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Hi,
I was hoping someone has experience with this. I’ve not returned a car to mobility before.
I’ve moved into a EV for the first time (renault e megan) and have been enjoying the car but noticed the longer trips are just not working.
my example is Liverpool to Scunthorpe. I make this trip regularly and made sure to pick a car with enough range to get there and back.
I’ve noticed I’m just not getting the range claimed. I now understand that the mobility site uses the old “up to” trick like broadband companies.
part of my issue is that I don’t have a place to charge other then a public charger.
if I knew the car couldnt get there and back I wouldn’t of accepted it.
I tried the car and did quite a bit of research so feeling a bit silly and let down by my choice.
is the range a valid reason for giving the car back?
I’m worried that they will charge me for the charger?
would they also want the advanced payment grant back?
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I’m unsure what you mean by charge you for the charger, as you’ve said you can only use public charging?
what’s stopping you from having a top up charge on the way back?
it’s not motability that claims the mileage it’s the manufacturer
If they accept an early termination then you’ll be liable for a fee, but you will get your AP back pro rata
I feel this may be a wind up, the post mention return of advance payment grant ?
Unfortunately I have suffered a brain injury and occasionally I get confused and often say the wrong thing.
Liverpool to Scunthorpe and back is around 240 miles. Even with a decent range I’d probably want a quick stop for a boost. We came back from Dorset last week with a full charge, the car should easily have done it without stopping but there was a diversion due to flooding in the M5 and atrocious weather, we had to stop for a boost, no issue for us, it’s just living with an electric car.
Enyaq EV
Living with an electric car does require more planning when making a long trip, but as above I don’t see the problem of stopping on the way home for a quick charge to add say 100 miles.
On the other hand, I would never have considered an EV without a home charger.
Clarity needed around the question of paying for the charger which you say you do not have.
A Renault Scenic E Tech has a longer range, on a recent test drive I was seeing 320 miles on the Guessometer.
Finally, “upto” has nothing to do with Motability, it’s a European standard known as WLTP.
Exactly the same as a petrol car which claims it can do “upto” 48 MPG on the combined cycle, but most users will be lucky to see 40 in the real world. Nothing new here.
2024 - BMW i4 Grand Coupe eDrive 35 Sport
2020 - Volvo XC40 T4 Inscription
2017 - Audi Q3 TFSi Sport S-Tronicoh sorry – I might have not worded myself that well, I can assure you I’m not trolling.
I can charge at home but when I visit family in scunthorpe I don’t have anyway of charging(they don’t have a drive and was told you can’t plug the cable over the pavement). part of my issue is that I do this trip really frequently.
I specifically picked a car what I thought would go there and back without the need for charging but every time I do the trip I have to charge.
in my situation the car is claimed to do 280 miles.
my round trip distance is 240. So I should have 40 miles to spare. I know it’s not going to be exact but with 40 miles spare it would cover any loses.
I’d rather not use the public chargers as I’ve heard they can be out of order or not available and ive had a few not want to connect to my car. A minor point is that I don’t want to be hanging around for a hour. The unknowns makes me uncomfortable and the primary reason I picked a car that i thought could do the trip in one go.
It seems like a silly reason but its all linked to my anxiety.
I’m worried around contacting mobility so I’ve posted here to see if anyone had a similar situation. I didn’t know if this would be an acceptable reason to give the car back.
The money I’m worried about giving back is the 750 new vehicle payment that helps towards the advanced payment. As I’m not sure if I’m going to get another mobility car.
if I’m able to give the car back and get a petrol car. would mobility want the charger back or require me to pay for it?
sorry, I re-read my first post and see where the confusion is.
I have a charger at home. But not at the destination and can’t use the 3 pin plug because there is no drive there.
I’d rather not use the public chargers as I’ve heard they can be out of order or not available and ive had a few not want to connect to my car. A minor point is that I don’t want to be hanging around for a hour. The unknowns makes me uncomfortable and the primary reason I picked a car that i thought could do the trip in one go.
Have a look at my topic from last week:
https://forum.whichmobilitycar.co.uk/forums/topic/enyaq-880-mile-ev-road-trip-using-rapid-chargers/
Charging using rapid chargers was a doddle, never had an issue on an 880 mile trip, always loads of free bays, even without planning. On the way back we needed a boost, first place we tried had 16 chargers and only 1 was being used. You’d only need to stop for 5/10 minutes for a small boost.
That said, if you’ve lost confidence in the car you may be better going back to petrol.
