In our latest long-term test of the Vauxhall Mokka-e, Natalie Middleton gets to grips with the local charging infrastructure. Or, rather, the lack of it.

Local chargers at New Forest hotels have proved essential during our test so far

Several weeks into our test of the Vauxhall’s electric small SUV and I feel like I’ve taken a quantum leap in my charging knowledge. That’s after a bit of a scare over how little infrastructure there is locally though.

Prior to taking delivery of the car, I downloaded Zap-Map – now the most essential app on my phone – to check out local charging as we don’t have a home charger. I knew there were a couple of devices at the local Asda but wasn’t sure of other locations. When the app first opened, it showed a wealth of chargers and I was ecstatic. Until I realised it was centred around Bristol where Zap-Map is based. And when I homed in on my address, there was a veritable ‘charging desert’ in the local town.

Luckily, I live near the New Forest where there are a number of hotels with charge points. So I have spent a fair few weeks frequenting them and partaking in coffees/cream teas or even sitting quietly in the grounds like Billy No-mates on a Friday night with a wedding going on inside. There was also a rather manic afternoon with four of us turning up in a row to use the single rapid charger there and charging as much as politely allowed before passing the baton on. The couple after me were staying at another local hotel that didn’t have a charger and had had to drive over. I also had to return to the same place for a coffee one Friday evening after the charger at Beaulieu Motor Museum had been out of action that afternoon during the school holiday.

All of this has reinforced to me just how much of a role the leisure and hospitality sector has in the UK’s EV infrastructure and how much of a selling point it is for venues.

I’ve not had so much luck with the local Asda charging. The devices there are quite often out of action and only 7kW so I’m not adding that much to my range while in-store. And the second time I tried to charge, the bays were filled with three ICE cars and a diesel Asda delivery van – and I couldn’t find anyone from Asda to help. After getting stuck on the one-way system and having to park at the end of car park, I walked back and saw the driver of one of the cars returning with a full trolley. So I asked if she knew she’d parked in an EV charging bay and pointed out that I’d not been able to charge my car as a result. She then snapped at me that all the parent parking bays were full and she wasn’t going to park any further away. So many things to say back, but I gave up for fear of being punched, and decided best not to enquire where her actual kid/s were!

I have now regularly been ‘ICE’d’ in several places, hotels too, and after years of hearing friends and colleagues say about it, I am really starting to understand the frustration. Given my experiences, I can understand why venues might not want to anger customers by asking them to move their cars, but it does need tackling…

Since then, literally in the last couple of weeks, two Mer 22kW charge points have now been deployed in a car park fairly near me – both an indication of just how fast-paced changes to the infrastructure are and a saviour from me being socked one at Asda.

Car-wise, it’s been a great experience so far and I’ve really enjoyed getting to grips with the Mokka-e, which continues to gather attention and draw comments on its looks. I’m pleased ours comes with the red exterior detailing as it really does lift the car. The cabin looks good too, matching the exterior’s looks well. It’s also been great driving an electric car during the fuel delivery shortages and COP26; I’ve not just felt smug but also relieved and part of a bigger picture.

In terms of performance, the Vauxhall has 136hp on tap, giving a 0-60mph time of 8.7 seconds and a top speed of 93mph; it can certainly get a shove on it but it’s worth noting that its full power is only available in ‘Sport’ mode. Default ‘Normal’ restricts this to 109hp and the ‘Eco’ model that I always use cuts it down further to 82hp. In the latter, performance is definitely stunted but it’s still punchy at pulling anyway and capable on motorways, and besides range is my priority. I’m also activating the full regen braking around town, but not motorways, to optimise power. In general, I’m finding both the regen braking and power delivery less aggressive than other EVs I’ve driven, making the Mokka-e easy for ICE drivers to switch to.

Official range is 201 miles but I’m getting around 145 on mixed routes and in autumn weather. That’s with keeping the air-con and heaters off, bar a blast of the demisters at the start. But I am using the heated front seats a lot – I’ve never been so happy about heated front seats in my life. Under my calculations, I’m getting 3.2MPkWh. This could be better but I’ve never been great at hypermiling, even in ICE vehicles, when I’m normally racing around juggling work and school runs. So the priority for me is to practise smoother driving.

