UK Customers

[Wonky_Donkey]

Quick review of Gridserve Norwich Electric Forecourt Opening Day - 21/04/22

I know quite a few of you have been interested in the new Gridserve location that opened in Norwich yesterday. I had the pleasure of visiting twice (more on that later) and I just thought I'd share my experiences.

So after many months of watching the site progress from a muddy field to this brand new facility I've been super excited for the opening day. Lots of social media activity on FaceBook from Gridserve in the lead up saying "come on down - say hi - take some photos - meet our team" - so that's what I did. Or at least that's what I tried to do.

Thought to myself - they are opening in the morning, there's going to be media stuff going on first thing, plus the die hard EV fans will want to be first in - so I'll leave it until mid afternoon to let the craziness calm down. With all that in mind I drove to the site at about 2.30pm to find a queue for the entrance. Place is rammed. Guy at the site entrance says "Sorry we're full and have about 100 people on a tour round the back of the building as well. Are you on a guest list?" I wasn't on a guest list - I may be an influencer in the eyes of Ford, but I'm a nobody in the eyes of Gridserve ?

I'll be honest I was disappointed - for all the "Come visit us" Facebook posts they were pumping out all morning it seemed there was a bit of a disconnect between the social media team and the reality of getting in, let alone charging up the car. I left feeling a bit dejected and a bit annoyed at a wasted trip.

Fast forward another 4 hours I figure I'll give it another go. This time there are just a few cars and plenty of available chargers (there are 22 x 350kW Ultra Rapid CCS chargers, 6 x 22kW Type 2 chargers, and 8 x Tesla Superchargers on site)

I find a space, plug in, tap my debit card, and away we go at 142kW. No fuss and a good charge rate.

Pricing is 45p/kWh for Ultra Rapid, and 39p/kWh for Type2 which is a little on the high side compared to IONITY's Ultra Rapid site just up the road which is still only 29p/kWh with a FordPass Charging Card, or the LIDL store's 50kW unit almost next door that is just 26p/kWh.

So we make our way upstairs to where the Costa / M&S Food / WH Smith outlets are, and just as we walk in there are a few people with Gridserve lanyards on sitting at a table (obvs there for the media peeps) - they blanked us as we walked past. Not even a friendly "Hi".

The retail area is nicely laid out, and has lots of nice seating, and a good selection of products.

Lots and lots of staff about, and a hell of a lot of guys in suits (I'm presuming this is the Gridserve Exec team) Recognised Toddington who was chatting with some of the suited crew.

Because of this it felt very soulless in the retail area - like some sort of corporate networking event that we had inadvertently gatecrashed. It was probably because it was launch day and the place was just full of GridServe execs and PR teams, but as a regular customer yesterday I was left feeling pretty much ignored. Not a single hello or Hi from any of the people wandering about. Unless you were media you were essentially invisible.

I went to the Costa Coffee outlet to get a drink to kill some time while the car was charging. Four staff standing about looking lost playing with their phones. One of them finally stepped forward and took my order and it was possibly the longest I've ever waited at a Costa for a coffee in my life (was about a 10+ minute wait - and there were no other customers being served or waiting)

When my drink was finally ready (it was a pretty sub standard latte) I was feeling so disappointed with the whole experience and atmosphere that I decided to go back to the car.

Perfect timing as I'd just got to 80% SOC - so I thought I'd bail out at this point. Touched the "Stop Charging" button on the screen - no response. Tried a few times - didn't seem to be responding. Ended up pressing the cable release button on the Mach-E charge port to stop the charge.

Big stickers on the front of the chargers "If you'd like a receipt use this QR code or visit this website" - scanned the QR code to go to the Gridserve website. To get a receipt you have to enter the last 4 digits of your credit/debit card and choose the location you charged in from a list of Gridserve locations. Guess what - the Norwich location isn't on the list. I have no idea how much I've been charged until it appears on my card statement.

At that point I binned my coffee and left feeling utterly disappointed with the whole experience.

It was such a stark contrast to my experience when I visited the Gridserve Braintree Forecourt last year which is what I was basing my expectations on.

So in a nutshell - the facilities look great, there is a plentiful supply of chargers, but the staff need time to get their s**t together. Charging costs are above average. I have no plans to return to the site in the near future.

