Reply With QuoteIf you don’t get sorted, these ‘granny’ chargers from Screwfix are well regarded, £175 for the 5m cable and £199 for the 10m option.Originally Posted by stuie-t
https://www.screwfix.com/p/masterplu...cable-5m/267gv
There does seem to be a market for used chargers on eBay. I was looking last night as in need to replace the tethered cable on my charger with a longer one as the charge port in a different location on my next EV.
If you have a normal 3-pin plug type slow charger for sale I would be interested as the Polestar doesn’t come with one apparently and they are still handy to have if you are staying with friends and relatives for a long weekend!
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If you don’t get sorted, these ‘granny’ chargers from Screwfix are well regarded, £175 for the 5m cable and £199 for the 10m option.
https://www.screwfix.com/p/masterplu...cable-5m/267gv
I bought mine for the economics, pure and simple. I ran it as a taxi so I able to offset a large portion of the monthly payments on it. The fact that it was also nicer to drive then my E Class was a nice bonus.It´s this mindset I´m trying to understand...if it´s not for the economics and it´s not for the posing potential, and it´s not for the environment, why are folks so sure-fire keen to own them?
Tongue in cheek.
I’d love to have another one but I just can’t afford it at this time.
Thanks - the 4+ does look to have just about everything.
Have you got rid of yours then?
I have, yeah. I’ve finished as a taxi driver, and waiting to start my HGV driver training.
I can’t afford the monthly cost of it as a private car so it had to go.
Really miss it though, especially as I’m currently driving a 16yr old Civic. That’s a BIG step back.
The 16 year old civic will probably outlast a new car anyway but pre heating the car from your phone is a lovely feature.
In all honesty the Civic is a tidy car. It’s in excellent condition for its age, but I had some nice toys on the Enyaq that I’m missing.
I love listening to Spotify in the car but the Civic doesn’t even have an AUX port let alone Bluetooth.
well my local Shell charges 89p/KWh so it could be worse!
The 20% VAT the government charge (compared to 5% at home) is a real killer for public charging. At that price, it will be more about efficiency. I am getting barely more than 50% of the advertised range this week as it's so bloody cold, so it probably is more expensive than petrol. In summer, it would still be cheaper albeit not as far removed as you would like.
Hoping it's nearly free for me in the summer with solar doing the majority of the charging.
That would be nice! I'm 8 months in, may finally (but not certain as subject to survey etc.) be about to get home charging. TBH it's the winter range that is killing me more than the price, as at least I can put the charging costs on the business. But when I need to get from London to Chippenham in a day and can't reliably get there and back despite a claimed 335 mile range, is making me think twice. I'd almost rather pay the extra tax!
When the infrastructure is up to speed ie 100,000 chargers as opposed to the current 30,000 I’ll consider it. Meanwhile happy with a Toyota hybrid.
The CPOs are trying, what doesn’t help are the likes of BP and Shell installing chargers all over the place that are regularly out of service
After 12 plus months of fannying around our VW is actually on its way…..being pdi’d this coming week and supposedly delivery Friday or Monday week.
Cant wait to get behind the wheel and have a decent car back again, weve been driving around in a very tired 07 Focus and a 53 Fiesta for months now, will finally have the confidence to go longer journeys again.
Not the actual car but model and colour
Last edited by Franky Four Fingers; 28th January 2023 at 17:02.
Good stuff. I’d be very interested in your real-world opinion of it. Enjoy! PeteAfter 12 plus months of fannying around our VW is actually on its way…..being pdi’d this coming week and supposedly delivery Friday or Monday week.
Cant wait to get behind the wheel and have a decent car back again, weve been driving around in a very tired 07 Focus and a 53 Fiesta for months now, will finally have the confidence to go longer journeys again.
Not the actual car but model and colour
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Will do Pete.
I've spent a lot of time in EVs and they certainly have their charms, but the reality is they're a viable solution right now only for the comparatively well-off (cheapest Fiat 500 EV...£31,000) or those who don't need to rely on them thanks to a second car.
We're also at the foothills of the mountain that will come when take-up increases hugely as we approach 2030 (starting from next year when the ZEV Mandate kicks in in the UK and manufacturers have to sell a certain % f EV or get fined; probably 22% in year one) whilsty infrastructure lags far, far behind.
