I will give the van driver the benefit of the doubt as the charger maybe cut out but if he had come back sooner than an hour he / she would have seen the van was not charging.

The Volvo driver had an hour on the Tethered AC and got 11 kWh & i went away for 1/2 an hour and looked back and the van was charging and had 22 kW in the battery.

I had to head off and get on a rapid on the edge of town.

A clear sign then that there are not enough chargers and that is going to get worse in time before it gets better. 

Edited 27 November, 20232 yr by Graham Butcher

A clear sign that an Open Reach employee charging a Vauxhall electric van should have the My Vauxhall app on his mobile phone and pay attention if putting on a charger and heading off and be aware if the charge has stopped. 

26 minutes ago, Rooted said:

A clear sign that an Open Reach employee charging a Vauxhall electric van should have the My Vauxhall app on his mobile phone and pay attention if putting on a charger and heading off and be aware if the charge has stopped. 

All Openreach workers are issued with a company phone and are only allowed to install apps that have been cleared by BT security. Whether BT have allowed that app I don't know but that wouldn't stop him/ her installing it on their own phone if they're aware of it. 

@Leewhat i can do for Open Reach and their 'The People that make the network'  & Driving 100% Electric is let them been seen on Social Media as not giving a toss about other EV drivers.  

If they want to use Electric Vans then maybe have them use the Commercial Chargers in the town, but then that is not 100 yards from the BT Telephone Exchange. 

?

Do Open Reach staff have to go to such places? 

You will always come across ignorant people who will occupy chargers for longer then they should. But then, on the other hand, you also don't know where or what that driver was doing. They may have been prevented from returning to the charger through circumstances out of their control, but if there were more chargers available, then maybe it would not have inconvenienced anyone. 

@Graham ButcherI appreciate they are workers and likely not away have lunch.

 

The none electric vans sit outside my house several times a day and at times a van or 3 as some poor sod works in all weathers hunched next to a green box on the street corner.

 

It is the Companies that need to get with the flow. 

The van when charging was only at 22% and getting 39kW from the 50kW charger. 

These vans can charge at 100 kW. 

 

It is the need for chargers suitable for business users and the general public that is the issue & Forfar does have a couple of council rapids in town and a few on the outer limit and InstaVolt have 2 hardly ever used due to the cost compared to the Council Chargers @ 41 pence a kWh.

 

It is a National Issue, and a 4 Nations issue.

 

I read something today on the  Fleet News down grading of 'who ever' on the expected number of EV,s in how ever many years. 

The Governments are at it.

COP 28 now.  Cop ing out of actually splashing cash to get the businesses building their own facilities. 

 

 

Edited 27 November, 20232 yr by Rooted

2 hours ago, Graham Butcher said:

A clear sign then that there are not enough chargers and that is going to get worse in time before it gets better. 

 

Nah, maybe in Chelmsford, I hear "Dave-takes-it-on" was berating Chelmsford, for a country town it is woeful. 

He had to drive the 12 miles up to Braintree to go to the fantastic Gridserve mega charging hub, have a coffee, use the post office, explore leasing EVs.

 

Here is another country town, the beautiful Worcester, we have increased our EV chargers by another half this week with 54  charge posts being added as part of the University....

45p a kWh published cost..... 

 https://uk.news.yahoo.com/worcester-university-campus-becomes-one-050000255.html#:~:text=The University of Worcester's Severn,public and the university community.

 

The University of Worcester's Severn Campus has become one of the largest electric vehicle charging parks in Europe.  The car park, which has been installed with 100 charging points on Hylton Road is open for use by both the general public and the university community.  With easy access to the university's campuses at St John’s and in the city, as well as the city centre, the installed chargers also promise convenience for Christmas shoppers.  To use the charging ports, drivers can pay for the parking and separately for the electricity through an app or contactless payment at the charger.   Six of the charging points are 50 KWh rapid chargers, and there are also 200 standard car parking spaces available at the site.  The development of the Severn Campus into a charging hub was made possible by a £3m award from the Worcestershire Local Enterprise Partnership, as part of the Government’s Getting Building Fund, which assigned Worcestershire £12m.  Dr Tim Jones, the university’s pro vice chancellor for students, said: "We’re committed to encouraging and inspiring more sustainable solutions among our University community and beyond.  “We’re really keen that the public should benefit from and make use of these forward-thinking facilities as much as University students and staff.  "As Severn Campus sits on the outskirts of the City centre, this will also reduce the volume of traffic heading into the City centre."

