Just how bad is the range on the motorway (85x)? & Powerpass worth it?

[wassap]

Remember that you're recommended to take a break from driving every two hours (and once you get to a certain age, your bladder tells you that you ought to take a break about that often too) - so that's 140 miles at motorway speeds. So really you're planning to stop and add some charge (doesn't have to be a 100% charge) every 140 miles or so. Yes, I have managed over 300 miles in my 80 Sportline on the motorway (in the summer) without a charge, but I still stopped every 150 miles or so. I regularly drive from North Yorkshire to Cornwall and have never had to worry that I'm even close to running out of charge. I might have chosen to slow down a little to eke out a little bit more to get to a place I can charge that has nicer food or a faster charger, but even then I've had 30-40 miles of range remaining so could get to somewhere I can charge even if it wasn't as ideal.

When you charge at a 100kW+ charger, you'll add enough to do the next 150 miles in the time it takes you to walk to the services, go to the loo and get a cup of tea, then walk back to the car most of the time. So it's not as if you're waiting for the car to charge that much.

So yeah - don't worry about winter range, it's not really an issue as you'll easily be able to do 2-3 hours worth of driving even in the coldest and wettest of conditions (don't forget that wet roads sap economy on all cars too).

Its not the range per se, more the cost of charging, 79p a unit is scandalously expensive, and if the range is poor you need to use the expensive public charging more.

[Aragorn]

Personally i use 3mi/kwh as a reference figure.

On the worst days it will be a little worse and on the best days can be a chunk better, but if you use 3mi as a baseline you'll be in a sensible ballpark when driving normally (IE driving at the motorway speed limit)

With the 80kwh battery that means somewhere around 225miles as a reference.

[KBEE]

I charged mine (80 Sportline) to 100% at the weekend after a stint of mainly motorway driving and it showed a range of 224 miles. We then did more motorway driving and that proved about accurate.

It has dropped a fair bit in winter (I reckon between 40-60 miles less range from a full charge now compared to the summer months) and I notice the battery percentage falls more quickly too.

On my regular commute to and from work (mostly 30-40mph roads, about 7 miles each way) I could often do the journey using just 1% of the battery each way. In winter the same journey, same speeds is using about 4% of the battery each way.

That is very likely down to me using all the lights, wipers, heater, and heated seats/steering wheel, as well as the battery not being quite so efficient in the cold.

It’s never been a problem, but definitely noticeable that winter driving is more thirsty!

[peters_enyaq]

The point here is that you can stop every 2-3 hours for a break- drink/toilet of stretch legs. On the new cars if you pre condition then it should charge from 10 to 80% in 20 minutes.
However it is not cheap to charge on the road now as even electric highway charge 79p per kWh on new high speed chargers. Unless you can get to an open Tesla Supercharger then it is 55p

[IanJ]

………I’m about to lose the car (changed company). …..

Good luck with your new job. If you’re not getting another Enyaq and are leaving this forum I just wanted to say thank you for all your posts. Your experience and insights as an early adopter proved invaluable whilst waiting for delivery in the long early months of Covid and war induced component shortages.

[RichR]

Chargers just off the motorway can be cheaper, and often aren't as busy and have nicer places to eat than motorway service stations. Also if you regularly do long journeys that require using public chargers, then subscription schemes like PowerPass can get some big savings over the default prices. Registering and getting an RFID card or app with various charger operators or electricity suppliers (eg Octopus) can also get you reduced charging prices for no subscription.

However yes, at present this does mean a bit of planning ahead. But with tools like Zap-map and ABRP, that's not such a pain any more. If you do certain routes regularly you'll soon find where the cheaper and more available charger locations are. If you don't want to leave the motorway, then you're going to be paying higher prices - just like you do if you buy food at motorway service stations. You pay for convenience, and that's fair enough. Sometimes I've stopped at farm shops or garden centres that have 50kW PodPoints or Genie chargers - might not be the fastest, but often unoccupied, cheaper than Gridserve, and you can get a decent meal in nicer surroundings.

For me, given the Enyaq is so easy and relaxing to drive on motorways (climate control on, travel assist on, audiobook on, occasional seat massages), then I'm all about enjoying the journey. If it's going to take me six hours to get to my mum's house, I might as well make that time pass as pleasantly as I can, and coming off the motorway for a bit every now and then doesn't really add much to the overall time, but does get some nicer scenery for example.