EV general discussion

[CaneyJ]

Got a mate who's getting a cheap leaf as a second car.

In the same budget frame of mind he's asked instead of getting a 700 quid EV charger plus install, why not get a leccy to do the following:

40A RCD Breaker, 6mm Cable going to one of these

Industrial Socket IP67

Choose this industrial socket when you need to provide power to an appliance in an outdoor area that's exposed to the weather or lots of dust. You can use it to connect to the mains supply when you're operating items needing higher voltage and currents like caravans, motorhomes and electrical...

www.toolstation.com

Then get a £150 32A portable charger from Amazon?

 

[Jonnycoupe]

Still having trouble getting Grindr to work with them properly…

It’s called Chogging now. Just need to work out if they are into Direct Current or the Alternate version.

 

[b0rn2sk8]

Got a mate who's getting a cheap leaf as a second car.

In the same budget frame of mind he's asked instead of getting a 700 quid EV charger plus install, why not get a leccy to do the following:

40A RCD Breaker, 6mm Cable going to one of these

Industrial Socket IP67

Choose this industrial socket when you need to provide power to an appliance in an outdoor area that's exposed to the weather or lots of dust. You can use it to connect to the mains supply when you're operating items needing higher voltage and currents like caravans, motorhomes and electrical...

www.toolstation.com

Then get a £150 32A portable charger from Amazon?

Yes, although is you are using it for EV charging, you still need to follow the same EV charge point regs for it to be compliant.

That means it needs PEN fault protection device or an earth rod. You also can’t use a cheap type A RCD/RCBO, you’d need the much more expensive type B for the DC leakage protection. All the (good) charge points on the market have this built in already.

Likewise you should really still notify the DNO if the intention is to use it for EV charging.

When you do this the costs suddenly add up and are much closer to the cost of a proper charge point.

You can of course not bother and no one is really any the wiser and it’s technically compliant without an EV charger being plugged into it.

The other thing to consider is if you can get the best tariff for your use case. Is the car compatible with Octopus Intelligent Go?

Eon drive next doesn’t need a smart charger or compatible car.

Those are probably the two best on the market right now.

 

[lordrobs]

Got a mate who's getting a cheap leaf as a second car.

In the same budget frame of mind he's asked instead of getting a 700 quid EV charger plus install, why not get a leccy to do the following:

40A RCD Breaker, 6mm Cable going to one of these

Industrial Socket IP67

Choose this industrial socket when you need to provide power to an appliance in an outdoor area that's exposed to the weather or lots of dust. You can use it to connect to the mains supply when you're operating items needing higher voltage and currents like caravans, motorhomes and electrical...

www.toolstation.com

Then get a £150 32A portable charger from Amazon?

AFAIK the only practical disadvantage of doing that versus a smart charger is that you need to rely on the car for any time of use tariffs.

Chap at work uses the same on his Tesla and runs Octopus IGo via the cars integration with varying levels of success

To be fair though, if you are going to the effort of getting that installed properly you might as well get the real deal and have a tethered charger installed.


EDIT - Damn you @b0rn2sk8 beating me to the punch with a much more detailed reply

 

[b0rn2sk8]

EDIT - Damn you @b0rn2sk8 beating me to the punch with a much more detailed reply

The part that I missed is that in a domestic setting, the commando socket also needs to be interlocking because there are no gates over the live and neural conductors like there are on a 13A socket.

The interlocking mechanism basically stops it from being switched on without a cable in it.

I’m not sure if that one linked above is or not but they are not expensive to buy.

 

[Kenai]

The big one always HOWEVER if the wife jumps out to get something quick from a shop I might try the red button if I remember.

Looking forward to the forthcoming "I tried activating the EPB on its own but left the car in drive, took my foot off the brake pedal with the car still in drive and the EPB released itself* and I crashed into the wall of the shop" post

*may not be technically accurate

 

[jpaul]

To be fair though, if you are going to the effort of getting that installed properly you might as well get the real deal and have a tethered charger installed.

V PEN cu £85

Pricing up the hardware for a home ev charger install (for id3)

myself and neighbours each have a 2.5mm2 cable over a distance of 25/30M to get to garages and it would cost £4/5K to dig up paving and install a 4+mm2 (probably can't pull a bigger cable through)
looks like existing cable could pull 3.7KW within the 5% voltage drop limits
if we then had a
PME FAULT DETECTION METAL CU WITH RCBO AND SURGE PROTECTION £85

16 Amp 230V 3 Pin Interlock Socket Switched 2P+E Single Phase Blue £30​

Tesla – Commando Charger For 1 Phase 16A Commando Socket £200

any thoughts on pope maths ?
probably need an electrician to install it (to check CU connections, also I guess you must ferrule cables, and run tests)
the garage 2.5 cable would go exclusively to the PME unit, and other electrical stuff could be plugged in the commando inside garage, when not used for the ev parked outside garage (cable under door).
would need to use a fair amount of electricity above the power of a granny charger, to offset the install cost; neighbour with id4 currently limits his garage granny to 2Kw to avoid heating.
Seems ID3 could work on octopus Intelligent without need for a smart charger.

