Charging other EVs on Tesla Wall Gen 3

[TomM26]

So, I will soon have a Tesla and am fitting a Gen 3 Wall Charger.

If I was to get another non-Tesla EV (thinking of Electric Mini, but nothing more than thoughts at moment), would it be able to use the Gen 3 Wall Charger?

Also, as my driveway (where the Wall Charger will be fitted) is quite public, I understand I would be able to limit charging to my Tesla car- but would I then be able to permit another EV (eg the potential Mini Electric)....

Thanks for any feedback

 

[MrBadger]

You may no longer be allowed to buy a new Tesla wall charger and legally fit it as it is not a recognised smart charger. I cannot remember the cutoff date and exact details but worth double checking.

Don’t assume that Tesla will have this info.

 

[MrMoonUK]

My gen3 is currently charging our two Renault Zoe’s whilst we wait the model Y

 

[WannabeOwner]

If I was to get another non-Tesla EV

I've had an EV van here (can't remember the make) that couldn't charge from Tesla charger ... he used my Tesla UMC with Commando adapter to plug into my Commando Socket [installed at the same time as Wall Charger "belt and braces"] instead

 

[Stuart1714]

You may no longer be allowed to buy a new Tesla wall charger and legally fit it as it is not a recognised smart charger. I cannot remember the cutoff date and exact details but worth double checking.

Don’t assume that Tesla will have this info.

The cutoff date is the 30th June as per Regulations: electric vehicle smart charge points

 

[Adopado]

The cutoff date is the 30th June as per Regulations: electric vehicle smart charge points

Wow, that’s a really significant change! There are loads of none smart better value charge points on the market that will be unavailable through normal channels. I envisage many of them being on eBay instead, using the loophole that legislation allows secondhand buying and selling by private individuals of non smart charge points.

However, before people jump onto this as being enforced control of your charging by the state the legislation says that charging must be able to continue functioning if disconnected from control networks. So dumb charging will still be possible… in fact that functionality is mandated.

 

[ACarneiro]

However, before people jump onto this as being enforced control of your charging by the state the legislation says that charging must be able to continue functioning if disconnected from control networks. So dumb charging will still be possible… in fact that functionality is mandated.

Well, the very first first paragraph of the regs states “Electric vehicle charge points sold in Great Britain for private (domestic or workplace) use are being regulated to help manage the increase in electricity demand from the transition to electric vehicles.”

So “enforced control of your charging by the state” is absolutely what the intended outcome is.
Fairly easy to circumvent, as you stated (unless it becomes unlawful to do so, which is not beyond the realms of possibility) but I, for one, hope my two “dumb” chargers last for many, many years….

Now excuse while I go adjust my tinfoil hat, I think some mind-control waves are starting to seep in….

 

[WannabeOwner]

So “enforced control of your charging by the state” is absolutely what the intended outcome is.

I must be missing the point because I don't see how this will work ...

"I have to go somewhere in a few hours, I must charge now" needs accommodating. And if you allow for that I can't see what's to stop someone doing that everyday at "peak" if they choose to ...

... if I came home with less than 20% I would definitely "charge now", but currently I probably fail to stop that charge as its a rare thing ... but I'd be happy that it charged to, say, 30% and the rest "whenever"

I'd be very happy being able to say "I need 90% charge at 08:00 tomorrow, charge the car whenever you like" ... but my current approach would be to charge at the start of Off Peak which would have the benefit that if I got a Power Cut for part of that period I would be "optimised" for max benefit ... whereas if it was out of my control and happened to "Start charge as late as possible" then a subsequent powercut would mean I was stuffed.

Seems to me that Time-of-Use metering would solve this ... make Juice cheap at appropriate times, and then people can use "Charge when cheap" if they don't care when the car is charged, and "Charge now" if they have a need

With increasing Solar and Wind the "cheap rate" may well become daytime ...

 

[ACarneiro]

I agree. I’m not sure how they make it work but you know what The Man is like: gain control first and then decide what to do with it.

I suppose it wouldn’t be unreasonable to have some universal platform that all smarts chargers talk to, where you could stipulate what your intended departure time is and how much “emergency reserve” you’d want to have in your battery at all times (“à la” Octopus Go) and let the grid decide how to prioritise charging for all the vehicles within one specific region?
The concept is interesting, but the deployment and running won’t be easy.
Incentivising the use of this system with attractive ToU tariffs (again like Octopus Go) would ensure a significant uptake by consumers.

 

[Adopado]

I agree. I’m not sure how they make it work but you know what The Man is like: gain control first and then decide what to do with it.

