Introduction
Electric vehicle owners are often bemused, even angered, by uninformed negative media articles about EVs. In recent times the UK media in particular seems to have been infested with articles about the perceived difficulties of owning an EV in England. Many of the claims have seemed totally bizarre to me, so I decided to test things out for myself.
I was brought up in the UK and have lived in Australia for about 50 years. My siblings and their families all live in England and this year seemed like the perfect time to hire an EV to go on our family visits across the country.
Naturally, as part of our EV planning, I did a fair bit of preparatory work: I watched hours of YouTube videos of people EV tripping around the UK; I scrutinised PlugShare for the areas/routes we planned to go to; and I spoke to AEVA members who have recently been on EV trips in the UK.
We planned our trip to be a relatively simple two‑week circuit of about 2,000 km: London (Heathrow Airport); Wales; Liverpool; Norwich; Heathrow.
Hiring the EV
Hiring our EV was not exactly straightforward. The EV offerings by the major car rental companies are relatively limited. Hertz probably has the best choice of EVs but I could not get its site to accept my Visa card, so we ended up hiring from Sixt. We ideally wanted to hire a Tesla, mainly for ease of charging. I would have preferred a Model 3 (we have owned a Model 3 for about 3 years) but we could only get a Model Y LR which was fine.
By chance Sixt worked out great as its pick‑up and return area is inside Terminal Two at Heathrow (which avoids having to use the satellite rental bases on the airport perimeter road where most of the rental companies are located). The hiring cost for two weeks (including Tesla supercharging) was about $2,000AUD.
Our visit to the Sixt pick‑up desk provided us with our first EV surprise. We were dealt with by a lovely friendly, helpful and efficient man whose parting message was something like:
“Be aware you won’t be able to use this car [Tesla Model Y] outside of the main cities because there are no public EV chargers on the roads in the UK”!!
Based on my earlier research I, of course, knew this was total nonsense. We had a short friendly chat about this (not the time or place for a long discussion) and we were on our way.
On the road. No charging infrastructure? Que?!
We charged our EV 10 times over the two weeks.
1) Reading Westbound Services: 12 Tesla Superchargers; 12 Gridserve chargers
As we set off, our first planned charging stop was Cardiff where we were going to spend our first night. The Tesla computer showed we would get there with about 20% battery left. We wanted to get a quick getaway from Heathrow so we just jumped in the car aiming to stop just to the west of London to get a coffee and organise our luggage. Next surprise. We pulled into the Services at Reading and immediately found ourselves looking at about 8 unoccupied Tesla Superchargers. We weren’t planning on charging but naturally we plugged in and got an opportunistic charge while we did what we needed to do.
2) Cardiff Tesla Centre: 8 Tesla Superchargers
We charged here over breakfast the next day (6 unoccupied chargers when we arrived) – this meant there was no waiting and we were fully charged for our next overnight destination which was Aberystwyth.
3) Aberystwyth: 6 Tesla Superchargers
Like in Cardiff we ‘filled up’ the EV over breakfast at the local Tesla supercharger in Aberystwyth (4 unoccupied chargers when we arrived). We then drove to Betws‑y‑Coed and met up with one of my sisters and brothers‑in‑law and spent two lovely days being tourists in Snowdonia (overnighting in Bangor).
4) Birkenhead: 12 InstaVolt chargers
We next charged in Birkenhead in the vicinity of where my sister lives. This was our first non‑Supercharger experience on the trip. We were able to charge simply by using my Visa card – it was a bit fiddly, but it worked fine. This charging location was quite busy, but we didn’t need to wait to get on a charger.
When we left Birkenhead a couple of days later, heading for Norwich, our Tesla computer suggested we charge at Rugby, but it told us we would arrive with less than 10% left in the battery. I was happy to accept this suggestion as by now I was very confident that we would easily find another charger if we ran into trouble en route.
5) Knutsford Services M6: 3 Gridserve chargers [Plugshare advises that 15 Tesla Superchargers and 12 Gridserve chargers are ‘coming soon’]
We set off from Birkenhead aiming to find breakfast within about an hour. We pulled off the M6 motorway into the Services at Knutsford and lo and behold we immediately found ourselves next to an unoccupied charger. Another unintended opportunistic car charge! This charger was our first GridServe one. One tap of the Visa card and we were in business. The charge over breakfast well and truly assuaged any fears of arriving at Rugby with an empty battery.
6) Rugby Services M6: 28 Tesla Superchargers; 18 Gridserve chargers
This location was extremely impressive! A plethora of both Superchargers and non‑Tesla rapid chargers! There were plenty of vacant Superchargers when we arrived; the non‑Tesla chargers appeared to be busy. Our charging session here, as we ate lunch, easily got us to Norwich – the city where I was mainly brought up and where I still have strong family connections. We were going to spend six nights here before heading off to Heathrow for our journey home.
7) & 9) Norwich Tesla Centre: 12 Tesla Superchargers
We were staying at a place in Norwich not far from the Tesla showrooms where the Superchargers are located. This proved to be very convenient. We charged here twice and passed by quite a few times over our stay – we never saw more than a handful of EVs charging at any one time.
8) Norwich Electric Forecourt: 8 Tesla Superchargers; 28 Gridserve chargers
Undoubtedly the highlight of our holiday charging was a visit to the Norwich Electric Forecourt. I believe this is what most non‑EV owners think EV charging should be like. A petrol station on steroids! Very impressive! If there were more charging stations like this, I think EV ownership would really be stimulated. The photo shows us charging our Tesla Model Y at the Superchargers.
Charging our Model Y at the Norwich Gridserve Electric Forecourt
10) Stansted Airport (M11 Services): 4 Tesla Superchargers [Plugshare indicates 20 additional Superchargers are about to be commissioned]; 3 Gridserve chargers; 8 Applegreen chargers
The last EV leg of our holiday was the relatively straightforward journey to Heathrow from Norwich. We planned to top up the car at a charger near Heathrow before returning it to Sixt. However, as we neared London we decided to have brunch at the Services on the M11 near Stansted Airport and, yet again, to our surprise we just landed at more vacant Tesla Superchargers. Our third non‑planned charging session out of ten charges! We charged here over brunch and that meant that we didn’t need to charge again before we returned the car.
General Observations
EV infrastructure in the UK is brilliant for tourists. There seem to be rapid chargers everywhere. The chargers seem to come in flocks – we generally found a lot of chargers at each location (particularly at Motorway Service Centres). Way ahead of Australia!
Putting aside the large number of chargers, the UK seems to be a great place for touring in an EV because distances between places of interest are very short compared to the range of the vehicles.
The man from Sixt certainly surprised us at the start of our EV trip. Another big surprise was the very high number of unoccupied chargers. No doubt there will be busy times over holiday weekends etc, but it struck me that the financial returns for the companies installing rapid chargers must be very lean at the moment. I trust they survive until patronage builds up.
Just finally, I think I should give a big tick to Sixt for the ease of picking up and returning our EV at Heathrow. Seeing as everything takes place in Terminal 2, it seemed like a very rapid transition from getting out of the Model Y to sitting in a very crowded departure lounge waiting for our flight home.