Advice on the best charging apps & charging strategy when on a trip?

I've just checked out the rapid PodPoint charger at Llandudno Junction Lidl. It's just past the store entrance on the left. It has three cables, AC, Chademo and CCS. So, in effect, rapid charging for one car. You have to use the PodPoint app.

Assuming there is space at the charger then two cars should be able to use both AC and either one of the DC plugs at the same time.
 
Not to hijack the thread but..

Just booked a weekend in great yarmouth, from the midlands, for tomorrow.
Check the local news for blocked roads/ EV breakdowns:D
 
When I first started EVing 4 years ago and was doing a regular 550 mile round trip in a ChadeMo 30kwh vehicle I was very particular about planning, ABRP, Zapmap etc, plan A, B and sometimes C.
As I'd just had a bladder cancer op ( 100% successful, God bless the NHS?) that left me with a hypersensitive bladder for a few years, toilet stops were more essential than EV charging and I was stopping to charge every 50 miles.
These days with an SE LR MG4 and resolved bladder sensitivity it's like a new, less stressy, world ??.
The public charging network has moved on apace and will continue to do so.

Preparation I would advise is just have a fair idea what you are aiming for but don't panic too much. Tesla is your friend and more stations are being opened up week on week. Cheap, fast AND reliable.
You can probably do it on 1 mid-journey charge but 2's not a sin and it's best to arrive with a full tank(ish) so that's not your first concern when you arrive, so maybe 3. But you're not charging 0-100% so it won't take that long.

I use android auto / waze. Just check availability of next chargepoint whilst charging at previous for a bit of peace of mind.

Enjoy ??
 
If this is the sort of unit I think it is, the AC plug will be able to deliver 22 kw. If it's like the one in the village here, it will do 45 kw. There are cars that can use that.
 
When I first started EVing 4 years ago and was doing a regular 550 mile round trip in a ChadeMo 30kwh vehicle I was very particular about planning, ABRP, Zapmap etc, plan A, B and sometimes C.
As I'd just had a bladder cancer op ( 100% successful, God bless the NHS?) that left me with a hypersensitive bladder for a few years, toilet stops were more essential than EV charging and I was stopping to charge every 50 miles.
These days with an SE LR MG4 and resolved bladder sensitivity it's like a new, less stressy, world ??.
The public charging network has moved on apace and will continue to do so.

Preparation I would advise is just have a fair idea what you are aiming for but don't panic too much. Tesla is your friend and more stations are being opened up week on week. Cheap, fast AND reliable.
You can probably do it on 1 mid-journey charge but 2's not a sin and it's best to arrive with a full tank(ish) so that's not your first concern when you arrive, so maybe 3. But you're not charging 0-100% so it won't take that long.

I use android auto / waze. Just check availability of next chargepoint whilst charging at previous for a bit of peace of mind.

Enjoy ??
Thanks for those suggestions.

Just refereshing my memory on all the posts back in mid May in advance of the trip south next Monday and spotted your reply.

Yeah, I thought, as someone suggested earlier, it probably makes sense to just capture the chargepoints ABRP suggests on the route (plus maybe some backups) and save them into my google maps so I can see them with Android Auto in the MG4.

However, you mention checking availability. Is that a feature of one of the free apps or is it a paid thing to see this real time availability info?

Cheers

Ralph
 
Thanks for those suggestions.

Just refereshing my memory on all the posts back in mid May in advance of the trip south next Monday and spotted your reply.

Yeah, I thought, as someone suggested earlier, it probably makes sense to just capture the chargepoints ABRP suggests on the route (plus maybe some backups) and save them into my google maps so I can see them with Android Auto in the MG4.

However, you mention checking availability. Is that a feature of one of the free apps or is it a paid thing to see this real time availability info?

