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@roverpig, out of interest, are you on the Kia connect app or the new one ? I have a post going on the EV3 UK Owners FB about it..
Ah that's you is it 😀 Yes, I've responded, but I'm on facebook under my real name rather than the daft pseudonym I chose on here many years ago (for reasons even I can't remember). I'm easy to find though as I'm the only one who is happy with the new app. Mainly because I never got used to the old one I expect.
I think I'm going to get creative and remove the silly covers, preinstall and torque up the mounting bolts, then fashion up something to 3D print than covers/prettifies the exposed section that sits above the rail when not in use.
Came here to say you can buy them from Thule but beaten to it.
Those Thule things look flipping huge - Once I've got everything in front of me I reckon I can do better.
But this attitude to life is why everything I do is so much hassle....
We collected my wife's Inster today. Seems a great wee car for the price. It's like a tardis inside. It has more rear space than my cupra born. I am waiting patiently for permission to have a go.
Very nice @andy4d. That with a 350 mile range would pretty much be my perfect EV. I guess we’ll have to wait for cheap solid state batteries (if they ever appear) for that to be possible. In the meantime it is good to see someone making small chap(ish) EVs. Be interested to hear how your wife gets on with it. And you if she ever lets you near it 😀
Activate sport mode
Just heard back from the Roof Box Company who are the go to people for roofrack knowledge - the Kia flush style roof rails are to all intents and purposes fake. You can't use roof bars that clamp to them, you have to use bars that bolt to the mount points hidden within them under very fiddly covers.
Weird. My older e-niro has aluminium rails and standard clamping bars fit fine.
We may soon need a car to drive us and chairs and stuff a mile to the beach.
A cheap old ev with a worn battery would be great for us as a second car.
My question is … if a new car costs £10 to charge and gives you 100 miles , would a used car that only gives you 50 miles range still cost £10 to charge?
Both batteries going from zero to full in my mind says yes.
I reckon the battery capacity drops so it'd cost £5 for 50 miles assuming battery degradation is 50%. 🤔
Both batteries going from zero to full in my mind says yes.
No. Well, no but maybe! Maybe sort of!
Think of battery size as a fuel tank size. A big battery will take more energy to charge and therefore will cost more like a big fuel tank in a petrol car. It will however take you further with all that extra energy. Older tech and an older battery will be inefficient in terms of kw put into to milage got out. So an new EV with a tiny battery but stupidly efficient might not get particular far per charge but do it for next to no money.
The early leafs had smallish 24kwh batteries. That's small by todays standards - and an older battery of that size with old tech might only get you 50 miles for a charge. But you might be able to buy the car for £1500 now.
Where the EV bangernomics falls down is if you have to charge it on a public charger where it might well work out more expensive that an old petrol car per mile- though the other costs might well be cheaper. If you can charge it at home that changes the maths hugely....only snag is you have to have access to a home charger which is big outlay if its for a few miles every now and then on an old leaf.
But big picture....if it's literally going to go a mile to the beach the fuel cost is almost irrelevant. The fact an old leaf can be bought so cheap and pays next to no VED and has very little to service to have to pay for - what's not to like!
My question is … if a new car costs £10 to charge and gives you 100 miles , would a used car that only gives you 50 miles range still cost £10 to charge?
No, as @convert said, you can think of the battery capacity like the size of the fuel tank if it drops by 50% (which is a big drop even for an old EV by the way) it will cost less to fill
What matters for your cost per mile is the efficiency (miles per kWh) rather than the capacity of the battery. I guess it’s possible that this might also drop slightly on an older EV as parts wear but I’ve not seen any evidence for that and if it does happen it’s probably only a small effect
The much bigger factor is that (unlike ICE) there is a huge variability in how much you could pay for each kWh of charge. From 7p on a cheap home tariff to over 80p on a public charger.
But I do think old EVs are going to end up providing cheap motoring for some folk as there is just less to go wrong and a use case like this sounds ideal.
This weeks Late Brake Show seems slightly relevant here - EV bangeromics with a £5k Tesla…
If you ignore the clickbait title, this is very pertinent.
We may soon need a car to drive us and chairs and stuff a mile to the beach.
A cheap old ev with a worn battery would be great for us as a second car.
Interesting idea.... We could the same requirement.
The only issue would be getting the car the initial 110 miles to the house there!
I guess we’ll have to wait for cheap solid state batteries (if they ever appear) for that to be possible.
They absolutely will. I get spammed with articles on this on SM. This is not at the theoretical stage, there are full scale factories being built to produce these things right now.
