It's great to get out and about - even in an Electric Car..

For the past 18 months or more, I've been mostly home based and certainly haven't been out on the roads much.

Now that things are starting to get back towards some sort of normality, I've started to resume my work travels to see prospects, customers, suppliers and business partners. Traditionally I can drive 30k miles pa.

Many people act somewhat surprised that I travel so extensively - seemingly being the owner of an Electric Car should prevent this.

How long does it take to Charge ?

I have plenty of conversations which start of with the normal "How far does it go?" "How long does it take to charge?" "and what happens is you run out?" (for reference the answers are "further than my bladder" "less time than it takes to visit the conveniences and get a cup of coffee at a service station" and "I would call the AA").

This inevitably moves onto a discussion about the compromises for driving Electric. There is an inherent conception that the charging time of the car will interfere with, lengthen significantly my journey time and requires meticulous planning.

I got into such a conversation earlier this week. Curiously with another EV owner, which kind of reminded me where Electric Motoring is today in reality.

For disclosure (and it's very relevant) - I own a Tesla. A Long Range, Performance Tesla Model S to be precise.

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The 370 mile Journey from A to B and back.

The journey I was discussing was one I made earlier this week, which was from my house in Holmfirth, West Yorkshire, to see a prospect about 30 miles south of Bristol, returning the same day - about 370 miles in total

This went as follows :-

I set the car to charge to 100% overnight at home - normally you only charge an Electric Car to 80-90% as keeping the car at full charge isn't good for the battery (which is why for example mobile phone batteries generally don't last long!) .
I left home early and drove the 125 miles or so down the M1, across the A42 and onto the M42 to Hopwood Services, just south of Birmingham. There are 16 x 250KW Tesla chargers there and several empty spots. I had to drive past the pair of non-Tesla chargers to get to the Tesla Superchargers - both the 50KW chargers were full and there was a car waiting to get on the charger. I went in and had a quick breakfast - which took about 25 mins by which time the car was charged back to 80%
I drove the remainder of the way to my customer without stopping and then got back, and stopped about 20 miles north of Bristol at Michaelwood Services. Again there are 8 high speed Tesla Chargers and a couple of non-Tesla Chargers.. Again, the Tesla chargers had spare spaces and the non-Tesla ones were full with cars queuing. I plugged in and run into the services to grab a sandwich (it was very late for lunch but I was hungry!) - by the time I'd eaten my sandwich the car was ready to rock and I got home in one go.

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This is normal for me, I've been driving Teslas for 5 years and I've integrated this into my lifestyle. The journey was largely no different to any similar one I would have made in my last non-Tesla - a Jaguar XF Diesel.

My recent discussions have shown me where my mindset is now different to non-Tesla and certainly non-Electric car owners.

The first thing is that the Tesla Supercharger network is just amazing. The infrastructure was being built even before they started selling cars here, and there are multiple charge bays across the whole country.

I rarely have to ever wait to get on a charger - there is an indicator on the cars mapping where all the chargers are and how many bays are free at each. I can even view the estimated wait time if the chargers are full!

This is the key differential to owning a Tesla - I know I can get in and drive anywhere, get charged quickly (a Tesla charger can charge at often 5X the speed of other motorway service charge points) and get on with my journey. So no range anxiety, and no pre-planning required.

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Charge when I Stop, not Stop to Charge!

The second is that because of the above, I charge when I stop - not stop to charge. I follow the ABC principle of Electric Motoring - "Always Be Charging". This means that if the car isn't moving I try to ensure it's charging. This is very different to most other people who will refuel when the car is empty.

Finally, this made me think about where life is today for non-Tesla Electric drivers.

Sadly, whilst Nissan made some inroads to building a network some years ago with their EcoTricity partnership, what remains at Service Stations around the country is the legacy of that original capital investment, with a total lack of maintenance or upgrade investment.

This means that the network is full of undersized, underpowered and unreliable charge points to the point that I wouldn't currently have considered going Electric with anything other than a Tesla.

However, the Tesla network shows how it can be, and the good news is that finally the other operators are starting to catch up. Ecotricity have sold their charge network to Gridserve who are upgrading their existing charge points to higher capacity ones, as well as developing a large network of roadside charging stations.

Time to buy a non-Tesla ?

There are some great Electric Cars on the market, and for most drivers, they are perfect for day to day use (most charging done in or around home). As the charge network on the Trunk Roads improves, they are an option for even the long-distance fleet driver!

It's now at the point, where I'm thinking in 2022 when my car needs to be changed, that I might actually consider a non-Tesla.... maybe...

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or maybe not...😉

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