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I've just looked at the Tesla app for chargers and it seems as if they have opened a charging station at Gretna. It wasn't on the app last week when I was planning for a trip north of the border. The appearance of the station means there is sub 140 mile gaps between stations from where I live to Inverness.
A few more stations have appeared elsewhere in the UK so that makes it much cheaper for me to get around.
The Tesla chargers at gretna services have been closed for some time. Have they moved them elsewhere or reopened the ones at the services?? I can recommend the Tesla chargers at Larkhall NR Motherwell, there's about 17 of them.
From what I can glean from the Ohme site, a load monitoring cable would be a good thing and is necessary for charging at the full 7kW. Why would the quote not include this?
dont think its necesary, but is a nice feature in the scenario where your total load of the house gets close to the limit of the main house fuse, the charger can detect this and reduce its load so that you dont blow your main house fuse.
Ours is set to reduce the output of the charger when the total house load exceeds 80a , the house is on a 100a fuse. as far as I know the house has never got anywhere close to 80a total load, Think it would take both ovens, the induction hob, the electric shower, a acouple of fan heaters plus the car charger running at max power to do so. The most I have seen is ~50amps. I guess if you had a heat pump you might be more at risk of getting close to the house limits?
I dont think its expensive to add the load sensing capability - I wasnt given a choice when we had ours fitted and as such I thought they all came with it.
edit : the ohme chargers do come with the load sensing cable, so your installer shouldnt really be charging extra for it.
They were in the process of building 14 tesla superchargers at Gretna outlet village (rather than the motorway services) when I was last there three weeks ago. Maybe they are operational now?
edit: according to Zapmap they are now operational and are open to non-tesla peeps.
@greyspoke you mention your install is outside ohme's online limits. Could it be that the installer does not know how much cable your install needs as its a non standard install and at £5 (or whatever it is) a meter they will add this cost when they see how much they use? As mentioned my ohme came with it as standard but was a standard install.
From what I can glean from the Ohme site, a load monitoring cable would be a good thing and is necessary for charging at the full 7kW
Yes this might be needed for houses with lower supplies, we are a modern house with the full 80 or 100A or whatever it is, so we don't have such a thing. We do get 7kW.
Is charger rage a thing ?
I havent' seen it; but as above my car won't send me to chargers that are occupied. There might be issues with cheapskates queueing up to use Tesla chargers because they are significantly cheaper, but I'm happy to pay the premium to avoid that. Others may not be...
Is charger rage a thing ?
I’ve never encountered it.
Generally, if the chargers are busy then you can clock any other EVs that are waiting in the vicinity and everyone knows who was waiting before them and waits their turn and it all kinda just flows naturally.
Having said that, I have only ever had to queue for a charger once, for 5 mins at Ionity Gretna. Ive watched others queuing whilst I have been charging but only ever for a handful of minutes.
Thanks for the replies @andy4d, @julians and @molgrips.
As it is clearly a non-standard installation (by about 20m and a few walls etc.) I went direct to an electrician for a quote, so he has budgeted for the extra cabling he thinks he needs, but he clearly doesn't think he needs the load monitoring, I was wondering what was going on with that (I have also asked him). I can't remember where I read about needing the CT clamp, what I now get is that you can proceed without one if you disable the "load monitoring" option during set-up. I can't see how we would reach 100 amps anyhow, we don't have a hot tub, power shower, electric heating etc.
In general you would use a combined cable (4mm + twisted pair) for an EV charger so the question you need to ask is why would your electrician do things differently from everyone else?
Load monitoring is standard on pretty much every other charger for a reason, and although you don’t have an electric shower or fetid sex pond now, you might get one. You would also need it if you ever get a home battery install, as they can pull an additional 5kW or more when charging. And on top of that, you might have a 60A fuse, which you can’t confirm without looking.
Oh, and check the electrician is happy to pull your main fuse to complete the work, as I’ve discovered that some (particularly bigger companies), are no longer prepared to work if they can’t isolate the supply via a two pole isolator switch prior to the consumer unit.
Interesting @flaperon. I should have said 40m or so total wiring distance, if that makes a diff. He's had a look inside the meter cupboard so I guess he is happy we don't have an isolator switch.
They were in the process of building 14 tesla superchargers at Gretna outlet village (rather than the motorway services) when I was last there three weeks ago. Maybe they are operational now?
edit: according to Zapmap they are now operational and are open to non-tesla peeps.
Looks like its already popular. OK its bank holiday Friday but the Tesla app now saying 1 out of 14 stalls available.
