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Some of the other videos are probably more useful to see the experience of what it's like to drive an EV on long journeys, eg our Provence to UK series. We don't generally find we're waiting about much at all, we just fit charging into when we would have stopped anyway. Charge when Stopped rather than Stop to Charge!

We just enjoy a break in the monotony of an otherwise long and boring car journey!

Thanks for the kind comments! We try to structure most videos around the charging process at one location whilst not adding any time to our journey - ie 1. Drive in and intro and charge start, 2. Just before end of charge, 3. Driving away and outro. Originally we wondered about live streaming our stops but felt that might be a bit much... :D

@@Yorkshireasaurus we will moderate in future 😊

Thanks for the non sequitur.

It does have 16 Applegreen Electric chargers though. So all the Teslas will use the Tesla SC's, anyone with another make can use the Applegreens. So it is still very well provisioned regardless of what car you have, if you can get into the car park!

Thanks! I don't think we'd go here in future, we can get to Kent without charging if going to my parents and then slow charge, if going on to the channel tunnel we could stop at Thurrock or Dartford superchargers. There's now also Cambridge Tesla Service centre on the way back. It's amazing how many more options there are now than 12 months ago when we got the car...

Yeah we also do that run regularly and seeing the same problem was what got us interested. Why do people queue at Ionity Cambridge when there is a Shell Recharge at Fenstanton about 2 or 3 miles away that's always empty. Yes the Ionity will be cheaper and no-one really wants to use Shell Recharge, but the default behaviour for most people used to driving a conventional car would be to turn up at a convenient services with a low SoC and hope/expect there to be a charger available... It's not true that 'the infrastructure isn't there yet' but it is true that you need to put a little effort in to find it! :)

Thank you Andrew - for being here and for interacting with us we are grateful 😊 wishing you a very Happy Christmas and all the best for 2025!

@@ComeChargeWithUs-e8x Don't charge in a garage or near other cars merry christmas

True.....we do the videos to try and show new ev drivers what to expect when you charge: how to use the charger, how long it might take and what facilities are available which is a little more important as you are spending more time 'filling up'. We hope to try and dispel some of the FUD out there and it's quite good fun for us (that probably says a lot about us 😂) thanks for being here and all the best for Christmas and New Year 😊

yes, it is just the norm in my 650 mile Mercedes E Class diesel as well. Can travel the whole of the NC 500 after filling up at Tesco Dingwall with it's 650 mile range. All done at 15 p per mile. It is a none event really, with no stress, charger planning etc.etc.etc. ? I was also an early adopter nearly 9 years ago. After only 40 k miles covered over that time, my small battery admittedly, has degraded by 42% ( not FUD ). Never again. My Mercedes is 17 years old, without any range loss.

@@stevezodiac491 Yes there is certainly a way to go before charging infrastructure is ubiquitous everywhere, NC500 would be more challenging in an EV than driving around other parts of the UK. Thankfully battery technology has moved on apace and modern cars suffer from very little degradation. Ours came with a 100k mile, 8 year warranty to 70% of original capacity, but it's an LFP battery which is more durable and apparently expected to last 15 years down to 85% of original capacity. I guess we shall see...

At least your opinion is open. It is unusual to hear from a newer EV owner, who is open to possible severe degradation ever happening, instead of saying it can never happen. My EV came with an 8 year guarantee. The words at N - - - - - - discretion were written into the guarantee and that they would return the vehicle back up to 9 battery bars before 8 years or 100'000 miles. So when mine had 8 battery bars just before the 8 years, I would have to spend money for a battery check, have had it checked and serviced throughout and even then, only if they decided, to get one battery bar back, not a new battery. It now has 7 out of 12 bars left after only 40+ 000 miles. I bought a MGB roadster in chartreusse in the early part of it's life, after it was manufactured in 1977. Reg No. RVN564R. I sold it decades ago but if you look on tax checker it is still on the road 47 years after manufacture. I now own a 20 year old MX5 and a 17 year old Mercedes, both in perfect working condition. EV's of any make will not be as long lived, I am sure, even with improved battery management and chemistry. My Ecoflow Delta 2 power station is LFP. It is guaranteed for 10 years. I still have the EV or rather the wife uses it as a local runabout, with it's now 60 mile range.

