We have just ordered an E-Expert 75kwh on lease to replace our diesel Vivaro, really excited should be here in 4-5 weeks making us a full electric business and household… with no off street parking 😜😂

Getting any of the PSA group garages to even reply to emails or engage in sales about any of the 75kwh vans was impossible, no interest at all. So we leased one off drive-electric who have been great so far, and were smart enough to even get some on order for stock so we aren’t waiting until December for a factory order.

Hopefully by the time our lease runs out someone like Arrival has come in and done the disruptors thing and there is some competition for long range mid size vans. But until then, it’s Pug time 😬

The car is the limiting factor on kW charging speed. However, I think diminishing returns anyway. At my car’s 140kw ish limit the charge I really need to get home if I’m falling short is usually just piss and stretch the legs territory anyway. 350kw would most of the time just get me home with a load more charge in the battery I don’t need.

If I need a big charge its in the middle of a really long journey, so 45 mins stop is no bad thing.

So although I think going from the 50 kW (really 30-something) “fast” dc ones to about 100 is really important, beyond that the time benefit in most situations is pretty modest.

It’s then getting to the stage where the big issue is cost. We need 100kW+ charging at c.30p/kWh at lots of locations. Like Tesla chargers. 70p headline numbers are harmful to the EV uptake case even if they don’t end up costing us many £/year.

Also high kW charging speed tends to go with big kwh batteries. And most average users don’t really need both. You need range or good fast charging, because if you’ve got the range you use the away from home charging infrequently.

Diminishing returns on battery size/range too of course.

All good points but the idea of 350KWh is for a top to complete a journey rather than full charge. The 34% charge I got in 12 minutes at around 110KWh average added 64 miles to my range. That was all I needed for my wife to travel the rest of the week. As the weather has improved I’ve gained upwards of 30 miles on a full charge, as much as 50.

Oh and I used contactless

Interesting. Where did you charge? I used the Ionity 350kW chargers at Gretna Green a couple of weeks ago and at that time they didn’t accept contactless so I had to use the Ionity website to pay as they didn’t even have a working app at that time.

I want to be able to plan a journey knowing when I get to a charging stop there will be an available, functioning charger that accepts contactless payment. I’d be happy to pay 50p per kWh for that especially if its at an MSA. It doesn’t even need to be 150kW or 350kW, 40 mins on a 50kW charger (40 something kW in the real world) is enough to see me on my way. Is that so much to ask? It appears it is when there are so few networks that offer it and I always have to have a plan B or C for a charging stop.

So although I think going from the 50 kW (really 30-something) “fast” dc ones to about 100 is really important, beyond that the time benefit in most situations is pretty modest.

I don’t think the benefit of faster charge speeds is meant for any one driver. What it does is reduce the time you need to be plugged in. Which means pressure on public chargers reduced and perhaps waiting for one will be just as long as waiting for a pump at the petrol station now. That should reduce one of the barriers to uptake of EVs.

At least i hope it is that way when I hope to switch in 18 months.

Interesting. Where did you charge?

Alnwick. I used my Audi Charge Card it could be it uses member cards opposed to bank cards.

Getting more and more jealous of my wife driving around in the EV all the time. Most of the commute is slow, 20mph or less, and she commented that she could hear birds singing, people talking, kids playing and so on whilst driving, which we never used to with a droning engine.

could be it uses member cards opposed to bank cards.

Yup. VW have a huge share in Ionity and they are trying to make it their equivalent of the Tesla SSN so they are trying to price non-VW group EV drivers off their network and also make it as inconvenient as possible for us to use.

Except BMW, Ford and others also have access to their mobility service network of course.

I’d be interested to know what they pay per kWh. Kia are also a stakeholder in Ionity but Kia drivers don’t get preferential rates. Still 70p per kWh if I had a KiaCharge card. Frankly having to pay a subscription to get cheaper charging rates is just another barrier to EV use and the sooner its gone the better

Not sure it may tell you on each manufacturers page. Agreed I doubt I’ll pay the £17.50 a month to get the Audi discount once my free year expires.

The 12V battery in my wife’s car went flat last night while she was out; we obviously haven’t used it for enough long journeys recently. Then this morning the tax reminder for it came through the door.

The EV is an awful lot less faff…

^It isn’t always. Several reports now on EV’s which do not charge 12v batteries if car is not driven, not all of them Teslas.

