New electric car- tips?

[RhubarbCircles]

We've got an electric car on its way to us, our first, a VW ID4.

Any advice please? Good apps to use etc?

Need to choose between an Ohme and a Myenergy Zappi tomorrow, both have good reviews and same time scale for fitting.

It'll be mostly for local driving, we are in Scotland so the heating will be on a fair bit which I know affects the range. We 3 or 4 times a year go further down south to see family but stop regularly anyway thanks to small bladders so not too worried about stopping to charge.

Thanks for any chat (and if you're anti EV, this is not the thread for you!)

Hope you enjoy it! We've got a Myenergi Zappi. We chose it because the people fitting our solar panels confirmed that it was one of the ones that was compatible with what they were installing. We had one very small programming issue the first time we tried it, and since then it's been problem free.

At the moment though we programme it to charge the car overnight as we get an Octopus cheap tariff at that time.

What range does the ID4 have?

We have learned to drive around 60mph on long journeys which does take a bit of working out if looking at Google Maps.

We have an ohme charger and DH likes the app, I have no idea why.
We also have Octopus and charge overnight for very little
I love our car, really enjoy driving it and certainly don't miss going to the petrol station.

Can't advise on charger, I'm not even sure what mine is (it was fitted 4 years ago for my ex H's car). My tips would be
Be cautious with the range until you're used to it.
The weather and temperature does affect range.
I usually stick to 65 on faster roads if travelling any distance.
Plan ahead if doing longer distances and need to charge. And don't leave it too late, better to top up than struggle to find a charger when you have little charge left.
I use Zapmap for finding chargers. Usually pretty good. I use Waze for satnav and it also has EV chargers as an option.
Be aware of the acceleration!!! They're quick of the mark.

Unfortunately you'll end up with a zillion different accounts when using public chargers.

But I wouldn't go back to ICE. I love my car. EVs are so easy to drive once you're used to it. It's different from even an automatic. (I have a Skoda Enyaq).

Thanks everyone. @Fourmagpies do all of the public chargers have different apps/accounts then?

The range is 337 although obviously real life range will be less.

Having researched the chargers more, the Ohme's run on 3/4g sims and the Zappi on wifi. Since my phone signal is weak around here and our wifi is good I'm going to go with Zappi.

My tip would be, check your manufacturer’s recommendations for battery charging. I was surprised to learn about keeping mine between 20-80% for most charges with an occasional rebalancing charge.

For heating, does it have heated seats? I find that as long as the seats and steering wheel are heated they don't use up the battery. It's the blowing of hot air that eats up the battery. You could also heat up the car quickly before you get in while it's still plugged in in the morning - I can do this remotely on the app on my Hyundai - and then turn the heating off while I'm driving and it stays warm inside.

I agree that you should be cautious about the range in cold weather until you know the car well, I've had a DS3 and a Hyundai Kona and they each reacted differently to cold weather.

And yes all the public chargers have different apps and often don't work. I adore my EV but this is the one thing that I really don't like about charging. Luckily my car has a 260 mile range and I can now charge at home, but I used to only have street parking - I'd charge once a week at the one public charger whose app wasn't buggy and horrible but I must have about 20 different apps on my phone now trying various different companies. That's something they need to standardise ASAP, or make it so the public chargers all accept contactless (not all do, or often they have a contactless pad that doesn't work!)

As @Xiaoxiong said, they are different providers and have different apps. No common app at the moment. Some you can use without an account and just tap to pay. Some you'll need to download an app and have to wander around the car park to get a signal (speaking from experience!). Zapmap allows comments and also can tell when a charger is in use, so good for working out if a charger is available and working. I mainly charge at home so don't need to use public chargers often and I haven't had any major issues in the last 2 years of owning mine.

I avoid public chargers if at all possible apart from the Tesla ones.
They all have different apps and you have to put card details in, hope there is a signal, hope they work etc etc etc.
90% of the time I charge at home but our lifestyle permits this and if we are on a longer journey I look for Tesla chargers. I Have only had to use non Tesla ones maybe 3 or 4 times in almost 2 years.. Of course this only works if you actually have a Tesla
And for all the Tesla haters I have never had to queue either.