  

@Rooted What I was meant was that maybe they were at a doctor's or dentist appointment or similar, and the appointment was running late due to an emergency event or something, it has happened to me on a number of occasions, where I was booked in for a 10 to 15 minute appointment, only to be still sitting in waiting area some 45 minutes later waiting to be called through.

Just looking at the Swarco site at the Worcs uni, 18 chargers with 22 Kws 3 phase charging as well as the six expensive DC chargers and loads of 7 Kws for those leaving the cars to go in to the city a few hundred yards across the bridge.  Brilliant.

 

 

@Graham Butcher

Could be.

I will go with the Telephone Exchange being across the road though.    The van did need charged though.  Not going to pay 75 pence at InstaVolt are they!

@lol-lol Yeah, I know Chelmsford is terrible for charging points, we have 54 available, 22 of which are rapid chargers, last year we only had 39 in total and considering we are a city, its woefully inadequate. I think that includes 8 spots at the local Tesla centre.

 

We have many retail parks without any chargers, we have lots of large supermarkets with large car parks and have about 10 chargers between them. 

 

This information came a recent news release I read.

Edited 27 November, 20232 yr by Graham Butcher

24 minutes ago, Rooted said:

@Graham Butcher

Could be.

I will go with the Telephone Exchange being across the road though.    The van did need charged though.  Not going to pay 75 pence at InstaVolt are they!

Yes, you are probably right to do so, you should know your local area far better than I will 😂

1 hour ago, Rooted said:

@Leewhat i can do for Open Reach and their 'The People that make the network'  & Driving 100% Electric is let them been seen on Social Media as not giving a toss about other EV drivers.  

If they want to use Electric Vans then maybe have them use the Commercial Chargers in the town, but then that is not 100 yards from the BT Telephone Exchange. 

?

Do Open Reach staff have to go to such places? 

 

Yes quite often or hardly ever depending on what they do. That looks like an installer's van so should be going to the exchange quite often depending on their job list for the day. Putting tones on lines for fault checking, connecting jumper wires etc etc.

I don't recall Openreach having any EVs when I left in 2018 and I worked out of a big yard with maybe 80 or 90 vehicles at the time. Been to dozens of exchanges and I never saw an EV charging point. 

Channel 4 News is on All4. Quite the revelation I thought. 

 

 

 

I just watched this What Car video and it shows how far BEVs have come in 10 years, lets hope the next 10 years sees as much again.

 

 

That 18 kWh i3 being only 15min later than double battery capacity and newer Zoe is pretty impressive. Rapid charging is the enabler for driving beyond home range. It's the main reason I went with Leaf over Zoe. I think they could have done it not as slow in a 2018 Leaf 40, or any other similar capacity car with rapid charging.

 

These early EV are perfect for secondary family car as local runabouts or daily commuting car. Save the bigger ICE for family trips. That's what I did for ~3 years before COVID.

@LeeThat is the first Open Reach EV i have seen. 

It is the British Gas ones that are a real PITA for taking up chargers and staying a long time. 

 

 

Edited 27 November, 20232 yr by Rooted

34 minutes ago, Rooted said:

@LeeThat is the first Open Reach EV i have seen. 

It is the British Gas ones that are a real PITA for taking up chargers and staying a long time. 

 

 

I saw BG EVs even before 2018, George. Maybe BG have more reason to Greenwash their appearance than BT/ Openreach 🤷

41 minutes ago, wyx087 said:

That 18 kWh i3 being only 15min later than double battery capacity and newer Zoe is pretty impressive. Rapid charging is the enabler for driving beyond home range. It's the main reason I went with Leaf over Zoe. I think they could have done it not as slow in a 2018 Leaf 40, or any other similar capacity car with rapid charging.

These early EV are perfect for secondary family car as local runabouts or daily commuting car. Save the bigger ICE for family trips. That's what I did for ~3 years before COVID.

 

The so called motor journalist not even planning where there were 22 kW AC chargers that the Zoe could charge 3 times faster than on the 7 kW chargers, they not heard of ZAP Maps.

In today's EV market, looking at price and availability one can consider an early ZE50 Zoe rather than a ZE40 and get it for half or less of the MG4 and with similar range.  With the MG one has to put up with the tacky infotainment interface and the Zoe 9.3 inch screen running Google and Tom Tom is the best I have used in any car, even so called premium marques. 

 

Happy with charging of 22 kw DC and 45 kw DC, always only splash and dash say 20% to 60% to give me another 100 miles.  I seem to get well over 4 miles/kWh in mine.

