EV Discussion thread

Martyn1981

silvercar said:

Martyn1981 said:

Hi GC. You can 'just' increase the charge level for the car on the app, to buy you more time. I think the idle fees don't kick in till the SC location is more than 50% full (£1/min fee when 100% full), and above 90% SOC if still actively charging.

Obviously, the higher the charge level, the slower the car will be charging, and the more time you will have to enjoy the facilities.

Not sure there is a penalty charge if you go above 90%, unless that is new. But definitely cheaper to move the slider than pay £1 an hour.

Yep, that's the move that is coming in, for the US (but not I believe the UK yet) since folk have simply upped their charge level to avoid idle fees. Above 90% you are buying youirself a lot of time, but of course also holding up other folk in this scenario - where the SC location is 100% full.


Edit - Just thought, that 18p/kWh figure you mentioned would be equal to 15.75p/kWh domestic, after accounting for the different VAT rate. I'm shocked.  

Grumpy_chap

MeteredOut said:

You're right, it would not be, but don't underestimate the complexity of doing that, and the increases in costs that would then be passed onto consumers. Software programmers are not cheap and we're not quite ready to replace them all with AI (yet).

It seems simple enough to me.
The network knows when the station is at 50% full as idle fees are then applied.
The network knows when the station is at 100% full as the idle fees are then doubled

silvercar said:

Not sure there is a penalty charge if you go above 90%, unless that is new. But definitely cheaper to move the slider than pay £1 an hour.

I was looking for this as I recall reading somewhere there is a fee if charging above 80%.
Looking at the Tesla website today, that seems to be 90%.
Either way, changing the slider from 80% to 90% is only another few minutes

silvercar

Grumpy_chap said:

MeteredOut said:

You're right, it would not be, but don't underestimate the complexity of doing that, and the increases in costs that would then be passed onto consumers. Software programmers are not cheap and we're not quite ready to replace them all with AI (yet).

It seems simple enough to me.
The network knows when the station is at 50% full as idle fees are then applied.
The network knows when the station is at 100% full as the idle fees are then doubled

silvercar said:

Not sure there is a penalty charge if you go above 90%, unless that is new. But definitely cheaper to move the slider than pay £1 an hour.

I was looking for this as I recall reading somewhere there is a fee if charging above 80%.
Looking at the Tesla website today, that seems to be 90%.
Either way, changing the slider from 80% to 90% is only another few minutes

It is actually longer, charging slows down significantly after 80%.

Also, not pre-charging the battery will slow down the charging rate than can be useful if you want a longer break (and also pre-charging uses up KWH which is costly.

Martyn1981

silvercar said:

Grumpy_chap said:

MeteredOut said:

You're right, it would not be, but don't underestimate the complexity of doing that, and the increases in costs that would then be passed onto consumers. Software programmers are not cheap and we're not quite ready to replace them all with AI (yet).

It seems simple enough to me.
The network knows when the station is at 50% full as idle fees are then applied.
The network knows when the station is at 100% full as the idle fees are then doubled

silvercar said:

Not sure there is a penalty charge if you go above 90%, unless that is new. But definitely cheaper to move the slider than pay £1 an hour.

I was looking for this as I recall reading somewhere there is a fee if charging above 80%.
Looking at the Tesla website today, that seems to be 90%.
Either way, changing the slider from 80% to 90% is only another few minutes

It is actually longer, charging slows down significantly after 80%.

Also, not pre-charging the battery will slow down the charging rate than can be useful if you want a longer break (and also pre-charging uses up KWH which is costly.

Yep, that's why I said this originally:

Obviously, the higher the charge level, the slower the car will be charging, and the more time you will have to enjoy the facilities.

I'd guess at about 10-15mins for the 80-90% on a LR TM3, assuming an average charge rate of about 40kW. And perhaps 30-60mins for the last 10%*.

Hopefully it's a simple trick/cheat for anyone that doesn't want to rush back to their car.

*I'm assuming we don't have any US readers.

Dave_Fowler

We're just back from a 5 day holiday in Beckington (near Frome).  There are few working rapid chargers near-by.  The only working one at Frome railway station appears to be occupied all day most days.  The Beckington BP Pulse charger usually has a queue.  We gave up waiting on the first day.  On the second day we were the only car there.  The 150kW charger started charging at 60kW and then after a few minutes it dropped to 40kW and then to 29kW (even though the car was only 40% full).  There was no other car charging so it shouldn't have been a problem with the total available power.  It therefore took almost 4 times longer to charge than we expected.

On our final full day we decided to go to Wells, Somerset, to look round the town and cathedral.  There were six slow (7kW) 'Blink' chargers in the Union St car park, but as we were there for five or six hours that wasn't a problem.  What was a problem was the app.  I couldn't get the charger to connect to the car - it got up to the point of locking the connectors and then said it couldn't connect. I tried three of the six chargers.  I finally phoned the help line.  The lady said she could see nothing wrong with any of the chargers but agreed to do a remote reboot.  After doing that, all 6 chargers disappeared from the app.  I had to give up.  That was well over 1 hour of the day gone. (and the temperature was only +2C. I was frozen).

I drove round to Morrisons rapid Genie-Point charger.  'Plug in the car' it said on the screen.  Did that. 'Plug in the car' was still on the screen.  The card reader wouldn't accept the CC.  The plug was again locked in the car and had to be freed. On the second attempt (still with no luck) I noticed an 'information' icon on the screen.  Pressing this it said PCB 1 fault.  So we gave up there.  

