The Ford Anglia is an older Ford car that was made for everyday driving. It’s a smaller family car that people could use for trips and exploring different areas. The podcast mentions it in connection with traveling around East Anglia and along the east coast.
That means the charging station can deliver a lot of electricity very quickly. If your car is able to take that kind of fast charging, you can usually add range in less time than with slower chargers.
An EV battery pack is the big battery inside the car that stores the electricity. Bigger battery packs can change how charging works and how long you might need to charge.
Gridserv is a company that runs EV charging stations. In this segment, they’re talking about one of Gridserv’s bigger charging locations with extra facilities.
A charging hub is a place where lots of EV chargers are grouped together. It’s usually set up so you can charge your car and also have somewhere to wait or grab food.
Charging points are the actual plugs/outlets where you connect your EV to charge. Some sites include larger charging points for bigger vehicles.
Term
charging bits
They mean the process and equipment involved in getting an EV charger to actually start charging. Even if everything looks fine, the session can fail at the start.
This is a practical troubleshooting concept for public EV charging: if a charger fails to start once, the best move is to switch to a different unit rather than repeatedly trying the same one. It reduces wasted time and frustration, especially for new EV owners.
Some EV chargers take a temporary payment (a deposit) when you start. In this case, the charger took a £30 deposit even though the charging didn’t really go as planned.
“Regen” means the car slows down using the electric motor and turns some of that slowing energy back into battery power. It helps you get more range out of the same charge.
This is an EV efficiency number that tells you how much electricity the car uses to drive a mile. If it’s lower, the car is using less energy and should go farther on a charge.
That’s the real-time display of how efficiently the car is using electricity right now. Some people avoid staring at it because it can make you drive differently than you normally would.
In this context, “gamification” means treating the EV’s efficiency/range displays like a game with a score. That can lead drivers to alter their behavior to hit targets rather than just driving normally to reach destinations.
LIVE
Welcome to the Motoring Podcast, recharging around Britain on Wednesday the 15th of July
2026.
Hello, I'm Alan.
Hello, I'm Andrew.
And on this review of day three, you'll learn how motorway can affect efficiency, what our
charging sponsor has been up to, and how it's easier to give up on a charger than to keep
on trying.
Holy.
Yes.
Okay.
Okay. Today, we drove from Folkestone in the south to Washington in the northeast.
The northeast.
Okay.
I didn't realize we were getting specific about that.
Well, yes.
Because we're showing the way we're going around.
Yes.
Well, yeah.
If you haven't been following already, given we started in Preston and we've been going
for three days ever since, today, quick reminder of why we're doing this, obviously
we did charging around Britain 10 years ago.
We wanted to find out how good the charging infrastructure was back then, and we wanted
to find out how good the charging infrastructure is right now, as well as how that plays off
against the cars and whatnot.
So trying to work out if it's harder or easier.
I think we've got a fairly decent answer so far.
Yes, I think so.
We are recording this at 12 minutes past eight in the evening.
Having already had our dinner.
And it's still light.
And it's still light.
There are clues there as to how it's going so far, really, which is making it tricky
for us because, of course, chaos makes content.
Yeah, but we also don't want chaos.
We don't. Yeah, just there's a little bit of us.
For this to be bland and dull would be quite nice, honestly.
Well, good news, everyone.
So, as I say, today from Folkestone to Washington, we had every intention of trying to...
Today we have thrown the whole, we're going to follow the same route out the window, really,
because we'll talk about why shortly, but we had an appointment this afternoon.
And to make sure that we were there on time and because getting there involved the M20,
the M25, and the M1.
Well, the way we took it did, yeah.
Well, the way we took it did, but we couldn't avoid the M20 and the M25 at some point.
Yeah, and that's such an unknown quantity.
No matter what time of day you're doing and we were doing it, probably mid rush hour.
Yeah, kind of, yeah, yeah, kind of left Folkestone just before eight o'clock this morning.
Yeah.
About 7.45, 10 to eight.
So, we were aware it was rush hour time, so we just hit the sat nav and followed the sat nav.
But we had plans to go around and cut up through East Anglia and try to stick to the East Coast
as much as we could, but we did need to get to Sheffield dish on the M1 by roughly a certain time.
We cheated and to an extent where everything went so smoothly that we ended up stopping
slightly short of where we needed to be for a bit to have a slightly longer lunch without
needing to charge or anything, but really we needed to wait up a bit because we were at the edge of schedule.
Yes.
After that, what did we do?
We then came up, we went over the Humber Bridge because we did that last time and that was really cool.
