New model S 75

[EllyMac]

I've just got my new Tesla and am busily playing with all the gadgets and figuring out the car.

I'm just trying to get my head around charging....I have a charging unit being fitted at home and I had a referral code so have free supercharger use. I've been trying to research the other charging networks available and am a little bit lost on what I need or don't need. It seems some charge a monthly fee for access and you need an account with each?

Keen to get some advice. Do owners find that charging at home and superchargers is sufficient or do you need to use other chargers, if so which. I'm with Ecotricity for my home electric so I think that gives me a discount for their chargers.

Any top tips appreciated. I live on the south coast and the only regular long journey I do is to Northampton where there is a supercharger on the journey.

Thanks

 

[arcus]

Welcome and congratulations on your new Tesla! Between charging at home and occasional supercharger visit you will be just fine. Just plug your car whenever it is parked in the garage and go about your daily routines. Leave the supercharger for long trips or where you really need the speed of charge/extra range.

Remember, you should not leave the car fully charged unless you intend to drive it immediately. So, for daily use it is recommended to set the limit below or equal to 90%. That will help to keep the battery condition optimal.

 

[cheshire cat]

have you joined tesla owners group uk on facebook it's closed to tesla uk owners only but you will find it very useful and helpful whilst Super chargers and home will do most things you may find that a Chademo adapter is useful for trips and faster charging on Eco T You will learn more re the south coast on TOUK SC's and Chademo are DC charging and therefore the quickest AC charging can be adjusted in the car so fr' instance on POD Point which is sometimes free it will need the car turning down to 7Kw otherwise it will shut down after a few minutes (don't ask ! ) hope this helps enjoy you may never want to go back to an ICE

 

[JonG]

To save me typing it all out again..

Owning a Tesla

 

[WannabeOwner]

I've been trying to research the other charging networks available and am a little bit lost on what I need or don't need

Assuming that charging at home gets you to and from work, and your other local journeys (i.e. your battery is large enough to cover those) I suggest you use one of the online journey planners to see how you would go about longer distance journeys.

EV Trip Planner
A Better Routeplanner

Here's my real-world experience:

I regularly go from East Anglia to Bristol. I can go South, M11, M25 and M4 (charge at Reading), or West-ish to Birmingham (charge there) and down the M5, or cross-country at 45 degrees (charge in Oxford). Journey-time is much of a muchness and I choose based on traffic conditions.

However, charging at any of those places doesn't really give me enough juice to do a round trip from there to Bristol and back to that charger. There is a Supercharger in Bristol, but its out on the West side of the city and 15 minutes or so to get there from city centre, so although I can charge there its not exactly convenient.

So that leads to "destination charging"

The Multi-story carpark I use has a charger, so i can use that. I didn't actually know it was there, first time I visited I spotted it in the car park and so just tried it out. Downloaded the APP (had to walk to office to get WiFi for Phone to do that ...) paid a Deposit (£20), plugged in, waited for the APP to connect ... and abandoned the car to charge.

So in practice that's what I do now because I'm tooled up for it. I have no idea if the next place I want to use will be the same provider (Polar) - probably not - so I'll have the same palaver, setting up an account, the first time I use a new Provider. I suggest you download the Ecotricity APP so you are all set up if you need to charge at one of their sites - I think you get X-charges free annually, as a customer.

The first time I connected in Bristol it probably took me 30 minutes to sort out - including two phone calls to the charging company. The first was a sales call to figure out what Subscription-Plan I needed and the second was because I didn't own a Type-2 cable and thus could only use their 13AMP socket; I couldn't get that to work from their APP so another call to get them to connect it, and then again later on to disconnect it. I doubt I saved any time compared to driving out to the Supercharger!

