A Six Charge Point Turn - a snapshot of motorway service area EV charging

From range anxiety to charge point anxiety to queue anxiety - have we moved away from being concerned about how far an electric car will take us, to being concerned about whether a charger will work, or indeed whether we'll need to form an orderly queue? There's no doubt that the state of public charging in the UK is far from perfect. But (and it's a big but), it is getting better all the time, from the introduction of mandatory contactless charging, to the charge point operators essentially just getting on with it, and rolling out infrastructure at great speed.

I'm fortunate in that I can do the vast majority of my charging at home, overnight, for relatively little cost. However like most (all?) other electric car drivers, I want to know that when I do need to charge out and about, that the charger will be easy to find, in good working order, easy to pay for and use, in a safe location, and charge at the expected speed. And I don't want to have to queue for a charger, nor find charging spaces 'ICEd' - which is when a petrol or diesel car hogs the space.

In a bid to experience more public charging, and to see just how well utilised the chargers are, I decided to pay a visit to every motorway service area (MSA) on my way back to Chester, from Stafford. Six in total. First stop Stafford MSA, and no other electric cars in sight, not at the chargers anyway. What I did discover was that GRIDSERVE install untethered chargers as well as tethered, so you can just use your own charging cable to plug, tap to pay, and charge away. I drove off feeling like I'd learned something new. Always good.

My next pit stop was Keele MSA, which was disappointing. This must be one of the few sets of Electric Highway chargers still to bear the old branding and not to have been upgraded. No-one was using them, although I did notice two Tesla drivers using the Supercharger Network close by. My Kia e-Niro and I decided to move swiftly on.

Sandbach MSA was brilliant. I plugged in, tapped my debit card on the reader, and bingo, charging commenced. An excellent customer experience. Plus I chatted to another EV driver, on their way from Stafford back home to York. Despite having their Audi eTron for nine months, this was the first time they'd used a public charger - they usually charge at home overnight, and use their other car for longer journeys. They'd decided to 'give it a go' in their electric car this time, and by all accounts they were impressed by the ease of charging. I was so pleased to hear such a positive experience. The Sandbach chargers were fully utilised by the time I'd returned from my comfort break, whereupon I unplugged and got back on the road.

Up next Knutsford, and one Tesla plugged in to the Electric Highway chargers. My observation on this location, which applies to the others as well, is that the charging bays are poorly marked. This may be a legacy issue, but I hope that this is sorted out soon. Another overall observation is that signposting could be improved - both in terms of visibility from the motorway to highlight the fact that there are electric car chargers available, and signposting when you enter the MSA. There's no missing a certain coffee drive through thanks to its obvious signs, but I did find myself having to search a bit for the chargers.

My previous experience of the Electric Highway chargers at Lymm MSA is that they are very often ICEd, possibly due to being so close to the entrance to the coffee shop and other facilities. No ICE in sight this time, and the chargers were well used. I also saw a Citroen e-C4 (charging) in the wild for the first time.

Last stop Chester services as dusk was rapidly closing in. All of the chargers were in use, so not hard to foresee a small queue forming. The cars looked to be very tightly packed in, and a couple of electric car drivers I spoke with there, commented on the lack of space. The highlight was a charge point chat with a BMW ix3 driver. They were on day three of electric car ownership, had had no problem with lead times (my first question), and were loving it so far. They have a charger at home, which had stopped charging for some unknown reason, hence the need to stop and charge on their travels today. Good news is that their first public charging experience was positive. I asked why they'd chosen to go electric, and they replied "It just felt like the right thing to do. We're all going to drive electric soon, aren't we?"

And on that happy note, I headed home and plugged in.

If you're wondering about whether to make the switch to electric, head over to the ElectriX website and take the quiz to find out whether an electric car is right for you.