My question is … if a new car costs £10 to charge and gives you 100 miles , would a used car that only gives you 50 miles range still cost £10 to charge?
No. Remember that the problem with older cars is smaller batteries, not worse efficiency. Those old Leafs are not bad in efficiency terms, just that the battery is tiny. So your charge will cost less because the battery is small.
Thanks @convert. I saw that Mat Watson video a while back but was put off by the title. It's not quite as awful as I feared though.
I still get annoyed by supposed journalists being surprised by stuff that anybody who has read a bit would know already. I dare say it's all confected for clicks, but he spends the first half of the video being "amazed" that the estimated range keeps changing. They are called guess-o-meters for a reason mate (and you know that). A few seconds thought would tell you that it is going to be pretty much impossible to guess how long the battery will last if you don't know anything about the terrain, traffic or weather ahead or how the driver is going to drive. Newer EVs do a better job by trying to take some of those factors into account (at least if you have a route planned) and of "learning" how you tend to drive, but it's always just going to be an estimate. Just like the range estimate on my old ICE car, which always fluctuated quite widely when I got to around 100 miles of range for some reason.
While we're on the topic of Youtube videos I was watching one from the "Just get a Tesla" guy this morning where he was ranting about the autopilot on the new model Y. Again I'm sure a lot of it is confected outrage and possibly a setup for the next video where he can rave about it being fixed, but I thought it was interesting.
I'm not anti-Tesla. Outside of the purchasing decision I'm generally happy to treat the car and the CEO separately and I do think Tesla deserve credit for being amongst the first to demonstrate that it was commercially viable to manufacture an EV with decent range and performance. But it does look as though Tesla have lost a lot of the advantage that they used to have and it is no longer clear that they are better than other options these days. My EV3, for example, doesn't suffer from any of the issues he was ranting about. If I change lanes the adaptive cruise stays on and while the autosteer is disabled while I'm making the change, it switches itself back on as soon as it detects the new lane. I can even do the automatic lane change (just indicate and let the car change lane for you) on a motorway without having to pay thousands extra for the privilege. This isn't meant to be a "my car is better than your car" post though. There are lots of ways in which a model Y is better than my EV3 and I note that Jonathan Porterfield (who has spent years banging on about how good his KIA is) has just bought a new model Y. But as Ian says at the end of his video, the autopilot from lots of other manufacturers is now objectively better than Tesla's current offering, which is surprising for a company that were so far ahead of the game for so long.
They absolutely will. I get spammed with articles on this on SM. This is not at the theoretical stage, there are full scale factories being built to produce these things right now.
I don't doubt that they will arrive, I'm just not clear on the timescale for them becoming cheap enough to be viable in a small cheap EV (or whether they will have the longevity and cold weather performance of current offerings). Obviously companies who are spending millions on producing them have a vested interest in making optimistic claims to keep investors on board, but there is a lot of stuff that we will only know for sure once they have been on the market for a few years. The promise is exciting though.
Anyone on EON Next Drive EV tariff and any views on it ? Having changed cars my new Kia and existing Easee One charger setup is not compatible with IO which I have used for last couple of years. I have swopped to Octopus Go for now, which gives a fixed 5 hours a night cheap rate, Eon gives 7 hours.
Not with EON, but you might want to think about the OVO Charge Anytime tariff too. The plus side is that you can get the 7p/kWh at any time (hence the name) not just at fixed hours overnight and there is no increase to your daytime electricity rate either. The downside is that you only get the 7p rate for your EV charging and not the whole house.
You do need either a compatible charger or a compatible EV. Currently the Kia EV3 is listed on their beta list. I guess this means that it should work but might just mean that you get a horrible buggy experience for a while and then they drop it completely. Thought I'd mention it as an option though.
Anyone on EON Next Drive EV tariff and any views on it ? Having changed cars my new Kia and existing Easee One charger setup is not compatible with IO which I have used for last couple of years. I have swopped to Octopus Go for now, which gives a fixed 5 hours a night cheap rate, Eon gives 7 hours.
You're not tied to a car brand its just cheap 1200-0700
I'm on it, don't expect the same Ollie customer service as Eon's, it is woeful at best but you'll get any issues resolved eventually.
off peak as you say 7p and with my solar I'm getting 16.5p for exporting excess back to grid.
I can send you a referral code if you wish.
Extended hours is a red herring IMO; 5 hours a night on OG gives me 35kWh per night and 245kWh / week if I needed it - that's 900 miles per week or 45k miles per year.
EON would give me 2 more hours per night but I don't need it and i suspect not many others do either.
