Beginner’s questions?

[RM]

TheRainMaker said:

Stevemr said:

All good info so far.
What is this talk off 19-12% losses charging?

Read up on it here.

It's something no one really talks about

https://insideevs.com/features/711659/ev-charger-e...

I think because it doesn’t matter very much. Even with 20% loss, my not very efficient EV costs around £4.20 for 200 odd miles of range. It’s an order of magnitude cheaper than any car I’ve ever had, per mile. Admittedly I’ve never been fond of diesels.

[ashenfie]

Typically a petrol car cost 17p per mile fuel only. So if you can get electricity for 7p per kw then it loads cheaper. If you pay at a charge station between 40-70p then it’s not.
Then again I do less than 100 miles a week so what is the point. I can save more by drinking one less pint in a pub.

[TheRainMaker]

RM said:

TheRainMaker said:

Stevemr said:

All good info so far.
What is this talk off 19-12% losses charging?

Read up on it here.

It's something no one really talks about

https://insideevs.com/features/711659/ev-charger-e...

I think because it doesn’t matter very much. Even with 20% loss, my not very efficient EV costs around £4.20 for 200 odd miles of range. It’s an order of magnitude cheaper than any car I’ve ever had, per mile. Admittedly I’ve never been fond of diesels.

It does once you are only using public charging.

The closest 7kW chargers to us cost 55p, if you add on 20% that takes the cost from £41.25 to £49.25 for 200 odd miles.

The difference is more than the cost for you to charge at home

[Scabutz]

plfrench said:

Scabutz said:

Big Nanas said:

OVO Charge Anytime EV add-on means you could charge your car at any during the day or night - you're not restricted to a few hours overnight.
This is dependent on some factors though - excess capacity, lots of wind etc. It's a bit more flexible, and doesn't impact whatever standard tariff you've chosen from OVO.

Yep and sign up to the power move and avoid charging your car in those hours and you get £10-£12/month credit meaning your first 400 odd miles are basically free

Get yourself on Ovo Powermove Flex as well and that’s a further £12 per month if you leave it plugged in for 6 x 3 hour chunks over the course of every week. 21.6p/kWh home electricity and 7 p/kWh EV.

Oh is it as much as that, didn't realise. Will sign up. I was reticent at first because my car had a wobble where it would randomly start charging of its own acord without being told to by Charge Anytime. Didn't want to leave it plugged in and it charge at the higher rate.

It seems to be behaving itself now so will sign up.

[Ste-EVo]

Just to add my 2p worth...

We are with Octopus IOG (Intelligent Octopus Go) at 6.7p pkw 1130pm-0530am and 24p pkw all other times and we have a Ohme Epod (untethered) charger and the experience so far, two months down the line, has been great.

I generally plug in at around 8pm'ish and set the car on dynamic charging to charge to 100% and usually it starts charging straight away, therefor meaning everything else is at the reduced rate during the charge so we set the dishwasher away and the tumble dryer etc. So far, we've done about 1400 miles and noticed very little increase in our electricity bills - I reckon roughly £15-£20 per month is EV charging without factoring the reduced night-time rate for other appliances running.

We have used public charging once at Centre Parcs at 45p pkw on a 7kwh charger.

If you do go with Octopus be sure to sign up for the Electroverse app to get discounted public charging - although I've never needed to use it, I do like to check the 'standard' charge prices vs the Electroverse prices while I'm out and about (a little sad I know...) but I have seen some noticeable differences. On a recent trip to hospital the standard price was 75p pkw on a 7kwh charger, but using the Electroverse card/app it was 45p pkw

Edited by Ste-EVo on Sunday 17th November 11:30

[Sheepshanks]

TheRainMaker said:

RM said:

TheRainMaker said:

Stevemr said:

All good info so far.
What is this talk off 19-12% losses charging?

Read up on it here.

It's something no one really talks about

https://insideevs.com/features/711659/ev-charger-e...

I think because it doesn’t matter very much. Even with 20% loss, my not very efficient EV costs around £4.20 for 200 odd miles of range. It’s an order of magnitude cheaper than any car I’ve ever had, per mile. Admittedly I’ve never been fond of diesels.

It does once you are only using public charging.

The closest 7kW chargers to us cost 55p, if you add on 20% that takes the cost from £41.25 to £49.25 for 200 odd miles.

The difference is more than the cost for you to charge at home

People go on abotu range in EVs but most people realise that for them, it isn't really an issue. For our recent purchase I was more concerned about it from a cost POV for a daily 65 mile commute vs using petrol.

OK, it's still pennies, but looking at some EVs, they struggle to break 3 miles per kWh, others do 4, or even 5. So you work the cost of the commute from that. But if there's a 20% or more charging loss then that bumps up the cost by a hefty percentage - albeit not a huge amount in £ terms.

[RM]

TheRainMaker said:

RM said:

TheRainMaker said:

Stevemr said:

All good info so far.
What is this talk off 19-12% losses charging?

Read up on it here.

It's something no one really talks about

https://insideevs.com/features/711659/ev-charger-e...

