Electric Vehicle route to the alps

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@Ozboy, there's a lot of suggestions online to be very cautious about where/how you plug an EV. It's not the current (usually 10A on a standard plug charger), but the very sustained nature of it - very few domestic electricals will draw 10A for multiple hours.

The long duration can cause gradual heat build up, leading to eventual failure of e.g. the plastic in the socket.

Personally, I wouldn't use a standard converter but would consider something like this https://toughleads.co.uk/products/heavy-duty-travel-adaptors-worldwide-options

Even so, I'm not sure I'd leave it charging unobserved the first time. I'd want to check that the socket and associated domestic wiring was spec'd for a sustained 10A.

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Check out https://toughleads.co.uk/

I've had v good quality Type 1 to Type 2 converter as well as an EV charging extension lead with a modular UK and French plug end from them.

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@Ozboy, We've used a bog standard tourist adapter when staying at a friends place in the French mountains to connect my UK 3pin cable to their wall socket. Nothing caught fire, nothing blew up, and it charged sufficiently - albeit as you would expect, slowly - to get us to the next en-route charger the next day. Yes, you're pumping a few amps through it, but nowhere near as many as a 7KW wall charger.
Was it 'safe'? Well, it's all relative innit. We did keep an eye on it, checking every 30 mins or so that everything was OK, and not over-heating (warm, but not excessive: comparable to other 13 Amp charges we've been occasionally forced to do) and we didn't leave it in overnight.

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@snowdave, @MHskier, @Rob_Quads, @Arctic Roll, thanks for the info. I assume the electrics in our place are in good working order as it was a new build and met the electrical safety certifications. But appreciate things can go wrong. It is something I want to solve as EVs become more common from Swiss rental companies. It is normally our main method and most cost effective mode of transport for getting to Chatel for long weekends (late night arrovals). I am going to look at either getting my own charging cables (but I assume there are a various different plugs at the car end which may make it difficult to choose the right one?) or have a Swiss socket fitted by an electrician. I dont mind slow charging as car often does not more for a few days.

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@Ozboy, Europcar have taken the domestic (or “granny”) charging cables out of their EVs as they are concerned about people plugging them into under-spec domestic sockets. I tried with a n adapter socket at our place before we had a charger fitted and it wouldn’t play nicely.

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Is there a universal standard for the socket at the car end?

After all it is free

@Ozboy, almost! There’s a few, but nearly every car now uses a “type 2” socket for standard charging. You have the choice of installing a “tethered” charger with a built in cable, or just a type 2 socket that you plug the car into, using its own type 2-type 2 lead.

@snowdave, Thanks will look for a type 2 to EU socket cable to keep in my garage for overnight charging.

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@Ozboy, To connect a normal domestic socket to a type 2 socket in a car, you need something in the middle to handle the communications - an EVSE. This is also affectionately known as a granny charger - it’s what @andy from embsay, referred to as being removed from the rental vehicles. However, you could buy your own and it’ll work on nearly every car. Something like this: https://evonestop.co.uk/products/type-2-portable-mode-2-euro-2pin-evse-charger-10a-16a-5m

Edit - just noticed that one is only for pre 2020 vehicles, don’t get that one!

Or for about £4-500 you could get a full type 2 charger, probably add another £100-200 for a sparky to install it if you have a good one available.

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@Ozboy, all the EVs we’ve hired have standard type 2 connectors. Often VW group (audi, seat, skoda or vw) and the occasional Polestar or Volvo. All type 2.

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@snowdave, @andy from embsay, thanks now upto speed. Will be interesting to see how car rental companies equip the cars and implement charging policies in the future.

I asked our rental agents whether they thought that having a 7kW domestic charge point (EVSE) would enhance rentals. Their considered response was that yes, they thought that it’d pay for itself in a couple of years, given the current (no pun intended) level of enquiries from prospective clients who arrive in an EV. So if you’re renting out, it’s worth considering. We’d only need three or four, one-week rentals that we wouldn’t otherwise get for it to pay for itself.

Most European EVs have a standard Type 2 ‘CCS’ socket on the car, so if you have a tethered cable and standard CCS plug then it should fit any rental or private vehicle. Domestic 7kW EVSEs come in two forms, tethered or untethered. Tethered means the cable is wired into the EVSE permanently and the other end has the Type 2 plug to go in the EV. Untethered means that the charge point has a socket and the driver has to supply a suitable cable with a plug for the EVSE one end and a plug for the EV at the other.

If you do have rentals with an EV then you’ll have to work out how the client is going to pay for any charging. If you can get a discounted rate like we can at home in the UK, then the actual charge session cost could be so small that it might not be worth even bothering. A 220-mile top-up from 10% charge to 100% charge costs us £3.38 at home (equals 1.54p/mile). But on a non-EV tariff, that would be more like £10.80 (4.91p/mile).

