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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Electric car charger but no drive

72 replies

HammergoHammer · 12/01/2023 07:50

Hi,
I am considering buying a house with no drive but I know I want an electric car in the future.
The house is opposite a large supermarket with a car charger. Do you think this would work as a longer term option? Would they notice?

OP posts:
Sparklingbrook · 12/01/2023 07:53

HammergoHammer · 12/01/2023 07:50

Hi,
I am considering buying a house with no drive but I know I want an electric car in the future.
The house is opposite a large supermarket with a car charger. Do you think this would work as a longer term option? Would they notice?

I imagine they would notice. Most supermarkets have a night crew. Plus car park CCTV, but will the chargers even be on all night?

In the day is there a maximum stay in the car park before getting a fine?

WednesdaysPlaits · 12/01/2023 07:54

They will notice and you'll be fined plus most of them charge for use now anyway

dementedpixie · 12/01/2023 07:55

Does the supermarket not charge for using the chargers? I know they've started charging for using them in my local area. They do have a maximum time limit though and will charge for exceeding it.

Hiddenvoice · 12/01/2023 07:55

I recently bought an electric car before I could put a charge point in. Being honest, it was a complete nightmare trying to find places to charge my car. I also live close to a supermarket and thought it would be ideal but it was constantly busy during the day and at night other people have the same idea as me and parked there all night long.
Where I live they now charge you for charging your car. This makes it a little easier to find a place to charge but if you leave your car there for too long and your car is fully charged then you can receive an extra payment charge which is fairly expensive.

I don’t know where you live but in Scotland there is a charge place app which tells you the majority of the charging places across the country. It informs you if they are free or busy and if they are fast or slow
charge points. You could look into this for your area.

Overthebow · 12/01/2023 07:56

Yes I imagine they’ll notice and you wouldn’t be able to do that as a long term option. There will need to be proper infrastructure for charging at some point though as eventually all cars will be electric. If you buy a house with no drive you will have to wait until then to get an electric car.

Sparklingbrook · 12/01/2023 07:56

Charges haven’t reached these parts yet. But it would make sense.,

wakkasakka · 12/01/2023 07:56

I don't think this will work as most supermarkets have a maximum parking time.

Lottsbiffandsmudge · 12/01/2023 07:58

It's not easy to have an EV and no home charger my DM does (lives in a flat) but she charges at my house once a week and is a low mileage driver.
Charging on public chargers is more expensive.
The free ones are often very slow and with time limits.
This is why the govt need to sort infra structure ASAP.

MrsMitford3 · 12/01/2023 07:58

I live in an area of Victorian terraced houses with no drives. There are some charging points on the street but I notice there are always just cars parked by them. Ppl do charge from their houses-our the window and put a matt over the cord on the pavement. Def challenging in that scenario @HammergoHammer

KimberleyClark · 12/01/2023 07:59

I have walked past houses without drives with cars charging in the street (from the house).

Collywibbles · 12/01/2023 07:59

And herein lies one of the big challenges of trying to get us all to go electric. The infrastructure to support it is simply not there across the uk. And I don't see how it can be in the amount needed v housing types.

SmokeWithoutFire · 12/01/2023 08:03

ZapMap is a great app to look for local chargers. I haven't come across any free chargers for some time now though.

If you can park next to your house albeit across a pavement, and are thinking of using a domestic 3-pin plug you can do this (slow compared to a domestic charger), but remember that you can't plug a charging lead into an extension lead.

UnhappyAcademic · 12/01/2023 08:03

Even if there’s no time limit in the carpark now you run the risk of one being introduced.

I can’t even park on the road outside my house so can’t run a cable from my house to the car as car is parked a 3 min walk away. No street or carpark chargers in my village. 🤷🏻‍♀️

superdupernova · 12/01/2023 08:05

I think it depends on the car and your mileage. We only need to charge our car once a week, sometimes less. We have a charger at home but could manage without. There's a restaurant near us with 10 chargers that's never full and a huge shopping complex further away where we've charged the car just because it was the only parking space we could find.

