EV general discussion

jpaul said:
It's the unmovable evening meal cooking that takes 60% of daily use, so intelligent charge slot would need to be consistently across that period.
(I'd maybe invest in an ooni electric pizza oven though, deliveroo and air-fryer aren't in my french dictionary)
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what are u cooking that takes 60% of your usual electric use..... average person uses 7.4kwh of electric per day, so thats 4.5kwh for your evening meal. Seems a lot of leccy to me
 
sovietspybob said:
I think it depends on your usage and where you live?

Day to day i'd be ok but if we wanted to go abroad on holiday and fly then it'd be a bit of a pain without a car with decent range, the airport is 100 miles of motorway/dual carriageway each direction so i'd need at least 200 miles real world motorway range as the last thing you want is on the rush to the airport is to stop to charge and the same on the way back if its late and you've got young kids with you.
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My car does 250-300 miles on a full charge. Depending on weather and driving style.

Its the perfect daily driver for me. My commute is 42 miles in total, I can charge entirely for free at work. I've not done more than 300 miles in a day since owning it, so I've never had to charge at a service station or the likes.

I simply charge it up to 80% during the week once, and top it to 100% on Friday ready for the weekend.

I admit if you only have one vehicle that is an EV, in some instances you will be limited, and have to do some planning around that fact. They aren't suitable for everyone.
 
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jpaul said:
It's the unmovable evening meal cooking that takes 60% of daily use, so intelligent charge slot would need to be consistently across that period.
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How about you post a break down of your daily usage over a month from your smart meter data (or you don't have a smart meter?) and demonstrate how you use 60% of your energy in 16:30 to 18:30 window. Do you switch off your mains at the main fuse on the way out so you have no base load and run a gas fridge/freezer?
 
60% is a stretch before you get an EV / PHEV in my experience. And so what if you have to pay peak prices during peak usage/demand? That’s how it works.

That’s nothing essential that means anyone “needs” to game an EV tarriff during peak. Just consume when you can afford to.
 
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an energy post
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[ e: or oven evening meal sausage toad / bakewell
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cla shooting break ev looks nice for the driver (someone had posted on star headliners?) but, the rear passenger seat ,
800v 10-80% 22min it's becoming like ICE

 
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jpaul said:
an energy post
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If you consider that as 60% usage at peak you might want to retake your maths O-Level. 78.95Wh is 1% in the second graph, with an approximate peak usage of 2700Wh, so 34%. And if your annual electricity usage is ~£750 based on the high usage day then you need to worry less about a few pence on a peak unit, not that you will ever own a car than needs charging for it to impact you any how. Yu should probably look at getting a Ecoflow PowerStream and a couple of 450w solar panels, you could reduce your annual costs by about 30%
 
unwashed potato! said:
Hoping for some advice. Just bought a plug in hybrid. It has a separate small battery for full eV driving. The battery is only 30 miles, but that covers almost everything the car will mainly be used for, right now at least. The issue we are having is deciding how to charge the eV part.

Because the battery is so small, paying out for a charging station on the drive seems excessive. Though are these charging points future proof? So the next vehicle we have (which will almost def be fully electric) will be able to also use this charging station?

We also looked at swapping tariffs.currebtly with octopus we pay 24.3p per unit, but swapping to their go option, at night it drops to 8.5p, but the day jumps to 28p, which is when we do most of our usage. Seems silly to swap given the battery is small and any saving is probably more than lost due to paying more for say usage.

Charging in towns seems at least 50p per usage! Was surprised at this. Some places even 80p. Are there secret places people go for small cheap/free charges any more? I figured there werr free/low cost slow charging options at supermarkets that want your business but don't want to give you a full charge of a large battery, but for ours it would be enough.
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Get battery storage - I have a similar Plug in Hybrid, and use the E.on Next drive tariff. I charge the car and batteries over night in the 00:00 to 7am slot using my granny charger (for now) from an outdoor socket.

If I need to, I can top up from the 32kwh of storage after the school run (about 12.7 miles total trip) but usually the car will sit till the next day, unless I need it for a longer trip, so I wait till the next charging window, but I also have the option of kicking off the charger again to top it off, from the battery storage.

This means I can charge my car via cheap rate costs, even during the day.

I have almost totally removed any peak usage from my bill, and it is down to 1/3 of the original monthly costs.

I will be adding solar soon, and hope to use this to top up the batteries during the day, and then I will just keep the car granny charging (or using the new smart 7kw charger I am about to install to use excess solar only)
 
Simon said:
Tracker is the answer tbh
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Yeah I was big fan of tracker. Think I was on it for about 3 years but getting the PHEV coincided with the rates flirting with the price cap so it was an easy call to ditch it. Especially as it then went very spiky for a period of time with 40p/kWh on a few occasions.

Checking Octoprice it looks to have settled back to being a cracking deal again.

I'm still a tracker customer but for gas only.
 
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unwashed potato! said:
wont this be expensive to install?
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I did it all in for about £3.5k, mostly DIY, paid a sparky to do the G99 forms for me, and also had final connection done by the same sparky when having my garage re-wired.

See thread here:

DIY Battery/Solar installation..

CliffsNotes - I am looking to build a battery system for my house, then perhaps add a solar array to it later, but I want to do it DIY.. As much as possible.... Background - I have had a couple of Solar quotes recently, and am not impressed with the "Value" they provide. Upon looking up the...
forums.overclockers.co.uk forums.overclockers.co.uk

This reminds me, I need to update that thread with the latest stuff!
 
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I’ve had a PHEV for five years and love it. We have a tethered connection and only ever charge from that. I learnt never to use charge points now that none are free. On long journeys we just go hybrid.
 
Qitarah said:
My car does 250-300 miles on a full charge. Depending on weather and driving style.

