EV Thread

[mik]

We don’t pay for electricity, well, we do but the solar panels generate enough to keep payment checks coming from the grid each quarter.

Do you have a storage battery? We have solar panels rated at just over 3kW but no storage. It’s great to think that they will provide around 45% of what is fed to the car on a sunny day, and yes I get a payment every quarter for what we’ve supplied back to the mains, but it’s at something pitiful like 5.5p / kWH. Hence - it’s not a very big return payment!

[Zonda_]

We don’t pay for electricity, well, we do but the solar panels generate enough to keep payment checks coming from the grid each quarter.

Do you have a storage battery? We have solar panels rated at just over 3kW but no storage. It’s great to think that they will provide around 45% of what is fed to the car on a sunny day, and yes I get a payment every quarter for what we’ve supplied back to the mains, but it’s at something pitiful like 5.5p / kWH. Hence - it’s not a very big return payment!

No we don’t have a battery. Not sure exactly how much we get back buts it’s decent.

[V8Granite]

Then you have fuse ratings to homes. Not an issue now with many but when you need an electric boiler or heat pump and an electric car, it will be an issue.

The idea that the grid can cope is laughable.

Dave!

They'll upgrade that FOC. Well, at least here they do. That reminds me, I need to chase ours. We were recently "de-looped" as they went back through old records and ours popped up as having a charger but no changes to our supply. Next door was fed via our house so they've now had a separate supply installed and Electricity NW were supposed to come back and upgrade our fuse.

The problem is you can only get the fuse when the line can handle it. With roads that have extensions, extra homes built etc you can’t just keep adding higher current fuses.

We will push for one when we do our side drive as I think it will be a selling point for a house but they won’t be available everywhere.

Dave!

[Barry]

I'd like PV and a battery, for when the Grid fails, after everyone buys EV and plugs the cars in at the same time.

Must admit, joking aside, since getting that annoying smart meter I'm watching the needle go up every time I switch something on

[Mito Man]

Are the batteries still £1000 per kWh?
It’s cheaper to buy a Nissan Leaf if it can actually do vehicle to grid as it’s cheaper than buying the equivalent in a storage battery.

[Swervin_Mervin]

Must admit, joking aside, since getting that annoying smart meter I'm watching the needle go up every time I switch something on

Unplug it - it's just another drain

Years ago when our smart meters still worked we had one of those. It got thrown in the cupboard fairly quickly!

[V8Granite]

Our next house will have solar and Lithium Ion Phosphate batteries and a grid connection, I’ll probably just power the garden and garage stuff from it. So I can use every last kw from the batteries, depending on what cut off I set, and it will seamlessly switch to the grid when that happens.

Battery prices are coming down massively but I’d build my own as it stands at the minute. The problem with batteries though is storing them. I’d never have them connected to the house, they would always be in an outbuilding. Phosphate batteries are pretty safe but the gas they give off can be bad, normal lithium ion are hateful things.

Dave!

[Marv]

Our next house will have solar and Lithium Ion Phosphate batteries and a grid connection, I’ll probably just power the garden and garage stuff from it. So I can use every last kw from the batteries, depending on what cut off I set, and it will seamlessly switch to the grid when that happens.

Battery prices are coming down massively but I’d build my own as it stands at the minute. The problem with batteries though is storing them. I’d never have them connected to the house, they would always be in an outbuilding. Phosphate batteries are pretty safe but the gas they give off can be bad, normal lithium ion are hateful things.

Dave!

Good job most people don't have these hateful lithium ion batteries in their pockets, hands or even worse, attached to their ears

[IanF]

On the hybrid Evoque you can have the heated seats and steering wheel on and it’ll stay in EV mode. Put the a/c on and it starts the engine straight away.

Compressor must be powered from auxiliary belt rather than electric?

It's based on ICE so i'd imagine they'd not re-engineer the entire HVAC system for the hybrid model.

There’s certainly a demand issue that starts the engine, but it will allow travel in Elec mode with the a/c on once the engine is up to temp.. it’s annoyingly illogical sometimes aswell: drive at 70 on the motorway and try to lightly accelerate up to 75-78 and it will either do it smoothly in Elec mode or start the engine, with the corresponding noise of engine and clutch plates thumping in. Makes you appear hamfisted.. which only Mito enjoys

[V8Granite]

Our next house will have solar and Lithium Ion Phosphate batteries and a grid connection, I’ll probably just power the garden and garage stuff from it. So I can use every last kw from the batteries, depending on what cut off I set, and it will seamlessly switch to the grid when that happens.

