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Public Charging

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#1 ·
I have read plenty of negative comments about the availability, reliability and speed of public charging points. As someone new to EV's and with my I-Pace on order, what is the true storey? I'm sure it's not as bad as the negative comments I am reading. Can anyone provide me with some positives? I expect to be be driving 300-500 miles a week and would like some reassurance that charging the I-Pace won't be an issue. All I seem to read is that Tesla charging is great and everything else is a problem!
 
#2 ·
To save you the trouble of reading all the threads, I'll summarise it for you.

1. If you live in England and avoid ecotricity you are fine.
2. If you insist on using ecotriciy good luck
3. If you live in Scotland and rely on remote older chargers they don't work
4. Stop worrying and just enjoy the car.
 
#3 ·
Congratulations on your forthcoming I-Pace and the joys of owning an Electric Vehicle.

The most important thing you MUST do, is get a home charger installed. The vast majority of the charging of your car will be at home. I have driven 15,000 miles in mine and only used a public charger in need about 4 times. If your average weekly mileage is 300 to 500 miles then almost certainly you will have little need of public charging.

There will be occasions when you will drive more than 200 miles in day, on those occasions you will probably need to use public charging if your destination at the end of the day is not your home charger. The vast majority of hotels will offer some form of charging, whether 7kW similar to your home charger, or even 50kW Rapid Chargers. So any overnight stay should be okay - but best to check with the hotel before arrival.

On longer journeys, you will need to be looking out for a rapid charger every 150 to 200 miles. There are a vast number of CCS Rapid chargers in the UK, 4x the number of Tesla Superchargers, and that number is growing rapidly. It is unfortunate that at present the CCS network is still quite young and needs improving when trying to connect to the I-Pace. The SatNav in the I-Pace will guide you to a charger when required. Alternatively, some forum members have used 3rd party mapping applications for route planning that are dedicated to EVs - sure someone will give some advise on these.

You don't really need to worry (too much). I haven't heard of any I-Pace owner being stranded due to lack of battery power.
 
#4 ·
I totally agree with what Chewy has said.

I've spent the day planning a trip up'north for early September. My first leg is from home to Ulverston in the Lake District. Even avoiding Ecotricity chargers it is not difficult. Then I'm visiting 20+ castles and ancient monuments over the next 7 days. Piel Castle, Dunksey Castle, Hermitage Castle, Lindisfarne, Chester's fort on Hadrian's Wall and many more. I should cover around 1650 miles.
If you prepare for long trips and have a backup charger in case the primary one is in use or out of order then it will work. (famous last words perhaps?)
 
#5 ·
All sounds reassuring guys. I guess I just need to stop reading the negative stuff on the forum. I guess some people are never happy.
Thoroughly looking forward to the new car.
Thanks for your replies
 
#7 ·
Just to put your mind at rest, Ecotricity seem to have fixed their issues. I used 6 of them over the last three days (one of them twice) and they all worked perfectly and gave me their full speed charge. Around 42-43 kw at every one. I was expecting problems but it was simple and painless every time.
 
#9 ·
I would agree with most of the above. The main thing I would add is that if you are planning to charge away from home plan ahead where you will charge, always have at least one alternative site just in case of problems.
 
G
#13 ·
Tried the Engenie charger at Dereham yesterday, first attempt card declined, tried different card, declined, rang the help line number, machine rebooted,then error, what car are you trying to charge asked the operator- I pace, ah they aren't compatible have you the latest firmware update, don't know I replied, might work if you have that!
So Engenie don't charge ipace.
Carried on to Norwich and stopped at Bannatyne gym with instavolt, no problems.
Travelled 207 miles yesterday, started with 97% charge, had one 25 minute instavolt charge and returned home with 30% remaining.
 
#14 ·
Goshdarnit said:
Just to put your mind at rest, Ecotricity seem to have fixed their issues. I used 6 of them over the last three days (one of them twice) and they all worked perfectly and gave me their full speed charge. Around 42-43 kw at every one. I was expecting problems but it was simple and painless every time.
We went down the M5 to Cornwall on the M5 on the 4th Aug and from Bristol to Exeter tried all the CCS chargers, non would work. Came back on the 8th with the same outcome. Tried Warwick Services M40 on the 10th and it wouldn't work.

Which ones have you used?
 
#16 ·
MarcusUK said:
We went down the M5 to Cornwall on the M5 on the 4th Aug and from Bristol to Exeter tried all the CCS chargers, non would work. Came back on the 8th with the same outcome. Tried Warwick Services M40 on the 10th and it wouldn't work.

Which ones have you used?
I've used Todhills, Killington Lake, Stafford, Norton Canes (interestingly my autocorrect just changed that to "No etron Canes"!), Norton Canes again two days later and Tebay northbound.

Not sure if you tried it or not, but it is often worth rebooting them via the emergency stop button if it doesn't work first time. That applies to all chargers, not just Ecotricity.

Also bear in mind that 4th August was still within the window where they were updating their chargers, so probably not all done by then. We travelled a week later when they were all supposed to have been done (and certainly every one we tried worked).
 
#18 ·
Unfortunately three attempts by me today on different Ecotricity chargers and three fails, well one was iced and a queue of people hunting for the culprit.

We drove from home to Edinburgh today, ca. 210 miles, the first stop at Gretna Green services (BTW Ionity is nearly ready to go live, 4 stalls - pictures in the Ionity thread) the Ecotricity failed 4 or 5 times so I gave up. I re-booted the charger, got to green a couple of times, locked the car straight away, did all the tricks I could remember, even called Ecotricity and they reset it at their end, no good. Two chargers there but only one has a CCS outlet.

