fast charge bays, or being broken, or having selfish idiots parking in them with non EVs, I’ve completely given up taking mine on long trips. If I can’t do there and back on one charge, I take DHs non electric car.

The alleged max range on mine is 215 - I get that doing small trips at slower speeds in summer - but in winter and on motorways I get around 100. They really aren’t designed for long distances!

You have to change your mindset and plan. DD lives about 380 miles away, for the last 18 months we have been up and down every couple of months. The first journey was stressful but we have got to know where there are most chargers, when they are less in demand and so on. More of a pain in the winter than the summer as cold really reduces the range but definitely doable.

@RampantIvy My car is fully electric. Not a Tesla. It's marvellous.
I live in a very rural area.
I took my car to France this summer.
I often do long journeys that require a top-up en route. All it takes is a little planning.
Depending on the weather my car does 230-300 miles between charges.
It saves me almost £500 a month in company car tax.

@dixeypeach Suggest you look up Ionity super chargers. They bang the power in quickly. Also, best to start charging when the car is down to 20% battery as it will fill VERY quickly between 20%and 60%.
Also download the Tesla app and look at the "Charge your non-Tesla" feature. There aren't that many open to non-Tesla's but those that are, are once again very fast chargers. We made use of these in France this summer and it was brilliant. Planned so that we'd have a spot of lunch whilst the car was charging.

We almost replaced our main car with an Audi Etron, but cancelled the order, partly because it took over a year for the car to go into production, but mainly because this really concerned me. Most of our journeys are under 50 miles, but the odd time we go longer journeys. All the research I'd done made me worry about charger availability, they often seem to be broken, and fast chargers are non-existent in some areas.
Those at work who have them can charge there for free, but every single person has another 'normal' car in their household.

I’m not surprised you’re anxious if you’ve let the battery go down to 8%!!

You need to be using a faster public charger ie 50kW. On the very rare occasions I charge away from home my car will charge from 20-90% in about 40 minutes on a fast charger.

There are some great places starting to be built- went to one in Banbury a few weeks ago which has about 20 fast chargers and a Costa Coffee.

It is difficult when there are only smaller places though with eg 2 chargers - you get there and one doesn’t work and the other is in use by someone who won’t be finished for 40 mins. It is a problem.

@MarmitePizza 😂 that's my husband he likes living on the edge. Thank god it's going back Tuesday, what a ball ache.

Nope - we regularly do 400mile round trips to Cornwall and/or the EU. It’s fine and our 230 battery matches ours and the dog’s bladder capacity. Charge during our pee and coffee break, it’s usually done by the time we are! We can use the Tesla supercharger network which is great but we’ve also used kitchen sockets overnight (family) or plugging in at a local supermarket or carpark whilst we shop and it’s fine. Just takes a bit of forethought and you get used to it. Love our EV and never going back!

The apps also tell you in real time if a charger is free or in use so you know when you drive there that it’s free.

Yes, but unfortunately if you are on your own and driving a long way you’re not going to be able to check that on your phone in real time (unless you have the pay-extra ZapMap car app which I guess will tell you on your dashboard, but I don’t need to use public chargers enough to pay for it).

We use the Tesla supercharger network which might make this biased but distance has never been an issue. There have been a few times when we've stopped for a wee and to get some food and had to hurry back because we were about to be charged idle fees as the car was fully charged.

@MarmitePizza - we just use built in sat nav. It has all the info in our car to tell use where all the next main car chargers are, availability and kw size. So can glance at sat nav and just see the next available ones easily.

With a Tesla, you don't need to use the phone app. The car will divert its recommended destination based on current usage - so if it's avoiding X service station, you can guess it's because the superchargers are busy.

Dont worry OP, people on here will tell you its no bother, just 'stop off for a coffee' and charge up, no queues, no broken chargers, no issue with registering multiple apps and navigating your way through it all

Even though its your own actual experience people will tell you its not

My cars tank does 340 miles in one go and filling up takes a few mins, until that is replicated I cant really think about changing to an EV