The electric car *charging* thread

Have charged at rentals a few times – always ask in advance an explain I have EV spec extension and can choose low 6amp current. With permission I then always pay what they ask no quibbles. Would not pass comment if it was 45p (not 30p as above) as the overnight convenience factor when on holiday and the fact the rental is their business.

If I had a rental I’d be looking at installing an EV charger with an app that allows them to pay in advance via mobile for a certain charge and cuts the charge – not sure that exists or not?

My God.  I had to charge using a motorway rapid charger yesterday – £0.85p/kWh.  Jesus.  It’s almost as expensive per mile as my 21y old 3l petrol Touring.

Diversion question – how much more expensive is insurance for an ev vs the equivalent ice?

I know we’re all paying more because we might crash into an ev and incur the higher fix costs anyway, but any idea on that? Trying to work out budget for my next (almost certainly an electric) car

Plan your trips and routes to go via Tesla open for all chargers. Winky eye.

My insurance went up by £180 from insuring a 16 year old car to a newer more expensive 4 year old car.

Newer cars don’t crash as often as they are full of prevention systems, radars and cameras. I think insurance companies are adjusting their premiums in favour of cars with the prevention tech rather than the repair costs? I will supply no evidence to back up my statement tho!

My God. I had to charge using a motorway rapid charger yesterday – £0.85p/kWh. Jesus. It’s almost as expensive per mile as my 21y old 3l petrol Touring

Yeah it’s annoying. Fortunately for us, we only do it a couple of times a year so I’ll put up with it. Even in our super efficient EV it’s basically the same as taking the average diesel.

Re insurance, ours is fairly low on the Ioniq Electric despite them being quite nickable, it’s similar to our previous ICEs and less than our diesel.

I think @retrorick is right, I read that cars with modern driver aids are something like 40% less likely to be involved in an accident at all.

@retrorick – Yeah, but Musk.  No thanks.  Even if my morals didn’t prevent me from using it, it’s harder in the North, especially in a car with only 180-200miles of range in ideal conditions (which yesterday most certainly wasn’t!)

With my car arriving tomorrow, no home charge point (yet) and I assume no 3 pin charger with the car I’ve been looking at charging while I’m out at work on Monday (typically the new car coincides with leaving the house for work for three days in a row for the first time in months).

I’ve got myself an electroverse card and had the impression it was convenient and possibly even cheaper than using whatever app/ debit card tap is required for whatever charger. Having said that, when I look at a charger near my destination on electroverse, the app says 65p per kWh whereas zap map for the same charger says 60p. Am I missing something here? Work will only pay me 7p per mile so keen to charge as cheaply as possible until I can sort out a home charger of some form.

Zapmap is often wrong on pricing.  The polar charger we used yesterday was supposed to be 53p/kWh but was 85p without membership and 77p with it.

I’d look for a second hand granny charger – they’re often handy when using the car for holidays or emergencies, etc where people don’t have a home charger.

To my knowledge most 3pin chargers work with most cars.  Our BMW one worked fine with a Polestar and an MG.

Yep, some rapid charge prices will hammer economy. Into the equivalent 30mpg territory at 85p/kwh

@convert

We only rent accomm where we can charge. Last place in kentallan Scotland was 3 pin out of window. I have no problem paying as long as it’s reasonable (up to 30p/kWh). Any reasonable person would understand that you don’t buy the petrol for ice guests. You just need to be able to meter it. Not sure how you could stop sneaking off without paying, maybe ask for a  deposit on arrival with settlement on last day. I think I can lock the cover for the on/off trip switch on mine, for some control over usage.

f I had a rental I’d be looking at installing an EV charger with an app that allows them to pay in advance via mobile for a certain charge and cuts the charge – not sure that exists or not?

The Go Zero Charge above is exactly this – customers use an app to unlock the charger and pay for what they use. I’ll set a kw cost and the app adds an additional 6p per kw for cover their expenses and transaction costs (and a bit of profit I guess). So to be zero cost to me it would have to be more than 30p to the guest (I don’t think there is any way to make it only available in the middle of the night for an EV tariff) but it doesn’t have to be more than 40p to be cost neutral. As Molgrips said above there is no energy price cap on business tariffs so if prices go crazy again it’d would get costly. Holiday lets are a grey area if they can be on a domestic tariff and If I can I’ll sneak ours back on one if possible.

@Daffy thanks good to know. I will be getting a granny charger asap just might not get a chance this weekend. Not sure how I feel about second hand but don’t mind spending £150-£200 on one – it will get used when I go to my parents in Norfolk from Cheshire at the very least.

Agreed.  Our i3 does around 5miles/kWh, but at £0.85/kWh, that’s still around 18p/mile.

