Nearly bought an Electric car

[Frontstep]

Anyone work for the NHS ?

A distant relative has just got a small BMW on startling lease terms with free electric at work apparently.

It seemed a no brainer and she's a smart cookie.

I won't see her for a while and wondered if there's any details I can read.

 

[daveenty]

Back to the original post and I was a bit tempted again today with a purely electric car.

Was going to go out in the Lexus this morning up to the local shops but there were all manner of flashing lights and warnings on the dash so decided to give it a miss. Having had similar with it before, I figured that the little starter battery in the back was flat or thereabouts anyway. A steady 8.2v was showing on my multimeter, so on with the charger. It's now been on for nearly 4 hours and is still only on the 3rd of the amber lights (CTEK) so still a while to go. I have done a quick test on the ignition and all seems fine but it's getting to the frustrating stage now as it's actually had a solar charger on it for the last couple of months. This must not be giving the very small starter battery enough charge so I'll probably buy a dedicated CTEK for it so that I can leave it constantly connected.

To be honest, I think that I'm going to have issues with whatever I decide to get as I'm just not doing the miles to justify running another car at the moment. This Lexus hasn't really turned a wheel since February apart from it's MOT but I'd be having the same problems with anything else in reality, be it ICE or EV.

I only have a second car as I want to try to keep the Mercedes as a car for special occasions, not that I get many of those lately...

Ah well, back to the classifieds.

 

[Severnless]

With owning a Ev since June, I noticed that even with an Ev you could still have the same problem with a flat 12volt battery for the ancillarys in the car if left for a long period.
Also there will be the same old maintenance with the 12 volt battery after 5-10 years it will need replacing especially if you leave the car for long periods...

 

[Frontstep]

We should really expect more from our cars in terms of reliability and my tech filled car should be telling me via my phone when its unhappy and with what.

The ludicrous pantomime of having to go to dealer for this is ridiculous.

 

[ZZZZ]

noticed that even with an Ev you could still have the same problem with a flat 12volt battery for the ancillarys in the car if left for a long period

Does it not get charged, if EV is left plugged in?

 

[Severnless]

Does it not get charged, if EV is left plugged in?

Yes it charges both the 12volt and the HV battery when plugged in, but I would not leave the car permanently plugged in for months on end, you are asking for problems.
We’ve been charging the car once a week, with a granny charger (3pin plug) (3kw) overnight
If you leave it for more than 12hrs and the HV battery is almost full it will then spend the next 3-6hrs balancing all the cells, after that the charger in the car shuts down, so no point in leaving plugged in.

As EV’s get older they will still have the same problem with the 12volt battery as with ice cars.
Remember the HV battery is just for the running gear, so you have to have power to run all of the 12volt systems (lights, hvac, heated seats, powers steering, brake booster pump, etc....)
So if you have a 10 year old duff 12volt battery in you EV don’t be surprised if you can’t get the car to start up even though the HV battery is fully charged!

 

[Frontstep]

I would leave it plugged in

 

[ZZZZ]

Yes it charges both the 12volt and the HV battery when plugged in, but I would not leave the car permanently plugged in for months on end, you are asking for problems.
We’ve been charging the car once a week, with a granny charger (3pin plug) (3kw) overnight
If you leave it for more than 12hrs and the HV battery is almost full it will then spend the next 3-6hrs balancing all the cells, after that the charger in the car shuts down, so no point in leaving plugged in.

As EV’s get older they will still have the same problem with the 12volt battery as with ice cars.
Remember the HV battery is just for the running gear, so you have to have power to run all of the 12volt systems (lights, hvac, heated seats, powers steering, brake booster pump, etc....)
So if you have a 10 year old duff 12volt battery in you EV don’t be surprised if you can’t get the car to start up even though the HV battery is fully charged!

