I will be replacing my car before the new MINI Electric comes out but if i can hold off to get one then it will need to be capable of twice this range with All Season tyres on and 2 or 3 in it in Scottish (UK) Winters. & parked outside and not pre conditioned.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm currently running a Phev and charging at home is fine for me luckily, but then I travel a long distance to work and the battery is flat. I can't charge in 95% of the places I go to, which is why I won't have a full EV until I am forced to, as it simply can't work for me. It's a shame I can't charge at my work places, although I get the outward journey with electrical assistance and the car is pretty economical as a petrol-engined vehicle. I averaged around 50mpg going to South London a few days ago (I travelled at a very 'good' speed-read into that what you will) and 42mpg on the way back (I had reported 3 miles of range in the battery as I set off). I took the decision to charge the battery on the fly, using the petrol engine, something that plummets the fuel economy to under 30mpg, but knowing I would be stuck in an hours worth of traffic jam trying to get past Heathrow on the M25, it was a great decision as I managed that portion entirely on electric power. 

 

Where I was staying in London, had chargers nearby, but the cost was exorbitant (thank you London) so it was cheaper to run the car as a petrol vehicle. Also, if I charged overnight, once the car was 'full' and the charged turned off, I would be charged for the idle time that the car was taking up the charge point it would still be plugged too. Sadly, or annoyingly, I've not seen a single car use these chargers in the several visits I've made to that area (probably because of the cost), but it all adds to the minefield that electric cars and hybrids potentially present. If I was retired, I suspect I could manage fine and work around the compromises needed. 

21 hours ago, cheezemonkhai said:

People don’t plan for expensive things breaking down at random and car manufacturers don’t design batteries to charge to 100% every day.

Most EV's aren't designed to be at 100%. But there are exceptions, Model 3 standard range from China uses LFP batteries, they recommends charging and leaving at 100% is better for this battery chemistry.

 

21 hours ago, cheezemonkhai said:

But where do you cut off, 80kWh, 100kW… weight just seems fairer as 70kW battery in a steel car might not be lighter than an 85 in aluminium etc.

 

I get your point on people needing the mass of a large battery, I just think it’s a hard cell   Perhaps a per kW batter import tax.

The exact implementation is up to debate, per-kWh tax works, or stepped increment, I'm also against a firm cut-off point (similar to the arbitrary £40k tax).

 

Weight based tax would also work, some of today's EV's are unnecessarily heavy. All manufacturers need to use dedicated EV platform and structural batteries. The BMW i4 is adopted from ICE platform and weights 2200kg! EV's aren't inherently heavy, they are heavy because half-arsed engineering from legacy manufacturers.

 

---

 

I just had pleasure of using MFG charger at an Esso forecourt, South-West London. It was a breeze: turn up to 8 chargers, wave contactless and plug in. Then unplug and go. It's capable of 150kW for CCS cars. But it was something like 55p/kWh, still slightly cheaper than £2/l diesel.

 

Sort of related charging news, FastNed are opening a huge site in Oxford, 14 300 kW and 12 Tesla superchargers can all charge simultaneously.

https://fastnedcharging.com/hq/fastned-tesla-and-pivot-power-to-build-energy-superhub-oxford-together/

What I didn't realise until recently, was that if two cars are charging from a singe dual type charger, the maximum charge rate is shared between the two vehicles, thus reducing the rate potentially up to 50% or so (not sure if one car can cripple the charge rate of another?)

@Lady Elanore  Do you mean a home 7 kW charger? 

 

Public chargers do not have this issue.  

We both get 7 kW or in my case 6.6 kWh or about 1.1 kWh each 10 minutes.

 

A Golf GTE will just be charging at 3.6 kWh though as that is their max charge speed.

 

(If the white Corsa charges it has no affect on my charging speed, and if it has 11 kW onboard charging it still just gets the same charge speed as my with a 7 kW on board charger.  If we go on a 22 kW charger though it will be getting 11 kWh and me 7 kW / 6.6 actually)

 

 

 

Edited 26 June, 20223 yr by roottoot

It depends on the charger. Some may do that, my workplace charger even throttles down if workplace pull is high.

 

These are considered destination charging, usually the time to charge (or charging speed) is irrelevant because you are there for the destination, charging is only a bonus.

yes @roottoot There is a YoooTooob video of it somewhere (probably on YouTube) 

 

I think it's because the current demand of a twin charge point could be outrageous if a couple of modern mega fast charge cars used adjacent facilities run from the same charge station  

Edited 26 June, 20223 yr by Lady Elanore

@Lady Elanore  Is this about DC Charging,  CCS or CHAdeMo. 

