The Electric Car Thread

While I’m trying to get my head around what features of an EV actually matter to me, I thought I’d look at home chargers. No point getting an EV if I can’t charge at home really.

I’m with OVO energy (Scotland) and they seem to have an OK looking EV tariff. They can also apparently install a charger for me. Makes sense; they deliver the electrons to my house so they might as well take care of diverting them to the car.

So, step 1; choose a charger. What? How? Is there any difference? Well, the options are:

Ohme ePod £914

Indra Smart PRO £914

Ohme Home Pro £964

Hypervolt Home 3 Pro £1,064

All prices include installation but assume it will be a simple one.

So, any reason to pick (or avoid) one over the other?

I went for the Ohme home pro over the Ohme pod as I wanted a tethered cable. I didn’t want to be going into my boot every night getting the cable out and then packing it away again every morning (probably in the rain). Doesn’t look as neat when it’s not in use (with the cable hanging next to it) as an untethered box on the wall but  that was not an issue for me. Personal choice really. No idea about the others mentioned.

Thanks @andy4d That was the one I was leaning towards anyway to be honest. We’re not exactly house proud and it wont be the scruffiest looking thing on our driveway anyway.

I went ohme home pro too – the ohme chargers seem to have the widest compatibility with the various electric company smart tariffs, so if we ever need to move away from octopus ,in theory it gives the most choice of who else we can use.

I went with the home pro as opposed to the epod because I didnt want to be getting a cable in and out of the boot all the time (like andy4d).

Its been fine – the app is not the most intuitive, but its always worked without fail.

@roverpig , just to flag something that may be relevant. I have an Ohme pro, but it is set up completely ‘dumb’, I’ve signed out of it and deleted my account (on instruction from both Ohme and Octopus), charging is completely managed by Octopus and car. So really, as long as charger is reliable, in our case it really doesn’t matter.

One positive note for Ohme, it was only giving us 3.5kw after installation, our fitter said to call them direct as loads of his installs had a firmware update requirement. Called Ohme, talked to someone quickly, and within an hour they’d done an over the air update to the unit and we were back up to 7kw.

So, maybe it does matter a wee bit which model/company you go with, and I’d give a thumbs up to Ohme.

Thanks all. Sounds as though Ohme is safe enough.

I was a bit surprised (and bewildered) to be given a choice of four. OK I can see (now) that there is a tethered vs untethered question and maybe some do look prettier than others but they didn’t give me a choice when they fitted the smart meter and the sparky didn’t ask what fuse box (or whatever they are called these days) we wanted when we had the extension done. They just fitted something that did the job.

To get the cheapest rates (on Octopus, at least) they need to be able to control when the car charges. So either they need to talk to the car directly, or the charger, to tell it when to start and stop and read how much charge it has. Octopus’s system talks directly to a handful of cars but they also talk to Ohme; and Ohme support loads of cars.

If using Ohme, you have to remove any sort of charge timers etc from your car so it will accept whatever it’s given by the charger’s schedule. In my case, this means the car is expecting a full charge at all times, but it’s not always getting it – so it generates alerts from the app saying ‘oh no, charging has stopped’ etc. So you turn these off in the car/app and only get alerts from the charger.

So, I think I’ve now almost completed my EV “thought experiment”. With much help from you all (thanks) I’ve worked out a shortlist of EVs that would fit the bill and even the charger/tariff that I’d need. But I’m now back to that old chestnut of does an EV actually make sense for me at all?

I recently had a play in a (pure) petrol Suzuki Swift Sport. Now, full disclosure, I’m a big Suzuki fan. My S-cross is ugly as sin but I bought it new and in 140,000 miles it hasn’t given me a moment of trouble. The (pre-hybrid) Sport is basically the same 1.4l turbo engine, which is surprisingly nippy, stuck in the Swift, which I think is the perfect size car now the kids have grown up.

It was a reminder of just how much fun a moderately powerful, light (sub 1,000 kg) car can be. Nothing special on paper. Plenty of EVs will thrash the 8.1s 0-62 mph time. But chuck it into a corner, let it understeer, lift off and feel that switch to oversteer. Hilarious. It also has all the toys I want (CarPlay, adaptive cruise) but doesn’t try to grab the steering wheel off you just because you get too close to the line (turn off the lane departure warning and it stays off next time).

More importantly, I could get a 2019 model with under 20k on the clock for around £13k. I can be pretty confident that it will be trouble free for the next six years and 120k. My local independent garage can service and repair it (if needed). No worries about driving it across the country if the mood takes me etc.

