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I’m quickly realising that "I am at the mercy of a lithium battery’: What it’s really like to drive 300 miles in an electric car.

18K views 428 replies 60 participants last post by  AZGolf 
#1 ·
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-...en-e-golf-london-cornwall-drive-a9056226.html



For the journey down, the intention was to stop twice. That quickly went out the window for Tom Richell because he started without a full battery: rookie mistake.

Nine hours into a journey that is supposed to take less than six, safe in the knowledge that there are at least two more to go, we pull into our fourth service station of the day. Another minute longer and we’d be stuck on the hard-shoulder, calling the AA. My partner calls her parents and explains the latest delay. I’m quickly realising that I am at the mercy of a lithium battery.

I’ve been interested in buying an electric car for some time now. Climate change is a hot button topic and the government is falling far short of their targets to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050, so surely I can do my bit?

I’d driven a couple of models of electric vehicle (EV) over short distances before, but never taken one on a long journey. The timing was perfect: with a summer staycation in the depths of Cornwall planned, my partner and I decided to reject the hefty train fare and make the journey down from London in an EV.

The car we’d be driving was the Volkswagen e-Golf. Aesthetically identical to a regular Golf, the car doesn’t shout about how different it is from its petrol and diesel counterparts with wacky designs like the Nissan Leaf and Tesla Model X do. A small blue ‘e’ on the front and back are all that differentiates it.

Not everyone wants to show the world how progressive they are, in fact some of that brashness has probably been a barrier for a lot of people in committing to an EV. They don’t want to stand out, rather quietly blend in and go about their business.

After a conversation with a few electric car owners, I soon realised the first hurdle to overcome is the battery range available. Our journey was around 300 miles. The e-Golf has an advertised range of 180 miles, so I’d only need to make one stop on the journey.“No problem”, I thought, naively.

There are a number of apps you need to download as an EV owner, as most charging points require mobile payment. I downloaded Ecotricity’s ‘Electric Highway’, ChargePoint, ZapMap, PodPoint, Polar, Source London and Charge Your Car. Each required individual account set up, card details, other personal information and EV information. Some require a monthly subscription payment plan... No thanks.

ZapMap brings all the charging station manufacturers into one place and allows you to plan your route, recommending when and where to stop.The app itself is pretty poor. It crashes a lot and is very slow. So I decided to do it manually, committing to one manufacturer, in this case Ecotricity due to their strong network of motorway spots, and plan it out myself using the locations of their charging points.

“Most of the charging stations don’t work” a friend warns me a week before our trip. She now experiences “battery anxiety” whenever she takes her Nissan Leaf on a long journey. Other people tell me the same thing.

For the journey down, the intention was to stop twice – at Bristol and Exeter. That quickly went out the window because we started without a full battery: rookie mistake.

Ecotricity’s charging station at our first stop, Heston services, was patchy. I set up the charge via the app, the electricity began to flow and I assumed we were in business. But the unit cut out after around 10 minutes before refusing to restart again. I was only alerted to this by email so, if I wasn’t a phone-obsessed-millennial it’s very unlikely I’d have been aware of the fault until I’d wasted half an hour in Costa. I plugged the car into the neighbouring station. Bizarrely, there was no interaction with the app for that one, so I have no idea whether I paid or not.

Ecotricity’s power stations will only charge for 45 minutes, which won’t always get you to full. To add to that, while their network of charging points on motorways appears to be the best, most of them offer just one type of each connector. So if several people are driving the same car – you can expect quite some queue.

We were travelling on one of the busiest Fridays of the summer, on a route that took us through the hellish M5 and M4 interchange just north of Bristol. Traffic is frustrating in an EV. At the very point you’re finally out of the worst of it and gearing up to put your foot down, you will probably need to pull into a service station and spend the next hour charging.

Leaving Exeter I thought we that would be it. The car told us we had more than 130 miles on the battery and just 96 miles to travel. How naive I was.

The e-Golf comes with technology that analyses your previous journeys of the day and adjusts your battery range based on your style of driving, weather, traffic conditions and other factors. The results though appear to be inconsistent. With several hours of driving now behind us the car had had ample time to learn what it needed to, but still the potential range was too high for the type of driving it was being asked to do.

We burned through battery life very quickly as we left Devon and entered Cornwall and a fourth stop was suddenly looking like it would be required. Our battery range dropped from 130 to 100 miles in what seemed like a no more than 15 minutes and before we knew it our range was the same as our journey length. Thankfully there was one single charging point on our route.

