Had a Corsa EV for 16 months. All 4 seasons. PodPoint charger at home. Context: We live near St Ives Cornwall. The infrastructure for BEVs is poor. Exeter is 110 miles and yet, in winter ( without heating on, in Eco mode and keeping below 51mph) our 220 miles range car had 32 left. The only reasonable service station with rapid charging is on Bodmin at Cornwall Services ( Gridserve). Every time…. every time we had to try three or four chargers and then call the very helpful people at Gridserve. In the cold January night a two hour journey took almost 5 hours each time. So perhaps the major issue for me is geographic. Also the advertised max range is a fictional figure. MB agreed and I have ordered a full hybrid. London to see family? No chance. Bristol? Wouldn’t bother. Personal experience and location issues. But a great car as long as I don’t want to go more than 50 miles from home ( 100 round trip. More than this and the infrastructure is currently inadequate. ) Cheers.
I’m in Camborne. I fully understand that trip to Exeter and it’s a bloody pain. I’m surprised the Corsa didn’t get further but agree, the whole concept of advertising a range is broken. There’s also a problem in very rural areas like Cornwall, Cumbria, East Anglia and others where the charging network is far from ideal.
The lovely people at Gridserve really are helpful, aren’t they, but their chargers do seem a little fragile. We got to Exeter on a Saturday morning and of the line of chargers 50% weren’t working. The helpline tried resetting many and they ended up sending an engineer who was on site for well over an hour. I can’t imagine what a problem it’s going to be in the height of summer if everyone decides to charge in the same services.
I’m targeting cars with a reliable 250 mile range, so I can be confident that in the middle of winter I can still get out of the county in one go.
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I'll try to give my honest opinion but am always open to learning.
Mark