Talk Morgan Forums Community Vehicle Talk (non-Morgan) Tempted by Renault 5 Electric

I had to chuckle about the arrival date, considering the number of people who go on about EV fires
Do let us know how you get on with it - a friend is quite interested in acquiring one.

I think that the methods of charging EV`s may be evolving to some degree. I suspect for low mileage users using a 13amp socket may well work out well enough even though it will take longer to fully recharge the battery, perhaps looking upon that system as trickle charging, compared to other methods... Given modern battery`s chemical makeup is different and evolving, whether a slower charge is more beneficial to battery longevity or not.. I have no idea.
Using a 13 amp socket avoids all the many rules and regs relative to fitting an external wall connector to provide circa 30 amps.

Dependant on the electrical distribution network in your area it is possible that fitting a wall connector capable of supplying 30 amps may not be possible due to possible overloading the house supply

As best I understand it wall connector is not a charger, as it supplies standard household voltage to the EV which has an inbuilt charging system to modify the voltage and current to suit it`s and your requirements of the vehicle. .up to a maximum of circa 30 amps....

Charging a Tesla model 3 at circa 30 amps, takes an hour to put approximately 30 miles of range back into the battery.

The tesla wall connector is a smart device thus requires an internet connection to set it up, which in the past could create issues of range to connect to wi-fi...which could be worked around, but seemingly now simplified by the availability of a new cable to carry not only mains voltage but also a hard wired connection to your router.....

As ever given the rate of evolution in the EV marketplace that which I type above could be well out of date.

As ever more than happy to be corrected if anything I type may be incorrect..

Hi Will,

I looked at the Quartz but ended up going with the A2. The A2s ability to hide the cable within the unit means it always looks tidy, which was important to me. My previous BMW, even with the cable looped over the holder, looked a mess because the thickness of the charge cable doesn't make for a nice clean 'wrap'.

I haven't looked into the 5,000 'free' miles but the £30 one off charge, which allows for as many charges a month as required, does sound attractive. My EV has a battery capacity of 84 kWh, so at current rates, I'm at roughly £21.00 per full charge.

My current energy supplier offers an overnight tariff of 8.5p per kWh but only for five hours, so I'm running the numbers but Octopus with their '£30 deal' looks to be the best currently for me.

@Luddite - as you've mentioned, the tech is moving very rapidly. My old i3s was fine on a 3-pin wall plug but my new EV is painfully slow (more than 28-hours) for a full charge on the supplied 3-pin. My A2 is 7kw but with the possibility to upgrade to 22kw, should I wish, by just upgrading the charge cable. A full charge takes approximately 12 hours but the car is designed to charge to 80% in 20-mins, if I find a quick charger.

My install location allowed for direct connection to the consumer unit and the smart connection for the wall box is all done via wifi. My guess is moving forward, they'll run off sims as found in any modern car but perhaps I'm wrong and wifi will remain an easier option.

New home builds won't be an issue because it would seem the government is mandating charge points but older homes, where you cannot easily connect to the consumer unit, are going to be a challenge if more people move towards EVs (and that is before we get into the pressure it would put on both local and the national grid).

Simon,
the power company puts in a main fuse before the meter. We have despite a new build an 80 Amp fuse. You can get 100 Amp fuses if needed.
With a 22 Kw charge point you may find the fuse limits how much the charge point delivers.

I believe most Distribution Network Operators are quietly their upgrading theirnetworks to support much higher current consumption by domestic properties. It's very noticeable around our way as the power comes in on poles, so the new triple-conductor twisted lines are much more noticeable than the old single-conductor jobs, if only because the local squirrels scamper along them much more confidently than they used to, it's like they've got their own rodentia super-highway.

They came round to us and put in a 100A link free of charge without us even having to ask for it.

The issue about overnight charging should really be calculated on average daily depletion rather than time for a full charge. EVs aren't like ICE cars, there's no advantage in letting them run down before doing a full charge, much better to just top them up every day or two. Remember that much of the talk around keeping to the 20% to 80% limit is directed at people who consistently use fast DC chargers, topping up a battery on AC is considerably less damaging than whacking in enormous levels of charge at 100KW or whatever.