It’s then getting to the stage where the big issue is cost. We need 100kW+ charging at c.30p/kWh at lots of locations. Like Tesla chargers. 70p headline numbers are harmful to the EV uptake case even if they don’t end up costing us many £/year

Fuel duty currently raises about £25bn/yr for the treasury…. as we all start to switch to electric cars I wonder how they will plug that gap. Add a specific tax on vehicle charging… or raised via other taxes.. ?

I wonder how they will plug that gap

If they’re clever, corporation tax on companies making batteries, EV tech and cars. There’s some suggestion that they are trying to encourage that, but we all know they’re barely able to organise after work drinks never mind long term economic planning.

The UK Gov apparently provides subsidies to fossil fuel companies to the amount of ~£12.5B/yr. That would do a good job at plugging some of the gap.

The charging network definitely has some catching up to do, and I say that driving a Tesla and being able to take advantage of the supercharger network. I was really marginal last weekend on a trip to the lakes and I was nearly completely snookered by a big diversion off the A66 on the way home. The direct route from Newcastle to near Whinlatter appeared to have 1 50kW BP charger in Carlisle (which I downloaded the app for an pre-paid some credit onto) before I would need to start looking at longer routes. To the North is the Gretna superchargers and to the South is the Tebay superchargers, with a handful of fast 3rd party ones in between. In the end I switched off AC and trundled along with the trucks making it home with 16 miles in the “tank”.. Motorway speeds and a geet muckle gnarpoon on the roof narf kills your range!

It’s going to be tricky getting people out of ICE’s because they’re far too convenient to the point you don’t even have to think about it or plan anything. They’re also far too cheap – even though my full weekend of fuel probably cost less than £3 it would maybe only be £30-40 in an equivalent size diesel car. And to be able to blat up the motorway at whatever speed you want with some nice cool air wafting about the place it’s probably a price most are willing to pay.

Once you get into the EV mindset of planning journeys, balancing up travelling a bit slower and completely avoiding charger surfing along the way the whole tooling up lane 3 in a huuge gas guzzling motor at 85mph seems absurd! I spent most of my time on the M6 thinking where the **** are all these people in such a hurry to get to.

There’s a 50Kw charger at the Rheged centre. Still needs improvement yes but since I switched from diesel to hybrid and now EV it has vastly improved.

Thanks Drac that’s good to know. More of a general question (but prompted by looking at that charger on zap map) I assume if someone is using the 50kW Chad connector another user couldn’t concurrently use the 50kW CCS? Just it shows at having 2 50kWs at that location which seems a bit misleading.

Not sure possible not. I know I still get 50Kw when Zoes are sat on their little 7Kw charger for hours on end.

There are 2 charger stations though

Zap-map is good as is a A Better Route Planner.

The direct route from Newcastle to near Whinlatter appeared to have 1 50kW BP charger in Carlisle

There are two Instavolt 50kW chargers at Asda in Carlisle- I used one of them today on our way to Scotland. They take contactless payment so much more convenient than BP. Zap-map is your friend for finding charge points. The chargers at the Rheged centre are Electric highway so chances are they’ll be down

There’s also Instavolt chargers at Booths in Keswick which is not far from Whinlatter.

Are there any studies as how much reduction in battery life stuffing these huge amounts of kW’s in to them does?

I’ve exclusively been using public rapid chargers for a yr and a half now and recent tests on my battery seem to show it’s fine, I’m still getting it’s full range.

There’s also Instavolt chargers at Booths in Keswick which is not far from Whinlatter

When I charged there last they seemed to be quite popular. If a plan B is needed theres a GeniePoint across the road at Morrisons

I assume if someone is using the 50kW Chad connector another user couldn’t concurrently use the 50kW CCS?

Each time I’ve shared a charger with another car capable of drawing 50kW they’ve both dropped to half whatever one car was charging at – for example thze Orlen ones in Poland.

Are there any studies as how much reduction in battery life stuffing these huge amounts of kW’s in to them does?

I don’t know about “studies” but forum feedback on the early Nissan Leaf with a 23kWh battery and 50kW charging says that that was to fast on an uncooled battery. Up to 10kW of charging for 10kWh of battery capacity don’t worry about it. Manufactureres are using more and more sphisticated algorithms to manage charge rate as a function of temperature and charge level, and offering longer battery guarantees. I would assume they don’t charge the battery so fast as it will fail within guarantee.