 

I have been on 50 kW chargers trying to use AC and could not get it working and what the car on the DC comes off the AC works.

But then i go onto the DC / CCS.

 

 

Or is this maybe this girl driving the Corsa-e and using a 22 kW AC charger and with a car with a 11kW onboard charger.

Doh, so car with 11kW AC onboard charger can only charge AC at 11 kW.

(Plug in the Zoe that can charge 22 or 45 KW then that is a different thing.)

 

 

 

 

Edited 26 June, 20223 yr by roottoot

It was somebody with one of those Kia 350kW charge capable machines. I think the highest speed chargers can peak at 900 volts. so a bit of maths says if the voltage is at max and the car is a 350kW one, then the current is almost 390 amps, multiply that by the two cars that could be charging from the same station and assuming that there is one cable set, run into the charge point/station, thats 780 amps needed for two cars on peak charge!!! That's an awful lot of juice and big copper like that is terrifically expensive. 

I know that often when i see them on a charger they have tripped a 50 kW one, also this happens with Taycan's.

 

I would expect the sooper dooper higher power liquid cooled chargers to be up to the job, but if not then that will be no different from slow, fast and quick chargers that can be hopeless.

Edited 26 June, 20223 yr by roottoot

On 26/06/2022 at 15:33, Lady Elanore said:

It was somebody with one of those Kia 350kW charge capable machines. I think the highest speed chargers can peak at 900 volts. so a bit of maths says if the voltage is at max and the car is a 350kW one, then the current is almost 390 amps, multiply that by the two cars that could be charging from the same station and assuming that there is one cable set, run into the charge point/station, thats 780 amps needed for two cars on peak charge!!! That's an awful lot of juice and big copper like that is terrifically expensive. 

 

Currently the 800V battery systems are limited to 250kW charging (No idea if this will go up in the future with a software update).

It was good for once that a vlogger mentioned why they were not getting to the max speed.

 

Some just need to make an attempt to know chargers, charging speeds etc. & what they are going to be paying.

Know where Ultra-Rapid Chargers are, Porsche Dealerships with chargers, and CPS ones when in Scotland and arrive with a lower percentage in the battery and get charged quicker.  Do not over pay to use 50 kW chargers if a bit more gets you a more powerful one.

 

Ainster was good enough to start with for Anstruther.  

 

 

 

Edited 30 June, 20223 yr by roottoot

On 26/06/2022 at 15:58, roottoot said:

I know that often when i see them on a charger they have tripped a 50 kW one, also this happens with Taycan's.

 

I would expect the sooper dooper higher power liquid cooled chargers to be up to the job, but if not then that will be no different from slow, fast and quick chargers that can be hopeless.

 

Sounds to me like those 50kW chargers can't deal with the 800V system in some way.

I wonder if they were not built to deliver 50kW for the entire charge, but as the 800V systems do some clever thigns when 400 is delivered they can suck 50kW for the full charge.

 

Be interesting to find out what causes that issue and if it's a hardware trip during charge or a software lock out post charge.

I am sitting on a 7kW for 40 minutes topping up as is my habit.  Not seen the couple of EV6,s here for a while now.  The last one I did see on a 50kW charger had been on it for many hours and was still on it hours after fully charged.  

9 minutes ago, roottoot said:

I am sitting on a 7kW for 40 minutes topping up as is my habit.  Not seen the couple of EV6,s here for a while now. 

I think a fair few of the EV were the early ones, as deliveries are a bit sporadic.

I read the MY23 change is happening about now, so I imagine they made a MY22 batch or few, then shut the lines down to move to MY23 production with a few fixes/improvements in it.

 

Charging wise, 7kW for 40 minutes and the always be charging is a good policy, although probably harder for those taking 50%+ out of the batteries in a single stint.

I really think the UK government and devolved administrations as a whole needs to spend some time and money planning and creating destination charging planning requirements, rapid charging on the motorways, possibly toll charging (to replace fuel tax) and also hydrogen infrastructure for freight etc. It would create work and growth at a time when we will probably need both.

 

 

9 minutes ago, roottoot said:

The last one I did see on a 50kW charger had been on it for many hours and was still on it hours after fully charged.  

 

And that is a d**k move, which goes to re-inforce that we will need a combination of education of charger types and  idle charges.