Cabin space is great – head room at the front is plentiful, though more limited for rear seat passengers. They do have plentiful leg room though and sliding rear seats would be a godsend to maximise boot space, which is 310 litres with the seats upright or 1,060 folded. This puts it on a par with some smaller cars and means I can’t carry my mum’s wheelchair unless I put the 40/60 split seats down on one side and shunt my kids up so they’re next to each other – normally not a recipe for a relaxed journey.

There’s acres of equipment onboard our SRi Nav Premium trim. I’ve very quickly warmed to the optional (£700) IntelliLux Matrix LED headlights with advanced forward lighting – previous intelligent headlights have left me a bit unconvinced and scrabbling around to switch the main beam off. These react far quicker than I ever could (they’re a bit sensitive in country lane situations though) and light up the side of roads well.

The panoramic rear-view camera also works sublimely well – including when it comes to accessing the main hotel charge point I use. The parking spaces there are extremely tight and the camera makes it so much easier to manoeuvre in. It’s also great for helping with reversing into our skew-whiff drive and adds in extra details (I honestly didn’t realise we had a manhole!).

Above all, I’ve realised that you can definitely make an electric vehicle work if you don’t have a home charger and if you have the appetite for it. Just be prepared for some charge points to be out of action, or to have to queue if they’re rapid, and have a back-up plan. And maybe don’t tackle drivers who’ve ICE’d you…

Report 1:

We’ve gone electric for one of our latest new long-termer arrivals, with our new Vauxhall Mokka-e small SUV replacing our previous Suzuki Swace hybrid estate.

When you include our prior Vauxhall Combo Life long-termer last year, it means we’ve gone from diesel to hybrid to fully electric in some 12 months.

It’s a journey that many readers and their fleet drivers are starting to do too – and some are cutting out the hybrid middle man.

It’s a switch I’ve been very much keen to embrace. While I’ve tested electric cars short term, this is my first pure electric long-termer and comes at an ideal time, as the fleet sector ramps up the pace on EV adoption in the countdown to the 2030 ICE ban.

And it’s also been a rather opportune time as our Mokka-e arrived just before the fuel panic-buying chaos, leaving me able to join the smug EV driver club.

Launched autumn 2020 as part of the second-gen Mokka line-up, the Mokka-e marked the first all-electric variant of Vauxhall’s smallest SUV. The sister model to the 2008, the Mokka is built on the Stellantis Common Modular Platform (CMP), opening up all-electric options alongside petrol and diesel.

It features a single front-mounted electric motor producing 136hp and 260Nm of torque and with a sole 50kWh battery option that gives it a 201-mile official WLTP range (but more in Eco mode). It also has a 0-60mph of 8.7 seconds – and it can certainly get a shift on when required.

The Mokka-e also comes with a standard 11kW on-board charger and supports up to 100kW rapid DC charging, with a 0-80% charge taking 30 minutes.

Its rapid charging capability is something that I’ve already been making the most of as I don’t, for the moment, have a home charger.

So I’m reliant on the local infrastructure and I’ve been shocked how little of that there is. Luckily, there are a number of hotels nearby and I’ve become reliant on them. The battery is also guaranteed by an eight-year/100,000-mile warranty.

It’s been clear right from the start that the Mokka-e is a striking-looking car that turns heads – particularly in its White Jade paintwork and with the black/red detailing and its 18-inch black/silver alloy wheels. The kids and I were particularly delighted to see the same colour combo used for the Mokka-e on display at the Stellantis stand at Carfest this summer.

The interior looks good too – an expanse of curved dashboard with a 10-inch colour touchscreen, flat-bottomed leather-covered steering wheel, red stitching and alloy sports pedals.

Our sporty SRi Nav features acres of kit, including a Multimedia Navi Pro system with sat nav, front and rear parking distance sensors and a panoramic rear-view camera and 12-inch digital instrument panel.

In fact, there’s not many options offered across the whole range and those that are, are heavily focused on customisation, such as paintwork choices, a white roof and a black bonnet. The only add-ons fitted to ours are the White Jade paintwork (£420) and the £700 IntelliLux Matrix LED headlights with advanced forward lighting, which I’ve been very impressed with so far – more on those later.

All in all, it looks like the right car at the right time.

P11d (BiK): £34,880 (0%) Test Range / MPkWh: 201 / 3.2