Excellent, and spot on. In our 4 yrs driving EV, we’ve charged at 2.1kWh (10 amps), via the granny charger. Plug in at around 6.30pm, and unplug around 7/7.30am…giving 95/100 miles in the depths of winter, and 130/140 odd miles in the warmer months (Tesla Model 3 SR+).
The one small problem is that you cannot fully make use of time of day charging, so you are paying considerably more than if you had your own wall charger. For instance I get about 28 kWh overnight at 9p per kWh whereas on a granny charger I would only get 10 - 12 kWh, the rest (assuming you had a time of day tariff) would be at the full charge I do agree however it would take a long time to recoup the outlay on the charger, so it might not be a consideration
@@Sp_75-76 Im in this position. 9 miles per hour on the granny charger is 36 per night on my current 9p tarrif for 4 hours. I only do about 5 miles per day so its more than enough. I think I will charge 2/3 nights per week. I would like a 7kw though but as you say it would take years to recoup the cost, it might even fail/need changing again before I do haha. I do have a 50kw charger about 100m away from me but its 65p per KW so not ideal. I will use it only if I need I think. Intelligent octopus is 7.5p for 6 hours but again its a marginal saving my non intelligent tarrif and I would not recoup the cost in a meaningful timeframe. Had my LR 3 a couple of weeks and love it though!
Had my MG4 for 3 weeks now, I’ve done 1000 miles in it, but my annual mileage is around 6-7k. I use the 3pin plug for most of my charging, making use of my solar panels during the day. The adapter draws around 2kw, that gives around 8 miles per hour. I did a 10 hour test which gave 30% and 83 miles but importantly there was no discernible heat in the plug, wall socket or cable. Really enjoying the down to earth format of your videos.
Hi Gary, hope you are enjoying your MG4, I have heard great things about them. Great readings. Over the last 3 months of making videos I have taken hundreds, probably thousands of photos with the car plugged into a huge variety of chargers. Any figures I use in my videos are always actual readings supplied by Tesla in the mobile app and on the car display while charging. My 3 pin waterproof socket has 16 amps available, but my battery management system seems happier only taking 10 amps. So I typically get 10A x 243V and 4mi/hr showing. If you get 8mi/hr that's great, you are faster than a Model S, Dave
@@davetakesiton I’ve been taking pictures of the gom before and after charging every charge to try to get a handle on consumption. For the ten hour test I used a socket monitor to see the charging losses. The socket showed 1900-2250w as the consumption (total cost £7.35 although that didn’t take into account the solar contribution), the car’s charging monitor showed the battery getting 1.7-2.0 kw, and the gom added 83 miles.
Ive used 3 pin socket since i bought my used ioniq last oct. Do 28 miles a day . Only charge up on a friday night /sat night. Fiited a quality mk 2 pole socket in the garage. Checked for temp rise of socket and plug after varying times plugged in and cool as a cucumber at all times. No resistance/ high temps.
Dave - you imply we can either use a 13a socket to feed a granny cable or spend ~£1k for a dedicated EV charging point. A third option is to have an electrician fit a dedicated 6mm power feed to a Commando (blue) switched socket and then use a 32a version of the granny lead that uses the plug version of the same Commando connector to charge at up to 7kw. (The latest regs may require an earth rod to supplement your existing earthing provision, connected to the 32a socket). This 32a granny lead can then be taken to multiple locations provided they each have the associated 32a socket available. You could also obtain a short adapter cable from a commando socket to a Schuko plug for use at up to 16a in many European countries.
True, they are really quite good. I think people prefer the flexibility of the home charger, off peak periods, monitoring through an app, etc, but Commando is an option
They are not up to code "supposedly" I asked an electrician about this and got this reply ... According to the 5th edition of the EV Charging Code of Practice, we cannot install a socket above 13A for EV charging unless it’s a smart system There's some silliness in the codes on this stuff that's forcing us to pay £500 for literally just a mains to type 2 converter when this seems fine to me ... ua-cam.com/video/PP-iMV-NeW4/v-deo.html I'm trying to navigate this mess now. It seems extremely odd to me that a house ring main runs a long list of sockets on a 32 amp breaker, but if we put just one socket on it's own 32 amp breaker you get push back from electrical people that install these "EV chargers" in this manner.
Let me add one important peice of advice. If you are satisfied using a standard socket; PLEASE make sure it is safe for long time charging currents. Many house fires have started due to overload in the wiring.
Yep. We had our MG4 charging on a VERY long, mostly coiled extension when the Electrician happened to be here. He was very clear it needed to be fully unrolled and/or to use a shorter one if possible.
@@alexleigh6742 yes, this, and to be exposed to air to cool. Also the longer the run, the more voltage drop you'll have so charging may be slightly lower. Make sure your extension is rated for the full 13A too
Yes, Mats, great advice. My Tesla is set to 16A when plugged in, but it normally only ever takes 10A and that gives me 4 mi/hr. The BMS seems to be protecting my 3 pin plug circuit playing safe. I am happy to let it, Dave
@@davetakesiton Our charger (ICS) has a 'virtual fuse' on the fuse board where the tails terminate (and a CT clamp around those tails) so it monitors the incoming load and throttles the charger if we're going to go over the 80 amp physical fuse. I set a 'safe' 15% anyway so we get about 14a which still works for overnight charging.
Wall chargers make more sense if you can arrange an off peak EV tariff. We calculated that the saving from the off peak EV tariff would pay for the wall charger in 6 months based on our mileage.
So what is your typical mileage! You comment would be most helpful if we knew that and the cost of your wall charger? What is the tariff you are doing your calculations on please? Octopus Flux?
I am currently using a 13 amp socket. There are two reasons why I am getting a home charge point. First, is safety, as others have pointed out, it can cause a 13 amp socket to overheat, I haven't had issues but I feel I am taking a risk. Second, if you do go on a longer journey, it is nice to be able to arrive home with a low state of charge and be able to top it back up again off-peak. At the moment I will often make sure I arrive home after a long trip with around 50% because of how long it takes to top up on the granny charger, plus it may have to do some charging on peak. If you are renting then you can still get the £350 grant. The £1000 7kW charge point soon pays itself back on a cheap overnight tariff.
I did the same calculation but based on my mileage decided to stick with 13 amp. 6000 miles per annum, = 1500 kWh say £450, at cheap rate £150, so 3 years to cover the cost of the charger install. If I factor in higher daytime rate, I can time shift washing/drying but not oven/cooking the payback period extends. In addition my home came with solar panels which generate around 3200 kWh per annum.
Very true MistyMu, my very reason for installing a 7kW home charger, only I often arrive back with 4% SOC and need it back up to 90% within my off-peak window overnight. Yes, it has paid itself back many many times over, Dave
This is true about safety. All the professionals say to NEVER USE a granny cable to charge EV long term as it isn't safe for the house or the car. 13 amp leads should only be used in an emergency to get you home but never as a permanent charging solution.
@@vincelemon6343 I have to say to you that high street shops have been selling 2kw electric fires for years with 13amp plugs. Beware of "professionals" that are actually selling something. One of them is currently peddling that if you charge a car with you AC circuit then because the RCD is AC then the RCD might be fooled by DC flowing back and it might not work. This is total baloney. If it were true then what about all the other DC chargers in our houses? Anyone with basic electronics knows full well that AC is converted to DC using a bridge rectifier circuit. If you do not know what one is then let me explain. A diode only allows electricity to flow one way, a bridge rectifier uses four of these arranged to force + to + and - to -. It is impossible for the DC side to travel up the AC side as to do so the electricity would need to flow the wrong way through the diodes, if it somehow did do that then it will blow the diode, and we would have this problem with every DC charger in our homes, including mobile phone chargers, vacuum cleaner chargers, power tools, the list is endless. But they say it, because they want to sell a service and they are using fear to sell it. Of course if there is something wrong with your socket the 2KW will show it up, and if the plug gets hot then stop using it. But to pretend that you need a £500 electrician to wire in an £800 7Kw socket is frankly rubbish when all EV owners have, at some point, used their 3 pins plugs without any issues ever. And I am excluding the photos and videos that just show a socket next to an orange extension lead that could have been running anything from a grow to a whole house. Do your own research, search google images for photos of fires caused by someone charging an EV at 10amps using a 3 pin plug. You won't find any. You will ironically find some showing 7kw chargers that have been badly fitted, or some folks from across the water that use 240v 30amp sockets. One even suggested that he couldn't understand someone spending £20,000 on a car and then not spending more money on an external 7kw charger, if that does not reek of sales patter then what does? Seriously, just research it yourself. Personally I think theoretical scare sales tactics without evidence of events should be banned. Obviously if you find your plug or socket is hot, then get it changed. But I have used one for 15 hours straight and the plug and socket were still stone cold. What exactly are these people saying when they say you should only use it in an emergency to get you home? Are they saying the dangers they are peddling suddenly disappear? It is nonsense.
For the price of a few nights out I'd rather the convenience of a 7kw charge point. I want to plug in for a few hours each Saturday morning and thats it. Thats a worthwhile convenience to me. I like the flashing colours on it also for Christmas, Halloween etc.
I have a PHEV, which I originally looked at getting a proper charger for - I even bought an Eero one then changed my mind and sent it back after being messed around by the installer. I eventually got a EV specific outdoor socket from Screwfix which comes with a safety cutoff and got it installed by an electrician. Total was around 50 quid for the socket and 150 for the electrician. However I do only run it at 6A which takes 7 hours to charge the 9kWh battery, and that is good enough for me. An additonal expense was a Type2 to 3pin charger from Argos and that sits outside all the time (under a plastic box with a plant on top) with the plug being in a holder on the fence.
Thanks for posting this video. Full of excellent advice and guidance. Just one correction I would offer is that not all EVs have the ability to monitor SoC and/or charge speeds remotely. I drive a 2019 Kona and there was no app for this year model so no remote telemetry/control. My wife's 2021 Zoe does have an app so your comments are spot on for her vehicle. We have a Wallbox 'charger' which is set to scheduled charging overnight for 4 hours which is the only "smart feature" we use. Allows me to override the schedule without having to go out to my Kona to press buttons....
Hi Lee, I am surprised if those figures are not available somewhere, in car, app or charger, but if not, no big deal. It is what it is. I wouldn't bother with it so much if I wasn't taking hundreds of photos at different chargers for my videos, Dave
Sounds great but when petrol prices increased during the latter stages of Covid, I started plugging my plug-in hybrid which had a battery only range of 21 miles into a 23 amp socket at work. My monthly electricity bill went from £220 to just over £700 on average.
Well done! You're the 1st one to point out that the charger is in the car not on the wall! I only ever use an external waterproof 13A socket to charge my PHEV and that one charge usually does 2 local trips. And that's only charging to 80% which, as I'm sure you know, greatly increases battery life.
I live in the Algarve, here we are lucky that our “three pin plugs” deliver 16A So an overnight charge can easily deliver 45KWh, that’s over half a tank on a MYLR (on a separate issue) …I’m not sure why, but it’s common for homes here to have a three phase supply !
I have a home charger fitted for free 9 years ago and it still works fine, I use this at night on the cheap rate. I also have Solar panels, and use the "Granny" AKA the 3 pin charger during the day, I can set the charge current to 6,8,10 amps and trickle in the electrons depending on the house load and sunshine etc. I am told the 3 pin is only for occasional or temporary use, but I have been using it for years without problems, but get your outlet checked first, mine was specifically installed outdoors.
Oh, and one more thing… Always put the EVSE ‘granny’ charger back into your car before driving away so should you need it when out and about you actually have it with you. The same goes for the AC charging cable.
Certainly my type 2 cable lives under the car's bonnet, so it's always there. But just how often is one likely to need a granny charger in an ordinary day's motoring, seriously? I'll take it with me if I'm staying away overnight just in case something goes horribly wrong with my overnight charging plans and I have to plug in at my host's house (never happened yet), but for day-to-day driving with an expected return well within the range of the car, what's the point? My granny charger sits on a shelf in the garage right under the socket it's plugged into, about a metre away from the car's charging port when it's garaged, and it stays there (other than for overnight trips). Maybe I'm wrong, but the less one pulls the plug out and in the socket the better, I think.
@@moragkerr9577 that’s a fair point. I rarely used my granny charger but it would be Sod’s Law that if I left it at home it’ll be the one time I need it. I wonder how many people have to make an unscheduled trip due to a family member etc.
@@SirHackaL0t. I actually use my granny charger routinely as I don't have a wall box. (Rapid charger 400 yards away at only 30p per unit, then top up with the granny.) I don't want to be unplugging it all the time, because I don't want to put excessive wear on the pins and connectors. So it stays plugged in in the garage most of the time, because I'm always going to be back long before I get low on charge. However if I'm going on a trip where I'll need to charge away from home, I'll put it in its bag and stow it in the boot, just in case. I haven't needed it - the friends I've stayed with fortuitously have public chargers within walking distance of their houses, so I haven't neded to impose on their electricity supply. But suppose there had been a problem with these chargers, I could have done that. I think the chances of being unable to access a working public charger so that you need to beg for help where you find yourself are very low these days. And in fact your best bet in that situation would be to crawl in turtle mode to somewhere people have wall boxes and ask for the use of one of these. A fellow EV driver will probably be happy to help out for a tenner. But if push absolutely came to shove and you found yourself at an isolated farm or cottage, having the granny with you could be a lifesaver. I know it's really, really unlikely. But how many times (in a previous life) have I run out of petrol because for some reason I didn't have that 5-litre green can in the boot? At least twice.
When I bought my Ioniq 4 years ago, I used the granny cable for 2 years before installing a home charger. What is noticed is that normal outdoor sockets (I'm in NL so shuko) don't like these high loads of extended periods, I had to replace the socket every year. A more advanced home charger has some benefits compared to the granny cable. First is energy monitoring, so you can actually see what the cost of charging is. Next is protection of your main fuse(s), when you are charging and turn on the cooker, you may overload your main fuse. More advanced home chargers temporarily reduce power, so not to exeed the your main fuse rating. Last benefit is diversion of renewable energy, some can keep your electric meter from spinning when it's sunny.
