Fast Charger cable - economically viable?

As a complete newbie with a 2016 GX4h in my possession for just 2 days, I would appreciate advice/views on whether a Fast charger cable for public charging points is worth buying. I automatically thought so but did some maths - I'm sure I am wrong so welcome correction! My usage will be to charge overnight at home with a regular commute of 10 miles, lots of local trips and around 9000 miles per year total including a reasonable number of 100-200 mile journeys.

Cable cost approx £200
Pure petrol consumption 45mpg (based on what I have read on this forum
At approx £1.13 per gallon, petrol cost is 2.5p per mile
Free 1 hour charge at Asda (who shops for longer?) gives approx 10 miles of charge
10 miles saves 25p of fuel
Need approx 800 one hour visits (or 266 three hour visits) to free charger to justify cost of cable.

That's a minimum of about 5 years of Asda (or similar) visits to justify the cable cost, and I accept that the numbers above can be adjusted to varying degrees.
If I use payable charging, I can see that this begins to pay back the cable cost faster compared to buying fuel but still a lot of visits.

So is a Type 2 to Type 1 cable actually worth buying? :?

I am also questioning the value of installing a tethered charge station at home - faster than the supplied cable but is it a popular option at a cost of around £200 after the grant.

Thanks

This PHEV likes to be slow charged in the night before the daily commute will start

Fast charge, that is still over 30min, sounds a waste of time for get 15miles of EV range, also fast charge does arm the PHEV battery

elm70 said:

Fast charge, that is still over 30min, sounds a waste of time for get 15miles of EV range, also fast charge does arm the PHEV battery

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Pretty sure, TS is talking about "away from home 16 amps AC charging", not "DC charging". These UK folks call the latter rapid charging, if I am not mistaken ;-)

anko said:

elm70 said:

Fast charge, that is still over 30min, sounds a waste of time for get 15miles of EV range, also fast charge does arm the PHEV battery

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Pretty sure, TS is talking about "away from home 16 amps AC charging", not "DC charging". These UK folks call the latter rapid charging, if I am not mistaken ;-)

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Right .. when I read Fast Charging .. I think ChadeMo ...

But this is not looking the case. And yes .. 1 hour charge at 3kw rate .. does allow more or less 10 extra miles of range
And yes, at 3kw charge rate the battery does not get armed like using Chademo

Anyhow .. in the "value" calculation above it would be needed to know if the PHEV when go to "Asda " does have enough EV range for make the day usage without start ICE .. or not. if can be avoided to start ICE, the economical benefit is greater

Also ... the value of the cable should be consider what will be the selling price of it after X year of usage when the PHEV may be sold and this cable may be no more needed

Personally .. I find annoying to carry any extra cable or charge box in my PHEV boot .. I just charge at home .. in case there is always petrol in the tank ... not everything should be dictated by be "economical" .. but should be practical too.

elm70 said:

Right .. when I read Fast Charging .. I think ChadeMo ...

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Same here ...

elm70 said:

... not everything should be dictated by be "economical" .. but should be practical too.

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Let's not forget the environment either. Personally, I believe that when you accept tax brakes for driving a plug-in vehicle, you should drive the vehicle as a plug-in too. To a certain extend, regardless of economics and practicality

I've bought a cable, I didn't buy it because it was economical to do so, I bought it because I wanted to charge at my local Sainsbury's and embrace the EV side of things.

I've got a cable because I calculated it will pay for itself within two months - I have a 22 mile drive to work, where I can charge on a type 2 so I can then also do the 22 miles home all on battery.

My cable, from evcables, I recall was only around £140 for a 5m 16amp cable, so that helps the economics in your calculation. I would also use 35mpg rather than 45mpg as that is much nearer the mark for petrol only. I personally see around 37mpg driving at an indicated 70mph.

I also got a 32amp rolec tethered charger - cost me £179 after grant (I think they were doing £20 off at the time). At the weekends the additional charging speed certainly translates to more EV miles for me, and the fact it is tethered means it takes seconds to plug in rather than messing around.

At approx £1.13 per gallon, petrol cost is 2.5p per mile

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Have I spotted a major flaw in you calculations? I wish I could buy petrol for £1.13 per gallon. Unfortunately (around here, anyway) it is more like £1.13 per litre, that makes it 4.55 * £1.13 = £5.14 per gallon, and therefore over 11p per mile.

Also, I've just bought a cable for £115 delivered, so that will also have a major effect on your calculations.

Nigel.