Enyaq EV
I don’t think your own lack of research and taking the manufacturers figures at face value would be sufficient reason to terminate the contract. At least not without paying the early termination fee.
I also think that you’re somewhat out of date with public chargers these days. Presumably you use motorway at least part of your journey? Services have Gridserve chargers that all take contactless and are rapid enough that you’re Megan would go from something like 30% to 80% in the time it took you to have a coffee. There’s also a plethora of rapid chargers a mile or less from loads of motorway junctions these days.
I bet if you gave this forum the route you use you’d be provided with a list of multiple charging stations you could easily and quickly use for that one top-up you need on the return leg.
Thanks for clarifying.
Moving to an EV will require a bit of re-thinking, but once you’ve got over that, it’s really not a problem.
The main thing to address: rapid chargers really aren’t ‘out of order’ all the time at all.
Plus, you say ‘I dont want to be charging for an hour’. You won’t be!
Your car will be able to add around 75 miles of charge in around 15 minutes. That’s all you’ll need to give a comfortable buffer to complete your road trip.
Download the ‘Zap-Map’ app, as it will show you which chargers are en-route.
A very quick look shows plenty of rapid charges on the M62 and in fact there is a bank of eight Osprey chargers in Scunthorpe.
The Megane-e is a great car, don’t give up on just yet!
You wouldn’t need to stop for a hour, most likely a 15 minute top up stop would be enough to get you home. This is perhaps the main reason why I myself didn’t want an EV.
However, you are where your at and its down to what suits you best moving forward:
As others have said, your lack of research and not wanting to charge away from home, would be sufficient reason to terminate the contract without attracting a £250 termination fee.
However, if the car is causing you alot of anxiety, as you have said, that could be good reason to terminate especially if you suffer anxiety anway. Motability would most likely look at this as medical grounds and waive the early termination fee or charge £50, especially if you haven’t had an early termination previously.
The other option is to accept the car doesn’t go as far especially in winter months and earn to do short charging stops on longer journeys. There will be others you can ask for help, as I believe they are a freindly bunch.
If you choose to go for an early termination you will recieve a pro rata refund of the AP you paid. You won’t have to give anything back, unless there is an early termination fee.
You don’t have to fully charge the car for hours, you only need to add a few miles to get you back to your home charger, you’ll be there the same time it’d take to que up at a petrol and buy some fuel and queue behind the annoying guy who uses the toilet and buys a subway, gone in 10 mins its not an issue in my opinion
Don’t know where you get the hour figure from… sounds like less than 5 minutes just to give yourself that wee buffer to get home.
Have you actually done this trip 240 mile trip yet, what speeds are you driving at, have you considered doing it at 60 or 65, how long are you there for and is it possible to slow charge nearby.
Did an 850 mile road trip on our hols, just stopped twice on the M1, both gridserve, for a ‘p’ stop and coffee, journey down to London didn’t really take much longer, but we were more refreshed with stops, even joking as we drove through Fulham, about doing our shopping at the street side market, traffic is so slow, could have. Charged at street light chargers in Balham, 24p a kWh, then went on to Devon, coming back by Oxford. Mainly used gridserve on the motorway, but didn’t have any anxiety, in fact was a pleasant holiday, we get around 260 ish from our Bz4x.
Bz4x fwd vision in silver
Worth remembering the Motability Go Charge card (which we all get when taking out an EV lease with Motability) allows you to charge without it taking a hefty pre-authorisation payment. We used it quite a few times and found it didn’t take any payment (not even a pre authorisation) for a day or two after we used the charger. I think Motability have thought about people on low incomes having large payments taken from their bank accounts.
Enyaq EV
You said you made sure that you picked a car that would do the journey without recharging
Well it seems you didnt do any research at all imo
Basic research tells you that wanting a Megan to drive a regular 240 mile mostly motorway journey without wanting to recharge aint gonna happen.
Cant understand why you had thought that would be the case and why not as others suggest stop and chuck a small charge in
Your expectations from this car are far from reasonable imo when considering this particular regular motorway journey
Reading your above replies imo It seems a petrol/diesel would have been the best way for you to have gone.
I suspect they will allow you to give it back as its your first time but suspect because the fault is yours it may well end up costing you £250 to do so.
Seems imo a tiny bit of homework may well have saved you all this hassle
Hope it gets quickly sorted for you
Ele is right. You’ve made a mistake and don’t want the car anymore. I don’t believe you will be charged for the charger, but you will pay a £250 admin fee and will have a strike, mark, tick or whatever they call it against you. I believe it three of them and they will remove you from the scheme so choose wisely.