I know I’m not comparing like with like, but all the EVs I’m looking at are north of £20k and would have to be serviced (at least for now) at a main dealer. I don’t know how reliable they would be over, say, six years and 120k and longer journeys would be more of a pain. Yes, assuming nothing goes wrong, running costs should be lower, but low enough to offset the purchase price?

Anyway, this probably isn’t the place to talk about petrol hatches and the EV vs ICE debate has probably been done to death. But it helps me to put my thoughts down in writing, so thanks for bearing with me.

If using Ohme, you have to remove any sort of charge timers etc from your car so it will accept whatever it’s given by the charger’s schedule. In my case, this means the car is expecting a full charge at all times, but it’s not always getting it – so it generates alerts from the app saying ‘oh no, charging has stopped’ etc. So you turn these off in the car/app and only get alerts from the charger.

Presumably this is what @big_scot_nanny was talking about when they talked about making the Ohme into a dumb charger. I guess there is more to these chargers (and charging different cars) than I’d bargained for and there doesn’t seem to be any consensus on what bit of kit (car or charger) should actually be in charge.

there doesn’t seem to be any consensus on what bit of kit (car or charger) should actually be in charge.

there is if you are using low price off peak charging such as Octopus. The Electricity supplier app (Octopus in this case) has to be in charge, regardless of what car/charger combo you have, they just need to be Octopus compatible, and lists of what is compatible are available at Octopus.

But you also need to be able to set the car up so that it can accept a charge at any time (without going to sleep or setting off alarms) right? Presumably the car has to control when the charging stops too as the supplier doesn’t know when you’ve reached the desired percentage. Or does it?

^^ yes, you have to set the car up to accept at any time, you only need to do this once.  Thereafter the Octopus App interrogates the car and Octopus controls when it starts and stops and knows how full it is.

Ah, clever. Thanks. I’m not actually on Octopus but presumably OVO can do something similar with their anytime EV tariff (which isn’t anytime at all really of course).

Hmm, had a bit of a deeper look at the OVO anytime EV thing and am even more confused.

The car I was thinking about (Smart #1) isn’t on their list of compatible EVs but if I tick the boxes to say it isn’t on the list but I have an Ohme charger and my car can connect to the internet then it thinks I’ll be fine. But just because a car can connect to the internet doesn’t mean it can do whatever they want it to do does it? And if it can then why isn’t it on the list of compatible EVs? Guess I’m going to need to have a chat with OVO, but they don’t exactly make things easy for newbies do they. What if the phone signal for whatever network the car uses is a bit flaky, for example. Could end up spending a lot of money on an EV and then find you can’t actually charge it at home, which changes everything. Or am I being too negative?

But you also need to be able to set the car up so that it can accept a charge at any time (without going to sleep or setting off alarms) right?

It just means cancelling any charge timers you might have. If you’re not using a smart charger, you can get the car to be ready at a specific time in the morning; and there’s also a setting to limit it to a given percentage. Just cancel these (or don’t set them up) and you’re good to go.

For smart charging tariffs the electricity provider needs to work with EITHER the car OR the charger. From their site, smart charging is supported by these brands:

I just went on Octopus site, I put in Smart #1 and Ohme Pod and it says you can get the 7p rate.

What if the phone signal for whatever network the car uses is a bit flaky, for example. Could end up spending a lot of money on an EV and then find you can’t actually charge it at home, which changes everything. Or am I being too negative?

Whoah – you will still be able to charge at home, of course – you just pay a slightly higher rate (9p I think) if it’s not ‘smart’. That’s assuming you have a smart meter though. If not then you will have to pay the 23p I think.

OK, thanks. It sounds as though, one way or another, it would be possible to get something to work.

Most EV owners (at least on here) seem to be on Octopus and there must be a reason for that. So, if all else failed I guess I could just switch supplier. On the face of it the OVO anytime EV tariff looks like a decent solution. It seems to offer 7p/kwh any time you like. The “catch” being that you are only getting 7p/kwh for the EV charging not the whole house, but on the plus side is doesn’t increase the peak rate either as it’s just an add-on to your normal tariff for EV charging (as far as I can tell). The information on the web is a bit confusing though. In some places it clearly says that you either need a smart charger or a compatible EV (not both) but in other places it implies that you need the smart charger  and a car that can connect to the internet while charging.

