Electric Vehicles EVs

i disagree. if you have a driveway charging facility, the servo recharges will only happy on the long journeys. the home charging/lamppost charging will also improve

On the Kona you can set the distance. I find the “close” setting too far away at 70mph and the “far” setting too near in stop start traffic. Which probably says more about my driving than anything else. But it’s a really useful tool for long motorway driving or stop start traffic.

few of us have jumped on the Kia eNiro lease train and nothing bad to report thusfar. it's a belter of a motor.

Will pm the code

It was about 3-4 weeks for me, but could have been quicker, I just didn’t need the car till the start of the school holidays.

It seems to depend hugely on car availability which is very variable. When i registered (June this year), there were loads of options, whereas at the moment it seems a bit of a dearth of cars available (I’d planned to swap the Kona for something else to try different options, but just don’t have the choice at the moment).

I’ll have a read up.

I’ve signed up to Onto for now and will try it for a bit to see if an EV suits us.

Kia eNiro lease train

It looks good. Did you lease direct through Kia?

nope, i went via this lot but other providers may give you a better deal.

I was meaning at places like service stations where most people are there and filling up because they're on a long journey.

Surely it's still 10x the chargers, just some of them are on the street.

and because they can't fill up at home. i don't know the figures, but surely 90%+ of the journeys made in EVs are not requiring a recharge to complete?

or in people's houses...

I'm sure it's more like 99%+ of journeys don't require a recharge but if you're stopping at a service station there's a pretty good chance you're on a long journey and need a charge.

Obviously most services do have a lot of space so it shouldn't be that big an issue in that aspect, but I guess it may be in actually getting enough power there.

How far back does it keep you?

I can change it between 4 settings. I use the second closest on the MWay. Any bigger and someone will sneak I to the gap.

Re the eNiro:

I can put a 58cm frame gravel bike in the back without removing any components, when the back seats are folded down.

Adding a roof rack and Thule long and thin "torpedo" top box has not really impacted my economy, as measured on this long road trip to Scotland that I am on. This means that I can carry loads of stuff.

My current hotel has put us in a "family" suite in the manor house, not the main building. Which means I can park right outside it, next to a window through which I can run a charging cable. I don't even need the "fire risk" extension cable. Result! Free miles.

I can put a 58cm frame gravel bike in the back without removing any components

Sold!

I would trade some of the range of the Kona for the space of the Niro (as I understand they’re basically the same car with slightly altered bodies)

I have a ID.3 coming in a few weeks , it seemed like they were selling like hot cakes in the week I bought mine .
I was looking for an in stock car( countrywide) , they all went in that week ,so I was told .
My colour choices at the end were grey or dark grey .
Still managed one for late this month or probably wait for ‘71 plate in sept .
I think the balance for electric has been tipped .
So far I’ve learnt a night time charging tariff for me ( few miles) is a waste of time .
Looking forward to it immensely.
Thinking of podpoint for charger , wasn’t going to bother until I read about melted plugs … but wasn’t the Tesla using an extension lead ?

I’m using an extension lead whilst in France because of no charger at our house. We’re actually installing one later this year for when we’re there next year.

It takes 24 hours to do roughly 50%.

The question is why wouldn’t you get a 7Kw charger if you could? They’re only going to become more ubiquitous / more necessary

Also worth noting the “extension” cable im using was specifically created for granny charging and electric car. A normal extension cable reel etc would eventually melt.

Could you link me the one you're using?

What specifically melts on extension leads then? Is it the plug overheating due to a poor connection between the pins and the socket, or is it because people leave the extension lead coiled up and it cooks itself? I thought our UK plugs were designed to take a continuous 13A, not max/peak for short periods.

Sure:

https://toughleads.co.uk/collections/ev-electric-vehicle-extension-leads/products/modulev

It’s usually the coiled reels. They don’t have enough insulation and heat up when used for a long period of time.

The other issue is just cheap stuff. Most house wiring is good enough but cheap extension leads don’t always have the same quality of internals which will lead to overheating.

On paper yes, but since continuous 13A appliances are rare in modern houses you don’t find out where someone’s cheaped out or failed to tighten screws until you plug in an EV charger. Lots of places it can go wrong:

• Bad joints or cheap metal it the socket.
  
• Dirt or corrosion on the pins
  
• Bad joints to the plug pins
  
• Skinny wire in the extension lead
  
• The fuse kicking out more heat than the surrounding plastic can take.
  
  

The last one seems to be the most common.

These cars look great. The e-golfs were a good start for VW but I feel like the ID.3 will take over and really lead the charge for electric vehicles in the UK.