EV with real 300+ mile range?
Discussion
The issue I have is that the only place I can put the charger is about 100 metres from the meter. There is currently power in that location but its only rated at 13 amps and no one will install a charger without verifying the nature of the buried cable. Most of the 100 metres means digging up paths and parking area.
blueg33 said:
The issue I have is that the only place I can put the charger is about 100 metres from the meter. There is currently power in that location but its only rated at 13 amps and no one will install a charger without verifying the nature of the buried cable. Most of the 100 metres means digging up paths and parking area.
Is it possible to get a cable installed above ground for the run? Due to the length and being above ground an installer probably wouldn't want to do that for a proper car charger, it's quite a run to pull 30a through continuously, potentially on a hot day. But I'd be surprised if they had any such concern if it was just for a 32a socket in the garage/outbuilding etc.Then plug in your 30a portable fast charger, but knock the charging rate back down to 24a. It'll still fully charge the car over evening+night at that speed.
blueg33 said:
The issue I have is that the only place I can put the charger is about 100 metres from the meter. There is currently power in that location but its only rated at 13 amps and no one will install a charger without verifying the nature of the buried cable. Most of the 100 metres means digging up paths and parking area.
So, installing a charger isn't always cheap and easy then? Who knew.. 
SWoll said:
blueg33 said:
The issue I have is that the only place I can put the charger is about 100 metres from the meter. There is currently power in that location but its only rated at 13 amps and no one will install a charger without verifying the nature of the buried cable. Most of the 100 metres means digging up paths and parking area.
So, installing a charger isn't always cheap and easy then? Who knew.. A lot of the comments on this and other EV threads are about how much cheaper they are to run than ICE, but that is not necessarily the case.
blueg33 said:
SWoll said:
blueg33 said:
The issue I have is that the only place I can put the charger is about 100 metres from the meter. There is currently power in that location but its only rated at 13 amps and no one will install a charger without verifying the nature of the buried cable. Most of the 100 metres means digging up paths and parking area.
So, installing a charger isn't always cheap and easy then? Who knew.. A lot of the comments on this and other EV threads are about how much cheaper they are to run than ICE, but that is not necessarily the case.
There is nothing you've said about your actual car usage that suggests an EV isn't viable. Tbh, you haven't shared enough about your usage case for there to be much point in this conversation..
TheDeuce said:
blueg33 said:
SWoll said:
blueg33 said:
The issue I have is that the only place I can put the charger is about 100 metres from the meter. There is currently power in that location but its only rated at 13 amps and no one will install a charger without verifying the nature of the buried cable. Most of the 100 metres means digging up paths and parking area.
So, installing a charger isn't always cheap and easy then? Who knew.. A lot of the comments on this and other EV threads are about how much cheaper they are to run than ICE, but that is not necessarily the case.
There is nothing you've said about your actual car usage that suggests an EV isn't viable. Tbh, you haven't shared enough about your usage case for there to be much point in this conversation..
Yes I have done the sums, why else would I have a quote for a charger?
blueg33 said:
100 miles of range for a day definitely wouldn't work for me. Yes the rural location is a factor, both places I have are rural.
My minimum daily mileage (I.e just the commute and dropping the kids off at nursery) is 60 miles.I was pondering yesterday if you could go back 500 years and told them that just to go to work and school was a 60 mile round trip how they'd get their heads around that. Probably a 3 or 4 day trek with Horse and cart. Something I guess they might do once a year or less.
We've come a long way.
ChocolateFrog said:
blueg33 said:
100 miles of range for a day definitely wouldn't work for me. Yes the rural location is a factor, both places I have are rural.
My minimum daily mileage (I.e just the commute and dropping the kids off at nursery) is 60 miles.I was pondering yesterday if you could go back 500 years and told them that just to go to work and school was a 60 mile round trip how they'd get their heads around that. Probably a 3 or 4 day trek with Horse and cart. Something I guess they might do once a year or less.
We've come a long way.
In the medium term, a property with no EV charger is going to be less useful to an awful lot of people.
OTOH, 100 miles should be less than 33kWh, and at 13A, that's about 11 hours.
There are ways of looking beyond the short windows of cheap tariffs.
One EV user I know charges his a lot from solar which would other wise be paying him a low rate for export.
Combined with a battery at the property, many thing are possible.
Or it could maybe be cabled more economically above the ground in a conduit?
OutInTheShed said:
Perhaps if we're serious about saving the planet and all that, we need to abolish the 'need' to do big mileages every day?
