Charging across Europe

[Rolfe]

Hmmmm.

 

[Archev]

Hmmmm.

Och no - I made it past the half way but my brain exploded.
Either shut up ‘n drive or take the bus.

 

[EVsince2016]

I agree about the effort.

A simpler version might be:
If you like to drive slower than 70 on the motorway set the max speed accordingly.
If you like to drive faster, set the max speed to that and the reference speed accordingly (e.g. 110% for 77).

ETA: Something was bugging me. You said underestimates the time, so the simple version wouldn't work (I think).

I did that and still it over estimated consumption!

 

[Gadget Geek]

The last couple of long trips I've done, I've used Google Maps and just winged it, no planning involved. I just put the destination in the sat-nav and go. When I get down to 25%ish, I use the "Nearby Chargers" option in Google Maps and pick one I fancy. No hassle, no stress.

 

[Rolfe]

Och no - I made it past the half way but my brain exploded.
Either shut up ‘n drive or take the bus.

Basically Electroverse was a disaster on his test. Similarly on mine. I want to go to Inverness. A single short charge is advisable - it's over 170 miles and I have an SR. ABRP suggests the Tesla superchargers in Perth, very reasonably. However, if I manually add a waypoint at Tesla Aviemore, it will helpfully delete the Perth stop and recalculate the route based on the extra charge being taken on in Aviemore.

Electroverse, in contrast, is fixated on an Osprey charger about half way into the journey. No matter what other charger I put in as a waypoint, it only gives me a stop there, without charging, and insists I charge on the Osprey.

Dave found that it continually sent him to Instavolts, even though he told the app he was driving a Tesla and requested Tesla chargers. It seems to be programmed to favour the Electroverse "partner" charging companies and steer you away from the others even if you specifically request them.

 

[DixieTGS]

I did that and still it over estimated consumption!

Yep, not worth bothering, I just did a 90 mile trip and reading off the dashboard I took distance(m), average consumption (m/kWhr) and battery remaining(%) to calculate usable battery:
distance/consumption/(100-remaining)*100

Apparently I have a 70kWhr (usable) battery !

As I've recently done a 10 to 100 charge I was expecting something a bit closer to the book figure of 61.7 even allowing for rounding of the dashboard values.

 

[Rolfe]

I did that and still it over estimated consumption!

It always underestimates the time I will take to drive the distance, and underestimates consumption. I'm not quite sure how it manages that.

 

[EVsince2016]

It always underestimates the time I will take to drive the distance, and underestimates consumption. I'm not quite sure how it manages that.

Maybe 8 years in an EV and starting on a LEAF gave me a magic foot

 

[Rolfe]

Maybe. I still don't know how it imagines I'm going to cover the distance in half an hour less time than is actually possible on the road, and yet still get there with 5% more charge than I actually have when I get there half an hour later.

 

[DixieTGS]

OK, I was waiting for someone to ring me back and ended up looking at this for 15 minutes rather than be more productive:

For the speed part of the problem, the model of car is irrelevant and for routes with typically no congestion (e.g. for me, m5 South to Cornwall in the evening) a reference speed in the upper 90s % is similar to google.
For typically congested routes (e.g m5, m6 North at any time) a reference speed in the low 90s matched much better - some places probably need a value < 90.

Without a subscription it looks like ABRP never uses historical data for speeds but Google does.

The bottom line is, ABRP needs guessed user input to give half reasonable speed / journey time results.

ETA: The Google comparison times were the minimum for a journey on a midweek evening.

 

[Rolfe]

Thanks. I've taken to using ABRP to find the best chargers, but then Google to do the actual navigation and give me an accurate ETA.

 

[EVsince2016]

Just updating my charging history! Travel is great

Seems that I've used: -

• 7 granny chargers at stays, 5 in the MG5
• 63 fast chargers on 22 networks, 11 on 10 networks with my MG5
• 114 Rapid chargers on 37 networks, 79 on 29 networks with my MG5

Wow, 184 chargers on 65 networks in all.

As for reliability.

No charge site failures on the Alps trip, but a couple of unit failures.
Last winter - 1 site failure but another site next to it
2023- 2 site failures, used 7kw on 1 to top up to get to next rapid
2022 - 4 failures due to MG5 EVCC issue
2021 - 5 failures on LEAF causing 4 hour delay, as 4 failed in one place.

I have charged in 12/15 countries that I've visited, missing just Gibraltar, Luxembourg & Liechtenstein.

As for records my MG5 is now: -

North - 5th in Scotland
East - 2nd in Italy
West - 1st in Portugal
South - 1st in Spain

Countries - 2nd at 15
Top in country, joint 1st at 8
Distance - 2nd at just over 10k
EU Trips - 3rd

Altitude - 1st at c2760m on Stelvio, but 5 passes beat my other cars.
Day trip - 1st at 625 miles
One charge - 1st at 210.9 miles
One trip, with night stops only - 1367 miles

Who doesn't love data!

 

[rjhfandclf]

Who doesn't love data!

I generally find other people’s data most interesting, but fear my own must seem thoroughly boring to others!