Cornwall Services provided refuge for the final stop of the day. By this point I’d seen the inside of more service stations on this single journey than I had in the past six months. We only managed to charge the car up to 71% – but thankfully this was enough to get us to our destination.

We finally pulled into my in-laws’ driveway at 9pm, just over 11 hours after we left our flat in south west London.

After our tour of every service station in the south west, we were a little reticent to use the car for trips out once we got to Cornwall. But, actually, for use as a day-to-day vehicle, an electric car is fantastic.

Pulling off the line faster than anyone else on the road is addictive. Plugging it in overnight and never having to think about filling up with fuel is a load off your mind. The faint whir of the electric motor is civilised. And, for this sort of nipping around, a single charge could easily last for four to five days. Much more like it.

Charging up at home is surprisingly easy. There are no time limit restrictions like on the fast chargers on the motorway and your EV will slowly top itself up. Using a standard 3-pin plug isn’t fast, it can take anywhere between 12-17 hours dependent on the car. You can have a 7kw charger installed at your home for about £1,000, and government grants are available.

“Don’t use the air conditioning” a helpful friend pointed out to me as I was preparing for my journey back to London. It’s true there are a few things you can do to boost range. Lay off the added extras like air con and heated seats or just drive slowly. But where do you draw the line? This car costs £33,000, so why should you have to make compromises when shelling out that sort of cash?

With the benefit of experience, and starting the journey with a full battery, the drive back to London was easier than the trip down. Arriving home a little after 19:30 made for a journey time of nine hours (still a good three more than the petrol alternative). Due to some serious eco driving on the M4 I was able to skip the fourth stop and do it in just three. But many of the issues remained throughout the journey: the charging stations still wouldn’t get the car to 100% on the first attempt and I was fortunate, again, that I didn’t encounter a single other EV user who needed the same connector as me. If charging points don’t improve at the same rate as EV purchases then chaos is surely on the horizon.

Plenty has been written about the quality of the e-Golf, and in general EVs, over short distances. I can honestly say I far prefer them to traditional cars for day-to-day driving, by a long way. And that really is why it’s so galling to be unable to recommend one.The Nissan Leaf owner who warned me about the charging stops not working told me she hires cars for long journeys. To me that is absurd. Owning a car is about more than just having a convenient commuting vehicle. It’s about the freedom it affords you. If you can’t wake up on a sunny Saturday morning and drive a couple of hours to the nearest beach, or pile the kids in and take them on holiday, what’s the point? While those situations may only make up a fraction of your driving habits, if the car you own actually restricts you from doing any of those things, is there any real value?
 
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#9 ·
Yup. These articles are sensationalized journalism at its very worst, designed to instill fear, uncertainty, and doubt about the value of new technology for the public. Why? Because that get views, and views translate into ad sales, and ad sales are how publications get paid.
 
#3 · (Edited)
I can't help but flash back to the Tesla fanbois who, eager to spew any reason for owning one other than "because I want to geek out," dismissed the range and refueling issues completely as being perfectly rational. "You're going to stop for lunch anyway," they said, dismissing the hour plus Supercharger fillup times. Yes. Absolutely. Because I stop and eat for an hour every 250 miles when I'm on the road. Perfectly natural.

Oh--and then there's this:

Pulling off the line faster than anyone else on the road is addictive. Plugging it in overnight and never having to think about filling up with fuel is a load off your mind.
"a load off your mind"??? Yes, because finding and using a gas station causes intense and ongoing anxiety, and causes your brain to explode.
 
#7 ·
I can't help but flash back to the Tesla fanbois who, eager to spew any reason for owning one other than "because I want to geek out," dismissed the range and refueling issues completely as being perfectly rational. "You're going to stop for lunch anyway," they said, dismissing the hour plus Supercharger fillup times. Yes. Absolutely. Because I stop and eat for an hour every 250 miles when I'm on the road. Perfectly natural.

Oh--and then there's this:



"a load off your mind"??? Yes, because finding and using a gas station causes intense and ongoing anxiety, and causes your brain to explode.

Nobody road tripping their Tesla charges up to 100%. It takes more time to go from 80% to 100% than it does to go from empty to 80%. You don't "fill er up" like a gas car.