I am pretty sure our Ohme is on Wifi

I’m with octopus too and recommend the Octoverse app. You can get discount at some chargers, I often get notifications of cheaper charging rates with specific providers and also the costs are charged to my electricity account, so no need for loads of accounts.
Agree with others, range drops in the winter, and they are very quick when starting off.
I live my EV, but my insurance has rocketed up this year.

I'm locked in to British Gas til Jan and have an exit fee of £150. I think I'll wait til then and switch to Octopus after as the EV tarif is better.

We have a PodPoint charger, so can't advise on either of the ones you're looking at. But some other points...

Octopus is great if you can get on the Intelligent tariff. My ID3 is compatible with it, so I assume an ID4 would be too (it's not available for all EVs).

A few mph on your speed (either way) will make quite a difference to your range.

You can pre-condition the car, which will make a difference on cold winter mornings. If you do this whilst the car is plugged in then it doesn't affect the battery at all.

Try and keep charged between 20-80%, and only charge to more than 80% if you know you're going to need a full battery (ie - going on a long journey). This is better for the long term health of the battery.

We haven't downloaded any apps for charging on the go (we have 2 EVs, and have been EV only for nearly 2 years). We don't charge on the go that often, but whenever we do, we just tap a contactless card, plug in and go. It may be a few p/kWh more, but for the amount we need it, it's not worth the faff of downloading apps etc to save a few pence (which is probably all it would be). I have yet to come across a charger that you can't just tap on.

I love my ID3 - hope you like your ID4 as much!

Thank you! That's good to hear.

That's interesting about only charging to 80%. I've been reading a fair bit and keep seeing that. So you'd go to 100 if you were about to use it but otherwise just stop at 80- does the charging pod know when to stop or do you have to watch it and go and unplug when it hits 80?

I can set it on the car's app to charge only to 80%, and the car stops itself.

Also at public chargers the etiquette is definitely to only charge to 80% as most cars charge very quickly to 80% and then it slows right down, so it may take as much time to get from 20-80 as it does from 80-100 - something about the battery cycles and battery health that I've never bothered to look into too deeply!!

I love ours! Also in Scotland and have been impressed with ChargePlace Scotland and public infrastructure, as well as having an Ohme one at home.
I wish I’d paid more attention to how the home chargers look as our Ohme has a hook for the cable to wrap around that I think looks messy, but functionality is grand.
our garage helped us display a setting on the dash that shows what mileage per KWH you are getting at any moment. I find that really helpful in understanding what uses up battery and what doesn’t. We were fine through last winter - agree that heated seats are efficient way to go.
enjoy! I wouldn’t go back now.

Although read your manual - mine says that to preserve battery health to only charge to 80% on fast chargers, but on slow trickle chargers like a three pin plug it's fine to charge to 100% and won't harm the battery.

I wouldn't worry too much really - the 2nd hand car guy I talked to when I switched from the DS3 to the Kona said that EV batteries are holding up better and range lasting far, far longer than they were ever initially predicted to - even on the oldest Tesla and Nissan Leaf models which should be down to about 30 miles range by now are showing far slower degradation than initially predicted.

See for example: https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2022/08/01/electric-car-batteries-lasting-longer-than-predicted-delays-recycling-programs/ and https://www.recurrentauto.com/research/how-long-do-ev-batteries-last

Ooh exciting! DH and I both have EVs. We have the Ohme charger through octopus and charge overnight on the intelligent octopus go tarrif. The app comes with the charger. My EV is also a VW and the VW app is a must to set heating in advance and also to check how many miles are left. My EV has two clever buttons ‘eco’ and ‘eco+’ which really help with economy. These might be in the settings menu in your car. The ‘eco+’ shuts off everything non essential, so aircon, heating etc, limits the KWh and also limits the speed - 60mph tops. I usually drive in ‘eco+’ unless I go on the motorway and get 7miles per KWh which is excellent economy.
I usually charge mine when I get to 50 miles left but generally only do short local journeys.
I recommend the ‘Zapmap’ app which shows you all the chargers available in the UK and if they are working or not. It’s also colour coded (superfast chargers are pink) so helps you plan longer journeys in advance easily. I’ve found the Gridserve charging stations are the best for ease of use and reliability. Make sure you take your bank card if you are out and about as some smaller charging stations demand you put the card in the slot so you can’t charge contactless with your phone.
I’ve also got the VW we charge card and an octopus card, both of which are useless as I haven’t found a charging station that takes them yet (i’m in SE)!
Just as a comparison DH and I charge at home and before we had EVs we spent £400 a month on fuel, now we spend £30 between us so the savings are very impressive. Good luck!

