Advice for new electric car owner (UK)
February 7, 2023 7:23 AM Subscribe
If you've switched to an electric vehicle, what do you wish you'd known in advance? I'm interested in things like what apps for charging to use, how to find charging points on the go, how to plan for longer journeys, or just any top tips. Thanks!
I'm in the UK, mainly going to be doing shorter journeys but with some longer trips. I'm buying a Hyundai Ioniq 5.
I'm in the UK, mainly going to be doing shorter journeys but with some longer trips. I'm buying a Hyundai Ioniq 5.
I bought an electric Kia Niro a little over a year ago.
I also came in here to complain about the cold weather affecting the battery. That was a surprise to me.
Google for finding chargers works pretty well. Make sure to have backups, especially long trips, in case the one you're aiming for is full or down.
They are very fun and zippy to drive - because they are so quiet, it's easy to go fast without realizing it. Also, play around with the different driving modes to get a feel for them and pick what you like.
posted by Sparky Buttons at 9:26 AM on February 7, 2023 [1 favorite]
I also came in here to complain about the cold weather affecting the battery. That was a surprise to me.
Google for finding chargers works pretty well. Make sure to have backups, especially long trips, in case the one you're aiming for is full or down.
They are very fun and zippy to drive - because they are so quiet, it's easy to go fast without realizing it. Also, play around with the different driving modes to get a feel for them and pick what you like.
posted by Sparky Buttons at 9:26 AM on February 7, 2023 [1 favorite]
Check local charger prices. Our home charger is like twice as expensive to operate as the one at the train station down the street. (I wouldn't imagine this is going to be the case forever, but I'm taking advantage while I can!)
Ditto what Sparky Buttons said about speed - someone I know had to go on a speed awareness course recently, and she said it was full of new electric car owners who were going way faster than they thought.
If you are getting a home charger, get it ordered in plenty of time. Scottish Power had to do some work on our power supply before we could get a charger installed - if you're in that situation it can add weeks onto your installation time.
posted by dudekiller at 9:49 AM on February 7, 2023
Ditto what Sparky Buttons said about speed - someone I know had to go on a speed awareness course recently, and she said it was full of new electric car owners who were going way faster than they thought.
If you are getting a home charger, get it ordered in plenty of time. Scottish Power had to do some work on our power supply before we could get a charger installed - if you're in that situation it can add weeks onto your installation time.
posted by dudekiller at 9:49 AM on February 7, 2023
Best answer: I'm not an EV owner, but, like you, I'm considering it. For the past few months i've found a lot of good info on r/electric vehicles. the community is very supportive and are very vocal about the pros and cons of EV ownership. Reddit isn't for everyone, but this one corner has been useful to my process.
posted by OHenryPacey at 10:20 AM on February 7, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by OHenryPacey at 10:20 AM on February 7, 2023 [1 favorite]
Winnie, I think that’s an adjustable setting— we had it capped at 80% for safety reasons and then when we got the goahead on the battery we were able to get it charged to 100% by going into the settings. (At least it SAID it was at 100%, lol.) I don’t know if that’s true on every Bolt model though!
Honestly I loved driving an electric. It’s mostly a different kind of thinking about fueling, you spend a lot of focus on where the car will be parked and very little on where to stop on the way. And less money. These last couple of years it was a godsend.
The thing I wished I’d known is that it is very possible for plugs to wriggle loose in a garage while charging as other cars drive by— the contact can be weirdly finicky— so if you’re leaving the car unattended while plugged in (very normal) keep an eye on the app if it ABSOLUTELY NEEDS to be at a certain charge in a certain amount of time. Also trickle charging is great don’t get me wrong but once I started just sucking it up and blocking off time to go get it fast charged at lunch I realized I’d been wasting a lot of energy thinking about overnight charging. We didn’t have a home charger though.
posted by peppercorn at 10:21 AM on February 7, 2023
Honestly I loved driving an electric. It’s mostly a different kind of thinking about fueling, you spend a lot of focus on where the car will be parked and very little on where to stop on the way. And less money. These last couple of years it was a godsend.
The thing I wished I’d known is that it is very possible for plugs to wriggle loose in a garage while charging as other cars drive by— the contact can be weirdly finicky— so if you’re leaving the car unattended while plugged in (very normal) keep an eye on the app if it ABSOLUTELY NEEDS to be at a certain charge in a certain amount of time. Also trickle charging is great don’t get me wrong but once I started just sucking it up and blocking off time to go get it fast charged at lunch I realized I’d been wasting a lot of energy thinking about overnight charging. We didn’t have a home charger though.
posted by peppercorn at 10:21 AM on February 7, 2023
Best answer: For finding charging stations you may want to look at abetterrouteplanner, which is designed for EVs. You enter car make and model, set your charging preferences (few but long or many but short, in five steps), and over time tweak some of the parameters like energy use to match your driving style. It also takes your car's charging current capability into account, and there's a charge card module in beta.
