Used EV questions

[andy43]

TheRainMaker said:

ChrisH72 said:

Just been looking at Octopus website.

It looks like I need the Ohme home pro with 5m cable for £975 and I qualify for standard installation. I do have a smart meter but I guess they can upgrade it if needs be. The Intelligent tariff would work for me I think. 7.5p P/kwh over night so about £3 for a full charge. It's 29p p/kwh in the day which is 2p more than I currently pay but that's okay as the leccy bill isn't much anyway.

On an annual mileage of 4000 it appears to work out at less than £100 a year. Can that be correct?

If we use my average miles per kWh @ 3.6

To fully charge the i3 with some charging losses thrown in, let us go with 42kWh

133.2 miles uses 42kWh (including losses), which equals 3.1 miles per kW, which works out to you needing 1290 kWh over the year.

1290 kWh x 7.5p = £96.00

So yes, you are correct.

If you’re looking at £100 a year charging vs a £1000 charger install do think about whether a free granny charger on a 3 pin plug would work for you. That’s all we use with our 100-mile-range Honda.

[ChrisH72]

The issue I have with a 3 pin plug is that we don't currently have an outside socket at the front of the house. I'd have to run the cable through the window which isn't ideal. Guess I could get an outside socket far cheaper than a proper charger but if cheap rate charging is only 4 hours a night I'd probably be paying higher rate most of the time as it'd take 12 hours to charge. Thinking ahead, we would probably replace our main family car with an EV at some point and that would be likely to have a larger battery. I've kind of factored the cost of a charger into the cost of the car. Its probably worth it for the convenience and once its there its there.

[Paul Drawmer]

ChrisH72 said:

The issue I have with a 3 pin plug is that we don't currently have an outside socket at the front of the house. I'd have to run the cable through the window which isn't ideal. Guess I could get an outside socket far cheaper than a proper charger but if cheap rate charging is only 4 hours a night I'd probably be paying higher rate most of the time as it'd take 12 hours to charge. Thinking ahead, we would probably replace our main family car with an EV at some point and that would be likely to have a larger battery. I've kind of factored the cost of a charger into the cost of the car. Its probably worth it for the convenience and once its there its there.

I bought a purpose made extension from https://toughleads.co.uk/
It has a waterproof socket and a clever slim line connector that let me feed the cable through the letterbox.

With that arrangement I used the granny charger for a few months.

But now, with a proper tethered cable set up; I can park the car, get out, and plug in in a one-handed movement. So much less hassle.

[ChrisH72]

So it's perfectly safe to just run the cable through a window or letterbox and plug into the wall?

I can see how a waterproof extension could be useful. We use holiday cottages quite often and obviously most don't have chargers and they can be in remote locations. Being able to plug into a wall socket with an extension would help. It might also help if I see a car I want and decide to buy before organising a charger.

I presume there's no apps or gizmos when using a granny charger? Does the car just start charging when you switch the plug on? Also, when it's fully charged does it still draw power?

[gmaz]

Scrimpton said:

Its one of the best things about an EV. Warm it up from your mobile when you jump into the shower and get into a toasty warm car with clear windows while your neighbours are scraping. Lovely.

True. -5C to 21C in 5 minutes while I'm finishing my coffee on the sofa. Also warming the battery for better efficiency. It did use 1% of battery running the cabin and battery heaters flat out, as I wasn't plugged in at the time, but I was only planning a 180 mile round trip that day so didn't need the 1%

Edited by gmaz on Saturday 30th March 07:31

[Cobnapint]

From what I read, GCs are less efficient than wall chargers.
And It's better if you can get an adjustable one where you can drop the current down from it's UK max of 10A (some are 13A) to 8A or 6A to reduce the risk of warming anything up in your house wiring during long periods of charging. Although UK plugs are designed for 13A, it's not wise to run at that rate for extended periods.

[clockworks]

ChrisH72 said:

So it's perfectly safe to just run the cable through a window or letterbox and plug into the wall?

I can see how a waterproof extension could be useful. We use holiday cottages quite often and obviously most don't have chargers and they can be in remote locations. Being able to plug into a wall socket with an extension would help. It might also help if I see a car I want and decide to buy before organising a charger.

I presume there's no apps or gizmos when using a granny charger? Does the car just start charging when you switch the plug on? Also, when it's fully charged does it still draw power?

Pretty sure most cars are able to schedule a charge, either via an app, or settings on the dash.
My Volvo uses an app on my phone. I have set a schedule so that it will only charge during the cheap rate period. I can override the schedule easily if I want to charge as soon as I plug in.

[Paul Drawmer]

ChrisH72 said:

So it's perfectly safe to just run the cable through a window or letterbox and plug into the wall?

