EV general discussion

Yeah I did think I should take the range with a pinch of salt as seen a few reviews that say battery is worse in winter, for obvious reasons.

I have a SC about 3 miles from my office so I could always top up after work. Think it's 37p for peak hours which isn't atrocious but it would get me by until we get the charger installed. already have the wiring ready to go. I just find myself getting furious at the pump each week. I put about £30-35 in and at 150 miles the light is back on :mad:
 
Jonnycoupe said:
Don’t you get that for free as a Tesla owner anyway?
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Yes. You always get the member price to charge a tesla.

Junglist said:
Can someone tell me if I'm stupid for considering an EV before I have a home charger installed. Quite tempted for an Elonwaggon as they're 0% at the moment. Don't think I'd be in position to get a charger for a few months so I'd be at the mercy of Superchargers but I have one ~5-10 minutes from my house.

I appreciate that the real savings are when you can charge at home for peanuts but I feel it's still cheaper than my car which gets 28.5mpg averaged after 20k miles.
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Sort of, driving 10 mins to spend 30 mins charging the car to drive home for 10 mins every week will get pretty tedious pretty quickly.

Why delay to get one?

Do consider you can just charge it off a 3 pin plug (granny charger) - you don’t need a dedicated wall box. The granny charger is just a bit slow but 170 miles a week is achievable.

A new Tesla doesn’t come with a granny charger so you’d need to buy one, £180 from Tesla (decent quality) but any type 2 granny charger is fine.
 
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Get your tariff swapped over anyway for some cheap hours during the night. Charging from the granny plug on peak is still cheaper than petrol, and the cheap tarrif even more so.
 
b0rn2sk8 said:
Sort of, driving 10 mins to spend 30 mins charging the car to drive home for 10 mins every week will get pretty tedious pretty quickly.
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I just figured I could pop into the shop to grab a few bits quickly - but even better it's an excuse to get out of the house for half an hour!
b0rn2sk8 said:
Why delay to get one?

Do consider you can just charge it off a 3 pin plug (granny charger) - you don’t need a dedicated wall box. The granny charger is just a bit slow but 170 miles a week is achievable.

A new Tesla doesn’t come with a granny charger so you’d need to buy one, £180 from Tesla (decent quality) but any type 2 granny charger is fine.
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We moved house back in April and my partner has ideas of how to spend our money and sadly I think a fancy dining table is going to take precedence over a box to charge my car up :cry:

I must admit, I didn't really consider a granny charger but it may be a decent way to extend the time needed between visits toa SC.
 
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Junglist said:
I just figured I could pop into the shop to grab a few bits quickly - but even better it's an excuse to get out of the house for half an hour!


We moved house back in April and my partner has ideas of how to spend our money and sadly I think a fancy dining table is going to take precedence over a box to charge my car up :cry:

I must admit, I didn't really consider a granny charger but it may be a decent way to extend the time needed between visits toa SC.
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Yeah get the granny charger. We bought a Tesla without a home charger and used the granny charger for a few weeks until we got a Zappi installed. I would imagine you can probably pick one up 2nd hand somewhere for not too much money. It takes about 24hrs to charge from empty to full but if you are not doing mega miles and have it plugged in all the time when you are at home then you might not even need to go to a supercharger. We managed fine like this but don't do a massive amount of milage. Granny charger is also useful if you are going away somewhere. For example when we go to visit my parents in Scotland I can charge the car at their house via granny charger rather than having to drive 20 mins to nearest supercharger. Its a useful thing to have.
 
Don't all cars come with a granny charger as standard?

I'll be a mix of granny charging and public charging until my main charger (Hypervolt) is installed in a few weeks.
 
Mysterae_ said:
Don't all cars come with a granny charger as standard?

I'll be a mix of granny charging and public charging until my main charger (Hypervolt) is installed in a few weeks.
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No - my Polestar did but seems to be the exception as the EQC didn’t. They normally cost a few hundred quid so it’ll definitely not be going with the car when it’s sold…
 
EH75 said:
Yeah get the granny charger. We bought a Tesla without a home charger and used the granny charger for a few weeks until we got a Zappi installed. I would imagine you can probably pick one up 2nd hand somewhere for not too much money. It takes about 24hrs to charge from empty to full but if you are not doing mega miles and have it plugged in all the time when you are at home then you might not even need to go to a supercharger. We managed fine like this but don't do a massive amount of milage. Granny charger is also useful if you are going away somewhere. For example when we go to visit my parents in Scotland I can charge the car at their house via granny charger rather than having to drive 20 mins to nearest supercharger. Its a useful thing to have.
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I think I've read that if I use the referal scheme I can either get 650 free SC miles or £500 off the purchase price. Seems a no brainer to go for the £500 off and spend that on a granny charger.

Though their own branded wall charger is only £495 but I've heard it's expensive to get it installed as it's missing something. Can't remember what it's missing but something that makes the installation more difficult than it should be.
 
