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760 mile trip from NL to UK and back - charging in pics

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Undertook a 1230 km trip from Amsterdam to Oxford (+ daily local trips) last 10 days with the better half, 4 yr old and a 1 yr old in our 85KW dual charger Tesla S. These were the charging experiences:

Summary:
trip-summary.jpg


Charging inside Stena Line Ferry:
StenaLine-ferry.png


Charging at Ecotricity Electric Highway:
Ecotricity.png


Charging at Chargemaster point:
chargemaster.png


I had to resort to the Chargemaster point since both the Ecotricity AC points near the host's house were offline. In addition I also did a couple of UMC charge at the house of the host, manually limited to 10A, getting around 10 km/hr charge rate.

Overall the experience was OK except for:
1. The Ecotricity card takes more than 14 days to arrive at non-UK address (still waiting for the one I ordered)
2. Two offline Ecotricity points near base.
3. Pain in getting the Chargemaster card, even after the card was paid with credit card as well as "sponsored" by employer (Tesla S is a company lease car). Initially chargemaster said "call us 24 hr and we will manually open the port". This worked during office hours but outside office hours, the call went directly yo voice mail! Finally after much conversation, got a card for use in last couple of days.
4. Pain of having to obtain so many cards. At the end of it, I had Source London (used at Ecotricity to test working), Ecotricity and Chargemaster cards on me.

Had several Tesla moments in UK, usually at the service points and a lot of curious look-backs from passing vehicles :)

Special thanks to fellow TMC member widoh for loaning the Ecotricity card, without which I would have been in big sh*t !
 
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Nice Review!

Hi i am leaving to london next week wednesday from the hague to london heathrow with my 2 year and 4 year old. I am having serious range anxiety and wife patience fear :).
If anyone is willing to review my current plan and adding tips and tricks it will be highly appreciated Plus if any one has a spreadsheet to fill in a roadtrip is also welcome.

i am equiped with:
New motion card for belgium
ecotricity for UK
Source London card
Type 2 32A cable
Dutch regular home charge tesla wire
red charge plug
32A fix
Last but not Least The Model S :)

current plan is:

The hague to Oosterhout SC............: 1430 hours depart - 395km max range - 88 km drive - eta 1530 hours - stoptime 30 mins
Oosterhout SC to gent TExaco 22kw : 1600 hours depart - 395km max range - 124km drive - eta 1715 hours - stoptime 40 mins
Gent Texaco to Duinkerke Ferry........: 1800 hours depart - 310km range - 120km drive - eta 1920 hours - ferry of 20:00 hours
Ferry from duinkerke to dover 2hours: 2000 hours depart - 2100 hours arrive uk time
Dover ferry to m20 maidstone 22kw .:2100 hours depart - 175km range - 60 km drive - eta 2140 hours - stoptime 60 mins
m20 maidstone to sheraton skyline ..:2240 hours depart - 175km range - 109km drive - eta 0000 hours


Roadtrip Den haag to London - Google Sheets
 
Great to see you made the trip! I did a similar one: Middelburg to Wales and back | Widodh (As you know ;) )

Nice Review!

current plan is:

The hague to Oosterhout SC............: 1430 hours depart - 395km max range - 88 km drive - eta 1530 hours - stoptime 30 mins
Oosterhout SC to gent TExaco 22kw : 1600 hours depart - 395km max range - 124km drive - eta 1715 hours - stoptime 40 mins
Gent Texaco to Duinkerke Ferry........: 1800 hours depart - 310km range - 120km drive - eta 1920 hours - ferry of 20:00 hours
Ferry from duinkerke to dover 2hours: 2000 hours depart - 2100 hours arrive uk time
Dover ferry to m20 maidstone 22kw .:2100 hours depart - 175km range - 60 km drive - eta 2140 hours - stoptime 60 mins
m20 maidstone to sheraton skyline ..:2240 hours depart - 175km range - 109km drive - eta 0000 hours


Roadtrip Den haag to London - Google Sheets
As you can read on my blog above, I drove to Maidstone without charging starting in Middelburg. Simply drove 100km/h the whole way.

Driving +/-300km on a single charge is not a problem.
 
The only thing I would suggest adding to your arsenal would be a 13A fuse EU Schuko to UK adapter for your Tesla UMC.

Not sure what you meant by "32A fix".

Check with your ferry whether you can charge on-board. Stena Line had 2 charging points that were on a first-come first-served basis. From your plan I think you should be safe in terms of range.