Just spotted on the Tesla app there is a new Supercharger at Todhills rest area southbound on the M6 just down the road from Gretna. Its also open to the public. Between Tesla and the other networks Gretna-Carlisle area has turned into a charging hotspot.
OK its bank holiday Friday
It would be interesting to gather some data now actually because this weekend is pretty much the busiest of the year.
There's a guy on speakev.com who occasionally posts usage data like below. He might well do so this weekend.
Here's the thread https://www.speakev.com/threads/charging-hubs-when-where-are-there-queues.177854/page-9#replies
My new hobby is charger station watching. Well the ones I'm going to visit in the future anyway. I never watched petrol stations in the past as there wasn't an app. It's a bit like watching for the prices to drop in online shops, I think?
4mm + twisted pair
Sorry, should've said 6mm there.
Just drove down to the alps and back, I note there appeared to be plenty of charging points on the route.
The question, I managed to do the c800miles with one stop for fuel. This was a 1l polo. So I get that electric cars aren't going to go 400miles between charging. but what would be the realistic range on a motorway/paege trip. trying to understand options when I look at replacing the car. ideally I don't want something much bigger, etc.
For 90% of journeys there electric would be absolutely fine. Just trying to understand the outlier case.
I managed to do the c800miles with one stop for fuel.
Probably 4-5 stops. How many times did you stop for food or a natural break?
@mrmo I have just done a 450mile trip in my EV, fully loaded and 4 adults with lots of 120kmph+ motorway driving in my 58kw car. I was getting about 170-180 miles between charges as I was only using about 60%ish between top ups (running it down to about 20% then charging to about 80%), so could do longer stints If happy to run it lower/charge it longer. Spent about 90mins charging at fast chargers in 3 stops but could have done 2 longer stops instead (and I arrived at destination with 35% so could have charged less too). Was getting roughly 4.5miles per kWh but this is an estimate as I didn’t pay too much attention to it.
Probably 4-5 stops. How many times did you stop for food or a natural break?
er, not much, lost 30 mins between Verbier and the Channel Tunnel. The English side was just deeply unpleasant and one 10min stop.
@andy4d, thanks, gives me a rough idea of what is possible.
If you look on ev-database.com they give “real world” ranges for various EVs but also ranges in different scenarios such as highway summer, which is 70mph in warm conditions. Bear in mind that you will probably want to recharge between 10 and 20 percent (to avoid any range anxiety) and won’t charge beyond 80 to 90 percent (as charging gets really slow at the end) so 70% of the “highway summer” range would be a conservative estimate for how frequently you might need to charge each car on that type of journey. There is a big difference in that figure for different EVs though.
er, not much, lost 30 mins between Verbier and the Channel Tunnel. The English side was just deeply unpleasant and one 10min stop.
Edge case indeed. Well you won't be doing that in an EV.
Would anyone care to guess when we'll hit the bottom of the used EV price curve?
I had a quick play with the Chrome extension that shows the price history on Autotrader. Had a look at Smart # 1 for example. Some cars have been on sale since Jan/Feb (so demand isn't high) and the price has dropped £5-6k in that time. Similar story with a Cupra Born. There is one that was originally listed in February for £9.5k more than they are currently asking. OK there is always an element of dealers listing cars at optimistic prices and then dropping them after a bit but even just looking at the original price that similar cars were listed at seems to suggest that prices have dropped over 10% in the past six months. Makes me think I should probably wait (at least) another six months. Especially as nobody (else) buys cars in January 🙂
what would be the realistic range on a motorway/paege trip
There's a bit of a difference there because motorways are 70mph and Peages are 81mph limits. However, you can use ABRP and choose a car to experiment with it. However ABRP is a bit conservative, it knocks a load off the official range figures apparently out of pessimism. Some cars can achieve their WTLP, some can't; Mine exceeds it but I only know that from experience. It wouldn't exceed it on a Peage though.
Would anyone care to guess when we’ll hit the bottom of the used EV price curve?
I am absolutely not the person to ask.. I bought my first house in 2007...
so we all know the MGs are relatively cheap chinese stuff, and the estate's got a rubbish boot, but £20k (new) for the long range estate or the (regular range) SUV version is pretty cheap..
https://www.baylis.uk.com/mg/offers/pre-reg-delivery-mileage-offers/
61kWh battery rated for 250 mile range WLTP
0-60: 7.3 seconds
156bhp
Having ignored this thread for 175 pages I might have some reading to catch up on ....
After 11 years of service it might just be time to replace my trusty Golf and it's increasingly looking like a used EV is in my future.
