Preparation
For the last few years my wife and I have done a road trip to my parents in Hardenberg, The Netherlands from our home in Mallow, Ireland. As Zoe is our only car I immediately started planning for an all electric road trip.
After reading Surya’s posts about his camping trip from Belgium to the UK, and considering the infrastructure in France seemed patchy, driving through the UK seemed the only viable route.
I would have to make use of several charge station providers in several countries. Ecotricity’s Electric Highway should see me through the UK. Signing up was easy and the card arrived in the post a few days later. TheNewMotion in Holland seemed to be a widely accepted card in several EU countries, including Belgium (Blue Corner), the UK (ChargeYourCar) and they had several stations in Germany. This was starting to look good. Using their sign up page was not possible as it needed a Dutch address but after emailing their customer service with my address and bank details a personalised welcome pack was sent to me in the post.
After hearing of additional Ecotricity charge points in North Wales as part of the Rapid Charge Network I decided on the following ferries:
- Dublin, Ireland – Holyhead, Wales (May 30th)
- Hull, England – Rotterdam, The Netherlands (May 30th)
- Dunkerque, France – Dover, England (June 13th)
- Pembroke, Wales – Rosslare, Ireland (June 20th)
In addition to visiting my parents and my wife’s sister and family in Farnborough, a short holiday in Ostend and Weston-super-Mare was also scheduled.
The planning was complete and the countdown could start!
Mallow to Hull
On the morning of the 29th of May my electric journey began with a trip I had done many times. Mallow to Dublin is very easy in theory but the reliability of the charging network in Ireland makes it a bit of an adventure most times. This time I made a quick 10 minute stop in Urlingford, Co. Tipperary before moving on to a newly opened service station at Manor Stone, Co. Laois. Zoe was charged from 34% to 99% in 25 minutes. My next planned stop was the Tesco in Naas, Co. Kildare. Sadly this charge point had an AC error and after reporting this to ESB I moved on to a nearby 22kW charger which charged Zoe from 25% to 45% in 15 minutes. This was sufficient to reach Dublin Airport. After failing to get a charge at the airport parking I collected my wife from her delayed flight from London Gatwick and drove to our airport hotel. The charge point there did work and charged Zoe from 12% to 100% overnight.
The following morning we took the 8:15 swift ferry to Holyhead. After some careful driving we arrived at our first Ecotricity charge point: the new station at the services in Holywell. This was a very busy spot and after politely asking a car to park elsewhere we were able to charge Zoe from 12% to 83% in 24 minutes while enjoying some lunch. Next stop was Chester services where we met up with Dan, a member of the forum, who had just done his first 100 miles in one charge. Zoe charged from 52% to 99% while we spent a bit too much time having a nice talk and a coffee. 30 minutes later we were back on the road.
Birch services East was next. One of the 2 chargers there had a user session error which had locked the whole charger. Thankfully the other one worked fine. After 26 minutes Zoe had charged from 45% to 95%. The last stop of the day was Ferrybridge services. We arrived to find 2 Leafs charging. After a 10 minute wait one was finished and moved on. Zoe charged from 38% to 98% in 25 minutes. Here we also met up with a subscriber to my YouTube video log. Then it was time for the final 65 km to Hull. The plan was to grab a bit of a extra charge at The Deep in Hull but the charge point there kept tripping the fuse. It didn’t matter as I still had 40% of charge remaining. Plenty to reach the first charge point in Holland the following day.