Junglist said:
We moved house back in April and my partner has ideas of how to spend our money and sadly I think a fancy dining table is going to take precedence over a box to charge my car up :cry:
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If you charge up at home the fuel cost saving will soon rack up to pay for that fancy table... and a set of chairs... and a nice lamp...

Same doesn't apply if you flitter the difference away twiddling your thumbs at public chargers.
 
Junglist said:
I think I've read that if I use the referal scheme I can either get 650 free SC miles or £500 off the purchase price. Seems a no brainer to go for the £500 off and spend that on a granny charger.

Though their own branded wall charger is only £495 but I've heard it's expensive to get it installed as it's missing something. Can't remember what it's missing but something that makes the installation more difficult than it should be.
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It doesn’t have PEN (Earth) fault detection so you need a separate device (costing £100) so it’s no cheaper in practice.

It’s also not very ‘smart’, something like a Zappi or hypervolt mean you can access cheaper rates like Octopus Intelligent go*.

That said Eon have the cheapest rates currently and don’t need a particular charger.

*the Tesla is also compatible so you don’t need a compatible charger but if you don’t hold onto your cars forever, the chances are the charger will outlast our ownership of the car.
 
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Mysterae_ said:
Don't all cars come with a granny charger as standard?

I'll be a mix of granny charging and public charging until my main charger (Hypervolt) is installed in a few weeks.
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Nope, very uncommon now. My R5 didn't but I got a decent Masterplug branded one off Amazon for £90 so I could charge the car when visiting my parents in Aberdeenshire.
 
Yeah, I just looked at E-ON's offerings are we are currently with them. We're still on a variable rate for the time being but fixing onto their EV plans saves us £30 a month from the get-go.

Looking into EVs has made me realise something very unfair with life but it's always that way. You need a bit more money to access an EV which for a lot of people puts them slightly out of reach. Despite being better for the environment and giving you access to cheaper electricity bills. Being poor is expensive!
 
Junglist said:
Looking into EVs has made me realise something very unfair with life but it's always that way. You need a bit more money to access an EV which for a lot of people puts them slightly out of reach. Despite being better for the environment and giving you access to cheaper electricity bills. Being poor is expensive!
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It's a good point. We're due our first bill from Octopus including all our cheap rate while charging next month so it'll be interesting to see how much that'll save us. Based on some of the charging slots we're given I'd hazard a guess that it'll make powering 2 electric cars basically free and then a bit extra.
 
I'm quite surprised that a granny charger isn't included as standard on all EVs, considering the price of the cars!

It's something I did check when rummaging around in the boot of the EV I'm buying, it was there as well as a type 2 cable and V2L adaptor.
 
Junglist said:
Looking into EVs has made me realise something very unfair with life but it's always that way. You need a bit more money to access an EV which for a lot of people puts them slightly out of reach. Despite being better for the environment and giving you access to cheaper electricity bills. Being poor is expensive!
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@ diagro had had the tesla wall connector plus, PEN device installed don't know if he had said what all in cost had been
(personally was considering a PEN + commando socket and a mobile charger as a more versatile setup - like tesla mobile charger where you can swap between granny and commando/7.4kw plugs,
and if it saves £400 why not, if the car is octopus smart why have a duplicate smart charger too )
 
Being poor is expensive!
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Correct and worst thing is gov failed everyone without a driveway. The old telephone exchanges as chargers, lampposts etc. was a good idea but where is it. zero

Using a 3 pin is useful but same warning for anything using near to the maximum rating for hours it will get hot so keep an eye on it to start off and keep the area completely clear imo. Speak to Octopus is not a bad idea as they may offer some deal, I think they do receive sponsorship from some car makers to be very helpful and ev is basically their thing.

Uber has some deal to help with car purchase, seemed generous as they give a fleet price
    • Some plans include insurance, servicing, MOT, and road tax
    • EV incentives (especially in London) to support Uber’s push for a fully electric fleet by 2025
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Test drove a Model 3 yesterday. Needf to drop it off after work today. I'm really impressed but my partner isn't a fan - think she sees it as some sort of support to Elon and not what it actually is.. A car :rolleyes:
 
Junglist said:
Test drove a Model 3 yesterday. Needf to drop it off after work today. I'm really impressed but my partner isn't a fan - think she sees it as some sort of support to Elon and not what it actually is.. A car :rolleyes:
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I’m sorry to break it to you, but your partner is 100% correct. While Elon is the CEO and profits off every Tesla sold, you cannot possibly call it simply “just a car”.

Have you test driven any other EVs? It’s hard to believe but some of them are actually better than Tesla’s in many ways.
 
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Junglist said:
Test drove a Model 3 yesterday. Needf to drop it off after work today. I'm really impressed but my partner isn't a fan - think she sees it as some sort of support to Elon and not what it actually is.. A car :rolleyes:
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You could always buy nearly new, not from Tesla, if that is what is bothering her?
Unless it is just the optics, she does not want to be seen with a Tesla?
 
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