Road tripping to the UK’s most EV-friendly tourist attraction

As we head into the summer holidays, many families will be driving across the country and this year more than ever will be doing it under battery power.

A survey of 1,000 Brits found that around 57 per cent are planning a staycation and plan to travel 100 – 200 miles.

To help those EV drivers plan their staycations, the electric charging network Gridserve, who commissioned the data, compiled its EV Holiday Hotspot Index. This shows EV owners just how easy it will be to charge near to many popular tourist attractions.

The Index was created by analysing top tourist attractions and creating a score out of 100 based on their proximity to a Gridserve charging station, local AC and DC charging points per visitor nearby and the availability of charging at hotels, B&Bs and other accommodation in the area.

Top of the list was Beamish, the Living Museum of the North. To put it to the test I embarked on a nearly 700-mile trip in a Genesis GV60 from my home on the South Coast to County Durham – slightly further than most families are planning. I’d be trying to just use Gridserve’s chargers to really put the network to the test.

I would also be travelling with my partner and young son, to really make things interesting.

​​The UK’s top EV-friendly tourist attractions are:

1. Beamish, the Living Museum of the North
2. Midlands Arts Centre
3. Durham Cathedral
4. Hampton Court Palace
5. Eden Project
6. National Railway Museum
7. Pugneys Country Park
8. Millennium Gallery
9. The Bodleian Library
10. Stonehenge

One thing was for sure, we’d need to stop more frequently than the Genesis GV60 would. It has a WLTP range of 321 miles but even my estimate that it would do at least 250 miles between charges would be more than enough.

The journey would be spread over three days, with us breaking the back of the driving on day one as we set our sat-nav for Ripon in Yorkshire. My plan had been to stop twice so we were always comfortably charged and that started with a top up at Cherwell Valley services, 100 miles into the journey.

Here we stopped at one of the new Gridserve Super Hubs, where you can find six, 12 or more chargers. In this case six connectors were rated up to 350kW, a massive change since the last time I’d driven an EV long distance, and the Genesis would draw as much.

Would it get that though? In this case, no. We were lined up with five other cars all trying to draw from the same source and the balance meant we were only getting about 40kW. Did it matter in this case? Not really. By the time we’d stopped for some lunch we were back up to 80 per cent and ready to get back on the road.

It would be another 200 miles to our hotel for the night and, as I said before, we’d need to stop again regardless. A nappy change was required and a quick five-minute charge but we decided to push on so we could relax for the night, leaving us with just 30 miles left.

I was feeling reasonably confident at this point because I knew we were only 10 miles from our next charger. Even if we drove at lightning speed, we weren’t going to burn all of those before we got there.

However, to add some drama to our journey, what looked like it would be an easy charge with only one other car plugged in gave me a sense of dread as we tried several chargers but none wanted to connect to the car. I started to doubt myself pushing the limits until we realised it was actually the charger that wasn’t quite lining up with the car.

Fortunately, once we’d figured this out we were charging at close to 150kW and soon up to nearly 90 per cent.

From here we’d be continuing north to reach Beamish in Stanley. The museum was surprisingly busy with other visitors for early midweek, and it was interesting to take a step back in time after our journey trying out what could be the future for many.

We’d also be stopping at the nearby Gridserve charging station of Washington, with Super Hubs on both sides of the A1 just 10 minutes from Beamish, which made it such a good location for EV drivers. When we stopped it was busy but we were still able to pull straight into a bay and again were pulling 150kW.

By the time we’d finished lunch we were at full charge, something I would rarely do. Probably sounds a little strange but over 80 per cent charge the rate drops considerably, so in the past I had always thought it was a waste of time. As chargers are so much faster now though it took no time at all to fully charge.

In fact, on our return journey south we also made a stop at Woolley Edge services and once again charged to 100 per cent in no time.

That meant when we stopped in the Peak District around an hour later we were still considerably charged up and ready for our final drive the next day.

With 216 miles of charge remaining and a 195-mile drive, things were looking pretty tight on the way home but with nearly around 500 miles under our belt with the GV60 we were feeling far more confident in its accuracy.

In fact, we stopped at Warwick services on the M40 – following a slightly longer journey to avoid Silverstone and its F1 traffic – and found it was the first time we couldn’t drive straight into a space and charge.

We considered trying to charge again but feeling confident, we pushed on the remainder of the journey without having to plug in again. That was a total of five hours of driving from Woolley Edge services to our home, which I have to say is really impressive.

All in all I was generally surprised with how easy charging was, with a lot of negative press about the state of the UK network. Yes, it definitely wasn’t perfect, but we weren’t stranded anywhere. We also exclusively charged at Gridserve stations, meaning there were plenty of other networks to choose from. We even could have charged overnight at our first hotel for free and then we likely wouldn’t have needed to charge before Beamish.

As these networks grow, the outlook for electric car road trips and the EV Holiday Hotspot Index could look very different in only a few years.