Menoretunda; Back From The Ootery And Abootery

Sigh...

Back to the Hutch, and it is nearly two weeks since doing so. It has taken a while to 'land'. Am struggling to get very much done at the physical level. A lot of thinking done, of course. That's the YAMster's pattern. Work it all out... then BAM! Suddenly there is movement at the station, and it kinda all happens at once. But not yet. 

I have managed to get all the posts up to date here and one more video out - there's another in process. I have caught up on some reading and viewing, and listening. I have caught up on some crochet (a leftover patchwork squares thing, making it up as I go along). Caught up on laundry and a tidy-up. All of this is to work up to starting the big declutter of the Hutch. I just have to get myself going.

Today, though, I will review the technicalities of running The Grey around 1470 miles of these isles. Yes, all but 1500 flat.

As pointed out in several other posts, The Grey is big. He's got quite the backside. The first and ongoing issue I faced when it came to parking - mainly regarding charging the vehicle, as the overnights were generally in places unfettered with other units - was that we just needed to fit into the dinky car spaces provided. The majority of the charge points accessed were within established car parking facilities.

Which presented other issues, too. First, the spacing. The length and width of the bays in many car parks are skimmed down to the absolute minimum. Which is not horrendous if the park is not busy. If the bays are packed, turning into some of them would take a bit of to and fro. Then the back end would be sticking into the flow of others needing to leave. It did come to a point that if I saw such conditions, I just drove by and looked for another charger. 

Then there were the many and varied parking conditions within those facilities. For the most part, the council-run parks in England are using private collection companies for payment... and virtually all the car parking facilities I came across south of the Border were pay-for-stay. I didn't mind that in those where I was choosing to park up for the night and spend time. But when one is charging one's vehicle, it seems like a case of double-dipping. I came across only one place where it was made clear that charging meant no parking fees...

Well done to the Howden council for that one. Some of you may recall that in another place outside Manchester, another driver was under the impression she never had to pay parking fees... but I fear she must just have gotten by on sheer luck. All the parks with chargers I used in England had boards stating all the fees - and all the penalties that would be enforced if the list of conditions was not met. Frankly, the language in the small print could be classed as bullying or even threatening. Here's the thing - drivers are expected to stop and read all that stuff before buying their ticket. Here's an example - and this one is quite simple compared to some I met.

image from Signway

The devil is in the details, like the place where, in one of the last sentences in the bottom right small print part, it indicated that there was a height and weight restriction on the vehicles entering those premises... which meant that The Grey was illegal and up for potential £70 fine. It was late on a Saturday arvo, so I didn't panic. Then there was the one where that lady was saying it didn't matter, but I couldn't see any let out on the board... but then discovered that parking meter only operated with hard coin. Then the warden came along and had a good look around. I seemed to have been okay in the end, but there was some concern. It doesn't make sense that vehicle charge points should be penalised for access like that. 

The next issue with access is that the apps often indicated chargers available - but failed to alert one that it was behind barriers due to the car park belonging to a commercial business and was for patrons only. I am fairly sure that the charger owners themselves would want their units to be publically accessible - if they are only for businesses on whose land they sit, they ought not to appear on the apps.

As I have also mentioned, another aspect is that there are many different charging facilities. The Blue Oval RFID fob I have covers me for some MER, some Gridserve, all BPPulse, all ChargePlace and Osprey points, Ionity and ShellRecharge, and maybe some others... but there is no actual listing to alert me, and the app for that combined payment service isn't the most functional. I am also signed up to ChargePlace Scotland - which, it turned out, also covered a few chargers in and around the Midlands - yet not in the two obvious counties of Cumbria and Northumbria. I did sign up with PodPoint in the end to have at least one more option open to me, but that particular matter was starting to do my head in. This is one reason I didn't hang around there, particularly in Cumbria. Currently, on ZapMap, there are 53 different suppliers listed. How would petrol/diesel drivers feel if there were 53 different fuel suppliers, each with different machines to negotiate and different cards or apps to pay with? I have been reading and viewing various articles/programs on this issue and the need for significant regulation to standardise EV charging supply.

Similarly, some better checks concerning costs - and maintenance, and quantity. Certainly, the number of charge points is increasing, but it really needs to speed up. Maintenance... I didn't have much trouble with this until after leaving Nottingham and into the northwest. Around the Manchester area, there were enough for it not to be a huge issue. Once I got into the Yorkshire Dales, some cracks started to appear. Not only were the facilities more restricted (by my choosing to stick to specific networks), but every second point seemed to need to be fixed. Is it overuse? Is it that drivers in those areas are just very kak-handed? Are there saboteurs? Oh, I could write screeds... As to costs, these varied quite widely, but on the whole, south of the Border, the charges are significantly more than in Scotland. 

