Lexus EV Charging Network: Anyone activated it?

[HGUS]

Would just like to hear experiences, pros/cons.

I'm a beginner with regard to EV charging and haven't activated anything yet so all advice appreciated please.

[PaulWhitt20]

I’ve only ever charged at home or work. Haven’t plucked up the courage to try charging on the go yet. Which limits the places we can go as the places we go generally don’t have chargers at the destination. E.g. National Trust properties. 
However if you have the plug in hybrid shouldn’t be a problem. 

[HGUS]

13 minutes ago, PaulWhitt20 said:

I’ve only ever charged at home or work. Haven’t plucked up the courage to try charging on the go yet. Which limits the places we can go as the places we go generally don’t have chargers at the destination. E.g. National Trust properties. 
However if you have the plug in hybrid shouldn’t be a problem. 

Your advancement along the EV path is a little ahead of mine.  I'm waiting for my home charger to be installed.  Thank heavens for petrol ⛽️. 

[PaulWhitt20]

My wife looked into using the charger at her work and it wanted you to use an app and pre load credit to it. Is this normal?

[wivenhoe]

The Lexus charging network is (to say the least) not very good. Amazingly it isn’t integrated into the satnav.
I have a RZ and due to a failure in the AC charging unit, I couldn’t charge at home and only use DC chargers for 6 weeks. I use ZapMap which is fully integrated into CarPlay and on the go you can check near chargers for speed and availability. There is then an option to navigate to them using Maps / Google Maps / Waze. 
You can preload a journey and then set charger locations - it has almost all the networks and details of cost & facilities and users report defective chargers. It will tell you whether the charger can be paid contactless, need an App or specific card. In the 6 weeks I was fully dependent on it, everything was great. It is free although a subscription (less than Lexus) gives you more capabilities. 

[Harrier Man]

I have had an NX450h+ for just over a year now. I have a 22kw charger at home, which works fine and charges my car in about 2 and a half hours. Equally, I happily charge with the 'granny charger' overnight.

I do have a Lexus charge card but never been anywhere to use it! I was going to give it up as it was costing £5 per month.  However, they've just changed their pricing policy to a 3 tier system, including a free option for infrequent uses, so I'll keep the card for now.

As it happens, I used a public charge point today (well a tesco one operated by PodPoint). What a frustrating experience.  Download app (now got 4 such apps on my phone), register, add credit card, put money into account. Only then could I start charging, in the rain. Compare that with the 3 minutes to put petrol in my car, under cover, paying easily with my choice of cash, card or phone. No apps, no pre-loading an account. The industry has a very long way to go!

[HGUS]

It sounds as though I'm going to have some fun.  Many thanks for the mentions of zapmap and podpoint,  I'm looking into those amongst others.

From what I've see so far some apps do want preloaded credit but as I'm new to all this stuff someone maybe in a better position to say what is normal or what to touch/not touch.

Meanwhile,  roll on the installation of my home charger.  🙃

[ColinBarber]

36 minutes ago, HGUS said:

From what I've see so far some apps do want preloaded credit but as I'm new to all this stuff someone maybe in a better position to say what is normal or what to touch/not touch.

It will get better. Within 12 months all these chargers will need to provide contactless payment as an option and operators will be forced to make them reliable.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2023/1168/made