So, we took a detour via Hull as one does and then rejoined, went across, rejoined the M1
and made our way up here.
We charged three times there.
We started off with like 90 many percent.
I think 197 miles.
Yeah, about 197 miles.
Three charging stops.
We stopped at Toddington at the bottom of the M1 with many miles left really,
but we did need that boost to get our way up to Mark and Vale and then after we'd been and jiggled
around a bit, we stopped at Weatherby Services for a bit of a boost to give us the little bit we
needed to get here, here at Washington and also a bit of a boost for tomorrow morning.
So, we haven't charged up this evening.
We're going to do that just after we leave in the morning.
Tomorrow is here to Perth, Aberdeen and then Inverness.
Yes.
It's going to be a mix of driving.
414 miles covered in total today.
Chunky.
I think it's our most.
Probably one of the most.
Yeah, it might be.
I can't remember what Inverness, but it's Inverness to Fort William this time, not Inverness to Glasgow.
Yeah.
We may be close on that one.
Certainly on time.
On time.
Yeah, yeah.
It's got a long day today really, I suppose.
No, because we stopped.
So, the reason we stopped at Mark and Vale
is because our sponsored Gridserv happened to be opening their new charging club today.
Some of you will have seen that already.
I put out stuff on Instagram and on Blue Sky earlier on today as we record.
Earlier on Wednesday.
So, some of you have already seen that.
But it's an impressive new facility.
We'll be following up on that, I think, with Gridserv.
Yes.
The nearest future.
And just talking a bit more to Gridserv and that will be part of that.
But an impressive place really.
It's got 30-something, 400 kilowatt chargers.
Yep.
It's got a coaster.
It's got a shop.
It's got a big meeting room, a communal area with sofas and all sorts of nice stuff.
And it's just off the M1.
And well, certainly, I mean, I was joking in the car on the way up.
It seemed really, really nice, but I didn't really understand why people needed it,
given how quickly we can charge and turn around.
And then we remembered that other cars don't quite work on these.
Especially not the German models.
With the massive battery packs that we're starting to see from Mercedes and BMW and stuff.
Totally get it.
But really, just a nice setup.
First, one of those Gridserv charging hubs that I've been to.
I know I've been around for a while.
Had we been taking a longer route earlier in the day, we'd have gone by a brain tree.
It's just the original one.
But for those who've been to other Gridserv hubs, typically there is the building that has the
shop and the meeting room or the area that you can do work and the coffee shop.
But then outside, there is sort of like a four-quarty area with canopies and then you charge outside.
But with this one, there was a large section of charging hubs were underneath the building.
So the building was just raised up a floor.
Everything was on the first floor in terms of the shop and the toilets and the areas to work.
But also on the outside, there was a couple of charging points for larger EV vehicles,
such as coaches, lorries, someone towing a caravan, big vans, that sort of thing.
And they were ones that you just pull up into sideways.
There was sort of like a lay-by, basically, just how they were laid out.
There was a couple of those.
So that's good to see that there's some larger vehicles being catered for.
And then the rest were dotted around the side.
There were also quite a few outside without a canopy over them on top of things.
So there's a lot of charges there, is what we're saying.
But there's also parking spaces for those who aren't charging as well.
Yeah, so if you're meeting someone there, for example,
there are spaces so they're not icing someone.
Or if they don't need to charge, they're not blocking up a much needed charger.
I'd say 30 odd charging place I counted.
But just a really nice facility.
We've seen the inside of quite a lot of services over the last few days,
just where we've been and because we've been on motorways quite a lot.
And it was nice to see somewhere that wasn't.
See, we've seen the inside services.
We walk into services.
We go do what we need to do biologically.
Maybe grab a drink or something.
Wonder back to the car.
And then by the time we've taken a couple of pictures,
made a couple of social media posts, then it's time to head off.
Yeah.
Maybe that's just us, to be honest.
But when we were talking about the charging,
because all those machines worked perfectly,
something we didn't say when you went through the charging bits,
is what I said in the introduction.
There was one point that we, it was at Weatherby, we turned up.
And again, it was with GridServe.
There was a ton of GridServes of varying speeds.
And we rocked up to one and we started the charge and then it stopped.
So rather what we've learned with our experience,
and not on this trip, but we've learned previously.
No, a decade ago.
Yeah, we've learned this previously,
is rather than try and just keep doing the same thing over and over and failing.
If the machine doesn't work once,
just move on to another machine as quickly as possible.
