EV Charger Cost.

SeniorSam

piperm87 said:

I'm currently looking at having an EV charger installed at my house for my PHEV Kuga although I'm struggling to find any decent prices, Everywhere so far has quoted me around 1k to supply and install. the cheapest been Hive / British Gas who have quoted £879 online with 'free' install, this is still more than i can afford and Hive dont have the option to pay back over time unfortunately.

Was wondering if any EV owners have had better luck at finding decent quotes from companies ?

Many Thanks

Matt Piper

Although this post is so old it should be deleted, I thought that my comments may just help others when looking at the electric car discussions and lower costs connected with EV chargers.

I have just had one installed for a family member that has  a car due in next month or so. Cost just over £1049 with Octopus and the Ohme Pro charger.   Comparing the tariff rates I find that I have not taken enough notice of tariff rates and only today realise that with an off peak rate of 7p between 11-30pm and 5-30am, the rest of the day is charged at a higher rate presently at 29 to 30p a day. As we retired some time ago and have long past the days of staying up after 10pm, there is no way that we can switch all the washing machine and tumble dryer use in the day to the off peak times. It therefore seems that it will probably cost me more to switch to the off peak rates of Octopus Intelegent Go and therefore defeat the object of having an EV charger at home.

Has anyone else looked at this as it doesn't seem very fair to customers to charge more each year and it defeats the object of owning an all electric car unless those people want to do all their washing and drying etc in the small hours of the morning, which the elderly certainly do not and most people working do not as they need their sleep.. Not only does the intelegent Go rate increase, but the daily standing charge rate also increases. What's the point of cheap rate for cars if the daily rate and standing charges increase and wipe it out and in fact increase the annual cost to the customer who does not wish to do all their washing, drying and heavy use in the middle of the night. It seems like a catch that perhaps others have not calculated, but without being too harsh, I bet the consumer companies have worked out that the great sale of EV charges and electric cars is not as good as its cracked up to be. That could then result in less all electric car sales not doing so well and hybrid models really being the best to go for. Any comments are welcome, particularly from power suppliers for their explanation.

I

DrEskimo

SeniorSam said:

piperm87 said:

I'm currently looking at having an EV charger installed at my house for my PHEV Kuga although I'm struggling to find any decent prices, Everywhere so far has quoted me around 1k to supply and install. the cheapest been Hive / British Gas who have quoted £879 online with 'free' install, this is still more than i can afford and Hive dont have the option to pay back over time unfortunately.

Was wondering if any EV owners have had better luck at finding decent quotes from companies ?

Many Thanks

Matt Piper

Although this post is so old it should be deleted, I thought that my comments may just help others when looking at the electric car discussions and lower costs connected with EV chargers.

I have just had one installed for a family member that has  a car due in next month or so. Cost just over £1049 with Octopus and the Ohme Pro charger.   Comparing the tariff rates I find that I have not taken enough notice of tariff rates and only today realise that with an off peak rate of 7p between 11-30pm and 5-30am, the rest of the day is charged at a higher rate presently at 29 to 30p a day. As we retired some time ago and have long past the days of staying up after 10pm, there is no way that we can switch all the washing machine and tumble dryer use in the day to the off peak times. It therefore seems that it will probably cost me more to switch to the off peak rates of Octopus Intelegent Go and therefore defeat the object of having an EV charger at home.

Has anyone else looked at this as it doesn't seem very fair to customers to charge more each year and it defeats the object of owning an all electric car unless those people want to do all their washing and drying etc in the small hours of the morning, which the elderly certainly do not and most people working do not as they need their sleep.. Not only does the intelegent Go rate increase, but the daily standing charge rate also increases. What's the point of cheap rate for cars if the daily rate and standing charges increase and wipe it out and in fact increase the annual cost to the customer who does not wish to do all their washing, drying and heavy use in the middle of the night. It seems like a catch that perhaps others have not calculated, but without being too harsh, I bet the consumer companies have worked out that the great sale of EV charges and electric cars is not as good as its cracked up to be. That could then result in less all electric car sales not doing so well and hybrid models really being the best to go for. Any comments are welcome, particularly from power suppliers for their explanation.

