Joanne Reynolds drove a 326-mile round trip to Bournemouth & back in her Nissan LEAF 30kWh 2016.

Introducing your road trip

The afternoon journey was for an evening work appointment in Bournemouth on a hot Tuesday 13th June 2023, staying overnight before returning the next day: 156 miles outbound & 170 miles homebound.

Planning & preparation 

My client uses Premier Inns for evening jobs but because Bournemouth is another place devoid of hotels with destination chargers I had to use a Bournemouth rapid charge site in the early hours after my late night work 🙁

On a previous trip on the A3/A31 at Aldershot McDonalds, I’d encountered a charge point-hogger who’d gone AWOL from their EV charging way into the 90%s. So for future reference I decided this time to try the new trio of rapids at BP SF Merrow (Guildford). In hindsight I could have probably chosen a better site that didn’t necessitate a second stop at Eastleigh.

I’d intended to take the shorter A3/A31 for the return journey too. Because this had taken 4 hours on the road I decided on the return journey to use the M3 route to the M25 north side for comparison and have a lunch stop along the way.

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Charging

No inoperable chargers were encountered, nor was there any queueing involved behind others already recharging.

OUTBOUND

• 13.6kW (24 mins) at A3 BP SF Connect Merrow
• 13.1kW (22 mins) at M3 Mer Eastleigh Places leisure centre.

HOMEBOUND

• 11.7kW (15 mins) at M3 Osprey Sarsens Stones pub/rest
• 10.1kW (27 mins) at M25 Shell Hunton Bridge.

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

Not for long, only the M27 was clear of traffic congestion. The M25 southside was free of speed restrictions until Leatherhead but after Cobham the journey was restricted to 50mph. Returning there was a stretch of the M3 between Winchester and Basingstoke that was free of speed restrictions but the M25 west-side was it’s usual crawling speed and the M25 north-side was little better during afternoon rush-hour. The outbound M25 ‘southern’ route was 30 minutes shorter.

The Nissan LEAF

For any EV other than the Nissan LEAF, the Euro Garages ‘Hogs Back’ site would have been the obvious one to use for the A3/A31, but I was restricted to older ‘CHAdeMO connector’ sites.

Road trip conclusion

No inoperable chargers were encountered nor was there any queueing involved behind others already recharging.

OUTBOUND
– 4 hours spent on the road, mostly due to speed restrictions after the M25 Leatherhead junction
– 45 minutes spent recharging at the 2 stops
= 4.75 HOURS.

HOMEBOUND
– 4.5 hours spent on the road, mostly subject to traffic congestion around the M25 west side but also on the north side and on the M3
– 1.5 hours lunch break at Sarsens Stones
– 30 minutes spent recharging at Shell Hunton Bridge (semi-rapid only speed)
= 6.5 HOURS.

Traffic congestion was by far the biggest factor in the journey time on both routes. Even the extra 10 minutes recharging involved choosing a semi-rapid-only site for the last stop which made little difference overall.

The hot return journey in particular featured plenty of posh piston cars expired beside the M25 with their big bonnets up and some were being hauled off by recovery vans! (Maybe the others witnessing the sight were glad of the speed restrictions.)

See other road trip reports here