We've already had this CO2 discussion about EV speed/mileage in this thread.I've amended the chart to add usage-phase Well-to-Wheel CO2 footprint per km as a function of speed.
Apologies for mixing units, needs must, etc.
Big mileage doesn't need abolishing, it needs the right tool for the job (environmentally).
The green dashed line is sinking to zero all the time, the blue dashed line remains almost fixed in time.
blueg33 said:
TheDeuce said:
blueg33 said:
SWoll said:
blueg33 said:
The issue I have is that the only place I can put the charger is about 100 metres from the meter. There is currently power in that location but its only rated at 13 amps and no one will install a charger without verifying the nature of the buried cable. Most of the 100 metres means digging up paths and parking area.
So, installing a charger isn't always cheap and easy then? Who knew.. A lot of the comments on this and other EV threads are about how much cheaper they are to run than ICE, but that is not necessarily the case.
There is nothing you've said about your actual car usage that suggests an EV isn't viable. Tbh, you haven't shared enough about your usage case for there to be much point in this conversation..
Yes I have done the sums, why else would I have a quote for a charger?
I have read what you said re granny charger, you said you often drive more than 100 miles so 100 miles day charge is not enough. That's not the complete picture though, the EV will start the first day with over 200 miles range so you can do ~100 mile trips for several days with overnight charging in between before dropping below 100 miles of battery range. I did ask how many days you're likely to make such long journeys consecutively - can't you see that is a vital part of the equation? Although unless it's virtually every day it shouldn't really be an issue, you would just need to very occasionally use a rapid charger en-route.
My usage:
Trips in excess of EV range (220 miles in my case) = 6 per year
Max trip length likely = 400 miles
Annual mileage = 12k
Number of days I'm likely to exceed 100 miles = 4 per month
Max number of consecutive days likely to exceed 100 = never more than 3
Would be perfectly doable with a granny charger. What's your equivalent of the above?
And as per the posts further up, you don't need to get a 7kw charger installed to achieve 7kw charging at home, you just need a suitable supply to a 32a ceeform socket, which is typically far easier and cheaper.
OutInTheShed said:
Perhaps if we're serious about saving the planet and all that, we need to abolish the 'need' to do big mileages every day?
We are slowly heading in that direction, annual mileages are dropping and thing like the rise of WFH are helping. It is bizarre that so many people seem to have casually ended up thinking it's normal and unavoidable to travel hundreds of miles a day to achieve something - there are exceptional circumstances of course, but generally I can't help thinking that however well you're paid of however great a school is, it's likely that the cost in £/time of making the endless commute is undervalued. Years of your life... no one lays on their deathbed thinking "I really wish I'd spent more time on the M25".blueg33 said:
SWoll said:
blueg33 said:
The issue I have is that the only place I can put the charger is about 100 metres from the meter. There is currently power in that location but its only rated at 13 amps and no one will install a charger without verifying the nature of the buried cable. Most of the 100 metres means digging up paths and parking area.
So, installing a charger isn't always cheap and easy then? Who knew.. A lot of the comments on this and other EV threads are about how much cheaper they are to run than ICE, but that is not necessarily the case.
It didn't go down well.
OutInTheShed said:
In the medium term, a property with no EV charger is going to be less useful to an awful lot of people.
Now we have an EV, if we needed to move house in future the difficulty in getting a cable from the CU to where an EV charger could go would probably be one of the first things I would consider when looking at any house. Our previous house was a new build semi and the CU was in the centre, under the stairs on the party wall. Would have been a right drama to get a cable from there to the driveway next to the external wall on the other side of the house, not impossible but lots of making good afterwards.My daily mileage has dropped dramatically since wfh, I probably do 3-4k a year total vs the 10-12k I was doing before. My car is the diesel which we will tow a caravan so the wife uses the EV for her 50 mile round trip commute 3 days a week.
Wagonwheel555 said:
Now we have an EV, if we needed to move house in future the difficulty in getting a cable from the CU to where an EV charger could go would probably be one of the first things I would consider when looking at any house. Our previous house was a new build semi and the CU was in the centre, under the stairs on the party wall. Would have been a right drama to get a cable from there to the driveway next to the external wall on the other side of the house, not impossible but lots of making good afterwards.
My daily mileage has dropped dramatically since wfh, I probably do 3-4k a year total vs the 10-12k I was doing before. My car is the diesel which we will tow a caravan so the wife uses the EV for her 50 mile round trip commute 3 days a week.
An accessible plug for a granny charger would easily do the job with that usage though, so potentially far less of a problem? My daily mileage has dropped dramatically since wfh, I probably do 3-4k a year total vs the 10-12k I was doing before. My car is the diesel which we will tow a caravan so the wife uses the EV for her 50 mile round trip commute 3 days a week.
