The electric car *charging* thread

We have had a pod point home charger for a couple of years now and works seamlessly with Octopus and the Tesla once all the set up has been done.

Had a couple of issues over that time when the car lost the ability to know where it was so wouldn’t charge because it didn’t know it was at home! Great fun in the morning!

Looking at possibly going electric with a second car and need to work out best way of charging them both. In winter do need to charge the Tesla every day as it does a reasonable number of miles.

Can the average house have 2 chargers installed so both can be charged overnight?

Typical house single phase supply limit is 100A.

you should be able to charge 2 cars simultaneously as the draw should be no more than 56A to 61A depending on your voltage (250 VAC to 230 VAC).

Some older houses have 60A supply fuses.

check with your electrician. You may need to have more ‘spare’ capacity than 40A and thus need to constrain the current for the chargers.

Someone on a previous page mentioned that it’s possible to register with tesla as a non owner, which gets use of some of the supercharger network.
Can anyone direct me to which tesla app I would need for that??
I’m on ios.
Tia

I think it’s literally the ‘tesla’ app….

I’ve got it (polestar owner) and have used chargers without issue, once card details put in.

DrP

A related but random question.

Is there any way of finding out the size/strength of the electrical supply to a property? We’re pretty remote, and had a passing comment from an electrician once that our supply probably wouldn’t handle having a car charger fitted and I’d like to confirm that if I can.

I know for the telephone lines there’s an Openreach tool that will give the maximum broadband speed available to a given property, is there anything similar for electricity supply?

Can anyone direct me to which tesla app I would need for that??

https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/tesla/id582007913

You need to create an account and add a payment card to it (suggest a credit card as they do pre-auth). Then a section called “Charge your EV” will appear. Through that you can find open Superchargers and start/stop charging sessions.

Some newer Tesla Superchargers have contactless but the app is usable at all of them that are open.

Is there any way of finding out the size/strength of the electrical supply to a property?

Mines listed on the bill (page 3, in the corner, tiny font).

Is there any way of finding out the size/strength of the electrical supply to a property?

couldn’t find it on my octopus multi-page bill.
1. look at the rating of your supply fuse before the tails to the consumer unit(s). It’d be weird if this had a higher rating than the supply could provide

2. call your electricity network provider (not your supplier) find who they are from your bill or https://www.ukpowernetworks.co.uk/who-is-my-electricity-supplier-and-what-is-my-mpan

look at the rating of your supply fuse before the tails to the consumer unit(s). It’d be weird if this had a higher rating than the supply could provide

Ours was not marked on the outside but of course when the charging point was fitted the installer took the lid off to reveal 60A fuse. The DNO came to check the installation (mandatory; in fact they should have done it first) and upgraded the fuse to 80A

I’m also one that had an old unmarked 60a cut out fuse, when the smart meter was installed the DNO (Northern Powergrid) came out beforehand and upgraded my cut out to 80a FoC. I’ve heard/read from a few sources that an 80a cut out is up to 100a capable.

look at the rating of your supply fuse before the tails to the consumer unit(s). It’d be weird if this had a higher rating than the supply could provide

Right, checked that, it’s 100A. The sparky that raised the issue in the first place said something about a “shared supply with next door”, is that a thing? If so, am I right that there’s 100A from the pole shared between two properties, and because theoretically either could pull the whole lot each needs a 100A fuse? If I’m right, how does that affect us and/or them getting a car charger fitted?

It seems that the ohme home pro charger now supports charging your car from solar panels.

A new option has appeared today under the ‘my charger’ section of the app where you can enable or disable solar charging.

Thought some people might be interested

A new option has appeared today under the ‘my charger’ section of the app where you can enable or disable solar charging

I have a ‘dumb’ charger from years ago. I was  pleased when Tesla updated the software a while back to make it possible to set a ‘charge from any source’ limit and a ‘charge from solar’ limit using the Tesla gateway for our solar + power wall system

as there has been sunshine for the past few weeks all our driving has been solar powered.

it’s 100A

your question gets into some challenging territory related to peak and typical loads.

Given how safety conscious folks usually are I would be surprised if you and your neighbour each have 100A supply fuses that the joint supply would be incapable of supplying at least 200A. However, the definitive answer will come from your network provider.

and you can always charge an EV with <30A

Somebody with experience please re-assure me…

Big road trip from the North of England to Carnac, Brittany, starting this Thursday. I’ve been pretty relaxed about the charging situation, UK I’m fine with and when we’ve travelled in France the last few years (ICE) the charging infrastructure looks fantastic on the main routes, lots of chargers, available, and not busy! (this has improved dramatically over the last 2-3 years.) However, I assume that the for the most part debit/credit card will be fine in France, or will I need 6 separate apps?

