Which Home Charge Point Do You Have?

[Mark Holmes]

Try Travel lodge and Premiere Inn hotels as these also tend to have pod point installed if they have EV charging points and again these are generally free. I did 143 miles the other day and managed to arrive home with nearly a full charge thanks to pod point.. also have a look on Zap Map

 

[KasEV]

@Mike SOS,..
Yes check these hotels as per @Mark Holmes. l also forgot to mention that depending in which city you live in there may be other free charging points. 'Charge Your Car' has and an agreement with some councils etc and provide such services. Check your council and charge your car website.

 

[Lambo51]

I use the Tesco’s in south manchester every other day And especially since the lockdown. You can stay as long as the car park restrictions say. Usually 2/3 hours

 

[KasEV]

@Alambros,
GMEV have many free charging points dotted around Manchester so check your area there may be one. I must however say the Manchester council has made a decision to slowly replaced these with pay charging points. Tesco remains free so there is quite a bunch of regular EV owners who frequently shop at Tesco and take advantage of the free charge while you shop.

 

[Mark Holmes]

I use the Tesco’s in south manchester every other day And especially since the lockdown. You can stay as long as the car park restrictions say. Usually 2/3 hours

Also look at Zap Map as that app may help you, I use Pod Point locally, which I find really good and a lot are free around hotels and shopping complexes etc

 

[Lambo51]

Thanks yes there are a surprising amount of free gmevs dotted around. Have been using them fine until the other day as it was saying app needed an update on iOS .tried installing it again so hopefully no more issues. I’m amazed at how many charges are located around here which is very helpful as I don’t have a driveway

 

[KasEV]

@Alambros,
That is excellent. There is free public charger 400m from my house but it has been out of other for about 18 months. I wrote to the council about it but as you would expect they have a ready-made excuse.. CoVid.
There is nothing one can do when that excuse is thrown at you.
Anyway I did the 'full month free public charging challenge' a few weeks ago. With a bit of patience and planning it was not too difficult to do but I guess the situation will change after lockdown. I intend to do it again next month.

 

[Mike SOS]

TESCO at Sunbury only give you 40 minutes. I have a rather odd thing. The pod point and phone show it charging but the car dash display showing connected in but not charging? Yet when returning back I can see there was a charge!

 

[KasEV]

@Mike SOS,
Not sure why you are offered only 40mins.
Up here it is 2 to 4 hours at most Tescos.
My suspicion is that there may be more EVs in the Thames Catchment Area so a high demand may have been factored in. I believe the Sunbury in question is Sunbury on Thames. Well, I do not know if it is true but apparently along the Thames there are significant clusters of EV owners.
Here up north the old culture is still in play and before lockdown the weekly shop was a major family outing lasting an hour or more not just mins. So the norm is one hour for the paying rapid charge points and 2 to 4 hours for the normal non paying and paying chargers. For the park and ride(pay or free) I think upto 8 hours with no return within 24 hours for the normal chargers.
All the Tescos I use are 2 to 4 hours.

 

[Lambo51]

That’s strange it is not charging.
I press confirm charge on charger app , then plug car in . Display goes from not connected to charging after approx. 20seconds From locking car

 

[Mike SOS]

Yes It's Tesco at Sunbury on Thames Middlesex. I always plug in first and then apply the app. Or should I find the app first before plugging in? The other way to increase the 40 minute limit. Is to unplug and then re plug in again!

 

[KasEV]

@Mike SOS,
Not sure why you are having the 40min limit. The way Pod Point has set up this system is
1. connect charging cable
2. Activate charging if vechile requires such activation ( for ZS EVs this means lock the car. The dash may show connected but not charging for up to 15 secs before turning to connected and charging so please wait for up to 30 secs after locking car to be sure. Please note that there is always a clicking sound indicating locking of the charging cables head. As soon as that click is head, charging will begin in a few seconds. On ZS EV the locking system is program to happen at least 10secs after charging has been activated ie 10secs after locking the door. There are some exceptions depending on DC/AC Rapid etc but don't bother about these)
3. Confirm charging on the pod point app. Confirmation of charging must occur within 15 min after initiating charge.
NB. ALWAYS DO STEP 2 BEFORE STEP 3
4. If above steps followed there would be no issues.
5. Please ensure that both heads of the charging cable are fully pushed in before activating charging.
6. Also for ZS EV always connect car end first to initiate charge and disconnect the car end last when terminating charging session. (You may find differing advise to point 6 elsewhere including in some old manuals but I can assure you that this is most appropriate way to go about it. Explanation too long to type).
Well @Mike SOS, I hope this helps. Please let us know how you get on.

As to why you are getting only 40mins, I do not know why. I have two young EV boffins who tell me that when this happens, it is because people confirm charging on the app before activation of charge by locking the doors. This unfortunately occurs a lot with EV Newbies. When this happens the car will charge for 15mins only. The charge uptake will be equivalent to 35-40mins charge on a 3amp granny charger. My boffins are 90% sure may be what is happening with you.

 

[Chrispydoc]

I have a pod-point charger at home.....works fine 99% of the time. But once it just failed to start to charge, no matter what I did....UNTILL I went in the main house switched off the power to the charger there, for a few seconds...back on again and has been fine since.

 

[Sinkinsd]

Hi members,
I have done about 300 miles now using TESCO free charging Pod Point. I after every charge at 40 minutes that gives me about 15-20 miles. Can someone tell me if there is a limit on many chargers I get from TESCO in one week?
I have to say parking at TESCO electric bays feels like its your own private parking spot and next to a trolley park to.

Which charging cable do you use? We need to buy one so we can take advantage of free topping up.

 

[Pecari]

Hi, I have this charger Ratio Smart Box 32A 1 fase load-balancing

Ratio Smart Laadstation Outlet/ Socket 1 fase 16A - 32A

De Ratio Smart is een hoge kwaliteit EV Laadstation van het type outlet/ socket. Dit laadstation is geschikt voor alle elektrische auto's, voor type 2 en type1.

www.laadkabeldiscounter.nl

and this building has 109 300w solar panels where we live.