7p vs 8.5p - sounds tempting. However, even on my relatively high mileage (13-14k per year = 260/wk = 70-odd kWh that's saving me £1 a week. I'm totally OK paying that just to avoid having to deal with E.ON's service.
YMMV (literally) and for some £50 a year might be significant.
Can anyone give a quick explainer on how chargers work,
The car is a hybrid so i doubt i'll use public chargers that often, but as the car is new i thought it made sense just to make sure everything works.
The charger had a claimed output of 150wkh, the car a claimed 50kwh. But the presented charge speed was 32kwh?
I started from the battery at 8% and took it up to 60%
Just curious where the speed issue is?
Did you (or can you) precondition the battery? Getting the maximum charge rate requires the battery to be at the optimal temperature.
I had my first play on a public charger today. Similar story, didn’t need to but car is new (to me) and wanted to try it a few times before I had to do it in anger. Had a bit of spare time and there is a bank of Ionity chargers nearby with lots showing as free.
First issue when I got there was that the instructions were in Dutch and I couldn’t work out how to change it. But no matter, there was a button marked start on the card reader, so I pressed that and presented my card. It seemed to accept that so I plugged the charger into the car. The display changed and said something in Dutch which looked as though it could have been something about communicating with the car. Then it started to charge. Got a charge rate of around 127kw at 50% charge which dropped to around 50kw at 80%. At which point I pressed the stop button on the charger. I thought I would have to present my card again but it just stopped and I could unplug the cable from the car. All pretty simple really. Especially considering I couldn’t understand any of the messages 😀
Charging speed is measured in kW (not kWh that's battery capacity, or the size of the battery)
A car will have a max rate it can charge at all 'things' being perfect. Things being battery state of health, battery temperature, battery state of charge etc. Most EVs have quite high max rates these days for external chargers - 150kW is common. However a PHEV like yours will have a lower max rate as they have much smaller batteries and less need for an emergency charge, afterall you have an engine as well. So 50kW is probably right.
Even if your car will do 50kW max rate, it will only do that under optimum circumstances and normally battery temperature is the main culprit, especially on a PHEV as the battery may not have been being used as you drove in to the charger as you could have been on fuel. 32kw is pretty good for a 50kw max rate car, though I'd be annoyed if my car could do 150kW and I was only getting 32!
Needless to say a car will only charge to its max rate, even if the charger is capable of more.
Thanks for the Eon thoughts, think I’ll stick with Octopus Go and try and forget how much easier Intelligent Octopus Go was🙄
EON would give me 2 more hours per night but I don't need it and i suspect not many others do either.
Its more useful in the winter months when there is very little solar time from daylight. I have 15kw batteries that get charged up overnight in winter, I'll also have EV to charge as will this winter so I fully expect to use the full 7hrs
Just curious where the speed issue is?
Your car controls how fast it charges, not the charger. How much current it draws is based on a carefully engineered curve to maximise the speed without damaging the battery. If you are on a low state of charge, most cars start fairly slow, speed up to a peak between say 30-60%, then start to slow down. But it's also temperature dependent - the ideal temperature for charging is a bit warmer than for driving, so if your car doesn't pre-heat the battery (this is a premium feature so not on that many cars) then you'll have to wait for it to warm up before it can take max power. This means that in cooler weather it takes longer, or it may not even reach max. Likewise in extremely hot conditions it can be slower too.
Just curious where the speed issue is?
As well as what everyone else above said, you can also experience less charging speed than the max if all the other chargers on the site are in use. Some sites do not have an electric supply 'big' enough to power all chargers at their full speed at the same time, so you can get some throttling.
I once went to a fast 75kw DC charger (evyee), 2 bays, one charging unit. One bay was occupied and a byd atto3 was mid battery and drawing a solid 60kw+. I plugged in the Corsa e and the atto3 plummeted to 25kw and the Corsa e took the rest of the available capacity.
On a future visit the role was reversed and a 2nd car took the dominant bay and reduced the available power to the Corsa e.
My non scientific analysis of this was that there was a faster bay. So future visits I opted for that bay or went up the road to the Osprey charger if it was occupied.
It’s more likely that the difference in charging speeds between bays was due to the individual charging curves of the cars.
The cars themselves will throttle back the charging speeds depending on where they are on the curve.
The BYD Atto 3 will drop from 60ish kW to 30ish when the battery hits 80% charge for example, almost exactly as you described.
Charging curves for most cars are available on the Fastned website and it’s pretty useful if you know how your car is supposed to react when charging.
