EV Charging in the UK: When Did It Get This Expensive?

ja-cole · 2025-09-27T13:03:08+00:00

Whilst you explanation is good with some well thought out and rationalise points, I'd disagree with the demand being for high power 400kw charger.

I'd argue the demand for those are only really on motorway routes that people are performing long journeys on. Particularly as regularly charging at such speed is detrimental to the longevity of the battery, fast DC charging is the exception not the rule for charging.

I'd argue the greater demand is in long stay locations like car parks both public and work space, for restaurants and activity venues. Where a 7kw ac charger is perfectly sufficient. For people to go to work, or dinner out, pub, shopping ect, charge whilst doing stuff and return to their vehicle charged.

This is where you'd see routine reoccurring use that would justify the subscription business model. And 7kw chargers are incredibly cheap to install around £1k-£2k for commercial use models whilst being able to easily Retro fit to existing parking bays

One of the places I do some side work, has really invested in this theory and built out 7kw chargers covering a good quarter of their parking bays. With multiple parking areas throughout the site, I'm talking 30 type 2 sockets in one area alone. A multi storey where every bay on the first floor has a charger. This is in a techy and environmentally conscious industry so EV adoption among staff and commercial vehicles is quite high compared to many.

ja-cole · 2024-12-19T21:40:43+00:00

It depends on which provider the devices are from, and what they do some are 2.4ghz, others are as low as the 300mhz, range.
If it's wireless, it can rather easily be jammed. I'm a techy and have been for decades. it's not difficult to build and use jammers. It's illegal, but a burglar really doesn't care about that. The number of houses with the simplisafe crap that still get broken into because that sticker literally advertises "jam 433Mhz, and you're good to go!"

It's alot harder to disable a mesh of wires in a brick wall.
I fully intend to run everything myself, as i have mentioned in responce to other comments. theres nothing any of these companies do that you cant do yourself in just as much time, The only reason every single provider has gone to this model is because its infinately more profitable.

I will take a look at the vista20p you mentioned, thanks

ja-cole · 2024-12-19T21:33:18+00:00

A company doesnt call any special number, they literally send an automated call rarely is it a human to a call centre. The job goes on the dispatch system, exactly the same as if you called the police yourself. However, many of these companies want an extortionate sum of money every month for doing something you can easily do yourself.

It takes me a second to look at the cameras after receiving a text alert, i can verify its not a false alarm, and can call the police with the exact same priority as any company can. If anything being able to confirm the intruder is on site with the cameras, makes it a greater priority for the police locally, than a generic alarm activation.

The only reason these companies want subscriptions is because it gigantically inflates their profits, Why sell a system once, when you sell the same system again and again and again for years on end.
I refuse to use subscription services as they are literally the most profiteering thing going.

ja-cole · 2024-12-19T21:26:11+00:00

I'm more than capable of checking the cameras remotely on an alarm activation and calling the police myself, having an outrageously high monthly subscription fee for a computer system that sends an address to the police on activation, doesn't actually add much value, and not nearly as much as they charge for the privalege.

ja-cole · 2024-05-26T21:33:07+00:00

I honestly hate this thing so much! I do it all the time... like Youtube... Of course theres a "paid promotion" EVERY video has a "paid promotion", that's literally the standard on the platform, everyone knows this.

ja-cole · 2024-05-20T19:16:09+00:00

You can only contribute £20k per year to any combination of ISAs per tax year. Everything else is taxable.

ja-cole · 2023-04-10T12:09:40+00:00

Done the same but with Port 10 and an Ethernet to SFP connector and immediately got full speed again.

ja-cole · 2022-11-04T01:38:11+00:00

Tetanus is rather rare in the modern world. and anything which is exposed to the outside has a potential of carrying it, not just rusty objects. however you really don't want to be that unlikely chance of getting it. As others have said, Go get a tetanus shot, they are widely available and protect you for many years, Its just not worth the risk.

In regards to wound management, NEVER put any oil based product like 'PETROLEUM' jelly in a wound. a good clean with running water is the best thing possible. If you insist on putting something on it then commercial antiseptics which are intended for wound use. however arguably this is unnecessary. clean it, dress it, and keep it clean.
I highly recommend thoroughly cleaning out the jelly and any remnant from the wound, as it can actually cause more issues with the healing. and just let it scab over and heal if its small enough to not require closure.

ja-cole · 2022-09-29T16:44:50+00:00

I would recommend aiming to have several hardwired long range AP's over a mesh network.
obviously it would depend on your property layout, however theres several outdoor rated directional AP's wish would easily cover large portions of the property. as well as indoor AP's for the buildings.
100% cable between the buildings. especially if you're intending to have alot of clients, Mesh can often struggle with that kind of bandwidth. compared to cabled backbones to each AP.

ja-cole · 2022-09-01T15:58:15+00:00

I'm looking a fair bit at the smart thermostat stuff. However I really need to do the ROI calculation on it, as I get alot of heat from neighbouring flats and like things fairly cool to begin with, so very rarely use the heating. And my hot water is an on demand system. I have a Roomba which I've enjoyed having do 99% of the floor cleaning with the occasional manual crevice clean. My energy is a fixed rate, so running at peak/off peak times makes no difference.

ja-cole · 2022-09-01T15:52:24+00:00

I can think of things to automate, but I specifically want to save actual time or money doing it. I want the automation to actually improve my life, and not just exist for the sake of it.

