EV general discussion

I’m in Northern Ireland at the moment and while your 2.19p/mi is very impressive for GB, in Northern Ireland ALL the ESB Ecar-NI chargers are free. The 7kW ones and the 11kW ones and the 22/43kW AC ones and even the 50kW DC ones. Mental! I have no idea how long it will last, but why would you charge at home when there are hundreds of free fairly fast chargers everywhere. Very nice!
 
Cos free charging means sitting in the car away from home, id rather leave the public chargers for people who don’t have that options.

#thegreatergood


I could switch to Agile and pray and wait for the negative pricing. :p
 
WJA96 said:
, but why would you charge at home when there are hundreds of free fairly fast chargers everywhere. Very nice!
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In the UK there aren’t hundreds of free fast chargers everywhere.

Saying that - I’ve got £450 of BP Pulse credit so when conditions permit I will be charging up whilst going on bike rides or a run :)
 
I went to M&S in Lisburn and while I was there I plugged the car into the CCS 50kW charger and after M&S I went across to Costa for a Hot Chocolate. 40 minutes in total, the car was 87% charged when I got back. Chargers like this and ABC really makes sense. 40 minutes of a 50kW charger (46kW really) gives me 15-85% charge. For free. They just need a few more of them.
 
Massive difference when warming the battery up.

So left this morning with around 84% battery aiming to do about 140 miles, charged after about 100.

Then when I departed my destination to return home, I charged at a local Lidl to 80% and the sat-nav said I'd make it home with 6% remaining.


The only difference was 2C, same driving style (if a little more aggressive on the way back). I reckon the charge from 20% to 80% caused the battery to warm up and made it much more efficient. Ended the journey with about 41kwh per 100mi.

To give some idea I was heading up to Leeds from my house, so all motorway pretty much.
 
What do folks use when charging away from home if not free? Just set up new payment when need to or is there like a charge card that can work across different charging networks? Need to learn more about this but in the near term should only need to charge at home.
Also, anyone with the i3 know whether to always charge to 100% at home or if it's worth limiting the charge to say 80% for battery longevity if only intending to potter around locally? I've read the advice varies depending on the model of car.
Only disappointing thing so far with the i3 has been the user guide. Even spotted some spelling mistakes :). The method to describe things I find sometimes just not easy to follow like using parking assist. In practice it's really easy but the manual coverage of it I've found **** :D. Sod reading that, I'll just learn by using.

Not had the chance to go back out in the car yet, will do at the weekend.,
 
Zap-Map to start or plugShare. Plugshare now has Applecarplay but seems a bit crappy to use for nav.

I’ve then got an app for each main provider (GeniePoint, Instavolt, Osprey, Shell) BP pulse a subscription as that allows cheaper prices through the app and no connection fee at places like ASDA.

In terms of physicals also then got a new motion/Shell recharge RFID fob for work charging, a BP pulse fob, Instavolt card and also OctopusJuice card which links to my energy bill for 6 providers... all gets a bit nuts at the start.... but they are mainly in the car for anyone who might borrow it.

reality is I’ll just tend towards BP Pulse when I ever do a long journey as they are cheapest. Easy. Rest of time charge at home cos I’m not a weirdo.
 
DarrenM343 said:
What do folks use when charging away from home if not free? Just set up new payment when need to or is there like a charge card that can work across different charging networks? Need to learn more about this but in the near term should only need to charge at home.
Also, anyone with the i3 know whether to always charge to 100% at home or if it's worth limiting the charge to say 80% for battery longevity if only intending to potter around locally? I've read the advice varies depending on the model of car.
Only disappointing thing so far with the i3 has been the user guide. Even spotted some spelling mistakes :). The method to describe things I find sometimes just not easy to follow like using parking assist. In practice it's really easy but the manual coverage of it I've found **** :D. Sod reading that, I'll just learn by using.

Not had the chance to go back out in the car yet, will do at the weekend.,
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Spend the £50 for A Better Route Planner Premium. That does pretty much everything anyone would want. While non-weirdo @Jonnycoupe is correct in that you do start off with a big wallet of plastic RFID cards and tokens in reality many now just let you use a debit or credit card. And almost all of them can be controlled from your phone via a multitude of apps.

If you have a Tesla then you don’t need it, but got the rest of us, ABRP is well worth £50/year. Or £6 per month if you’re doing longer trips infrequently.
 
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Yeah ABRP premium allows CarPlay too. Tried that last night only for that message to come up.

I’ve actually been impressed with the Jaguar Pivi system with EV charger locations so gonna stick with that as my baseline guidance system.
 
DarrenM343 said:
lso, anyone with the i3 know whether to always charge to 100% at home or if it's worth limiting the charge to say 80% for battery longevity if only intending to potter around locally? I've read the advice varies depending on the model of car.
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I thought the tesla (engineering explained) cold weather video was interesting in this respect, for battery charging strategies,
charging the car when you get home and the battery is still warm, to give an efficient charge etc.

other than that just regular rules only charging to 100% if you need the charge for a pending trip, preferring low charge rates to avoid too much heating(impacting lifespan) .... and, if you live at the top of a hill leave space for some regened electricity.
 
Hyburnate said:
Massive difference when warming the battery up.

So left this morning with around 84% battery aiming to do about 140 miles, charged after about 100.

Then when I departed my destination to return home, I charged at a local Lidl to 80% and the sat-nav said I'd make it home with 6% remaining.


