Rolfe
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- Joined
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- Location
- West Linton, Scotland
- Driving
- MG4 SE SR
I gather yesterday was "EV Day". It was the day I had my first real charging-stops-from-hell experience.
I was coming home from my three-night experiment in sleeping in the MG4. I had last charged at the Tesla superchargers in Fort William the previous lunch-time, and had then driven to Ardnamurchan point that afternoon. Picked up some useful charge from the 7 kW destination chargers there while I ate a cream tea and had a wander around. Then I decided to stay the night at the camp site in Kilchoan, so that brought the battery down a bit more. Went back to the lighthouse the following morning ("EV day" itself) so I could do the actual lighthouse tour, then stayed on for lunch in the café, picked up more useful charge. Checked homeward route.
@Archev, who was doing much the same thing in his MG5 but a day ahead of me, had elected to go home via Mull, but I was unsure of ferry times, charging opportunities and weather (I had to get back for a dentist's appointment today) and decided to go round by the mainland. Google said I would get home by 6.30-ish (no stops) and the weather was blowing up a bit dirty, so I decided not to go to another visitor attraction but head home. I knew I'd have to charge, and I thought I would just head off and see what the fates brought me, hoping for a slap-up meal somewhere to compensate for three days mostly on sandwiches, cup-a-soup and fruit, and thinking about not being able to eat much for a few days post tooth extraction.
If I had wanted to be safe, what I actually should have done was double back the nine miles from the Corran ferry to the superchargers, charge up to nearly full, then simply driven home, stopping when I wanted to without needing to charge. But, you know, eighteen miles added to the journey, stuck for a while on a charger with nothing but McDonald's nearby, boring. So I headed south from Corran.
I could see straight off that I wasn't going to get to Stirling. It was further than the range the car was showing, and that range was calculated while I was pootling around a bunch of single-track roads and doing over 4 miles/kWh. What about Callander? It was inside the range showing, but I didn't fancy my chances of getting there either once the miles/kWh started to be affected by the A82 and the A84, which are not single-track. I could see chargers showing in Tyndrum and Crianlarich, so that seemed to be a plan. I knew there were decent places to eat in both towns, although it looked as if I'd be there a bit early for dinner, more like 4.30.
Got to Tyndrum, about 4.30, of course the Green Welly restaurant shuts at four and I fancied something a bit swankier anyway. But the Tyndrum Inn is OK. Unfortunately the Tyndrum chargers weren't, and neither was the Tyndrum communications.
The Green Welly had precisely one EV charger which was out of order. (This is absolutely bloody ridiculous, that place should have a shiny row of something modern, given that they set themselves up as the place for the motorist to prepare before setting off into the wilds of the Highlands.) By this time I had no mobile signal and couldn't see what else was available. I went into the Green Welly shop to get on their internet, but no joy. In spite of being told exactly where to stand to get the WiFi signal, nothing. I had seen another charger marked at a fast food café last time I had a signal, but it had been showing as in use. I decided to try Crianlarich.
By the time I got there it was raining, not heavily, but incessantly. I pulled up at the charger and I could see that the DC was showing as out of order. I connected to the AC anyway, while I phoned ChargePlace Scotland. I was shunted on to their hold-on music, and as I was listening to that hoping someone would answer me and be able to re-boot the charger, a very smart metallic red EV estate car drew up. I went over to explain the situation to the driver, who greeted me with an outstretched hand and a big grin. It was @Archev, who had enough charge to get home, but had seen the blue MG4 on the charger and figured it was probably Caliban. I admired The Magnette (and the roof tent) while the hold-on music continued. The pair of us stood there getting wetter and wetter until the hold-on music switched straight to a "how did we do?" questionnaire. You can imagine my responses.
Archev managed to get an answer from ChargePlace Scotland but the guy couldn't re-boot the DC, and then said it had already been reported and was scheduled to be repaired the following day. I contemplated leaving Caliban where he was and going into the Crianlarich Hotel, which was just across the road (and very definitely swanky enough for my tastes), but AC is so slow when you're on the road and I wanted to get charged. I think this was the point where I tripped over the tangle of charger cables lying around the unit, and fell flat on my face. On the pavement. In the rain. That charger hated me.
