Would you have an electric car if you had the money for a new car and were in the market for one?

[KungFooBob]

I can't see in the article if they mention the battery size, it must be tiny if the whole car is under 800kg!

[Count Steer]

I can't see in the article if they mention the battery size, it must be tiny if the whole car is under 800kg!

Probably got a range of about 45 miles and max speed of 35mph...but I haven't read the article yet to see what they're claiming.

If it ever moves on from concept car phase it might get heavier

[Horse]

I can't see in the article if they mention the battery size, it must be tiny if the whole car is under 800kg!

I can't remember details, but their theory is to make the vehicle small and as light to get the most from the battery.

IIRC, they said something like two charges a week and about 25 miles a day. So if some reserve, that's similar to the first Leaf, at about 110 miles range?

[Count Steer]

I can't see in the article if they mention the battery size, it must be tiny if the whole car is under 800kg!

I can't remember details, but their theory is to make the vehicle small and as light to get the most from the battery.

IIRC, they said something like two charges a week and about 25 miles a day. So if some reserve, that's similar to the first Leaf, at about 110 miles range?

They do say two charges a week etc but say nothing about the battery capacity. I guess, as a concept they can simply state what they'd like it to be if it gets into production.

I think a big game changer would be dropping some of the NCAP etc requirements for 'city cars' then they could really start to shed some weight.

[Mussels]

The article seems more about what they could do if EU regulations were relaxed, sounds good to me.

"Fundamentally, I think that the European Commission and all the stakeholders and most of the OEMs are starting to recognise that, especially for small cars, we've [gone] too far in terms of certain types of regulations - and the actual usage by customers is completely disconnected from from the latest active safety regulation that has been put in place,” he told Autocar.

[Rockburner]

The trail has gone cold.

I wouldn't be surprised if he's sacked off the forum completely, going by some of the posts in the political threads.

[Taff]

Just received confirmation of my car order and delivery date of 27th Nov.

BMW i4 40 m sport, tech pack and some other stuff I don't understand.

There's no way that I would pay that much for a car, but as it's a company car lease then it's lovely. I'll barely drive the thing though because I commute on 2 wheels. MrsTaff on the other hand is getting very excited.

There's just a small matter of getting the charge point fitted and the garage door changed so that I can open the garage door with the car parked right up to the door.

[Taipan]

Just received confirmation of my car order and delivery date of 27th Nov.

BMW i4 40 m sport, tech pack and some other stuff I don't understand.

There's no way that I would pay that much for a car, but as it's a company car lease then it's lovely. I'll barely drive the thing though because I commute on 2 wheels. MrsTaff on the other hand is getting very excited.

There's just a small matter of getting the charge point fitted and the garage door changed so that I can open the garage door with the car parked right up to the door.

Worth checking if you actually need a home charger. Lot of people get by on a granny charger (3 pin one) but it depends on your daily mileage.

[KungFooBob]

I've had a quote from the local Ohme franchised dealer to install a 7kw charger, it's £20 (£1090) cheaper than the Octopus quote.

All Octopus want to do is pin a cable from the meter around the outside of the house to the driveway.

The local guy wanst to use the feed from the garage (as mentioned in another thread) including fitting a new garage consumer unit, but also said they could feed it under the floors and that pinning to a wall is the absolute last resort.

[Taipan]

I was so lucky my install was cancelled due to suspected asbestos tiles. I easily manage on a granny charger and a lot of people do. At around a grand for home charge install that equates to an awful lot of EV miles, even with the odd supercharge thrown in!

[KungFooBob]

I don't think the granny charger (if it worked) would give me the 50 miles a day I need from the cheap leccy overnight window.

I charge twice a week at work for free, but it's starting to get to be a bit of a fight to get a charger as more people switch to EVs, the boss says we're getting more chargers, but doesn't know when.

I think having a decent charge at home is not only a safety net, but also adds a bit of value to the house.

[Taipan]

I don't think the granny charger (if it worked) would give me the 50 miles a day I need from the cheap leccy overnight window.

I charge twice a week at work for free, but it's starting to get to be a bit of a fight to get a charger as more people switch to EVs, the boss says we're getting more chargers, but doesn't know when.

I think having a decent charge at home is not only a safety net, but also adds a bit of value to the house.

If you're with octopus on intelligent Go tariff, it'll create a tariff outside of the cheap rate window to ensure you're car is charged (assuming that is possible).

[Slenver]

I know one other person who gets by on the granny charger. Perfectly viable if you only use the car a little, but it's quite a compromise for most people.

We do around 250 miles/week in ours, so that would require around 36 hours of charging a week on a granny, compared to 10. Plus it'd never be ready in time for a decent drive anyway.

Far easier to charge twice a week than have to stick on every night without fail, and still not have enough charge available next morning. Plus, as above, you can take advantage of cheaper times more effectively. We're on Agile rather than a night-time tariff, so it changes every half hour. When it's cheap, you wanna slurp that juice as quickly as possible! I filled up from 5-100% for -£0.03 the other night, getting a full charge in while it was free or negative.

I daresay we've probably saved the grand the charger cost over the last 2 years in leccy, aside from all the practical benefits. I think not having a 7kW charger is not really tapping into the advantages of an EV, which is the convenience around having a full car whenever you want it.

