Mg4 new owner

[Deleted member 10041]

I'm certainly intending on keeping the car long-term! I have a history of keeping cars until they fall apart (or in the case of the last one, are nudged over the edge by an idiot who trusted his child's word for it that the road was clear). I think this may be my last car, and I'm hoping it keeps going until I'm too decrepit to be capable of driving one. Whenever that may be!

You do produce a neat cleft stick. Use the granny charger exclusively and set fire to your house. Or spare the granny charger by using the rapid charger sometimes, and bugger the battery.

On the other hand practically everybody must use rapid chargers from time to time, some probably a lot more often than I do, and isn't the SR battery supposed to be more robust in this respect than the LR?

All these conversations are actually really helpful in terms of making up my mind on the issue, and I genuinely thank everyone contributing.

You have time to make a decision, it doesn't matter what any of us say, you will do what's right for you.
Here's hoping come July prices have dropped a bit more. By that time you can evaluate your mileage/costs for the few months you've had the car and then make an informed decision.
Something else to consider as you are in for the long term, companies like Bumblebeeev do 0% finance deals.
The also accept the Scottish rural grant, something else for you to throw into your thinking. Not a bad company to deal with.

A fast charge once a week isn't going to have a major detrimental impact on your battery

 

[Rolfe]

Coincidentally, when I looked at the suppliers accepted by the Scottish Rural Grant, the only one within ten miles is a house I walk past on my way to the village charge-point. But actually I don't know the guy and you're supposed to get at least three quotes anyway.

It's still a dilemma. I don't actually need the thing. If I simply plugged the car into the granny charger every time I came home, it would be a rare day indeed when I wouldn't be able to get enough charge to cover me for the next day. But all the talk about electrical safety does make me pause.

I need to do more arithmetic.

 

[Deleted member 10041]

Coincidentally, when I looked at the suppliers accepted by the Scottish Rural Grant, the only one within ten miles is a house I walk past on my way to the village charge-point. But actually I don't know the guy and you're supposed to get at least three quotes anyway.

It's still a dilemma. I don't actually need the thing. If I simply plugged the car into the granny charger every time I came home, it would be a rare day indeed when I wouldn't be able to get enough charge to cover me for the next day. But all the talk about electrical safety does make me pause.

I need to do more arithmetic.

Bumblebee EV are more of a middle man (in East Kilbride) they the appoint a local fitter to you, like I say good company

 

[Rolfe]

I'll make a note of the recommendation, thank you.

 

[Deleted member 10041]

I'll make a note of the recommendation, thank you.

Your welcome, in the meantime get abusing the village charger?

You should see the contract, it explicitly mentions being nice about the French car!

I have an unresolved issue with the French car, which is a shame as it had been faultless, they have had a go at fixing it and it has been traced back to a production line fault when it was built.
The only bonus is it does not impact the way it runs,charges etc and the Google software is outstanding. We shall see where it goes with plan B.

 

[tsedge]

I have an unresolved issue with the French car, which is a shame as it had been faultless, they have had a go at fixing it and it has been traced back to a production line fault when it was built.
The only bonus is it does not impact the way it runs,charges etc and the Google software is outstanding. We shall see where it goes with plan B.

Sorry to hear that, but I suppose lucky it doesn't affect the drive. Hope they can sort it out. Everything is fine with my MG4 at the moment but I am obviously nervous of the service experience if anything does go wrong.

 

[Deleted member 10041]

Sorry to hear that, but I suppose lucky it doesn't affect the drive. Hope they can sort it out. Everything is fine with my MG4 at the moment but I am obviously nervous of the service experience if anything does go wrong.

Can't fault Renault customer service or my local garage, service has been outstanding. Fault is in relation to the bonding of the aluminium wing onto the chassis. Somewhere on the wing it is letting a tiny bit of water in, this built up over the first four months until I noticed a small damp patch in the passenger footwell when I was hoovering the car. They had it in right away and have water tested the life out of it and still can't trace it fully back, despite stripping the carpets out of it. The only confirmed a small amount of water was showing in the footwell the following morning after prolonged water testing.

