EV general discussion

Yeh, these chargers in Oxford are very useful and actually I’d be more than happy to pay for the electric I use to keep that that don’t actually need them from using them. Some enforcement on ICEing would be nice.

The Bicester Village up the road has 12 22kw free chargers and they were all full within 15 mins of opening on a Sunday. Got lucky there too.

Jonnycoupe said:
Highcross in leicester is amusing. About 40 spaces with 3 pin plugs.
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That’s all good with me too, very useful somewhere like a shopping centre when you are going to be a number of hours.


What I don’t get is the DC fast chargers being placed in expensive paid shopping centre car parks. For example Tesla have just opened a super charger smack bang in the middle of Derby and I just don’t get it from the shopping centres point of view. For the same power capacity (and probably cost) you could put in 150+ 7kw chargers which would be far more useful and far more attractive. Whack the supercharger on the outskirts where it belongs.
 
At James Square in the centre of Edinburgh is pretty awesome too, 45 Podpoints (7kW) at a reasonable 17p/kWh.

Cheaper than then 160odd Newmotion posts we have at work 24p/kWh.
 
Journey said:
You can still get Octopus Go at 7.5p/29.8p per kW (~30ppd standing charge), makes no sense to go on the new SVR in April if you are running an EV and charging from home.
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So looking at the data it makes sense for me to switch to Octopus Go now.
Even though the kWh cost of 30.78p is higher than the 1 April price cap, the cheaper off peak and standing charge makes it worthwhile switching.

If you own a Tesla then with Octopus Intelligent you get 6 hours of off peak charging. More cars and chargers will be added as the program matures.
https://octopus.energy/intelligent-octopus/

Basically this is the start of proper smart charging, where you tell Octopus how much charge you need & by when and they start and stop the charging when the price is good for them, and pass the cost benefit onto you - Some charges may happen outside the off-peak window but you’ll still be charged the off-peak rate.

Of course, if you need to charge outside of your set schedule, you can manually do that at the on peak rate.
 
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Jonnycoupe said:
Not sure that’s true.
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This is from the Octopus Intelligent FAQ section : https://octopus.energy/intelligent-faqs/

51862062325_9014f80e84_c.jpg
 
I don’t see the point in allowing control of the car, allowing control of the EVSE makes more sense. Both my Ohme 3-pin and my Zappi can be API controlled, which surely then makes the car irrelevant.
 
Yeah the large drain bit like a Tesla is what i meant, mines been doing smart charging for months with Jedlix but then thats got legacy automotive 12V load management...

Otherwise we are guessing yeah? The EVSE should be doing it rather than the car. Do you not think the large drain and only Tesla offering it is not related?
 
I see the figures for registrations are now out for January.

BEV up 130.6% YoY with 14,433 or 12.5% of total registrations, and PHEV are up 47.3% YoY to 9,047 or 7.9% of total registrations. If the trend continues throughout the year then well over 250,000 new BEV's will have been registered in the UK in 2022, the trend is looking more likely to hit above that if the chip shortage continues for the vast majority of 2022, higher end predictions are showing 400,000+ as a possibility.
 
I can't see going EV in the forseable future.

Second hand evs seem a poor choice due to battery life and I'd never buy a new car.

My usage is completely the opposite to what is optimal for an EV:
-infrequent long trips
-some long trips being 300 miles+
-use car 1 or 2 times a week.

Just not economically sensible. When you drive so little anything that depreciates in time rapidly is a no go
 
I may be in the running for a much more local job which would cut 95% of my journeys in the car to being a few miles and it's definitely made me consider going electric now rather than later. Man maths may prove it's cheaper to just run my current car into the ground (actually, it 99% will be as my overall mileage isn't high, but I'd like a new car after 4-5 years anyway!) although it depends if between the Mayor and government a 10+ year old car or ICE in general becomes more and more expensive to run for a Londoner with ever more new rules and regs, and I'd need something newer anyway.

