When are you going fully electric?

Soldato
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I just dropped Exeter to Guildford and back again into a better route planner using an ID.3 58kwh. Without knowing the full details I can’t really do any better but it’s suggests one charge is needed for 28min.

Obviously if you need to stop earlier for the child then the planned stop is shorter. Going down the motorway gives you more options and more chargers are popping up every week.

https://imgur.com/a/pgp8LBk
 
Soldato
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Presumably not feasible to slow charge at destination from a 3pin plug? As I'd guess you'd be there more than a couple of hours if you're trekking from Devon to Surrey?

I use the good old granny charger when visiting family, and just pay them the cost of the electric (not that they'll accept it most of the time), and I have mentioned this previously. I also have a 25m heavy duty extension reel with fully IP65 rated socket covers on it, so can safely use it in all weather if needed.

I do think a great deal of people never think about or use this option, but as more and more people get fully electric cars it will be the done thing if they don't have Type 2 available. :)
 
Soldato
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if you’re on a road trip anything less than 50kW is going to be a painful wait.

There are some places where public chargers are still light on the ground.
- Wales
- Cornwall & Devon
- Scotland
I'm in Scotland and there are certainly a lot of public chargers near me. Within 10 mins there are at least 10 locations. A few fast with some 22Kw and a couple of free 7kw. A home Bargins that just opened last week has a couple in the car park too.
 
Soldato
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Thanks for all the responses

Don't limit your search to just 50Kw chargers then.

Realistically though we don't want to wait around for slower chargers (maybe at the destination, as I could pop somewhere on my own to do it)

Amesbury, Andover and Wincanton seem to all have 50kw chargers along the A303. Without knowing whereabouts in Surrey, it's hard to know what's around your destination though.

I did see this but with each place having only 1 or 2 chargers and judging from the Zap Map comments they are out-of-order a worrying amount of the time (hence thinking more about the motorway route with it's 4x Ionity charging station... But perhaps I'm way overestimating the demand for charging points?

Presumably not feasible to slow charge at destination from a 3pin plug? As I'd guess you'd be there more than a couple of hours if you're trekking from Devon to Surrey?

We'd be staying in an AirBnB so I suppose we could ask the owners if that would be alright, but imagine it'll depend on how close the car can be parked to the place and if they'd be happy with use using that much electricity (I could offer to pay for it of course)

I just dropped Exeter to Guildford and back again into a better route planner using an ID.3 58kwh. Without knowing the full details I can’t really do any better but it’s suggests one charge is needed for 28min.

Obviously if you need to stop earlier for the child then the planned stop is shorter. Going down the motorway gives you more options and more chargers are popping up every week.

https://imgur.com/a/pgp8LBk

Not seen that site before, interesting - I popped in some details for my specific route and id3 model I had in mind and it seemed to think there was no need to charge at all (which is technically probably correct especially if setting of from 100% charge)... Though I guess now that I think about it I'm mostly just worried about how I would charge the car back to full for the return journey, have visions of driving about to all different chargers and finding them broken down or too busy etc.
 
Caporegime
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I'm in Scotland and there are certainly a lot of public chargers near me. Within 10 mins there are at least 10 locations. A few fast with some 22Kw and a couple of free 7kw. A home Bargins that just opened last week has a couple in the car park too.

Quite a lot of EVs don't support 22kw AC charging, including the ID3 iirc. Realistic anything less than 50kw charging is barely worth the hassle unless it's just a small top up whilst you're shopping or at your destination.
 
Soldato
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Not seen that site before, interesting - I popped in some details for my specific route and id3 model I had in mind and it seemed to think there was no need to charge at all (which is technically probably correct especially if setting of from 100% charge)... Though I guess now that I think about it I'm mostly just worried about how I would charge the car back to full for the return journey, have visions of driving about to all different chargers and finding them broken down or too busy etc.

You can do round trips on ABRP, have a play, its pretty powerful and reasonably accurate.

Some of those chargers are Instavolt sites, generally speaking they are reliable, well maintained and as an added bonus takes contactless payment so you dont need a stupid app to start the charger.

Likewise if you can nick few hours on a 3pin at your destination, you'll add 5-8kwh back and while that isn't a lot it will give you back 18-28 mile
 
Soldato
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You can do round trips on ABRP, have a play, its pretty powerful and reasonably accurate.

Some of those chargers are Instavolt sites, generally speaking they are reliable, well maintained and as an added bonus takes contactless payment so you dont need a stupid app to start the charger.

Likewise if you can nick few hours on a 3pin at your destination, you'll add 5-8kwh back and while that isn't a lot it will give you back 18-28 mile

Great tips, thanks... I can see there are a handful of InstaVolt sites not too far away from where we are thinking of staying so most probably what we could do is maybe trickle charge at the destination if we are allowed but then either on the night before we travel back or early in the morning of that day I could take the car to one of the 50kW chargers for half an hour to get it back to 80%

If I change the filter on ZapMap to just Ionity + InstaVolt it becomes a bit easier to see things along the route also, it's not so bad even on the A303. Can anyone speak to how often you turn up and end up having to wait ages to charge? (picturing all bays occupied with other cars already sat waiting to get in them)
 
Soldato
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There’s an Instavolt at Wincanton McDonalds :)

At the moment chargers being full is pretty rare and give it a few years I’m sure there will be loads more as the uptake grows
 
Man of Honour
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There’s an Instavolt at Wincanton McDonalds :)

Never knew there was a McDonald's there! You'd think it would be signposted as it isn't visible from the A303 despite being right beside it. Good to have a bit more choice on that route of places to stop, shame it's only a few minutes up the road from the other mcdonalds at Sparkford.
 
Soldato
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To answer the OP, not any time soon, can't afford an EV no matter how green they might be, unless I lease, they're way out if my price range.

I'm gonna lease - it feels smart at the minute to be honest, with the tech advancing so fast who can say how well any of these current cars are really going to hold their value? (Not that I could afford to buy either still though!)
 
Soldato
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The lease companies have teams of people for whom it is their job to calculate this so the lease company doesn't lose money. It's sort of the point.

Normally I'd agree, but with BEV's I'd be more than willing to guess than the direct manufacturing leases are afforded some losses, in order to mitigate/offset the CO2 fines and ensure they ship as many vehicles as they can build, not just in the UK obviously.
 
Man of Honour
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Normally I'd agree, but with BEV's I'd be more than willing to guess than the direct manufacturing leases are afforded some losses, in order to mitigate/offset the CO2 fines and ensure they ship as many vehicles as they can build, not just in the UK obviously.

They'll still be based on fairly good forecast residuals using better information than us lot can come up with.
 
Soldato
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The lease companies have teams of people for whom it is their job to calculate this so the lease company doesn't lose money. It's sort of the point.

Right... so either you lease and let the lease company take the gamble on whether their calculations will be correct or you buy the car and take a punt yourself... and I think it's smarter right now to do the former because of what you just said
 
Soldato
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Right... so either you lease and let the lease company take the gamble on whether their calculations will be correct or you buy the car and take a punt yourself... and I think it's smarter right now to do the former because of what you just said
Looking at used Tesla prices it's probably the other way round !
 
Soldato
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Looking at used Tesla prices it's probably the other way round !

Exactly my SR+ PCP just ended and it made sense to buy the car and keep hold until the cheaper Model Y becomes an option. I'd originally planned on using the car as the next deposit maybe plus some but surprisingly it's held up better then expected.
 
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