Archev suggested I go back to Tyndrum and try the charger at the Fast Food place, which was working (he saw someone on it when he passed). So I did that, and the charger was vacant. Kempower. They have a good reputation, right? So I followed all the instructions until I showed it my debit card. "Card not accepted. Please pay otherwise." Tried it a few times more. Still the same. (Nothing wrong with my card, it's a VISA, and they even had a VISA logo on the charger.) Then I couldn't get Caliban to let go of the charger. Tapping the unlock was doing nothing. I thought about using my credit card, which is a Mastercard, and had actually gone into the car to find it, when I heard relays clunking. The charger had decided to release Caliban as a bad job. I decided, sod it, back to Crianlarich.
This bit was fine. I put the car back on the AC and went into the hotel, where the dining room was almost empty as it was still only six o'clock. I was lucky to get a table though, because they were expecting an infinite number of drookit walkers coming in from doing the West Highland Way, and the couple who arrived on spec after me were told they would have a half-hour wait. So I decided to make the most of it. Starter of haggis bon-bons in whisky sauce, and a small glass of Chardonnay since I expected to be there for a while. Then that steak.
This was absolutely delicious and I wasn't eating fast, but I couldn't have eaten a dessert after all that, so after a coffee I had to go back out in the rain to see how the charge was doing, as there was still no mobile signal and the hotel WiFi was pretty wimpish. Looked like I had enough to get to Stirling anyway, and by now the weather was seriously horrible and it was starting to get dark, so I paid the bill and headed off. With the heating on at high, obviously.
A short way down the A84 there was a big illuminated sign saying the road was going to be closed at Lochearnhead at 8pm. It was about 7.40 by then. I had enough to get to Stirling on the straight road, but a diversion in that landscape could be a pretty long way. Oh dear. I tried to remember how far ahead Lochearnhead was, but couldn't remember if Strathyre came first! I knew I had to get down Glen Ogle though. So I couldn't even hold back to conserve charge, I had to belt it to Lochearnhead as fast as I reasonably could. (Of course, if I hadn't doubled back to that snooty Kempower at Tyndrum I'd have been well ahead of the road closure...) Great relief when I passed Lix Toll and there was a sign saying Lochearnhead was only about eight miles on, near enough to make it in time. This was about the point when I discovered that the R33 infotainment update for the SE, which I had just had applied, does fix the light sensor sensitivity thing. In fact I passed the Highway Maintenance Vehicle waiting at the side of the road to get on with the roadworks at 7.56. (To be fair, it didn't look as if they were poised to set up a road block right on the dot of eight, which I had been slightly banking on.) At this point I had about 7 miles more range than the actual distance to Stirling. It was now proper dark (sunset at eight, but not much was getting though these rain clouds).
There was a big artic doing a pretty fair lick (for his size) so I just set the ACC to follow him. Got into the vicinity of the Stirling chargers with maybe 14 miles to spare, but the vicinity was one thing, the chargers were another. Google hadn't brought me to an entrance. Picture me going round and round the same roundabout, trying different exits, trying the Shell petrol station to see if they were part of that (no), using up more range, and eventually stopping and firing up ABRP, which had a map which showed how to get at the damn things.
More Kempowers. Plenty of chargers, nobody else there, so I went through the same routine. "Card not accepted. Please pay otherwise." This time I did go fetch the credit card and hallelujah, it worked. Osprey decided they would take my money. At least the rain had gone off at the time. I sat there till Caliban was at 50% charge to cover 51 miles, because frankly I was not in the mood for hanging about any more. The rain came back on.
Headed south on the M9, crossed the bridge, passed the airport, and started to feel quite upbeat. Nearly home. Got on to the Edinburgh bypass, and another of these big illuminated signs. A702 closed from 8.30 tonight. Well it was after 8.30 by then and no mistake. Another sign, "A702 closed after A703". That should let me cut across to the A701 through the Bush Estate rather than staying on the bypass. Oops no, the road was actually closed immediately after the exit from the bypass. So back round the bonio-about and back on to the bypass, with Google having fits and telling me to turn round all the way. Just as well I did take on that amount of charge at Stirling, because by the time I actually got home, about 10.40 pm, Caliban was back down at 9%.
Well, surely this is a great chance to do the <10% to 100% charge that went wrong before. Asked Octopus for 100% by 9 am, which was when I had to leave for the dentist. Got a continuous schedule from 11.30 till 7.30, perfect. Added a bit on via the Zappi app just to make sure there was enough time to finish the balance. Dragged my luggage into the house (to be greeted with a "what the hell was all that?" by the cat, but at least he was in, and all the food in the automatic dispensers had been eaten). Got ready for bed, and spent some time going over the itchiest midge bites with the Bite-away wand, which is absolutely miraculous, but not if you lose it in the passenger footwell of the car and don't find it until you're packing to leave two days later. (Lying in my sleeping bag itching like hell, thinking I must have dropped it at my previous camp site, and it was just feet away all along.) Thought I'd just check all was well with that charge that was supposed to have started at 11.30.