Yes and no. On a personal note, if a socket overheats and needs replacing I would 100% get an electrician in, not just replace it. An outdoor socket if properly installed is good for much more than 13 amps without overheating. Trouble is, many are not properly installed and just piggy back off some other circuit which means if the car is already maxing out the power and several other things are turned on in the same circuit it can cause problems. Get an electrician, tell him or her you will be charging an EV and let them do it right. Home chargers are always connected on a dedicated circuit with its own proper spec cable and RCD. But the car should decide. My app screenshots show clearly my car is set to 16amps, my the car recognises the Tesla charger being used and resets the limit to 10amps, safety first and always, Dave
I mainly use the 3 pin Granny Charger. Plugged into a 13amp 3 pin outdoor socket on the corner of my home on the driveway. The reason is something else ... I only have a total of 30amps supply to my rural property, so cannot have a charger which would draw 40amps and most normal houses have at least 60amps - the preference is 100amps on a non-looped supply. An electrician can explain it all. For me, this is fine ... I can charge at work for free (if I go into one of our offices) and my employer (NHS) offered me a free home charger with my lease (but of course, I had to decline). One other slightly good thing is that I am on a fixed tariff of 16p per Kw night and day - this never went up like everyone else. If I am doing a lot of miles then I'll pick an Ultra Rapid BP Pulse nearby, charge to 80% and then top off overnight at home if I need to. I did all this research for months before I went for a leased EV and find that in reality, over the 8 months I've had an EV, my overall monthly motoring costs are £50 per month less than running my previous Diesel Jaguar which averaged 55mpg. My Volvo XC40 Twin Recharge has a Volvo App so I can easily monitor charging and can pre-condition the cabin and de-ice easily in Winter whilst having breakfast - plus I get a new car every 3 years 😁
The MG 4 just came up on SPECIAL Offer which has stoked my interest as I need to wait a year to be eligible for XC40. My issue is I rent and live mid terrace with public footpath between house and car so I'm waiting on council advice for having a cable across the footpath under a cover. Daves vids and comments section are great for an EV NOOB like me
@@LeeP88I live in a flat and have driven an EV for over 3 years. I charge when out and about. Today for instance I had to drive from Swindon to Cardiff and back so stopped at the SuperChargers in Newport. Lovely golfing hotel, great coffee and ice cream and a wonderful view. It wasn’t a bother. This is what I’ve done for over 3 years - charging when shopping, travelling, having a wee and a coffee at the services etc. I’ve only covered 55,000 miles so far. :)
Hi, my Tesla charger has a setting allowing you to restrict the amps to match the supply. I can select 6A, 8A, 10A, 13A, 16A, 20A, 25A, and maximum 32A. If ever you needed one, find a charger with a similar feature and you could set say 13A or 16A and be well under your limit, Dave
A useful alternative to a wall box is installing a 16amp socket. It’s relatively cheap to run a suitable cable to an external 16amp socket. Then change the plug over on your granny cable. The only advantage with a wall box is that they’re WiFi enabled, thus allowing you to remotely control the charging
18 months owning Lexus UX300e. 3 PIN granny charger at home and occasionally taken it with me when visiting family. The only time I've used DC charging is the free CHAdeMO at the dealers
One point not mentioned is efficiency. A Tesla for example, when powered up will consume about 200W. If on a granny charger, that is a 200W overhead on a 2400W input. ~8% loss. However, 200W on a 7kWh charge is only a 3% loss. Because the granny charger will take substantially longer, the total losses mount quite significantly.
@@SusannaSaunders I don't know, I wouldn't expect much or anything. I'll measure mine with a smart plug but the figure that I quoted there is for the Tesla being powered up while charging.
Looking at this and thinking the same. I live down the road from several 50kw and some 150kw chargers. Think I'll just granny charge 99% of the time, then if I really need it make a run to a fast charger and pay the premium.
I've taken some stick for sticking by the granny charger, but it suits me. I have heavy-duty metal-casing 13A sockets in my garage, on a separate circuit with a circuit breaker. The plug never gets hot, and as it's 1.5 metres from the car's charging port, I don't need an extension lead. In the normal course of events my mileage is easily covered by what I can get with the granny lead. My electrician had a look at the setup when he was at the house for another job and said it was absolutely fine. If I get home on low charge, I'm lucky. 400 yards from my house there is a rapid charger that's capable of putting 65% charge into my battery in 54 minutes - the maximum time allowed on the charger. And the price of the electricity is about the same as my home electricity tariff - for the past few months it's actually been slightly cheaper, then mine went down a bit. I came home at 4% once (about nine in the evening), pulled straight into the charger and set it going, walked home and put the kettle on and had a cup of tea, and walked back less than an hour later to a car sitting at 68%. Drove to my driveway, unloaded the car, ran it into the garage, and put it on the granny charger. According to the car's app, it was at 100% and the cells balanced before 3 am. When the weather gets horrible I'm more likely to give the five-minutes-each-way walk a miss and just let the granny charger do the lot. But if I do need the car filled up from very low in five hours or so, the opportunity is always there. I had assumed that when I got an EV I'd naturally get a wall box. Two people in my road - with very similar houses and garages - have got them. But even with the £300 grant I'm eligible for, I'm struggling to justify the expense. Even if the public charger price goes up, I NEED it so seldom that it wouldn't really be an issue.
you quickly develop what works for you and charge as little as possible away from your cheapest option. Probably the majority will never need to charge at a public charger, ever. I chose a home charger for work as, like you, I would often return home with 3-4% and needed it back up to 75-90% by the morning within my 10 hour off-peak window. Only a 7kW home charger could do that, works for me, Dave
@@davetakesiton As you say, you develop what works. I very seldom come home as low as I did that day - well, never in fact, but I had been out on a joyride, the cheap charger I had meant to sample turned out to be broken, and I realised I could get all the way back with a (very) little to spare, and didn't give Gridserve at Abington my money! But since I've got a public charger in such a useful location, and I hardly ever drive to the limit in a day, I'm not seeing £1000 for a wall box as being worth the money - at least not at the moment.
Good advice there. We went with a home "charger" recommended by our electrician. The Smart bit as you say is of dubious use, but I did want one running the OCPP Protocol so it could 'talk' to my home automation software. We could have got away with the 3 pin (our use case is the mostly < 200 miles a week), but we were having loads of electrical work doing anyway. Happy we have it, but definitely the view - when we bought the car - was very much you must have a home charger, however you use your EV. Especially if living in a rural spot, there are NO > 7KW charges within 20 miles!
Yes, Alex, I regard chargers a bit like my home smart meter display. Once the novelty wears off, it sits in a cupboard, only ever coming out to check my rate when EDF announces a price change, then it's back in the cupboard. Shame about this "you must get a home charger" attitude. Many people who commute just 10 miles a day simply don't need one. Also my outdoor waterproof socket is rated at 16A at the consumer unit, and I tell my Tesla it has 16A but it only ever draws 10A. It's like its protecting the circuit and plug and I'm happy to let it, safety first, Dave
Interesting take Dave. I have a PHEV which means I need to charge each day. Previously I used an outside socket which I installed myself (it is the type where you plug it in inside the house with a fixed rcd plug). I then used my granny each day. In the end I went for a zappi home charger why? 1. Having to unplug and put away the granny after every use was a faff as it’s easily stealable I didn’t want to leave it connected all the time. 2. With intelligent octopus I can charge for 7.5p between 23.30 and 5.30 they don’t support charging with a granny. 3. Safety, the new consumer unit added by the ev charge installer also includes surge protection, this means in the event of a fault with the house supply the car is protected. The final point being many people do not pay and electricians to install an outside socket (and one that complies with the EV regs would be a lot more than £100) but drape wires out of bathroom windows or worse on an unwound extension lead.
If you have your own driveway/house - Then it is easy to drill a hole from inside your house through to your drive, then make up an electric cable that will fit through the hole and there fit an outside waterproof electric 3 pin fitting! Use your Granny cable to charge your EV! A slow charge is better for your EV battery, rapid charging your car each day will cut the life of your EV battery! So home charging is best - 3 years I have been charging this way
As a Brit who emigrated to California decades ago I was surprised that the 240 volt uk plug only supplied 3 miles per hour that is the same as I was getting on my 120 volt 15 amp standard US line. What is often not realized is the most US homes also have a 240 volt circuits that is used for heavy duty applications like Air Conditioning, stoves and driers. I have since ran a specific line to my Tesla charger that is 240 volt 40 amps, even with the cost of the 60 foot run of wire and the charger it came to less than $1,000. My rate in Anaheim California is $0.20 per kWh regardless of time of day.
Reasonable advice as long as the socket is on a dedicated point on the board. Mine has 7.2kw rated cable so that when wall chargers get cheap it will be an easy swap. Mind with a perfect city car 24kw Leaf even a low battery is full on an overnight charge.
I do about 120 miles a week as I’m retired. I leave it plugged in once a week for about 11hrs and get it to 90%. That gives me around 200 miles. At the moment I pay 25p a Kw on a fixed deal with Octopus ( got the deal just before prices went crazy). No smart meter needed.
@@Brian-om2hh The trouble with that is that I would have to have a smart meter installed which will be no good when they switch off 3g. I heard that energy companies will be asking the consumer to pay for a new 4/5g one so I will wait. Thanks anyway
I just use a wall socket but turn down the charge rate to 8 amps to avoid damaging the socket. That seems to work well. My daughter has an ionic 5 and only uses a wall socket as well. When I can I charge my car when it's sunny and have free solar power available. When I go to the supermarket I use their ev spaces as it's worth paying (several stores have free charging points) to use the better parking spaces😂.
By ‘fancy features’ do you mean life saving pen fault protection? And if you are using an external socket, the only reasonable way to do so, is to have a dedicated radial circuit with a type a RCD. I can imagine loads of people will add a socket as a spur off of their ring main or into their ring main. Putting a considerable additional load. 13amp sockets are not robust enough for a continuous load above 8-10amps, you can often reduce this within the car but it increase charge times even further and without doing so risks a very melty socket. You need a very specific setup for the 13amp socket to be considered safe for every day use, and you have not highlighted these. This risks giving license to people with out-of-date electrics, adding a spur off their ring main and risking fire.
I've been having exactly this "extensive debate" on my discord server. I keep asking "what am I getting for £500 for the unit + £500 for the install that the 3 pin plug in my garage can't do?" It's always the same: more throughput, some technical reason why home circuits are supposedly "not safe" and then "oh but this or that smart feature". I own a Tesla Model 3 Performance, the car itself has a "charger" built in to it and can "schedule" its own demand from a 3 pin plug (in my garage). I think this kit, if you look inside them is crazy overpriced for what you get and electricians charging £500 to do 1 to 2 hours work is frankly extortion. This needs to be either heavily subsidized or cracked down on under consumer laws IMO.
Paul, you could only need to use the portable type 2 chargers. Tesla supply one for £180 or get a different make with a 13 amp plug and they are about £150 on Amazon. Just plug them in. Your M3P has a charge scheduler to set the time to get cheap off peak rates. The only problem is the charge rate. I get about 5 miles for every hour plugged in. M3 should get nearer 7 miles. If you only do 10 or 20 miles a day that will work fine. I did a lot more, so bought their 7kW wall charger that gives 21 miles per hour, so I can always charge fully even if I arrive back empty.
@@davetakesiton The cable i'm using at the moment is the Tesla supplied one, but the Wife is considering getting an EV too and it's easier to manage the "smart charging" if it's done on the charger rather than the car. From what I understand the smart tariff from Octopus only allows for one car or one charger to be registered with the account. I've got an install booked for Monday of a Zappi charger but I have not been able to get anything concrete (answers wise) on the Tesla charger handles with the little button on them fitted to a non Tesla wall unit. This feels like an annoying oversight on Tesla's part, I'm working with the installer and toying with the idea of cannibalizing a Tesla 3 pin kit to put the cable on the Zappi so as not to lose that "smart" button function on the cable. If it was only the opening of the port cover i'd just tap the thing each time and not care but having to pull the phone out to unlock the cable each time instead of just grabbing it and hitting the button feels a tad clunky. Sorta goes against the whole point of getting a Tesla in the first place if you lose some of that convenience. This lack of foresight on such key components after sale of the car seems to be a major EV industry bad trend.
For anyone reading this and curious about the cable problem: Turns out you can't swap the cables since part of the smarts is in the wall unit which actually talks to the Tesla network and your car when you hit the button. Any non Tesla charging therefore loses this IMO uniquely smart convenience feature.
Have a standard garden socket, use it once a week overnight to charge my car and it lasts all week. (Usual commute is approx 15-20 miles a day). Simples
Great video thx. I'm currently waiting for a ohme charger to be installed at home. And would probably only need to charge once a week with the miles we do. Currently thinking about moving over to the octopus energy tarif, as our supplier is a flat 31p per kw with no offers for ev owners. We did our first long trip with our ev last Friday, 256miles. Used electroverse app to plot the route and it then sent it through to Google maps, for us to follow on the car. Found that zapmap only does scheduled long 40min to 1hour stops to charge, where electroverse does the quick charge and go, like your video on charging explained. On zapmap with the 3 long stops would have taken us 7 and a half hours to do the journey. With electroverse 5 quick stops it was 6 and a half hours. 2 more stops, but an hour quicker. The only issue we had was between the apps to plot the route, and then sending it to Google maps. Google maps kept trying to reroute us back to an old charger we already left behind. And we had to close the apps down, and redo the whole route to get it to work again. We also fount that half the chargers on electroverse, would not show on zapmap. Almost as if the apps has not been updated with new chargers in a long while. If possible could you do a video for us non tesla owners, on best app to use for route planning, and quick charging stops. And maybe show a demo, as we found it a bit of a struggle. Thank you.