Presently we’ve just arrived a few days ago at our SW France bolt-hole for our late-summer trip, and in warm sunshine today – at long last. As always, we now overstay for two nights for the almost exactly 800 miles door to door driving (i.e. excluding the Chunnel). All went smoothly excepting one scary moment when a 175kW TotalEnergies charger at Alençon (through Electroverse) would not release from the car after finishing charging, including several re-sets and re-charge starts and finishes. The emergency number noted on the chargers got a ‘number not recognised’ from Orange, but a French BMW driver solved the issue for me with a sharp yank on the connector - along with a smug smirk. Luckily my French is adequate enough for a suitable riposte to Total! Thankfully the car’s socket still seems to work OK!

Haven’t had time to analyse this trip down yet, plus some personal observations on the route planning issues, but will do so shortly … just to bore, of course!!!

 

[EVsince2016]

I generally find other people’s data most interesting, but fear my own must seem thoroughly boring to others!

Presently we’ve just arrived a few days ago at our SW France bolt-hole for our late-summer trip, and in warm sunshine today – at long last. As always, we now overstay for two nights for the almost exactly 800 miles door to door driving (i.e. excluding the Chunnel). All went smoothly excepting one scary moment when a 175kW TotalEnergies charger at Alençon (through Electroverse) would not release from the car after finishing charging, including several re-sets and re-charge starts and finishes. The emergency number noted on the chargers got a ‘number not recognised’ from Orange, but a French BMW driver solved the issue for me with a sharp yank on the connector - along with a smug smirk. Luckily my French is adequate enough for a suitable riposte to Total! Thankfully the car’s socket still seems to work OK!

Haven’t had time to analyse this trip down yet, plus some personal observations on the route planning issues, but will do so shortly … just to bore, of course!!!

It's always good to see others doing trips, sharing their data, experiences and differing techniques.

My 2025 trip will be a bit dull & a repeat. Still will have updates!

 

[rjhfandclf]

That's interesting, as I've seen others (in the UK) report that they round down - if you put in, say, 29.9 kWh it charges for 29 kWh, it only charges for 30 kWh if you reach or exceed it.

Interesting, maybe they do? That would be great, I just assumed up!

Bit historic info now, but having just used two Teslas in a row in France, I can confirm that they both rounded down ... but then you've probably found that out for yourself by now!! (I just need to remember to try to switch off as close to n.99 kW as possible!)

 

[rjhfandclf]

Still haven't sorted my trip data driving down yet ... but just received advice from IECharge that they have reduced prices again to 0.25€/kWh (21p!) for the rest of the year - so all good for our return trip in mid-Oct - yippee! Should mean that, with care and luck (and constant F/X rates), we should be able to get home without ever paying more than 38p/kWh (via IECharge, Tesla and Podpoint). On a rough calc based on approx mileage per provider used, that should equate to an average of around 31p/kWh door-to-door ... but we shall have to see if it all pans out as planned! (But does it ever?!)

I wonder what a similar UK average might be. Thankfully my UK usage is all well-covered by our Octopus ASHP+solar PV Cosy rate of 11.5p/kWh.

 

[EVsince2016]

My home supply is Octopus IO Go 7p/kWh rate plus free hours and solar PV.

My 2nd EV that only home charged costs 1.5p/mile to run whereas the travelling MG5 is at 4.4p/mile due to rapids but also lowered by higher solar PV content.

 

[rjhfandclf]

I did look long and hard at IO Go, but with my minimal UK mileage, top-up charging once or twice/month, I felt that the 11.5p against 7p/kWh was inconsequential, when I could get (now) three low Cosy rates totalling 8hrs spread throughout the 24hrs. This also benefits running the ASHP; and with max solar export at 15p throughout (with several months spent abroad), and whilst day-to-day home use is covered by the battery being topped up throughout the same three cheap sessions, I was much better off with Cosy. Caveat through: I haven't had a full winter of all this new stuff, so am quite prepared to review this in consequence. We shall see - and the jury is still out!

 

[EVsince2016]

Just looked at my charging history on rapids. Top are for just the MG5 -

Ionity = 13
Zunder = 10
Tesla = 9
Iberdrola = 7
Gridserve = 4

For the LEAF 1 & 2 it was: -

Electric Highway - 9
Genie Point - 4
Pod Point - 3
Instavolt - 3

How times change!

 

[EVsince2016]

I've applied to go, crazy I know, a third trip in one year, but hey, places to see, challenges to meet!

It would add the Netherlands to my list, maybe Poland as its 90kms from Berlin and if the weather was perfect, 750 miles back . . . hmmm, in one go? maybe, maybe not!

To spend time chatting with nerds who don't get bored of my EV & renewables talk would be brilliant and Octopus too. I've been with Octopus since July 2019 and went on Go soon after.

I never share my referral code, maybe I should start or is that too pretentious?

Octopus Energy

Octopus customers pay less: Cheaper than price-cap prices, rewards for using less when the grid is stressed, and smart tariff savings for your home, car or battery

share.octopus.energy

Bit like what 3 words eh!

PS

2025 adventure already booked!
2026 & 2027 in advanced planning