Oh, and 1 more thing : looking at it purely from the cost side of things (and not considering convenience), if you have a cable you could then get an un-tethered home fast charging station for about £50 less than a tethered one. That might also affect your thinking on whether it's worth buying one.

BRgds, Nigel.

WOW :!: :!:
I am stunned by the number of responses in such a short time and with such positive, helpful information.

Yes, I did have a major flaw with petrol price using price per litre, and I did not consider the cable had a resale value, nor had I seen the cheaper cables available.
So the result would be:
Cable cost approx £115
Pure petrol consumption 35mpg (based on realistic suggestion)
At approx £1.13 per litre, £5.13 per gallon, petrol cost is 14.5p per mile
Free 1 hour charge at Asda supermarket gives approx 10 miles of charge
10 miles saves £1.46 of fuel
Need approx 80 one hour visits (or 27 three hour visits) to free charger to justify cost of cable.

That's about :!: 6 months :!: of Asda (or similar) visits to justify the cable cost :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

I also have a cable that I could sell (but that is looking less likely now), and will buy a cable immediately. I don't have a recharge station at work unfortunately and I bought the car with my own hard earned cash, so although I want to help do the right thing environmentally I would prefer not to pay too much if I can help it.

I will probably pay for a tethered charger at home, assisted by the government grant. Since I dont have a spare circuit breaker in my house's electrical Consumer Unit I may need to have another breaker added somehow - probably more expensive than the charger unit!

Thanks for all the help and useful tips. (I need to look into the comments about Chedemo chargers harming batteries now.)

Hi, I have just made all the decisions that you are about to make. That doesn't mean what suits me will necessarily be right for you.

My consumer unit is also full. I am having to get an electrician to fit a mains isolator switch plus an extra small consumer unit. I have already got a type 2 to type 1 cable so am going for a socketed charger rather than a tethered one. This should also mean that in the distant future when I change my car, worst case I should only need to buy a new cable. Finally I have also decided to pay an extra £95 for a 30amp charger. Won't make any difference to the Outlander rate of charge but just future proofs the system, I hope.

Thanks for the useful Chris.
Talking with neighbours (who have been interested in a car with a cable attached to it via the kitchen window), it seems they had the electricity meter changed about 10-15 years ago and also had an isolator switch fitted. I missed this somehow and one neighbour has since been told by an electrician workmate that I should contact my power company and explain what has happened (i still have a 30 year old meter), and that I am regularly charging the car from a 13A plug as their likely response is to come and change the meter and fit an isolator for free. This would at least reduce the cost a bit and is perhaps an option available to you also. If I can get the power company to answer the phone I will be able to get an answer on this eventually.

I have looked into the various chargers/installers and they seem to start at about £149 after the £500 grant for ROLEC. Tempted by the £199 tethered unit which is 30A too. Chargemaster and PodPoint are about £200 more which makes me a bit concerned that Rolec (or their installers) might be rubbish. What did you go for and why if you dont mind saying?

I got the rolec, no issues since installation 6 months ago.

You'll probably find your energy supplier will install a smart meter free of charge.

Phev2016 said:

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I have looked into the various chargers/installers and they seem to start at about £149 after the £500 grant for ROLEC. Tempted by the £199 tethered unit which is 30A too. Chargemaster and PodPoint are about £200 more which makes me a bit concerned that Rolec (or their installers) might be rubbish. What did you go for and why if you dont mind saying?

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Hi, happy to share my thought process. Before I got the car I did a fair bit of research. ROLEC seemed to be the least expensive but from what I could find, feedback seemed to be OK. However, I finally opted for a new car which gave me the option of a new Chargemaster fitted for free. However when you start to communicate with Chargemaster they have a range of options and extras they offer, see below:

Premium UPGRADE TO 7KW (Unit Locks, 2 keys supplied and communicates your usage into a portal for you to see)
Socketed = £95 (you will need to purchase a public charging lead, this is NOT the lead supplied with the vehicle)
Tethered = £95

The OLEV scheme subsidises standard home installations. In the event that there might be additional cost, these may be applied if the following are required:

Additional Cable over 20 metres - £5.00 per metre
RCBO Breaker - £50.00
2-Way Consumer Unit - £50.00
Mains Protective Bonding (incoming household services) - £ 10.00 (includes cost of 1st 3 metres - then £ 3.00 per metre thereafter)
If an installation requires additional labour and/or other materials outside of our normal scope of works, these will be confirmed separately.