Yes, LightBearer, I already have plans to do just that. Research is underway. It's such a shame you cannot use your in car or app exclusively and have total trust in it, Dave
@@davetakesiton brilliant thx i will look out for that video. I drive the new vauxhall vivaro e and find the installed software is not showing all the available fast chargers. Maybe it needs an update, but its a 23 model, so would have thought it would come fully updated.
Thanks for the video Dave! The interesting point comes when you can rapid charge using a low overnight tariff. The question then becomes when, if ever, is the return of investment on the home charging point that has cost £1,000 to install? If you only travel less than 60 Miles round trip to work, does it ever pay for itself?
We looked a this. Probably not! But there's something comforting about having the charger there, ready to go knowing you can get a decent charge reasonably quickly. Switching to one of the Octopus Tariffs (4 hours overnight 7.5p kwh) means we charge about every 7-10 days currently. It does make the car extremely cheap to run, but I don't think we'll get back to the install cost.
Thanks Susanna, my point exactly. Everyone is different, but at 60 miles per day, you could be well within range of a 3 pin waterproof socket, unless you only have 4 hours off-peak cheap rate, or you go long distance at weekends. There is no set rule or payback time. I do a much higher mileage than average and got my money back from savings in about 3 or 4 months, but far more importantly, it allowed me to use my car at the cheap off peak rate for work, which I could not have done on a 3 pin, Dave
I use a NEMA 6-15 in the US. (240V at 15A) That is 11 miles of range per hour of charge on my Model 3. That is 110 miles in 10 hours, more then enough for my daily drive (Avg 70 miles per day.
if you don’t have an outdoor socket if you’re thinking of one for an EV I’d suggest getting a dedicated circuit added - to make sure its not overloading an existing ring you may have spurred off. At that point I’d probably go for a proper wall charger if you’re getting a dedicated circuit not much difference to make that 32A capable vs 16A
Right MrKlaw, the advice to me was to have a dedicated circuit and mine is protected by a 16A RCD at the consumer unit. Interesting to note that I tell My Tesla it has 16A but it always defaults to 10A, like it is protecting me and the circuit and I'm happy to let it, Dave
I use my domestic 3-phase plug and a portable 3×16A "charger". That gives me 11 kW charging at home, and I can being my portable service with me to another 3-phase plug.
I was given a free home charger including fitted when I bought my Renault Zoe 3 years ago. I thought this was the case with all EV manufacturers. Obviously not. It is a basic 7kw Chargemaster unit, all the programming is done by the car and is just what I need.
Yes Clive we all assume, but we also all learn. I like basic, because I see problems, if you have a tariff that is intelligent, a charger that is intelligent and a car that is intelligent. Who decides? Dave
Also the SE SR has LFP batt and ENJOYS being charged up to 100% regularly and at the very least weekly. Unlike the other batteries that you only charge up to 80% . One of the Teslas has the same battery as the SE SR and in the manual states please charge up to 100% regularly or at least once a week but every day if poss. Confused 😕
I have a 16 amp commando socket on the front wall of my home and found a proper charger cable capable of using this and can push 16 amps into the car. So I can have 16 amps instead of 13 amps and get 100 miles overnight which is more than I would normally need. If I know I have a long journey coming up I simply plan to top up over 2 or 3 nights depending upon how much I am using the car in the interim period. The charger cable cost me £250. Buying it saves me otherwise needing public charging which saves me a lot of money. I do not need a dedicated 7kW charger.
Absolutely spot on Dave!!!! There is so much evangelical nonsense about charging out there when normally,the simplest and cheapest solution suits most of the people most of the time!
Dave 16 amps from a 13 amp socket !!!! Max is less than 3 kW. I use mine at 10 amps as 13 amp sockets are not designed for 13 amps continuously, they get very hot and eventually burn out.
Not mentioned .home chargers work well with solar pv.once my home battery is full it fills the car with free solar energy.Normally the eco plus setting but tend to use little else unless driving to London when i top up to 100% overnight
I charged a leaf all night ever night on a 4 gang in the garage. It was mostly fine, but it did burn out a plug once. However that seemed to be because it was an old socket that a spider had crawled into and fried. After getting a new plug socket it was fine for a few more years. Would love to hear an expert talk about the safety of using 3 pin for car charging all the time.
Please don’t use a 4 way gang adapter. Most aren’t suitable for the load being pulled and the temptation to plug something else into it is great which might cause it to overload. Get a decent caravan (typically orange) cable which should be rated for the amps you are pulling. Far less chance of a fire.
I am not an electrician. Tesla offer a 3 pin plug adapter for the supplied charger, so I trust them not to sell us stuff that is gong to burn out the car or burn our house down. Mine charges at about 4 mi/hr so is intended to be used continuously for long periods of time without damaging the car or burning your house down. Although the plug is fused at 13 Amps, my Model S only ever rates it at 10A, I like to think it is trying to protect me and I am happy to let it. If plugs, sockets or wiring gets hot, you have a problem. GET AN ELECTRICIAN. If anything smokes, unplug it THEN GET AN ELECTRICIAN. I am horrified, appalled and speechless that someone could spend tens of thousands of pounds on an EV then plug it into something they know or suspect is not safe. A manufacturer supplied 3 pin adapter and charger can be regarded as safe. Get an electrician to check the house wiring, the consumer unit and the actual socket you propose to use before you ever plug it in, it might save your life, Dave
@@davetakesiton Remember that not all EV new drivers are clued up on such things as safe ways to charge using a 3 pin socket which I suspect is part of the reason that you made the video. :)
Important to remember that not all cars have 22kW capable AC chargers built in (Tesla Model 3 RWD will only received 11kW AC max) Almost every day we could get away with using the 3 pin socket, as we're home for 14 hours (2.4kW / hr - 33 kW per night - 50% battery - 120 miles a night) We do however have a 32A commando socket (interlocked socket with additional earth) this allows us to do a 70% of charging if required in the 6 hours of intelligent octopus each night if required - cost a lot less than a new wall box too
We are able to do most of our charging while away (with permission of the house owners) on a 3 pin socket while we sleep at AirBnBs (for context we have 2 small children so are generally parked up 17:00 - 07:00 or greater) I will lower the amps of charging, if I there is time, in this scenario.
I'm looking at fitting a 16 amp plug specifically for EV charging. I have found you can maybe get away with it without having to upgrade my amp fuse and upgrading to a 3 phase electricity. I run 80 miles a day and the price to upgrade to 3 phase is an absolute fortune. If I can get up to 80 percent in 12 hours then should be fine.
@@MikeGleesonazelectricsthat’s what I’ve done, I’ve came off my shed supply that’s set at 30amp at the house fuse. Bought a master plug EV 3 pin socket rated at 16a so should be ok. However with that said I’ve also got a tumble dryer in the shed so have stated to the missus to ensure the car is not charging at the same time. 👍
@@MikeGleesonazelectrics that’s fine, speed wasn’t what I was going for anyway, I was just ensuring my amps and load doesn’t set fire to my house, but cheers for that. 👍😊
I don't know if you've done a video covering this already, but if not, could you do a video discussing ways of charging an EV to a particular level, say 80%? I know Teslas have a built in function where you can tell it to only charge to a specified level, but what about EVs that don't have that function? What ways are there to control that type of charging? Thanks. 🙂
Hi Dave a 13amp socket will only supply about 2.5kw per hour so 30kw over 12hrs my father has only ever used a 3pin and dies 6000 miles no problem only problem is that the plugs burn out every couple of years get a cheap charger secondhand of a 3.6kw
Hi John, not sure how you get that. I’m not an electrician, so never offer advice other than to consult an electrician. Checking my installation, My house voltage is 220/ 230 volts nominal and the car pulls 16 amps. Power = volts x current so my car asks for 3.6kW. If anyone tries to pull that with a plug and a 13amp fuse they are asking for trouble and using an extension lead also with 13amp fuse is bonfire night, Dave
Not on my car, Steve, for my charging video series you can see the app screenshots, and is recorded as flicking between 3 and 4 miles per hour, nothing to do with miles per kWh, that’s using power not gaining it, Dave
Either your car calculation is incorrect or it's not pulling the KW you're thinking. My leaf gets about 8 miles for 1 hr of granny charging pulling around 2.4kw. There are some losses but that's usually below 10%. Charging losses are not that big. The math does stack up. I.e a car with 50kwh battery will do about 150 miles if you can get 3 miles /kw. Note most granny charges especially supplied by the manufacturer do not exceed 10 amps.
@@davetakesiton So your car is only accepting 1kwh of energy per hour from your AC 3kw per hour supply? If this is happening when the battery is nearly empty? then there is something seriously amiss with your AC charging system?
@davetakesiton I don’t follow your logic of putting 3kw into your car but only adding 3-4 miles in an hour. That must mean you are only getting 1 -1.3 mls /kw when driving, or there are huge losses on the 3kw you are drawing from your house. I would check you are actually drawing 3kw.
@@Iainab5 Hi Iain, the speed the car accepts and charges at has nothing whatsoever to do with the miles per kWh I get while driving. They are totally unrelated. If it did, I would get a different range from the car if I charged at a 3kW, 7kW 50kW 150kW and 300kW. I don't. A full battery always gives me the same range. The power of the charger, shown either as kW or miles per hour plugged in, merely dictates how slowly or quickly it reaches the limit I have set. i.e. if I set 100% SOC, then a 3kW rate will take many hours, a 300kW rate would take much less time. But both would still reach 100% and both would give me the same range. I get a display on my mobile app and my car display that tells me the Volts, the Amps, the kW speed, time remaining and the miles per hour that I am adding while it is plugged in, live as it charges. I have hundreds of photos of these using different chargers. These are not my figures, they are Tesla, so I believe them. If you need more, let me know in the comments and I can put a collection of readings together as a video, Dave
Every person (especially these rich Tesla tosspots) that has a home charge point installed should be made to agree to charging 4-5+ other people each. Add that to every charge-point installing contract and you'd soon solve the charging infrastructure issues. Fail to charge 1-2 successfully without issues within the first 6-12 months, charge point removed, no alternative form of vehicle permitted. Simple.
When you share out your petrol from your tank among your poorer neighbours we’ll happily look at this. BTW most EVs are around £40k most Audis BMWs and Range Rover are twice that
Yes, I have a Zoe ZE50 and have the car permanently set to charge during the night (Octopus Go) I plug in when needed and it does the business when I am asleep. I guess if your EV does not have programmable charging, then the utility provider's facility would be needed. Are there some EVs which don't have the facility?
Hi, great advice in your video Dave. I have been provided with a Peugeot 408 plug-in hybrid but the charging cable does not have a 3 pin connection (unlike my recent Ford Kuga plug-in Hybrid). I see that Tesla have provided you with an adaptor but Peugeot surprisingly do not provide these and after some searching they do not appear to be easy to find? Do you now where to find these adaptors?
Me too, I’ve just purchased a Peugeot e208 and believe it only comes with the public charging cable (no 3 pin adapter or cable). I watched your video and thought that Tesla adapter looks handy, I’ll see if I can find one, but as LeeCahill-w4b said, they’re hard to find. Any ideas?
I am considering getting a hyundai ionic 38kwh, my research shows they are vwry efficient when driven correctly using the strongest regen, could a 3 pin socket support a fukl charge dir this overnight woildntou say? My longest daily journey is 120miles approx
I’d appreciate any advice from those here in the know as I have recently bought an i3S and charge it overnight on Mondays (as my wife commutes daily for four days) and again on Friday night (so we have a full charge for our three day weekends). Is this twice weekly slow charge endangering the integrity of the battery or dangerous in any way? Thanks All, Geoff
More difficult to take advantage of cheap EV tariffs if using a granny charger. If you're not using a utility company who provides an EV tariff then you are literally throwing money away. Having a Smart charger makes sense if you have solar panels and the charger is solar aware. Yesterday I topped up my Tesla M3 purely from solar power, which is free.
So if you only or mostly only drive the UK average of 20 mile per day then a 13 amp socket/granny charger & a once a week top up while you do your shopping at your local supermarket should be more than enough for most people for the vast majority of the year & only the need to stop & charge at the more expensive rapid chares for the occasional longer journeys, doesn't sound any more difficult or inconvenient than having to go & fill up with petrol as & when you need it to me.
Thanks for this video. I’m about to get an EV as a company car. I live 105 miles from work, so have a 7 kw charger at work. As such I can charge when I get to work but will need to charge when I get home as the car available is unlikely to do 210 miles of mostly motorway driving . So I’m torn . On. Trial I got home with 45 % and 79 miles range left on the car. Charged overnight and it took 13 hours to get back to full. Sadly I leave at 3am and it wasn’t ready until almost 9 ! Is there any additional benefit in a cheaper 3kwh home charger, over a 3pin plug ?
No, the reason I bought a7kW home charger was so I also could recharge fully very much quicker. For really quick charging ask your electrician if they can install a more powerful supply and get a bigger charger
ramblings, gobbledegook and poppycock. Nobody takes 3 days to charge, the average is a few hours overnight or 40 minutes at a rapid charger. And what is 35KWH?
Had my EV for 2 years now. Only ever charged on 13A at home or, if needs must, public chargers en route. The biggest change for me was... planning. When I first got the car (Peugeot e-2008) it said 205 miles range. Now typically 170-180 miles at 100%, with 150 real world miles. You just need to a) know your intended journey distance b) the state of charge and c) where the suitable chargers are if you might need to recharge (as I do frequently for the 190 mile journey to visit my father). Range anxiety has only once been an issue, which was overcome. Just. EV charging has never been a problem without a home charger (which I cannot get). And, yes, I will get another EV. No question about it, other than the replacement will have a longer range.
