NEW! Is this the BEST way to charge an EV?? | What Car? 

One thing it does highlight is that Gridserve are not monitoring the chargers. It should have flagged with the guy who answered the phone before you rang (and chances are that the chargers failed for previous customers) and they reboot it or run diagnostics and mark the device as not available to stop wasting customers time and updating apps to say that its offline.

It would have made more sense to let both cars start with same charging state of 80% or 100% and test the different charging strategy only for the charging stops along the route.

I guess this proves how little it matters in the UK as our country isnt big enough to make a noticeable difference! It's interesting you both started on a low charge, in the real world most would leave home on 100% so would only need one stop on a 500 mile journey.

How can chargers not restart themselves automatically when they are not working? It can't be that hard to implement some healthcheck/monitoring to avoid a faulty charger.

Depends on the Car. New Taycan, E Tron & / 800V cars keep high power very long. Other cars like Teslas slow down massively. But you can definitely say, drive faster and charge more is faster!

I don't understand why everyone makes such a big deal about charging. I just go 20 to 80% which takes around 27 minutes on a super fast charger. This gives me about 3.5 to 4 hours of driving which is more than my bladder and attention span can take in one sitting. Stop for a pee, coffee and a quick walk for the dog and away you go.

Having done a 5,500 mile roadtrip to see the Midnight Sun at the top of Norway in 2023 I can say that the more frequent option is the best. HOWEVER, chargers need to be on the route and, as you discovered, reliable. We were driving a 2016 Tesla model S P90D and so chargers not working was never a problem, fortunately.

I’m an ex Brit living in Québec, where the main charging networks .. Circuit Électrique and FLO ..are superb. In 5 years I’ve never stopped at a charger that didn’t work. The temperatures here vary from -30c to 30c plus in a year so apart from the speed of the charge because of these factors, we are extremely fortunate. Why can the equipment work almost flawlessly in these conditions , yet other countries have problems ?? 😮 I enjoyed the video and found it very informative. Good work. 😅

But you need to allow for the extra time to get off the motorway. Find the charger. Set it up and then get back on the motorway. So 8 minutes up on charging speed is nothing when each charge could cost you 15 minutes in time just to get to and from.

Redo the same with Teslas and Tesla supercharger. You might get more accurate and reliable data!

The most important thing is understanding charging curves. Our first EV required running down to less than 10% to get a decent curve. Our new ev we can rock up with anything less than 80% and so we think about when and where to stop with our bladders or belly’s not our battery state of charge.

Here in the US, I have a Model Y Long Range, we regularly go on longer weekends to my in-laws about 600 miles away (me, wife, two pre-teens, cat and a small dog). As expected, the car is fully loaded, and we charge to 100% from home, so the first leg is about 200 miles. We charge upto 80% and have set the car to never dip below 15%. Our trip is more or less, like this 1. 100% charged at home. 2. 200 miles. ~3 hours 3. Upto 80% charging, 15-20 minutes. 4. 180 miles. ~2.5 hours 5. 30-35minutes, reach anywhere between 80-90% charge. 6. 220 miles, with 10-12% battery remaining. ~3.25 hours 7. Plug into a level 2, 30 amp plug, car charges to 80% overnight. Give or take, 9.5-10 hours. Before this, we had a 2018 Toyota Highlander Hybrid, and we stopped after about 4 hours into the trip, about 300 miles, exactly halfway. Fuel up, eat, walk dog, piss and on our way, about 35-40 mins. Surprisingly, the Model Y time for the trip, is only about 30-45 mins more than the gas powered highlander hybrid trip. Not that big of a difference, since we start at 5:30am from our home and are at the in-laws around 3:30pm-3:45pm anyways. On a second thought, changing the arrival percentages to zero might reduce our Model Y times further, but I have no desire to hear the dog and the kids whine.

I've only been watching for 2.5mins, but not just setting off at the same time with 100% SOC seems like a deeply weird decision to have made. Your start point is immediately irrelevant to anyone attempting a journey that long.

Somebody must be deleting the EV hate comments? This is the least stressful ev comments section that I think I've ever seen.

Q. When quoting charging time, was that just plugging in to unplugging, or the more honest, starting to slow down for the services to reaching cruising speed again? Anyone who watches F1 knows that pit stop time is irrelevant it's the total time lost for the stop that matters.