 

[SexyGreyFox]

Looking forward to the forthcoming "I tried activating the EPB on its own but left the car in drive, took my foot off the brake pedal with the car still in drive and the EPB released itself* and I crashed into the wall of the shop" post

*may not be technically accurate

Already tried it, while in Drive I can't engage the EPB
I have to put it in Neutral then engage it.

 

[lordrobs]

V PEN cu £85

Yeah your figures prove the point nicely. £315 vs £400 for a basic type 2 charger. The saving is negligible by the time you factor in getting it wired in so you may as well do it properly.

 

[jpaul]

Yeah your figures prove the point nicely. £315 vs £400 for a basic type 2 charger.

to my mind, at the loss of an intelligent charger and thereby relying on having a car to orchestrate charging,
you get a more versatile setup, could take/flog the commando charger easily and maybe hook in a bidirectional 'charger' (can also plug in my pressure washer in commando socket)
however if the car is unable to do it itself, because you don't have a good mobile signal and it can't use wireless you'd be sc**** (what I queried MrR on, in last post)

 

[bigmike20vt]

I got my tax renewal on my EV today. I guess I must have jumped the gun a bit when I taxed it early last year as I got the renewal letter today
i take it there isn't a minimum cooling off period so I will still be able to re tax it again for 12 months next month (£15ish is better in my pocket than the governments )

 

[Beer_MonsterUK]

Right, new company, new company car. I only have EV's to choose from, gotta keep it 4 years, unlimited mileage, servicing, maintenance, insurance blah, blah. looking at ~15-20k a year.

Toyota Bz4x motion is the "base car" but with "affordable" monthly uplift's i have narrowed the choice down to:
EV6 GT-line 84KWH 225PS Auto
Skoda Enyaq 85 edition
Skoda Elroq Sportline 85 82KWH 210Kw
Ford Explorer Premium 77KWH Extended Range RWD
Ford Capri Select 77KWH Extended Range RWD
ID4 Style 77KWH Pro 286PS Auto

Theres BMWi4/i5/ix1/ix2, Audi Q4 etrons/sportback e-trons, EVA/EVB's on the list, and whilst affordable, it seems to get bells & whistles, you have to pay through the nose for "packs".

Theres no Polestars, Genesis, Volvo, Telsa Y (they have the 3). Charger getting installed FOC soon.

Is there a clear winner I need to consider, or is it much a muchness and decide when i go waste the dealerships salesguys time at the weekend?

Ta

 

[Journey]

EV6 GT-line 84KWH 225PS Auto
Skoda Enyaq 85 edition
Skoda Elroq Sportline 85 82KWH 210Kw

One of those three with the top two being the best. EV6 DC charging is very, very, fast.