This is bad advice, 13a plugs should not by used for this purpose on a regular basis. A small issue with the wiring (which would not be an issue in normal circumstances), could cause the plug to overheat. Please Google this if you don’t believe me. Also, new home chargers in the UK HAVE to be smart, they have all of the latest safety protection; that’s why they are so expensive. Your Tesla one might seem simple, but it still has a ton of hidden features to regulate the voltage and keep you safe.
I don't think you have your maths right here. If you have a 3kW EVSE that provides only 4 miles of range per hour, then a 7.5kW EVSE will only add 2.5 times that range, which would be 10 miles per hour, not 21 miles. The voltage is the same, but 2.5x the current means 2.5x the power delivered , hence 2.5x the range . I live in the USA, and the basic 110V, 10A charger adds about 3 miles of range per hour to my C40 (1.1kW). Switching that same portable EVSE onto a 20A, 230V outlet allows it to deliver 16A maximum current (3.7kW), which gives me about 10 miles of range added per hour on a vehicle that gets just 3 miles per kWh. I'm assuming that a UK EVSE is going to deliver about 10A at 230V with a 13A fused plug (about 2.3kW) which should put you in the 7-10 miles per hour range, depending upon how efficient your car is. Many of the smaller EVs in the UK get 4-5 miles per kWh, so I'd be quite surprised if you were down at 3 miles per hour with this setup.
Hi Jeff, I don’t deal in theory on the channel. I plug my Tesla car charger into a 13amp 240v socket and my car reports 3 miles added per hour, I plug into my 7kW 240v Tesla home charger and my car says 21 miles added per hour, I plug into an 11kW type2 public charger and I get 32 miles added per hour. I never question the car display, these are actual readings I photograph or film and use in my videos.
@@davetakesiton As an EE, I'd be interested to learn what output current your Tesla portable EVSE is providing. To be only delivering 3 miles per hour, it must be considerably less than 10A. Maybe it defaults to 6A, which would be 1.4kW, as that would match the ratios you're reporting. 10A output portable chargers should be available and safe in the UK. I'm not sure I'd want to select a 13A mode on a multi output current portable EVSE with a UK 13A socket, as it's right on the limit of the plug's rated current. The wiring behind it is probably rated for 20 or 30A, but it's limited by the 13A plug. The US 240V socket I'm using is rated for 20A, so I'm happy to push 16A through the Volvo supplied charger (rated at 110V, 10A or 230V, 16A)
The app says 10 amps and the display says 3 or 4 miles per hour, it wanders occasionally. My 7kW home charger says 32 amps and delivers a remarkably stable 21 miles per hour. At an 11kW public fast charger I get 33 or 35 miles per hour.
@@davetakesiton 10A at 230V is 2.3kW. if you're getting 21 miles per hour at 7kW, but only 1/7th of that rate at 1/3 the power, something is very non linear and probably faulty. You should be getting about 7 miles per hour at 10A, 230V. My Volvo gets 10 miles per hour at 16A, 230V, 7 miles per hour at 10A 230V, and about 20 miles per hour on the 30A, 230V charger at work. I only get 3 miles per hour at 10A, 110V.
Looking at it another way, you're putting 2.3kW into your car, but only 1kW is getting into the battery. The other 1.3kW is getting turned into heat somewhere, probably within your car. That's enough excess heat to make me nervous.
Just needs a socket conforming to BS 1363-2 EV standard. It will be marked "EV". Get your Sparky to install it on a dedicated spur from your consumer Unit, with the correct EV dual pole RCBO. The regs require the latter.
I am currently using a commando lead with a (at the time) £150 Chinese portable charger; mainly because it was all I could afford at the time; however, 1 year into ownership of my s/h KIA Soul, I AM questioning if getting a "proper" wallcharger is such a good idea. I cant find any information about their capabilities to set a charge current limit other than when installing; yet I know that charging beyond 80% is best done at "trickle charge" levels, and that overall, the slower the charge, the less damage is being done to the battery cells. My Chinese mobile charger allows me to set a number of different current limits, 10, 16, 20, 24, and 32 amps; do any of the wallchargers allow the same level of control ?? Currently, (lol), I usually charge at 20 amps, as my little 27 KWh battery doesnt take that long to do a 20-80% top-up; but once a month I trickle charge to 100% at 13 amps. At 7 years old, my Soul shows a battery health of 88-92%, depending on which app I use; and I would like to keep it as healthy as possible; the estimated range shows as 94 miles (summer), 78 miles (winter), and I have managed over 70 miles of country roads at normal road speeds, and finished with an estimated remaining range of 32 miles. As an ex industrial sparky, I fitted my own 32 amp socket, using 16mm armoured cable; almost certainly "illegal" under current government regs; but if I was considered competent enough to have my equipment fitted to HM nuclear subs and NHS Research labs, I am damned if I am paying good money to get a certificate qualifying me to a much lower standard. (You will find my name on a couple of "Queen's Award for Technology/Exports", from back in the mid/late 1980s; near the start of my career).
Yes we all get lumped in with the same incompetence. All chargers have as far as I am aware 5 to 32 amp selectable. Your battery looks fine, try to keep it that way. If you coped without complaint for a year, why change?
Hi Dave, it is mainly because it looks scrappy, and I have to keep the mobile cable inside the house, near the front door - a fixed cable wall charger would look neater and involve less faff at charging time.
The house ring main is not designed for this load for a long period of time, and should not be recommended! Maybe only if the outside socket is on its own circuit?? The number of times I've replaced burnt out sockets because someone has plugged in there PHEVs or EV as they are not designed for this load. Some house wiring may be old and if the house has had alterations done by a kitchen fitter or some one who does DIY that is not an electrician, there's a chance this is a fire hazard. A lot of homes have the old type AC RCDs, when you plug in your EV to a 13A socket there's a chance of this blinding the RCD preventing it from working under fault conditions. Yes the wall chargers are expensive but they have a lot of safety features built in for a very good reason. (Additional RCD protection, PEN fault protection, Load management ect.) If you do want to use a 13A plug only use it as an emergency temporary top-up. Treat it like an emergency jerry can.
This is poor advice. The "humble" 3-pin socket is not suitable for long-term charging of an EV; they tend to over heat and degrade quite qickly. If a 3kW charge at home is sufficient for your needs, then you should fit one of the new EV-rated 3-pin sockets. Depending on individual circumstances it is possible that it would have to be installed by a qualified electrician. As a minimum, get the installation inspected. Is it worth the risk of voiding your house insurance? If you can afford an EV you should budget for a wall charger.
Will a 13A socket or plug degrade if it's subjected to a 10A EVSE current? I don't see any immediate reason why this would happen, as nothing is being operated above its rated level 10A at 230V is 2.3kW, which should add about 7-10 miles of range per hour, or 84 to 120 miles in a 12 hour overnight charge for a typical EV. Given that the average person drives 20-30 miles per day, that's adequate for most people.
Spoken like a true EVSE installer. Reason it draws 10A instead of 13A? Because at less than 80% of its load a traditional 3 Pin socket (meeting the necessary standards) is absolutely capable of servicing that load, all day long.
Outlets are designed to handle their rated power draw continuously, it’s safe to charge an EV using just the standard outlet no matter your use case. What’s important to consider at this point, is whether or not the standard outlet is capable of outputting enough power to offset your daily use, if not, install a higher power dedicated EV home charger.
@@jeffcranmer5374I agree. People are also seemingly not aware that dedicated EV charging cables are made for exactly that purpose. I.e. they adhere to a technical protocol standard for its exact use. Using a 3-pin plug plug will provide diminished returns as heat and resistance in cables reduces the efficiently.
I'm an EV driver for 3 years. This is your worst video to date , your advice on 3 pin 13 amp charging is misleading and dangerous as this outlet is not suitable for continuous full load and can lead to house fire. Check your facts with a qualified professional.
I love how when the 7kw charge point was mentioned, a picture of a Genie Point rapid charger was shown - possibly a mistake, but I like to think more of a mickey take of GP, because that's probably the only connector that'll be working!?
A few addendums… DC is what the battery uses. AC is what your electricity supply provides and the on board charger converts it to DC for the battery. The bag can contain an EVSE which has the 13A plug. This is normally the one that has a unit in the middle of the cable to talk to the car. A tesla version can have the plug changed to match the sockets of whichever country you are in or are visiting. Other EVSE chargers may vary. The other cable is used when out and about to connect to public AC chargers that can range from 3kW to 22kW. In the UK a 13A socket is designed for 10A or 2Kwish power being drawn over a long period of time. Kettles etc get away with drawing higher current because they are typically only on for a few minutes and the socket doesn’t get chance to heat up by much. Pulling 10A for hours at a time can lead to overheating if the socket isn’t maintained properly which shows by burning marks around the pin holes. This will eventually lead to a fire. If you want to use the ‘granny’ charger as they are colloquially known, on a continuous basis then it’s best to get the 16A commando socket and appropriate adapter for your EVSE to match. This will allow 16A to be drawn resulting in a faster charge. Do not use a 16A commando socket to 13A plug to get faster charging as it will lead to a blown fuse or a fire. Your image of a 7kW public charger is actually a DC rapid charger that also has an AC socket. It might be better to show an actual AC public charger instead to avoid confusion. Whilst you can get away with using the 13A plug isn’t not a good idea to do so on a permanent basis due to the risk of a fire from a dodgy socket or even the wiring heating up running through your house if it’s not of sufficient size. A commando socket is far cheaper than a dedicated charger and an electrician can install one easily for not much money with it’s own dedicated RCBO in your fuse box. I hope this helps. :)
not sure why people keep stating 13 amp socket and 10A continuous. Plug a 3kW kettle and a 2.1kW toaster into the same socket in your kitchen and turn them on. I just did, works perfectly without getting hot. It would be impossible to draw 5.1kW even for 1 second if the socket was limited to 13A or 10A. Sockets have no fuse or restriction, they are designed to be wired into a ring main circuit protected by a 32 amp RCD in the consumer unit, therefore each socket happily and safely can take 7.5kW. The 13 amps refers to the plug which does have a fuse, maximum 13 amp, which gives around 3kW. There is no such thing as a 13 amp socket, Dave
@@davetakesiton Now run that same load for a couple of hours and you will see it either gets very hot or even starts to smoke. Ring main is fused at 32 Amps but individual sockets are 13 Amp peak and 10 Amp continuous rated. This is the main cause of electrical fires in homes people overloading sockets.
Evs typically take 10A which isn't considered a high load when connected directly to a socket - ie, don't use extension cables, same as you wouldn't for an electric heater, and make sure the socket isn't worn as loose connections are bad. Personally my EV socket is on a separate RCD and only used for vehicle charging, so never unplugged.
4:41 Brilliant advice !!
Agreed 13A charging is sufficient for 85% of EV owners!
First unbiased report on 'home chargers'.....Excellent.
Excellent, and spot on. In our 4 yrs driving EV, we’ve charged at 2.1kWh (10 amps), via the granny charger. Plug in at around 6.30pm, and unplug around 7/7.30am…giving 95/100 miles in the depths of winter, and 130/140 odd miles in the warmer months (Tesla Model 3 SR+).
The one small problem is that you cannot fully make use of time of day charging, so you are paying considerably more than if you had your own wall charger. For instance I get about 28 kWh overnight at 9p per kWh whereas on a granny charger I would only get 10 - 12 kWh, the rest (assuming you had a time of day tariff) would be at the full charge I do agree however it would take a long time to recoup the outlay on the charger, so it might not be a consideration
@@Sp_75-76 Im in this position. 9 miles per hour on the granny charger is 36 per night on my current 9p tarrif for 4 hours. I only do about 5 miles per day so its more than enough. I think I will charge 2/3 nights per week. I would like a 7kw though but as you say it would take years to recoup the cost, it might even fail/need changing again before I do haha.
I do have a 50kw charger about 100m away from me but its 65p per KW so not ideal. I will use it only if I need I think. Intelligent octopus is 7.5p for 6 hours but again its a marginal saving my non intelligent tarrif and I would not recoup the cost in a meaningful timeframe. Had my LR 3 a couple of weeks and love it though!
@@usefulrandom1855 that is fine. enjoy the car
About 8-11 miles of range per hour. Much closer to what I'd expect than 3 miles per hour.
Had my MG4 for 3 weeks now, I’ve done 1000 miles in it, but my annual mileage is around 6-7k. I use the 3pin plug for most of my charging, making use of my solar panels during the day. The adapter draws around 2kw, that gives around 8 miles per hour. I did a 10 hour test which gave 30% and 83 miles but importantly there was no discernible heat in the plug, wall socket or cable. Really enjoying the down to earth format of your videos.
Hi Gary, hope you are enjoying your MG4, I have heard great things about them. Great readings. Over the last 3 months of making videos I have taken hundreds, probably thousands of photos with the car plugged into a huge variety of chargers. Any figures I use in my videos are always actual readings supplied by Tesla in the mobile app and on the car display while charging. My 3 pin waterproof socket has 16 amps available, but my battery management system seems happier only taking 10 amps. So I typically get 10A x 243V and 4mi/hr showing. If you get 8mi/hr that's great, you are faster than a Model S, Dave
@@davetakesiton I’ve been taking pictures of the gom before and after charging every charge to try to get a handle on consumption. For the ten hour test I used a socket monitor to see the charging losses. The socket showed 1900-2250w as the consumption (total cost £7.35 although that didn’t take into account the solar contribution), the car’s charging monitor showed the battery getting 1.7-2.0 kw, and the gom added 83 miles.
Ive used 3 pin socket since i bought my used ioniq last oct. Do 28 miles a day . Only charge up on a friday night /sat night. Fiited a quality mk 2 pole socket in the garage. Checked for temp rise of socket and plug after varying times plugged in and cool as a cucumber at all times. No resistance/ high temps.
This has taken the worry out of buying an electric car, thanks Dave. Practical advice without bias, breath of fresh air.
