Public charging question

[Ace Rimmer]

Hello

My wife has just picked up a BMW X5 hybrid, we have gone out to the shops and in our town centre car park there are some fast charging points.

The chargers have a 50Kw output but the X5 can only charge at 7Kw.

Will the charger reduce the output automatically or should they not be used for this car?

[jjwilde]

Ace Rimmer said:

Hello

My wife has just picked up a BMW X5 hybrid, we have gone out to the shops and in our town centre car park there are some fast charging points.

The chargers have a 50Kw output but the X5 can only charge at 7Kw.

Will the charger reduce the output automatically or should they not be used for this car?

It will work but it will be very slow. If the charger isn't free it will not be economical to pay for the charge.

[covmutley]

Don't use it. The more evangelical EV types will be posting photos of you 'blocking' a fast charger and lambasting you for not notifying them on plug share.

Being serious, public charging is a pain as far as I'm concerned, so I only do it via ecotricity on motorway journeys. Plus with your hybrid, if you can charge at home, it will cost less than a quid to charge the car anyway. Hardly worth it given the cost of the car.

[poing]

It won't do any harm to the car but if you are paying for it then it probably doesn't work out financially.

Using free chargers is ok but it will irritate the full electric owners who desperately need a charge but the charger is being blocked by something that doesn't really need it.

[BMW330enut]

poing said:

It won't do any harm to the car but if you are paying for it then it probably doesn't work out financially.

Using free chargers is ok but it will irritate the full electric owners who desperately need a charge but the charger is being blocked by something that doesn't really need it.

I find it frustrating that pure ev users often have this view. My wife runs a hybrid now too and completes almost 100% of her journeys on electric. The only reason we didn’t buy a full ev was due to current availability and the fact she never drives more than 10-12 miles, therefore a 7kw battery is perfectly sufficient as long as you can charge each end.

[kambites]

IMO there's nothing fundamentally wrong with plug-in hybrids using public charging points but leaving any car blocking a public charging point for significantly longer than it actually needs to charge is not on. Assuming that you pay per unit time rather than per unit energy (which certainly should be the case?), EV drivers should be happy that PHEV drivers are using the stations because it means more will get built. Effectively the drivers of PHEVs which can only charge at 7kw will be subsidizing the pure EVs which can charge at the full output of the charger.

Edited by kambites on Tuesday 12th February 16:14

[RicksAlfas]

But it's a bit unfair on the EV drivers who need a charge, for a PHEV driver to be topping up their measly battery and then firing up the ICE to drive off.

[kambites]

RicksAlfas said:

But it's a bit unfair on the EV drivers who need a charge, for a PHEV driver to be topping up their measly battery and then firing up the ICE to drive off.

There's a good chance the charger wouldn't be there at all if the PHEV drivers weren't using it though.

[RicksAlfas]

Perhaps so. I have never used one so I don't know how they bill you for usage.

[Heres Johnny]

In general you can't use the real rapid parts of the rapid charger as they use either CCS or Chademo connectors and its unlikely your car will have either.

Some of them also have a fast AC charge cable but there's only one car that can make use of the full capacity of that, and its not a BMW. The trouble is, on many of the chargers that have multiple connectors, using any of the connectors nobbles the others. Not always, the ones in Scotland you can charge on the AC side (which is you) while others can charge on the CCS/Chademo side, assuming you've not blocked them physically.

But, there's plenty more AC charge points, these are the ones where you need your own cable (the ones described above have cables built into the chargers). These are a much safer bet for you. So the rule of thumb I would use is if the charge point has a cable, best of leaving it alone as you possibly can't connect to it anyway, but if it needs you to have your own cable, go for it.

[PaoloMey]

poing said:

It won't do any harm to the car but if you are paying for it then it probably doesn't work out financially.

Using free chargers is ok but it will irritate the full electric owners who desperately need a charge but the charger is being blocked by something that doesn't really need it.

Ups another point against electrical, its summing up

[Heres Johnny]

PaoloMey said:

poing said:

It won't do any harm to the car but if you are paying for it then it probably doesn't work out financially.

Using free chargers is ok but it will irritate the full electric owners who desperately need a charge but the charger is being blocked by something that doesn't really need it.

Ups another point against electrical, its summing up

You misunderstand, probably deliberately - if a rapid charger has time based fees, then it's not good value when you've a small battery and limited by the speed you can take on the charge, just like going for an all you can eat buffet when you're full isn't the smartest move.

