Potentially moving to EV for daily.. need help?

[Planetstank]

Hi guys

So our Range Rover will need to be going soon, brilliant workhorse. It’s hit 113k miles so time to go before it becomes even more worthless. EU6 model 3.0d, will get to the south of France on pretty much one full tank from Dover.

One question.

How long, and how much is it to charge a model 3 at let’s say, a shell charge station?


Would it drive me to insanity or actually be quite pleasant?

TIA

[Zigster]

Depends.

Chargers vary widely. If you have a Tesla Model 3, Superchargers are typically either 150kW or 250kW. A 150kW charger should add 50kWh in 20 mins (reality is not quite as simple as that). I paid £0.55/kWh last night, but that does seem a little more expensive than usual - about £0.40 seems more typical.

French autoroutes have a good network of Superchargers so lots of opportunities for a charge on a trip to the south of France.

Shell Recharge is a bit more varied. I think some can be as slow as 7kW which is okay for an overnight stay but not going to be a lot of help when travelling. I’m staying at my sister’s this weekend and the Shell recharge in the next town is 22kW (and apparently only £0.25/kWh) which is good if you’re stopping for a couple of hours (say for lunch). There is another Shell Recharge station just off the nearby motorway which is 150kW but charges £0.85/kWh.

Most EV owners (me included) will generally charge at home - a full charge overnight from as little as £0.07/kWh. So public charging cost and speed isn’t a huge factor unless you are regularly doing, say 250 miles plus in a day.

[sawman]

I have had a volvo ev for the last couple of months, i normally cover about 70 miles 2-3 days a week and shorter the other days, i can keep it topped up on cheap rate octopus electric overnight. For that its fine.

Recently did a return trip newcastle to edinburgh. The car told me i was going to be 7% short so i had to stop for my 1st experience of charging in the wild.
I probably stopped for longer than necessary ( stil getting used to the car) and put a bit more in than needed, but sitting in a chef and brewer carpark off the A1 was pretty dull. And on the fly charging is brutally expensive. If doing a long trip and relying on chargers it would be cheaper to take the tvr

Caveat: tesla may be more efficient than my volvo xc40, and have longer range

Edited by sawman on Saturday 3rd February 08:10

[ajap1979]

sawman said:

I have had a volvo ev for the last couple of months, i normally cover about 70 miles 2-3 days a week and shorter the other days, i can keep it topped up on cheap rate octopus electric overnight. For that its fine.

Recently did a return trip newcastle to edinburgh. The car told me i was going to be 7% short so i had to stop for my 1st experience of charging in the wild.
I probably stopped for longer than necessary ( stil getting used to the car) and put a bit more in than needed, but sitting in a chef and brewer carpark off the A1 was pretty dull. And on the fly charging is brutally expensive. If doing a long trip and relying on chargers it would be cheaper to take the tvr

Caveat: tesla may be more efficient than my volvo xc40, and have longer range

Edited by sawman on Saturday 3rd February 08:10

How fast was the charger?

This is where experience and strategy comes in to play. Newcastle to Edinburgh round trip is approx. 240 miles. There are six 350kW Ionity chargers just off the A1 at Alnwick. If you can take advantage of the XC40s max charge rate of 150kW, then you’ll put 25kWh in in 10 minutes, so 75+ miles. Granted that 25kW will cost you about £18, but factor in the cost of the 100% charge before you left and the journey cost is going to be pretty reasonable.

Alternatively, sitting on a pub car park for hours while it drips 7kWh is going to be pretty boring, and not the way an EV should be used unless you like frustration and wasting time.

[autumnsum]

Planetstank said:

Hi guys

One question.

How long, and how much is it to charge a model 3 at let’s say, a shell charge station?

TIA

You probably would not be charging a Tesla at a shell charge station, Tesla have their own network, and it's the best & cheapest network.

[sawman]

ajap1979 said:

sawman said:

I have had a volvo ev for the last couple of months, i normally cover about 70 miles 2-3 days a week and shorter the other days, i can keep it topped up on cheap rate octopus electric overnight. For that its fine.

Recently did a return trip newcastle to edinburgh. The car told me i was going to be 7% short so i had to stop for my 1st experience of charging in the wild.
I probably stopped for longer than necessary ( stil getting used to the car) and put a bit more in than needed, but sitting in a chef and brewer carpark off the A1 was pretty dull. And on the fly charging is brutally expensive. If doing a long trip and relying on chargers it would be cheaper to take the tvr

Caveat: tesla may be more efficient than my volvo xc40, and have longer range

Edited by sawman on Saturday 3rd February 08:10

How fast was the charger?

This is where experience and strategy comes in to play. Newcastle to Edinburgh round trip is approx. 240 miles. There are six 350kW Ionity chargers just off the A1 at Alnwick. If you can take advantage of the XC40s max charge rate of 150kW, then you’ll put 25kWh in in 10 minutes, so 75+ miles. Granted that 25kW will cost you about £18, but factor in the cost of the 100% charge before you left and the journey cost is going to be pretty reasonable.