Dave - you imply we can either use a 13a socket to feed a granny cable or spend ~£1k for a dedicated EV charging point. A third option is to have an electrician fit a dedicated 6mm power feed to a Commando (blue) switched socket and then use a 32a version of the granny lead that uses the plug version of the same Commando connector to charge at up to 7kw. (The latest regs may require an earth rod to supplement your existing earthing provision, connected to the 32a socket). This 32a granny lead can then be taken to multiple locations provided they each have the associated 32a socket available. You could also obtain a short adapter cable from a commando socket to a Schuko plug for use at up to 16a in many European countries.
True, they are really quite good. I think people prefer the flexibility of the home charger, off peak periods, monitoring through an app, etc, but Commando is an option
They are not up to code "supposedly" I asked an electrician about this and got this reply ...
According to the 5th edition of the EV Charging Code of Practice, we cannot install a socket above 13A for EV charging unless it’s a smart system
There's some silliness in the codes on this stuff that's forcing us to pay £500 for literally just a mains to type 2 converter when this seems fine to me ...
ua-cam.com/video/PP-iMV-NeW4/v-deo.html
I'm trying to navigate this mess now.
It seems extremely odd to me that a house ring main runs a long list of sockets on a 32 amp breaker, but if we put just one socket on it's own 32 amp breaker you get push back from electrical people that install these "EV chargers" in this manner.
Let me add one important peice of advice. If you are satisfied using a standard socket; PLEASE make sure it is safe for long time charging currents. Many house fires have started due to overload in the wiring.
Cheers for the advice!
Yep. We had our MG4 charging on a VERY long, mostly coiled extension when the Electrician happened to be here. He was very clear it needed to be fully unrolled and/or to use a shorter one if possible.
@@alexleigh6742 yes, this, and to be exposed to air to cool. Also the longer the run, the more voltage drop you'll have so charging may be slightly lower. Make sure your extension is rated for the full 13A too
Yes, Mats, great advice. My Tesla is set to 16A when plugged in, but it normally only ever takes 10A and that gives me 4 mi/hr. The BMS seems to be protecting my 3 pin plug circuit playing safe. I am happy to let it, Dave
@@davetakesiton Our charger (ICS) has a 'virtual fuse' on the fuse board where the tails terminate (and a CT clamp around those tails) so it monitors the incoming load and throttles the charger if we're going to go over the 80 amp physical fuse.
I set a 'safe' 15% anyway so we get about 14a which still works for overnight charging.
Wall chargers make more sense if you can arrange an off peak EV tariff. We calculated that the saving from the off peak EV tariff would pay for the wall charger in 6 months based on our mileage.
So what is your typical mileage! You comment would be most helpful if we knew that and the cost of your wall charger? What is the tariff you are doing your calculations on please? Octopus Flux?
Spot on, they do, Dave
I am currently using a 13 amp socket. There are two reasons why I am getting a home charge point. First, is safety, as others have pointed out, it can cause a 13 amp socket to overheat, I haven't had issues but I feel I am taking a risk. Second, if you do go on a longer journey, it is nice to be able to arrive home with a low state of charge and be able to top it back up again off-peak. At the moment I will often make sure I arrive home after a long trip with around 50% because of how long it takes to top up on the granny charger, plus it may have to do some charging on peak. If you are renting then you can still get the £350 grant. The £1000 7kW charge point soon pays itself back on a cheap overnight tariff.
I did the same calculation but based on my mileage decided to stick with 13 amp. 6000 miles per annum, = 1500 kWh say £450, at cheap rate £150, so 3 years to cover the cost of the charger install. If I factor in higher daytime rate, I can time shift washing/drying but not oven/cooking the payback period extends. In addition my home came with solar panels which generate around 3200 kWh per annum.
Very true MistyMu, my very reason for installing a 7kW home charger, only I often arrive back with 4% SOC and need it back up to 90% within my off-peak window overnight. Yes, it has paid itself back many many times over, Dave
This is true about safety. All the professionals say to NEVER USE a granny cable to charge EV long term as it isn't safe for the house or the car. 13 amp leads should only be used in an emergency to get you home but never as a permanent charging solution.
@@vincelemon6343 I have to say to you that high street shops have been selling 2kw electric fires for years with 13amp plugs. Beware of "professionals" that are actually selling something. One of them is currently peddling that if you charge a car with you AC circuit then because the RCD is AC then the RCD might be fooled by DC flowing back and it might not work. This is total baloney. If it were true then what about all the other DC chargers in our houses? Anyone with basic electronics knows full well that AC is converted to DC using a bridge rectifier circuit. If you do not know what one is then let me explain. A diode only allows electricity to flow one way, a bridge rectifier uses four of these arranged to force + to + and - to -. It is impossible for the DC side to travel up the AC side as to do so the electricity would need to flow the wrong way through the diodes, if it somehow did do that then it will blow the diode, and we would have this problem with every DC charger in our homes, including mobile phone chargers, vacuum cleaner chargers, power tools, the list is endless. But they say it, because they want to sell a service and they are using fear to sell it. Of course if there is something wrong with your socket the 2KW will show it up, and if the plug gets hot then stop using it. But to pretend that you need a £500 electrician to wire in an £800 7Kw socket is frankly rubbish when all EV owners have, at some point, used their 3 pins plugs without any issues ever. And I am excluding the photos and videos that just show a socket next to an orange extension lead that could have been running anything from a grow to a whole house. Do your own research, search google images for photos of fires caused by someone charging an EV at 10amps using a 3 pin plug. You won't find any. You will ironically find some showing 7kw chargers that have been badly fitted, or some folks from across the water that use 240v 30amp sockets. One even suggested that he couldn't understand someone spending £20,000 on a car and then not spending more money on an external 7kw charger, if that does not reek of sales patter then what does? Seriously, just research it yourself. Personally I think theoretical scare sales tactics without evidence of events should be banned. Obviously if you find your plug or socket is hot, then get it changed. But I have used one for 15 hours straight and the plug and socket were still stone cold. What exactly are these people saying when they say you should only use it in an emergency to get you home? Are they saying the dangers they are peddling suddenly disappear? It is nonsense.
@@wonderingworld119 What a load of waffle and your point is ?. Sorry but you clearly dont have a clue mate.
This helps massively, thank you Dave.
For the price of a few nights out I'd rather the convenience of a 7kw charge point. I want to plug in for a few hours each Saturday morning and thats it. Thats a worthwhile convenience to me. I like the flashing colours on it also for Christmas, Halloween etc.
I have a PHEV, which I originally looked at getting a proper charger for - I even bought an Eero one then changed my mind and sent it back after being messed around by the installer. I eventually got a EV specific outdoor socket from Screwfix which comes with a safety cutoff and got it installed by an electrician. Total was around 50 quid for the socket and 150 for the electrician. However I do only run it at 6A which takes 7 hours to charge the 9kWh battery, and that is good enough for me. An additonal expense was a Type2 to 3pin charger from Argos and that sits outside all the time (under a plastic box with a plant on top) with the plug being in a holder on the fence.
How’s it been so far? Any heat issues
@@tn1495not that I have noticed no. But as I say I only charge at 6A so wouldn't expect any issues.
Best video I've watched about granny charging, wish I watched this one first haha. I do 20 miles a day so an outdoor socket will do me fine.
Thanks for posting this video. Full of excellent advice and guidance. Just one correction I would offer is that not all EVs have the ability to monitor SoC and/or charge speeds remotely. I drive a 2019 Kona and there was no app for this year model so no remote telemetry/control. My wife's 2021 Zoe does have an app so your comments are spot on for her vehicle. We have a Wallbox 'charger' which is set to scheduled charging overnight for 4 hours which is the only "smart feature" we use. Allows me to override the schedule without having to go out to my Kona to press buttons....
Hi Lee, I am surprised if those figures are not available somewhere, in car, app or charger, but if not, no big deal. It is what it is. I wouldn't bother with it so much if I wasn't taking hundreds of photos at different chargers for my videos, Dave
Sounds great but when petrol prices increased during the latter stages of Covid, I started plugging my plug-in hybrid which had a battery only range of 21 miles into a 23 amp socket at work. My monthly electricity bill went from £220 to just over £700 on average.
Omg that's shocking.. I also have just bought a hybrid... So did your bills go down with an EV charger
Well done! You're the 1st one to point out that the charger is in the car not on the wall! I only ever use an external waterproof 13A socket to charge my PHEV and that one charge usually does 2 local trips. And that's only charging to 80% which, as I'm sure you know, greatly increases battery life.
Its common knowledge that what most call a charger is actually only a dedicated power supply and yes the charger is in the vehicle.
I live in the Algarve, here we are lucky that our “three pin plugs” deliver 16A
So an overnight charge can easily deliver 45KWh, that’s over half a tank on a MYLR
(on a separate issue) …I’m not sure why, but it’s common for homes here to have a three phase supply !
I have a home charger fitted for free 9 years ago and it still works fine, I use this at night on the cheap rate. I also have Solar panels, and use the "Granny" AKA the 3 pin charger during the day, I can set the charge current to 6,8,10 amps and trickle in the electrons depending on the house load and sunshine etc.
I am told the 3 pin is only for occasional or temporary use, but I have been using it for years without problems, but get your outlet checked first, mine was specifically installed outdoors.
Oh, and one more thing…
Always put the EVSE ‘granny’ charger back into your car before driving away so should you need it when out and about you actually have it with you.
The same goes for the AC charging cable.
Just in case, Dave
Certainly my type 2 cable lives under the car's bonnet, so it's always there. But just how often is one likely to need a granny charger in an ordinary day's motoring, seriously? I'll take it with me if I'm staying away overnight just in case something goes horribly wrong with my overnight charging plans and I have to plug in at my host's house (never happened yet), but for day-to-day driving with an expected return well within the range of the car, what's the point?
My granny charger sits on a shelf in the garage right under the socket it's plugged into, about a metre away from the car's charging port when it's garaged, and it stays there (other than for overnight trips). Maybe I'm wrong, but the less one pulls the plug out and in the socket the better, I think.
@@moragkerr9577 that’s a fair point. I rarely used my granny charger but it would be Sod’s Law that if I left it at home it’ll be the one time I need it.
I wonder how many people have to make an unscheduled trip due to a family member etc.
@@SirHackaL0t. I actually use my granny charger routinely as I don't have a wall box. (Rapid charger 400 yards away at only 30p per unit, then top up with the granny.) I don't want to be unplugging it all the time, because I don't want to put excessive wear on the pins and connectors. So it stays plugged in in the garage most of the time, because I'm always going to be back long before I get low on charge.
However if I'm going on a trip where I'll need to charge away from home, I'll put it in its bag and stow it in the boot, just in case. I haven't needed it - the friends I've stayed with fortuitously have public chargers within walking distance of their houses, so I haven't neded to impose on their electricity supply. But suppose there had been a problem with these chargers, I could have done that.
I think the chances of being unable to access a working public charger so that you need to beg for help where you find yourself are very low these days. And in fact your best bet in that situation would be to crawl in turtle mode to somewhere people have wall boxes and ask for the use of one of these. A fellow EV driver will probably be happy to help out for a tenner. But if push absolutely came to shove and you found yourself at an isolated farm or cottage, having the granny with you could be a lifesaver.
I know it's really, really unlikely. But how many times (in a previous life) have I run out of petrol because for some reason I didn't have that 5-litre green can in the boot? At least twice.
When I bought my Ioniq 4 years ago, I used the granny cable for 2 years before installing a home charger.
What is noticed is that normal outdoor sockets (I'm in NL so shuko) don't like these high loads of extended periods, I had to replace the socket every year.
A more advanced home charger has some benefits compared to the granny cable.
First is energy monitoring, so you can actually see what the cost of charging is.
Next is protection of your main fuse(s), when you are charging and turn on the cooker, you may overload your main fuse.
More advanced home chargers temporarily reduce power, so not to exeed the your main fuse rating.
Last benefit is diversion of renewable energy, some can keep your electric meter from spinning when it's sunny.
Yes and no. On a personal note, if a socket overheats and needs replacing I would 100% get an electrician in, not just replace it. An outdoor socket if properly installed is good for much more than 13 amps without overheating. Trouble is, many are not properly installed and just piggy back off some other circuit which means if the car is already maxing out the power and several other things are turned on in the same circuit it can cause problems. Get an electrician, tell him or her you will be charging an EV and let them do it right. Home chargers are always connected on a dedicated circuit with its own proper spec cable and RCD. But the car should decide. My app screenshots show clearly my car is set to 16amps, my the car recognises the Tesla charger being used and resets the limit to 10amps, safety first and always, Dave
I mainly use the 3 pin Granny Charger. Plugged into a 13amp 3 pin outdoor socket on the corner of my home on the driveway. The reason is something else ... I only have a total of 30amps supply to my rural property, so cannot have a charger which would draw 40amps and most normal houses have at least 60amps - the preference is 100amps on a non-looped supply. An electrician can explain it all. For me, this is fine ... I can charge at work for free (if I go into one of our offices) and my employer (NHS) offered me a free home charger with my lease (but of course, I had to decline). One other slightly good thing is that I am on a fixed tariff of 16p per Kw night and day - this never went up like everyone else. If I am doing a lot of miles then I'll pick an Ultra Rapid BP Pulse nearby, charge to 80% and then top off overnight at home if I need to. I did all this research for months before I went for a leased EV and find that in reality, over the 8 months I've had an EV, my overall monthly motoring costs are £50 per month less than running my previous Diesel Jaguar which averaged 55mpg. My Volvo XC40 Twin Recharge has a Volvo App so I can easily monitor charging and can pre-condition the cabin and de-ice easily in Winter whilst having breakfast - plus I get a new car every 3 years 😁
The MG 4 just came up on SPECIAL Offer which has stoked my interest as I need to wait a year to be eligible for XC40. My issue is I rent and live mid terrace with public footpath between house and car so I'm waiting on council advice for having a cable across the footpath under a cover. Daves vids and comments section are great for an EV NOOB like me
@@LeeP88I live in a flat and have driven an EV for over 3 years. I charge when out and about. Today for instance I had to drive from Swindon to Cardiff and back so stopped at the SuperChargers in Newport. Lovely golfing hotel, great coffee and ice cream and a wonderful view. It wasn’t a bother.
