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No idea, I clicked the purple icons on the Chargemap app then clicked on price and how to pay. I didn't take much interest in who was asking £1.20 I just clicked the next one.
The Ionity chargers I clicked in the EU were more than than 69cents. You can't talk about an EU price because it varies so much from country to country because leccy costs much more in Germany than say France.
Tesla was the cheapest in Holland at 29 or 32cents.
IECharge at 30 cents (though it actually only charged us 25cents) in France followed by Tesla at 33, 45 and 50cents depending on location and the time of day.
Tesla was the cheapest in Germany at 53cents at the times we were charging.
Tesla was the cheapest we used in the UK 44p or 55p depending on the time of day. The others we used were about 85p as you say but we really did drive past one at £1.20.
Edit: the subscriptions thing is a rip off. Again would the population/government tolerate petrol stations charging a subscrition to get the normal price and a 50% premium without the subscription?
3 years EV driving here and I've only ever had one issue charging.
Drove Manchester to Newcastle, had around an hours window to charge the car backup for the drive back the next day but really struggled. either all full, too slow or broke. Not really the world ending issue some make it out to be, frustrating yes but I managed.
like it or not they are going to be the future for most people.
1. Car cost, a quick google (RAC website) says Nissan Leaf £26k, mid range £28-50k the upwards. My last vehicle (Berlingo van) was <£15k, taxed and insured on the road (albeit pre-reg, but brand new, single digit miles on the odo). Car before that Skoda Roomster (£11.5k pre-reg) that’s my last 10+ years vehicle purchase. I get ICE car costs have skyrocketed too, but it ain’t cheap…
So you've taken the current RRP for an EV and compared it to two deals you got (at some point in the past).
In fact the Skoda went out of production 9 YEARS AGO and a base Berlingo van is now £23k RRP.
Is there a simple system in place for those lucky people who own a roof and an electric vehicle.
You fit some panels and export all the energy to the grid from say 0600 till 2100. No battery at all .
Then from 2100 you get the electricity back for free. To pour into the car battery.
If you need more than the panels have generated you pay a few pence per kWh as it's off peak .
If you use less than the panels have generated to fill up the car you get a few pence per kWh credit from the energy co.
Given the current 7p feed in tarif is lower than the 10p night tarif it's best just to charge the car when your panels are producing.
Going to France next year and picking up an electric hire car - can I / should I be looking to set up the Tesla app for charging (it's unlikely to be a Tesla car) or just winging it as a one- or two- off? The car is cheaper than an equivalent ICE so provided its cheaper than traditional fuels to fill up I'll be ahead.
Download the Tesla app and check if there are conveniently placed open-to-all Superchargers, teaandbiscuits (hte app is free and you only need to enter a credit card when yu want to charge - no point paying for a monthly subscription for a few charges). There are plenty of other chargers but except them to be slower, less reliable, more expensive and more complicated to use.
Will do, thanks!
EDIT:
Closest one is this:
But presumably its worth going to:
Edukator
Free Member
Given the current 7p feed in tarif is lower than the 10p night tarif it’s best just to charge the car when your panels are producing
Wow. Some people actually drive to work and aren't at home when the panels are producing. My very simple idea was to utilise PV production during the day , and use electricity overnight when most cars are parked up at home and there is supply supply
The first one is grey so Teslas only, but the second one is red so any car, teaandbiscuits.
My very simple idea was to utilise PV production during the day , and use electricity overnight when most cars are parked up at home
Sounds like Intelligent Octoous Go which is an EV specific tarrif coupled with their Octopus Outgoing tarrif. On IOG it's 7p/kwh minimum import rate (applies to car charging and all other consumption) and their standard outgoing tarrif pays 15p/kwh. So even allowing for inverter/battery losses it probably still pays to export solar during tha day and then charge car/house at night.
https://octopus.energy/smart/intelligent-octopus-go/
The first one is grey so Teslas only, but the second one is red so any car, teaandbiscuits.
Thank you!
TF1 news drove three cars three hundred and something kms across northern France yesterday. A plug-in petrol hybrid, an ID4 and a diesel. All had to respect speed limits. The verdict:
Diesel: fastest but most pollution and CO2
Hybrid: 10 minutes slower as driver was using the car's ability to save fuel. Less pollution and CO2
Electric: 1h30 slower. One charge needed. First charger IECharge: the charger was dead, he phoned the help line and they confirmed it was dead. Second charger gave a 5h+ recharge time so he moved on (it's not uncommon to find 22kW chargers that only give 7 or 150kW chargers that only give 25). Third charger was out of order. Fourth charger worked. No local pollution and least CO2
That's fairly typical of what to expect in France at present apart from open-to-public Superchargers that just work. That's why EVs are still marginal.