Not charging. I got a bunch of contradictory messages including "EV is preventing charging", and trying to start the charge on the iSmart app failed. Finally the Zappi decided the EV was unplugged. Back into shoes and a dressing gown and out to the car. Finally managed to unplug and plug in again, but I hadn't taken my phone out with me. Went and got it, a new schedule starting 00.12 had been created, which now had a half-hour gap between 7.30 and eight. But the car still wasn't charging. Back out (still raining by the way) for another go. I think to be honest that in the dark I hadn't plugged the Zappi cable in firmly enough, and the connection hadn't been secure and had eventually disconnected. Twice. I got yet another schedule starting 00.18, again with a gap in it. Plans to do that long charge no longer viable. I knew I should go back and say I wanted the car by eight, not nine, but it was charging by this time and I really did need it the next day and didn't want to jinx it. (I had been close to putting it on the granny charger just to get enough for the 60 mile round trip to the dentist, but that was still packed up in the boot as an insurance policy on the road trip, and I'd had enough.)
Went back to bed, after checking that the charge really was happening this time. Alarm set for 7.30, looked at iSmart with bleary eyes. Car at 100%. Checked Zappi. Car had reached 100% a minute or two before 7.30, and its balance charge hadn't happened. If I'd realised that was going to happen I'd have bridged the gap in the charging schedule on the Zappi itself, but I had thought if I did that I'd probably end up taking a big chunk of peak-price electricity between 7.30 and eight. So car still hasn't had its full long charge, I don't think. It did 9% to 100% in one run, but didn't balance.
I think this would have been a lot funnier if it had been filmed. It's the sort of repeated, serial, snag on setback on disaster charging narrative that The MacMaster's channel thrives on, the sort of thing I keep declaring doesn't happen unless the driver is an absolute idiot. Yes, I should just have done that 18 mile detour to the superchargers in the first place. Or I should at least have tried the credit card on the Kempower charger in Tyndrum.
But that sirloin was damn fine.
I was coming home from my three-night experiment in sleeping in the MG4. I had last charged at the Tesla superchargers in Fort William the previous lunch-time, and had then driven to Ardnamurchan point that afternoon. Picked up some useful charge from the 7 kW destination chargers there while I ate a cream tea and had a wander around. Then I decided to stay the night at the camp site in Kilchoan, so that brought the battery down a bit more. Went back to the lighthouse the following morning ("EV day" itself) so I could do the actual lighthouse tour, then stayed on for lunch in the café, picked up more useful charge. Checked homeward route.
@Archev, who was doing much the same thing in his MG5 but a day ahead of me, had elected to go home via Mull, but I was unsure of ferry times, charging opportunities and weather (I had to get back for a dentist's appointment today) and decided to go round by the mainland. Google said I would get home by 6.30-ish (no stops) and the weather was blowing up a bit dirty, so I decided not to go to another visitor attraction but head home. I knew I'd have to charge, and I thought I would just head off and see what the fates brought me, hoping for a slap-up meal somewhere to compensate for three days mostly on sandwiches, cup-a-soup and fruit, and thinking about not being able to eat much for a few days post tooth extraction.
If I had wanted to be safe, what I actually should have done was double back the nine miles from the Corran ferry to the superchargers, charge up to nearly full, then simply driven home, stopping when I wanted to without needing to charge. But, you know, eighteen miles added to the journey, stuck for a while on a charger with nothing but McDonald's nearby, boring. So I headed south from Corran.
I could see straight off that I wasn't going to get to Stirling. It was further than the range the car was showing, and that range was calculated while I was pootling around a bunch of single-track roads and doing over 4 miles/kWh. What about Callander? It was inside the range showing, but I didn't fancy my chances of getting there either once the miles/kWh started to be affected by the A82 and the A84, which are not single-track. I could see chargers showing in Tyndrum and Crianlarich, so that seemed to be a plan. I knew there were decent places to eat in both towns, although it looked as if I'd be there a bit early for dinner, more like 4.30.