The only difference was 2C, same driving style (if a little more aggressive on the way back). I reckon the charge from 20% to 80% caused the battery to warm up and made it much more efficient. Ended the journey with about 41kwh per 100mi.

To give some idea I was heading up to Leeds from my house, so all motorway pretty much.
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Having slept on it (and having done a tiny bit of research) Polestar has full thermal battery management so I don’t think it was the charging per se but it might have used energy to heat the battery on the way up which, once the battery was warm, didn’t need to be expended again (or quite so much) on the way back.
 
jpaul said:
I thought the tesla (engineering explained) cold weather video was interesting in this respect, for battery charging strategies,
charging the car when you get home and the battery is still warm, to give an efficient charge etc.

other than that just regular rules only charging to 100% if you need the charge for a pending trip, preferring low charge rates to avoid too much heating(impacting lifespan) .... and, if you live at the top of a hill leave space for some regened electricity.
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While I’m all for being mechanically (chemically?) sympathetic, these strategies don’t have any real benefit for those of us who lease their cars for 1-5 years. They benefit the manufacturer (fewer battery warranty claims) and buyers of used BEVs. So if I’m at home or destination charging it’s 100% all the way. On the road, it’s so much slower to go over 80% that it’s pointless but if I’m not time limited, 100% every time. Driving around with 20% of the battery as dead weight (literally) is daft to me.

I can foresee the ads on Autotrader now. ‘Only ever charged to 80%’.
 
Jonnycoupe said:
GYFK4EF.jpg


Switched to Octopus Go now:
share.octopus.energy/green-teal-937

set to charge only 5p/kWh and below which I get between 00:30 and 04:30. Simple and dirt cheap commuting... if I had to actually drive to my desk :p
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Did you work out the costs of this vs a none EV tarrif for day to day?

I'm currently with AVRO energy and pay around £0.12 kwh and I think £0.15 standing charge per day.

I think the octopus EV tariff is around £0.15 kwh and £0.25 standing charge per day. Yes you charge for £0.05kwh at certain times but when working out say 10k per year I think it's cheaper staying on my current tariff.
 
GinG said:
Did you work out the costs of this vs a none EV tarrif for day to day?

I'm currently with AVRO energy and pay around £0.12 kwh and I think £0.15 standing charge per day.

I think the octopus EV tariff is around £0.15 kwh and £0.25 standing charge per day. Yes you charge for £0.05kwh at certain times but when working out say 10k per year I think it's cheaper staying on my current tariff.
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I agree. I’m with Scottish Power (I think) and it would only be worth switching if I had a 9-5 job exactly 70 miles from home so I could recharge the car overnight at their ‘special’ rate. And even then you have to be careful through the evening. It’s just not worth it. I either work away and use very little power or work from home and use lots at high demand times. Flat rate just works better for me. But everyone needs to work it out for their own circumstances.

I always think if it was that special they wouldn’t have to bribe people to recommend it and adopt it.
 
13.45p on peak- it genuinely is no more than other tarriffs. Was tempted by the EDF EV 98 where you get 8p off peaks which includes the whole weekend but they are French :p. The standing charge is irrelevant in grand scheme of energy. For a decent commute and EV doubling of my house consumption (4500kWh to 9000) it saves about £600 a year.

Kind of not that maths now though with no driving! I’m gonna move to Go Faster when I can, 8:30pm for 5 hours 5.5p/kWh then also run household stuff then.

Dunno, wasn’t really looking for endorsement anyway.
 
DarrenM343 said:
What do folks use when charging away from home if not free? Just set up new payment when need to or is there like a charge card that can work across different charging networks? Need to learn more about this but in the near term should only need to charge at home.
Also, anyone with the i3 know whether to always charge to 100% at home or if it's worth limiting the charge to say 80% for battery longevity if only intending to potter around locally? I've read the advice varies depending on the model of car.
Only disappointing thing so far with the i3 has been the user guide. Even spotted some spelling mistakes :). The method to describe things I find sometimes just not easy to follow like using parking assist. In practice it's really easy but the manual coverage of it I've found **** :D. Sod reading that, I'll just learn by using.

Not had the chance to go back out in the car yet, will do at the weekend.,
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I charge mine to full capacity every night and have had no decrease in range, etc. Looking online gives similar information. BMW don't allow you to charge the batteries to 100% anyway. 100% charge is ninety something percent in reality.

Also, it's best not to leave it on medium-low charge if sitting around for extended periods.
 
GinG said:
Did you work out the costs of this vs a none EV tarrif for day to day?

I'm currently with AVRO energy and pay around £0.12 kwh and I think £0.15 standing charge per day.

I think the octopus EV tariff is around £0.15 kwh and £0.25 standing charge per day. Yes you charge for £0.05kwh at certain times but when working out say 10k per year I think it's cheaper staying on my current tariff.
Click to expand...

I have a spreadsheet from when I was looking at alternative tariffs and Octopus Go compared to the Octopus standard tariff. Putting AVRO tariff figures compared to Go comes out at the below for a typical month of electricity usage.

AVRO £54.9
GO £37.19
Saving £17.71

Basically I'm using almost 4 times more electricity charging my car each month so the small increase in daily tariff + standing charge is more than offset by the 4 hour charging window at 5p per kwh.

From my Go Tariff bill.
04.76 p/kwh (00:30 - 04:30)
13.14 p/kwh (rest of the day)
23.81 p/day standing charge
 
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