AC charges are really only suitable as destination chargers, trying to use them part way through a journey is a fools errand.
If I can’t roll up to a charging point, plug a world wide universal cable in, wave a random bank card and arrive back 10 minutes later with a couple of hundred miles in the “tank
This is what I do, except it takes me longer than 10 minutes because my car is old and slow.
Remember that this forum is populated by nerds who love fannying about and talking about fannying about. But in reality, all I ever do is plug in at home and walk away; on a long trip I go where the car tells me to, plug into the standard cable and tap my bank card as you say. It works.
And I'd just like to underline the fact that my EV costs us a tenth as much per mile as a diesel would do in everyday driving. Imagine pulling up to a diesel pump, filling up and only paying £8. You'd be chuffed to bits, and I'm pretty sure you'd go out of your way to go back to any filling station selling diesel for 14p a litre. But I don't even have to do that - it's as if someone comes to my house every night and fills my car AND only charges me 14p a litre.
Going to France next year and picking up an electric hire car
I just hired an EV for the first time. I knew there were fast chargers at my destination. After 20 minutes trying to work out how to plug the CCS connector in (and some googling) it turns out fast charging is only an option on Renault Zoe, and it was a blanking panel. Luckily there was a public AC charger a few KM away.
In the end, it was pretty straight-forward but I was surprised how difficult/confusing it was the first time, and without a smartphone/data roaming and plenty of time I would have been screwed. Bear in mind ICE cars have a label inside the fuel cap telling you the fuel to use, and the car rental companies still often add a sticker outside reminding you.
The thing is @ab1970 now you know how to top up it’s straightforward.Typically the information is available before hand so you could have done a bit of research.
I say that as someone who has an EV and went through the learning curve. I had no idea how to set mine up, set the apps up and what charging to do. My first long trip was a bit of a disaster. But that was on me not having done any research…just expecting plug and play to be nice and simple….( it is now that I know how, but it is definitely a step change from petrol or diesel….and I’m a bit of a Luddite so that didn’t help!!)
Typically the information is available before hand so you could have done a bit of research
I rent cars pretty often. I have never needed to confirm the factory-fit options before-hand with an ICE car. I was collecting the car out-of-hours also. I note the advice given to @teaandbiscuits was 'use a super-charger', not 'check you are hiring a car that can use a super-charger'.
@w00dster I am not sure why your first long trip was a disaster, but I disagree that it was on you. EV technology is sufficiently mature that it's reasonable to expect it to 'just work'.
EV costs us a tenth as much per mile as a diesel would do in everyday driving.
Enthusiastic as I am about EVs I like to see your sums on that.
Used locally my Zoe uses about 12kWh/100km. Add charging losses of 10% and that's 13.2KWh/100km and with leccy at 25e cents/kWh that's 3.3e/100km.
The equivalent diesel Clio uses around 4.5l/100km in similar driving. Diesel is 1.648e/l at the local service station so 7.42e/100km
So charging at home the EV is just under half price on a normal electricity tarif but if you charge a lot at home at night, a night tarif may be worth it (it isn't for me, the corresponding day tarif is punitive and I don't charge enough at home to make the higher standing charge and night tarif worthwhile). So lets look at night tarifs:
To be a tenth of the price electricty would have to be under 6 cents or under 5p/kWh in your money. Intelligent Octopus as promoted by members of this forum is 7.5p and that means paying more for your leccy in the day which may or may not be worth it depending on how much you charge at home.
Leave home and my experience in the UK seems typical: 45-83p/kWh if you hunt out the cheapest chargers on an app. So a tad cheaper than diesel at best but usually a bit more.
I reckon from a fifth of the price of diesel to double the cost of diesel depending on how and where you charge is more realistic.
My car has a 77kwh battery at 7.5p per kwh means a full charge would cost £5.78. That will give me a range if 300-ish miles on that full charge so just under 2p per mile.
My previous diesel Mitsubishi Outlander, an equivalent sized vehicle with substantially less power returned about 35 Mpg. A gallon of diesel currently costs £6.81 on average in Scotland according to Allstar.
Just over 19p per mile. So about 10 times as much.
I suggest that an Outlanlander isn't a fair comparison with your current car, perchy, and an Audi E-Tron SUV would be more realisictic - that would rougly double your leccy consumption.
It’s a perfectly fair comparison.
It’s the car I had versus the car I now have, a Genesis GV60. Same size, more or less driven on all the same journeys to service the same lifestyle over long enough periods to make accurate costings.
What’s not fair about it?
Well try driving both off road and get back to me. One is an off-road vehicle with off road capacity and the other isn't.
