This is a little additional post, following my experiences where I got a range calculation very wrong. It isn’t part of the main roadtrip, but a separate trip I undertook after a day of rest.

Firstly, I had to get to Cannock, which is 102 miles away. I’d been out the night before and as I don’t have a home charger, I’d plugged the car in when I got home at 10:45pm. When I went to leave at 9am the next morning, the car was still charging. This is the downside of a bigger battery – it takes longer to charge up! Most LEAF owners will have a fast charger at home, which should charge a LEAF up in just a few hours, depending on which charger is fitted to the car.

However, I had over 100 miles of range, so off I set. As the journey went on, I began to realise that while I could make it to my destination, I probably wouldn’t have much left ‘in the tank’ when I got there. I suspected my chums would want to have a quick ride in the car, so stopped at Telford for a quick ten-minute charge. That took the battery back up to 51%, putting in 7.2kwh of juice.

A joyful morning was spent watching awful cars fetching baffling amounts of money at a car auction before I headed off for the next leg. A friend had offered me a set of wheels and tyres for my 2CV Project, so I now headed south to Stow-On-The-Wold in the Cotswolds. Hilton Park services on the M6 was handily placed, so I headed there for a charge-up. Sadly, I utterly failed to remember how much juice I put in, but I felt it was comfortably enough to get to Stow, then to proceed to Strensham Services on the M5.

Cruising around The Cotswolds was truly joyous. I risked ruining the aerodynamics by opening the windows as I whispered along the lanes. With the tyres and wheels collected, all of which fitted in the generous boot, I headed for the M5, where I arrived with 13% battery remaining. I suspect the enormous 50mph section through the M5’s roadworks helped the range a great deal!

I’d checked the status of the chargers before I set off, but forgot that one of the Strensham chargers is offline. I spent several frustrating minutes trying to get it to work before giving up. Sadly, there was a Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV at the other charger, and the display indicated it hadn’t been there long. Some EV owners get angry about these hybrids, as they don’t HAVE to charge up – the joy of still having an actual engine. I’m not like that. Electricity helps improve the economy, so it could be argued they’re just as welcome at the chargers as EVs.

After about ten minutes, the owners came back. I suspect they would have liked to keep charging, but they were kind and let me take over. I had to fend off another PHEV that had just arrived, but they were kind and understanding too.

I now had a long wait, so spent some time reading the owners’ manuals and cursing the fact that motorway tea costs £2.50. Disgraceful. I refused to partake and stuck with water. After exactly 39 minutes, I was a bit fed up. The battery was at 85% and the range was showing as 111 miles. The distance to home? 99 miles. I’ll concede that after our first long trip of 98 miles, I may have got a bit over confident. After all, that trip was with a battery at 100%…

Things get scary

It didn’t take long for me to realise that I was in a spot of bother. I think it was after about 20 miles that I realised this was going to be a struggle. You see, the route from Worcester to Wales feels like it’s almost entirely uphill! I felt ok with 15 miles between range and distance to cover, but that gap soon began to close up. I started to deploy the first stage of panic stations. No air con and letting the speed drop by 10-15mph going up hills. I limited to the top speed to 53mph (a realistic 50). For some time, range and distance remained near-identical. I’d drop into negative figures when climbing, but would get miles back coming down the other side. Not enough though.

My back muscles began to tense, and an uncomfortable feeling developed in my stomach. Ah yes. My old friend range anxiety! I desperately tried to conserve momentum, using racing lines to try and keep my speed up through bends. My economy went up, so it was having some effect. Would it be enough though? Approaching Leominster, things were getting so worrying that I refused to overtake a tractor.

The anxiety was extra bad because I’d stupidly left the 13amp charge cable at home. That meant that it was impossible for me to just find a kindly person to pinch some electricity from. My only option was to push on for home. After Kington, there’s an awfully steep climb before reaching Pen-y-Bont. I allowed the speed to drop to 30mph, despite the 60mph limit. As we came down the other side, I allowed my speed to build, pressing the throttle enough to cancel the regen, but not so much that power was used to build speed up. Regen was employed for sharp turns, but my speed was still very low. I couldn’t build up enough momentum and was soon on the power again.

