The electric car *charging* thread

Has anyone used (or offered) CoCharger?  My understanding is it’s the “air BnB” for home chargers – so that someone who needs a charger can borrow one (at a fee) from a local with a charger.

It’s difficult, if not impossible for suppliers to show the price in advance

I think they use the weather forecast to predict it, no?  On Agile Octopus they offer you 48 half-hour prices each day in advance.

These aren’t really necessary unless you are subscribed to a scheme and want to pay monthly to get cheaper rates, IME. Some small providers have 7kW chargers at destinations e.g. the hotel you want to stay at or whatever, and these often don’t take contactless so you need an app or an RFID card.

The only RFID card I’d consider to be necessary is the ChargePlace Scotland one as its the largest network in Scotland and has a lot of legacy chargers in areas with poor mobile signal where their, rather flakey, mobile app may not work. Of course its only useful if you live in Scotland or travel there reasonably often.

@johndoh
Just to try and add clarity to what I presume molgrips is getting at. In most cases with the big individual network operators like instavolt, osprey, geniepoint, MFG etc you can just use your credit/debit card. so an ‘umbrella’ account/RFID card with shell recharge, electroverse, zap-pay, ovo etc isn’t strictly necessary, which is true. However, credit/debit card payment is usually at the most expensive price and (this is important) the operator will most likely take a pre-authorisarion payment from your bank account which if the charger has a few hiccups may be taken multiple times. It may be a number of days before you get the money back. For example, Osprey take £25 for every pre-authorisation and will return the money in ‘a few days’.
Having something like an electroverse card, is FOC, consolidates everything, might get you a cheaper price, doesn’t take any pre-authorisation payments and at the very least is a backup option if you have a problem with your credit/debit card (personally I look at it the other way round – credit/debit card as the backup).

I’m thinking about purchasing a EV but to be honest this thread is making me uneasy.

Our last car had been stolen, so using a salary sacrifice scheme I think with insurance, maintenance, tyres, charge point etc all included in a gross price the economics pretty good. But, as this excellent thread proves, charging can be complicated and induce nerdy (sorry, no offence intended you should be proud of your commitment to detail) levels of knowledge.

I really don’t want that level of complication and the wife will loath it.

So please can you tell me that doesn’t have to be so, if we aren’t concerned about squeezing every last penny of savings out of charging, can charging be simple and easy?

So please can you tell me that doesn’t have to be so, if we aren’t concerned about squeezing every last penny of savings out of charging, can charging be simple and easy?

It doesn’t. Just stick to the large, reliable networks like Osprey, Instavolt, Fastned, MFG, Gridserve and Applegreen. They all take normal contactless payment. I’d almost add Ionity to that list but their older chargers don’t have contactless but Ionity accept Electroverse so get yourself an Electroverse card. I’d say with those networks you can get to just about anywhere in the UK. Or just get a Tesla 😉

At home, Agile Octopus is the only Geeky nerds home electric smart tariff IMO (from Octopus at least), all the others are pretty user friendly and straightforward once you’re set up (smart meter, method of charging etc).
I’m on Agile BTW 😀

@Ro5ey I am 3 weeks into my first EV and have not found it complicated so far. I have an OHME home charger and plug the car in every night to charge to 80% and forget about it. It’s been a lot simpler than I thought. Not used any public charging or long trips yet but don’t see any real issues. I have down loaded a couple of apps for charging at the bigger suppliers on long trips and got a chareplacescotland RFD card for when I go to visit my mum.

can charging be simple and easy

It is, and it’s only complicated if you make it so. For public charging people will tell you about signing up to schemes, having apps, cards, dongles etc but it’s no more necessary than having a Shell+ card and app if you’re filling up an ICE car (other fuel loyalty schemes are available). I think there’s still some legacy thinking from the early days of public charging when you weren’t even sure if the charger would have the right connector, you needed an app and a special card to make it work and even then you needed the wind to be blowing the right way for the car to talk to the charger. It’s not like that now; it’s plug in, wave a credit card at the reader and off you go. Again, for home charging it’s as hard as you want it to be; last night I plugged my car in, this morning it’s charged. Not really hard at all, and a lot easier than filling up at a petrol station.

I really don’t want that level of complication and the wife will loath it.

It’s not. We are just discussing the nerdier aspects of it.  All you do in reality is get home, plug car in; unplug car and leave.  We did take some time to set it up though. All the stuff about charging away from home is not really something you need to worry about in most cases. Just plug in and beep your debit card.

can charging be simple and easy?

Absolutely. You can call Octopus, get a smart charger installed and they will put you on Intelligent Octopus Go.  Or, you just sign up for regular Octopus Go and set the car to charge during off peak times. Then it’s just plug in when you get home and unplug when you leave.

Another 3pin user here, we have burnt out a fuse in a plug and also had a problem with damp in the socket but that’s more to do with a dodgy conservatory extension than intrinsic to the system. Yes, we’ll possibly get a proper charger at some point, but it works for us so far (almost a year, 8k miles or so). We haven’t got a smart meter, they weren’t available when we first moved in and we are on economy 7 with a dedicated night circuit so not quite sure how it will fit together. Just use a smart plug timer (also remotely wifi-controlled) and plug in when it’s low enough.

