In a way Ecotricity has been one of the biggest supporters of electric cars in the UK. They committed to installing an “Electric Highway”, a network of rapid chargers sited mainly at motorway service areas and without their network driving electric cars for long trips in the UK would be difficult or near on impossible! … Continue reading Should Rapid Chargers be Installed at Shopping Locations? →

Today I needed to go from my home in Saltash to Brixham. This is a round trip of 73 miles and right on the edge of the range of my Nissan Leaf so I might have chosen to use my Vauxhall Ampera. Instead, I decided to see if I could do it easily in the … Continue reading Saltash to Brixham – POLAR Charging Post Failed →

Old Pod Point Home Charge Station 2 years ago, when we first bought our Nissan Leaf, we had installed a 32A home charging station. It was a Pod Point Home Pod and it cost us over £1000! After 2 years of every day use it has started to show signs of failing and so we … Continue reading New POLAR Home Charging Station →

Checking that the POLAR charger was working at Little Chef Honiton Yesterday was a classic day in the Nissan Leaf. Not because of what we did particularly but for what we didn’t do! We needed to go from our home in Saltash, Cornwall to just north of Seaton in Devon. This is a round trip … Continue reading Fascinating day in the Nissan Leaf →

We went shopping at our local Waitrose today. This supermarket is our closest supermarket this side of the river and toll so we use it quite regularly. There are two POLAR charging units each with a 13A socket and a 32A type 2 socket. We are POLAR members and so we always try to plug … Continue reading Charging our Nissan Leaf at Waitrose →

Clearly I am no fan of POLAR but I feel that I have been “upping the ante” when I really feel that I shouldn’t. I make no secret that I don’t like the POLAR business model but on the plus side they are installing charging stations on a grand scale and although they are not … Continue reading Little Chef and POLAR… let's not be too hasty →

Well, after a week of silence from both POLAR and Little Chef over the issue of how the Little Chef charging network will operate Little Chef have finally broken the silence and made an announcement. Here it is: Thank you for all of your comments recently regarding the Little Chef EV charging points. We stated … Continue reading Little Chef – Sounds like a fudge to me →

With all this chat about the POLAR charging network I thought I would do a few sums and see just how much a POLAR membership might cost me “per charge”. This might give me a better idea whether POLAR is or is not good value. I already have a home charging solution – a POD-Point … Continue reading The Economics of Joining the POLAR Network →

I received my POLAR card yesterday as a result of me registering when I used the Little Chef network for the first time. This is what the accompanying letter says: Dear Mr Churley (they got my name wrong!!!), Thank you for your interest in using the Little Chef, POLAR network public charge posts. Enclosed is … Continue reading Little Chef – received my POLAR card →

Ever since Little Chef announced a national charging network at their restaurants I have been itching to try them out. I was kindly lent a Menekkes to J1772 charge cable to try out by Zero Carbon World so I thought today would be a great opportunity to give them both a try. I checked the … Continue reading Little Chef Charging Network – Not quite what I thought →