You pop your Tesla on a supercharger for 20-40 minutes to get enough juice to charge 50-80% to arrive at your destination or the next charger in 2-3 hours. The new v3 superchargers will be able to add 75 miles of range in only 5 minutes. Porsche is claiming their charging system is going to add 250 miles of range in 15 minutes.

We're not there yet, but it's so damn close.
 
#6 ·
180 mile range
300 mile trip
Leaves without full charge
thanks for the TL;DR, this was in fact a SCSB.

Not sure why the TCL luddite crowd feel the need to quote so many tabloid words when they could just say "ARRRGGGH I USE KEYBOARD AND I DON'T GET TECHNOLOGY"

Meanwhile, the rest of us who thought we were doing alright have been proven wrong by this devastating anecdata. My world.. Shattered! :D

TCL luddites will no doubt be DESTROYED by the fact that my 80 year old dad can figure out how to plug in his EV on a roadtrip, he and my mom just did a 1000mi weekend roadtrip to visit this past weekend :wave:
 
#5 ·
article said:
The Nissan Leaf owner who warned me about the charging stops not working told me she hires cars for long journeys. To me that is absurd. Owning a car is about more than just having a convenient commuting vehicle. It’s about the freedom it affords you. If you can’t wake up on a sunny Saturday morning and drive a couple of hours to the nearest beach, or pile the kids in and take them on holiday, what’s the point?
The author is right. Taking an e-Golf on a road trip is absurd. When I have load up my wife and kids for a "holiday", we leave the e-Golf at home and take the Accord or Sequoia. There's no way to fit 4 people and their stuff in a Golf no matter what the powertrain. And only owning one car? That's the very definition of absurd!
 
#8 ·
And only owning one car? That's the very definition of absurd!
Exactly.

the author said:
The Nissan Leaf owner who warned me about the charging stops not working told me she hires cars for long journeys. To me that is absurd. Owning a car is about more than just having a convenient commuting vehicle. It’s about the freedom it affords you. If you can’t wake up on a sunny Saturday morning and drive a couple of hours to the nearest beach, or pile the kids in and take them on holiday, what’s the point? While those situations may only make up a fraction of your driving habits, if the car you own actually restricts you from doing any of those things, is there any real value?
What a buffoon. I own a 2001 Suburban 2500. It has a 496 cubic inch engine. Could I hop into it tomorrow morning and drive it down to Disneyland and back? Well, sure, I could. But the real question is, would I do that? Absolutely not! At best, this road trip would net me about 14 mpg. For this 1200-mile round trip, I'd need at least 86 gallons of fuel, which is gonna cost me at least $260 (but probably considerably more, since gas in CA is like a million dollars per gallon). By comparison, a rental Corolla that sips fuel to the tune of 40 mpg would only burn 30 gallons of fuel, saving me at least $170 in gasoline costs. That savings will pay for the entire Corolla rental, and also avoid any additional wear and tear on the Burb.

Does that mean my Suburban doesn't have "any real value" as a vehicle? Of course not.
 
#11 ·
That's strange, I mean, I am at the mercy of a machine with thousands of tiny explosions controlled by precise machining and a computer with millions of tiny things called transistors that all work in unison to make corrections based on sensors held together by a mile of wiring. :facepalm:

I really hope this author never writes about flying in an airplane. :laugh:
 
#18 ·
There's 15 or so charging stalls in the back of my business complex. Every evening at 5:00 I get the biggest kick out of all the Teslas sitting there with people inside charging. They’ll be reading books or dumbing themselves down on Facebook while waiting to drive home. They look so miserable!

Ah, my 15 mpg never felt so good. Haha
 
#19 ·
Common theme on both sides of the pond:
-Up to now, non-Tesla charging networks suck. You don't know whether the charger will work right, have to call in to authorize, or have some other stupid **** happen
-You had to download an app for each charging network

In this case however the author also seemed woefully unprepared. "Only one stop"... using a simple route planner would show you you'd need more than that.
https://abetterrouteplanner.com/?plan_uuid=c1b056a1-1231-4df6-8efa-ba75e04509d0
Just because an eGolf is rated 180 miles per EU ratings doesn't mean that's what it gets at highway speeds. The same car in US ratings is 125mi Combined EPA range, or only 117mi highway.