Checked out LeaseLoco but tbh I'd rather buy used. Not the best looking thing but prices aren't too bad for the i3 - comparable to what I was looking at spending on a bigger petrol car - supposed to be reasonably fun to drive for what it is, easy to park in suburbia and from what I've read and as long as it's newer than 2015 and not the REX version seems reasonably reliable (based on looking on places like SpeakEV). Have to see.
 
throwaway4372 said:
Is an EV still worth it given these prices rises being much bigger than petrol price rises? How many years does it take to recoup the higher purchase price?
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There are EV tariffs where you can charge overnight for 7.5p kWh. For me this means it's £6 to fully charge which gives me about 220 miles. The equivalent 220 miles using my old 520D would cost about £39. [600 miles at current diesel prices would now cost me £105 with the BMW, with my EV it's just £16]
Sure, it's not an amazing saving, but I'm also saving on the car, due to the low BIK, zero VED and no annual service requirements.
 
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SDK^ said:
There are EV tariffs where you can charge overnight for 7.5p kWh. For me this means it's £6 to fully charge which gives me about 220 miles. The equivalent 220 miles using my old 520D would cost about £39.
Sure, it's not an amazing saving, but I'm also saving on the car, due to the low BIK, zero VED and no annual service requirements.
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There's always the huge caveat in saying it's £6 to fully charge/200+ miles overnight. You only get a 4 hour window each night at that low 7.5p/kWh rate, so the most you can pump into the car each night is roughly 28kWh. With most cars doing somewhere around 4mi/kWh average, then that's 112 miles added each night. If you need more than that each day - especially so if you big miles and need to charge fully overnight - it's never, ever, going to be all at that low rate. 28kWh is less than 44% of my battery capacity. However, if you only do that kind of journey every few days, then you'd certainly be able to recover that 100% charge at the low rate.

Also, there are servicing requirements on BEV to varying degrees between manufacturers. They're cheaper than ICE equivalents sure, but they're not absent.
 
squerble said:
There's always the huge caveat in saying it's £6 to fully charge/200+ miles overnight. You only get a 4 hour window each night at that low 7.5p/kWh rate, so the most you can pump into the car each night is roughly 28kWh. With most cars doing somewhere around 4mi/kWh average, then that's 112 miles added each night. If you need more than that each day - especially so if you big miles and need to charge fully overnight - it's never, ever, going to be all at that low rate. 28kWh is less than 44% of my battery capacity. However, if you only do that kind of journey every few days, then you'd certainly be able to recover that 100% charge at the low rate.

Also, there are servicing requirements on BEV to varying degrees between manufacturers. They're cheaper than ICE equivalents sure, but they're not absent.
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Yep
I’m driving Monday to Friday about 30 miles a day and at the weekend up to about 100. So it works for me.

Also, I compared it to my 520d which didn’t have 410bhp and 700nm torque.
Pretty sure an ICE car with this power/performance costs more than £100 every 600 miles to fuel, like the 520d.
 
squerble said:
Also, there are servicing requirements on BEV to varying degrees between manufacturers. They're cheaper than ICE equivalents sure, but they're not absent.
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Indeed. The next service on my Kona will be £400+. They invented a shortened interval for changing the battery cooling fluid.
 
squerble said:
There's always the huge caveat in saying it's £6 to fully charge/200+ miles overnight. You only get a 4 hour window each night at that low 7.5p/kWh rate, so the most you can pump into the car each night is roughly 28kWh. With most cars doing somewhere around 4mi/kWh average, then that's 112 miles added each night. If you need more than that each day - especially so if you big miles and need to charge fully overnight - it's never, ever, going to be all at that low rate. 28kWh is less than 44% of my battery capacity. However, if you only do that kind of journey every few days, then you'd certainly be able to recover that 100% charge at the low rate.
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Its a nice idea, in reality very few cars get close to 4miles/kWh of actual grid energy. hence I changed to Go Faster for 5hrs at only 5.5p but start at 8:30pm to allow other household use to make use of it - much better.

It will only charge to 60% tonight, but that’s fine, it will get plugged in again tomorrow. My charger doesn’t charge unless it’s cheap and I’ve never had to override that to play catch up.

I did 15k in first 12months in mine.
 
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