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Harbury to Sheffield in an E-Car Club electric car
I have used a Harbury E-Car Club electric car three times, for two local trips and
one longer one to Sheffield and back.
I had never driven an electric car or an automatic before, and at first my left
foot was instinctively feeling for the clutch every time I stopped, and I had the
feeling that I was about to stall. But this soon went away - it really is easy to
drive with just one pedal for go and another for stop. You do have to keep your
foot on the brake or use the handbrake at traffic lights and junctions as the car
will creep forward even if you don’t touch the accelerator.
When I first arrived by bike from my home in Ladbroke at the car park behind
the library in Harbury, I rang E-Car Club who took me through the process of
opening up the car, unplugging the charger and starting up. This is all quite
simple and takes about five minutes, but you do have to do things in the right
order so it’s worth going through it with them the first time.
For the first trip we went shopping in Leamington, then on to Stratford and
home via Wellesbourne - about 45 miles in all. I found the reversing camera
and parking sensor really good, helping me to reverse park in a space only just
big enough with no problem. Around town, on country roads and on the
motorway the performance was pretty much equivalent to any similar sized car
except that at low speeds you can accelerate much faster than most others.
Rapid Charge Points
I began planning a longer trip, but wanted to try out charging the car at
motorway services. For my second trip I went to Banbury then came back up the M40 and plugged in
to the charger at Warwick services for a few minutes.
Donington Park
50
16
11
25
38
Eldon Tools
Woodall
Tibshelf
Trowell
Donington Park
Leicester Forest
Home
To
With the confidence that I could charge the car up on the motorway, I started some serious planning
for a longer journey. I work for The Tool Connection (Laser Tools) in Southam, Warwickshire and
make regular trips to our factory in Sheffield which is only a couple of miles from the M1. This
seemed like an ideal way to try it out. It
costs £45 to hire the car for a day and
Mileage
normally it would cost the company £90
if I used my own car and claimed back a
mileage charge. I started with a
From
spreadsheet showing the distances
Home
34 50 61 75 88 101 between home in Ladbroke, service
Leicester Forest
34
16 27 41 54 67 areas on the M1 and Sheffield.
51
I discovered that the motorway services
Trowell
61 27 11
14 27 40 are quite close together and they all
have “Rapid” charging points (although
Tibshelf
75 41 25 14
13 26
they’re not always all working). These
Woodall
88 54 38 27 13
13 are advertised as being able to charge a
Eldon Tools
101 67 51 40 26 13
car’s batteries to 80% in about 30
minutes. The car can do at least 70
miles on a full charge, or 56 miles on an 80% charge. The website zap-map.com lists all the charging
points in the UK and whether they are working. You can ring Ecotricity who provide the charging
points at motorway services to be absolutely sure. The “Source East” card which comes with the car
allows you to operate the chargers at Harbury library and also gives free charging at Ecotricity points
(all the motorway services) but not necessarily at town centre car parks and other charging points
which have a variety of different schemes, some free and some not.
I picked up the car at 9 o’clock in the evening and parked outside my house for the night. I left
Ladbroke at 6am heading towards Coventry then up the M69 to the M1. On the motorway the car
has plenty of power and I had no trouble keeping up with the traffic and overtaking. I have to admit
that at first I was keeping a close eye on the ‘remaining mileage’ figure, and it did seem to go down
faster at 70mph. But I went past Leicester Forest services and on to Donington Park where I arrived
having travelled 52.4 miles with 31% battery charge remaining.
The charger was easy to find – generally they seem to be sited near the service area buildings, next
to the disabled parking spaces.
Charging at Donington Park Services
I plugged in and was surprised to see that the display in the car estimated 40 minutes for the charge
rather than 30. I have since found out that although the rapid chargers are advertised as charging to
80% in 30 minutes they will charge to 100% if you are prepared to wait a bit longer.
While I was plugging in, another electric car pulled up and the driver asked me how long I would be.
Although there are 2 parking spaces reserved for recharging, there is only one charger so he had to
wait. I went to get breakfast and coffee, and when I came back 30 minutes later there was plenty of
charge to get me to Tibshelf services, my next planned charging stop, only 25 miles further on.
Charging at Tibshelf Services
I could have gone on to Woodall services for the next charge, but zap-map had shown me, and
Ecotricity had confirmed on the phone, that the charger there wasn’t working.
After half an hour at Tibshelf I came out to find three or four people looking at the car and charger,
and there were lots of questions about how long it takes to charge and how much it costs. Then I
was off again and driving through the seemingly endless 50mph road works on the M1 with lots of
speed cameras. Setting the speed limiter on the car so I wouldn’t accidentally go over the limit
made this much easier.
About 9:40 I arrived at Eldon.
Parked at Eldon
This is where it would be useful to have an adaptor which allows you to charge the car from an
ordinary electric socket. Unfortunately this doesn’t come with the car, and I couldn’t charge it during
the day, but I had planned for this and still had plenty of charge left to get me back to the charging
station at Tibshelf services.
The drive home took a little longer, due mainly to heavy traffic. Not having to change gear or use a
clutch makes this sort of stop-start driving much easier. I recharged at Tibshelf then 41 miles further
on at Leicester Forest East, and that gave me plenty of charge to get back to Ladbroke and Harbury.
To sum up, Harbury E-Cars are great for local trips (up to about 70 miles without recharging), easy to
drive and good value at £5.50 an hour or £45 a day. They can also be used for longer trips but you do
really need to spend time planning and be prepared to stop every 50 miles or so for 30-40 minutes
while recharging. They are simple to drive with only two pedals and no gears to change. If you like
gadgets you can use the cruise control, speed limiter, reversing camera and blue-tooth link your
phone for voice activated dialling and playing your favourite music through the car’s speakers. They
are well equipped with features like electric windows, automatic headlights and windscreen wipers,
remote control mirrors and automatic remote locking (if you walk away from the car with the key in
your pocket the doors lock).
You can join the E-Car scheme at e-carclub.org, and this allows you to use E-Cars in London, Oxford,
Northampton, Stratford and other locations as well as Harbury.