Getting my ev soon, advice

[TheDrownedApe]

Goodbye 120d, hello leaf e+

Just read the charger thread.....EO mini pro 2 ordering tomorrow. On the road charging I've read up and zap app seems the go to option.

BUT I've read some horror stories about arriving at the services to find the EV area full etc. We won't do many longer journeys except Cov to St Ives 3 times a year ( and to Harlech 4 times with overnight stay) and will need to use the services. Is it as bad as I've read?

Is zap the best option for mapping locations too or is this an option on Google maps now?

Another other snippets of advice that newbie needs to know ( kind expected a sticky)

[oop north]

My favourite app is WattsUp - like Zap-Map but shows network logos on the screen instead of a blob so saves drilling down to identify which network it is. PlugShare is another good one as that records (voluntarily) the actual experience of people charging on that charger if they record it.

Have two or three backup plans for each trip! Sometimes you won’t need any - sometimes you will need them all

[EVLATECOMER]

TheDrownedApe said:

Goodbye 120d, hello leaf e+

Just read the charger thread.....EO mini pro 2 ordering tomorrow. On the road charging I've read up and zap app seems the go to option.

BUT I've read some horror stories about arriving at the services to find the EV area full etc. We won't do many longer journeys except Cov to St Ives 3 times a year ( and to Harlech 4 times with overnight stay) and will need to use the services. Is it as bad as I've read?

Is zap the best option for mapping locations too or is this an option on Google maps now?

Another other snippets of advice that newbie needs to know ( kind expected a sticky)

Hope you enjoy the car, make sure you read up on "rapid gate", the leaf is a good car but only likes 1 rapid charge per day. It throttles the charging speed on the 2nd and 3rd charges which is not an issue for 99% of the time.

[danp]

It can get busy at the motorway services, my advice would be to try and avoid them (and the flaky Ecotricity network) if possible!

The Instavolt and Osprey networks are much better - contactless, reliable and usually more than one charger per site.

If you do need to use motorway services try and go for ones with more than one charger - better odds of finding one that’s not broken or in use.

Also check the Zap-Map comments (and the other apps mentioned) to see if chargers are broken or have been used successfully when planning routes - although they’re not always 100% accurate it’ll give you an idea.

Hope it goes well with the Leaf, I found ours very good.

[danp]

Also worth downloading the apps in advance for networks you might use (i.e. chargers en-route for regular long distance journeys).

Might be worth considering economy7 or smart meters for suppliers with EV friendly tariffs (eg Octopus).

SpeakEV is a good site for general and specific EV info, plus charging etc

[Knock_knock]

Octopus Go for cheap overnight charging - 4 hours at 5p/kW should take care of most charging needs.

Instavolt, Osprey, Shell Recharge or BP Pulse are in my experience generally reliable and all PAYG with a debit/credit card. Ionity expensive but also good, although I've not used them.

ZapMap or WattsApp recommended. ABRP (A Better Route Planner) is also an excellent tool for showing sensible routing via chargers etc - seems to be pretty accurate working out proper ranges etc for different vehicles.

[TheDrownedApe]

Thanks all. Seems my phone will be busting with charging apps in the future then.

That ABRP seems a great app. plotted my Coventry to St ives journey and it seems perfectly doable.

[dapprman]

Before you jump on the Octopus Go bandwagon do your maths, they are not cheaper for everyone, even with the £50 freebie - which is part of the reason I stayed with my present supplier (SO Energy) last June when I was looking round the houses. The 4 hour off peak period makes the calculation harder because you're more likely to use the 1st hour of that more heavily than the last couple so you can't just divide by your present off peak usage by 7, multiply 4/7ths by 5p and 3/7ths by the normal cost (for a night owl like me that could actually over cost Octopus).

[superpp]

First, enjoy the car.

I prefer PlugShare to zapmaps, but each to their own.
If doing a long route, plan in advance and look for chargers near to motorway junctions as alternatives.
Some of these will also be cheaper (BP Pulse or PodPoint).

If using Ecotricity chargers, check out all them before plugging in as quite often one of them will be on 'free-vend', the connection icon will have a line through it.

I use Octopus Go, and can't believe their is a cheaper electricity when you are consuming large chunks of kwh for your car.

[dapprman]

superpp said:

I use Octopus Go, and can't believe their is a cheaper electricity when you are consuming large chunks of kwh for your car.

