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You just need an OBD dongle. It works fine, picking up the SoC from my 'classic' Ioniq. I don't pay for the Android Auto head unit route planning though - I think Google maps is better at that - but you can route to chargers when you get near to needing to charge (that happens quite often in a 28kWh Ioniq). But, in reality, I know I can go '100 miles' and charge for 15 minutes, so I just plan ahead for the next stop about 100 miles away when I'm at the charger!
@@FFVoyager I've had varying degrees of success with the dongle but I will try it again in a video soon. ABRP update the app quite often so they may have fixed the issues I had last time I tried. As I said in the video, I couldn't use a dongle in this car unfortunately as Onto use the OBD port for the dash cam.
@@MrEV yes, it had been flaky for me in the past and it's better now, certainly worth planning a trip with it and you can make different stops on the way if you need. But, in reality, I still tend just plan the 'next' stop while charging for somewhere '100 miles' away! 😄
Andrew, I had the pleasure of charging at the Gridserve forecourt at Braintree, my Fiat 500e (Lucia) went from 53% to 85% in 15 minutes, including me mucking up the plugging in bit :D We then tried charging at Fleet services which is abominably slow, but as we'd been stuck in stop start traffic for ages I had to do it. I ended up on 9% with 8 miles to get to Fleet. Lucia decided she would drop speed to 50mph. So there I was, limping along, when a white van came up behind me flashing it's lights. I was in the slow lane! So I put my hazards on so he'd pull round me...he was not impressed :D I definitely need to get better at planning to use chargers that are off the motorway. The reskinned Ecotricity/Gridserve chargers at motorway services just don't have the power or number of chargers to meet demand...don't talk to me about the single charger at Lakeside Ikea!! I'm so happy you've got yourself another 500e
We found ABRP lived up to it’s name…great at planing but not as great in real time. Certainly nothing like how amazing the Tesla is Reliable chargers plus Tesla mapping mean we don’t really plan anymore in the way we did with another EV. Great video. Fiat is gorgeous!
Thanks Andrew for the fascinating and highly charged episode (mainly by anxiety) which I really enjoyed. But it left me feeling demoralised about the current infrastructure and the increasing number of suffering EV owners, while also feeling incredibly thankful we've got a Tesla and a home charger. You're correct it isn't the cars that are responsible, especially when an increasing number have 300 mile + range.
Watched all this! Enjoyed the marathon video! Commenting for the algorithm! Yes like another poster says, this is great advert for the Tesla. Not just their network but also GUI usability and charging speed. Keep up the good work !
I am doing a 160 mile round trip in my ID.3 tomorrow. I will set the overnight charge level to 100% which at present gives me around 230 miles range. We will go there, do what we need to do and drive home without needing to charge at any point and knowing that we have a healthy contingency in the battery. And then I will set the charger to juice up nice and cheaply overnight back to 80% because we don't need to do any medium to long trips for a few days.
I thought I would try Apple Maps today but mine didn’t have the same option for EV charge points, but it did come up with EV charge points when I asked Siri
I think Apple Maps EV route planning is only available with select car manufacturers right now. I know it works on the Mach-E but it isn't available on my ID.3 yet.
Trying to temporarily detach myself from the EV mindset, I can only imagine that someone contemplating getting an EV for the first time, and watching this, would think the whole situation is utterly absurd. But then again, it is. Over the last 7 years, I’ve often said to people who’ve been interested in my car (as you did in the video) “it’s not the cars, it’s the charging”. Nothing has changed.
The next one may be a little more calming for you! Just to say that, for me at least, any issues like those I had at IONITY Cobham are rare. I find most chargers work fine, take contactless debit/credit card payments, and I never usually have to queue - it does depend where you live though. Some places are better than others!
Great video, its a shame these videos aren't shown on national TV to highlight the joke of the UK charging infrastructure. It seems the words " it will get better soon " have been around for ages when the reality is its improving at a snails pace. You can understand the resistance of becoming a new EV owner.
What a useful roundup of Apps - most of which I haven't tried yet! It really is great how the relaxed EV driving style always comes across so well in your videos 🙂
This is my experience in the Fiat 500e but it’s far better (perfect in fact) in Teslas. Other brands like Volvos, Polestar, and the Renault Megane also all do accurate route planning.
Interesting video. What we need now is easier access to charge level, and real time status (and better predictions). For now it’s still quite tedious. I went leaf->i3->i3s-> Tesla. In software the tesla is just so much better. I can basically get in the car, set nav & go with minimal planning. All cars need to be like that
Really interesting video, Andrew. Thanks so much. I couldn't agree more. A much-needed reality check for anyone considering changing from ICE to EV. The infrastructure's an overcrowded disaster in dire need of CPR. Maybe next one of these videos might consider the calculations required if you can't charge at home and need to constantly plan for the next day, and the day after (and so on . . .). Better still, maybe you could include a commentary from Mrs EV. That'd take your viewing figures through the roof! 😂🤣😂
I love your videos. Im getting my new kia niro ev on the 15th of april. Im planning to make a trip to italy from Amsterdam. Im anxious, excited and, due to your videos, quite informed. So Thank you very much and keep the tips and tricks coming! O.. and I love that you always apologize when you ramble on about the efficiency, but im a nerd who's genuinely interested in those numbers hahaha.
Nice video as always. I am going to do a road trip from Sweden to southern Italy this summer so will be interesting to see how the charging will work out. A tip for you, if you buy an "OBD splitter" online you can have two OBD dongles connected to the car a the same time meaning you can get real-time data to ABRP while still having Onto connected 😃
Very informative as usual. For those of us retired and mostly charging at home EVs are great. However if I was younger and doing a lot of longer journeys it would be Tesla or a petrol car.
What I learnt from this trip is to hold off buying EV until the infrastructure gets better, especially here in New Zealand. UK looks alot better compared to us here.
I have had my Kia E Niro for past 2 years and number of EV's over that time have definately increased. Most of my charge is done at home, with over 200 miles of range whatever the weather, means majority are out and back before needing to charge. On the last longer trip, I had a similar issue with slow chargers near Warwick and M40. Took twice as long to charge so other EV's were waiting. Having said that, we all got talking and what a great rapport we all had. A very kind business guy offered coffees for us all, but I was ready to go! I stayed slightly longer than needed as mistook the range added as the total range! We do need many more EV chargers and they must be reliable as well. I must checkout my Apple Maps next trip and see what it gives me!
I love that first lane! I so miss those from my three months in the UK in the summer of 1990 :) Greetings from Canada. My Chevy Bolt euv is built, and awaiting shipping.
Still sticking to doing our charger planning in ABRP in our e-Niro, although I only use it during holidays. Having a passenger is ideal to do the fiddling in the app if we, as always, will arrive with more SoC than expected. Of course it was even worse when using the standard ABRP that does a bad educated guess of your arrival SoC. Love the ABRP premium connection with the OBD dongle for that alone. For navigation I switch to another app, either Waze or Google Maps, because ABRP still doesn't click for me. By the way, the OBD port placement is horrendous in the e-Niro...
Great vlog Andrew. Good to see QE on the video, albeit it looks very different to 32 years ago when I left! Really appreciate these videos of yours, and great to pick up some other apps to use that I had never heard of. Couple of points. I am lucky enough to have a Taycan. The sat nav has an integrated charging planner, so it calculates your route with chargers automatically included. Very useful. The other benefit of this is that it pre conditions the battery ahead of your charge, so the battery is at optimum temperature for the quickest possible charge. A very useful feature, and I am sure something that other car manufacturers could easily build into their own sat nav? Maybe some do already? Without stating the obvious, I think infrastructure just has to be improved, but there are significant challenges around planning permission and just getting power to the site. Hence it is taking longer than hoped to get the infrastructure up to scratch - although I am sure we will get there. If I didn't have a home charger (through which I will likely do around 90% of my charging) I'm not sure EV's are yet advisable. We remain at the stage where they work for some people, but not others. Hopefully over the next few years infrastructure improves and EV's will be the right vehicle for everyone. Thanks and keep up the good work!
Thanks Robbie. I couldn't agree more. An EV would be impractical for me where I live if I didn't have a driveway. And yes, some other cars have preconditioning as well. The Taycan is an absolute beast! I've never seen charging speeds like it when one charged next to me in France.
7 years has taught us best to work it out yourself. We use Zap Map but that is often wrong with status of chargers. All the others such as BP, Genie etc tell accurate status mainly. Our Kona good range so mostly charge at home. But we do do long trips such as Hebrides and my assistant good at working it out. First car was 100miles Zoe, so we started slow and learned the drill. Worst prob is faulty chargers and now becoming busier as the poor people are buying EV's !!