You know it makes sense.

@LaForet, We don’t rent our property but there is a good case to fit a charge in the future when we eventually convert to EV. We have just renovated in the U.K. and have installed three phase electricity and have cabling ready in front garden to install a charger in the future. The issue is now we deal with the cabling across the foot path as we have street parking but almost always in front of our house. I have seen various solutions such as trenches in the pavement with anti-trip - just waiting to see if our local council in London will adopt such solutions. They have cracked down on residents using rubber mats / covers as deemed a trip hazard.

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@Ozboy I can recommend the EV forum SpeakEV which has loads of threads on choosing charge points (also called EVSEs), installation experiences, challenges like cross-footpath cabling etc.

Key thing is to have an operational smart meter. It can take many months to get one installed if you don’t have one and all the ‘intelligent’ EV tariffs need a smart meter in order to operate the discounted rates. My understanding is that a 3-Phase supply needs a ‘polyphase’ smart meter. But your electrician will know all this stuff.

Next thing is that a lot of EVSEs use a 4G/5G SIM to support comms with the energy provider, again for the more advanced tariffs. So wherever the charge point is sited, it needs to have a good mobile signal. if it hasn’t, then you may need a WiFi-enabled EVSE instead, but this obviously needs a good WiFi signal from your home router, which can be an issue if it’s somewhat distant from it.

A lot of very able and experienced electricians may be excellent in terms of the electrical side of installing a home charge point, but don’t necessarily expect them to be au fait with the tariff landscape. Some of the most advanced tariffs like Intelligent Octopus Go require software integration with either specific EVSEs or specific EV models. So if your EV isn’t integrated with the energy supplier, then there may only be 3-4 models of charge point that are integrated.

For example, Steallantis simply aren’t interested in integrating with any of the energy suppliers. So our Peugeot e208 isn’t integrated with Octopus, our supplier. So if we want to use the Intelligent Octopus Go (IOG) tariff for its very cheap day time 7.5p/kWh EV rates, there are only three charge points that are integrated with IOG - Ohme, Zappi and Wallbox. All the hundreds of other charge points are usable as ‘dumb’ switches, but don’t have the software integration we need.

The other factor to consider is whether you will or might install solar panels or home batteries at a later date. Some charge points like the Zappi are explicitly designed to operate alongside solar panels and batteries. But if you don’t ever plan to have them then the choice is wider. Similarly, if you’re doing major electrical work to get the charge point set up you might find it useful to include provision for solar/batteries at the same time, rather than retro-fit later.

Quite a few people have home batteries and sell their power to providers, just like you can sell solar power to them. At night they have a 6-hour window when they charge the home batteries at 7.5p/kWh then in the day, sell it back to, for example, Octopus at 15p/kWh. They are basically being paid by Octopus to act as a night storage facility to help satisfy daytime peak demands.

A snowHead

@snowdave, thansk for the link to Tough Leads. I've just order the French converter. so as not to worry so much about a standard covnerter in future. It will live in the car!

@Ozboy, what @LaForet says.

We're about to switch to Intelligent Octopus Go, fortunately meet all the criteria re Smartmeter, EVSE and wifi / 4G connections. ( More by luck than judgement it has to be said).

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@LaForet, We think we have all the necessary electrics in place and good wifi and phone coverage in our front garden. We will just need a 3 phase charger and switch provider to Octopus. Options are either get a small second hand electric run around for local runs while keeping existing family car; or exchange the 6 year old diesel MB e-class estate for a EV family car. Seems wasteful to do the latter as the car is very good and perfect for making it to Châtel from London in a day. We normally get as far as Poligny off the A39 on one tank of diesel.

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@Ozboy, if its only very local trips you do, a mate of mine has a13 yr old nissan leaf for sale. Prob only 50 miles of range left in it, but it'll be cheap!

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Just back from another uneventful trip to Austria; this time from York to Kappl and back.

Outbound we took the ferry from Hull to Rotterdam. Stops were
Drove from York to Hull - took the A roads, left with 100% charge and still had over 80% at Hull, so no need to recharge
Fastned in Hilden, where there are ~20 Fastned rapid chargers and >20 Tesla ones, and a very nice cafe for lunch. Stopped for 32 minutes to gain 34 KWh
Shell Recharge in Mehlsee - Buttelborn. 4 rapid chargers, and also 2 more at the hotel next door. 18 minutes for 21 KWh, and to have an ice cream and change into shorts
Pfalzwerke in Kandel. 4 rapid chargers, and a supermarket to do shopping while we charged. 35 minutes for 38 KWh
Ionity at Gruibingen Sud services. 6 rapid chargers, and another couple of other rapid chargers. 14 minutes for 12 KWh
Overnight at Holiday Inn Express in Lustenau. Hotel had no chargers, but was next door to McDonalds that had 4 non-working rapid chargers, but across the road were 2 rapid chargers at Auto Blaser, so we charged there over breakfast. 28 minutes for 16 KWh
We arrived at Kappl with ~50% charge left