And on top of all this comes the financial reality issue. About 70% of EV sales are to company car drivers, because the tax breaks make them effectively a free car. I could have had a top of the range Volvo XC40 Recharge as my company car this year for £370 a year (a year, not a month) in tax. Petrol version is about £7400. Eventually that has to stop, so we'll hit another mountain when company car drivers have to cough up properly but we still don't have the infrastructure, so it becomes attractive again to go ICE, or at least hybrid or PHEV.
Oh, and none of this touches on the colossal environmental damage caused by lithium mining.
Totally agree with you but someone'll be along in a minute to set you straight.
One of two suspects.
Just after the two EV curmudgeons you mean?! 😁😂👍
Look, all the questions being asked, and some of them are legitimate, were being asked in Norway a few years ago.
It’s 2035 before new ICE Hybrid sales are at an end, that’s 12 years away. Meantime, and even after that, you can drive what you like.
What’s the issue? Why are you so bothered by something neither of you are even doing?
If there’s a better option come 2035, and the charging infrastructure hasn’t improved then great, I’ll buy whatever is the future. Until then, I’ll carry on driving my current admirably viable vehicle, so no need to sweat.
Why wouldn’t you choose a company car that saves you a boatload of BIK tax? Do you feel you have some kind of duty to pay the extra on an ICE vehicle?
The company EVs that people are choosing now are the lower cost second hand EVs that everybody is apparently craving, what’s not to like?
The lithium mining issue (and you really should get up to date on that) is not a patch on the environmental and people damage caused by driving vehicles that emit 10.9kgs of CO2 per gallon (diesel). If you really care about that, stop driving, as no car is ‘green’.
Aaaaaaand....right on cue 😂
Yep, and yet here you are! 😂
I'm sure many people do, and good luck to them. But the tax breaks in place shouldn't be there to put people on high incomes into £50,000 cars for free, they should be to help people on lower incomes move from a high-polluting older car to a low or zero emission vehicle, because none of this means anything without mass adoption. As for lower cost second hand EVs, not for a while. The average mark up on the EV version of an ice car is 30%, but it's often more. You can get in to a Volvo XC40 diesel from just under £27,000. About £35,000 if you spec it hard. The EV version I was offered this year has a list price of £49,405. that's where it has to come down from, whilst it's ice alternatives are out in the market too.
The point is it's possible to make reasonable points of challenge to what amounts to the largest change in personal mobility since the invention of the internal combustion engine and still support it. Those, and I don't think you're one, who treat this like a football match in which you have to blindly support one "side" or the other and will brook no criticism, help nobody, including the cause they espouse.
Yes, the footie analogy is a good one, I’m not sure why alternative fuelled vehicles cause such a divide with so many.
As I keep saying, it’s going to be a long transition, perhaps made longer by the C word and now the Ukraine invasion and the impact on supply chains.
The tax breaks on new company EVs doesn’t make them free, but they’re an attractive proposition for company user/choosers, and as we’ve seen with the first glut of Tesla vehicles coming off lease they’re hitting the used markets at far more affordable prices. The company markets have always been a big driver in the supply of decent used cars, the government are just incentivising it for now, but I’m sure the BIK will ratchet up just like it has for ICE company vehicles.
All used EV prices seem to be correcting now, hopefully it will continue and the manufacturers are apparently reporting that supply chain issues are easing too.
I’ve said right from the start of this thread that EVs won’t work for everybody, yet, but they will and do for an awful lot of people already. We’re early days still in the move to more sustainable, if not perfect, personal transport.
Last edited by Tooks; 30th January 2023 at 10:02.
I’m contemplating getting back into an EV. but having run the numbers, it would have to be a used car.
Anyone know if there are any readers available that can be plugged into the OBD2 to check the health of the battery?
As we all know, batteries degrade and i think it’s important to know the state of health on the batteries of any potential purchase.
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Depends on the car?
There are Apps for Tesla and Nissan, for example, and things like Car Scanner with a decent OBD2 dongle can read battery state information.
The only 100% reliable way to measure a batterys capacity is via a Coulomb Count, but that’s time consuming.
Some early Leaf’s have a reputation for degradation, but most more modern water cooled/heated packs whilst still relatively new and possibly too early to tell seem to be holding up well. Time of year impacts the capacity as well, cold batteries hold less energy so you’ll get different readings depending on when you measured. Hence most batteries have a nominal capacity.
