My first IONITY Charging experience!

[WRC_1S]

Yesterday I drove from home In Sunderland to Sheffield and back for a team meeting. I had planned to do a quick stop on the way back at the Gridserve fast chargers at Wetherby services on the A1M. Enough to get me home then charge full as I usually do. When I left Sheffield I put home into my Nav and it automatically picked an IONITY charger at junction 45 of the M1. Now after 10,000+ miles of driving I’ve never used a IONITY charger! Living in the NE there are none in any useful location for me.
So I thought why not. There are 6 and the car was showing what I thought was 4 in use. When I got there, one was out of use. All the rest were in use, with one guy giving up saying his wasn’t working. There were 3 people in front of me. So I gave up and went on to Wetherby as planned. Stopped for 15 mins which was enough to put 60 miles on which got me home. First impressions of IONITY is it’s crap and I’ve not missed anything in my 10k miles of driving.
I drive on the A1 North and South M1 the same and the M6 North and South. This is purely observational but there really doesn’t seem to be a noticeable increase in chargers being installed on major routes in the North, and a lot of the established ones are getting on a bit. Sheffield really is about as far south as I drive and Manchester in the west. Anything South of those I train or fly. I am seeing more and more EVs on the road. My IONITY experience yesterday is going to become more frequent if the infrastructure doesn’t catch up. No real point to this post other than a mild whinge . Enjoy your Friday.

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[TAYC4S]

Yesterday I drove from home In Sunderland to Sheffield and back for a team meeting. I had planned to do a quick stop on the way back at the Gridserve fast chargers at Wetherby services on the A1M. Enough to get me home then charge full as I usually do. When I left Sheffield I put home into my Nav and it automatically picked an IONITY charger at junction 45 of the M1. Now after 10,000+ miles of driving I’ve never used a IONITY charger! Living in the NE there are none in any useful location for me.
So I thought why not. There are 6 and the car was showing what I thought was 4 in use. When I got there, one was out of use. All the rest were in use, with one guy giving up saying his wasn’t working. There were 3 people in front of me. So I gave up and went on to Wetherby as planned. Stopped for 15 mins which was enough to put 60 miles on which got me home. First impressions of IONITY is it’s crap and I’ve not missed anything in my 10k miles of driving.
I drive on the A1 North and South M1 the same and the M6 North and South. This is purely observational but there really doesn’t seem to be a noticeable increase in chargers being installed on major routes in the North, and a lot of the established ones are getting on a bit. Sheffield really is about as far south as I drive and Manchester in the west. Anything South of those I train or fly. I am seeing more and more EVs on the road. My IONITY experience yesterday is going to become more frequent if the infrastructure doesn’t catch up. No real point to this post other than a mild whinge . Enjoy your Friday.

Whilst this might be your experience, in almost 3 years of driving the Taycan I have only (almost exclusively) ever used Ionity (admittedly mainly in the South East/Midlands and South West areas). I have very rarely also used BP's services which have been hit & miss.

My experience is completely the opposite to what you are saying - its the best and most reliable charging network I have used. Not only that but, it is truly plug/play. No cards, no faffing about with apps. Turn-up, plug in and walk away - the car takes care of everything including the billing to your Porsche Account. It is also cheaper than any other public charging network (for the first 3 years at least). Unless forced to do so, I will continue to use Ionity because of the experience I have had...

 

[BigBob]

Whilst this might be your experience, in almost 3 years of driving the Taycan I have only (almost exclusively) ever used Ionity (admittedly mainly in the South East/Midlands and South West areas). I have very rarely also used BP's services which have been hit & miss.

My experience is completely the opposite to what you are saying - its the best and most reliable charging network I have used. Not only that but, it is truly plug/play. No cards, no faffing about with apps. Turn-up, plug in and walk away - the car takes care of everything including the billing to your Porsche Account. It is also cheaper than any other public charging network (for the first 3 years at least). Unless forced to do so, I will continue to use Ionity because of the experience I have had...

Yep. about half price, so worth another try.

 

[Scandinavian]

Yep. about half price, so worth another try.

