The all things EV chat thread

[D-S]

Out of interest, do we know the % of current car owners who do not have access to off street parking?

 

[YandaB]

Out of interest, do we know the % of current car owners who do not have access to off street parking?

In a 2017 housing report it found 60% of homes had an "on plot" parking space, 26% had no designated parking provision at all.

 

[GreiginFife]

It's almost as if giving someone an electric hire car when they don't own an EV.. there for have no home charger available, then providing them with no back up 3 pin charger .. was a bad idea ....

Almost like providing someone with a can of food for tea with no can opener ...

It’s exactly this. Except the tin analogy is a little flawed as I can open a can with a bread knife.

But the principle is sound. The hire company even said that they are giving more people EVs now as they are easier to get hold of short notice.

I get another petrol on Friday now that they have sourced one, this time I believe it’s an M4.

I was in no position to argue about what they gave me as the 540 was a lame duck that had to be tow trucked away (ignition software failure so the start/stop button was dead).

But, and it’s no (or shouldn’t be a) surprise, that without home charging, the concept of an EV is just as much a lame duck as that 540.

I will still be going electric on my next car as home charging will be possible for me.

The question on % of people with off street parking is maybe slightly misleading, maybe it’s more about distribution. Around my village pretty much everyone has off street parking, but the next village along, hardly anyone does as it’s all rows and rows of terraced housing set high back off the road.

Then look at cities like Edinburgh that hardly anyone has off street parking until you get to the suburbs.

 

[PJ87]

It’s exactly this. Except the tin analogy is a little flawed as I can open a can with a bread knife.

But the principle is sound. The hire company even said that they are giving more people EVs now as they are easier to get hold of short notice.

I get another petrol on Friday now that they have sourced one, this time I believe it’s an M4.

I was in no position to argue about what they gave me as the 540 was a lame duck that had to be tow trucked away (ignition software failure so the start/stop button was dead).

But, and it’s no (or shouldn’t be a) surprise, that without home charging, the concept of an EV is just as much a lame duck as that 540.

I will still be going electric on my next car as home charging will be possible for me.

The question on % of people with off street parking is maybe slightly misleading, maybe it’s more about distribution. Around my village pretty much everyone has off street parking, but the next village along, hardly anyone does as it’s all rows and rows of terraced using set high back off the road.

Then look at cities like Edinburgh that hardly anyone has off street parking until you get to the suburbs.

Does depend on the person and town aswell, I mean give me one with no charging and I have 3 Tesco, lidl and then a pub that's opened an instavolt. Plus a telsa charger just down road so options

Then say you only drove 100 miles a week which some do you could cope but if you give to a traveling salesman he won't cope

Can see why they do it like you said easier to source

But they should put a 3 pin in at least , covers those with some sort of parking at home

 

[bobmac]

When I first started looking at EVs, chargers were being installed at a rate of around 400-500 per month. In July 2023 they installed 1999 new chargers.
Patience

In August they installed 2,713 new charging points.

 

[GreiginFife]

Finally got a charger, the 50kw was out of service so had to use the smaller one.
9% added in 47 minutes. Giving a massive 30 mile boost and cost £4.47.

Home charging is a must, zero doubt.

 

[larmen]

In a 2017 housing report it found 60% of homes had an "on plot" parking space, 26% had no designated parking provision at all.

Just from where I live it doesn’t look anywhere close to it. Maybe there are vast regional differences, but London will be way below it, in my opinion.

 

[PJ87]

Finally got a charger, the 50kw was out of service so had to use the smaller one.
9% added in 47 minutes. Giving a massive 30 mile boost and cost £4.47.

Home charging is a must, zero doubt.

Yeah that is not what you want at all.

If I may I would fully recommend getting an ohme pro charger as your choice of charger

It seems to be the one that's compatible with the smarter tariffs like OVO and octopus for the cheap cheap charging

I believe ovos one is whenever you charge it's cheap but rest of house is normal (cuz they can tell what goes through charger)

Where as octopus intelligent is 6 hours cheap and then it smart charges your car whenever electric is cheap so during those hours your house gets that aswell

But anyways ohme pro is the way to go imo

I don't have one, I have a podpoint but I wish I had got one. I just can't justify getting rid of the podpoint that works fine

 

[GreiginFife]

Yeah that is not what you want at all.