Currently looking like it'll be an iD.3 at the mo because we like them and there's some good deals around, we also have the added bonus of not being in a rush so can can wait for the right one. Also need to investigate a charger but have already picked up that the Ohme is a decent choice and since discovered that they play nicely with both VWs and our energy supplier OVO - so that might be a no brainer.
@andy4d I like the Born too …. but Mrs M doesn’t, so it’s a non-starter.
Your missus prefers the ID3 to the Cupra Born? Maybe time to find a new missus!!
(Just kidding, mine said exactly the same and ended up costing me a load more money persuading me to get an Audi!! I really really wanted the Cupra!)
I did watch quite a lot of videos and the Born did appear to be a better car than the ID3. But it’s probably marginal and more down to personal taste.
Not looked into the Born too much as it was quickly dismissed, of the reviews I looked at, it did do well.
Briefly looked at e-Trons but the early ones haven’t got great range and the newer stuff is SUV territory which is bigger than I need, we’ve got the dinosaur-burning estate for that.
What's the budget?
First ev driving experiences are very positive here (2021 Zoe, third week of driving it but only local so far). Went to visit a mate last night and pootling around looking for a parking space was so restful. Also the almost instant de-misting was great as Cardiff suffered biblical rainstorms last night. This included some monster puddles. I took these carefully, but only when I got home did it it occur to me that all those 600v electrics would have got a bit damp.
And sticking to 20mph is deffo easier even without using the speed limiter. Still to do a long trip requiring a re- charge, but we have got some local slow chargers to work.
Also it must be said that modern car bells and whistles (rear camera, phone connection etc) are nice. This car replaced a 2007 Fabia, and our other car has a cassette player...
Re. Roverpig- I'd guess uk used prices will continue to drop as there's a lot of leased cars entering the market and you can't cheaply export used UK cars to Europe... supply and demand in a limited market.
Anyone here owned an EV6?
Anyone here owned an EV6?
Not yet…. But I have one on the way.
A change of job has necessitated the departure of my fabulous Genesis GV60 and the EV6 is the closest I can get to it from the new list.
Currently have a temporary VW ID4 which is OK but feels a bit like a step backwards.
@molgrips it’s more finding something that’s good value and Mrs M also likes. That said, less than £500/mth ?.
Current front runner’s an ex-demo iD.3 58kw with a few extras that’ll work out at about £330/mth. Weirdly I’m not allowed a Caravelle or Multivan but an iD.Buzz would be fine because it’s not a van … ??? But they’re too expensive and we’re not replacing the big car right now.
Just how you like it, how it's been I've been looking other cars, but I've seen a few low mileage 2nd hand ones, and it looks a lot of car for the money.
Similar to ionic 5, but that's not interesting
I love the EV6. Really nice to drive, comfortable, more than fast enough if you put your foot down, loads of space.
SatNav is good, radio is good and everything just works.
I have the GT Line S so it's got plenty of toys, inc. a really good head up display and excellent parking cameras.
Done just under 10k miles in it so far without any trouble at all. Range varies between 240-ish to 310-ish miles on a full charge depending on ambient temperature and whether heating or A/C is on or not.
Anyone experienced an EC30 yet? Although I’m struggling with the concept of no dashboard or buttons, it seems a consideration for company EV vs Current diesel estate due to its keen pricing.
And crossing over to the other thread, if I have normal mains power in the garage is this good enough for a wall charger?
Thanks
You mean the EX30?
The Volvo, yes.
@kryton57 a wall box will be 7kw and about 40amps so will want to draw straight from your fuse box via a fat cable (not the technical term, you can probably guess I’m no sparky). You’ll be able to do 3-pin charging but it’ll be slow (around 2kw).
Ok thanks, that’s a bummer. The garage has mains electric but is 50m from the house, and the fuse box is in the house under stairs cupboard. Something to consider.
I had one for a hire car for a few days. It dove and handled well (fast, fluid and tactile handling) and seemed well put together. No problems (unlike the MG I also had for a few days). Lack of buttons was a bit of a pain, but you do get used to it. Rear space and rear visibility was poor. The kids complained it was very dark in the rear. No pan roof on this one and had the dark cloth interior. Boot was okay, but highish load point if that’s an issue. Seemed to suffer a significant drop in range above 65-68mph. The MG ZS we had was fine upto 75mph and the fell off a cliff.
I am looking at 2 EV cars, same model one with 40k miles and 71 plate (with towbar fitted) other with 10k miles on 21 plate and will need towbar for bike rack.
The 71 plate one is £3.5k less. I will be adding 6k miles per year.
Which one is going to be better value ?