Bargain Basement Electric

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Re: Bargain Basement Electric

Post by NewcastleFalcon »

The easiest way to get a rubbish trade in price is to present a car which has carried sand and cement, gravel, roadstone, bricks, stones, timber thats too long for the car...and worst of all a wet labrador!

So I thought I would keep the Micra for those sort of local tasks. Must admit didnt do much haggling. Got a couple of new rear tyres on it which would have cost the garage next to nowt in the scheme of things, but I thought it was a fair price, pretty comparible and better than some others on offer, although I could have had one slightly cheaper but that was in Cornwall! Canny bus ride to pick it up!

My tab packet economics worked at the price so just did it.

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Re: Bargain Basement Electric

Post by mickthemaverick »

Good thinking to keep a working option for the dirty jobs. I have never pex'd a car in my life because I always believe a private sale is more value but keeping it is probably even better!! :)
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Re: Bargain Basement Electric

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Many years my local Lada garage had a "condition unimportant" PX offer &, at the time, I was in the market for a Niva - so I towed the rotten MGB that was cluttering up the lawn down there & did the deal. One & only time I've ever chopped anything in - or bought from a main dealer.
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Re: Bargain Basement Electric

Post by NewcastleFalcon »

If you are considering an EV, one of the immediate joys, occurred today.

The location Newbiggin Sports Centre just up from Ashington Northumberland
.
Day 1 of filling up at a "Fuel Station" and guess what, didn't have to pay for filling the tank :-D
Parked up next to a 30kw Leaf from Taxi Firm Pheonix of Blyth, and got another freebie, a decent 20 minutes in the classroom for me as a new boy, and a list of free charging points in and around Northumberland.

For now its like "Welcome to EV motoring" here's some freebies.
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Re: Bargain Basement Electric

Post by Mandrake »

Peter.N. wrote: 14 Nov 2019, 10:35 They are only really cheap to run if you charge them at home on 'off peak' electricity'. They will do 3-4 miles per Kwh so at night time rate of around 8p per kwh, that would equate to 2-3p per mile, but at a fast charging point it could be a lot more expensive.
Although there are a few EV owners on speakev.com that use off peak night rate charging my impression is that the majority don't bother with split tarrifs and off peak charging, and I certainly don't. I'm on an all day 12.3p/kWh.

I manage about 5 miles/kWh in the summer on my daily commute, so my summer rate works out to 2.5p/mile, and in winter I do about 3.7 miles/kWh - the Ion has no heat pump so the heater gobbles a lot of power, that works out to 3.3p/mile, so a year round average of about 3p/mile.

Compared to that my Xantia V6 costs 28p/mile for the same commute for petrol alone... :shock: :shock: Typical cost for a moderately efficient Diesel is 12p/mile, for Diesel only, so the EV still works out about 1/4 the fuelling cost. At those negligible costs per mile it's almost not worth bothering with a split rate tarrif especially if it makes charging less convienient (charging in the middle of the night on a timer) and makes your daytime household electricity use more expensive.

You are right though that public rapid chargers (at least those that aren't free) are a lot more expensive - varying from about 25-35p/kWh for many of them, so approx 3x the price of charging at home. That makes charging an EV exclusively from rapid chargers only marginally cheaper than running a Diesel - at least on fuelling costs as there are other savings like reduced maintenance.

To get the best convienence and lowest running costs from an EV you definitely want home charging. If you have home charging and a car with sufficient range then rapid charging is relegated to only longer trips away from home which if not very frequent don't signficanlty raise your yearly per mile cost which would be dominated by home charging prices.
Last edited by Mandrake on 19 Nov 2019, 08:53, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Bargain Basement Electric

Post by Mandrake »

mickthemaverick wrote: 14 Nov 2019, 10:52 Reading your post there Peter brings another issue to mind. Assuming Simon will correct me if I've got this wrong, it is my understanding that the charging of a BEV does require a significant current draw which will increase with the number of vehicles being charged.
On a single phase supply (which is all that most UK homes have) most EV's will charge at 16 amps (3.6kW) or 32 amps (7.2kW) using a dedicated EV charge point like the one I have. From a normal 3 pin plug they will charge at a maximum of 10 amps.
Now in my experience the majority of households these days have at least two cars with many having three and some having four or more. Given that all vehicles will need charging on the overnight "cheap" rate then the total demand on an individual premises' supply will probably be greater overnight than during the day when most of the household will be out and the cars away. Thus will the electricity companys re-evaluate the peak periods and their charges to follow and hence the charging will have to be done at the newly redefined peak periods? :wink:
I went into more detail in another thread but I don't anticipate problems with up to 2 or 3 cars households unless everyone is doing a very high mileage every day. You can install two load balanced wall chargers that will provide 32 amps to either socket alone but throttle back to 16 amps each automatically if both cars are charging simultaneously to keep the total draw to 32 amps. Beyond that if you have enough range you could just take turns charging on different nights of the week.
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Re: Bargain Basement Electric

Post by Mandrake »

bobins wrote: 14 Nov 2019, 11:00 I think you'll find that's one of the main reasons they've rolled out smart electricity meters - modifying demand by variable rate charging.
All OLEV grant part funded EVSE (wall charge point) installations are now required to be "smart" charge points which allow the grid to perform load shedding by temporarily turning off some number of EV chargers at peak times. Although the equipment is required to support it, I don't think the load shedding functionality is operational yet though except in trials.

