A lot of them still seem to be open though. So far so good. Trentham Gardens was fully open to non-Teslas on the 24th.
Eurocentral, Dundee, Perth, Aviemore, Inverness and Fort William are all the old style. I have no idea whether Tesla intends to replace these quickly so the sites can revert to open, or whether they'll wait until the units are due for replacement anyway.
Dundee, Perth, Aviemore, Inverness and Fort William are all still open. Eurocentral is not, but I was there the other day and the chargers are covered by white dust-sheet things, so something is going on. So far so good. I expect
@QLeo is happy.
Looking forward to your report on this trip. We're due to drive from here at the Centre of the (known) Universe in the north west Highlands to the south of England, London via Hampshire, in February, and we've only been as far south as Kirkby Lonsdale so far.
Here's the report.
The night before I set off (on 22nd November) was very cold. I set the car to finish charging overnight (it had been sitting on about 87%) and set the battery to heat at the same time to give it a bit of a start. In the morning I asked the car to heat the battery again and it did so for about 15-20 min, taking about 2% out of the battery. I then brought the battery back up to 100%. A later request to heat the battery, just to see, elicited the reply that the battery didn't need to be heated. I don't know how long the heat holds for, but obviously more than half an hour. I was about to go so I asked the car to pre-heat the cabin, then I brought the battery back to 100% again. I saw the cabin temperature on the app flip from 3°C to 16°C, which was welcome!
I don't know if there is an easier way to do this, to get the car to take the power directly from the charger, or to recharge automatically after it has done so, but it wasn't that hard. (
@siteguru seems to think the newest update takes the power directly from the charger.)
Although it was absolutely perishing out (I saw -1°C when I drove out of the garage, and -2.5°C at Broughton about 12 miles into the journey) I didn't even put a jacket on. It took only a minute or two to drive the car out of the garage, shut the door, load the luggage, and get going. I went straight from warm house to warm car, so never got chilled. The jacket went in the boot. I have no patience with this "turn off the HVAC to save range" thing. If I need a bit more range I'll slow down. I have no problem staying an extra couple of minutes at each charging stop to get back what I used to keep comfortable. In my opinion the pleasant cabin heat in the MG4 is one of its biggest attributes.
I left at 9.30 and set course for Tebay, 110 miles away. No ambitions to get to Forton (147 miles away) in an SR in winter, and the Lancaster North Ionitys didn't look all that sensible either. (Killington Lake still doesn't have any chargers worth the name.) The first surprise was that chargers are now showing up on Google maps in Android Auto - I got quite a shock when I passed Annandale Water services and saw not just that there are 6 Gridserves there, but how many were available!
Got to Tebay in good order with maybe 9% battery left, despite the temperature being sub-zero the entire way. All four non-Tesla chargers were taken, and I saw someone just backing into one of them. The guy came back to the car next to me, and I asked if he was going, but he said no, he'd be another hour! He also said that a third car was also a recent arrival and likely to be an hour. That left only one charger than might, possibly, become free soon. I don't really know why such long charging times were being quoted, although he did say the chargers were running slow. (I suspect he was intending to go to 100%, that's the only sensible explanation.) Meanwhile Teslas were coming and going across from us, as they do.
I had seen on a "Dave Takes It On" video (so he is good for something) that there are more chargers on the northbound carriageway, and that the connecting service road is only a few hundred yards long, so I went to look for it. Teslas were coming in the opposite direction. It seems that while Tesla charging is all on the southbound side, most of the non-Tesla chargers are on the northbound side. There were 12 chargers and several were vacant. Caliban's identical twin was leaving just as I arrived (waves were exchanged) and there was a Tango Trophy on another charger. Power was fine, and Caliban charged as fast as an SR can (which admittedly is not all that fast!)
The place was mobbed, both southbound and northbound, and I had to queue for ages for a toastie. There were fewer than 25 EVs on charge altogether, even counting the Teslas. What was that about ICE drivers just stopping for five minutes then getting on again?
I then set course for Trentham Gardens, and didn't realise that my plans were busy being scuppered. Trentham Gardens is only 120 miles from Tebay, motorway all the way, and should take less than two hours. Google was telling me 2 hours 37 minutes. That leg of the journey was nothing but one hold-up after another. Breakdown, roadworks, another breakdown... It was quarter to three when I sat down with my coffee and pastry, and I realised things were not going according to plan. (I had lost maybe 20 minutes faffing around at Tebay, going to the other side, but I had actually budgeted for that. I hadn't budgeted for losing 45 minutes to holdups.)
I figured out that if I could get to Cherwell Valley and plug in by six, 6.15 at worst, I still might make it to my hotel in Lewes by nine, which is when last orders for dinner are taken. Google was giving me 6.07 as my arrival time there, so it was maybe just on the edge of possible. Of course there were more holdups. Trentham Gardens to Cherwell Valley is only 100 miles and I left the former about 4.15 (let's hear it for these Tesla chargers), so go figure.
