Electric vehicle home charging points

We’re still in the sunny IoW, back tomorrow. Thankfully we both agreed we’d need to factor in opportunities to charge, so we used the rapid chargers (43kW) at the Wightlink terminals at Portsmouth and Fishbourne. That meant we had 100% battery to begin the holiday.

There are 2 other rapid chargers on the IoW but neither of them work, they’re shown by pink markers on the ZapMap map: a red edge to the marker shows it’s not working. NB there are far more chargers than are shown here but I’ve filtered to only show ones we would consider.

We’re staying in Ventnor and there’s a ‘Fast’ charger nearby (7kW) but although it seems to be ok now it appeared to be out of service when we walked past it a few days ago. However we had top-up charges at Ryde and again at Freshwater, both at 7kW so a few hours each time, but both while we went off doing holiday type stuff.

The lowest the battery has got to is 55% which would still give us 93 miles, plenty for here though not quite enough to get us home.

So, in short, take @Jequinlan ’s advice and plan ahead. Also be in agreement about the fact that an EV needs charging and it’s going to take some time. Don’t believe that the ZapMap negative comments are necessarily current, and leave an up-to-date positive comment on there when you have a successful charge, so other people know things are going well.

Glad i could help!

This is what the government says about the transition:

Following the publication of this document, the Government will lay the required regulations in Parliament in 2021. The Government has decided that there will then be an adjustment period of no less than 6 months from the date of the laying of the regulations in parliament and the regulations coming into force, during which properties which have their initial/ building notices or full plans deposited will not be legally required to meet the new regulations. Properties that have their initial/ building notices or full plans submitted in this period must begin building work by no later than 12 months after the coming into force date, otherwise the new regulations will need to be met.

While forcing house builders to fit chargers is a good thing we're risking creating two tiers of car ownership. Those who have a parking space and a charger will enjoy cheap motoring, powered by off peak or solar electricity. Those who don't will pay through the nose at public chargers.

And don't get me started on the numerous different charger networks, each of which require a different app and have different charging structures depending on charging rate membership or the colour of your car.

Before worrying about home chargers the govt should set regulations for the public charging network. Anyone should be able to use any charger for the same price as the next person, using any mechanism for contactless payment (card, phone etc). There should be no apps and no membership.

Rant over ☺️

After only collecting our new first electric car at the weekend we are regretting our purchase.

After not getting through to our electric company for 5 days and finally getting through paid for the electric home point then finding out after everyone is purchased that we cannot have our home charger unless we have electric bonding in our house. Has anyone else had this problem? Is it easy to arrange? 

Hi @elaine-moi and welcome to the OVO online community,

Great to hear about your recent EV purchase in spite of the difficulties you’ve had with the installation of of a home charging point. Just to clarify was this EV charging point arranged with us? If so this might be something to discuss with the smart home team by emailing smarthome@ovoenergy.com. They should be able to confirm the exact preparatory work that might need to be arranged with an electrician before the charger can be installed.

We’ve got plenty of happy EV drivers here, who I’m sure would recommend opting for a greener set of wheels once any initial set-up issues are resolved. Why not check out some of their EV reviews below:
 

I am now out of contract and pay the variable price about 31.8 per kwh. Now thinking about an electric car but I cannot see charging price even after looking at the Ovo site.

So if I buy an EV how much will i pay to charge?

You should look at the OVO drive option

You'll pay whatever your current tariff is.

There are tariffs available that offer periods of cheaper electricity and some of these are aimed at EV owners. E.g Octopus Go has very cheap electricity for 4 hours at night.

There are some "smart" ev tariffs that offer cheaper electricity just for your EV. These are only available with certain cars and/or chargers, as they need to capture data about when you car is charging. Octopus Intelligent and OVO Drive + Anytime are examples of these smart tariffs.

I bought my Nissan Leaf 40kw Tekna in December 2020 and because of those “interesting times” I had to wait three months for my Indra SmartPro charger to be fitted. At least I had plenty of time, granny charging through an open window, to change my order to a tethered charger so I didn’t have to faff around with a cold wet cable in future.

I was originally on Ovo’s Drive Anytime tariff of 5p/kWh, then it went up to 10p/kWh (still a huge saving) and now Charge Anytime of 7p/kWh. I drove 2,533 miles in June which cost me £40.42! I love driving my Leaf so much that I’m a volunteer driver seven days a week, driving over 100 miles a day, most days, and charging every night.