On the charging network side, fortunately things will get better with time:
-Upcoming standards mean you just plug the car in and there's communication between the car and the charger. It'll charge whatever payment method you have tied to the car. No more messing around with trying to get glitchy chargers to work
-Roaming agreements between charging networks! Chargepoint has roaming with EA, Flo, etc. EA has roaming with Chargepoint. You don't have to worry so much about not having a card or app for every single network.
 
#33 ·
It would've been "okay" for that trip if the driver hadn't been an idiot, but it certainly isn't the ideal car for that. A BEV with enough range or a Volt would've been perfect. With the Volt it would be "Oh, I don't have a full battery! Who cares? I'm gassin' it the whole way anyway." In other words he couldn't have been a drama queen on the internet, so that obviously wasn't going to happen.
 
#34 ·
The take away for this article should be that even a lazy idiot, with almost zero planning, using completely the wrong tool, can still manage the trip. Change any one of those and his trip gets much easier. The fact he managed is a testament to how far we have come in such a short time. My Tesla could easily be my only car. Typically an EV just requires a little forethought but the 300+ range and Supercharger network are starting to make even that small compromise superfluous. The incredible convenience of owning an EV for day to day is so well worth the tiny inconvenience of having to plan that mythical road trip a little more.
 
#45 ·
The take away for this article should be that even a lazy idiot, with almost zero planning, using completely the wrong tool, can still manage the trip. Change any one of those and his trip gets much easier. The fact he managed is a testament to how far we have come in such a short time. My Tesla could easily be my only car. Typically an EV just requires a little forethought but the 300+ range and Supercharger network are starting to make even that small compromise superfluous. The incredible convenience of owning an EV for day to day is so well worth the tiny inconvenience of having to plan that mythical road trip a little more.
:laugh: :beer:

That really should be the takeaway for those who think for more than 5 seconds and don't suffer from an acute case of confirmation bias.

That said, electric cars still can't be an only car for a great many people, but there are more people who could use one exclusively than there are electric cars available (so far) anyway. For some it's a clear go/no-go situation and for sound reasons, but for most it's resistance to change.


If only they had better technology back then to build better technology.
Steam and electricity were as big as gas was until the invention of the electric starter motor. That's what tipped it in gas' favor.


That said, the times they are a changin'.
 
#37 ·
It seems odd that one would need to install and use apps on a smartphone, and have multiple such apps which are incompatible with each other, in order to use a charging station ...

What's wrong with:
- Drive the car up to the station
- Plug it in
- Tap your charge card (or chip + PIN if needed) - ANY credit card or interac card ...
- Wait a while
- Unplug it
- Leave

No phone apps needed. No smartphone needed at all. If station doesn't work, it doesn't bill you for it. If station stops working mid-charge, it only bills for the successful charging time. (Same as a petrol pump! It doesn't matter if it's Shell or PetroCanada or Ultramar or Esso or Mobil or anything else.)

? ? ?
 
#44 ·
I have considered an EV for my next car but the more I think about it the less likely I will get one, there are to much inconveniences that I don't want to deal with. My next daily commuter will have to get 40mpg on 87 grade fuel and have the ability to go somewhere without planning my stops.

Once EVs are ready, I will change my lifestyle just so I can have an EV commuter. The change would be a solar roof and make sure everything possible works on electricity, maybe even install a few batteries for storage.
 
#352 ·
A reasonable mindset. EVs are the future, but we aren't quite there yet. They are still best for, at this time, E-enthusiasts. Give it a decade and i think we will be there. There is real money being put into battery research, and the big auto-makers are all trying to be Tesla-killers, so there should be marked improvements.

The built-in advantages of EV over ICE are massive and undeniable, just a matter of time. Solid-state batteries are around the corner, along with lots of interesting motor developments, etc. One thing is clear in 2019, the auto makers have gone from looking EV as fringe to EV being future-mainstream, so they finally want to get into the space in a real way. A decade ago how many thought Porsche, Jaguar and others would have e-cars? The quirky and frumpy weird e-cars are going to give way to just good cars that happen to be e-powered.

Sad trucks haven't been in the development cycle, seems a nice selling point to tell someone he can plug in overnight and not spend $60 to fill his truck every couple of days. Seems pickups bodies will have the space for some serious batteries if they take the space under the bed into account.

The day when every Walmart has a row of e-chargers in their lots (and other big retailers) is coming in the near future. Yes long road-trips will be an issue for awhile, but people will be able to rent cars for that - will be funny to think perhaps one day large SUVs may become fleet specials like the minivans and Crown Vics did.