I suppose it wouldn’t be unreasonable to have some universal platform that all smarts chargers talk to, where you could stipulate what your intended departure time is and how much “emergency reserve” you’d want to have in your battery at all times (“à la” Octopus Go) and let the grid decide how to prioritise charging for all the vehicles within one specific region?
The concept is interesting, but the deployment and running won’t be easy.
Incentivising the use of this system with attractive ToU tariffs (again like Octopus Go) would ensure a significant uptake by consumers.

You credit The Man with intelligence and ability to plan ahead in some kind of coherent way ... to me the evidence suggests that in reality The Man is a twit!!

 

[ACarneiro]

You credit The Man with intelligence and ability to plan ahead in some kind of coherent way ... to me the evidence suggests that in reality The Man is a twit!!

Hahahaha!
Point taken. But a very powerful twit who has proven time and again to not being someone you want to trust blindly

 

[robmcm]

I thought the Gen3 was a smart charger, and one of the few that works with the smart Octopus tariff?

 

[phil4]

If it were me (and it's not) I'd be worried about the difference between Govt control and for example Octopus Go.

My current MO is get home, car set to start charging at 12:30am, and charge limit set so it's finished by 4:30am. Most of the time this means I leave it set at 80%, and every day's commute just gets topped up.

Where I'd be worried is if doing the above I either wake up to a) it not charged, because govt decided not to or b) a larger bill, because they bumped it out of my cheap rate.

Yes, I can use Ev.Energy app for example to set an end time, but that'd just lead to more of a) car not charged.

Not something I'd want personally.

I do understand the goal... they don't want millions of EV's plugging in at 6pm when they get home and charging away right at the peak. But the moment I let other people control my charging I stand a reasonable chance of a) or b) above occuring.

 

[MrBadger]

Nothing to do with the government- it’s the DNO’s who will do it to protect their parts of the grid.

It’s nothing new and the ability has been around for a few years, just not used very frequently although a bit more common commercially - not specific to EV charging . I remember it being trialed 5 or 6 years ago - I almost got involved myself in a project to gauge user response. They would basically cut off/derate your EV charger for short periods of time. Not enough to disrupt charging to any meaningful amount and can be overridden- not sure why anyone would want to do that as 1/2 hour out of 24 hours is not really going to be a problem for pretty much anyone.

If anyone wants to Google the current state, it’s DSR - demand side response which was the real driver for pushing smart meters. I think the other thing to Google is the My Electric Avenue trials which were/are geared up to EV charge point charging behaviour.

The alternative to shaking the stick is the carrot approach from likes of Octopus but it’s clear from some response that that approach will need a bigger carrot.

Not sure which way it’s all going to go if people start thinking they have an unlimited entitlement to a limited shared resource. I guess they will start waving a bigger and bigger stick.

 

[ACarneiro]

Nothing to do with the government- it’s the DNO’s who will do it to protect their parts of the grid.

It’s nothing new and the ability has been around for a few years, just not used very frequently although a bit more common commercially - not specific to EV charging . I remember it being trialed 5 or 6 years ago - I almost got involved myself in a project to gauge user response. They would basically cut off/derate your EV charger for short periods of time. Not enough to disrupt charging to any meaningful amount and can be overridden- not sure why anyone would want to do that as 1/2 hour out of 24 hours is not really going to be a problem for pretty much anyone.

If anyone wants to Google the current state, it’s DSR - demand side response which was the real driver for pushing smart meters. I think the other thing to Google is the My Electric Avenue trials which were/are geared up to EV charge point charging behaviour.

The alternative to shaking the stick is the carrot approach from likes of Octopus but it’s clear from some response that that approach will need a bigger carrot.

Not sure which way it’s all going to go if people start thinking they have an unlimited entitlement to a limited shared resource. I guess they will start waving a bigger and bigger stick.

That's interesting, thank you. I'm sure there is a lot of clever stuff going on behind the scenes that we have no idea about.

The "entitlement" bit is interesting. If you really want to be serious about this transition to electric mobility, then it needs to be as seamless as possible. I am "entitled" to continue using my car in a way that is useful and, ideally, enjoyable to me otherwise this will fail. That would presumably mean having it charged in a time scale and with a level of reliability that needs to be as good or better than what it's replacing (namely, fossil fuels).
It seems to me that it's the DNOs that are suffering from a level of entitlement on deciding when I can use the energy that I need and pay for because they control the pipes, when what they should do (and I'm sure are doing as far as feasible) is make the grid resilient enough to allow that to happen.
I know I am grossly oversimplifying the matter but I am a great believer in carrot as much as possible.
The Octopus carrot is actually quite good, isn't it? I go to great pains to shift all my usage to a time when my electricity costs me on third of the price...

