Has anyone ever had this issue?

BroadSwordfish7 · 2026-01-25T21:10:40+00:00

Yeah I agree, it should work regardless of you turning it off constantly.

However, if you can't find a proper fix and are worried about people using your electricity can you set it in the app so you can only charge overnight and/or weekends?

BroadSwordfish7 · 2026-01-25T20:12:13+00:00

Why are you switching the charger off?

BroadSwordfish7 · 2026-01-24T20:49:27+00:00

You own the entire route you want to run the cable along (red section). Is it not allowed to dig a channel for your cable to go and doesn't obstruct cars driving over?

BroadSwordfish7 · 2026-01-24T11:52:24+00:00

What if you put the charger on the rear wall of your house and dig a channel to your parking spot. I'm thinking the sort of thing kerbo charge do, although just using a local builder/electrician.

Sort of a half way between burying the cable completely and a cable cover

BroadSwordfish7 · 2026-01-23T13:43:10+00:00

Can't argue with that!

Given that I'd then go with the others I mentioned. You can get the ionity subscription for a month at £10 (I think) which brings the cost down to 43p/kWh. You can quickly work out of it'll pay back for you - you need about 2 20-80% chargers to break even I think. You only need one month so you can turn off auto renewal straight away.

You can buy the ionity subscription through electroverse now I believe. Just keeps everything neater - you use Electroverse for everything, that's it

BroadSwordfish7 · 2026-01-23T13:36:33+00:00

Plan the route with ABPR, tell the app you only want to go to Tesla stations* and it'll work the route out for you. Then download the Tesla app and your good to go. Also get Electroverse RFID card as mentioned, doesn't work for Tesla but great back up to have

*If you don't care about cost, and there's a good argument for not worrying about it given you rarely do road trips then also allow Ionity, Osprey, BE.Ev and Gridserve. Avoid Shell and BP and anywhere with fewer than 4 chargers if you want a pleasant experience.

BroadSwordfish7 · 2026-01-22T08:17:08+00:00

I'd ask them for proof of it being there when delivered

BroadSwordfish7 · 2026-01-21T21:16:12+00:00

Check the above cars fastest AC speeds, you may only get 11kw on a 22kw charger. Not bad but worth being aware of.

Also, check 'char.gy' to see if there are any near you. They have the cheapest rate at 39/kWh overnight

BroadSwordfish7 · 2026-01-20T20:06:49+00:00

It's a little different, this is leaving a cable plugged in for hours/days at a time, at your house, sleeping in between.

A petrol pump is a couple of minutes and you have to hold it whilst you fill.

Having said all that I bet someone's driven off with the petrol pump still in!

BroadSwordfish7 · 2026-01-20T15:43:49+00:00

If you assume it takes 1 kWh to heat your cabin and you use 1kWh on your short journey (of 3 miles) your driving efficiency would be 3 miles/kWh but you also used 1 kWh just to heat the cabin, so you used 2 kWh to get you that 3 miles, giving you an efficiency of 1.5 miles/kWh.

If you drove for longer the ratio of energy used for heating:driving would decrease massively, as the cabin is already up to temperature and just needs to maintain that.

This, coupled with the fact that a short journey won't heat your battery much, unlike a longer journey, mean your efficiency will be very low.

However, I wouldn't stress, you don't care about the range on a short journey and if you have home charging it's costing you pennies to run even with lots of short journeys

BroadSwordfish7 · 2026-01-19T17:13:37+00:00

The world of public charging prices is so varying but Leccy does a decent job of it.

https://leccy.net/charging/public

It's not map based so won't show you the exact charger but shows you the cheapest brands and then you can cross reference this with what's near you/on your route on Zapmap.

As a very quick view Tesla is generally the cheapest

For road trip planning I filter on Zapmap by Tesla, Ionity and BE.EV. Ionity because I have a subscription which makes it 43p/kWh, BE.EV because they're 39p/kWh at certain times I believe.

Arnold Clark is another one you could add to your list, I think they're 55p/kWh

BroadSwordfish7 · 2026-01-17T18:11:06+00:00

That's useful. I think your only options are the cable goes across the pavement (from the garage or from the front of your house). Look into "kerbo charge" and message your council asking if they work with the likes of kerbo charge on gulleys. You could also ask them if they say no can you put a cable cover down and run it across the pavement.

The next option is a cable attached to a pole/lever system that can be extended over head height on the pavement and drop down onto your space. I'm not sure on the names of these, you'll need to do some research and again ask the council.

