Problem, not my problem

One of the regular places I charge when travelling back from London is the Tesla chargers at the Westbound Reading MOTO Services. There are no Tesla chargers on the Eastbound side, why that is, I do not know.

It normally just works at these chargers, but on this visit, the charger failed to work. Usually I never have problems with these chargers, however having arrived and parked, but was unable to start he charge on the app. This also then locks the charging cable  in the car. I then had to do the usual hassle of opening the bonnet to manually release the charger from the car. I moved the car and put it on charge and it all worked fine from then on.

I don’t think this was a problem with the Funky Cat, I think that there was a specific problem with that charger.

I did get 23.8 kWH in 35 minutes, which took the Funky Cat from around 30% to 50%. This was delivering at a rate in the region of 50kW. One of the downsides of the Funky Cat is that it can’t take advantage of the speed of some of the rapid chargers out there. Some are rated to deliver 350kW, the Funky Cat can’t take that kind of power.

Having reached just over 80% I stopped the charge and unplugged. I find it strange that unplugging after a successful charge just works. I wonder if there is a kill switch on the charger itself so that it doesn’t remain locked when a charge fails to initialise.

More chargers at Reading Services

I had read some time ago that non-Tesla electric vehicles could use some selected Tesla superchargers. Alas none in the Bristol area can be used, so I’ve never had the chance to try them out. As well as using the chargers at  Studlands Retail Park in Newmarket in Suffolk, I also used the Tesla chargers at the westbound Reading Services on the M4.

They use to have a couple of Gridserve chargers for electric vehicles, they have since expanded the provision to fourteen Gridserve chargers and twelve Tesla superchargers. There are an additional four BP Pulse chargers at the petrol stations as well.

When I arrived at the services I was not the only interloper (non-Tesla) electric vehicle to use the Tesla chargers, there was a BMW as well.

I found it interesting that these Tesla chargers are opposite the Gridserve chargers. The Gridserve chargers are 20-30p a kWh more expensive than the Tesla chargers. I used the Tesla chargers there, as it was easy through the app (and cheaper than the Gridserve chargers.