 

[Adopado]

I know I am grossly oversimplifying the matter but I am a great believer in carrot as much as possible.
The Octopus carrot is actually quite good, isn't it? I go to great pains to shift all my usage to a time when my electricity costs me on third of the price...

Yes, this is almost certainly going to be done by carrot. Most of us have already dived straight into looking at cheap off peak EV tariffs and do everything that we can to save a few extra pennies! We are fortunate that our cars have internal charge timing built in so we don't immediately need a clever charge point to be able to take advantage of fixed period charging. People with other brands of EV may sometimes need to depend on a smart(ish) charge point to do even that. Once the wrinkles have been ironed out of the genuinely smart interactive charge points and tariffs (and the car's ability to work with them) you can bet plenty of people will be ready to sign up for the savings they will bring ... and there must be savings from the smart tariffs otherwise everyone will continue a dumb charging approach and thereby introduce challenges for the DNO and National Grid. It's also worth noting that EV charging isn't just a "problem" ... it's a solution! The Grid has always had the challenge of matching supply, demand and generation logistics. The introduction of significant percentages of renewables adds that pre-existing challenge. The EV fleet will be a phenomenally useful tool to assist in the process of managing the "bursty" nature of generation from renewables.

 

[ACarneiro]

Yes, this is almost certainly going to be done by carrot. Most of us have already dived straight into looking at cheap off peak EV tariffs and do everything that we can to save a few extra pennies! We are fortunate that our cars have internal charge timing built in so we don't immediately need a clever charge point to be able to take advantage of fixed period charging. People with other brands of EV may sometimes need to depend on a smart(ish) charge point to do even that. Once the wrinkles have been ironed out of the genuinely smart interactive charge points and tariffs (and the car's ability to work with them) you can bet plenty of people will be ready to sign up for the savings they will bring ... and there must be savings from the smart tariffs otherwise everyone will continue a dumb charging approach and thereby introduce challenges for the DNO and National Grid. It's also worth noting that EV charging isn't just a "problem" ... it's a solution! The Grid has always had the challenge of matching supply, demand and generation logistics. The introduction of significant percentages of renewables adds that pre-existing challenge. The EV fleet will be a phenomenally useful tool to assist in the process of managing the "bursty" nature of generation from renewables.

I'm not sure it's that simple.
A significant amount of the EV fleet will need predicable amounts of energy at mostly predictable times of day.
Most people will have a window to charge their cars between, say, 18:00 and 07:00. And they'll their need their cars charged by 07:00, renewable bursts be damned! I'm not entirely convinced that the electrification of the country's automotive fleet will give the Grid that much flexibility.
I guess we'll find out in about 20 years time

 

[WannabeOwner]

it needs to be as seamless as possible

I wonder how Norway are getting on with this? I know they have bags of Hydro ... but that apart, their ICE sales are now below 5%-ish, they have chargers everywhere (driven as much by supply-and-demand as government incentives I think - whereas Holland's enviable infrastrcuture I assume has been drive more by government assistance), and then must have a fair amount of EV owners living in apartments / no off-street parking

Bjorn doesn't seem to care too much whether he charges at Supercharger or some other brand (more likely to be decided by what sort of Fast Food he can get!) [I know he's making movies, so that will be a part of his choice rather than just price ...]

I go to great pains to shift all my usage to a time when my electricity costs me on third of the price...

Indeed. Bit like me trying to put my finger on why I prefer driving EV to ICE ... probably that I feel Smug! but who cares, if that is the reason then it will surely do.

our cars have internal charge timing built in so we don't immediately need a clever charge point to be able to take advantage of fixed period charging

Even if charge-time needed to be controlled (or there was Time-of-Use rates) all that could be controlled from the car - I still don't see the need for Smart Chargers - one more thing to get wrong / have EDI-arguments/incompatibility with other gear.

I plug a different car into my charger. Do I then have to sort out which car is plugged into which charger in order to "set" the charge preference to suit which cars I need charged by tomorrow? And are those chargers going to be forwards compatible with all the future cars I might buy and want to plug into them?

I think this would be easier solved from the car end. Car has the ability to Start / Stop charge, and connect to WiFi ... just give me a dumb charger that is "on" whenever the car is plugged in, and then the car can start / stop charge and change AMPs as appropriate.

I'm not entirely convinced that the electrification of the country's automotive fleet will give the Grid that much flexibility.

Perhaps V2G will help there ?