If you're charging a reasonable amount at home with a car where you can schedule your charges, and you've not got one of the few chargers that links in with solar power, then I agree. Come June I will shop around again (though SO Energy did a very good deal for me on solar which will help keep me for another year or two if they're competitive) and will look at Octopus again (though if people are still having problems with them, then no - wonder if their boss is regretting telling the world he had no IT department and saw no need for one).

[Knock_knock]

dapprman said:

Before you jump on the Octopus Go bandwagon do your maths, they are not cheaper for everyone

Over the last year there hasn't been a single month where Go wasn't at least 30% cheaper than their standard tariff, which in itself isn't bad at all.

These aren't guessed figures either, I use https://octocomparison.co.uk/ which takes my actual consumption from the smart meter via the API and runs that usage against three different tariffs - Go, Agile and Standard.



There's some big savings to be made...

https://share.octopus.energy/witty-hare-753 (splits £100 between a new sign up and me too)

[dapprman]

I meant Octopus compared to other energy providers, not within the same company. Standard Octopus was considerably more than Octopus Go for me, but SO Energy was still better for the costs for my area based on my consumption over the previous year.

[anonymous-user]

danp said:

It can get busy at the motorway services, my advice would be to try and avoid them (and the flaky Ecotricity network) if possible!

Each charger is used twice as day on average according to one of the CEO's on a call today.

danp said:

If you do need to use motorway services try and go for ones with more than one charger - better odds of finding one that’s not broken or in use.

Also check the Zap-Map comments (and the other apps mentioned) to see if chargers are broken or have been used successfully when planning routes - although they’re not always 100% accurate it’ll give you an idea.

But don't worry the gov is spending a billion of your finest pounds to upgrade the supply into sites for all the updates coming.
The new motorway service area opening at Rugby next month has 12 Tesla chargers and 12 generic chargers.
https://rugbyobserver.co.uk/news/mp-praises-new-ev...

[fancyabevy]

speedyguy said:

But don't worry the gov is spending a billion of your finest pounds to upgrade the supply into sites for all the updates coming.
The new motorway service area opening at Rugby next month has 12 Tesla chargers and 12 generic chargers.
https://rugbyobserver.co.uk/news/mp-praises-new-ev...

My home town! Last time I checked last year, Rugby was very bad for chargers so this is very welcome.

[JonnyVTEC]

dapprman said:

I meant Octopus compared to other energy providers, not within the same company. Standard Octopus was considerably more than Octopus Go for me, but SO Energy was still better for the costs for my area based on my consumption over the previous year.

Haven’t you got an EV or something then? I keep seeing this mention of Octopus Go and the “bandwagon” “if they were so good they wouldn’t need to bribe you with £50”

It literally makes no sense when an EV can easily double household consumption. I’ll look at SO now though just incase I’m missing something.

[SDK]

JonnyVTEC said:

Haven’t you got an EV or something then? I keep seeing this mention of Octopus Go and the “bandwagon” “if they were so good they wouldn’t need to bribe you with £50”

It literally makes no sense when an EV can easily double household consumption. I’ll look at SO now though just incase I’m missing something.

Depends how often you need to charge at home.
For me, switching to an EV tariff increases my bills, because the 4 hour saving doesn’t offset the increased cost for the rest of the day.

[dapprman]

JonnyVTEC said:

Haven’t you got an EV or something then? I keep seeing this mention of Octopus Go and the “bandwagon” “if they were so good they wouldn’t need to bribe you with £50”

It literally makes no sense when an EV can easily double household consumption. I’ll look at SO now though just in case I’m missing something.

When I came to redo my supply my car had not yet arrived and there was no indication when that would be. Now it's a different matter depending on how much I need to top the car up by, from near empty to full there's not that much difference in cost due to Octopus Go only being for 4 hours. For short quantities both lose as I now have solar panels and a large battery to tap from, or even (if it ever works with my BP Chargemaster unit) I can day time charge from solar alone.
Like with any supplier, SO Energy can vary depending on where you are - I thought I was going to get the referral bonus with a non-EV friend but he found cheaper else where, much more so than the £40 we each would have received.
If you're just going to do 2-4 hours of out of hours top up and do it often enough then Octopus Go will probably work for you (assuming they start getting their systems to work - you can see on here people talking about LONG waits to get their accounts working or transferred to Go, with promises of refunds for the over spend from when they should have started, but that's a whole different kettle of fish not helped by the big boss boasting that he has no IT department).
Do remember a 4 hour 7kW/h charge will only cost you £1.40 on Go Plus and for me will cost ~£2.90, so £1.50 per 28kW charge, which drops to a 75p difference if using a full (for other tariffs) seven hours of off-peak power, meaning that unless you're doing high mileage small differences in estimated billing costs can still outweigh the difference in savings for off-peak charging (obviously a first year with Octopus will give you an extra £50).