One of the frustrations was that, where there were options of fast DC charging or the slower AC charging, there was no differentiation, and the higher cost seemed always to be extracted. The costs were also much higher anywhere that was remotely busy or touristy. The northwest route also had me having to use motorway service chargers, and those (like fuel) come at premium pricing. By that, I mean around 90p per kWh. A quick glance back over ZapMap shows me that the average cost per kWh at most chargers I used was 59p. When I got north of the Border again, the costs became less. Now, I will be doing more driving in the Bonny Land to test out the standard and overall costs here, but as things stand, I would place the average here to be closer to 30p - which is less per kW than I am paying for the power in The Hutch. One thing that has been happening is the limiting of time and the cost of overstaying at a charger. This is to encourage a level of etiquette; not to have drivers just leave their cars for hours on end and block the space even if their battery is full. This is fine if you have the 43kWh charger - if you're on the 11kWh, that's not much charge in 70 mins (or 90 or whatever is allotted). Still, little and often remember!

What about The Grey itself? How did we go along? After the initial trepidatious hook-ups in which it all felt a tad clumsy, by the time I had reached Lincolnshire on the southbound journey, I was starting to feel like I knew what I was doing. By the time I reached Havant, I knew that overconfidence could be an issue too! Mostly, though, we managed well. The mindset for EV driving is necessarily different from ICE driving. In the latter, we tend to drive until the needle is down below the quarter tank (or even lower), then seek a station and fill the tank to full again. There is no need to think about fuel until that needle peskily gets near the E marker again. It makes no difference to the engine how much fuel is there or how much goes in - just so long as it is not empty and sucking air.  

With an EV, one must think more in terms of little and often charging. Lithium batteries are better for not being totally drained (too often) or for being fully charged too quickly, too often. Thus, the guidance is to charge when dropping below 40% and mostly to 80 or 85%. Also, use ultra-fast charging sparingly. With its power-on-board capabilities in the E-Transit, this works well because 40% works out at about 70-75 miles range. Charging up the Bluetti uses about five miles of range. While I could set the battery to permit dropping below sixty miles in range to make that charge, I only did that if I was sure there was a working charge point within cooee. I was amazed to discover that we averaged three miles per kWh used. It has to be accepted that The Grey was travelling light - not yet fully furnished - but even with another 350-400 kgs on board, I think I might expect over the two miles per unit of power, which is at the top end of the suggested likely given by Ford themselves. This means a better range. The average suggested for this vehicle is about 120 miles per full charge. The highest charge I gave Grey on the trip was 93%, and the projected mileage was 183 miles... so 100% might be closer to 200. This is well above expectation, and while I am prepared for that dropping as the weight goes on and the winter approaches, I am well-pleased with my Big Grey Steed! Obviously, more power is required to go up in the hillier areas, but using the super eco function on Grey, there was a decent amount of regain on the downward, too - enough to balance things out as if on the flat. The miles per power unit were also less in places where I had to use the brakes more - that is to say, when driving in towns and cities. In theory, this ought to be the opposite, but the traffic flow means that one cannot avoid the use of brakes and cannot rely purely on the one-pedal deceleration/regain. We did best on the open road where we could pootle along at 40/45 mph. 

Tying all that together, how did I fare on my six-week holiday? Well, in charging terms, I added the parking fees as part of the costs, as I couldn't charge unless I paid them (at least not without the risk of even higher costs!) It came out at 19.93p per mile... which is definitely on the high side if you compare it with ICE vehicles. There is no doubt that in going on another similar trip south, I have learned heaps about locating and using chargers, as well as becoming more secure in what The Grey needs versus what my mind needs, so I am fairly sure I could cut that cost down some. Though, as you have seen, there are many factors involved and to some degree, EV drivers are being held to ransom at the moment!

However, I chose to look at my total costs as well. Not counting the very personal things such as clothes and RRD (rollator), but thinking in terms of groceries, eating out, fees/donations for other things, and adding that to the energy costs, I spent just shy of, so let's round it up to, £400. For 42 days, that works out at £9.52 per day.

When did you last have a vacation with comfy accommodations, transport, food and lots of fantastic scenery and places to visit for under ten quid a day? (Twenty Aussie bucks - less than thirteen Greenbacks.)

Bargain. Come on, YAM, get things going and back on the road!