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You were had. There's probably a years braking left in them
I wasn’t had as I didn’t get them changed, I’m not a total idiot!
Building regs / accessibility. I wanted mine on a low wall and installer couldn't. Just googled and it is a thing
I read that exact line from building regs and thought as much, but it doesn't state top middle or bottom for the reference. I believe it's the bottom since another line mentions controls at 1.2 - 1.4, but It's not called out.
Hi Diggery what have your installers advised, I have had 2 installed and found them to be really flexible.
I read that exact line from building regs and thought as much, but it doesn't state top middle or bottom for the reference. I believe it's the bottom since another line mentions controls at 1.2 - 1.4, but It's not called out.
Can someone sense check my thinking here please. I have an untethered charging point on the side of my garage. I plug in most evening to charge and have it all controlled by the app for saving money and limiting charge times etc etc.
I am now becoming a little bit lazier and fancy leaving the charging cable plugged into the charger and just fixing a hanging hook to the wall for storage. Save me having the cable in the boot all the time and i dont do long journeys that often that it would be an issue (I wouldn't charge at 7kw out on the road so would hardly ever need it anyhow).
So, can i just leave it plugged into the wall charger? I am able to set the charger to locked using an rfid card it came with so security isnt an issue.
Hi Diggery what have your installers advised, I have had 2 installed and found them to be really flexible.
No installer yet - I have the option of clicking order, but just trying to work out where it's going as it impacts which cable we go for. I'd prefer the shorter one as it would be an overall much neater install if they can go on the low wall right by car.
With the car in front of the gates it's 2m away, with the car behind the gates is about 3.5m so a 5m would be perfect, and easy to manage to either location.
Good to know there may be some flexibility. Trying to work out how far down the rabbit hole we have to go before getting a definitive answer.
If the charging cable is locked like you say then I can't see it being an issue. I am not an electrician ev specialist tho!.
Send a picture of proposed placement to your installer, they will advise.
This is mine, installer saw pics ahead of time and all OK when came to fit
Send a picture of proposed placement to your installer, they will advise.
This is mine, installer saw pics ahead of time and all OK when came to fit
Send a picture of proposed placement to your installer, they will advise.
This is mine, installer saw pics ahead of time and all OK when came to fit
Send a picture of proposed placement to your installer, they will advise.
This is mine, installer saw pics ahead of time and all OK when came to fit 
I don't have an installer yet - that's the next step / task. Thanks for the photo though, gives me hope!
I'd find a good local installer who can advise on your specific placement. Look for one who is an approved installer for your charger, and who has good reviews on their website. I used a local one who was way more responsive than trying using an Octopus installer. They asked for info/pics on placement and fuseboard/meter etc and then were able to talk through any Qs like do i need to change the big fuse on the supply side. They also were able to sort out a grant for workplace charger support. If you're in the SE can recommend voltEV
Does anybody know what is wrong with the Nissan Ariya. Apart from the looks of course 😀
OK, it was overpriced when it was new, but that's true of lots of EVs. For some reason though, one year old, low mileage Ariya's don;t seem to be selling even at half the original price. I'm guessing there is some reason why people are put off them, but not sure what it is.
I dropped it from consideration (second hand cash purchase) because the range on the smaller battery is too low and the bigger battery version is too expensive when compared to similar rivals like Ioniq 5 or EV6 or Polestar 2. It also only comes with a 3 year warranty from new which means buying a 25k car with at best an 18 month manufacturer warranty......on top of this it has a smaller boot than its rivals, slower charging, less performance and looks absolutely hideous.
I guess a few other people share my thoughts.
Thanks @winston You are certainly not alone by the look of things on Autotrader 😀
I tend to think of the Polestar as being a bit of a different car. More like a luxury saloon than a practical hatchback, but that's more perception than reality I guess. I see what you mean though, even if an Ariya works out a bit cheaper than an Ioniq 5 or EV6 you still have that 3 vs 5/7 year warranty issue.
I do wonder if that actually matters in practice though. I've bought 5 brand new cars over the years. Some had little niggles that had to be sorted out under warranty in the first year, but after than the things that tend to go are things that aren't covered by warranty anyway. Still, it's a bit of extra peace of mind I suppose.
Re the Ariya - not sure, perhaps just didn't have any unique selling points. They feel very big, but they're very nice inside. They are of interest to me because they can tow, so I'm interested in cheap used prices.
