Luckypants

Powerpass is the Skoda offer, the VW WeCharge card is a much poorer deal. To get the best rate of 25p you have to pay a £9.99/m subscription. The free offer is 46p at Ionity - which is now looking not so shabby as other providers have increased their tariffs. Sorry for going a little off topic...

Twitter is the place to see how Gridserve are doing. Also use Maz Shah's map which he keeps updated with Gridserve roll out. I find Twitter to be a mine of EV information and is the only reason I have it. e.g. I found out about the Welsh Government's initiative to install some chargers this way, which is handy as I live in Wales.

I think the manufacturer has already thought of that. I have charged in bad weather and not had an issue so far. The Norwegians have the largest uptake of EVs and don't seem to have an issue.

As I cannot get a cheap rate for electric in the middle of the night rate, I can charge at whatever time I like at home. Now its getting colder, I've scheduled my charging slot for the early hours until 8am. This means in theory that when the car is plugged in and charging, the battery will be warmed by the charging effect and save me battery heating kW and give better efficiency when first driving. Also means the pre-heating will be drawn from the mains to preserve battery charge. This only works if charging from 40% or less, otherwise the charge will complete and the battery will cool before she's ready to leave. If VW could sort out the timed charging feature on the IDs, then I'd set the schedule in the car and it would work from any SoC.

A quick revisit video of the R. Symons view of the ID.4

A smaller estate should do us fine, but living up a lane we both like the higher seating position of an SUV that makes it easier to see over hedges for oncoming vehicles (especially on one particular bridge). The SEAT Leon ST we had was a great car and we almost replaced it with the 4x4 version, but went with the Karoq for higher seating position. We stayed SUV-ish with the ID.4, but TBH there wasn't an alternative to an SUV with a battery at the time we were looking. We have a reason for an SUV and SWMBO does feel safer in it.

This is similar to the battery care section in the manual of my ID.4. VW go further by suggesting you keep the battery between 40% and 80% SoC in cold weather. (UK probably don't count as having cold weather). VW also make it clear that 80% is recommended for normal day to day driving, 100% only for long trips - Tesla also recommend this limit although Elon tweeted 90% is also fine. The information on battery care is easily found via Google too. The problem going forward is all the company car drivers jumping into EVs for tax reasons right now without really thinking about it, they just want to get in and go. As they don't own the car and get a new one every 2-4 years from the company, they don't care about the battery - that will be someone else's problem. So they charge to 100% all the time, rapid charge all the time, park up for days with low/high states of charge. Ex-lease EVs might be the ones to avoid in future.

Most cars seen to charge at 11kW on three phase power. Not so many will take 22kW (Zoe is a notable exception) so the advantage to 3-phase is limited. 30kWh is around 50% of your battery in most long range EVs as these tend to be 60-80kWh batteries. So unless the difference in price between between a single phase and 3-phase charger is minimal, its probably not worth the extra expense. The exception would be if you are a high mileage driver I think, when you will be filling the battery daily. In my experience, 7kW home charger is quite sufficient, but I do not have a low tariff to squeeze maximum benefit from. EDIT: EG last night I charged from 50% to 80% in 3 hours 20 minutes. 77kWh battery (useable). This added 87 miles of range in the current conditions, in summer this would have been 97.

Petrol was nowhere near £1.60 a litre in the 1980s. About 35p a litre..... https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/written-answers/1996/dec/11/fuel-prices

Re the question of pence per mile for a diesel. It very much depends on which car you compare. My previous Karoq 2.0 4x4 averaged 45.3 for the 3 years 37k miles I had it, so basically 10 miles per litre. Yesterday I noticed the average price of diesel is £1.50 a litre! 15p a mile in my old car. So I don't think the RAC figure is wildly out. Even on my peak tariff of 23p per kWh my ID.4 gave 6.7p per mile yesterday over 180 mixed miles. (3.4 miles per kWh) I'm off to Aldi / Tesco later to get some free electrons to lower that figure further.