Judging from the charging time of the 50% car, it took way too long. My EV6 800v would have done that in around 32 to 50 miniutes

Really good choice for a video. In the UK, given the size of the island, relatively few people make this kind of trip and wouldn't really be in a position to do this test if they are doing the trip. The starting at 5% seems like a good choice to me, given the unreality of the trip in the first place, in order to test the theory. Obviously in the real world the day would start with 100%, but doing that on an "only" 550 miles in a 300 mile range car wouldn't really prove anything. Now, scary thought, if you were to try it in my 9 year old eNV200 van with it's 24kWh battery and pretty much no battery management....... Interesting video, thanks.

The EQE’s charge speed is awful, a lot of ev’s can charge quicker than that, the Ioniq 5 for example can charge 10-80% in 18 minutes and I can confirm that because I have one! Plus you’ll pay considerably less for an ioniq 5 than a merc eqe

A hugely important factor that was neglected in this 'experiment' was the percentage at which you stop to charge. The highest charging power occurs at lower percentages, and you miss out on that when you stop charging at 20%.

I have to say that in my experience of chargers not on motorway services, it's very rare for a charger not to work

Good thing these guys weren’t trying this test with a Taycan as was used in America. The 50% charges would be less than 10min and no time for these guys to get any food. My average charging time to ~75% was 17.5 minutes when going cross country in USA.

I should also point that out the one was charing to 50% while the other was charging to 80%. You can charge to 80% relatively quickly but 80-100% is what takes ages. They should redo the test so then someone goes up to 50% and then the other goes up to 100%. In that case there would be an even bigger gap

When I saw the charge times for these Mercedes I was shocked (34 minutes 5% to 50%, and 57 minutes 5% to 80%) I was expecting much lower times, my Tesla Model 3 2021 SR+, can charge from 5% to 50% in about 11 minutes at a supercharger, It takes about 31 minutes to go from 5% to 80%. it hits 170 kwh max speed for a very brief time at the beginning. The Tesla Chargers are very reliable, and I always plan my stops before I leave on my trips. I also leave with 100% charge because Superchargers are expensive 50 cents a kwh, while at home at off peak i pay only 8 cents a kwh.

In the UK this make little difference. At most people travel 400 miles max..... Once a decade. So 1-2 stops max. This information is more useful in America or Europe as trips of 600+ miles are more common.

This test is not relevant for many people for 2 reasons: 1. Nobody starts a long journey without 100% 2. The car for this test charges at really slow speeds. My Polestar 2 gets 10 to 80% in about 30 minutes. Is a non-issue for these reasons because you will stop for a journey that long in an Ev or ICE car. People are reluctant to change and try to find problems that are not there.

Remember to add the time for diverting off your route, finding the charger and faffing around starting the charge. That doesn’t change whether you’re adding 30% or 60%. Also need to understand your car’s charging curve. My i3 charges at max speed up to nearly 90% while my XC40 peaks at 20% SOC than ramps steadily downward. BMW - fewer stops, Volvo more short stops.

Bjorn nyland does this already years in his 1000 km chllange. I would do the same , more stops ( euh just as i do now) on 800km i need 3 stops , even with with ice.

Neil’s strategy would undoubtedly be a lot quicker and hassle-free in a Tesla, which are more efficient as well and don’t have to rely on other companies’ chargers.

Sorry but. BEVs been round a long time now. Are you only now finally figuring this out by yourselves? 🤦🏻‍♂️ Don’t get me wrong: it’s a good thing you made a video about it, and only in the last couple years it’s possible to choose the strategy. But ask any Tesla driver and they’ll tell you ‘ the satnav works it out’ which is exactly what you should do normally but, as a default strategy, several stops are better if you care about speed when chargers are frequent and the opposite when chargers are far in between or if needing services when stopping

Who starts their road trip at a rapid?? No one!!!! Both should’ve started at 100% and pre conditioned And the route was very suspicious giving all super rapids… pop further north or wales please for a more fair test Honestly what a half arsed test

I always charge to 80%, unless I don't need 80% to get me home. Having been driving EV's since 2017 I have seen the charging network improve but it's also got far more busy at the same time. As far as the shear numbers of different charge suppliers , charger types, app's, cards and range of costs it's still the wild west out there. My advice is never let the battery run too low, never charge past 80% (on public chargers), pick charging spots with multiple chargers, always have a plan B, always have a plan C and leave a large margin of error on your journey time, especially if you have to catch a ferry or a plane. Don't be put off though as your average driver is only going to have to faff about like this a few times a year.

As a Tesla driver the “short stop” strategy is a default approach Tesla cars navigation tend to go for. I often drive from St Albans, across Portsmouth to Caen of a ferry to Bordeaux region in France, and the Tesla navigation would tend to route plan a number of short 20 min stops and also short 10 mins ones. Works well because Tesla super chargers are fast, always works, and plenty of chargers at each stop. Best thing is they are always sideways mounted, so if you have a bike rack hanging on the towbar you can reverse and still plug in with its relatively short cables.