This is what I’ve done for over 3 years - charging when shopping, travelling, having a wee and a coffee at the services etc.
I’ve only covered 55,000 miles so far. :)
@@LeeP88 The cheaper Volvo EX30 has just been announced and should be on the scheme later in the year
@@mdshovel cheers for the heads up, I'll start watching reviews on that now!
Hi, my Tesla charger has a setting allowing you to restrict the amps to match the supply. I can select 6A, 8A, 10A, 13A, 16A, 20A, 25A, and maximum 32A. If ever you needed one, find a charger with a similar feature and you could set say 13A or 16A and be well under your limit, Dave
Very practical and good advice ...the video relieves one of the anxiety of owning an EV. Thanks
A useful alternative to a wall box is installing a 16amp socket. It’s relatively cheap to run a suitable cable to an external 16amp socket. Then change the plug over on your granny cable.
The only advantage with a wall box is that they’re WiFi enabled, thus allowing you to remotely control the charging
18 months owning Lexus UX300e. 3 PIN granny charger at home and occasionally taken it with me when visiting family. The only time I've used DC charging is the free CHAdeMO at the dealers
One point not mentioned is efficiency. A Tesla for example, when powered up will consume about 200W. If on a granny charger, that is a 200W overhead on a 2400W input. ~8% loss.
However, 200W on a 7kWh charge is only a 3% loss.
Because the granny charger will take substantially longer, the total losses mount quite significantly.
Interesting, David never looked into this. Might try to quantify it on my car, Dave
Is there anywhere that you can find the 'idle power draw' of different EVs while stood charging? This would be useful information!
@@SusannaSaunders I don't know, I wouldn't expect much or anything. I'll measure mine with a smart plug but the figure that I quoted there is for the Tesla being powered up while charging.
Looking at this and thinking the same. I live down the road from several 50kw and some 150kw chargers.
Think I'll just granny charge 99% of the time, then if I really need it make a run to a fast charger and pay the premium.
I've taken some stick for sticking by the granny charger, but it suits me. I have heavy-duty metal-casing 13A sockets in my garage, on a separate circuit with a circuit breaker. The plug never gets hot, and as it's 1.5 metres from the car's charging port, I don't need an extension lead. In the normal course of events my mileage is easily covered by what I can get with the granny lead. My electrician had a look at the setup when he was at the house for another job and said it was absolutely fine.
If I get home on low charge, I'm lucky. 400 yards from my house there is a rapid charger that's capable of putting 65% charge into my battery in 54 minutes - the maximum time allowed on the charger. And the price of the electricity is about the same as my home electricity tariff - for the past few months it's actually been slightly cheaper, then mine went down a bit.
I came home at 4% once (about nine in the evening), pulled straight into the charger and set it going, walked home and put the kettle on and had a cup of tea, and walked back less than an hour later to a car sitting at 68%. Drove to my driveway, unloaded the car, ran it into the garage, and put it on the granny charger. According to the car's app, it was at 100% and the cells balanced before 3 am.
When the weather gets horrible I'm more likely to give the five-minutes-each-way walk a miss and just let the granny charger do the lot. But if I do need the car filled up from very low in five hours or so, the opportunity is always there. I had assumed that when I got an EV I'd naturally get a wall box. Two people in my road - with very similar houses and garages - have got them. But even with the £300 grant I'm eligible for, I'm struggling to justify the expense. Even if the public charger price goes up, I NEED it so seldom that it wouldn't really be an issue.
you quickly develop what works for you and charge as little as possible away from your cheapest option. Probably the majority will never need to charge at a public charger, ever. I chose a home charger for work as, like you, I would often return home with 3-4% and needed it back up to 75-90% by the morning within my 10 hour off-peak window. Only a 7kW home charger could do that, works for me, Dave
@@davetakesiton As you say, you develop what works. I very seldom come home as low as I did that day - well, never in fact, but I had been out on a joyride, the cheap charger I had meant to sample turned out to be broken, and I realised I could get all the way back with a (very) little to spare, and didn't give Gridserve at Abington my money!
But since I've got a public charger in such a useful location, and I hardly ever drive to the limit in a day, I'm not seeing £1000 for a wall box as being worth the money - at least not at the moment.
Good advice there. We went with a home "charger" recommended by our electrician. The Smart bit as you say is of dubious use, but I did want one running the OCPP Protocol so it could 'talk' to my home automation software. We could have got away with the 3 pin (our use case is the mostly < 200 miles a week), but we were having loads of electrical work doing anyway. Happy we have it, but definitely the view - when we bought the car - was very much you must have a home charger, however you use your EV.
Especially if living in a rural spot, there are NO > 7KW charges within 20 miles!
Yes, Alex, I regard chargers a bit like my home smart meter display. Once the novelty wears off, it sits in a cupboard, only ever coming out to check my rate when EDF announces a price change, then it's back in the cupboard. Shame about this "you must get a home charger" attitude. Many people who commute just 10 miles a day simply don't need one. Also my outdoor waterproof socket is rated at 16A at the consumer unit, and I tell my Tesla it has 16A but it only ever draws 10A. It's like its protecting the circuit and plug and I'm happy to let it, safety first, Dave
I don’t think car manufactures would supply them if they are dangerous to use.
At last a video I’m watching and taking in all the info. 👏 Thankyou
Excellent video as ever 👍
Interesting take Dave. I have a PHEV which means I need to charge each day. Previously I used an outside socket which I installed myself (it is the type where you plug it in inside the house with a fixed rcd plug). I then used my granny each day. In the end I went for a zappi home charger why?
1. Having to unplug and put away the granny after every use was a faff as it’s easily stealable I didn’t want to leave it connected all the time. 2. With intelligent octopus I can charge for 7.5p between 23.30 and 5.30 they don’t support charging with a granny. 3. Safety, the new consumer unit added by the ev charge installer also includes surge protection, this means in the event of a fault with the house supply the car is protected. The final point being many people do not pay and electricians to install an outside socket (and one that complies with the EV regs would be a lot more than £100) but drape wires out of bathroom windows or worse on an unwound extension lead.
My granny lead is locked to the car when the car is locked.
hi Chris, I have no knowledge of hybrids, so offer no comments or advice. Enjoy your car, Dave
If you have your own driveway/house - Then it is easy to drill a hole from inside your house through to your drive, then make up an electric cable that will fit through the hole and there fit an outside waterproof electric 3 pin fitting! Use your Granny cable to charge your EV! A slow charge is better for your EV battery, rapid charging your car each day will cut the life of your EV battery! So home charging is best - 3 years I have been charging this way
7kW charging is not rapid.. rapid is generally reckoned to be 50kW+
As a Brit who emigrated to California decades ago I was surprised that the 240 volt uk plug only supplied 3 miles per hour that is the same as I was getting on my 120 volt 15 amp standard US line. What is often not realized is the most US homes also have a 240 volt circuits that is used for heavy duty applications like Air Conditioning, stoves and driers. I have since ran a specific line to my Tesla charger that is 240 volt 40 amps, even with the cost of the 60 foot run of wire and the charger it came to less than $1,000. My rate in Anaheim California is $0.20 per kWh regardless of time of day.
Reasonable advice as long as the socket is on a dedicated point on the board. Mine has 7.2kw rated cable so that when wall chargers get cheap it will be an easy swap. Mind with a perfect city car 24kw Leaf even a low battery is full on an overnight charge.
There are some chargers around for less than £400, fully protected with WiFi comes etc eg the Qube
I do about 120 miles a week as I’m retired. I leave it plugged in once a week for about 11hrs and get it to 90%. That gives me around 200 miles. At the moment I pay 25p a Kw on a fixed deal with Octopus ( got the deal just before prices went crazy). No smart meter needed.
David, you've got it sorted, well done, Dave
Octopus Intelligent now offers 7.5p per kwh for 6 hours per night, with 30p per kwh for daytime usage......
@@Brian-om2hh The trouble with that is that I would have to have a smart meter installed which will be no good when they switch off 3g. I heard that energy companies will be asking the consumer to pay for a new 4/5g one so I will wait. Thanks anyway
I just use a wall socket but turn down the charge rate to 8 amps to avoid damaging the socket. That seems to work well. My daughter has an ionic 5 and only uses a wall socket as well. When I can I charge my car when it's sunny and have free solar power available. When I go to the supermarket I use their ev spaces as it's worth paying (several stores have free charging points) to use the better parking spaces😂.
By ‘fancy features’ do you mean life saving pen fault protection?
And if you are using an external socket, the only reasonable way to do so, is to have a dedicated radial circuit with a type a RCD.
I can imagine loads of people will add a socket as a spur off of their ring main or into their ring main. Putting a considerable additional load.
13amp sockets are not robust enough for a continuous load above 8-10amps, you can often reduce this within the car but it increase charge times even further and without doing so risks a very melty socket.
You need a very specific setup for the 13amp socket to be considered safe for every day use, and you have not highlighted these. This risks giving license to people with out-of-date electrics, adding a spur off their ring main and risking fire.
Yep I'd never try and charge any EV from my ring main, mine is on a dedicated 20A RCD as my ring main is only 32A ! (Plenty for normal use)
I've been having exactly this "extensive debate" on my discord server.
I keep asking "what am I getting for £500 for the unit + £500 for the install that the 3 pin plug in my garage can't do?"
It's always the same: more throughput, some technical reason why home circuits are supposedly "not safe" and then "oh but this or that smart feature".
I own a Tesla Model 3 Performance, the car itself has a "charger" built in to it and can "schedule" its own demand from a 3 pin plug (in my garage).
I think this kit, if you look inside them is crazy overpriced for what you get and electricians charging £500 to do 1 to 2 hours work is frankly extortion.
This needs to be either heavily subsidized or cracked down on under consumer laws IMO.
Paul, you could only need to use the portable type 2 chargers. Tesla supply one for £180 or get a different make with a 13 amp plug and they are about £150 on Amazon. Just plug them in. Your M3P has a charge scheduler to set the time to get cheap off peak rates. The only problem is the charge rate. I get about 5 miles for every hour plugged in. M3 should get nearer 7 miles. If you only do 10 or 20 miles a day that will work fine. I did a lot more, so bought their 7kW wall charger that gives 21 miles per hour, so I can always charge fully even if I arrive back empty.
@@davetakesiton The cable i'm using at the moment is the Tesla supplied one, but the Wife is considering getting an EV too and it's easier to manage the "smart charging" if it's done on the charger rather than the car.
From what I understand the smart tariff from Octopus only allows for one car or one charger to be registered with the account.
I've got an install booked for Monday of a Zappi charger but I have not been able to get anything concrete (answers wise) on the Tesla charger handles with the little button on them fitted to a non Tesla wall unit.
This feels like an annoying oversight on Tesla's part, I'm working with the installer and toying with the idea of cannibalizing a Tesla 3 pin kit to put the cable on the Zappi so as not to lose that "smart" button function on the cable.
If it was only the opening of the port cover i'd just tap the thing each time and not care but having to pull the phone out to unlock the cable each time instead of just grabbing it and hitting the button feels a tad clunky.
Sorta goes against the whole point of getting a Tesla in the first place if you lose some of that convenience.
This lack of foresight on such key components after sale of the car seems to be a major EV industry bad trend.
For anyone reading this and curious about the cable problem:
Turns out you can't swap the cables since part of the smarts is in the wall unit which actually talks to the Tesla network and your car when you hit the button.
Any non Tesla charging therefore loses this IMO uniquely smart convenience feature.
Have a standard garden socket, use it once a week overnight to charge my car and it lasts all week. (Usual commute is approx 15-20 miles a day). Simples
Really great when your driving is that Simple. Doesn’t quite work for me when I might drive 200 miles in a day
I used a granny. Change every 3 or 4 days overnight. Perfect.
Great video thx. I'm currently waiting for a ohme charger to be installed at home. And would probably only need to charge once a week with the miles we do. Currently thinking about moving over to the octopus energy tarif, as our supplier is a flat 31p per kw with no offers for ev owners. We did our first long trip with our ev last Friday, 256miles. Used electroverse app to plot the route and it then sent it through to Google maps, for us to follow on the car. Found that zapmap only does scheduled long 40min to 1hour stops to charge, where electroverse does the quick charge and go, like your video on charging explained. On zapmap with the 3 long stops would have taken us 7 and a half hours to do the journey. With electroverse 5 quick stops it was 6 and a half hours. 2 more stops, but an hour quicker. The only issue we had was between the apps to plot the route, and then sending it to Google maps. Google maps kept trying to reroute us back to an old charger we already left behind. And we had to close the apps down, and redo the whole route to get it to work again. We also fount that half the chargers on electroverse, would not show on zapmap. Almost as if the apps has not been updated with new chargers in a long while. If possible could you do a video for us non tesla owners, on best app to use for route planning, and quick charging stops. And maybe show a demo, as we found it a bit of a struggle. Thank you.
Yes, LightBearer, I already have plans to do just that. Research is underway. It's such a shame you cannot use your in car or app exclusively and have total trust in it, Dave
@@davetakesiton brilliant thx i will look out for that video. I drive the new vauxhall vivaro e and find the installed software is not showing all the available fast chargers. Maybe it needs an update, but its a 23 model, so would have thought it would come fully updated.
Right on the money Dave. Thank you.
Thanks for the video Dave!
The interesting point comes when you can rapid charge using a low overnight tariff. The question then becomes when, if ever, is the return of investment on the home charging point that has cost £1,000 to install? If you only travel less than 60 Miles round trip to work, does it ever pay for itself?
