Just back from a wee week down in Somerset from Ayrshire, in our 4yr old VW ID3 58kwh. Trip down was no hassle at all, two stops required for charging both car and passengers. One for 30 mins 15%-100% and another top up for 15mins. VW EV’s have excellent battery management systems, so fast charging is pretty painless, plus every charger we went to was a simple case of contactless payment - a big improvement on the last long journey we took in an EV. Car was smooth, powerful and very relaxing. The space inside is much better than an equivalent petrol or diesel hatchback too, thanks to it being on a bespoke EV platform, which makes full use of the space left with no engine, gearbox or fuel tank. Flat battery pack gives it a low centre of gravity, rear wheel drive offers strong traction and 200 plus brake horsepower makes easy work of hills and twisty b road overtakes. Cheap charging at home and at the destination made it cheaper than petrol or diesel despite the costly public charging on the way.
Only issue and costs to report in 20,000 miles so far, is a knackered charging cable - replaced with a used Audi cable for forty quid on eBay. Car has been brilliant so far. I love combustion engines, but I am sold on EV’s. They’re genuinely good things, without having to resort to any environmental arguments. Go try one, particularly a used one - which will almost certainly be cheaper to buy than an equivalent petrol or diesel car. If you have a driveway, and can charge at home, then they’ll save you money. We pay 4.99p pkwh to charge overnight, which works out at around £2.50 for 200 miles.
Last edited by: SLO76 on Fri 7 Aug 26 at 23:36
|
what range do you get, and is there much difference between dimmer and winter ?
Your annual mileage is very low, only 20k in 4 years, so presumably most of your charging is done at home, rather than at public charging stations. That must make a big difference to running costs ?
Do EVs become less reliable with age, presumably very little to ho wrong apart from the fancy electronics on touch screens, or are they super reliable ?
|
Slo bought it used.
And welcome back SLO.
Nice to find you are still doing your thing...
|
I'm worried about SLO. That trip south of the border has affected him.
He'll soon be recommending German EVs instead of Japanese n/a petrol ;)
But still good to see him back.
Last edited by: ChrisM on Sat 8 Aug 26 at 11:16
|
“ I'm worried about SLO. That trip south of the border has affected him.
He'll soon be recommending German EVs instead of Japanese n/a petrol ;)”
Go lekky is the answer to almost everything now.
|
“ what range do you get, and is there much difference between dimmer and winter ?
Your annual mileage is very low, only 20k in 4 years, so presumably most of your charging is done at home, rather than at public charging stations. That must make a big difference to running costs ?
Do EVs become less reliable with age, presumably very little to ho wrong apart from the fancy electronics on touch screens, or are they super reliable ?”
Range in summer is around 230 miles, in winter with heating and lights on it’s more like 180/190. More than enough for 99% of our needs, and the fast charging is pretty decent on these too, it typically takes 20 mins to go from 20-80% depending on the charger.
Our annual mileage is around 18,000 miles a year on this the main family car, and another 12k or so on my old diesel Focus. This will be replaced by another EV at some point. We bought the car at two and a half years old.
So far we’ve had no issues at all, and my works fleet of Renault Zoe’s have been far more reliable than their petrol predecessors. Biggest issues came from the early Nissan Leaf’s which have no thermal battery management, and thus suffer from higher degradation and battery pack failures. The more modern EV’s are very reliable, with far fewer moving parts than a petrol or diesel equivalent.
|
>>cheaper to buy than an equivalent petrol or diesel car. If you have a driveway, and can charge at home, then >>they’ll save you money.
What about the cost of a home charger, around £1500 I understand?
I had a visitor with a BEV who expected me to charge it. Extension lead out of a bedroom window for three days on a granny charger! Bungalow, you don't leave windows open at night!
|
£1500 is about the most you'd spend on a home charger, nearer £1k installed I think for a smart one.
Which seems a lot but I saw it as a long term investment - np plans to move, so for me was just part of the cost of going electric. The 1st EV was discounted by about £8k IIRC and so man maths helps :-)
Bet you'd easily spend that on a new kitchen, or a decent holiday, and not think about it :-)
|
>>What about the cost of a home charger, around £1500 I understand?
I'd gofer: (+ fitting of course) ohme-ev.com/
|
“What about the cost of a home charger, around £1500 I understand?