I will always choose less charging stops period. Less things that could go wrong even if it's going to take longer. I always try to charge at around 5% up until 80% the leave. I rarely charge beyond that unless I need that extra 5% or so to make it to my destination. It depends if there is a line behind me as well. In the US we need more stalls and existing locations first imo before they put in all new ones. Each location should have at least 8 stalls of not 12. I'm talking to you EA! I haven't tried EVgo or any other brands yet but I know I will eventually have to.

Btw, word of advice: the mistake by Neil was to wait at a non-working charger. if on the ‘short stop’ strategy, never ever wait for a charger to become available: if you are on a short stop strategy, just quickly go to the next one, charge as little as needed if it’s a slower (50kW) charger and then off to the next one immediately: you want to maximise the charges made below 40% or at least below maximum charging speed: some cars sustain high speed charging way past 50% in which case even more important you never ever wait for a charger to become available.

Does the time include time lost coming off the motorway and then rejoining them? Also when on the short stop there isn't enough time to eat, so thats additional time

Is the test really meaningful? As most people have said most EV drivers would have set off with 100% charge, plus for many ( and at least for me) I have only once stopped to,charge but I do charge when I stop. So when going on longer journeys recently for example I stopped when I wanted lunch ( had about 46% of battery left) plugged in by the time I had finished lunch and found my wife in a nearby shop charged up to 89% ( I really only wanted 80%) , no more charging for the rest of the few days away and returned home with battery around 36%. On another holiday charged when at lunch ( battery at 70%) charged to just over 90% when finished lunch, next stop was not until booking into hotel for the night ( had about 20% left in battery) charged overnight at hotel whilst asleep , left next morning with 100% battery arrived at final destination with approx 40% in battery , no problem. So from my point of view ( and obviously this may not suit all EV drivers), just charge when you are stopping anyway whether you have 50% or 80% in your battery, even if you are just going for a quick loo break.

Just auto reboot the chargers at say 3am? Obv not all at same time.

In the real world, I charge my IONIQ 6 (e-GmP 800 V) in 2 times with > 170 kW and I need only 40 minutes for charging. The EQE ist not really a good EV-car. It takes to much kWh / mile and the charging power is not good. In a few months, the A6 e-tron is the best offer vor a long journey.

it depends on the car, you need to know your charging curve. it also depends on battery temperature and whether you car preconditions the battery before you arirve at the charging

If they used Tesla network maybe they wouldn’t have this problems, but then maybe there would be more waiting time to get in line in busy hours. What also doesn’t make sense is going on a trip with empty battery.

indeed, to minimize trip time, the approach is to charge up till when the power taken by the car drops significantly (for a car with 200kW max, the threshold for leaving might be 100kW). And that varies depending on the specific car. And that threshold can be anywhere from 50% to up to 80%

That Guinness analogy is really bad 🤣🤣

I hate those ABB chargers. Always Being Broken. Better with providers that use Alpitronic like EV power.

Having watched this & several other videos concerning charging an EV, why is it that when the charging unit fails to work, the customer has to inform the company? I'd have thought such hi-tech equipment would be monitored & faults would be identified in real time & fixed remotely. It appears companies are relying on customers to report their faulty equipment!

Hard to listen to Neil’s voice. Doug and Will are much more naturally gifted presenters

The key thing I don't think works with such short charging stops are the time taken to slow down and pull into a charger. To then open the app and potentially put in your details then start charging. Having just done 400 miles on one trip recently, I found stick to a decent charger and use it to it's maximum.

With the newer LFP batteries things are easier. Got an early 2023 BYD LFP in my car (not a BYD car), it charges so good and you can plug it an at any SoC to get high speed (charge curve shifts). 10-80% or 20-90% in 20min. Plug it at 75% at get 176kW (58Kwh battery !). The 2-3 min driving to a charge stop cost more, so charging this battery to only 50% like old NCMs is not needed any more. Main thing: you do not need to run it down to 0% to get fastest charge. NCM times are over, upcoming 2024 LFPs are even better

Isn't the term Opportunity Cost? Or the saying 'A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush'. If you're on a charger and it's working better to spend the time letting it get to 80% than rush to the next one which may or may not be available.

Wtf 20 minutes from 18-50%. WTF? Even my Hyundai Kona 64 kWh could do that. There has to be something wrong. The new zeekr007 does 10-80 in 11 minutes 😂

If that charger that was out of order applied to all of them at that place ....then what ? Say you couldn't get to another place on your remaining charge

Don’t forget to add in the extra time to get off & back on the highway for the 2 extra stops.

