Charged extra for charging the car

astroL

We stayed at a small B&B in Liverpool, selected specifically because of location and car charging facility. In fact, the car charger was broken for 3 of the 4 days so the amount of power taken was measured by me as ~3kWh - less than £1!  On the last day the lady demanded £20 for the charging.  I expressed shock and reminded her that the unit had only been working for two sessions and that I had stopped the charging because the power was tiny. I added that I had instead taken the car to charge at Tesco at 5kWh instead of her 1kWh. I pointed out that there had been no mention of an extra charge for using the charger, and that it was like charging to watch the broken tv in the room.  She conceded and I paid £10 - the most expensive electricity in the country. I now use rapid charging when on holiday.

Lawrence H

ElefantEd

If using the charger cost extra it should have been specified in the contract/agreement/booking form.

Having said that you seem to be a bit confused about units: a charger is normally rated in terms of power (kW) - a 13 Amp domestic socket would usually charge at about 2.5kW, a 30 Amp charger (fast charger) is about 6.6kW, rapids are obviously a lot more than that.

3 units of electricity (3kWH) (which is energy, not power) would only take just over an hour to be added to your battery even on a 13Amp supply. How long were you plugged in for?

astroL

There is no confusion. They had an external charger for the first charge, and the car recorded about 1.5kwh. Next day they only used the portable charger providing 0.5kw (power) and I abandoned it after a nominal time, noting that the total power accumulated from the 'hotel' was about 3kwh.  I did not measure the actual times of this very slow charging but the car's records showed the total energy received. £10 was accepted for the 3kwh - as I explained.  Tesco's chargers provided 7 dropping to 3 or so over the various two hour sessions, with no stress.

Lawrence

cheekybuoy

Just shows the absolute lunacy of EV’s. 

Imagine relying on a B&B to provide diesel for my car and being overcharged by several hundred percent for a couple of litres!

Ectophile

cheekybuoy said:

Just shows the absolute lunacy of EV’s. 

Imagine relying on a B&B to provide diesel for my car and being overcharged by several hundred percent for a couple of litres!

It's not a problem with EVs.  It's the rubbish charging infrastructure.  You should be able to pull up to a charging point and pay by the kWh, just like paying at a petrol pump.

Ayr_Rage

Ectophile said:

cheekybuoy said:

Just shows the absolute lunacy of EV’s. 

Imagine relying on a B&B to provide diesel for my car and being overcharged by several hundred percent for a couple of litres!

It's not a problem with EVs.  It's the rubbish charging infrastructure.  You should be able to pull up to a charging point and pay by the kWh, just like paying at a petrol pump.

Haha, don't forget how much a litre of fuel actually costs before everyone takes their profit along the supply chain.

Any EV charging point will have overheads too.

Keep_pedalling

Ectophile said:

cheekybuoy said:

Just shows the absolute lunacy of EV’s. 

Imagine relying on a B&B to provide diesel for my car and being overcharged by several hundred percent for a couple of litres!

It's not a problem with EVs.  It's the rubbish charging infrastructure.  You should be able to pull up to a charging point and pay by the kWh, just like paying at a petrol pump.

That is exactly how it works at public charge points, but B&Bs and holiday cottages don’t tend to have a charge point you can wave a credit card at so they tend to charge a fixed fee for its use ( or if you are lucky for free) they should however inform you what the cost is up front. 

ElefantEd

astroL said:

There is no confusion. They had an external charger for the first charge, and the car recorded about 1.5kwh. Next day they only used the portable charger providing 0.5kw (power) and I abandoned it after a nominal time, noting that the total power accumulated from the 'hotel' was about 3kwh.  I did not measure the actual times of this very slow charging but the car's records showed the total energy received. £10 was accepted for the 3kwh - as I explained.  Tesco's chargers provided 7 dropping to 3 or so over the various two hour sessions, with no stress.

Lawrence

Once again you have confused your units: 3kwH is the amount of energy you have accumulated - not power. Power is the rate at which energy is accumulated (Energy per unit time, usually measured in this context in kilowatts). Your original post was confused because you said that Tesco charged at 5kwH instead of 1kwH - both of these are measures of energy, whereas I presume you are making a comparison between the rates at which the car charged.

Obviously it's the total amount of energy (kwH) that you accumulated which is relevant to how much you should pay, and I totally agree that £10 for 3 units is absurd. Not sure why you paid even the £10, if it wasn't mentioned in the contract, and particularly if the charger wasn't working I wouldn't have.

astroL

I should have said kW/h. That is the only oversight. I failed to notice that I had missed out the divisor. As a scientist of 55 years experience, you might have expected me to spot my error!

Lawrence

ComicGeek

ElefantEd said:

astroL said:

There is no confusion. They had an external charger for the first charge, and the car recorded about 1.5kwh. Next day they only used the portable charger providing 0.5kw (power) and I abandoned it after a nominal time, noting that the total power accumulated from the 'hotel' was about 3kwh.  I did not measure the actual times of this very slow charging but the car's records showed the total energy received. £10 was accepted for the 3kwh - as I explained.  Tesco's chargers provided 7 dropping to 3 or so over the various two hour sessions, with no stress.

Lawrence

Once again you have confused your units: 3kwH is the amount of energy you have accumulated - not power. Power is the rate at which energy is accumulated (Energy per unit time, usually measured in this context in kilowatts). Your original post was confused because you said that Tesco charged at 5kwH instead of 1kwH - both of these are measures of energy, whereas I presume you are making a comparison between the rates at which the car charged.

Obviously it's the total amount of energy (kwH) that you accumulated which is relevant to how much you should pay, and I totally agree that £10 for 3 units is absurd. Not sure why you paid even the £10, if it wasn't mentioned in the contract, and particularly if the charger wasn't working I wouldn't have.

It's not kwH- it's kWh. If you're going to be so pendantic to pick up the OP on energy/power, then at least get it right yourself.

ElefantEd

ComicGeek said:

ElefantEd said:

astroL said:

There is no confusion. They had an external charger for the first charge, and the car recorded about 1.5kwh. Next day they only used the portable charger providing 0.5kw (power) and I abandoned it after a nominal time, noting that the total power accumulated from the 'hotel' was about 3kwh.  I did not measure the actual times of this very slow charging but the car's records showed the total energy received. £10 was accepted for the 3kwh - as I explained.  Tesco's chargers provided 7 dropping to 3 or so over the various two hour sessions, with no stress.

Lawrence

Once again you have confused your units: 3kwH is the amount of energy you have accumulated - not power. Power is the rate at which energy is accumulated (Energy per unit time, usually measured in this context in kilowatts). Your original post was confused because you said that Tesco charged at 5kwH instead of 1kwH - both of these are measures of energy, whereas I presume you are making a comparison between the rates at which the car charged.

Obviously it's the total amount of energy (kwH) that you accumulated which is relevant to how much you should pay, and I totally agree that £10 for 3 units is absurd. Not sure why you paid even the £10, if it wasn't mentioned in the contract, and particularly if the charger wasn't working I wouldn't have.

It's not kwH- it's kWh. If you're going to be so pendantic to pick up the OP on energy/power, then at least get it right yourself.

It seems to me that in a discussion of energy costs, where charging rates are also mentioned, the difference between energy and power is significant. Unlike an uncapitalised letter.

However if you want to complain about someone being "pendantic", you could either define this interesting new word, or alternatively, at make the effort to spell 'pedantic' correctly.