Milton Keynes EV Experience Centre

The place to discuss everything else..
Post Reply
User avatar
Guy
Posts: 2148
Joined: Tue Nov 04, 2014 11:06 am
Location: Warwickshire

Post by Guy »

I spent the day on a visit to Milton Keynes EV Experience Centre yesterday.

https://evexperiencecentre.co.uk/

Well worth a visit. It's run by Chargemaster (recently purchased by BP) on behalf of MK City Council to promote the take up of EVs across MK and beyond. It's 'brand-neutral' so they don't try to sell you anything, but you can take 20 minute test drives in their small fleet of EVs and PHEVs. You can have longer test drives for a nominal fee, so that you can experience 'living with' an EV over several days.

As part of the visit (organised by my employer) we drove from MK to Chargemaster's small manufacturing facility in Luton. Clearly we travelled in EVs and I got the chance to drive the BMW i3, and eGolf and the Renault Zoe. Not a particularly exciting range of cars, but as my first 'EV experience' they were interesting to drive nevertheless. Of the three I actually preferred the eGolf, possibly because I am a Golf driver anyway and to me it just felt the most 'normal'! The Zoe felt a bit small and flimsy (but then an ICE equivalent would be similar) and the i3 was nice to drive but just a bit quirky (interior and exterior looks) and I didn't particularly like the electronic braking when you take your foot off the accelerator - although I am sure it just takes some getting used to!

Chargemaster themselves (https://chargemasterplc.com/) manufacture EV chargers for home, public and workplace. They briefed us of their expansion plans - new manufacturing facility opening in MK next year in order to cope with demand. Seemed a pretty good setup, especially now that they are owned by BP.

Anyway if you are in MK then it's well worth a visit - it's in the main shopping centre between Boots and Hinds, and there's a Tesla showroom also in the centre if you fancy a look at those also.

Dandock
Posts: 4096
Joined: Sat Jun 06, 2015 7:29 pm

Post by Dandock »

Sound like quite a useful ‘toe-in-the-water’ thing.
VG Petrol S http://www.porsche-code.com/PHIVCQU7           And a GT3 RS... by Lego! Not crash-tested! 😀
Post Reply

  • Similar Topics
    Replies
    Views
    Last post