Nissan LEAF 2014 – Road trip report: East London to Yorkshire

Roger Thompson drove from East London to Harrogate in his Nissan LEAF 24kWh 2014.

Introducing your road trip

The trip was 225 miles, East London to Yorkshire for an event at the Harrogate Convention Centre. It was undertaken on Wednesday 12th April 2023.

Planning & preparation

A Harrogate hotel with a destination charger had been booked. My rule of thumb is to recharge every 50 miles at maximum and I picked 5 moderately spaced sites from a list of suitable ones compiled for a previously intended trip up the A1(M). The Google Maps image shows the route. Although longer in time, the initial stretch on the North Circular (around London) was taken in preference to the M11 due to its abundance of recharging options.

Charging

All sites were ChargePoint network ones hosting a pair of rapid chargers (see example invoice). All charging was to 80% of battery capacity.

Recharges were:

10.3kW (26 mins) at Starbucks Gunnels Wood, Stevenage
11.2kW (27 mins) at Starbucks Orton Goldhay
9.0kW (20 mins) at Grantham’s Discovery Retail Park
9.5kW (19 mins) at Starbucks Elkesley
9.3kW (20 mins) at McDonalds Glasshoughton.

Did you encounter any great driving roads on your road trip? If so, where were they and why were they great?

No but the northern half of this A1(M) trip was definitely more clear of traffic and speed restrictions.

The electric car itself

My rule of thumb is to recharge every 50 miles at maximum due to the EVs limited 24kW battery capacity. The original LEAF’s rapid charging starts slowing from an already modest 34kW speed once charged past 55% battery capacity, hence the particularly long time spent recharging.

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Road trip conclusion

The rapid charging infrastructure was abundant, as well as reliable. No inoperable chargers were encountered, nor was any waiting/queueing involved behind others already recharging.

The trip involved:

6.6 hours spent on the road, mainly due to lunchtime traffic congestion around the London North Circular plus subsequent A1(M) speed restrictions
1.75 hours spent recharging at the 5 stops (see above)
1 hour spent at Ortongate Shopping Centre and Grantham Sainbury’s
10 minutes spent waiting for debris clearance at first Starbucks Stevenage stop (see photo)
= 9.5 hours in total.Self-recharging was mostly at Starbucks :-(N.B. The debris clearance for the first recharging stop at Stevenage was due to the helpful workmen preparing for the go-live of a second pair of rapid ChargePoints installed there.