thanks, have setup a Tesla account and registered payment method so that should see me good, as there is a bank of 6 of them nearby on A1 as per @ B.A.Nana

@iainc You do know that there are only 15 Tesla sites in the UK that can be used by non-Teslas?  Your Northumberland one is one of those  but they are few and far between.
I use the Shell recharge app a lot as that gives access to Ionity, MFG, Fastned and Osprey ultra rapid chargers as well as many others.

perchypantherFree Member

@iainc You do know that there are only 15 Tesla sites in the UK that can be used by non-Teslas?  Your Northumberland one is one of those  but they are few and far between.

yes, I saw that when i googled it. Registering for non Tesla charging on the Tesla App took 2 mins and no charge, so it will be handy for this trip if nothing else !

@iainc the map in the app is live and tells you how many chargers are available, so you can go knowing there’s a charger available.

thanks, having a play with it to get up to speed !

@iainc – you should have got a BMW charging card with your car, which comes with 1 yrs fee-paid access to discounted IONITY and BP Pulse plus quite a lot more. That’s a good starting point for “most” charging duties and then of course build on it with things like the Tesla access, pod point, connected kerb and so on.

^^^^^ mine came through Tusker and I didn’t get one, however I have registered for it this afternoon

First Supercharger use today. Handily the Aviemore one is available to all. Tucked away behind the Macdonald hotel but three free bays. App easy to use. Bit disappointed only to get 69kW speed but a coffee and pee was enough time to add 45% to battery. Hoping I have enough to get back there on Sunday, pretty sparse options up in Torridon. Torridon hotel charging 85p/kWh! Definitely enough to get back to Inverness but it’s not exactly blessed with options either. Not used to these prices, never had to public charge since the wall box went in.

@iainc may be worth looking at Electroverse too? You can link it to your Octopus account so it just loads the cost onto your bill. But if you can get the discounted rates through BMW it’s well worth it. I got a Plugsurfing card with my Polestar which is 30p on Ionity.

^^^ thanks, will have a look. Public charging will be a rare occurrence so just need to make sure I can access something reasonably fast and moderately priced.

I’m now used to IO home charging at 7.5p/kWh so a bit spoiled 😁

You do know that there are only 15 Tesla sites in the UK that can be used by non-Teslas?

23 at the last count.

We’re just in process of going electric with a low milage second hand mg5. We’ve moved onto octopus and got an intelligent tariff compatible charger being installed.

App wise what are the essentials, over last few pages I’ve seen

Zapmap for general chargers, route plotting

Electroverse to add charging costs to house bill

Tesla app for the all vehicle open sites

Shell for access to certain chargers (are these not usable otherwise?)

Thanks

Fun fact on non Tesla supercharging.

There are only a few sites in UK currently as stated above but the map for other European countries shows many more.

Well worth knowing if planning an EV trip to the Alps or similar as I intend next year.

@simonbea

Having yolo’d into being a fully electric car’d household a couple of months ago the only apps I use are the home charger one and zapmap.

I downloaded a few others just in case but have never needed to use them.

I strongly suspect that the venn overlap between relatively early adopters of EVs and people who chronically overthink things is almost a perfect circle and this thread is very much an example of things being made to sound more complicated than they are!

^^ I’m in a similar place, as above all my charging to date has been on IO at home. Someone recommended zapmap, which handily shows charge locations, but so does the satnav in the car. I have Chargeplace Scotland as I regularly pass through areas with free charging, but have never used it. The Tesla one I got yesterday, as earlier, for an upcoming trip, with I think I will use. My BMW charge card accesses Ionity, which may be handy on longer trips,

Shell for access to certain chargers (are these not usable otherwise?)

I think the shell card has much the same main networks as the electroverse card, so possibly no point in having both. Also all the chargers I use with my shell recharge card can be used with a credit/debit card. Having said that, I tend to always use the same ones MFG, osprey, ionity, geniepoint. There may be others on the Shell recharge network that require an app (it’s worth linking your card to the app, I recently couldn’t get an osprey charger to read my shell card but could start the charge from the shell app)

My only advice is it pays to plan ahead if you’re going somewhere new. Have a plan A/B/C unless Plan A is foolproof. So, iainc above has sorted out his holiday charging as part of the holiday planning.
I think it’s still the case that the most reliable chargers to aim for are Tesla, instavolt, osprey, ionity, MFG, I presume gridserve have swapped out most old chargers now. Geniepoint have a bad rep but are starting to swap to new hardware, I think ones in supermarkets are prioritised.

Instavolt aren’t on electroverse card or shell card, but are all credit/debit card.

Chargeplacescotland if you’re in or visiting Scotland

I never used an app until a few weeks back when we ended up at a Dragon charger which was app only. But the main networks, on motorways and such, all work with a debit card.

I prefer A Better Route Planner sometimes but it is a bit of overload. Better for route planning but less handy than Zap Map for just checking where chargers are. Zap Map also has an Android Auto app.

I strongly suspect that the venn overlap between relatively early adopters of EVs and people who chronically overthink things is almost a perfect circle

Most true thing I’ve read in a long time 😅

DrP

I go into the office twice week on a Tue and Wed. Free charging is available at the office.