Fuel is currently around £1.45 a litre, so at £6.60 a gallon and 35mpg (it’ll probably do 40mpg if driven like the EV), that equates to 19p/mile.

If it weren’t for home charging before leaving and after returning, there’d be no point in doing it even with an uneconomic car.

Thats a really efficient EV comparing against a pretty inefficient, old, 3L petrol car.

if your car did 50mpg and your EV only 3.4m/kWh  you’d be losing out substantially on rapid charging and just about breaking even on mixed use with some home charging on a balanced 13p/kWh rate.

Madness with electricity currently being below 13p/kWh average.

I expect that the prices are high because it’s a captive market and the installers realise that they are better off at this early stage gaining market share by expansion rather than undercutting. And that expansion costs a lot of money. So they’ve all settled on a cost roughly equivalent to traditional motoring whilst racing to put as many chargers in as many sites as possible. Once that ceases to become a viable strategy i.e. there are chargers everywhere, they should start to cut prices. Then again, the next competitive area could (or should) be on-street slow charging for houses without driveways, so expect prices to stay high whilst that rolls out.

Just think that by paying your 85p you’re helping the low carbon transport revolution because without that or government subsidy, adoption would falter.

But Tesla superchargers are generally around 50p, Daffy. EV visitors to France will be pleased to hear even more Tesla chargers are open to all. I’ll be paying 43cents at the time I’ll be charging on Saturday. 🙂

I take your point though, at 85p EV are more expensive to fuel than comparable ICEs.

it’ll be interesting to see if public charger prices settle down to a sensible range – similar to fuel prices which are normally within 10%

They always seem to be 80p or thereabouts, for me.

@bassmandan – you can get an adjustable 3 pin charger for under your budget.  I got a cheapie from Amazon back in May and use it a few times a week with no issues (so far).  Gets plugged into the upgraded socket in my garage and set to 13a, I put 34kw in my car last night in 13 hours.  You can drop it down to 10a, 8a or 6a if you’re worried about the infrastructure, it just takes longer.  Even if you’re not using it all the time it’s such a useful thing to have.

Charge Scotland is decent and even covers parts of northern England. Not as cheap as it once was but does have more and better rapid chargers now in some sites, like Dunkeld for example.

As already mentioned, Tesla now allow non-Tesla cars with CCS connections which are very fast and are a bit cheaper than other motorway alternatives at (I think from memory) 67p/kW. Used the Tesla chargers at Tebay and in Fort William over the last week or so, both excellent and with multiple chargers at each site.

The 22kW chargers are only any good for vans IMO, as most cars can’t do more than 7.2kW, so a bit of a waste of time in services etc. But can see why they’re installed at council and company offices/depots.

The car charger I used at Laggan Wolftrax last week in the carpark was handy but not cheap and was lucky it was midweek and quiet, I wouldn’t want to rely on it.

Even at 50p / kWh the economy figures aren’t great in comparison to modern ice (last 10 years), you really need an overnight cheap rate at home if economy is a priority.

@chrispoffer, do you have a link to the 230V 13A charging cable? I was put off buying one by the circa £150 price for one when I got my EV two years ago.

If you search Amazon for EVDANCE EV CHARGER TYPE 2 3 PIN you should get you to the same place, linkies to Amazon don’t work.  Currently at £125.99, less a £10 voucher if you buy the 6m one.

Even at 50p / kWh the economy figures aren’t great in comparison to modern ice (last 10 years), you really need an overnight cheap rate at home if economy is a priority.

I do 250m/wk, 12500 per year in a diesel that does 44mpg = 284 gallons = 1292 litres.

At current pricing that’s around £1800. Not so long ago it was over £2000

I’m told that the EV i’m considering does 4 miles/kWh, so those 12500miles = 3125kWh

So break even on that would be 57.6p

OTOH if I could do 90% via home charging at 7.5p, and the rest at say 80p my bill is

210 + 250 = 460, so saving £1340.

So yes – if you don’t home charge then it isn’t great, but if you do then it’s pretty fantastic.

So the car arrived today – the charger arrives next Thursday – will be doing some charging in the village car park for the next week.

Found Octopus were fine to arrange a smart meter, but their EV charging team are completely unresponsive. So am getting a local EV fitter to put a Zappi in next week. VoltEV in Buxted, Sussex very quick to get back to me, talked me through all the machinations and booked in for next week – really good service so far. Will be in touch with the DNO to upgrade the fuse as well.

Getting an Electroverse card through the company, but they have some odd hoops to jump through – Zap were happy just to take my card details, and their coverage seems to be more comprehensive – is that really the case? Interested to see how ZapMap does navigation with charging adaptation.