I had a visitor with a BEV who expected me to charge it. Extension lead out of a bedroom window for three days on a granny charger! Bungalow, you don't leave windows open at night!”
Shop around and you can get a home charger for much less. We got a grant towards ours, from memory it was £350, and I paid £400. I regularly see them advertised on Facebook at £350 upwards fitted. I’d pay extra for a known brand however.
I had an external three pin socket installed next to it to use with a 3kwh granny charger, in case of any charger issues. I wouldn’t plug an EV into an internal socket, they’re a fire hazard due to the heavy current, which internal sockets were never really designed for. Ours is a double socket, with a direct circuit to the breaker box. If you feel the three pin plug while it’s charging, it’s roasting hot. I wouldn’t want that inside. The 7kwh wall charger generates no heat however.
|
Ours is a double socket, with a direct circuit to the breaker box. If you feel the three pin plug while it's charging, it's roasting hot. I wouldn't want that inside. The 7kwh wall charger generates no heat however.
My daughter has this set up to grant charge her BYD PHEV.
She has a breaker with a built in timer so instead of worrying about apps etc they have the timer set up to become live when they go onto cheap overnight tariff.
|
>> Ours is a double socket, with a direct circuit to the breaker box. If you feel the three pin plug while it's charging, it's roasting hot. >>
If the 3-pin plug is 'roasting hot' I would guess that most of that heat will be from the fuse, which would be somewhere near fusing-point ? Perhaps check everything inside the plug for slack connections etc. ? Or perhaps you can't if it's a modern plug that can't be opened ....
Last edited by: Andrew-T on Mon 10 Aug 26 at 12:57
|
>> Shop around and you can get a home charger for much less
I recently paid just under £500 for an installed Sync EV charger. £350 to buy online, a local electrician charged me £130 to install it. Granted, this was a replacement for an old 3kw PodPoint charger, and it's only a meter or so from our consumer unit in the garage. 7kw, smart app controlled, 7.5m tethered cable. Brilliant.
>> I wouldn’t plug an EV into
>> an internal socket, they’re a fire hazard due to the heavy current, which internal sockets
>> were never really designed for.
I have used my granny charger at home and at my Mums, on ordinary sockets in garages. They barely even get warm, even after 12 hours plus charging my ID5 after the 200 mile drive to Mum's. "It all depends" applies heavily to this. My granny is an OEM Nissan one, limited to 10a.
|
|
Did he uprate your cable from consumer unit to charger or was it already up to spec? I had an old PodPoint which packed up and that was the smaller size unit (3kW? - 16A) but fortunately had been installed on the proper cable, so when it came to swapping it I d-i-y'd it.
|
>> Did he uprate your cable from consumer unit to charger or was it already up
>> to spec? I had an old PodPoint which packed up and that was the smaller
>> size unit (3kW? - 16A) but fortunately had been installed on the proper cable, so
>> when it came to swapping it I d-i-y'd it.
>>
He didn't replace it so must have been up to spec. He did replace the whatever it is in the small box between the consumer unit and the charger, as that was only rated to 16a and it needed to be 32a. Or something. I dunno, electrics are beyond me, hence getting a man to do it. He has given me a proper conformity certificate for the installation.
|
|
That'll be the isolator, which I'm missing, presumably weren't in the spec back when I had mine fitted...
|
>> That'll be the isolator, which I'm missing, presumably weren't in the spec back when I
>> had mine fitted...
There was one fitted when my 3kw PodPoint was installed in 2017. I guess we still can't post pictures on here? I'd put one up of my set-up if we could.
|
>> That'll be the isolator, which I'm missing, presumably weren't in the spec back when I had mine fitted... >>
It may be something like the isolators fitted with my solar panels back in 2011 - great big rotary (not tumbler) switches which have never rotated since 2011.
|
Likewise Andrew-T, except mine have moved during two periods in that time when I had to have inverters replaced (a warranty replacement which failed within about a year).
Have you managed to get through on your orig inverter? (Excuse the thread drift :-) )
|
>> Likewise Andrew-T, except mine have moved during two periods in that time when I had to have inverters replaced (a warranty replacement which failed within about a year).
