Planning a trip to Scotland

If you look at the map on the Electroverse app, you will see that CPS chargers are visible, which means you can use Electroverse with them.

Gadget Geek said:

If you look at the map on the Electroverse app, you will see that CPS chargers are visible, which means you can use Electroverse with them.

Click to expand...

Yes I saw that, just wondered if anyone has used them - just in case it was out of date or not ready yet.

Some CPS units don't work well with the app so worth getting an RFID card

If you are planning a stop in Wetherby maybe consider the Tesla chargers in Harrogate, just have to compare the costs, and if you are carrying on up the A1 there are another set at Adderstone (Purdy Lodge).

Those are the 2 stops I use when travelling Edinburgh to Leicester

Anon70 said:

If you are planning a stop in Wetherby maybe consider the Tesla chargers in Harrogate, just have to compare the costs, and if you are carrying on up the A1 there are another set at Adderstone (Purdy Lodge).

Those are the 2 stops I use when travelling Edinburgh to Leicester

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Those Tesla chargers at Harrogate are miles and miles and loads of time from the A1M and no real facilities (in a garden centre car park). I wouldn't go that far off route. Wetherby Gridserve has increased the number of chargers recently and now has 29 CCS connectors and good facilities. It was always very busy at lunchtimes with queues but possibly not now with the new chargers added. Still best to avoid lunchtime anywhere though if you can.

Gomev said:

Those Tesla chargers at Harrogate are miles and miles and loads of time from the A1M and no real facilities (in a garden centre car park). I wouldn't go that far off route. Wetherby Gridserve has increased the number of chargers recently and now has 29 CCS connectors and good facilities. It was always very busy at lunchtimes with queues but possibly not now with the new chargers added. Still best to avoid lunchtime anywhere though if you can.

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Thanks, Wetherby is likely to be an early breakfast stop so hopefully won't be too busy.

Gomev said:

Those Tesla chargers at Harrogate are miles and miles and loads of time from the A1M and no real facilities (in a garden centre car park).

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For me it is about 10 miles from the A1 (total detour of around 20 miles), off at Jn45 and back on at Jn47 and for the half price power, around 40p/kWh instead of 80p/kWh I always found it made sense. Plus the garden centre has toilets and a cafe (and there is a Drive Thru Costa 1 minute up the road)

IMHO, you MUST get a ChargeplaceScotland RFID card. There are three reasons for this.

First, some of the remoter areas have patchy or nonexistent mobile coverage here in Scotland where the app doesn't connect and it can be impossible to phone the helpline (who are generally sympathetic, friendly and just as frustrated as you at that point - see below).

Secondly, some machines just don't seem to work with the app even with a conection.

Thirdly, and most important of all, over the last year or so, the CPS mobile app has been "upgraded" by the contractors, which translates as completely wrecked. It is now by a considerable margin the worst mobile app I have ever used for any purpose. Ever. Take a deep beath and read on...

It always opens by logging me out and saying it's sent me a verification code by email but one is never sent. It always defaults to my location being the centre of Edinburgh (160+ miles away from where I live) wherever I am, while every single Scottish charger is stated to be exactly 3983 miles from me, wherever they are. The charging status info hardly works (it says the charger's occupied when free, etc.). If you type anything other than very slowly in the search box it doesn't work. Graphics often show chargers but no underlying map is displayed so you can't see where they are; when it does display, the info sometimes doesn't match the charger. The buffering takes forever and frequently freezes. The screen mostly doesn't respond, so tapping a charger icon doesn't pop up the charger details.

It is the worst piece of software I've ever experienced - from a practical point of view it's completely unusable. Ironically the last two moves of the maintainance contract have been because of lousy performance by the contractors. But each subsequent one has been worse than the last - privatisation strikes again...

I'm not alone in this. If you want a (sort of) fun 20 minutes, go to the Play Store on your phone, search for the CPS app and read the reviews. There are 409 of them and the average score out of a possible 5 is just 1.1.

