I think it helps to use Chargemap to plan a test journey or two; gives you a clearer idea of what is available. The bigger issue has been around destination chargers; our holiday resort on the Brittany coast had one 22kw charger so we had to plan it into shopping trips.
My mate who has the Ionic has found that Chargemap wasn’t the most accurate thing in the world.
Yes, I absolutely agree on that - normal commuting one charge would last me 3 weeks, possibly 4.
There are a couple of fast chargers that could be used - Carrefour Avranches has some 300kW chargers which is actually more than the max the car will take. But there aren’t that many and it’s still dead time (though I might not mind 15 minutes extra - dunno what the price is there).
I don’t stop every 150 miles normally, in fact we don’t normally stop during any of the driving bits unless we decide to shop in Cleunay - the ferry imposes a long break so it’s not necessary.
More wasted time though.
Not that it affects me (at the moment…) but are there charging points on Brittany ferries?
Same with us and when we do it is not any where near the length of time needed to fully charge the car for the next leg.
On the ferry itself? No - there are a couple of charging points at the ferry terminal in Portsmouth but not on the ferry itself.
Not sure how practical it would be to offer EV charging during the crossing, nor how many cars the existing electrical generation aboard would be able to manage - I’ll bet the price would be eye watering though.
I know Irish Ferries have charge points, I’m not sure if they have them on the new P&O ferries bridge at each end ferries, you would think they would have them as well being brand new boats.
Wind resistance goes up with the square of road speed so is *much* more pronounced at motorway speeds compared with pootling around town.
£66K second hand is exorbitant. You could get a low milage second hand 66KWh Hyundai Tuscon for less than half that. Same specified range.
I had a shot of an VW ID.4 last week, it was roomy, quiet, comfortable, fast and that was it I’m afraid, bland outside and inside, controls were infuriating and need a rethink and really uninvolving to drive.
I must admit I expected more from VW , quality was only so so and much prefer a Golf to this.
When he told me it cost €48000 I just about choked on my cola.
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Yes, but not a BMW.
List price (for this BMW) is £76k, it’s done 3k miles, there are few of these in the used market, especially not with the options, and the Tuscon is not comparable as it’s a hybrid, and a Honda.
Also the advantage of used is that the “lead time” is how long they take to polish the paintwork, not years (I still have the S3 on order, haven’t even been given a “build date” so that’s a gnat’s whisker from being cancelled).
Yes, there are cheaper cars, that’s not exactly the point.
I could be less ridiculous and go for the M40, I can have one of those with 7k miles for £9k less.
But where’s the fun in that? 
Sorry, I meant the IONIQ 5 rather than the Tuscon. There’s the Kona as well with the same range but it’s much smaller I think. The IONIQ has 220Kwh DC fast charging as well, so if you say there are some 300KWh chargers on you’re route it should do a 10-80% in under 30 minutes.
I suppose it depends on how you look at a car. I don’t really go for the looks, I go for what I need, what works for me and what I can afford.
Yes the Skoda version is much better trimmed.
Me too and the ID buzz is just too expensive and the same VW issues as the ID4. Too many SUV’s and not enough MPV’s at the moment.
Why should governments finance charging stations?
They made commitments to reduce CO2 and its more about speeding up granting licences. They make it very easy for fossil fuels
Charging stations in cities are going to be a big problem, if and when we switch over to EV’s it will be decade’s before there will be enough charging points even reusing existing electrical infastructure and lampposts, digging up so many roads will cost billions and city authorities won’t be happy.
It was bad enough with all the digging up they had to do to lay virgin cables, that will be child’s play compared to that.
Towns will not be so bad as a lot of people will have drives, cities most don’t.
A charging station doesn’t have to be a burden on the grid if it also has battery storage. A large battery capacity can be constantly recharged from the grid at a low level, with the batteries forming a buffer to allow the more intermittent high load of EV charging.
Once owners of large commercial space realise that they have vast roofs that can harvest solar power to charge a battery bank & you have a winning solution for creating lots of charging infrastructure at retail parks, supermarkets etc. The clever ones will also include a discount rate for anyone parking up to charge & then spending money in their shops.
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So how long do you reckon the infrastructure will take to support the millions of EV’s that will be charging and do you think the national grid is up to it considering it’s marginal during the winter just now, 10, 20, 30, 40 years, realistically not some utopia vision.
Yes, I do, as do the grid operators themselves. It’s all about one door opening as another closes.
As fossil fuel production decreases grid capacity is released for other things.
For example, do you know how much electricity is used by oil refineries? It’s a lot - so much so that ironically there are refineries in the USA that have attached solar farms to run them.
A lot of EV charging can be shifted to suit grid capacity i.e. home charging is commonly done overnight when other demands are lower, even in the winter.
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