ABRP for me is good to plan the journey which I then add to google maps. I had similar issues with the interface limitations and found the direction very bad vs google maps or Apple Maps. As for Pump they are missing many chargers so not very good currently. I have raised this with them but appear to be focused on Germany/Europe.
I am thankful for your earlier video that demonstrated using the tablet as, when parked, my Fiat 500e arbitarily changes the speedometer and trip meter from miles to kilometers as well as the charge rate setting. Other delights are numerous false error messages and randomly setting the horn to beep when locking the vehicle. All very easy to resolve but irritating, although I understand a recent over-air download will resolve it.
I’ve been a subscriber of yours for a few years Andrew. My family and I have driven to the UK three times in an EV from Norway. When will you be coming to Norway? Would make some awesome videos! Keep up the good work!
Thank you. Excellent and honest bit of real life testing as usual, still a bit of a pioneering spirit required in EV land at present, got to hope that it gets a bit easier before too long? Am still persisting with ABRP plus OBD dongle, in search of the live en route functionality etc which looks great in theory (and in some of your previous videos). Time will tell whether that is capable of being realised in practice - slightly mixed experience so far, particularly failure to reliably read and update the battery SOC.
Really enjoyed the video. I tend to stick with in car navigation or google maps but always work out in advance my stops. I have traveled a few time now Ringwood to Folkestone- always avoid cobham- seems to be a congestion point and it eases off the further away from London you get. Lovely car.
IONITY will be upgrading Cobham, so that'll be great - but they're also building a hub in Fleet (a slight detour off the motorway though, sadly). They will both help a lot.
Cobham services is always full, and usally with cars charging to 100%. I do wish chargers stopped at 80% with over stay charges for those that camp on the charger.
It's tricky because some cars with smaller batteries might need to charge up higher than 80%. Also, cars like IONIQ 5 actually charge very quickly all the way up to almost 90%. Something needs to be done though. Overstay charges or time limits would certainly help - but perhaps only if it's busy. Again, it's something Tesla do right.
Very interesting Andrew, and at the same time a little worrying, at least for some who haven't ventured far from home yet. My experience in eniro has been somewhat better, most of my trips can be done on full charge of 250miles(winter) and easily in summer (310miles). Charge rate for eniro is always mentioned as being low at 77kw but my last charge at Gridserve Reading East (14 new fast chargers, only 3 being used) I was getting 48kw in 2°C temps which added 32kw in 40 mins, just time for a Costa and cake and over 120 miles added, enough to get me home with 40 miles to spare. What you see is what you get and in many of the UA-cam videos charge rates for cars with much higher quoted rates are no better than my 48kw.
When you said you're meeting Mark I didn't realise it would be THAT Mark! Nice to see him. I last bumped into him a few years ago now. Nice chap. Such an interesting video. I have all the apps you featured apart from WattsApp - that's a new one to me. I'm really unsure what to use when I eventually venture out for my first rapid charge. It was so interesting to see the functionality in Apple Maps! Later today I'm going to see if I can see that in my car too.
We should all get together for a coffee one of these days! Fingers crossed the Ariya has the same functionality in Apple Maps. Weird it's in a Fiat 500e and not much else!
I have Plugshare on my phone and PC, apparently you can't really "plan" on the phone. If it's done on a PC it shares it to all your linked devices. There is a mobile workaround, though. Click on the charger that you want to go to, and a little "Navigate" icon should appear under the destination map. You should get the option to open in any of your Map programs.
I really enjoyed this trip and seeing how you handled the charging options. Actually I enjoy all your videos. I've given up on the various Route Planners, including ABRP, for all the limitations that you identified, plus their ability to encourage too many frequent stops and some rather strange routes. As a matter of principle, I avoid any chargers on motorways, Ionity included, as I'm much too impatient to queue. Armed with my Octopus card (most of the larger providers) and a credit card for Instavolt, I prefer to plot the likely stops on Google maps beforehand and then insert the stops into TomTom Go on Android Auto (I don't have Apple maps!). TomTom is less quirky than other route planners, though not infallible and has the advantage of the best live traffic warnings and routeings imo. Admittedly, with my MG5 LR, I would only have had to stop once with its 195+ miles range at this time of the year and a fairly accurate GOM.
The cool thing I found recently on Google maps is it will show you which route requires the least energy. I've seen routes which save nearly 50% of your electrons for being 10 minutes longer. A really interesting feature.
The Mustang Mach E does route planning and pretty good as well in fact i have been super impressed with it. Also preconditioning for DC fast charging as been excellent. I can also use Apple CarPlay and it knows my battery percentage as it links with Ford Pass App just like Porsche do, no OBD needed. It also knows how many chargers are free and you can set the level of chargers you need as in fast or rapid.Easy to select a different charger while on the move or you can do all this from the app and send to the car.
this is why I want for the MG4 LR and went from Birmingham to Newcastle and even in bad conditions only had to do two charges, One 35 mins and got 50kwh then a very short one on way back for 15kwh, Gridserve and Applegreen. however it was quiet and the seems to be the key
Another ABPR fail as navigator: Yesterday, it took me to a bridge that's been closed for weeks for construction work. Waze and Google Maps both show this and take it into account. The Ioniq 5's navigator doesn't seem to show road closures but does route me around the closed bridge.
I wouldn’t have an Ev if it wasn’t for the Tesla Superchargers/ all the features of Tesla maps to pre plan charging stops. EV’s will only be adopted if it is easy and fun. When it’s a chore why would you add the hassle to your life. Great video, like someone said, a great advert for Tesla!
Andrew, I finally got my Ioniq 5 Limited (Top Trim in US) at the end of July 2022. Sorry you have moved on to other vehicles. I have appreciated you post and continue to follow your channel. I am getting ready to buy a OBD 2 with low voltage Bluetooth. I am wondering if you know if there is an OBD that works well with the Ioniq and displays both the battery status and charging, and also works with ABRP. I'm not sure if there is a conflict or what software or Apps should be used. Finally I also bought the 12 Volt monitor through you link and hope that can continue to be used with all the other tech you have shared. Thanks and keep up the posts. I watch from San Diego and enjoy you and your Family. KR
I would have expected the services at Cobham to have rapid and ultra fast chargers, this seems to be a problem now the infrastructure, and the negative people that want EV to fail really pick up on this, Another great video Andrew keep them coming mate.
I’ve been there a few times with my IONIQ 5 and got full speed (220kW) so there must have been issues with them then. Usually it’s power modules dying inside the charger I believe.
I'm surprised that the ABRP is still after so many years, really lousy to use other than for offline route planning. It is really not worth paying for. If they don't shape up they are going to find themselves outrun by big guys such as Apple and Google very soon. Well you just showed that Apple is clearly on the way to do that.
I'm doing a 200 mile round trip (100 each way) in a SR+ model 3. The car says one direction wil use 48% of the battery. Maybe more if it's cold or if I'm doing 70 not 60. So it's not a 275 mile range car. But maybe a 210 realistic. But, fortunately the Maidstone Tesla supercharger is on the way back - about halfway. I'll hit it with about 20% battery maybe. The battery should be warm as I've done 50 miles of the return route. The car will further heat the battery for supercharging speediness (or not let it cool) and will likely hit 120kW. Likely I'll only need 5 minutes to add 20%/10kWh (at 120kW speed) to give me a buffer to get home safely (with more than 10% - though Tesla's can apparently go about 15-20 miles beyond zero percent - though this is highly dependent on driving style and temp). It'll make a video that's a lot more boring! But that's driving a Tesla for you - it's too simple and boring to make interesting content!! Oh, and before I leave I'll set the car to overnight charge to a 95% limit on 00:30-04:30 Octopus at 7.5p. Then, once I wake up, using the house battery I'll top up to 98-99% at a 7-10amp "trickle charge" before leaving the house at 9am. This minimises the time the car spends near 100% (better for a Lithium Cobalt Manganese battery - if your Tesla / EV has an LFP (Lithium Iron Phosphate battery then you don't need to worry about this really as it can tolerate going to 100% often) and is the cheapest way to charge the car. I'll also warm up the car while we're still in the house using the pre-heat mode while it's plugged in - this will defrost the car off the house battery. The trickle charging at the end has the added benefit of warming the battery before you leave.
