Hi…DrP joins the EV crew!!!

After an impulse buy of a 2018 Nissan Leaf 40kw, I’m now in the club!
My neighbour bought it at a dealer auction last week, with the intent of selling for a few grand more than he paid.. i offered him a few hundred over what he paid, and as he’s a mate (and he wanted to get lots of sales under his belt ASAP) he sold it!
Lovely little thing to drive around on TBH..
Not much needing doing – gonna stick new tyres on it as though they’ve got tread, even gentle acceleration spins the frints. They feel really hard and plasticky!

Looking at changing our UW tarriff to an EV one now, or simply charge at work (i apy the bills either way..though one is PRE tax!)

Need to look into what’s involved in a yearly service..if it’s filters and pads, I can do that..

DrP

Welcome to the club! You might find that the fronts spin up regardless of the age or type of the tyres – unless they truly are bakelite ditchfinders. It’s the torque, innit – loads of it instantly, can easily catch you out if you’re joining a dual carriageway from a b road etc.

Whichever gives you the lowest pence per kw is the answer to your charging question. I actively avoid charging anywhere other than work but that’s because I don’t pay for it 🙂

Cheers….
I’m a huge fan of cross climates, and fit them to all my cars, so going for those..
Will probably charge at Lidl down the road! 12p/kw…. Proper cheap!

DrP

Unless your LIDL is very much non-typical I very much doubt it is that cheap. Usually pod point 22kw or 50kw chargers, the latter is 50p/kWh. Slower one will be cheaper but highly doubt that cheap!

I like the look of the i4. It may well be my next ev after the eTron. Need to get a test drive if one.

^^^ yes, we were really impressed sitting in it and having a poke about. It is roomier than I had thought.

Need to look into what’s involved in a yearly service..if it’s filters and pads, I can do that..

Pads will last years and years. And filters? What? You mean the cabin air filter?

Nice of Nissan to publish this, at least for South Africa (presumably). The only service items are the brake fluid and the cabin filter! Everything else is just inspection.

https://www.nissan-cdn.net/content/dam/Nissan/za/Maintenance/Leaf.pdf

@andylc … Checking zapmap it’s actually 14p/kw…
Dunno why, but my neighbor reckons it’s an odd subsidised bunch of chargers!

DrP

Can I join the club too? After about a 15 month wait my new Q4 Etron turns up next week! Roughly a 50 mile round commute from Glasgow to Prestwick, albeit over a hill with the usual 50 knot headwind. Hoping to get 4, maybe 5 round trips per ‘tank’.
I’m trying to get Octopus to change my tariff to Go, but as I’m currently on Outgoing Octopus (export 15p/kWh) apparently I’m not eligible. I’ll need to do the maths, but it’s significantly cheaper to charge at work so I’ll be doing that for the foreseeable. Anyone with Agile or Intelligent Octopus with an EV finding it beneficial?

Love the idea of an EV but how do you make the economics and practicalities stack up?

I tow regularly, a round trip of 100 to 250 miles typically to places with no charger facilities anywhere vaguely convenient and where going AWOL looking for a charge isn’t acceptable/feasible. The general trend on EV range with a trailer from random stuff read is seemingly down c. 30-50% on claimed.

The trailer has the aero properties of a barn door with a couple of big holes in. Most places I stop on the motorway it would need unhitching and parking separately and then to drive the detached car to the charger. That means the trailer has to be parked in the caravan zone and needs adequately securing with a wheel clamp and/or hitch lock before going off to a charger with the car and coming back to reconnect.

Leaving all this aside I did some googling for sensible sized/modest tow cars. Picked up on this article from autumn 2022…

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/electric-cars/top-10-best-electric-cars-towing

I find the Kia EV6. Less capacious than any car I’ve had in the last decade but maybe we could work with a focus sized hatch so I have a quick crack at the builder tool…

£46000 with no extras (not even metallic paint or a floor mat) other than a tow bar. 15% down and it’s over £700 a month. That’s £700/month for a car that’s going to want a range zapping roof box for every little weekend away (dog in boot) and add a sack load of extra planning and faff to regular / routine trips.

On a domestic plug charging times of 8hrs+ for a full charge (Kia’s website isn’t very clear on this but I’ve taken the lowest number of an 8-24 hour range of possibilities) and 3hrs+ on a fast AC public charger unless you’ve got a grunty DC charger to do the magic 20minute 10 to 80% charge using their 800V platform.