What are you looking at? Most current EVs have long battery warranties.
Show me where I can buy a new XC40 for £27k and I’ll snap it up. £36k is the starting price on the Volvo website. The basic electric model is just over £48k.
Comparing like for like (ultimate spec), the EV is £150 per month more which could easily be saved in fuel on the right home tariff. Comparing the base spec (core), it’s £220 so a chunk more. Depending on useage, either one could work out cheaper overall though.
I know EVs are more expensive initially but let’s not massage the figures eh?
Last edited by Dave+63; 30th January 2023 at 12:30.
I would have thought though that a battery health reading would be the same regardless of summer/winter?
I know range drops quite a bit during the winter and that’s my concern with the car I’ve seen. It’s a Renault Zoe 40. It’s an 18 plate so the batteries are coming up on 5 year old now and that’s where my concern comes in. I need at least 120 miles out of a full charge as I can do that sort of mileage in one shift.
The main factor in an EV batteries health, beyond the cell voltages/balance etc, is how much of its original capacity is remaining, so for a 2018 Zoe it would be does it still have 41kWh available?
A cold battery can’t physically store as much energy as a warm one, so if you did that measurement this time of year it would be less than if you did the same measurement in the summer.
Renault themselves probably have a way of checking cell voltages and the nominal capacity, and I think the Car Scanner App could as well with a good OBD2 reader.
You have to be especially careful with Zoe batteries, a lot do them were leased even if the vehicle itself was purchased, and although they’ve moved away from that model now there are still Zoe’s out there that have a leased battery that somebody has either stopped paying for or hasn’t been brought out and ownership transferred.
I think 120 miles is on the edge of the range you’d reliably expect from the car over winter on the motorway, but frequent local runs might be ok.
https://ev-database.org/uk/car/1131/...t-Zoe-Q90-ZE40
Why are you so bothered that other should people copy you and get an EV?
I’ve never said that, and no I’m not bothered in the slightest what car you drive.
It’s an EV thread, I drive an EV. Your ‘usual suspects’ comment was as needless as it was antagonistic.
Feel free to contribute anything relevant, and quit with the ad-hominems.
The average driver spends way less than £150/month on fuel - looks like you're massaging the figures yourself.
No, of course you're not.
Really, I’m not. What anybody else chooses to drive is none of my business, as it should be.
I’m not even bothered by opinion, you’re entitled to one.
What bothers me is the peddling of opinions as fact, and the needless antagonism. People on here are asking questions, I’m trying to give honest and experiential answers.
A civil adult discussion about EVs on a watch forum shouldn’t be this difficult should it.
10,000 miles pa @ 40mpg is 250 gallons
£1.70/l x 4.54 l/ g = £7.72/g
250 x £7.72 = £1930pa or £160/month.
I don’t think they’re too far out but I’m not saying it’s exactly the same for everyone, just a tough average.
We do end far more than that as many others will do too, as well as many people spending less.
I know about the battery lease/purchased thing. I wouldn’t entertain buying one with a leased battery. This one was battery owned.
Apparently if there is an i before the car name/model then it is battery purchased.
What seems a bit daft about all of this ‘EV car, lower carbon footprint’ business - at the current prices - is that all the wealthy people who probably have a couple of ‘toy cars’ for fun, a Range Rover for the nanny and think nothing of jetting around the world on multiple holidays a year, are the ones virtue signalling with a Tesla or Audi e-Tron in their driveway. I know that’s a massive generalisation, but up here in North Norfolk there are fleets of second homers up here in shiny black EV’s at every opportunity, outside of the big holidays, Xmas etc there are hardly any around. The local councils have put chargers all over the place, taking up big chunks of car parks - again, they sit empty most of the year, but come a bank holiday it’s like an EV ‘my massive Audi is more massive than your massive Porsche’ competition. I really wonder if the days of car ownership for the little people are all but over - is that part of the cunning plan, pricing out Darren with his Corsa so Tarquin can enjoy empty roads in his electric beemer? - then spend his massive commission cheque flying to Barbados? Glad I’m not 17 and just passed my test. Looks like an expensive necessity is about to become a whole lot more expensive before it (hopefully) levels out a bit
Yes, it is a massive generalisation! 😂
Full disclosure, I don’t employ a nanny, nor a Norfolk holiday cottage, nor any ‘spare ICE’ knocking about. 👍
The points you raise though are a more general problem, or arguably a regional one.
