Electric car

[babasaclover]

Going electric. Have picked the car, I only go around town don't leave a 4 miles radius and the range for car days 300 miles. Even if I get much less cause of using heating / air conditioning etc I'll be charging twice a month at home

Any tips / things to avoid? Service station chargers seem extortionate but Lidl is cheap. Where do you charge if you have to outside of the house? For me it'll happen once / twice a year I expect

Looking forward to NOT paying for petrol.

We generally charge at home, but on occasion we use pod point as they are in convenient locations for us e.g Tesco, local shopping mall etc.

Check out the recommendation for your car. Ours says not to charge to 100% or let it go below 10% regularly. We tend to keep it between 50% and 80% and would only charge to 100% if we had a long journey planned. It depends on the type of battery though.

I've had an electric car for about 3 months now, and have picked up the following oddities with the chargers.
The 'cheaper' ones tend to be a slow charge. The ones in Tesco near me are actually pretty reasonable, but would take 11 hours to fully charge my car! Not exactly viable if on a long journey. About 22p a KWh.
The 'quick' charges are much much more expensive, but take about 45 minutes. About 85p per KWH! It's not immediately obvious when you pull which you're going to get, so i tried 'zapmap' for a little while, which was somewhat helpful (an app to tell you the likely costs, speed, and in some cases, if the charger was occupied).

It's also worth noting (and i HATE this with a passion) that most of the chargers will insist on you using an app at some point in the process. The 'pod point' app, or the 'kerb' app etc etc. Each won't talk to the other, so you do end up with about 5 or 6 different apps, and then find that the one you've picked on an unusual journey is none of them...

Honestly, you're doing the right thing- charge at home, and take a deep breath before engaging with the 'away from home' chargers.

We charge at home unless its a long journey and then we look for Tesla chargers (the car finds them). In 18 months we have only charged around 5 or 6 times not at home and only 1 of those was a non Tesla charger

I think you will charge more than you think.

Is it a new car? Mine supplied a free charger as part of the deal.

I pay 7p per kWh so costs me pennies.

Only ever charge between 40-80%. Otherwise your battery won't last (think an iPhone that is worth nothing after 2 years as we always charge them to full).

I love mine!

I do wonder this like why do people plug in every night? I have arthritis issues and don't want to be faffing around with charging unnecessarily.

Will have to see how it goes but don't ever want it too low just in case an emergency occurs and have to do unexpected driving?

And yes it is a new car sadly as I lease not buy no free charger but it'll still be great. I've got the 7p tarriff too and British has give back a kWh for everyone you use to charge the car which is amazing!!

What model is that doing 300 miles range. My OH would be interested in a car that does that range as his commute is 160miles but always need to have more in the tank for motorway diversions and driving while he is at work

Thanks for the advice. If I need it on the go will suffer the high costs for quick charging, otherwise just not viable. I was surprised when I used the online calculator and how expensive they are on the road - don't think the government are going to persuade many motorway drivers to switch to electric, more hassle and costs the same as petrol by the time you consider the range you get for the price?

The app thing, I've got Electroverse - hate having unnecessary apps so guess the only way to know what I need is if I need to charge on the go get the app of the charger I am at?

Thank you all so much I really am clueless.

Delivery of car today so just sitting here NOT patiently waiting. Apparently they have to deliver fully charged so will be able to get out and about at some point though delivery can be between 9-5

I'd be careful using podpoint or any that need you to use your charging cable.
Last year's I charged using podpoint at Tesco and their charger locked my cable. I could unplug from my car, not the charger. Spent over an hour on the phone them starting, restarting the machine remotely and eventually told me I'd have no choice but leave the cable and they'd send an engineer. Took 3 weeks of constant calls, emails and they finally returned my cable - had that been my only way of charging I wouldn't have been able to use my car. How did they 'make it better' added £10 credit to my account - which I cancelled and they refused to pay to me directly

We only charge on long journeys - but that's always service stations and costs around £45 for a full charge.

I'd say don't plug it in every night, you'll loose charge from it just sitting there/different weather cold etc can impact so you'd be paying to maintain the battery level. It's best not to charge it to 100% except for long journeys, we set ours to a 75% charge and plug it in once a week for everyday use and costs about £10

My DH is waiting on the delivery of his new electric car, he's ordered a VW ID 7 and the range is 300+ apparently

My understanding is that it's only an issue if the car is sitting at 100% for a long time. If you are using it every day then it's not a problem to charge to 100%.
I charge mine overnight on a cheaper rate. I plug it in when it drops to 50% or there about, and by the morning it's at about 95 to 100%.
I very rarely need to charge away from home. Then it's a rapid charger, these slow down considerably once you go over 80%, so not time efficient to sit and wait for it to go higher.
There are lots of useful Facebook pages which offer advice and support. EV Drivers UK is a good one, and you will probably find one specific to the model you have.