The range continued to sit at a lower figure than the miles remaining as I headed toward Rhayader. I’d turned the speed limiter off at this point. I’d control the pace and keep it slow as I climbed, but if I could get up to 60mph going downhill without using power, I would, employing the subsequent regen before the inevitable bends, but only slowing down just enough to get around the bend. The aim was to avoid heavy acceleration on the exit.

As we snaked along the A470, I was starting to think this was hopeless. I had 18 miles still to go, but only 14 miles of range. My speed dropped to 40mph and I nervously kept watch on the rear-view mirror. People who overtook must have ended up thinking that these electric cars are hopelessly slow!

At Llangurig, I had 13 miles to go, but now just ten miles of range. I also had to climb over the Cambrian Mountains again. I called home and requested emergency help! Rachel dashed to the garage, grabbed the 13amp charging cable and hopped in her Perodua Nippa to come to the rescue. I pushed on. Would I actually get to find out what it feels like to run out of juice?

Even the LEAF was worried. Not that it could find any charging stations in mid-Wales!

By now, I was doing 30mph as an absolute maximum, and even less when climbing. Thankfully, it was after 8pm at night, and traffic levels were very low. The range kept dropping. With 11 miles to go, the range dropped first to 8 miles, then went blank. It was refusing to tell me how far I could now go. I checked the battery level. That also was refusing to tell me how much was left. My back was no longer touching the seat because I was so tense!

However, owning a 2CV means I know a few tricks about conserving momentum. It’s about being as smooth as possible. I continued to use racing lines, and allowed speed to build when gravity could assist. I eased the car over the crest at Eisteddfa Gurig and allowed myself a smile. Now, I had a fighting chance. The road immediately began to drop steeply. Balancing the throttle, I allowed the car to get up to 60mph, before employing medium regen. I’ve no idea how much power I generated on this section of slopes, but we were still moving. Excellent.

Fuel light roulette, EV style.

I then reached the ‘splash road,’ or the B4343 as it is known on maps. This was another steep climb, but no traffic was approaching, and I could crawl up at 20mph. A flying Perodua came towards me – the rescue team! However, there were now just four miles to go, and once I crested the hill at Parcgwyn, I knew it was mostly downhill.

Arriving at Devil’s Bridge, I felt much calmer. If the battery level was dangerously low, the LEAF would have gone into ‘turtle’ mode, where it really cuts back on the power. I still had a small hill to climb, and the car did it easily.

But I’d done it! I managed to coax the car home. The relief was palpable. I’d managed to cover 11 miles with dire warnings of extremely low battery level, in hilly terrain.

Made it! Phew. Back home.

In conclusion, this highlights the problem with living in rural Wales. There just aren’t any charging options. At all. Stay close to the motorway network and range anxiety just isn’t really an issue. Departing from it is still a bit of a leap of faith though, and it must be said, driving with range anxiety is no fun at all. This is exactly the opposite of joyful motoring, though it does also remind me how much fuel is used to keep speed up on hills, and to accelerate away from bends.

Just one rapid charger along the length of the A44 would have taken the stress away. A ten-minute charge would have been plenty. Then I could actually have enjoyed this great driving road, because the LEAF handles well, rides well and is actually very pleasant to drive. The infrastructure has improved hugely in the 2.5 years since I last tested a LEAF, and none of the long trips I have made this time were even remotely possible back then. This was my second 300-mile day in the LEAF, taking me to 720 miles covered in just three days of driving. It proves that electric vehicles are viable, but I have also proved that when it comes to Wales, issues do remain.

As mentioned in the previous post, we found ourselves with 98 miles to travel to the rapid charger at Chester in the 30kwh LEAF due to the intermediate one having broken. I was very concerned, after a near-failure involving a Volkswagen e-UP! last year. In that, I only just managed to make it home from the rapid charger at Oswestry.

As it happens, I needn’t have worried. There was no drama. In the LEAF, we sailed past said rapid charger with 77 miles of range still showing! I had enough juice to turnaround and drive back home if I’d fancied it. We were off to Liverpool though, so I didn’t do that.

First rapid charge, after 98 miles of driving.

Now, I wasn’t doing anything special to boost economy in the LEAF, though perhaps I was deploying a few small tricks. For a start, I was in ECO mode. This makes the air conditioning less power draining, decreases the throttle response and reduces the total amount of power you can access. We needed the air conditioning throughout the journey, as the conditions were horrific! Lots of rain, so lots of headlamp and wiper use too. That was fine really, as I wanted to test the car in everyday conditions.