I’ve got an RFID card through Hyundai which works well and indicates on the Hyundai charge app map it will be accepted at tonnes of charge points / different brands en route, but just wondering if you can just pay and go like most of the UK m/way chargers?

TIA.

Edit: thinking of registering with Tesla as an additional option.

When I’ve checked the Hyundai app it looks crap. Most places I know of are missing.

Electroverse has far more coverage.

The sparky that raised the issue in the first place said something about a “shared supply with next door”, is that a thing?

Yes. When I had my charger fitted a DNO guy came with cable detector and checked that my supply cables go to the road, and thus I’m not on a loop. The point is that the peak load that a cable can carry is not the same as the sustained load. A few minutes peak load will start heating the cable, but it won’t get to an unsafe temperature unless the load continues, which it does with a car charger. That’s also why using a 13A socket to routinely charge a car may be an issue. There’s an assumption, for a shared loop, that both users won’t put sustained heavy load on at the same time.

I’m in the early stages of looking into an electric car and my interest was piqued by the link on the car thread to the cheap Nissan Leafs (leaves?).  I think I need to understand charging first, I was looking at some chargers in Dunbar where a woman was hitting the machine! After a brief conversation she advised me not to go electric as the faster chargers are often faulty, I was also surprised that there were two different plugs, is it like VHS and Betamax and one will come out on top? Also, reviews on the Leaf say it’s unsuitable for faster charging, what rate do I need to look for? Any car we buy will have to last and be as future proof as possible. We can’t afford expensive so a leaf at £15,000 or something second hand will be our aim. Any charging advice to add to the advice already given would be welcome!

Fast chargers can be faulty.  It’s usually the older devices; they are improving a lot.

There are two types of rapid charging connection – CCS which is like VHS and CHAdeMO which is like Betamax.  There were only a few Japanese cars with CHAdeMO – the Leaf being the most significant one – but even Nissan have moved to CCS. That said, there are still a great many CHAdeMO chargers out there, and only a few new chargers are CCS-only.  This is for rapid charging when out and about – home 7kW charging uses a different connector, and all cars have had the same type 2 connector for many years.  A CHAdeMO to CCS adapter is now available but it costs a grand; that said the new Leaf deals are so cheap that you would still come out ahead.

The Leaf itself is a decent city car but I would not recommend it for long trips.  It is perfectly feasible (especially if you get a 62kWh model) but other cars are better.  Leafs do not have battery cooling, so they can get hot if you drive a long way leading you to have to slow down; they could in theory degrade the battery a bit faster but this does not seem to be an issue since the current facelift 40/62kWh models.

Older cars all have slower rapid charging rates generally.  Leafs are about 45kWh peak, and they slow down; this is about the same for my Ioniq Electric (not the Ioniq 5/6 which charges extremely fast).  That said, it needn’t be a huge issue – we are about to drive to Scotland next week and the charging planner is giving us 5 stops of 15-25 mins each, to give just over 2hrs of charging and 9hrs of driving – and that’s in one of the slowest charging cars around.  I plan to do fewer longer stops to match with meal times and I don’t think we will be much more than an hour later than if we were driving diesel.

If I were buying, I would absolutely get a used Hyundai/Kia over a new Leaf (and I did).  There are 64kWh Konas around for £12k with 250 miles of range, and with Hyundai you actually get close to that range reliably (unlike Nissan) even in winter provided you have a heat pump – not all Konas do but all Ioniq 38kWhs do I think.  They do bong and bing a lot when you set off though, but not so much whilst driving. They are also CCS.

@molgrips thank you so much for taking the time to write such an in depth reply. It’s very helpful. Have a great holiday in Scotland.

@stingmered Ionity are app/web but your Hyundai card should work. Total have rolled out lots in the autoroute aires, they take card although generally in France most seem to take the roaming cards (Shell/Newmotion, Electroverse, and ones like the Hyundai card). Getting the Tesla app set up just for another option isn’t a bad idea.

@wheelsonfire1 it’s fair to say that CCS has “won” in Europe but there’s absolutely loads of Leafs and other CHAdeMO cars out there, and thus chargers that support it are still being rolled out and maintained. There are a few sites around that are CCS-only but almost all have some CHAdeMO, and a majority have it on each charger still. I’ve had no issues travelling around the country and we’re driving from London down to near Poitiers this weekend for holiday.