A fairer comparison would be a diesel returning 50mpg.
my numbers are pretty close to you also PP, with an i4 on Octopus home charging I am also just under 2p a mile, my previous Audi Q5 diesel would typically do about 480 miles of my regular mixed driving on an £85 fill up from empty, so about 18p per mile.
Molgrips original statement that you queried:
And I’d just like to underline the fact that my EV costs us a tenth as much per mile as a diesel would do in everyday driving
my Ev: Check
a tenth: check
a diesel : my diesel, so check
everyday driving : not offroad, not in 4wd . Check
You could produce a million different combinations to prove or disprove the claim but this is the only I can comment on with authority and I find it proven
Again a Q5 is a gross fuel greedy thing and an i4 is a sleek performance thing. Apples and pears.
Let's compare vaguely comparable things like my original Zoe and Clio comparison.
I'm into EVs, owned and used for seven years but I'm not into making misleading claims, comparing apples with pears or ignoring how crap the charge network is (Superchargers excepted). If you want future EV owners reading this to be satisfied when they buy they need honest advice based on real world experiences.
Yes EVs are great, just don't expect free leccy, super cheap leccy, chargers to be easy to use or even work at all in many cases. Go in eyes open, don't run the battery down to under 10% at the last charger for 50kms becuase sod's law says it won't work, and expect to have a phone full of apps if you venture far enough to need a public charger.
Enthusiastic as I am about EVs I like to see your sums on that.
Well, my wife's commute has some start/stop driving, some motorway and some dual carriageway with roundabouts. From experience I'm guessing it would be around 45mpg in a typical diesel. We average 5.0 miles per kWh in the Ioniq. At home we pay 7p per kWh.
That makes it 1.54p per mile with 10% losses. A diesel would return 14.7p per mile given current prices. Some diesels would be more efficient, all EVs would be less, but that's my maths. You can adjust as.you wish.
expect to have a phone full of apps if you venture far enough to need a public charger
No, don't, unless you're in France. UK drivers can rely on debit cards and a CPS card.
Just a thought regarding the pollution aspect of liquid fuel powered cars. If we, as a country or world stopped using so much electricity for pointless luxuries, would it match the CO2 etc savings for electric cars? Even typing this I have wasted resources as does charging a phone, playing electronic games, running a telly or an ebike. How about the environmental costs attached to new cars when we could keep old ones going? Maybe ban the sales of new cars sort of thing. This sort of thing is never mentioned as it needs a few hard truths looking at. Hmmmm
We're at about 2.9p per mile in our very inefficient ( for an ev) merc eqc as an average over the last 5000 miles.
It's rediculously cheap per mile compared to the diesel vw tiguan that we had before it, but probably not a tenth of the cost. Think the vw worked out around 16p per mile assuming diesel was 1.45 per litre.
If we, as a country or world stopped using so much electricity for pointless luxuries
This is a great idea but the problem is that billions of people's livelihoods are based on making and selling those pointless luxuries, because our entire global society is based on it. If we all stopped over-consuming overnight there would be the mother of all global economic catastrophies. We just don't know what to do about that. Large scale change towards much lower material standard of living is currently impossible without coercion.
That's why I believe technology (along with as much moderation as we can get people to accept) is our only hope and it's touch and go wether or not it will be quick enough.
Could people quoting the home charging cost factor in the extra they are paying for day time electricity and the extra standing charge please because if you do that it really isn't 7.5p. Work out how much extra you paid for daytime on the last bill, add that to the night time EV bill, add the extra standing change then divide the total by the EV kWhs on the bill. That'll give you the real cost per kWh for your EV charging.
No-one has taken on board the charging losses using the on-board charger which will be high. I added 10% for my calculation but in most cases home charging is AC and it is much worse than that. The Zoé loses about 10% for DC charging and AC much worse according to my back of envelope calculations especially if I charge when it's 35°C and the heat pump runs a lot, I venture 20%. Anyhow:
https://go-e.com/en/magazine/ev-charging-losses
No extra cost to my standing charge. I moved of a standard tariff to an EV tariff so get cheap power overnight so also reduce my dishwasher/washing machine etc cost too so save even more than just the EV cost so technically my saving are even bigger! Not less. However I do have a home charger which will pay for itself in the first year of ownership.
How much are your daytime and night rates, andy? And the standard non-variable rate from the same company?
For my postcode
Octoous Flexible (standard variable rate)
Standing charge 61.27p
Electricity 22.49p/kwh
IOG
Standing charge 61.27p
Cheap rate 7p/kwh
Standard rate 23.71p/kwh
So zero penalty in the standing charge, and a 1.22p/kwh levy on daytime usage - though your charge window may also cover peak evening usage..
