A myth for newbies and non EV drivers. It’s not rocket science, as Wernher von Braun would say. There are chargers everywhere on western ,mainland Europe, ie apart from the UK and Ireland. Which are both rubbish but for different reasons.
Range anxiety definitely exists and does affect people’s behaviour. Just like globophobia (fear of balloons), people allow their life to be affected even though their is no rational explanation
Given that it sits within the person, rather than the vehicle, it’s very much real, though perhaps not rational given the ubiquity of charging points these days.
Me, I get charging anxiety in the UK but that’s mostly due to the price.
1 Like
An example of range anxiety affecting people’s lives is a friend of mine who bought a fire breathing monster truck (SUV) on the premise that it could hold more petrol than other vehicles and never asked the question why that might be necessary.
You can lead a fool to knowledge but you can’t make him think.
4 Likes
This reminds me of the meme about how Donald Trump had managed to make a truck in America suddenly hold $120 worth of gas instead of $80.
3 Likes
Back to charging - are these solar chsrging kits worth it?
We have plenty of sun down here. Someone the other day reckons it costs zero to charge up their liitle Micra in the summer months, not of course taking into account the capital cost, whatever that is.
I re-sell juice back to the grid that pays for a third of my electricity (used to be half…) and am currently looking at another set of panels but with a battery and wonder I should be looking at something for the car.
In Australia there is a tariff from some suppliers that gives a three hour window in the day for car charging (I think it works on the HC prinipal we have here) - are there any such schemes here?
Have you looked at Octopus energy fr they have many offerings in the UK.
I’m not sure what specific kit you are referring to but it’s worth remembering that there is a standard minimum charge rate for EVs, that being 1,4kW.
In other words even if you have a surplus 1kW of solar power it won’t charge an EV directly. Investing in batteries to store the energy & then charging an EV when you’ve got a a decent amount stored up is an option.
I find that by using a ZAPPI charger & an EDDI energy diverter (both made by myenergi I can heat our hot water from lower amounts of solar power, & the system then automatically bumps the available power to an EV when there’s a surplus of 1,4kW or above.
No not the same as HC. The 3 hours are free, in the afternoon when the suns shining and everyone’s at work!
I’d quite like a period of HC during the day as Mrs H is very much against running the washing machine and dishwasher at night.
1 Like
Don’t know where in Ireland you have been but the East coast is well served.
Due to noise or fear of some fault?
If it’s the latter can I put her mind at rest & state that we’ve always run such things at night, both in the UK (via Economy 7) & here via Heures Creuses. Across nearly 40 years we’ve never had any faults occur whilst we slept, plumbing or electrical.
1 Like
We also have a zappi ..but no Eddi and 3.6 KW of PV. And we have a heat pump for space heating and also for hot water heating to 50 C . ..but we also have had some solar Thermal for 30 years . .
So I got the Zappi installed capable of using the PV when in surplus . But after some use I think it’s a mugs game … First one tends to actually use the car during the day which kind of defeats the purpose . If we export to the Grid ..well it’s not much but is about 2/3 the night rate . So it seems easier to just use the night rate at what is effective subsidised to 1/3 it’s rate
My second reason is that if the Zappi is charging the car in sunshine in the eco+ mode ..2 leaves , and a cloud flits across the sky there is a rattle as contactors and relays in both the car and the Zappi switch in and out .. This cannot be good for their long term health . Of course I will occasionally have the car plugged in at day rates ,some of which is solar
I didn’t take a battery pack option ..but that’s not cost free either ..every cycle of it causes wear . ..and if I was using Battery I would charge it at the lowest tariff times and discharge it at high tariff times . Which again in my case would be charge at night and use at 5 to 7 pm.
Mostly fear of a fire though there is an element of noise. I really do need to install an anti-hammer device.
Not much chance of a fire so long as its not a washer dryer, or Beko, indesit, hoover, hotpoint, philips which are all the same company.
I have pointed out that we’ve not once had an appliance fire in either of our lives and, in any case, there are linked smoke alarms in every room.
As you say, possibly, but personally I think it is price aware.
Having now been an EV owner/driver for 6 weeks, first and foremost the smoother, quieter, no clutch pedal drive is great (my last automatic car was 34 years ago).
We needed a new car and having moved into our new home complete with solar panels and dedicated correct sized wiring to an extenal socket (Current building regs for UK new homes make it obligatory for solar panels and charging provision
) it was a no brainer to buy an EV and have the external socket replaced with a dedicated charger. We did use a granny lead to start with but found it painfully slow to charge.
I appreciate that our current situation means we are doing our bit for the climate but ahead of that the attraction was price ie no more crazy petrol prices and hopefully cheaper vehicle maintenance cost.
I am most certainly an EV convert but as a Yorkshire man cost first, climate a close second.
Above all being able to plug in at home is brilliant.
Via my charging app I can set it to charge from solar only during the day and then super cheap rate electricity overnight with my previous car a £60 tank of petrol would give me some 350 motoring miles, now it costs me around £7 to cover the same distance.
6 Likes
Clearly it will depend on your lifestyle. For me, being retired, it works just fine. Having two EVs (car & van) means that there’s always one that can make use of the daytime freebie 
Yes, but there’s a delay built in to avoid excessive on/off caused by small clouds.
If the PV output drops below the 1,4kW threshold the Zappi carries on using mains for 30 seconds then drops out; if the cloud clears within that 30 seconds the Zappi will just switch back to using the solar output. The reverse occurs if there is a lot of cloud.
The Zappi is designed to handle this behaviour & I’ve not heard of any problems with an EV handling it either.
That works but surely if you have the option to feed in surplus solar it’s better to use that primarily & only top up on off-peak if you’re not getting enough into the batteries to cover your demand?
In many ways heating our hot water on surplus solar is akin to having a battery. I’ve currently not had to pay for mains electricity to heat any water since mid-March, & that includes the past 10 days when we’ve had 11 visitors staying (but no one takes a bath as we don’t have one!).
1 Like
I charged my R5e at a public charger for the first time yesterday. I’ve got a Chargemap pass so thought it would be fairly simple but I made one mistake. At home its always charged overnight on HC tempo and the car is set for those hours. I stupidly thought (actually I didn’t think at all 
) that using a public charger would override that but after realising it didnt (when we got back from a bar
) at 10 pm it started charging. As it was at a hotel it didn’t matter but on the road…
Lesson learnt
3 Likes
Just for clarity, a public AC charger will do as you found - it will respond to any vehicle programming that you have set.
That issue does NOT apply to DC rapid chargers. They will work regardless of your vehicle’s charge programming.
3 Likes