Finally got a home charger!

[PaulC82]

After 6 weeks of ownership, finally got a home charger installed today after having to use the painful Granny charger up to now. Topped up from 91-100% in 45 mins! Bliss! Can finally use the car without having to worry about having enough range for the next day - no more eco mode and no a/c!

Impressed with ChargedEV who did the install. Was a bit worried after reading their reviews, but the guy turned up on time and left the place clean and tidy and did a neat job. Very pleased.

 

[daverobbo]

After 6 weeks of ownership, finally got a home charger installed today after having to use the painful Granny charger up to now. Topped up from 91-100% in 45 mins! Bliss! Can finally use the car without having to worry about having enough range for the next day - no more eco mode and no a/c!

Impressed with ChargedEV who did the install. Was a bit worried after reading their reviews, but the guy turned up on time and left the place clean and tidy and did a neat job. Very pleased.

Not getting mine for another 2 weeks but does that sound about right, 91-100% in 45 mins?

 

[Jomarkh]

10% is about 5kW so 45 minutes on a 7kW EVSE is about right.

 

[Rolfe]

That's a relief for you.

My thoughts about getting a wall box are fading more and more. My granny charger can keep up with my regular driving habits no problem. I last charged it Monday/Tuesday of last week, and it's still on 71%. If I do come home low and need a top-up fast, there's a rapid charger 400 yards away that's only 30p per unit (my home tariff is 31p!), but I've only done that twice as yet, and then only because I felt like it, not because I needed a fully-charged car the next day.

I've got metal-jacketed 13A sockets mounted on the breeze block walls of my garage, and the garage is on a separate fused circuit. (On other circuits in the house, a light bulb popping will fuse the circuit, or a faulty appliance plugged in.) The whole thing is inside and under cover and the car's charging port is only 1.5 metres from the socket so no extension lead. After 14 hours of charging the plug is still stone cold.

Just an alternative viewpoint. I thought I'd be getting a wall box when I got the car, but then I discovered (a) how much they cost and (b) how well I was getting on with the granny charger. So when I see people saying "painful granny charger" I start to ask.

How many miles a day/week are you doing?

 

[PaulC82]

That's a relief for you.

My thoughts about getting a wall box are fading more and more. My granny charger can keep up with my regular driving habits no problem. I last charged it Monday/Tuesday of last week, and it's still on 71%. If I do come home low and need a top-up fast, there's a rapid charger 400 yards away that's only 30p per unit (my home tariff is 31p!), but I've only done that twice as yet, and then only because I felt like it, not because I needed a fully-charged car the next day.

I've got metal-jacketed 13A sockets mounted on the breeze block walls of my garage, and the garage is on a separate fused circuit. (On other circuits in the house, a light bulb popping will fuse the circuit, or a faulty appliance plugged in.) The whole thing is inside and under cover and the car's charging port is only 1.5 metres from the socket so no extension lead. After 14 hours of charging the plug is still stone cold.

Just an alternative viewpoint. I thought I'd be getting a wall box when I got the car, but then I discovered (a) how much they cost and (b) how well I was getting on with the granny charger. So when I see people saying "painful granny charger" I start to ask.

How many miles a day/week are you doing?

Car is used daily by either myself or Her Indoors. Commuting from semi-rural location to town and back again. But I see your point. Total cost of wall charger install was about £1000. But it’s the peace of mind knowing we have the flexibility now, if an extra longer journey occurs, one doesn’t have to worry about it.

Also there’s the charging cost, like you before I was paying 31p/kWh. Now, on an EV tariff the cost is 10p/kWh. 1/3 of the cost.

10% is about 5kW so 45 minutes on a 7kW EVSE is about right.

I think it spends the last 10 minutes or so ‘balancing the cells’ too?

 

[Rolfe]

Car is used daily by either myself or Her Indoors. Commuting from semi-rural location to town and back again. But I see your point. Total cost of wall charger install was about £1000. But it’s the peace of mind knowing we have the flexibility now, if an extra longer journey occurs, one doesn’t have to worry about it.

Also there’s the charging cost, like you before I was paying 31p/kWh. Now, on an EV tariff the cost is 10p/kWh. 1/3 of the cost.

