After seeing that the chargers at the Shell Garage had gone live, and needing a charge, I decided to take advantage and try them out.
They have a series of six 150KW chargers, each with CSS and CHAdeMO chargers. I connected the Funky to the charger. I plugged the cable in, which as with a lot of CSS chargers was quite heavy. It was then a simple matter of tapping with contactless and setting the charge going.
It was nice not to worry about if the chargers are in use, with six I was pretty sure one would be free. This is unlike the Osprey chargers at the nearby Travelodge which I have found to be used quite heavily, and I have on the odd occasion when using them, find them in use, forcing me to come back later. At least with these MFG chargers, there being six, means more chance one will be free.
Whilst I was charging I went for a coffee at the Starbucks next door.
Within fifteen minutes I had already gone from a 18% charge to 42%.
I wasn’t going to do a full 100% charge, the aim was to get between 60% and 80%.
When I was considering an electric vehicle I was concerned about where I could charge the car. Close to where I live is a Shell Garage and they had a series of six 150KW chargers. This I thought would be ideal for rapid charging the car when needed.
You can imagine when I got my car back in August and checked the garage out I was somewhat disappointed that the chargers had not been connected to the grid and weren’t operational.
When I checked with the staff, they said it had been planned for the end of July… they didn’t have a date for when it would be done.
This was annoying and frustrating. There are a couple of Osprey chargers at a nearby hotel and I have used them. One time though it was challenging as others were using them, luckily I was not in a hurry.
So it was a nice surprise when I was at the garage today, to wash Funky, when I saw that the MFG chargers were operational now and that other electric vehicle owners were charging their cars.
The MFG app, which I have downloaded, also confirms that they are connected and working.
They’ve not been added to the Zap-Map yet, nor on Google Maps.
I was in the office three times this week, and I was able to park and charge my car three times to 100%.
What I did find interesting was the different predicted ranges I got after each charge.
After the first charge the predicted range was a healthy 185 miles
The second time I charged the range had dropped to 162 miles.
Third charge resulted in a range of 177 miles.
I am not entirely sure why the variety. The journeys before charging were very similar, some urban, some motorway, some normal roads.
I find it interesting, as in itself, it creates future challenges when planning journeys with charging breaks. Would 160 miles from a full charge be pushing it too far for example?
I will continue to monitor the ranges as I charge.
Understanding the problem is part about knowing what the problem is, but often much more about understanding how the problem arose, the context, and the background.
There’s no such thing as an easy fix. Things which can be fixed easily aren’t generally seen as problems that need fixing, they are seen as tasks that need completing.
I will try and illustrate that with the simple problem of having a cup of tea.
I want a cup of tea, but there’s no water in the kettle. A simple problem resolved by filling the kettle with water and putting it onto boil, making the tea, and there you go.
This was an easy fix.
Now imagine you want a cup of tea, but there isn’t any clean water supply. First you need to provide fresh water. Without a water supply you could install a supply, but a temporary solution might be to go out and buy some bottled water. Cheaper in the short run, it will be more expensive in the longer term.
Then there is the challenge of boiling the water for the tea. What do you do if there is no kettle. Go and buy a kettle.
An electric kettle is great if there is an electricity supply, but what kettle do you get if the fuel source you have is gas or an open fire.
Finally you need to choose a cup. You would not be surprised how often this takes time as some people have a favourite cup others take their time to choose a cup. Reality is that this is probably the least important part of the process.
If you have a water supply, electricity, a kettle, and a supply of cups; it can be frustrating to see and difficult to understand why others can’t easily make a cup of tea.
You could argue that there is an easier fix of going somewhere and buying me a cup of tea. That is a quick fix, but is it sustainable in the long run?
This analogy shows the importance of dependencies and the context when you try and solve a problem. You also need to understand the skills and knowledge of those facing the problem.
Those with the foundations, the resources, the skills and capabilities, will be easily able to deliver a solution to what they see as a simple problem. However they may have not realised their journey in getting to that point when they are able to easily make tea. Just telling people to make tea, or showing them how to make tea, often isn’t sufficient, if they lack the foundations and infrastructure to actually make a cup of tea.
I have been using the Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) on the Funky Cat quite a bit. Unlike traditional cruise control, as well as maintaining a constant speed without using the accelerator, it will also change the speed to ensure that the Funky Cat maintains a safe distance to the car in front.
I didn’t realise that there was a Smart Cruise Control functionality with the Funky Cat. It was only after reading a post on the Facebook that I realised that I could use this option. Under Smart Cruise Control the Funky will maintain the car in the centre of the lane it is in, as well as maintaining a consistent speed and a safe distance.
