Ok so the last bit is a bit ranty but the point still stands that promoting half price charging with the caveat that you can't charge the following day is a bit pony.
When are you going fully electric?
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I had this at Gloucester the other week, a couple of old biddies were having trouble getting one of the SWARCO units to handshake with their Zoe, all the Tesla guys just say there looking at them, I'm pretty sure one of them took a picture for the lols. I finished my rather nice sausage roll and went out to help them.
Doesn't surprise me at all, some of them were like that to those who bought Model 3's in the early days.
There is no such thing as a free lunch...
Octopus are promoting energy shifting for nerds. If you want economy 7 and not think about it, fill your boots.
Normally the data on how they can get us to change our habits by throwing a few pennies in our direction is payment enough though.
I'm not fussed myself. I'm tight as a ducks anus generally when it comes to spending money but even I can't be bothered jumping through hoops to try and reduce my whopping 7kWh average daily usage.
I know a guy who is heavily into farming solar and selling it back at the optimum time. It just always comes across as a really hard way to make a tiny return on a massive investment. They also took half a day's holiday to take advantage of that hours free electric which I guess absolutely proves your point!
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Soldato
Some special souls in the Tesla owners group went all mums net in the owners group today because one of them spotted another Tesla which had the audacity to park in a V4 supercharger bay.... wait for it....forwards.
Oh dear.
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Might take both mine and the Mrs EV’s (Polestar and EQC) to the Gloucester services Supercharger tomorrow and see what happens…
Expect it to be busy. I was there on the first Sunday of the school holidays at lunchtime and it was full, no queue but each time someone left, the slot was filled within a few minutes. The chargers were also hitting the site power limit also so not blisteringly fast either. There were a few SWARCO units available and turning over cars as you'd expect.
Gloucester and Tebay are excellent services but the downside of places like Gloucester and Tebay is they are excellent services and people don't stop for a splash and dash. Everyone is there for at least 20-30 mins because they want to be not because they have to be.
By this same metric I assume that people desperate enough to stop at Knutsford are stood by their car ready to yank the charging cable out the second they have enough charge?
That's pretty much my approach when I need to stop at the likes of Grantham and BlythBy this same metric I assume that people desperate enough to stop at Knutsford are stood by their car ready to yank the charging cable out the second they have enough charge?
You'd think to that with my job my motorway services knowledge would be encyclopedic but I'll remember that Knutsford is a complete hole for a few months (I stopped there a couple of weeks ago) then completely forget and make the same mistake again!That's pretty much my approach when I need to stop at the likes of Grantham and Blyth
Only ones I remember long term for being decent are Norton Cranes and Rugby. Beaconsfield I remember for the novelty of it having a Wetherspoons and Derby and Burton for being a complete ghost town of closed outlets.
Thanks again to everyone who helped with the company car suggestions. I thought it best to fire off an email as there was a stack of information but in essence I've suggested one PHEV estate, one PHEV SUV and then basically asked the question about whether EVs are an option. I listed out half a dozen different models that were in budget used and highlighted an example of one that could be had new for £5k more and pointed out that being new it was eligible for 100% write down.
Wait and see now I guess.
Man of Honour
It works for me so is still a win for me.
Soldato
Not great for higher voltage cars either. My Ipace is much faster charging at higher SoC on FastNed than the Tesla units. Plus I’m not into chogging…
Did a survey a few months back and got 3 months free ionity Passport so activated that yesterday for 43p/kWh and used at Cobham yesterday whilst eating McDonald’s breakfast.
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Soldato
Feel free to use a question mark from time to time rather than italics…
Like this
What on earth is prehistory?
Unless you happen to want to use your car in Wednesday which would require charging it up on Tuesday night
I've been an Octopus customer since day one but the gimmicks are getting a bit much. "Great news, between 13:00 and 14:00 on Wednesday we're giving an hour of free energy." Great, maybe I'll book the day off work to save myself 7p on half a wash cycle :roll eyes:
Does your washing machine not have a timer?
I’m not sure load balancing of the national grid is a gimmick?
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They ALL share power to a lesser or greater extent.
The old V2 chargers (identified with having 2 cables) share up to 150kw between 2 stalls.
V3 and V4 chargers have a power cabinet rated to around 350kw on the AC side and this is shared between 3 or 4 stalls depending on how busy the site is expected to be and how much power they can get hold of. Each power cabinet also has a DC bus where they can share power between themselves as needed and in effect creating a single power cabinet rated for 350kw X the number of cabinets on site.
Pretty much all the big charging hubs from all suppliers these days are set up in away that they 'share power' in one way or another. Almost all of them are provisioned with significantly more chargers than their power supply is able to support at high power. This makes sense given chargers are seldom at their full output for any meaningful length of time.
If the chargers are full they will probably bouncing off the total site power limit, be that Tesla or otherwise.
The answer has always been to run another cable out to your garage or just charge at 3.6kw and accept its slower but in reality is probably more than enough for 99.9% of the charging you actually need to do.
That said upgrading the power supply isn't an investment for that one car, EV's are not going away and it will probably be there for as long as your house/garage exists for.
Shock - the world doesn't revolve around youUnless you happen to want to use your car in Wednesday which would require charging it up on Tuesday night
I've been an Octopus customer since day one but the gimmicks are getting a bit much. "Great news, between 13:00 and 14:00 on Wednesday we're giving an hour of free energy." Great, maybe I'll book the day off work to save myself 7p on half a wash cycle :roll eyes:
Do you install superchargers for a living?
He's the guy that complained on the Tesla FB page about front parkingDo you install superchargers for a living?
Haha no, I just remember reading about them when they first came out and I've have actually used a rapid chargerDo you install superchargers for a living?
Not guilty, I've never owned a Model S and I don't have any cologne ladled 'Elon's Musk' in my nerd cave.
Soldato
Pretty sure his answer will just be continually to comment about it, but never do anything, or the move on to complaining about the cost for 6 years in this thread, and by the time everyone else is in flying cars they may have installed something.
Soldato
It sort of is the way they implement it, I'm with Rob here somewhat. Here's why:
1. Surely the grid needs load balancing continually in some form? So why are these slots just one hour long and infrequent.
2. How does the grid know it's going to need load balancing a couple days in advance for an hour at 1pm? What happens if the wind suddenly drops at that time and the grid no longer needs balancing.
3. Recently the promo has been to give 1 hour free electricity slots. Previously it was something different - if I recall something like earning points for electricity used above average rate last winter. Why the chopping and changing, and why no promo between last winter and now?
4. Why Monday night for the free EV charging? Similar to q2 above how did they know there would be loads of free capacity Monday night? It was more windy yesterday, why not offer free EV charging then?
5. Why are only Octopus doing this?
Seems to me they'd be better off not giving anyone prior warning, but just reacting to the grid capacity even at minutes notice by automatically starting charging people's EVs etc.
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