The other trick was gentle acceleration. I’d estimate that I was getting up to 60mph about as quickly as my 2CV manages it – a 0-60mph time of 30 seconds. Acceleration batters your range, whether in an EV or a combustion-engined car. It’s why you always get better economy on a long run – it generally involves more travelling at a consistent speed.

You know when you’re driving well, as you start acquiring ‘trees’ on the dashboard. I’m not sure how they actually work, but found it quite easy to amass a veritable forest.

A veritable forest. But what does it mean?

I refused to actually lower my speed so, where traffic allowed, I would do 60mph if that was the legal limit, and I increased that to 70mph on the motorway once we reached it. This was the most enjoyable aspect of this. The e-NV200 roadtrip had seen us cruising along at a miserable 50-60mph on the motorway, often freezing cold as we desperately tried to eke out every bit of range. I was being spoilt in the LEAF. Range anxiety just wasn’t an issue.

Well, that’s not entirely true. At the start of our journey, which saw us climb over the Cambrian Mountains, the range did drop down to 88 miles, when we had 88 miles left to cover. Experience has taught me not to stress in such circumstances though. By the time we reached Newtown, 30 miles away, the range was back up to the 105 miles it had been predicting before we set off. This highlights that the range is only a guide really. It can’t hope to predict how you’ll drive, nor how hilly the terrain is.

I’ll do a proper review of the LEAF later, but I was certainly enjoying driving it. When I first drove one in November 2013, it was a frustrating experience. It felt like a great car for covering distance, but I wasn’t within range of any rapid chargers at all at that time. I was stranded in mid-Wales. As cars go, it couldn’t be more simple really. There’s a go pedal, and a stop pedal and a steering wheel.

The biggest downside to the Oswestry charger being down is that we now had to go out of our way to find power. A quick trek along the M56 was necessary to access the pair of chargers at Roadchef Chester. As we arrived, one charger seemed to be getting glued back together by a chap in a French-registered van, but a second charger was free and ready to use.

Rapid charger being ‘glued’ back together.

The charging process is as follows. Press the fuel flap release, which unlocks the small panel in the nose. Flick open the cover on the main charging point (there are two, the smaller one is used for smaller chargers ie home use). Grab the DC rapid charging ‘gun’ (the charger has three cables) otherwise known as ChaDeMo (Volkswagen and some other manufacturers use CCS, for which there is a different cable). Now, press DC charging on the machine present your Ecotricy charge card (the Nissan press car came with one, but you can order one yourself. There is currently (June 2016) no charge). Wait for it to initialise, then the charging will begin.

We’d been driving for over two hours by this point, at an average of over 40mph, so we were due a break ourselves. We brought along tea and cold toast, because motorway services are generally horrible and expensive (Gloucester and Tebay excepted). That is one downside of EVs. Most of the rapid chargers are at motorway services, which are almost universally grim places in which to spend time.

After 20 minutes, the battery was up to 72%. As well as having greater range, it seems the 30kwh LEAF also charges more quickly. Sadly, I didn’t note down what the battery percentage was when we arrived, but I’d estimate it to be below 20%. We still had 24 miles of range left, having driven 98 miles (the car was wrong, Google maps called it correctly!) to get to the charger. Given the claimed 124 miles of range, that was pretty good going!

You’ll note we didn’t charge up to 100%. There are several reasons for that. Firstly, we couldn’t be bothered to wait. We had enough to get to our next destination, why waste time? Secondly, the last 20% of the battery cannot be charged as quickly as the previous 80%. As the battery fills, it’s harder to squeeze the last bit in, so it could have taken a very long time to charge. Thirdly, it’s better for the battery not to repeatedly charge it beyond 80%. On the e-NV200 roadtrip, we had no choice. We often needed 100% (or close to it) to get from one charger to the next. Now, we had the luxury of not bothering.