I hope deep down that this site will be a success as we need quality infrastructure like this to make expanding EV ownership viable - but they need to be careful not to price themselves out of the market.

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[portlandg]

Quick review of Gridserve Norwich Electric Forecourt Opening Day - 21/04/22

I know quite a few of you have been interested in the new Gridserve location that opened in Norwich yesterday. I had the pleasure of visiting twice (more on that later) and I just thought I'd share my experiences.

So after many months of watching the site progress from a muddy field to this brand new facility I've been super excited for the opening day. Lots of social media activity on FaceBook from Gridserve in the lead up saying "come on down - say hi - take some photos - meet our team" - so that's what I did. Or at least that's what I tried to do.

Thought to myself - they are opening in the morning, there's going to be media stuff going on first thing, plus the die hard EV fans will want to be first in - so I'll leave it until mid afternoon to let the craziness calm down. With all that in mind I drove to the site at about 2.30pm to find a queue for the entrance. Place is rammed. Guy at the site entrance says "Sorry we're full and have about 100 people on a tour round the back of the building as well. Are you on a guest list?" I wasn't on a guest list - I may be an influencer in the eyes of Ford, but I'm a nobody in the eyes of Gridserve ?

I'll be honest I was disappointed - for all the "Come visit us" Facebook posts they were pumping out all morning it seemed there was a bit of a disconnect between the social media team and the reality of getting in, let alone charging up the car. I left feeling a bit dejected and a bit annoyed at a wasted trip.

Fast forward another 4 hours I figure I'll give it another go. This time there are just a few cars and plenty of available chargers (there are 22 x 350kW Ultra Rapid CCS chargers, 6 x 22kW Type 2 chargers, and 8 x Tesla Superchargers on site)

I find a space, plug in, tap my debit card, and away we go at 142kW. No fuss and a good charge rate.

Pricing is 45p/kWh for Ultra Rapid, and 39p/kWh for Type2 which is a little on the high side compared to IONITY's Ultra Rapid site just up the road which is still only 29p/kWh with a FordPass Charging Card, or the LIDL store's 50kW unit almost next door that is just 26p/kWh.

So we make our way upstairs to where the Costa / M&S Food / WH Smith outlets are, and just as we walk in there are a few people with Gridserve lanyards on sitting at a table (obvs there for the media peeps) - they blanked us as we walked past. Not even a friendly "Hi".

The retail area is nicely laid out, and has lots of nice seating, and a good selection of products.

Lots and lots of staff about, and a hell of a lot of guys in suits (I'm presuming this is the Gridserve Exec team) Recognised Toddington who was chatting with some of the suited crew.

Because of this it felt very soulless in the retail area - like some sort of corporate networking event that we had inadvertently gatecrashed. It was probably because it was launch day and the place was just full of GridServe execs and PR teams, but as a regular customer yesterday I was left feeling pretty much ignored. Not a single hello or Hi from any of the people wandering about. Unless you were media you were essentially invisible.

I went to the Costa Coffee outlet to get a drink to kill some time while the car was charging. Four staff standing about looking lost playing with their phones. One of them finally stepped forward and took my order and it was possibly the longest I've ever waited at a Costa for a coffee in my life (was about a 10+ minute wait - and there were no other customers being served or waiting)

When my drink was finally ready (it was a pretty sub standard latte) I was feeling so disappointed with the whole experience and atmosphere that I decided to go back to the car.

Perfect timing as I'd just got to 80% SOC - so I thought I'd bail out at this point. Touched the "Stop Charging" button on the screen - no response. Tried a few times - didn't seem to be responding. Ended up pressing the cable release button on the Mach-E charge port to stop the charge.

Big stickers on the front of the chargers "If you'd like a receipt use this QR code or visit this website" - scanned the QR code to go to the Gridserve website. To get a receipt you have to enter the last 4 digits of your credit/debit card and choose the location you charged in from a list of Gridserve locations. Guess what - the Norwich location isn't on the list. I have no idea how much I've been charged until it appears on my card statement.

At that point I binned my coffee and left feeling utterly disappointed with the whole experience.

It was such a stark contrast to my experience when I visited the Gridserve Braintree Forecourt last year which is what I was basing my expectations on.