For myself, i can see my next car being my last ICE commuter assuming i picked up something now and run it for 5 or so years, but i really do think come 2030 I will be looking at a ICE toy in the garage, and a EV commuter for the daily grind.
 
#52 ·
Of course it seems like getting a charging station to actually work is like winning the lottery, and of course it takes probably
less than 5 minutes to fill up the average CUV with gasoline, whereas recharging your car even partially takes probably at least half an hour or more, and don't forget to not use the AC, heat, or well just about any other accessory on your car.

And this is in the UK with a small geographic footprint.:laugh::sly:
 
#55 ·
Most EV drivers simply charge at home every night. The car is always full in the morning and there's no anxiety. There's zero chance I could deplete a regular EV in the course of regular intra-city driving. As I said before, if you are regularly driving long distances OR if you don't have home charging capacity, then EVs are the wrong tool for your job.
 
#68 ·
The denial of the EV crowd about the realities of actually living with an electric vehicle is strong. Almost cult like symptoms. :laugh::eek:

But don't worry "Big Brother" knows what is best for you, whether you like it or not. :facepalm:
Good grief. There is no "big brother." I like EVs because I find the technology interesting, and I like driving them. I don't own one, and I'm not telling anybody else to buy one if they don't want one. But I'm tired of EV haters pretending like a car that doesn't work for everyone must work for nobody.

If you take a lot of road trips, an EV isn't for you. I haven't driven further than the range of a Tesla in years. If I'm going further than that, I fly. Charging would be done at home. No lines, no mus, no fuss. Likewise, a Miata won't tow a boat and an F150 won't set record lap times. But I don't see keyboard warriors railing against the Miata's lack of towing capacity or cargo space. If a car doesn't work for you, don't buy one.
 
#88 ·
What I never see mentioned by the ICE crowd is the 4 hours a year spent pumping gasoline - 4 hours! (5 mins, once a week is actually 4:20, but I rounded down for simplicity) This does not include actually driving TO the gas station, monkeying with the card reader, entering your zipcode, declining the car wash, selecting your fuel grade, waiting for the pump to reset and activate, giving change to the homeless man, standing in the diesel stain, and my favorite - waiting in line at Costco! Now that is a waste of time! And I have not even considered oil changes - another waste of time and money. The ICE crowd can keep doing this, as the oil companies really appreciate it! Now that I am an EV fanboi, I can't be bothered with any of that. :D
 
#89 ·
Preach! Holler Some Truth Up In The Ledfoot Brotherhood Of Holy Motor Oil Church! Preach!



The one car, in your possession, that stirs your soul, that is the most fun to drive, the one that says this s what I'm about is that 2000 Toyota MR2 Spyder, fek yeah, that beeyotch is Absolutely I say, Absolutely Red/Black! And by the power of the chosen one, a 5spd! Hot damn! Can I get an Amen from the congregation, "Amen brother Burnette, Amen".

You can blaspheme up in this church and say that you enjoy the pleasures of a soulless golf cart that is a 2016 Fiat 500e, but we won't listen for we know it a lie. And we won't give up on you.

No sir, through sermons and group therapy we will regain your ever loving automotive soul and bring you back into the life if the living and away from that disgusting EV sin that has entrapped you.

Meet us at the gas station near the pub, the don't have no EV plug so don't bring the Fiat, we don't dabble in the ways of the wicked.
 
#91 ·
It's amazing how quickly the "I must have manual transmission, will never have any kind of auto, I know the auto is quicker, but it's about the engagement with the car, it gives me pleasure" turns into "of course I don't have a stick, EVs don't have stick, EVs give me pleasure" as they turn their attention away from fiddling with the stick and the third pedal and over toward playing their video games on the screen and figuring out just how cold they can stand it in the car before daring to turn on the seat heaters and reduce range by that half mile they might need to beat their personal best record.
 
#92 ·
It is amazing how that actually never happens in these threads yet you and your ilk love creating strawmen.
 
#97 ·
Hahaha, honestly from you this post is surprising. The public's perception of purchasing electric cars is clear. Not many people are purchasing them. Certainly not nearly as many as EV zealots are hoping. Nobody gives a **** what Adam writes. The public perception however has already spoken. Adoption will most likely happen but not nearly as quickly as some of you think or hope.
 
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