We're not using it with our current EV, with its range of 100km on a good and warm enough day, as we just use it for local-ish errands. But there's a newer one in the pipeline, with a longer range and faster charge options, so I'm already playing with ABRP to see where the new car can easily get us and how many charge stops it would need for that.
Also, in general, we've found that keeping to secondary roads and not exceeding 100km/h on motorways does wonders for your range, while not affecting travel time too much
posted by Stoneshop at 10:40 AM on February 7, 2023 [1 favorite]
We're not using it with our current EV, with its range of 100km on a good and warm enough day, as we just use it for local-ish errands. But there's a newer one in the pipeline, with a longer range and faster charge options, so I'm already playing with ABRP to see where the new car can easily get us and how many charge stops it would need for that.
Also, in general, we've found that keeping to secondary roads and not exceeding 100km/h on motorways does wonders for your range, while not affecting travel time too much
posted by Stoneshop at 10:40 AM on February 7, 2023 [1 favorite]
Peppercorn, it is not just a setting. Every EV has a charging curve. The charging curve describes how the charging rate changes as the battery fills up, and it's a subject made for infinite nerding out. For example, here's a detailed discussion of the charging curve of the Ioniq 5.
(The Bolt does have a temporary software setting that limits charging to 80%, related to the battery recall. But that's a different thing from the charging curve.)
posted by Winnie the Proust at 11:10 AM on February 7, 2023
(The Bolt does have a temporary software setting that limits charging to 80%, related to the battery recall. But that's a different thing from the charging curve.)
posted by Winnie the Proust at 11:10 AM on February 7, 2023
The thing I wished I’d known is that it is very possible for plugs to wriggle loose in a garage while charging as other cars drive by— the contact can be weirdly finicky
What? No, that’s really not a thing. That would suggest an electrical problem such as a broken or intermittent connector.
Or, are you perhaps talking about other cars driving on top of your charging cable that is stretched across the floor of the garage??
posted by soylent00FF00 at 11:31 AM on February 7, 2023 [1 favorite]
What? No, that’s really not a thing. That would suggest an electrical problem such as a broken or intermittent connector.
Or, are you perhaps talking about other cars driving on top of your charging cable that is stretched across the floor of the garage??
posted by soylent00FF00 at 11:31 AM on February 7, 2023 [1 favorite]
Ah, thanks for clarifying and now I'll stop cross-talk!
posted by peppercorn at 11:37 AM on February 7, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by peppercorn at 11:37 AM on February 7, 2023 [1 favorite]
okay, I lied, i didn't see the other reply! Soylent00FF00, I definitely can't rule out that our car had a faulty connector but when we called the charging company in question to ask for assistance after this happened a few times, that was what they told us, with the implication being that it happens all the time (i.e. not just with our car.) Also I saw other drivers experience the same thing while parked next to us. Maybe the charging company sucked and was lying, but it was a prominent enough feature of my fast charging experience that I figured I'd mention it?
posted by peppercorn at 11:42 AM on February 7, 2023
posted by peppercorn at 11:42 AM on February 7, 2023
peppercorn: Also I saw other drivers experience the same thing while parked next to us.
They just fitted cheap sockets, or it was a bad batch.
The Type 2 socket is one that won't easily come loose on its own; I'm unfamiliar with the newer ones, but that kind of gear is well-designed and tested as it's meant to deal with currents of 30 amps and over, per pin. Except for two data pins that are used tell the charger that it can switch on, how much current the car will take, and whether it can stop as the battery is full. And all this in a wide range of temperatures and humidity, protected against water ingress and pokey fingers.
posted by Stoneshop at 12:45 PM on February 7, 2023
They just fitted cheap sockets, or it was a bad batch.
The Type 2 socket is one that won't easily come loose on its own; I'm unfamiliar with the newer ones, but that kind of gear is well-designed and tested as it's meant to deal with currents of 30 amps and over, per pin. Except for two data pins that are used tell the charger that it can switch on, how much current the car will take, and whether it can stop as the battery is full. And all this in a wide range of temperatures and humidity, protected against water ingress and pokey fingers.
posted by Stoneshop at 12:45 PM on February 7, 2023
@peppercorn - you are basically right - there certainly are cases where you need your EV to be charged, and you find out it wasn't charged when you thought it would be. I think stoneshop & I are just quibbling about the reason which you were given, which sounds a bit off.
