Home charging - Does it stop costing £ once car is fully charged?

[Martyn2909]

Scenario - I am charging my car at home. The car becomes fully charged at 2am. The car remains plugged in until 7am...

Will the 5 hours (2am-7am) still cost money even though the car is fully charged or does the costing stop at 100% charged?

 

[Dwigt]

EVs typically switch to trickle charging once full, I'd imagine that would cost you a few pennies, but not much. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[Jomarkh]

The charger is built into the car and will drop the current at 100% and balance the battery cells once that is done the car will turn off the EVSE charge point.

 

[Robf]

No it wont cost you.

 

[Alb]

EVs typically switch to trickle charging once full

They don't switch to trickle charge but they do switch to what is known as a balance charge if the BMS deems that is required. This will equalise the charge on every individual battery cell and may run for several hours, but only at a load of a few hundred Watts. When this is complete or if the BMS decides it isn't required, the charger will disconnect.

 

[tsedge]

They don't switch to trickle charge but they do switch to what is known as a balance charge if the BMS deems that is required. This will equalise the charge on every individual battery cell and may run for several hours, but only at a load of a few hundred Watts. When this is complete or if the BMS decides it isn't required, the charger will disconnect.

My experience agrees with this - and once the balance is done the car tells the charger to stop and no current is then drawn.

 

[siteguru]

Ditto here ... the car signals to my charge point to stop providing the supply, so the charge point switches to the Waiting state.

 

[FiferMG4]

I did a charge from 50% to 100% last night and it looks like the car was performing some balancing for around half an hour and then it has completed the charge. Here’s a screenshot of the Zappi charge history.