Polar network thoughts

[RealEvil_UK]

M3 arrives in 2 days. Scouted out a few shopping centre EV bays over last few weeks and several are Polar.

Just signed up for the 3 month trial (calendar reminder to cancel).

What are people’s thoughts? A 7KW charge whilst visiting shops for a few hours twice a month isn’t worth nearly £8 per month but maybe during a road trip it would be useful? On their faster chargers it seems like we always need to pay? Approx 15p kWh?

 

[NorfolkMustard]

I did some sums and with a mix of home, free 7kW PodPoint (Tesco, Local Council), Polar and Supercharging - Polar made economic sense if I used their 50kW rapid chargers @ 15p/kWh, instead of superchargers, for > 90kWh/month

I also found a nearby anomalous 50kW charger which seems to be free for PolarPlus users, and an 11kW which is free with £1.50 overnight parking from 5pm, which is nice

All the supermarket chargers near me are free PodPoint 7kW jobbies, haven't seen Polar ones.

have a virtual scout around with PlugShare - Find Electric Vehicle Charging Locations Near You

 

[WannabeOwner]

maybe during a road trip it would be useful?

On the (for me) rare occasions when Supercharger hasn't been available and I've used Polar, or simply that there has been a Polar at destination so I've chosen to "top up" for convenience, rather than necessity, I just did pay-as-you-go; they did give me a hard sell on why I needed a monthly subscription when creating an account in the first place ...

If you have off street parking, and home charging, then unlikely to need a subscription service.

15p per kWh is hardly any more than typical Peak Rate at home. But home Off Peak rate can get as low as 5p / kWh.

Model-3 will do 4 miles / kWh on a good day, 3 miles on a not so good day, so even 15p / kWh is only 5p a mile (whereas ICE is typically 10p a mile, or more)

 

[Jason71]

M3 arrives in 2 days. Scouted out a few shopping centre EV bays over last few weeks and several are Polar.

Just signed up for the 3 month trial (calendar reminder to cancel).

What are people’s thoughts? A 7KW charge whilst visiting shops for a few hours twice a month isn’t worth nearly £8 per month but maybe during a road trip it would be useful? On their faster chargers it seems like we always need to pay? Approx 15p kWh?

For Public Fast Charging you pay 24p/kwh for Superchargers and typically 30-40p/kwh everywhere else polar instavolt shell etc. So 15p/kwh for public fast charging is very very cheap IF you use it enough to get over the monthly fee. but as wannaneOwner says not cheaper than charging at home

 

[Cowpring]

I got my Model 3 last Thursday. I can't charge at home as there's no power in the garage of the flats I live in, so i'll be doing all my charging on public chargers - probably all of them will be Polar as there's no convenient supercharger near me.

I've done 2 so far on Polar and they were great!

The 50kw chargers are way faster than I thought they would be. Today I did a full charge - 9% to 95% and it took 1 hour 4 mins. The charge time flies by. I'm waiting for my Polar RFID card to arrive so did it on contactless @ 22p per kWh and it cost about £9.50.

That being said, another Polar 50kw near my office wouldn't work today when I tried. I tapped my card on the machine and it threw up an error and wouldn't work so had to go to another one nearby.

Generally speaking, if you are only going to occasionally use Polar, it's not worth the subscription. You'd need to do at least 2/3 full charges before it pays of the subscription so to speak.

If like me all your charging is done via Polar, then it's totally worth it.

 

[m3gt2]

M3 arrives in 2 days. Scouted out a few shopping centre EV bays over last few weeks and several are Polar.

Just signed up for the 3 month trial (calendar reminder to cancel).

What are people’s thoughts? A 7KW charge whilst visiting shops for a few hours twice a month isn’t worth nearly £8 per month but maybe during a road trip it would be useful? On their faster chargers it seems like we always need to pay? Approx 15p kWh?

Use the trial and add up how much you saved over the Polar Instant prices to see if it's worth it for you. Do you think you will use a lot of public charging? If so it may be worth it for you but if you do most of your charging at home might not be worth it. Also factor in the £1.20 minimum charge on Instant, not really an issue on 50kW but could be on slower chargers.