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.

That’s good to know, thanks. No electric showers or induction hobs here either so fairly optimistic. The charger company won’t touch a looped supply without DNO approval unfortunately, which is mad when I could get a 32A commando socket installed with no questions asked.

@flaperon you should be reet. I had a 32a pod point for our Model 3 for 12 months on a 60a main cutout. Local independent company fitted the charger rather than pod point themselves so think they sorted all of the DNO paperwork. After 12 months I was sorting a load of other house shit and contacted the DNO who got it upgraded to 80a. They weren’t bothered in the slightest about the 32a charger on the old 60a cutout. I think the podpoint has something in it that will restrict the car charging if I went mad and had a tumble dryer party or something. It gets 28 miles/hr into the battery.

I’ve started to think more about an ev, but it feels a bit too early to jump currently. I’m currently enjoying my ice octy but with 3 kids I’ve been looking at bigger cars. I was keen on something like an ice XC90 then covid happened just before baby #3 so doing very few miles and have made do… Originally the wife squeezed in the middle in the back seat but as 2nd daughter got bigger and swapped car seats the 3 kids now fit on the back. However as they grow it’ll get increasingly uncomfortable, I reckon I’ll be buying a bigger car in 2-4 years. Now full ev big cars seem very limited in choice right now but what do people think the future, the 2-4 year future, has in store? I was disappointed in the t7 multivan release this week, no full ev and the phev range is only 31miles. That’s not even enough to get cheap road tax as far as I understand.
Sorry for the somewhat rambling observations, I’m just trying to work out when the right time to swap to an ev is. It feels like it’s not here for big 7 seaters, but given that if I end up paying for a new car i will want to keep it for many years, I hope it gets here in the next couple of years. Will it?

There’s a lot of SUV style EVs as it’s easier for them to convert to EV.

https://ev-database.uk/

You can sort by body style on there.

The id buzz is VW’s electric van. Expect massive prices though if it’s got enough battery to push that body along

Not much in the way of 7 seater out there but I’ve just ordered a Skoda Enyaq as my next company car. Sat in one at the dealers last week, front and boot space about the same as my current Passat GTE estate, rear passenger space is a good bit bigger though. I put the drivers seat right back and could sit behind it with to to spare and I’m 6’3″ with long legs. Flat floor makes a big difference too. Middle seat a bit compromised but isn’t it always these days. Think you can also get seat back tables with phone/tablet holders as part of a family option pack

Skoda Enyaq

Ugh, photo linking. Getting one like this in a few months, looking forward to it.

Question on the new generation of smart chargers – I have an older “dumb” 7kW Rolec. I know some now can do clever interfacing with solar panels but beyond that and setting charge times and limits (which I think you can generally do in the car anyway), what other advantages do they have?

AHH yes, the I’d buzz. It looks quite a bit smaller than the t7, more s-max size. This may suit in the end, but it’s not really comparible to the t7 is it?

AHH yes, the I’d buzz. It looks quite a bit smaller than the t7, more s-max size.

The concept is just over 5m long which is in the middle of t6 lengths. I would guess no motor at the front means the interior is likely the same as an xlwb t6, so a fair bit bigger than a smax

Yes just read a bit on it, no engine bay and wheels in corners maximise the inside space. Concept can seat up to 8, I guess that’s 4 rows of 2 as it looks narrow but looks can be deceiving. Pricing starting from £50k according to top gear, who say vw have said it’ll be no more than the equivalent ice vehicle, and range of 370 miles. Looks like one to watch, exciting.

That Enyaq is rather nice. The choices since I ordered mine a year ago has come on bounds.

In case anyone’s interested the A-road route to my parents resulted in 5.0m/kWh, my wife says she wasn’t trying to be careful (I wasn’t in the car as I was cycling). On the way back I drove fairly modestly before hitting the DC where I set the cruise to 70mph, and I got 5.0 as well. Pretty pleased with that, four of us in the car and the air-con on in temps of 27 degrees.

It was also fantastically relaxing with some smooth roads, light steering, supple ride, no engine noise or wind noise in that car. Turn the lane assist off on country roads though.