And this is the sort of little messages that need to be passed on to new EV owners,
because they won't know this and they'll get really frustrated.
So there's a lot of education needs to happen from the industry.
Can you say a nice thing with the GridServe one?
It's because I'd activated the charge and stuff from my phone
and it had tried to start and then it hadn't.
But what it had done is it had taken this of 30 pound deposit,
which is more than we need to charge.
It had taken that.
And so when I tried the second time in the same machine,
it said, we've already taken the guarantee for this.
Do you want to just use that same payment method and use that?
So as the two charges failed, it didn't take 60 pounds out.
It just took 30 pounds.
We moved to another charge.
You've still got this because you haven't had a successful charge yet.
Do you want to use it?
Some other networks would have taken that sort of payment guarantee on my debit card three times.
The GridServe system didn't.
It only took it the once.
And when it worked, it said, I will just use this one.
And that was quite, it's a tiny little detail,
but I know there was one network that used to put a quite a significant hold on your card.
And it would do that every time a charge failed.
Yeah.
So you ended up with a hold of quite sometimes many hundreds of pounds,
I saw.
People have found it failed a few times.
And then it would take ages to get that back.
GridServe didn't do that.
Yep.
I know they're off sponsored, but I would say that even if they weren't,
because I just, as I say, I thought it was just a nice touch.
Yep, absolutely.
Absolutely.
So what are we doing tomorrow again?
Just so we're setting off from here in the morning.
Yep.
We are heading towards Edinburgh, probably the 68.
We may well stop on the edges of Edinburgh, depending on how it's going.
That's reminding me of something we've still got to mention.
Other than that, we're going to head up towards Perth.
And then after Perth, Aberdeen and in the Venice,
ready for the big Highland lap on Friday.
The thing I didn't mention was the economy.
Oh, right.
Today has had a real impact on our economy,
because it has been all motorway almost.
Yeah, yeah.
All motorways, certainly all dual carriageway.
And for that, we were getting about 3.8-ish.
The lowest was 3.5, but generally it was 3.8.
That seems to be for the Insta and for just driving normally at the normal speed limit
for dual carriageways and motorways with the central reservation.
That seems to be what it does.
And that's fine, because you know then you're clued in with that,
you're expecting that.
And of course, that reinforces the confidence we have in when the car says the range is this,
that the range is going to be somewhere around that.
Which is important, particularly, again, I'll go back to new EV owners,
because a lot of these things, experienced people understand this,
and they have got used to the foibles of their vehicle.
But new owners won't know this.
And again, we have to remember that we're doing this in the summer,
the weather is very nice, there are no mad fluctuations in temperature,
it's not very cold.
Don't say that before we get to the high ones.
No, no, but it's not very well,
I think we can be confident there won't be snow.
Not where we're going.
Bless.
Do you think not?
Okay.
We won't be able to see it on the tops,
but it shouldn't actually be falling as we drive around.
I would hope, given we are mostly around about sea level,
I would hope that that is the case, yes.
Yeah.
But yeah, so we're hoping it should be a bit better back up to the kind of four-point
something that we're getting, if we can eke through,
if we can eke through, if we can get close to five,
I would be so delighted.
That probably won't be tomorrow, that'll be Friday,
I'll be so delighted if we can manage that.
But again, it won't be because we're trying to hypermile
or anything like that.
So if it does that, then that is the capability of the vehicle
completely in the software and everything.
So that will be impressive.
The speeds will be slower on Friday.
Well, there's more chance of regen as well.
Yeah.
Well, that's the big thing, by the way,
of what we found with the motorways and the dual carriageways.
Because there isn't the regen, that obviously means you don't get back the mileage,
it doesn't then boost up the average kilowatts per mile.
So you don't get us staring at the screen in the car going,
yes, we got two miles back, which is what was happening yesterday.
Yeah.
But equally, we are also not staring at what's the live consumption efficiency,
because we don't want to know, because we don't want it to affect the way we drive.
Yeah.
Yeah, we both had this conversation earlier on today about,
we try not to show the life school in front of ourselves on the dashboard,
because otherwise we are both guilty of gamification and just driving to fit that,
rather than just driving like we drive to get to places.
Yeah.
Normally.
Yeah.
Important thing.
Anything else we need to talk about, any parish notes or anything?
I think a bit of a warning that the live stream we were talking about doing at the end of this,
we're actually going to do next week at some point.
It's not going to be practical to do it on the Saturday evening for one,
but also we need some time to have a think and also give you guys a chance to think up
some questions that you want to present us about after hearing anything that we've missed,
but also we'll be celebrating the fact that we'll have gone through our 700th episode by then as
well, because in perfect modern podcast style, we've not done anything for the 700th episode.