My navigator of choice is (Google's) Waze but this only offers limited support for EVs/charging. I've taken an ABRP subscription, to make it available in Android Auto, but won't be renewing at the end of the year. My reasons: - Questionable route selections, as you point out in the video. - No/limited realtime traffic info. Last weekend it took me down a road that has been closed for a while due roadworks, for instance. - No proper support for route preferences. I always travel via Hoek of Holland - Harwich when I visit the UK from Holland but ABRP insists that I take the Eurotunnel. I can split the planning into a Dutch leg and UK leg, but it's not ideal.
Your car is chatting with Apple maps in CarPlay in some way. Using Apple maps in my EV6, adding a stop doesn’t bring up the charging stops on the route.
Rownhams services on the M27 which you went past have got a whole array of new rapid chargers currently being commissioned (eastbound) , still only one westbound but presumably westbound will be completed next.
Hi, just loaded and paid £40 for ABRP and used it on a long run in my new MGZS. I have to say, it was dreadful. It kept changing route for a different one, losing where I was on the map, resetting for a new route, spinning the pointer in circles. It was just awful. I’ve always used Waze but the GPS in the car seems by far the best I have used, combined with Radarbot I even get my speed cameras I have requested a refund for ABRP. If you want to use it just try for one month then you will only lose a fiver Love your vidoes Andrew
Sorry to hear you had such a bad experience with it. I used it almost exclusively during my Italy trip in the e-208 (filmed months after this video) and found it pretty good most of the time. Still nowhere near as good as Apple/Google Maps or Waze, but combined with Tronity or an OBD dongle to get the live battery %, I thought it worked well. That said, I have had all the issues you describe in the past so perhaps I was just lucky.
7:42 I’d suggest a better implementation for manually adjusting the remaining SoC would be a tap, then a ‘+’ and ‘-‘ to increase and reduce the percentage. Only really useful if your car displays SoC as a percentage - mine does not 🤯.
Good video that show that a route planner can easily be done, but when it comes to life route indications any app is useless if it has no access to the cars data. We don’t need no dongle or any add-ons but a clear API from the OEM that let the apps read (not write) some data from the car. And it isn’t that difficult, Renault and VW have apps so can use your phone as car computer on the Twingo or the UP!
Always fun to watch (and learn) - Out of interest, when did you make this video? If it was a while ago, have things improved since then, or was this experience 'as good as it gets'?
This was filmed 3-4th December 2022. (Yes, it took me ages to edit!) I have a feeling apps may have improved slightly; the charging network along that stretch of motorway will be much the same though. That said, to be honest, I rarely have issues with charging - it was particularly busy that weekend with pre-Christmas traffic.
Really usefull - appreciate you have free charging with Shell/onto but any idea of your total cost / mileage would be appreciated - with charging rates so high now, and range limited/time to charge a real bug-bear with charging speeds, this is really important. I drive a ZOE with the 52kwh battery, with motorway driving range limited to 180 miles in the cold weather 1hr 20min recharge to full capacity at 50kw max charge speed. These are the things that define an EV more than the quality of the car, now that you have to queue to charge at most motorway and even town centre locations.
For the first time in a while, I had to do a fair amount of motorway travel last Summer, and used several Gridserve chargers. The ones that did work were often on restricted charge, which then led to queues, and a lot of very stressed families. I had high hopes after seeing the many videos of their hubs, but was not impressed with the old EH sites they had installed at. I hope they get this all sorted, existing chargers to be reliable, but also get more chargers added to those sites, as two (at many) is just not enough these days.
We have two EVs. One requires third party app help to navigate and charge. The other doesn’t. You can guess which brand the one that doesn’t is (it starts with a T…).
I’ve done a 1100 mile trip to Germany and a 1600 mile Scotland trip with my Tesla Model 3 and I didn’t have to worry about finding working chargers (Superchargers). And then I did a 110 mile trip with my 2015 Nissan Leaf and I had to prepare a list of possible chargers and it took 3 attempts to get to a working charger. With the Leaf I always have charge anxiety partly because of its range but also because of the state of the public chargers. With the Tesla? Nope, no anxiety at all.
I’ve looked at ABRP and found it immensely frustrating. Simply can’t rely on it. Hopefully Waze, Apple Maps and Google maps will get the finger out and offer more real-time charger info and suitable chargers on route
Just checked Apple Maps (CarPlay) in my i5 and unfortunately it doesn't give charging stations as stop options. I'm going to have to stick with the onboard nav and find charing the night before each trip.
Great video! Something you could make a video about is the new Apple Maps that will come in iOS 17 (you can use the public beta for this, let me know if you need help), the Car communicates via CarPlay its battery percentage and then in Apple Maps you can make a EV route considering that too
Thanks Andrew for this interesting video. To my knowledge, no one but Tesla has committed to adding more stations as needed to keep ahead of demand. They monitor DC rapid charger use, and other locations where their cars charge, to anticipate need for more stalls and new locations. It looked like you had off-street parking at your parents home. That seemed like a great opportunity to slow charge overnight. I am curious why you didn’t use a regular three pin plug, or arrange for an L2 charge point install. If the latter was feasible, then maybe your parents would buy an EV for their next car.
Thank you for sharing this video I was happy you were driving a fiat 500 EV the car I am in love with. I have learned that the infrastructure is not good enough it has to improve and I think that there should be more chargers in urban areas where people park there cars overnight and big hubs outside of cities and towns for charging points like park and ride hubs and hospitals car parks
I have given up on EV route planning and other than avoiding charging deserts I just start looking for a charger when I reach 50 miles range. Now I note (with a sarcastic smile) that you appear to be regretting the negative words you uttered when getting rid of your 500e.. Aa a loyal owner I can say that it is the most EV fun in an impractical car you can have. Oh and the inbuilt nav also has a find a charge facility. Not the best as it does not give any useful info about charge rates but it is there for the times I forget my phone.
Total newbie here to EVs. Stupid question, but is there a cueing system at the charging places, or is it just trust based that people know who's next? We are just buying our first EV, a 40 kWh Nissan Leaf 2... picking it up next week. Your channel has helped us decide to get our first EV, so thanks...
Great to hear! Some charging networks have started having people around to manage queueing on busy days (bank holidays at motorway services in particular) but that's not very common yet. Queuing is generally just based on trust, and some places are better than others in that regard depending on the position of parking spaces. Some people will zip in to a recently available charger, not realising people are waiting. Normally they'll move when they're told there was a queue. I've generally been very lucky. I've not had any angry altercations, but you do have to be quite assertive and it helps to hang around outside your car so it's clear you're waiting. In my experience, queueing is still a rarity thankfully!
@@MrEV Many thanks for the thorough answer, very helpful. I guess chargers are mostly fitted into existing car parking areas, not purpose-designed areas for charging (except perhaps Tesla) - so I was guessing this would be the case. It would be very easy to implement app-based queueing, so perhaps that will become a thing as demand for charging increases these next few years...
Good video and review and thanks for posting. Just about to sell my eGolf after nearly five years of ownership. Brilliant little car. The best thing about it is it nearly always does 4.1 mile per KWH even in the winter, with care and upwards of 6 KWH in the summer months. It has a neat VU meter on the digital dashboard and you can watch what the affects of speed, temperature and following Volvo XC90’s and the like do for the overall range. I’ve learnt a ton about how an EV works by tuning my driving style. Sadly it has to go and a Tesla model Y is due next month. I tested a lot of other competitor EVs and they all have their pros and cons. The Tesla is so far ahead of everybody in the software department. And has now become a very nice car to drive. And has had a price drop. If you’re good with maths and algorithms then your feet will do the talking. Your video highlights exactly the frustration curve people are facing.
Great thanks for testing all the different Apps. I think Apple Maps with IOS 16 does bring up EV charging station, maybe should test it again with other EVs.
Very informative Andrew. I'm going to do a road trip in Italy (from Hungary). Which app did you use when travelling there? So far I setlled with Enel X. Any other recommendation?
You're the first to ask that! I thought it'd be a common question! Three reasons: 1. My Mum is freaking out about electricity costs at the moment. Even if I paid her back, she'd still be worrying about it. She even had a calendar showing the amount they've been spending every day! 2. I don't trust their electrics! I'm not sure I can adjust the amps in the Fiat 500e granny charger and I forgot to bring a suitable extension lead. The last time I tried charging there, it blew their extension lead! 3. I had free charging with Onto so thought it'd be a good test of the local chargers.
You'd think that if you were running an app on the car's infotainment system that people would agree an interface for mapping software to get to the cars info directly. Shouldnt really need a dongle unless you are plugging into a separate PC/Laptop/iPad/Phone. I remember the days when I was small and you rolled up to a petrol station and you had these mechanical pumps with big dials on the front. They took a fair time to get your tank filled....probably not as long as charging an EV. My point is, things change over time and we are still in the early years of EVs. As for the dirt, there are two types in the world. Theres the dark dirt which is attracted to light surfaces and theres the light dirt which is attracted to dark surfaces.
