Free Electric car charger install

~Divine~Wind~

~Divine~Wind~

~Divine~Wind~

Can't type for toffee
Don
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Newcastle U/T
Not sure how long this has been going on but heard this on the radio this morning www.freeofcharger.co.uk redirects to http://www.elmev.co.uk/domestic/

Not sure if its a North East thing only but apparantly theres some new government funded scheme coming up to install electric charger points free of charge.

Anyone think it's worth it?

Site reads:
As standard we fit either a completely free 3.7Kw Home Charger. For a small fee you can upgrade to one of our 7KW options from one of the leading availble manufacturers.

The small charge being £100+VAT

2 different units available:
Type 1: – This unit is compatible with all the following electric and hybrid cars:

Nissan Leaf
Mitsubishi iMiEV
Citroen C-Zero
Peugeot Ion
Ford Connect EV
Ford Focus EV
Vauxhall/Opal Amera
Toyota Prius PHEV
Renault Kangoo
Renault Fluence

Type 2:- This unit is compatible with all the following electric and hybrid cars:

BMW i3 and i8
Renault Zoe
Porsche Panamera SE Hybrid
Tesla Type S


Don't have an electric car but I'm quite tempted to get the free one installed, just in case. Surely should a house have the charger ready might help value?

Or is the tech still too far in its infancy and may change?
Anyone with an electric car comment?
 
~Divine~Wind~ said:
Don't have an electric car but I'm quite tempted to get the free one installed, just in case. Surely should a house have the charger ready might help value?
Click to expand...

I was thinking the same thing...

Had a quick skim through the T&Cs, didn't see anything obvious stating you had to actually have an electric car?
 
I've just had one installed for free by British Gas.

http://www.britishgas.co.uk/electricvehicles

I'm assuming it's all government subsidised to try encouraging EV uptake, but I did it just in case it adds any value.

My job involves working with hybrid / electric cars, so thought as it's free I might as well get it installed in my garage.

Charger technology isn't really going to change an awful lot in the near future, but the power demands will do.

The ones being installed are slow chargers that'll be good for an overnight charge, but if you want rapid charging that'll cost you a lot more, and only really good for smaller Leaf / Zoe type cars.

If you had a Tesla Model S on empty battery, it'd take 30 hours to charge on one of those sockets if they're 16A.
 
Yeah looking at the ones they've offered I was thinking of the Type 1.
Couldn't find any further info on how long it would take for any of the example cars to reach fully charged so have sent em an email.

Was there much disruption when you had yours done Davey?

atm I'm thinking I may as well as its subsidised
 
Disruption really will depend on how your house is wired, where your fusebox is and where you want your charge point.

I was lucky as my fusebox is in a nice position for my reasonably modern house, so the electrician was able to reach from my garage through a cavity wall to the box without any mess or visible cables.

All they add is another special mini fuse/isolator next to your current fuse box and it's done.

Older fuseboxes or really awkward positions will take more time, but it's all outsourced so will depend on how good your local fitter is, my one was pretty good.
 
I would pay the extra £100 or just not bother(I probably just wouldn't bother, unless you can see you getting one in the next year or two). Slow charge cars are out-dated already. Even the new leaf can be fast charged.

It'll take around 8hrs for the normal charger and 4hrs for the faster charger.
Leaf is a 24kwh battery pack.

The model S(60 or 85kwh pack) comes with a 10kw charger as standard (29miles per hour and a double charger 20kw 58miles per hour), so even 7kwh is low for the top end cars.

However unlike above, chargers are in their infancy, it's not just the power requirements that will sky rocket. Its the connection type and how and what the car communicates to the charger and vice versa. Tesla for example are far from a dumb charger. EV is such a small market share that its very unlikely to add value, as you would be lucky to find someone with one. If you don't sell soon and sell when EVs are more popular, the charger is likely to be next to useless.
 
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Glacius, I should have been a bit clearer on the charger tech point, as I was generalising too much - more on the fact that households have whatever they have in terms of wiring. In the end it's all going to come down to the capability of your current wiring in your house/fusebox as you need a dedicated circuit and a hefty amount of wiring to be able to support fast charging.

Until the industry settles (which probably wont be for another decade), chargers will come and go and standards will shift. It's like phone chargers, it took a hell of a long time to become standard (ish), and even now Apple do their own thing anyway.

As I said, with the basic leads it'll be pointless to own a big battery car and you'll need ideally 3 phase power big chargers. A lot of EV car makers actually offer to install the right charging points in your home.

It'll generally be the car that controls what goes on in the charging side rather than the charger, and most cars will have an iOS or Android app that'll allow to remote manage your charging etc.

We've got inductive/wireless charging becoming a big thing soon, which is quite cool, but probably never as good as sticking your Tesla in a Supercharger for 30 minutes.
 
We had a free charge point installed with the Smart EV trial, comes in handy for cleaning the cars now! Was only a 13amp one as it was fitted in 2010, long before fast charge really existed.
 
Glaucus said:
The model S(60 or 85kwh pack) comes with a 10kw charger as standard (29miles per hour and a double charger 20kw 58miles per hour), so even 7kwh is low for the top end cars.
Click to expand...
Wonder how many cars you could get charging at 20kw on a street before the neighbourhood power supply fails?

A few years ago a week before Christmas a water main near me burst and the path of least resistance involved busting into the also corroded gas main filling all the gas pipes with water. The Utility companies handed out electric heaters to the effected houses and promptly sent the leccy down too. Think they got electricity back for chrimbo but not gas.
 
Fourstar said:
Wonder how many cars you could get charging at 20kw on a street before the neighbourhood power supply fails?
Click to expand...

Given that the supply authories normally calculate on the basis of 2kw per 4 bed house with gas central heating (over a half hour intergration period) then there could be issues in future.

Yes, there will be short duration overloads at dinner times, and when everyone puts the kettle on at the end of a popular TV programme, but the thermal mass of the transformers is tolerant to take it, and cables buried in the ground an sink quite a bit of heat into teh surrounding soil, especially when highest demand typically occur on the coldest days of the year (recent update of domestic air-con puts this on its head a bit though)

Remember of course that if you read your terms of supply, any installation of a fixed load over 3kw generally needs notifiying to the supply authority so they can keep a record of what loading is being added to the network and where...
 
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