Something else I thought about yesterday:

We’ve got two years on the lease, by which time my youngest will be in high school and she’ll be getting the bus to school; and my wife could get the bus too (or e-bikes have been discussed) if she’s still at her current job. So in theory, we COULD get by with only one car. But we would want something that could tow, such as the really interesting looking Polestar 2. Available with a 330 mile range in 2WD or 300 in 4WD. Someone tested a Model X with a caravan in the USA and found it got half its range. However, US trailers tend to be much heavier, and the towing speed limit is the same as normal, so it was probably driving faster than I would. I’d be hoping to get 55-60% of the published range when towing UK style – which wouldn’t be too bad, I could live with it. And whilst the Polestar is more than I would normally have expected to spend on a car it’s not particularly expensive by EV standards. And with only one car I could afford to spend more on it.

That’s great stuff.

The Mrs had to take our eldest for cobid test yesterday. 70 mile round trip on mainly dual carriage ways. As likewise temps were in the high 20s they had the aircon on. Still returned 2.5m/KWH still way higher than in the winter.

The Polestar is very nice… but in 2 years time there will be cars available with 100 kWh batteries I think so I’d relax and see what turns up.

Else you can buy my Cybertruck 😉

Interesting local cost comparism..
Base Tesla 3 – 349,000 NOK
Base Polestar 2 – 389,000
Base E-Niro – 389,000
Base Audi A3 – 467,000 !!!

Hi , I hope it’s ok to pop a few queries here. I’m just in the process of changing jobs and with that I get a company car. The company are looking to go fully electric, and I’m guinea pig number one! I’m quite excited by this and keen to go electric. I’ve been doing my research and for the budget and ultimately range (I’m doing my numbers on 250miles real world), and decent charging options, the Hyundai Kona/ Kia E Niro cars seem to be hard to beat. Both 64kWh versions, very similar cars albeit the Niro being a little bigger.

My slight issue is home charging. We have a garage and space in front however this is not attached to our house directly but instead backs onto our neighbours and getting power there may prove tricky, permissions etc, but looking into it. I can use a 13A feed (with a suitably sized cable/protection) but anymore than a few hours might be an issue. No other place to park unfortunately.  

I’m based in Reigate and the office is in High Wycombe, a 50 mile commute each way on the best bit of the M25! I’ll be working from home, with an expectation to go into the office two or so days a week and the others will be on site (Midlands and lower) and home, this will chop and change. The office has charging, currently 3kW but being upgraded as we speak to 7kW or possibly 22kW. When on site, these will normally be all day visits, so would try to destination charge. 

We have two chargers within a 5 min walk from home. 1 x 50kW rapid (free 2 hr parking) and a couple of 22kW (parking free after 5). There are plenty of others around too and Cobham services has some decent rapid ones which would charge the Kona at a max of 76kW. 

Does anyone here rely entirely on the public charging network? There seems to be enough of them around me to make that bit work, but will it work in the real world? Does it come down to me planning a bit more, picking the car with the most range, and just re-learning the way we do things, which I’m very happy to do, as keen to make this work. The price of public charging is another conversation which I need to work out with work also. Any ideas or thoughts much appreciated. Thanks!

nssian- we looked at both the Niro and the Kona. The Niro is meaningfully bigger. More legroom, feels more spacious, the ‘boot plus seats down’ room is a more useful shape (I’d say the specs don’t represent it that well).

We couldn’t justify the price for one of those just now- I’m keeping my fingers crossed for a s/h Niro at sensible prices in 2-3 years.

Does anyone here rely entirely on the public charging network? There seems to be enough of them around me to make that bit work, but will it work in the real world? Does it come down to me planning a bit more, picking the car with the most range, and just re-learning the way we do things, which I’m very happy to do, as keen to make this work. The price of public charging is another conversation which I need to work out with work also. Any ideas or thoughts much appreciated. Thanks!

Public charging will average 30-35p per kWh which equates to 7.5-9p per mile so will be cheaper than ICE.