Why buy a fast car, stick it on a 50 and leave it there for hours, when even at only 50 it would be full from empty in 2 hours.

I do my Free RAPID charging 20 miles away in Perthshire on a reliable 50 kW charger as i arrive towards home, i stop for 30-40 minutes or so and top up to 90%

& not in Angus where it costs money to Rapid charge.  (If the Rapid is occupied i might give it a miss or go on the 7kW waiting to get on it.)

Then i do my free 7kW charging to be topped up and daily at Tesco until i am away again leaving nearly full and charging 70 miles later at reliable chargers for free.

 

So filled up now and off later and will be free charging on Rapids all weekend as on the West not East of Scotland.

 

£13.38 is all i have spent in the last 6,000 miles or so as there are a few chargers i use that should cost to use with CPS but work without registering they were used or adding to my account. 

 

 

Edited 1 July, 20223 yr by roottoot

I had not seen this when i had watched the last vid i had linked of his.

The comments with this one were funny.  People obviously commented without having watched it all. As posted in the comments.

 

 

 

35 minutes ago, roottoot said:

People obviously commented without having watched it all. As posted in the comments.

With that level of click-bait-ness for both title and thumbnail, I'm not surprised.

 

 

 

 

Public charging does really need to be 'tap and pay' and at chargers that have good 'mobile / sim' communication, 

and in areas with good mobile phone reception 24/7 and some call handlers able to communicate with chargers and start them. That is UK wide, even in rural areas. 

Especially in rural areas,

http://news.sky.com/story/three-out-of-four-electric-vehicle-owners-unhappy-with-uks-public-charging-system-12703655

 

 

http://www.zap-map.com/drivers-rate-electric-vehicle-charging-networks-uk

 ZapMap need to up their game. Too often it takes weeks for them to correct errors on their site when notified. Location, chargers, pricing.

months even. 

 

Edited 23 September, 20223 yr by roottoot

47 minutes ago, roottoot said:

http://news.sky.com/story/three-out-of-four-electric-vehicle-owners-unhappy-with-uks-public-charging-system-12703655

3/4 unhappy with public charging? Add me to the list! 

 

From 2017 to now, over my 5 years of Leaf ownership, I rarely had a good public charging experience. Well, it was good once earlier this year at MFG, 12 stalls, mostly available. But other times it's always been a game of chance, only finding out when driving up to the chargers. 

 

That's why I hugely hate the single/twin stall at random locations. And why I plan to pretty much only use Tesla rapid chargers from car infotainment system when out of home range. 

On 23/09/2022 at 08:37, roottoot said:

Public charging does really need to be 'tap and pay' and at chargers that have good 'mobile / sim' communication, 

and in areas with good mobile phone reception 24/7 and some call handlers able to communicate with chargers and start them. That is UK wide, even in rural areas. 

Especially in rural areas,

http://news.sky.com/story/three-out-of-four-electric-vehicle-owners-unhappy-with-uks-public-charging-system-12703655

 

 

http://www.zap-map.com/drivers-rate-electric-vehicle-charging-networks-uk

 ZapMap need to up their game. Too often it takes weeks for them to correct errors on their site when notified. Location, chargers, pricing.

months even. 

 

 

 

I don't understand why it isn't. You can buy petrol with an app on your phone at somewhere like Esso, once you state your pump number, or you stick your card into the pump at say a Tesco or similar. It's not rocket science 

Edited 26 September, 20223 yr by Lady Elanore

 

 

Next Sunday morning I will be looking to see if the 7kW chargers at Tesco are all occupied by EV,s or Hybrids that have been parked up all night and still occupying the chargers in the morning.    I will now be charging at Council chargers when around and about home and at 23 pence a kWh rather than 28 pence at Tesco or about this same at home.    I take it the local chargers will get busy again as they have not had the same use since the council started charging last November.    Come the new year I will not be using council chargers in Perth and Kinross as I do now if there cost is higher than in Angus.  Cost here is liable to increase though to the point of being much a muchness.  

 

I full appreciate how much free charging at Tesco & CPS chargers has saved me since last November. 

I have spent only £21.54 using the 50kW Podpoints. 

 

 

Edited 30 October, 20223 yr by roottoot

Again the Hyundai plugged into the CCS for who knows how long and not charging.

The Audi sitting for hours on the 43 kW AC and the Corsa doing the same for 2 hours getting 11 kWh max while there were plenty chargers available if the parked at them and used their own cable.

The other chargers were all getting used and people were waiting and the Orange car made charging another Corsa awkward on the CCS.