New ev driver - basic question re public charging.

middlewife

I'll just add (had my EV for 5 years),if you're on holiday I've asked politely if can charge my vehicle using granny charger (offering to pay, of course!)and I've never been refused in any place I stay. Sometimes the owner has a charger anyway, they just don't advertise it to prevent unauthorized access. If you get really stuck then plug share and zapmap both link up with domestic users and you can charge on someone's driveway after messaging to arrange. Much cheaper than commercial charging, although usually only at 7 KW. It can all be a bit bamboozling but there is a lot more choice now than 5 years ago, don't be put off long journeys. Recently did 1000 miles in 10 days, all on public charging....

PinkPlane

Hello, we have had our EV since January 2025 we are retired and milage is around 5,000 miles per annum. We charge mainly from home with a 350 to 400 mile range we can cover most trips on a single charge. We completed a 900 mile UK trip in September 2025 used a Zappi discount charge Card and RAW chargers at National Trust locations. The key on a trip is to top up as you go don’t wait until your on the last 30% SOC. Normally charge at 50% SOC but have no fear of going below that as fast chargers are plentiful.

eastcorkram

I've not charged up much out and about, as it's nearly all done at home, but the six or seven different places I've used have just accepted contactless. It's been very simple.

Leg0br1ck

We have had our EV years now and have driven it to Germany and the north of England and we regularly drive it to the Midlands from the south coast. My advice is always charge it at home when you can as that is the cheapest charging. When going on long journeys it takes awhile to get used to range anxiety and when you actually need to charge. It can be quite worrying to start with seeing your charge ebb away and not knowing where you’re going to charge. Google Maps shows car chargers and the app Zap Map also shows locations and how fast they are. So you can plan your journey around charging stops if it is a long one. Like buying petrol on a motorway, you will always pay more for a charger on one, but you have to weigh that up against convenience as chargers are fast and plentiful at most service areas. With our Car we time a charge with a tea break and by the time we have drunk the tea, the car is ready to go again. We can charge up to 100% in about 30 minutes on a fast charger. Generally after two hours of driving, we are ready for a break anyway. As stated in previous posts most fast chargers work by plugging the car in tapping your card and it will charge automatically. There are a huge amount of different apps for different chargers and these tend to be on slower chargers, older ones and town Centre charging for example roadside charging. Personally, I find these far too much bother to deal with unless I absolutely have to. It also greatly annoys me that you have to give a huge amount of your personal data to register to use a charging app to charge your car when you can go into any petrol station and just tap your card to pay. There are offers and discounts when you sign up to different apps but as car charging is generally cheaper than petrol we find that they are not worth the hassle. When driving abroad, I would really recommend that you get an RFID card as we found most chargers in France Belgium and Germany, you cannot just tap and go with a debit/credit card like you can here. Each one requires registering for the app. However, with an RFID card, this is not necessary. Having said that chargers are plentiful in Europe as well.

facade

Amazingly, there are twice as many public chargers in the UK than there are petrol & diesel pumps, yet we hardly ever worry about finding a fuel station like we worry about finding a charger.

I suppose it is all to do with fuel capacity vs battery range, I can only recall getting worried about finding a fuel station whilst driving near empty a couple of times whereas I pour over the charger maps and check out the locations on google Earth before I go anywhere beyond the range of my EV.

(Or is it that garages on major routes are obvious and easy to spot when driving, but charging stations are very well camouflaged and virtually impossible to spot, as well as usually being hidden around the back of something)

(There are 121,000 chargers spread over 46,000 locations according to zapmap, and only 60,000 fuel pumps according to GOV.UK)

jungleboy123

worth it if you dont have home charging?

Cornucopia

I was talking to someone also charging their car at Lidl the other day, and he was saying that public charging was nearly as expensive as diesel. On paper, he might be right (especially at higher per unit prices for electricity).

But OTOH, I rarely pay more than £4-5 for a charging session. For the Lidl charging I was doing I paid £2.14. So, I think there's a difference between fuels in that electricity is almost always time (and therefore cost) constrained. For most drivers, it will be a mix of charging options which produces a blended price.

QrizB

I was talking to someone also charging their car at Lidl the other day, and he was saying that public charging was nearly as expensive as diesel.

It's also worth noting that there's much wider variations in public charging prices than there are in petrol or diesel prices. The cheapest public charging I've seen recently was around 30p/kWh (off-peak at a Tesla supercharger) and the most expensive was around 90p (just off a motorway). Comparing an EV getting 3 miles per kWh to a car getting 45mpg, that's the difference between £1 a litre and £3 a litre.

worth it if you dont have home charging?

It's potentially worth it if there are public chargers near you that are towards the lower end of the price range. Tesla superchargers aside, cheaper chargers tend to be slower chargers so you might find yourself parking your car next to one overnight once or twice a week, depending on how much driving you do and how big your car's battery is.

born_again

Cars in built Sat nav should have charger locations built in & many will take cars SOC & when planning a route give charging stops on route.

born_again

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82069384#Comment_82069384

Hopefully the owners have the ins cover. As in many cases they will not allow mobility scooter charging due to ins restrictions.