You get over the range anxiety fairly quickly. I don't charge mine every night and in a year have only needed to charge on the go once.
I usually charge at home and overnight with the octopus tariff it costs 7p/kw - around 2p per mile!
In an emergency you can find a fast charger so no need to worry.
I get over 200 miles although 300 is advertised. So happy I switched personally, charging is much easier than filling up with petrol.

Welcome to the club

Plug it in every week or so, it’s what we do. Best not to charge to 100% unless you really need the range

look into octopus go electricity tariff, cheap
overnight electric for EV owners. We also put dishwasher and washing machine on overnight to save more money

we use public chargers only when going on rapids at motorway services which are def the more expensive kind but super quick (less than 15 minutes for our car) but convenient. The whole app thing has been very annoying but is becoming less of an issue -most charging takes contactless these days

Most new EVs these days will do something like 300.
ours is a Hyundai Ioniq 5

Our car is up for change next year, and if the deals are right, we may go electric. Actually, I need to convince DH. If you use a fast charge at a non motorway location, for 45 mins or so, what sort of cost would it be? I know it will vary. So just ball park is fine.

That is unbelievable!!!!!!! Tbh I won't use a charger that I have to add a cable to due to lack of dexterity in wrists - even putting fuel in caused me pain.

Really pleased to hear to only charge once a week. I do about 100 miles a week I reckon all about town, how many do you do?

Lexus RZ. I have a heavy foot and enjoying driving so I won't get 300 but range is allegedly 297!!! Tell him to check it out beautiful car

Oh Ive just had a little lookie at some of these!

He's just bought a smart car for 4k for cheap travel so Im not sure an EV can compete price wise at the moment!!! lol

When a good range car, with around 300+ comes on the market and we can get second hand for around 8k or so, then we'll in interested I think

Probably some years away yet

Plug in hybrid here. Always charge at home overrnight on a 7p a KWh rate with Octopus. It's perfect for us as I could not handle the range anxiety of total electric.

We found Tesco charging to be a total waste of time, it would take something like 12 hours for a full charge! The charging spaces are always empty down there though so it's handy for the parking space more than anything else! No one bats an eyelid if they see an EV pulling into them.

Also the new ford explorer is 450!!!! And has a bang and olufsen stereo. I only discounted it as it wasn't big enough for me

We have 2 EVs. Mine has a smaller range (quoted as 230, I get just over 200) and I only ever charge it at home. I don't use it for journeys over 75-80 miles (each way), and have only needed to do that 2 or 3 times this year.
Our other EV is DH's company car, which has a range of about 250, so we use that for longer journeys. Even then, we have probably charged away from home fewer than 10 times (in 2.5 years).

We just use ZapMap if we know we need to charge on the go. McDonald's often have fast chargers (we've generally only needed 50-60 miles, so a coffee break is all we need. Only once have we needed a full charge, on a weekend away. I drove to a charge point, left the car and went for my run. Came back to a full battery!
Look for speeds of at least 50kwh if you can.

But if you're not doing journeys of over 100 miles, you won't need to charge out of home. A home charger feels expensive, but it's only the equivalent of a few tanks of diesel, so you're quids in pretty quickly.

@babasaclover I work from home so don't do much, once a week supermarket (20miles there and back)
Hairdresser weekly (10miles)
Pop to the shops when I forget something (10 miles)
Then weekends we use the car constantly, days out etc but usually no further than an hour's drive

I do notice the charge drops quicker for short trips and I loose 2-3% every time I do a short journey so those little journeys are probably 25% of the battery
I do have the iX though which is exceptionally heavy

@Lincslady53 I'm guessing from your username your Lincolnshire based - same here!!
Our most frequent charge for out the area is Ferry bridge and if the cars between 10-20% if we charge to 90-100% it costs about £45
Yes it takes 45 minutes, but by the time you've stopped for a wee break, grabbed a coffee and snacks for the journey were usually only sat waiting for 5-10 minutes - assume the air of someone totally chilled, never in a rush and you can't go too wrong!