This is the kind of use case that pretty much any £10k mid sized or large ICE estate/MPV/SUV can manage without drama and a lot more convenience but which just doesn’t seem to be covered in the EV market remotely adequately.

Genuine question but can someone tell me how on earth you could get this proposition to stack up if you weren’t an EV evangelist? Am I missing something?

Not missing anything, for your use case an EV doesn’t make a lot of sense. Your use case isn’t really that common though.

Anyone with Agile or Intelligent Octopus with an EV finding it beneficial?

Yes, because it was only 7.5p/kWh. And you can use the overnight rate for other stuff like heating water or doing dishes too.

Genuine question but can someone tell me how on earth you could get this proposition to stack up if you weren’t an EV evangelist?

No. Personally I would tow with one, if I could afford a towing one, but I’m only going on holiday in a caravan so it’s only a few times a year and, well, I’m on holiday. But for anything work related, it’s not ideal.

On a domestic plug charging times of 8hrs+ for a full charge (Kia’s website isn’t very clear on this but I’ve taken the lowest number of an 8-24 hour range of possibilities) and 3hrs+ on a fast AC public charger unless you’ve got a grunty DC charger to do the magic 20minute 10 to 80% charge using their 800V platform.

Hold on. When you’re out and about you’re only going to be using the fast DC chargers. Ignore everything else. In an EV6 you can charge pretty quickly and on the motorway network your chances of finding a super fast charger are good. However it’s not cheap at those rates.

What are you actually towing?

a sack load of extra planning and faff to regular / routine trips.

In what sense, when you aren’t towing?

That’s £700/month for a car that’s going to want a range zapping roof box for every little weekend away (dog in boot)

How many of you are there?

I tow regularly

Just forget EVs. They don’t suit your use case yet.

And for people on both sides of the argument…. It’s ok that EVs don’t suit everyone. I don’t buy a two seater sports car because it can’t fit a family of four in. Same reasoning. It’s ok to buy a vehicle that suits what you do with it. I have a four door, long range EV, because it suits what I do with it. I don’t tow, I don’t hang millions of bikes off the back, I don’t have dogs screwing up the inside, I don’t drive to outer Mongolia and back on a daily basis. And if you do, that’s ok, there are plenty of ICE vehicles around that suit those jobs perfectly, and will continue to be around for as long as pretty much all of us here will be driving.

Not missing anything, for your use case an EV doesn’t make a lot of sense. Your use case isn’t really that common though.

I would guess the use case where somebody is towing a trailer to a place where there are absolutely no charge points is in the 0.0000n% so can be ignored. Just use your ICE until fuel is no longer available in 2040.
17 years is a long time and by then I would imagine there would be chargers on that same route…

I’ve just ordered a Tesla Y as a company car. I went with a Y because it’s availability is Feb/Mar, the rear seats fold down nicely, I can get my DH or ebike in comfortably and public charging is strong.

It’s the cheapest RWD but range is fine and I don’t need a blistering 0-60 as a 45 year old dad of two.

It’s 100 miles to my office and we’re getting some chargers fitted. When in the office I commute 15 miles from family/friends each way. Business trips will only be to Heathrow/Bristol/Bham airport so I’ll just give myself sufficient time.

Obvs BIK is a huge benefit too.

We’ve got an 11 year old petrol Merc C-class estate for family stuff and an old Transporter T4.

I’m with Ovo Energy at home and to access their smart cheap tariff I need one of their recommended chargers which is a bit poor, but hey-ho.

My fixed rate is up in June.

Any suggestions on next supplier or anyone got a Y and care to share their thoughts?

Cheers

17 years is a long time and by then I would imagine there would be chargers on that same route…

TBH the caravans will have batteries fitted as range extenders by then 🙂

Any suggestions on next supplier or anyone got a Y and care to share their thoughts?

We test drove a Model Y a couple of weeks ago. Got back to the showroom exclaiming “Elon, take our money!” and blagged one that’s currently on a ship from Giga Shanghai en route to Blightly, delivery in 3 weeks so excitement mounting. Like you we went for rear wheel drive. 0-60 in 6.5 secs seems pretty blistering to me.

Re electricity supply. We have a Tesla Powerwall and 2 EVs in the household so for us Octopus Go is a no-brainer. Even if you don’t have home battery storage if your EV mileage is high enough and you can load shift stuff like washing and dishwasher to nightime Octopus Go might make sense for you.

