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

Can’t actually believe people are suggesting you run a cable into the holiday let. Pretty sure that’s (a) very expensive for whoever is paying the bill (b) unlikely to be included in the rental and (c) a fire hazard. Incredibly selfish - if you’re driving an EV, surely you can make provision for it without risking a property that belongs to somebody else.

We were motorway from Bodmin onwards
And the services only had 3 or so chargers at the opposite ones we stopped at on the way down
Without coming off at various towns trying to find chargers the motorway services were just to busy .
On the way down there was lots of chargers
There really wasn't as many on the way back

Maybe the problem is our range ,it's 170 miles ,as I said for more range it would of cost an extra £4000 for the same car
More range would of meant less stops and a less stressful journey
We didn't have the extra £4000 at the time
We certainly won't be using it long distance again,it's only good for round town where I can charge at home and know there won't be anyone parked in the charging space and the charger will actually work .
So we either sell the car and go back to petrol
Or we keep it for round town and buy another that's petrol
Either way
An expensive mistake

@Springsnowdrops Near the start of this thread I think I told you about the problems. There are not enough chargers! Yes people park non EVs in EV charging spaces. Yes, they are often not working. As there are few car park chargers in Cornwall, Bodmin lures them in! It’s not easy unless you can find overnight charging. It’s very stressful. Retired folk can take all day. Singles are probably working and don’t own the car.

I agree about EV buying costs. Too low a range is a disaster. Not sure if you ever looked at second hand EVs? You might get a better deal and a bigger battery. If this is your only car, it’s not been a great choice. Who needs a stressful holiday?

Unfortunately the pro Ev lobby is noisy but the practicalities of ownership don’t suit longer journeys. Don’t think we are taking our EV to Cornwall. Fine with 200 miles but we would need 1 full charge to complete the journey. Motorways seem to use a lot of battery power.

@Springsnowdrops Yes. Don’t believe the hype!

Having done both ways, numerous times, you’ve got poor planning to blame. There are multiple sites with multiple chargers on both A30 and motorway routes. And, you’ve still not said what car it is, only 170 mile range which is meaningless.

@LondonPapa What difference does make of car make? The op is telling you what happened driving her car - not yours or mine.

Older EVs didn’t get very far. Mine is meant to be 300 miles and it’s less then 1 year old: It isn’t. I drive fairly quickly. I’d say my confidence level is nearer 200. MG4 standard is 185. Volvo ex30 single motor 170. Ford puma gen e 170. Peugeot e2008 165. Skoda Elroq 150 is 190 but none of those will do the advertised miles on fast roads.

As for planning. Such an annoying faff. The chargers are in use or broken. Pretty often. Then it’s plan B or C or even D. It’s not planning though - it’s crap infrastructure.

Our car has range of about 320 miles. Journey to Cornwall is 270 miles from where I am. Charged to 100% before we set off and charged once en route with no broken chargers or queues. By the time we’d done a toilet stop and eaten lunch only had to wait about 5 mins to finish charging. Because we didn’t want to arrive with very low battery.
There are plenty of EVs out there that work very well indeed and lots of scaremongering on here that just isn’t every EV drivers reality

@Notstrongandstable But neither is some of the Ev marketing propaganda accurate either. We have around 1/4 of the chargers we need. When chargers are occupied for hours or out of use (and they are!) it’s hugely time consuming to find another one. Great your car does 280. The OP’s doesn’t. Plenty don’t. It’s chippy all right Jack attitudes that really annoy me. You don’t have the OPs car!

The difference is quite significant. The range is irrelevant as anything can impact range. Knowing the car, and battery size would give better options for advice. My EV has 250 miles of stated range (it isn’t), in reality, I may need at least 1 full charge on the way down, with a top-up closer to destination as I actually got 4mi/kWh on a 50.8kW (useable) battery - 203.2 miles, on the way down this time. I can get up to 7mi/kWh but to do so, I need to drive incredibly strict, and use no electrics such as radio, and it needs to be 20°c+ which it isn’t - yet!

Also, proper planning is essential. I haven’t experienced any broken, or improperly used chargers on either route up and down between Cornwall and London. It seems OP got screwed because they didn’t plan properly, and headed to the wrong places rather than dedicated charging stations as Cornwall Services was buggered.

@TizerorFizz there’s no alright jack attitude. I’m simply trying to debunk some of the posts on here saying EVs are totally unworkable. Are they more hassle, yes a little bit but for me it’s far more important not to be burning petrol or diesel.

my ds struggled on a journey to cornwall in an electric hire car

@LondonPapaUnfortunately your post describes how carefree motoring has gone out of the window and nerd driving has taken over. No radio? I’ve no idea what my miles per kw are. I actually don’t care. It’s this sort of calculation and driving style that puts people off. I don’t know what my battery size is either. I just want to get from A-B and I am Ok stopping once on my way to Cornwall and it’s 250 miles to my house there. I have a BMW iX3. Advice welcome.

But I clearly said we did plan ,we had zap maps that didn't update us when chargers were not working.
Why are you saying we didn't plan ,when I've clearly said we did .
We planned before each journey exactly where we would stop and when we would stop
I can't help it if chargers were not working or people were parked in charging spaces without an EV vehicle
And I can't help it if the zap map doesn't update quick enough
No one wanted this to be a success more than we did ,as we've spent a lot of money on this car

Our range is 170 miles ,it's a fairly new car as well
But we didn't have the extra £4000 to get a car with further range
Having not had an electric car before,we didn't realise how the stopping to charge 3 times in the journey would impact us .
And one services it took an hour to get to 80*% charged,and we still had to stop another two times .
So as we didn't have the extra money for the extra range ,I can see that actually we just couldn't afford an electric car ,but we know that now

There's a Tesla supercharger at Camborne which is only 15 miles from Penzance.
According to plugshare there's 2 rapid chargers in car parks in Penzance as well. I prefer to plan for those with more than 1 charger as more chance of a spot.
Really we didn't find Cornwall a problem and we drove around a lot.

@Springsnowdrops what car do you actually have? Why is it so hard to tell us?

Also, an hour to 80% is a long time. Look for chargers which are at least 50kwh.
We do a lot of road trips (been as far as Poland / Sicily etc in our Tesla) and we never take more than 20 minutes to 80%. Sometimes we charge up to 95% if there is a long gap between chargers and that does take a bit longer but even then I can't remember ever waiting more than 35-40 minutes.

When it's a busy day at the service station,your just praying there is a free charger ,not thinking I hope it's 50kwh.
I don't get a choice which chargers are in each service station,I have to charge on what's there

There was only one fast charger on the large seafront car park ,and it was permanently busy
Sainsbury's only had slow chargers,
nearest place was Hayle.

I don't think it makes a difference,and I've outed myself enough already

You can tell in the apps whether it's 50kw or higher. I just set the filter and I don't even see the lower power ones. I don't know what you drive but with the Tesla we have it built into the sat nav but I also use a couple of apps on my phone for other chargers.
I love our car but I totally get that driving an ev isn't for everyone. I think it does require a bit more advance planning than just filling up with petrol and that's not what everyone wants. But I'm fine with it.

It makes a significant difference. And you’ve not outed yourself. But if you don’t want any actual assistance, but just to complain, go ahead. But you need to understand how EVs work properly, what your battery size is, and actual range, not stated.

I live rurally and the charging infrastructure here is better than our nearest big city. Not an affluent area. It’s about decisions on what to invest in I reckon.