Planning for EV life
/My planning for the arrival of my EV (Electric Vehicle) started about 10 months prior to its arrival - actually, about the time the car was ordered.
Hang on a minute? Planning? What planning?
Well, it turns out, if you want to get the most from going electric, you need to know what you are letting yourself in for and make some plans accordingly. Owning and running an EV is a shift in mindset and behaviour, which some may find easier than others.
Now, it just so happened in my case that I had some idea of what was involved, because I’d been dabbling in relevant forums even prior to this T-minus-10 point (particularly forums about solar power and going off grid).
It also just so happens that my home is all-electric. There is no mains gas where we live and we use heat pumps - so we are used to being all-electric, and on a green tariff. That meant I also had a good idea of what the domestic energy supply landscape looked like, what tariffs were available etc.
But let’s wind back a minute, and talk about some of the basics that are part and parcel of this journey.
Where to charge: Hopefully you will be able to mainly charge your car at home
this is by far the most cost-effective and frictionless way of doing things. If you can buy a car that has a range larger than the number of miles you need on an ordinary day, then this option can work for you. Since many cars now offer 200 or even 300+ miles of range (depending on your budget), this is very achievable for many people.
This certainly was the case for me - although historically I was a high mileage driver (business miles) that reduced somewhat prior to the pandemic and even more so during it. Long trips are now mainly confined to family occasions, and 95% of all my trips are under 100 miles, starting from home.
So, the first bit of planning is to work out if the EV you want or can afford is suitable for your travel patterns, and preferably biased to charging at home
Tariffs: Most of us are used to paying a fixed rate for our electricity units (kWh = kilowatt hours) because meter readings are taken at best once per month, and historically way less often. However, the advent of smart meters has changed that landscape, opening up the possibility of tariffs that change every 30 minutes (no kidding).
So what’s the point of that? The advantage of variable tarriffs is that energy suppliers can offer incentives (i.e. reduced rates) to use electricity when demand is low and where there may even be a surplus on the grid. This usually means outside peak times and overnight.
As a result, a number of suppliers offer “dual rate” tariffs which have low overnight price during a certain time window (e.g. 12.30 - 4.30, or 11.30pm - 5.30am)
These tariffs are perfect, indeed often designed for, charging EVs overnight at cheap rate. Remember that EVs use a lot of electric: a 77kWh car consumes (obviously) 77kWh energy to charge from 0 - 100%. For some people this might be equivalent to a fornight’s or even a month’s total normal electric usage. Therefore cheap overnight tariffs are massively beneficial financially.
Octopus Energy, at the time of writing, are leaders in this space. They even have a tariff system which can remote control the charging on your car, so that they can allocate the cheapest time slot to you!
If you have solar and/or a domestic battery, the landscape looks even better for you, with the potential to fill your car for nothing, nada, zero, purely on solar energy!
An alternative to having your own solar panels, might be ownership in a solar cooperative, such as Ripple. While this won’t give you free solar power, it will still provide you with discount based on how much solar your share generates.
Smart Meters: the world of variable tariffs is opened up by, and only by, having a smart meter.
A UK smart meter records and send your usage data in half-hour time windows. Thus, not only can you track your usage with great accuracy over the course of a day, but your supplier can bill you differently during those time slots.
Part of my planning was to get a smart meter installed. I did this before doing anything about changing suppliers. Actually, originally I had been with Pureplanet, who went bust during the “Energy Crisis” in 2022, and I was moved by default to Shell Energy. So, as soon as I had ordered my car, I requested a smart meter.
It was fitted in about 6 weeks, and I had no idea if it would actually work. We live in rural Scotland and I’d heard stories around the village that they were “bricks” (not able to communicate). As it happened, it took about 2 weeks to fully come online, but it did indeed work. (It’s also stopped reporting data for 2 months which caused me great concern, but it started working again - touch wood).
With the smart meter up and running, I knew I was then free to start looking at new energy suppliers with good EV tariffs.
There was no real advantage in switching straight away, as over winter 2022, UK tariffs were “capped” by the government and basically the same everywhere; and also suppliers weren’t necessarily allowing switching. This was not a problem - good planning meant I had 10 months to go.
In the end, I actually switched to Octopus about a week after I took delivery of the car, and the process was really quick and simple, taking 2 days. After all my readings had stabilised (another couple of days), I switched to their Octopus GO tariff, which offers 4 hours of cheap rate (about 1/3rd the unit price) overnight, specifically for charging EV’s. (Again, this was easy and all done online)
This has been a brilliant tariff, which you’ll see when I talk about costs.
Home charger: charging your car is easy, but it seems very complicated to begin with. For a start there are all these different numbers and units (kW and kWh), then AC and DC charging, then slow, fast, ultra fast, rapid charging, and so on. Let’s keep it simple and talk about home charging.
You can charge you car from a regular mains socket on what’s called a “portable charger” or “granny cable”. It has some built-in electronics, but basically, you plug it into your wall socket, plug the other end into you car, and it charges using 230V AC mains supply.
But it’s slow. The “granny cable” will deliver a peak of about 2.5kW (kilowatts) which is equivalent to 10A (amps) at 250V (volts). This is in the same ball park power-wise as running a kettle.
if you have a car with 50kWh battery (e.g. a Corsa-e) and charge from 0% at 2.5kW rate, then it will take 20 hours to fill the car. (Actually, it may take a bit longer if the car battery management system slows the charging down at certain points to protect the battery lifetime).