I can see how a waterproof extension could be useful. We use holiday cottages quite often and obviously most don't have chargers and they can be in remote locations. Being able to plug into a wall socket with an extension would help. It might also help if I see a car I want and decide to buy before organising a charger.

I presume there's no apps or gizmos when using a granny charger? Does the car just start charging when you switch the plug on? Also, when it's fully charged does it still draw power?

I think that with all EVs the max current draw of the Granny Charger is 10Amp.

Now, this may seem safe as it's so much less than a big kettle; but the difference is that the EV may be drawing that 10A for several hours.
Not all home sockets might be good for that. It's best to plug it in and test for heat around the socket/plug after 15/30/60 mins to make sure it isn'y over heating due to poor connections either in the socket wiring or the plug/socket joins.

Most EVs have an app to control them (which will depend on the car and phone getting signal) and can be set up for charge now or at a certain time, and precondition now, or for a departure time.

When fully charged the EV stops drawing power, unless it's woken up for some reason, when it may draw more power..

If you're near Banbury I'll give you a walk round if you like.

[sixor8]

My recently acquired Honda eNy1 has a NON charging schedule, if you just plug it in, it will start charging. I've used the in-car settings for it to NOT charge between 04:30 and 00:30 the next morning, so I'm getting 9p/kWh on Octopus Go for 4 hrs per night. You can then just leave it connected all the time. There's a separate setting available for away from home. I won't do the mileage to make a fast charger installation worth it.

[gmaz]

ChrisH72 said:

So it's perfectly safe to just run the cable through a window or letterbox and plug into the wall?

I can see how a waterproof extension could be useful. We use holiday cottages quite often and obviously most don't have chargers and they can be in remote locations. Being able to plug into a wall socket with an extension would help. It might also help if I see a car I want and decide to buy before organising a charger.

I presume there's no apps or gizmos when using a granny charger? Does the car just start charging when you switch the plug on? Also, when it's fully charged does it still draw power?

If you are going to use an extension cable, use one designed for EV charging, as I found that regular household ones got warm.

https://toughleads.co.uk/collections/ev-electric-v...

[supercover]

It's worth doing some careful sums on these cheap night rate tariffs though. We've had a Leaf for 7 years now, and been on Octopus Go and Go Faster for years. Load shifted washer, tumble dryer and dishwasher to the cheap period as well as charging the car from 50% at least every night. I did the sums over Christmas using the comparison apps and found that I was averaging 21p per Kwh over the months on the current Go tarriff. Tracker is 17p per Kwh. The increased daytime rate of Go meant it was costing us more to use it over Tracker.
It's household dependant, but you need to make sure.

[Sheepshanks]

supercover said:

It's worth doing some careful sums on these cheap night rate tariffs though. We've had a Leaf for 7 years now, and been on Octopus Go and Go Faster for years. Load shifted washer, tumble dryer and dishwasher to the cheap period as well as charging the car from 50% at least every night. I did the sums over Christmas using the comparison apps and found that I was averaging 21p per Kwh over the months on the current Go tarriff. Tracker is 17p per Kwh. The increased daytime rate of Go meant it was costing us more to use it over Tracker.
It's household dependant, but you need to make sure.

How did you do the comparison with Tracker - I thought the rate varied according to demand?

[Mark-ri571]

I’m on Intelligent Go and charge our Mini SE on a 3 pin plug a couple of times a week. Regularly get extra cheap rate hours over and above the standard 6 hours. Brings my average rate down to 17.11p pkwh. Use this link to sign up to Octopus - https://share.octopus.energy/red-rain-518

Edited by Mark-ri571 on Sunday 31st March 21:53

[TheRainMaker]

You use nearly the same power a month as we use in a week

[cj2013]

TheRainMaker said:

You use nearly the same power a month as we use in a week

I'm not charging on mine, but I used 224kWh this month so far (4 bed house, 2A+2K).

Their photo shows 344.4kWh, which is another 50% extra (or 2 full charges on a 60kWh battery), so not sure what you're powering!

[740EVTORQUES]

gmaz said:

Scrimpton said:

Its one of the best things about an EV. Warm it up from your mobile when you jump into the shower and get into a toasty warm car with clear windows while your neighbours are scraping. Lovely.

True. -5C to 21C in 5 minutes while I'm finishing my coffee on the sofa. Also warming the battery for better efficiency. It did use 1% of battery running the cabin and battery heaters flat out, as I wasn't plugged in at the time, but I was only planning a 180 mile round trip that day so didn't need the 1%

Edited by gmaz on Saturday 30th March 07:31

‘Ernie’?

That surely deserves a

[Cobnapint]

Benny Hill would be proud.