Anyone taken an electric car down to Penzance for a week

[Springsnowdrops]

Booked in over Easter
No chargers at property
Can only see 4 rapid chargers in whole area on zap map
The rest are 6 hour chargers ,but in supermarket car parks ,where if it's anything like home ,you can only stay for 2 hours ..
Starting to think this is going to be a disaster
Anyone successfully done a week in Penzance in an electric car

Padstow and North Cornwall coast are poorly served too by the way. I don’t think Padstow has any.

Ugh, I hope you get it sorted op, it sounds like pps have given some good advice.

I really hope the whole country catches up soon, but until it does, this is why I haven't got an EV. Cars are for your convenience, having to plan and worry to this extent isn't convenient. If we get a second car it will definitely be electric, but at the moment the infrastructure just isn't there to rely on.

I hope you have a great holiday!

There are a couple of fast chargers at a petrol station just outside of town - we went a couple of years ago with a couple of years had 140 miles range.

I think it’s not so much an inconvenience as a change of mindset. If travelling with a mobile phone, you don’t fret that the train charger isn’t super-fast, or that the phone doesn’t go from empty to full while plugged into the car fir a 20 minute journey. You don’t run the battery flat and then seek a full recharge. We’re used to topping up phone charge as and when, using a wide variety of technological options.

EVs are the same - but we are so used to ‘buy petrol when the tank is empty, and fill it to the brim’ that it takes a little while to adjust.

@cantkeepawayforever When you are out in Cornwall there are not a lot of “technical options” for charging an EV. There’s private charging points and a handful in car parks. When we first got a plug in hybrid, Cornwall had 30 charging points in their car parks! It was dire. Look at Padstow. Their parish council says you need to go to a garage or garden centre! They have two car parks for the town. Ditto Port Isaac. One new huge car park but no chargers at all. Great if you stay somewhere with a charger but it’s dire if you don’t. We now have an EV but it’s not our main car although it is quite a decent size. It’s not going to Cornwall. Life is too short!

Was about to comment but can see that @TizerorFizz is clearly an expert ( and judging by their posts a second home owner) so won't bother.

I do see that. But if my phone dies on a family holiday then it is an annoyance at best. But if it was my car that would be enormously inconvenient to say the least! And I have a range of options for phone charging, every building I go to, the car, a battery pack if I'm that concerned. But it looks like Cornwall really doesn't have a sufficient range of options to avoid very careful planning and a lot of time spent dealing with the car.

I'd love an EV, we have solar panels, a driveway, and live in a fairly well provisioned area and everything. But life is just not ready yet to rely on it as the only family car. I hope one day most petrol pumps are replaced by super duper fast chargers so most people can make the change.

I'd be tempted to hire a different car for the week. What a faff

I think you've hit the nail on the head there. Most of the EV "horror stories" you hear are from people who have bought one and try to drive it in exactly the same way as an ICE vehicle. If you do that, you'll be disappointed. It's a different technology and hence requires a change of thinking, but once you get your head around that it's really not that difficult is it?
I also think that there are more chargers than people realise. If you don't have an EV, you don't notice them - why would you? I had this very conversation with a friend a few days ago in fact. We live in the back end of nowhere and she was saying lack of chargers puts her off getting an EV. I then listed multiple charging sites within 10 miles of where we live, including the one behind a cafe a few hundred yards from my friend's house that she wasn't aware of. Our experience has been that lots of EV chargers are tucked away in places that you might not necessarily expect to find them and are not as obvious as petrol stations so if you're not looking, you don't see.
I'm sure there are still some places with poor provision and I can't comment on Cornwall specifically as it's not somewhere I've visited, but in general terms I think the difficulties of owning an EV are vastly exaggerated. We travel a lot in ours and not only on motorways and trunk roads. We've got family in the Highlands of Scotland and also in a tiny village in South Wales that we visit regularly and my DH goes all over the country on business.
We didn't choose an EV, it's his company car and we weren't keen on the idea at all initially. We had all the usual reservations and were definitely not EV zealots. If DH's company hadn't made the decision to switch I think we'd still be among the "you'll never prise my ICE vehicle out of my cold dead hands" brigade. But we were wrong and now we are used to it we wouldn't go back. I still drive a diesel but when it needs replacing I'll definitely go electric too.
Of course there is still room for improvement. It's relatively new technology and is rapidly developing. But I don't find it any more stressful or inconvenient than driving any other car now. When we first got it we did indeed either take my car or plan charging stops in advance like a military operation on long journeys but now we just get in and go and are confident that we'll find somewhere on the way. We've not been caught out yet and between us we do a great deal more than average mileage.

@MrsAvocet
We leased an EV first as I was convinced it wouldn't work for us but DH was keen.
I figured he would end up agreeing and then I could just buy the car I wanted
We ended up buying one and I love it
As you said, you can't treat it like an ICE car, its not but its no more difficult to use. In fact in most cases its easier because you don't have to go to petrol stations

@NeartoNewquay I’m assuming that’s a massive dig at me? We are having a conversation on here. It’s been pleasant until now.

