Can someone who knows about plug in hybrid cars talk some sense to me please?

[IbizaToTheNorfolkBroads]

Hello, please can someone talk some sense to me please. DH and I keep falling out about it.

I am getting a new car in a couple of weeks. It's a Skoda Octavia plug in Hybrid. I get it as a lease car to do my job, but can use it for personal mileage. It will come only with a charger than can only be used at public charging points. I've confirmed this with the dealership who are delivering it.

Our nearest public charge point is 6 miles away. It charges 80p/kWH, and is not really anywhere I would need to go very often. Our nearest 2 big supermarkets do not have any. There are none near my normal office, although there is near an office I visit about once a fortnight.

At home we pay 29p/kWH and we have solar panels with batter my storage. Across 12 months around 2/3 of our electricity is solar generated, so "free" (although we are still paying for the panels).

My driving is either journeys of 4-20 miles locally, or about twice a week I do a return journey of 90-150 miles.

I would like to get a home charger installed.
DH reckons this is unnecessary. The lease company have said that they do not want the car charged using a 13amp/3pin trickle charger. I don't see why I should be going out of my way to recharge at 80p/kWH when I could get a good portion of charge via solar panels for free. I realise I will still be buying fuel and I won't be stranded etc, but I feel like a home charger would pay for itself within a year due to the solar panels.

What am I missing? DH is usually pretty good at this stuff.

We have a PHEV and an 11kW home charger. I can’t imagine owning one without a charger - it makes absolutely no sense. PHEVs only have small batteries so need to be charged every night if you want to avoid using the petrol engine - are you really going to drive to a charger every day?

One of the joys of owning a PHEV is going from having to go to the petrol station once a week to only having to go once every 3 months. Having to visit a charger daily would be ridiculous.

It’s not a ‘massive’ fire risk at all

The charger should be rated at 10Amps if you’re using it in a 13 amp socket, and it won’t be an issue

It is possible to get 13 amp chargers which can overheat in a 13 amp socket but it’s still only a very small fire risk in a properly installed plug

Im on my 3rd PHEV, the most recent being delivered in April, and it came with a 3pin charger btw

It's really stupid to get an EV car without getting a proper charger fitted at home. Relying on expensive paid charging points far from home means you'll hardly save anything compared tk fossil fuel vehicles.

Relying on trickle charge froma 3pin plug is also a terrible idea.

I don't consider myself stupid.

It may be less than ideal, but there are many reasons why an exterior charge point may not be possible. At least two of which pertain to me - I have no drive, and the local conservation officer won't allow it on a listed building.

This should not preclude me, or anyone in a similar situation, from having an EV. Indeed, because it's such a common situation in my county, there is a discounted off-street charging scheme. Sometimes I use that, sometimes I use the perfectly legitimate, manufacturer-provided 3 pin lead from my house. Either way, my fuel bill has dropped like a stone. And I don't think that's a "really stupid" route to take.

Thank you everybody for sharing your knowledge and experiences.

We do have a driveway and weren't not in a conservation area. The main constraint is that we are currently on 1 salary, so a £1000 investment needs to be carefully considered.

Car is due to be delivered in the next few days. I can get a charger fitted by my employer’s contractor and then rent it off them for the duration of the lease - this total cost will be far more than installing one at my own cost though. Work pay my business miles - they don’t know it care that I have solar panels, they’ll pay their “PHEV” mileage rate regardless, obviously payment for “free” miles is offset by the initial outlay for the panels.

I use a trickle charger. No danger if your wiring is up to code. It's slow, but it's usually plugged in while I'm home anyway, so it doesn't matter.

The advantage of it is that I can take it with me if I'm travelling. The flip side is that a faster charger would be able to take advantage of your solar, rather than charging overnight.

I have no idea what the rule about no trickle charging is about, but people do come up with all sorts of stupid rules about EVs for no good reason.

We just had a charger installed for about £800. A consideration is that you can then switch to an EV tarif, which makes your overnight energy usage much cheaper, therefore much cheaper to charge.

And as others have already said, you can set it up so it diverts any excess solar to the car battery.