I just opened my CPS app and got the same verification issue. I simply pressed Back on the phone, accepted the logout warning, and then logged back in without issue.

I also got shown as being in Edinburgh, but a quick tap on the "target" icon at the bottom right of the map recentred the app to my correct location.

Other than that it seems to work OK. Not that I ever use it though, as I do have an RFID card.

GaryMG4 said:

Early research for a trip planned for May, we'll be heading from Kings Lynn to Ardgarten. I've just downloaded the CPS app, will my Electroverse card work with their chargers, or do I need to order theirs? An initial go with ABRP suggests Gridserve Wetherby, Carlisle Ionity and Osprey at Queen of the Loch. Any experience of these sites or alternative suggestions?

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Yes Electroverse card will work. I’ve used with a couple of CPS chargers with no issues

GaryMG4 said:

Yes I saw that, just wondered if anyone has used them - just in case it was out of date or not ready yet.

Click to expand...

I've seen someone using an electroverse card on CPS.

gdiamo10 said:

Yes Electroverse card will work. I’ve used with a couple of CPS chargers with no issues

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Great, that's what I was hoping to hear now I just need to check that the card works as I've had it for a year but not needed to use it.

Anon70 said:

For me it is about 10 miles from the A1 (total detour of around 20 miles), off at Jn45 and back on at Jn47 and for the half price power, around 40p/kWh instead of 80p/kWh I always found it made sense. Plus the garden centre has toilets and a cafe (and there is a Drive Thru Costa 1 minute up the road)

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Each to their own preferences, that's the joy of journeying.
For me when on a long run a short detour is OK but 20 miles is a bit much for me. Price wise it is cheaper to go to the Teslas, despite having to use about 5kWh just for the diversion but sometimes the convenience of just pulling off to the motorway services trumps price.
A rough cost difference. Say for 40kWh top up :
at Gridserve @79p = £31.60
at Tesla @51p = £20.40 or with a subscription @39p = £15.60.
So a fair bit cheaper but not forgetting the time lost and the 5kWh used in travelling there so you have less SOC when resuming up the A1M.
You pays yer money and yer takes your choice, and at least we have a choice which is a good thing.

GaryMG4 said:

Yes I saw that, just wondered if anyone has used them - just in case it was out of date or not ready yet.

Click to expand...

The Electroverse card should work, but recently, our local Highland Council-owned charger stopped responding to the Electroverse card (Not Authorised) and required the CPS RFID card. This is annoying, as it's cheaper with the Electroverse card, and knowing the Council's small-mindedness may be the reason. This may be restricted to the local charger and/or Highland Council chargers, but I thought I'd better let you know.
Oh, and the Electroverse only works on the journey chargers, not the destination chargers, at least in our experience of a number of Highland Council chargers.

Gadget Geek said:

If you look at the map on the Electroverse app, you will see that CPS chargers are visible, which means you can use Electroverse with them.

Click to expand...

Electroverse have not sorted out their agreement with ChargePlaceScotland (on their own admission) and some chargers which say compatible are not. As advised by others, get a CPS card.

Shrink Proof said:

IMHO, you MUST get a ChargeplaceScotland RFID card. There are three reasons for this.

First, some of the remoter areas have patchy or nonexistent mobile coverage here in Scotland where the app doesn't connect and it can be impossible to phone the helpline (who are generally sympathetic, friendly and just as frustrated as you at that point - see below).

Secondly, some machines just don't seem to work with the app even with a conection.

Thirdly, and most important of all, over the last year or so, the CPS mobile app has been "upgraded" by the contractors, which translates as completely wrecked. It is now by a considerable margin the worst mobile app I have ever used for any purpose. Ever. Take a deep beath and read on...

