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You can book a space with a charger at EDI, but there’s currently no charge option with the fastpark (valet) service.
Not correct. You can do valet fast park and they’ll charge car for you. Seems to be £18 per day, if you are parking for 1-2 days and getting a full charge that’s a good deal.
😀
I thought I’d seen it, but when I did a quick search to check it, the option didn’t come up for me; it must have been fully booked for the dates I’d selected.
We’re doing the same trip over to Edinburgh again at the weekend and taking the R5, hopefully it’ll be easier this time
No idea if it fits your itinerary but I regularly stop at IONITY at Sherifhall and not had an issue. Or if you need some bedding plants there are chargers at Dobbies nearby. I stop there and hang around waiting when MrsJ is returning to Embra airport.
So this was a trip to Edinburgh for dinner with the family. This time found a 22kW charger 5 minutes away from the restaurant in a residential street.
Plugged in, swiped my card and away it went. Came out of restaurant to a charged car ready to go - perfect. This is how it’s supposed to be.
Except the charger was a BP Pulse one but doesn’t show on their app. It’s got a sticker on it with a QR code which I scanned, which took me to a page that said it was going to charge me £25. I didn’t continue as it wasn’t a supplier I’d heard of & it said it was going to charge me £25. Luckily it showed up on the Renault app and my Mobilize card activated it.
I’m not sure if the QR was a scam or legit. I wish I’d taken a note of it or saved the QR.
An observation, I am in a hybrid so I don't NEED to charge, drove down to London today from Gloucester and if I went hunting I could probably find chargers off route, the service stations were Tesla only. Yes there was a large row of wrapped chargers at Oxford that will be open to anyone at some point. Looking at the Octoverse app suggests a lack of options.
Is there a network to look at that I might have missed.
Is there a network to look at that I might have missed
ABRP would help you plan this route, loads of options look available without diverting off route.
We drove from Aberdeen to near methven yesterday - so aberdeen-forfar-coupar Angus - methven etc.
With the mega strong head wind we were down 50% battery before forfar even doing 60mph the whole way. - we were down 20% before stonehaven - a journey that normally takes 5% or less.
Opted to charge at forfar and grab some lunch.
Arrived at destination with 54% which suggests we would have arrived with 4% had we not charged. That would have made for some very twitchy bums around the detours that Google maps /electroverse hadn't factored in.
Still orders of magnitude cheaper than diesel when cost averaged but a pain in the arse we didn't need.
Except the charger was a BP Pulse one but doesn’t show on their app. It’s got a sticker on it with a QR code which I scanned, which took me to a page that said it was going to charge me £25. I didn’t continue as it wasn’t a supplier I’d heard of & it said it was going to charge me £25. Luckily it showed up on the Renault app and my Mobilize card activated it.
I’m not sure if the QR was a scam or legit. I wish I’d taken a note of it or saved the QR.
Not related to chargers, but on-street parking meters have been using QR codes to allow users to access them for some time, but there have also been warnings about using QR Codes on the machines because scammers have been putting legitimate-looking stickers over the top.
I regularly use the MiPermit system in town, because it gives me a countdown to see how much time I have left, and a top up option if needed.
Bristol uses a different system, so I checked online for their app and downloaded it in advance, just because I don’t trust what’s on the machine, for when I went there for a gig the other evening.
Just more levels of complication and frustration because of non-standard systems being introduced countrywide. 🤷🏼♂️
BYD have developed new, high voltage technology for their cars, with new chemistry technology in their batteries, which apparently will allow a 10-80% charge time of ten minutes, about the same as filling a tank with diesel or petrol, and a range of 600 miles, 1080km - this finally makes sense for people to make the change to EV use, other than the high cost of the vehicles; my old Skoda gave me a full range of roughly 500 miles, a Vauxhall I had as a loan car gave me 900 miles over the month or so I had it, both diesels, btw, so being able to charge a car once a month for average usage will be a huge benefit for the majority of people, just as long as they can afford to buy a new car!
Arrived at destination with 54% which suggests we would have arrived with 4% had we not charged. That would have made for some very twitchy bums around the detours that Google maps /electroverse hadn't factored in.
4%? Try harder! This was my car after a 2am winter drive back from Glasgow airport with 5 people in the car. This was at the wrong end of spending 18 hours travelling, with the last 40miles being on a road with no charging infrastructure. 
which apparently will allow a 10-80% charge time of ten minutes, about the same as filling a tank with diesel or petrol, and a range of 600 miles, 1080km - this finally makes sense for people to make the change to EV use
The weak point there will most probably be the charging infrastructure. That is a serious amount of electrons flowing. Imagine a motorway services petrol station style setup with 15-20 cars suckling up juice at that rate simultaneously. You are not servicing that by digging a trench to the Maccy D drive through and popping a bit of cable in the ground. For context, House of Bruar on the A9 (the closest thing to a services north of Perth on that road and not open through the night which can lead to some crossed legs for the last hour or so home) don't currently have EV charging as the local network can't handle it. They were quoted £7m and a 4 year wait to get that sorted.
