Temporary Charge Solution at Work

[Chrisrx718]

First post here - seemed the most appropriate place as this is going to be UK-specific.

I've had verbal agreement on a M3LR since July this year, about to be ordered for March delivery. It has always been the plan to have EV chargers installed at our office location, 65 miles away from home. However, due to a successful year the company is looking to relocate the office and warehouse into one larger facility, likely before the 2-year get-out clause on the current lease.

With this in mind, the arrangements for 22kW charge points to be installed were stopped in their tracks.

This threw me a little bit, since a big part of the attraction of having an electric car was the ability to charge it from work (2-3 days per week otherwise WFH / on-site in London).

However, reading around on here and other EV forums I notice that the portable charger supplied with the M3 can take up to 32A with the appropriate adapter, available from the Tesla shop.

The unit at work has 3-Phase (hence the original intent to fit 22kW chargers). There are no commando sockets near the front of the building near the car park at present unfortunately.

Is it worth asking an electrician to install 2 (me plus a colleague) commando sockets on their own 'ring' back to the consumer unit? This might be something the company is prepared to pay for 'short term' instead of the £5,700 it was going to cost for the 22kW charger points. I can't imagine the costs of putting in 2 sockets will be comparable?

If I ask the question; which sockets are the right ones and which will give the best output compatible with the Tesla UMC? 32A 3-pin? I see the adapters come in both 16 and 32A.

Colleagues have ID.3 and E-Niro electric cars, would need their own equivalent of the Tesla UMC but this will also have a bearing on which type of sockets get installed.

Many thanks in advance!

 

[d1217]

I suppose the first question is will you be able to charge from home? I appreciate charging at work would be free but given you're only 65 miles from home, you wont run out of battery in an LR going there and back (unless the 65 miles is 5 laps of the nurburgring or something!!). I don't know what comapny you work for but I doubt they'd allow something like that (could obviously be wrong though) and there may be other regs around installing sockets like that. It should still be cheaper to charge at home than running an ICE though.

 

[Chrisrx718]

Yes, I will be getting a home charge point installed in the new year anyway - I was just hoping to 'top up' from work if possible and what the cheapest / best value solution is, since we are looking to relocate to a new premises as soon as something suitable becomes available.

 

[phil4]

I seem to recall there's a problem with it being a taxable benefit in kind if you're not using a "proper" charger at work. I'm not sure whether a commando socket works, whether it'd be declared/caught etc. Just raising it in case.

 

[Jason71]

First post here - seemed the most appropriate place as this is going to be UK-specific.

I've had verbal agreement on a M3LR since July this year, about to be ordered for March delivery. It has always been the plan to have EV chargers installed at our office location, 65 miles away from home. However, due to a successful year the company is looking to relocate the office and warehouse into one larger facility, likely before the 2-year get-out clause on the current lease.

With this in mind, the arrangements for 22kW charge points to be installed were stopped in their tracks.

This threw me a little bit, since a big part of the attraction of having an electric car was the ability to charge it from work (2-3 days per week otherwise WFH / on-site in London).

However, reading around on here and other EV forums I notice that the portable charger supplied with the M3 can take up to 32A with the appropriate adapter, available from the Tesla shop.

The unit at work has 3-Phase (hence the original intent to fit 22kW chargers). There are no commando sockets near the front of the building near the car park at present unfortunately.

Is it worth asking an electrician to install 2 (me plus a colleague) commando sockets on their own 'ring' back to the consumer unit? This might be something the company is prepared to pay for 'short term' instead of the £5,700 it was going to cost for the 22kW charger points. I can't imagine the costs of putting in 2 sockets will be comparable?

If I ask the question; which sockets are the right ones and which will give the best output compatible with the Tesla UMC? 32A 3-pin? I see the adapters come in both 16 and 32A.

Colleagues have ID.3 and E-Niro electric cars, would need their own equivalent of the Tesla UMC but this will also have a bearing on which type of sockets get installed.

Many thanks in advance!

in theory yes you could get the 16 or 32amp adaptors for your UMC and charge at work from a standard 16 or 32amp commando socket. I say in theory though because I believe you should only use it if the commando socket has been installed to the same earthing and protection standards that a changepoint would have. And they usually aren't. I am no expert but it seems like a bit of a regulatory mess from other threads I have read on here.
I don't think other makes necessarily have commando adaptors so the ID3 and Niro may be out of luck. My parents have a Kia and I have not seen any way to use the UMC on that with anything other than a 13amp socket.

 

[LukeUK]

If an industrial socket is installed specifically for EV charging outside, it should have DC tolerant fault protection, open PEN detection, etc.

If you're using an (existing) socket for short-term/ad-hoc charging, it doesn't have to have the same protection.

It's possible there's a bit of a grey area if the sockets are installed before the cars arrive?

When we moved in to our new factory, our MD charged his Taycan using a 3rd party 400V 3 phase (red socket) to 22 kW type 2 EVSE. For example;

22KW 32A Three Phase EV Portable Charger With Type 2 Plug and Adjustable Current

22KW Three Phase EV Portable Charger With Type 2 Plug and Adjustable Current

euracharge.com

Note, the current UMC is only single phase, so 32A 230V single phase (blue socket) will give you a max of 7kW ish. The Model 3 itself can only charge at 16A 3 phase, or 11A, max.

 

[Adopado]

First post here - seemed the most appropriate place as this is going to be UK-specific.

I've had verbal agreement on a M3LR since July this year, about to be ordered for March delivery. It has always been the plan to have EV chargers installed at our office location, 65 miles away from home. However, due to a successful year the company is looking to relocate the office and warehouse into one larger facility, likely before the 2-year get-out clause on the current lease.

With this in mind, the arrangements for 22kW charge points to be installed were stopped in their tracks.

Any dedicated charging socket will need to be up to the same standards as proper charge point ... so not much cheaper to install (but could be cheaper than a 3 phase charge point). They also need to be on their own circuit. I'm thinking you just request a single phase "dumb" charge point that you could share, turn about. As others have stated you won't get 22kW out of a 3 phase charge point anyway (11kW hardware limit). If you can get a 3 phase version fair enough, any speed increase is always welcome but if belts are being tightened ...

 

[kelvin 660]

Why not just charge from a 13 amp socket at 2kW? You will get 16 kwhr during a working day that would cover your 65 miles...