public chargers
Discussion
sorry if this has come up already,
recently bought a new 330e
unfortunately the charging points at my residence are not in service yet
ive used the public charge point at a few places , and they only allow maximum stay of 90 mins
my car needs around 3 hours to charge fully
does anyone know of any charge point companies that dont have a 90 min limit before you get a penalty,
or is this how all public chargers are?
recently bought a new 330e
unfortunately the charging points at my residence are not in service yet
ive used the public charge point at a few places , and they only allow maximum stay of 90 mins
my car needs around 3 hours to charge fully
does anyone know of any charge point companies that dont have a 90 min limit before you get a penalty,
or is this how all public chargers are?
Ok, a few things here:
There are two types of public charger: AC (slow) and DC (fast).
AC slow chargers will charge at 7, 11 or 22 kW.
DC fast chargers will charge at 50kW or higher.
DC fast chargers may have a maximum stay of 60 or 90 mins, as that should be plenty for most EVs and they don't want a car left parked indefinitely blocking the charger.
The problem is your BMW can only charge at 11kW (and likely 7kW in most cases), so you're using a fast charger but can only take a slow speed. Hence needing longer than the max allowed time.
The answer is to seek out AC chargers (7, 11 & 22 kW) near you here https://www.zap-map.com/live/ (yellow and orange markers), which should give you the 3 hours you need.
These AC chargers are likely cheaper too.
In terms of cost, you need to consider whether petrol or electricity is cheaper, it depends on how far your car goes on a gallon of petrol vs on a kilowatt-hour of electricity. If you get 45mpg on petrol and 3 miles/kWh on electricity, then if the petrol is £1.50 a litre you'd need electricity to be max 45p/kWh to be equal cost.
If/when you can charge at home, that'll definitely be cheaper than petrol.
There are two types of public charger: AC (slow) and DC (fast).
AC slow chargers will charge at 7, 11 or 22 kW.
DC fast chargers will charge at 50kW or higher.
DC fast chargers may have a maximum stay of 60 or 90 mins, as that should be plenty for most EVs and they don't want a car left parked indefinitely blocking the charger.
The problem is your BMW can only charge at 11kW (and likely 7kW in most cases), so you're using a fast charger but can only take a slow speed. Hence needing longer than the max allowed time.
The answer is to seek out AC chargers (7, 11 & 22 kW) near you here https://www.zap-map.com/live/ (yellow and orange markers), which should give you the 3 hours you need.
These AC chargers are likely cheaper too.
In terms of cost, you need to consider whether petrol or electricity is cheaper, it depends on how far your car goes on a gallon of petrol vs on a kilowatt-hour of electricity. If you get 45mpg on petrol and 3 miles/kWh on electricity, then if the petrol is £1.50 a litre you'd need electricity to be max 45p/kWh to be equal cost.
If/when you can charge at home, that'll definitely be cheaper than petrol.
Most supermarket chargers don't have a time limit in my experience, or a parking charge. Unless you're city centre?
Or as others have said, if you can't charge at home or conveniently/cheaply elsewhere, might as well just run it on petrol!
If your work has pushed you towards taking the car, you could push for charging at work or a paid for charge card. If it was paid for you could charge it in less than 10 minutes at a rapid charger...
Or as others have said, if you can't charge at home or conveniently/cheaply elsewhere, might as well just run it on petrol!
If your work has pushed you towards taking the car, you could push for charging at work or a paid for charge card. If it was paid for you could charge it in less than 10 minutes at a rapid charger...
TheDeuce said:
If your work has pushed you towards taking the car, you could push for charging at work or a paid for charge card. If it was paid for you could charge it in less than 10 minutes at a rapid charger...
https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-review/bmw/3-series says 11kW max charge rate so ~2 hours is the shortest it can take for a full charge.samoht said:
TheDeuce said:
If your work has pushed you towards taking the car, you could push for charging at work or a paid for charge card. If it was paid for you could charge it in less than 10 minutes at a rapid charger...
https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-review/bmw/3-series says 11kW max charge rate so ~2 hours is the shortest it can take for a full charge.Phev only really make sense financially if you can charge at home. Granny charger is fine, preferably at a cheap rate.
My wife’s Phev averages well over 150mpg (as the electric usage is excluded from that!).
But we have easy access to cheap stuff & her journeys are usually under the 40 odd mile range.
Would never bother public charging it.
Work chargers?, there are free ones at my occasional work place. Too few. Phev owners get stick for using them! As kind of unnecessary for the minimal saving.
My wife’s Phev averages well over 150mpg (as the electric usage is excluded from that!).
But we have easy access to cheap stuff & her journeys are usually under the 40 odd mile range.
Would never bother public charging it.
Work chargers?, there are free ones at my occasional work place. Too few. Phev owners get stick for using them! As kind of unnecessary for the minimal saving.
samoht said:
Ok, a few things here:
There are two types of public charger: AC (slow) and DC (fast).
AC slow chargers will charge at 7, 11 or 22 kW.
DC fast chargers will charge at 50kW or higher.
DC fast chargers may have a maximum stay of 60 or 90 mins, as that should be plenty for most EVs and they don't want a car left parked indefinitely blocking the charger.
The problem is your BMW can only charge at 11kW (and likely 7kW in most cases), so you're using a fast charger but can only take a slow speed. Hence needing longer than the max allowed time.
The answer is to seek out AC chargers (7, 11 & 22 kW) near you here https://www.zap-map.com/live/ (yellow and orange markers), which should give you the 3 hours you need.
These AC chargers are likely cheaper too.
In terms of cost, you need to consider whether petrol or electricity is cheaper, it depends on how far your car goes on a gallon of petrol vs on a kilowatt-hour of electricity. If you get 45mpg on petrol and 3 miles/kWh on electricity, then if the petrol is £1.50 a litre you'd need electricity to be max 45p/kWh to be equal cost.