We looked a this. Probably not! But there's something comforting about having the charger there, ready to go knowing you can get a decent charge reasonably quickly. Switching to one of the Octopus Tariffs (4 hours overnight 7.5p kwh) means we charge about every 7-10 days currently. It does make the car extremely cheap to run, but I don't think we'll get back to the install cost.
Thanks Susanna, my point exactly. Everyone is different, but at 60 miles per day, you could be well within range of a 3 pin waterproof socket, unless you only have 4 hours off-peak cheap rate, or you go long distance at weekends. There is no set rule or payback time. I do a much higher mileage than average and got my money back from savings in about 3 or 4 months, but far more importantly, it allowed me to use my car at the cheap off peak rate for work, which I could not have done on a 3 pin, Dave
Tesla no longer includes the travel charger with their vehicles sold in the US. This makes the 7Kw dedicated wall charger a bit more attractive.
I use a NEMA 6-15 in the US. (240V at 15A) That is 11 miles of range per hour of charge on my Model 3. That is 110 miles in 10 hours, more then enough for my daily drive (Avg 70 miles per day.
used a three pin plug for 3 years, upgraded to Zappi about four months back.
if you don’t have an outdoor socket if you’re thinking of one for an EV I’d suggest getting a dedicated circuit added - to make sure its not overloading an existing ring you may have spurred off. At that point I’d probably go for a proper wall charger if you’re getting a dedicated circuit not much difference to make that 32A capable vs 16A
Right MrKlaw, the advice to me was to have a dedicated circuit and mine is protected by a 16A RCD at the consumer unit. Interesting to note that I tell My Tesla it has 16A but it always defaults to 10A, like it is protecting me and the circuit and I'm happy to let it, Dave
Well said that man.
Excellent advice.
I use my domestic 3-phase plug and a portable 3×16A "charger". That gives me 11 kW charging at home, and I can being my portable service with me to another 3-phase plug.
I was given a free home charger including fitted when I bought my Renault Zoe 3 years ago. I thought this was the case with all EV manufacturers. Obviously not. It is a basic 7kw Chargemaster unit, all the programming is done by the car and is just what I need.
Yes Clive we all assume, but we also all learn. I like basic, because I see problems, if you have a tariff that is intelligent, a charger that is intelligent and a car that is intelligent. Who decides? Dave
greatly explained
Also the SE SR has LFP batt and ENJOYS being charged up to 100% regularly and at the very least weekly. Unlike the other batteries that you only charge up to 80% .
One of the Teslas has the same battery as the SE SR and in the manual states please charge up to 100% regularly or at least once a week but every day if poss. Confused 😕
I have a 16 amp commando socket on the front wall of my home and found a proper charger cable capable of using this and can push 16 amps into the car. So I can have 16 amps instead of 13 amps and get 100 miles overnight which is more than I would normally need. If I know I have a long journey coming up I simply plan to top up over 2 or 3 nights depending upon how much I am using the car in the interim period.
The charger cable cost me £250. Buying it saves me otherwise needing public charging which saves me a lot of money. I do not need a dedicated 7kW charger.
Great, each of us needs to find the best practice for us, you have it sorted
Absolutely spot on Dave!!!!
There is so much evangelical nonsense about charging out there when normally,the simplest and cheapest solution suits most of the people most of the time!
Occam's Razor rules, Dave
Dave 16 amps from a 13 amp socket !!!! Max is less than 3 kW. I use mine at 10 amps as 13 amp sockets are not designed for 13 amps continuously, they get very hot and eventually burn out.
The Tesla charger will only allow a Max 10 amp draw from a granny cable.
If you drive every day and need to charge at night on a cheap tariff and you only get 5 hours at the cheap rate you may need a 7kw hour charger.
Not mentioned .home chargers work well with solar pv.once my home battery is full it fills the car with free solar energy.Normally the eco plus setting but tend to use little else unless driving to London when i top up to 100% overnight
I charged a leaf all night ever night on a 4 gang in the garage. It was mostly fine, but it did burn out a plug once. However that seemed to be because it was an old socket that a spider had crawled into and fried. After getting a new plug socket it was fine for a few more years. Would love to hear an expert talk about the safety of using 3 pin for car charging all the time.
Please don’t use a 4 way gang adapter. Most aren’t suitable for the load being pulled and the temptation to plug something else into it is great which might cause it to overload.
Get a decent caravan (typically orange) cable which should be rated for the amps you are pulling. Far less chance of a fire.
I am not an electrician. Tesla offer a 3 pin plug adapter for the supplied charger, so I trust them not to sell us stuff that is gong to burn out the car or burn our house down. Mine charges at about 4 mi/hr so is intended to be used continuously for long periods of time without damaging the car or burning your house down. Although the plug is fused at 13 Amps, my Model S only ever rates it at 10A, I like to think it is trying to protect me and I am happy to let it.
If plugs, sockets or wiring gets hot, you have a problem. GET AN ELECTRICIAN. If anything smokes, unplug it THEN GET AN ELECTRICIAN. I am horrified, appalled and speechless that someone could spend tens of thousands of pounds on an EV then plug it into something they know or suspect is not safe. A manufacturer supplied 3 pin adapter and charger can be regarded as safe. Get an electrician to check the house wiring, the consumer unit and the actual socket you propose to use before you ever plug it in, it might save your life, Dave
I did not 'know or suspect it was unsafe'. I found out that it was by charging the car.
@@davetakesiton Remember that not all EV new drivers are clued up on such things as safe ways to charge using a 3 pin socket which I suspect is part of the reason that you made the video. :)
Here in Portugal the standard home tarif is €0.20/KWh. circa 17p/KWh…. I’m not sure why Britain is more !
Important to remember that not all cars have 22kW capable AC chargers built in (Tesla Model 3 RWD will only received 11kW AC max)
Almost every day we could get away with using the 3 pin socket, as we're home for 14 hours (2.4kW / hr - 33 kW per night - 50% battery - 120 miles a night)
We do however have a 32A commando socket (interlocked socket with additional earth) this allows us to do a 70% of charging if required in the 6 hours of intelligent octopus each night if required - cost a lot less than a new wall box too
We are able to do most of our charging while away (with permission of the house owners) on a 3 pin socket while we sleep at AirBnBs (for context we have 2 small children so are generally parked up 17:00 - 07:00 or greater) I will lower the amps of charging, if I there is time, in this scenario.
Snap, sidewinder, my Model S has 11kW too, Dave
You're home for 14 hours? Lucky you.
I'm looking at fitting a 16 amp plug specifically for EV charging. I have found you can maybe get away with it without having to upgrade my amp fuse and upgrading to a 3 phase electricity. I run 80 miles a day and the price to upgrade to 3 phase is an absolute fortune. If I can get up to 80 percent in 12 hours then should be fine.
Yeah you can do this but best from a specific radial circuit from your fusebox ŕated at least 16A..
@@MikeGleesonazelectricsthat’s what I’ve done, I’ve came off my shed supply that’s set at 30amp at the house fuse. Bought a master plug EV 3 pin socket rated at 16a so should be ok. However with that said I’ve also got a tumble dryer in the shed so have stated to the missus to ensure the car is not charging at the same time. 👍
@@bamber119 as long as you use a granny charger the control box will control it at 10A, regardless of the kind of plug/socket.
@@MikeGleesonazelectrics that’s fine, speed wasn’t what I was going for anyway, I was just ensuring my amps and load doesn’t set fire to my house, but cheers for that. 👍😊
I don't know if you've done a video covering this already, but if not, could you do a video discussing ways of charging an EV to a particular level, say 80%? I know Teslas have a built in function where you can tell it to only charge to a specified level, but what about EVs that don't have that function? What ways are there to control that type of charging? Thanks. 🙂
Hi Dave a 13amp socket will only supply about 2.5kw per hour so 30kw over 12hrs my father has only ever used a 3pin and dies 6000 miles no problem only problem is that the plugs burn out every couple of years get a cheap charger secondhand of a 3.6kw
What does 2.5kw per hour mean??
Hi John, not sure how you get that. I’m not an electrician, so never offer advice other than to consult an electrician. Checking my installation, My house voltage is 220/ 230 volts nominal and the car pulls 16 amps. Power = volts x current so my car asks for 3.6kW. If anyone tries to pull that with a plug and a 13amp fuse they are asking for trouble and using an extension lead also with 13amp fuse is bonfire night, Dave
@@davetakesiton Just note most EVSE chargers and especially supplied by the manufacturer are 10amps max pulling 2.3/2.4KW depending on voltage.
3kW is a lot more than 3 miles per hour. Closer to 10 miles per hour for cars that do over 3miles/kWh
Not on my car, Steve, for my charging video series you can see the app screenshots, and is recorded as flicking between 3 and 4 miles per hour, nothing to do with miles per kWh, that’s using power not gaining it, Dave
Either your car calculation is incorrect or it's not pulling the KW you're thinking. My leaf gets about 8 miles for 1 hr of granny charging pulling around 2.4kw. There are some losses but that's usually below 10%. Charging losses are not that big. The math does stack up. I.e a car with 50kwh battery will do about 150 miles if you can get 3 miles /kw. Note most granny charges especially supplied by the manufacturer do not exceed 10 amps.
@@davetakesiton
So your car is only accepting 1kwh of energy per hour from your AC 3kw per hour supply?
If this is happening when the battery is nearly empty? then there is something seriously amiss with your AC charging system?
@davetakesiton I don’t follow your logic of putting 3kw into your car but only adding 3-4 miles in an hour. That must mean you are only getting 1 -1.3 mls /kw when driving, or there are huge losses on the 3kw you are drawing from your house. I would check you are actually drawing 3kw.
@@Iainab5 Hi Iain, the speed the car accepts and charges at has nothing whatsoever to do with the miles per kWh I get while driving. They are totally unrelated. If it did, I would get a different range from the car if I charged at a 3kW, 7kW 50kW 150kW and 300kW. I don't.
A full battery always gives me the same range. The power of the charger, shown either as kW or miles per hour plugged in, merely dictates how slowly or quickly it reaches the limit I have set. i.e. if I set 100% SOC, then a 3kW rate will take many hours, a 300kW rate would take much less time. But both would still reach 100% and both would give me the same range.
I get a display on my mobile app and my car display that tells me the Volts, the Amps, the kW speed, time remaining and the miles per hour that I am adding while it is plugged in, live as it charges. I have hundreds of photos of these using different chargers. These are not my figures, they are Tesla, so I believe them. If you need more, let me know in the comments and I can put a collection of readings together as a video, Dave
Thank you Dave. I´ve just ordered an electic car and you have really helped me to know what to do about charging it at home.
Every person (especially these rich Tesla tosspots) that has a home charge point installed should be made to agree to charging 4-5+ other people each. Add that to every charge-point installing contract and you'd soon solve the charging infrastructure issues. Fail to charge 1-2 successfully without issues within the first 6-12 months, charge point removed, no alternative form of vehicle permitted. Simple.
When you share out your petrol from your tank among your poorer neighbours we’ll happily look at this. BTW most EVs are around £40k most Audis BMWs and Range Rover are twice that
@@davetakesiton You'll look at this when you're told, not before or after.
Yes, I have a Zoe ZE50 and have the car permanently set to charge during the night (Octopus Go) I plug in when needed and it does the business when I am asleep. I guess if your EV does not have programmable charging, then the utility provider's facility would be needed. Are there some EVs which don't have the facility?
I worry that if you have an intelligent car, an intelligent charger and an intelligent smart meter and tariff, which one decides? Dave
so a 13amp socket gives 3kw at 16amps???? and it turns brown.
Hi, great advice in your video Dave. I have been provided with a Peugeot 408 plug-in hybrid but the charging cable does not have a 3 pin connection (unlike my recent Ford Kuga plug-in Hybrid). I see that Tesla have provided you with an adaptor but Peugeot surprisingly do not provide these and after some searching they do not appear to be easy to find? Do you now where to find these adaptors?
Me too, I’ve just purchased a Peugeot e208 and believe it only comes with the public charging cable (no 3 pin adapter or cable). I watched your video and thought that Tesla adapter looks handy, I’ll see if I can find one, but as LeeCahill-w4b said, they’re hard to find. Any ideas?
I am considering getting a hyundai ionic 38kwh, my research shows they are vwry efficient when driven correctly using the strongest regen, could a 3 pin socket support a fukl charge dir this overnight woildntou say? My longest daily journey is 120miles approx
I’d appreciate any advice from those here in the know as I have recently bought an i3S and charge it overnight on Mondays (as my wife commutes daily for four days) and again on Friday night (so we have a full charge for our three day weekends). Is this twice weekly slow charge endangering the integrity of the battery or dangerous in any way? Thanks All, Geoff
More difficult to take advantage of cheap EV tariffs if using a granny charger. If you're not using a utility company who provides an EV tariff then you are literally throwing money away.
Having a Smart charger makes sense if you have solar panels and the charger is solar aware. Yesterday I topped up my Tesla M3 purely from solar power, which is free.
Break into that lamppost outside your house.
So if you only or mostly only drive the UK average of 20 mile per day then a 13 amp socket/granny charger & a once a week top up while you do your shopping at your local supermarket should be more than enough for most people for the vast majority of the year & only the need to stop & charge at the more expensive rapid chares for the occasional longer journeys, doesn't sound any more difficult or inconvenient than having to go & fill up with petrol as & when you need it to me.
totally agree, so simple
Thanks for this video. I’m about to get an EV as a company car.
I live 105 miles from work, so have a 7 kw charger at work. As such I can charge when I get to work but will need to charge when I get home as the car available is unlikely to do 210 miles of mostly motorway driving . So I’m torn . On. Trial I got home with 45 % and 79 miles range left on the car. Charged overnight and it took 13 hours to get back to full. Sadly I leave at 3am and it wasn’t ready until almost 9 !
Is there any additional benefit in a cheaper 3kwh home charger, over a 3pin plug ?
