Questions about electric cars.

Generally hybrids have very limited towing capacity, some EVs can tow caravans but with reduced range. Some others can use Tesla chargers but that will probably increase.

What apps do people use for locating chargers? We have been advised to use Chargemap here in France, what do people use in the UK?

Mamie

What apps do people use for locating chargers? We have been advised to use Chargemap here in France, what do people use in the UK?

Zap-Map is very popular and usually up to date on a day to day basis, chargers that are not working are usually indicated.

Thanks Katie59. Not sure when we will venture to the UK again, but useful to know. It is actually only 130 miles from here to our daughter's so we should make it on one charge. ?

My other worry would be how reliable the electric charging system would be.

We have just returned from a holiday in a boat on the Norfolk Broads. During the week we needed to top up water and pump out sewage twice. We were assured that there were pump out stations at regular intervals, in many cases we couldn't find them, they were out of action, or otherwise non-operational. What happens if you cannot find operational chargers - and what about how long the charge takes. If we head north to visit DS and family, currently a three and a half to four and a half journey. Are we going to have to add in another 2-3 hours to allow us to charge up midway.

I cannot see us getting an elctric car until it can lug the equivalent of a heavily loaded estate car for the same distance a tank of petrol will.

The latest EVs have 300miles range and charge in about 40 mins with a high power charge, in reality that’s a few times a year for most drivers, 95% + of charging is going to be at home.
Filling up with petrol week by week is going to take you longer than the occasional enroute charge you make.

If you need to make long journeys that need enroute charging several times a week then EVs are not for you,

Thank you for the information about towing.
Indeed Tesla chargers can only be used by Tesla cars, and that was my point! It is very inefficient to have different systems.

I think it will be some time before we transfer to electric cars because tof the cost and because we tend to buy second hand cars and run them until they die, which is actually environmentally friendly.

My car was written off after an accident a few weeks ago. It was 20 years old and I had owned it for 14 years and may well have run it for many years more had it not been for the accident. My budget for its replacement is £5,000 max. It will be a long time before EVs fall to that kind of price on the secondhand market.

Esspee
Thankyou for this, I’ve just ordered an electric car, and you’ve answered some of the questions I forgot to ask!
For the first time I will have a company car.

MOnica - was surprised to see your comment about time of charging. Further up in this thread I did say that on a recent journey in my Sil's EV - he needed to top up and it was all carried out at a Motorway Service Station in half an hour, cost £7 whilst we went inside and had a cup of coffee.

He has had this vehicle nearly a year now and it is only the third time he has needed to top up away from home. Each time he has used the express charge up, as it is so quick.

Normally this vehicle is charged at home where it costs very little due to cheap electricity from their roof panels. He reckons he has saved well over a thousand pounds in fuel costs as well as a lot of time as no queueing etc at petrol stations.

Esspee when you charge overnight do you do it every night or just when the charge is running down? Also once it is fully charged does it stop taking the electricity? TIA.

I’m still a little concerned about topping up, but the model of car I had before is no longer available in diesel, and the choice was very limited.
I’m pleased I’ve made the change, but still a little apprehensive.

Apologies Karmalady. I assumed the car you were talking about was dual fuel because others with dual fuel Teslas had told us about their experiences.
Tesla chargers are the most expensive we have encountered and they do fine a prohibitive amount if you overstay your time on the charger.

M0nica

How does the load you are carrying affect range? How much space do the battery and engine take up compared with a petrol or diesel car?

We run a large estate car because one of our hobbies is antiques trading and the car needs to have a really big boot to get all our stock and paraphenalia in and transport us all to a location up to 100 miles away and back. We also have several other journeys we do of a similar kind?

We currently run a big square -rofiled SAAB estate. We have considered a smaller car and a trailer, but have nowhere to park the trailer.

There isn’t an engine, not in fully electric cars. When you lift the bonnet you have another boot (or trunk). The manufacturers refer to this as the frunk. ?
I don’t know the answer to your other question.

ElaineI

Esspee when you charge overnight do you do it every night or just when the charge is running down? Also once it is fully charged does it stop taking the electricity? TIA.

It is recommended that you keep the battery at 20-80% charged. The range of our car is 300 miles so we have only fully charged it when going on a long trip, Glasgow to Manchester so about 200 miles. When we got there we had enough charge for the next few days.
When home we charge it as needed. So far about once a fortnight when we have no long journeys.
My OH likes to take it to a free fast charger when he can. It is most unlikely they will continue to be free but while they are he is taking advantage of them. The drive to Manchester cost nothing and on the way back we topped up the battery free once we crossed the border. While in England we did pay 47p. per kilowatt hour.
OH reckons that to travel the same distance, assuming we were charging at home on the current price cap, it is half the price of petrol. This would apply to everyone on the price cap. If you have a better deal such as economy 7 and charge overnight it would be cheaper still.
We have solar panels so if we charge up during the day we use our generated electricity only topping up with paid electricity.

Nannarose

Thank you for the information about towing.
Indeed Tesla chargers can only be used by Tesla cars, and that was my point! It is very inefficient to have different systems.

