EV charging

Go on then, I'll bite. Why is it a con?

 

You can't guarantee that Zapmap is accurate...it show two near to me, one is non existent the other is owned by the Council and isn't for public use.

 

There are several apps to find chargers - ZapMap is probably the one most well known and widely used, and I've never come a cropper with it. But I've seen lots of people say that the best one is WattsUp. But it only covers rapids, not destination chargers.

 

I assume the prices were great so as to entice people into thinking EVs were the next best thing.

A previous poster mentioned the "expectation of lower prices". Of course you should expect lower prices! If the Government genuinely believed that the world is in trouble from CO2 and global warming, they'd be doing absolutely everything in their power to make EVs and their subsequent charging as cheap as possible. But they don't. Why? In my opinion they know "going electric" makes not one blind bit of difference and it's just another way to keep the money coming in now everyone has been gaslit into thinking burning fossil fuels is bad.

 

We don't live in a communist state so it's not really in the government's gift to make EVs and charging as cheap as possible. The market ultimately will dictate prices for both. The govt previously offered grants which are never the best idea as they are just abused by the providers (the manufacturers) to push the price up. The govt still offers great salary sacrifice benefit in kind rates which is why so many EVs are sourced that way. I would like to see them extend such schemes to all people regardless of whether their employer offers the facility. Or something like the interest free loan option that is/ was available in Scotland. But other than that, their influence is limited.

As volumes go up, the prices of EVs vs ICE are starting to align more and more now, won't be long before they are generally cheaper than an ICE car. Simple market economies.

As for charging, completely not the govts business to influence charging costs. Its a private market. Put a cap on it and it just disincentivises investment. Their job is to facilitate the continued rapid expansion of the network by removing barriers or enforcing targets for rollout of infrastructure. One really good idea would be to push / force / incentivise all employers to provide at work charging. Eg. Mandatory number of chargers per parking space for employers of a certain size, as if you can't charge at home, there is no other better place to charge than at work, because the car is parked up for hours.

As for whether going electric makes not a blind bit of difference, well even if you believe that from a climate change perspective, the local air quality argument is beyond debate. And the reason they will ultimately become ubiquitous and will fully replace the internal combustion engine is that they are just....better.

Edit - What the government COULD do, and I wouldn't be surprised to see it happen if this Labour government want to reach their 2030 target is not to incentivise EVs, but rather disincentivise ICE. For example, expect to see the 10 year freeze on petrol duty come to an end very soon. If there is any time for this government to do unpopular stuff for the greater good, its now, when they have 5 years for people to get over it.

 

In your opinion

 

Dont put the air-con on..

 

You would think this could be a viable option, however the main stumbling block with this is the impact on commercial vehicles who for various reasons will be a long long time before it becomes viable for HGV firms to move away from Diesel fuel in the majority.

 

I’ve had my EV just over 2 years and never charged anywhere other than home on a 7KW charger- that gets me around 270 miles on a full charge, and granted I’ve never had the need to go further than that in one trip and back but that’s been enough both years to Blackpool and back for a weekend away. I don’t need any more.

I’m on OVO energy special 7p per KW/hr rate for EVs which works out about 2p per mile. Saved a fortune in running cost + it’s a company car and has saved me around £3k a year in tax too.

 

Had my EV for a year now and would never go back to petrol. Others may think otherwise, fine.

On Octopus Inteliigent go, 7p per kwh and don't forget, you get 6 hours of cheap electric every night, regardless whether the car is on charge. The whole house runs on cheap electric, so my electric bill is actually lower than when I had a petrol car.

Been touring around Scotland, so easy to find chargers and now ChargePlaceScotland is linked with Electroverse, so you can charge via the app all over the country and get a 8% discount. If you are visiting somewhere, use the 22kw chargers which are cheaper than the fast chargers. This is the only time I have needed to use public chargers, rest of the time it's charged at home.

This is all before you get into the driving experience which is way better than a petrol car, again in my opinion.

 

We’ve had our Ev for a couple of years now, as we’re both retired it is great for us, wife sticks it on charge at home and off she goes again simples. My big gripe though is with some of the battery sizes, our car is fine but I own a petrol Vauxhall Combo life as we have 2 dogs and I go fishing, however to go electric they only do a 50kw battery which would limit a trip to less than 100 miles without a charge to get home, just doesn’t make sense for what is effectively a family suv. Surely the manufacturers must realise this.

 

I wouldn't necessarily let that put you off - remember that you only need to put enough in to get you home (plus a sensible buffer) where you can charge it up again on cheap rate. So if you do a 300 mile round trip and you leave with a full battery, you're probably looking at putting 130 miles in at rapid prices. It would still be much cheaper overall than the same round trip in a petrol car.

I do agree though, for some reason, all the Stellantis cars seem to be under endowed in the battery size dept except the newer Peugeot SUV.

 

I have an hoke charger with octopus and I pay 6.5p per kwh during charging that rate also applies to the whole house during any charging time and every night off peak 11pm to 6.30am as a minimum.

I'm getting around 320 to 350 miles range on a full charge costing around 5.00 give or take a couple of pence

So home charging is the way to go. Get an allowance paid back from government at 9p per mile for business journeys

 

The thing with fast chargers, they are very expensive for the companies to purchase and thw infrastructure costs are incredibly expensive too. I work for a company that sells these as part of our portfolio and it's not as simple as stick a charger in and then charge the public, there is a lot of extra costs involved for I.T systems, contact less payments etc ... list is endless. For a large charger your looking at a cost for one over 100K dependent on what else needs to be done. So that amount of money has to be paid back to the companies from the public users.

 

Absolutely. I understand that. The companies charge a cost per kwh that includes a return on the investment and to allow further investment. You're never going to see costs from a rapid charger that are anywhere near the costs from home, or even from a destination charger, which don't cost too much more to deploy than the one you have at home.

The thing that gets me though is the quite marked variation in cost between operators. How come some can charge 63p, like the E.ON's in Dodworth, and some are 85p like Instavolts. That's a third more expensive.

Tesla are clearly working to a different model - they are not a charging company and their charger network is a draw to help them sell cars. So they are only charging to cover the running costs and can swallow the sunk costs.

I used to prioritise using Instavolt when I first got an EV 4 years ago because the infrastructure was nowhere near what it is now and it was important to seek out the ones with a reputation for reliability, and bugger the cost, although they were all a lot cheaper then anyway. That was Instavolt - they were head and shoulders the most reliable amongst some pretty ropey competition.

Now though, the market is different. It has expanded enormously, and with only a couple of exceptions (Geniepoint, some BP Pulse), most are reliable. So cost comparisons now may start to play a bigger part. I actively avoid Instavolt now and treat them as a last resort because they are just about the most expensive. And if lots of people start to do that, what's the point of spending 100k installing a charger and have it under utilised because you cost too much? Surely some of these prices at the top end have to start coming down.

 

Most modern EVs get over 400 miles on a full battery so £14 is massively cheaper than filling a tank on an internal combustion vehicle. Assuming the £14 was from almost empty to completely charged of course. But even if it were only a 50% charge, that's £14 for 200 miles compared to something like £30 plus for petrol/diesel. Also remember as others have said, this is the most expensive charging network. Current domestic electricity is now about 25p per Kwh so the equivalent charging cost at home would be about £5.

 

They're still low though, l work in Leeds - in the last 12 months my cars electric was £1300 cheaper than what l was paying with petrol. And thats with the high prices we've been paying, I'd never go back to a petrol car - l love everything about the electric cars.