[BMW330enut]

RicksAlfas said:

But it's a bit unfair on the EV drivers who need a charge, for a PHEV driver to be topping up their measly battery and then firing up the ICE to drive off.

I don’t agree with that point. The fact her car has an ICE is irrelevant as we choose not to use it. We run it as an electric car so need a charge just as much as the ev driver. Not sure what makes a pure ev charge a higher priority than ours. It’s not really for a complete stranger to dictate to us how we use our car.

I agree on blocking the charger and we do not do this, we can see on the app when it’s charged and we move it if we aren’t leaving anyway.

[poing]

BMW330enut said:

I don’t agree with that point. The fact her car has an ICE is irrelevant as we choose not to use it. We run it as an electric car so need a charge just as much as the ev driver. Not sure what makes a pure ev charge a higher priority than ours. It’s not really for a complete stranger to dictate to us how we use our car.

I agree on blocking the charger and we do not do this, we can see on the app when it’s charged and we move it if we aren’t leaving anyway.

I'm not sure how quickly her car charges but my plug in takes about 2 hours from empty to full, that's the same as a full EV takes because it can rapid charge. The difference is I get about 30 miles and they get about 150.

It's personal choice of course but I've never been selfish enough to charge on a public charger because quite clearly I don't need it as I have a backup built in for when the battery runs out. With the charging structure being as limited as it currently is I'd rather leave them for those that really need them.

[gangzoom]

BMW330enut said:

Not sure what makes a pure ev charge a higher priority than ours. It’s not really for a complete stranger to dictate to us how we use our car.

Quite agree, the pompous self righteous attitudes on most EV forums/FaceBook groups is sickening and why I cannot be bothered with them anymore. Just because you have an EV doesn't mean you have any more right than anyone else to use public services.

Use what ever charger you want to charge what you you want, as long as your paying the required amount.

But to be honest in the last 4 years of EV ownership I think the state of public charging is WORSE not better. Aside from Tesla Superchargers I have only used public charging once in the UK.

Europe however is a different story, in France anyways every village seemed to have multiple 22KW AC chargers and at very reasonable cost.

To the OP, no you don't need to worry about damaging the car. If you can get the plug to fit it'll charge fine - Apart from Tesla Superchargers.

Edited by gangzoom on Tuesday 12th February 22:50

[skyrover]

Another reason why full EV is a non starter... pun intended

[Edinburger]

BMW330enut said:

RicksAlfas said:

But it's a bit unfair on the EV drivers who need a charge, for a PHEV driver to be topping up their measly battery and then firing up the ICE to drive off.

I don’t agree with that point. The fact her car has an ICE is irrelevant as we choose not to use it. We run it as an electric car so need a charge just as much as the ev driver. Not sure what makes a pure ev charge a higher priority than ours. It’s not really for a complete stranger to dictate to us how we use our car.

I agree on blocking the charger and we do not do this, we can see on the app when it’s charged and we move it if we aren’t leaving anyway.

Agreed. I also have a 330e but if I can charge it when I'm out and about then I will. I was charging in Glasgow recently and when I returned to my car a bloke was putting a note under my windscreen wiper. I was in a public parking space, charging, with a 2 hour maximum. His note said "Do not park your PHEV here and leave the space for full EV drivers" or words to that effect. So as I caught him, I asked what gives you more right to this space then me? he tried to justify himself but he had no argument. In that case, I had paid £8.30 for parking and it's 'free' charge but it's first come, first served as far as I'm concerned.

[RicksAlfas]

OK, looks like I'm in the minority with this one, but it still seems selfish to me.

[EddieSteadyGo]

This thread needs that PHEV driver from a few months ago, who was boasting on here about vandalising someone's else EV, as he suspected they had vandalised his car by pouring coffee into the charging port. Talk about life being too short..

Regardless of the rights and wrongs, I think we can all agree public charging outside of Tesla system is pretty woeful and needs to be significantly improved.

It is too complicated, too unreliable, and massively short of capacity.

Gangzoom had it right a few weeks ago, when he commented that the biggest issue with EV's isn't range anxiety but charger anxiety.

[essayer]

EV driver here. Personally I have no objection to a PHEV using a rapid charger. Just don't hog it; stick around and wait until it's full, then leave. (Same for EVs!)

7kW chargers, fair game; leave it on as long as you like.

EddieSteadyGo said:

[Gangzoom]..the biggest issue with EV's isn't range anxiety but charger anxiety.

absolutely