Battery prices are coming down massively but I’d build my own as it stands at the minute. The problem with batteries though is storing them. I’d never have them connected to the house, they would always be in an outbuilding. Phosphate batteries are pretty safe but the gas they give off can be bad, normal lithium ion are hateful things.

Dave!

Good job most people don't have these hateful lithium ion batteries in their pockets, hands or even worse, attached to their ears

The battery in your phone is about as powerful as a lit kitten fart, even 10kw of battery is hugely dangerous.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VZSMEBzG_2k

Now imagine 100 of them, it’s like a thermal lance, you can’t really put it out so you have to let it burn. One burnt through the top of a chest freezer, through some stuff in it and out the bottom to burn out on the garage floor. That was a small 3/4000mah battery from an RC helicopter from a friends flying club.

Lithium ion phosphate let’s go by a chemical reaction so the gas escapes and is generally much much safer. I made the camping battery with Lead Acid batteries as they are much safer than Lithium Ion. The new battery for it will be LifePo4 Phosphate batteries.

Dave!

[McSwede]

How are charging costs these days with the tarif increases?

Theres an article in the torygraph today about costs of setting up, quite interesting.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/cars/advice ... e-uk-2022/

I can’t read that whole thing due to pay wall, but our garage is separate from the house so we had to get a new chunky shielded cable out there from the house. Gave it some thought so only approx 2m had to be dug up to bury it, but it was indeed unanticipated cost.

Just to put I a 7kw charger I need 6mm armoured cable for a 15m run to where I want it. I'm going to add a dumb charger so it doesn't tell the grid that I'm charging my car. That'll be taxed at some point as fuel tax revenue goes down.

[mik]

@McSwede As our lekky doesn’t enter the house beside the garage, we ended up with a 32m run of cable. Luckily I had a cunning plan so only a teeny bit had to be buried…

I didn’t know you could get a dumb one fitted. I expect when they start taxing them, more people will pull out their 13A plug in trickle chargers….

[Barry]

Must admit, joking aside, since getting that annoying smart meter I'm watching the needle go up every time I switch something on

Unplug it - it's just another drain

Years ago when our smart meters still worked we had one of those. It got thrown in the cupboard fairly quickly!

I'm only leaving it on view while I wait to see if if ever hooks up to the gas usage as well, then it's going in the cupboard. I don't need the stress

[Barry]

I didn’t know you could get a dumb one fitted. I expect when they start taxing them, more people will pull out their 13A plug in trickle chargers….

Loads of 2nd hand older units on sale, or just get a sparky to fit a new spur with the relevant connectors. It's just a fancy socket at the end of the day. Have a feeling I'll end up with another one, along those lines. Handy if/when I add a BEV motorbike.

[Mito Man]

Just pull the SIM card out chaps

[V8Granite]

Just pull the SIM card out chaps

No, don’t do this, as soon as the EV hippies don’t get taxed for their electricity usage they will do road pricing and we will all be fucked.

Take one for the team chaps.

Dave!

[Carlos]

I've been researching this recently and the newer smart chargers do seem to be a bit complicated for their own good. I appreciate they are dealing with a broad range of technical abilities but there seems plenty of incidents of issues with software failing or not 100% compatable with all cars and more annoying is chargers that don't default to dumb charging if they lose the WiFi/internet connection !

I looking into get a 32a commando socket ( caravan/camper type outlet ) fitted to the front of house and using a commando to type 2 lead of which you can get a choice of dumb or smart.

[McSwede]

I didn’t know you could get a dumb one fitted. I expect when they start taxing them, more people will pull out their 13A plug in trickle chargers….

Loads of 2nd hand older units on sale, or just get a sparky to fit a new spur with the relevant connectors. It's just a fancy socket at the end of the day. Have a feeling I'll end up with another one, along those lines. Handy if/when I add a BEV motorbike.

32amp breaker on your consumer unit and straight out to a dumb 7kw charger. Easy peasey. Cable and gland packs aren't expensive.

[mr_jon]

Thats what I did 10,000 kW ago. 10m 6mm cable was a 100 smackers on its own though. We did put an earth rod in too, as they're very cheap and it gives the whole house a better earth, or at least a backup if you need to change the water or gas bonding around.

[McSwede]

Cable is not too bad. 25m drum is £78 before any haggling. Rolec 7kw charger is £340ish.

Just need to get around to it . I've also got a 20m roll of 4mm SWA and a garage consumer unit to run better poser to the garage when I can get a colleague in to do it for me.