If I may I would fully recommend getting an ohme pro charger as your choice of charger

It seems to be the one that's compatible with the smarter tariffs like OVO and octopus for the cheap cheap charging

I believe ovos one is whenever you charge it's cheap but rest of house is normal (cuz they can tell what goes through charger)

Where as octopus intelligent is 6 hours cheap and then it smart charges your car whenever electric is cheap so during those hours your house gets that aswell

But anyways ohme pro is the way to go imo

I don't have one, I have a podpoint but I wish I had got one. I just can't justify getting rid of the podpoint that works fine

This is the zap map for Dunfermline CITY... (this shows around 80% of Dunfermline).

Where the word Dunfermline is, that is the city centre. One charge point in Viewfield car park (that's the one that was out of service last night).

So for the 2k+ chargers commissioned in August, none were in or around this area.


I will definitely be going home charger when I get an EV. I am currently looking in to 3ph being installed to my workshop to run bigger machines, so not sue if larger capacity chargers can be run off of that.

 

[PJ87]

This is the zap map for Dunfermline CITY... (this shows around 80% of Dunfermline).

Where the word Dunfermline is, that is the city centre. One charge point in Viewfield car park (that's the one that was out of service last night).

So for the 2k+ chargers commissioned in August, none were in or around this area.

View attachment 49845
I will definitely be going home charger when I get an EV. I am currently looking in to 3ph being installed to my workshop to run bigger machines, so not sue if larger capacity chargers can be run off of that.

Yeah see my town is hornchurch , so this is all within 3 miles I'd say .. so yeah more geared for it here

They do need to address it however funding has been pulled. Always the way

For a 7kw socket you will need it wired into an MCB or the consumer unit itself. With armoured cable..However there is nothing stopping you having the wiring pre done when you have that work done to run the cables all ready so it's just a case of connecting a charger (they have pen protection now to negate the need for an earthing rod)

The charger I said you can get a non tethered one for £500 not fitted and then cable work done .. if having all the work done might work out cheaper than the £1000 it seems to be now days to get done

I got mine done when they still had the grant it cost £500 I think it was , got it done a month ahead of the car coming to negate any issues

Do you know if your house supply is looped? Where the supply is shared to a neighbour? Some DNOs demand you be unlooped (new supply) before they will allow a home charger .. my dno didn't because my podpoint is self balancing IE I have a 80 amp fuse .. if the car is pulling the full 32amp it can and the house starts to pull 60 for whatever reason.. it will throttle the car to bring it below the 80 to protect the looped cable

Just something to bear jn mind as some DNOs insist running a new supply

 

[GreiginFife]

View attachment 49846

Yeah see my town is hornchurch , so this is all within 3 miles I'd say .. so yeah more geared for it here

They do need to address it however funding has been pulled. Always the way

For a 7kw socket you will need it wired into an MCB or the consumer unit itself. With armoured cable..However there is nothing stopping you having the wiring pre done when you have that work done to run the cables all ready so it's just a case of connecting a charger (they have pen protection now to negate the need for an earthing rod)

The charger I said you can get a non tethered one for £500 not fitted and then cable work done .. if having all the work done might work out cheaper than the £1000 it seems to be now days to get done

I got mine done when they still had the grant it cost £500 I think it was , got it done a month ahead of the car coming to negate any issues

Do you know if your house supply is looped? Where the supply is shared to a neighbour? Some DNOs demand you be unlooped (new supply) before they will allow a home charger .. my dno didn't because my podpoint is self balancing IE I have a 80 amp fuse .. if the car is pulling the full 32amp it can and the house starts to pull 60 for whatever reason.. it will throttle the car to bring it below the 80 to protect the looped cable

Just something to bear jn mind as some DNOs insist running a new supply

We're not looped. That was one thing that was checked on the 3ph site survey. The 3ph (if I go for it) will have it's own distribution board so running anything to/from it will be easy enough, the car charger would basically be right next to where it would need to go.

It's just whether or not the 3ph is going to come in under £5k or not.

But on the domestic CU, I have 4 spare MCBs with a 100A mains switch and 63mA and 30mA RCDs.

 

[PJ87]

We're not looped. That was one thing that was checked on the 3ph site survey. The 3ph (if I go for it) will have it's own distribution board so running anything to/from it will be easy enough, the car charger would basically be right next to where it would need to go.

It's just whether or not the 3ph is going to come in under £5k or not.

But on the domestic CU, I have 4 spare MCBs with a 100A mains switch and 63mA and 30mA RCDs.