I noticed you found one driver trying to squeeze the last 1% into his car on a rapid charger. I'm finding this surprisingly commonplace. I wonder how many people just don't know how slowly the charger is going at that point. Also, with the price of rapid charging getting so high did you add up the cost of your journey? Do you have any tips or recommendations for keeping it as low as possible?
Can concur. Had to sit and wait on an motorway gridserve (which I avoid if I can) whilst a couple got an E-vivaro to 100%. Perhaps they were then going non-stop to Pembrokeshire….?
Hi Andrew - I’ve enjoyed your videos and used your Octopus referral link! Hopefully that works for both of us. I have had solar, a storage battery (GivEnergy) and a zappi installed last year and have finally got to a stage where moving to Octopus is worth while (I was on a great fixed rate sorted before everything went crazy!). Model Y being collected in a few weeks after cancelling my Kia EV6 order - waited 13 months and still couldn’t get a estimated delivery date! Looking forward to the next decision - What Octopus tariff is going to work best for my set-up.
Thank you very much for using the referral link. I hope the switch goes well for you. That's madness you had to wait so long for the EV6. Good move getting the Model Y!
The charging infrastructure and the software to find these chargers for real time availability and use ability are so far behind it's so bad when using android Auto or apple car play , things have got to get a lot better and a lot quicker, if they engineers who make the electric cars were in charge of the charging infrastructure you would hope things would be so much simpler 😀
I had the Fiat 500e as a rental about a year ago and I remember I couldn’t get great charging speeds, probably 40-50kW; maybe we need to navigate towards the charger using the car’s builtin satnav to get battery preheating?
It’s great that there’s all those apps that help you find the large amount of chargers but, if you were using the in car sat nav I think you’ll find that the car would pre heat the battery to enable the car’s battery to charge at its capacity better.
ABRP has generally been good, although the app itself is pretty rubbish at navigation and updating on route. I have been pleasantly surprised at the route planning built in to my ID.3. It suggests good charging stops and it will automatically adjust in real time if conditions change. And it will notify you when you have enough charge to get to your destination so you are not on the charger any longer than necessary.
Knowing that you like a trip to Italy how about a vlog about charging networks and accessibility for travelling through Europe? I ask because I am contemplating two European adventures in the next couple of years involving northern Spain, France, The Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Denmark. Planning is of course key but personal knowledge is essential for EV charging.
The section on Apple Maps intrigues me - how does your Apple Maps differ from mine? I have an eNiro (MY21, updated), iPhone (SE 2020, updated) but I don't get the option to 'Add stop > Charging Stations'. I'm aware Ford offer this in the Mustang Mach-e - but it's enabled via the Ford app exposing the car's charge level to the Apple Maps API (or something like that). Maybe it's a more up-to-date version of CarPlay in the Mini (but I thought it was all in the iPhone, not the car)... Any insights welcome!
I assumed it was because CarPlay in the 500e is wireless, but I have wireless CarPlay in the Megane I'm testing now and charging stops don't appear there... so, I've no idea! Surprising that Fiat and Ford would be able to manage it but other manufacturers can't (or won't). As you say, there must be an API they're using. I've been trying to find the CarPlay communication protocol documentation but have had no luck.
I have watched this twice now and my conclusion as a recent EV convert is that the route planning apps are in the main, rubbish. I don't mind spending a few minutes planning my longer trips as this is something that I have always done. Knowing where to stop for loos, food, a leg stretch, etc. has always been important to me. My huge bugbear with the EV world is that everything is a mess. Pockets full of RFID cards, tens of apps on your phone, loads and loads of "memberships" required and an almost total lack of contactless payment at pump. This is farcical and frankly unacceptable. If a fossil juice driver had to have an app and / or a card for each different fuel supplier they would simply go elsewhere. EV drivers have not been given this choice. The government needs to step in with sensible regulation here. Somebody may need juice in an emergency and they simply cannot get it due to not having the app or the card or simply (as has already happened to me in five weeks of ownership) the charger was unable to connect . Time to get their act together. Too many vested interests forgetting the customer experience.
ABRP has been almost impossible to use - for me. Bizarre unlabled icons and awkward choices. No instructions are available - it says that on the ABRP forum!!
That first route only saves 0.6 of a mile going to Brenley corner against joining the A2 at Morrisons, it is as if it is set on walking route instead of driving. I checked my apple maps, and it didn't have charge points, but had fuel stations, so it seems it did recognise your car somehow.
Interesting to see the Apple Maps EV integration at least partially working on the Fiat, which cars support it has always been pretty vague as it's dependent on the car manufacturers to implement it. As far as I was aware it was only BMW and Ford that had done the work. As to having an off motorway backup plan I always try to have one of those up my sleeve. Was driving up the M6 around Christmas and stopped at Stafford services, and there was a queue for the Gridserve chargers and also the new BP Pulse chargers at the petrol station, so I hopped off the motorway to an Instavolt in Newcastle under Lyme.
@@MrEV you inspired me to go to my high school and the vice principal took me on a tour. LOL. We had a lot of fun chatting. Keep being real. This is what I enjoy about your videos.
I find it amazing that Hyundai/Kia are not integrating smart routing planning into their nav’s. VW (Audi, Skoda…) does it, BMW, Renault, Volvo, Polestar, Merc, Tesla (obviously) also… Amazed at Apple Maps: I’m using the last IOS but in my app I do not have the button to add a charging station along the route. I have to type in ‘DC Fast’ and then it looks for chargers along the route. Strange… Edit: noticed you’re not using the Hyundai but the Fiat. But yes, Stellantis cars also have no smart EV routing, but apparently they do have some integration with Apple Maps… My Kia Eniro doesn’t 😢
When IONITY has a communication problem with its backend it goes into free vending mode where it caps de max power to 30kW. Not good, but better than nothing imho.
If you fancy trying A Better Route Planner (you may have better luck than me), here's a referral link: abetterrouteplanner.com/premium/?referral=DHEJRJDI
Thanks. I’ll take up the 30 day free trial when I next need to plan a new route!
You just need an OBD dongle. It works fine, picking up the SoC from my 'classic' Ioniq. I don't pay for the Android Auto head unit route planning though - I think Google maps is better at that - but you can route to chargers when you get near to needing to charge (that happens quite often in a 28kWh Ioniq). But, in reality, I know I can go '100 miles' and charge for 15 minutes, so I just plan ahead for the next stop about 100 miles away when I'm at the charger!
@@FFVoyager I've had varying degrees of success with the dongle but I will try it again in a video soon. ABRP update the app quite often so they may have fixed the issues I had last time I tried.
As I said in the video, I couldn't use a dongle in this car unfortunately as Onto use the OBD port for the dash cam.
@@MrEV yes, it had been flaky for me in the past and it's better now, certainly worth planning a trip with it and you can make different stops on the way if you need. But, in reality, I still tend just plan the 'next' stop while charging for somewhere '100 miles' away! 😄
If you haven’t got an OBD dongle I find Tronity works just as well with ABRP
Andrew, I had the pleasure of charging at the Gridserve forecourt at Braintree, my Fiat 500e (Lucia) went from 53% to 85% in 15 minutes, including me mucking up the plugging in bit :D
We then tried charging at Fleet services which is abominably slow, but as we'd been stuck in stop start traffic for ages I had to do it. I ended up on 9% with 8 miles to get to Fleet. Lucia decided she would drop speed to 50mph. So there I was, limping along, when a white van came up behind me flashing it's lights. I was in the slow lane! So I put my hazards on so he'd pull round me...he was not impressed :D
I definitely need to get better at planning to use chargers that are off the motorway. The reskinned Ecotricity/Gridserve chargers at motorway services just don't have the power or number of chargers to meet demand...don't talk to me about the single charger at Lakeside Ikea!!
I'm so happy you've got yourself another 500e
We found ABRP lived up to it’s name…great at planing but not as great in real time. Certainly nothing like how amazing the Tesla is
Reliable chargers plus Tesla mapping mean we don’t really plan anymore in the way we did with another EV.
Great video. Fiat is gorgeous!
Yes, nothing comes close to Tesla yet.
Can Tesla "book" the chargers?
As an ABRP / ODB2 connected user I would love to see that configuration up against 'integrated' EV Google maps.
Thanks Andrew for the fascinating and highly charged episode (mainly by anxiety) which I really enjoyed. But it left me feeling demoralised about the current infrastructure and the increasing number of suffering EV owners, while also feeling incredibly thankful we've got a Tesla and a home charger. You're correct it isn't the cars that are responsible, especially when an increasing number have 300 mile + range.
