Been on 45 minutes and charged only 4kWh. So £2.00. The 22kW AC tethered charger cable which would be giving me 11 KW is no longer on the Big DC charger. That was what wrongly had you paying 70 pence a kWh. The £5 minimum charge on the supposed 11 kW AC I am on means many will be like me and occupy the charger for longer than they might normally. It is pure stupidity that the minimum charge cost is not just £2.00. PS. The big / rapid 50 kW DC charger is out of service.

Edited yesterday at 09:071 day by Evolution13

1 hour ago, Evolution13 said:

Only food and sauces. Shame for phev drivers with a £5 min charge .

Thanks for that I had, as yet, never come across a minimum charge. Did have one pub that added a £1 connection fee I assume the charging cost went to the CPO so the pub was charging for parking.

9 minutes ago, Stonekeeper said:

Thanks for that I had, as yet, never come across a minimum charge. Did have one pub that added a £1 connection fee I assume the charging cost went to the CPO so the pub was charging for parking.

I knew that most chargers located in car parks also make you pay the parking charge as well. I also recall reading a post on here before about being charged a minimum fee, and I was wondering if that charge still applied today now that there are improved facilities for electric cars.

On 11/08/2026 at 16:11, lol-lol said:

Unit elecricity price on Agile going to over 60 p per kwh during eclipse tomorrow !

17p in the afternoon.

Use less than normal and get an hour free on Sunday from Octopus 🐙

Well, did you follow Octopus's instructions? I had sunlight right through the eclipse; admittedly, it was weaker for a few minutes, but there was still plenty of sunshine, and my solar panels and garden were bathed in it.

I had to laugh at the guff some of the TV presenters were saying, like the temperature had suddenly dropped. Not here, it still felt as hot as ever.

It is ridiculous the situation with stores like LIDL or ALDI having EV chargers where they are only for use during store open hours and people getting a penalty charge for parking at a charger while charging out of hours. No idea how common or which other companies might be doing the same. Just seen a few news articles on this happening. The charger i am on is supposedly a 22 kW, so 2 vehicles could be charging and getting 11 kW. I have never got 11 kW with a car with 11 kW on board charger. Just now with a 7kw on board charger i am getting near that. In the past on this one i have had someone else plug into the other port and it drop to us both getting only 3 6 kW or so.

Edited yesterday at 10:511 day by Evolution13

12 hours ago, Graham Butcher said:

Well, did you follow Octopus's instructions? I had sunlight right through the eclipse; admittedly, it was weaker for a few minutes, but there was still plenty of sunshine, and my solar panels and garden were bathed in it.

I had to laugh at the guff some of the TV presenters were saying, like the temperature had suddenly dropped. Not here, it still felt as hot as ever.

I tried to use less than normal but I use very little in daytime as I am mainly using solar.

App says it is calculating so don't know if I am judged as using less, presumabky find out tomorrow or Saturday.

On Agile Saturdays half hours are predicted to be about 11p per kwh whereas Sunday is close to 20p per kwh so an hour of zero cost leckybwould be welcome.

Here in Worcester eclipse was covered by dark cloud. It got dark early ie from about 7 pm and did not recover until morning sunrise. Bit of a loss of solar generation but I don't count on much after 1900 BST / 1800 GMT anyways when one is nearly 2 months from the summer solstice.

Here in Chelmsford, we had lovely sunshine right the way through it all, not a cloud in the sky.

4 hours ago, Graham Butcher said:

Here in Chelmsford, we had lovely sunshine right the way through it all, not a cloud in the sky.

The Sun shining on the righteous.

Here one can now smell burning in the air. Stourbridge is only 19 miles away but I gather there are fires in Pershore too which is only 7 miles away.

Wind us from the West currently so perhaps the fire that can be smelt is out west somewhere ie farm land or houses out to the west. Some of the grass is turning black as if self combusting.

Edited 5 hours ago5 hr by lol-lol

Pishing down here. After the glorious 12th which was not so glorious everyplace the weather has broken. So seasonal as pretty much usual. Every summer has not been as fantastic as the summer of 1976. Kiki Dee and Elton John. Don't go breaking my heart. Motorbikes, playing pool while the jukebox played and drinking and just a time when the price of petrol or drink did not matter. And on an apprentices wage plus some freebies from working in a garage.

Edited 5 hours ago5 hr by Evolution13

8 minutes ago, Evolution13 said:

Pishing down here. After the glorious 12th which was not so glorious everyplace the weather has broken. So seasonal as pretty much usual. Every summer has not been as fantastic as the summer of 1976. Kiki Dee and Elton John. Don't go breaking my heart. Motorbikes, playing pool while the jukebox played and drinking and just a time when the price of petrol or drink did not matter. And on an apprentices wage plus some freebies from working in a garage.