Got to Tyndrum, about 4.30, of course the Green Welly restaurant shuts at four and I fancied something a bit swankier anyway. But the Tyndrum Inn is OK. Unfortunately the Tyndrum chargers weren't, and neither was the Tyndrum communications.
The Green Welly had precisely one EV charger which was out of order. (This is absolutely bloody ridiculous, that place should have a shiny row of something modern, given that they set themselves up as the place for the motorist to prepare before setting off into the wilds of the Highlands.) By this time I had no mobile signal and couldn't see what else was available. I went into the Green Welly shop to get on their internet, but no joy. In spite of being told exactly where to stand to get the WiFi signal, nothing. I had seen another charger marked at a fast food café last time I had a signal, but it had been showing as in use. I decided to try Crianlarich.
By the time I got there it was raining, not heavily, but incessantly. I pulled up at the charger and I could see that the DC was showing as out of order. I connected to the AC anyway, while I phoned ChargePlace Scotland. I was shunted on to their hold-on music, and as I was listening to that hoping someone would answer me and be able to re-boot the charger, a very smart metallic red EV estate car drew up. I went over to explain the situation to the driver, who greeted me with an outstretched hand and a big grin. It was @Archev, who had enough charge to get home, but had seen the blue MG4 on the charger and figured it was probably Caliban. I admired The Magnette (and the roof tent) while the hold-on music continued. The pair of us stood there getting wetter and wetter until the hold-on music switched straight to a "how did we do?" questionnaire. You can imagine my responses.
Archev managed to get an answer from ChargePlace Scotland but the guy couldn't re-boot the DC, and then said it had already been reported and was scheduled to be repaired the following day. I contemplated leaving Caliban where he was and going into the Crianlarich Hotel, which was just across the road (and very definitely swanky enough for my tastes), but AC is so slow when you're on the road and I wanted to get charged. I think this was the point where I tripped over the tangle of charger cables lying around the unit, and fell flat on my face. On the pavement. In the rain. That charger hated me.
Archev suggested I go back to Tyndrum and try the charger at the Fast Food place, which was working (he saw someone on it when he passed). So I did that, and the charger was vacant. Kempower. They have a good reputation, right? So I followed all the instructions until I showed it my debit card. "Card not accepted. Please pay otherwise." Tried it a few times more. Still the same. (Nothing wrong with my card, it's a VISA, and they even had a VISA logo on the charger.) Then I couldn't get Caliban to let go of the charger. Tapping the unlock was doing nothing. I thought about using my credit card, which is a Mastercard, and had actually gone into the car to find it, when I heard relays clunking. The charger had decided to release Caliban as a bad job. I decided, sod it, back to Crianlarich.
This bit was fine. I put the car back on the AC and went into the hotel, where the dining room was almost empty as it was still only six o'clock. I was lucky to get a table though, because they were expecting an infinite number of drookit walkers coming in from doing the West Highland Way, and the couple who arrived on spec after me were told they would have a half-hour wait. So I decided to make the most of it. Starter of haggis bon-bons in whisky sauce, and a small glass of Chardonnay since I expected to be there for a while. Then that steak.
This was absolutely delicious and I wasn't eating fast, but I couldn't have eaten a dessert after all that, so after a coffee I had to go back out in the rain to see how the charge was doing, as there was still no mobile signal and the hotel WiFi was pretty wimpish. Looked like I had enough to get to Stirling anyway, and by now the weather was seriously horrible and it was starting to get dark, so I paid the bill and headed off. With the heating on at high, obviously.
A short way down the A84 there was a big illuminated sign saying the road was going to be closed at Lochearnhead at 8pm. It was about 7.40 by then. I had enough to get to Stirling on the straight road, but a diversion in that landscape could be a pretty long way. Oh dear. I tried to remember how far ahead Lochearnhead was, but couldn't remember if Strathyre came first! I knew I had to get down Glen Ogle though. So I couldn't even hold back to conserve charge, I had to belt it to Lochearnhead as fast as I reasonably could. (Of course, if I hadn't doubled back to that snooty Kempower at Tyndrum I'd have been well ahead of the road closure...) Great relief when I passed Lix Toll and there was a sign saying Lochearnhead was only about eight miles on, near enough to make it in time. This was about the point when I discovered that the R33 infotainment update for the SE, which I had just had applied, does fix the light sensor sensitivity thing. In fact I passed the Highway Maintenance Vehicle waiting at the side of the road to get on with the roadworks at 7.56. (To be fair, it didn't look as if they were poised to set up a road block right on the dot of eight, which I had been slightly banking on.) At this point I had about 7 miles more range than the actual distance to Stirling. It was now proper dark (sunset at eight, but not much was getting though these rain clouds).