Thanks for that. I'm interested in the economics but to be honest I haven't done the detailed sums. Having a relatively low mileage I'm not convinced that raising the price of the rest of my electricity usage is necessarily a good trade-off for a cheaper night-time tariff. I could shift to running the washing machine and the dishwasher overnight though.

I think it spends the last 10 minutes or so ‘balancing the cells’ too?

Mine usually takes about half an hour to do that, but it's only sitting at about 20 watts so if I'm looking at my electricity usage, that period is lost in the general noise.

 

[daverobbo]

Thanks for that. I'm interested in the economics but to be honest I haven't done the detailed sums. Having a relatively low mileage I'm not convinced that raising the price of the rest of my electricity usage is necessarily a good trade-off for a cheaper night-time tariff. I could shift to running the washing machine and the dishwasher overnight though.

There is a good spreadsheet available through this forum that calculates your annual electricity usage based on your mileage and other household usage.
This also compares it against a night time tariff and takes into account using the washing machine, etc at night
It is called Time of Use Tariff v SVR
For me doing 12k per year I would save £700pa with Octopus Go.
Even 6k pa is a saving of £300

 

[Rolfe]

I'm actually not sure about my annual mileage, because 2019 was the first year after I retired and that was atypical, including both a 10-week period off the road, a drive to Bristol and back, and a road trip round Ireland in the summer. Then covid struck and I hardy turned a wheel in 2020, comparatively speaking. I tend to putter around locally, then take off for long trips on a very unpredictable basis.

I am also spending significantly less on my electricity in 2023 than I was previously, thanks to taking rather obvious economy measures. I put a post I was going to include here into a separate thread because I didn't want to derail this thread too badly, but basically I was being stupidly profligate with a couple of fan heaters, and cutting back on their usage is more than paying for the car charging.

The issue is that because of this economising, I can't look at past consumption as an indication of future consumption.

I burned over 12,000 KWh in 2021. This was pretty silly, in hindsight.
I burned just under 10,000 KWh in 2022. This was still extravagant in the extreme.
Now in 2023, with the car, it's entirely possible I'll come in around 8,000 KWh. Scottish Power has just suggested I reduce my monthly DD by £45.

I'm closer to 6,000 miles than to 12,000. So closer to the £300 saving than the £700 saving. Bear in mind that I do not have a wall box. Add the cost of the wall box into that, and the pay-off starts to look less attractive.

 

[Gomev]

I'm actually not sure about my annual mileage, because 2019 was the first year after I retired and that was atypical, including both a 10-week period off the road, a drive to Bristol and back, and a road trip round Ireland in the summer. Then covid struck and I hardy turned a wheel in 2020, comparatively speaking. I tend to putter around locally, then take off for long trips on a very unpredictable basis.

I am also spending significantly less on my electricity in 2023 than I was previously, thanks to taking rather obvious economy measures. I put a post I was going to include here into a separate thread because I didn't want to derail this thread too badly, but basically I was being stupidly profligate with a couple of fan heaters, and cutting back on their usage is more than paying for the car charging.

The issue is that because of this economising, I can't look at past consumption as an indication of future consumption.

I burned over 12,000 KWh in 2021. This was pretty silly, in hindsight.
I burned just under 10,000 KWh in 2022. This was still extravagant in the extreme.
Now in 2023, with the car, it's entirely possible I'll come in around 8,000 KWh. Scottish Power has just suggested I reduce my monthly DD by £45.

I'm closer to 6,000 miles than to 12,000. So closer to the £300 saving than the £700 saving. Bear in mind that I do not have a wall box. Add the cost of the wall box into that, and the pay-off starts to look less attractive.

As a ball park figure, at the current Octopus Go rates, if you put in approx. one quarter of your household usage over the same period, that will be the break even point between Go and a SVR tariff.
e.g. 200kWh / month for normal home stuff then if you add more than 50kWh to the car in a month then Go is better for you overall. or simply put if you add to the car in a month what you use in a week for the home.
This doesn't include any timeshifting of washing machines etc., with which we don't bother.

