Is it possible to totally run an EV on just a Granny charger? 🤔

[Nstric]

Yes. We just use the granny charger on Octopus Go - 4 hours of 9p /kWh gives 15% on standard range MG5. We have it on a digital timer plugin. Used it like that for the last 6 months and always been fine.

7 days a week, it works out at basically 1 full run of 215 miles each week, for a total of about £4.50. Basically nothing compared to running the fridge and PC.

 

[Ruislip Resident]

How much is it at Costco ? Academic anyway ,the nearest to me is 20 miles away and no chargers

Its actually free. But it is a pain because you need to go into the store and get a member of staff to come over with a RFID card to activate the charge point. Who has the RFID card varies from store to store. You use your own charge cable. Parking is up to 3 hours. It's 7kw. I did it just the once just to check it would work in case I ever need to use it.

 

[Rolfe]

The weather has become pretty horrible, making the five-minute walk each way to my local rapid charger a lot less attractive. My home electricity tariff has come down a bit and it's now a bit lower than the public charger, which remains at 30p per unit. And I do know that AC charging is better for the battery than DC charging.

So, I'm going to try to run completely on the granny charger for now. (I'm still looking into solar and a battery and a variable tariff.) In practice this means plugging in whenever the SoC gets below about 70%, which is a nine-hour charging time to 100%. It also means that after a long journey taking the SoC lower than that charging will probably continue into the following day. If I need the car before it's reached 100% I'll just use it, but put it back on the granny lead as soon as convenient to let it get to 100% and balance. We'll see how I get on.

I did a lot of driving on Wednesday, starting at 100% and getting home at 12%. I looked at the public charger sitting unoccupied as I neared home, but thought, it's 11.30 and it's raining and what I really want is to go to bed. So I just went home and plugged in. By 8.30 am it was around 45%, which would have been OK for a local journey, but as it happened I didn't need it until the evening, and by 8 pm it was at 85%. I used it that evening and the next day, but I didn't go far altogether, and then I let it go to 100% and balance 48 hours after the interrupted charge.

An option I had was to let the car sit on a destination charger in a multi-storey car park while I was at the theatre in the evening of the long-journey day, at 40p a unit. I thought about it but decided, since I didn't need the car the following day and I had enough charge to get home, I'd pass on that and go for my home tariff instead. But that option is one I have available if range is looking questionable in the winter when I go to the theatre.

 

[Davn]

Is there really anyone at all who isn't in a position to spend half an hour on a rapid once in a while? It's just a back-stop in case the system gets a bit out of synch. (Of course the rapid here is only 30p per unit, which does make the decision easier.)

Any one used an Instavolt lately, I used 1 in Rugeley this morning, 85p a unit

 

[Rolfe]

I think that's standard. It's a scandal. But if you just used a rapid charger once in a while to tide you over if your granny charger hadn't kept up with your usage on the occasional week, it wouldn't add up to a lot.

I'm kind of lucky, the rapid that's five minutes walk from my house is 30p.

 

[Rolfe]

Trip to the theatre last night. Barely 100 miles but got back on only 33% charge because it was cold and I had the heater on. Arrived home and plugged in about 11.40. By morning there was plenty to do local runs if I'd needed the car (over 60% I think). Car finished its 100% balance charge about 6.15 in the evening and is now full and ready for anything.

I'm just going to carry on like this and see if I encounter a situation where the car doesn't have sufficient charge for something I want to do. I have options - type 2 chargers in the car park by the theatre, or the rapid charger at the end of the street here - but so far no need to use them.

 

[Rolfe]

Of course, there is this...

charger help - what happened?

Hi all Any one else had their granny charger moulded plug melt down? Have had our ZS LR since April Almost exclusively granny charger charged (1, 20 min rapid chrge in July). Never used an extension, have socket in porch direct out to car. Got stuck in a motorway jam on Thursday and ended up...

www.mgevs.com

 

[tonybridge]

I'm off to a wedding this weekend in Worcester - I'll be traveling from Maidenhead, so about 135 miles via the M4. I have about 205 miles in the tank, so I'll need to top up somewhere to do the round trip. I called the hotel to see if they have EV chargers - they haven't, but: 'if you have an extension lead, you're welcome to plug into one of our sockets - we'll charge you £15' Which sounds OK to me. Still, I'm not sure about using my plain vanilla Homebase extension lead with my Granny Charger, should I need to. Any advice would be welcome!

 

[the happy bunny]

£15 just to use their socket… it should be complimentary!

 

[Ruislip Resident]

I would get a decent waterproof one. Screwfix do some decent ones. I agree the £15 is high. For £15 you may get more kwh from a rapid charger elsewhere

 

[tsedge]

£15 just to use their socket… it should be complimentary!

I think £15 is reasonable and likely to be what someone would use overnight.

There isn't really any such thing as complementary- just expensive hotels where the "free" stuff is built into the price.

 

[Rolfe]

I got one of these. Note they have a range of lengths.