Ideally I’d ramp it down to something a bit lower than 13A to reduce the load, but the cable switches on at 13A default and I’d have to go and press a button when it came on in the night.

Thanks all for replying, great to hear it really can be simple.

Ideally I’d ramp it down to something a bit lower than 13A

I think some granny chargers are 10A anyway, our Hyundai one is although you can throttle it down further.

Just use a smart plug timer (also remotely wifi-controlled) and plug in when it’s low enough.

I would use the timer in the car and leave the socket on all the time; then you don’t need to press the button to select a lower power on your charger.

Just home from a week in Northumberland in a cottage, there and back was 125 miles each way and we probably did around 200 miles of running around.  Car is a BMW i4 40. We left home with 80% charge, and today arrived home with 20%.  Topped up a few times on Tesla superchargers at cost of £48 total. The car averaged 3.7 mi/kWh over the week.  It’s now plugged in and, yippee, Intelligent Octopus has it charging, and all household energy on 7.5p till 430 this afternoon, and again from 830 till 0700, so the washing machine, dryer and dishwasher will all be flat out 🙂

Are there any tarrifs that would be worth it for a granny charger user? I can charge in work for 22p, and will be moving at some point soon so no point is spending money for a proper charger.

As my home and work rates are now close to identical I charge at work when I’m there and just use the granny charger for top ups over the weekend, but if there’s a cheaper rate for long enough overnight it might be worth switching. Needs to be quite a long reduced tariff period as I can only charge at 2kW max.

Are there any tarrifs that would be worth it for a granny charger user?

At the very least, if you have smets2 smart meters (or smets1 with secure logo?) you should be on Octopus Tracker for gas and electric IMO.  Go to gastracker.uk and select latest tracker tariff (April24v1) and your region, it will show today and tomorrow prices and the daily standing charges.  Prices change daily, but are consistently much lower than standard price cap and are expected to be for the rest of 2024 I believe. Otherwise you need to look at your house use vs car use and decide if it’s worth going onto an ev specific tariff Intelligent/Go.

Are there any tarrifs that would be worth it for a granny charger user?

I think the non-intelligent tariffs work with a granny charger no? So 9p overnight. Remember you only need to put back in what you used that day, you don’t need a full charge. I’d your car does 4 miles per kWh then at 2.3kW you’re doing about 8 miles per hour, so a 5 hour overnight slot can get you 40 miles a night. How far is your commute?

We vaguely think about an electric car at some point. (Wouldn’t battery be a better term?) Anyway this thread alone is enough to put me off. So complicated. Can they not be shoved into a socket on the wall and left?

Yes, done 30k miles in my evs, less than 500 miles from public charging and the rest from a granny charger plugged into the shed or where I’ve stayed.

Can they not be shoved into a socket on the wall and left?

Yep they can, you’ll just be paying more for the electricity than you would need to pay if you went onto an ev tarrif.

@mattscccm

“ So complicated. Can they not be shoved into a socket on the wall and left?”

Don’t worry, it’s a lot less complex than it sounds at first.

And yes, you can just plug it in and not worry about it. I’m on a standard energy cap tariff and my car is plugged in via a granny charger right now. Charging at 22p/kw.hr which is about 6p/mile ish. Still a lot cheaper than petrol or diesel

If I sort out an overnight rate that will more than halve.

“ How far is your commute?”

I can walk to work, so no daily commuting. I do drive around 150 miles one weekend and then 300 ish the next, so it’s more a case of “gradually building up the charge” than for commuting.

In good news – it looks like intelligent octopus go will work for me as the car itself if compatible, so 6 hrs a night.

The car has done 3.7 from new, so…
6x2x3.7 = 44 miles/day, or 310/wk so yes this would cover the vast majority of my use. I’ve also got the 7kW work chargers at 22p to fall back on of course.

Now for some spreadsheet work to figure out if this is actually worth doing.

Now for some spreadsheet work to figure out if this is actually worth doing.

*Thumbs up* The electric tariff nerdy geek is strong in this one.

Interesting thread, couple of things to add.

– our charger came with an additional fuseboard module which monitors max amperage. Reason being that if the car is charging/dishwasher is on/heat pump is running, could conceivably go over the amp limit. Not sure it’s ever kicked in, but good to know it’s there.

– with a heat pump, the case for super cheap electricity overnight isn’t as simple to make. Like a poster above, we’re on an old E7 tariff so we get cheapish charging but also our day tariff is lower than the standard EV ones.

– even if we could make the case, Octopus completely failed to get our smart meter on line (a thread in itself involving govt outsourcing SM network, the DCC being useless and refusing to fit an aerial and eventually ombudsman finding for us and making Octopus pay us a chunk of money back) so we’re stuck with a traditional tariff until at least end 2025 when SM network will be upgraded to 4g and we might get a signal.