So we drove on to the next one, that was at Annandale services North, the only Ecotricity was ICE'd there was a queue of cars waiting to charge and some numpty had parked his mini bus in the charging bay. There was a very helpful Nissan Leaf driver who told me a charger at Abington Village was working and on free vend. So we set off again, and called at Abington Services to try their Ecotricity, again, 5 or 6 attemps, all failures, same problems and procedures as Gretna Green. Just down the road a coulple of miles in Abington Village there is a public car park and sure enough there was a CPS/CYC E Volt rapid charger, so I tried that, three failures but then it started to work, could have been user error the first attempts as I have never used them before. But anyway, it gave me around 33% charge in about 30 minutes so happy days. There is a general store less than 100 metres away that sell nice coffees, don't have a cake though they are awful :)

So, we may call at that one again on the way home, or maybe the Ionity chargers will be working (doubtful) at Gretna Green. One can only hope.

PS just as we got back to the car at Abington there was another I Pace ready to charge waiting for us to leave, first one I have seen other than mine on the road.
 
#19 ·
Another successful charge at the E Volt CPS/CYC in Abington Village again today. Quick 20 minute splash and dash and a nice cup of coffee at the general store.

Also tried the Ecotricity at Abington services, but of the two chargers there one was being used and the other has no CCS charging plug, so off to Abington Village a couple of miles up the road which was empty and worked first time.
 
#20 ·
ChrisMc said:
Unfortunately three attempts by me today on different Ecotricity chargers and three fails, well one was iced and a queue of people hunting for the culprit.

We drove from home to Edinburgh today, ca. 210 miles, the first stop at Gretna Green services (BTW Ionity is nearly ready to go live, 4 stalls - pictures in the Ionity thread) the Ecotricity failed 4 or 5 times so I gave up. I re-booted the charger, got to green a couple of times, locked the car straight away, did all the tricks I could remember, even called Ecotricity and they reset it at their end, no good. Two chargers there but only one has a CCS outlet.

So we drove on to the next one, that was at Annandale services North, the only Ecotricity was ICE'd there was a queue of cars waiting to charge and some numpty had parked his mini bus in the charging bay. There was a very helpful Nissan Leaf driver who told me a charger at Abington Village was working and on free vend. So we set off again, and called at Abington Services to try their Ecotricity, again, 5 or 6 attemps, all failures, same problems and procedures as Gretna Green. Just down the road a coulple of miles in Abington Village there is a public car park and sure enough there was a CPS/CYC E Volt rapid charger, so I tried that, three failures but then it started to work, could have been user error the first attempts as I have never used them before. But anyway, it gave me around 33% charge in about 30 minutes so happy days. There is a general store less than 100 metres away that sell nice coffees, don't have a cake though they are awful :)

So, we may call at that one again on the way home, or maybe the Ionity chargers will be working (doubtful) at Gretna Green. One can only hope.

PS just as we got back to the car at Abington there was another I Pace ready to charge waiting for us to leave, first one I have seen other than mine on the road.
Tell me about it yesterday with Gretna units out of service both todshill NB and SB Ecotricity units out. Carlisle polar unit in the Toby pub out. Ended up in geni-point in Carlisle city centre which took about 5 attempts to work back and forth up the M6 and 3 hours later I had enough charge to get to Edinburgh.
Also the Ecotricity units on their app at Gretna and todshill SB showing in service. Phone up and they told me they had faults and were Out of service.
BtW Norton canes worked well on the way up as did polar in sandbach.
 
#22 ·
Jjohnfuller1 said:
Engenie works fine for me at Highland gate - Stirling. Still can't get any CPS ccs chargers to work even after H228
Yep. I just used Highland Gate at the weekend with no problems (well it took two attempts, but apart from that, no problems).

When you say "any CPS" do you just mean the old style eVolt compacts or do you mean any, including the new style Rapides? The new ones work 100% for me so far. Another two successes on them today.
 
#24 ·
ChrisMc said:
Another successful charge at the E Volt CPS/CYC in Abington Village again today. Quick 20 minute splash and dash and a nice cup of coffee at the general store.

Also tried the Ecotricity at Abington services, but of the two chargers there one was being used and the other has no CCS charging plug, so off to Abington Village a couple of miles up the road which was empty and worked first time.
That's a good spot Chris 👍
 
#25 ·
Jjohnfuller1 said:
Engenie works fine for me at Highland gate - Stirling. Still can't get any CPS ccs chargers to work even after H228
I had a successful charge at the Polar at Bridge of Allan (Stirling), which is handily in a bakeries carpark.

The only issue is you have to park like this...

 
#26 ·
Stopped at Birch services East bound today on the M62. Four attempts to charge at the Ecotricity charged all failed, I called their helpline but all they could tell me was that they have intermittent problems with I Pace charging, not all are affected. Can I try locking the car when green light is flashing, I told them I already knew about that but it had never worked for me, either today or a few times at the weekend.

So I gave up with them and tried again, it failed again, so I thought one more attempt then I'm driving on, so sixth and final try and for some reason it worked. I did nothing different to the previous 5 attempts, but it decided to work and continued to charge for around 40 minutes until I stopped it.

Damn frustrating and I have no idea why it suddenly worked, wish I knew so Icould use the same method next time. But, oh well, at least I got a good charge
 
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