We were really surprised how busy it was... To be honest when we had an ICE car we tended to avoid busy motorway service stations and find supermarkets close to motorway junctions, so maybe we'll be back to doing that once more supermarkets have charging hubs!

That's a really valid point Ali re safety: I usually mention it but I think my mind was so boggled after the data dump I forgot what I needed to say 🤣 Safety definitely comes above queue avoidance. Glad you enjoyed and that you got something useful out of it with Chargefinder; you'll have to let us know how you get on with it!

Thanks for the feedback. We are also considering a trip to Croatia so would be interested to hear how you found it and charger availability! Is the Skoda Elroc the same platform as the ID.3 and Cupra Borne? That looks like a great car too. I expect we'll keep the Tesla for a good few years (we had our last car for 12 years!) and probably what will prompt the change is significantly faster charging and better range - double the charging speed and 50% more range would be perfect for our trips to France!

I have a bit of a write up over on speakev, I do have three days of Timelapse footage that I need to add some narration to and eventually plan to upload at some point, hopefully I may get some time over Christmas to start on that. Charger wise I got an IONITY Passport and Tesla membership for the month, and ABRP premium and it was flawless, only one Tesla charger queue in Austria and that was 15 minutes on the first Saturday of the summer holidays

What would you like to see in the follow up? If Phil's predictions were right?! Sorry about the sound, we'll look at that for next time :) Thanks for being here and for watching!

@@ComeChargeWithUs-e8x Yes, the accuracy of the predictions, anything with data graphs, tendencies, and any other strategy or hack to improve the charging experience.

@@ComeChargeWithUs-e8x On the predictions would be perfect. I like videos about habits, strategies and hacks that improve the use of electric cars. Any thing to make life easier… Even better if there is data and statistics involved 🙂❤️

Always on your own experience… for example, things that you discovered yourself, experiments / testing you did, or testing ideas from others

Cold weather is more forgiving, you can increase the charging margin accordingly

Really useful and good to know - thank you!

Agreed. I had the sound turned up to max but still difficult to hear and then nearly deafened when adverts came on!

Sorry about this - we will investigate and correct for next time : thank you for bearing with.....have a great Christmas!

Hi yeah I completely agree, live information is useful but really what you want in any decisioning system is the best option for at the point in time that you make the decision. So if you're planning a route this is several hours or even days before you stop, or in your use case maybe 30 mins or an hour before you stop. For this you need a predictive model, and for this you need months or years worth of historic data. And this is the problem, the CPO's provide API's that share their realtime data, but the T&Cs of this data state that it can't be stored. So the only entities who could do what you suggest are the CPOs themselves, and in reality there is little value in them diverting people from their location to a competitors! Maybe someone like Gridserve could do this though as they have so many locations, but I'm not sure any of the others would...

@ I can see Google Gemini helping with all of this. Google maps already stores information about how busy times are in some locations. Won’t be long before the charging network has the same and you just ask Google AI for help.

@@Paulruk Yeah that's true Google could use the 'busyness' info that it already has and the info it collects on charging experiences, but I doubt it would be able to store and train models on the CPO's occupancy data. If all you need is a recommendation of which location is going to be busier though then this combined with the traffic info might be enough, and it could be validated on the realtime data potentially.

@@ComeChargeWithUs-e8x actually I just checked ionity beaconsfield and google said it was less busy than usual, but it said 5/6 chargers in use. I checked on zap map and charge finder and both said they were fully occupied. so google maps data isn't so great.

@@ComeChargeWithUs-e8x actually checked one today , it said less busy than usual but all but one of 6 was charging. It also showed on two other apps as fully occupied. So not sure if I trust google maps.

Thanks for the comments! We are doing our fourth trip to the south of France in January so will be interesting to see how we get on in the cold. What you might find on long journeys is that the battery heats up for the first charge, it then retains its heat to the subsequent charge. So actually on a multi-stop trip the overhead of charging the battery isn't quite as bad as you might imagine... I have certainly achieved max speeds in the UK despite the cold, as long as the battery is at the right temp.

@@ComeChargeWithUs-e8x Unfortunately I don't have battery preconditioning, a mistake I won't make again!! We've made this journey 3 times in the past during the winter so I know at times it will be a struggle. We'll be leaving home at -2C, it will get up to 7C in southern France but when we get into Spain it will drop to 0C and it could reach -5C. At those constant low temperatures, outside busy periods the charging units and cables get really cold and take a while to warm up!! 200 kms south of Madrid we'll hit 15C and everything will return to normal..

