EV Charging Network

Nebulous2

I'm struggling to relate to much of this. 

I can't have a home charger. I got a leaf, on a lease, not from any desire to save the world, but as a play thing, a toy. I pay £211 pounds a month. A fairly modest amount compared with a lot of cars. 

I got it prior to Putin's megalomania getting the better of him, around 16 months ago. I had also taken a part-time job about 25 miles away from home, my first commute that I couldn't cycle, for many years, and didn't want to leave my wife without a vehicle. 

I've been blown away by how good the leaf is to drive. I tell people it is like a dodgem, you put your foot down and it goes, you take it off and it stops. 

My town, population under 4000, has one rapid and 4 destination chargers. I've had an issue with the rapid being broken, and complained vigorously, but I've never failed to get a destination charger when I need it. Costs for both chargers are 24p per kwh. 

Despite being over a year in, and having driven over 10,000 miles, my car had never been more than 50 miles from home. We were recently going to stay in a hotel 200 miles away and decided to take the leaf to see how it went. It was better than I expected, we only had to queue for a charge once, and a lot of chargers in Glasgow are still free, although they are often in carparks that require you to pay for parking. 

Nebulous2

TooManyPoints said:

If you have an EV and Asda provides charging but Tesco doesn't, why would you want to go to Tesco?

Possibly because Tesco provides the products you want and ASDA doesn't? Seems a bit of a strange thing to have to do, to decide where you shop based on the ability to refuel your car whilst you're there. 

You need to consider how fairly small sums can skew people's behaviour. The best example I can think of is carrier bag tax. Many people made substantial changes to their behaviour to avoid spending 5p. 

We got our electric car over a year ago. When we got it a large town 50 miles away had a fancy shopping centre with free EV charging. We twice went there and spent over £100 while getting about £4 worth of 'free' electric. 

Since then they have started charging for plugging your car in. We now go to a public charger in a carpark, go to a Vue cinema, rather than the Cineworld in the shopping centre, and shop around in the nearby streets for a restaurant rather than the few big chains in the shopping centre. We are probably spending £60 instead of £100+ because of a £4 charge. I understand that doesn't sound very MSE, but that is often how humans operate. 

JKenH

Grumpy_chap said:

JKenH said:

10 Electric Cars That'll Bankrupt You Through Maintenance And Repairs

I had to stop reading that article very early on.
It starts with the assertion that the Tesla Model S is the most expensive EV to maintain and then "Typical problems include engine issues, ".  I kid you not.

I have visions of an owner of the getting older second hand EV taking the car for a service to the local independent only to be met with some massive sucking of breath through teeth and an explanation it was a miracle the car kept going as long as it had, going to need a whole new engine guv'nor.  Once they are into the job, the poor customer will be met with a sequence of add-ons as the garage keep finding more parts that were simply not up to the job.  Still, the retro-conversion will be good for another 100k miles or so now, don't you worry.

I frequently find posts more concerned with finding fault with semantics than content. I’m not American so I don’t know much about how they talk. I do know, though, unlike Americans I wear trousers on top of my pants. 

I often use the word motor when I mean engine. In club racing we often say “he’s got a good motor” - we mean engine of course. For you to adopt such a restrictive view of the word I can only imagine your search “engine” is powered by petrol or diesel.

The use of the terms motor and engine are discussed in this short article from MIT School of Engineering. 

The Oxford English Dictionary defines “motor” as a machine that supplies motive power for a vehicle or other device with moving parts. Similarly, it tells us that an engine is a machine with moving parts that converts power into motion. “We use the words interchangeably now,” says Fuller. “But originally, they meant very different things.” The Oxford English Dictionary defines “motor” as a machine that supplies motive power for a vehicle or other device with moving parts. Similarly, it tells us that an engine is a machine with moving parts that converts power into motion. “We use the words interchangeably now,” says Fuller. “But originally, they meant very different things.” (my bold)

https://engineering.mit.edu/engage/ask-an-engineer/whats-the-difference-between-a-motor-and-an-engine/

If you read the sentence in which the word “engine” is used and the sentence that immediately follows it is quite clear what is meant.

“Typical problems include engine issues, transmission problems, and other general electrical issues. It's been recalled 6 times for various faults and the biggest fault is a faulty electric motor.”


Edit: if you have a look on the Internet I think you will find Tesla Model S is well known for drive motor issues.

“The most major setback of the Tesla Model S is the driving unit failure. The driving unit houses the electric motor, the inverter, and the gearbox. Though the all-wheel-drive version comes with two motors, it is not excluded from this issue.”

https://autozilla.co.uk/ev/tesla-model-s-problems/