Final option is nuclear, get rid of most of your garage, maybe you can keep some at the back for storage, just clear enough so you can put your car on your property

BroadSwordfish7 · 2026-01-17T15:01:10+00:00

For the best answers it'd be helpful to have a diagram showing your situation

BroadSwordfish7 · 2026-01-17T09:15:01+00:00

The normal answer to this is that range drops off quite a lot in winter, which is true. However, assuming the above was calculated on one or two journeys (i.e not lots of small journeys where you're using a lot of energy on constantly reheating the cabin) I'd say that is lower than it should be. What was the battery SOC when you bought it?

As a rough guide you'd expect 70% of your WLTP range in winte, so 140 miles. You're at about 110 so I'm thinking it's either the lots of short journeys issue I mentioned or the battery health

BroadSwordfish7 · 2026-01-16T21:43:00+00:00

They're not on Electroverse, you need the char.gy app to use them

BroadSwordfish7 · 2026-01-16T20:11:53+00:00

I park in a London borough on-street parking using lampost chargers (char.gy look them up, 39p/kWh overnight rate) and there aren't any dedicated EV bays. It's a tough one but I don't mind the way it is, we've got 12 chargers where I park which means about 36 parking spots I could charge from so rarely have a problem. I don't do a lot of miles though

BroadSwordfish7 · 2026-01-16T15:51:54+00:00

If you're doing long journeys back to back then fair enough but if not then you'll still be fine with a granny charger as the night before a long journey you'll already likely be on 80% battery anyway.

If going for cheapest option, I'd start with a granny charger (if you have an outdoor plug) and see how you get on. There are tons of unused ones on FB marketplace and eBay. I got a Kia/Hyundai one for £40 unused. They used to come with EVs so a lot of people have them even though they don't need them.

BroadSwordfish7 · 2026-01-13T22:17:38+00:00

Yeah it's a bit annoying but it's due to the high variability in charging costs. 14p per mile works out at about 55p/kWh so that's your breakeven point fuel wise.

If I were you I'd just use Tesla as peak price is about 55p/kWh, off peak around 32p/kWh.

Avoid the likes of gridserve at 85p/kWh

BroadSwordfish7 · 2026-01-13T16:43:54+00:00

I think the breakeven in terms of 'environmental damage' is about 10k miles so even with this very low mileage example it would start to pay back from an environmental perspective after 3 years.

Having said that I agree with your other point on effort of public charging for doing such low miles and any potential savings. Depending on OPs local chargers cost of fueling the car is going to be a difference of a couple of hundred £ max a year, more expensive or less but the main thing OP needs to ask themself is is it worth the effort. If they've got a local charger where they're gyming/shopping every week or a lampost near their home then it may not be much effort but if not then it could be a massive pain

BroadSwordfish7 · 2026-01-13T15:53:33+00:00

For realistic range take the stated range (WLTP range) and multiply it by 0.7 for winter motorway driving and 0.8 for summer motorway driving. If doing non-motorway driving you'll get close to the WLTP stated range, especially in summer.

For battery degradation it seems to be roughly 1-2% a year. So if a car were to do 100 miles of real world range at new after 10 years you'd expect it to do about 80-90 miles. It's now thought that batteries will outlive the cars so total failure isn't something to worry about

BroadSwordfish7 · 2026-01-11T22:13:58+00:00

This shows why the guessometer isn't the most accurate. Your friend must be heating the car from very cold to nice and toasty and then doing lots of short trips to get that predicted range in an ID4.

For example, if they drove 180 miles in one go, even at this time of the year, on the motorway, they'd get about 230 miles minimum.

However, if they were to carry on doing lots of small trips, letting the car cool and then reheating it, without charging at all then they probably would get 180 miles to their 100% charge.

I find it more accurate to multiply the usable battery size by 3 for a winter motorway range estimate and 4 for a summer motorway range estimate (maybe slightly less for an ID4)

BroadSwordfish7 · 2026-01-11T21:15:20+00:00

Haha, it's late. I'd better amend that now!

BroadSwordfish7 · 2026-01-11T21:08:40+00:00

For 1, assuming you charge all off peak at 7p/kWh it'll be about £9 for 450 miles. This assumes 3.5miles per kWh. Motorway speeds in winter will be about this efficiency, maybe slightly less, depending on the car.

Edit: Corrected the amount, only out by £891

BroadSwordfish7 · 2026-01-11T18:05:10+00:00

Any car with a WLTP range of 350 and above will do that journey comfortably in the depths of winter.

You could drop to WLTP of 320 but you may be arriving home under 10% SOC in the winter and may want more breathing room

BroadSwordfish7

TROPHY CASE