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The one thing Chargemaster will not do for you is fit an isolator switch, they say the electricity supply company need to do that. My power supplier is SSE. Their policy is to allow any appropriately qualified electrician to pull the master fuse, fit an isolator then refit the master fuse and replace the anti-tamper tag.

So my electrician will come and fit isolator switch and new small consumer unit(fuse box). Chargemaster will then come to fit their premium socketed version. They were very helpful over socketed vs tethered decision. They explained that Mitsubishi like most Japanese cars have type 1 connectors whereas European cars have type 2. So if at any stage in the future you change your car to one with a type 2 connector then with a socketed charging point, all you need to do is buy a new cable. They did go on to say that if you buy a tethered charger then to change later to a type 2 connector requires a whole new charger for about £700. I am dubious about this. I would have thought it must be simple to replace the tethered cable but I decided to go with socketed anyway.

Sorry, a very long winded reply. My isolator is due to be fitted on 6 July and my charger on 12 July. I will let you know how it goes.

For what it's worth . . I bought privately two (unused) charge stations fitted with type 2 cables. Bought two type 1 cables. Changed them myself. No problems at all. Just know what you're doing, or get an electrician to do it. There's a lot of tosh put about regarding what is and isn't possible, the guts of these charger stations is pleasingly simple (a control unit and mains contactor), it's the companies that want you to keep chopping and changing. Of course, you'll be wary of any warranty issues, but after the warranty expires - who cares?

Indeed replacing the tethered cable is nice and easy, plus cheaper than buying a full new cable. For me, the shear convenience of tethered makes it worthwhile.

Persuasive arguments. I may have to see if I can change my order to tethered and leave my Type1 to Type 2 cable in the boot for occasional public charging.

So got my "free" Chargemaster two weeks ago. Actually cost me £95 because I upgraded to the 7kW 30amp socketed version. Chargemaster seem to get mixed reviews on this forum but I cannot fault their communication and their installation engineer was truly excellent.

I finally stuck with "socketed" because I already had the type 1 to type 2 cable and it allows visitors with different cars to charge. The installation is not quite as neat as with tethered but it's fine for me. The cable is also one metre longer than the tethered version which suits the layout of my parking area. It doesn't matter where my lovely lady leaves her old Suzuki Vitara, I can always hook up the Outlander.

I now have two weeks of charging data accessible on the Chargemaster website. Interestingly the data are different from what is recorded on the car's "Charging Cost" screen. For some reason the car is recording lower kWh and has actually missed some days when I definitely charged up. Has anyone else experienced this? Yesterday I reset the car charging data, clearing its memory. I will closely compare the car and Chargemaster for the next couple of weeks.

Chris,
I just checked and the car is faithfully recording each charge but only displays as a cost and not kWh which I find odd. Your car will be the latest version with uprated software so perhaps there is a bug. Even if you are missing charges I think it will be a small price to pay because you have Apple CarPlay or the Android Auto, both of which are light years ahead of the rubbish MMCS system for satnav and phone. The EV only switch must be great too as you can accelerate hard without the engine firing up.

Great to hear that you had a pleasant experience with Chargemaster. I am still debating the plug/tether options, partly because I am becoming convinced my wife's next car will be a small EV, probably a Zoe, Smart or e-UP!, and they're Type 2 unlike the Outlander. It will be good to see how you get on with the cable in/out of the boot each time.

WAH64 said:

So got my "free" Chargemaster two weeks ago. Actually cost me £95 because I upgraded to the 7kW 30amp socketed version. Chargemaster seem to get mixed reviews on this forum but I cannot fault their communication and their installation engineer was truly excellent.

I finally stuck with "socketed" because I already had the type 1 to type 2 cable and it allows visitors with different cars to charge. The installation is not quite as neat as with tethered but it's fine for me. The cable is also one metre longer than the tethered version which suits the layout of my parking area. It doesn't matter where my lovely lady leaves her old Suzuki Vitara, I can always hook up the Outlander.

I now have two weeks of charging data accessible on the Chargemaster website. Interestingly the data are different from what is recorded on the car's "Charging Cost" screen. For some reason the car is recording lower kWh and has actually missed some days when I definitely charged up. Has anyone else experienced this? Yesterday I reset the car charging data, clearing its memory. I will closely compare the car and Chargemaster for the next couple of weeks.

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Hi Chris

I have a late 3H+ which has the sat nav and the apple car play but I don't see a way to display charging cost, the only info I get is charging time.

How are you seeing charging cost without an MMCS?


Regards


Chris