Using only public, will the car need regular AC charging and is there anywhere you can leave it to do this. I recently visited London and Ubitricity had 5.2kW AC charging in the street which worked well and was 24p/kWh. Without a service like that locally could be a pain unless you can use a granny charger at home and 7.2kW regularly at work

but in 2 years time there will be cars available with 100 kWh batteries I think so I’d relax and see what turns up.

Yeah, but the ones with 78kWh batteries or even 38 like my Hyundai will be cheap, cos of that exact sentiment.

I’m happy to take enough range to be useful, rather than the latest and greatest, in the hope of getting a good 2 year old car at a much cheaper price. I already know I’ll be gutted to get rid of this car in 2 years – I wish I’d gone for 3. I wonder if I can make the dealer an offer for it? The lease company said that wasn’t normal but surely if it goes back to the dealer they’ll be open to selling it to me – that’s what they do for a living after all.

Base Polestar 2 – 389,000
Base E-Niro – 389,000

Oof. Would much rather have a Polestar 2 I reckon.

@nssian you might find that a 13A charger is useful. Our commute is short, we only use about 6-7% a day, which could easily be replaced with a 13A charger. We did a long trip yesterday but I could have dropped the family off at home, popped back to the rapid charger near home, topped up to 50% and then done the rest on the 13A.

But then again, we got home at 6pm, giving us 14 hours before the commute, that would have been enough to get back up to nearly full. Even if we’d got home late we could have added 30% or so overnight which would have been enough for the next day’s use then added another 40% the next night etc. It doesn’t always have to be brimmed full.

But for you with 100 miles a day, and a decent efficient car at 4.5m/kWh that could be using 22kWh a day which is about 7 hours of charging at 3kW, which is an easy overnight charge.

Can’t you get work to put in 7kW chargers at work?

@swanny853 Your are right. I’ve managed to sit in both and it isn’t obvious from the marketing info, but as soon as you sit in them, the Kona can feel quite small in comparison. I think I’m drawn to the Kona more for some reason but the size of it does slightly concern me, and I know the Niro will be more practical. The Kona’s boot is smaller than our old Jazz, in litres anyway! The cost may end up being the deciding factor between the two. Seems to be some good deals on the Kona currently.

@djglover We do quite a bit in London and looking around there seems to be a lot of the Ubitricity points. I guess it taking the opportunity to charge where you can to keep replacing those miles, even just the ones you used on that journey and then when at work do a full charge. We have a couple of 22kW chargers about a 10 minute walk away from home which are 20p/kWH and 50p initial charge and the car park is free after 5, so if I need a decent charge I could leave it there for the evening and pick up later. It should charge at 11kW on the Kona, which would takes 7 hrs to fully charge. The local rapid chargers will be quicker but twice the price. At least I have some options and can use the granny charger a bit to just to help, even just to get me to the office..

It doesn’t always have to be brimmed full.

In fact it’s best avoided unless you’re going to do a long trip as soon as you unplug. Your battery will last longer.

From trying an E-Niro back to back with a Soul it’s the Soul that feels the more spacious car (especially in the back).

The Soul is, like for like spec, hugely cheaper than the E-Niro though, and if you don’t need the boot space I’d really struggle to see value in the extra cost. Sure it looks more car like, less quirky, slightly bigger boot, but they have similar range and the Soul inside is pleasant.

@molgrips I believe they are currently in the process upgrading the 3kW points to 7kW (All Plug in hybrids previously) and possibly a couple of 22kW ones, so I in theory could go from 0-100% in a day quite easily, giving me ~250 miles. If I did a commute home and back the next day, I’m back down to 150 in the morning, a quick top up during the day and then I would get home with 200 miles to go.

I guess as you’ve described, it’s having those options where some days one may work better than the other depending what’s going on and where I am. Also being clever when arranging my weeks, in order to get the office to charge on the best days and try not to organise lots of long trips on days next to each other.

Any issues using a 13A charger for a few hours each night?

In fact it’s best avoided unless you’re going to do a long trip as soon as you unplug. Your battery will last longer.