This was not the case when mine was installed in 2017 so my wall charge point is a "dumb" one that can't be monitored or controlled.

However as far as I know this functionality is provided entirely by the charge point itself and does not require a "smart meter" on the meter board. A smart meter is only required for dual rate tarrifs which is something else entirely.

It reminds me of hot water control in New Zealand. Unlike the UK with its predominately gas hot water heating, nearly all hot water heating in NZ is electric using a large (~200 litre) hot water cylinder which heats primarily at night and remains off most of the day during peak electricity use times - this is remote controlled by the local power board who send signals over the power lines to enable and disable hot water heating for load shedding.

If you used up all the hot water part way through the day chances were you wouldn't get any more until the next day! :lol:
Last edited by Mandrake on 19 Nov 2019, 08:58, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Bargain Basement Electric

Post by Mandrake »

Peter.N. wrote: 14 Nov 2019, 11:51 I think you are all quite correct but I am only thinking of things as they are at the moment, not long term. I'm also thinking about the battery capacity of that car, comparatively low compared with many but even with that assuming that its charged at 3kw that will only give 21kw capacity over 7 hours of charging assuming 100% efficiency which we don't have.
Some Leaf's have 3.3kW chargers, some have 6.6kW chargers which will charge twice as fast on a suitable charge point - not sure what kind Neil's has though! The 6.6kW kind would fullly charge from nothing in about 4 hours.

With 7kW charging you can add a surprising amount of range over night - say you start charging at 8pm and want to leave in the morning at 7am, that's 11 hours. At 7kW at 90% efficiency that would be about 70kWh - a very large battery by todays standards. The Kia e-Niro has a 64kWh battery and can do 270 miles from it, so adding as much as 270 miles of range overnight is quite feasible on a 7kW charger.

Keep in mind also that you don't have to fully charge the car every night - you're only replacing what you used the day before. If you only drove 50 miles the previous day you're only charging for a much shorter amount of time. You also don't necessarily need a full charge for the following day, so as long as you have enough range with a buffer for what you're doing the next day you'll be OK. (Nobody leaves the house every morning with a full tank of petrol...)
Having said that it would be sufficient for everyday running about which I think is what electric cars are best at. Many 'second' cars are only used for shopping and perhaps the school run and socialising locally. I the '50's when I worked in London there were quite a few electric vehicles about running on lead acid batteries, Harrods had them so they obviously did the job.
Short range EV's are definitely 2nd cars, although potentially a 2nd car which you do most of you driving in, which is how it has worked out for me.
At present its a case of 'horses for courses', we do a trip to the north of Scotland every year and also to North Yorkshire, even the largest capacity batteries would need recharging at least twice on the Scotland trip, on my diesel C5 I can get there and part of the way back way back on a full tank of fuel.
I presume you need to stop at least twice to use the toilet, eat or rest going all the way to Scotland though, right ? Or do you just use a catheter and drip feed ? :rofl2:
Last edited by Mandrake on 18 Nov 2019, 21:23, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Bargain Basement Electric

Post by Mandrake »

NewcastleFalcon wrote: 15 Nov 2019, 22:36 Thanks Mick, Hopefully I will be able to ease my way in with charging via the plug in cable at home, and public chargers for the time being. There is a grant for charging point installations if installed by an approved installer, but before they come along and I need to do a bit of upgrading of our electrical installation. Its fine but old, and could do with "the electricity Board" updating the main fuse, and for us to get the old 6-way rewirable fuse consumer unit replaced with a new one compliant with the 18th Edition of the wiring regs. Has needed doing for years so its about time it was changed in any case.
Don't assume that you'll have to replace or upgrade your consumer unit for an EV charge point installation. My consumer unit wasn't suitable either (full already) so the installer simply installed a second "mini-consumer unit" similar to what you might find supplying a garage:
IMG_3093.JPG
This piggybacks directly onto the meter tails and does not go through the main consumer unit itself, aside from using the input terminals as a junction point. So as long as your incoming fuse and meter tails are sufficiently rated it doesn't really matter what your consumer unit is.