We’re thinking about a 2nd EV when my car goes back in September. Having 2 would tip us into wanting an EV Tariff but we can’t get one!

Can they not be shoved into a socket on the wall and left?

Yep they can, you’ll just be paying more for the electricity than you would need to pay if you went onto an ev tarrif.

Not much though. 9p without vs 7.5p with the smart charger AFAIK. Your car will have a timer to limit it to the cheap period, so you just plug in when you get home and the car starts charging at half past midnight.

We vaguely think about an electric car at some point. (Wouldn’t battery be a better term?) Anyway this thread alone is enough to put me off. So complicated. Can they not be shoved into a socket on the wall and left?

Yes.. but really it’s not that complicated.

If one were to make a thread of “how best to refuel my diesel skoda” it’ll come across equally as complicated! Heck..i still get emails (despite trying to unsubscribe) from ‘fuelprices.co.uk’!

It’s almost like saying “My local Tesco garage is £1.50/l but is 4 miles from home, but Texaco is £1.48/l but 8 miles from home, but I need to drive to scotland soon.. how much should I refil on the motorway at £1.67/l to make it there and spend the least…”

Anyone, the other thing is the ‘faff’ is all front loaded.. By that I mean that once you’ve had a charge fitted, and linked to your tarriff, then it really IS plug in and do nothing else.

DrP

once you’ve had a charge fitted, and linked to your tarriff, then it really IS plug in and do nothing else.

Or, if you aren’t having a charger and are just using the 3-pin plug; just select your tariff, tell the car you want to charge at the off-peak time. One you’ve set that up, just plug in when you get home each day.

I’m in Japan this week.  it’s really stark how behind this country is in terms of EV charging infrastructure – you rarely see chargers in the city or out and about on the highways.  Most ‘rapid’ chargers are 50kW with a few 90kW about, but in reality most chargers are lower powered – 3-6kW.  The rub is, there’s a rule that if using a city charger (shopping mall, car park, or other public place) you need to vacate after 30 mins for another user.  Most of these chargers are low powered so practically useless in terms of charging a car in real life.  I know there are targets to increase chargers, but currently not backed by anybody doing anything on the scale required.  Unsurprisingly EV sales currently account for just 2% of all new car sales… my colleagues out here are very dismissive of EV’s because of the rubbish infrastructure, and who can blame them. Weirdly though, Japan still has a target of 100% EV (new sales) by 2035.

Wow that’s interesting and a little depressing. I wonder what it’s like in South Korea.

According to this, insanely good. I read something earlier that Japan only has 1 charger per 4000 people (which is a different metric to below,but I think it’s about 1:500 for Europe as a whole..)

Blimey.  I had a look on Zap Map but there only seems to be Tesla data on there for SK.  There are lots of them mind.

A better metric would be per unit area per car.  Or perhaps something else.  The USA needs more public chargers in rural areas, at a guess, and Japan would need more of them in cities because fewer people have driveways.

Just read a tender document from Transport for Wales. Looks like there will soon (1-2yrs?) be rapid chargers at railway/bus stations in Wales…

Nice to see WG making an effort. But charging over pavements is going to be a big issue here I hope they are also looking at that.

I think that we need to normalise things like at least a couple of 7kW charge connections off each lamppost – charged at either a standardised “competitive” rate so as not to penalise those without home charging capability or linked to individual tarrifs, so for example any of us could choose an EV tariff with low cost off peak charging but access it via lamp posts, other kerb side points etc. 7kW is a great point to target as it’s fast enough to give a meaningful charge during a working day or overnight but is achievable via std 240V single phase mains supply.

Yeah. I read the WG white paper and that’s what they seem to be targeting. I was thinking that a solution for cables across pavements would be better, but then again what if you can’t get a spot outside your house?

Does the hive mind know if at home chargers are generally dropping in price? We don’t have an EV at the moment but are having some panels done. We’ll probably get an EV in 3 years time. I think we might not pay vat if we get a charger installed with the panels (not 100% sure on that), but the saving isn’t worth it if the price is dropping 10% yoy anyway..

We have just agreed to an Ohme Home Pro being installed, for supply and installation, including an SPD, for £853. I will need to look at what the best electricity supply tariff to move to is. My gut feeling is Octopus Intelligent Go, but I’d welcome any opinions.

We have just agreed to an Ohme Home Pro being installed, for supply and installation, including an SPD, for £853.

That’s a good price – I assume that’s not directly through Ohme as their prices start at £999

You can get (presumably dumb) EV chargers for £250, even from B&Q, but I’ve no idea what the difference is between that and other dumb chargers.  As far as I am concerned it’s either integrated with Octopus or it’s not – what other features can they have?

It seems that the ‘smart’ EV chargers have apps that let you monitor and control charging – but your car probably has an app for this anyway so I don’t know why you’d get one for your charger if you weren’t doing Octopus integration.

It is through BumblebeeEV, at a discounted rate after purchasing a s/h EV from <shudder>Arnold Clark</shudder>