1st long drive

[Sparky72]

I don’t think I can justify £120 a year to get the cheapest rates as I am not doing regular long journeys that require stops to charge. Our longest journey on average will be up to the Lake District a couple of times in a year.

[snalbansed]

Powerpass Simply Charge is £1.95 a month, and gives you a decent discount on quite a few DC chargers, but not Ionity!

[xioxyx]

I got the Powerpass Charge faster tariff at £7.95 per month which means Ionity charging is 31p per kwh as opposed to 69p. Given that yesterday I took 95kwh of charge, that’s a saving of £36.10. I’ve also got a trip to Cornwall planned next month and 2 trips to the alps. Also got 2 kids to take to university at the other end of the country. I reckon I’ll easily cover the £95.40 annual charge in a year. Would easily cover the £120 too when it moves to full price in subsequent years. Of course not all trips will be convenient for Ionity, but I’ll definitely favour them (or the other partner networks of Shell & BP). Not sure what other networks are covered.

[Sparky72]

Just signed up for the Powerpass Charge Faster tariff. Thinking about it, the annual fee is equivalent to one tank of petrol in my previous car and the kWh price may be similar or even cheaper than my domestic tariff.

[Sparky72]

I got the Powerpass Charge faster tariff at £7.95 per month which means Ionity charging is 31p per kwh as opposed to 69p. Given that yesterday I took 95kwh of charge, that’s a saving of £36.10. I’ve also got a trip to Cornwall planned next month and 2 trips to the alps. Also got 2 kids to take to university at the other end of the country. I reckon I’ll easily cover the £95.40 annual charge in a year. Would easily cover the £120 too when it moves to full price in subsequent years. Of course not all trips will be convenient for Ionity, but I’ll definitely favour them (or the other partner networks of Shell & BP). Not sure what other networks are covered.

Will be interesting to hear how your trips to the alps go. I’ve driven to Denmark a number of times in my previous car but don’t know if I would do such a long journey in the Enyaq.

[ricky10]

Powerpass wants to charge me £0.48/kWh for a free charger at my local leisure centre…
Hard pass on power pass

If you do a lot of motorway miles and need top up regularly on motorways - then fair enough. Otherwise with the odd long drives - no way on these subscription services.

Even for 1000miles trip once or twice a year journey you will be charging about 6-8times on a dc rapid charger assuming 4 full charges that isn’t enough to pay for the subscription and to use rapid charger as dedicated charging facility at home is just non-sense unless you can’t charge at home or don’t have local cheap/free facilities. And have to rely on rapid chargers

[RichR]

I regularly do North Yorkshire to Cornwall - apart from Cullompton there aren't any Ionity chargers that near my route, so I haven't renewed my Powerpass. My preferred charging location is at McDonalds/Costa/KFC Instavolts that are not quite on the motorway itself. Yes, Instavolt isn't the cheapest, but they are plentiful and usually have four chargers at each location. And because they're not quite on the motorway they're far less likely to be all in use. Having said that - I do sometimes use the new Gridserve ones at Exeter and Rugby - even though with more than 12 chargers present they're often all in use. But generally if you wait for up to 10 minutes one will become free. MFG chargers are worth seeking out too- again often near but not quite on motorways, so less busy and often with cheaper and better quality food places nearby.

We went on holiday to Hornsea a few weeks ago, and never needed to charge at all, despite driving to various different beaches each day But I guess it is only an hour and half from home. Did 290 miles and got home with 15% remaining.

My biggest piece of advice for long journeys in an EV? Stop worrying about the range. Plan to stop every 2-3 hours for the loo, cup of tea and to stretch your legs. If you can plan those stops to be where there's a charger of at least 50kW, then plug in for 15 minutes whilst you're there. I prefer to enjoy the journey, and taking regular breaks ensures you don't get tired and stressed.

[Ouvavou]

I don’t think I can justify £120 a year to get the cheapest rates as I am not doing regular long journeys that require stops to charge. Our longest journey on average will be up to the Lake District a couple of times in a year.

On the off chance that you are an octopus customer try signing up for Electroverse - Ionity costs 63p with them at the mo.l if you are with octopus (double discounts I think). I’m pretty sure that once I’ve used my bonnet credits I’ll just use Electroverse as my main way of paying for charging as I don’t do enough rapid charging to benefit from subs based discounts (bonnet / powerpass etc).

[Choppsie]

I don’t think I can justify £120 a year to get the cheapest rates as I am not doing regular long journeys that require stops to charge. Our longest journey on average will be up to the Lake District a couple of times in a year.

On the off chance that you are an octopus customer try signing up for Electroverse - Ionity costs 63p with them at the mo.l if you are with octopus (double discounts I think). I’m pretty sure that once I’ve used my bonnet credits I’ll just use Electroverse as my main way of paying for charging as I don’t do enough rapid charging to benefit from subs based discounts (bonnet / powerpass etc).

I have PowerPass and I have just applied for the Octopus Electroverse, but have yet to receive and try the card. What I am finding, even with loads of Apps and RFID cards, there is no guarantee that when you arrive at a "suitable" charging point, that the RFID or App will actually work and you end up looking for another or bite the bullet and pay full price.
I like that PowerPass will let you review EV points, as knowing in advance you may still have to pay full price really helps

Also, be wary, some EV charging points are on private roues, so even though you can navigate to nearby, you can't actually get to the EVCP, e.g. ferry staff EV Southampton Docks after Holiday Inn refused PowerPass RFID and App

[Goaty]

/\ The RFID chip no longer works in my PowerPass card, but I can use the PowerPass app to activate an Ionity charger for example, at the same discounted rate that the card would have given me