I now have the right (Type-2) cable ... and the APP installed of course ... but it still takes about 5 minutes to connect - the APP spinner does a countdown in percent ... its painful to watch! However, its convenient ... but nothing like as convenient as Supercharger - Rock up, insert cable, go and have a Pee and get a coffee, come back ... all done

The 13AMP socket I used - gives about 5 miles per hour charge rate. yeah, I was there two days, so that was fine.

The Type-2 cable (at the same facility) about 20 MPH. That's the same as I get at home with my EV charger, so no great shakes. So still looking at 5 - 8 hours charging time - which is fine, I'm there for a full day's work. Price seems quite reasonable (no idea, per kWh, compared to home charging, but seems reasonable "compared to Petrol" )

A ChaDeMO adaptor gets you about half the speed of Supercharger. Typically the places that have them only have one or two charging stations and no guarantee that they aren't either In-use, or Bust I drive out of my way to get to Supercharger instead, but if you are in a part of the country with no Supercharger AND destination charging is not sufficient, then definitely ChaDeMO adaptor is the way to go - Type-2 is way too slow for anything other than destination charging.

I have a Commando socket at home (in addition to EV charger), which i have used on a couple of occasions when EV charger has not worked - e.g. couldn't get EV charger to work reliably with a Loaner on one occasion. Don't know where Commando sockets are available - Caravan parks perhaps? so that might be an option for destination charging.

So ... in the car I carry:

The Tesla UMC cable (with adaptors for 13-AMP and Commando)
Type-2 cable (£150-ish)
ChaDeMO (£350 I think?) if you get one I suggest you deliberately do a trial-charge to experience the speed and familiarise yourself with the process before you need it in anger
A very beefy-cable 13AMP extension lead (£20-30) - used when staying with friends for the weekend.

Once you put destination into SatNav the Energy Graph TRIP Tab will show graph of expected and actual, and arrival charge percentage, so you can check that you have enough juice to get there!

Make sure you know what your real world range is. The "government figure" for my car is something ridiculous like 350 miles, real-world is 220 miles - less in Winter / wet / windy conditions. That's when charged to 100% ... so on a regular day when I am charged to 90%, and allowing a 20 mile "buffer", that's a range of 180 miles. I charge to 100% for any journey over 160 miles, and I plan a charging stop for any journey approaching, or over, 200 miles.

Unless making a road-trip I only need me to Supercharge just enough to reach my destination - 10 minutes is 50 miles so on out-and-back days I rarely need more than that to complete my journey.

 

[culverwood]

I also survive 95% of the time with home, work and Superchargers. I also have Polar Instant, Ecotricity Electric Highway and Pod Point apps which apart from an initial charge do not incur charges if they are not used AFAIK.

 

[WannabeOwner]

apart from an initial charge do not incur charges if they are not used

From memory what Polar told me was I could have a monthly subscription, and that would mean that most places were free to use, or I could just top up my account as-and-when, and then there was an £Y connection charge plus a Xp/kWh fee. The salesman didn't seem to "get" I would prefer to charge at Superchargers and thus, absent a frequent need, my charging would be sporadic - presumably he was used to leaf owners wanting to just top-up for an hour or two when shopping, or similar. He also seemed surprised when he tried to explain to me that the connection fee would work out as being "expensive" - he seemed to be scratching his head when I told him I would connect for between 8 and 15 hours ... but my maths the £Y connection charge, amortised over the long period that I would connect, was trivial.

That said, I can't find anything about pay-as-you-go on the Polar website, the only Price info I found was the monthly subscription one:

To access our network you need to become a POLAR plus member. This is free for the first three months, then only £7.85 a month (with no long term contract; cancel any time). Once you’re a member, around 80% of our network is free to use as often as you like. For the other charging points, you just pay for the electricity consumed at only 9p/kWh – less than the typical cost of charging at home.

I hate these "free to use" prices - so often abused, and I'm sure the company does this because they calculate that sufficient subscriptions won't be used , so basically setting out to con the punter.

 

[cezdoc]

I've just got my new Tesla and am busily playing with all the gadgets and figuring out the car.