Thanks I am not being stupid then but do have an awkward subset of requirements. I really like the idea of an EV when the old SMax expires but I think I may still be one more ICE car away from it. By then we should be less constrained by children and their space needs and probably work as well so that would eliminate a lot of issues.

The other main concern for me is trips to family and for work where we are going to be reliant on fast charging at increased prices on the motorway/major road network, which I’m gathering from this thread are pretty expensive. I know this should change in time so it’s sit and wait I guess. That and £700 a month 🫣

Love how my ev car drives as well as my current running costs. It is the most relaxing car I’ve ever driven. Driven 17,000 miles in it’s first year with no issues.

Things I’ve learnt though….

Anything approaching the motorway speed limit in colder conditions will at least halve your max range.

Having a loaded car with 4 folk and four bikes on the roof needs to be driven slow and gentle to get anymore than 2 miles per kW.

If you’re going to have to charge the car on route then allow at least an hour per charge. Even the rapid chargers rarely operate as quickly as they advertise.

Chargers are getting more expensive and although there are more being installed they don’t seem to be keeping up with ev adoption.

You can use an ev as your sole family car but it can be a real pain with all the extra planning and additional charge time required.

I would guess the use case where somebody is towing a trailer to a place where there are absolutely no charge points is in the 0.0000n% so can be ignored.

I don’t think it’s that low, but I get your point. There are still very few charge points in most of Wales, for example, so anyone towing anything (horse box, caravan, trailer etc) more than 80 miles or so will be concerned. That said, it probably only applies to caravanners since you probably aren’t ferrying sheep that far.

But for that there’s certainly an advantage to keeping an older diesel running. We do all our local miles in the EV and the diesel estate only comes out for holidays or certain other long trips when it’s needed.

Things I’ve learnt though….

Anything approaching the motorway speed limit in colder conditions will at least halve your max range.

That’s shocking, ours drops nowhere near that. We lose about 30 miles off our max range best to worst case. That would be with four people, but nothing on the roof.

Motorway speed with passengers seems pretty efficient in a Tesla Model 3. Got from Bristol to Liverpool starting at 90%, with 80 miles left, 3 people plus luggage, from memory this would have been a total range of about 300 miles in winter, quoted max range is 348. Didn’t speed but mostly 70-75mph.

Anything approaching the motorway speed limit in colder conditions will at least halve your max range.

It’s all in the preconditioning.
Plug in overnight, even if you’re not going to charge, then get the car ready to go for journey start time. Warm battery, warm cabin.
Then, as long as you’re not stupid with the AC, range should be within about 15%. Depending on the car.
TBH, if it’s very cold it can improve range to precondition even when you aren’t plugged in.

Source:- I, and several others, spent months driving EVs all over the place checking this.

Genuine question but can someone tell me how on earth you could get this proposition to stack up if you weren’t an EV evangelist?

You can’t, get a hybrid. Or a diesel.

Speaking of home chargers…
Anyone know anyhting about these:
https://vorsprungofficial.com/products/evwallboxsocket?variant=43288403280099

£299 for a t2 charger seems pretty good… Can get a sparky to fit, and seems much better value than the £900 whatever boxes…
Can use the car to set charging times etc if needed…

DrP

I have to say preconditioning doesn’t make a lot of difference in my car that I have noticed. The message is – buy a Hyundai. Or Kia. If you can deal with the bongs and bings.

Didn’t speed but mostly 70-75mph.

Umm, don’t want to start a driving argument but 75mph IS speeding…

Can get a sparky to fit, and seems much better value than the £900 whatever boxes…

Well, an Ohme charger lets you use Intelligent Octopus for cheap charging at any time (if you don’t have one of their supported cars). Other deals may not be as cheap for the leccy. So it may not be cheaper depending on what tariff you can get.

so life’s complicated eh!!

Octopus energy IS cheaper during the night..but 10p/kwh MORE at all other times (than my current utility warehouse)…

Night rate (23:30 – 05:30):

10p / kWh
Day rate (05:30 – 23:30):

43.4p / kWh
Standing charge:

41.13p / day

I’m currently paying 33p/kwh…
So all daytime activities will be 10p more, but charging the car will be £9 cheaper per time (£4ish vs £13ish!)… So I reckon i’ll need to have a good look at our current tarrif and useage!
Will also need a fancy ohme charger…

Will do some research!