Although this is a bit of a grey area as it’s not clear which manufacturers actually run their batteries to 100% anyway. The suggestion is that Hyundais are only at 85% or so when the car reports 100% so this is effectively done for you.

I have a Soul, work Colleague has a Niro, they have same drive train and battery which is the same as the Hyundai Kona as they are parent companies. I’m currently now it’s warmed up again getting 260 miles to a charge and I’m not exactly light on the accelerator pedal.

But we would want something that could tow, such as the really interesting looking Polestar 2. Available with a 330 mile range in 2WD or 300 in 4WD.

Good luck getting anything like that range in the real world. Even its fans admit the Polestar 2 is particularly inefficient.

In a couple of years the Tesla Model Y will be widely available as will the new EVs from Kia and Hyundai and the Polestar 2 will be obsolete.

@nissian. I’ve gone from top of the range Kona to top of the range e-Niro. The Kona was a bit cheap and nasty inside and the e-Niro’s cabin is a lot more premium and a much nicer place to be. The Kona’s boot is small and the rear seating is cramped. I also find the e-Niro’s ride to be more controlled and solid than the Kona’s. The button gear selector in the Kona drove me mad as I found it impossible to use by feel and I had to look down every time I wanted to change from forwards to reverse and vice versa. In contrast the rotary gear selector in the e-Niro can be operated easily by touch. Like Kuco above I can get 250 real world range out of the e-Niro with normal, slightly spirited driving. I’ve had the e-Niro for three months now and can recommend it to anyone looking for an EV just now.

In a couple of years the Tesla Model Y will be widely available as will the new EVs from Kia and Hyundai and the Polestar 2 will be obsolete.

But for us, towing is a requirement.

Interesting to hear your comments re Kona vs Niro. I have test drives booked in both of them tomorrow so will be good to get a feel for the both of them and how they drive. What sort of real world range do you get in the winter out of interest?

Model 3 has a towbar option, I’d expect the Y to have one too – and it does

https://shop.tesla.com/product/model-y-tow-package

Teslas don’t appeal much, and the model Y is gob-smackingly ugly.

What sort of real world range do you get in the winter out of interest?

I haven’t had the e-Niro during winter and due to lockdown didn’t take the Kona on any long winter trips but Bjorn Nyland has tested the e-Niro in Norway in winter and found its range to be 233 miles

Some really impressive real world ranges from the Korean marques.

I recently drove our Model 3P from Newcastle to Glasgow sans roof bars/bike rack and spanked 220miles of ‘range’ in a 160mile journey. At 100% charge ours shows roughly 300miles (WLTP is 329miles) and as mentioned in another thread in calculating that 300miles @ 100%, Tesla don’t take into account any environmental factors/recent driving style etc. (which is different to pretty much all other EVs I think). You can see this real number in the ‘Energy’ screen but the main display is always just the raw number.

So real world if I took that 300miles down to 0 miles I would only actually go 218 miles.. but I would never realistically take it to 0miles so call it 210 max which is pretty shit really when the website says your shiny new Tesla has a range of 329miles.

The newer model has an energy efficient heat pump which mine does not so I’d be really interested in what difference that makes.

The journey to Glasgow was pretty ordinary driving, nothing wild and capped at 70mph on the motorway. My economy ranges between 280-320Wh/mile which is 3.57-3.13mi/kWh. Not great given some of the real world figures in this thread. Some of that is with the rack on though and carrying a big mountain bike.

My wife’s ID3 is due any day and we specced that with the energy efficient heat pump so really interested to see how that goes. It’s a 58kWh battery and WLTP of 260miles and I’ve a feeling it won’t be that much less than the Tesla real world. But obviously without the convenience of supercharging.

On my recent trip to the lakes with the bike up top I managed to eek out quite a bit more range by having the AC off and keeping speeds right down. Was sweating my bits off mind and it was NOT comfortable!

Does anyone here rely entirely on the public charging network? There seems to be enough of them around me to make that bit work, but will it work in the real world? Does it come down to me planning a bit more, picking the car with the most range, and just re-learning the way we do things, which I’m very happy to do, as keen to make this work. The price of public charging is another conversation which I need to work out with work also.