So in a nutshell - the facilities look great, there is a plentiful supply of chargers, but the staff need time to get their s**t together. Charging costs are above average. I have no plans to return to the site in the near future.

I hope deep down that this site will be a success as we need quality infrastructure like this to make expanding EV ownership viable - but they need to be careful not to price themselves out of the market.

Road trip cancelled then. ?

 

[SteveUk]

Clueless muppets by the sound of it.

 

[Tony.T]

Hi,

I had a couple of questions in relation to our various recalls, as mine is booked in for two weeks time to do the pano roof, windscreen (replacement) and software.

I've had my RWD ER for 10 months (a Job#1 car from late 2020!) and it's still great, albeit a few on-going niggles ??

Re: the software update, I'm on 2.3 already (I think!) so is there any way of finding out what modules/updates need to be applied when the car goes in ?

On the roof and windscreen, like @portlandg , I'll video/photo all round but hopefully like him and @Tony.T all will be well. Has anyone had any problems with either the roof or windscreen work ?

Finally, my rear brake disks are fairly badly scored while the front disks are perfect- this has been on-going and there have been various posts on the subject, but I wondered whether anyone had new disks fitted to remedy this (hopefully under warranty) ? If so, I'll see if I can get this done at the same time.

Thanks for any thoughts or help on this,
David

@David-HC Bit late seeing this -sorry.

Yep- no problems with the screen and roof. Kept asking if the screen had been replaced and each time was told it had. The service manager even phoned me about 3 weeks before and asked me to take a photo of the numbers on the lower RH corner of the screen and mail him them (RH facing the car) He replied a short while later and confirmed that my screen had to be replaced and was about to order one for me.

Fast forward to after I picked my car car up.

I checked the new screen and it had all the same numbers as the 'old' one. OMG I thought , so I inspected it very carefully.

Anyway- it was new. I had a Nextbase camera system fitted early in January. That had a black S/A mounting pad. The camera now had a white one! So it had been removed off the original screen and fitted to the new one with a generic sticky pad.

The car had been valeted in and out. No sign whatsoever of any damage etc inside, and it may be my imagination but at speed on fast Duals, it seems a lot quieter.

As for the software update- well not sure tbh. The range guessometer seems more optimistic, and the problem with my centre display being as dull as dishwater when I start the car has gone. I set my screen to bright and the instrument panel to dark btw)

But that's it. No numbers on my Sync4 screen etc yet I had a notification that I had had an update a few days ago- yet Ford Pass and the car don't know what it was. Perhaps @Wonky_Donkey can give me some insight?

 

[David-HC]

Hi @Tony.T

Many thanks for your reply ?

It's reassuring that the work has been completed really well - a very good result by the sounds of it ?

I have likewise been told a couple of times that my screen will definitely be replaced, and am also hoping there may be less wind noise at speed (either in reality or in my imagination ?)

Enjoy your "new" car,
David

 

[portlandg]

Charged my car last night/this morning for the first time since I had the recall update done. I am on Octopus Go tariff which, I am sure most of you know, gives a cheaper rate of electricity between 0030 - 0430. As we all know our MME's can only be set by the hour so I have mine set for between 0100-0500 (paying a little more for 30 minutes I can live with). Anyway up until last night this time period would usually allow me to put 12%-15% in the car. just to remind people, I am using the supplied Variopower charger with the commando plug adapter into a 32amp fused circuit. Last night I plug the car in at 58% and set the % charge level to 70% and it said it would finish charging at 0330 so I increased the level to 80% (75% would seem to be NOT available any more) and a finish time of 0440 was estimated. 22%, happy with that. I am wondering if that was due to a change in the charging curve due to the update. I will now have to go on a road trip and try a DC charger and see if I can notice a difference.
I just wish my welcome lights/door button issue would get fixed. Still can't have everything unfortunately.

 

[Wonky_Donkey]

Charged my car last night/this morning for the first time since I had the recall update done. I am on Octopus Go tariff which, I am sure most of you know, gives a cheaper rate of electricity between 0030 - 0430. As we all know our MME's can only be set by the hour so I have mine set for between 0100-0500 (paying a little more for 30 minutes I can live with). Anyway up until last night this time period would usually allow me to put 12%-15% in the car. just to remind people, I am using the supplied Variopower charger with the commando plug adapter into a 32amp fused circuit. Last night I plug the car in at 58% and set the % charge level to 70% and it said it would finish charging at 0330 so I increased the level to 80% (75% would seem to be NOT available any more) and a finish time of 0440 was estimated. 22%, happy with that. I am wondering if that was due to a change in the charging curve due to the update. I will now have to go on a road trip and try a DC charger and see if I can notice a difference.