Next round to Tesco where there are some 7kW PodPoint chargers; not ideal as we had only 3 hours left for our visit to Wells.  But Tesco has a maximum stay of 1.5 hours.  Their customer service said we could stay longer if we contacted the car-parking company 'the information is on their notices'.  The notice by the door which gave the 1.5 Hour Max Stay info was some 10 feet off the ground and the writing giving the contact details was so small I couldn't read it.  I found another notice which was about 8 ft high off the ground.  I phoned the number and was told to listen to all nine options before making my choice.  Most of the options were about complaining about penalty charges.  There was no obvious option to pay for extended parking so I pressed * and listened to them all again (It took about 1 minute 15 seconds to go through them all).  Choosing '9' for 'other' I spoke to a real person.  I explained I was in Tesco's carpark in Wells and wanted to extend my stay.  'Where abouts in Wales are you?'  No, Wells.  'Ah I see; you need to choose option 6. I'll put you back to the switchboard'  Back to the choose one of the 9 options.  Once at option 6 I pressed 6.  I explained to the lady that I wanted to extend my stay.  'Oh you need to apply on-line - we can't take payment over the phone'.  I went on-line and filled in the form but my information was rejected.  It didn't say why, just that I had to enter it all again (and I mean all).  Still no luck.

One day of our short relaxing break after Christmas wasted.  Went back to the BP Pulse at Beckington and waited.

We are seriously discussing selling the electric car (Ioniq 5) and going back to petrol.

Dave F

Petriix

@Dave_Fowler I hate to say it but I wouldn't ever go on a trip like that without planning my charging well in advance. In practice I simply don't drive to places that don't have reliable charging options. I normally look for places where I can charge overnight or while eating or shopping. That influences where I would be willing to stay. 

Most of us current EV owners do the vast majority of our charging at home. It's only the occasional long trips that require public charging. While it's definitely improving, (outside the Tesla Supercharger network) the infrastructure simply isn't consistent enough in terms of coverage and reliability to allow you to just visit a town and expect to be able to charge. It looks to me like the West Country is pretty awful for charging so personally, unless I could find somewhere to stay where I could guarantee a charge, I would probably go somewhere else for my holiday. 

silverwhistle

I'd go with Petriix's approach too. Plus if you ever mention Geniepoint in a group of EV drivers you'll get muttering and rolling of eyes: avoid like the plague. Perhaps their business model is to be so crap they'll get bought out and management get a payoff?

I've only been beyond the range of the car a few times but haven't had any real issue. From the forums I learnt of a handy new hub in Sheffield next to an Aldi, others on the A1M. I also managed an opportunistic charge at Masham using my Electroverse app when I had a bit of time to kill. Three times I needed to change my plans on the fly (too much tea/M1 closed/bad navigation..) but Osprey and Instavolt came up trumps. It's good to see Tesla opening up more to other cars as well; their prices are a lot lower, and I have their app on my phone even if I've not needed to use them yet.

Hundred of hubs have been put in over the last year and therer are dedicated threads on the SpeakEV forum which you might find useful. Also lots of helpful people with knowledge of particular areas. Without knowing which way you were coming from I suspect that there'll be new hubs by next year: I think the 10 place Osprey at Wincanton (for example) is quite new?

But above all avoid Geniepoint (and generally fossil fuel associated brands)!

michaels

It was a 5 minute walk from the gridserve hub at LGW to the outside of south terminal so an excellent free drop off option.  Can stay and charge for up to an hour.  The lounge with cafe and shop looks very swish but then it should do as it only opened a week ago.  Were about 6-12 of the 30 stalls occupied this morning between 11 and 12.  The 6 chademo also had CCS heads which is annoying as that means there could be no chademo even when there are empty CCS if people are not polite in choosing.  The 4 Tesla are not yet working.

Grumpy_chap

The idea of planning destinations by virtue of charging provision is crazy.
To be clear, it is the idea I am saying is crazy, not the individuals forced to adopt that approach.
It may well be the driver to force better charging provision - if tourist areas see reduced visitor numbers (proportionally) it may drive local business / authorities to influence the improvement of charging provision.  The reduction of visitor number may not even need to be realised if polling has an effect "XXX county voted best UK holiday destination, pushing YYY into second place because of poor EV charge provision in YYY"

JKenH

michaels said:

It was a 5 minute walk from the gridserve hub at LGW to the outside of south terminal so an excellent free drop off option.  Can stay and charge for up to an hour.  The lounge with cafe and shop looks very swish but then it should do as it only opened a week ago.  Were about 6-12 of the 30 stalls occupied this morning between 11 and 12.  The 6 chademo also had CCS heads which is annoying as that means there could be no chademo even when there are empty CCS if people are not polite in choosing.  The 4 Tesla are not yet working.

That worked out well. I imagine with the slow rate at which the Leaf charges it didn’t cost you much more than parking at the airport.

I wonder, though, how long before EV drivers realise it can be a cheap alternative car park. I imagine there are a lot of EV drivers within comfortable round trip range of Gatwick who, even though they don’t need to charge, might dump their car on a charger for a few minutes rather than pay exorbitant airport parking fees. It would be particularly useful when waiting for an arrival. I can see it getting very busy.