I

It comes down to how much you charge the car as to whether switching to a EV tariff works. 

If like me you are adding around 380kWh per month to your electricity usage by charging the car, then a slightly higher day rate is more than offset by the much cheaper night time rate. My usual energy use is around 300kWh per month, so by having over half of my energy use at £0.07, my average energy cost for the month is around £0.17, rather than say £0.27 on a standard tariff. 

I do high miles though in a pretty inefficient EV. You need to do the sums based on your driving/charging habits. 

(FYI I’m actually on a EV tariff that charges me standard electricity rates, but all my EV charging is a flat £20 per month subscription, so the more I charge the more I save. Again this works out for me personally, but low mileage/charging it wouldn’t)

Woodstok2000

It's pretty easy to schedule washing machines and tumble dryers to run overnight so theyre ready in the morning.  We used to do that with octopus before we chnaged to Ovo. If you don't want to do that, there are lots of 'add-on' EV tariffs where you can fix your electricity and then add EV rates as an extra.

For example, I now have a 2 Yr fix with OVO, and the free Charge Anytime add-on gives me anytime EV charging for 7p/kWh.  That rate only applies to car charging, but overall we're still saving significantly.

facade

I'm in the same position.

I don't do enough electric miles to justify switching to the EV rate.

(I don't even have, and certainly don't want, a smartmeter)

I don't want to leave the car plugged in overnight as there is very little chance of the cable still being there in the morning.

My car is a Stellantis, and I don't want to go above 16A single phase charging for fear of blowing up the onboard charger (very, very common with stellantis).

I just pay 25p a unit on standard domestic rate, which works out around 8p a mile, under half what the petrol car costs. It is miles cheaper than public charging.

I just use a portable "charger" and a Commando socket in the daytime. (No cable left out overnight to steal)

If money were no object, and I could afford to spend £££££ to save £ I'd get battery storage and time shift all my use to just the 7p rate. With enough storage I could put a reasonable charge into the car during the day and run the washer/drier etc.

Assuming the electronics last long enough it is possible to recover the investment in a few years, but would the cheap EV rate continue long enough?

Keep_pedalling

SeniorSam said:&

piperm87 said:

I'm currently looking at having an EV charger installed at my house for my PHEV Kuga although I'm struggling to find any decent prices, Everywhere so far has quoted me around 1k to supply and install. the cheapest been Hive / British Gas who have quoted £879 online with 'free' install, this is still more than i can afford and Hive dont have the option to pay back over time unfortunately.

Was wondering if any EV owners have had better luck at finding decent quotes from companies ?

Many Thanks

Matt Piper

Although this post is so old it should be deleted, I thought that my comments may just help others when looking at the electric car discussions and lower costs connected with EV chargers.

I have just had one installed for a family member that has  a car due in next month or so. Cost just over £1049 with Octopus and the Ohme Pro charger.   Comparing the tariff rates I find that I have not taken enough notice of tariff rates and only today realise that with an off peak rate of 7p between 11-30pm and 5-30am, the rest of the day is charged at a higher rate presently at 29 to 30p a day. As we retired some time ago and have long past the days of staying up after 10pm, there is no way that we can switch all the washing machine and tumble dryer use in the day to the off peak times. It therefore seems that it will probably cost me more to switch to the off peak rates of Octopus Intelegent Go and therefore defeat the object of having an EV charger at home.