Your charging experience is one of the main reasons I'm taking delivery of a Tesla Model Y next month.
Excellent choice! Only slightly biased 😊
The easiest car I have owned.
Watched all this! Enjoyed the marathon video! Commenting for the algorithm!
Yes like another poster says, this is great advert for the Tesla. Not just their network but also GUI usability and charging speed.
Keep up the good work !
Thank you very much!
I am doing a 160 mile round trip in my ID.3 tomorrow. I will set the overnight charge level to 100% which at present gives me around 230 miles range.
We will go there, do what we need to do and drive home without needing to charge at any point and knowing that we have a healthy contingency in the battery.
And then I will set the charger to juice up nice and cheaply overnight back to 80% because we don't need to do any medium to long trips for a few days.
Fascinated by your experiences. Blown away a bit by your Apple findings. Cannot wait to give that a try.👍🏻
I thought I would try Apple Maps today but mine didn’t have the same option for EV charge points, but it did come up with EV charge points when I asked Siri
I think Apple Maps EV route planning is only available with select car manufacturers right now. I know it works on the Mach-E but it isn't available on my ID.3 yet.
Trying to temporarily detach myself from the EV mindset, I can only imagine that someone contemplating getting an EV for the first time, and watching this, would think the whole situation is utterly absurd. But then again, it is. Over the last 7 years, I’ve often said to people who’ve been interested in my car (as you did in the video) “it’s not the cars, it’s the charging”. Nothing has changed.
About to get my first EV. Videos like this are so helpful for getting my head ready. Thank you!
The next one may be a little more calming for you! Just to say that, for me at least, any issues like those I had at IONITY Cobham are rare.
I find most chargers work fine, take contactless debit/credit card payments, and I never usually have to queue - it does depend where you live though. Some places are better than others!
Great video, its a shame these videos aren't shown on national TV to highlight the joke of the UK charging infrastructure. It seems the words " it will get better soon " have been around for ages when the reality is its improving at a snails pace. You can understand the resistance of becoming a new EV owner.
What a useful roundup of Apps - most of which I haven't tried yet!
It really is great how the relaxed EV driving style always comes across so well in your videos 🙂
Thanks so much!
Thank you. Gave up at 8mins.. Decided to forget electric for now.
This is my experience in the Fiat 500e but it’s far better (perfect in fact) in Teslas. Other brands like Volvos, Polestar, and the Renault Megane also all do accurate route planning.
Interesting video. What we need now is easier access to charge level, and real time status (and better predictions).
For now it’s still quite tedious. I went leaf->i3->i3s-> Tesla. In software the tesla is just so much better. I can basically get in the car, set nav & go with minimal planning. All cars need to be like that
I 100% agree.
Plus ABRP in the car on the big screen, with live vehicle status feed into ABRP.
Just works.
Really interesting video, Andrew. Thanks so much. I couldn't agree more. A much-needed reality check for anyone considering changing from ICE to EV. The infrastructure's an overcrowded disaster in dire need of CPR. Maybe next one of these videos might consider the calculations required if you can't charge at home and need to constantly plan for the next day, and the day after (and so on . . .). Better still, maybe you could include a commentary from Mrs EV. That'd take your viewing figures through the roof! 😂🤣😂
I love your videos. Im getting my new kia niro ev on the 15th of april. Im planning to make a trip to italy from Amsterdam. Im anxious, excited and, due to your videos, quite informed. So Thank you very much and keep the tips and tricks coming! O.. and I love that you always apologize when you ramble on about the efficiency, but im a nerd who's genuinely interested in those numbers hahaha.
Congratulations! I’m sure you’ll love the Niro. I won’t stop with the geeky numbers then! 😀
Nice video as always. I am going to do a road trip from Sweden to southern Italy this summer so will be interesting to see how the charging will work out. A tip for you, if you buy an "OBD splitter" online you can have two OBD dongles connected to the car a the same time meaning you can get real-time data to ABRP while still having Onto connected 😃
I had no idea such a thing existed!
Onto? Vad är det?
Excuse me Andrew lol. Swedish Kona EV owner here.
@@starvictory7079 Det är en form av bilpool som finns i England.
Very informative as usual. For those of us retired and mostly charging at home EVs are great. However if I was younger and doing a lot of longer journeys it would be Tesla or a petrol car.
What I learnt from this trip is to hold off buying EV until the infrastructure gets better, especially here in New Zealand. UK looks alot better compared to us here.
I have had my Kia E Niro for past 2 years and number of EV's over that time have definately increased. Most of my charge is done at home, with over 200 miles of range whatever the weather, means majority are out and back before needing to charge. On the last longer trip, I had a similar issue with slow chargers near Warwick and M40. Took twice as long to charge so other EV's were waiting. Having said that, we all got talking and what a great rapport we all had. A very kind business guy offered coffees for us all, but I was ready to go!
I stayed slightly longer than needed as mistook the range added as the total range!
We do need many more EV chargers and they must be reliable as well.
I must checkout my Apple Maps next trip and see what it gives me!
I love that first lane! I so miss those from my three months in the UK in the summer of 1990 :) Greetings from Canada.
My Chevy Bolt euv is built, and awaiting shipping.
Still sticking to doing our charger planning in ABRP in our e-Niro, although I only use it during holidays. Having a passenger is ideal to do the fiddling in the app if we, as always, will arrive with more SoC than expected. Of course it was even worse when using the standard ABRP that does a bad educated guess of your arrival SoC. Love the ABRP premium connection with the OBD dongle for that alone. For navigation I switch to another app, either Waze or Google Maps, because ABRP still doesn't click for me.
By the way, the OBD port placement is horrendous in the e-Niro...
Yes, that sounds like the same fun we had when driving to Italy in the e-Niro (and IONIQ 5).
Thanks for the video. Your experience is why I take my 14 year old diesel on long journeys instead of my EV!
Great vlog Andrew. Good to see QE on the video, albeit it looks very different to 32 years ago when I left! Really appreciate these videos of yours, and great to pick up some other apps to use that I had never heard of. Couple of points. I am lucky enough to have a Taycan. The sat nav has an integrated charging planner, so it calculates your route with chargers automatically included. Very useful. The other benefit of this is that it pre conditions the battery ahead of your charge, so the battery is at optimum temperature for the quickest possible charge. A very useful feature, and I am sure something that other car manufacturers could easily build into their own sat nav? Maybe some do already?
Without stating the obvious, I think infrastructure just has to be improved, but there are significant challenges around planning permission and just getting power to the site. Hence it is taking longer than hoped to get the infrastructure up to scratch - although I am sure we will get there. If I didn't have a home charger (through which I will likely do around 90% of my charging) I'm not sure EV's are yet advisable. We remain at the stage where they work for some people, but not others. Hopefully over the next few years infrastructure improves and EV's will be the right vehicle for everyone.
Thanks and keep up the good work!
Thanks Robbie. I couldn't agree more. An EV would be impractical for me where I live if I didn't have a driveway.
And yes, some other cars have preconditioning as well. The Taycan is an absolute beast! I've never seen charging speeds like it when one charged next to me in France.
7 years has taught us best to work it out yourself. We use Zap Map but that is often wrong with status of chargers. All the others such as BP, Genie etc tell accurate status mainly. Our Kona good range so mostly charge at home. But we do do long trips such as Hebrides and my assistant good at working it out. First car was 100miles Zoe, so we started slow and learned the drill. Worst prob is faulty chargers and now becoming busier as the poor people are buying EV's !!
ABRP for me is good to plan the journey which I then add to google maps. I had similar issues with the interface limitations and found the direction very bad vs google maps or Apple Maps.
As for Pump they are missing many chargers so not very good currently. I have raised this with them but appear to be focused on Germany/Europe.
Nice video Andrew😀very informative. This is your channel at its best👌Best regards Martin
Thanks so much, Martin!
I am thankful for your earlier video that demonstrated using the tablet as, when parked, my Fiat 500e arbitarily changes the speedometer and trip meter from miles to kilometers as well as the charge rate setting. Other delights are numerous false error messages and randomly setting the horn to beep when locking the vehicle. All very easy to resolve but irritating, although I understand a recent over-air download will resolve it.
The early 500e software was certainly pretty glitchy!
I’ve been a subscriber of yours for a few years Andrew. My family and I have driven to the UK three times in an EV from Norway. When will you be coming to Norway? Would make some awesome videos! Keep up the good work!
Thanks very much, Thomas! We'd love to visit Norway. One day soon I hope!