Did they even pump the tyres up properly ie a few psi about book as do most Zoe drivers do, even the manual says add 0.3 bar if car already warmed the tyres.  Use eco most the time and the Zoe will get over 250 miles on a full charge, was one of the best 4 years ago and still is for a B segment EV.  Still nothing obvious to me to replace the Zoe with except a TESLA model 3 standard range on salary sacrifice RRP £39.9k so no luxury car road tax.

 

My experience is that when pretty cold and a Rapid charger / 50 kWh is playing up, maybe started but slow or cutting out then getting on a 7 kw / 11 kw AC can be a God send, even if just to get you enough into te battery to another Rapid or to where you want to be going. (Single charger issue in Scotland, even at hubs with a few Rapids that might be out of Order or blocked by muppets that could not care less about others, even when there are overstay penalties.

 

The cold / below freezing temps are not affecting my battery noticeably with the MINI electric as it did with the Corsa Electric.

It is the temperature chosen for the interior and with the MINI the heated seat on is not affecting the high power battery and neither is the heated rear screen.

The AC if needed to be demisting does have an affect but while not raining or snowing i can have the sun roof up a bit or the windows cracked open.

Not an option is sitting charging in the rain or snow and sitting in the car but the fan and AC can be on then.  Not as good as these were in the Corsa when sitting in and then i had wind deflectors which were really necessary to keep a dry interior for when going to be parked up in the coldest weather.

 

I am on All Season tyres and would not run on anything else other than full snow tyres if i need to.  

Range does not matter if you are stuck or can not get into EV chargers where the bay is deep with snow or iced up.

* Frozen Water, not a ICE Vehicle blocking it.*

 

............

First Vid.

Running in GREEN mode not Mid or Sport and with Full Regen.  

Must feels like a slug and i will only try that setting with Cruise Control on and it makes a few miles difference and you are maybe better off, 

Green + would be OK as well apart from the Heating / AC is disabled, top speed limited and the 5 or so extra miles might be critical with it in Cruise Control.

I get peed off though and go back into Sport, low regen and get the same miles and power used and do not have any traffic including HGV,s having to pass me. 

If i need to hypermile better get behind one and really get some range.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited 28 November, 20232 yr by Rooted

I did not need a charge just exercising the dog in the park.

 

So 1 hour & 17 minutes on the 50 kW charger for the van to get 33 kWh and to 96%.  

As long as it does not sit much longer when it goes slower than 11 kW and stops other getting on it. A few drivers were passing to check.

 

That is the Telephone Exchange across the road.     

    (Dundee has the Maximum Charge time just right IMO.  40 & 45 minute maximum is not long enough when the 50 kW chargers are crap.)

Angus Council has no Maximum Charging time.

Edited 28 November, 20232 yr by Rooted

@Rooted I expect that they are crap because either the supply is insufficient if there are many other folk also trying to get a charge, or the supply cable is way to small for the number of chargers? 

@Graham Butcher

1 x 50 kW DC with a 43kW AC tethered on the side, and next to it 1 charger with 2 x 7kW ports.

Just the same as the other newer charger in town 1/4 of a mile away. 

 

http://boydbrothers.co.uk   Installer of choice or no choice.., they put in the charger hub near the A90 and the new chargers in town. Angus Council.

https://connected-energy.co.uk/case-studies/dundee-city-council-and-swarco

 

 

Hit or miss. I sometimes get a 52 kW from it.

3 1/2 years ago it was out of service for months just because the catch on the door was broken and the SWARCO maintenance blamed vandals which it was not.

Then one trolled me on ZapMap and Plugshare.

 

Very low temperatures it was not starting, and that was a real PITA.

For a Year Charge Place Scotland had its location on the map as 1/2 a mile away and i told them weekly and asked since the Maintenance Manager was often at the charger could they not just confirm the location instead of me directing people to it.

 

But then their HQ is 1/2 a mile from Broughty Ferry yet the Broughty Ferry Charging hub showed for a years as at GlenFord  & the Council Yard at the North of Forfar.

 

Incompetence.  But i tell them that regularly.   & i used to tell Angus Council Councillors and the Convenor but i have given up now on that. 

Edited 28 November, 20232 yr by Rooted

@Tesla demo was out today on Lower Ln and Prescot Bypass engaged in the operation.Despite the cold the range is holding up over 260 miles. The dual motors helping it to feel planted in the icy conditions.