VW Buzz EV on the NC500
We seem to have had quite a few posts recently about the pro's and con's of towing with an EV. The Roaming Radfords, or at least Steve, is attempting to do the NC500 in winter using his electric camper based on the VW Buzz. Much of the video is about the trials and tribulations of finding working charging points along the route and making the judgement on when to charge in order to get to his destination. It does highlight some of the issues with finding working chargers. Its not the case there are not enough chargers, even in remote areas but whether you can get them to work. It seems the myriad of systems need to be streamlined which I think is work in progress.
David
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I am sure EV's have a role to play but living in a rural area where infrastructure for electricity has not kept up with the rate of house building we would like to get through a day without having a power outage add on the likes of Storm Darragh and we'er stuffed. A Londoncentric policy.
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A large proportion of domestic EV owners charge at home, use cheap rate electricity overnight, and can ensure their car is charged. It certainly is not a Londoncentric problem because of the high proportion of London homes with no ability to have a home charger because of a lack of drive ways. It is only a small number of people that are effected by regular electricity outages, and I wonder how many of those are overnight.
We still have some way to go in terms of EV motorhomes but there are lots of examples of EV tow cars being used. EV delivery vans are more and more common. Watched a very interesting You tube video about a truck driver (as in big lorry) driving an EV truck. He said he would not wish to return to diesel on a regular basis. This was in Germany and there was infrastructure for charging the lorry at the lorry parks. His limiting factor was not the range the lorry could travel but his driving hours.
We are in Lincolnshire and have had an EV for 3.5 years now. Range of about 230 miles on a full charge. Its a Kia. Would never want to go back to an ICE car.
I think Steve Radford's experiment is really interesting. He is doing it as an experiment, knowing EVs well as he has been driving them for some years. It really highlights two things that there is quite a push to overcome: maintenance of chargers, and the ability to pay with a credit card not an RFID card. I understand that all new chargers must be credit card compatible, and older ones changed within a period of time, may be 12 months.
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@Hja I wasn't quite sure what a RFID card was or what it did, although it seems essential to gain access to some of the charging stations?
David
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I am not aware of what there is in the way of charge points on the NC500 as never checked. It does Have some long rural stretches with very little population, which probably means chargers are few and far between and they will be a long way away from the engineers who repair them. This could mean it is risky or needs more care using some EV's in the area and you might need to top up earlier than normal.
Before going it seems to me essential to check the location of chargers and always make sure you can reach the next but one, just in case the next is not working. The area is very hilly which could reduce range, as does cold weather and that needs to be taken into account.
Not sure which Buzz he has, but that can affect the range. The newer ones look reasonable, but towing reduces this to a point I do wonder if it can manage. Will wait and see how he gets on, but he will at least be able to give us a realistic idea as to the use of these vehicles in the area.
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NC500 in an EV is not very new - its been done hundreds (if not thousands) of times before, thought perhaps not documented in quite this way. The key to it (as many have said) is to ensure you have all the available access mechanisms for the chargers before you set off. Charge Place Scotland (CPS) (the Scottish government sponsored EV charging network) was set up years ago, but is accessible to all if you set up an account. But because many of the chargers are old, they don't have simple credit card payment systems, but rather use RFID (Radio frequency identification) cards as a mechanism to authenticate the user, with charging done via an online account separately. RFID is like the card you may have used to gain access to a hotel room or office, by scanning on a "pad". With CPS, you need to buy the RFID card ahead of time and have it sent to your home address.
RFID (for better or worse) became the de-facto way to link chargers to accounts without the need to install credit card readers in the chargers, and has - to a certain extent- stuck. I personally like using RFID to pay for charging. It links my charge session to the charging provider account I choose to use, meaning I get any discounts and loyalty options and automatically get receipts on my account without needing a credit card. It also means a charger can accept a charging session without direct bank authorisation, or a hold fee being placed on the card, potentially helping users out when cell network coverage is patchy.
With CPS, without the RFID, you may have to use the CPS app or website to initiate a charge via a smart phone. No good if there is no service coverage. So the RFID option in the highlands makes a lot of sense.
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@ChocolateTrees Thanks for the explanation. I could work out what RFID stood for but had no idea how it worked. I assume at some point all chargers will have a tap and go facility? As a non EV owner, at least at the moment, it does seem that charging is a bit overly complicated with all the different systems.
I think Steve Radford has a few videos about the VW Buzz on his channel as well of course as his main motorhome which is a big Swift.
David
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Thanks @ChocolateTrees for your description of RFID cards. I understand from the video that Steve had applied for one before his trip but it hadnt arrived! I get what you mean about discounts etc but I think if you are travelling round a lot and are going to come across chargers from different providers the option of Tap & Pay is going to be the easiest. I am sure there must be the possibility of doing both, similar to the use of fuel cards at fuel stations.
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There is a mandate that came into effect at the end of last month that all publicly accessible rapid chargers (50kW or faster) MUST have facility to use contactless payments without signing up for an app. Most rapid chargers do, and certainly any newly installed in the last year or so will have. The long tail is in retrofitting or upgrading the older legacy ones. Sometimes simplicity is king, and tap to pay just wins, even if it is a bit more expensive.
Low speed chargers (destination chargers - the kind you would leave your car on all night or while going for a meal or an all day walk or watching a movie) are not covered by that mandate. They can be hard to start if you dont have an RFID card, but you are almost never in a hurry to use them, and will have almost always planned to use one before you get to it.
As you say, almost all chargers that support contactless payment also have an RFID reader to facilitate "membership" payments. Perhaps the largest provider of coverage in the UK is Electroverse (part of Octopus energy - click to look at their map). They are affiliated with many (but by no means all) of the UK and indeed European providers, and their coverage map is enormous (it even covers some of the CPS chargers in Scotland)!
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Just in case anyone is interested this is the next video. Not sure its a trip I would want to do in that sort of weather. In the final video Steve is going to do a recap on the costs of charging on this trip which should be interesting.
David
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This is the final video of the trip with a breakdown of costs for charging at the end.
David
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