Thank you. Excellent and honest bit of real life testing as usual, still a bit of a pioneering spirit required in EV land at present, got to hope that it gets a bit easier before too long? Am still persisting with ABRP plus OBD dongle, in search of the live en route functionality etc which looks great in theory (and in some of your previous videos). Time will tell whether that is capable of being realised in practice - slightly mixed experience so far, particularly failure to reliably read and update the battery SOC.
Thanks, Michael. Definitely a bit of pioneering spirit! I rather like it. It'll be a bit boring when it's easy!
Really enjoyed the video. I tend to stick with in car navigation or google maps but always work out in advance my stops. I have traveled a few time now Ringwood to Folkestone- always avoid cobham- seems to be a congestion point and it eases off the further away from London you get. Lovely car.
IONITY will be upgrading Cobham, so that'll be great - but they're also building a hub in Fleet (a slight detour off the motorway though, sadly). They will both help a lot.
Cobham services is always full, and usally with cars charging to 100%. I do wish chargers stopped at 80% with over stay charges for those that camp on the charger.
It's tricky because some cars with smaller batteries might need to charge up higher than 80%. Also, cars like IONIQ 5 actually charge very quickly all the way up to almost 90%.
Something needs to be done though. Overstay charges or time limits would certainly help - but perhaps only if it's busy. Again, it's something Tesla do right.
Very interesting Andrew, and at the same time a little worrying, at least for some who haven't ventured far from home yet. My experience in eniro has been somewhat better, most of my trips can be done on full charge of 250miles(winter) and easily in summer (310miles). Charge rate for eniro is always mentioned as being low at 77kw but my last charge at Gridserve Reading East (14 new fast chargers, only 3 being used) I was getting 48kw in 2°C temps which added 32kw in 40 mins, just time for a Costa and cake and over 120 miles added, enough to get me home with 40 miles to spare. What you see is what you get and in many of the UA-cam videos charge rates for cars with much higher quoted rates are no better than my 48kw.
When you said you're meeting Mark I didn't realise it would be THAT Mark! Nice to see him. I last bumped into him a few years ago now. Nice chap. Such an interesting video. I have all the apps you featured apart from WattsApp - that's a new one to me. I'm really unsure what to use when I eventually venture out for my first rapid charge. It was so interesting to see the functionality in Apple Maps! Later today I'm going to see if I can see that in my car too.
We should all get together for a coffee one of these days! Fingers crossed the Ariya has the same functionality in Apple Maps. Weird it's in a Fiat 500e and not much else!
@@MrEV Well, I tried CarPlay in the Ariya and decided to make my first ever UA-cam short to talk about the results - just published! 😁
That was a very helpful to a prospective EV buyer .... if not a bit off putting. Thanks
I have Plugshare on my phone and PC, apparently you can't really "plan" on the phone. If it's done on a PC it shares it to all your linked devices. There is a mobile workaround, though. Click on the charger that you want to go to, and a little "Navigate" icon should appear under the destination map. You should get the option to open in any of your Map programs.
I really enjoyed this trip and seeing how you handled the charging options. Actually I enjoy all your videos. I've given up on the various Route Planners, including ABRP, for all the limitations that you identified, plus their ability to encourage too many frequent stops and some rather strange routes. As a matter of principle, I avoid any chargers on motorways, Ionity included, as I'm much too impatient to queue. Armed with my Octopus card (most of the larger providers) and a credit card for Instavolt, I prefer to plot the likely stops on Google maps beforehand and then insert the stops into TomTom Go on Android Auto (I don't have Apple maps!). TomTom is less quirky than other route planners, though not infallible and has the advantage of the best live traffic warnings and routeings imo. Admittedly, with my MG5 LR, I would only have had to stop once with its 195+ miles range at this time of the year and a fairly accurate GOM.
Hi Andrew, noticed that Google Maps on Android phone also has facility to show EV charging stations.
The cool thing I found recently on Google maps is it will show you which route requires the least energy. I've seen routes which save nearly 50% of your electrons for being 10 minutes longer. A really interesting feature.
I did try it in the car (I didn’t film it) but didn’t get the same functionality.
@@MrEV The Google Maps Energy routes are a relatively new item, last 3 weeks or so, IIRC.
The Mustang Mach E does route planning and pretty good as well in fact i have been super impressed with it. Also preconditioning for DC fast charging as been excellent. I can also use Apple CarPlay and it knows my battery percentage as it links with Ford Pass App just like Porsche do, no OBD needed. It also knows how many chargers are free and you can set the level of chargers you need as in fast or rapid.Easy to select a different charger while on the move or you can do all this from the app and send to the car.
I use abrp in my zs ev and use a Bluetooth OBD dongle to feed car data into the app. It works brilliantly.
What I’m still missing is shelter at the charging stations. Some big ones have, but….
this is why I want for the MG4 LR and went from Birmingham to Newcastle and even in bad conditions only had to do two charges, One 35 mins and got 50kwh then a very short one on way back for 15kwh, Gridserve and Applegreen. however it was quiet and the seems to be the key
Another ABPR fail as navigator:
Yesterday, it took me to a bridge that's been closed for weeks for construction work.
Waze and Google Maps both show this and take it into account.
The Ioniq 5's navigator doesn't seem to show road closures but does route me around the closed bridge.
I wouldn’t have an Ev if it wasn’t for the Tesla Superchargers/ all the features of Tesla maps to pre plan charging stops. EV’s will only be adopted if it is easy and fun. When it’s a chore why would you add the hassle to your life. Great video, like someone said, a great advert for Tesla!
Excellent upload and very informative. Thank you !!!
Andrew, I finally got my Ioniq 5 Limited (Top Trim in US) at the end of July 2022. Sorry you have moved on to other vehicles. I have appreciated you post and continue to follow your channel.
I am getting ready to buy a OBD 2 with low voltage Bluetooth. I am wondering if you know if there is an OBD that works well with the Ioniq and displays both the battery status and charging, and also works with ABRP. I'm not sure if there is a conflict or what software or Apps should be used.
Finally I also bought the 12 Volt monitor through you link and hope that can continue to be used with all the other tech you have shared.
Thanks and keep up the posts. I watch from San Diego and enjoy you and your Family.
KR
I would have expected the services at Cobham to have rapid and ultra fast chargers, this seems to be a problem now the infrastructure, and the negative people that want EV to fail really pick up on this, Another great video Andrew keep them coming mate.
I’ve been there a few times with my IONIQ 5 and got full speed (220kW) so there must have been issues with them then. Usually it’s power modules dying inside the charger I believe.
I'm surprised that the ABRP is still after so many years, really lousy to use other than for offline route planning. It is really not worth paying for. If they don't shape up they are going to find themselves outrun by big guys such as Apple and Google very soon. Well you just showed that Apple is clearly on the way to do that.
I'm doing a 200 mile round trip (100 each way) in a SR+ model 3. The car says one direction wil use 48% of the battery. Maybe more if it's cold or if I'm doing 70 not 60. So it's not a 275 mile range car. But maybe a 210 realistic. But, fortunately the Maidstone Tesla supercharger is on the way back - about halfway. I'll hit it with about 20% battery maybe. The battery should be warm as I've done 50 miles of the return route. The car will further heat the battery for supercharging speediness (or not let it cool) and will likely hit 120kW. Likely I'll only need 5 minutes to add 20%/10kWh (at 120kW speed) to give me a buffer to get home safely (with more than 10% - though Tesla's can apparently go about 15-20 miles beyond zero percent - though this is highly dependent on driving style and temp). It'll make a video that's a lot more boring! But that's driving a Tesla for you - it's too simple and boring to make interesting content!!
Oh, and before I leave I'll set the car to overnight charge to a 95% limit on 00:30-04:30 Octopus at 7.5p. Then, once I wake up, using the house battery I'll top up to 98-99% at a 7-10amp "trickle charge" before leaving the house at 9am. This minimises the time the car spends near 100% (better for a Lithium Cobalt Manganese battery - if your Tesla / EV has an LFP (Lithium Iron Phosphate battery then you don't need to worry about this really as it can tolerate going to 100% often) and is the cheapest way to charge the car. I'll also warm up the car while we're still in the house using the pre-heat mode while it's plugged in - this will defrost the car off the house battery. The trickle charging at the end has the added benefit of warming the battery before you leave.
My navigator of choice is (Google's) Waze but this only offers limited support for EVs/charging.
I've taken an ABRP subscription, to make it available in Android Auto, but won't be renewing at the end of the year.
My reasons:
- Questionable route selections, as you point out in the video.