Easy to get a 59/62kwh Leaf for that money, assuming you charge at home you don’t need to worry about chargers for any <180 mile round trip and you have the flexibility with range to plan around better sites with lots of chargers. The bigger battery seems to be lasting really well, and isn’t as prone to overheating like the 40kwh ones do. It’s a robust and well understood platform, the simplicity of an air cooled battery means it’s reliable, not much ever goes wrong with them.

I like mine, now that there’s a viable CHAdeMO to CCS converter (it’s about £1000) there’s less need to worry about public charging in the longer term.

@simon_g thank you for the help, have a great trip!

vive le France. 220kw charging off a 330kw charger, literally in the middle of nowhere. 0.3eur/kw! 

@stingmered – I’ve done trips to France Belgium and Spain with my EV and have found the chargemap card to be useful alongside my more frequently used Hyundai card. App has issues as with all of them especially via carplay

It’s La France, but otherwise good post 🙂

I’m hoping my trip goes as smoothly. I wonder what effect bank holiday traffic will have on my efficiency…

I know I’m very much an outlier here but I’ve had my EV since Dec ’22 and am now charging pretty much exclusively on a granny charger at home.

It’s a Megane with a 60kw battery. I used to get free charging at work but that changed a couple of months ago and it’s 30p a kw now so obviously home’s cheaper. I had a second hand Renault 3 pin cable that stopped working last week so I bought the cheapest similar thing on Amazon and I’m amazed – it’s drawing current at 13a now from the (upgraded) socket in the garage and overnight charging used to do 31kw in 16hrs, I did 34kw last night in 12hrs 50 mins. Big difference for a hundred quid. I’ve been checking to make sure the plug, socket and cable haven’t been getting warm and all good so far. A recommended ‘upgrade’.

I know a dedicated chargepoint would be better again but this works well for me for my usual 40 or so miles a day.

I’ve had an id3 for 3 years now and have only used public chargers due to living in a terrace house that doesn’t have dedicated parking.

I’m in a very slow conversation with the local council about allowing me to fit a cable channel across the pavement (something like a kerbocharge.com) outside our front door to allow granny charging from a socket in our hallway.

We can park outside our front door 99% of the time and have a very good relationship with our neighbours. We know we have no rights to park there but it generally isn’t a problem.

Anyone else in a similar situation and and tips for making progress?

“It’s a Megane with a 60kw battery. I used to get free charging at work but that changed a couple of months ago and it’s 30p a kw now so obviously home’s cheaper. I had a second hand Renault 3 pin cable that stopped working last week so I bought the cheapest similar thing on Amazon and I’m amazed – it’s drawing current at 13a now from the (upgraded) socket in the garage and overnight charging used to do 31kw in 16hrs, I did 34kw last night in 12hrs 50 mins. Big difference for a hundred quid. I’ve been checking to make sure the plug, socket and cable haven’t been getting warm and all good so far. A recommended ‘upgrade’.
”

We’re the same. Rarely do enough miles to justify installing a proper charger. Could you share the link to the amazon charger – I think our MG one is only 10A? The garage was recently rewired to support high drain power tools, so shouldn’t be a problem to run a 13A one.

If I were buying now I probably would not get a dedicated charger – I mean they’re good, but for me now it’s not worth £1k.  Mine was £400 I was one of the last people to get the subsidy.  If you can spare the money though go for it.

I’m on a granny charger for a year now but have downrated it to 10A after melting a few plugs and sockets. That means fewer miles per night but it’s still enough for our normal use. We have economy 7, no smart meter yet, so something like 15kWh which is ~60 miles of charge per night.

Going for a 400 mile round trip on Sunday so will need a commercial charger, which will be the first time since last summer holiday. Is it worth hunting around for a good deal? I was assuming I’d just top up once or twice at whatever motorway services was convenient (would be stopping each way for a leg stretch anyway). Starting with a full battery should give me about 250 miles depending how fast we are on motorways, comfortably over 200 for sure which is the one-way trip length.

I was assuming I’d just top up once or twice at whatever motorway services was convenient

This has always been my plan. Rapid chargers always seem to accept debit card so you just plug in and beep – or beep then plug in, depending on what it says. Bear in mind there are usually two card readers – one for your app or RFID card and one for your debit card – they have slightly different symbols. This confused me a few times.

