The Electric Highway | London to Edinburgh | Fully Charged

Robert Llewellyn takes the UK Electric Highway from London to Edinburgh



"Only 3 years ago it took the BBC's Brian Milligan 4 days to drive an electric car from London to Edinburgh.  This year we did it in 13 hours."

Ecotricity Electric Highway

Nissan LEAF - CHARGING

Nissan just released a nicely done video tonight, about Charging in France ...

Ikea Fast Charging & Swedish Meat Balls Lunch

Last thursday, I went to IKEA for a little shopping and also a DC Fast Charge, few kilometers away from work during lunch break

6 bars / 12 : roughly half state of charge - SOC -

A woman interested in Fast Charging :-)

Actually I got many people looking at me parking on this spot and commenting: "This must be an Electric Car ..." and think it requires this huge Charging Station to fill up ...

CHAdeMO Yazaki Connector in place

Starting the Charge at 55%

Charge begins and it says: Voltage: 390V, Current 90A

Plugged in, Charging, in the sun, I am going in to eat something now !

IKEA's Special: Swedish Meat Balls and French Fries :-) not bad

LEAF Link App says 80% state of Charge is already reach while I am still in the middle of my lunch 

Swedish life style ... gotta love it  !

I went there to get table feet : 4 x 2.5 EUR per piece, a bargain

I know these ... I use one of them for my DIY ESS, the older grey version; Now they are available in Red and White only, but you can still find used older version in grey ...  

Install your ESS in it and put your TV on top !

After getting 4 iron table feet for 10 bucks (EUR), I finally got out of IKEA ...

Charge is over: 98% SOC, it took 60mn, 11.3kWh used

100% charge !

BTW, right next to the DBT Charging Station spot is the Autolib Charging Spot, and a Renault ZOE was parked there, charging, using its own cable

Type 2 / Mennekes connector into the ZOE

Type 3 plug, used only in France ... not for long anymore, Type 2 is now adopted by us too ...

Notice that IKEA / Autolib Charging Stations include the Scooter 220V Regular Outlet, so I could slow charge there too ... if I had the Autolib EV card - 180 EUR / Year, 15 EUR / Month -

The next, I went back there with my son to show him my work location and office building nearby and get some stainless steel wall covers for the kitchen and some Swedish crepes ...

A liitle comment to DBT CEV fast charging station maker: we can not see links between the screen and the buttons when in the dark ... 

Other than that, we got a 80% charge very quickly and a spot right in front of he entrance while raining a lot 

Look how Tesla Model S owners will be able to use CHAdeMO 50kW Charging Stations

Tesla Model S owners will be able to use CHAdeMO 50kW Charging Stations, very soon ...

Check out this New Adaptor:

 No, this is NOT a gas nozzle  :-)

Take advantage of CHAdeMO’s network of 50 kW charging stations by enabling onboard hardware and purchasing an external adapter. CHAdeMO stations charge at the rate of approximately 150 miles of range per hour of charge with locations primarily in the Pacific Northwest.

This adapter is specifically for North American Model S. A separate adapter is required for European and Asian Model S. For Model S without Supercharging enabled, onboard hardware must be activated to use the CHAdeMO adapter. Every 85 kWh Model S is already Supercharging enabled.

Adapter
For Model S with Supercharging enabled
Available online this winter
$1,000

Adapter + Onboard Hardware Activation
For Model S without Supercharging enabled
To order before your Model S delivery, email buildmymodels@teslamotors.com.
$2,400

After Model S delivery
Available online this winter
$2,900


*Note: Option not available on 40 kWh Model 

This adaptor is for sale in the Tesla Store:
http://shop.teslamotors.com/collections/model-s/products/chademo-adapter

First Fast Charge in Details at Ikea using a CHAdeMO Charging Station

Welcome to IKEA Vélizy ...

I see Green paint on the ground ...

Here it is: the CHAdeMO charging station is next to an Autolib charging station

This is DBT CEV DC & AC Charging Station

CHAdeMO side 

The previous charge information is still displayed on the screen: 80%, 31mn, 14.8kWh

RFid activation badge required ?

Yazaki CHAdeMO Connector : DC 500V, 120A, CE, TUV

I know I do not need to charge, but I really wanted to try DC Fast Charge for the first time 

Plugged in !

Charging Station is synchronizing with the vehicle

Red light on top of the CHAdeMO connector and I heard contactors close in the Charging Station and in the LEAF

Charging ...

Charging in process

What is interesting is that the screen displays Volts & Amps : 394Vx 26A = 10,244W , 10kW pushed into the LEAF; since the battery pack state of charge is above 80%, the charge rate is decreased to preserve the cells life

2 minutes later: 393V x 23A = 9,039W , 9kW, going down

After 7mn of charge: 393V x 21A = 8,253W , 8kW

At 9mn: 393V x 17A = 6,681W , 6.7kW

Pressing the Stop Charge button, I then decided to terminate the process because it was starting to rain, and I had seen enough

Charge summary: SOC 95%, 9mn, 1.9kWh

Contactor open, Red light is Off, I can now disconnect the Yazaki handle

1 bar on the Energy Level, which is equivalent to 2kWh (12 bars for 24kWh)

No heat on the Temperature gage

Bye IKEA, and Thanks for the free Charge !

....

On my way back to Boulogne, there was this Mitsubishi i-MiEV / Peugeot iOn