- No/limited realtime traffic info. Last weekend it took me down a road that has been closed for a while due roadworks, for instance.
- No proper support for route preferences. I always travel via Hoek of Holland - Harwich when I visit the UK from Holland but ABRP insists that I take the Eurotunnel. I can split the planning into a Dutch leg and UK leg, but it's not ideal.
Your car is chatting with Apple maps in CarPlay in some way. Using Apple maps in my EV6, adding a stop doesn’t bring up the charging stops on the route.
I have a car with Onto and I use a OBD port splitter/doubler that I found on amazon
Rownhams services on the M27 which you went past have got a whole array of new rapid chargers currently being commissioned (eastbound) , still only one westbound but presumably westbound will be completed next.
Yes, I'm very happy about that. And IONITY Cobham now has loads of chargers too.
Hi, just loaded and paid £40 for ABRP and used it on a long run in my new MGZS. I have to say, it was dreadful. It kept changing route for a different one, losing where I was on the map, resetting for a new route, spinning the pointer in circles. It was just awful. I’ve always used Waze but the GPS in the car seems by far the best I have used, combined with Radarbot I even get my speed cameras
I have requested a refund for ABRP. If you want to use it just try for one month then you will only lose a fiver
Love your vidoes Andrew
Sorry to hear you had such a bad experience with it. I used it almost exclusively during my Italy trip in the e-208 (filmed months after this video) and found it pretty good most of the time. Still nowhere near as good as Apple/Google Maps or Waze, but combined with Tronity or an OBD dongle to get the live battery %, I thought it worked well.
That said, I have had all the issues you describe in the past so perhaps I was just lucky.
7:42 I’d suggest a better implementation for manually adjusting the remaining SoC would be a tap, then a ‘+’ and ‘-‘ to increase and reduce the percentage. Only really useful if your car displays SoC as a percentage - mine does not 🤯.
is yours one that displays miles remaining?
Yes, that'd work well. Cars that don't show the battery percentage drive me crazy!
I was at QE school as well. It looked a bit different about 40 years ago. It was one of the better ones in the area at that time.
You may know my brother and sister? Chris and Angela?
watching your video reminds me just how easy the Tesla makes long drives
Good video that show that a route planner can easily be done, but when it comes to life route indications any app is useless if it has no access to the cars data.
We don’t need no dongle or any add-ons but a clear API from the OEM that let the apps read (not write) some data from the car. And it isn’t that difficult, Renault and VW have apps so can use your phone as car computer on the Twingo or the UP!
The number of times I’ve got someone charging on Ionity using Bonnet when Ionity fails to start a charge was enough to get £80 of charging for free.
I use ABRP all the time, also real time. But in combination with a OBD dongle. Works pretty well for me.
Great to hear. I'll do another video soon using an OBD dongle with ABRP (and Pump).
Always fun to watch (and learn) - Out of interest, when did you make this video? If it was a while ago, have things improved since then, or was this experience 'as good as it gets'?
This was filmed 3-4th December 2022. (Yes, it took me ages to edit!)
I have a feeling apps may have improved slightly; the charging network along that stretch of motorway will be much the same though. That said, to be honest, I rarely have issues with charging - it was particularly busy that weekend with pre-Christmas traffic.
Really usefull - appreciate you have free charging with Shell/onto but any idea of your total cost / mileage would be appreciated - with charging rates so high now, and range limited/time to charge a real bug-bear with charging speeds, this is really important.
I drive a ZOE with the 52kwh battery, with motorway driving range limited to 180 miles in the cold weather 1hr 20min recharge to full capacity at 50kw max charge speed. These are the things that define an EV more than the quality of the car, now that you have to queue to charge at most motorway and even town centre locations.
For the first time in a while, I had to do a fair amount of motorway travel last Summer, and used several Gridserve chargers. The ones that did work were often on restricted charge, which then led to queues, and a lot of very stressed families. I had high hopes after seeing the many videos of their hubs, but was not impressed with the old EH sites they had installed at. I hope they get this all sorted, existing chargers to be reliable, but also get more chargers added to those sites, as two (at many) is just not enough these days.
Enjoyed and subscribed
Thank you!
We have two EVs. One requires third party app help to navigate and charge. The other doesn’t. You can guess which brand the one that doesn’t is (it starts with a T…).
thankyou for posting. very interesting trip :)
I’ve done a 1100 mile trip to Germany and a 1600 mile Scotland trip with my Tesla Model 3 and I didn’t have to worry about finding working chargers (Superchargers). And then I did a 110 mile trip with my 2015 Nissan Leaf and I had to prepare a list of possible chargers and it took 3 attempts to get to a working charger. With the Leaf I always have charge anxiety partly because of its range but also because of the state of the public chargers. With the Tesla? Nope, no anxiety at all.
Yes, it’s so easy in a Tesla. It’s how it should be for everyone.
I’ve looked at ABRP and found it immensely frustrating. Simply can’t rely on it. Hopefully Waze, Apple Maps and Google maps will get the finger out and offer more real-time charger info and suitable chargers on route
Just checked Apple Maps (CarPlay) in my i5 and unfortunately it doesn't give charging stations as stop options. I'm going to have to stick with the onboard nav and find charing the night before each trip.
Great video! Something you could make a video about is the new Apple Maps that will come in iOS 17 (you can use the public beta for this, let me know if you need help), the Car communicates via CarPlay its battery percentage and then in Apple Maps you can make a EV route considering that too
I need to download the beta and give that a go. I’m guessing it only works with a select few EVs?
@@MrEV I just bought a Peugeot e208 (2021) and these new features doesn't work on it, not even with iOS 17 unfortunately :/
Thanks Andrew for this interesting video. To my knowledge, no one but Tesla has committed to adding more stations as needed to keep ahead of demand. They monitor DC rapid charger use, and other locations where their cars charge, to anticipate need for more stalls and new locations.
It looked like you had off-street parking at your parents home. That seemed like a great opportunity to slow charge overnight. I am curious why you didn’t use a regular three pin plug, or arrange for an L2 charge point install. If the latter was feasible, then maybe your parents would buy an EV for their next car.
Thanks for the video. Yeah I’ve given up on ABRP in real time. I will give Apple maps a go though 👍🏻
Thank you for sharing this video I was happy you were driving a fiat 500 EV the car I am in love with. I have learned that the infrastructure is not good enough it has to improve and I think that there should be more chargers in urban areas where people park there cars overnight and big hubs outside of cities and towns for charging points like park and ride hubs and hospitals car parks
I love the 500e! And yes, we need far more chargers like those you describe.
I have given up on EV route planning and other than avoiding charging deserts I just start looking for a charger when I reach 50 miles range. Now I note (with a sarcastic smile) that you appear to be regretting the negative words you uttered when getting rid of your 500e.. Aa a loyal owner I can say that it is the most EV fun in an impractical car you can have. Oh and the inbuilt nav also has a find a charge facility. Not the best as it does not give any useful info about charge rates but it is there for the times I forget my phone.
Total newbie here to EVs. Stupid question, but is there a cueing system at the charging places, or is it just trust based that people know who's next? We are just buying our first EV, a 40 kWh Nissan Leaf 2... picking it up next week. Your channel has helped us decide to get our first EV, so thanks...
Great to hear! Some charging networks have started having people around to manage queueing on busy days (bank holidays at motorway services in particular) but that's not very common yet.
Queuing is generally just based on trust, and some places are better than others in that regard depending on the position of parking spaces. Some people will zip in to a recently available charger, not realising people are waiting. Normally they'll move when they're told there was a queue.
I've generally been very lucky. I've not had any angry altercations, but you do have to be quite assertive and it helps to hang around outside your car so it's clear you're waiting.
In my experience, queueing is still a rarity thankfully!
@@MrEV Many thanks for the thorough answer, very helpful. I guess chargers are mostly fitted into existing car parking areas, not purpose-designed areas for charging (except perhaps Tesla) - so I was guessing this would be the case. It would be very easy to implement app-based queueing, so perhaps that will become a thing as demand for charging increases these next few years...
Good video and review and thanks for posting. Just about to sell my eGolf after nearly five years of ownership. Brilliant little car. The best thing about it is it nearly always does 4.1 mile per KWH even in the winter, with care and upwards of 6 KWH in the summer months. It has a neat VU meter on the digital dashboard and you can watch what the affects of speed, temperature and following Volvo XC90’s and the like do for the overall range. I’ve learnt a ton about how an EV works by tuning my driving style. Sadly it has to go and a Tesla model Y is due next month. I tested a lot of other competitor EVs and they all have their pros and cons. The Tesla is so far ahead of everybody in the software department. And has now become a very nice car to drive. And has had a price drop. If you’re good with maths and algorithms then your feet will do the talking. Your video highlights exactly the frustration curve people are facing.