On the positive side, most EVs have a way to set up notifications for charging problems - for my own EV I have it set to email me at 11pm each night if it's not plugged in, which has helped out a few times when i simply forgot to plug it in, or plugged it in but didn't push until it "clicked" (I'm in USA and have the Type 1, but I think both types have a latch, and you do have to plug it in properly so it clicks)
posted by soylent00FF00 at 3:27 PM on February 7, 2023 [1 favorite]
On the positive side, most EVs have a way to set up notifications for charging problems - for my own EV I have it set to email me at 11pm each night if it's not plugged in, which has helped out a few times when i simply forgot to plug it in, or plugged it in but didn't push until it "clicked" (I'm in USA and have the Type 1, but I think both types have a latch, and you do have to plug it in properly so it clicks)
posted by soylent00FF00 at 3:27 PM on February 7, 2023 [1 favorite]
Type 2 doesn't have a latch per se, but most wall sockets have a motor-driven locking mechanism that engages when the car is connected and starts charging and releases on command, usually when unlocking the car or when using a commercial charge point when you send a 'stop charging' signal (tapping your charge card, or via the app). The socket I installed had it as an option; I fitted it but haven't enabled it in the charge controller, the car side locks already so the cable is secured.
Type 1 has an actual latch on the connector. Don't know about other connectors (yet).
posted by Stoneshop at 2:37 AM on February 8, 2023
Type 1 has an actual latch on the connector. Don't know about other connectors (yet).
posted by Stoneshop at 2:37 AM on February 8, 2023
Response by poster: I marked a couple of best answers but happy to hear more ideas.
posted by crocomancer at 2:41 AM on February 8, 2023
posted by crocomancer at 2:41 AM on February 8, 2023
Dumb American here with a dumb fact which is, as far as I know, universal in EVs: they don't charge if the car is still turned on. Please turn car off before charging.
(There was a good program on the radio, I finished listening to it, locked the car, plugged it in, but apparently never turned it off. DID NOT CHARGE OVERNIGHT.)
In my city in the US, most supermarkets and parking garages have at least a few EV charging stations. It rather sounds like the UK is trending the same way.
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 12:28 PM on February 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
(There was a good program on the radio, I finished listening to it, locked the car, plugged it in, but apparently never turned it off. DID NOT CHARGE OVERNIGHT.)
In my city in the US, most supermarkets and parking garages have at least a few EV charging stations. It rather sounds like the UK is trending the same way.
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 12:28 PM on February 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
Some general ideas about getting your first EV:
* Do you own or rent your dwelling? Being able to charge at home is a big thing, waking up every day with a "full tank" is wonderful.
* On the other hand, you said "I'm buying a Hyundai Ioniq 5" which is a great choice, since the Ioniq 5 has super fast "fast" charging - 5 minutes charge for up to 100km of range, which makes long distance travel so much more practical.
* As mentioned above, figure out how to turn the car "off" but also pay attention to what turns it "on" e.g. the wireless key fob. I've had occasions where my partner and I got in the car, drove off, and then realized that I didn't have my fob (but they did, so the car was driveable). We weren't sure what would have happened had I dropped them off at work and left me fobless.
posted by soylent00FF00 at 3:58 PM on February 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
* Do you own or rent your dwelling? Being able to charge at home is a big thing, waking up every day with a "full tank" is wonderful.
* On the other hand, you said "I'm buying a Hyundai Ioniq 5" which is a great choice, since the Ioniq 5 has super fast "fast" charging - 5 minutes charge for up to 100km of range, which makes long distance travel so much more practical.
* As mentioned above, figure out how to turn the car "off" but also pay attention to what turns it "on" e.g. the wireless key fob. I've had occasions where my partner and I got in the car, drove off, and then realized that I didn't have my fob (but they did, so the car was driveable). We weren't sure what would have happened had I dropped them off at work and left me fobless.
posted by soylent00FF00 at 3:58 PM on February 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
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1. The extent to which cold weather degrades range. YMMV (hah), but on my Chevy Bolt in New England range is reduced by close to 50% in winter. Cold weather can also affect charging time (slowing it down).
2. High speed DC charging doesn't take you all the way to 100%. On the Bolt, it shuts down at 80%. And if you decide you never want to go below 20%, your "fast charge range" is basically from 20% to 80%, i.e. 60% of your total range. So on long trips you'll need to plan more frequent stops than you'd have to based on the full range.
posted by Winnie the Proust at 8:07 AM on February 7, 2023 [2 favorites]