If/when you can charge at home, that'll definitely be cheaper than petrol.
The 330e (like many PHEVs) can't use DC chargers.There are two types of public charger: AC (slow) and DC (fast).
AC slow chargers will charge at 7, 11 or 22 kW.
DC fast chargers will charge at 50kW or higher.
DC fast chargers may have a maximum stay of 60 or 90 mins, as that should be plenty for most EVs and they don't want a car left parked indefinitely blocking the charger.
The problem is your BMW can only charge at 11kW (and likely 7kW in most cases), so you're using a fast charger but can only take a slow speed. Hence needing longer than the max allowed time.
The answer is to seek out AC chargers (7, 11 & 22 kW) near you here https://www.zap-map.com/live/ (yellow and orange markers), which should give you the 3 hours you need.
These AC chargers are likely cheaper too.
In terms of cost, you need to consider whether petrol or electricity is cheaper, it depends on how far your car goes on a gallon of petrol vs on a kilowatt-hour of electricity. If you get 45mpg on petrol and 3 miles/kWh on electricity, then if the petrol is £1.50 a litre you'd need electricity to be max 45p/kWh to be equal cost.
If/when you can charge at home, that'll definitely be cheaper than petrol.
RotorRambler said:
Phev only really make sense financially if you can charge at home. Granny charger is fine, preferably at a cheap rate.
My wife’s Phev averages well over 150mpg (as the electric usage is excluded from that!).
But we have easy access to cheap stuff & her journeys are usually under the 40 odd mile range.
Would never bother public charging it.
Work chargers?, there are free ones at my occasional work place. Too few. Phev owners get stick for using them! As kind of unnecessary for the minimal saving.
This all the way.My wife’s Phev averages well over 150mpg (as the electric usage is excluded from that!).
But we have easy access to cheap stuff & her journeys are usually under the 40 odd mile range.
Would never bother public charging it.
Work chargers?, there are free ones at my occasional work place. Too few. Phev owners get stick for using them! As kind of unnecessary for the minimal saving.
And with range rapidly increasing on full EVs, the use cases for PHEVs even when charged at home are diminishing equally rapidly.
Murph7355 said:
RotorRambler said:
Phev only really make sense financially if you can charge at home. Granny charger is fine, preferably at a cheap rate.
My wife’s Phev averages well over 150mpg (as the electric usage is excluded from that!).
But we have easy access to cheap stuff & her journeys are usually under the 40 odd mile range.
Would never bother public charging it.
Work chargers?, there are free ones at my occasional work place. Too few. Phev owners get stick for using them! As kind of unnecessary for the minimal saving.
This all the way.My wife’s Phev averages well over 150mpg (as the electric usage is excluded from that!).
But we have easy access to cheap stuff & her journeys are usually under the 40 odd mile range.
Would never bother public charging it.
Work chargers?, there are free ones at my occasional work place. Too few. Phev owners get stick for using them! As kind of unnecessary for the minimal saving.
And with range rapidly increasing on full EVs, the use cases for PHEVs even when charged at home are diminishing equally rapidly.
The school children will be wide eyed trying to understand that people used to buy cars with a modern motor and also an old fashioned one
Althought as we're living through this part of history, I personally do think that PHEV's are an excellent way to get people used to charging as opposed to clinging to the petrol pump. I would go so far as to support a 5 year extension on their sale in the UK for that reason. It doesn't necessarily make sense, but in terms of feeling secure, people obviously like the idea of the petrol backup.
TheDeuce said:
I'm pretty sure the motoring museums of the future will describe PHEV's as an "unusual and short lived crossover that helped people adapt - as late as 2040 many people were still worried about no longer being able to put flammable fuel in their cars!"
The school children will be wide eyed trying to understand that people used to buy cars with a modern motor and also an old fashioned one
Althought as we're living through this part of history, I personally do think that PHEV's are an excellent way to get people used to charging as opposed to clinging to the petrol pump. I would go so far as to support a 5 year extension on their sale in the UK for that reason. It doesn't necessarily make sense, but in terms of feeling secure, people obviously like the idea of the petrol backup.
Unrelated picture The school children will be wide eyed trying to understand that people used to buy cars with a modern motor and also an old fashioned one
Althought as we're living through this part of history, I personally do think that PHEV's are an excellent way to get people used to charging as opposed to clinging to the petrol pump. I would go so far as to support a 5 year extension on their sale in the UK for that reason. It doesn't necessarily make sense, but in terms of feeling secure, people obviously like the idea of the petrol backup.
ZesPak said:
TheDeuce said:
I'm pretty sure the motoring museums of the future will describe PHEV's as an "unusual and short lived crossover that helped people adapt - as late as 2040 many people were still worried about no longer being able to put flammable fuel in their cars!"
The school children will be wide eyed trying to understand that people used to buy cars with a modern motor and also an old fashioned one
Althought as we're living through this part of history, I personally do think that PHEV's are an excellent way to get people used to charging as opposed to clinging to the petrol pump. I would go so far as to support a 5 year extension on their sale in the UK for that reason. It doesn't necessarily make sense, but in terms of feeling secure, people obviously like the idea of the petrol backup.
Unrelated picture The school children will be wide eyed trying to understand that people used to buy cars with a modern motor and also an old fashioned one
Althought as we're living through this part of history, I personally do think that PHEV's are an excellent way to get people used to charging as opposed to clinging to the petrol pump. I would go so far as to support a 5 year extension on their sale in the UK for that reason. It doesn't necessarily make sense, but in terms of feeling secure, people obviously like the idea of the petrol backup.
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