Great thanks for testing all the different Apps. I think Apple Maps with IOS 16 does bring up EV charging station, maybe should test it again with other EVs.
Very informative Andrew. I'm going to do a road trip in Italy (from Hungary). Which app did you use when travelling there? So far I setlled with Enel X. Any other recommendation?
Great video 👍
Just wondering why you didn’t charge at your parents over night on a “granny charge”?
You're the first to ask that! I thought it'd be a common question!
Three reasons:
1. My Mum is freaking out about electricity costs at the moment. Even if I paid her back, she'd still be worrying about it. She even had a calendar showing the amount they've been spending every day!
2. I don't trust their electrics! I'm not sure I can adjust the amps in the Fiat 500e granny charger and I forgot to bring a suitable extension lead. The last time I tried charging there, it blew their extension lead!
3. I had free charging with Onto so thought it'd be a good test of the local chargers.
You'd think that if you were running an app on the car's infotainment system that people would agree an interface for mapping software to get to the cars info directly. Shouldnt really need a dongle unless you are plugging into a separate PC/Laptop/iPad/Phone.
I remember the days when I was small and you rolled up to a petrol station and you had these mechanical pumps with big dials on the front. They took a fair time to get your tank filled....probably not as long as charging an EV. My point is, things change over time and we are still in the early years of EVs.
As for the dirt, there are two types in the world. Theres the dark dirt which is attracted to light surfaces and theres the light dirt which is attracted to dark surfaces.
I noticed you found one driver trying to squeeze the last 1% into his car on a rapid charger. I'm finding this surprisingly commonplace. I wonder how many people just don't know how slowly the charger is going at that point. Also, with the price of rapid charging getting so high did you add up the cost of your journey? Do you have any tips or recommendations for keeping it as low as possible?
Can concur. Had to sit and wait on an motorway gridserve (which I avoid if I can) whilst a couple got an E-vivaro to 100%. Perhaps they were then going non-stop to Pembrokeshire….?
Good video and worth watching.
Hi Andrew - I’ve enjoyed your videos and used your Octopus referral link! Hopefully that works for both of us. I have had solar, a storage battery (GivEnergy) and a zappi installed last year and have finally got to a stage where moving to Octopus is worth while (I was on a great fixed rate sorted before everything went crazy!). Model Y being collected in a few weeks after cancelling my Kia EV6 order - waited 13 months and still couldn’t get a estimated delivery date! Looking forward to the next decision - What Octopus tariff is going to work best for my set-up.
Thank you very much for using the referral link. I hope the switch goes well for you. That's madness you had to wait so long for the EV6. Good move getting the Model Y!
I can confirm that EV station options are NOT displayed on my 2020 Nissan Leaf using Apple Maps. I’m based in the US. Maybe it’s a UK thing?
The charging infrastructure and the software to find these chargers for real time availability and use ability are so far behind it's so bad when using android Auto or apple car play , things have got to get a lot better and a lot quicker, if they engineers who make the electric cars were in charge of the charging infrastructure you would hope things would be so much simpler 😀
I had the Fiat 500e as a rental about a year ago and I remember I couldn’t get great charging speeds, probably 40-50kW; maybe we need to navigate towards the charger using the car’s builtin satnav to get battery preheating?
I don’t think the Fiats have battery preheating unfortunately.
It’s great that there’s all those apps that help you find the large amount of chargers but, if you were using the in car sat nav I think you’ll find that the car would pre heat the battery to enable the car’s battery to charge at its capacity better.
Some cars have battery preheating, but not the Fiat 500e unfortunately.
@@MrEV should have stayed with the E-Niro or Hyundai ionic.
in ABRP, grey actually means "I don't know the status" of the charge-port ..
I didn’t know! Thank you!
ABRP has generally been good, although the app itself is pretty rubbish at navigation and updating on route. I have been pleasantly surprised at the route planning built in to my ID.3. It suggests good charging stops and it will automatically adjust in real time if conditions change. And it will notify you when you have enough charge to get to your destination so you are not on the charger any longer than necessary.
Knowing that you like a trip to Italy how about a vlog about charging networks and accessibility for travelling through Europe?
I ask because I am contemplating two European adventures in the next couple of years involving northern Spain, France, The Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Denmark.
Planning is of course key but personal knowledge is essential for EV charging.
I should be using the charging networks in Europe quite extensively this summer so I'll try to film something useful!
Excellent. Thanks.
The section on Apple Maps intrigues me - how does your Apple Maps differ from mine? I have an eNiro (MY21, updated), iPhone (SE 2020, updated) but I don't get the option to 'Add stop > Charging Stations'. I'm aware Ford offer this in the Mustang Mach-e - but it's enabled via the Ford app exposing the car's charge level to the Apple Maps API (or something like that). Maybe it's a more up-to-date version of CarPlay in the Mini (but I thought it was all in the iPhone, not the car)... Any insights welcome!
I assumed it was because CarPlay in the 500e is wireless, but I have wireless CarPlay in the Megane I'm testing now and charging stops don't appear there... so, I've no idea!
Surprising that Fiat and Ford would be able to manage it but other manufacturers can't (or won't). As you say, there must be an API they're using. I've been trying to find the CarPlay communication protocol documentation but have had no luck.
@@MrEV Thanks for the feedback. This mystery needs solving....
I have watched this twice now and my conclusion as a recent EV convert is that the route planning apps are in the main, rubbish. I don't mind spending a few minutes planning my longer trips as this is something that I have always done. Knowing where to stop for loos, food, a leg stretch, etc. has always been important to me.
My huge bugbear with the EV world is that everything is a mess. Pockets full of RFID cards, tens of apps on your phone, loads and loads of "memberships" required and an almost total lack of contactless payment at pump. This is farcical and frankly unacceptable.
If a fossil juice driver had to have an app and / or a card for each different fuel supplier they would simply go elsewhere. EV drivers have not been given this choice.
The government needs to step in with sensible regulation here. Somebody may need juice in an emergency and they simply cannot get it due to not having the app or the card or simply (as has already happened to me in five weeks of ownership) the charger was unable to connect .
Time to get their act together. Too many vested interests forgetting the customer experience.
ABRP has been almost impossible to use - for me. Bizarre unlabled icons and awkward choices. No instructions are available - it says that on the ABRP forum!!
That first route only saves 0.6 of a mile going to Brenley corner against joining the A2 at Morrisons, it is as if it is set on walking route instead of driving.
I checked my apple maps, and it didn't have charge points, but had fuel stations, so it seems it did recognise your car somehow.
It’s odd Apple don’t have a setting to change from fuel to chargers. How long would it take them?!
@@MrEV I could still use the search on the top of the list to find chargers, it just wasn't automatically there.
Interesting to see the Apple Maps EV integration at least partially working on the Fiat, which cars support it has always been pretty vague as it's dependent on the car manufacturers to implement it. As far as I was aware it was only BMW and Ford that had done the work.
As to having an off motorway backup plan I always try to have one of those up my sleeve. Was driving up the M6 around Christmas and stopped at Stafford services, and there was a queue for the Gridserve chargers and also the new BP Pulse chargers at the petrol station, so I hopped off the motorway to an Instavolt in Newcastle under Lyme.
Great to have a plan B. I just wish we had more chargers like that down here. It gets pretty awful south of London!
Hi Andrew do you know if there is a way of getting shell recharge subscription as an individual similar to the ionity one?
Wait, I was going to say 6min 3.7kW times 10 is 60 mins or 37kW per hr no? At your QE stop
Ironic my terrible maths skills are on display right outside my old school!
@@MrEV you inspired me to go to my high school and the vice principal took me on a tour. LOL. We had a lot of fun chatting.
Keep being real. This is what I enjoy about your videos.
I find it amazing that Hyundai/Kia are not integrating smart routing planning into their nav’s. VW (Audi, Skoda…) does it, BMW, Renault, Volvo, Polestar, Merc, Tesla (obviously) also… Amazed at Apple Maps: I’m using the last IOS but in my app I do not have the button to add a charging station along the route. I have to type in ‘DC Fast’ and then it looks for chargers along the route. Strange… Edit: noticed you’re not using the Hyundai but the Fiat. But yes, Stellantis cars also have no smart EV routing, but apparently they do have some integration with Apple Maps… My Kia Eniro doesn’t 😢
When IONITY has a communication problem with its backend it goes into free vending mode where it caps de max power to 30kW. Not good, but better than nothing imho.