We’re on EDF’s Go Electric tariff. Bought a Tesla charger, had it configured to charge anything on the install. Have paired it to our car exclusively via the app and configured it to charge during the 9p/kw window between 1 and 6am. It was very simple to set up.

Running the dishwasher and washing machine overnight as well has resulted in the monthly bill including car charging being less than it was on the previous standard EDF tariff excluding the car.

Most EV owners (at least on here) seem to be on Octopus and there must be a reason for that

It’s because Octopus are a great company after being with complete clowns for years.

You don’t exactly get 7p any time you want. It’s 7p when the car is charging IF you have scheduled a departure time; the departure can be any time. In practice you will set it to say 80% every day at 7am or whatever as a routine, so you don’t have to program it in. If you want to leave at some other time, you schedule that time and it will do its best. So at 11am if I suddenly need to leave on a long trip at 1pm I can tell it that I want to leave at 1pm and it will do its best to fill me up, and will still charge me 7p. BUT if electricity is too expensive at that time it might refuse to do it, I guess. Any time your car is charging the whole house is 7p, leading to people scheduling their car to charge during the day and doing their baking or welding or whatever then. Octopus ask you not to do this, and I guess they would remove you from the tariff if they could prove you’d been taking the piss.

Additionally, everything is 7p between 11.30pm and 5.30am, and they suggest you schedule your washing machine, dishwasher or immersion heater during that time.

Is charger rage a thing ?

A few times when I’ve done long trips at busy times (e.g. Christmas) I’ve noticed that all the chargers are full (fair enough) but there didn’t seem to be any queueing system with cars either sitting in random places or driving around, which seems like a recipe for conflict. So, is this something you’ve experienced?

^^^ the satnav in my EV (BMW i4) directs me to chargers which are operational and unoccupied, and if I ignore it and go to a bank of occupied ones it immediately offers me alternatives which are not in use, by proximity.  Clever !

I have got a quote for an electircian to install an Ohme Home Pro (it will be outside Ohme’s limits for their online quote and I am not sure our meter is smart enough for them) and the quote is “not including load monitoring cable”.  From what I can glean from the Ohme site, a load monitoring cable would be a good thing and is necessary for charging at the full 7kW.  Why would the quote not include this?

I’ve just looked at the Tesla app for chargers and it seems as if they have opened a charging station at Gretna. It wasn’t on the app last week when I was planning for a trip north of the border. The appearance of the station means there is sub 140 mile gaps between stations from where I live to Inverness.

A few more stations have appeared elsewhere in the UK so that makes it much cheaper for me to get around.

The Tesla chargers at gretna services have been closed for some time. Have they moved them elsewhere or reopened the ones at the services?? I can recommend the  Tesla chargers at Larkhall NR Motherwell, there’s about 17 of them.

From what I can glean from the Ohme site, a load monitoring cable would be a good thing and is necessary for charging at the full 7kW. Why would the quote not include this?

dont think its necesary, but is a nice feature in the scenario where your total load of the house gets close to the limit of the main house fuse, the charger can detect this and reduce its load so that you dont blow your main house fuse.

Ours is set to reduce the output of the charger when the total house load exceeds 80a , the house is on a 100a fuse. as far as I know the house has never got anywhere close to 80a total load, Think it would take both ovens, the induction hob, the electric shower, a acouple of fan heaters plus the car charger running at max power to do so. The most I have seen is ~50amps. I guess if you had a heat pump you might be more at risk of getting close to the house limits?

I dont think its expensive to add the load sensing capability – I wasnt given a choice when we had ours fitted and as such I thought they all came with it.

edit : the ohme chargers do come with the load sensing cable, so your installer shouldnt really be charging extra for it.

How do I install a CT clamp?

They were in the process of building 14 tesla superchargers at Gretna outlet village (rather than the motorway services) when I was last there three weeks ago. Maybe they are operational now?

edit: according to Zapmap they are now operational and are open to non-tesla peeps.

@greyspoke you mention your install is outside ohme’s online limits. Could it be that the installer does not know how much cable your install needs as its a non standard install and at £5 (or whatever it is) a meter they will add this cost when they see how much they use? As mentioned my ohme came with it as standard but was a standard install.

From what I can glean from the Ohme site, a load monitoring cable would be a good thing and is necessary for charging at the full 7kW

Yes this might be needed for houses with lower supplies, we are a modern house with the full 80 or 100A or whatever it is, so we don’t have such a thing. We do get 7kW.

Is charger rage a thing ?