Finally got a test drive in a VW id3 and id4.To be fair not the greatest experience at VW Guildford, my wife was all for walking out at one point, but anyway.
id3 was utter shite. Noisy in the back of the car, cheap plastics all over the place, so cheap I reckon Dacia uses better materials. Bouncy uncomfortable ride. For 34k or so new. So no. Not ever. None of us liked it.
id4, same platform so I’m told, but utterly different feeling car. Much better, much quieter, it is a tad dull, but as a daily local driver it would do well. The demo car was the pro trim twin motor model (4WD the sales guy said) and it was quite good. Not jaw droppingly good, but good.
I know it’s VW, but I’m sure the golf’s I’ve had before felt much better than these EVs.
and who at VW decided no rear speakers as std in the id3? Cheapskate buggers.
whatever the Kia and Hyundai equivalents are, are what we’re looking at next.
id4, same platform so I’m told, but utterly different feeling car
My colleague has just got a Ford Explorer which shares a platform with the id4. the main difference is it uses google automotive for the UI, rather than the horrible horrible thing in VWs.
He likes it a lot.
I test drove an e-niro today. The acceleration is quite something, ride was a bit jiggly but overall we liked it. Plus it has actual buttons for the heating.
Anyone got a Polestar 3? I'm getting the use of one for a couple of weeks and wondered if there was anything I need to know.
I've have it a couple of days now and I have to say I'm not impressed. The manual is best described as vague, making figuring out it's many functions a bit hit or miss.
First drive resulted in a Car health warning with 2 serious issues; steering fault and Driver support system fault. They weren't present the next time I drove the car and I've subsequently done about 50 miles with no further warnings.
The key fob doesn't always unlock the car; it's supposed to unlock as I approach but on several occasions I have either had to hold the fob against the door handle or unlock with the app. The last time I unlocked with the app the car would drive but the primary display wouldn't power up meaning no speed information.
Of course, it always bloody works when you don't want it to, for example, going upstairs with the fob in my pocket unlocks the car but moving out of range doesn't relock the car... 🙄
On several occasions the cameras have failed to initialise making reversing the behemoth "interesting".
The ride on rough roads is very choppy and wallowy on smooth ones, quite an achievement.
The range is a joke; 111Kwh battery has a WLTP of nearly 400 miles and even with local driving it looks like 200 will be a struggle. I haven't driven on a motorway yet but I understand efficiency is worst when driven at m-way speeds.
The iX I had last year managed that on a much smaller battery and the controls were much more intuitive.
I want to like it, I really do, but when you consider how much it costs it really isn't good enough.
Ive been charging using a 3 pin and am on octopus with the aim to move to intelligent go. There seems to be a large selection of ev charge points and a price difference. Before I take the plunge should I go tethered or untethered? Currently the car is for 8 - 10 miles a day. I see they can integrate with solar panels but what about battery systems? Any advice gratefully recieved
We use a Zappi and it integrates just with with the solar, batteries and the car.
The batteries get charged first, when excess solar starts to get exported (full batteries), the charger notices and starts to charge.
the charger is also configured to grid charge during the cheap period in the morning, so if plugged in it will do this without draining the batteries.
if flicked onto boost at any other time, the car will charge at 7kW drawing as much as possible from the solar and batteries up-to 5kW and the rest from the grid.
Use a Hypervolt, works well with Octopus IG.
If your car is supported by IOG you can sign up with a 3 pin charger - I did that before I had my charger installed and it was fine. Now have a Hypervolt which is IOG compatible but they're still controlling charging via the car.
Also on IOG at present I can't see the sense in charging from solar - any intelligent charging will be at 7p per kWh and their Outgoing tarrif pays 15p so you're better off exporting the excess solar then paying the cheap rate to charge the car.
Before I take the plunge should I go tethered or untethered?
If you go tethered opt for the longest cable you can get (for free).
My other half had a 5m tethered and sometimes it is hard work to plug in if the car is parked with the port diagonally back to front from the charger 🤔😢
should I go tethered or untethered?
I think most people get tethered, but it's just down to preference really. I suppose a tethered cable is less likely to disappear, an untethered cable you can take with you to use elsewhere. If your car came with a type2-type2 cable that's long enough, then I guess an untethered charger install will be a bit cheaper. As someone said above, go for longest cable option.
thanks for the suggestions and considerations. Currently have an appointment for smart meter and then move to a go tariff. Will look into the ev chargers that work with solar and batteries next
I have an untethered cable, but as you can configure the charger to lock the cable in place it is not vulnerable to being stolen. And when I wanted to use a 10m cable I could easily change it over myself.