[Couchy]

I've had a quote from the local Ohme franchised dealer to install a 7kw charger, it's £20 (£1090) cheaper than the Octopus quote.

All Octopus want to do is pin a cable from the meter around the outside of the house to the driveway.

The local guy wanst to use the feed from the garage (as mentioned in another thread) including fitting a new garage consumer unit, but also said they could feed it under the floors and that pinning to a wall is the absolute last resort.

Just picking up on this, the local guy wants to use the garage feed which comes from the RCD side of your house feed ?
The house RCD is a type A and will be blinded by the car charger so it won’t work and is not in line with the regs. I’d ask him about this tbh

[Taipan]

Dunno about other EVs but with a Tesla they say ABC = Always Be Charging. So if its not in use it should be left on charge, or plugged into the charger would be more accurate. I (mostly) do this, but as I only use the car at weekends, and even then not every day, its easy for me to keep mine topped up to the 80%. If I was doing Slenvers type mileage than yes, I'd have a Home charger. One thing I have learned is just how many people do use just a home/granny charger and the occasional supplement of a supercharge. Looking at my charge stats you can see why I'll probably never bother with a home charger, especially as I'm still not sure I'll even stay with a EV?

[Couchy]

Our electric car is on a 13A plug, charges at 2kw an hour each night for 7 hours. Has averaged 4miles/kw since we bought it so we get 56 miles a night cheap. Some days it isn’t used so this works for the days it does do 100 miles.
If we need an extra for an unplanned journey it gets put on an hour early and we pay 26p/kwh instead of 6p/kwh.
It would take forever to break even if we spent £1k on a charge point.
As ours was bought purely for cost this works although a 7kw charger would be more convenient.
I do have one lying around so will install it at some point though

[KungFooBob]

I've had a quote from the local Ohme franchised dealer to install a 7kw charger, it's £20 (£1090) cheaper than the Octopus quote.

All Octopus want to do is pin a cable from the meter around the outside of the house to the driveway.

The local guy wanst to use the feed from the garage (as mentioned in another thread) including fitting a new garage consumer unit, but also said they could feed it under the floors and that pinning to a wall is the absolute last resort.

Just picking up on this, the local guy wants to use the garage feed which comes from the RCD side of your house feed ?
The house RCD is a type A and will be blinded by the car charger so it won’t work and is not in line with the regs. I’d ask him about this tbh

I gave him a detailed explanation and sent photos of the CU and the garage fuse box. He did say that he'd be fitting some surge protection if that helps, I dunno.

I guess worst case, he could moved the garage MCB to the none RCD side of the CU with the lights and stuff.

If the installer turns up and says no, then it's going under the floor instead.

[Slenver]

Dunno about other EVs but with a Tesla they say ABC = Always Be Charging. So if its not in use it should be left on charge, or plugged into the charger would be more accurate. I (mostly) do this, but as I only use the car at weekends, and even then not every day, its easy for me to keep mine topped up to the 80%.

There's also a very dull pragmatic point in terms of charging location. In our case, we have a fairly long driveway (check us out! etc) with garage and charger at the end of it. I mean, it's not like it's a long walk or anything, but it's certainly easier to just park outside the house where it's closer, and not fanny about with either walking in the rain or cables. It just sits there like a normal car, and then once or twice a week it's parked overnight by the garage instead.

A small detail, but would definitely be significantly irksome to *have* to go and charge it every night. Think the missus would long have got bored of all the plugging in etc by now. Or I would, seeing as it's somehow considered a blue job and she rarely bothers either way.

[Taipan]

Dunno about other EVs but with a Tesla they say ABC = Always Be Charging. So if its not in use it should be left on charge, or plugged into the charger would be more accurate. I (mostly) do this, but as I only use the car at weekends, and even then not every day, its easy for me to keep mine topped up to the 80%.

There's also a very dull pragmatic point in terms of charging location. In our case, we have a fairly long driveway (check us out! etc) with garage and charger at the end of it. I mean, it's not like it's a long walk or anything, but it's certainly easier to just park outside the house where it's closer, and not fanny about with either walking in the rain or cables. It just sits there like a normal car, and then once or twice a week it's parked overnight by the garage instead.

A small detail, but would definitely be significantly irksome to *have* to go and charge it every night. Think the missus would long have got bored of all the plugging in etc by now. Or I would, seeing as it's somehow considered a blue job and she rarely bothers either way.

S'why mine isn't always plugged in. I have to be second down the drive for the charge cable to reach and as we use mine at the weekends, hers is in that place then, and I CBA to swap them around for a minimal charge. I gather a lot of folk do plug their cars in when they get home as a matter of course though. Also surprised to find there are quite a few with no home charging option and they only use superchargers etc. You must really want a EV to have to do that each time!

[Slenver]

Also surprised to find there are quite a few with no home charging option and they only use superchargers etc. You must really want a EV to have to do that each time!

Yeah, I don't really understand that. I have a mate like that. Very wealthy, not interested in fuel/electricity cost at all, but has to drive into town every few days and wait around for a couple of hours. Mental. May as well just have an ICE car and fill up more quickly.

For us, of the various EV benefits, the cost saving is probably top. We charge commercially once or twice a year.