Wow @PollywithaP that's a brilliant saving!

It'll take us a while to make up the cost of the charger in savings though, think it's £1100. But still very much looking forward to no more petrol stations and petrol prices!

ID.3 owner here, have had it for 3 years and I love it. I also do mostly local driving and occasional longer trips. I’ve never had a problem with finding charging options when needed and on longer trips I’ll choose my break timing to do a quick top-up charge rather than waiting till below 30%. The ID map will point you to local chargers but you might want to look them up on ZapMap for more info.

I downloaded lots of charging apps before I got my car but most of the chargers have been tap and go so I haven’t needed many accounts. BP and Shell are useful for seeing which petrol stations have chargers, ZapMap will cover chargers in hotels, car parks, services, etc.

Enjoy your new car!

I'm pretty sure you can get a charger for less than £1,100?

The savings soon mount up. If you charge on a 7p overnight rate, it costs only a few £ to get a full charge (compared to c£50 for a tank of fuel).

If you have more than one car in the household, it's worth using the EV for as many journeys as possible, to start realising the savings. We switched our mentality from 'my car' and 'your car' to the EV car and the diesel car, and organised journeys accordingly. So if only one of us was going out, they'd always take the EV. And if one of us had to do a long journey, they would always take the EV. The amount we were spending on diesel plummeted! And now we have 2 EVs. Our electricity bill went up a tiny bit, but not much as we switched to an EV tariff, and take advantage of the overnight rate to run things like the diswasher, washing machine and tumble dryer, so our running costs for those came down too.

Things I have learned:

If you have solar panels or might have in the future then make sure whatever charger you get can charge slowly (eg 2kw speed) as well as fast because then, if your car is at home in the day, you can charge your car on excess solar most days in summer. I think the Zappi might well have this feature.

In many EVs they will go as fast in reverse as they do forward so make sure you are in a forward gear after you've done a crafty manoeuvre to turn round in a side street and now want to move away promptly 🙂

It's often quicker and less hassle on a very long journey to charge sooner and plan to do two quick stops than do one long stop to charge. Especially if you are somewhere where the charging offering is a bit sparse.

A single fast charger will often not be working or be busy but big banks of them in one place are usually okay.

As others have said, the heated seats are a more efficient way of keeping the occupants warm than heating the air.

You will never want to go back to ICE and will find any hire car you ever take stinky, noisy and slow to respond.

Love our EV. I found at the start that so many things seemed to go wrong, chargers out of action, issues with the machine taking payments, once I couldn’t eject the charger (turns out you need to lock and unlock the car a few times if that happens). But then you get familiar. If any issues like that there’s always a number to ring and they fix things quite rapidly. It’s worth always leaving a buffer of miles during a long journey so you could drive on to the next service station if all the chargers were full etc. Although we’ve only had it a year and I notice improvements in that time - Tebay for example only had 1 and now has many.

Apparently the reason the range is worse in winter is not to do with using the heating but more about the overall ambient temperature affecting the operation.

Things I found:

Blowers use a lot of battery. Around 1/3 the battery power on full blast.
Interestingly the heated seats and heated windows take almost nothing off the mileage.

Driving over 50mph brings the battery down quickly.

In the winter battery is much reduced. We go from 214 in the hot summer to 105 if the weather's below freezing.

You can go for a journey and come back with more miles than you started. Love it when that happens.

Charging is cheap in your own drive. We have only twice charged up elsewhere (although we have a petrol car for long journeys)

If it gets below 20 miles left it goes into double eco mode. Great idea, but the car feels unresponsive and slow. I thought the car had gone wrong the first time.

I love mine.

According to my app I have saved £1495 in petrol costs in the last YTD.