Wagonwheel555 said:
Now we have an EV, if we needed to move house in future the difficulty in getting a cable from the CU to where an EV charger could go would probably be one of the first things I would consider when looking at any house. Our previous house was a new build semi and the CU was in the centre, under the stairs on the party wall. Would have been a right drama to get a cable from there to the driveway next to the external wall on the other side of the house, not impossible but lots of making good afterwards.
My daily mileage has dropped dramatically since wfh, I probably do 3-4k a year total vs the 10-12k I was doing before. My car is the diesel which we will tow a caravan so the wife uses the EV for her 50 mile round trip commute 3 days a week.
If it helps, in the future, you can take a feed direct from the meter cupboard if that's external to the property, even if the CU is inside. In your case the meter may have been inside too though..My daily mileage has dropped dramatically since wfh, I probably do 3-4k a year total vs the 10-12k I was doing before. My car is the diesel which we will tow a caravan so the wife uses the EV for her 50 mile round trip commute 3 days a week.
I do think there will increasingly be value to having a home charger installed when a house is put on the market. I'm not suggesting that anyone would put a £ value on it when making an offer, but I expect that increasingly less people will make an offer in the first place if there's no charger and no obvious solution to that - people are bound to think more about that as a requirement, not a nice to have as the ban date approaches and the media do their bit to dramatise that moment. If you don't get any or any decent offers when you market your home for sale, after a month or so the estate agent will be suggesting a small reduction in asking price - quite possibly enough to have paid for the charger to be installed in the first place.
I suppose it depends on who views a house with no charger. In the next few years I think a vendor would be lucky to have several people visit and most of them not have or at least be thinking about getting a PHEV if not full EV as their next car.
TheDeuce said:
Here's my profile:
I have read what you said re granny charger, you said you often drive more than 100 miles so 100 miles day charge is not enough. That's not the complete picture though, the EV will start the first day with over 200 miles range so you can do ~100 mile trips for several days with overnight charging in between before dropping below 100 miles of battery range. I did ask how many days you're likely to make such long journeys consecutively - can't you see that is a vital part of the equation? Although unless it's virtually every day it shouldn't really be an issue, you would just need to very occasionally use a rapid charger en-route.
My usage:
Trips in excess of EV range (220 miles in my case) = 6 per year
Max trip length likely = 400 miles
Annual mileage = 12k
Number of days I'm likely to exceed 100 miles = 4 per month
Max number of consecutive days likely to exceed 100 = never more than 3
Would be perfectly doable with a granny charger. What's your equivalent of the above?
And as per the posts further up, you don't need to get a 7kw charger installed to achieve 7kw charging at home, you just need a suitable supply to a 32a ceeform socket, which is typically far easier and cheaper.
DailyI have read what you said re granny charger, you said you often drive more than 100 miles so 100 miles day charge is not enough. That's not the complete picture though, the EV will start the first day with over 200 miles range so you can do ~100 mile trips for several days with overnight charging in between before dropping below 100 miles of battery range. I did ask how many days you're likely to make such long journeys consecutively - can't you see that is a vital part of the equation? Although unless it's virtually every day it shouldn't really be an issue, you would just need to very occasionally use a rapid charger en-route.
My usage:
Trips in excess of EV range (220 miles in my case) = 6 per year
Max trip length likely = 400 miles
Annual mileage = 12k
Number of days I'm likely to exceed 100 miles = 4 per month
Max number of consecutive days likely to exceed 100 = never more than 3
Would be perfectly doable with a granny charger. What's your equivalent of the above?
And as per the posts further up, you don't need to get a 7kw charger installed to achieve 7kw charging at home, you just need a suitable supply to a 32a ceeform socket, which is typically far easier and cheaper.
To work and back 120 miles, no charger at work
Monthly
board meetings circa 150 miles each way (difficult to get on a charger at HQ)
Random
several times a month, arrive at work 60 miles, asked to attend site/meeting/HQ urgently, usually over 100 miles away so about 320 miles in the day. (last week it was Birmingham to Bodmin) and back to gloucestershire (480 miles approx). (I topped up with petrol which added about 10 mins to the journey time. How long would I have had to stop for to add say 180 miles to a car with a 300 mile range?)
