jack7158 went from Glasgow to Sherwood Forest in his Renault Zoe ZE40.
Introducing your road trip in a Renault Zoe
Road trip to Centre Parcs, Sherwood Forest in October 2021 from Glasgow which is approx. 270miles. I’ve owned the Renault Zoe since December 2020 and mostly charged in the Glasgow area using free destination charge points (council subsidised). IMHO they should not be totally free and time on the CP should, if possible, be limited. Hybrids have been known to hog the few working ones for more than 24 hours.
The journey took 17 hours when it should only have been ten max including stops. The English infrastructure regarding charge points, IMHO, needs improving. I was not impressed with the failings: wrong postcodes, misinformation etc. To summarise, two golden oldies making their first venture over 30 miles, and he who should know better, listened to his wife and drove for 90 miles initially, bad idea.
For more than one reason, this top up (and only to 70%) took almost three hours. We should have got a 100% 40 minute top-up at 50 miles, hindsight a marvellous science. Since the range was about 150 miles and with 7kW max charging rate, that should have been taken into account. My disenchanted wife (biting my ear off in the passenger seat), was convinced I got it totally WRONG, BIG STYLE, in more ways than one. She did not want an electric car in the first place and wants us to hire an ICE if we need to go anywhere over 100 miles again.
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Planning & preparation
Went through Zap-Map and typed all charging points on the routes.
Charging
Pod Point, Penrith and any others I could find, cannot remember exactly. Recommendations? Try and copy the Scottish system. We have an RFID card (used to be under ChargePlace Scotland, now SWARCO). SWARCO admit they took over a chaotic system from ChargePlace Scotland. The maintenance schedules seem to be erratic: one company in administration and the maintenance contract expired. These RFID cards should/could be used to take money if necessary but in most cases, the local councils cover the electricity cost
Did you encounter any great driving roads on your road trip? If so, where were they and why were they great?
IMHO a great driving road is for total driving enthusiasts. With the steep learning curve of changing from ICE to an electric car, planning is a must. A great journey in an electric car is where you find a charge point where and when you need one. Again IMHO, that is not the norm, especially south of Carlisle.
The Renault Zoe
The Renault Zoe is a mostly comfortable and practical electric car. Apart from the glove box; the manual puts it at A4 size. In practice, any A4 has to be rolled up like a Swiss roll and the A5 manual was there like a Swiss roll when we bought the car in December 14 2020.
Road trip conclusion
The Renault Zoe is reliable, thankfully. In the end our four day break was worth the tribulations. Otherwise, we arrived at our destination with 2 miles left in the ‘tank’, a bit too close for comfort. Summary, make a plan and try to stick to it but most important of all, be flexible. Charge points do not appear like magic and are definitely not as easily found as petrol stations for ICEs.
*library image used.
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