4%? Try harder!
Pass. Wouldn't run my ice tank that low either.
I was reminded on Sunday that my MG ZS doesn't show anything before 5 miles, hence arriving home with "---" as the range remaining. Second time I've pushed it that far so I probably need to remember that for future reference.
Our MG5 on the other hand will show all the way down to 0 miles and then go to "---", this was slightly more nerve racking because with the ZS I could tell myself that although it said "---" it actually meant 2 or 3, with the MG5, 2 or 3 had long gone.
Life on the edge eh?!
The weak point there will most probably be the charging infrastructure. That is a serious amount of electrons flowing. Imagine a motorway services petrol station style setup with 15-20 cars suckling up juice at that rate simultaneously.
Their design has peak loads supported by battery. Although that is not necessarily enough: the addition of just 4 EVs to my village of 85 homes sees the voltage fall to less than 208V at peak times. DNO is pulling their hair out, they can't just turn up the wick on the transformer.
The weak point there will most probably be the charging infrastructure. That is a serious amount of electrons flowing. Imagine a motorway services petrol station style setup with 15-20 cars suckling up juice at that rate simultaneously.
You will also be paying handsomely for the honour of those charging speeds.
BYD have developed new, high voltage technology for their cars, with new chemistry technology in their batteries, which apparently will allow a 10-80% charge time of ten minutes, about the same as filling a tank with diesel or petrol, and a range of 600 miles, 1080km - this finally makes sense for people to make the change to EV use,
I think you are right, in the sense that those are the sort of figures that may be required to tempt the EV sceptics to try one. Having lived with an EV for nearly 20,000 miles (including a fair few long trips) I'm less convinced that these specs are actually needed or that they will be what we end up with in the long term. But I'll be interested to see how this develops.
My own experience is that a WLTP range of around 350 miles and 10-80% in 30 minutes is already enough that the car is never the limiting factor i.e. I never have to stop to charge the car and can just charge the car when I'm stopped anyway. Given that I drive around 25k miles a year, I suspect that these figures are going to be plenty for the majority of drivers too.
But would I say no to a car with a 600 mile range that can charge in 10 minutes? That's the question. Probably not, if there was no penalty to pay for those specs. But in practice there always will be. You'' always be paying more than you need to for a car that is heavier than it needs to be. But on the flip side, the vast majority of car owners (me includes) already pay far more than the need to for a car that is bigger and heavier than they really need.
Logically, I think it would make more sense to install more ~200kw chargers and make them more reliable than trying to build sites that can deliver bonkers power. But logic doesn't always win.
I've made comparisons with phones before. Obviously they are different devices, but as battery powered things that we all use, they can be a useful analogy. I remember when manufacturers made a big thing about how long their phone could go between charges. Now that we all tend to stick our phones on charge when we are not using them, battery life is much lower down the list of priorities for most users. My iphone could easily be made to last twice as long, but it would be bigger, heavier and cost more and Apple clearly think that most users don't want that. Will the same happen with EVs. Will be eventually gravitate to smaller, lighter and cheaper EVs that have enough range for most people, or will most drivers end up with a car that is bigger, heavier and more expensive than they need just to get a range that they will never use?
just to get a range that they will never use?
Or use twice a year on their annual summer holiday longer trip.
We have that already with other car metrics - people driving around in cars waaaay bigger than they need 99% of the time because the extra space might be invaluable for that one percent. People buying cars able to car three bikes so their two mythical mates can maybe join them on a trip that will probably never happen.
Charging speed and range extremes Vs every day practically and cost efficiency in an EV is a much easier compromise than that though. If your car is the perfect size for your solo commute 320 days a year but too small for 2 annual loaded full family journeys there is no work around (apart from hiring another car) - it will always be too small for those journeys. But a car with a bit smaller ranger and a bit slower charge that manages just fine for those 320 commute days and will also do the deed for those long journeys if you buy another couple of coffees and allow another hour travel time. So 2 hours 'inconvenience' a year to save trundling around with excessive batteries for the other 320 days.
But.....car purchases are rarely made with logic.
Or use twice a year on their annual summer holiday longer trip.
