Help needed re e-charging

red_clowne

red_clowne

Well-known member
I pick up my e-Vito Tourer next week and have been trying to make sense of the information on e-charging at motorway services.
I don't get my home charging unit installed until 8 April so will have to rely on charging at motorway services until then. Getting to and from the home match on 6 April will be my first big test.
My new Vito has a quoted max range of 215 miles. Because I can't yet charge it to 100% at home I'm limited to 80% - say 170 miles.
I will have a SSC (or is it CCS) socket and I believe I can charge at Woodall Services, the services at the M18/M180 junction Services (where I pick up a fellow Boro fan) and at Wetherby Services. These seem to give me the fastest charging on our regular route.
My question is this: can I just pay by debit/credit card at these places, or do I need a downloaded app.
If anyone on here can help it would be much appreciated and I will be eternally grateful.
 
Have you downloaded the zapmap application mate?

It shows all of the chargers available and you can filter by type, speed or provider. My experience of service stations has never been positive and I prefer to find alternative locations.

Over the past two years I've found that InstaVolt and Osprey chargers are really reliable providers to the point that I filter my Zapmap to their services only, though I'm sure others are also decent.

If you look at the charger at the locations you're looking at in the map it'll tell you who the provider is. Things are getting better and the two companies above allow you to charge without the app by tapping your phone or payment card but you will find that eventually you'll need a variety of apps if you're using a variety of providers l, but as I say things are getting better

Edit* Wetherby looks to be served by 5 points provided by Gridserve which is a decent number. There's positive feedback on charging experiences over the past couple of weeks that I can see so should be fine.

Woodall Northbound has two chargers by Gridserve which is not a lot for a service station. There's also issues reported at one of the points 3 days ago and 6 days ago so less likely to be reliable.

And the last one you've suggested looks like the MOTO at Donny. Single charger - I wouldn't bother. Just a few miles up the road you've got a double Osprey location at a pub. Personally if you need to stop in this area I'd be making the trip to the pub, have a drink /quick bite and know you're almost certain to get a charger the minute you arrive and it'll be working.

Address if you need it: Kings Chamber Pub, Selby Road, Doncaster, DN8 4JE

I mainly charge at home so only need to look elsewhere about once a month. Once you find some reliable places you're away but there can be some stress attached to finding reliable and available chargers, especially when you've got the kids in the car.

Those are my findings from two years of ownership. Hope it helps
 
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In answer to the OP both are gridserve/electric highway/ecotricity which you should be able to use a debit card with. I used electric highway myself yesterday at fleet and just used my debit card to pay.
It’s a very good question to ask though and more complicated to answer than it should be. Today I found myself at a charger on the A3 which doesn’t take a credit card and you have to download an app. Which would be fine. If the services weren’t in a bad signal area and I couldn’t download the app.

As others have said: zap map is invaluable because it gives you chargers, type of charger, speed, cost per KWh, payment details and any access restrictions. If I’m going away from my supercharger walled garden (where I can just stick a destination in the sat nav and it shows me where I can get automatically billed fast charging) I tend to use a better route planner (ABRP) to plan the optimum route. And then zap map to check out what the chargers ABRP recommends are like
 
SmallTown said:
In answer to the OP both are gridserve/electric highway/ecotricity which you should be able to use a debit card with. I used electric highway myself yesterday at fleet and just used my debit card to pay.
It’s a very good question to ask though and more complicated to answer than it should be. Today I found myself at a charger on the A3 which doesn’t take a credit card and you have to download an app. Which would be fine. If the services weren’t in a bad signal area and I couldn’t download the app.

As others have said: zap map is invaluable because it gives you chargers, type of charger, speed, cost per KWh, payment details and any access restrictions. If I’m going away from my supercharger walled garden (where I can just stick a destination in the sat nav and it shows me where I can get automatically billed fast charging) I tend to use a better route planner (ABRP) to plan the optimum route. And then zap map to check out what the chargers ABRP recommends are like
Click to expand...
Never seen ABRP before thanks for the heads up. It gets poor reviews on the app store, do you find it useful?
 
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Emmersons_BrazillianDong said:
Never seen ABRP before Mart thanks for the heads up. It gets poor reviews on the app store, do you find it useful?
Click to expand...
Yeah I use it a lot. I have the premium version which takes the weather into account when calculating range. And you can change the variables for long journeys so you either have fewer stops or a quicker journey
 
Similar but related, but I think it was Smalltown who pointed out that Tesla owners have access to more chargers than other EV owners.