No. Remember that the problem with older cars is smaller batteries, not worse efficiency. Those old Leafs are not bad in efficiency terms, just that the battery is tiny. So your charge will cost less because the battery is small.
Lithium batteries do generally also lose a little efficiency because their internal resistance increases as they age.
When I considering a Leaf, I read somewhere that this was a particular problem on the 30KWH battery pack, so be wary!
I know there is an "EV charging" thread. With the search function on the new forum I was even able to find it, which was a pleasant surprise. But it seems to be focused on home charging rather than public chargers, so I'll stick this here instead.
I had my first "play" with a public charger yesterday and (despite not being able to work out how to change the instructions from Dutch to English) it worked OK (if we ignore the eye-watering price). But I've got a few trips to various parts of the UK planned over the summer and I'd be interested to know how you approach these. Do you:
- Install apps for all the major charge point operators (CPOs). Looking at videos on how to use different chargers they all seem to use the app. I've got enough space on my phone and could just stick them all in a folder. I'm not keen on having my payment details stored in multiple places, but maybe they let you pay with ApplePay or something.
- Pick a couple of CPOs that you like and try to plan your journeys to just use those.
- Ignore apps altogether and just use a bank card (which is what I did yesterday). Presumably a phone also works using ApplePay.
I'd also be interested to hear whether you plan long journeys out in advance with charging stops that you try to stick to, or do you just drive until you need a charge and then find an available charger? The need to pre-condition in order to get maximum charge speed seems to require some planning. I guess you don't need to decide more than half an hour before charging, but trying to find available chargers on the satnav while driving doesn't sound ideal.
I mostly use Electroverse with a (free) RFID card. No £30 pre auth on a debit card etc and as its linked to my home Octopus account I get 8% off most chargers.
I'd also be interested to hear whether you plan long journeys out in advance with charging stops that you try to stick to
I usually know where I'm planning to stop, but sometimes I'll use the Electroverse app to find something local. My car doesn't have preconditioning.
I know there is an "EV charging" thread. With the search function on the new forum I was even able to find it, which was a pleasant surprise. But it seems to be focused on home charging rather than public chargers, so I'll stick this here instead.
I had my first "play" with a public charger yesterday and (despite not being able to work out how to change the instructions from Dutch to English) it worked OK (if we ignore the eye-watering price). But I've got a few trips to various parts of the UK planned over the summer and I'd be interested to know how you approach these. Do you:
- Install apps for all the major charge point operators (CPOs). Looking at videos on how to use different chargers they all seem to use the app. I've got enough space on my phone and could just stick them all in a folder. I'm not keen on having my payment details stored in multiple places, but maybe they let you pay with ApplePay or something.
- Pick a couple of CPOs that you like and try to plan your journeys to just use those.
- Ignore apps altogether and just use a bank card (which is what I did yesterday). Presumably a phone also works using ApplePay.
I'd also be interested to hear whether you plan long journeys out in advance with charging stops that you try to stick to, or do you just drive until you need a charge and then find an available charger? The need to pre-condition in order to get maximum charge speed seems to require some planning. I guess you don't need to decide more than half an hour before charging, but trying to find available chargers on the satnav while driving doesn't sound ideal.
I Use the octopus electroverse card as my first choice, but if the charger in question doesn't take that, then I just use my credit card.
I do also have the tesla app, as a lot of the tesla public chargers still don't take contactless payment, so you have to use their app.
This has covered all my public charging use, but admittedly I've not done much public charging
Thanks. I guess the Electroverse card/app makes most sense if you are on Octopus (so the charge goes onto your electricity bill). I'm on OVO and it's working well enough that I don't see a need to switch yet. So Electroverse would just be another payment card I guess. I think I read somewhere that the Zapmap card/app worked on all the same chargers as Electroverse, so maybe that's another option I could explore.
I'm not too bothered by the pre-auth charge for using a credit/debit card but a discount on the advertised price never hurts.
I guess the Electroverse card/app makes most sense if you are on Octopus (so the charge goes onto your electricity bill)
It can do, but mine just comes out via debit card on the day. Helps to keep it separate to home charging costs.
Ignore apps altogether and just use a bank card
This. I can't be bothered fannying about to save a few quid.
I'd also be interested to hear whether you plan long journeys out in advance with charging stops that you try to stick to
The first time we went a proper long way in ours, I had planned it out using ABRP but I threw it out of the window (not literally, I actually left it in the glove box) as the car's satnav did a much better job. It doesn't know all the networks (yet, it's being updated regularly) but it does have up-to-the-minute information as to which chargers are busy and it will re-route you to an alternative. It's very good. I believe on the more modern Hyundai ones you can tell it what your favourite cafes etc are and it will factor that in. We found in one situation that Zap Map and the car had different ideas about how busy a charger was - but we went with the car, and it was dead right.
