Enough to Test the Patience of A Saint

What I learned about long distance driving in an electric car

Day 2 - Charge 2

A continuation from.....

Still feeling smug about a free overnight charge at Tesco's, the only thing I have got to worry about today is a) where to get breakfast and b) where to do a top up charge on the way to Salcombe. I suspected that both would be pretty easy and straightforward, but in the end breakfast at 'The Hive' was the easy bit.

So, I have a full charge and Salcombe is around 173 miles away so nothing to worry about there. But, I figure, while tucking into my Gloucester Old Spot bacon and Plymouth Rock hen eggs, there are probably not many charging points on the Devon coast and those that are there are probably only slow chargers. The best thing then is to do a 'top up' on the way down so I am free to roam at my leisure with no 'range anxiety' kicking in. Once I drop below 100 miles left, I will just slip in to a charging point and top her up.

Attempt 1 was more or less, bang on 100 miles left to go. The lure of a Costa coffee enticed us in to Taunton Deane services and after driving around the packed car park we eventually found, by trial and error, the charging point. Apparently, there are 288 parking spaces at these services (for cars) and only one of them is equipped with a charging point which is woefully inadequate. Unfortunately it was occupied and, according to the information on the screen, still had some time to go before it would be finished so we decided to delay our coffee break and stop at Exeter services instead.

Attempt 2 was a write off. I am not sure if any of you have travelled southbound on the M5 and come off at Exeter. Here, you come down the slip road, go right round the round about and practically head North again to go on the services. The queue for the services started on the South bound slip road. After about 5 minutes, and after the traffic lights changed from red to green and back again, we worked out it would probably be about 30 minutes before we got into the services and there would be no guarantee of availability and so we ventured forth again.

On paper, Attempt 3 could not have presented a better opportunity. The M5 changes soon after Exeter into the A38, the main artery to the South West, and so service stations are replaced with regular garages. We needed a pit stop for a natural break and so used one of my growing number of charge point location apps to see if there was anything nearby. Lo and behold, literally right next door at the Exeter Court Hotel, was a bank of 4, 22kW chargers. In my excitement I nearly spilled my take away cappuccino and raced to get there in an imagined sense of urgency brought on by the thought that someone might pip me to the post at the last moment.

I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw all 4 points were vacant and quickly started to wonder what a fantastic marketing opportunity there was here and why had no one at the Exeter Court Hotel taken the opportunity to do this. Picture a charge point, some tables and umbrellas and maybe a nice cream tea while you are waiting. Instead, a non descript motel style car park with as much kerb appeal as a 1960s semi detached bungalow was the dismal setting for a potential wait of a couple of hours. But, hey ho, at least they were here.

Devoid of nearby shops, my wife decided to use the flexibility of the online high street to occupy herself while I went to work on trying to figure out how to use these beautiful charge points. Sadly, it was an app based charging point which meant I had to register which is, quite frankly, a huge pain in the a**e. The instructions said to go to the App Store and download the PEV PRO app. Unfortunately, the App store has never heard of PEV PRO so instead I Googled it and found PEV PRO but this was for installing chargers, not using them. There was a QR code and tried that and this time I got there. As instructed, I opened an account, registered my car, set up my payment method and now all I needed to do was plug in and charge.

I coupled the car with the charge point and then, after all that, got the message on the screen saying "We cannot start charging right now. Please try again later." 3 times I tried, 3 times I get the same message. No worries, I will try the one next to it instead. Again I set it all up but this time I get the message "The 0298 does not match any charge point in our network". It was their charge point on their network. So, Exeter Court Hotel and Project EV - nil points!

At this point I give up and decide that 3 attempts in one day is enough and I will worry about it tomorrow. Instead, roll on fish and chips at The Ferry Inn in Salcombe for my re-charge.

What I learned:

• 'The Hive' in Stow on the Wold is great for breakfast
• Don't drive an EV in the South West unless you have a charge point at home
• Roadchef need more than one charge point in a car park for 288 cars
• #rangeanxiety is not just a made up phrase
• @exetercourthotel really should make more of this opportunity and create a charging destination
• @projectev @pevpro need to up their game

#costacoffee #exeterservices #exetercourthotel #evcharging #evcharger #creamtea