Is this still the case, or do you need to further filter by those available to you based on the car you own ?
 
The_Lizards_Jumpers said:
Similar but related, but I think it was Smalltown who pointed out that Tesla owners have access to more chargers than other EV owners.

Is this still the case, or do you need to further filter by those available to you based on the car you own ?
Click to expand...
Yes, in everywhere other than the Netherlands only Tesla drivers can use the supercharger network. So using zapmap you need to filter these out. It's an easy to find option.

Abrp doesn't need this though. You actually put what car you have in it so it automatically knows what chargers are compatible
 
SmallTown said:
Yes, in everywhere other than the Netherlands only Tesla drivers can use the supercharger network. So using zapmap you need to filter these out. It's an easy to find option.

Abrp doesn't need this though. You actually put what car you have in it so it automatically knows what chargers are compatible
Click to expand...
Genuine question Smalltown - How many times do you need to sop and charge compared to a similar car using a full tank of petrol?

We drive south of Bordeaux every summer and wondered how many more stops it would add to the journey.
 
Norman_Conquest said:
Genuine question Smalltown - How many times do you need to sop and charge compared to a similar car using a full tank of petrol?

We drive south of Bordeaux every summer and wondered how many more stops it would add to the journey.
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I've never done a true comparison if I'm honest. I've only done one big trip with my car. That was to the dordogne. I stopped 3 times to charge. One was done with lunch and one was whilst waiting for the euro tunnel so I didn't really notice the stop. When travelling in England I never used to refuel my old car. It had a huge tank and a diesel engine and a range of about 650 miles so I usually filled up before I went.

When I drive to the North East now I have to stop for between 11 and 15 minutes depending on weather. Which isn't a problem at all.

Have just put bordeax in to ABRP and would need to do 4 stops.

An interesting point you raise is "every summer" it's really not worth sacrificing all the cost saving and convenience of an EV just because you'll need to spend an extre 20 minutes in an aire de service every year.
 
SmallTown said:
I've never done a true comparison if I'm honest. I've only done one big trip with my car. That was to the dordogne. I stopped 3 times to charge. One was done with lunch and one was whilst waiting for the euro tunnel so I didn't really notice the stop. When travelling in England I never used to refuel my old car. It had a huge tank and a diesel engine and a range of about 650 miles so I usually filled up before I went.

When I drive to the North East now I have to stop for between 11 and 15 minutes depending on weather. Which isn't a problem at all.

Have just put bordeax in to ABRP and would need to do 4 stops.

An interesting point you raise is "every summer" it's really not worth sacrificing all the cost saving and convenience of an EV just because you'll need to spend an extre 20 minutes in an aire de service every year.
Click to expand...
Although we are in a rush to arrive at ourdestination we do tootle down and stopover in a hotel at Niort for the night. Then it's a 3hr journey to our final destination.

How do electric cars cope in traffic jams? Bordeaux is like any major city and is a ballache to get through and is stop start, stop tart for a good hour.
 
red_clowne said:
I pick up my e-Vito Tourer next week and have been trying to make sense of the information on e-charging at motorway services.
I don't get my home charging unit installed until 8 April so will have to rely on charging at motorway services until then. Getting to and from the home match on 6 April will be my first big test.
My new Vito has a quoted max range of 215 miles. Because I can't yet charge it to 100% at home I'm limited to 80% - say 170 miles.
I will have a SSC (or is it CCS) socket and I believe I can charge at Woodall Services, the services at the M18/M180 junction Services (where I pick up a fellow Boro fan) and at Wetherby Services. These seem to give me the fastest charging on our regular route.
My question is this: can I just pay by debit/credit card at these places, or do I need a downloaded app.
If anyone on here can help it would be much appreciated and I will be eternally grateful.
Click to expand...
Gutted that loads of you have got in before me, on one of my favourite topics :LOL:

Feel like I need to still answer mind.

All public chargers should be contactless now, and not need an app. Some aren't but the most frequently used generally are, which Wetheby and Wodhall should be, but I've not used either, for reasons below.

Where are you going to/ from?
Why can you only charge to 80% at home?

For long trips I pretty much ignore the 50kW chargers, so here is a map of the 100kW and above CCS chargers, taken from zapmap, using the filters. This is important to me, as I have a big battery and a car which can charge at over 100kW, so is most time efficient. Smaller batteries and more economical cars can make better use of 50kW etc.

1648385863697.png
 
There's a website called abetterrouteplanner too, comes in handy on long trips which you may not have done before.
 
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