Also, since you are on a 85Kw TS, shouldn't your max range be about 500km or it it that you don't want to set it to that high?


Nice Review!

Hi i am leaving to london next week wednesday from the hague to london heathrow with my 2 year and 4 year old. I am having serious range anxiety and wife patience fear :).
If anyone is willing to review my current plan and adding tips and tricks it will be highly appreciated Plus if any one has a spreadsheet to fill in a roadtrip is also welcome.

i am equiped with:
New motion card for belgium
ecotricity for UK
Source London card
Type 2 32A cable
Dutch regular home charge tesla wire
red charge plug
32A fix
Last but not Least The Model S :)

current plan is:

The hague to Oosterhout SC............: 1430 hours depart - 395km max range - 88 km drive - eta 1530 hours - stoptime 30 mins
Oosterhout SC to gent TExaco 22kw : 1600 hours depart - 395km max range - 124km drive - eta 1715 hours - stoptime 40 mins
Gent Texaco to Duinkerke Ferry........: 1800 hours depart - 310km range - 120km drive - eta 1920 hours - ferry of 20:00 hours
Ferry from duinkerke to dover 2hours: 2000 hours depart - 2100 hours arrive uk time
Dover ferry to m20 maidstone 22kw .:2100 hours depart - 175km range - 60 km drive - eta 2140 hours - stoptime 60 mins
m20 maidstone to sheraton skyline ..:2240 hours depart - 175km range - 109km drive - eta 0000 hours


Roadtrip Den haag to London - Google Sheets
 
Hi, i just came back from a 4000 km trip from Copenhagen to Cornwall and back. First of all, we have had a great and hazzle free trip. It's overall been so great that we would do it again tomorrow. I (we) did 4100 km's of which the 1400 was inside the UK. Here are a few comments:

1. driving from Copenhagen to Dunkirk and for the rest of western Europe up till almost the end of Norway is piece of cake and really great now. SC's are in place and working great in most places across the grid - so go for it! You can even get to burn some tyre on the german autobahn, don't forget the speed zones though..;-)
The only "hole" right now is Hamburg, but the Tesla SERVICE C is a good help if their mini SC is available.

2. MY UK charging experiences are great overall. It started on the Dunkirk-Dover ferry, we tried to charge on their outlets for cooler containers (they provided great help) but it didn't work either on red CEE or Blue CEE. I suspect it's a grounding problem. So I managed to drive from Oosterhout SC to Maidstone without a charge in between (Ikea Gent was closed at 00.30 when I drove past).

3.. I only managed to apply for a Ecotricity card and I recieved it in 3(!) days. I used Ecotricity chargers at Maidenhead, Southampton (Ikea), Exeter and at M25 junction 6. All great, although we can only charge with 22KW. However, adding 110 km/h to your battery is still great, so a good book and lots of Costa coffee will do it.

4. I only charged once on a home socket at a B&B, 7 km/h - not great, but for a whole night it gives you the 75-80 kms you used in that day.

5.Of 6 x charging we only met three other cars charging. At junction 6 on monday, I gave the charger to a leaf without power that came in after having been stuck in the M25 traffic jams same as me. He needed it, although I missed my ferry and thereby also ability to charge at Ikea in Gent in Belgium. Ah, what the heck.

6. Overall on 4100 km's my Wh/km ended up at 203. Pretty nice! - And all for free! You might think Brittish country roads give low Wh/km, but they don't. Many main roads are very narrow, speeds are pretty high and the landscape is "bumpy" - lot's of up and down. And you can't just economize up hill when you have a tail of cars behind you.

7. On the Dutch motorway I managed 122 km/h for 75 miles at 198 Wh/km on cruise - that's very good! In heavy rain north of Hamburg, this SAME speed used 268 Wh/km! - So be aware if you take long trips and think you know your cars Wh/km usage - soaking roads will add up to as much as 50%!

8. Overall maybe the grid for charging is good enough, but it could be better. Now we didn't use zerocarb locations (B&B's etc.) which we could have except for the wonderful EDEN project, but still. BTW I informed all places we stayed at to get in touch with Zerocarb and get a charger - absolutely necessary if I should come back..;-)

Hope you all have great experiences with your Model S, I believe it's the greatest car yet! Weeel, - I did try and sit in a Bentley Moulsanne at a motors how - If someone gave that car to me I'd seriously consider swapping back to ICE!