EV granny charger 13A weatherproof extension lead

High quality 13A weatherproof outdoor waterproof extension leads heavy duty 1.5mm H07RN-F rubber cable. RCD option. IP66. Designed specifically to overcome the issue created by chunkier plugs on electric vehicles (EVs). 2m, 5m, 10m, 15m, 20m and 25m lengths.

toughleads.co.uk

I haven't used it yet but I think it's a wise precaution to have one.

 

[Rolfe]

In other news, two trips on Wednesday - morning 45 miles, afternoon 30 miles. What with an extra 6 miles unexpectedly on Tuesday, I had done 80+ miles and was down to about 33%. Plugged in about 7.15 and was done by lunchtime Thursday.

3pm Thursday set off to do an 80-mile round trip. I came back higher than I otherwise might have done because I spent £5 on a Tesla supercharger where I stopped for dinner, just to see how it worked. Very well actually. Plugged in around 10pm, car charged by about 10 am.

Given that there are other convenient chargers around, especially the destination chargers in the car park in Glasgow that I usually use, I could easily arrange to come home on a relatively high SoC from a longer trip, to cut down time on the granny charger if I needed the car the next day. Hasn't happened yet though.

I realise this isn't "totally" running on the granny charger, which could have some limitations if your mileage occurs at the wrong times, but not having a wall box isn't hard if you can just pick up a bit of extra charge where you're parked anyway, when out and about.

 

[tonybridge]

Thanks for the replies... I think £15 is not unreasonable, if I'm using the hotel's power, don't see why they should have to pay? I forgot to mention that I had purchased an 8-metre 'granny' charger, so may well be able to get away without my extension lead - but the question really was, if I had to use my Homebase extension lead (not charger!), would that be safe?

 

[siteguru]

I use an extension lead that was gifted to me by my work when I retired. (It's a 4-gang unit with a fairly long, heavy grade 3-core cable attached and a beefy 3-pin plug. It's the type of extension that was used for powering multiple Dell server machines which have a fairly hefty load, especially at start-up). It's not waterproof, but I use a plastic shopping bag as a wrap-around of the 4-gang section to give some weather protection, and try to locate it away from direct rainfall (e.g. under the car). I also use the first socket nearest the cable entry.

I'd be hesitant about using a Homebase extension unless it is also a heavy duty unit.

As to using the hotel's electricity ... you can quite easily work out how much kWh you've used:

(End % - Start %) x 61.7kWh = kWh stored in the car.
A granny lead is typically 80% efficient, so actual kWh used is the above kWh / 0.8
Cost is then the above figure x the hotel's unit rate in p per kWh

Let's say you add 40% SoC so that would be 0.4 x 61.7 = 24.68kWh. Usage would thus be 30.85kWh. If the hotel's unit rate is, say, 50p (businesses often get charged more than domestic customers, plus they get charged VAT at 20% not 5%) then cost would be £15.42. So a flat rate of £15 may be reasonable.

 

[Rolfe]

Thanks for the replies... I think £15 is not unreasonable, if I'm using the hotel's power, don't see why they should have to pay? I forgot to mention that I had purchased an 8-metre 'granny' charger, so may well be able to get away without my extension lead - but the question really was, if I had to use my Homebase extension lead (not charger!), would that be safe?

I think £10 would be nearer the mark, but I suppose they want to have their cut.

ETA: I defer to @siteguru's more detailed arithmetic.

 

[Davn]

I'm off to a wedding this weekend in Worcester - I'll be traveling from Maidenhead, so about 135 miles via the M4. I have about 205 miles in the tank, so I'll need to top up somewhere to do the round trip. I called the hotel to see if they have EV chargers - they haven't, but: 'if you have an extension lead, you're welcome to plug into one of our sockets - we'll charge you £15' Which sounds OK to me. Still, I'm not sure about using my plain vanilla Homebase extension lead with my Granny Charger, should I need to. Any advice would be welcome!

Power wise wouldn't be an issue but I'd suggest a waterproof box of some sort.

 

[tonybridge]

I think £10 would be nearer the mark, but I suppose they want to have their cut.

ETA: I defer to @siteguru's more detailed arithmetic.

And they would be helping me out of a potential hole, so I'm OK with that.

But when all is said and done, maybe I should spend some time during the inevitable disco (snore...) checking out charging points on the way back home

Despite all this charging angst, I could never go back to an old steam-driven banger, much though I loved my Beemer's 3-litre growl on full chat

 

[Gadget Geek]

Just make sure the extension lead is rated for the current load. The thickness of the lead should be the same or greater than the thickness of the granny lead.

 

[Gomev]

And they would be helping me out of a potential hole, so I'm OK with that.

But when all is said and done, maybe I should spend some time during the inevitable disco (snore...) checking out charging points on the way back home

Despite all this charging angst, I could never go back to an old steam-driven banger, much though I loved my Beemer's 3-litre growl on full chat

There are plenty of rapid chargers around Worcester. When I passed through recently I was spoiled for choice where to stop. Personally I'd not bother with the faffing about but take the simple option and have a blast on one of those.