It's going to be the 701st.
Second.
Is it?
Yeah, because the 701st is the news.
700th will be Saturdays.
Yes.
Yes.
That's all.
I knew that the last day of this is the 700th and that's what we originally planned,
but we're also going to be knackered.
Yes, that's probably more of a factor than everything else,
but I was trying to gloss over that, but never mind.
If you have any questions from day to day, by the way, do ping them to us.
Let us know.
We know many of you are listening to this.
Each day, thank you so much.
It is appreciated, whether it's the audio version or whether it's the YouTube version.
Then that's great.
You'll notice we're back to, I seem to have a chin again,
which is quite nice after yesterday's video version, and the wind's summer shining,
so I was grumbling about how unflattering that was.
Yes, a little bit better tonight.
And also thank you to everybody that's reposting our social media posts.
Yes, it's great.
I was very much appreciated.
I think that just about covers us for tonight.
Yep.
I'm going to cut short the swamps a bit tonight.
You've already talked quite a lot about Gridsurf,
but don't forget that if you do have an EV and if you do go on long journeys,
even occasionally, then Gridsurf Plus costs just £7.99 per month,
and can be cancelled at any time, much like many gym memberships,
as well as discount charges and many other seasonal membership benefits,
such as EV health checks whilst you charge pet portraits and similar.
Many people take out Gridsurf Plus for a month at a time to cover a holiday
or to cover seasonal travel.
There's more information at gridsurf.com slash membership.
They're in depth the word from our sponsor.
I think that's everything.
So don't forget to now and next week,
you can give us any feedback and share your thoughts with the show
at motoringpodcast.com on Blue Sky at Motoring Podcast on Instagram
and Facebook and on the contact page of www.motoringpodcast.com,
the hub of all our activities.
And that could even be between now and tomorrow as well, by the way.
Remember, you can support us financially via Patreon,
and please leave a review and rating on Apple Podcast YouTube
or however your podcast app lets you do such a thing.
Before tomorrow, Andrew, what's the best way to get in touch with you?
Before tomorrow, okay.
You can try on Blue Sky, if you search for the correct windscreen,
you should find me there.
And Alan, if people like to get in touch with you,
personally, before tomorrow, what's the best way they can do that?
Tomorrow never comes, so it's okay.
We're good.
It's Blue Sky for me, where I'm at AJP Bradley, that's B-R-A-D-L-E-Y,
dot B Sky, dot social.
As I've said a few times now, we'll be back tomorrow.
But until then, I've been Alan Bradley.
Thanks for knowing your clues.
And safe motoring.
About this episode
Day 3 of the “recharging around Britain” EV trip runs from Folkestone to Washington, with the hosts leaning on sat nav through rush-hour motorways (M20, M25, M1). They share how motorway driving hits efficiency and how real-world consumption matches the car’s stated range. Charging coverage centers on Gridserv’s new Mark and Vale hub—30-something ~400 kW chargers, including options for larger vehicles—plus a practical lesson when a charger fails and how deposits/holds behave. GridSurf Plus sponsor details close out the segment.
Today, Wednesday 15 July 2026, we continued with Day 3 of Recharging Round Britain, and this is where we do not try as closely as we can to recreate the route we undertook nearly a decade ago. Hear how we got on today as we travelled from Folkestone, via Toddington, Tibshelf services, Markham Vale, Wetherby to our hotel in Washington.
CHARGING SPONSOR
Thanks to our charging sponsor, GRIDSERVE, They have an EV charging network that spans almost the whole of the UK.
While you can just turn up and pay with a debit card or their app, you can also get 25% off charging rates at all 200 of their locations with GRIDSERVE Plus.
GRIDSERVE Plus costs just £7.99/month and can be cancelled at any time, much like many gym memberships, and as well as the discounted charging, there are many other seasonal membership benefits such as EV heathchecks while you charge, pet portraits, and similar.
Many people take out Gridserve Plus for a month at a time to cover a holiday or seasonal travel.
Thank you to Hyundai, who once again have loaned us an electric vehicle enabling us to travel around as much of Britain as we can in six days. This time, we are using an Inster 02. To find out more on the Inster, you can listen to Alan’s time with one during the UK launch of the car, by clicking this link here.
If you like what we do, on this show, and think it is worth a £1.00, please consider supporting us via Patreon. Here is the link to that CLICK HERE TO SUPPORT THE PODCAST