20 hours is obviously longer than “overnight”, so unless you are really only doing a local miles each day, it can be an unsuitable solution, but good as a backup.
This is where a home charger comes in. This is an AC charger that attaches to your wall, is connected more directly to your electricity supply in the home (i.e. direct into your consumer unit), and charges at up to 7kW rate.
this is almost 3 times the rate of the “granny charger” so offers a significant speed reduction in charging. In a 4-hour window, for example, you can add 4x7 = 28kWh to your car, which for a 50kWh Corsa-e is over half a “tank” (battery).
At the time of writing, my tariff for this 4-hour window is 9.5p per kWh, so 28kWh costs 28x9.5 = £2.66. That 28kWh will give the car about 112 miles range, which works out at a cost of 2.4 pence per mile.
There is a large choice of home chargers and many installers, and another part of the planning is researching what is suitable for your needs and getting quotes to compare.
UK legislation has advocated that all new home chargers be “smart” meaning they have remote-control type capability and app connectivity. So, in actual fact, there is quite a high level of base functionality across all chargers, which may make choosing one a little less agonising.
The smartest chargers (such as OHME) can actually integrate with Octopus so they can remotely start and stop charging and give the most advantageous overnight costs, but you may not need these level of sophistication, or even if you do, your car itself may also integrate regardless of the charger.
In the end I went for a Vchrged charger, which looks neat, is simple to operate, and has an app with security features and the ability to schedule charges - that’s all we need
You will also have to think about whether you want a Tethered (comes with a cable built in) or Untethered charger (comes with a socket to use your own cable). There are pros and cons of each:
Tethered means you never have to think of the cable at home, but also means you have (usually) 5m of cable to stow on your wall. Also, you will need to commit to a connector type, and although these are more-or-less now standardised on “CCS” in Europe, some older/specific cars might not be able to connect to your charger. There’s also the possibility with a tethered charger that someone could try and charge their car, because the cable is already there.
Note that your car almost certainly will come with a suitable cable for AC and DC charging, so you will be able to use that cable if you have an untethered charger. This is the option we went for.
It’s useful to have your charger installed before you car arrives, but not essential if you have a “granny cable” and/or access to nearby public chargers. But it also makes sense not to go too long without it, as it will make charging very easy and quicker.
Public Charging: this is something you may not need much of, but it pays to be aware of your options. Public charging is supported by a plethora of different suppliers, all in different locations, with different prices, and different charging machines. Frankly, to the beginner, it looks like a complex and unholy mess (and to some extent, it is).
It’s worth checking whether your car manufacturer offers any charging plans. This may bring together a network of charge providers, and even offer a discount rate. Kia, for example, offer “Kia Charge” which does exactly that.
So too, your electricity supplier might do something similar. Octopus offer, for example, Electroverse - a card which allows you to charge on a number of different networks, gives a small discount, and adds all the charges to your monthly electricity bill.
Get to know your car: sounds odd if you haven’t got your car yet, but I joined the relevant online forums ( https://www.kiaevforums.com/ ) and started to soak up everything there was to know about the car, from hidden features, to things that rattle and issues to watch out for (Such as 12V battery going flat). By the time I came to do the paperwork for my car at the dealership, they admitted I was way more knowledgeable about the car than they were!
Yes, there are lots of things to know about an EV to get the best out of it, such as maximising range, optimising your battery lifetime, how to drive on “Regen” (braking regeneration) and much more.
Who knew that EVs have a 12V battery to power all the infotainment and other standard systems? And that if this battery goes flat, you can’t start the car? But you can jump start it like a regular car!
I also watched lots of videos about the car and EVs, such as how to charge them and experiences of doing so, what the range tests showed, and so on.
Apps: the forums also taught me a lot about the apps that are going to smooth EV ownership. Aside from the apps that allow you to pay for, and get discounts, on charging (usually issued by the a particular charging network), there are apps for finding chargers and route planning with them.
Indeed, apps such as ABRP (a better route planner) will take account of your car’s stated range and battery performance, and plan trips for you based on how much charge you want to leave and arrive with, and how often you want to stop. Not only is this practically essential (at least in the early days of getting to know your car and routes), moreover, with a suitable ODB2 dongle plugged into your car, it will adjust your route real-time based on current battery and usage.
your car may actually have this facility built in too - an update on the Kia EV6 did provide this capability, but I don’t really like the display.
In Scotland, Chargeplacescotland is the a key network across the country especially in rural areas.
All the usual car stuff: Don’t forget all the usual car stuff too, such as insurance quotes, private number plates, part-exchange, loans and finance, and even whether you will get your car protected with wrap, PPF (pain protection film) or Ceramic coating.
AT THE TIME OF WRITING (2023) in the UK the VED (Vehicle Excise Duty aka Road Tax) is £0 per annum due to an exemption, BUT you must actually have the car registered for VED at the zero rate, rather than simply not register it. A competent car dealer will handle this for you.
Note, however, the UK Government have declared that from 2025, EVs will pay VED, including the “expensive car” supplement.
So, - PHEW - once you’ve got all that lined up, you’re ready to sit back and await the great day of the arrival of your electric car!
ready to exchange our old car for the new one!