So driving back home on the M5, I decided I would try it out.
Essentially it did work. As I drove down the M5 I was pleased how it functioned. I certainly kept within the speed limit, at a safe distance from the car in front, and it kept me within the lane. Changing lanes worked fine, it would turn off and then turn itself back on.
I wasn’t entirely comfortable with the autonomous driving capability, but did appreciate how it helped to keep my car in lane.
We had headed up to the Venue at Cribbs Causeway for a game of bowling. The car park was really busy, but I had anticipated that and had planned to park in an electric vehicle charging space.
Having arrived there were spaces there. The chargers were provided by Revive.
Having connected the car I tapped my contactless bank card, but they didn’t accept contactless payment. I then tried my Shell RFID card, but that wasn’t accepted either.
I was running out of time, I didn’t want to miss our bowling slot. So I moved the car to a non-charging space.
Later I checked online and found that the Revive Charging Stations at the Venue only take Geniepoint web app or the Revive RFID card. I didn’t have time to sort that out when I was parked, but is something I will remember if I decide to use them in the future.
I hadn’t planned to go right down to a 8% charge, but circumstances resulted in the Funky getting down to an 8% charge before I could get to a charger.
Not entirely accurate as I did get to a charger, but that didn’t work out.
So what’s the story?
The car had a 19% charge this morning with a predicted 34 mile range.
Decided to try out the free charging capability at Asda in Clevedon.
Both bays were free.
Needed the BP Pulse App to connect and charge, so that took some time.
First attempt failed.
Second attempt did work.
Really, really slow. After 15 minutes the car had charged an additional 2%. So much so that decided to abandon the process.
Did think about heading to Gordano Services and using their Gridserve chargers, but with just 14 miles to the office and a predicted range of 26 mile, I thought I would just go straight to the office.
I arrived with just 8% charge left and a predicted range of zero! Put the car on charge.
Some time later I was at 100% and a predicted range of 175 miles.
At The Campus in Weston Village they have a couple of EV charging spaces. One is reserved for local authority vehicles, but the other is available to any EV users.
It is a Mer charger, and as with most (if not all) fast chargers, you will need to bring your own cable.
I used my Shell RFID card. It is a fast AC charger. It was a simple matter of connecting the car, tapping the card reader and letting it charge. I was connected for two hours and it added about 50% to the charge.
I wrote recently about the longest journey I had done in the Funky from Weston-super-Mare to York, a total distance of 250 miles. As the range of the Funky is 193 miles (and realistically is actually less than that in real world conditions) I knew I would have to charge up on the way up and back.
Going up I had virtually no problems, coming back though, it was not as straightforward.
I set off from York and headed to Moto Ferrybridge services to charge up the car. This didn’t feel as straightforward as it did on the way up.
Anyhow after getting a good charge (not 100%, but around 90%) I headed back south. I had actually only planned on charging to 80%, but I had a phone call, which went on for a while and spent longer at the services than planned.
I had another online call to do later, and I planned to stop at Hopwood Services on the M42, have my call and charge at the same time. This however did not go to plan due to traffic issues. I didn’t quite make it as far as Hopwood so stopped at Tamworth Services.Alas the charger was in use and I parked in a normal space. So, I couldn’t charge my car while I had my online call. After finishing my meeting the charger was still in use so I headed back down on the M42.
I knew the Hopwood Services were about twenty miles further down the M42, so would stop there to charge and grab some lunch. I stopped off at Hopwood services and was frustrated to see their charger was also in use. There was some Tesla chargers available however non-Tesla cars, though they can use some Tesla chargers, they can’t use the ones at Hopwood. I did notice that they are installing something like twenty new chargers so on future visits this lack of availability will be less of a problem.
However, I was on a 20% charge and still some way to go. The Strensham services only had a solitary charger and I suspected that was probably going to be in use when I got there. So I asked Ora for the nearest charger. There was one in Alvechurch a couple of miles away according to Ora. I asked her to set a route and off I went.
When I got to Alvechurch I couldn’t see it but assumed it was in the nearby car park.There was a charger in the free car park, but someone was using it. They said they would be about fifteen minutes. I had no choice but to wait.
As I went for a walk I saw there was another charger in local pub,The Red Lion,car park. It was free. So I moved the Funky to the pub and set it to charge. I then went to the pub for lunch.
This was a lovely pub, with lots of wooden beams and comfy chairs.
I gave the Funky a good charge and this got me all the way home with charge to spare.
