Charging options for an i3

[272BHP]

About to take delivery of a BMW i3 and this will be my first experience of an electric car.

However, I am starting to think I haven't thought this through. Car does 5k miles a year on 90% short journeys so that is all well and good but although I have a drive, I don't have a smart meter fitted (they came out twice to fit one 2 years ago but never bothered in the end as our original meter/supply was problematic) does this matter?

I would be looking into getting an external wall charging unit but maybe the issue with our non standard meter/supply) would prevent this?

[Grebby]

Lack of smart meter not a problem for me. I have a 7kW charger installed,

[272BHP]

Oh great! I have been given duff information by someone then - I was told a smart meter was essential.

[anonymous-user]

No smart meter here either and I have a 7kW charger

You might want look at your main fuse and, if it is lower rated than 80A, think about contacting your DNO about swapping it up to 80 or 100

[Chris-S]

The question is who said not having a smart meter would be a problem? If it’s the company installing the charger saying that, then yes, it’s a problem!

I too have a 7kW charger, I also happen to have a smart meter, but the question never came up when I had the installation done, the only thing that they asked was did I have a spare way in the consumer unit.

The rules keep changing, what was fine 6 months ago might not be any longer so get a definitive answer from the charger installers, not some random bloke on the interwebs . (And yes, I get I am that random bloke on the interwebs)

[MOBB]

We ran our i3 and Tesla for 3 months on the standard 3 pin

Wasn’t an issue for our mainly under 100 mile days

[Frimley111R]

As an installer I can tell you that you do not need a Smart meter. You need a spare space on your fuse box (consumer unit) and ideally some soft ground to put the earth spike in. The rules have changed twice in the past year but nothing it due until August when, hopefully, earth spikes will not be required, but that's a big 'hopefully'.

[SWoll]

We've consistently done 1250 miles a month for the past 9 months in ours only using a 3 pin granny charger. You really don't need a dedicated 7kW for 5k per year. 100 miles+ per day then it would be a different answer.

Just get an external socket fitted and a dribox. Job done.

[agent006]

272BHP said:

Oh great! I have been given duff information by someone then - I was told a smart meter was essential.

I suspect they're confused with the OLEV grant now requiring a smart charger.

[272BHP]

Thanks for the answers, thats a load of my mind.

Haven't looked into external units yet who does everyone recommend?

[MOBB]

I went for an eo mini as I wanted a clean look, they are quite a bit smaller than the competition

No issues so far

[Heres Johnny]

Its possible that they may be talking about a "smart charger" as I think to get the gov grant the charge point must be an approved one and report statistics to the gov (not sure of the exact details nowadays) . But thats still not really a problem, the installaer should take care of it all for you.

[Frimley111R]

SWoll said:

We've consistently done 1250 miles a month for the past 9 months in ours only using a 3 pin granny charger. You really don't need a dedicated 7kW for 5k per year. 100 miles+ per day then it would be a different answer.

Just get an external socket fitted and a dribox. Job done.

This can work for some people but it may be prudent to get a home charger with the £500 from the government now, just in case they decide to withdraw it. It doesn't look likely tbh but then it is the government we are talking about here.

[SWoll]

Frimley111R said:

SWoll said:

We've consistently done 1250 miles a month for the past 9 months in ours only using a 3 pin granny charger. You really don't need a dedicated 7kW for 5k per year. 100 miles+ per day then it would be a different answer.

Just get an external socket fitted and a dribox. Job done.

This can work for some people but it may be prudent to get a home charger with the £500 from the government now, just in case they decide to withdraw it. It doesn't look likely tbh but then it is the government we are talking about here.

Maybe, but If you're only doing 400 miles a month and can 3-pin charge at home I really think it's just throwing money up the wall. At an average of 10-15 miles per day of required range you could either charge for 2 hours a night or give it a full charge at the weekend which would be more than sufficient. As I say we do 3 times that mileage and have never had an issue using 3-pin in 9 months of use. It only gets public charging if we happen to be somewhere with an available charger we can use for free.

[Evanivitch]

agent006 said:

272BHP said:

Oh great! I have been given duff information by someone then - I was told a smart meter was essential.

I suspect they're confused with the OLEV grant now requiring a smart charger.

That'll be it.

Or potentially they considered the expense of 15p/kWh too expensive and think overnight low-rates are essential. Which they're not!

[Fingers52]

Hi

I also have an i3 and went to considerable expense to get a smart charger. Due to several 'issues' I am not using the 'smart' bit of the meter. However if you download the BMW connected app you can set up the car to charge at whatever time you want (off-peak in the early morning for example) and for a set period of time. This works very well for us as we are on a variable tariff with Octopus so get the charging at low cost.

with the app you can also pre-condition the car (while it is still plugged in), which is great on cold mornings.

I have yet to get an answer from the charge-point supplier if you could do all that while using the 'smart' bit of the charger.

[nickpan]

I’ve been running a cable over the pavement in central London for 3 years, using a 13 amp socket, and have successfully completed 20,000 miles in my i3 using this approach.

[uknick]

Fingers52 said:

Hi

I also have an i3 and went to considerable expense to get a smart charger. Due to several 'issues' I am not using the 'smart' bit of the meter. However if you download the BMW connected app you can set up the car to charge at whatever time you want (off-peak in the early morning for example) and for a set period of time. This works very well for us as we are on a variable tariff with Octopus so get the charging at low cost.

with the app you can also pre-condition the car (while it is still plugged in), which is great on cold mornings.

I have yet to get an answer from the charge-point supplier if you could do all that while using the 'smart' bit of the charger.

Or, you could ignore the app and do it all using the in car menus.

I agree it's more convenient doing it with the app, but due to its unreliability it's worth learning the car menus.

[untruth]

We're using 3 pin everywhere we finish our trips and have found it more than enough. I'm finding it can reach a complete charge overnight in most cases. Rapids we use to join up the long journeys.

Like others here, it has made me think twice about getting a dedicated charger! I can't imagine 'needing' one unless I'm doing 100 miles a day... not to say I won't get one... but try the 3 pin life and see how many times you're caught short.