[JonnyVTEC]

I try not to stereotype but I just looked earlier and SO seems to be London region. I live in “the other part of the UK” so Postcode just came up with try again, not even a sorry we don’t even offer a service in your area.

I’m also missing something for an “EV tarriff” expensive period for 13.45p /kWh to be uncompetitive! Funny game this EV ownership!

Edited by JonnyVTEC on Sunday 14th March 00:42

[shep1001]

The range on the Leaf is dire, more so in the cold weather, because it has zero thermal management for the battery if you will be doing long journeys with multiple rapid charging. I ran one for three months/7k miles and couldn’t wait to get shot of it.

Plugshare is better than zap map when used in the car, as it runs through Apple car play where zap map doesn’t.

Always have a plan B when covering any distance I avoid the services/ ecotricity charges where I can, there is generally a Holiday Inn or some other hotel with a BP pulse charger close to the motorway exits.

Don’t use the full range of the car, make sure you have plenty of ‘spare’ range to find an alternative charger, the Leaf will charger faster (well up to 44kw/hr) on a rapid charger between 20-80% capacity anyway

I have the EO charger, go for a Garrow consumer unit with it to remove the need to install an earth rod, as this charger needs separate earthing protection on a PME earthing system. Cost is about £140 more but it provides a better level of fault protection.

Whilst you can disable the charger via the app when not in use, you can’t lock the cable into it if you have the untethered version. It will lock however on the car end even when the charge is complete. The EO App is a bit sh*te too but they are promising a better version before mid year......

6.6kw/hr is the very best you will get out of the Leaf limited by its onboard charger but charging overnight means this should not cause a problem. I didn’t bother with an EV tariff, my employer pays for my vehicle charging but when I did look into it it’s not black & white that all these EV tariffs will save money, offset against their std unit prices and the SDC

Edited by shep1001 on Sunday 14th March 04:21

Edited by shep1001 on Sunday 14th March 04:23

[granada203028]

shep1001 said:

The range on the Leaf is dire, more so in the cold weather, because it has zero thermal management for the battery if you will be doing long journeys with multiple rapid charging. I ran one for three months/7k miles and couldn’t wait to get shot of it.

Plugshare is better than zap map when used in the car, as it runs through Apple car play where zap map doesn’t.

Always have a plan B when covering any distance I avoid the services/ ecotricity charges where I can, there is generally a Holiday Inn or some other hotel with a BP pulse charger close to the motorway exits.

Don’t use the full range of the car, make sure you have plenty of ‘spare’ range to find an alternative charger, the Leaf will charger faster (well up to 44kw/hr) on a rapid charger between 20-80% capacity anyway

I have the EO charger, go for a Garrow consumer unit with it to remove the need to install an earth rod, as this charger needs separate earthing protection on a PME earthing system. Cost is about £140 more but it provides a better level of fault protection.

Whilst you can disable the charger via the app when not in use, you can’t lock the cable into it if you have the untethered version. It will lock however on the car end even when the charge is complete. The EO App is a bit sh*te too but they are promising a better version before mid year......

6.6kw/hr is the very best you will get out of the Leaf limited by its onboard charger but charging overnight means this should not cause a problem. I didn’t bother with an EV tariff, my employer pays for my vehicle charging but when I did look into it it’s not black & white that all these EV tariffs will save money, offset against their std unit prices and the SDC

Edited by shep1001 on Sunday 14th March 04:21

Edited by shep1001 on Sunday 14th March 04:23

The Leaf isn't "dire", not quite the best but comparable to the id3 etc.

Doesn't need thermal management in temperate Britain. My 2012 Leaf the battery temperature hardly varies 4 bars winter 5 bars summer 6 very occasionally in a heatwave, 3 or 2 occasionally during winter, was a number of years before I ever saw it below 4.