Edit: if I try to fast charge the Zoé with a freezing battery it won’t even take 22kW. The first charge at 22°C it takes 48kW. The third charge on a motorway run with mid 30s°C it starts around 35kW and drops form there.

Manufactureres are using more and more sphisticated algorithms to manage charge rate as a function of temperature and charge level,

They’re also using a proper coole\ing system. This is where Nissan/Renault got it wrong.  Something I believe they corrected.

Renault still uses the same system which is cool air from the same heat pump as the air con. It works fine except for fast running and multiple charges on Summer days in the 30s IME, the heat pump then runs continuously and the charge slows down.

Nissan used uncooled air on the Leaf, I don’t know if they’ve improved on that.

They have, I think.

In other news, yesterday the car did a commute, an emergency school pickup and a trip to Ikea, about 30 miles all in, and we got 5.7m/kWh. Quite a bit of crawling traffic and some 50mph, in 22C still weather. Quite pleased with that. Long term average over the first 800 miles is now 4.7m/kWh.

That’s seriously impressive.

Normal, Drac. Had a look at the Zoé to compare: trip last zeroed 311km ago before two trips up to the ski resort and some town use. 10.2kWh/100km which is 6.1m/kWh in your money. Perfect conditions, 22°C and nothing on apart from the radio and the heater fan on 1.

Molgrips drives an Ioniq though.

Now that summer is here I regularly see over 5 miles/kWh around town from my e-Niro.

Drac the super fast charging on your e-Tron is supposed to make up its crap efficiency 😉

Which is only a few kgs more than the Zoé and similar in terms of aero. The Ioniq is a better package though with more accomodation. My point is that it’s what you’d hope an Ioniq would achieve in perfect weather conditions rather than being seriously impressive. People seem to be far too pesismistic about what EVs will do and disbelieving of the official figures when they can be met without much effort as Molgrips and myself have demonstrated.

Drac the super fast charging on your e-Tron is supposed to make up its crap efficiency

Thankfully yes and large battery, I’m getting about 2.7m/Kw now. 😂

My point is that it’s what you’d hope an Ioniq would achieve in perfect weather conditions rather than being seriously impressive. People seem to be far too pesismistic

Hope and reality are different things though. I still find it seriously impressive that such a large car can achieve that. I’d expect it in small hatch

Large, light for its size and battery capacity and reasonably aero, it’s the future if only the buying public can be convinced of it.

Yeah the weight they achieved is excellent. I think more and more are looking listening. Now ranges have gone up, charge times fallen and prices becoming more accessible.

People seem to be far too pesismistic about what EVs will do and disbelieving of the official figures when they can be met without much effort as Molgrips and myself have demonstrated.

I’m sure I could eke out the claimed 300 miles range of the e-Niro but where’s the fun in that😁

One reason for choosing the Ioniq over the Kona was the fact it is clearly more aero. The offical range figures are similar, but I figured that the Ioniq must surely do better on motorways.

The commute, by the way is slow but quite stop start, and not at all flat, so it’s far from perfect conditions. We’re going to my folks at the weekend, probably be a mix of suburban DC and undulating open country roads on the way up and about 70% DC/motorway on the way home. In the Passat the country road option was slightly better on MPG despite the section with loads of roundabouts, it’ll be interesting to see which is better with the EV.

Tesla Model 3 LR on order. Managed to do it at exactly the wrong time so now they have to post it from China in August.

Eventually managed to get consent from the council for the charger (listed building) but now just discovered that the electricity supply is looped, and there’s no way that it can be un-looped without digging up a cobbled street.

60A fuse so hoping that the DNO will give approval for a smart charger with automatic load limiting.

Strikes me that these hoops to jump through are hardly a unique case and going to cause a lot of headaches when new ICE cars are banned in 2030 and everyone’s trying to do it.

We have a 60a main fuse and a 32a charger without any smart stuff. It’s all down to how much other stuff you have – we don’t have electric showers, induction hob etc.

To be honest even a 16a charger is ok unless you’re regularly arriving home late with an empty car and need it full for the morning.

Our Ohme smart charger is having a hard time communicating with the car. They emailed me saying that Hyundai had changed the API and it stopped knowing what charge the car had, then it started working then stopped now it’s got the SoC wrong, it thought we were on 26% but we were on like 90% so then it got all upset when the car stopped charging.