This is a way to measure how efficiently the EV is using electricity. Higher numbers generally mean you’re getting more miles out of the same amount of power.
Preconditioning means the car gets the battery ready before you plug it in. It helps the battery charge faster and more smoothly because it’s at the right temperature.
The Dodge Charger is a large car built for performance, not just everyday commuting. People often talk about how quickly it can speed up when you press the accelerator. That “ramping up” is basically how fast the car goes from slower to faster driving.
A heat pump is how the car warms the cabin efficiently. Instead of using lots of battery power to make heat from scratch, it moves heat around to use energy more effectively.
A heat exchanger is a component that helps move heat from one part of the car to another. It helps the EV manage temperatures so the battery and cabin can heat up efficiently.
This is a charger you install at your house so you can plug in your EV when you get home. It makes charging easier and often cheaper than relying only on public stations.
EV just means an electric vehicle—basically a car that runs on electricity. It’s the type of car you charge instead of refueling with gas.
Term
Goethe Plus
Goethe Plus sounds like a charging membership that can change how you pay for EV charging. The host is saying you can have it for a month or join temporarily.
Rapid charging means using a faster public charger to add electricity to your EV quickly. It’s useful for road trips, but it can be more complicated and sometimes more expensive than charging at home.
LIVE
Welcome to the Motoring Podcast, recharging round Britain on Thursday the 16th of July
2026.
Hello, I'm Alan.
Hello, I'm Andrew, and on this review of day four, you'll learn how we prefer charging
lesser times than a decade ago, average petrol prices at motorways are how much, and the
sun does shine in Scotland.
We've seen it.
Well, it always shines in Scotland.
How dare you?
How dare you?
Assume that it does anything else.
Yeah, the everyday recap of what we're doing, it's 10 years since we first did charging
round Britain, and we want to find out is it easier or is it harder?
Have the cars improved and has the charging infrastructure improved?
I think the fact that we are sitting here in a hotel room in Inverness at, what is it,
20 past six in the evening, as opposed to last time when we got into Inverness at about
20 past midnight on the equivalent today, gives you a fair clue as to how we think it's
going.
Yeah, absolutely.
And we stopped and did, although I had none of the podcast stuff to do today, and we stopped
and did that on the way.
He did.
That gives you a rough idea of how it was.
This is, of course, the anniversary of the day we actually learned how to drive an electric
car.
I know.
I feel like we should have fish supper for as a celebration.
You know what?
I might even just do that.
I might have fish and chips for tea tonight.
It won't be quite the same as having it sitting at that drug stand services in Perth like
we did last time.
But there we go.
Today, we have driven, as you might guess, to Inverness from Washington, Tynanwea via
Perth and Aberdeen.
I would say Dundee, but we didn't go by Dundee because we took it for it.
And where have we stopped just over the bridge?
Kinross was one of our stops, but really Kinross isn't really worth mentioning as
anybody who's ever been anywhere near Kinross will probably agree.
But yes, we did.
We had three charging stops today, four because I can't add up.
We charged first thing this morning just up the road from Lone Town at Washington
services on the A1 going northbound.
Kinross, we charged at West Hills, just outside Aberdeen, just on the bypass there.
And the car is currently charging at the northernmost car charging on the grid
surf network, just five minute walk on the road.
Yep.
As we record, at least I hope it is a car check.
Well, we have cut.
Oh, I haven't added up how many miles we've covered.
Many.
It's a approach.
It's around about 400 anyway, easily.
Yeah, around about 400.
I got the top score that we've had so far today, so far on this trip.
With 4.7 miles per kilowatt from West Hills to Inverness.
Well, the bad traffic helped a lot with that.
To be fair, it wasn't the leg of the journey.
You put it in eco either.
So, you know, this was under normal conditions as opposed to the eco one
where you were trying to get that figure.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But it did have a lot to do with the road and what to do with the traffic.
What else?
Well, what else have we learned today?
We learned that the Insta has battery preconditioning.
We have been trying to do what we are doing right now,
which is we charge the evening before, basically so we can get up and get out.
We're both much more of a get-up-go type in the morning people.
Yep.
And also, we're charging the battery when the battery is warmed up
and the car is warmed up so the battery is all ready to accept charge.
It was an interesting test this morning because it was only a couple of miles from
but it was less than that.
It looks good in the right way, but it was only a couple of miles
from the hotel to the charger and the car was cold.
So, and we made sure even though I knew I thought I knew exactly how to get there,
we made sure we had the charging point as a destination.
The car immediately noticed that and went,
oh, hang on, my battery is not conditioned enough for this.
And it preconditioned.
Yep.
It preconditioned the battery so that whenever we plugged it in,
it just behaved as it does normally once you had it there.
It was sort of started off and it ramped up.
The charger have ramped up incredibly quickly.
Yes.