I do think Cornwall needs more planning with an EV. It’s just what it is at the moment. Finding charging places is far more tricky than finding a garage.

What is the range on your car ?

Cornwall to Oxfordshire what, 300 miles ?

And you need 4 stops to get there ? So less than 100 miles per charge ?

I reckon most teslas would do that in only 3 charges. One there and two while you are there (one to get back and one to drive around while you were there).

@GasPanic You need one stop. Assuming you recharge efficiently. Lots don’t and it could take longer than anticipated. 4 stops is OTT!

The big problem is getting around in Cornwall. If the OP hangs around Penzance, then one further charge is ok. However going further will mean another charge. Then getting back home. It does require planning. Ranges advertised on cars are never accurate. Ours is 300. Don’t ever get it! So we are the same distance from Cornwall, so we know we would not make it to Penzance in our EV. I’m not so bothered about stopping in the way down, but once in Cornwall it’s a lottery regarding an available charger and where they are. Local people use the two in our car park. Visitors? Where do they go? It’s not as easy as it should be.

We have a Renault Zoe, pretty small range around 170miles and we have holidayed all across England. You just have to adjust your thinking and mindset about travelling. Take your time, plan in your breaks around lunch, coffee stop, visits etc and do small top ups worked around the holiday activities. We have had leisurely lunches in lovely pubs with chargers, and always plan in motorway services en route. It’s a slower pace but I actually find it more enjoyable and ‘mindful’ as a way of travelling.

@Mylifeisnow I think the issue is planning. It’s time consuming and not everyone has that luxury. We do but others are saying no effort is needed. It’s clearly more effort and stops built in. I’ve never been to a pub in Cornwall with chargers! Where are they?

@TizerorFizz I also thought that was an extremely unpleasant remark directed at you. Sadly yesterday I was told that I was talking rubbish and that I didn't know what I was talking about by two EV zealots because I don't drive one. Rudeness seems to be handed out with the cars.
What I do know is that In our scattered small towns there seems to be about two slow chargers In each. These towns are all about 10 to 20 miles apart.
In the summer people staying in all the holiday houses here are perfect menaces driving at 10 mph to preserve their batteries till they find a charger.
The most popular kind of new car that people actually buy with their own money locally is a pickup. I don't think many of them are electric. In fact none are, they don't make them.
I completely agree that in order to drive an electric car you need to change your mindset, but to get back to my original point I really don't see why I would.
They are less convenient, and no one telling me that it's better to have to refuel twice as often is going to persuade me otherwise. Why on earth can't people accept that what is convenient in some parts of the country is not in others, and stop the abuse.

@oddandelsewhere I do have one and I’m still wrong! I’d still prefer not to take it to Cornwall, despite its very good qualities! It can even reverse itself into my parking slot - apparently! Demo at the car showroom was interesting. We notice the going slow to preserve the battery traits too! I find mine is brilliant for localish trips in my area of the countryside but a faff in Cornwall.

We have just returned from a week in Falmouth, travelling from Manchester in our electric car. We did two charge stops; once at Gloucester services (with a lovely farm shop) and once at Lifton (on the Devon / Cornwall border at a place called Arundel Hotel). Both had lots of Tesla superchargers, which any car can use. We used two car parks in Falmouth to add a bit of extra charge whilst we were there, one a long stay and one a 3 hour limit. These were 7kwh chargers so not fast but adequate for topping up.
It requires a little planning, but on long journeys like that I’d want to be stopping anyway.

Falmouth isn’t north coast or Penzance.

and this is why we bought a hybrid....

We went down to the south of France just after we had bought our car and DH was angling after a fully EV. Thank god we didnt as there were hardly any chargers on our route down. Probably would have got as far as Rennes!

@TizerorFizz no, but Lifton remains a good charging option on a journey to Penzance, meaning you could arrive with half your battery left depending on range.

I'm so surprised by that, we did France in a EV last year and it was brilliant, hundreds of super fast chargers and an infrastructure that made me curse the UK when we got home! My favourite was a little charging station in the middle of nowhere with loos, vending machines and MarioKart for the kids while you sat there for 15 minutes!

@Hotcrossbunhero Yes but you need battery to visit places in Cornwall. It’s also 200 miles from Oxford so range anxiety if you haven’t stopped earlier. I’d be worried about not stopping before that on a cold day.

By the way, my EV does just about everything. Do I prefer it to our Porche Macan S? Not necessarily and they are the same list price! They have different personalities. Ev isn’t necessarily better but it’s different. The huge difference is resale value. We got our EV at 7 months old and a few thousand on the clock. We are not company car people. It was £23,000 less than new. The Porche at that age would depreciate nowhere near that. And indeed hasn’t. So depends who is taking that loss. Of course running it is cheaper but buying a new EV as a private buyer needs serious research or you are throwing money away in another way. We had two plug in hybrids before going EV.

My Tesla got me down with one charge from London. And that was a safety charge on my side. I suspect a Tesla, driven right, would make it from London to Cornwall with battery to spare. Not sure about Oxfordshire so one stop should be enough IMO.