I’m trying to decide, on the Wednesday should take everything I can get and charge to 100%, to satisfy my tight arse ness. Or charge to 80% to satisfy my need for mechanical sympathy.

In modern cars 100% does not seem to be an issue. At least, as long as you don’t leave it at 100% for weeks.

Anyone insured by John Lewis?  I am and my policy runs out next month (Nov). I only have an old Leaf and so far it’s been around £200 to insure fully comp every year for the last 7 years….nothing from JL yet.

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2023/sep/30/the-quotes-were-5000-or-more-electric-vehicle-owners-face-soaring-insurance-costs

What is the name of the best Apple App for Tesla charging (for a non-Tesla) – there seem to be a few?

On the search, it’s the one on the top right, Tesla Lifestyle :

cheers

In modern cars 100% does not seem to be an issue.

It is. Just modern strategies to charge, which is what does most of the damage, are a lot better. (cooling, charge rate reduction etc). The chemistry is better too, but still not *perfect*.
So it’ll take much longer to shag the battery.

TBH, anything that heats the battery significantly, rapidly or unevenly will be doing damage.

Just modern strategies to charge, which is what does most of the damage, are a lot better.

Yeah that’s what I meant

Also LFP cells in my car, the electrolyte breaks down slightly at a voltage that corresponds to 100% so heat aside, you’re not meant to leave it at 100% for days or weeks.

winston
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2023/sep/30/the-quotes-were-5000-or-more-electric-vehicle-owners-face-soaring-insurance-costs

WTF, those bloody “Saudi bots” are working for the Guardian now?

Most modern cars you can’t charge to 100% (but you know that anyway. )  Toyota are so keen on battery preservation they’ve made the car pretty difficuly to use for long journeys – big buffers eat up a lot of the capacity, and limits on how many fast charges per day.

But if it drops to 90% after 5 years who cares? Really

one for coffee and biscuits 🙂

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-67005620

Worst Speed sequel yet

I liked the bit when he says he has mobility issues so didn’t jump out at 30mph….

…oh, and where the police spokesman says they brought it to a controlled stop with no damage to either vehicle, after the headline wording around crashing into the back of a police car…

The fact it’s electric has nothing to do with it, obviously.

^^^^ hmmm, wonder if it had been an ICE it could have been put into neutral – sounds very odd that all systems locked, such that the gear selector and the brakes were disabled, yet he was still able to open window to speak to police, use phone (though I guess maybe not hands free given emergency situation).

‘The brakes would not work’

This is not believable.

Fun fact on non Tesla supercharging.

There are only a few sites in UK currently as stated above but the map for other European countries shows many more.

Well worth knowing if planning an EV trip to the Alps or similar as I intend next year

Actually, I found that the journey through France is possible without having to leave the motorway network to use Tesla and that provision, especially from TotalEnergies, Ionity and Fastned, is adequate to complete the journey.  Most are actually faster than Tesla and many are undercover

prettygreenparrot
Full Member

‘The brakes would not work’

This is not believable.

Agree, I’m highly sceptical of his account but just for arguments sake, let’s assume he’s telling the truth. He says he heard a grinding noise when braking… would be a hell of a coincidence for a mechanical braking fault to occur as well as the other electrical faults.

Best guess I can come up with is a fault on the electronics bus passing spurious sensor readings to the ECUs, e.g. if the ABS ECU gets a wheel-speed readout of zero it will think the wheels are skidding and apply ABS, and that can make quite a horrible noise. Plausible it could be described as ‘grinding’ ? 🤷‍♂️

Having a had a car with corroded ABS rings that confused the sensor, that sounds like a reasonable theory. The brakes should still work though even them.

OTOH, I just Googled “MG brake by wire” and this was the first hit: https://www.mgevs.com/threads/brakes-failed.3473/

Aside from the general “it sounds like made up BS” aspect…

Brakes – I’m fairly sure that the car will have a hydraulic circuit as well as a “brake by wire” circuit, so a firm push on the brake pedal would physically engage the brakes. (edit – a quick look at the MG5 manual online and it mentions dual hydraulic circuits.

Constant speed. The only way the car would drive at a constant speed is for some form of speed control to be active – e.g. cruise control – if it was a fixed power to the motor it would either accelerate or decelerate. It sounds rather unlikely that just about every other system on the car should fail except speed control which is working.

Aside from the general “it sounds like made up BS” aspect…

As I read that account, I was picturing Rab C Nesbit at the wheel, on his way home from the pub after a night on the special brew. “Luckily driving round the roundabout slowed the car down to 15 mph”
Yeah, course it did 🥸

‘The brakes would not work’

This is not believable.

The brakes might’ve applied, but they perhaps didn’t slow the car down. There is precedent for this – there was a spate of this happening with Lexus hybrids – the throttle basically electronically jammed open and the brakes were not enough to kill the speed. A family was killed this way. It was considered surprising that touching the brakes didn’t kill the throttle automatically, as it does in other cars.

wonder if it had been an ICE it could have been put into neutral

Assuming the control units are working, because this will be an electronically activated thing. Most cars will accept a command to go into neutral when driving along if the controls are responding, but if they aren’t then, well, they aren’t.

Sounds like part of the software crashed.