Home charging -- am I being ripped off?

[andyr0id]

Hi all, I'm looking for advice about my charging situation at home.

I live in a block of flats and there are EV chargers in the garage, provided by the building. They operate with a token system. One token gives you 1 hour of charging. A bag of 20 tokens cost us £66 including VAT, so £3.30 per hour of charging.

I tried charging my new MG4 SE SR for the first time the other day and drew 1.8kW from the charger with my granny cable.

By my calculations, that's £1.83/kWh which seems astronomical -- double what we should be paying at least. Not to mention that the charge was painfully slow.

I haven't tried any other charging plugs or cables.

We have a letter saying that the chargers should give 3.5kW (dated February '21), but this seems unlikely to me because that's not a "standard" charging rate for a fast charger (they all seem to jump to 7kW). If that's the case then the price drops to £0.92/kWh which still seems pretty high even with the current energy prices.

So, I'm keen to get advice from you guys about my next steps.

I guess I should try another charging point and see if I get 3.5kW. If not, I should certainly complain about that. Should I also try a different cable? Should I complain about the price? Do you think I can get a refund on the tokens I've already spent? Is this price even legal?

Any thoughts would be appreciated -- thanks!!

 

[Jomarkh]

Hi, what EVSE units are provided in the garage as they should be 7kW units?
You will get about 2.2kW from a granny EVSE on a good day.
A payment by the hour doesn't seems the best way to do it, per kWh would be a better way.

 

[Alb]

The simple fact that you are being charged by the hour for an indeterminate quantity of energy means that you almost certainly are being ripped off.

 

[Nutnut]

Certainly looks like you're being reamed, to my novice eyes. I also can't have a home point and will/do rely solely on public services primarily via lamppost chargers and my Type 2 cable.

My most recent charge cost me £10.77 for 37.15kWh whilst I was plugged in between midnight and 7am. If my maths is right, then going by your fees it looks like that would've cost me £23.10 in tokens just for the time . Below are examples of on street options local to me, but links are there so you could look at fees and availability around where you live using Map of electric charging points for electric cars UK: Zap-Map - perhaps useful if negotiation is possible:

Char.gy fees (Type 2 5kW):
Night tariff (Midnight - 7am) 29p/kWh
Day tariff (7am to midnight) 65p/kWh

char.gy — Public electric vehicle charging - on-street, car parks, lampposts

char.gy offers easy everyday charging wherever people park. Get EV charge points in your area at no cost, powered by 100% renewable energy.

char.gy

Ubitricity fees (Type 2 5kW):
Peak (4pm - 7pm) 79p/kWh
Off-peak (7pm - 4pm) 45p/kWh
£0.35 connection fee

Map

Find your nearest public ubitricity lamppost charge point, using our interactive charging map or your favorite app such as Shell Recharge.

ubitricity.com

Hell, even if I went to the nearby Podpoint for a faster fill it'd still be cheaper than what you've laid out: CCS 50kW - 65p/kWh

Worth also looking at this for any tips as are others (in London too) relying on public chargers if whomever runs your building won't play ball:

Life without a home charger?

I received an e.mail this morning, to advise that they are including a time delay into the start of charging sessions, to easy the load on the grid !.

www.mgevs.com

 

[tsedge]

Hi all, I'm looking for advice about my charging situation at home.

I live in a block of flats and there are EV chargers in the garage, provided by the building. They operate with a token system. One token gives you 1 hour of charging. A bag of 20 tokens cost us £66 including VAT, so £3.30 per hour of charging.

I tried charging my new MG4 SE SR for the first time the other day and drew 1.8kW from the charger with my granny cable.

By my calculations, that's £1.83/kWh which seems astronomical -- double what we should be paying at least. Not to mention that the charge was painfully slow.

I haven't tried any other charging plugs or cables.

We have a letter saying that the chargers should give 3.5kW (dated February '21), but this seems unlikely to me because that's not a "standard" charging rate for a fast charger (they all seem to jump to 7kW). If that's the case then the price drops to £0.92/kWh which still seems pretty high even with the current energy prices.

So, I'm keen to get advice from you guys about my next steps.

I guess I should try another charging point and see if I get 3.5kW. If not, I should certainly complain about that. Should I also try a different cable? Should I complain about the price? Do you think I can get a refund on the tokens I've already spent? Is this price even legal?

Any thoughts would be appreciated -- thanks!!

The 3.5kW correlates with a 230V/16A supply and assumes no losses, so it may be that they are saying it is theoretically possible to draw that much. The MG granny charger is limited to 10A, which will give you 2.2kW minus losses which are typically 10-15%, hence you get the 1.8kW result.

A granny charger that supports the full 16A may give you a bit more, but you will probably not get more than 3-3.2kW max and maybe less.

 

[slmorgan42]

I cannot charge at home. I use public chargers. Being charged by the hours seems a rip off.

This was my last charge which was almost 3 hours and at about 9.8 kWh.MG5 FL Trophy has an onboard 11 kWh charger.

 

[Roldorf]

It's private property, they can charge what they like. Don't use them i am sure there will be lots of other places you can charge. Does anyone else use them? If so sell them your tokens.

 

[5teep]

We have a letter saying that the chargers should give 3.5kW (dated February '21), but this seems unlikely to me because that's not a "standard" charging rate for a fast charger (they all seem to jump to 7kW). If that's the case then the price drops to £0.92/kWh which still seems pretty high even with the current energy prices.

3.5kw is quite common, what they have are probably 7kw chargers turned down to 3.5kw. Most likely because the building does not have enough supply to run them all at 7kw.
I run my own charger at 3.5kw and have no issues with overnight charging though different for you of course.
By your calcs even 3.5kw for £3.30 (about 94p per kwh?) is very expensive compared to a standard household rate of 33p per kwh. The flats management probably want to recoup some of the expense of installation.

 

[smokie]

AFAIK nearly all public chargers would be cheaper than that.

 

[andyr0id]

Thanks everyone for your advice! This is my first EV so I'm so glad I asked after just one charge

I will stop using them until they charge per kWh and switch to public chargers.

 

[smokie]

Charging by time on public chargers isn't a bad idea in my view as it stops people just walking off and leaving it for hours on end, and blocking. But the costs ought not be unreasonable for (say) up to an hour on a rapid, which would give most the chance to get to 80%.

 

[Pebble]

IMO, it's wrong that a third party supplier (the "landlord"?), can charge more than they're been charged for the electricity. Sure, they have to make soime profit to cover the equipment but that can be done via a standard, fixed service cost per charge. Overcharging in the leisure industry is certainly frowned upon Electricity and gas in caravan parks ⋆ Energy Advisory Service UK and I for one would like to see OFGEM take an interest in the EV charging cost market.

Should have added that the EV industry is well aware of the VAT element when charging, something that the OP's landlord seems to be taking to the extreme. Why is public EV charging getting so expensive? | Osprey

 

[5teep]

Charging by time on public chargers isn't a bad idea in my view as it stops people just walking off and leaving it for hours on end, and blocking. But the costs ought not be unreasonable for (say) up to an hour on a rapid, which would give most the chance to get to 80%.

Problem with this is that different cars charge at different rates so a car charging at 50kw is going to pay more than someone at 100kw.

 

[smokie]

I'm not sure that matters - an hour is usually enough to get a decent lump of power in. Make it two hours, but at least do something to stop people overstaying