Public Charging: Failure and Success in NL...

Hi Folks

So yesterday we went on our first day-trip in out Model S, Brussels to Domburg - a favourite haunt for us. This is around 155 kilometres and with a full charge giving me typical 406 and 315 projected range, I figured that if I drove fairly carefully I would be OK there and back again.

On the way up I used cruise-control, 125 on the Belgian motorways, 135 on the Dutch. It was apparent even before reaching Middleburg that we couldn't continue at this pace and have enough to get home, so I reduced speed to 120, started to claw some back and then gained on the slow roads to the coast. Nevertheless when we parked-up in Domburg I had consumed almost exactly half of the battery.

Now faced with three choices:
- drive home extremely slowly and hope for no delays (stressful)
- charge using the local public chargers (planned to investigate these anyway)
- take a 100km detour up to the Oosterhout Supercharger (very exciting as I've yet to visit one, but time with three little kids in the back would be a problem)

In the end I decided to try the local chargers and two are listed in Domburg on the LoveToLoad app for which I have a card that Tesla supplied.

I couldn't however get the fist one to work. It appeared to accept my card OK, but wouldn't start charging, here's the charger and the messages the car was giving me:



I tried several times, but no-go :crying:

Disheartened, but undeterred, I made my way to the other listed charger and tried again. Initially I had similar behaviour, but second attempt it started to charge and I ended up with a nice 43kmph (bear in mind I only get 13kmph at home) and I left to there for three hours while we enjoyed the town a bit more and had some dinner.

So I'm wondering if I was doing something wrong, or this charger isn't compatible with Tesla, or my cable wasn't the right one, or perhaps just the wind was blowing in the wrong direction?



Cheers

martinve said:

PS I see you're charging at 13A. I take it you have a single charger and not the dual charger option ?

Ohh and I hope you enjoyed your trip

Click to expand...

Yes, my usual daily kms are tiny, so didn't really warrant the dual charger. That being said, I would like one and might get retro-fitted at some point - see how the SC rollout goes.

Of course Domburg is always a nice trip - we stay there every year in the Autumn, so much more pleasant than the Belgian coast, which has been overdeveloped in the most ugly fashion!

And now I know I can charge there while we enjoy the beach, we'll go more often for day trips

@Maarten - I think you're right. I'm just back from an Ikea trip and of course I plugged-in while I was there. I also used my LoveToLoad card and it didn't work at first, so I retried and held the card in place for longer and then it kicked-in. So perhaps it's this.

I have to say it's all very exciting though and all for free, I think?