330e granny charger

[Jimjimhim]

Hello.

I'm looking for a car for my short commute and I think a 2019 G20 330e might be ideal for my needs.

I have off street parking and my house has an outside socket, so I'm thinking I could just use a granny charger rather than get a wall box. I would obviously get an electrician out to check the socket, but I'm wondering if I could leave a granny charger plugged in 24/7 and treat it a bit like a wall box? Does anyone know if this would be safe to do? I would also need to either get the socket moved closer, or get a longer granny cable, if they do such a thing? Thanks

[Stupot123]

Yes a granny charger is fine, on plug in hybrids that would be the most normal way to charge it. Mine is always left plugged in to the wall.

I don't think they charge that much quicker on an actual wall box anyway.

I actually slow down the charge rate, there is an option in the idrive, so that the load on the socket is even less. As long as its charged the next morning I'm happy.

[Jimjimhim]

I think a wall box is half the time, but I wouldn't need it to charge up more quickly, like you say overnight is fine. My main question really is leaving the granny charger out side all of the time, is this something that anyone else does?

[sixor8]

Seeing as the cheapest wall box chargers are over £800 fitted (unless there's a market on used ones yet?), you'd need to get an awful lot of cheap rate charging for it to be worth it!

I'm using a granny charge on my EV with a 6k mile a year allowance. That's under £200 worth of charging on the cheap night rate I have! I have a weather protected outside spur put in by the previous house owner, I leave the cable plugged into it and connect to the car when I'm finished for the day, the onboard schedule starts at 00:30 ad stops at 04:30.

[Zarco]

Stupot123 said:

I actually slow down the charge rate, there is an option in the idrive, so that the load on the socket is even less. As long as its charged the next morning I'm happy.

That sounds sensible. One of our external sockets got a bit melted charging our X3 xdrive30e. Not sure what happened as we'd been charging it in a similar manner from a different socket (and a different house!) for months with no issue.

We have a Zappi fitted now so not worried about a repeat. This is in anticipation of a EV company car in the future.

[Jimjimhim]

I would get an electrician around to check the socket that I plan on using. Do you have to use the granny charger that comes with the car, or can you get a longer aftermarket one? My plan would be to leave it permanently plugged in at the side of the house and have the car end of the cable tucked out of sight when not in use.

[clockworks]

Jimjimhim said:

I think a wall box is half the time, but I wouldn't need it to charge up more quickly, like you say overnight is fine. My main question really is leaving the granny charger out side all of the time, is this something that anyone else does?

I leave my Volvo granny charger plugged in all the time. 6 months since I bought the car, no problems.

I'm using the charger with a Toughleads 10 metre extension lead, which has a waterproof socket. The extension lead is plugged into a Tapo smart plug, into a relatively new socket on the garage ring main.

I have set the car to only charge between 00:30 and 04:30 ( Octopus Go cheap rate) using the Volvo app.
The Tapo socket only becomes live between 00:15 and 04:45, scheduled with the Tapo app.

The Tapo is really just there to give me electricity consumption data.

If I want to charge during the day, it's easy to override the schedule times.

[Jimjimhim]

Thanks for that, it sounds perfect. It's difficult to justify a £1000 wall box for a hybrid. My car usage is often a journey of just a few miles so I think a hybrid would work well. My budget doesn't really stretch to an electric car, well not one that I would actually want to own!

[CG2020UK]

We have a 2023 and only ever use a normal outdoor socket.

We charge it every day and never had an issue.

Even if we went full electric next (likely) I’d still probably just keep using the granny charger and be fine.

[Jimjimhim]

It's good to hear that others are using granny chargers and are leaving them plugged in to the wall socket 24/7

I think a 330e might work well for my fairly frequent short drives.