Luckypants

Applegreen have burst on the scene also, installing hubs at Welcome Break services (same group) and now have HPC hubs at Abbington Services Gretna Services Hartshead Moor services Newark Services Sarn Park services (Bridgend) South Mimms https://driver.applegreenelectric.com/findCharger?53.6059337,-2.4951227,7z

5 Tesla SC locations have been opened to all since the original list was released Harrogate HG3 1EW Birmingham B10 0BW Carmarthen SA31 1GA Newport NP18 1HQ Romford RM1 3JT

I think they can up to 125kW but I'm not very sure about voltage. Here is the press release about the upgrades, which is about all I know. https://instavolt.co.uk/instavolt-announces-significant-upgrade-to-its-existing-charging-network/

The reason I popped onto this thread.... a new Osprey charging mini-hub for Inverness. This makes Inverness quite well served I believe.

Gridserve have implemented dual charging on almost all its chargers now. You can tell if a charger has it by the 'DUAL CHARGING AVAILABLE' sticker on the unit. Yes, some people have gotten irate about someone 'stealing' their charge but conversely it saves you waiting while some bozo charges to 100% but only drawing 10kW. This low rate of charge when dual charging is why Instavolt announced it was upgrading all it's older units (via software) to 250kW capable - which should be completed in April. However, its worth remembering when dual charging that the actual supply may be limited by legacy wiring and you may never get the headline speed.

According to the Electroverse app, they are Project-EV chargers and free to use. I find Electroverse more up to date than Zap-map.

Very useful @fatbelly. How are they managing in the current snowy conditions?

Thanks for the information, currently showing as £86.89 a corner at Costco, in my car's size. (your car is £30 a tyre cheaper!) I find the Goodyears do well in the tyre tests and were a contender on performance, so price is a factor now.

The tyre size is 185/55R15 given its a Monte Carlo. I had considered VREDESTEIN but they are more expensive than the Hankooks and do not fare as well in the tyre tests I've read. (Catskill do not list them in my size) You say these will last longer than the Hankooks, on what basis are you making that statement? My experience of Hankook shows they last quite well. TBH Longevity is not high on my priorities as the car only does 2-3K miles a year. Have you run Quatracs on your Citigo? How do they go? PS Thanks for the Catskill links, Hankooks are £20 cheaper there, although would need them fitted.

Hello Citigo hive mind! The tyres on my Citigo need replacing and I want to fit all season tyres. My current favourite is Hankook Kinergy 4S2 due to a combination of price, good reviews and my own recent good experience with Hankook tyres. My car takes 185/55R15 tyres My question is who has fitted all season tyres to a Citigo and how have you found them? Please give details of tyre/model/size and miles covered.

That would be hilarious fun!

This approach is also evident in VW group's MEB cars. Standard D mode aways allows the car to coast rather than brake via regen. Its very reminiscent of ECO mode on my old Karoq, which disengaged the engine and allowed coasting. I find D mode to be most economic on cross country trips, the B mode with immediate regen is too intrusive. However in urban areas B mode shines due to constant braking at roundabouts and junctions. B mode is also most economic in this type of driving.

Is it a local Merc dealer using that as a dumping ground for staff cars / domos? Passive/aggressive note on the windscreen? 🙂

Why can't they make basic small hatches that the vast majority want and can maybe afford? I don't really want a crossover / SUV, a medium sized estate would be great for the main car. For an 'entry level' car, why not make a Polo sized hatchback? The UP sized city car EVs sold / sell like hot cakes despite VW's best efforts to kill it off and second hand ones still command good prices. That is the small city EV they need to build as there is clearly demand. A Polo sized small car would be in demand also I think. ID.3 takes care of the Golf sized segment (even though they promise an EV golf in future). Cars need to get smaller.

6.6p per mile is still cheap motoring though. My home tariff is 22p and I'm getting 3.2 ish miles / kWh at the moment, so about 6.9p per mile. Compared with a similar diesel, which would be 16p / mile that's cheap. I can see EV costs going up, but still works out cheap compared to ICE. Yesterday I charged at a client's office for 8 hours @ 50p an hour. Worked out that I paid about 7p a kWh for what the car took, which is super cheap.

I watched that yesterday and the most interesting part for me was the lodges where they stayed!

The same thing at Northop services on the A55. 4x150 chargers are desperately needed on this trunk route. I have a feeling that Shell's contractors have stuffed up the DNO connection requests and as a result they have chargers hanging about waiting for a hook up to the grid. Local DNOs seem to be a real bottleneck in non-Motorway locations, so government need to step in to make sure these monopoly DNOs meet stringent time frames to install the connections needed to get the infrastructure installed. The leave it to the market approach does not work where there is no competition, but those in power conveniently ignore this fact (in many areas of life).

Aldi is 25p / kWh through the Shell Recharge app

You are right, my mistake. My local Tesco PodPoint is 28p, making the local Aldi look good value.

Supermarket charging is pretty much dead at the moment. ASDA have no interest (I've seen both PodPoint and BP charge posts "out of order"), Lidl have no interest except the rapids PodPoint installed. Other supermarkets I've tried without success are Waitrose, Marks & Spencer and Morrisons. I've never seen a charger at a Sainsbury. Aldi have been very unreliable but recently have improved and seem to be supporting the chargers in their car-parks to compete with Tesco, charging 25p/kWh via Shell Recharge around here. The Tesco PodPoint chargers seem much more reliable than other supermarket chargers and have never let me down in 2 years. Tesco is reasonably priced too at 28p.* The situation in the video is reprehensible though. On paper that area will be well served but so many out of order? Heads need knocking together. EDIT: Tesco price corrected, see below.

I'm using Halfords -20C screen wash and it hasn't frozen yet. The standard -12C stuff doesn't work with VW spray washer nozzles, the spray freezes.

As I've got older i find my hands get cold on long journeys, so heated steering wheel is a must these days.

Wallbox Pulsar Plus. One person can set their rate and download charging data to a CSV. They can then remove any private charges, friends charging etc in Excel before using the resulting sheet as evidence for claim. Like I said earlier, most smart chargers will offer similar. HTH

I've just had a play in the online portal. If your company is providing the chargers you could connect them all to a single company account and see each user's use directly. Access can be controlled via RFID card or even face recognition on some models. It gives all kinds of options for setting up an 'organisation' and each charger can have it's own rate set to account for whatever the user is charged for leccy. It seems quite comprehensive. Take a look here to start with https://wallbox.com/en_uk/mywallbox

My Wallbox Pulsar Plus reports all charges back to the Wallbox server if connected to wi-fi. I can access this data via an app on my phone or an internet portal. This data can be downloaded to a CSV file if required. I would imagine most smart chargers have a similar capability. Does this help at all? EDIT: I can set various costs per kWh in the Wallbox so each charge has a cost associated with it. As I'm on a fixed rate that just means one rate for all charges, but looks like I can set time of use rates too. Accounting for VAT would have to be done as part of the expense claim as the Wallbox does not allow for that. If reimbursement is a flat rate per kWh, then all you need is the power charged regardless of cost?