I havent’ seen it; but as above my car won’t send me to chargers that are occupied. There might be issues with cheapskates queueing up to use Tesla chargers because they are significantly cheaper, but I’m happy to pay the premium to avoid that. Others may not be…

Is charger rage a thing ?

I’ve never encountered it.
Generally, if the chargers are busy then you can clock any other EVs that are waiting in the vicinity and everyone knows who was waiting before them and waits their turn and it all kinda just flows naturally.
Having said that, I have only ever had to queue for a charger once, for 5 mins at Ionity Gretna.  Ive watched others queuing whilst I have been charging but only ever for a handful of minutes.

Thanks for the replies @andy4d, @julians and @molgrips.

As it is clearly a non-standard installation (by about 20m and a few walls etc.) I went direct to an electrician for a quote, so he has budgeted for the extra cabling he thinks he needs, but he clearly doesn’t think he needs the load monitoring, I was wondering what was going on with that (I have also asked him).  I can’t remember where I read about needing the CT clamp, what I now get is that you can proceed without one if you disable the “load monitoring” option during set-up. I can’t see how we would reach 100 amps anyhow, we don’t have a hot tub, power shower, electric heating etc.

In general you would use a combined cable (4mm + twisted pair) for an EV charger so the question you need to ask is why would your electrician do things differently from everyone else?

Load monitoring is standard on pretty much every other charger for a reason, and although you don’t have an electric shower or fetid sex pond now, you might get one. You would also need it if you ever get a home battery install, as they can pull an additional 5kW or more when charging. And on top of that, you might have a 60A fuse, which you can’t confirm without looking.

Oh, and check the electrician is happy to pull your main fuse to complete the work, as I’ve discovered that some (particularly bigger companies), are no longer prepared to work if they can’t isolate the supply via a two pole isolator switch prior to the consumer unit.

Interesting @flaperon.  I should have said 40m or so total wiring distance, if that makes a diff.  He’s had a look inside the meter cupboard so I guess he is happy we don’t have an isolator switch.

They were in the process of building 14 tesla superchargers at Gretna outlet village (rather than the motorway services) when I was last there three weeks ago. Maybe they are operational now?

edit: according to Zapmap they are now operational and are open to non-tesla peeps.

Looks like its already popular. OK its bank holiday Friday but the Tesla app now saying 1 out of 14 stalls available.

Just spotted on the Tesla app there is a new Supercharger at Todhills rest area southbound on the M6 just down the road from Gretna. Its also open to the public. Between Tesla and the other networks Gretna-Carlisle area has turned into a charging hotspot.

OK its bank holiday Friday

It would be interesting to gather some data now actually because this weekend is pretty much the busiest of the year.

There’s a guy on speakev.com who occasionally posts usage data like below. He might well do so this weekend.

Here’s the thread https://www.speakev.com/threads/charging-hubs-when-where-are-there-queues.177854/page-9#replies

My new hobby is charger station watching. Well the ones I’m going to visit in the future anyway. I never watched petrol stations in the past as there wasn’t an app. It’s a bit like watching for the prices to drop in online shops, I think?

4mm + twisted pair

Sorry, should’ve said 6mm there.

Just drove down to the alps and back, I note there appeared to be plenty of charging points on the route.

The question, I managed to do the c800miles with one stop for fuel. This was a 1l polo. So I get that electric cars aren’t going to go 400miles between charging. but what would be the realistic range on a motorway/paege trip. trying to understand options when I look at replacing the car. ideally I don’t want something much bigger, etc.

For 90% of journeys there electric would be absolutely fine. Just trying to understand the outlier case.

I managed to do the c800miles with one stop for fuel.

Probably 4-5 stops. How many times did you stop for food or a natural break?

@mrmo I have just done a 450mile  trip in my EV, fully loaded and 4 adults with lots of 120kmph+ motorway driving in my 58kw car. I was getting about 170-180 miles between charges as I was only using about 60%ish between top ups (running it down to about 20% then charging to about 80%), so could do longer stints If happy to run it lower/charge it longer. Spent about 90mins charging at fast chargers in 3 stops but could have done 2 longer stops instead (and I arrived at destination with 35% so could have charged less too). Was getting roughly 4.5miles per kWh but this is an estimate as I didn’t pay too much attention to it.

@uponthedowns

Probably 4-5 stops. How many times did you stop for food or a natural break?

er, not much, lost 30 mins between Verbier and the Channel Tunnel. The English side was just deeply unpleasant and one 10min stop.

@andy4d,  thanks, gives me a rough idea of what is possible.