Electric car charger but no drive

[HammergoHammer]

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 have this issue too OP, live in a small village which is more like houses on either side of a main road. The house I live in is set back far from the road and I have no drive so unsure how I would charge to be honest, I suppose they could put them in street lights but there isn’t many of those either. I work in rural community nursing with a lot of stop starting in short spaces of time not sure how that would affect battery life etc

You'll find stop start is far better suited to EV's as they're not sensitive to this. Unlike a regular car, which needs to turn over to get an engine going (which drains the battery) and also needs to get hot to work optimally. Stop, start kills regular cars long term as they really need longer runs and especially for diesel.

Your biggest challenge is charging. If you could find a solution for that, you'd be ok.

Don’t do it. Even if it were an option it won’t be you’ll soon get fed up of driving there and then having to traipse back over to collect it. This isn’t the house for you if you have an EV.

@SamanthaCaine the cost to buy one is too far out of our reach currently as well and then even if we did have a drive is it not expensive to get a proper charger installed? Us affording one is some way off, I am tempted by a hybrid though as could charge that in the car park across from the office when needed and it wouldn’t need done as much

I have an ev, a drive with a charger and a free fast charger at the local pool where I charge twice a week for one hour each session. The free one is plenty for my usual needs. It was a pain when I had to drive a long way and service station chargers were not plentiful, but zap map helped me plan.
A fast charger at a supermarket would be fine but a slow one wouldn't work for you. Maybe check where your fast chargers are locally before deciding and also consider drip charge out if a window onto street. It's very slow though
I only have an ev as I lease through salary sacrifice. It's too expensive otherwise

@AlaskaThunderfuckHiiiiiiiii - our electric charger was free when we bought car. So no, it’s not extra have a home charger. €0.08 per kw at home as well

On a daily basis locally I could opt to charge at local supermarket, doctors, nursery, school, cafes, swimming pool. All within 10 min drive and places I go often. The nursery for example now has x3 fast chargers. They are free. Parents and staff use. I often see parents plug car in just for the 15 mins it takes to get child out car, and dropped into nursery. That gives a fair bit of charge.

Most apartment blocks are adding chargers for this living in flats, most offices have chargers, and most car parking has several chargers.

Ours does 550km on a full charge. It doesn’t need charging that often for our daily use.

Well, they’re not the answer for an enjoyable driving experience,they’re heavy and they’re expensive, but I meant environmentally. They still have a huge environmental impact. I’d like to think a stable hydrogen power might be the answer longer term, though developments are slow, however I suspect transport and mobility as a whole needs to be rethought if people want to make a consequential impact on the planet.

Sorry I thought you were saying it was going across the pavement. No I can’t see an issue with it being on the driveway

I’d like to think a stable hydrogen power might be the answer longer term

A greener way of producing hydrogen on a large scale will need to be made viable first.

Currently, most hydrogen is extracted from natural gas. A fossil fuel.

I thought the help towards installing chargers at home had been scrapped?

@AlaskaThunderfuckHiiiiiiiii - not where I live. There’s a €4500 grant for e car purchase, and up to €1500 for charger. Plus many car companies offer chargers thrown in. I think the grant has increased for 2023 to €7000

Horses for courses really and depends on what you want out of a car. If you drive a saloon or SUV then the refinement is far superior and I'd challenge most people to differentiate between the mass of a 2.2 tonne BMW EV Vs a 2 tonne BMW ICE powered car. Most won't notice and I certainly don't in every day driving.

But I also have a sports car, which most people don't, so agree there but this will come.

The environmental impact is largely irrelevant, irrespective of the method of propulsion as cars are not environmentally friendly full stop. The problem is personal transport and if we're going to continue driving around, you'd have to be monumentally stupid to think there's no environmental impact from manufacturing the myriad parts to make a car, changing tyres, brakes, suspension etc.

However, unlike petrol or diesel, you can generate electricity via renewables, so the environmental impacts can be reduced significantly over oil extraction, refinement, processing and shipping globally. Notwithstanding oil/container accidents and the damage they cause repeatedly.

And let's not forget about tailpipe emissions.

Say what you want about hydrogen but I can put solar panels on my roof and power my car for 6-9 months of the year. A lot of people could do that and you can't do that with hydrogen as it takes energy to produce.

Noone is claiming EV's are the answer, just people who are anti EV. But for the time being they will reduce our dependency on oil and the damage it does.

I’m in the U.K. and there used to be help but not anymore

Not all manufacturers but mini will fit one for free if you buy one. They also start from £25k so are at the cheaper end of the market. Not exactly cheap but relatively.

@SamanthaCaine perhaps manufacture dependent then. I would need a decent sized one with kids as one still in a car seat and a decent sized boot for all my nursing equipment, all the decent sized ones are so expensive

I think you need a driveway. As Giles Coren pointed out in his recent Times article, charging points can be unavailable when you need them for a variety of reasons. Link for subscribers, but you can find this copied on FB too www.thetimes.co.uk/article/why-ive-pulled-the-plug-on-my-electric-car-dwgs9l9hl
At the moment it's risky to rely on public charging points.

Yes definitely.

I think it was stupid to remove the incentives but is typical for our current government.

Perhaps a hybrid or just sticking with petrol/diesel for now is the best option. After all, you can pay up to £10k less so is quite a difference For example a hybrid Kia Niro is £28k. The EV model is £37k. That's a lot of petrol!

But naturally some will pay the premium for better air quality or if buying through work/company so makes sense in some circumstances.

For people saying you can park outside your house and put the cable across the pavement, you need to check what your local authority's rules are for this. It's not permitted where I live (even if the cables are covered so not a trip hazard) and the council requires you instead to submit an application for a shared charging point in the public road (which you then have to pay for and hope you can get a space at)

@AlaskaThunderfuckHiiiiiiiii - we have the vw id4. It’s an suv, great for family and kids. We aren’t in uk, but here it’s a very reasonable lease to own monthly cost which includes all insurance, mot, etc. it’s cheaper per month that our old 15 year old corsa cost us in insurance, mot, petrol etc

Someone on page 2 said their friend ran out of battery whilst waiting for a charging station to come free. That is nonsense. If the car is not moving, unless you have all the lights, air con etc going full on, then the amount of battery used whilst being stationery is pretty much non existent. Just another stupid story that people can talk about without understanding anything.

I have the ID4 as well! In Portugal. I got the Pro as I do a lot of driving and it has slightly better battery/distance than the other version. I love it. It is a real head turner and so easy to drive. Hate driving the petrol car now.

We also have the id4 pro. Wouldn’t want to drive manual petrol now.
We drive up and down mountains daily, and in minus conditions and all the rubbish people spout about having to charge every 5 mins when cold, is well rubbish. Yes the km range decreases a bit, but nothing that affects day to day driving.