Got to Cherwell Valley just the back of six on 7% charge and whoopee, two free chargers! Or maybe not. Two broken chargers. This is where I stopped thinking sensibly. The 50 kW unit was free so I plugged in there and went to the loo. When I got back I realised the car was actually charging at 22 kW, which was useless, so I unplugged. I was actually able to get one of the working chargers shortly after that, but even so, I wasn't getting the charging speed I would have expected, even for the SR. Later I looked at ZapMap and discovered it rates these apparent 350 kW chargers at 69 kW. What the hell is going on? So while the car was charging I phoned the hotel and they were very accommodating, offering to get me a limited menu if I arrived at 9.30, which was how it was beginning to look.
The mistake I made was thinking I had no option but to stay at the service station as I was on only 7%. I had completely forgotten that when I scoped out that stop originally, back in August 2023, I had seen more chargers only about a mile away, at Baynards Green. I should have taken one look at the broken Gridserves and headed there at once. Let that be a lesson to us all.
The car wasn't charging nearly as fast as it had on the Tesla chargers, and by the time it got to 80% I'd had enough and then some. There was another car waiting in a parking space opposite, and as I drew away another appeared and seemed about to cut in. I got out of that, I have no idea what happened. I knew that 80% wasn't enough to get me the 122 miles to Lewes given the temperatures and the speed I'd be driving at, but I figured a quick stop at the Cobham Ionitys was preferable to waiting any longer at Cherwell Valley. It was, but even there was a pain as there were only two or three free chargers (out of 18) and it was difficult to find one where I could get the cable to the car. Eventually I managed it, and got enough to get to Lewes. I made it for 9.30 and the hotel staff were excellent. I ended up with chicken curry, not my usual fare, but it was very nice. I noticed there were four Connected Kerb 7 kW chargers in the car park right beside the hotel, which could have been very useful. I didn't actually try them (needed an app), because I was already sorted, but it's good to know they're there.
Next morning I had less than four miles to go to get to Glyndebourne, and got there on about 14%. Plugged in to one of their PodPoints, and was on 100% and balanced by the time the event finished at five. Most of Storm Bert happened while I was there, but the event was indoors with only the occasional sprint from one building to another, and by the time it was finished the rain had gone off.
One of the workshops was singing, and my voice appeared not to have come along for the ride. Where was my top G? AWOL, obviously. Interestingly, the vocal coach happened to mention that certain foods can interfere with a singer's voice. Curry, he said. Oh well.
I was still on 98% when I got back to the hotel, so no need for the Connected Kerb units. Next morning I had a leisurely breakfast (cooked to order, delicious) and set off about eleven.
When I left it was dry and fairly bright, although breezy, but Storm Bert wasn't finished. After about an hour the rain came on and it was an absolute monsoon on the M40 for a bit. I had had a closer look at ZapMap at the hotel and concluded that Cherwell Valley was a bust. (There are another six units going in there, but they were still fenced off. And if they're only going to do 69 kW when they open, well, that's not good.)* I set course straight for Baynards Green, having finally remembered it existed.
It's an Esso petrol station with four chargers at the side. Three were free when I got there, and the most I saw occupied at any one time while I was there was three. The charger (like all Kempowers I have met, although this wasn't a Kempower) refused my Visa debit card but accepted my Mastercard credit card. Absolutely decent charging speed. The main trouble was still Storm Bert. My rain poncho was being blown everywhere. Look who gets the canopy. Basically, not us.
Very weird stopping at a petrol station! I didn't go in there because there was a McDonald's just out of the picture to the left. By the time I had ordered a hot chocolate (didn't need or want lunch after that breakfast), been to the loo and picked up my order, the car was almost on 80%. I took the hot chocolate back to the car and set off on 82%. It was really quick and easy, and if I'd gone straight there on Friday evening I'd probably have got to the hotel by nine (and not had to eat curry).
The storm was less wild when I got to Trentham Gardens. As I said, although it was 24th November all the chargers were open to everyone. The only issue was getting a seat in the restaurant because the entire world seemed to have decided it was the best place to be in that weather. Still, coffee and Victoria sponge cake.
I was legit on the northbound carriageway at Tebay and most of the 12 plugs were free. So I picked a charger that was showing a red light. Just shoot me now. I moved and got on one that was working, and managed to get steak pie and chips rather faster than I'd got the toastie on Friday. Again good charging speed and I was off.
Got home at nine, that's 10 hours altogether without hurrying particularly, much better than the Friday when it took me 12 hours with all these holdups. Caliban was absolutely great the whole way. I think these three stops work so well that I might make them regular whenever I go south, even in summer, and not worry about trying to get to Forton at all even when it's possible.
*Footnote with good news. I checked Cherwell Valley again on both ABRP and ZapMap and things are looking up. Both sites agree that the six Gridserve chargers that were fenced off a week ago are now in service, and that all chargers are 175 kW. There still appears to be a couple of broken chargers, not sure if it's the same ones, but it's a big improvement. Looks as if I was just unlucky with my timing.
. I thought I'd give them a try a few weeks ago, they worked fine with contactless card. To stop charging I just pressed 'finish charging' button in the car. There was a new VW ID7 next to me and he also was trying to figure how to stop, and did the same as me. I couldn't figure out how to stop, though I think it might have been as easy as wafting my card at it again.