Twice a month
Round trip in a day circa 320 miles, no charger at the destination (spend 2 hours at the destination, do not stop en-route there and back)
I am sure an EV would work fine for my daily commute, its the short notice trips or the longer trips that raise questions. On the trip to Bodmin, I fuelled up at Taunton services on the way home. All of the chargers were occupied (I make a point of looking ), so I would have to factor charge time and wait time. Then I cant think of a worse place to spend 30mins to an hour of my time than motorway services
Maybe I do need to change some habits, like stopping more often on long journeys, but thats not something I like doing unless I am looking at journeys over 4 hours
blueg33 said:
TheDeuce said:
Here's my profile:
I have read what you said re granny charger, you said you often drive more than 100 miles so 100 miles day charge is not enough. That's not the complete picture though, the EV will start the first day with over 200 miles range so you can do ~100 mile trips for several days with overnight charging in between before dropping below 100 miles of battery range. I did ask how many days you're likely to make such long journeys consecutively - can't you see that is a vital part of the equation? Although unless it's virtually every day it shouldn't really be an issue, you would just need to very occasionally use a rapid charger en-route.
My usage:
Trips in excess of EV range (220 miles in my case) = 6 per year
Max trip length likely = 400 miles
Annual mileage = 12k
Number of days I'm likely to exceed 100 miles = 4 per month
Max number of consecutive days likely to exceed 100 = never more than 3
Would be perfectly doable with a granny charger. What's your equivalent of the above?
And as per the posts further up, you don't need to get a 7kw charger installed to achieve 7kw charging at home, you just need a suitable supply to a 32a ceeform socket, which is typically far easier and cheaper.
DailyI have read what you said re granny charger, you said you often drive more than 100 miles so 100 miles day charge is not enough. That's not the complete picture though, the EV will start the first day with over 200 miles range so you can do ~100 mile trips for several days with overnight charging in between before dropping below 100 miles of battery range. I did ask how many days you're likely to make such long journeys consecutively - can't you see that is a vital part of the equation? Although unless it's virtually every day it shouldn't really be an issue, you would just need to very occasionally use a rapid charger en-route.
My usage:
Trips in excess of EV range (220 miles in my case) = 6 per year
Max trip length likely = 400 miles
Annual mileage = 12k
Number of days I'm likely to exceed 100 miles = 4 per month
Max number of consecutive days likely to exceed 100 = never more than 3
Would be perfectly doable with a granny charger. What's your equivalent of the above?
And as per the posts further up, you don't need to get a 7kw charger installed to achieve 7kw charging at home, you just need a suitable supply to a 32a ceeform socket, which is typically far easier and cheaper.
To work and back 120 miles, no charger at work
Monthly
board meetings circa 150 miles each way (difficult to get on a charger at HQ)
Random
several times a month, arrive at work 60 miles, asked to attend site/meeting/HQ urgently, usually over 100 miles away so about 320 miles in the day. (last week it was Birmingham to Bodmin) and back to gloucestershire (480 miles approx). (I topped up with petrol which added about 10 mins to the journey time. How long would I have had to stop for to add say 180 miles to a car with a 300 mile range?)
Twice a month
Round trip in a day circa 320 miles, no charger at the destination (spend 2 hours at the destination, do not stop en-route there and back)
I am sure an EV would work fine for my daily commute, its the short notice trips or the longer trips that raise questions. On the trip to Bodmin, I fuelled up at Taunton services on the way home. All of the chargers were occupied (I make a point of looking ), so I would have to factor charge time and wait time. Then I cant think of a worse place to spend 30mins to an hour of my time than motorway services
Maybe I do need to change some habits, like stopping more often on long journeys, but thats not something I like doing unless I am looking at journeys over 4 hours
A granny charger and an EV with ~250 mile range would get the 120 mile commute done 5 days a week, assuming you charge to close to full over the weekend - you're barely exceeding the range you can add every 24 hours.
Monday 250 mile range start
Tuesday 230 mile range
Wednesday 210 mile range
Thursday 190 mile range
Friday 170 mile range
But because of your fairly frequent longer trips, a 300 mile range EV and some occasional use of a public rapid charger would get it done. The cost saving over petrol/diesel would be significant even with the public charging. Public charging would be even less if you can arrange a simple 32a feed to where you charge the car, it's likely there is a way of achieving that without the sort of expense you've been quoted for a dedicated EV charger install. I also very much doubt that your total time spent charging en route would exceed the time you must already spend topping up diesel to do those miles.
To answer the question about adding 180 miles range, probably around 25 minutes in a decent EV at a rapid charger - and you can't drive anywhere in the UK for those sort of distances and not pass several such charger these days.
For me, it would come down to the cost of fuel for all those miles and who pays for that, and how that effects my take home if the car is a company car etc.
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