Other thing we noticed is the Insta has a heat exchanger, a heat pump
built in so that it actually can heat up quite quickly
using as little battery power as possible.
We noticed just how quickly that the cabin was getting quite toasty
by the time we had to stop.
And that was only two to three miles of driving, which is that which is unusual.
Also got electric heated front seat, it doesn't have electric front seats.
It's got heated front seats and we didn't use those because now we need to.
You've got both just there.
Other things to mention to the after most of the talking, I'm so sorry.
We also had to move outside the cozy embrace of our sponsor, Gridsurf.
Yes.
And I had to charge using Ionstein and Aberdeen.
That was just as uneventful to be perfectly frank.
As using Gridsurf, the app works in a pretty much similar way.
It takes Apple pay as well, all the same kind of stuff.
So that worked very nicely.
Charge, charge well was 350 kilowatt charges.
The 85 that the insta can take was was no trouble.
So it just goes in, it just acts out and it just does its stuff.
Yep.
Oh, last thing to talk about today, I think is costs.
We asked about cost because we've not really mentioned it the last few days.
And there's a good reason for that.
The good reason is that I frankly haven't had any time with a spreadsheet to work it out.
We get in the evening, I cannot be bought.
I'm sorry.
That is that is how it is.
The plan really is to talk.
I'll do a proper breakdown of costs whenever we do the live stream.
Yeah, doing the follow up.
That's that kind of thing is one of the reasons I decide to leave it a week.
That we can actually prep that sort of stuff and share it.
Just to give some kind of answer, though.
Yes, because thank you for the question, because it's a good question.
Remember that we are we are not using the cheapest charges.
I mean, they are to us.
It's good service sponsoring us.
But it is costing per mile about the same as it costs me to run the GRMM.
I only ever use this Tesco 99.
It gets the full gallon on the journey.
It's that kind of cost.
Now, bear in mind with this.
There's a couple of things.
I only use supermarket fuel as if I can get away with it.
Decent supermarket for the car and in the GRMM.
And also, we are charging at motorway services.
It is not the cheapest way to do this.
And we are charging.
And that cost I worked out is if you don't have any membership.
So if you don't have, for example, to dig a hypothetical one,
Gritzer Plus, I've been talking about all week, or any of the
honesty ones or any deals that you get via your home energy provider.
If you have an EV charger at home or any of these things,
it's the absolute basic you're using the app.
That can be a little bit cheaper than tapping the card.
Yes. So do be aware of that.
But using the app with no fancy memberships.
That's what the prices are all worked out at.
It is working out.
I likened it to the German.
That's not a very good thing.
But if you were running a normal hatchback, a normal B segment hatchback
and you were driving it normally and you were filling up only on the motorways
or as it's going to be tomorrow only in rural Scotland,
then that's the kind of price that's coming in that with no discount.
None of the things that anyone sensible would do on this.
No, I don't think that's true, because I think your GRMM is the grim is good
because the range is roughly the same.
That is quite true.
So then a number of times you need to refuel charge
are going to be very similar.
If you've got like a course of 1.2, you're going to have a much longer range.
Yes. But even if you're just charging on the motorway, it's the cost.
No, I know that it will still be expensive.
Yeah.
But you will go further and have less refueling.
I'm doing proper breakdown of all of this and we'll present it back to the livestream
just so that everybody knows.
I'll talk about, yeah, for example, how much we could just save G's and grid surplus
or any of these other ways of getting that money off.
Yeah.
The more I look at it is, I'm going to say it's complex.
Okay. I'm not saying it's complicated.
It's complex. There is a slight difference there.
And I think it's one of these things that when you're standing on the outside,
it looks like a terrible gaudy knot of complexity.
It's not far off when you're on the inside until you have to start working it out
until you're forced to work it out.
You don't even realize.
It takes time to realize and that's what we're telling you now
is that once you know stuff, it's much easier in that if, you know, you,
I think it's harder when you're looking to buy an electric car than it is when you
have an electric car or you have custody of an electric car in this case,
where I'm looking at it and going, well, actually my home energy provider would give me this.
If I had a charging unit at home, this would be a side effect of that.
Or even if I don't have a charging unit, I can,
any months I have an EV or I am doing many, many miles in an EV,
my 799, my 599, my 1099, depending on what it is,
I own it runs as a number of different levels that might work better for you.
Then, then you start to see how you do it.
I mean, the nice thing about Goethe Plus is you can have it.
You cannot have it.
You can just join for that month for a week of doing this.
We could have been 79, 99.
At the end of this, I'll work out how much we could have saved.
It will be a lot of money, actually.
Knowing how many charges we've done and so on, they've been costing.
And again, what we're doing isn't a very extreme case.
This is not normal because the other thing that adds to complexity,
the type of person who would potentially need to use as many rapid charges or ultra rapid
charges in a day, like we are, is someone who is traveling a lot, which is a small minority,
et cetera.
And this is where we're saying it's complex.