The in-car system is the only one that knows how much charge your car actually has at any given point. So if there's a traffic jam, bad weather, or a diversion etc then it can factor that in. Your pre-planned route does not.
This. I can't be bothered fannying about to save a few quid.
That was kind of my thinking too. Maybe the Tesla app is worth having as there might still be some without card readers and (public) Tesla chargers don't seem to always show up in the in-car satnavs yet. But my one experiencing of charging using a debit card seemed simple enough so not sure why I wouldn't just stick with that.
The in-car system is the only one that knows how much charge your car actually has at any given point. So if there's a traffic jam, bad weather, or a diversion etc then it can factor that in.
I think ABRP can now link to your car app (depending on make/model) so it can pull the state of charge from that. I understand there is a bit of a lag though and it obviously needs the car to have a signal.
I've got into the mindset of using apps (mostly Google maps) through CarPlay and just assume they will always be better than the in-car satnav because they were with my old ICE car. It seems that's not really the case with modern EVs though and the in-car system seems to have pretty much all of the things that I've got used to (live traffic, weather, speed camera etc) plus much better integration with the car (state of charge, directions displayed in various places).
I think ABRP can now link to your car app (depending on make/model)
I think you need a subscription for that though?
You do indeed.
On a Tesla charger now. The last one was 33cents and this one 45cents.
I'd have used an even cheaper iecharge one a few kms back but can't login because it won't work with the memorised e-mail and password, won't send me a new password and if I try to reregister tells me the e-mail is already used. I'll try removing the app, reinstalling and using a different e-mail.
Tesla has never failed me yet.
The Zoe is still charging at 21 kW at 98%, not bad, off we go.
Got a date for my charger install. Next Friday. Hopefully it all goes smoothly...
I've got into the mindset of using apps (mostly Google maps) through CarPlay and just assume they will always be better than the in-car satnav because they were with my old ICE car. It seems that's not really the case with modern EVs though and the in-car system seems to have pretty much all of the things that I've got used to (live traffic, weather, speed camera etc) plus much better integration with the car (state of charge, directions displayed in various places).
I haven’t used the Kia one to map out a long route including charging stops, however the system in my previous i4 was far superior to CarPlay offerings, and was really smart at routing to available fast chargers. I hope EV3 will do similar.
New Tesla charger in the north sea 🤔. 
The lease on our Ionic 5 is ending in October so we're considering what to do.
We have loved it on every level. As far as the car goes the only issue is the poor turning circle but we can live with it quite easily.
The only reason we leased was we were unsure about resale value and how the market would react to secondhand EVs.
Given we have charging point and solar panels running costs and market acceptability we thinking about buying our current car outright, the Hyundai is very very good.
However the only issue is that we don't need a car that is so big. We want the range (real world in winter 220 miles) so have halfheartedly been looking at alternatives. The only one that Mrs Wingnuts and I can agree on currently is the Renault 5 (or even the Alpine A290 at a push) Does anyone have any experience? Going for a test drive halfway through next week b ut would like some pointers if possible.
Would one of the Konas be suitable? Smaller than the Ioniq but with similar efficiency? Tesla Model 3 is smaller and more efficient than the Ioniq, but, well…Elon.
I know what you mean. The one thing I’d change with my EV3 is that I wish it were smaller. But until solid state batteries become mainstream I think, if you want the range you have to accept the size. The Renault 5 is lovely but don’t think you’d get near to 220 in the winter. EV-database reckon 170 which might be a bit pessimistic for a UK winter but if you’ve got the long range Ionic 5 their estimate of 30 miles less range probably isn’t far off. Only you would know if that would actually be a problem though.
I'd be looking at a Kona or a Niro. Or an EV3
Or an id3. I love ours.
Our e-niro is plenty big enough for a family of four and since we bought it in February we're averaging 4.3 miles/kWh which would give 275 miles if I ran it completely flat. External dimensions are similar to a tall family hatch.
My EDF tariff from 2020 has just been pulled with no notice. Really pissed as it was cheap 2200-0700 and all weekend for all leccy.
It was by far the best set up for me. Two EVs and load up on dishwasher / dryer at the weekends.
I really do feel like all these shitty energy markets going forwards - (as more people use the smart tariffs and late night charging ) will now squeeze you into a tiny windows of opportunity to get cheap energy. As well as all manner of special opt-ins and bollocks.