Cheers

Ralph
Hi Ralph. I have all ( most?) of the networks I'm likely to use apps on my phone. As I'm now preferring Tesla I'm using theirs. Anything else (i.e no tesla ) and I'll use zapmap then double check on the suppliers app the night before, and maybe at the previous charger before setting off depending how fast the charge is going.
 
Thanks for those suggestions.

Just refereshing my memory on all the posts back in mid May in advance of the trip south next Monday and spotted your reply.

Yeah, I thought, as someone suggested earlier, it probably makes sense to just capture the chargepoints ABRP suggests on the route (plus maybe some backups) and save them into my google maps so I can see them with Android Auto in the MG4.

However, you mention checking availability. Is that a feature of one of the free apps or is it a paid thing to see this real time availability info?

Cheers

Ralph

That's what I do. Decide in advance which chargers I'm heading for, and put the next charger into Google maps and display the route on the infotainment screen from my phone. I can thus see the distance to the charger on the infotainment screen and the remaining range on the car on the driver's screen, and take appropriate action if I don't like the way these two numbers match up. (I tend to slow down a bit to keep the range ten miles or so ahead of the distance to the charger. Your mileage (literally) may vary.)

It's also a good idea to do a <10% to 100% and balance charge before you go, if you haven't done one recently. That makes sure the GOM is calibrated and minimises the chance of any nasty surprises. I find I can drive Caliban right down to 4% without the range doing anything unexpected, and without loss of power (in reasonably warm conditions - I've noticed a slight power restriction at low SoC in the cold).

Honestly, I've stopped worrying about checking availability in advance. The charger situation has improved immensely over the past year and I simply expect there to be a space when I get there. If there is a queue I can always check ZapMap at that point. (Last time I had to do that was the Saturday before Christmas, supposedly the busiest day in the year, when one of only two chargers was blocked by someone who still hadn't returned to his car even though it was at 100%. That's not going to happen again because the new chargers at Tebay southbound will be my go-to for that journey.) Anyway, ZapMap found a free charger just six miles away, so I got back in the car and went there. Better food, too.
 
Zap-Map does have a route planner. If you go to "Routes" (3rd icon along at the bottom of the screen), you can plan your route. :)

Also, if you are using Android Auto with Google maps, you can select chargers and it will show you the local chargers near your location as you drive along.

This is a post I made of an unplanned journey using Google maps.
Just re-reading your advice above. Thanks for that. :)

Ralph
 
Hopefully, I haven't missed someone mentioning this, but the Tesla app is the one for me and a Fastned.

Tesla have now opened quite a few of them with a good distance between them even for non-tesla car owners all across UK. You save quite a bit on the prices by default and if you charge 3 or more times a month then get the membership as well and the return on it is after 75-90 kW of charge.

This summer and the last I did a 2.8k mile trip from Liverpool to Slovakia and back, where last year I was using mostly Ionity and Fastned and this summer I went with Tesla superchargers only - the difference was about a 30% reduction in charging cost (some due to price difference, some to poor planning on my side and not sticking to just one network and paying on month membership with them).

If I remember correctly in ZapMap and in the ABRP you can specifically exclude the Tesla-only superchargers or set the non-Tesla ones as preferred.
Within the Tesla app if you don't have their car registered it only shows you the ones that are open for non-tesla cars and all the status and capacity information is live and up to date, which for me is the second biggest thing after the price.
The only small problem I found was with Google maps as it shows me better information on my phone than on my computer. For example, if you search for Telse Supercharger near Stoke there are two of them, but when I click on them while on my computer they look the same and Google won't show you that one of them is Tesla only (Keele northbound services). However, if I do the same search on the Google Maps app on my Android and click on the in Trenham charger, then it shows up in the info as Non-Tesla Supercharger. Not sure why is that.

