Luckypants

I'm liking that look from this angle. Like you say hopefully will look like this. Less of a Tonka toy look than KIA EV3. I would like it to be smaller and more efficient than my ID.4 without losing the space advantages of bespoke EV chassis.

What software level were you upgraded from/to? This sounds very much like a similar problem VW ID. cars have after upgrade to ID software V3.2. As the software in both cars is identical apart from the UI wrapper I'd wager it's the same fault. I had exactly the issue you describe on my ID.4. The issue on VW ID. cars is that as part of the update process, the on board charger needs to be re-booted manually. Some dealers forget to do this and cause this charging issue. The problem is that if the car goes to sleep (standby mode) while waiting for the AC charge to start, when your wall box charger asks to charge the car's on-board charger does not wake up and respond - hence "the Zappi displays "EV is preventing charging" message, The solution for ID cars is a) return to dealer for them to sort or b) pull the appropriate fuse for the on board charger controller - wait 2 mins - re-plug fuse-listen to the clicks as the OBC reboots and check its cured. Option b fixed mine. Google the issue and you should find a similar solution for the Enyaq. I'm not going to link to the ID solution in case the fuses are different layout / numbering. HTH

Thats been a decent series and has shown that used EVs are no more a gamble than a used ICE car in terms of needing major repairs, to my mind anyway. whenever someone says to me 'what about the battery failing?' I always counter with what about a blown engine or goosed gearbox on your ICE? Even old and therefore degraded batteries still have a range useful for day to day use, especially seeing as most commutes are less than 10 miles.

No argument here, EV works for some and not others. I believe the 'others' group will get smaller and smaller over time, while those worried about having EV foisted on them are rightly sceptics. This is why its important those of us with EVs tell the truth about running one, so people get facts not FUD.

The wiring for the charger runs from a small consumer unit that also supplies electric to a garden room and any other loads I do not want to be protected in future. That consumer unit is wired to the unprotected side of the Giv-Gateway. Initially, when the car was charging it did not take from solar / house battery as the load was not detected. The installer came back and moved a CT clamp so the unprotected load was detected when operating. The CT clamp is within the Giv-Gateway, so I cannot tell you what was done.

Telling it like it is, as do I. There's no point lying to folks about the realities of running an EV. My story is a good one (cheap, easy, no queues blah blah), his is not so good due to relying on public charging so much.

Correct. Where a battery is installed that is capable of providing power to the house circuits (as opposed to a single dedicated EPS circuit wired direct to the battery inverter) during a power cut a special piece of hardware is used to isolate the house circuits from the grid. Both Givenergy and Tesla call these Gateways. A gateway sits between the meter and consumer unit in my layman's eyes. Where it is a simple solar and/or battery system that has no power cut facilities, the inverter cuts power to the wiring (and so to the grid) when it fails to detect a mains voltage / frequency.

Power cuts are not that rare here, the village is at the end of a long piece of wire...... They can also last a while, so protecting the battery from the car draining it is a major concern. Properly managed 13.5kWh (full battery) will run the house for 2.5 days (longer if there is some solar) but that car would empty it in under two hours. I have it wired up such that in a power cut the charger is without power but when the grid is live, it can draw from the battery and / or solar if I want it to. The long power cuts are the reason V2H is of interest, if we get another Storm Arwen 4 day power cut being able to port power back to the house in the car battery would be amazing.

I have similar with my GivEnergy All-in-One system (6.5kW max output though) and my ID.4 on V3.2 software. Of course, until a charger capable of bi-directional charging is available then V2H capability is moot. If it becomes available and I buy one, I will need some re-wiring as my charger is on the unprotected side of the Gateway so my charger does not drain the battery if a power cut occurs while charging the car.

Did you buy from a dealer? Insist they provide you with a second key. Unfortunately I don't know if you can code a new key yourself but I suspect this is very unlikely to prevent criminal elements doing the same.

And you are getting good efficiency with those by the looks of it. Congrats on the new car.

@domhnall Very nice. Did you put the Cross Climates on or did the car come with them fitted? (I spotted a new Volvo EC40 with CCs from the factory the other week)

They seem to have a problem getting correct data from SWARCO. Compare Electroverse with CPS / SWARCO / Westmoreland chargers and a lot are wrong. Common denominator is SWARCO back end....