How many on here have multiple houses, and fly on multiple holidays, perhaps with a cruise in between? A few I expect.
But, it’s easy to get dragged down the politics of envy rabbit hole, and ultimately it doesn’t get us anywhere does it. It’s a sideshow that seems to have been linked wholesale with EVs for some reason.
‘Darren’ passing his test now will still have plenty of cars to choose from, he probably shouldn’t be in an electric Porsche at 17 anyway.
People will be able to choose whatever car they want to drive for a couple of decades yet, I don’t think there’s any need to panic. 👍🙂
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Our ID’s came today and so far very pleased. A lot of new tech to get my head around and trying to work out what all the buttons do and the consequence of either pressing or not pressing them
One thing though is the headlights..Christ these latest LEDs lamps are amazing. Im sure i posted a whiny post about them some years ago but stuff it..ill be doing the dazzling from now on.
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I can see the red one has the matrix LED headlamps, they are witchcraft!Our ID’s came today and so far very pleased. A lot of new tech to get my head around and trying to work out what all the buttons do and the consequence of either pressing or not pressing them
One thing though is the headlights..Christ these latest LEDs lamps are amazing. Im sure i posted a whiny post about them some years ago but stuff it..ill be doing the dazzling from now on.
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Seeing the dark box around vehicles you are following at night, and the moving dark box around oncoming vehicles, is great to watch.
I had them on my previous ID.3 as well, I’ve done over 50k miles in two cars with those headlights and not had any issues with people flashing in complaint.
The Tesla’s auto LED headlights are crude and dimwitted in comparison.
Lovely pair there FFF. Enjoy!
Had the same on XC90 and now C40. Very clever but can still take a second to spot an oncoming vehicle coming around a corner.
Love the colour FFF.
I am sure that after your long wait, you will be blown away with the technology on it.
I find the VW system never takes that long once it clocks a headlight via the camera, if you can’t see the oncoming cars actual headlights then the driver can’t see yours, but like any driver aid if I think I know best I’ll switch them back to manual and do the dipping myself.
I tend to do that on twisty up and down roads, or when I encounter oncoming trucks where the cab roof running lights are visible before the headlights as it comes over a brow, the driver would otherwise be exposed to my main beam before the trucks headlights came into view.
Vehicle lighting has come on leaps and bounds over the last 10-15 years, but the nut behind the wheel is still the most important component!
We are now 7 months into our i3s ownership and it's already done more miles than our second car did in the previous year.
We do about 8k miles a year across 2 cars. I work from home 3 days a week and cycle to work the other 2 days and live 3 miles from the centre of glasgow so arguably we don't need two cars at all, but the objective of buying the i3 was for it to do all the small / medium trips and leave the long family trips to our 14 plate volvo. ULEZ coming in June was also a motivation (although we aren't in the ULEZ zone)
It's now the default go to car for both of us for anything other than a motorway journey and i can't see us ever buying another ICE car for this purpose.
On paper a small petrol car would have been cheaper to run, in fact keeping the Fiesta ST it replaced made the most sense on a spreadsheet but it is SUCH a nice car to drive that i don't really care. My wife isn't a car enthusiast at all but genuinely enthuses about the car and elec in general whenever the topic comes up.
Was on the fence about getting a 7kw charger but tbh 3 pin is working fine for us as the car is garaged anyway. I've only ever used a couple of away from home chargers and in each case it was because we could and it was free rather than necessity.
However having seen the state of the network i am more and more comfortable that the family car will stay dino juiced powered for a good while yet
Witchcraft indeed!
I’m still “fiddling” at the moment and getting to terms with all the options and working out what things do.
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Seems like a global hack of Teslas is underway. Mine is affected too- I tried to log in from the app to check the car in the UK and I have the 503 Server Maintenance issue many others have.
I also have this just checked.
Car is on the drive and about to go out. Does this mean I need to dig out that plastic card thingy? Maybe I should as a precuation! In theory should always keep it on us, but we seemed to have lost that habit some time ago.
I always keep mine in my wallet.
Saw stories a year ago where all the Americans were locked out of their Teslas as they don’t carry the card.
Mine is offline too.
Just checked my Model Y and everything is working fine.
Was able to check cameras and check charge etc
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