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London to Edinburgh electric car trip in 10 hrs for Robert Llewellyn

Image of Faye Sunderland
Author: | Updated: 17 Jan 2014 12:44

The BBC's relationship with electric cars and its reporting on them have been under scrutiny before, but perhaps no more so than when journalist Brian Milligan took a Mini E electric car from London to Edinburgh just over three years ago.

Brian managed to make a right mess out of the journey, by using a very limited prototype Mini E as his example of electric motoring— which couldn’t even use available rapid chargers—he managed to make the journey a whole lot harder than it need be, taking a staggering four days to complete.

That alone angered EV supporters who knew that the two-seat Mini E, with an estimated driving range of 109 miles and at least a six hour charging time, was far from the best available electric car.

In response, EV advocate David Peilow left London in his Tesla Roadster two days after Brian and made it to Edinburgh before him.

Nissan LEAF at an Ecotricity fast charger

The BBC acknowledged that this second journey was conducted to prove that electric life could be a whole lot easier than it was made out to be, but remained dismissive of it (as you can see at the bottom of the hyperlinked page), as the Roadster cost around £88,000—hardly the future of mainstream electric motoring.

Now a new journey from David along with actor and fellow EV fan, Robert Llewellyn will this time use the family-friendly Nissan LEAF, which as new starts from a more palatable £20,990  (after a £5,00 government grant), to recreate the journey to Edinburgh, making use of the UK’s much-extended recharging infrastructure since 2011.

David and Robert plan to make their journey next week (Friday, January 24, 2014), expecting that the 391 mile journey should be completed in just 10 hours, thanks to the vastly improved charging infrastructure in the last few years. Even in a conventional car, the journey would take around 6 to 7 hours, if you decided to be cruel to your own body by not stopping for a loo break and well-earned rest.

As Robert says in a blog post: “To be fair to Mr Milligan he said that it was ‘a golden age’ for technological development and ‘in a few years’ things would change.

“Well, it’s 3 years later and as he predicted the picture is rather different.”

As Robert explains in his blog post, that journey would notably cost you about £70 in petrol for running a small, fairly fuel-efficient combustion car compared to a zero fuel costs for the Nissan LEAF-which will make use of Ecotricity’s free to use ‘Electric Highway’.

Notably had Brian’s Mini E been able to use these chargers, there wouldn’t have been any. Ecotricity began the installation of its Electric Highway in July 2011, with a rapid charger at the South Mimms service station. Now that network is sprawled across major motorway services including rest points on the M1, M2, M3 M4, M5, M6 and M25, helping EV drivers travel beyond their typical 100 mile driving range by making 30 minutes stops to recharge.

With the return of Robert’s Fully Charged podcast series, there will also be a episode made of the journey to document it, and plenty of tweets from both @bobbyllew and @dpeilow during the journey. Keep your eyes peeled for updates.

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