Glad you brought this up as I had a sit in one at the weekend. Really quite nice and down in size from the ID.4. I was doing a bit of research yesterday to see how it stacked up and these software problems did not appear in any search. I think not at the moment! PS ID.3 still looks good against newer rivals of similar size. Just the price is daft.

A slightly smaller Enyaq. Make an Octavia replacement and sell millions of em!

I agree. There are multiple reasons why super cheap charging is not available to all. Lack of home / work charging is the major one. I'm fortunate that I do have home charging but my smart meter does not connect, so no super cheap charging (although 20p/kWh is cheap motoring) for me. This creates haves / have nots in terms of cheap leccy and disadvantages those struggling to pay bills more than those that are earning enough. My street has a stark reminder of this, the older houses are all heated by storage heaters and losing the BBC signal to switch the meters has lost them cheaper (not cheap!) leccy. The solution is 'fit a smart meter' but that doesn't cut it when you live in a not spot.

This is how it looks to get really low consumption, no A/C or heat, good ambient temp, low traffic.... 400km at 130kph.

I think 60mpg in a diesel is also a dream for many. It very much depends on the driving conditions, so I try to compare like with like. The most efficient diesel I've had was a SEAT Leon ST 1.6TDi DSG 2015 model, that averaged 56mpg over 43k miles. It's best average for a tank was 63mpg on a run down to the Pyrenees. It did more like 54 on our hilly roads here. The Karoq 2.0 TDi DSG did average 45.5mpg over the same roads and use cases. My point is that unless you have a small efficient diesel on 'economic' roads, 60mpg is hard to attain, just as 5 m/kWh is hard to attain for an EV driver. My man maths puts the price at which driving an EV is more expensive per mile for me is 50p/kWh

I think maybe a fair number have closed since you stopped using LPG. We had an 'LPG Finder' app (remarkably similar to EV charging apps) and there was nothing on / near our route home from Grantown-on-Spey down the A9. There was an out of service one at Perth. We got filled with LPG at Hamilton Morrisons south of Glasgow which we had a short wait for as both nozzles were in use. The reduction in filling points is making the remaining ones a little busier. My driver was a little shocked at the lack of filling points as he is new to LPG. Using mainly petrol for running about made a pricey weekend fuel wise. (Whisky made it a pricey weekend anyway!) The parallels between scarce LPG filling stations and charge points were interesting.

Yes i can. I can also tell the nav to only use those with x chargers free. The 2024 model V4.0 software improves on this even more, allowing preferred operators etc and now includes Tesla chargers open to all (Tesla nav only uses Tesla chargers)

I went up to Speyside over the weekend in an MPV that had an LPG conversion (lift sharing). Those LPG filling points are proper rare and hard to find, often being in some old gadger's yard. As a comparison I was metally noting all the places I could have charged my car if we had taken that - they were very frequent and available and fast. BEV on the road is easy - truth. The only time charging might have been awkward was Sunday lunchtime at Tebay services as they were rammed but as alluded to above my car would have informed me of this and I could have planned to charge elsewhere. I've decided to avoid Tebay in future if travelling on a Sunday, not because of a possible queue for a charger but because of queues for every other amenity. As an aside, we were visiting distilleries and most had destination chargers - ideal as most visits were 2 hours or more (taking the tour) to give a really good boost while doing something fun. PS Cairn Lodge services are a better bet if on M6/M74, not as busy as Tebay but run by the same company to the same standard.

I've been thinking a Born might be a better replacement for the ID.4 than an ID.3. Same car but with a better interior from what I've read. I'm finding the versions and specs impenetrable though....

One of the main benefits of the app is being able to start the aircon remotely. Fire it up on cold days when returning to the car and by the time you get to the car its toasty. also works to cool the car on hot days.

@wyx087 I messaged you so as not to derail.

The answer to your dillema about needing 80% minimum would be to book an Airbnb with a charger and charge your car overnight. 100% in the morning. Destination charging like this makes trips away a doddle. PS I guessed the right car.