If I'm reading right 3ph is 3 phase? If so you can get the 11kw chargers .. much rarer as people don't have 3 phase supplies as much .. but means you can charge faster at home

Not by much but it does future proof. Worth looking into the cost difference just incase

 

[GreiginFife]

If I'm reading right 3ph is 3 phase? If so you can get the 11kw chargers .. much rarer as people don't have 3 phase supplies as much .. but means you can charge faster at home

Not by much but it does future proof. Worth looking into the cost difference just incase

Yes, 3 phase. I want to install a larger table saw and a radial arm saw in the workshop but both are 3ph models.

If I can get it for under £5k then I can get cheap commercial borrowing.

 

[PJ87]

Yes, 3 phase. I want to install a larger table saw and a radial arm saw in the workshop but both are 3ph models.

If I can get it for under £5k then I can get cheap commercial borrowing.

Very nice. It is something I have considered myself but just no need for it ATM. I think if I want a second powerwall there is talk they would want to do a 3 phase supply and have a powerwall per phase. One of those situations of the dno applying blanket bans to tech that limits it's output anyways. For example I am limited to max export of 3.6kw at anytime .. but the powerwall can export 5 at a time .. so you can set two to export to the limit but they don't trust it (trust one) because in theory you can export 10kw at once.

Anyways Im way off topic lol

It makes a lot of sense if doing that work to hook it up there. Perfect

If I didn't have home charging I don't know if I would be so taken with ev. I mean I don't want to ever buy an ice car again if I can .. I'll run the Alhambra until I can upgrade to 2 EVs but pointless replacing it. Meets ulez and we only do 3000 miles in it.. but EV is just so smooth and if I was doing under 200 miles in a day for day trips we could go to the beach etc or whatever with the kids with a slightly bigger EV and not even need to worry.

I can see how they don't work for all but if they work they are truly fantastic

 

[GreiginFife]

Very nice. It is something I have considered myself but just no need for it ATM. I think if I want a second powerwall there is talk they would want to do a 3 phase supply and have a powerwall per phase. One of those situations of the dno applying blanket bans to tech that limits it's output anyways. For example I am limited to max export of 3.6kw at anytime .. but the powerwall can export 5 at a time .. so you can set two to export to the limit but they don't trust it (trust one) because in theory you can export 10kw at once.

Anyways Im way off topic lol

It makes a lot of sense if doing that work to hook it up there. Perfect

If I didn't have home charging I don't know if I would be so taken with ev. I mean I don't want to ever buy an ice car again if I can .. I'll run the Alhambra until I can upgrade to 2 EVs but pointless replacing it. Meets ulez and we only do 3000 miles in it.. but EV is just so smooth and if I was doing under 200 miles in a day for day trips we could go to the beach etc or whatever with the kids with a slightly bigger EV and not even need to worry.

I can see how they don't work for all but if they work they are truly fantastic

I'm looking in to solar panels on the entire 24m2 roof of the workshop to run all the standard 240v tools if I do end up going with the 3 phase.

The roof is flat and is exposed to sunlight pretty much all through the day and I reckon I could get 10-12 up there.

 

[PJ87]

I'm looking in to solar panels on the entire 24m2 roof of the workshop to run all the standard 240v tools if I do end up going with the 3 phase.

The roof is flat and is exposed to sunlight pretty much all through the day and I reckon I could get 10-12 up there.

Yeah flat roofs are fantastic for it. We have some on our flat roof on the loft extension.. get a good amount from them

Fully recommend a battery if you can stretch just to store the excess to go off grid most of the summer which is useful

We did consider more panels on our garage (could get about 6 up on its flat roof) but was simply cost ..we could have afforded it but came to a point with the solar that if you go too much you take so long to break even that by time you do the panels could in theory need replacing where as mine should repay their costs twice over their lifetime

 

[Robster59]

The electric car version of "Speed"?
'I was kidnapped by my runaway electric car'

 

[GreiginFife]

Thankfully the iX has been returned and I am getting a nice blue M3 delivered tomorrow morning in it's place until mine is repaired and returned. I ended up avoiding driving the iX so that I didn't have to charge it.

 

[PJ87]

The electric car version of "Speed"?
'I was kidnapped by my runaway electric car'

I guess we would all act differently in those situations, however I was always told if that happens (in any car) stick in neutral and allow the car to coast

 

[cliveb]

I guess we would all act differently in those situations, however I was always told if that happens (in any car) stick in neutral and allow the car to coast

But this was obviously a software issue. Since a modern EV is basically a computer, moving the drive selector to "neutral" is just an input request which it may very well ignore. Gone are the days when the controls on a car are mechanically connected to the drivetrain. Scares the willies out of me.

Incidentally, my daughter has a ZS EV, and is a bit concerned.