I have noticed this very much this year. Partly because I have an EV and the prices going up due to gas has made me wonder where all the wind power is and partly because I live on the edge of one of the TAN8 areas in Wales for wind energy, so have several windfarms around me. Got me thinking, what if climate change renders one of the UKs main 'weapons' in the fight to reduce emissions useless? (Like low wind this year)

Now this one is probably better in its own thread, or at least in one of the actual charging threads as they are much maligned on Twitter, Zap-map etc. Maybe the mods can move these posts if it becomes a discussion? FWIW I have used twice, both on the same post. One charge worked with no issue. The other didn't work and locked my cable to the post....

True, but as there are now many Tesla and Nissan Leafs running around with 200K+ miles on them with still a useful range I don't think its a major issue. These real world examples show degradation is not steep nor renders the car an uneconomically short life. I believe the issue of batteries wearing out are no different to an engine (and gearbox) wearing out in a fossil car. After hundreds of thousands of miles, most cars are worthless and in need of expensive major component replacement.

Ahh didn't know that.

@dubincalling What battery did you go for?

Yes. Look up Zap-home (by Zap-map) and / or Co-charger apps.

A real life week away in an EV. (OK a very expensive one) Shows that its not a big deal.

I take your point about charger availability at peak times, as this is already a problem on busy routes at lunchtimes and holiday times. This is resolving quickly though and should become a thing of the past. However, I do not think you will get to the situation with chargers that we now have with filling stations with multiple pumps everywhere. The model is different. If you want to run a fossil car, you have to visit a filling station, so there is a guarantee of local users as well as travellers. Many EV owners will be able to charge at home, so the local custom is not there. I think it will be multiple chargers on busy routes like motorways and trunk roads, with conveniently spaced rapids on other routes so you can top up when needed. From my experience, I would say many more destination chargers are needed, to charge when you reach your goal ready for the return trip.

It is entirely possible that the difference in premium between these cars is accounted for in the difference in the value of the cars. To make a fair comparison, you should use a newer Fabia worth about £7k

My car is an ID.4 first edition. RWD 77kWh (82 gross) battery. 150ps (204HP) motor. Excess is £250 mandatory IIRC. These are exactly the same terms as my Karoq was. The Karoq was about £300 to insure and the ID.4 the same. Full NCB, protected on a multi-car policy (along with the Citigo) from Admiral. The £300 is the premium for the ID.4, Citigo is charged an additional premium.

My ID.4 cost me the same as for my previous Karoq to insure.

I disagree with the above. If you have kids or dogs, do you really drive 400 miles without stopping? Even a good motorway run will only average around 65mph, so 400 miles will take 6 hours, a more realistic average of 50mph for a journey is 8 hours. No child or dog can be expected to sit and hold 'it' for that length of time. So you will stop, to walk the dog and toilet / feed the children and for everyone to stretch their legs. So a 30 minute stop when the car is charging 'while you get on with your day'. Using a 50kW charger and getting 3 miles per kWh will give you an extra 75 miles - these are deliberately conservative figures. In an 8 hour drive I would be making 4 such stops, so a total of 300 extra miles could be added without any inconvenience. Seems pretty effective travel to me. For context, I'll be driving my ID.4 to a cottage north of Inverness in exactly the same manner as I drove there in my Karoq - a drive of around 450 miles. I will be stopping at the same places for the same amount of time to walk dogs (only this time charging while doing it) as previously and expect to arrive with 20% remaining battery which I can then top up overnight while sleeping. In the 8 months / 7500 miles I've had the car, charging has not been an issue and certainly has not impacted on travel.

Definitely looks that way. Ideal for a one off road trip or holiday. Better than Ionity in that regard, where its a 12 month contract.

ID Furkan has video'd the process of charging a non-Tesla at a Tesla Supercharger. Looks very straightforward. The subscription pricing model will be useful for anyone doing a lot of miles.

He is quite a Tesla fan ole Richard. He like Audis too mind. I think Tesla will make money from the Supercharger network and good luck to them. It did make me smile how Richard says how he welcomes non-Teslas being able to use the SC network, as long as:- They pay more than him (Tesla owner) The number of stalls they can use is strictly limited they don't cause queues Tesla change all the charging cables so everyone uses the right parking bay for the charger. (park properly plebs) No PHEV at all. (kind of agree with this)