Assuming you'll be plugging in most nights, having to go in the boot, fish out the cable and connect both ends and then in the morning have to cook up and stash a sometimes wet cable gets annoying quite quickly, I used to have to do this in work most days as I used the untethered ones there.
The tethered connection I have at home now is a lot better to use - time to plug and unplug is a lot shorter plus no need to deal with coiling and storing wet dirty cables.
Zappi or Hypervolt seem to get good reviews and work well with Octopus IG.
First drive resulted in a Car health warning with 2 serious issues; steering fault and Driver support system fault. They weren't present the next time I drove the car and I've subsequently done about 50 miles with no further warnings
If you've just picked up the car from a used car dealer then it's quite likely the 12V battery was low, but it's now charged back up since you drove it. This is pretty common as the cars sit on dealers for ages without doing much driving.
Similarly this will have mullered the range estimate. Wjen you take it on a long trip it will sort itself out. The worst case for EV range reporting is short slow urban driving in cold weather. The heating will be using a couple of kW to get the car up to temperature, but since you are trundling along slowly the motor is also using a couple of kW only so under those conditions it thinks only 50% of the battery capacity is available for driving. Of course, when you get moving the heating will drop to about 500W or so in the cold, and the motor will be using 10-15kW so you now have 95% of the battery available for driving. Sounds paradoxical but it's because the heating cost is energy per time, but the range estimate is based on energy per distance. If you were to use up a whole battery driving in a queue 10 minutes at a time then you might only actually get 200 miles, but on the open road you will get much more. And if the car has only been test driven around the dealer for the last month the calculation will be based on that.
Interesting Harry’s Garage vid out yesterday, where it shows the EV market may be about to change again and a move away from EV, or at least a move to more appropriate EV use
Interesting Harry’s Garage vid out yesterday, where it shows the EV market may be about to change again and a move away from EV, or at least a move to more appropriate EV use
I'd take Harry's video with a large pinch of salt. He's talking about the premium end of things, and about European manufacturers - both of which are having issue being competitive. European mfgs against far cheaper imports from China, and the premium end against hybrids and ICE where those with deep pockets just stump up for fuel for longer trips.
At the run-of-the-mill end of the market EVs sales are steaming ahead if you look at the whole market. Where there is a big change though is the influx of cheap Chinese products. How the European automakers will stay competitive and relevant against this I'm not sure. There's only so much people be willing to pay to have a VW or BMW badge instead of BYD.
There is a lot riding on the VW iD2.
To be fair to Harry, I think he does try to give a balanced and honest view based on his experiences and he makes some interesting points. He's certainly a lot better than a lot of the anti-EV crowd on Youtube who are just twisting facts for clicks. But like most commentators he's not very good at acknowledging his own biases.
He doesn't mention that the traditional car manufacturers that he clearly loves have a vested interest in keeping demand for ICE (or hybrid) cars high as that is where they make their profit.
He mentions a number of traditional car manufacturers abandoning (or scaling back) their EV plans but seems to imply that this is due to a lack of demand for EVs rather than a problem for these manufacturers. Although a lot of the figures you see bandied about mix up BEV, PHEV and regular Hybrids it does seem that the worldwide demand for BEVs is growing. It's just that these companies can't make one at a price people are prepared to pay and still make a profit. That's hardly surprising. BEVs are a disruptive technology. In most cases when a disruptive technology comes along the people who made the old technology don't just magically switch to successfully making the new one, which is what traditional automakers seemed to think would happen. They go bust and are replaced by new players. Remember when Nokia and Blackberry dominated the phone market? Then somebody invented a smartphone and they were toast.
He seems to think that PHEVs are the solution (at least in the short to medium term) and for him they may be. But PHEVs are a very expensive solution. Paying to buy and maintain two different propulsion systems in your car is never going to be a cheap option. Fair enough, if you want to be able to do your local journeys on electric and still have all the advantages of petrol for long journeys and you want to do that in the same car and you are prepared to pay for it, then PHEVs are a viable solution. But for most people a shift from ICE to PHEV is just going to drive up the cost of motoring while a switch to a BEV would probably reduce that cost. You pays your money and you takes your choice, but for some reason advocates of PHEVs seem reluctant to talk about the lifetime cost of running an overly complicated car.
