How do you charge on long-distance journeys?

There are now over 40,000 charge points available across the country, meaning you can travel anywhere in the UK with an Electric Vehicle. Planning a long journey is always sensible and this is especially true for electric vehicles, where there is charging time to consider when thinking about when to take a break.

Modern EVs have large batteries which mean that the fastest chargers barely leave enough time to grab a coffee and take a loo break before being able to continue on. Older EVs, or those with smaller batteries, may take a little longer and planning charge stops for a journey can be more important for these vehicles.

Here are some of the great tools to help with this:

• Zap-Map - The Zap-Map website has a complete map of all national charging points and they also have a route-planning tool. For all locations, they have details on facilities available and plenty more, making them an essential tool.
  
• Watts Up - EV Route Planner and Charging Assistant.
• PlugShare - Worldwide EV charge map with route planning, and a thriving community who contribute to the maps data with often highly detailed location information.
• Open Charge Map - Another website of open charge map data, offering route-planning.
• Ecotricity - The energy company Ecotricity run a network of rapid chargers across the country's main motorway service stations, accessed through the Electric Highway App.

Pod-Point has also published a helpful guide with advice on long journeys which is worth reading.