Welcome and have fun figuring out the car! As others have said there is a wealth of information online and I'd also recommend looking up the UK owners Facebook group. They've recently set up an excellent website which is particularly helpful for UK-based owners: The Tesla Owners' UK Club & Discussion Groups - Approved by Tesla UK

To save me typing it all out again..

Owning a Tesla

Some more excellent advice here and as a start point I'd recommend looking at the sites mentioned in the "Public Charging Locations" section, i.e. PlugShare and Map of charging points for electric car drivers in UK: Zap-Map, which will give you an idea of the public chargers in areas you are likely to visit, plus tips and comments on locating them and how reliable they are. Unfortunately the UK public charging network is hopelessly fragmented so there are a variety of providers and subscription/payment arrangements out there. The Supercharger network is in a completely different league in terms of speed and reliability.

However, based on your location and only needing to do a regular long distance trip to Northampton there's a good chance that the home charger and Superchargers will be enough. The south coast is arguably the biggest hole in the UK Supercharger network (there are bigger geographic gaps elsewhere but generally in less populated areas), but since you will have home charging available this shouldn't affect you - it's more of an issue for folk travelling through or wanting a charge while visiting the area. I have an S70 and reckon on a real-world no-compromise range of 150 miles, which means a return trip anywhere within 75 miles doesn't require a charge away from home.

In terms of equipment I believe new cars are now supplied with a Type 2 cable which is useful for "untethered" charging posts (if you have the required card/app/subscription). You would need a CHAdeMO adapter to get full use of the rapid charge units such as the Ecotricity Electric Highway ones (they usually have a Type 2 lead attached but the CHAdeMO is much faster) but in your position it may be worth waiting before making a purchase as they are relatively pricey. I have a 20 m heavy duty extension cable which has been great for plugging the UMC into a standard 3-pin socket when staying overnight at friends/B&B's etc. - this may save having to look for a charger at the start of the next day and at the very least will reduce your charging time at your first stop back on the road.

 

[culverwood]

Polar Instant I find useful in town as electric charging points are often free of parking charges so you can save money and charge at the same time.

 

[WannabeOwner]

free of parking charges

Perhaps EV charging bays are "bigger bays"? If so that would be really handy as it can be a challenge to get MS / MX into regular bays - without getting biffed by the neighbouring car.

 

[arg]

That said, I can't find anything about pay-as-you-go on the Polar website, the only Price info I found was the monthly subscription one:

The PAYG is via Polar Instant, available as a mobile phone app only (originally you could get an RFID card for Instant also). The tariffs are completely different between the two, and also the locations where Instant is available are limited - some older locations where the post doesn't have reliable (or any) comms only work with the RFID card and so are 'Plus' only; more seriously, their recent 'UltraCharger' CHAdeMO/CCS units are currently only on 'Plus', though it's rumoured that they may be going to accept contactless bank cards shortly to meet the new legal requirement for PAYG.

 

[WannabeOwner]

some older locations where the post doesn't have reliable (or any) comms only work with the RFID card

Don't remember the salesman telling me that, but i may not have been concentrating. Can't see how I could be persuaded to pay £7.85 a month for something I will rarely use and in only certain parts of the country - that I visit infrequently.

One of their two chargers was showing red - not operational - for the whole of the two days I parked there last time, and when I unplugged that one went red too. There was an ICE parked in the other bay - at the time I thought "That's OK its not working" and saved the driver going right up the top of the multi-storey, but later on I of course realised that if it was fixed, during the day, then it would remain ICED

 

[JonG]

It does depend where you park, I’ve just order a polar card as there are 2 free Street charging bays outside my office in Birmingham, max stay 3 hours, but I often only do 3 hours, and my alternative is about £4 just to park nearby.

 

[EllyMac]

Thanks everyone, really appreciate all your valuable insight...p.s. loving my first week of tesla ownership!