We have an EV at home in Australia and we love it. When we planned our trip to the UK we decided an EV would be the right thing to do. Guilt free travel and better for the enviroment.
Immediately, though, we had issues, the first thing was charging in the suburbs of Brighton. There are a huge number of providers and apps, but some of the key apps can’t be downloaded to an Australian phone. Admittedly I was sick with a lurgy and it played on my mind and I was saying just take it back and get a hybrid, but my partner didn’t want to. If we had we might have found out that UK Hertz charge way too much to drop a car to a site that isn’t the orginal hire site. Like some 200 GDP.
After a few days we were able to charge on the motorway services using Gridserve, which has lots of chargers. However, the cost per kw is quite high in comparision to Australia, even though in Australia it is rising. So on average 79 pence per kw so that’s about $1.60 per kw so nearly what we pay for a litre of petrol at home. But consider I kw is not equivalent to 1 litre in terms of distance. Anyway we were just grateful to just to be able to charge. Eventually we worked out our favourite chargers and also our least favourite. Scotland Charge Place is our least favourite because can’t download the app, and they were everywhere in Scotland! So to charge in Edinburgh it was a hunt and then a long drive to charge, in the opposite direction. We almost always needed fast charging because the slow chargers were not accessible without RFID cards or apps.
The next challenge was that the car we drove a Corsa E did not go as far on a charge as advertised. It would say 219 miles on a full charge on the dash and it barely went 100 miles and so on average one and a quarter to one and a half hours before having to charge. We became very cautious because it was unreliable and we didn’t want to get stranded. At times it was cold and that affects the distance a battery will take you and having the heater on. We tested it without the heater on and it still fell very short distance wise. So when we planned a trip to move from Lancaster to Luton I added an additional three hours for charging. I was very pissed off at this stage. The reason we surmised was because this car was a rental, it had been slammed and only subject to fast charging which depletes the battery. So not only were we paying heaps for charging we were charging a lot more often so it was double the cost. It sucked big time.
Then if your plans change or you don’t want to drop the car at 8.00am at Heathrow try to find an alternative. Phone numbers not answering. Finding someone to talk to and eventually finding out that dropping the car anywhere than Heathrow was going to cost an addition 200 GDP so $400 in Australian money and that is ridiculous. When we picked up at Heathrow they said it was 200 GDP to drop at Marble Arch and we assumed that was because of congestion charges etc. But no, it is what they charged for any drop off other than Heathrow which I assume we are also paying a airport fee. We really like Hertz Australia, so efficient and helpful but alas the same cannot be said of Hertz UK.
We ended taking the car back to Heathrow early the day before it was due to save getting up early, getting caught in peak hour traffic etc. When we dropped it back the bloke assessing the car was not interested in how the battery sucked but he was interested in the scratch on the car which we didn’t know was there. Fair enough, but really he should have noted down and expressed some concern at the crap battery on this car.
Also, did I mention they charged us extra for the electric car. We had found that car at that price in Australia but they didn’t honour it because we didn’t take a screen shot. So lesson learned if you are looking find something but can’t reserve it take a screen shot. We had issues with our Aussie credit card not being accepted on the UK site (various cards over days) that we had to book from Australia using Australian Hertz.
Interesting to note that our last charge on a Tesla supercharger was cheaper than any on the other chargers we used. Go figure that.
That said, some of the charging at services was really brilliant. Ten or so fast chargers and a separate bank of Tesla chargers. Only a select few of the Tesla chargers allowed non-Tesla charging. To do so, google Tesla superchargers UK, then un highlight everything but non-tesla superchargers, then if you are actually at that charger just press on the charger on the map, find the number, add your credit card details and you are away. I found that worked with BP Pulse too, using a map etc, much to my partner’s surprise.
Donna Maree Hanson, Author, Phd in Creative Writing 