MandyMotherOfBrian · 12/01/2023 08:07

Are you able to park directly outside your house with any regularity? If so, then as PPs said charging from the house would be more sensible. But rather than trailing the cable across the pavement and causing a hazard you could look in to getting the council to approve you having a cable gully out in to the pavement outside your house.
Like this (though I’m sure you can get cheaper)
green-mole.co.uk/ev-charging-for-terraced-households/

pocketvenuss · 12/01/2023 08:07

You mean charge in the car park then move it to the street? Of course you can do that.

goldennotyetoldie · 12/01/2023 08:11

We're luck (london) that many lamp posts now have chargers in them. Even so, some people park on the street and have cables that go from their house to the car. They use those rubber cable covers so they aren't a trip hazard.

Seems to work.

InMySpareTime · 12/01/2023 08:19

Depends on your range and how many miles a day/week you drive. Most EV drivers only need to charge up once a week, which would be fine at the supermarket charger.
Can you charge at or near work, or wherever you park during the day?
Also, a lot of the people with home chargers make them available to other EV owners to park and charge (for a fee).
Look on ZapMap.

BarbaraofSeville · 12/01/2023 08:33

YABU to rely on being able to do this, because the supermarket may already, or could in the future impose time limits on cars being in their car park, or lock it outside store hours.

Or they could increase the cost of charging, making it uneconomical to charge a car - there's already many commercial chargers where the cost per mile works out to be similar to that of a small engined petrol car, making running an electric car uneconomic for many.

Or even if the above doesn't apply, other people in the street could have the same idea and you could spend half your free time watching the supermarket car park, waiting for a space.

Outside certain financially comfortable bubbles, where people rarely or never have to do long, journeys in an efficient time period, we are a long way from electric cars being practical and efficient for the majority. Plus we probably don't have enough electricity capacity for a lot more people to switch to electric cars.

The long queues for chargers at service stations over Christmas were a good illustration of this.

If you have your own charger and do sufficient mileage in short to medium length chunks so you rarely or never have to charge away from home/work and normally run an expensive car, electric cars can be worthwhile and affordable. But if any of that doesn't apply, not so much right now.

m00rfarm · 12/01/2023 08:36

My car has a fast charger option - I can get approx 5km per minute charging with the car charging at 1% per minute. So I can drop by the supermarket with the fast charger for 30 minutes (and do emails and phone calls, or just some shopping) and get 150km on the car. We don't have free options in Portugal, unfortunately. The slow charger option would take several hours to do this.

Crazycrazylady · 12/01/2023 08:37

You'd be absolutely nuts to buy a electric car when you have no drive.
Most people I know plan on changing to electrics meaning that supermarkets will all charge in the very near future and b) there will be massive pressure on existing spots.

InMySpareTime · 12/01/2023 08:54

People manage with ICE cars when they don't have a petrol station at home, they just refuel their cars as part of a journey.
EVs take longer to charge, hence the need to park, but there are a range of charging speeds (and prices) available so you can charge in any time from 20-30 minutes or overnight.

OhWifey · 12/01/2023 08:57

SmokeWithoutFire · 12/01/2023 08:03

ZapMap is a great app to look for local chargers. I haven't come across any free chargers for some time now though.

If you can park next to your house albeit across a pavement, and are thinking of using a domestic 3-pin plug you can do this (slow compared to a domestic charger), but remember that you can't plug a charging lead into an extension lead.

I do this (plug my charger into an extension lead). Is there a reason why I shouldn't? My car is just a PHEV with a 3 pin plug at the other end of the charging cable.

BarbaraofSeville · 12/01/2023 09:02

InMySpareTime · 12/01/2023 08:54

People manage with ICE cars when they don't have a petrol station at home, they just refuel their cars as part of a journey.
EVs take longer to charge, hence the need to park, but there are a range of charging speeds (and prices) available so you can charge in any time from 20-30 minutes or overnight.

But ICE cars don't need refuelling as often, it's a lot quicker, if there's a queue, the people in front of you will only take a couple of minutes each, not 20-30 mins +, you don't need endless apps or accounts, the pricing is more transparent.

People who make the comparison and don't see the pitfalls of EV obviously don't need to drive hundreds of miles in a day to get to appointments on time (and no the meetings can't always be done on Teams).

UnhappyAcademic · 12/01/2023 09:03

OhWifey · 12/01/2023 08:57

I do this (plug my charger into an extension lead). Is there a reason why I shouldn't? My car is just a PHEV with a 3 pin plug at the other end of the charging cable.

If someone trips they could sue you

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