No idea what to do next. Convenience and more value hours is more important to me than absolute low cost.
Also I don't really want a smart tariff as I'm on old dumb charger. I want to use my appliances across the board too.
Any suggestions but not octopus - can't stand their colourful fairground tactics and website approach. (I have them at work.)
The e-niro is a weird one as the efficiency is excellent. It’s a bit embarrassing for Kia really that their dedicated EV (EV3) generally has worse real-world efficiency than the modified ICE e-niro. So, although the range of an EV3 looks much better on paper, it’s not so different in practice.
If you are looking for the smallest (or at least the narrowest) new EV that can deliver 220 miles of range in winter then I think it is hard to look beyond the ID3 (or Cupra Born if you prefer the looks of that).
If you are looking at used cars then I reckon the e-niro is still a good shout. Can’t really see a lot of point to the niro-EV now that the EV3 is out though unless you specifically want something that is one year old.
Mate's got an e-niro.
Staggered how much it can do compared to similar vehicles. (320 summer)
I think it must be combination of weight and size. Boot is a bit too small for me though with all my kit.
There are loads of those coming on to the used market as there were loads put into the lease market 3/4 years ago. You can even lease them used.
Still awaiting my Grandland - looks like there's a recall which has delayed them - some battery software leasing to overheating cells.
I think it must be combination of weight and size. Boot is a bit too small for me though with all my kit.
I thought that, but there is a solution. Remove all the foam and plastic under trays, then make a new boot floor with some thick ply. Fit a new rubber mat and you then have 100 liters more space. I bought a frunk tray and keep the cables in there
Ours ex lease, bought it from a main dealer with 3.5 years warranty left.
@rone Hopefully somebody will be along soon with a more helpful answer soon, but I think you might struggle if you are going to rule out both Octopus and a smart charger.
The rationale for offering a cheap overnight tariff was that the electricity companies could pretty much guarantee that supply would exceed demand for pretty much all of the night. As more people charge batteries (EV and/or home storage) overnight that assumption isn't going to hold. The best answer (from their point of view) is smart chargers so they can manage the demand and match it to supply. Otherwise, as you say, the window where they can be sure that supply will exceed demand is just going to get smaller and smaller.
In general, I do think that, as EV drivers, we have to accept that most of the benefits that we've traditionally enjoyed (tax breaks to purchase, grants to install chargers, lower VED, exemptions for things like luxury-car tax and cheaper electricity) are only short term. At the risk of getting on to your favourite subject 😀 the revenue has to come from somewhere and electricity companies are only going to sell us their electrons on the cheap if nobody else wants them.
I'm hopeful (possibly naively so) that what will be left are cars that are less polluting, require less servicing and last longer. Potentially cheaper to buy too, although I'm sure they'll offset that by selling us more and more features. I very much doubt that they are going to be cheaper to run in the long run though.
Based on my experience that's in years rather than weeks, they are way cheaper in the long run.
In general, I do think that, as EV drivers, we have to accept that most of the benefits that we've traditionally enjoyed (tax breaks to purchase, grants to install chargers, lower VED, exemptions for things like luxury-car tax and cheaper electricity) are only short term.
For sure - we've had an EV for 8 years now and all that is coming to pass.
Glad I'm only in an 18month lease this time.
This country is too driven by profitable extraction at the expense of every other factor and lack of actual competition keeps prices roughly the same - just different distribution.
Thanks though!
(I really liked the initial simplicity of plugging my car in and that was it - just before bedtime or at the weekend ad hoc. Dead easy.)
Octopus website looks like someone was initially designing a fairground website mixed with a gameshow and forgot about the simple stuff. I'm not interested in paying for an expensive smart charger either.
... Spin the wheel. ****'s sake.
I think it must be combination of weight and size. Boot is a bit too small for me though with all my kit.
I thought that, but there is a solution. Remove all the foam and plastic under trays, then make a new boot floor with some thick ply. Fit a new rubber mat and you then have 100 liters more space. I bought a frunk tray and keep the cables in there
Ours ex lease, bought it from a main dealer with 3.5 years warranty left.
I will pass that on to my mate. Mind you he's too lazy to even drop the seats to get full capacity.
Can you give me an idea of what you paid please?
A frunk tray? Does that just retro fit under the bonnet?
I feel I was an early adopter with this stuff (and lpg before that) but I'm totally out of touch with current options.
Spin the wheel. ****'s sake
It's a simple & cheap customer engagement and retention device - I expect they compare attrition of people who "play" vs those who don't and see favourable results.
