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

[Nordboy]

We had our ohme charger fitted yesterday so we used it last night. We already had 41% battery. It automatically came on at 00.30'ish and stopped at 05.30, 39% or 126 miles put in to top up. £2.38 it cost which is pretty good.

Just need to keep on top of it now as the wife will absolutely forget to charge it, then it'll be my fault that she needs the car and I haven't charged it. Getting her to change the way she thinks and just keep topping it up between 20-80% is proving a bit challenging to say the least.

I'm going to see how we get on, then really consider changing my Mini for a second electric car. Then the fun will start with who is charging what nights etc.

[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

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.

I guess he doesn’t know the garage CU is fed by the RCD side and yeah he could move it. He may also question the 6 mm feed to the garage CU as that’ll be big enough for the car charger but not anything else as well in the garage

[Couchy]

We had our ohme charger fitted yesterday so we used it last night. We already had 41% battery. It automatically came on at 00.30'ish and stopped at 05.30, 39% or 126 miles put in to top up. £2.38 it cost which is pretty good.

Just need to keep on top of it now as the wife will absolutely forget to charge it, then it'll be my fault that she needs the car and I haven't charged it. Getting her to change the way she thinks and just keep topping it up between 20-80% is proving a bit challenging to say the least.

I'm going to see how we get on, then really consider changing my Mini for a second electric car. Then the fun will start with who is charging what nights etc.

Stick one on the 13A plug, cheap electric for both then

[Nordboy]

We had our ohme charger fitted yesterday so we used it last night. We already had 41% battery. It automatically came on at 00.30'ish and stopped at 05.30, 39% or 126 miles put in to top up. £2.38 it cost which is pretty good.

Just need to keep on top of it now as the wife will absolutely forget to charge it, then it'll be my fault that she needs the car and I haven't charged it. Getting her to change the way she thinks and just keep topping it up between 20-80% is proving a bit challenging to say the least.

I'm going to see how we get on, then really consider changing my Mini for a second electric car. Then the fun will start with who is charging what nights etc.

Stick one on the 13A plug, cheap electric for both then

That's a shout actually, keep one on the trickle and charge the other on the ohme. I'm going to see how many times a week she actually needs to charge the car overnight, I'm thinking two, maybe three nights which wont be an issue then with a second car.

[KungFooBob]

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new- ... ing-thrill

I'll take two!

[Taipan]

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new- ... ing-thrill

I'll take two!

Performance without sound, vibes and gear changes etc just doesn't work for me. I watched Ben Hillman (Stig) taking a Tesla round the Nürburgring and its just not right!

[Slenver]

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new- ... ing-thrill

I'll take two!

Performance without sound, vibes and gear changes etc just doesn't work for me. I watched Ben Hillman (Stig) taking a Tesla round the Nürburgring and its just not right!

Collins?

[Taipan]

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new- ... ing-thrill

I'll take two!

Performance without sound, vibes and gear changes etc just doesn't work for me. I watched Ben Hillman (Stig) taking a Tesla round the Nürburgring and its just not right!

Collins?

Yeh, I think thats the chap. Hillmans off a place in the sun! D'oh!

[Taipan]

Video in question...

[Dodgy69]

Thought they'd be more tyre noise, as in fast noise not corner noise.

[KungFooBob]

As mentioned before, my car makes a lovely (artificial) noise when giving it some in Sports mode.

Not only that, but when I use the launch control, it makes a limiter bouncing type noise and the car shakes

[Sunny]

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.

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!

I bought a 10m charging cable, cos I'm lazy and CBA to park inside the second gate, near the garage. Pricey, but solved the distance issue.

[Sunny]

Also, for those considering getting an EV, I got my charger install free from Octopus, when I took out one of their leases, so I suspect it's worth keeping an eye out to see if they do a similar offer again.

[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.

It appears that the BMW offers on the i4 are just too damned good and lots of people are ordering them. The lease company fella that I spoke to earlier said that nearly every car that he's processed recently has been an i4.

Delivery forecast pushed back to early March

[Taipan]

3-4 months away! That could really mess with your plans! Is there any guarantee that wont get pushed back again?

[Taff]

Yeah, It's a bit of a pain and no, there's no guarantee that it won't be brought forward or back.
But, it's pretty much a freebie company car that I don't have to have, I can have the cash instead and give lots of it to the tax man but that doesn't make much sense. So waiting a while isn't really the end of the world.

[Silly Car]

Finally got details of the work scheme:

Personal contract hire novated to employer to collect and make payments
Payments deducted gross from gross salary
Four year lease on new or nearly new EV or hybrid (in excess of 75 mile battery range)
Contract cannot be terminated in first 2 years, after which 50% of remaining payment must be made although insurance can be bought against loss of role
If hirer leaves service, payment responsibility (for gross amount) passes to hirer
No deposit but monthly instalments appear to be 15-20% higher than retail options (on same terms)
Monthly lease payments Loss can include insurance, tax, maintenance & tyres (all at extra cost)
Mileage rates between 7p and 12p (iirc) per mile

Example sourced by colleague: BMW IX4, insurance, tax, maintenance etc included (not sure on annual mileage) circa £1400 pm, total cost £67,200 with option to buy at end at whatever current market value. Current on the road price, circa £68k

Alternatively, i can keep taking the taxable monthly allowance and get HMRC mileage allowance based on engine / fuel, have to pay for own insurance, tax, servicing and maintenance etc.

Given how the numbers stack up, I’ve just swapped my 2019 520D SE Xdrive tourer plus a chunk of change for a 2022 520D MHT M Sport Xdrive tourer plus as i just couldn’t make the car scheme figures work for me. The plan is to plough car and mileage allowance into savings account to fund any ongoing costs / restore savings

I’ll revisit it if car allowance gets a significant increase or the scheme improves dramatically.

[KungFooBob]

I have had my leccy car three months now and the app provides some stats...

2,824 miles covered over 184 trips.

I've charged it 889kwh which took 138h24m

I've averaged 3.4 miles/kWh

All bar 4kwh from the (free) chargers at work.

The temp drop hasn't changed the average miles/kwh, but that's probably me getting more used to the car and deploying the full 540bhp less often

[Slenver]

My missus's's's work lease Q4 is up in Feb, so after 2 years of trying an EV she's had to make a decision as to what to get next.

She's very adventurous so has gone for...

...the same model Q4.

Different colour though, so there's that.

[Taipan]

Had mine a while now. Still wouldn't call myself an EV convert as such, but the economy is amazing, even ridiculous. So, its not going anywhere yet, especially now i'm pimping it out!