Charging around the East Midlands

[m3gt2]

Hi, I am thinking of getting a 85D to use for taxi/chauffeur work. I am based in Leicestershire and am a little worried as we have no Superchargers around us at the moment. It is if I stay local that I am worried as I know if I head towards London I will find plenty. How do you find it in this area? Also how fast do they charge at home with single phase electricity? Also any suggestions for options and any adaptors that are worth getting? Thanks

 

[arg]

Hi, I am thinking of getting a 85D to use for taxi/chauffeur work. I am based in Leicestershire and am a little worried as we have no Superchargers around us at the moment. It is if I stay local that I am worried as I know if I head towards London I will find plenty. How do you find it in this area? Also how fast do they charge at home with single phase electricity? Also any suggestions for options and any adaptors that are worth getting? Thanks

Charging at home (32A single phase) gets you about 20 miles of driving per hour of charging. So assuming you sleep at night, you don't really need to worry about local charging unless you do more than about 200 miles/day of local driving.

The key adaptor you will need is the CHAdeMO one - this unlocks usefully-fast charging in lots of places, particularly motorway service areas. They are a good complement to the Supercharger network - if you need to pick up a full charge during the day, then Supercharger is the only thing that makes sense, but if you need a 'top off' to do a round trip (or a leg to a Supercharger) that's just a bit too far to do on a single charge, then 20-30 minutes on a CHAdeMO while you have a coffee gets you 40-60 miles. They are unreliable, and the free ones can get crowded with Leafs/Outlanders, but the luxury with the range of the Model S is that you almost certainly pass several on your journey and can just stop at the 2nd one if the first is broken/occupied.

You probably ought to have a Type2 cable also to access slow public charging - potentially useful if you end up parked somewhere for a few hours.

If buying the car now (who knows if the policy might change again), you get the "mobile connector" (known here at the 'UMC'), which gives you a 13A plug adaptor - useless for middle-of-the-working-day charging, but sometimes useful for overnights away from home.

 

[m3gt2]

Thank you for taking the time to reply. It has helped me understand a lot more about the charging. If I had the dual charger would it charge at 40 miles an hour at home? Also are any Superchargers planned in the East Midlands that you know of? Thanks again Chris

 

[arg]

If I had the dual charger would it charge at 40 miles an hour at home?

Only if you have 3-phase power at home to feed it with - the maximum that the dual-charger car can take is 32A three-phase, which is about 60 mph charge rate.

Normally, with a single charger car, you are limited by the power you have available in your house rather than the car itself.

Also are any Superchargers planned in the East Midlands that you know of? Thanks again Chris

History tells us that nobody (not even Tesla staff) knows for sure where the next Superchargers are coming! The official map does seem to promise a couple, but at best that's a statement of intent given all the different things that can go wrong.

 

[m3gt2]

I'm sorry, I didn't get email notification of your reply. I looked at the 2016 map on the website but I can't seem to zoom in to look properly! I understand it isn't a given even if the map shows it though.

 

[pbceng]

From what some of the senior Tesla guys have said, the supercharger map is deliberately vague on exact locations for proposed superchargers because they've had issues with people/organisations trying to big up or disrupt contract negotiations. However they are planning a number of new locations and also considering upgrades of existing locations to increase the number of stalls. Compared to anyone else efforts it's pretty impressive I think and a deciding factor in my decision to order.

 

[mkaiser1]

Where in Leicestershire are you. I live in on the Leicestershire/Nottinghamshire border and got my p85 Model S in March. Happy to meet up, take you for a drive and chat about it if you like?

 

[martinwinlow]

Getting the dual chargers does allow you to use the 32A 3 phase (43kW) connections of the 'triple header' rapid chargers such as Ecotricity are installing these days but only 22kW can be drawn. 22kW is a good second best to a CHAdeMO adaptor and worth having if you are reliant on RCs as it sounds like you might be. Quite often the DC side of a RC may be U/S but the AC side working... It also gives you the option of using a 32A 3 phase industrial supply to the same end (also found on some farms). MW