Hiya
I didn’t think the 21P22 software updates made any difference to AC charging - it only enhanced the Rapid DC charge curve between 80% - 96%

Something to look into maybe

 

[Wonky_Donkey]

GRANDE TORINO SHIPMENT UPDATE

Just a super quick update to say that my 2022 moved to status ANTWERP on 20/04

This is the last stage in the Antwerp process after clearing customs (“ANT CUST”) and means that the cars are ready to move on to the next step of the journey to Dagenham via Vlissingen in the Netherlands.

As this update was actually 5 days ago they may already be in the Netherlands ready to be loaded onto Adeline who is just crossing the English Channel tonight heading to NL and is due Tuesday lunchtime. Some of the cars could well be on UK soil now, or if not by the end of this week

Not long now.

 

[portlandg]

Hiya
I didn’t think the 21P22 software updates made any difference to AC charging - it only enhanced the Rapid DC charge curve between 80% - 96%

Something to look into maybe

That's what I thought. It just seemed strange that I should suddenly get more "bang for my bucks"

 

[portlandg]

GRANDE TORINO SHIPMENT UPDATE

Just a super quick update to say that my 2022 moved to status ANTWERP on 20/04

This is the last stage in the Antwerp process after clearing customs (“ANT CUST”) and means that the cars are ready to move on to the next step of the journey to Dagenham via Vlissingen in the Netherlands.

As this update was actually 5 days ago they may already be in the Netherlands ready to be loaded onto Adeline who is just crossing the English Channel tonight heading to NL and is due Tuesday lunchtime. Some of the cars could well be on UK soil now, or if not by the end of this week

Not long now.

GETTING CLOSER

 

[AzumA]

GRANDE TORINO SHIPMENT UPDATE

Just a super quick update to say that my 2022 moved to status ANTWERP on 20/04

This is the last stage in the Antwerp process after clearing customs (“ANT CUST”) and means that the cars are ready to move on to the next step of the journey to Dagenham via Vlissingen in the Netherlands.

As this update was actually 5 days ago they may already be in the Netherlands ready to be loaded onto Adeline who is just crossing the English Channel tonight heading to NL and is due Tuesday lunchtime. Some of the cars could well be on UK soil now, or if not by the end of this week

Not long now.

Good to hear!

Annoyingly i had a call with my dealer this morning who told me my MME is currently still showing as at the docks in Antwerp with no update since (according to their system), also the wheresmymme site is still showing zero updates on my vehicle since 11th April which simply shows a "compound in" status, nothing more... not sure if i should be concerned or not?

They also told me their ETA to dealer has been extended by a week to the 14th May now... patience is definitely wearing a bit thin currently! ?

 

[SashaLondon]

Lol my car was at the dealer for 5 weeks before they let me pick it up. Hope yours is straight out when it arrives.

 

[AzumA]

Lol my car was at the dealer for 5 weeks before they let me pick it up. Hope yours is straight out when it arrives.

Thanks for that! Another worry to add on top of my already beading brow ? - i'm more concerned that others are getting more regular status changes and mine has not moved in terms of status since the 11th April... who knows, i might have a big update next week which says "at dealer"... wishful thinking is all i have right now! ?

 

[Robinsbcfc]

Good to hear!

Annoyingly i had a call with my dealer this morning who told me my MME is currently still showing as at the docks in Antwerp with no update since (according to their system), also the wheresmymme site is still showing zero updates on my vehicle since 11th April which simply shows a "compound in" status, nothing more... not sure if i should be concerned or not?

They also told me their ETA to dealer has been extended by a week to the 14th May now... patience is definitely wearing a bit thin currently! ?

Its worth the wait mate

 

[AzumA]

Its worth the wait mate

Thanks mate.

I know - well, i will soon enough ? , i've been waiting since March 2021, so what's another month? haha.

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