EV Newbie - Charger and Car advice Request

[phil4]

Yep, your average customer isn't going to be there for a couple of hours, like they're shopping, so you're much better off providing a couple of slower chargers than one super fast one.

As said, a 7kW charger would charge almost all cars reasonably overnight. And that's when most of your customers are going to be there.

[TTmonkey]

Your attitude that the council are “forcing” you to fit a charging point is probably short sighted. It will be a significant advantage over other B&b or Airbnb places that you have this and will actually bring customers to your rental.

One of the major headaches for people with EVs is going away to places and not having charging options.

[Rawhide]

TTmonkey said:

Your attitude that the council are “forcing” you to fit a charging point is probably short sighted. It will be a significant advantage over other B&b or Airbnb places that you have this and will actually bring customers to your rental.

One of the major headaches for people with EVs is going away to places and not having charging options.

Apologies, poor choice of words. Actually my only objection is their community infrastructure levy charge rather than the EV requirement! It's actually forced me to consider our usage and has actually made me realise that with some juggling that EV might be viable option for us. I'm supportive of it and as you say it's a potential selling point

[Heres Johnny]

Daaaveee said:

essayer said:

I would avoid 11kW as most cars will only charge at 3.6kW on it.

Depends on the cable, but yes if untethered, a lot of people do only have single phase cables so would be down to to 3.6kw on a 11kW point, so I would also avoid that.

My argument for 22kW would be that there are many cars that can benefit from more than 7.2kW, maybe not the full 22 but more than 7.2. The list will only get longer, specially with larger batteries in the future. It can also help if OP wants charge during cheaper electric rate periods like Octopus' 4 hour 5p/kWh overnight for example. Again, I'd choose the Andersen A2 as its the best looking tethered option, and with this 22kW is no extra.

Nothing really to do with the cable (although that could also cause a problem), 11kw is 16A 3 phase, plug a car that only supports single phase charging and you're at 3.6kw. There are plenty of cars that don't 3 phase charge.


2x 7kw chargers are more than adequate for all but the most demanding use cases. Any visitor would not expect anything more, and the cars you mention don;t have big batteries so wouldn;t take forever to charge anyway. You need DNO approval for 2 chargers and 2x 32A would probably give them a headache too as their diversity calculations struggle with the thought of a potential 44kw constant draw for several hours.

Edited by Heres Johnny on Monday 9th August 15:25

[LordGrover]

I didn't know for sure, but just checked and my BMW I01 i3 120 Ah is capable of 11 kW (400V) charging and 49 kW rapid CCS.

[ZesPak]

Rawhide said:

I've attached a pic of the drive. I'd locate the charger(s) on the wall where the blue dots are. The 3 phase power unit is behind the red dot. I'd likely bury a pipe which would allow cabling to run across the driveway to allow for either a single or two units.

I actually like the idea of more than one charger to be somewhat community spirited but also recognising that this would enable our car and a guest car to charge at the same time. That said I really don't expect that much demand as we're in a rural location so most people who have EVs would already have their own charge point.

To keep it neat and compact, I'd go for a double untethered unit.
In the Netherlands we'd have something like this:



Or this:



People traveling will have their own cables, and there's less to go wrong (cables are the first thing to go as people drive over them or leave them in the rain).

Edited by ZesPak on Monday 9th August 15:38

[Lily the Pink]

Rawhide said:

Lily the Pink said:

Incidentally, you refer to billing your guests for electricity, which I think is illegal.

Thanks for that tip. I'd be grateful if you have more info on that. I guess a charge is circa £6-8 which I could incorporate into the overall rental cost but keen to understand more on that.

I might have been misinformed. All I can find with a quick Google is https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/sites/default/files/docs/... which is rather dated and essentially says you cannot make a profit on reselling electricity. I don't know if that means you would have to carefully monitor and meter a guest's consumption rather than charging a flat rate (£5 per night is what I was thinking of).

[ZesPak]

Lily the Pink said:

I might have been misinformed. All I can find with a quick Google is https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/sites/default/files/docs/... which is rather dated and essentially says you cannot make a profit on reselling electricity. I don't know if that means you would have to carefully monitor and meter a guest's consumption rather than charging a flat rate (£5 per night is what I was thinking of).

I wouldn't mind paying a reasonable fee to charge overnight, but a flat rate doesn't make a lot of sense.
If you want to charge, why not just install a charger with a lease company that does everything for you and gives you a fee per kwh?

Realistically, how often is a 90kWh+ car is going to arrive nearly empty and charge itself fully?