DrP

Umm, don’t want to start a driving argument but 75mph IS speeding…

Not if you use the 10% rule, but otherwise yes touché…

Octopus energy IS cheaper during the night..but 10p/kwh MORE at all other times

Yes that was the factor when I had to jump for a new energy deal – both wife and I work at home a lot and so I calculated the 4-5 hour low rate saving (admittedly my car charger’s a slow old 3.2kw one) was no where near enough to offset day time use.

Anything approaching the motorway speed limit in colder conditions will at least halve your max range.

I find mine ( iX3) is near its most efficient , sat at around 67mph on the motorway, with brake regen switched off

Octopus energy IS cheaper during the night..but 10p/kwh MORE at all other times

It is, but we schedule our diswasher, washing machine and hot water overnight, which saves a fair bit and the savings on the driving pay for nearly our entire leccy bill.

I made a spreadsheet for it – you have to drive more than about 5-6k pa to break even I think but that’s even without taking off the savings from scheduling washing etc.

Not if you use the 10% rule

There isn’t a 10% rule.

🙂

Podpoint works with Octopus, ours is a bog standard podpoint unit and it ‘talks’ to intelligent octopus without any issue.

There’s loads on ebay cheap if you wanted to go down that route. (Get a tethered one)

Safe to say that driving mostly at 70mph or just under I am one of the slower vehicles on the motorway. Which wasn’t your pint I know! Anyway…not sure about the preconditioning comment. For me this would involve spending money at normal tariff rate and I doubt the benefit would outweigh the increased cost compared to using the electricity at EV rate in the middle of the night.

andylc
Free Member
Motorway speed with passengers seems pretty efficient in a Tesla Model 3. Got from Bristol to Liverpool starting at 90%, with 80 miles left, 3 people plus luggage, from memory this would have been a total range of about 300 miles in winter, quoted max range is 348. Didn’t speed but mostly 70-75mph.

This is a topic close to my heart at the moment. My Megane has a WLTP measured range of 280 miles from it’s 60KW battery – but the most miles remaining I’ve seen on a full charge according to the trip meter is 220 so far. I get that it might improve as it gets warmer and I’ve definitely seen an increase as I’ve changed my driving style – but the range remaining bit on the Megane seems to be a bit inaccurate too. It’s only me driving it and I take the same route at the same time with similar traffic.

I charged up at work on Monday, the car showed 219mi remaining on 100%. The return trip is 40 miles, on Tues it showed 156mi remaining on 78%. Today it’s 107 mi remaining on 54%. Question is, will I manage to get to Friday before charging again or will I have to top up on Thurs?

The nice thing about the Megane is rapid charging. The ones at work are 22kw but I have used a 150kw DC charger a couple of times – the Megane will take 130kwDC. I do plug it in at home occasionally to a 3 pin plug but that’s only for emergencies as it’s so slooooow.

You need a smarter car, charge up on low rate, precondition on the stored energy.

And yes, if you’re doing shorter journeys, precondtioning will cost you. If you’re going further, it will save you money, you have to work out where the break even is for you.

I have to say preconditioning doesn’t make a lot of difference in my car that I have noticed. The message is – buy a Hyundai. Or Kia. If you can deal with the bongs and bings.

Or live in South Wales where it gets really cold every winter /s

You’ll need sustained sub zero temps, you know, actually *cold*, or to leave the car for an extended period, i know some cars actually have internal mechanisms to prevent the battery cooling, depending on how charged the battery is and if you’re connected to power or not. Switch on the heater and pump the coolant round for some time. Almost like the frost setting on a radiator

There’s loads on ebay cheap if you wanted to go down that route. (Get a tethered one)

Cool..will look..

(DrP also considers ripping a fellow MTBers Podpoint off the wall too…!)

DrP

Not if you use the 10% rule

There isn’t a 10% rule.

indeed but if we are going to be pedantic indicated 70 isnt 70……

You need a smarter car, charge up on low rate, precondition on the stored energy.

On intelligent octopus all the energy that goes into the car is at the low rate even if it’s during the day. Including preconditioning at 8am.

So I reckon i’ll need to have a good look at our current tarrif and useage!

I had the same dilemma and estimated that if we switched all our EV charging, DW and WM use to nights we could reduce our electric bill about 10%. But realistically we won’t quite manage to always do these things at night, so there wasn’t much in it either way for us.

Maybe if you charged the EV more often it would be a more attractive proposition.