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.

Definitely make sure you sign up to an EV tariff, we're with Octopus and charge overnight at 7p/kwh - our 'fuel' spend is around £35 a month for approx 1000 miles.

Mine has a battery management system so can be charged to 100%. Manual recommends it, in fact. Read the specific manual for your car, as they do vary.

Regular super-fast charging is not recommended for my car's battery health. Charging it every night on my home wallbox (max 7kW) is gentle enough to not cause any degradation.

I’d second checking your manual.

I have the EV equivalent of a Nokia brick phone- a 2015 Nissan leaf. I’ve had it almost 5 years now.

Originally I believe they recommended only charging to 80% to protect the battery. However, my understanding is they later changed their minds and stopped that. I think as the tech was so new they were worried about longevity- for example the early Zoes (and I think a handful of the earliest leaf-s) were all leased batteries as it was considered a big plus point as they were worried the rest of the car would outlive the useful life of the battery. However, that didn’t prove to be the case.

What does degrade batteries is leaving it at 100% for long periods. The dealer damaged ours that way. Sat with them on 100% for several months before it was sold.

It came to us having lost ‘one bar’ of battery health during that period. However, no further degradation in the past 5 years and I regularly charge to 100%. (The battery is only 24kwh so much much smaller than newer cars).

I love ours and would never go back.

@babasaclover
Just to allay any concerns about faffing with chargers with arthritis
I have bad RA and really struggle with pumping fuel but have no problems with plugging in the electric chargers generally very easy
We've had a PHEV VWGolf & VolvoXC60 and fully electric Jag IPace and Cupra Born
We have a home charger but I've never had a problem plugging them in at home or out and about.
I really like that electric cars have become more common because I had to switch to an automatic due to the RA in my hips and now there is so much more choice.

I have signed up for same price, but with British Gas. I only do 4 to 500 miles a month and I was put in £150 or more in petrol so if you are getting 1000 out of that price that is amazing can't wait for the savings!

Renault Zoe is the most dangerous car going. I cannot believe they are allowed to make cars with a zero safety rating. It boils my piss people think they're getting a nice little car and actually they are buying a deaf trap that would crumble in an accident.

Thank you so much for taking the time to tell me this today will be the first time I charge it

This thread really is Mum'snet at its best normally someone comes on to say something nasty, but all of this has been so positive :-)

I've got a hybrid which I always charge at home but not forked out £1k for a charger. Just got one off amazon for about £130 which plugs in at home and I just put the lead through the window.

I charger it about twice a week and has worked fine.

This thread has been so helpful! Waiting for delivery of a BMW iX3 and charger fitted on Monday. Thought I had better start googling for general info but now have a good grasp of what I need to know.

Well we are the crazy ones who have a pure EV and no home charging!

We use the octopus / instavolt app. It’s really good we just make it work charging when out and about. Dh has found a place to charge for free but is inaccessible so he does that on his weekly bike ride so we either pay slot or absolutely nothing which evens out.

We felt it was the right thing to do I do a lot of city driving and felt bad sitting in traffic pumping out fumes.

Oh and I absolutely love our EV Volvo X60 Pleasure to drive so I forgive it the charge faff! We massively upgraded from a 2011 diesel so this new ev feels amazing to us!

Hello fellow 2015 24kwh Leaf driver! Very useful information about charging to 100% , which is my understanding too. My car has only lost one bar too, during last year. It is the best car I have ever driven!

We're looking at getting a second electric and becoming an all electric family. Looking at another Leaf! (But newer (2nd hand) with more range!)

This is a lovely thread and I am still learning things from it!

Note for the thread- you can get garages who know their stuff to test your battery health, especially useful if buying a second hand car.

@WishingForTheImpossible the same thing happened to my husband a few weeks ago at a Tesco charge point. Two guys who worked in the store ended up coming to help him and between the 3 of them managed to get it out. The charge point contact details said 24 hours to get back to you and he's still waiting 🙄 he usually charges at home anyway but def won't be using Tesco again

Oh I really want one, but we're the classic London terrace with no off street parking and a not very forward thinking council. We have quite low mileage though. Interested in how you manage it @TheaBrandt?

How have people found insurance costs? I nearly fell off my chair when I checked what these would be. I would be buying used.

Insurance is relatively low for me. I park off-road, am over 40, have max no claims (protected) and no endorsements on my licence. Plus I live in a low crime area. My policy went up by about 30% last renewal but that is standard for the market at the moment, everyone is paying more, whatever they drive.

We have an id4 pro. Had around 3 years. We often do long multi country journeys and we have never had an issue. It has an excellent range

Day to day we only drive locally, and we aim to keep it between 50-80%. We only charge to 100% before long journeys. We charge mostly at home. On long journeys we charge either at overnight accommodation on slow chargers or motorway chargers if needed.

you don't have to charge the car completely when out, you can charge just to get to your destination

Dinner we have just worked it into our lifestyle so we do stuff we would do anyway but incorporate charging. Have 250 mile range so do the following

Use the supermarket with the charger

Use charger at local beauty spot and go for run from there

Dh puts bike in car takes it to free charger goes on his bike ride then collects it

We got 3 year old second hand but still feels new to us anyway.

@ImNunTheWiser We looked at the iX3 yesterday. Driving one next week. Huge discount for not many miles on the clock. 7 months old. It was an MPro too. So this or Evoque hybrid is top of the pile at the moment. I mostly do local mileage in this car and ev makes sense. I would never buy a lot of the cars quoted on here though. Just not our style. Aldo you don’t get tax breaks etc if you aren’t employed or running a business.

Leasing cists are based on depreciation. Reading any review of a car in a decent car mag tells you this. Our hybrid cars have been leased and I do understand hybrid technology. For short distances they are very good.

We charge at home on an night charge of .08p pKwh. Usually only need it 3 times a week. I like to keep it quite full. If only a long journey we'll use a Tesla supercharger which is usually around £15 for a 3/4 full charge.

I presume you mean 8p/kwh, not 0.08p?

If it is 0.08p, who with, so we can all switch!