No, the reason I bought a7kW home charger was so I also could recharge fully very much quicker. For really quick charging ask your electrician if they can install a more powerful supply and get a bigger charger
What about costings? If it takes 3 days to charge and my tarif currency is 35KWH how much would this cost for a full charge?
ramblings, gobbledegook and poppycock. Nobody takes 3 days to charge, the average is a few hours overnight or 40 minutes at a rapid charger. And what is 35KWH?
Just wondering about EVs eventually allowing V to G. Would a home charger be essential then?
Yes, you would need one to connect your car to the grid.
Had my EV for 2 years now. Only ever charged on 13A at home or, if needs must, public chargers en route. The biggest change for me was... planning.
When I first got the car (Peugeot e-2008) it said 205 miles range. Now typically 170-180 miles at 100%, with 150 real world miles. You just need to a) know your intended journey distance b) the state of charge and c) where the suitable chargers are if you might need to recharge (as I do frequently for the 190 mile journey to visit my father).
Range anxiety has only once been an issue, which was overcome. Just.
EV charging has never been a problem without a home charger (which I cannot get). And, yes, I will get another EV. No question about it, other than the replacement will have a longer range.
Don’t put a hanging basket over your charging point 😅
This is bad advice, 13a plugs should not by used for this purpose on a regular basis. A small issue with the wiring (which would not be an issue in normal circumstances), could cause the plug to overheat. Please Google this if you don’t believe me.
Also, new home chargers in the UK HAVE to be smart, they have all of the latest safety protection; that’s why they are so expensive. Your Tesla one might seem simple, but it still has a ton of hidden features to regulate the voltage and keep you safe.
I don't think you have your maths right here. If you have a 3kW EVSE that provides only 4 miles of range per hour, then a 7.5kW EVSE will only add 2.5 times that range, which would be 10 miles per hour, not 21 miles. The voltage is the same, but 2.5x the current means 2.5x the power delivered , hence 2.5x the range .
I live in the USA, and the basic 110V, 10A charger adds about 3 miles of range per hour to my C40 (1.1kW). Switching that same portable EVSE onto a 20A, 230V outlet allows it to deliver 16A maximum current (3.7kW), which gives me about 10 miles of range added per hour on a vehicle that gets just 3 miles per kWh.
I'm assuming that a UK EVSE is going to deliver about 10A at 230V with a 13A fused plug (about 2.3kW) which should put you in the 7-10 miles per hour range, depending upon how efficient your car is. Many of the smaller EVs in the UK get 4-5 miles per kWh, so I'd be quite surprised if you were down at 3 miles per hour with this setup.
Hi Jeff, I don’t deal in theory on the channel. I plug my Tesla car charger into a 13amp 240v socket and my car reports 3 miles added per hour, I plug into my 7kW 240v Tesla home charger and my car says 21 miles added per hour, I plug into an 11kW type2 public charger and I get 32 miles added per hour. I never question the car display, these are actual readings I photograph or film and use in my videos.
@@davetakesiton As an EE, I'd be interested to learn what output current your Tesla portable EVSE is providing. To be only delivering 3 miles per hour, it must be considerably less than 10A. Maybe it defaults to 6A, which would be 1.4kW, as that would match the ratios you're reporting.
10A output portable chargers should be available and safe in the UK. I'm not sure I'd want to select a 13A mode on a multi output current portable EVSE with a UK 13A socket, as it's right on the limit of the plug's rated current. The wiring behind it is probably rated for 20 or 30A, but it's limited by the 13A plug. The US 240V socket I'm using is rated for 20A, so I'm happy to push 16A through the Volvo supplied charger (rated at 110V, 10A or 230V, 16A)
The app says 10 amps and the display says 3 or 4 miles per hour, it wanders occasionally. My 7kW home charger says 32 amps and delivers a remarkably stable 21 miles per hour. At an 11kW public fast charger I get 33 or 35 miles per hour.
@@davetakesiton 10A at 230V is 2.3kW. if you're getting 21 miles per hour at 7kW, but only 1/7th of that rate at 1/3 the power, something is very non linear and probably faulty. You should be getting about 7 miles per hour at 10A, 230V.
My Volvo gets 10 miles per hour at 16A, 230V, 7 miles per hour at 10A 230V, and about 20 miles per hour on the 30A, 230V charger at work. I only get 3 miles per hour at 10A, 110V.
Looking at it another way, you're putting 2.3kW into your car, but only 1kW is getting into the battery. The other 1.3kW is getting turned into heat somewhere, probably within your car. That's enough excess heat to make me nervous.
Dont use the 3pin plug regularly, it is only for occasional use. Burns out my 13amp sockets. Get a proper ev charger.
This is rubbish. I use a 3 pin plug and have done for two years. Plug is always cold and I plug in overnight. Car draws 10 amps/8miles per hour.
My plug sockets get damaged by three pin plug home charging,plugs get very hot.
Just needs a socket conforming to BS 1363-2 EV standard. It will be marked "EV". Get your Sparky to install it on a dedicated spur from your consumer Unit, with the correct EV dual pole RCBO. The regs require the latter.
"Use your car app to schedule your charge. They all have it!"
Uhhh mine doesn't.
I must stop assuming, Dave
10 amps 3 pin is better for the battery. I was quoted £1500 and thats 5000 miles of electric
I am currently using a commando lead with a (at the time) £150 Chinese portable charger; mainly because it was all I could afford at the time; however, 1 year into ownership of my s/h KIA Soul, I AM questioning if getting a "proper" wallcharger is such a good idea.
I cant find any information about their capabilities to set a charge current limit other than when installing; yet I know that charging beyond 80% is best done at "trickle charge" levels, and that overall, the slower the charge, the less damage is being done to the battery cells.
My Chinese mobile charger allows me to set a number of different current limits, 10, 16, 20, 24, and 32 amps; do any of the wallchargers allow the same level of control ??
Currently, (lol), I usually charge at 20 amps, as my little 27 KWh battery doesnt take that long to do a 20-80% top-up; but once a month I trickle charge to 100% at 13 amps.
At 7 years old, my Soul shows a battery health of 88-92%, depending on which app I use; and I would like to keep it as healthy as possible; the estimated range shows as 94 miles (summer), 78 miles (winter), and I have managed over 70 miles of country roads at normal road speeds, and finished with an estimated remaining range of 32 miles.
As an ex industrial sparky, I fitted my own 32 amp socket, using 16mm armoured cable; almost certainly "illegal" under current government regs; but if I was considered competent enough to have my equipment fitted to HM nuclear subs and NHS Research labs, I am damned if I am paying good money to get a certificate qualifying me to a much lower standard.
(You will find my name on a couple of "Queen's Award for Technology/Exports", from back in the mid/late 1980s; near the start of my career).
Yes we all get lumped in with the same incompetence. All chargers have as far as I am aware 5 to 32 amp selectable. Your battery looks fine, try to keep it that way. If you coped without complaint for a year, why change?
Hi Dave, it is mainly because it looks scrappy, and I have to keep the mobile cable inside the house, near the front door - a fixed cable wall charger would look neater and involve less faff at charging time.
Can anybody recommend an adaptor. That would plug into the socket. And then plug the granny charger in to record the kilowatts used.
No. Get outside and go and find a girlfriend.
You can get them online vtheyre called energy monitors but you would be introducing extra resistance going thru an extra device..
But how much does it cost charging from a Uk normal plug socket mate? 2:48
I pay 11p per kWh off peak
Mine costs 7p off peak, nothing when it's sunny, or uses the home battery which has been charged by solar..
Not every car has DC charging. Some are AC charging only.
True, John, and nothing can change that, we need charging for all, Dave
The house ring main is not designed for this load for a long period of time, and should not be recommended!
Maybe only if the outside socket is on its own circuit?? The number of times I've replaced burnt out sockets because someone has plugged in there PHEVs or EV as they are not designed for this load.
Some house wiring may be old and if the house has had alterations done by a kitchen fitter or some one who does DIY that is not an electrician, there's a chance this is a fire hazard.
A lot of homes have the old type AC RCDs, when you plug in your EV to a 13A socket there's a chance of this blinding the RCD preventing it from working under fault conditions.
Yes the wall chargers are expensive but they have a lot of safety features built in for a very good reason. (Additional RCD protection, PEN fault protection, Load management ect.)
If you do want to use a 13A plug only use it as an emergency temporary top-up. Treat it like an emergency jerry can.
Without a home charger you also have more losses. So in the long run it's better to your wallet to make this investment
This is poor advice. The "humble" 3-pin socket is not suitable for long-term charging of an EV; they tend to over heat and degrade quite qickly. If a 3kW charge at home is sufficient for your needs, then you should fit one of the new EV-rated 3-pin sockets. Depending on individual circumstances it is possible that it would have to be installed by a qualified electrician. As a minimum, get the installation inspected. Is it worth the risk of voiding your house insurance? If you can afford an EV you should budget for a wall charger.
Will a 13A socket or plug degrade if it's subjected to a 10A EVSE current? I don't see any immediate reason why this would happen, as nothing is being operated above its rated level
10A at 230V is 2.3kW, which should add about 7-10 miles of range per hour, or 84 to 120 miles in a 12 hour overnight charge for a typical EV. Given that the average person drives 20-30 miles per day, that's adequate for most people.
Wrong. Degrade?
Spoken like a true EVSE installer.
Reason it draws 10A instead of 13A? Because at less than 80% of its load a traditional 3 Pin socket (meeting the necessary standards) is absolutely capable of servicing that load, all day long.
Outlets are designed to handle their rated power draw continuously, it’s safe to charge an EV using just the standard outlet no matter your use case. What’s important to consider at this point, is whether or not the standard outlet is capable of outputting enough power to offset your daily use, if not, install a higher power dedicated EV home charger.
@@jeffcranmer5374I agree. People are also seemingly not aware that dedicated EV charging cables are made for exactly that purpose. I.e. they adhere to a technical protocol standard for its exact use. Using a 3-pin plug plug will provide diminished returns as heat and resistance in cables reduces the efficiently.
No.
I'm an EV driver for 3 years. This is your worst video to date , your advice on 3 pin 13 amp charging is misleading and dangerous as this outlet is not suitable for continuous full load and can lead to house fire.
Check your facts with a qualified professional.
I had this weird dream about BS 1363-2 EV rated 13A sockets. Must have been imagination, eh?
So my fridge is dangerous.
Too condescending for my liking.
I love how when the 7kw charge point was mentioned, a picture of a Genie Point rapid charger was shown - possibly a mistake, but I like to think more of a mickey take of GP, because that's probably the only connector that'll be working!?
Yes Bob, but to be fair, it does have a 7kW socket and that seemed to be working while the CCS and Chademo weren't, Dave
A few addendums…
DC is what the battery uses.
AC is what your electricity supply provides and the on board charger converts it to DC for the battery.
The bag can contain an EVSE which has the 13A plug. This is normally the one that has a unit in the middle of the cable to talk to the car. A tesla version can have the plug changed to match the sockets of whichever country you are in or are visiting. Other EVSE chargers may vary.
The other cable is used when out and about to connect to public AC chargers that can range from 3kW to 22kW.
In the UK a 13A socket is designed for 10A or 2Kwish power being drawn over a long period of time. Kettles etc get away with drawing higher current because they are typically only on for a few minutes and the socket doesn’t get chance to heat up by much.
Pulling 10A for hours at a time can lead to overheating if the socket isn’t maintained properly which shows by burning marks around the pin holes. This will eventually lead to a fire.
If you want to use the ‘granny’ charger as they are colloquially known, on a continuous basis then it’s best to get the 16A commando socket and appropriate adapter for your EVSE to match. This will allow 16A to be drawn resulting in a faster charge. Do not use a 16A commando socket to 13A plug to get faster charging as it will lead to a blown fuse or a fire.
Your image of a 7kW public charger is actually a DC rapid charger that also has an AC socket. It might be better to show an actual AC public charger instead to avoid confusion.
Whilst you can get away with using the 13A plug isn’t not a good idea to do so on a permanent basis due to the risk of a fire from a dodgy socket or even the wiring heating up running through your house if it’s not of sufficient size.
A commando socket is far cheaper than a dedicated charger and an electrician can install one easily for not much money with it’s own dedicated RCBO in your fuse box.
I hope this helps. :)
Thanks for your comments! Very helpful!
16A socket is the way to go for a low cost alternative to a dedicated charger. 16A continuous rated rather than 13A sockets 10A continuous.
not sure why people keep stating 13 amp socket and 10A continuous. Plug a 3kW kettle and a 2.1kW toaster into the same socket in your kitchen and turn them on. I just did, works perfectly without getting hot. It would be impossible to draw 5.1kW even for 1 second if the socket was limited to 13A or 10A. Sockets have no fuse or restriction, they are designed to be wired into a ring main circuit protected by a 32 amp RCD in the consumer unit, therefore each socket happily and safely can take 7.5kW.
The 13 amps refers to the plug which does have a fuse, maximum 13 amp, which gives around 3kW. There is no such thing as a 13 amp socket, Dave
@@davetakesiton Now run that same load for a couple of hours and you will see it either gets very hot or even starts to smoke. Ring main is fused at 32 Amps but individual sockets are 13 Amp peak and 10 Amp continuous rated. This is the main cause of electrical fires in homes people overloading sockets.
@@davetakesiton Thanks for these words Dave! Well Said.
I had a commando 7kw socket installed - same price as a 3 pin. Then use the included Tesla charger to get 7 kw charging on the cheap.
Three pin sockets are not designed to take a high load for long periods. Best practice is to fit a home charger.
Evs typically take 10A which isn't considered a high load when connected directly to a socket - ie, don't use extension cables, same as you wouldn't for an electric heater, and make sure the socket isn't worn as loose connections are bad. Personally my EV socket is on a separate RCD and only used for vehicle charging, so never unplugged.