Thanks for the kind comments! We wanted to suggest an approach that anyone can do but combine it with something more geeky so hopefully there was something in it for everyone!

Thank you for the lovely feedback and thank you for being here 😊 my facial expressions showed it went over my head too and the domestic happened after the recording ended.....(joke).😂 I agree with you about the negative comments - I had it yesterday at work.....trying to promote the benefits (not just climate related) of going EV (to someone who has solar panels and a battery!!!) But I could not cut through the negative opinions people have gained from the mainstream media. All we can do is keep sharing our positive experiences of making the switch and it will take time.....it's great you're finding your way after the switch - it's a learning curve that we are still on. Happy to help/keep sharing experiences 😊

I do this sort of thing for a living so it's not so difficult if you know how.. :). I've not seen this myself but I suspect that what Google maps shows in car is the same data as what I retrieved, ie live status of the chargers. This is useful to know but not necessarily what you need - ie if I am planning to stop at midday tomorrow then I need to know how many chargers will be available THEN, not NOW! The live data is still very useful though as it allows you to skip a stop (if you have a Plan B of course) and it also allows you to see how busy a location is at a similar time to when you are planning your journey - so if you plan to stop on a Sunday lunch time next week, take a look at the live data THIS Sunday before you go as it will give you a good indication.

Hi Phil please see attached screen shots for Ionity Leeds. Looks much the same as Tesla info however yours is likely a lot more accurate. Martin

@@martinmacnish2945 Sorry Martin I can't see the attached screenshots?

Yep struggled to include them also sent via Instagram

Martin, I can't see them on Instagram either?!

Thanks! I am not sure, I believe it will redirect you based on real time data if there are no chargers available, but if you are planning the route before setting off then it won't have a predictive model of how busy the charger is likely to be. The reason for this is that ABRP (or its servers) would have to have a data store of historic data to build these models, and this is unlikely to be something that CPOs would allow it (or anyone) to do.

Yeah exactly! It's also useful to know where the backup is if you have issues with the chargers or you just miss your turning. Also you may experience other problems, eg you get delayed in traffic and so want to stop earlier. This is of course something one of your passengers can do en route, you don't HAVE to pre-plan. On a very long journey (eg when we come back from the South of France) there is plenty of time for route planning as you're driving along...

Thanks Ali, glad you found it interesting! (I hadn't seen any of the content before recording, and I secretly found it interesting too.....) Thank you also for feedback about Cleevely EV and your experience with them; we just hope they'll come up North to Yorkshire.

​@@ComeChargeWithUs-e8x They go up to Scotland ❤

Really pleased you enjoyed the spreadsheets and data!! Phil really enjoys pulling it all together and I'm a secret geek and find it quite interesting - I just don't have the patience to make it into a coherent story!

Very!! I miss having a normal key!

Ooh I did not know this! Thank you :)

Yes even in the one year we've had our EV, we have seen the network evolve and improve and it can only continue to get better!! Do you think since 2020 it's been an exponential improvement? It seems like we are quite similar in that we do regular routes and have preferred chargers along those routes. It's good to have a mix of at home, rapid and destination charging....we are quite partial to a Fastned but they aren't quite as widespread in the UK yet.

Thank you Gavin and hello to you down under!! We would love to do a Tesla road trip across Oz....the longer we've had the car, the more we appreciate it for sure. Check out some of our cross France road trip videos; and there will be more of those to come in 2025! Thanks again for the sub :)

Very much agree with you Ken about about the Tesla network, it is a very big advantage as a Tesla driver and like you have noticed, they are usually all in order and working! We'll be very keen to hear how you get on during your 4 month ski trip; I bet it will be easier than you think (and also very jealous!! Sounds like you're going to have a wonderful time) :)

No, it's the dream to have solar/battery/heat pump!!

@@ComeChargeWithUs-e8x Definitely the ultimate for anyone who loves a spreadsheet!

😂

Oh wow, very jealous Ali!! We loved the Twizy! Do you use it a lot in the UK?! How do you find the iPace? What about a Buzz....