In my experience I don't need more than 350 mile WLTP range and 10-80% in 30 minutes even for those longer trips. Yes, in theory, I could do the 500 mile trip to the in-laws faster in our ICE car. That car only needs as single 10 minute stop to refuel. But I need more than that and even with those numbers I'm the limiting factor not the car. But as you say, car purchases aren't logical and there is a natural tendency to buy a car for all the trips you "could" do rather than just all the ones you actually do.
We are looking at a 2015 leaf. I just assumed you could charge it slowly from any 3 pin plug. We have an outdoor plug that was installed to run mrs zips Christmas lights.
Is there a way of telling if this plug will handle charging a car or do we need a sparky to have a look?
If it was installed by a proper electrician then it will be fine for trickle charging.
Trickle charging does get very frustrating, very quickly. It’s fine for a hybrid but a challenge with EV if you do any sort of mileage, especially if you are driving distance over two back to back days as you just can’t build enough charge between journeys.
We are looking at a 2015 leaf. I just assumed you could charge it slowly from any 3 pin plug. We have an outdoor plug that was installed to run mrs zips Christmas lights.
Is there a way of telling if this plug will handle charging a car or do we need a sparky to have a look?
It should be ok if installed properly. There is a general recommendation it's on its own circuit to prevent overload so I guess it depends if the electrician just installed it off a spur off an already quite loaded ring main. I have a feeling if you brought in an electrician they would have to give you the by the book recommendations rather than a 'yeah, it'll be fine' response you probably want. More money for them in the by the book answer too. I did it for a few weeks whilst we waited for a charger to be installed. It's basically like having a kettle running for hour after hour rather than a kettle that is on for a few minutes at a time so it does a system more than most other things you'll plug into a wall socket.
I appreciate an 11 year old leaf is a very cheap toe into the EV world and I'm imagining (given it's likely range) your milage will be quite minimal so I can see why it might make sense. A proper EV smart charger is quite an investment (relative to the cost of an 11 year old leaf) but the payback in terms of access to much cheaper charging is big. As of this morning I'm looking at a penny a mile in electricity charging costs.
charge time of ten minutes, about the same as filling a tank with diesel or petrol
Since when did it take 10 minutes to fill a car with fuel? It'd be a push to take half that time – probably more like two or three minutes!
The leaf will do an 8 mile round trip and be charged overnight.
We are looking to move within the year so fitting a charger isn't probably worth it.
Paying 25 p kWh.
It's going to be a second car.
I assume once the car is full it stops charging?
I trickle charge my hybrid using octopus go cheap rate, i get c10Kwh per night. Just something to think about regarding how long it takes to charge a car.
as for petrol, by the time the pump is released, filled up and you've wandered over to the kiosk to pay, 10mins is probably closer to the truth than 2-3mins.
I assume once the car is full it stops charging?
No idea about older tech but in newer car you can tell it to stop charging to a certain percentage of maximum capacity of the battery. 80% is the default as it's not good for the lifespan of this battery to top it up to completely full all the time, especially if it's going to sit there completely topped up for any length of time.
But a car with a bit smaller ranger and a bit slower charge that manages just fine for those 320 commute days and will also do the deed for those long journeys if you buy another couple of coffees and allow another hour travel time. So 2 hours 'inconvenience' a year to save trundling around with excessive batteries for the other 320 days.
As I mentioned elsewhere, we just did a road trip round Donegal and Sligo. We took the ICE car because I was concerned at the apparent lack of chargers especially in remote spots. Having returned, I input the actual routes we did into ABRP to see if they would have been feasible, and with some planning they would have been, with some changes to our schedule, and assuming that the sole charger at the end of the universe was actually working. This last point is the worry for me, but next time maybe we'll take the EV.
Did our return trip sans headwind today. Left in 14 degrees and averaged 4.2mi/KWh to brechin where the temperature dropped and it pissed down where I watched it drop to 3.4mi/kWh between there and aberdeen.
Made the trip home in one charge with 28% left. (Electroverse called 24% in the plan )
Is there a way of telling if this plug will handle charging a car or do we need a sparky to have a look?
A BS1362 standard socket is rated for 3kW (13A) but not necessarily continuously. To fix this they brought out an addition to the standard that can handle 3kW indefinitely called BS1362-2 and are often labelled as EV charging sockets. They seem to be just as cheap as normal sockets and you'd just have to swap it over. The current regs say that if you are installing one for the purposes of EV charging it needs to be that standard.
However, many if not all 3-pin plug EV chargers are only 2.3kW or 10A. If yours is, or if it can be limited to 10A then you are fine. My Hyundai one can be current limited but is only 10A max anyway.