>>
>> Have you managed to get through on your orig inverter? (Excuse the thread drift :-) ) >>
No need to apologise for drift, Smokie ! My system is approaching 15 years since installation and is so far untouched, except for an occasional wipe-over the panels by me. But it only has 9 panels on a SunnyBoy inverter limited to 2kW, which it occasionally used to reach at peak mid-morning when I was looking. Haven't seen that for several years now, but I'm hoping I might after the recent work on neighbour's trees.
Last edited by: Andrew-T on Thu 13 Aug 26 at 17:27
|
‘ What about the cost of a home charger, around £1500 I understand?’
More like £1000 for a standard install, but it’s there for all subsequent EV’s.
|
Going back to SLO's original post. "We pay 4.99p pkwh to charge overnight".
Our neighbour has just got a new ID3. I doubt it will do high miles as he WFH and they have an old diesel Mercedes as well. At present he charges it via a 13A plug socket as on his calculation, he won't save anything on an EV tariff as the "normal" leccy will be more expensive. Obviously that calculation will vary from user to user, but it's a factor that seems to get overlooked by EV owners when quoting costs.
|
“Our neighbour has just got a new ID3. I doubt it will do high miles as he WFH and they have an old diesel Mercedes as well. At present he charges it via a 13A plug socket as on his calculation, he won't save anything on an EV tariff as the "normal" leccy will be more expensive. Obviously that calculation will vary from user to user, but it's a factor that seems to get overlooked by EV owners when quoting costs.”
Agree. A low mileage user would possibly be best on a normal rate deal. It’s a calculation that every individual has to make. For us, on 18/20k a year it’s cheaper, plus I run the washing machine and dryer at night. We have smart charging through the app, so we often get cheap lekky for much longer than the guaranteed 6hrs a night. As soon as I notice the car charging, I pop everything else on. We often get 8hrs plus at 4.99p pkwh.
|
I did this calculation a few weeks ago, based on then diesel prices, my diesel fuel consumption versus 7p per kW/h and 4 miles per kW/h efficiency.
I input our current electricity consumption and tariff, and below c5000 miles pa it was cheaper to stay on a regular tariff. More than that over the course of a year and a dedicated EV tariff paid off.
There is a variable in that if you’re on an EV tariff you could load shift heavy consumption items to the reduced cost of overnight electricity.
Add in solar and a battery, and someone else can do the sums.
|
Mcb that’s very interesting.
I am thinking of going PHEV or EV for next car, I work from home and maybe only do 8000 miles at the most. Some weeks it literally might not move for 3 or 4 days.
I have often wondered if an EV tariff would cost me overall for total electricity use. Yes I could move washing machine and dishwasher to during the night but they at most get 2 uses a week each.
|
I put the figures through ChatGPT, but diesel then was the best part of 30p per litre than it is now.
I’d imagine it’d be less than 5000 miles now.
|
Another negative elec cost day from 10:30 - 16:00 today (Octopus Agile) - daughter is with us and has taken 31.55 kWh from us on which I've made 83.2p :-)
Cheap again daytime tomorrow (under 3p from 9:30 - 15:00) but I can't use it as I'm not here!! :-(
Dog, I have an OHME charger, very good they are too!!
Last edited by: smokie on Sat 8 Aug 26 at 19:15
|
“I am thinking of going PHEV or EV for next car, I work from home and maybe only do 8000 miles at the most. Some weeks it literally might not move for 3 or 4 days.
I have often wondered if an EV tariff would cost me overall for total electricity use. Yes I could move washing machine and dishwasher to during the night but they at most get 2 uses a week each.”
Factoring in higher depreciation and the likelihood that you won’t save on an EV tariff and it’s borderline whether an EV would save you anything. That said, I’d still pick one based on merit over a petrol or diesel anyway. They’re quick, smooth and reliable. As a mode of transport they’re brilliant, and usually more spacious inside thanks to better packaging.
|
>> I did this calculation a few weeks ago, based on then diesel prices, my diesel
>> fuel consumption versus 7p per kW/h and 4 miles per kW/h efficiency.
>> I input our current electricity consumption and tariff, and below c5000 miles pa it was
>> cheaper to stay on a regular tariff. More than that over the course of a
>> year and a dedicated EV tariff paid off.
>>
>> There is a variable in that if you’re on an EV tariff you could load
>> shift heavy consumption items to the reduced cost of overnight electricity.
>>
>> Add in solar and a battery, and someone else can do the sums.