This makes no sense from statistical perspective! And then you hve a lot of variables. Of course the real world is different. But just to make it a tad more accurate you could have started with the same charge level and stopped for the time the other needed to sort out the charger issues. What if there was a traffic jam and one caught it and the other not? Would you have done the same? Or a queue at a charging station? Really irrelevant what you did here. It is apready proven by Bjorn that charging to lower state (roughly 5-60%) makes the trip faster. But he does these tests at night and as consistently as possible. Go watch his 1000km challenges and you will understand. Really irrelevant test. 🙄

What's crazy about these crappy grids is that they're not technically even chargers. They're simply electricity depots for the cars on board charger. The fact that they can't deliver consistent electricity when we've been doing that for over a century us inexcusable. I'll take it one step further. If Parliament is serious about converting to electricity tell these middlemen companies to step to or they will be written out of the plan. It would be better to just have the electric utilities providing the plugs, with an ID from the car just like a meter on the house. There's not an EV on the market that couldn't have a software update to do that.

The idea for this test was prepared by someone who has never did a long trip in an EV. Absolutely nobody is charging to 100% at a stopover, it's like doing a test with a petrol car where you only stop to fill up 50 quid and then again.

Really? Starting of at a 70kwh max?? That negated the whole point of the video

Was delay/problem calculated into 1h26min or is this time without the phone call and waiting? how much faster would the silver car be if there were no problems with charging station?

So the faulty chargers where not shown in the app as not working? Normally a faulty charger is not a problem if you know in advance it doesn‘t work and there are other chargers you can select.

With the best 800V charging EVs out there one charging stop will always be the best option, no matter how good the charging network is. Zeekr 007 charges from 10-80% in under 11min. So 70% of SoC in 11min. If you charge from 10-45% twice, so 35% of SoC each time, you might only need 4.5-5min each time but the extra distance you have to drive to and from the charger + connecting to the charger will actually erase this advantage again. Also a different 800V EV with a charging curve like the Porsche Taycan, which holds the charging power above 300kW until 60-65%, while its charging peak is just 320-325kW, also has no real disadvantage of staying longer at the charger. And it's of course way less effort.

You hit on the issue with stopping at more stations, the higher probability of getting a non working station or hitting a station that is busy and having to wait.

A point not mentioned is having to slow to pull into the charge points. I reckon doing this an extra 2 times would negate the 8 minutes saved on charging time.

Surely stopping for more charges would cost more? Plus it's all well and good if the charger is working that's fine but if not you can potentially be snookered especially if like I do you live in Northern Ireland then the infrastructure is even worse than mainland GB.

I do short chargers “hit and run” once it really starts to taper off peak leave

For me as a Tesla driver in the US it was quite amusing to watch this. Only 50% of the non Tesla charger actually work here in the US when you really need them. To be fast you'll need battery pre-conditioning, but that doesn't work once you go below 20%. Therefore, if you want a fast charge you would start your trip with 80% and drive it down to 30 or 20%, and then add your 50% charge. In order to optimize that you have to figure out how preconditioning works, and to what temperature you need the battery to condition, and then your display in the car needs to display that precon status. That is rather difficult on a Tesla, and i don't really know how Mercedes does it. I had charging times of 15min to add 50% of charge, but to find the right condition is very difficult. I think you guys should repeat this test, and try again. Otherwise great video!

I am all for drive fast and charge at the highest points of the curve, except there is no guarantee you will find the next charger as soon as you arrive or even work. Recently, I had to wait in queue for two hours to add just 40 miles so that I could reach. Had I known that, I would have charged to 100% earlier and drove more economically. It is risk to reply on next charger.

On a 320 mile charge I do a few times each year, we only need a half an hour stop in our Kona, and to be honest trying to limit my wife to only half an hour at Tebay services is very difficult anyway!!

How much did you both spend? Curious to see if the cost is also affected?

The charge device detects there's no or low voltage in the cars battery's so it batters it...then reduces the charge rate nearing the top.unless you trickle charge your car battery every time which buy the way will extend its life considerably also making you very old waiting,every evening charge process works like this

08:20 that's the problem with short charges, you want to have something to eat when you stop. 15-20 min would be a rush lunch, to have proper food you need longer so you might as well leave the car charging a bit longer

Which strategy is best very much depends on the car and its charge curve and also how close to your route chargers are located, if you have to drive a mile off route for an extra charge stop this can easily scupper any advantage. This may all become moot in a few years since there are already cars that have up to a 5C charge rate so will be full(80%) in less than 10 minutes

Simple two short charging sessions started at a low SOC Will be vastly faster and yield more miles of range than a single deep SOC charging session.