Thank you all for your replys. I’ll have a bit more of a think about it as the general tone seems to be im being unreasonable.
it might not be the responce I was looking for but I really apreciate forums like these as it helps me work things out and set the right expectation.
Thanks again.
However, if the car is causing you alot of anxiety, as you have said, that could be good reason to terminate especially if you suffer anxiety anway. Motability would most likely look at this as medical grounds and waive the early termination fee or charge £50, especially if you haven’t had an early termination previously.
If its affectiing your health or you suffered anxiety previously and having the car has only heightened it, then think about what I said
“However, if the car is causing you alot of anxiety, as you have said, that could be good reason to terminate especially if you suffer anxiety anway. Motability would most likely look at this as medical grounds and waive the early termination fee or charge £50, especially if you haven’t had an early termination previously.”
Thank you all for your replys. I’ll have a bit more of a think about it as the general tone seems to be im being unreasonable. it might not be the responce I was looking for but I really apreciate forums like these as it helps me work things out and set the right expectation. Thanks again.
I don’t think you are being unreasonable but unfortunately you didn’t do your homework, which you know. However, with Motability really pushing EVs you won’t be alone in regretting the decision. Those of us who read car publications and watch reviews will know that quoted EV range is a bit of a joke, but why should everyone know that? Unfortunately the problem will get worse in the Winter as EV range drops even more. Whilst petrol and diesel car fuel economy also drops in the winter, from my experience over many decades I have generally found the drop in the winter to be around 10% with a petrol or diesel and, of course, they have a far higher range to start with. Some (but not all) EVs can drop by as much as 30%, which is completely different.
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say that you hadn’t appreciated all of this and would like to revert to a petrol or diesel car. Motability will either say yes or no. There’s no harm at all in asking. As has been said, you will pay a £250 early termination fee but you will get a pro rata refund of the AP. I don’t know about the new vehicle payment – best to ask them. I don’t think you’d have to reimburse the cost of the charger. If you decide to keep the car, as others have said, you should be able to do a relatively quick partial charge just to get home rather than a full charge but it will still be longer than stopping for petrol or diesel, especially in the winter when you need to charge it more. I’d give Motability a call and explain your problem. They are usually very helpful and the worst that can happen is that they say no. Good luck.
I’ve had my EV for nearly four years now (a BMW i3s). It’s got a low range (180 miles) and not a very fast charge (50kw).
I was quite anxious before my first long distance journey. We have to go from Surrey to Northumberland twice a year, and as we can’t charge at our destination we have to use the public chargers.
Four years ago it really wasn’t a problem, and now? It’s an absolute breeze.
First thing you have to try, is to use a public rapid charger. You’ll then wonder what the fuss was all about.
And honestly, at some point in your ownership you’ll have to use public charging, so just find a nearby rapid charger (Instavolt, Osprey, Gridserve, Applegreen are all excellent) and just try it.
Bite the bullet and get used to topping up on longer journeys. We’re all going to be forced to go this way eventually so you can get a head start on us.
Plug into a fast charger, visit the restroom, grab a coffee and come back half an hour later to a car with significantly more miles in the battery. It’s just a different way of doing things but really no chore.
Plug into a fast charger, visit the restroom, grab a coffee and come back half an hour later to a car with significantly more miles in the battery. It’s just a different way of doing things but really no chore.
Personally, I would definitely find that a chore. With a full tank of petrol or diesel no stop would be needed. Also, my understanding is that the use of fast chargers can eradicate most of the cost savings of using an EV?
I must admit I was anxious about charging away from home. But after the first time I had no fears about it. Just followed the instructions on the screen. I was just as nervous the 1st time I put petrol in a car !
The only thing I would say is that with the very fast chargers I was very surprised how heavy the charging cable was and I found it awkward getting the cable connected to the car. Luckily a guy in the next bay saw me struggling with it and offered to help me.
I think this is something motability (who appears to be pushing ev’s) and the charging stations haven’t taken in to account if someone has a disability. I also find some of the charging bays very narrow as they are just normal bays not wider ones needed for disabled people.
This has highlighted why I will never have an EV or a plug in hybrid. I’m a wheelchair user the system isn’t set up for wheelchair users heavy cables parking spaces not wide enough. Where the cables are they have curbs around them so can’t reach easily. You would think in this day and age disability would be a thought but still obviously not even a second thought as usual. I couldn’t deal with the low range and constant worry and planning I have to plan enough as it is at times.
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