You might save a couple of quid hunting for the cheapest chargers or signnng up, but for the occasional trip it’s not worth it IMO.  On my trip next week I will be using Electroverse though, because I am an Octopus customer so I’m already signed up and I save 8%.

Anyone else in a similar situation and and tips for making progress?

Me, however I’m just using a cable protector channel ramp thing across the pavement. My situation is we are a row of 4 terraces, short residential back street dead end, front doors straight onto the pavement. the pavement is more weeds than pavement in the summer as only us residents and the post man use it.  I have an ally way behind a  locked gate next to my front door which the charger is mounted in. Even tho I’ve had EVs since 2019, I’ve only just started home charging (previous cars came with public  charging as part of the monthly fee). I was planning on installing a drainage channel across the pavement to feed the cable thru, but then read that you had to get council permission, so I’ll just use the cable ramp. I’m planning on getting a longer 10-15meter type2 cable so I can still charge if someone parks directly outside my house and I want to charge, but hasn’t happened yet in 4 months. Good luck with the council, I’ve decided not to go there, not to draw attention from the council. If they do come knocking, I’ll cross that bridge if /when it occurs.

@Ewan – the 3 pin charger I got from Amazon is this one, now showing at £125 less a 5% voucher. Still working OK here, added 39kw yesterday (car was down to 22%) in just over 15 hrs. Can’t seem to link to Amazon at the moment but this is the charger if you use their search – EVDANCE EV Charger Type 2 UK 3 Pin 20ft/6.1m [6/8/10/13A]

Great! Thanks

That 30 cent charger in Stingmered’s photo is IECharge, they’re the cheapest in France but usually in the middle of nowhere.

IECharge lance la version beta de son Autocharge, pour simplifier davantage vos sessions de charge !

IECharge, I assume there was some sort of kickback to the farmer who owns the land, it doesn’t make much sense for a location, but definitely worked for us.  As it happens it only took us about 10mims off route, there and back. But really did wonder where the hell we were going until I literally drove past it!

So to charge an ev using Octopus Energy and a smart charger we have to get all our leccy via Octopus is it?

So to charge an ev using Octopus Energy and a smart charger we have to get all our leccy via Octopus is it?

yes, your car charger uses your house electricity supply, so your house electricity supply has to come from octopus.

I found that my total electric costs are about £5 per month lower with the electric car on octopus , compared to before we had the electric car when we used shell energy. Mostly due to shifting washing machine and dishwasher to the cheap night rate, plus the whole house getting cheap electric whenever the car is charging .

Had my first long trip the other day, Cork in the south of Ireland to Stirling in Scotland, about 600km. Usually just charge at home and had never been on a motorway or used car fully loaded so was nervous about range and catching the ferry. Have to say the range hardly changed from my usual despite 4 adults/luggage and 125km/ph. The car could do the trip in 2 stops but I was nervous about range and wanted to arrive at my mums with a decent charge left to give me time to suss out the local charging options so I planned in 4 shorter stops using ionity as these are handy and cheapest for me.

first stop was more of a test stop to ensure app etc was all ok, got the last free spot out of the 4 bays for just a quick 70-80% top up but only charged at 35kwh? All was fine so headed off aiming for just south of Dublin. Got there and just1 of the 4 bays was in use and went 35-80% in the time it took us all to have a loo break and get a quick leg stretch. My third planned stop was just north of Dublin but when I got there it was full so I just carried on to Belfast as I was now more confident with range/app etc. I got to Belfast with 20% left and plugged it in to one of the 9 empty bays and went to grab a burger and when we got back to the car 40mins later it was at 100%. Popped on the ferry and got to my mums with 35%.
I normally do this trip with 1 stop in an ICE and costs about €60. This time it took an extra 30 mins and cost €50 on public chargers. Next time I will be more confident and happy to run the % down before charging as I found the car was way faster charging (as per charge curve) when I let it run down more so my plan of 4 short top ups took longer than 2 bigger charges, which is the plan for the return leg.

happy to my range anxiety is now gone.

heading off to rhodes for october half term, one of the rental options is a fiat 500e – it officially has 200 miles of range, but I’m guessing I might have to charge it a couple of times (if I have to give it back full).

could anyone take a quick look at the chargers there to help me figure out if any can just be used with a credit card/single app? there’s a bunch of them on google but googling the name of the charger doesn’t seem to give any info that I can make sense of