50% in 11 mins

10 %	221 kW	00:02:33	8.0 kWh
11 %	221 kW	00:02:47	8.8 kWh
12 %	222 kW	00:03:01	9.6 kWh
13 %	222 kW	00:03:14	10.4 kWh
14 %	223 kW	00:03:28	11.2 kWh
15 %	223 kW	00:03:42	12.0 kWh
16 %	222 kW	00:03:56	12.8 kWh
17 %	223 kW	00:04:10	13.6 kWh
18 %	224 kW	00:04:24	14.4 kWh
19 %	224 kW	00:04:38	15.2 kWh
20 %	224 kW	00:04:52	16.0 kWh
21 %	224 kW	00:05:05	16.8 kWh
22 %	224 kW	00:05:19	17.6 kWh
23 %	225 kW	00:05:33	18.4 kWh
24 %	225 kW	00:05:47	19.2 kWh
25 %	225 kW	00:06:01	20.0 kWh
26 %	246 kW	00:06:14	20.8 kWh
27 %	247 kW	00:06:26	21.6 kWh
28 %	247 kW	00:06:39	22.4 kWh
29 %	247 kW	00:06:51	23.2 kWh
30 %	249 kW	00:07:04	24.0 kWh
31 %	249 kW	00:07:16	24.8 kWh
32 %	249 kW	00:07:29	25.6 kWh
33 %	249 kW	00:07:41	26.4 kWh
34 %	250 kW	00:07:54	27.2 kWh
35 %	250 kW	00:08:06	28.0 kWh
36 %	250 kW	00:08:18	28.8 kWh
37 %	251 kW	00:08:31	29.6 kWh
38 %	251 kW	00:08:43	30.4 kWh
39 %	251 kW	00:08:55	31.2 kWh
40 %	253 kW	00:09:08	32.0 kWh
41 %	253 kW	00:09:20	32.8 kWh
42 %	253 kW	00:09:32	33.6 kWh
43 %	253 kW	00:09:44	34.4 kWh
44 %	254 kW	00:09:57	35.2 kWh
45 %	255 kW	00:10:09	36.0 kWh
46 %	255 kW	00:10:21	36.8 kWh
47 %	255 kW	00:10:33	37.6 kWh
48 %	256 kW	00:10:45	38.4 kWh
49 %	256 kW	00:10:57	39.2 kWh
50 %	257 kW	00:11:09	40.0 kWh
51 %	204 kW	00:11:23	40.8 kWh
52 %	205 kW	00:11:38	41.6 kWh
53 %	205 kW	00:11:53	42.4 kWh
54 %	205 kW	00:12:08	43.2 kWh
55 %	205 kW	00:12:23	44.0 kWh
56 %	205 kW	00:12:38	44.8 kWh
57 %	207 kW	00:12:53	45.6 kWh

 

[sparkymark75]

Right, new company, new company car. I only have EV's to choose from, gotta keep it 4 years, unlimited mileage, servicing, maintenance, insurance blah, blah. looking at ~15-20k a year.

Toyota Bz4x motion is the "base car" but with "affordable" monthly uplift's i have narrowed the choice down to:
EV6 GT-line 84KWH 225PS Auto
Skoda Enyaq 85 edition
Skoda Elroq Sportline 85 82KWH 210Kw
Ford Explorer Premium 77KWH Extended Range RWD
Ford Capri Select 77KWH Extended Range RWD
ID4 Style 77KWH Pro 286PS Auto

Theres BMWi4/i5/ix1/ix2, Audi Q4 etrons/sportback e-trons, EVA/EVB's on the list, and whilst affordable, it seems to get bells & whistles, you have to pay through the nose for "packs".

Theres no Polestars, Genesis, Volvo, Telsa Y (they have the 3). Charger getting installed FOC soon.

Is there a clear winner I need to consider, or is it much a muchness and decide when i go waste the dealerships salesguys time at the weekend?

Ta

The Skoda, VW and Ford all share the VW MEB platform so its just the innards and software thats the differentiator.

 

[SkyTerran]

I'd recommend EV6 GT-line S with heat pump - modern 800V platform, very fast charging, plenty of tech, great sound system, front seats with heating and cooling that turn into kind of beds with 2 button presses. Also has Level 2 self-driving capability. The car is lower than most crossovers and handles well in sharp turns.

I'm personally not a fan of Tesla, but Model 3 has the best self-driving of the cars you listed and probably is the most fun to drive. And it's the most efficient.

 

[chanjy]

I'd recommend EV6 GT-line S with heat pump - modern 800V platform, very fast charging, plenty of tech, great sound system, front seats with heating and cooling that turn into kind of beds with 2 button presses. Also has Level 2 self-driving capability. The car is lower than most crossovers and handles well in sharp turns.

I'm personally not a fan of Tesla, but Model 3 has the best self-driving of the cars you listed and probably is the most fun to drive. And it's the most efficient.

Why stop there if you’re going off the list

Why don’t you say a Taycan instead lol

 

[lordrobs]

It’s called Chogging now. Just need to work out if they are into Direct Current or the Alternate version.

front seats with heating and cooling that turn into kind of beds with 2 button presses.

Damn, they are even designing cars purpose made for the job

So... How much range can you add in 3 minutes? Asking for a friend of course...

 

[bigmike20vt]

Damn, they are even designing cars purpose made for the job

So... How much range can you add in 3 minutes? Asking for a friend of course...

not sure I get your point... heated and especially cooled seats is not a feature in all cars and (sadly) not all cars have great seats for comfort either.
neither is how much range you can add in 3 minutes relevant, however if you really want to you can work it out yourself in the spreadsheet listed above.

 

[Jonnycoupe]

180 second whoosh parrot.

 

[inflames]

Once my Jag saga is over, what should be next week. I am seriously thinking about getting a EV later this year or start of next year.

Just wondering what EV people on here actually own, specially considering how active the when you going fully electric thread is. Is it majority Tesla owners or a good wide spread of different manufacturers?