Our Mini has just completed 4 years with us, with no measurable degradation at all, we still get an easy 120 miles just as when it was new.

I already had that in place, so it was an easy install for them. I'm also on three phase, so had the option of going that route but chose not to.




Tim, I recall being told that when BMW launched the i3, they provided a six year battery warranty; however, after a few years they revised this to eight because the batteries were far exceeding expectations.

Like you, I don't wait until I'm low to charge - I top up every few days or as use requires.

As John suggests, it seems the main fuse rating on the cable head may determine whether or not you can have a circa 30 amp connection to an EV. For sure one is inclined to think that if I have a 60 amp main use then there should no problem to have the load of 30 amps fed from it.... However it is the length of time that is key, as very little in a household will draw high currents for long periods of TIME.

From a dull memory ... there are factors applied to calculations relative to electrical supply, one of which is diversity, in other words averaging out expected real world loading on mains supplies and where the TIME relative to any peak expectations on that loading plays a part...Most folk understand that there seem to be expected peaks at half time in a big football match when folk put the kettle on and the sewage system pump stations might also see an increase in demand, though only for a relatively short period of TIME.
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As a childlike example, you can perhaps lift and transport a heavy LOAD for a while, but to carry it for any length of time/distance may cause you to begin to sweat, dependant on the length of time you need to carry it.... Same goes for electric cables and fuses etc. Thus demanding circa 30 amps for many hours is likely to put more LOAD on to a household electricity supply than it was ever designed to cope with.

With all that in mind, and the arrival of EV`s in in the marketplace, it seems understandable that electricity supply networks require to be upgraded to match an increase in load, and more so as EV`s increase in popularity as will home charging for those who might have a driveway and a suitably sized cable head which is deemed capable of carrying the expected circa 30 amp load long enough to charge an EV over the period of hours.

Dependant on the type of battery in the EV it seems there may no need to wait till the battery runs down to say 20% before charging, thus if you are a light user perhaps using a 13 amp supply to just keep it topped up, and with a smart meter, selecting a time of day/night to do so when your tariff may be cheaper....?

I suspect that trying to supply 22 kw from a normal household supply could require more work than one might imagine if allowable unless one had a three phase supply... Though as I suggested things seem to be changing at a rate of knots.... And households with solar generation becoming ever more popular, battery storage smart inverters I suspect the grid will look nothing like it has done over the years in the passage of time.... I note that battery storage seems to be cropping up adjacent to grid switching stations..

I think wi-fi range issues for some folk caused cable manufacturers to create a cable of the appropriate size and type to carry both circa 30 amps and the hard wired connection for data required by the wall connectors.

I think that wi-fi was required to set up the wall connector with the vehicle I.D, in order that only an otherised vehicle could be charged from the connector, Thus in some cases where wi-fi was incabable of reaching the connectors location, it would be programmed wherever the wi-fi was available in the property, prior to mounting it in it`s required position.

I know nothing of sims capabilities.... Duh!

As ever just thinking in type and more than happy to read of alternative thinking and/or be corrected if I have got things wrong in any way..

I know my Ohme charge point at 7 kW also regulates the demand vs the total demand on the house. So in theory the fuse won't blow. How it does it I don't know.
But the way home smart chargers work is to balance total network demand. The vary with total load & aren't just time switches

Interesting info John, thanks.

I am in no way up to speed on this kit...perhaps your connector measures voltage drop on it`s input side and adjusts the current available for charging your EV....

I suspect the majority of monitoring and available manual and automatic charge rate variations in a Tesla are controlled by the car`s on board systems... Do not know, however there is much of the Tesla`s tec that can be controlled from one`s cell phone including varying the rate of charge up or down, and setting up stop and start charge times as well as selecting the desired percentage to charge the battery to... etc.etc.etc.

I have an mg. For 7kW charging the charger is in the car. The charger port the Ohme is a sophisticated switch.
For higher speeds it is DC not ac and the charger outside the car controls it.