Yup, makes perfect sense.
If I get into this, I'll have a fixed three-year lease on a brand new smart EQ, so none of these worries
The household charger is 2.3kW though, not 3kW - at least not in the UK.
Our silly 13A threshold makes it impossible to get what one can in say, Germany from a household socket - i.e. 3.6kW - 16A
So UK 3-pin charges are limited to 10A

 

[Craiglxviii]

David, one has to blame the Germans for that. If they’d not bombed a fifth of our housing stock to rubble in 1940-43, we wouldn’t be limited to 13A... current U.K. domestic wiring regs limitations can be traced right back to the emergency house building programs of the late 40s!

 

[Tony Dyson]

Yup, makes perfect sense.
If I get into this, I'll have a fixed three-year lease on a brand new smart EQ, so none of these worries
The household charger is 2.3kW though, not 3kW - at least not in the UK.
Our silly 13A threshold makes it impossible to get what one can in say, Germany from a household socket - i.e. 3.6kW - 16A
So UK 3-pin charges are limited to 10A

From a practical point of view you wouldn’t want to power any single consumer > 2kW permanently from a household socket, it would take up far too much load from the available capacity from other consumers connected to the same circuit leading to nuisance overload tripping of the protective devices, then nothing works and a EV battery charger is considered as an essential device and warrants it’s own dedicated circuit. There is a lot more capacity in domestic power circuits in the UK as the use of ‘Ring Mains’ means we can use protective devices rated up to 32A, this is the reason we have cartridge fuses in the 13A plugs to further protect anything plugged into a 13A socket backed up with a 32A protective device. In the rest of Europe, Ring Mains are not used and power circuits are limited to only 20A but have no limitations on the number of outlets connected on each circuit so as you can imagine, a single load of 16A doesn’t leave much left for the rest of the outlets on that same circuit.

 

[ZZZZ]

Yes, the outside socket will actually have its own consumer unit, with 100A isolator switch and dedicated RCBO.
I also got a green light from Western Power for a 7kW EV charger - will see.
Theoretically it can be put on the same new consumer unit, if I later decide to go for it.
For now - just a standard dual 3-pin IP66 outside socket.

 

[Severnless]

Yup, makes perfect sense.
If I get into this, I'll have a fixed three-year lease on a brand new smart EQ, so none of these worries
The household charger is 2.3kW though, not 3kW - at least not in the UK.
Our silly 13A threshold makes it impossible to get what one can in say, Germany from a household socket - i.e. 3.6kW - 16A
So UK 3-pin charges are limited to 10A

Last week we had our ‘Ohme’ smart wall charger fitted, so we can now take advantage of cheap rate leccy and up to 7kw 32amp, it has its own supply through its own isolator/trip and it’s connected between the meter and the consumer unit.
you are correct the 3pin granny charger is limited to 10amp

We took advantage of the discounts offered to nhs staff and brought an MG on pcp finance, been very impressed with it

 

[NMM]

To the question, I think the premium electrics are now convicing - at least for some parts of the country, and admittedly in an upmarket market segment. The EQC is incredibly refined and quiet , and has superb internal comfort and tech. The quiet is addictive - as a classical music fan I was always annoyed at how ICE noise ruined a good symphony. No more! It's also monstrously quick, if you like that sort of thing! (On YouTube you can watch it polish off an AMG GT over the first 150 metres).

For central London it makes a lot of sense. The charging infrastructure is good. You get out of the congestion charge. And especially in Zone 1 you get loads of better, often free, parking spots when you charge. And chargers are now ok on most major motorways. Range gets you comfortably as far as you'd want to go between coffees. And 100kW plus charging means a coffee stop gets your battery full again.

The other obvious challenge is cost. Sure, the list prices are nasty. But the long battery guarantee has convinced the banks that the two year old value will be high. So the leasing costs aren't too bad. To boot, do it as a company car, and there's a lot of extra tax advantages. And obviously you pay far far less in running costs costs for an equivalent nearly 5 metre luxury SUV.