I disconnected, with the car now predicting 88 miles of range. We headed to Liverpool and only got slightly annoyed at the sat nav. It isn’t actually very clear to read in city conditions, and was sometimes too slow to react to our actual road position. An one point, I had to drive through a seriously flooded section. It was nice not to have an engine air intake to worry about…

We overnighted in Liverpool, leaving the car in a general car park. We could have perhaps found somewhere with a charge point, but we’d be passing a rapid charger in the morning. That would do.

Overall though, is it impressive that I managed to cover 98 miles with out recharging? Well, against a combustion-engined car, no it isn’t. However, it does make the LEAF feel a lot more valid. 98 miles was enough for a couple of hours of driving, after which we were very keen to stop anyway. Does that mean everyone should get an EV? No. It just means the limitations are perhaps less limiting now. A bigger test would be driving back home via Bradford, and covering over 300 miles in a day. That’ll be the next installment. Stay tuned!

I haven’t conducted a proper EV roadtrip for a while, so I thought it was about time I had another go. My previous roadtrip, in a Nissan e-NV200 Combi, wasn’t very enjoyable at all. Can the new 30kwh LEAF do a better job?

We need to cover 98 miles to the nearest charger…

Firstly, let’s talk range. Even driving gently, I struggled to get more than 60 miles out of the e-NV200 between charges. That was against a claimed range of 106 miles. To be fair, I was conducting the test in November, so heater use was denting range, but it was still pretty poor.

The LEAF should stand a better chance. It has a claimed range of 124 miles, which is probably closer in reality to the 106 claimed for the e-NV200. Anecdotal evidence certainly suggests so. The other advantages are a larger battery back (30kwh to 24kwh), better aerodynamics and heat-pump heater technology – not that we should need it, being summer. Allegedly.

I’ll certainly be testing the range pretty thoroughly, and not out of choice. We’re off to Liverpool today, and the first rapid charger along the route is broken. It seems The Electric Highway is sadly still not entirely fit for purpose. Where this charger is located, there are no less than 16 pumps for internal combustion engines. If one of those breaks, it’s hardly the end of the world.

As it happens, I now have to try and get to a rapid charger near Chester, on the M56. That’s 98 miles away, so the challenge is definitely on!

First up, here’s a bit about the test vehicle. It’s Acenta spec, which is the lowest available with the 30kwh battery – you can have a Visia with the 24kwh battery and a few less toys. The on the road price, not including any plug-in grant, is a smidge under £30,000. The paperwork doesn’t confirm whether that price includes the Magnetic Red metallic paint – my favourite colour. The spec includes a reversing camera, heat pump heating and air con, lots of electric toys, auto headlamps and wipers, keyless entry and a 3.3kw on-board charger.

That latter point is worth bearing in mind. It means that it can’t charge particularly quickly at some smaller AC chargers, such as the ones you can have installed at home. There is an optional 6.6kw charger, but that seems to be about another £1500! Some people don’t consider that worth paying, and here’s why.

There are three basic charging options. 13amp plug, fast charger and rapid charger. The spec of the on-board charger only affects the fast charger option – typically a 16amp supply, or 32 if you’ve gone for the bigger charger. The sort of charge points you’ll find that use this are at home, in some car parks and even roadside in towns.

I probably won’t use that facility at all. I’ll either be charging at home via the 13 amp plug, or using rapid chargers, which supply over 100amps at several hundred volts. That should get the LEAF’s battery up to 80% charge in around half an hour – it’ll be interesting to see how the real-life experience tallies with expectation. 80% charge should be good for 80 miles and once I’m on The Electric Highway, that should be more than enough to get to the next station and/or destinations.

I’ll be live tweeting my experiences at http://www.twitter.com/dollywobbler and will, of course, be reporting back on here once the journey is complete. There will be video too. If you’ve got any questions about the LEAF, now is the time to ask!

Road Test Part 4 – The 300-mile roadtrip. Part 3 (The not-so good) Here. 

Sorry, you’ll have a further wait for my conclusions on the Volkswagen e-Golf, as I first need to relate the details of my biggest ever electric car road trip.

I began the day aiming to crack 200 miles in the day, though I’d actually done this before with the Nissan e-NV200. After failing the other day, I aimed to get a rapid charge at Oswestry on the Electric Highway. From there, I would hopefully head north – probably to Chester, though that opened up the whole of the M6 and therefore, much of England.

Success! e-Golf slurps DC current at 110Amps.