I agree. I have travelled about 30 000 km in mainland Europe and south eastern part of UK and there have been the occasional glitch but still very reliable. My son in law, completely new to EV charging, had one charge stop where the Porsche card was refused. But that was probably due to two transactions happening at the same designated credit card. Another card helped out. That was the only time it just would not work.

I have had many other networks giving trouble, but Ionity and Fastned have been rock solid in UK, Belgium, Netherlands,Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, France, Switzerland, Italy.

 

[Rusk]

I've tried a couple of different ones more just to test but Ionity has been great so far. I've only done four trips that have needed onroute charging and I've made sure to use Ionity for price but also speed. First time I managed to get 220kwh speeds which was ace all other times it sits at 199 and didn't go higher but they were busy sites so maybe the stations were throttled a little. Each time though I've pulled in to a bay charged for 10mins or less and been gone again, the entire time everyone that was there before me were still charging at sub 100kw speeds and seemed a little annoyed I zoomed in and back out before they had blinked ?

Question, I have not got plug and play to work yet, it always asks for my Porsche card which I tap and away it goes but is there a step I am missing to get plug and play to work?

As you say though they really aren't or I haven't seen any evidence of expansion...they need to double what is already there otherwise even just 10% more electric cars on the road will mean gridlock at charge points. Thankfully 95% of the time my home charging covers me for all trips and is nice and cheap with night time costs.

Yesterday I needed to top up on way home and decided to try the 350kw chargers at Porsche Centre Tewkesbury. It was lovely, plugged in straight away and went inside to chat about a couple of parts I'm thinking of ordering and then had a look at an amazing GT2RS and a beautiful Taycan in Oak Green which is such a nice colour, shame about the price!

Charge was a little pricey even with the Porsche discount as they also charge a per minute rate on top of the per kw but I wanted to give it a go.

I wish Tewkesbury was my local dealership it was very nicely one and everyone seemed really helpful and wanted to chat. Here is me with my 10 min top up.

 

[Scandinavian]

You can follow the Ionity announced roll out for different countries here. Not many stations in the U.K. yet, I agree, but it seems more are on the way

https://ionity.ev-info.eu/countries

 

[TAYC4S]

I've tried a couple of different ones more just to test but Ionity has been great so far. I've only done four trips that have needed onroute charging and I've made sure to use Ionity for price but also speed. First time I managed to get 220kwh speeds which was ace all other times it sits at 199 and didn't go higher but they were busy sites so maybe the stations were throttled a little. Each time though I've pulled in to a bay charged for 10mins or less and been gone again, the entire time everyone that was there before me were still charging at sub 100kw speeds and seemed a little annoyed I zoomed in and back out before they had blinked ?

Question, I have not got plug and play to work yet, it always asks for my Porsche card which I tap and away it goes but is there a step I am missing to get plug and play to work?

As you say though they really aren't or I haven't seen any evidence of expansion...they need to double what is already there otherwise even just 10% more electric cars on the road will mean gridlock at charge points. Thankfully 95% of the time my home charging covers me for all trips and is nice and cheap with night time costs.

Yesterday I needed to top up on way home and decided to try the 350kw chargers at Porsche Centre Tewkesbury. It was lovely, plugged in straight away and went inside to chat about a couple of parts I'm thinking of ordering and then had a look at an amazing GT2RS and a beautiful Taycan in Oak Green which is such a nice colour, shame about the price!

Charge was a little pricey even with the Porsche discount as they also charge a per minute rate on top of the per kw but I wanted to give it a go.

I wish Tewkesbury was my local dealership it was very nicely one and everyone seemed really helpful and wanted to chat. Here is me with my 10 min top up.

Porsche are not supposed to be doing that anymore! I am sure I read that they had stopped doing that - it should be the same price as Ionity now..

 

[Rusk]

Porsche are not supposed to be doing that anymore! I am sure I read that they had stopped doing that - it should be the same price as Ionity now..

It would appear not...it cost £16.16 for 30.83kWh but the last Ionity was £13.56 for 45.19kWh. Both used my Porsche charge card for the discounted price.

 

[tigerbalm]

Looking over my road trip data – I've used 68 different IONITY stations in 11 countries over the past three years on five long (5000km+) road-trips and have never left a IONITY station without a charge.