I think because it doesn’t matter very much. Even with 20% loss, my not very efficient EV costs around £4.20 for 200 odd miles of range. It’s an order of magnitude cheaper than any car I’ve ever had, per mile. Admittedly I’ve never been fond of diesels.

It does once you are only using public charging.

The closest 7kW chargers to us cost 55p, if you add on 20% that takes the cost from £41.25 to £49.25 for 200 odd miles.

The difference is more than the cost for you to charge at home

Agreed, though I don’t know why anyone would ever use a public 7Kw charger, if they have to pay for it. Use a fast DC charger where the losses are less.

I say if, as the closest 7Kw charger to me is free.

[PetrolHeadInRecovery]

TheRainMaker said:

The closest 7kW chargers to us cost 55p, if you add on 20% that takes the cost from £41.25 to £49.25 for 200 odd miles.

Tangent: you'd use 75kWh for 200 miles (2.66 miles per kWh)? I'm curious about the car and average speeds.

Going by our long-term average over the last 30,000km, we'd need a bit under 63kWh. The average didn't change much over the summer when we did 6,500km with three bikes on a towbar rack and 4000km with temperatures approaching 40 degrees (Bosnia in July and Italy in August). I wasn't drafting lorries or campervans, but I was paying some attention to the HVAC settings.

Another tangent: DC charging losses should be lower than AC, especially with 800V charging when stopping at around 80% charge.

Edited by PetrolHeadInRecovery on Sunday 17th November 13:18

[TheRainMaker]

PetrolHeadInRecovery said:

Tangent: you'd use 75kWh for 200 miles (2.66 miles per kWh)? I'm curious about the car and average speeds.

The car is a 2021 Polestar Twin Motor (402 bhp). Most of the driving is local, such as running the kids to school. The other half uses it now because I found it insanely dull, and I would be surprised if she ever used more than 30% throttle.

WLTP is 301 miles

[TheRainMaker]

RM said:

TheRainMaker said:

RM said:

TheRainMaker said:

Stevemr said:

All good info so far.
What is this talk off 19-12% losses charging?

Read up on it here.

It's something no one really talks about

https://insideevs.com/features/711659/ev-charger-e...

I think because it doesn’t matter very much. Even with 20% loss, my not very efficient EV costs around £4.20 for 200 odd miles of range. It’s an order of magnitude cheaper than any car I’ve ever had, per mile. Admittedly I’ve never been fond of diesels.

It does once you are only using public charging.

The closest 7kW chargers to us cost 55p, if you add on 20% that takes the cost from £41.25 to £49.25 for 200 odd miles.

The difference is more than the cost for you to charge at home

Agreed, though I don’t know why anyone would ever use a public 7Kw charger, if they have to pay for it. Use a fast DC charger where the losses are less.

I say if, as the closest 7kW charger to me is free.

I would use the 7kW ones as the next closest fast chargers are BP and at 85p a kWh and would cost £63.75 for 200 miles the same as a petrol car doing 19 mpg.

Edited by TheRainMaker on Sunday 17th November 16:36

[TheDeuce]

Sheepshanks said:

Stevemr said:

Presumably I could put Tapo plugs on dishwasher/ washing machine drier etc and run them during the night to mitigate that.

You won’t be able to do that with Tapo’s as the machines won’t know what to do when they power up. You need appliances with delayed start built in.

Indeed. But when we switched to octopus go intelligent EV tariff we took the opportunity to upgrade an ageing tumble dryer to a modern smart one, with delay functions etc, out dishwasher and washing machine already had them. The new dryer is a heat pump type so waaaaay more efficient than the old one and will have easily paid for itself by now!

Our combined kwh rate is now just below 13p


I like that the OP has calculated a fiver to fully charge their car and assumed that must be a mistake I reckon a lot of people have no idea quite how significant the running cost saving of EV are...

[anonymous-user]

Over 1000 miles during October, in my Enyaq
Snapshot from the ohme, which in linked to Octopus Go..

[PetrolHeadInRecovery]

TheRainMaker said:

PetrolHeadInRecovery said:

Tangent: you'd use 75kWh for 200 miles (2.66 miles per kWh)? I'm curious about the car and average speeds.

The car is a 2021 Polestar Twin Motor (402 bhp). Most of the driving is local, such as running the kids to school. The other half uses it now because I found it insanely dull, and I would be surprised if she ever used more than 30% throttle.

So it is more down to the use case than the car: short trips, no time/need to fiddle with the HVAC settings in order to save (literally) pennies.

We've been unusually local for a couple of months (similar use - shop runs, taking kids to hobbies etc). The last time I charged to 100% the guess-o-meter reported 550km (340 miles) range, WLTP rating for the 77kWh Ioniq 5 AWD is the same 300 miles. It hasn't been very cold, I've kept the cabin fairly cool, and we're still on summer tyres. Efficient regeneration might play a role.

But it would be easy to get the consumption up to 2.5 miles per kWh level (stuck in traffic, HVAC on auto with a toasty target temperature,...).