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Ordered P3+ without home charging option!
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I have an Evezy i3 and this is the conclusion I've reached too.
"Free Polar charging!", I thought, perfect. Except in practice it means two things - I'm away from home longer than I would choose to be, because charging after work is the only practical option, and I'm often spending more than I would probably spend charging at home simply because sitting in the car waiting for it to charge gets old fast (each to their own).
I've had occasions where I've wandered off and bought a pub meal, spent ~£10 or so, just to kill time. If I charged at home it would perhaps cost a third of that.
If I had a home charger I could drive straight home, plug it in, and enjoy being home. I wouldn't have to think about getting back to the car at a sensible time, because it's a public charger, or being just being away from home in the evening when I wouldn't choose to be.
Public charging is great, but don't underestimate how dispiriting it can be babysitting the car while it charges when the only reason you're there is to charge it (i.e. you're not there organically to go shopping or whatever)
South Tyneside is similar, a few rapid and fast chargers with no fees by CYC, I hope they stay charge free.
My wife will mainly be using the car, there are a couple of chargers at her work (only 7kw though).
It will be interesting to see if we can run this car for 2 years without paying to charge.
Exactly the same experience here. Short daily commute range is nowhere near long journey range. We also have an X 75D. I can squeeze 200 miles out of it on a long steady summer run and let's say 150 miles in winter (and that's pushing the battery from 100% down to under 10%). But on short daily commutes, the range is much lower, so maybe down to only 100 miles in winter and that's when setting off from my garage, plugged in and pre-warmed. God knows what it would be like setting off from frozen solid outside! Vampire drain is maybe a few percent per night too, although I'm usually plugged in so don't really notice.
Having said all that a short commute should be doable without home charging, but expect to be topping up a lot more often than you might think going off WLTP range!
+1
Loss of home charging would be a serious blow to my daily EV convenience. Setting off every morning with 80% charge (or more if I need it) is very convenient and reassuring. No more irritating fuel stops when you are running late and the fuel light suddenly pops on! Running an EV like an ICE with "fuel" stops would be definitely more painful and probably lead to a fair bit of range anxiety at times. You would also have to push the battery a fair bit more, running from say 90-20% rather than 80-40% as I typically do with home charging. Plus you would be always charging at a higher rate, again not so battery friendly.
I would still probably do it though, providing I had reliable access to convenient roadside chargers, especially an SuC.
Thanks everyone for sharing your experiences, I must admit I totally understimated the "real autonomy" when you factor the 20-80% range of the battery, slow charge > fast charge for battery life and the difference in the efficiency for short commutes....
I am well beyond being sold on the model 3 now....I was going to order a bmw M340i but I couldn't fall in love with it, my other alternative was a E Class E53 AMG but the tech is quite old as of now...and being a tech guy I always had a soft spot for Elon Musk...hence this purchase without really thinking about everything else!
Now let me move to another forum to check which scooter I should buy to supplement the car for when I won't have time to charge it...(I also have an additional £2500 due to the price changes..!)
I am well beyond being sold on the model 3 now....I was going to order a bmw M340i but I couldn't fall in love with it, my other alternative was a E Class E53 AMG but the tech is quite old as of now...and being a tech guy I always had a soft spot for Elon Musk...hence this purchase without really thinking about everything else!
Now let me move to another forum to check which scooter I should buy to supplement the car for when I won't have time to charge it...(I also have an additional £2500 due to the price changes..!)
Given your ICE alternatives I would go for the Model 3 anyway. It really is SO much better and will really feel like your contributing to the future rather than dragging out the past.
Regarding charging - you are thinking about the situation NOW while your ownership experience will be in the future.
I've had a Model S for 3 years now and the charging infrastructure has improved massively in that time. Whats more, the mindset that EVs are the future really seems to have taken hold and as such it just feels like a matter of time until every car park and every street will have its own charging opportunities. We are not yet there, but I am hopeful that we will be in a 2-3 years.
In the meantime lobby your local council and you housing managers, talk to your boss at work and form a local EV owners group. Agitate and rattle the cage and get a solution sorted not just for you, but for the other 98% of the car owning public who will surely follow you down the EV path in years to come.
Go for it ! You'll love it....
Regarding charging - you are thinking about the situation NOW while your ownership experience will be in the future.
I've had a Model S for 3 years now and the charging infrastructure has improved massively in that time. Whats more, the mindset that EVs are the future really seems to have taken hold and as such it just feels like a matter of time until every car park and every street will have its own charging opportunities. We are not yet there, but I am hopeful that we will be in a 2-3 years.
In the meantime lobby your local council and you housing managers, talk to your boss at work and form a local EV owners group. Agitate and rattle the cage and get a solution sorted not just for you, but for the other 98% of the car owning public who will surely follow you down the EV path in years to come.
Go for it ! You'll love it....
Just to play devil's advocate here - there may well be a period of pain around the corner as the take up of EVs becomes more mainstream and the charging infrastructure lags behind. Is the public charging infrastructure going to stay ahead of the increased take-up of EVs over the next few years? That's the real question for the short term. For example, Tesla's own SuC infrastructure will no doubt become more crowded as M3 sales take off as there is no way they will add that many more charging points. But at least there is some headroom in current SuC capacity in most places.
True true.... I guess only time will tell. Hopefully supply and demand will increase in reasonable balance, but it could go the other way. However, electricity is everywhere and the additional infrastructure and capital required to add relatively low powered (7-22kW) AC chargers is modest enough to hope that local infrastructure buildout aimed at those without off street parking can be achieved reasonably quickly if the money and regulatory framework align.
Once I got my head around the idea of leaving work with 80% charge rather than leaving home with that amount I was quite happy.
If I need a topup or couldn't get charged at work I plan to sit at my local charging point for an hour on one of the 2 days that I work from home, after I've dropped my son at nursery. I often drive somewhere for breakfast and spend a couple of hours working somewhere more senic that my office.
MrBadger
Badger out
Doing nothing but supercharging (or CCS rapid charging) will not be good for the battery. I would be looking for destination type 7kW or 11kW 3 phase chargers locally, where you could leave the car for several hours, particularly if charging and parking were free, which it often is with destination charging. However I note you are in London, which I do not know. Here in Dundee, this sort of thing is dead easy, I have a hub with rapids and fasts galore 250 metres from my house.