Has anyone else looked at this as it doesn't seem very fair to customers to charge more each year and it defeats the object of owning an all electric car unless those people want to do all their washing and drying etc in the small hours of the morning, which the elderly certainly do not and most people working do not as they need their sleep.. Not only does the intelegent Go rate increase, but the daily standing charge rate also increases. What's the point of cheap rate for cars if the daily rate and standing charges increase and wipe it out and in fact increase the annual cost to the customer who does not wish to do all their washing, drying and heavy use in the middle of the night. It seems like a catch that perhaps others have not calculated, but without being too harsh, I bet the consumer companies have worked out that the great sale of EV charges and electric cars is not as good as its cracked up to be. That could then result in less all electric car sales not doing so well and hybrid models really being the best to go for. Any comments are welcome, particularly from power suppliers for their explanation.

How many miles will you be doing a year? Do you use gas or electric to heat your home?

born_again

[Deleted User] said:

Do bear in mind that the electrical range of all EVs and PHEVs falls away dramatically as the temperature reduces; heating and wipers get turned on etc. My first EV (an i3 REx) would happily do 80+ miles in the summer but only about 50 miles in the Winter.

Strange as my E-Niro gets used the same each week & over the last 2+ years has a high of 314 miles & a low of 297 miles @ 100%. So not much difference t all?

MattMattMattUK

born_again said:

[Deleted User] said:

Do bear in mind that the electrical range of all EVs and PHEVs falls away dramatically as the temperature reduces; heating and wipers get turned on etc. My first EV (an i3 REx) would happily do 80+ miles in the summer but only about 50 miles in the Winter.

Strange as my E-Niro gets used the same each week & over the last 2+ years has a high of 314 miles & a low of 297 miles @ 100%. So not much difference t all?

I agree, it does vary, but not my nearly as much as the anti-EV brigade would like people to believe. I have a Model Y LR AWD and earlier this year I would have got (journey finished at 14%) 325 miles out of a full charge, last week I had a fairly long drive, I would have got 302 miles out of a full drive, although I plugged in after 265 as part of a scheduled stop on the return journey, but that difference could easily fall within run to run variance. I have noticed on shorter journeys that it can use more at the start when it brings the battery and cabin up to temperature, but that only uses an extra 1% per of the total battery capacity per journey on a 0c start. I am sure if I was driving at -10c then things would be different, friends from Norway and Canada do find they face a bigger drop in winter, but in the UK we rarely have winters cold enough to make a significant difference, with our main losses be a small warm up period and increased atmospheric density which is more of an issue at high speed. 

Grumpy_chap

SeniorSam said:

I find that I have not taken enough notice of tariff rates and only today realise that with an off peak rate of 7p between 11-30pm and 5-30am, the rest of the day is charged at a higher rate presently at 29 to 30p a day. As we retired some time ago and have long past the days of staying up after 10pm, there is no way that we can switch all the washing machine and tumble dryer use in the day to the off peak times. 

it defeats the object of owning an all electric car unless those people want to do all their washing and drying etc in the small hours of the morning

The time to review the full costs of the tariff being selected was really prior to signing rather than after.

The impact may not be as severe as you initially imagine. 
Many dishwashers, washing machines have built in delay timers so starting to take advantage of the lower rate is simple to do.  Tumble driers may also have similar features available, though using a tumble drier is never MSE.

The EV charger point at home will still be cheaper than charging at public stations and also cheaper than an ICE so certainly seems worthwhile as far as I can tell.

facade

My Citroen estimates the usual wildly optimistic range, but is actually getting under 2 miles per kWh on short trips now the resistive heating is running, I can get over 3 in warm weather.

silverwhistle

SeniorSam said:

 Comparing the tariff rates I find that I have not taken enough notice of tariff rates 

In years gone by it wasn't so important but as you have discovered..

I'm on Agile, retired and with an EV that does low mileage and find that Agile works for me. Last January was windless and gloomy and I paid an average of 21.85p, which is still cheaper than standard rate. The month before was 9.95p per unit and generally in the low teens this year. I'm not sure what the issue is with running machines overnight, they certainly don't wake me, but I do have a solidly built house. I sometimes heat water when the rates are really low.

I use an Ohme via a commando socket, usually overnight, and obviously posher than Facade's area ;-), although as it's an ex-council terrace not _that_ posh!