Your figure of up to 12000kWh in a year are just frightening, you would need to add around 3000kWh per year or 250kWh a month to the car to be at parity, however you will need to do your own calcs based on your real consumption now.

 

[GaryMG4]

I'm currently seeing how the granny charger goes. I am retired, have solar pv for which I get the Feed in Tarif, so I can get free electrons during the day (during the summer it produces 1-3.5 kw between 08:00-20:00). So in simplest terms £1000 equates to 5000 kWh or 15-20000 miles (10p vs 30p kWh), if you then factor in higher day time rate and the potential 3200 kWh annual home generation, a wall box probably doesn't work for me even with the odd trip to an expensive public charger.

 

[smokie]

So my Octopus Go Faster (21:30) expires in less than a month. The 4 hours overnight is adequate and I've shifted stuff into the period which could be shifted deeper into the night if necessary. I'm trying to avoid an increase if I can but I'm not about to leave Octopus to do so.

They have (at least) 5 tariffs which could be of interest.

Go - is more expensive all round - daytime and overnight rates.

Intelligent (- I have an Ohme charger) - more expensive daytime but overnight is the same

Flex - is plain expensive for me (as is Cosy)

Tracker - is saying it is averaging about 16.29p whereas my latest averages were April 14.56, May 17.57 (high EV usage month)

Agile - which would be cheaper for me were it not for charging the car - the absence of the really cheap overnight slots it used to have is annoying - even so it doesn't look that much more expensive, and if really cheap windows come up which I can make use of for the heavier duty stuff then it could work for me.


I read that they do stuff now to prevent you switching tariffs too often, can't remember the detail but one was something like you can't switch again for 9 months!


I'm thinking it's between Tracker and Intelligent but still working on it - and including Agile in the calcs...


Using the granny charger would probably cause me to occasionally pay for elec as I don't have a huge solar array and tbh it's be more of a faff than I'm prepared top make. Also at this time of year I get my hot water from the spare solar ( - no gas used for weeks on end now, even though I am on tracker at 3.6p or thereabouts) so there is less spare solar. (In the winter when gas was much dearer I was using the immersion in teh Go cheap period which worked well for hot water)

 

[OriginalBigAl]

For the last few years we also have used 12000 kw per annum , without EV use , but in a poorly insulated house with electric panel heaters. ( yes I know ) in need of complete renovation. We have used a lot power tools in that time so that accounts for a bit. We changed to a smaller house abandoning the power hungry beast around Christmas but have not yet worked out power consumption , but are hoping for improvements . The installation of the 3 phase charging unit is complete but awaiting suitable car (not yet delivered )to put on it. With our current mileage uses I estimate an additional 25 kw a week for the MG ( 1300 ) a year . Eventually I would hope for around a total yearly usage of around the 12000 kw mark , ( house, EV, 2 gites ). Shares in EDF anyone.

 

[DBedford]

My oh my, amazing consumption. For 2022 we consumed 2730kwh electricity or approx 8000kWh with gas heating. Just two of us in a late 1960 , poorly insulated, 3 bed semi.

 

[GaryMG4]

It's an oil/combi boiler for us so no tank to heat with solar excess and being retired means using the granny isn't too much of a faff. As I'm only two weeks into EV ownership I have an open mind about the way forward. Having an EV has prompted me to get a smart meter so that will help with the decision plus in a years time it will be interesting to check out the annual figures as we currently average 3200 kWh per annum.

 

[Rolfe]

As a ball park figure, at the current Octopus Go rates, if you put in approx. one quarter of your household usage over the same period, that will be the break even point between Go and a SVR tariff.
e.g. 200kWh / month for normal home stuff then if you add more than 50kWh to the car in a month then Go is better for you overall. or simply put if you add to the car in a month what you use in a week for the home.
This doesn't include any timeshifting of washing machines etc., with which we don't bother.

Your figure of up to 12000kWh in a year are just frightening, you would need to add around 3000kWh per year or 250kWh a month to the car to be at parity, however you will need to do your own calcs based on your real consumption now.

I agree, 12,000 KWh per year is frightening, but that was 2021. I have sworn off fan heaters and I'm thinking that even with the car I might be looking at 8,000 for 2023.