And if they can control your car's charging directly you don't need a smart charger., just plug it in and let them do their thing.
It's a simple & cheap customer engagement and retention device
Each to their own I just want the best value without that stuff.
Retention should be based on other factors built around easy to understand bills etc.
I don't like the idea of passing stuff to the consumer to manipulate the best price.
Not sure if I shared this little upgrade to my frunk on here. Apologies if it is a repeat but I can't see it. Still has room underneath for the inflation/sealant kit and another area in the boot for the cable. It does make the cable access a little tedious when I need them as I have a boot liner but I don't charge with them often.
Can you educate me on the whole battery-preconditioning malarky? The theory sounds good; get the battery up to optimum temperature while you are still plugged in at home to improve efficiency. But I've found a few issues in practice.
First, I've got the charger set up to get the car to my desired percentage by 7am. So, when I get up it has finished charging and if I start preconditioning the battery it's not going to start again. I guess I can just hit the boost button and feed in some more juice, but at my standard rate not the 7p rate I had overnight.
This morning the app told me the car would benefit from preconditioning the battery, so I turned this on ten minutes before I left home. It was still going when I left. After I'd been driving for ten minutes the average efficiency for the journey was 1.8 m/kWh (i.e. awful). It looked as though preconditioning was using around 5 kW of power. At that point the car stopped preconditioning but after another ten minutes (which was the end of my journey) it still only showed 2.8 m/kWh for the whole trip (well down on the 3.6-4.2 I've been getting recently).
So, based on today's trip it looks as though preconditioning would only be sensible for a journey of 30 minutes or more. Does that sound about right and does that equation change significantly when the temperature drops?
Can you give me an idea of what you paid please?
A frunk tray? Does that just retro fit under the bonnet?
For the car? About £17k but it's the top spec and from a Kia dealer so you can definitely go cheaper. The local car supermarket seemed to be full of ex taxis though.
The tray was this one:
EVSALE.IE
It's expensive for what it is so I probably wouldn't bother unless you really need the space. You just remove the plastic cover and put this in its place.
The tray was this one:
Thanks. I keep looking at these for my Enyaq but the price keeps me from buying one!
I probably need to spend some time reading back through this thread as there's some great info from the bits I've scanned through.
I have an ageing Octavia estate that I'm thinking of replacing. I was just going to get something along similar lines having always been an EV sceptic. Anyway, just looking on Autotrader I got curious and was actually surprised to see that 2nd hand EV's aren't all that expensive and thinking about it, buying one probably makes sense.
We're a family of 4 (kids are 10 & 7) and we have the Octavia (2.0TDI VRS on 165K with rusty sills), a Polo 1.2 TSI and our old T4 Camper. in the family. I have a 100 mile round trip commute which is now on a daily basis thanks (no more hybrid working here thanks to a policy change). We have chargers at work but they're over subscribed but I could easily get a couple of days commute off a charge if necessary so can just charge at home as we have a decent drive. We're already on an Octopus tariff so could swap that to an EV tariff.
I really like the look of the Cupra Born, it looks loads nicer than the ID3. What are they like to live with? Is it much bigger inside than a Polo for example? With having a camper I don't think I really need an estate and if the need arises I guess we can hire a larger ICE car occasionally (T4 is very slow!). I also like the look of the Kia EV6 and the Ioniq 5. Polestars always look nice too.
Is anyone else doing a similar commute using an EV? What kind of prices are home charger installations as I guess I'd have to factor that in too.
I'm sure the info I'm looking for is in this thread and more so located in various corners of the internet but writing this out helps me rationalise my thoughts a little.
Thanks for reading.
It I was doing a daily 100 mile commute I would use an EV.
As for the cost of a home charger just add around £1000 it to the cost of the car or find a car that is £1000 cheaper than the one you want?!
It'll probably pay for itself in 6 months anyway.
roverpig, preconditioning makes minimal difference when charging at home. Where it is good is if you are going to use rapid charging and you get in on for 15 mins or so in advance of plugging in, then the battery is nice and warm and ready to charge up quickly.
I haven’t played with it in the EV3 yet, in my i4, if on a long drive and using the nav to route to available and fast chargers it would automatically start preconditioning on the way there to get it all ready.
2.5 hr drive today from South Lanarkshire to Northumberland, auto everything on most of the time, air, steering, cruise, and set at 70 or 60mph. 3.7mi/kWh. 2 of us in front, dog and road bike in back seats and across behind the back seat (wheels off in bags). Boot completely full. Very easy and relaxed journey. Left with 100%, arrived with 58%, will find a charger in a few days.