>>
>>
yes i think if you don't do many miles and don't want or can use electricity in the night it's pretty marginal.
|
Adding to SLO’s verdict, I can also vouch for the ID.3 58 kWh as a second hand buy. Our 2011 Golf 2.0 TDI came off worst in a motorway confrontation with a deer at the end of 2025.
Call me old fashioned, but I don’t like buying cars on monthly plans, so we opted for what we could afford. My current role involves daily mileage of 80-120 miles and we already had a home charger fitted, courtesy of having a company car via a former employer.
We’ve had the ID.3 for seven months now and it hasn’t put a foot wrong. Bought with 98k on the clock and now on 109k. I know I’m taking a chance in some respects, but it’ll still do >200 miles on a charge and there’s no turbo, DPF, DMF or other engine parts to worry about. Yes, an issue with the HV battery could be costly, but there are increasing numbers of independent specialists who can replace individual modules and Cleevely EV is local to us.
Cost per mile on electric is around 1p in summer and 2p in winter, so even with Rachel from accounts adding her (initially) 3p per mile charge from 2028, it’s still less than half the cost per mile for fuel than petrol or diesel. >90% of our charging is at home, so an occasional over-priced fast charge in the wild isn’t too crippling.
I do occasionally miss the old TDI Golf’s ability to cover huge distances on a tank. A highlight was Gloucestershire to Spa (Belgium) and back on one tank of diesel. ~800 miles there and back. Wasn’t in a rush, so cruising at 65 mph.
Hopefully the ID.3 will prove as dependable as the Golf was over the 14 years we ran it.
|
‘Ours is a double socket, with a direct circuit to the breaker box. If you feel the three pin plug while it's charging, it's roasting hot. I wouldn't want that inside. The 7kwh wall charger generates no heat however.’
Can you change the output on the box that’s on the granny cable, or the charging rate of the car from the car’s screen?
Is it set at 10 amps, which is the safe limit?
|
>> Can you change the output on the box that’s on the granny cable, or the charging rate of the car from the car’s screen? Is it set at 10 amps, which is the safe limit? >>
That would be similar to boiling a kettle continuously, so I suppose things could get a bit warm. I still don't think they should !
|
“ Can you change the output on the box that's on the granny cable, or the charging rate of the car from the car's screen?
Is it set at 10 amps, which is the safe limit?”
You can set it to 2 or 3kw. It’s safe enough plugged in outside, but I wouldn’t want it in the house. I occasionally see cars plugged in through letter boxes and open windows. For the small cost of installing an outdoor socket it’s not worth it.
|
There is a specific British Standard for sockets intended to charge PHEV’s and EV’s on a granny charger - it’s BS1363-2 (the usual standard for sockets), but if they’ve gone through testing to carry a sustained current for many hours at a time, they also carry an ‘EV’ marking on the back plate.
They’re only available as single sockets.
|
‘ You can set it to 2 or 3kw. It’s safe enough plugged in outside, but I wouldn’t want it in the house. I occasionally see cars plugged in through letter boxes and open windows. For the small cost of installing an outdoor socket it’s not worth it.’
Even on an outside socket I’d be charging at 2kW (9 amps) rather than running the plug and socket flat out at 3kW (13 amps) for hours on end, to keep temperatures down. A 2.3kW (10 amps) setting would be a good balance between charging speed and thermal management.
|
As I mentioned in a post on here in July this happened tho me in Ripon last month so it’s not confined to London. Have just got my car back from repairers. Replacement and bodywork repaint cost a four figure sum which although insured cost me my £250 excess and no doubt an increased renewal premium.
Poor design on VW’s part. No remedy so watch where you park
Apart from that my ID3 has been a great car. Bought from new, now 4 years old 34,000 miles on the clock and no problems.
|
|
Ah, CGN, must have missed that post - that must have been a pain in the neck!
|
|
I echo all your comments SLO, from the point of view of owning the larger ID5 77kwh. Have driven it to the south of France and back from Berkshire twice this year now. Overall superior experience to my diesel estates of old, and I even reckon that an EV can reduce journey times over fossil cars on long journeys like that - just plan to charge the car at your long(ish) stops for food etc. Then you aren't making any dedicated fuel stops at all.
|
Volkswagen - EV adventures - legacylad