That's excellent, thepurist.
To clarify you talk about a peak evening rate. If that's higher what is it?
EDF standard rate here is 25cents. With a dual tarif night is 16cents and day 30cents. Standing charge is higher and I'd pay a penalty as I'm also a PV producer. Not worth it when I've charged more away from home than at home this year. My car use would have to be over a third of my leccy bill for it to pay and it isn't.
My total household power cost is £18 a week for a family of 4. That includes car charging and the home use. My fuel cost was on average £60 a week. This is 70 mile round trip commute and day to day running family around. When I do my long trip once a month the saving is even more.
My EV is an Audi SUV (Quattro but it’s never been taken offroad). My ICE was a Cupra hatchback, 2 wheel drive and never taken off road.
I don’t break the cost down to an individual level, I just know that my ICE fuel bill has dropped from a minimum of £300 a month to a maximum of £100 for all my electricity usage.
To clarify you talk about a peak evening rate. If that’s higher what is it?
No I was referring to peak evening usage when most cooking etc happens, there are only two rates.
To clarify you talk about a peak evening rate. If that’s higher what is it?
There isn't a peak evening rate. It's a smart tariff which means you need a car or charger that is "smart" i.e. it has an API that Octopus can use to start and stop charging at random points. They advise you to keep your car plugged in whenever you are home, so that they can use surplus energy for.your car at any time, even during the day. If this happens and the car is charging then your whole house gets the cheap rate even at peak times. I think this is what thepurist means.
If you can schedule your washing machine or dishwasher for the off peak period then you also get those at the cheap rate. I use the cheap rate to heat hot water too. This saving may equal the cost of your car's fuel so your mileage could be effectively free.
So genuinely cheap charging with minimal impact on the day rate. Say 8.5p including compensation for the day rate if your car charging is half your electricity use and you don't use the cheap rate to save on anything else. Taking into account AC charging losses you can expect on a 7kW AC charge that's about 10p/kWh for kWhs in the car. On that basis those claiming one tenth of the cost are actually getting a seventh of the cost - which is still very good and more realistic, I still reckon a fifth with a genuinely comparable car. 🙂
For me (Ireland) the standard variable is about 35c and this is what I used to pay all day/everyday and now I just pay this 8am-11pm, 11pm-8am is 17c with 2am-4am just 10c. I don’t have the standing charge to hand.
my basic maths, if I did it right, gave me 2c per km as 99% of my charging is done @ 10c. My diesel worked out at about 11c per km with about 45mpg+ and €1.75 a litre.
Our monthly electric bill (inc standing charge)on intelligent octopus is about a fiver a month cheaper including Charging the car, than our previous monthly electric bill was on shell energy with no car charging.
Due to shifting washing machine and dish washer into the off peak hours plus the whole house getting electric at 7p whenever the car is charging outside the off peak hours.
Now that the per kwh costs have come down across the board, I think my currently monthly costs with the car are about the same as the monthly costs I would be paying without the car on a standard tarrif.
Changing to an EV would save me about £1100pa in fuel but cost me about £8k to upgrade my car & install a charger, so changing from a fully paid for economical diesel car doesn't add up at the moment. Might work for those on leases, PCP deals or if you are changing car anyway but my car is easily good for another 75k / 6yrs.
With solar and batteries it's even better, from pretty much everything but 3 months over winter the house runs off 7.5p/kwh rate (charge the batteries overnight) and any generation is sold to the grid at 15p/kWh. Shift dishwasher and washing machine use to overnight too. Electricity including running the car (and standing charge) is a net income.
Car is averaging just under 4miles/kWh so just under 2p/mile except the few occasions when it was on motorway fast chargers but comparable diesel is also vastly more expensive there too. ID4 so comparable sized ICE is doing ~ 45mpg and diesel here is ~ 155p/L so ev is getting on 1/8th of the cost/mile for fuel. Outside of work use I've charged away from home maybe 10-15 times in 2.5 years so almost irrelevant.
This saving may equal the cost of your car’s fuel so your mileage could be effectively free.
Agreed...
I feel like I'm being paid to drive sometimes! I have been reading up, and the polestar SHOULD be able to do v2h..in fact a company has got it working (google for the article... I can't switch around screens on the phone!)..
That would be amazing... Fill up overnight at cheap rate... Discharge the car in the day.
Would mean a new wall charger though..
DrP
With solar and batteries it’s even better, from pretty much everything but 3 months over winter the house runs off 7.5p/kwh rate (charge the batteries overnight) and any generation is sold to the grid at 15p/kWh.
Id be interested to see your calculations, since when I’ve looked into getting a battery the cost per kWh storage never made sense. The irony is that I have a huge battery sitting on my driveway…