Not confined to Harry, but I think you need to be sceptical whenever somebody tells you that a change you'd like to see "just isn't realistic". It's a common argument by people who like the status quo to say that the thing you'd like to see sounds great but just isn't realistic. Change often seems impossible, right up to the point where it happens 😀
Interesting Harry’s Garage vid out yesterday, where it shows the EV market may be about to change again and a move away from EV, or at least a move to more appropriate EV use
Sad old petrolhead indulges in another session of straw clutching
You can bet none of the Chinese or Korean OEMs or Tesla have told Harry change is unrealistic, just the laggacy European OEMs who have known BEV and emissions mandates were coming for years but somehow thought it would either never happen or they could pressure governments to drop it.
Soo....
Long EV trip from Hove to the Netherlands... Absolute dream!
Left home with 100%, got to le shuttle with about 55% (sub zero temps!)... Topped up at the Tesla charger at only 50kW for about 20 min... Then through France and Belgium for a few hours.
Stopped for lunch near Ghent, and whacked in a tonne of juice at close to 150kW.. car charged more/faster than it took us to eat and pee!
Carried on for another few hours and arrived at Eftelling. Plugged into their (still dodgy and not always working) chargers..only getting 2.4kW, but doesn't matter as can't use the car for the week anyway!
My key takeaways from the whole trip:
1 - EV trips in this part of Europe are a dream... SOOOO many fast chargers all over the shop. Honestly, not an issue
2- DEFINITELY get an electroverse card. Last year I was faffing about with about £200 of preauthorisation payments at each charger when using debit card... An electroverse card just works. Plug. Blip. Go.
DrP
Sad old petrolhead indulges in another session of straw clutching
I'm not sure that's really fair at all. Have you watched his other videos?
He's given EVs a good crack having already owned at least a couple and certainly doesn't dislike them. The fact remains that a hybrid might well be a better fit for many people (me Inc unless I've missed the EV that can tow a 2 ton boat 120 miles).
I think he's right.... ICE are going to be around for a long time yet but with better hybrids meaning that more miles being powered by electricity.
Hiya,
Adding my two pennies worth into this discussion. I had a dilemma. I wanted to go electric but I had two vehicles already. Both are good and well maintained and really not time to be replaced, but one is a campervan. However in North Somerset the council are a total bunch of Nimby's. They have banned Campervans from their car parks, even though I'm a resident and the congestion charge into Bristol means my Euro 5 Campervan is charged each time and it's getting a pain. The car my wife uses for work and has loads of life to go. So the solution was simple keep both, get a Maeving RM1-S 😉 My commute and town trips are sorted my campervan is then there for long trips and that is fine. It arrives in the next few weeks 😉
BR
JeZ
I watched the video.
To be honest, I didn't think he really came up with any real reasons why EVs couldn't be rolled out by the time frame announced originally other then the automotive industry didn't want to and Taycans were crap. I mean that's hardly surprising really as he's a rich boomer paid by the car industry who likes to drive down through France several times a year in a V12 or a massive Land Rover and wants to keep doing it. The guy owns a couple of massive power boats and a fleet of cars - plus several houses. His carbon footprint probably equals several thousand of the most vulnerable people most affected by climate change and yet his answer is that EVs are fine for the little people but he would rather not have to bother with them and neither would the car industry so can we just keep on kicking the can down the road.
I mean I get it - I wouldn't want to buy a massive premium EV either, they are hugely overpriced, over tech'ed and not at all efficient. But then I wouldn't buy a power boat either or own several houses even if I could- we just can't live in that type of world anymore and to say we can because its too difficult to change anything is just a cop out.
I didn't think he really came up with any real reasons why EVs couldn't be rolled out by the time frame announced originally other then the automotive industry didn't want to
Main reason is charging infrastructure.
It's *really* pretty poor for a lot of people who see themselves as needing to be car owners.
You need a legislative/government push to persuade them that "you live in an apartment block in a city block of apartments with 3000 other people and we really can't put enough chargers in for everyone. Maybe you should cycle or catch a bus or use a fleet hire car?"
EVs are really suited for home owners with their own charging facilities. Most of the global car owning population doesn't have that luxury. Even if you just look at buyers of new cars it's probably less than a quarter who can charge at home in Europe.
As soon as you're charging away from home all the nervousness about cost (it's more expensive) and availability (all the chargers at my work are full by 8 am, and there are 1600 of them) hits. And they buy a small ICE and struggle to park on the already crowded streets...