Alternatively, sitting on a pub car park for hours while it drips 7kWh is going to be pretty boring, and not the way an EV should be used unless you like frustration and wasting time.

Think it was a 50kw at dunbar. I was considering trying the tesla chargers at purdy lodge.
Overall i like the ev , but i am sure it wouldnt be my solution if i did regular long drives.

[arkitan]

sawman said:

I have had a volvo ev for the last couple of months, i normally cover about 70 miles 2-3 days a week and shorter the other days, i can keep it topped up on cheap rate octopus electric overnight. For that its fine.

Recently did a return trip newcastle to edinburgh. The car told me i was going to be 7% short so i had to stop for my 1st experience of charging in the wild.
I probably stopped for longer than necessary ( stil getting used to the car) and put a bit more in than needed, but sitting in a chef and brewer carpark off the A1 was pretty dull. And on the fly charging is brutally expensive. If doing a long trip and relying on chargers it would be cheaper to take the tvr

Caveat: tesla may be more efficient than my volvo xc40, and have longer range

Edited by sawman on Saturday 3rd February 08:10

Sawman, if you were only 7% short you surely only needed to add around 10% (for a safely margin) to get you home and then leave the car to fully charge cheaply (and slowly) once you were back?

That would take about 4 minutes in my KIA and not cost much even at public rates. Please tell me you didn't recharge all the way to 80% or more?


It would still work out way cheaper than a TVR btw.

Your use sounds a lot like mine,60miles a day 3-4 days a week, occasional (1-2x/ month) 215 mile round trips, sometimes have to go back to work unexpectedly in the night.

The longest I ever have to stop to top up is 10minutes. I have never had to resort to using the 997

Edited by arkitan on Saturday 3rd February 10:03

[andy43]

As it’s a Tesla I’d just use superchargers wherever possible. Shell will vary wildly depending on location.
Supercharger - plug in, walk away, and it’s doing its thing within a few seconds. Could be cheaper too.
Europe, certainly France anyway, won’t be a problem at all. I did first did France, Spain, Portugal in 2020 and things will have moved on considerably since then.
Make sure you have claimed your car ok on the Tesla app before collection if possible - if buying used it’s incredibly time consuming getting your car linked to your Tesla account if the previous owner hasn't removed it from their account.

[sawman]

said:

Yes, with the benefit of hindsight i probably added more than i needed.

[AKjr]

sawman said:

said:

Yes, with the benefit of hindsight i probably added more than i needed.

I've done that on the few times that I have been out on a longer journey in my XC40 twin - it costs a bit more but there's no point losing any sleep over it as there's still significant fuel savings based on my cheap rate at home (or plugging it in at work for free )

[gmaz]

Planetstank said:

How long, and how much is it to charge a model 3 at let’s say, a shell charge station?


Would it drive me to insanity or actually be quite pleasant?

TIA

Moving to an EV takes a different mindset than you may be used to, i.e. popping down to the filling station to top up. Being able to charge at home, overnight is massively convenient. It's clean, cheap and quick (plugging in) but you should budget for a charger at about £1000 fitted, and look at changing your electricity supplier to an EV rate such as Intelligent Octopus..

You get home, plug in, and in the morning have about 320 miles range for about £5.

For longer journeys, the Tesla will plan your recharging stops, most of which will be under 30 mins. Here's your example of Dover to the South of France

[arkitan]

AKjr said:

sawman said:

said:

Yes, with the benefit of hindsight i probably added more than i needed.

I've done that on the few times that I have been out on a longer journey in my XC40 twin - it costs a bit more but there's no point losing any sleep over it as there's still significant fuel savings based on my cheap rate at home (or plugging it in at work for free )

Yes me too, recently because the car recharged to my needed level much faster than I could drink my coffee (I made the mistake of not asking for a takeout cup.)

However it makes the point that in a lot of cases the cars recharging speed is no longer the limiting factor which is very impressive.

[James6112]

Or £599 for EV charger :-
https://marketing.powerverse.com/powerverse-januar...

[curvature]

I've just made the swap over to an an iX3 having previously had a 640d, 330d and before them a 318d.

All of the diesel cars would do 600 miles on a tank whereas the iX3 I think is low to mid 200's so as others have said a change in mindset is required.

I now have a 7kW charger at home but for the first three weeks I was using a local Ionity charge station. Normal rate is around 80p kWh but I have a BMW card that gets me this for 40p kWh. I did also use the standard 13amp plug in charger which would add a few miles overnight.

I have done 3 longer journeys of over 200 miles and only on one did I charge whilst out. I stopped at the services by Rugby off the M6 for about 20mins and added around 70 miles range.

As long as you can get yourself adjusted to driving a vehicle with shorter range I don't think you will have any issues. When I now get in my wife's X3 M40d it feels really unrefined.