There's lots of different moving parts.
There's lots of things to go into a decision tree.
We're going to drive 3,000 miles a month every month
is not the use case for having any electric vehicle.
No.
That's when you have a diesel.
Okay.
Let's be very clear about that.
We are doing something silly.
It is not really good practice or best practice, but it's possible.
And the possibility is, I think, the important part of it.
I'll say that again tomorrow, whenever we reach Fort William.
Okay.
Yeah.
That will be the big telling point.
That is a good point.
Tomorrow is Fort William, is the end of day.
Yes.
Starting from here in Inverness going up the east coast to Wiccan to Johnny Grotes
and then heading across the top of the country,
most of the way across the top, taking the diagonal down past Leg,
all the pool, and down to Fort William.
That's probably going to end up being all the pool drummers rocket
on Loch Ness.
And then down to Fort Augustus, Fort William,
which is going to be quite long.
Yes.
So hence we want the car charged tonight.
Quite long.
So we can get it and go.
The chargers aren't as powerful.
Maybe it's the ones that we've been using.
It's we've got to be, play a lot more by year.
I think it's been quite easy, relatively easy for us so far.
Now we can bounce from Groteso to Groteso.
I think we might be trying to drive in Eco.
Yeah.
Tomorrow.
Yeah, especially the top, especially once we've charged up in Wic.
I think it's going to be a case of maybe hitting the Eco button, taking it steady.
We know where we'd quite like to charge.
But again, whether the possibility of that is, is a bit variable.
Hopefully we'll have a little more charge coming into Ollipool than we did the last time.
Yeah.
Okay.
The number of charges that we actually have been making has been pretty much high.
Yeah.
All there abouts.
Just have faith.
I mean, did I say about the danger and excitement earlier on?
I don't think I did.
You did not, no.
No.
Oh, we have, we almost had.
We know chaos makes content.
As you can tell, there's not been a lot of chaos so far.
Hence, we're talking about costs and numbers.
But the, we had the low battery light come on at 20%.
It meant that we pulled into Kinross services with about, what was it, about the 17 to 20 miles
of range that the car had been predicting ever since we let excess, ever since we let Washington.
It was absolutely, this is how far it's going to be.
This is how much energy you're going to use.
And that was what happened.
Yeah.
In fact, on the way up, it was trying to put us in an extra charging stop.
And on the way up on the drive up, it recalculated and decided we wasn't,
we didn't need that extra charging stop.
Yeah.
At no point was any of that a concern because we knew how far we had to go.
We knew how much range we had.
We had confidence in the information the car was giving us in what it had.
So we just, well, it's easy, but we're easy going to make it and we did.
Yep.
We're still loving the car, by the way.
Insta, I think we're loving the car a little bit more each day, to be honest.
Yes.
It's tricky not to love it.
A big car feel drives well.
Still a new thing.
The tech you need, yeah.
It's not got a massive footprint as well.
Plenty of room on the inside.
I can still part like an idiot in it, though.
Well, we all can.
So don't worry.
I think that that's pretty much us before today.
Parish nice again, just saying we're originally going to do a live stream as soon as we finish.
We're not going to do that.
We're going to delay a week, just so that we're prepped.
We're organized.
We've got the appropriate bits of people working stuff sorted.
Which leads me purely to the end.
So folks, don't forget the between now and tomorrow.
You can now give us any feedback and share your thoughts for the show at Motoring Podcast on Blue
Sky and Motoring Podcast on Instagram and Facebook.
And on the contact page of www.motoringpodcast.com, the hub of all our activities.
Remember, you can support us financially via Patreon and please leave a review and rating
on Apple Podcast, YouTube or whatever your podcast app lets you do such a thing.
Andrew, what's the best way to get in touch with you?
This week, the best way you can touch with me is via Blue Sky.
If you search for Crack Windscreen and Alan, if people would like to get in touch with you,
personally, what's the best way for them to do that?
Blue Sky again, where I'm at AJP Bradley.
That's B-R-A-D-L-E-Y.B Sky.Social.
As I said, we'll be back tomorrow.
But until then, I've been Alan Bradley.
I've been Andrew Clues.
And safe motoring.
About this episode
Day 4 of the Round Britain EV trip is set up from Inverness, with the hosts comparing how charging habits and infrastructure have changed since “10 years since we first did charging round Britain.” They recap the day’s route and charging stops, including where the car is currently charging on the Grid Surf network, and share efficiency and thermal-management takeaways like battery preconditioning and heat-pump cabin heating. Charging costs and planning get teased for later, alongside practical notes on Eco mode and range recalculation.
Today, Thursday 16 July 2026, we continued with Day 4 of Recharging Round Britain, and we returned to trying to, as closely as we can, recreate the route we undertook nearly a decade ago. Hear how we got on today as we travelled from Washington, via Kinross, Perth, Aberdeen to eventually arrive at Inverness.
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