 

[Rip Van]

Do people really do that for 15mins free charge? Wow - I know things are tight but that’s taking it to extremes.

Yes, they certainly do!

 

[siteguru]

Bumblebee EV are more of a middle man (in East Kilbride) they the appoint a local fitter to you, like I say good company

FWIW it was Bumblebee EV who I used to get my Wallbox Pulsar Plus home charge point.

-£350 OZEV grant
-£250 Energy Trust Scotland grant
-£500 from Volvo (in lieu of a "free" charge point, for a company car order that Volvo ultimately cancelled)
+£940 cost for the fitted charge point

=Free charge point plus £160 to me. ?

That's why getting a home charge point was a no-brainer for me. ?

 

[bowfer]

Yes, they certainly do!

What’s the logistics of this?
Does someone stay in the car and constantly get in/out to plug/unplug?
You’d think the chargers would be set in such a manner that they have a time span between charges, like a minute or two, rather than instantly resetting in seconds.

 

[Deleted member 10041]

What’s the logistics of this?
Does someone stay in the car and constantly get in/out to plug/unplug?
You’d think the chargers would be set in such a manner that they have a time span between charges, like a minute or two, rather than instantly resetting in seconds.

Not sure of the logistics, it's been discussed in here though, it's got to be one of the tightest most embarrassing things I've heard off.

 

[Rip Van]

What’s the logistics of this?
Does someone stay in the car and constantly get in/out to plug/unplug?
You’d think the chargers would be set in such a manner that they have a time span between charges, like a minute or two, rather than instantly resetting in seconds.

Someone I know told me they do this. They were quite matter of fact about it and I never gave any thought to the morals of it. They just did it because they could.

 

[Ian Key]

I suppose it's better than trundling around the shop after the wife/husband/partner

 

[ukslim]

As the country transitions to electric, we're going to have to establish the infrastructure for people who can't or won't get a home charger. We need it not to be true that "I live on a Victorian terrace, and I hunt for a parking space every evening, so I can't have an EV".

"The village charger" is part of the answer to that. I say use it; obviously show some etiquette; but if if contention becomes frequent, that's a sign that it's time to add another village charger (it may also be a sign that being free is no longer sustainable, but it could still be cheap).

As I've said in other threads, one week in, and not having bought a home charger yet, I'm surprised by how viable the public charging lifestyle is already. I would never have guessed.

I still think we ought to be expecting residential streets to be flooded with (maybe 3.5kW) in-kerb chargers, and likewise supermarket car parks and so on. 2030 isn't so far away.

 

[Rolfe]

It's not free! (It used to be, but they slapped charges on it about a year ago.) It's 30p/KWh, for a 50 KW CCS connector, maximum stay 55 min. That's marginally cheaper than my domestic electricity supply.

It's still not heavily used even though there are two people living close to the charger who have electric cars and no home charging (mid-terrace houses).

 

[CarlMG4]

It's not free! (It used to be, but they slapped charges on it about a year ago.) It's 30p/KWh, for a 50 KW CCS connector, maximum stay 55 min. That's marginally cheaper than my domestic electricity supply.

It's still not heavily used even though there are two people living close to the charger who have electric cars and no home charging (mid-terrace houses).

It's 30p/kWh for 7KW chargers near me, granted there are still some free ones in/near a few of my usual destination car parks - CYC (now BP Pulse) but they require an RFID card as the app can't see them and the CYC app is defunct ? I'm just awaiting the card to make use of convenient top up charging at my usual stays.

 

[Rolfe]

I just got a free top-up with my ChargePlace Scotland card while lunching at Dawyck Botanic Gardens. Not a lot though because it's only about 13 miles from home, so the car was already at 93% when I started!