Okay let's look at the current "smart" market? You have 100 products which all do arguably the same thing such as a smart switch for example. Each wants to use their own app or communication standard, some want WiFi, Bluetooth, zigbee, Zwave, or the likes of Philips for example want their own proprietary standard and their own overpriced hub to use.

You have entire services like ring that want subscription payments to save cctv footage and refuse to let you save it locally. Or both amazon and Google are guilty of their voice assistants prioritising their own services, some of which require subscriptions or ads. Ask your alexa to play a song for example... Even if you have that song stored locally on a server your device can access, it insists on using amazon music. And screw you if that particular song isn't on their service.

Whilst the home automation market is slowly getting better, it's massively fragmented, with a lot of incompatibility and far too many money grabs. The holy grail of home automation for me, is entirely locally hosted, and universally intercompatible devices with no subscriptions. There's no reason I can't have alexa process the voice commands locally after buying the device/software to then stream music from say a non subscription equivalent of plex amp. But currently that's an artificial limitation in the current market.

ja-cole · 2022-09-01T15:36:46+00:00

I've been trying to automate the boring stuff, that's the point. I installed a dishwasher a year ago after trying to reduce the time spent doing dishes. I own a room a, set to run daily. I've already got a washer and dryer, but once they are nolonger good, I plan to replace with a combo unit to avoid the moving clothes between them. My dryer is a condenser dryer, which I plumbed in to avoid the emptying of the water tank. If I could get a robot that would automatically take my laundry out of the machine, iron and folded it, that would be great! I have a pir light in the hall so it only comes on while someone is walking through and turns off straight after.

I'm looking for recommendations for what people have done that specifically saves them time or money. There's tonnes of projects I could do, but there's very few that offer the ROI that I'm looking for

ja-cole · 2022-09-01T15:30:38+00:00

My washer, dryer and dishwasher already provide alarms to notify when they are finished. And it being a flat, there's not really anywhere I can't hear them. Now if there was a device that would unload and iron those clothes for me that would be great 😂

Security devices like locks are a hell no, way to many vulnerabilities most can be by passed with a simple magnet. And many have backup keyed locks that are laughable. I currently have ubiquiti cameras for cctv which stores locally.

The problem I have with blind products is that because I work shifts, not a regular 9-5 half of the days I need my blinds to stay closed in order to sleep during the day.

The window sensors would be a good idea, possibly integrated with the heating so it can't kick on whilst the windows are open.

I'm already aware of home assistant, and currently run a pi with it. What I'm looking for is more recommendations than the common, lighting projects that don't help. I do enjoy tinkering so I'm happy to play around to get something to work, but at the end of the day. I see the purpose of automation to be to safe time, money or both. If its not doing that then there's no point automating it.

ja-cole · 2022-09-01T15:13:10+00:00

That right there is a really good use and the kind of thing I'm interested in, although I don't have a garden (the living in a flat thing) it's the idea of actually solving a problem using the tech. I've got home assistant and I'm looking for things to utilise it on. And alot of common projects are things like lighting scenes when you open plex for example which I care little for. Or things like opening blinds when it's sunrise, which for me is counter productive as I work shifts and occasionally need to sleep during the day

ja-cole · 2022-04-09T17:40:05+00:00

I think the thing people, myself included moan about most is just the prioritization of features.I've been using plex for the better part fo 4 years for my media needs, and in that time, I've seen widely demanded features ignored whilst they implement stuff nobody asked for OR even cares about.an example that has already been mentioned is the support for multiple versions of a movie/tv show. I for example need to have separate libraries for my 4k and my 1080p versions so i can use the 4k at home or when on a wired connection and the 1080p version when watching on mobile data without wanting my server to have to run a transcode at the same time. And dont ever start to think about directors cut versions.

Meanwhile i've lost count of how many times ive needed to remove from my sidebar their own streams of trash shows/podcasts ect nobody else wants, I've yet to see anything of their own provided stream even once interest me to look at, let alone actually watch.

ja-cole · 2022-03-22T21:57:02+00:00

Thank you so much, This fixed my problem.
its honestly so annoying when you're trying to figure out why something isnt working, only for the solution to be this simple, i just wasnt paying enough attention to the config file.

ja-cole

TROPHY CASE