It’s a well-known and very commonly used term, but for the benefit of @toryroo, a granny charger is one that plugs into a standard domestic socket and slowly charges the car. It requires no installation compared to a dedicated wall-mounted car charger that requires modification to your home electrics and typically costs over €1000.
If you’re getting the latter then it’s a bargain, the former not so much.
Yeah, I’m not sure what they mean either. Definitely worth clarifying
Kia gave me what’s referred to on Amazon as a “portable charger” but which we call a granny charger. They can be bought for about 150€ - 200€ depending on the length of the cable needed.
Annoyingly for me, as mentioned elsewhere, the Kia one is really bulky at the end that’s plugged into the wall socket, and so there’s not enough room due to the position of our plug sockets. Here’s the exact same model sold on Amazon for 260€
If that’s the kind of charger they mean, it’s not such a good deal sadly.
I’m thinking of replacing mine with this one, which is (comparatively) cheap as chips and has lots of good reviews on Amazon… It even has an app to allow you to configure it or schedule charging via your phone.
I think that’ll be cheaper than getting an electrician in to reposition an existing socket a bit higher or to install a new prise renforcée.
As I go round plugging my Ami into public chargers (it just has a standard 2 pin plug, I just have a type 2 converter for backup) I’ve noticed how many granny chargers are hideously bulky and entirely impractical for the job. It’s almost always the ones that are emblazoned with the car logo, and ive seen some horror balancing acts as people try to use these ones with (presumably) very heavy boxes that if left hanging either pull themselves out of the wall or disconnect in some way or risk getting damaged. This is entirely anecdotal obviously but it always surprises me how bulky, and seemingly not well designed, some of them are
I’d love to know where your OH found £1.48/litre for diesel (or petrol!) in the UK!!
Here in Surrey it’s £1.63-£1.75 per litre for E10 petrol and £1.86-£1.90 for B7 diesel.
Here petrol is 1.69 - 1.71 a litre , not sure about diesel.
What is stupid here ..unless it is a made up photo is the EV driver who was both blind and Deaf … EVs are better than a bawling 5 year old telling you they need feeding
It’s the only annoying thing with my VWI D3 ..It is not certified for towing . ..and It is also the same situation with other similar sized EVs .. The slightly bigger VW ID4 has the clearances … Now the reasoning ..I don’t know for certain but I suspect it has to do with chassis loading and load on the tyres .. With a full battery the brakes would have been very heavily loaded since it cannot regenerate … . There might also have been a marketing decision ..They would not have liked to explain why the range had dropped from a nice 400Km to 160Km when range was a serious talking point.
The problem here is that the socket is running at a full 3KW for typically 10 hours . This is very demanding on he contacts on the socket and they will invariably heat upm..There is always an ohmic resistance in a metal to metal contact . Heating invites corrosion and embrittles the flexible contact. ..So it always gets worse with time . You might well say ..but my kettle is running at 3.2KW ..and says that’s true ..for 3 minutes .
My VW Granny charger limits itself to 10 Amps and 2KW to protect sockets ..It also will not run if it detects a significant resistance in the line … Cheaper units might not be so caring
I have clarified that what i was told is that one can’t tow an EV, it has to have all its legs off the ground so needs to go on a flat bed.
I assume it’s the Opel Frontera EV you are referring to … My wife got one in June .. Lovely car and worth paying for the top spec and bigger battery. The Aircross and the Peugeot 2008 are the same machine but dressed by fashion houses … Any comparisons between it and the earlier car ..which I never remember are irrelevant ..
That is likely true for 4 wheel drive EVs and many 4-wheel drive fossil fuel vehicles have the same constraint or did in the old days at least.
My EV has a neutral N and all.power is disconnected so it will roll up down etc ..
Good point.
While EVs used to be supplied with Granny chargers ,that is not the practice now , so I suspect that 250 euro is a granny charger cable .. Not the Home Charge point installation at 7KW. I kind of expect to see LIDL to have garish Red and Green units by Christmas…
Yes, I noticed that way back when I was considering one. I never pursued the reason. It’s not really a deal breaker for me but I do have a trailer I occasionally use and the towbar is handy for a bike rack. So it’s an option I just tick the box, like the sunroofs I’ve never actually opened over the years.
Good points on chassis loading and range too. IThe i4 already weight two tonnes and I 'd say my range would severely impacted when towing, especially on autoroutes.
Are we talking here about “towing” or “being towed” - getting confusing. 
My IC engined RangeRover had a central Viscous Limited Slip Diff. If it was given a suspended tow (one axle on the ground, and one off) then one of the prop shafts would need to be phsically disconnected to avoid overloading the diff. Other 4x4 systems have open central diffs, and still others have a gear lever or electric or air switch for the central diff.
As you rightly say some can be towed in one fashion or another, some not so easily. My Toyota is easy* to tow either 4 wheels on the floor, or either suspended front or back.
Electric 4x4 s have even more possible configurations.
As already said do it by the book.
*Easy? Only if you can handle the weight of the ole lump!
Edit. And older automatic cars with fluid flywheels should never (normally) be towed.
Sorry Jane, I thought you wrote “tow with an EV”. I know you’ve a ID.3 and they can’t tow, but others, like mine, can.
I also know you can’t tow an EV itself. The issue I guess is there’s no “neutral”, the electric motor is always engaged. Though there is a “neutral” setting on my gear “knob”. But that only seems to allow rolling when the motor is “running”. Though if it’s not 4X4 lifting then lifting ghe driving wheels off the ground should make it towable I would have thought.
Mine is currently being trailered from Bilbau to Fréjus 
and it was trailered once before when it sprang a coolant leak. I don’t think they can even push them around the workshop (without maybe caddies under the driving wheels) because mine seems to have stayed in the rather awkward workshop spot I plonked it on the 6th or August, until BMW leaped (
) into action and picked it last Monday, a month later. I’ve tried waking it up and taking a 360 picture of its surroundings but it seems to be sulking.
Anyway, I up to my proverbials in plumbers. electricians and plasterers at the moment. I’ll worry about the car when I get back home on the 19th.
The Kia Niro can tow but not the e Niro. Having climbed underneath one and baring in mind it’s not a ground up EV it’s a modification there is no physical reason it cannot tow, all the chassis bolt positions are there. If I had bought an e Niro I would have fitted a tow bar regardless. It’s only for garden trailers etc so no more load than adults in the seats.
