Electric car charging

DrEskimo

Angus_Og wrote: »

What an interesting thread.

Just bought a new car and toyed (briefly) with electric but it sounds a nightmare.

So can someone explain the options and costs for setting up for home from scratch from basic to best assuming you don't have a 3 phase.

Interestingly was talking to my mechanic the other day and he was saying there are two charging points near him and it is the same two cars that gog the charging points.

In what way did it sound a nightmare?

Costs of setting up a home charger are pretty minimal. If it's a new car, it's usually free with the car. Otherwise you get £500 OLEV grant towards the cost of the install, which usually leaves about £199 to pay. Could be much cheaper depending on exactly what's involved and what charger you chose.

On a single phase, 32amp will give you a 7kW charger. This is more than adequate for overnight charging. You will rarely charge from empty to 100%. Typically, depending on your commute, you would charge every few days and just top it up to around 80/90%, over night when electricity is cheapest.

Public charging is a nightmare for anything that isn't a Tesla....you would very rarely use them if you had a home charger. The exception would be if going on a long journey that surpasses the range of the EV. Again, dependent on what EV you are talking about!

ElefantEd

We had a charging point installed at home when we got an EV, about 4.5 years ago. It took the installer a couple of hours, just involved wiring in a 32Amp armoured cable from the fuse box to the charging point. They migth have needed to upgrade the main fuses but I can't remember. Either way, it was quick and painless, and best of all free (OLEV paid most of it, the Scottish govt paid the rest).


No nightmare involved! It's the same as installing a new shower or cooker circuit, the only difference is the connections in the box at the business end.



The charge charges in a few hours, even from a low percentage. Obviously a more modern car with a larger battery capacity would take longer, but even so 8 hours overnight would be plenty.

DrEskimo

ElefantEd wrote: »

The charge charges in a few hours, even from a low percentage. Obviously a more modern car with a larger battery capacity would take longer, but even so 8 hours overnight would be plenty.

I have a 40kWh EV and my OH uses it for work commutes, and then we use it on weekends for shopping etc.

Daily work commute is 15miles, so by Sat it's down to about 50%. Usually we park up somewhere with a charger while we do the shopping on a Sat (used a rapid for 90mins yesterday), but I also charge at my parents (as I don't have off-street parking) when I visit on a Sunday for about 3/4 hrs. Always around 90-100% by the time I leave.

Easy to run now, but if we had home charging it would be a complete breeze! Just looking for that next house we want with a drive that doesn't cost £1mil+....

Marvel1

Daft question: do you need a driveway to charge the cars from home? My street has front garden/driveway, open front door and straight onto pavement. How this would work?

AdrianC

Marvel1 wrote: »

Daft question: do you need a driveway to charge the cars from home? My street has front garden/driveway, open front door and straight onto pavement. How this would work?

You'd need to have the charge cable lying across the pavement.

di-di-di-dah-di-dah

Marvel1 wrote: »

Daft question: do you need a driveway to charge the cars from home? My street has front garden/driveway, open front door and straight onto pavement. How this would work?

You wouldn't be able to charge at home because I'm pretty sure you can't just lie high voltage electric cable across the path.

Depending where you live you may be able to charge at public spots. It's cheaper than petrol but obviously more expansive than charging at home. Some people were very successful in convincing their employer to allow them to charge at work.

neilmcl

Marvel1 wrote: »

Daft question: do you need a driveway to charge the cars from home? My street has front garden/driveway, open front door and straight onto pavement. How this would work?

As mentioned, it would mean trailing a cable across the pavement, not something you'd want to do over night for obvious reasons.

DrEskimo

Marvel1 wrote: »

Daft question: do you need a driveway to charge the cars from home? My street has front garden/driveway, open front door and straight onto pavement. How this would work?

Nah need to have off-street parking.

It's the reason I can't charge at home, but me and my partners commute/routine means we can make an EV work despite not having the convenience.

There is only 1 charge port in my town (7kW Polar), but thankfully they are installing 6 new units in a new car park being built. I'm now just fighting with the council to try an get them to install something more useful than 6x 3.6kW chargers....!

silverwhistle

Robin9 wrote: »

I was Distribution Company design engineers many years ago and we talked in terms of After Diversity Maximum Demand .

Many years ago I was chatting to a local distribution engineer at tea break on some course at my REC: I was in a completely different line of business within the same company. He jokingly said that a for a local new housing estate it would do the job and be cheaper to provide everyone one the substation with a few of the new-fangled CFLs rather than upgrade.

That wasn't the solution chosen (!), but it's interesting how demand patterns have changed. LED lights and more efficient appliances, domestic PV and customer demand management.

Upgrading to the system will be necessary if the policy of space heating by electric (with/without heat pumps etc.) is to progress. But car charging itself will still have quite a high degree of diversity, even with up to 7Kw loads, as not everyone will be charging every day.

In my own case I'd like my next car to be EV and I'd put very little extra load on the system in my efforts to optimise the use of my own PV. With the increase in EVs I'd have thought a renewed push for distributed PV would be a good fit. The 9-5s wouldn't be helped much, but the retired, work from home and shift workers with PV would all be doing their own demand management.

Anyway, sunny here and generating well so off to put the washing out...

Robin9

silverwhistle wrote: »

..........................t a renewed push for distributed PV would be a good fit. The 9-5s wouldn't be helped much, but the retired, work from home and shift workers with PV would all be doing their own demand management.

Anyway, sunny here and generating well so off to put the washing out...

A really attractive Smart tariff might well be a good option as well - an hour here, an hour there ??