Its the perfect daily driver for me. My commute is 42 miles in total, I can charge entirely for free at work. I've not done more than 300 miles in a day since owning it, so I've never had to charge at a service station or the likes.

I simply charge it up to 80% during the week once, and top it to 100% on Friday ready for the weekend.

I admit if you only have one vehicle that is an EV, in some instances you will be limited, and have to do some planning around that fact. They aren't suitable for everyone.
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Ah yeah that's my point i guess, if you're lucky enough to afford an EV with 300ish mile range then it's pretty much a non issue and i could happily manage with that.

The issue is a huge amount of the EV's out there are sub 200 mile range, probably more like 150 miles real world driving which im sure is fine for quite a lot of people but would be a problem for us as where we live a lot of days out would exceed that.

That's why i feel despite my strong feelings towards the raving man child that is Elon i'll probably end up in a Tesla, the wife said she'd have to wear a mask if i got one as she wouldn't want to be seen to be associated with him!
 
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jpaul said:
It's the unmovable evening meal cooking that takes 60% of daily use, so intelligent charge slot would need to be consistently across that period.
(I'd maybe invest in an ooni electric pizza oven though, deliveroo and air-fryer aren't in my french dictionary)
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Just FYI, an Air Fryer doesn't actually fry, it's just a mini fan assisted oven.. We rarely use our double fan assisted oven anymore since getting an air-fryer and do meat joints/roasted vegetables, etc.. (along with the occasional more traditional air fryer stuff)
We also have a Panasonic inverter combi microwave, we rarely microwave in it, it's just very efficient for Jacket potatoes, or larger dishses..
We even cut down on energy usage on the Induction hob by prefilling pans with boiling water from our boiling water tap..

An electric ooni pizza oven is just a spectacularly inefficient appliance that I'm amazed would be in a 'french dictionary'.. :D

[edit]Removed my general advice to those struggling and confounded by endless barriers..
 
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sovietspybob said:
Ah yeah that's my point i guess, if you're lucky enough to afford an EV with 300ish mile range then it's pretty much a non issue and i could happily manage with that.

The issue is a huge amount of the EV's out there are sub 200 mile range, probably more like 150 miles real world driving which im sure is fine for quite a lot of people but would be a problem for us as where we live a lot of days out would exceed that.

That's why i feel despite my strong feelings towards the raving man child that is Elon i'll probably end up in a Tesla, the wife said she'd have to wear a mask if i got one as she wouldn't want to be seen to be associated with him!
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I feel 300 mile range is a sweet spot and can work as a main car. We've just been to Cornwall for the weekend about 370 miles for us each way. We had to stop 3 times with our little one anyway so plugged in whilst we stopped but we could have gotten away with just one charging stop.

I do think that a sub 200 range could be a massive pain if you need to any kind of longer journey.
 
sovietspybob said:
Ah yeah that's my point i guess, if you're lucky enough to afford an EV with 300ish mile range then it's pretty much a non issue and i could happily manage with that.

The issue is a huge amount of the EV's out there are sub 200 mile range, probably more like 150 miles real world driving which im sure is fine for quite a lot of people but would be a problem for us as where we live a lot of days out would exceed that.

That's why i feel despite my strong feelings towards the raving man child that is Elon i'll probably end up in a Tesla, the wife said she'd have to wear a mask if i got one as she wouldn't want to be seen to be associated with him!
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How much are we talking for being affordable?
Model 3 LR's are down to £12k now..or a VW ID.3 Tour, those do >200 motorway miles @ -10C so easily fit the bill..
Depending on age/model you can get cars under £10k with 300 mile range (You'll need to pop in your postcode)
 
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Just looking at the eligibility criteria for the recently announced £3750 / £1500 grant that can be applied for against new vehicles. Seems that there are some interesting inclusions.

So the actual RRP doesn't seem to be as relevant as it first seems as only options relating to the power output or battery capacity count. Therefore a £36999 base model car with £10k of option packs would still fall into the eligibility criteria.

Secondly the requirements for demonstratable levels of acceptable battery degradation (20% over the first three years / 30% over the first 8 years or 100000 miles, whichever comes first) are clearly there to help with the "but what about the battery" concern that people have as a barrier to adoption. The guidance isn't exactly consistent though as it later goes on to mention 30% degradation over 5 years.

The environmental impact assessment... now call me cynical but is that a not so subtle way of ensuring that Chinese / Indian vehicles can only fall into the lower £1500 band due to their energy generation mix?

Will be interesting to see how it all pans out because as far as I can tell despite the grants being available within days according to the media as far as I can see there is no definitive list of eligible vehicles.
 
Demon said:
How much are we talking for being affordable?
Model 3 LR's are down to £12k now..or a VW ID.3 Tour, those do >200 motorway miles @ -10C so easily fit the bill..
Depending on age/model you can get cars under £10k with 300 mile range (You'll need to pop in your postcode)
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While yeah you can get a ~300 mile car for under 10 grand you'd have to take quite the brave pill to take on something like that, it's not like buying an 10 year old Toyota. While i know some youtube people love to buy old high milage stuff and tell you how fantastic it all is there is always a risk of very large bills especially with something like a Tesla. If the MCU goes out of warranty, cha ching!

Even looking at 2nd hand Model 3's, it's a fair calculated risk compared to other EV's as they do seem more fragile from what i can tell, suspension is consumable every 3 or 4 years etc, unknown how well the MCU will last, heat pumps and octovalves etc etc.
 
spile said:
I’ve had a PHEV for five years and love it. We have a tethered connection and only ever charge from that. I learnt never to use charge points now that none are free. On long journeys we just go hybrid.
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Which one do you have?

I keep looking at Octavia iV estate but worried about reliability especially on the DSG box and the boot is quite small for an estate due to the batteries
 
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