John H drove from Warwick to Aberystwyth & back in his MG4 EV Trophy.
Introducing your road trip
Warwick to Aberystwyth and back in a weekend.
This is a journey we’ll make a few times a year, to visit my parents. At 150 miles, in theory, it’s well within the car’s range but it’s not really practical to granny-charge at my parent’s home, so charging is required for the return journey.
Planning & preparation
I’d considered this journey when deciding what EV to buy and knew it was well within range. I’d also studied Zapmap for charger locations on the way. We charged to 100% overnight before going.
Charging
There are two options for this route, north or south of Birmingham and for the outward journey Google Maps advised the southern route as the fastest and most energy-efficient. This takes us down the M5 to Worcester, then on A-roads to Leominster and then through Wales.
We realised that Leominster would coincide with dinner time, so we stopped at the OK Diner, a decent enough place with its own car park on the edge of Leominster.
We didn’t need charge to reach Aberystwyth but there were InstaVolt chargers in the car park and I like the principle of ‘charge when you can’. However, I saw the price of 75p/kWh and quickly decided to do without. So we spent 45 minutes eating at a restaurant with chargers outside but the network missed out on our custom.
So, without any charging, we reached out destination with 40% charge remaining, my wife’s efficient driving style having given us 4.1m/kWh.
The following day we planned to charge at the Pod Point chargers in the Tesco car park in Aberystwyth. This Tesco offers 3 hours free parking to non-shoppers via a deal with the town planners. In the event, the one 50kW charger was occupied, so we made do with 7kW charger while we spent a couple of hours wandering around town. It only supplied around 5kW and didn’t leave us with as much charge as we wanted.
So instead, we headed for the National Library of Wales, where there are 40 chargers in their car park, some 22kW and some 75kW. As it was a Sunday, the car park was empty so no problems with the chargers and 15 minutes took us to 80%. Normally, there would be a great view from this spot but it was raining hard so we sat in the car. The library itself is a good place to visit but closed on a Sunday.
Our 80% was enough for the drive home, this time we went the northern route via Shrewsbury and the M54/M6. Stopping for a leg-stretch at services on the Shrewsbury ring-road, we had a small boost from 45% to 60%, just for peace of mind, from a 50kW charger. This was actually so fast that by the time we’d been to the loo and chosen snacks from the garage shop we were blocking the charging bay!
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Did you encounter any great driving roads on your road trip?
All routes through mid-Wales are scenic and if you like bendy roads you got ’em! I’m sort of used to it by now. The windy and hilly nature of the roads lend themselves well to regen braking, so you get good efficiency. It was fun to watch the m/kWh go down as we drove into the mountains, then increase as we descended to the coast.
The MG4 EV
A very comfortable drive. When my wife is driving she prefers not to use most of the driving aids. I would have found cruise control useful for obeying speed limits, some of the Welsh 40mph stretches are temptingly wide and straight. I would have used Traffic Jam Assist on the M6 too when there were slow queues.
Conclusion
Mostly successful. I’m disappointed we had to go out of our way to charge for the return journey and wait while it charged, this wouldn’t have been necessary in an ICE car. We are learning and I’ll try different approaches next time. Possibly spend a few pounds on a cable protector so we can granny-charge across the pavement at my parents. We could possibly charge faster at the public Tesla Superchargers nearby.
All that said, this is only a few times a year and some minor inconvenience is outweighed by the convenient and cheap charging we get at home every day.
See other road trip reports here