There was a big artic doing a pretty fair lick (for his size) so I just set the ACC to follow him. Got into the vicinity of the Stirling chargers with maybe 14 miles to spare, but the vicinity was one thing, the chargers were another. Google hadn't brought me to an entrance. Picture me going round and round the same roundabout, trying different exits, trying the Shell petrol station to see if they were part of that (no), using up more range, and eventually stopping and firing up ABRP, which had a map which showed how to get at the damn things.
More Kempowers. Plenty of chargers, nobody else there, so I went through the same routine. "Card not accepted. Please pay otherwise." This time I did go fetch the credit card and hallelujah, it worked. Osprey decided they would take my money. At least the rain had gone off at the time. I sat there till Caliban was at 50% charge to cover 51 miles, because frankly I was not in the mood for hanging about any more. The rain came back on.
Headed south on the M9, crossed the bridge, passed the airport, and started to feel quite upbeat. Nearly home. Got on to the Edinburgh bypass, and another of these big illuminated signs. A702 closed from 8.30 tonight. Well it was after 8.30 by then and no mistake. Another sign, "A702 closed after A703". That should let me cut across to the A701 through the Bush Estate rather than staying on the bypass. Oops no, the road was actually closed immediately after the exit from the bypass. So back round the bonio-about and back on to the bypass, with Google having fits and telling me to turn round all the way. Just as well I did take on that amount of charge at Stirling, because by the time I actually got home, about 10.40 pm, Caliban was back down at 9%.
Well, surely this is a great chance to do the <10% to 100% charge that went wrong before. Asked Octopus for 100% by 9 am, which was when I had to leave for the dentist. Got a continuous schedule from 11.30 till 7.30, perfect. Added a bit on via the Zappi app just to make sure there was enough time to finish the balance. Dragged my luggage into the house (to be greeted with a "what the hell was all that?" by the cat, but at least he was in, and all the food in the automatic dispensers had been eaten). Got ready for bed, and spent some time going over the itchiest midge bites with the Bite-away wand, which is absolutely miraculous, but not if you lose it in the passenger footwell of the car and don't find it until you're packing to leave two days later. (Lying in my sleeping bag itching like hell, thinking I must have dropped it at my previous camp site, and it was just feet away all along.) Thought I'd just check all was well with that charge that was supposed to have started at 11.30.
Not charging. I got a bunch of contradictory messages including "EV is preventing charging", and trying to start the charge on the iSmart app failed. Finally the Zappi decided the EV was unplugged. Back into shoes and a dressing gown and out to the car. Finally managed to unplug and plug in again, but I hadn't taken my phone out with me. Went and got it, a new schedule starting 00.12 had been created, which now had a half-hour gap between 7.30 and eight. But the car still wasn't charging. Back out (still raining by the way) for another go. I think to be honest that in the dark I hadn't plugged the Zappi cable in firmly enough, and the connection hadn't been secure and had eventually disconnected. Twice. I got yet another schedule starting 00.18, again with a gap in it. Plans to do that long charge no longer viable. I knew I should go back and say I wanted the car by eight, not nine, but it was charging by this time and I really did need it the next day and didn't want to jinx it. (I had been close to putting it on the granny charger just to get enough for the 60 mile round trip to the dentist, but that was still packed up in the boot as an insurance policy on the road trip, and I'd had enough.)
Went back to bed, after checking that the charge really was happening this time. Alarm set for 7.30, looked at iSmart with bleary eyes. Car at 100%. Checked Zappi. Car had reached 100% a minute or two before 7.30, and its balance charge hadn't happened. If I'd realised that was going to happen I'd have bridged the gap in the charging schedule on the Zappi itself, but I had thought if I did that I'd probably end up taking a big chunk of peak-price electricity between 7.30 and eight. So car still hasn't had its full long charge, I don't think. It did 9% to 100% in one run, but didn't balance.
I think this would have been a lot funnier if it had been filmed. It's the sort of repeated, serial, snag on setback on disaster charging narrative that The MacMaster's channel thrives on, the sort of thing I keep declaring doesn't happen unless the driver is an absolute idiot. Yes, I should just have done that 18 mile detour to the superchargers in the first place. Or I should at least have tried the credit card on the Kempower charger in Tyndrum.
But that sirloin was damn fine.
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