In the mini-CU there is both a 64 amp breaker and an RCD. From there there is a thick armoured cable that goes under the floor and out through the exterior wall to the charge point, and the charge point itself also has a combined RCBO. So there is plenty of belt and suspenders here, and I actually quite like the fact that the car is not using any of the slots on the main consumer unit, so it's not subjecting it to many hours of high load every day and if the car charge point was to trip any RCD's or breakers etc then it's not going to affect any of the in house circuits. It's effectively entirely segregated.

Before spending a lot of money upgrading all your wiring I would get one of the OLEV approved installers out to do a free quote - they'll be able to advise you on whether you do actually need to upgrade anything or not.
Many people make Leaf's work up here, should cope with our regular trips up and down to Tyneside, and just because we may have to plan on a recharge on our nice days out to North Yorks/ lake District or the Borders isnt going to stop us.

Should get up and down to the Drift Cafe as long as its not -12 and I have to put the heater on!

REgards Neil
Do you know if yours has the heat pump ?
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Re: Bargain Basement Electric

Post by NewcastleFalcon »

Mandrake wrote: 18 Nov 2019, 21:20 Do you know if yours has the heat pump ?
Don't know if it has a heat pump, this is all I know so far. We did a Chademo charge (for free) today and as our friend the taxi driver pointed out we could have the heater on full blast while charging, which I stopped at 85% and we were there maybe 30mins. When driving with the heater on it took the eco "!tree!" indicator down a notch.

Driving it currently on eco mode and "B" which maximises the regen braking, and very much in relaxing pootle mode. Having discovered that charger and the locations of several others, and done our first charge successfully (yes as you well know there is nothing to it really) I am confident that we will manage most of our normal journeys quite straighforwardly. We need about 30 miles to get back home from Tyneside and probably would have had 10 to spare today, but chatting with the taxi driver we just plugged it in to give us the extra in hand.

There is a 7kW charger public charger at the local hospital again free to use so I will plug in the "normal" charging lead (not the 3.3KW one with the plug on) so I presume I have the 6.6Kw charger which should charge up in 4 ish hours.

I will have to dig around some of your old posts Simon where you cover the optimum charging routine for battery longevity. I take it that frequent rapid charges on The DC Chademo are not recommended, but I am sure you will have covered these points before.

Thanks for your advice re the charging point. I think I will ease myself into ev ownership using that free 7kw charger and the odd top up with a free chademo charge. From what I have read PodPoint seem to get a better review from certain others who see the installation of the EV point as an excuse to generate additional works.

The other element of new EV ownership is the "joining" of a scheme, or a few schemes of chargepoint providers. All the more straightforward if you have a smartphone and the appropriate apps. This is something I havent got and frankly dont want, if I can avoid it. I would be happy with a "card".

Thanks again

Regards Neil
Last edited by NewcastleFalcon on 18 Nov 2019, 23:18, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Bargain Basement Electric

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Mandrake wrote: 18 Nov 2019, 21:05 Some Leaf's have 3.3kW chargers, some have 6.6kW chargers which will charge twice as fast on a suitable charge point - not sure what kind Neil's has though! The 6.6kW kind would fullly charge from nothing in about 4 hours.
Got the handbook out and pressed a few buttons, so this confirms my leaf has a 6.6kW charger
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Re: Bargain Basement Electric

Post by NewcastleFalcon »

Here we go 1st 7kw charge, free charger, no cards needed, although if you look at ZAP Map the info is out of date. Have just joined Polar+ part of the BP Chargemaster empire. £7.50 a month but gives access to decent amount of charging stations across the country and useful if we stray out of Northumberland on our days out :-D
another freebie
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Re: Bargain Basement Electric

Post by NewcastleFalcon »

Done and dusted successfully.

For future reference, this seems to be a nice place to stop off at and it appears on the polar + network with a chademo rapid charger. Steve may be familiar with it with his connections in that part of the world.
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Re: Bargain Basement Electric

Post by myglaren »

Nope, never been there Neil.
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Re: Bargain Basement Electric

Post by andy5 »

bobins wrote: 14 Nov 2019, 11:00 I think you'll find that's one of the main reasons they've rolled out smart electricity meters - modifying demand by variable rate charging.
I was phoned the other day and told it's time to make your smart meter appointment.

I said I'd prefer not to, until it becomes obligatory.

She said actually it is, on your recent new tariff.

I said I'd check that, and call them back. It is, but they were busy on the phone, so I looked online.

Your area not suitable, it said. I phoned the next morning and this was confirmed, mobile network coverage not good enough ...

I could have guessed that. Three networks had excellent 3g coverage here 10 years ago, but it's been reduced

If everyone gets electric cars, maybe we'll get our fridges turned off to ultra fast charge the Tesla owners who look down their noses at the rest of us, even other electric cars.
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