I agree. It is crazy that the government allows different chargers. You can get an adapter cable so you can charge at a Tesla charger but it costs £260. Tesla chargers are the most expensive we have encountered and they fine you for overstaying, quite prohibitive amounts so OH has decided not to buy the adaptor.

Esspee, I spoke of engine and battery together. Our need is for a car to have a big square cavernous boot like Volvos used to have. We currently run an elderly SAAB with a similar size boot. We are representative of a goodly number of people who attend shows, whether like us they are at antique fairs, or craft fairs, dog shows etc, where we have our stock neatly packed in to large plastic crates for transit. A number of tradesmen, representatives and specialist salesmen, also use cars like these.

Small of areas of storagelike the 'frunk' you mention and then more odd spaces spread around the car are absolutely no use at all.

Esspee

Apologies Karmalady. I assumed the car you were talking about was dual fuel because others with dual fuel Teslas had told us about their experiences.
Tesla chargers are the most expensive we have encountered and they do fine a prohibitive amount if you overstay your time on the charger.

There arent any “dual fuel” Teslas

Karmalady According to OH the hybrids I thought were Teslas weren’t. They were on Tesla chargers so must have had adaptors. Apologies I got it wrong. You will notice I said dual fuel when the term is hybrid.
I truly know next to nothing about cars. Think of them as a way to get from A to B.
The electric cars are quite a revelation to me. We will all have to adapt I suppose but I just glaze over with discussions about charging curves etc.

M0nica

*Esspee*, I spoke of engine and battery together. Our need is for a car to have a big square cavernous boot like Volvos used to have. We currently run an elderly SAAB with a similar size boot. We are representative of a goodly number of people who attend shows, whether like us they are at antique fairs, or craft fairs, dog shows etc, where we have our stock neatly packed in to large plastic crates for transit. A number of tradesmen, representatives and specialist salesmen, also use cars like these.

Small of areas of storagelike the 'frunk' you mention and then more odd spaces spread around the car are absolutely no use at all.

Hi Monica, there isn’t an engine in an electric car, at least not in ours. The battery I am told is under the seats. Our boot is much the same size as our previous Peugeot SUV and the back seats fold down to give the same sort of extra space. I would think you need something bigger than that. All the manufacturers seem to be introducing electric models so some may have a very large boot. Perhaps a van would suit you better? The frunk is small but we just put an inflatable kayak in ours and there is room for a life jacket on top.

Esspee Mostly the car is used as a car, but probably once a month at most we need the big square space. So many modern estate cars have sides that slope inwards and very sloping backs, so you can get one layer of boxes in but cannot get a second laayer on top, but that gripe is not relevant to this thread.

We have a hybrid ( plug in) which is now 8.5 years old ( we bought it secondhand 5 years ago) . Mitsubishi Outlander. I try to use mostly electric but am grateful for the petrol range. The electric range is now ( the batteries are aging) between 12 miles in winter with the light/ heating nipping up the motorway to work- and about 30 in warm daylight at lower speeds. It is most inefficient at high speeds- indeed we tend to select ‘save electric’ and use the petrol engine for motorway or higher speed travel. It does charge itself as you go downhill or slow down as long as you use the regenerative brakes to slow down. There are paddles on the steering wheel to choose the braking power - level one for recharging down a gentle hill up to level 5 to regenerate on a steep down hill or to slow down quickly.
Charging away from home can be very hit and miss- and often costly. £8 the other day to get ?20 miles of electric range. Often the charge points are out of order, or non electric cars are parked in the way, or a different charging card is required ( there are dozens of different charging clubs and most require membership to use their EV charge points- only very recently have some charge points started to accept credit card payments. There is also the problem of different type of charger points and plugs as others have mentioned, so only some public charger points are suitable for your particular car.

We mostly use the electric range locally, and the petrol engine (with electric in slow traffic)for occasional longer journeys. The petrol engine also cuts in when more power is needed as the electric motors would struggle for instance accelerating on steep uphill.
Difficulties recharging when away from home would make me nervous of changing to a full EV as our only car at this stage but we may eventually change to a small EV for local use and have a bigger family car ( not EV) for longer journeys. My brother has an EV and gets a range of about 200 miles between charges.

Your experience Margiknot is why OH went full electric. I can’t see any point in charging up to go 20 miles (if you have to pay for it.)
We expect the 300 mile range to reduce slightly through time. I think anything less than 200 miles would be unworkable for us as we have most of our friends and family within a 200 mile radius.
With newer cars the regeneration is automatic. I don’t think I could cope with choosing the braking power. My trip to my local supermarket shows a net gain. In other words I return with a fuller battery than when I left - which always amuses me. Driving in town is much more fuel efficient than on motorways, something that seemed counter intuitive at first. It is such a steep learning curve.

Most (not all) charge points now accept contactless credit card payment now, but you still need to to check which are not working, use Zap Map to do that. Some areas have a shortage of charging points which can make it tricky.

The idea of a plug in hybrid is to charge at home, they are expensive and unless you do all short journeys don’t save much

Early adoption of new technology is always a mistake in my view. Wait for the problems to get ironed out. Also, something will have to be done about people with no home charging possibility.