Now, things didn’t start all that well. The first two attempts to get electrons flowing resulted in a baffling error message. So, I did what any IT bod would do. I effectively rebooted it by removing the connector from the car and starting again. Third time lucky, and I could head off for a brew.

It was definitely time for a brew, as I’d been driving for almost two hours by this point, having covered 62 miles on typical Welsh A roads. By the time I got back to the car, it was already at 85% charge! It had been at 48% when I arrived just 15 minutes earlier. Charging slows as the battery fills, so although going to maximum is not advised (certainly on a regular basis – it’s healthier to stop at 80%), I left it going and supped my brew. And perhaps a cookie.

Soon enough, it was time to continue my journey. I headed up the A483 towards Chester. Now, Chester is a nice place, but the next rapid charger was a mere 35 miles away. That hardly felt like the stuff of adventure. Hold on. Isn’t there (bizzarely) a rapid charger on Holyhead? A quick consultation of Ecotricity’s map revealed that this was the case. Sat nav reckoned it was 92 miles away. The range estimate was 98 miles. Easy!

Of course, I may have neglected to remember that Snowdonia lies between the two, and that electric cars (and normal cars for that matter) use up a lot more energy when climbing hills. I got off to a good start though, and twenty miles in, it still reckoned it had over 80 miles of range. Brilliant. I passed through beautiful Llangollen (for the third time this year), delightful Betws-y-Coed and as I climbed the next steep hill, noted that I appeared to have 38 miles of range for the 34 remaining miles. Ah. I knocked the cruise control down from 50mph to 45. Perhaps if I climbed hills more slowly, all would be well.

Normally, travelling this slowly would pain me – even going uphill in the 2CV – but actually, it was really relaxing. Mainly because this was not a weekend and there was not much traffic. Incredibly, I still encountered folk going more slowly than me! I set the Adaptive Cruise Control and let the e-Golf follow their pace. Saving yet more miles. As we neared the A55, the range was again around 20 miles higher than my destination distance. I could do 60mph with relish.

I arrived at Holyhead with a full 16 miles of spare range. The charger (or rather chargers) took a little finding, being hidden at the far end of the short term car park at The Port of Holyhead. I was pleased with my stats so far though.

5.2 miles per kilowatt hour is pretty impressive for the speed and terrain!

Frankly, managing to AVERAGE 40mph across Snowdonia and mid-Wales is not bad in any car. But to do it while achieving a very creditable 5.2 miles per kilowatt hour impressed me no end. Clearly all the momentum-conservation tips I’ve learnt through 2CVing came in useful, as did actually allowing the car to slow on hills rather than using all of that beautiful torque to keep the speed up. It was also fun, as I didn’t slow down much for bends…

At Holyhead, the only issue was that I first parked at a charger that didn’t have the DC CCS plug I needed. The other one did, and started charging straight away – no issues.

Just to prove it. That’s a ferry in the background at Holyhead.

The only other issue is that the port is unremittingly grim! I’m glad I only had to enter the main building to use the toilet. I charged to about 90%, giving a range of 100 miles, and set off back to Oswestry.

There seemed a little more traffic on the way back, so I made more use of the cruise control. I found it accelerated more gently when placed in Eco mode, so I sat back to enjoy the views, listen to BBC Radio 6 Music on DAB (where terrain allowed) and focus merely on not steering the car off the road. I did get fed up with a dawdler in a BMW at one point and made a lavish, range-sapping overtake. That torque means you can zip past and expose yourself to danger for a very short period. Confident I’d make it back with miles to spare, I allowed myself the luxury of a 60mph cruise.

There was one brief period after a long climb where the range dropped below the predicted mileage, and the car started frantically asking me if I wanted to find a charging station. For a giggle, I told it to do this, and it told me it couldn’t find any. None of the Electric Highway chargers seem to be on its map. This is poor.

But I made it anyway, gave it another charge, drank more tea (I refuse to comment on cookie intake) and headed home. I had way more charge than I needed, so got a positive hoon on along the A44. It’s a nice car to drive briskly. As I pulled up at home, the e-Golf reported that it’d clocked up 300 miles since leaving home that morning. In total, I’ve driven this car 700 miles since Thursday. Not bad going for any car, but unthinkable with an electric car only a few years ago. Truly, times have changed.