TIL - Always read the Zapmap comments
Reading time: 3 minutes (443 words)Author: @pugmiester
Tags: ev , transport , til
Yep, that’s it basically, always read the comments. That’s the post.
No, not really, but almost.
Some of you may remember my recent post about our first failed ppublic ev charge. Well, this past weekend we happened to be travelling up and down the country again and this time we really did need to grab a charge around Stafford so we headed back to our nemesis, the Stafford Ionity charging location.
We were checking on Zapmap and also the Ionity app (I just realised I never mentioned the location we failed at by name last time, ooops) on our journey and confirmed there was a faulty charger, likely the one we used last time. However, what we also noted was that the order of the devices on Zapmap doesn’t match the order of the devices on the Ionity app so we thought there was maybe a chance we just got the faulty one last time. In hindsight, we think it was just the way you are required to organise payment before you even plug in the car that was likely to be the cause. Anyway, I digress.
As we arrived at Stafford we could see 5 of the 6 chargers were in use so figured the remanining one was the faulty one. There were also a couple of other EV’s already waiting but this time we had a plan B. Do you remember the title of this post? Mrs P had been reading the comments posted for the Stafford Ionity site and someone had commented that a nearby alternative was almost always available.
So, we parked temporaily and grabbed a drink to go from the next door “costa-bucks” and pulled up the address for our plan B, plugged it into Waze and off we went. It’s only about 1.5 miles down the road and we still had plenty of range. We arrived and pulled straight into one of the 2 free charging bays, plugged in and started to charge.
Where was this miracle location I hear you ask?
It’s at Stafford Rangers FC. We checked there was no match playing on Sunday before we set off. If there had been I suspect it would have been more difficult to get a charge but on a Sunday afternoon we were in the clear.
As is often the case with our Instavolt changing sessions, it was pretty much plug and play, just like it should be. None of this dowloading apps and entering card details manually (like a cave man) like some providers…..
Hmmm, I just realised I’ve given away the secret and will probably find the new location full next time we need it.