Thanks @iainc I think I was misunderstanding what the app was telling me and maybe using the wrong term too. I wasn’t talking about preconditioning ahead of charging. I’m ok with that I think. Either set a charger as a destination in the satnav or turn it on manually around half an hour before charging. No, I was talking about warming the battery up before you start driving to improve efficiency. I thought that was a thing but a bit more searching suggests it’s something you’d only consider if it was properly cold.
Those efficiency numbers sound good to me. Not sure I’m quite hitting that on a run with decent amounts of 70mph driving, but it is fairly hilly round here and I’m sure I’ve still got a lot to learn about how to drive efficiently.
I really like the look of the Cupra Born, it looks loads nicer than the ID3. What are they like to live with? Is it much bigger inside than a Polo for example? With having a camper I don't think I really need an estate and if the need arises I guess we can hire a larger ICE car occasionally (T4 is very slow!). I also like the look of the Kia EV6 and the Ioniq 5. Polestars always look nice too.
had my Born for over a year now and really happy with it. I agree it looks better than the ID3 and I found the deals Cupra were offering made it cheaper too (I got a service pack incl tyres/pads) 0% and a generous trade in/dealer contribution that made it nearly 20% a month cheaper than the VW. My only gripes are, I do miss my roofbars but I can get the bikes in the back ok with the seats down and there is not great head room in the back for 6ft+ people (ie my son). Any specific questions just shout.
I was talking about warming the battery up before you start driving to improve efficiency. I thought that was a thing but a bit more searching suggests it’s something you’d only consider if it was properly cold.
ah, got you. I think for normal UK conditions it’s marginal gains at best, and assuming you are home charging on a cheap tariff probably not much of a consideration IMO.
These frunk things - I'm interested, the space in the boot in my Kona is the one compromise I could do with improving.
I had a look earlier and the 'engine cover' just lifts off with some sort of popper type buttons, does the frunk just push down onto them in place? And if you fill it with heavier stuff like charging cables or jacks and inflator kits, those buttons hold it from sliding around?
I had a look earlier and the 'engine cover' just lifts off with some sort of popper type buttons, does the frunk just push down onto them in place? And if you fill it with heavier stuff like charging cables or jacks and inflator kits, those buttons hold it from sliding around?
That's how it works on my car. I assume the Kona would be the same.
I think for normal UK conditions it’s marginal gains at best, and assuming you are home charging on a cheap tariff probably not much of a consideration IMO.
Yes, I think I was just misunderstanding the Kia app. It said I should precondition the battery but I guess it meant “if you want to charge” not “before you drive the car”. It’s a bit odd that the app was saying that when the car was sat on my drive having just been charged, but to be be fair, I only noticed it because I was digging into the menus and I guess that all it was doing was reporting the temperature of the battery in what it thought was a helpful way.
Warming the battery up before going on a long trip could theoretically be useful on a very cold day I guess but probably only at temperatures we never really get to in the UK.
@Paul-B As others have said, for a 100mile daily commute where you can charge at home, an EV makes a lot of sense.
If you like the look of the Born then I reckon it’s a good choice. There are a few issues with the older model but I don’t think any of them are deal-breakers. Some people find that they accidentally press the haptic buttons on the steering wheel, which can be annoying. But it seems to depend on how you hold the wheel. I’m a ten-to-two driver and didn’t find it an issue at all. I think it’s mainly the quarter-to-three drivers who struggle. The infotainment system can be a bit buggy and laggy at times (better on the new models) but it’s a minor issue. The fact that the temperature controls aren’t backlit (so you can’t see them at night) is a bit daft, but a friend who has owned an ID3 for four years tells me that you soon learn where they are anyway.
For me the styling wasn’t quite to my taste (I’m a bit old for bucket seats) and more importantly, we still get snow up here so the low clearance and RWD were a bit of a concern. But that’s all minor and specific to me. It was a good car I thought.
For a home charger I’d agree that a budget of around £1,000 sounds about right. I paid £1,129 recently but that was not the cheapest charger and I could have got it just under the grand with a different charger. There are some grants depending on where you live but these are tending to be phased out now. Some dealers may also offer you a “cheap” charger when you buy the car. That might be a good option but just make sure that the charger they are offering will really work with the energy tariff that you want to use. Some of the cheaper “EV tariffs” (like intelligent octopus or ovo charge anytime) require specific chargers or specific makes of car to work.
@roverpig thanks for the reply. I need to just go and take a few test drives I think and see what I get along with. The sums certainly look attractive especially as the primary usage is commuting and lighter family duties.