Park Place, Cardiff City Centre
and at our own home
However this trip to Padstow will be the first journey we have made which has involved having to charge on the journey.
We began by using the wonderful Zap-Map, which has a feature for planning such routes. Based on its recommendations and our route, which was a gentle drive along coastal Somerset and Devon, it suggested the Moto Services in Bridgewater and the Instavolt Charger at the Esso Garage in Braunton both of which worked out well.
It helps that there have been 1,034 new chargers set up in the last 30 days and are now 17,169 charging locations (Data from ZapMap up to 13th November 2021)
For those who aren't great with maps the route was M4 to the M49, M49 to the M5 and then the first stop at Moto Services at Bridgewater, Junction 24 of the M5.
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| Costa Coffee - Moto Services M5 Junction 24 |
From the Moto Services we headed along the A39 hugging the coast and travelling up the amazing Porlock Hill before turning onto the A339 then A3123 and arriving in Braunton.
We pulled up at the charging point and, as this was a standard Esso garage, walked into the village for lunch finding the delightful Wild Thyme Cafe.
Drew had a delicious Flatbread with chorizo, chicken, cheddar and tomato while I, as it is a Friday, had cauliflower and lentil soup, with lovely fresh coriander served with a sourdough baguette the whole thing was nourishing, tasting and feeling healthy as well as being delicious.
From Braunton it was back to the A39 which runs down the Devon and Cornwall coast through Barnstable, Bideford, Bude and Wadebridge before arriving at our accommodation in Padstow.
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| April Cottage, Sarah's View, Padstow |
For those who like the details (my sister comes to mind - oh and me!!) we left Cardiff with a 95% charge, estimated range of 114 miles and did 69 miles to the services. We charged here for 40 minutes, and had a Costa at the same time, and went from 36% charge to 92%, 109 estimated range (£5.35 for 17.811kwh at 30p per kw). Bridgewater to Braunton also 69 miles, but the steep hills and heavy rain lowered our range. We charged here for 47 minutes (we planned less but enjoyed lunch to much, see above) going from 31% charge to 97%, 114 estimated range (£8.27 for 20.676kwh at 40p per kw) and drove 73 miles to Padstow with 32% charge left on arrival.
You were right, your sister did enjoy the details. I've still only charged at home so feel I need to practice using an external charger some time.
ReplyDeleteYes, a good idea to try one to make sure everything works. My car took a while for the device to 'talk' to it the first time I charged. The Gridserve ones seem to be cheapest of the rapid ones at 30p per kw.
DeleteToday I've used my second charging cable for the first time - up until now I've only used the plug to car type or paid for chargers which have built in cables. Tesco here has a free provision of 4*7kw chargers so I needed to unbundle the none plug cable for the first time.
You are talking a foreign language there Haydn! No doubt of course looking back in a year or twos time it will be everyday speak!
ReplyDeleteHi Linda,
DeleteMiles per kilowatt is something different from Miles per gallon/litre but the principle is the same. How much energy input you need for a given distance. So it takes a bit of getting used to, but is simple enough in practice.
So, Cardiff to Padstow was about £20? That sounds like good value. What would it have been in similar sized Honda petrol engined car?
ReplyDeleteHi Robin,
DeleteSorry to take so long to reply, but I wanted to check the calculations.
Taking my former car, a Hybrid Honda Jazz, as the example it would do an average of 60 miles per gallon. Whereas the Honda e averages 4.3 miles per KW.
With UK petrol currently around £1.414 per litre (sourced from AA website this morning) which is £6.4847454 per UK gallon our 211 miles journey down to Padstow would have been £22.80 whereas the same journey in the Honda e (with the average 4.3 miles per KW as already mentioned) would be £17.17. The assumption here is that the cost of electricity is 35p per KW. In fact we paid 23p (home charge), 30p (Gridserve) and 40p (Instavolt) so that actual pence per KW average is closer to 31p if we say we roughly charged 1/3 a 1/3 and a 1/3.
The additional variable is that the same car in the non-hybrid version was averaging 48mpg when I had that version. Which would make the petrol cost £28.51!!
Thank you for doing the maths, Haydn. Also for explaining about the different types of charger: I had no idea it could take so long to charge a vehicle, hence the importance of having a decent range to your car. If you were designing a new house, would you put a high capacity charging point in the garage, or just a normal 13A feed?
ReplyDeleteHi Robin,
DeleteYes the 'main' travelling connectors are 50kw or above (some now up to 350kw, though my car can only take a maximum of 50kw even from the faster chargers). This would charge my car from 20% to 80% in just under 30 minutes.
There are then the smaller chargers 22, 15, 7 plus the 2.3 13amp plug versions. My sister, who has a garage, decided against having a home pod 7kw connector installed as the car is always in the garage overnight so a long charge from a 2.3 source isn't a problem for her. I think her Kia Soul takes 14 hours for full charge, mine is 9 but has less range. I think if she was still in work she would have spent the extra so that it would charge fully each night, which is less critical now she has retired.
This is a long way of saying I think a home charger (as opposed to a standard plug) would be preferable for anyone using their car daily. Though, of course this is dependent on a drive or garage to avoid trailing leads as they currently won't fit home chargers where the leads would have to run across the pavement. So in the scenario you present a home charger would be my recommendation.