When are you going fully electric?

Bear said:
Brilliant, thanks. Something to consider for my next car, although it will be hard to give up the v8 because of the epic noise
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I know what you mean. I had an SLK55 specifically because I wanted a big V8 before emissions killed them all off. And it was epic up to the point where literally you were filling it up every 250 miles. And the lease ended and I had the option to buy it and I didn't because I'd done that and now I'm doing something else.

I actually like electric so much I'm actively looking at converting my SAAB 96V4. At the moment it's a lovely financial millstone that really has no future. But as an electric car, permanently free from tax and MOT requirements, an electric classic makes a powerful argument for itself as a great daily.
 
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Judgeneo said:
If you have a driveway, and can afford a polestar, why wouldn't you get an at home charger just in case? Aren't costs after the grant something like £200?
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Yeah I'd always want a charger at home if space/convenient to have one. While EV's vary, some will only battery pre-heat when connected to a charger, something I'd want to do for long trips especially.

I've been keeping mine plugged in even if not using for a week so can pre-heat without battery power loss if need to and to allow the BMS to do all it's stuff (cell balancing, warming or cooling if required at extremes albeit unlikely in the S.West, battery pre-heating).
For me it's ABC all the way, when not in use.
 
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WJA96 said:
AC charging is generally held to be kinder on the battery but in truth the warranties are written to allow for battery abuse. At home I almost always charge to 100% because I do 500-700 miles per week but on DC chargers I only charge to 80% because anything above that it's faster to drive to the next charger and charge up to 80% again than to wait a REALLY long time to charge it to 90% or 100%. On my own car (Kona) it takes 45 minutes to go from 20% to 80% then another 45 minutes to go from 80% to 100% so there is literally no point in waiting that extra 45 minutes.
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you mean it's kinder because it is low power - not intrinsically - if you had a high power AC option you would be inefficiently heating up the battery, like high voltage dc;
the losses incurred in the cars rectifiers with AC, must, also occur at the supercharger, instead, with DC, one reason you'd expect to pay a premium for dc.
If you had home photovoltaic cells , you could have an optimal dc pathway, plug the array into your car.

There seems to be a diversity of charging options on phev's like the 508(neigbours just got one) offers 7Kw ac, skoda just 3Kw, will be interesting to see what the new 25KW merc's will permit.
 
blun said:
It’s about 2% but either way- if £0.10 on a charge / £10 over the course of a year is significant it’s probably best to not spend £50k+ on a car :)

Last 2 charges:

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When this ‘charging efficiency’ query came up I e-mailed Tesla (because technically I’m still an owner) and Hyundai regarding the efficiency of the built-in AC charger. Tesla responded almost immediately with they didn’t know but it wouldn’t be more than 10% loss (90% efficient) and Hyundai replied this morning, apologising for the slow reply and saying they had checked with Korea and the AC charger is 91% efficient. So it’s closer to 10% loss than 2%. And that’s from the manufacturers.
 
very nice .. so the callipers indicate adjustable dampers, you'll have to tell us how easy the adjustment is ... a few turns of a spanner ?
 
Pod-Point just updated their app - Scheduled charging has finally arrived !!

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I’ll put a proper detailed report together next week, but this is one hell of a serious piece of kit. Mightily impressed in a way I’ve not been with a car for years.
 
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