I don’t have to rely entirely on the public charging network, but I choose to use it exclusively and have done for well over a year. So, yes it does work in the real world, but i would imagine every case will be unique, you certainly need a few chargers at your disposal as alternatives to one’s that are broken or occupied. I’ve got about 9 on my commute (which is when I tend to charge, on either journey). I would imagine if you have a very busy work / private life, then it might get quite inconvenient having to sit at a public charger for an hour every few days, but only you can know that. Assume that you’ll have to charge more often than you think. What has made it bearable for me is the fact it’s free of charge and the entertainment package available on my big screen, Netflix, youtube, BBC, ITV, CH4 and video games.

The newer model has an energy efficient heat pump which mine does not so I’d be really interested in what difference that makes.

Its only likely to make a difference in winter.

My economy ranges between 280-320Wh/mile which is 3.57-3.13mi/kWh. Not great given some of the real world figures in this thread.

Converting to miles per kWh thats 2.8 to 3.2 milesper kWh which I agree at no more than 70mph isn’t that impressive. Two up with luggage and aircon on my e-Niro will do 3.5-3.6 miles per kWh all day on the motorway with the cruise control set to 75mph

@nssian although you can probably get away with using work and the public charging network, and I think a key factor here is that you want to make it work, which likely means you will, you’d miss one of the great joys of an EV. That is just not having to fill it up because it starts the day full (OK 80% or whatever).

It sounds like you can get some sort of cable to your garage/parking place. If you can, I would. It needs to be safe of course, so probably a relatively hefty cable, but you should be able to find a way with the portable charging stuff that comes with the car. I’m 2 years in to home charging on a “commando” cable (32A). I intended to fit a proper charge point but haven’t yet and all is OK.

Even on a 3 pin plug (2.4kw ish – you generally can’t draw 13a for long periods from a domestic socket so they’re throttled to 10) it’s well worth having on many days – if you only drove 100 miles yesterday and you’re WFH today, it’ll do its job easily.

But if you’re running a cable, you might well be able to pop in a 16A circuit for it. 60% faster charging. Or even 32?.

My economy ranges between 280-320Wh/mile which is 3.57-3.13mi/kWh. Not great given some of the real world figures in this thread.

I guess if some of that is with roof bars/bike rack it might be hitting the figures hard? My Model S is returning about the same in this weather on mainly motorway journeys so I’d expect a Model 3 to be quite a lot better both for its size and some slightly newer tech. If I drove like a saint I think I’d be averaging under 280 on the same trips (but only in warm dry weather).

Don’t forget the Kia/Hyundai cars are NEVER brimmed full as you don’t have access to the top 5% or whatever of the battery , precisely for that reason.

I like Bjorn Nylands testing a lot, consistent, and seems to reflect what people see in the real world. I don’t recall how he found the Polestar to be – very ‘mid table’ for efficiency. It’s not as good as the Tesla 3 as an example, but still pretty good. Obselete -. maybe – all these cars are changing from when they first appeared, especially the Teslas. In the real world I’d say the biggest issue for doing long trips in the Polestar, as it is, is that the recharging speed is not very quick.

I drove a Polestar last year , like it a lot, and the price has come down 70,000 NOK since then. But the e-niro is nice too, so it wouldn’t be so clear cut for me. Probably the Tesla 3 IF I can get a big bouldering mat in

I like Bjorn Nylands testing a lot

He definitely does more unbiased and real world tests, I watched his videos before ordering to get a rough idea if I was making the right choice.

In the real world I’d say the biggest issue for doing long trips in the Polestar, as it is, is that the recharging speed is not very quick.

Bear in mind that the Model 3 charging speed is capped to about 100kW in the UK because of the LG batteries, so the Polestar is probably comparable.

150kW for the Polestar apparently. That’s 3x the rate of my car, and even if it goes less far on each kWh it’s still putting in 2-2.5x more miles per minute when charging.