It always opens by logging me out and saying it's sent me a verification code by email but one is never sent. It always defaults to my location being the centre of Edinburgh (160+ miles away from where I live) wherever I am, while every single Scottish charger is stated to be exactly 3983 miles from me, wherever they are. The charging status info hardly works (it says the charger's occupied when free, etc.). If you type anything other than very slowly in the search box it doesn't work. Graphics often show chargers but no underlying map is displayed so you can't see where they are; when it does display, the info sometimes doesn't match the charger. The buffering takes forever and frequently freezes. The screen mostly doesn't respond, so tapping a charger icon doesn't pop up the charger details.

It is the worst piece of software I've ever experienced - from a practical point of view it's completely unusable. Ironically the last two moves of the maintainance contract have been because of lousy performance by the contractors. But each subsequent one has been worse than the last - privatisation strikes again...

I'm not alone in this. If you want a (sort of) fun 20 minutes, go to the Play Store on your phone, search for the CPS app and read the reviews. There are 409 of them and the average score out of a possible 5 is just 1.1.

Click to expand...

HURRAH! Someone else thinking the same as me. I taught interface design / user experience design at university and this app REALLY annoys/frustrates me. The 'Edinburgh' issue I can live with, same with the verification - although both are just ridiculously inappropriate.

WARNING - RANT ALERT!

The worst issues I have encountered were:

a) I went to my local rapid. I'd left my CPS card in my other car. (Not showing off - I had bought my 'proper' EV and still had to sell my £4k 'toe in the EV waters' Leaf). I tried to connect using the app, but it wouldn't work. I tried several times and then phoned the call centre. "That charger doesn't work with the app" was the reply. WHAAAT? Then why doesn't the app tell you that? The desktop view of the data DOES tell you, but not the interface that you're actually using!

b) I'd returned from a trip to Newcastle running on fumes, so went to do a rapid charge. I knew it would take more than an hour, so checked to see if there were any overstay charges. Nothing there - just the charge per kWh. So I left the car, came back after about 50 minutes and waited until charging was done. I checked again to make sure there were no overstay charges. The charge done, my bank app told me I had paid about £40. 'That's funny, it should have been £30’, I thought. So I phoned the call centre. "You've been charged £10 overstay". But I had checked twice. Where does it tell you about overstay charges? Well, when you're looking at the cost of charging, there’s a little link saying "more info". What's the more info? The overstay charge! Why on earth is it hidden away? Isn't that part of 'transparent pricing'?

Thank goodness I don't use public charging very often. My blood pressure's high enough as it is …

Having said all that, as a whole, I find the CPS system very good. I read somewhere that it might be discontinued in favour of privately owned charging. That would be a great shame. All it needs is sufficient funding to allow local authorities to update the old charge units, and most of the problems would be resolved.

I keep planning a holiday doing the NC500, maybe one day I will actually do it but why do Charge Place Scotland charge £12 for their RFID card ? Definitely off putting. Electroverse doesn't nor do any of the others (or if they do I haven't got it).

Gomev said:

I keep planning a holiday doing the NC500, maybe one day I will actually do it but why do Charge Place Scotland charge £12 for their RFID card ? Definitely off putting. Electroverse doesn't nor do any of the others (or if they do I haven't got it).

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It does seem excessive but its not a lot compared to the total cost of the holiday and I'd rather give myself as many options as possible while on holiday.

Gomev said:

I keep planning a holiday doing the NC500, maybe one day I will actually do it but why do Charge Place Scotland charge £12 for their RFID card ? Definitely off putting. Electroverse doesn't nor do any of the others (or if they do I haven't got it).

Click to expand...

CPS are different to Electroverse. They don't get any commission on the charging. Almost all of the chargers on their system are operated by local authorities, and the Scottish Government engaged them to act as a central 'enabler'.

If you're sticking to heavily populated areas, you should be OK with the app, flawed though it is. But if you plan on going into the hinterland, the west coast north of Glasgow / Loch Lomond, or anywhere north of Inverness, you really need the card. If you're going there, £12 isn't really going to add a lot to the cost of the trip - equivalent to a gallon and a half of that petrol stuff we used to have to buy!