Only once – outside Bergen in Norway – did I decide to move on without topping up due to the queue size (all public taxi's)– and then only because there was an idle 8 x 150 kW Mer station one hundred meters away.

At this stage in my road-trip planning – I do not plan for not getting a charge at IONITY – it has been that reliable. With plug & charge actually greatly increasing our reliability experience – by not having to interact with the charging pedestal.

On one occasion a screen wasn't turning on – and on another – the screen was on but would not respond to any touches – but both delivered power to us via plug & charge. Which greatly confused fellow EV owners – as they considered it broken and couldn't understand how we got energy!

 

[f1eng]

Porsche are not supposed to be doing that anymore! I am sure I read that they had stopped doing that - it should be the same price as Ionity now..

Since when?
Last time I did a top up at a Porsche station in mid December the per minute charge was more than the leccy.

 

[tigerbalm]

Since when?
Last time I did a top up at a Porsche station in mid December the per minute charge was more than the leccy.

Agreed. Pricing charts in the MyPorsche app clearly show there is a energy and time element to any non-IONITY charging sessions.

 

[Sand dancer]

My second ever charge was at Ionity Beaconsfield. Worked really well even for an absolute novice such as I.

My eldest lad particularly enjoyed the ability to knock back a couple of bacon sandwiches while I "filled the car" ?

 

[WRC_1S]

Like I said. They aren’t in my area of the uk so my first experience is crap. No doubt plenty of you all have a lovely time with IONITY but my first customer experience wasn’t great.

 

[simcity]

Like I said. They aren’t in my area of the uk so my first experience is crap. No doubt plenty of you all have a lovely time with IONITY but my first customer experience wasn’t great.

To be fair though - you didn’t actually plug the car in. Queued fair enough. It was busy. Tesla can be exactly the same.

But can you condemn the whole shooting match before you actually tried to use it…?

 

[ineedanoriginal]

I've tried a couple of different ones more just to test but Ionity has been great so far. I've only done four trips that have needed onroute charging and I've made sure to use Ionity for price but also speed. First time I managed to get 220kwh speeds which was ace all other times it sits at 199 and didn't go higher but they were busy sites so maybe the stations were throttled a little. Each time though I've pulled in to a bay charged for 10mins or less and been gone again, the entire time everyone that was there before me were still charging at sub 100kw speeds and seemed a little annoyed I zoomed in and back out before they had blinked ?

Question, I have not got plug and play to work yet, it always asks for my Porsche card which I tap and away it goes but is there a step I am missing to get plug and play to work?

As you say though they really aren't or I haven't seen any evidence of expansion...they need to double what is already there otherwise even just 10% more electric cars on the road will mean gridlock at charge points. Thankfully 95% of the time my home charging covers me for all trips and is nice and cheap with night time costs.

Yesterday I needed to top up on way home and decided to try the 350kw chargers at Porsche Centre Tewkesbury. It was lovely, plugged in straight away and went inside to chat about a couple of parts I'm thinking of ordering and then had a look at an amazing GT2RS and a beautiful Taycan in Oak Green which is such a nice colour, shame about the price!

Charge was a little pricey even with the Porsche discount as they also charge a per minute rate on top of the per kw but I wanted to give it a go.

I wish Tewkesbury was my local dealership it was very nicely one and everyone seemed really helpful and wanted to chat. Here is me with my 10 min top up.

I did the same on Tuesday but I didn't get more than 60kw/h from it despite my car having selected it to charge at. I only had 10 minutes as I had to get to a meeting and the poor charging rate meant I had to stop again elsewhere on my way home. I haven't looked at the cost but now you've mentioned it, I will!

As for Ionity, I tend to prioritise them if I'm travelling but there aren't too many of them, and as the author of this thread stated, they do get busy. I use the one at Cobham Services on the M25 regularly and it can be hit and miss, both in terms of wait times, and then charging speeds. I rarely seem to get above 150kw there, and most of the time it is below 100kw/h. But, the price is phenomenal and therefore I ignore the wait times and poor speeds.

That said, it is frustrating when you see a 6-bay 350kw Ionity station full of cars that can only use up to 100kw/h (and in some cases, much less!). But my wife reminds me that they are as entitled to use it as anyone else, regardless.

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