When we first bought our ID3 and before we had a proper charger installed we used a 3-pin granny charger (a Masterplug 10m job). The intention was to charge it from the socket in our detached garage but the charger reported an earth fault every time we tried. Ended up having to run it through an open window to a more-recently installed socket indoors (garage electrics are from the early 80s).
Madame crossed France in the Zoe again. 850 or so kms, started full, all Tesla chargers, filled at destination. 56e to Mr Musk and 30e tolls. Junior takes a longer but faster all toll road route for the same journey in a petrol car: petrol 130e and tolls 80e.
Yes it's an apples and pears comparison and there's no question the petrol car is much faster. However, a scenic road, next to no carbon emitted and 125e saved has its attractions.
I think thats a bit disingenuous about the pollution. Additional load only can come from fossil fuels as renewables run pretty much maxed out.
Octopus is telling me I'm on 100% renewable. Plus, living in Scotland, we've a good proportion of our 'leccy from renewable sources. IIRC renewables are about 70%, Nuclear 25% the rest fossil fuels. I suspect this will include biomass in 'renewable' which I disagree with, and I am not a nuclear fan...
Apologies, I am sure this will have been asked countless times.
Who is recommended to ask about a possibly complex, at least slightly unusual charger installation?
Who is recommended to ask about a possibly complex, at least slightly unusual charger installation?
I used ChargedEV for my complex/unusual install. I had to wait a while as they kept rescheduling the install but the workmanship was good and it was £600 cheaper than quote from the local independent guy.
Who is recommended to ask about a possibly complex, at least slightly unusual charger installation?
If you already have a relationship with an electrician, speak to them first.
Is there a way of telling if this plug will handle charging a car or do we need a sparky to have a look?
I've melted a few plugs/sockets this way. I now restrict to 10A (the charger can be set to do this) and it's been fine since. Just a bit slower charging but that's not been a problem for us, we rarely average more than 60 miles per day over a sustained period and that's about what we get overnight with 7h of 10A on the economy 7.
One of these days I might look into getting a proper charger but our system works for us.
Sadly my relationship with my pet electrician ended after twenty years with his untimely departure from this planet.
Regards using 10amp, I've been thinking much the same. Our typical daily mileage is sweet fa, so could be ok, just keeping it topped up. The times we do a long trip back home and leave the next day for a long trip are very few.
Probably a dumb question but - are public Type 2 chargers (non-CCS) AC? I want to test how fast my car will charge on AC and compare it with the rate I’m getting from my home Ohme CP.
Someone will correct me if I'm wrong but I believe a public charger without a tethered cable is AC, and they max out at 22kw. Anything with a tethered cable is DC and faster than 22kw
Has anyone witnessed this upcoming issue for EV charging? Having had Mercedes cars for the last 20 years and having worked at a commercial main dealer i am fully aware of Mercedes taking a front step on technology before the rest decide to embrace it.
We have just ordered a bunch of new company cars and quite a few have gone for electric CLA's. They are now being told that although their home chargers will work fine, public chargers, unless higher power latest ones wont.
A few are very pissed off they wont be able to just pull in and presume a charger will work
Yeah Merc screwed up by not including the adapter as a standard item. They've used laughable PR gymnastics to justify not including it, and then charging for it as a not very optional extra is the icing on the cake
Regards using 10amp, I've been thinking much the same. Our typical daily mileage is sweet fa, so could be ok, just keeping it topped up.
I've not had any issues charging my ioniq with the 3 pin charger that came with the car. 10amp adds around 2.2kw/hr which for local miles is enough.
I have probably continuously charged via this method for up to 10hrs in one go. It didn't cause any issues to my electrics and the tapo smart plug that I was controlling the charge times with.
I'll continue with this method until I decide on a specific home charger which might a system which operates from a battery 🤔
Has anybody installed a fast charger where their driveway is away from the house?
I can't quite get my head around what needs to happen. The problem is that we have the consumer unit about half way along the house (red X), then patio, then garden, then drive, and the EV has the port at the left rear side.
Would you just go along the house from red X to orange X, then presumably dig up the path from the orange X to the fence (blue line) and mount it there - and then fit a charger with a long cable?
For reference the distances are:
red X to orange X - 6m
orange x to blue line (fence) - 8m
blue line (fence) to car charging port (yellow x) - 5m
Just stick the charger where it makes sense and get a longer cable to connect the car. Or ask your installer how they would do it.
long as you own the land in between for legally running the cable plenty domestic chargers have a standing pole option for exactly this.
Thanks both, yeah we own the land. I've just been a bit unlucky with people not turning up to do quotes and stuff, and started to get cold feet about it.
I was tempted to go with somebody like Octopus but they want a chunk of cash up front.