As we enter spring with long bank holiday weekends, school holidays and nicer days for day trips we know that drivers might be looking to travel a little further than their usual to and from work which is why we’ve spoken to the EV users in our company to give you our top tips to staying charged for as much of these longer journeys as possible.
1. Get Set Up
If you’re travelling more than the mileage range of your electric vehicle (EV) then you’ll likely need to use a public charger. Most public chargers work in conjunction with the provider’s mobile app so we recommend downloading the apps that are most popular in the area you are travelling to.
You don’t just want to download the apps though, before you set off make sure that you log in and complete the account set up for each one to avoid wasting time when you’re at the charger.
2. Charge Before You Go
Whilst we don’t advise charging to over 80% in day to day use age to help preserve your battery when you’ve got a big drive ahead you should try and make sure you’re fully charged before setting off.
If you have a home charging unit then we suggest plugging in overnight and making sure your charger is set up to charge fully.
3. Plan Your Route
If your destination is further away than your EV’s mileage range then we recommend using a route planning app such as Zap Maps where you can schedule your charging stop at a convenient location.
4. Don’t Speed
Just like with a combustion engine going faster in an EV requires more power, and this means that your battery will drain quicker and your mileage range will reduce.
If you’ve already had your EV for a while then you’ll likely be familiar with the impact higher speeds has on your range and be able to plan stops accordingly. If you’ve only recently got your car and aren’t sure how driving higher speeds on the motorway might impact your range then we advise trying to travel a little more sedately and schedule a charging stop a little earlier than you think you might need just in case it does drop quicker than expected.
5. Keep Your Ancillary Features to a Minimum
Using ancillary features like the air conditioning, infotainment centre and even your lights uses additional battery power which means there’s less available to provide you with mileage range. So, if you’re trying to maximise the mileage you get on a single charge we recommend keeping the use of additional features to a minimum.
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