When are you going fully electric?

Just a note to say the national grid are reviewing many charger installations with regards to looping or unusual setups..

We have a street light looped from our supply, which got checked/agreed it wasn't a problem when we installed our charger over 2 years ago.. had a site visit from Western Power, everyone happy to leave as-is.. I've had the frontage of the property revamped, so recent driveways, etc.. assuming everything to be OK!

Just had an email to the same (unique) email address we use for the EV Charger pop through saying we have to now be fully unlooped and if I don't agree, or my neighbour refuses permission to dig on his property as well as my own, we face having the charger disconnected. I phone the appointed contractor and he pops around and is quizzical why I need it for the same reasons as last time, but has to dig two stripes in my drive to locate the cable/recable as necessary.. however, he says it's not going to look pretty as they only make good, and he can't match the top layer we have, and will just use tar to bridge the two different tarmacs and they inevitably shift, so suggests we just get it relaid afterwards (at our cost).

I eventually got through to someone at the nationalgrid, but wow.. talk about bolshy.. All I wanted was to get an updated proposal (the last one two years ago was inaccurate) and see if I could have a site visit to just minimise the damage to the driveway, what I got was a stone faced response to which apparently I choose to have an EV Charger so I shouldn't complain and the fact their plans our inaccurate and they'll need to demolish two parts of the driveway and only 'make good' made them come across quite smug as if enjoying it.. They said they are reviewing all installations at the moment..

Luckily it seems the original engineer we dealt with at Western power is still around (now with a national grid email) so sent a polite email off and see if we can discuss.. it will be interesting to see how he responds since he was quite open/nice last time in admitting their services plans didn't match reality and agreed we don't need unlooping unless we wanted it (we have an 80A fuse, 20A is reserved for the street light, other neighbours have either 100A fuses if not looped, 60A if looped).. surely they'd be better off spending the cash unlooping those on 60A looped supplies?

Weird.. shame I can't get 3 Phase installed to get higher AC charging rates, but pretty sure that's not an option for residential/our little cul-de-sac..
 
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Demon said:
Weird.. shame I can't get 3 Phase installed to get higher AC charging rates, but pretty sure that's not an option for residential/our little cul-de-sac..
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You probably could if you really wanted enough to pay for it, but realistically you don't generally need to charge at more than 7kw for most EV use cases, and a lot of cars will top out at taking 11kw from a three phase charge point even if its capable of suppling 22kw. But the street main where your service cable is jointed to will be three phase, it wont be a case that its not possible in your cul-de-sac. But you don't need it.

It seems odd that they are worried about de looping a feed to a lighting column, it sounds like a policy that doesn't fit the situation is being applied without too much thinking. Just trying to picture how it is, are you on a corner at all, just trying to make sense how iuts sensible to go to a house and then a lighting column, of course the column could be first, but then, de-looping would just involve a new feed to the column from the main in the street and jointing through your service cable, it doesn't make a lot of sense.

Incidentally, they can't actually disconnect your chargepoint itself, they can tell you you are not allowed to use it on the supply, and threaten to cut you off completely if you did (I think there might be some bad press if they did), but they would not actually know that you were, you could say that you would disconnect it, and unless there were problems caused by loading they wouldn't know any different.

You possibly also have a claim against them for incorrect advice the first time round if they are now telling you different
 
bigmike20vt said:
btw this is a good site for a quick glance at our energy generation... for the record right now, its an appalling day for clean energy

grid.iamkate.com

National Grid: Live

Shows the live status of Great Britain’s electric power transmission network
grid.iamkate.com grid.iamkate.com

(infact it is the worst i have seen it for a long time only 19% renewable at time of posting) I may skip charging the wifes car tonight unless it improves.
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Interesting site.
 
there are more detailed sites which give a much more granular view of what is going on, but i find the above one fine to see if its a good night to charge my car or not (obviously if i am desperate it gets plugged in regardless).

Also you can play Solitaire on it so there is that too ;)
 
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Journey said:
Nice update from R Symon's on a higher mileage Model 3.

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100,000 miles

89% battery health remaining, 11% depreciated, non-liner curve, so likely only be ~17% depreciated at 200,000 miles.

DC 12,626 kW
AC 20,773 kW
total 33,399 kW
regen 6,655kW
minus regen total 26,744 kW

20% regen very good. Works out to 3.7 miles per kW.

Plus usual car maintenance. Electric cars will just keep on trunkin.
 
seems a good result - does he say anything about whether they sympathetically observed a 20/80% soc; calendar aging will impact it too.;
had seen battery life youtube guy with similar 30%dc lost about 11% on an id3 over 3years/60KKM's, so maybe that highlights teslas prowess.

Haven't seen anyone say whether cold weather range and nominal temp range, remain in same ratio as car puts on km (or, does it cope with cold worse).

2nd hand id3's i've looked at with similar losses, question I have is whether car would be able to comfortably do a, regular, winter weekend 150mile round trip,
after a few more years of ownership.
 
jpaul said:
seems a good result - does he say anything about whether they sympathetically observed a 20/80% soc; calendar aging will impact it too.;
had seen battery life youtube guy with similar 30%dc lost about 11% on an id3 over 3years/60KKM's, so maybe that highlights teslas prowess.

Haven't seen anyone say whether cold weather range and nominal temp range, remain in same ratio as car puts on km (or, does it cope with cold worse).

2nd hand id3's i've looked at with similar losses, question I have is whether car would be able to comfortably do a, regular, winter weekend 150mile round trip,
after a few more years of ownership.
Click to expand...

hes a salesman gopher. who cares what he thinks.
 
keyser van someone said:
100,000 miles

89% battery health remaining, 11% depreciated, non-liner curve, so likely only be ~17% depreciated at 200,000 miles.

DC 12,626 kW
AC 20,773 kW
total 33,399 kW
regen 6,655kW
minus regen total 26,744 kW

20% regen very good. Works out to 3.7 miles per kW.

Plus usual car maintenance. Electric cars will just keep on trunkin.
Click to expand...

With batteries, age is more important. So we'll see.
 
Demon said:
See how they go from 'eeuuuuwww' to 'wow'....
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Never sure what to make of that Alex guy, on the one hand he's not a total tool, on the other he thinks that Geoff guy states facts and actively promotes him but doesn't fact check the stuff he's supporting.
 
It’s all about the clicks with these YT’ers. Bashing EV is the topic du jour so annything related to that is guaranteed to get you views.

Alex and co are doing the old top gear schtick, They are entertaining at times to be fair. The big mechanic guy seems to be naturally funny.
 
Journey said:
Never sure what to make of that Alex guy, on the one hand he's not a total tool, on the other he thinks that Geoff guy states facts and actively promotes him but doesn't fact check the stuff he's supporting.
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I am subscribed to him, the gbc stuff is very rare, their main issue is they go OTT in a clarkson kind of way which is a bit low rent, but overall, OK content IMO.

In this case, the point really was you can see someone with so many preconceived ideas/opinions on EVs go through a small journey with more open minded people around him where what looked like gbc levels of hate seem to dissipate as they get more and more amazed how well the thing has held up to 450k miles and how quick it still is..

I am sure we’ll get more gbc rhetoric appearing but exposing people like this to EVs and at least breaking down a couple of myths for them is a step forward.

We have many sceptics in work, but since I have a 5.0 Mustang I use for commuting and a Tesla for family duty, they tend to be happy listening to my views on EVs and I politely listen to their usual FUD complaints and slowly break most of those down, mainly it now boils down to ‘charger anxiety’ and planning overhead for EVs, something that is hit and miss still and probably once all the fud dissipates, the main aspect that focus needs to continue on..
 
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