Return, using Eurotunnel. Where we stayed (Apartment Mattle) had an 11KW charger, so we left fully charged (minus 2 trips to Ischgl). Stops were:
Ionity in Merklingen. 24 rapid Ionity chargers, and 20+ Tesla. Another nice cafe. 25 minutes for 24 KWh
Shell Recharge in Kaltenbach. 4 rapid chargers. 17 minutes for 20 KWh. Toilet stop, and decided the food options weren't worthwhile, so then continued on to
PC Tank Sarl in Schengen (Esso garage). 6 rapid chargers. 20 minutes for 24 KWh. Decent food options for a garage
Overnight at Hotel Amandier, Libramont. They have 6 fast chargers onsite (last year they just had 2). Charged overnight to 100%, gaining 49 KWh
Ionity at Froyennes Nord services. 6 rapid chargers. 18 minutes for 15 KWh. Coffee stop
Engie at Calais Eurotunnel. 8 rapid chargers, and ~8 Tesla chargers. 11 minutes for 12 KWh
Tesla at Cambridge. 10 rapid chargers. 39 minutes for 42 KWh whilst doing food shopping around the corner at Waitrose

This was in a Kona with a 64KWh capacity, and official max charge rate of 75KW (though I've seen it reach 82 KW). It can take up 75KW till it gets to about 73% full, then drops to 37 KW, so we mostly aimed to let it charge up to 70ish %

This was our 5th trip, and it feels that bit easier each time. There definitely seem to be more options where there are a lot of chargers, and good food options (Hilden and Merklingen). That said, it's also easier as we're now more familiar with the route (prior to these trips, I'd hardly ever driven the route, whereas I was much more familiar driving to the French alps).

All charging, except for Tesla, used the ChargeMap RFID card. We used ChargeMap to find the chargers, mostly by searching in a rough location en route, rather than using their route planner (which always seems to suggest unnecessary stops).

All driving, other than the last leg from Cambridge, was with the same driver, and each time we stopped we were ready to stop, and at each stop we never felt we were hanging around waiting for more charge

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@paulhinch, I just can’t see it happening. Parking for our apartment is on the street 100 to 500m away. I just cannot see someone hanging a cable out of the window down to the ground and along the street. It is the same that prevents a lot of people buying electric cars in the uk, they cannot charge at home. We need to introduce overhead power line and pantographs on cars just as they are planning for Lorries

After all it is free

When will this thread die? At least move it to apres zone.

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@geoffers, have a look on car dealers pages eg Arnold Clarke.

A Corsa (£32k) last year was £23k for the old 23 plate with delivery mileage.

Now for £18-19k you get a new shape with 10 miles on the clock.

They are doing everything they can to get rid of them.

I’m about to buy an old shape Niro.

You know it makes sense.

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The trial for lorries is taking place in Germany https://balkangreenenergynews.com/overhead-truck-power-line-starts-three-year-trial-in-germany/ and should be starting soon in the UK on the M180 https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/27/uk-government-backs-scheme-for-motorway-cables-to-power-lorries The plan was to cover the majority of main road freight routes in the UK with the lorries using batteries for the remaining distance to the depot. Cars would just need taller pantographs.

At one presentation I commented that other ways to improve the consumption of energy included: running heavier vehicles, having better control systems in the lorries so they could run as convoys with less braking and acceleration (being closer together they will also have less air resistance), and, controversially running with steel wheels on steel pavement to lower rolling resitance.

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A snowHead

@jedster, when I got my Y at the start of the year, there were decent deals second hand but the financing on a new one was so cheap, it didn't feel like it cost much more to go new. If you're planning on paying in full upfront, different calculations apply obviously

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We're now a 2 EV household as we just got my wife a Nissan Leaf, pre reg with dealer end of 23, 4 miles on the clock for £15k! Mid spec with lots of bells and whistles and £14k under list - amazing deal. And yes we know the downsides re no battery conditioning and it's CHAdemo but it will suit her low, almost entirely home-charge-local mileage use. Lovely thing to drive too.

You've had all the early adopters like me get cars for the last few years, everyone else doesn't fancy it or have no moiney due to cost of living/interest rates just at the point both the first cars come off lease deals into the 2nd hand market and there's a massive number of new models being released in big volumes. Dealers are drowning in unsold EVs.