@ComeChargeWithUs-e8x It is a farm vehicle, so mostly used close to the farm and on it. We did take it over the mountains to visit Steve & Jake @ EV Wales 😀. IPace is a wonderful car. We keep thinking about what we would replace it with, as don't usually keep cars this long - but nothing has persuaded us yet. If we get a van, we may go for a smaller car - going to see the Hyundai Inster soon, and hubby is tempted by a Mini. Yes, would love a Buzz, but don't think our budget will stretch to that

That’s so cool! Very difficult to part with a car if you’re happy with it and you’re not sure what to change it to….the Inster looks very interesting - there’s so many great EV’s coming on to the market, it’s amazing!

Yes, we concluded the same re price/spec of the BMW; kind of wish we'd tried the VW's. How did you find the MG4?

Glad you enjoyed! 4th EV is amazing, I bet you have seen so much change since your first one!! You're in for a treat on your drive to the Alps, we really hope it's a great trip - keep us posted!

Driving/charging Evs in France is significantly better than the 3 or 4 times I've taken our EV back to the UK. Where queueing for a charger seems to be the norm rather than a very rare exception. Remember France anywhere in January can be seriously cold ( never mind the Alps) so plan for more charging stops and longer charging stops as nothing works as well if it is really cold and hasn't been used for awhile. Don't forget it is compulsory there for winter tyres or snowchains

Thanks John! We did think it's going to take a little longer than usual so now you've confirmed we will definitely build that into the plan. I really hope one day the charging experience in England can be as nice as France....

@@ComeChargeWithUs-e8x Charging at only 50% of your expected rate is not uncommon especially if the actual charging unit hasn't been used for awhile and your battery is cold.

They do take a bit of getting used to don't they! We tried to look at a Cupra Born but when we walked into the dealership they ignored us so we made a quick retreat 🤣 really pleased you have no regrets; now you have your home charger (what a shame it took so long to get fitted!) it will enhance your experience even more :) We are definitely planning on more vids, we have 4 lined up ready to go including 2 more about our first year of ownership and a couple of UK charging ones.....

@ComeChargeWithUs-e8x will look forward to the other videos, I had read lots about the Cupra Born,so I'd virtually decided that's the one I wanted even before I went to the dealership , the dealer experience was faultless,best we have had, the Born is a terrific car, described as the " electric Golf Gti". We have had quite large SUV's for years so a smaller car for next years French holiday could be interesting ( our son is 6ft 2in at 14 ) like you we have been to France annually for quite a few years now, I hope having an EV does not add to the stress ,a stroppy " Kevin the teenager" is normally more than enough .

As long as you have Electroverse and have a plan with back ups (happy to help btw) you’ll only have Kevin moments to contend with 😉 we’ve found charging in France kind of adds to the holiday, it’s just a nice experience 🙂

Our first video was a destination charger - ua-cam.com/video/oEw7ygzz5WA/v-deo.htmlsi=zmp3pmhcw7wlkIB5. We have found these quite useful but as with destination chargers in the UK I wouldn't rely on them. If there is one somewhere you're going anyway it can be worth trying a charge to save you a separate trip, we just use the Electroverse app to find them. it worked out quite well for us when we stayed somewhere quite out of the way (Saou - 30km east of Montelimar) as we parked up for a few hours while we went for a walk and explored and came back to about 40kWh added (or 65% on our car).

Other times we've successfully used destination charging is when we've stayed overnight at hotels both in the UK and France. These have tended to be 22/7kW chargers and have let us fill up while we've been sleeping all ready to set off the next day.

Thanks for sharing your experience. As it says in the video the difference does come down to the route and your driving preferences - with a petrol/diesel it's possible to drive for 3 hours, stop for 5 minutes and do a driver swap/comfort break, and carry on for another 3 hours. Plus as you say in an EV you're dependent on the location and availability of chargers which is better on some routes than others. Tesla chargers in particular can involve detours vs a quick stop and go at an Aire, this can add quite a bit to overall time - this is why we try to record the time from entering the slip road to charge started in our videos.

@ to many, these may seem trivialities and nuances but the reality of the same journey taking two or three hours longer because of leaving the autoroutes, arriving at the charger,charging,arriving back on the route again adds that much over stopping because you fancy a break or refuelling. Might be worth mentioning the forthcoming palarva over chargers having mandatory bank card rfid readers instead of the ongoing nonsense of memberships, subscription categories, rfids for every netwrok you’ll need, apps etc. vs Tesla not being required to have any of that and the possibility of Tesla refusing access to non Teslas and vice versa!