Feel I am in the foothills on the slopes of EV mastery, and likely some slip ups to come.

I expect that the prices are high because it’s a captive market

Suspect also that the majority of EVs are also company cars – so charging also a business expense. The dealer said 95% of the EVs they are supplying are company cars.

Just wanted to say thanks to all the participants on the thread, has been really useful for getting real world insight into how it can work.

@chrispoffer thanks, I did kinda want to get a known brand but equally that’s pretty cheap. Is it going to cause me any problems with intelligent octopus (octopus will talk to my car so I just need the charger to provide power whenever the car pulls it).

Re company cars – I get a flat rate of 7p per mile from work, which is utter pants if you do any kinda of decent length journeys and need to use a rapid charger. I think on a 400 mile round trip assuming my car does 300 miles I’ll probably be out of pocket by a few £ because the company won’t cover it.

The dealer said 95% of the EVs they are supplying are company cars.

Just because they’re “company cars”, doesn’t mean their power is paid for.  I’d imagine a substantial proportion of those “company cars” are just salary sacrifice lease cars and that most of them will be charged at home or at work for almost their entire lease.

Re company cars – I get a flat rate of 7p per mile from work, which is utter pants if you do any kinda of decent length journeys and need to use a rapid charger. I think on a 400 mile round trip assuming my car does 300 miles I’ll probably be out of pocket by a few £ because the company won’t cover it.

I recommend you look into it further, but I believe you can claim the difference back on your tax return.

https://www.gov.uk/tax-relief-for-employees/vehicles-you-use-for-work

I’ve been doing that for a while on my car allowance car, didn’t realise I could still do it for a company car. It’s unfortunately not the difference, but tax back on the difference. Something to look into a bit in April though I guess ta.

 Zap were happy just to take my card details, and their coverage seems to be more comprehensive – is that really the case?

It wouldn’t suprise me if they all turn out to be the same shell Recharge/New motion network with just rebranded RFID cards. I say that because I think they all announced at the same time that instavolt were now on their network. I may well be talking cobblers.

Charger (Ohme e-Pod) was fitted yesterday by a helpful Octopus chap (10 days from order to fit in our area). Apparently they are doing 2 a day each and some of those days are quite long (older houses with the meter upsatirs in the middle of the house are a killer).

Octopus flexible tarrif switched over quickly but their IT is woeful for the customer. I’m unable to add the charger to the account through the Octopus app and everything is currently being run through the Ohme app. It  looks like the tarriff has changed over but the meter is not showing 30 minute usage yet, we’re unable to monitor charging through their app. Despit filling the car to 80% during the off-peak 6 hours no electricity usage is showing for that period.

Another unhappy customer email will be heading their way later.

Newer cars don’t crash as often as they are full of prevention systems, radars and cameras.

Really?!

I would give it 24 hours before sending the complaint, tariff changes need a lot of stuff to be processed and some of it is outside Octopus’s control. In particular your in-home display may not show the correct tariff at any point but the bills are correct (you can see the actual usage on their website).

I’m planning on waiting until tomorrow for any complaining. Switch over was yesterday at 1pm.

I’m unable to add the charger to the account through the Octopus app and everything is currently being run through the Ohme app.

I don’t think you can use the Octopus app, when I select “Devices”, I get the message “We’re still in Beta. For now you’ll need to go to your Ohme app to control your EV charging”.

Where are you looking at 30min meter data? If you’re using your API in a 3rd party app it comes from the meter the next day either via Telefonica (South of m62) or arqiva (North of m62). Have you previously been monitoring your 30min data?, in other words, are you certain your meter is communicating to Telefonica/arqiva?

I think You can only view live usage thru the octopus app if you have a home mini, do you have a home mini?

Yep, some rapid charge prices will hammer economy. Into the equivalent 30mpg territory at 85p/kwh

It makes going on a touring holiday a non-starter. It’s probably cheaper to just rent a fossil car at your destination.

If you’re using your API in a 3rd party app it comes from the meter the next day

Yes, if you query the API you’ll see that your days usage data is only available after midnight.

The home mini data is pretty much live I think but only accessible through the Octopus app.

You can get the home mini data out via Home Assistant too. Haven’t got my EV yet, but interested to see what automations I can hook up between the Home Mini, the EV software and everything else via HA.

Hi,

I am thinking of getting an EV and am dry running a trip I did in a diesel car earlier this year. I would be heading up from Cheshire to Melrose. The OH will insist on stopping at Tebay to eat / shop regardless.

I have tried a couple of route planners, but am struggling to get one to plan a fuller charge at Tebay while we eat. I have tried Electroverse and ABRP, but might be missing something.

Any tips ?

Thanks in advance.