1 week in the life of EVing without home charging

[ricky10]

So end of a week in north wales.

I arrived at the destination with about 80% charge and had 200+ miles on the range. So after 6 days of milling about in the foot hills of snowdonia and surrounding mountains/hills. Finally day, I now have 30% left of range - around 90miles left.

Through out the week I have been seeing if any of the spots we wanted to visit had chargers. Unfortunately this part of the country, the public chargers are not readily available. The odd location are available isn’t convenient for us as it will involve a substantial hike/taxi ride. However one location which we choose to dine at did have 7kw chargers but at the day we want to use it, it was out of commission. The charger was operated by BP and was told it won’t be fixed till 12th April and just happens pretty much all of the BP chargers in the whole area/county appear to be out of commission including the supermarket ones.

So last day, visited a Podpoint location that’s 7kw charger, whilst the charger was working but the charge rate was pathetic at 3.5kw. I think the charger is capped at 7kw total and it has 2 sockets thus 3.5kw each socket as there were another car charging already.

Anyway, I didn’t need a charge for the whole duration of the stay but on the last day needing to top the car up for the journey home to avoid motorway super chargers or ultra chargers, I found local facilities to be very hit and miss.

Currently charging at a local Tesco podpoint location which had been packed in the evenings all the time (only 4 sockets). But this Tesco is a 30min walk from our stay. Not ideal but necessary.

So in conclusion, you can technically EV holiday it is really the local facilities that are failing atm which can bring quite a bit of anxiety to the experience. Now where I am staying the charger locations are between 30miles apart which is far too infrequent. It seems to be an area of EV charger black spots. But at the end the enyaq’s range and efficiency shone through and got through the week without issues for me. However if a car with less range and/or particularly inefficient like the e-tron then you would be hunting down those chargers…

The alternative would be getting an Airbnb with front of property parking so you can granny charge with trailing wire at 2kw over night for several nights.

[C2atb]

That’s a good sum up of relying on public chargers . I’ve been over that way from up north at Pwllheli , crawled back via Rhyl to have a break and top up as all the chargers around Pwllheli was either private campsites ,out of order or busy

[BioHzrd]

So last day, visited a Podpoint location that’s 7kw charger, whilst the charger was working but the charge rate was pathetic at 3.5kw. I think the charger is capped at 7kw total and it has 2 sockets thus 3.5kw each socket as there were another car charging already.

This shouldn't be the case if it's marked as a 7kW it should provide it. Supply constraints could be why it was only giving 3.5kW if you know the name.kd the unit Incan check for you.

Currently charging at a local Tesco podpoint location which had been packed in the evenings all the time (only 4 sockets). But this Tesco is a 30min walk from our stay. Not ideal but necessary..

Surprised tomhear they are packed as specially after the price increase of 7kW from 28p to 44p a kW at the start of the month.

[ricky10]

The charger in question is Faye Yves in Anglesey

There are numerous comments on zap map showing it is a slow charger.

The Tesco chargers were busy cos it is the only only around that’s reliable and working for miles upon miles.

I have no idea if camp site will allow you to charge there as I have come across quite a few sites with EV charging facilities but never ventured inside to inquire.