Some rain due here Monday and today only suppose to hit about 30c after yesterday's 38c. I have never known anything like it in this country as the feel of the temperature here was more like Southern European weather.

1976 was the year Punk started rather than 1977 that many think. Anarchy in the UK was out and we had The Damned and The Ramones starting to knock out their hits. Last year of senior skool for me and already planning my escape to run away to sea to see the world. The Repperbahn, back forth across The Pond, Basrah, Oz and many other places on visiting route.

Hope we don't get standpipes as part of water use restriction as that is a pain.

Yes, we've had some pretty large wildfires, fields, woods and building fires, had some fire engines destroyed and many fire fighters hospitalised, as has many other places across the UK.

Almost an annual event these wildfires and so many are the result of people being careless when smoking, with barbecues etc.

Hoping we get some rain soon, we need to fill the resivours again solve this national drought.

Edited 5 hours ago5 hr by Graham Butcher

I read that in Hungary there are companies including Shell and Eon making restriction on EV charging because of power grid concerns. Restriction the power of Ultra fast chargers in the evening, and some are increasing the price or disabling chargers for a period of time.

50 minutes ago, Evolution13 said:

I read that in Hungary there are companies including Shell and Eon making restriction on EV charging because of power grid concerns. Restriction the power of Ultra fast chargers in the evening, and some are increasing the price or disabling chargers for a period of time.

They, and other electricity users, are being restricted mainly because the country's power plants are not able to continue producing full electricity they would normally do because the rivers they draw cooling water from are running dry.

This is happening in many European countries. France has almost 50 nuclear power stations but the ones that draw from rivers like the Loire just are not able to draw enough water to operate. Whether gas turbine, coal, nuclear they are only about 35% - 45% efficient and hence need vast amounts of colling water to recondense the steam etc.

Fortunately in the UK we don't have this problem as I think all or almost all our power stations use sea water as they are positioned on the UK's massive coastline.

This will be another factoring in of replacing all these power sources as they become unreliable in hot weather. Romania in big problem as the big nuclear reactor that pulls cooling water of the Danube is having to throttle back big time, it provides 20% of Romania's power.

Another problems is these big rivers are becoming unnavigable, Danube and Rhine the big barages are having to carry less cargo or go aground.

I think Europe we look at this summer, the fires, the power losses and the massive extra heat related deaths and redouble its effort tto operate in hotter climates in a more resilient way as well as further bear down on reducing their input into the atmosphere of carbon.

I was shocked when the UK Grid guys came to my house to oversee my house fuses being derated from 100A to 80A due to global warning when I had my second EV charging box fitted ie UK houses electrical system will not cope with these higher ambient temperatures !!

1 hour ago, Evolution13 said:

I read that in Hungary there are companies including Shell and Eon making restriction on EV charging because of power grid concerns. Restriction the power of Ultra fast chargers in the evening, and some are increasing the price or disabling chargers for a period of time.

This has been one of the concerns of many motorists; if this kind of event happened, they could be left stranded or unable to get to work, etc.

Or just have to pay a higher tariff and wait longer to charge. One of these things the public have no control over. Weather, Strikes, or wars and fuel price rises or there are shortages. We might all remember various crisis like fuel tanker strikes or wars and rationing.

31 minutes ago, Graham Butcher said:

This has been one of the concerns of many motorists; if this kind of event happened, they could be left stranded or unable to get to work, etc.

EVs are very good at hypermiling. Whilst we tend to see between 3.5 and 5 miles per KWh if one goes in to hypermiling mode and can get close to 10 miles per KWh if one really tries.

When Bjorn Nyland does his drive to they die tests he takes with him lithium battery box which has 2.2 KWh and an additional slave battery to feed the main battery / inverter box so he has about 4 KWh. Also sometimes takes a portable solar panel array if it is day time and that can add to the electricity able to go into the EV should one be standed.

One can take a jerrycan of fuel but that is a smelly and potentially dangerous option. The EV options are more than the ICE options in my view and these options are improving, as with EVs, at a staggering pace as the performance is rising fast and cost falling equally fast.

When I have had a tough choice, only twice in 5 years, once I drove many miles past 0% SOC with no problem and second time just rerouted down the B roads where the route was shorter and economy very much better ie about twice, so got home no problem and topped up on the super cheap home electricity.

Far more likely, especially with the current situation with diesel fuel, that diesel drivers will increasingly struggle to get hold of that type of fuel. Electricity is available in over 10M places and can be home stored and generated to put into ones EV.

I get 20+ miles for what looks like only 1 or 2 kWh when i descend from Glenshee, the Lecht or down Cairn 0 Mount. I use quite a bit of energy climbing to the highest point before the coming down. Same as with an ICE vehicles really and the fuel use. Using less regen and coasting works better than slowing the vehicle all the time, just use the extra regen as you would the brakes or lower gear, so as and when.