Be interested to know how you found the two different cars in terms of driving experience. I’ve definitely found EV to be a more calming driving (apart from range anxiety) than my old ICE cars I’ve had in the past.

@@Paulruk Two different prospects. Teslas are designed for American roads. Mostly Straight with corners at junctions. Peugeots are designed for European roads which bend and curve a lot. So the model 3 feels like a skateboard by comparison to the Rifter. The Tesla eats up motorways and feels heavy on bendy local roads. The Rifter doesn’t hang about and drives like a modern turbo diesel….and has massive load space. The differences between a Model 3 (low seats mean climbing in and holding onto bodywork while rolling out of the seat) and a manual box Rifter (step in and out like an SUV), ride quality, seat height, quality of driving… is vast. The rifter is much softer to drive due to more compliant suspension, smaller tyres with higher side profile, better suspension, load carrying, is easily quieter inside than the model 3, has better all around visibility…. We have kept the model 3 because it has depreciated so much and costs so little to run, otherwise (mainly because Tesla owners are treated like stupid beta testers for an incomplete product, but also because Musk is a dangerous lunatic who has never had an original thought in his life but who can crash brand value like a bull in a china shop) we would have sold it long ago. I use both cars interchangeably. The peugeot feels more like an SUV to sit in as well as the higher all around view point. On longer journeys which require use of Autoroutes (we live in France) it has a 6th gear and apart from some inclines, rarely comes out of 6th. In terms of refuelling, the tesla is 99.9% charged at home but out on the road is a nightmare to recharge on local routes; nothing to do with the car and everything to do with crap infrastructure.

Thanks! Yeah we're not very good at following instructions, we find it annoying that all the chargers have different interfaces, a nice thing about using the Electroverse app is you just plug in and then it's the same steps whichever CPO you're using. We do use Tesla (see our other vids) but there are good reasons not to sometimes eg locations that require detours, poor amenities and no weather protection.

Plus sole Tesla charging is boring 😂(Sarah)

You mean the CritAir? We did wonder if it was right side when looking at the car, or right side when looking out from the car!! So it needs to be on the drivers side is what you're saying? Thank you!

@@ComeChargeWithUs-e8x , on the continent it’s on the right side . No thanks!

Yeah that sounds about right, it also depends on the efficiency of the EV of course. The weighted average price is what counts over the long term, we only added 15kWh (and we meant to add less) because it was just a quick top up to get us home. We usually stop at Tesla Grantham but it was busy and we didn't want to have to wait. We summarised what it all cost, how long it took etc in the next episode, our weighted average price paid in France was 40p/kWh.

@@ComeChargeWithUs-e8x I wasn’t having a go at you but price gouging or whatever you choose to call it, is a thing. Mr Llewellyn brushes it off. I live in rural SW France, own a Model 3 LR and 99% of my charging is at home and during off-peak (EV tariff) times. I also own a 50+ mpg Peugeot diesel and can achieve about the same cost-efficiency as the Tesla, and it goes over twice as far on a tank! Local charging networks in villages and towns are a guessing game over which network it will be and if I have their RFID or app (Could be any one of seven within 90minutes of home), if they accept Chargemap etc / what time it is and whether or not the charger is working/is blocked by someone who doesn’t know what chargers and EVs are/is blocked because it’s the nearest space to the shop/even exists! On longer trips we mainly use Superchargers but once we’re off the Autoroutes, it’s very much a case of ‘you’re on your own’. We haven’t noticed any UK reg non Teslas down here (Marciac), because they’re victims of Ionity price gouging on Autoroutes and range/charger anxiety off them and so don’t make it this far. I met someone from England a couple of years ago who had a Volvo EX30(I think) and who was in tears because she had to use local 3/7/11kW chargers via an app and it had taken her three days to make it down from Calais, instead of the usual one day in her other car. She had to spend hours at the 7kw charger in the village every few days. Very long way to go before the greed is removed from supplying electricity from a box in a car park.

It is really mind blowing!! So pleased you've enjoyed the series, we're happy you're here :)