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@MHskier, we’ll be changing our second car in the next 12-18 months. I’m pretty sure we’ll get a secondhand EV, perhaps 2 years old with 20K miles on the clock as it will only be low mileage when we use it. As you say, lots and lots of EVs now coming to auction from end of leases at what seems like very keen prices, and I’m hoping they will get keener still by the time we start to look for one. Having lived with an EV for 15 months and 18,000 miles I have no interest in going back to ICE.

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I'm almost making the switch. I can get pretty much what I paid for my Volvo 3 1/2 yrs ago. Fancy a Tesla S, but to get the spec I'd like needs one 2019 onwards and prices are a bit higher than I want to pay, so waiting a bit. I'm also tempted to wait for solid state batteries - either to buy a new one, or grab a current tech. battery model at a lower price.
Trouble is, my Volvo is such a lovely car.....

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@MorningGory, have audi q6 testdrive lined next week but really liked renault e scenic which with top spec is still 40% cheaper than q6

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@mooney058, Blimey, that Renault lease price is attractive! Wonder if my bike would fit in the back.

After all it is free

Just some advice for anyone new to EVs and home charging: before you commit, get a local electrician in to survey and quote for installation of something like an Ohme, Zappi or Wallbox charge point. Not an energy supplier or manufacturer. A home charge point completely transforms the fuel costs and break-even point, but can be scuppered if you (a) don't already have a smart meter (b) don't have a good 4G/5G SIM signal and/or (c) there's any complication to the home wiring or installation work needed.

Smart meters can take months and even more than a year to get installed and working reliably. If you don't have one, that's all time spent on a non-EV tariff, paying standard rates for your electricity. The difference can be 4x-5x in terms of price per kWh.

Many charge points use 4G/5G SIMs to communicate with the energy supplier's systems, and if the signal is unreliable, or you're in a reception 'desert' then your 'intelligent' charge point may only be capable of operating as an expensive on/off switch. It's not just rural areas that have these 'deserts' - they can occur in urban areas as well.

The energy providers and equipment manufacturers all have offers online, where you complete a survey form, and perhaps take some photo's and put a ~£1K deposit down. But this all assumes you have a 'standard installation' and many homes aren't standard. Any thing that's not the simplest form or installation job means either they refuse to do it, or expect to charge you for the 'non standard' work. THis may not manifest itelf until someone actually turns up in person to do the work. So this is why I suggest that in the first instance, you simply get a local electrician in to survey and quote - they'll pick up on any issues and come up with options - all without you handing over £1K up-front.

@LaForet, sensible advice, but not guaranteed to be the cheapest way. I wanted an Ohme charger so I could use Octopus' Intelligent tariff. Got four local electricians to quote (2 of who only did EV charge installs), but getting it installed by Octopus was £600 cheaper than the cheapest quote I got. It wasn't a particularly complicated install, but they did spend longer doing it than they expected when they turned up. No additional charge, though, so all good for me.

It's essential advice about ensuring you have a (Gen 2 I think) Smart Meter installed before you start charging an EV at home as that will be necessary to access the cheapest EV charging tariffs. There wasn't any cost to installing the Smart Meter, I think your electricity supplier is required to do that free of charge. I was able to get my appointment booked in before I collected the car, but at the time (Feb 2023) many people reported not being able to get a Meter appointment for months and months. I'd say get this booked in as soon as you think about getting an EV, if your house doesn't already have a Smart Meter. Best of luck if you don't have a decent 3G or 4G signal at home - it can be a real pain, apparently.

One thing I'd add is to check the main Cut-Out Fuse for your home's electricity supply. It needs to be 100A before you install an EV charger. My Cut-Out Fuse was only 60A so I had to arrange with my DNO to upgrade it to 100A. This was also done free of charge, but scheduling the work was tricky. Managed to get everything lined up so I was ready to smart charge my EV the day after I collected it, but it took a bit of effort to get that to work. Start getting all the pieces in to place as soon as you decide to buy an EV would be my advice.

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Yes, I perhaps phrased it badly - get an independent local to quote and then use that to compare with offerings from the big suppliers. If you've got a 'standard' installation and it's going to be straightforward, then the nationals may well have economies of scale that make them cheaper.

It's just that the EV forums are replete with people asking about issues around 'non-standard' installations, where the big suppliers have been happy to take their payment and then once the first subcontractor turns up, the problems begin: no smart meter / 3-phase supply needs a specialist / needs an uprated fuse / smart meter signal too weak / EVSE signal too weak / won't run cables under the floor / won't run cables through the roof space / you're on a looped supply / etc etc - Some of these things need the DNO to get involved and this can take some time to schedule. Some of these issues mean the likes of PodPoint simply walk away and refuse to do the job.

Help!!

Electric Vehicle route to the alps

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