What i would like to know is how much difference was there in prive between charging shorter but more stops to vharge compared to charging for longer but less stops to charge?

Here in the USA, you would likely get a similar result. We too, have issues with charge station reliability, though it is getting better.

Between the chargers mishap and the time it takes to get to and from those extra chargers are up those saved charging time minutes.

Sadly in the UK there's one reason for long top-ups. You never know if the next charger will work.

I have to say I disagree with their statement that this is typical of the UK charging network. I switched to ev in 2017 and only once did I have to queue (at a tesla supercharger) and only twice have I had a charger that didn't work (one gridserve and one chargeplace Scotland). Both of those were fixed by rebooting.

I love driving with the anxiety of not having enough charge.

Would like to see the same test with an 800v car like the KIA ev9, that has a flat charging curve until 80%

What of the additional time it will take to locate, drive to, set up and exit charging - assuming each stop delivers exactly the same charge at each stop. Invalid testing as the act of charging is only part of the essential data.

I believe the 7.5 hour USA charge stops were done to 100% as that takes twice as long as charging to 80%. A 50% vs 80% charge is probably minimal but 80% is less overall stops and more time to grab a coffee!!! Also you should be aware of ionity charging a massive amount and pointing this out and maybe showing an alternate one that costs less per kWh. Maybe together we can avoid these expensive chargers and force a price drop.

Don't forget the few minutes needed for extra charging stops. You waste time coming off/on the motorway and the handshake time before you actually get juice into the battery.

Drive fast, charge fast. 54kwh ioniq 5 to South of France, 6 chargers, 2 over lunch and dinner., 1.5 hours slower than the diesel but family preferred the electric and frequent stops.

A better strategy is plan your route, and know your chargers. I tend to plan one long stop on my journey if possible because I need a break to rest and eat and then charging time is irrelevant. As I don't have a Tesla I will normally aim to stop at Ionity chargers because they just work every time. If you have to do frequent long journeys on a clock just buy a Tesla.

Being an EV owner I wouldn't have the stomach to charge it to 50%. I would definitely charge it to 80% while I had the charger is there, as your clip highlights!

Is it really a ‘high’ risk to charge shorter but more often?

Taycan charges fast. I wonder if this is why the yank needed less time? EQE? I am thinking its nothing special on charging speed hence not so much gains to be had.

This all depends on charging speeds doesn't it? But then how many people watching this actually know much about EVs? In an older EV that has a slow and conservative charging curve (like a Zoe) you really ARE best charging frequently on the fast part of the curve (from 20 - 60% charge). However, unless you feel confident of promptly finding a free and working charger (we are getting there now I'd say) you tend to push on and do fewer stops.

Was the slow first charge due to the number of cars charging at once at the charging hub (grid limit)? Not much point having multiple 300kw+ chargers if they can only provide ~70kW if all in use.

Grieve chargers always have issues. Whenever we drive in the U.K. we avoid them like the plague and try to stick to Ionity and Fastned or when we know it’s an older Gridserve station. The type of station we saw in the video that had issues was tested by our local charging network provider in Luxembourg at one location and that location permanently has half or more of the chargers not working. Anyone know what brand and model it is?

What was the bill for charging? Were the 4 charges more money than the 2 or was it about the same?

Race between 2 Honda Civic BEVs

I’d love to see this with a Tesla and an Ioniq 5 as they have different charging curves.

It'd be nice to start @100% SoC and compare Mercedes' EQ Intelligence with "plan the charges yourself" or ABRP

I wonder what would happen if you try this with 2 Tesla’s. Since the charging network is more reliable.

I get why they started at 5%. That way you skip the part were you drive from 100% to 5%, it does not add much tobthis test that is relevant and takes a lot of extra time

You need to add time of getting to and from a charger back to tge road, plustime it takes to plug and unplug. Theoretical it adds about 5 minutes.

Kinda weird starting different SOC.. just wondering why... No one starts at 50% on their long journey...

It entirely depends on the charging curve of the vehicle in use.

Who starts a long journey with 50% SoC? What a bizarre decision. A Better Route Planner does these calculations so you don't have to worry about it 😂

If it's a fair race, you need to deduct the time loses you have encountered. 👍

Has this factored the time getting off the motorway, setting up your charge and back on to the motorway etc. bet that is at least 2 or 3 mins per charge. Neutralises the benefit of shorter stops. Total time is what counts not just charge time.