Screenshot_20240730_204151_Maps.jpg

One other thing I found out with my MG4 Throphy LR and Tesla was that in the Tesla app I have to press the "charge here" button then select the bay and the app goes into "initializing charge", only then do I pick up the cable and plug it into my car -> I had quite a few instances where plugging the cable first resulted in the handshake taking very long or failing completely. After which if I cancelled the session unplugged the car and did the steps as above the handshake happened with no problem within 10 seconds and the charging kicked off. Not sure if that is just my car or non-tesla car charging in general.


And then there is Fastned - not many of them are in the UK, yet. But worth it when going to EU. Their membership pays off after bout 50-60 Kw of charging with them within a month.
But once you put in your type of car in their app and put in the card details then you can set up "auto charge" during your first charge with them so that they remember your car and any subsequent charge is hassle-free - plug in, type the charger number into the app and walk away.
The map in their APP shows chargers from other companies and they have a route planner within their app as well. It will prioritise stopping at their chargers where possible, but for my route to Slovakia, it gave me 2x Telsa, 1x Ionity, 1x Instavolt and 6x Fastned stops. Plus you can adjust the "Personal Range" of your car within their app, which I do especially in winter to get more accurate route planning just by adjusting one slider.
 
Hopefully, I haven't missed someone mentioning this, but the Tesla app is the one for me and a Fastned.

Tesla have now opened quite a few of them with a good distance between them even for non-tesla car owners all across UK. You save quite a bit on the prices by default and if you charge 3 or more times a month then get the membership as well and the return on it is after 75-90 kW of charge.

This summer and the last I did a 2.8k mile trip from Liverpool to Slovakia and back, where last year I was using mostly Ionity and Fastned and this summer I went with Tesla superchargers only - the difference was about a 30% reduction in charging cost (some due to price difference, some to poor planning on my side and not sticking to just one network and paying on month membership with them).

If I remember correctly in ZapMap and in the ABRP you can specifically exclude the Tesla-only superchargers or set the non-Tesla ones as preferred.
Within the Tesla app if you don't have their car registered it only shows you the ones that are open for non-tesla cars and all the status and capacity information is live and up to date, which for me is the second biggest thing after the price.
The only small problem I found was with Google maps as it shows me better information on my phone than on my computer. For example, if you search for Telse Supercharger near Stoke there are two of them, but when I click on them while on my computer they look the same and Google won't show you that one of them is Tesla only (Keele northbound services). However, if I do the same search on the Google Maps app on my Android and click on the in Trenham charger, then it shows up in the info as Non-Tesla Supercharger. Not sure why is that.

View attachment 28483

One other thing I found out with my MG4 Throphy LR and Tesla was that in the Tesla app I have to press the "charge here" button then select the bay and the app goes into "initializing charge", only then do I pick up the cable and plug it into my car -> I had quite a few instances where plugging the cable first resulted in the handshake taking very long or failing completely. After which if I cancelled the session unplugged the car and did the steps as above the handshake happened with no problem within 10 seconds and the charging kicked off. Not sure if that is just my car or non-tesla car charging in general.


And then there is Fastned - not many of them are in the UK, yet. But worth it when going to EU. Their membership pays off after bout 50-60 Kw of charging with them within a month.
But once you put in your type of car in their app and put in the card details then you can set up "auto charge" during your first charge with them so that they remember your car and any subsequent charge is hassle-free - plug in, type the charger number into the app and walk away.
The map in their APP shows chargers from other companies and they have a route planner within their app as well. It will prioritise stopping at their chargers where possible, but for my route to Slovakia, it gave me 2x Telsa, 1x Ionity, 1x Instavolt and 6x Fastned stops. Plus you can adjust the "Personal Range" of your car within their app, which I do especially in winter to get more accurate route planning just by adjusting one slider.
Thanks for this. Yes I've added the Tesla app to my phone and specifically marked off one location that could be handy as you enter Wales.

That plug in procedure is an issue I've faced with my MG4 using Chargeplace in Scotland. I found I had to initiate the charge in the app first and only then plug in the cable.

Cheers

Ralph
 
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