(UK) who has best scheme to join for public access charging

[CCBigRich]

Ok, the car has arrived, 4 weeks late... No towbars at the dock apparently (crap excuse from the lease and dealer they use), HMRC have had a call and my tax has gone down. Done 200 miles, 95% EV. Start with my daily commute of 40 miles each way, charge at home - charge at work.

Have enjoyed rolling into Macdonalds and the traffic lights in silence, freaking out the petrol and diesel users...

However, my local ASDA and even council house parking areas have EV charging points, bought my cable for £100.

Can anyone advise on who is the best scheme to join, preferably free (yes I do squeak), to get the best access to charging in the UK and France???

Yes I did look around the forum however as yet not found a string that mentions anything in detail....


Help from the forum faithful and wise would be gratefully received...

 

[user 816]

There is only one to join unless your determined to be Green at any cost.

Ecotricity, its free and is the only one with a rapid charger network (20 mins 0 to 80% battery).

The PHEV just doesn't have the battery range to make using any of the pay networks worthwhile as a charge costs more than doing the same distance on petrol and takes ages so why bother?

The non-Ecotricity chargers are really financially scaled for things like Leaf's that can get much bigger viable range out of one and besides at critical points must charge somewhere or finish their journey on a tow truck dead in the water.

So easy, charge at home cheap, charge at work, Ecotricity at motorways and few other places like Ikea for free.

 

[ChrisMiller]

The PHEV just doesn't have the battery range to make using any of the pay networks worthwhile as a charge costs more than doing the same distance on petrol and takes ages so why bother?

I echo Bob's advice (given Rich's circumstances), but I'm not sure that it's strictly true that on-street charging is more expensive than petrol. By my calculations (depending on how often you use it, because there's usually a monthly fee, too) it's less than half the cost*. This still means that you're spending several hours tethered to a charger to save 50p, but if you have a daily commute (perhaps to catch a train) where a recharge would help and you can't top up at work, a public charger might make sense. But that's not the case for the OP.

* I'm in the same position as Bob and Rich, so haven't investigated carefully, but are some of the on-street charging systems (other than Ecotricity) free to use, and only carry a monthly fee? Or did I dream that?

 

[user 816]

The PHEV just doesn't have the battery range to make using any of the pay networks worthwhile as a charge costs more than doing the same distance on petrol and takes ages so why bother?

I echo Bob's advice (given Rich's circumstances), but I'm not sure that it's strictly true that on-street charging is more expensive than petrol. By my calculations (depending on how often you use it, because there's usually a monthly fee, too) it's less than half the cost*. This still means that you're spending several hours tethered to a charger to save 50p, but if you have a daily commute (perhaps to catch a train) where a recharge would help and you can't top up at work, a public charger might make sense. But that's not the case for the OP.

* I'm in the same position as Bob and Rich, so haven't investigated carefully, but are some of the on-street charging systems (other than Ecotricity) free to use, and only carry a monthly fee? Or did I dream that?

your absolutely right, I think your options if your in an urban area may be more flexible but certainly in my usage there is nowhere I could leave the car for several hours free or not, I can do a 20 minute rest stop pretty easily though.

I have not even bothered buying a cable as I couldn't use it.

Most the ones they put around here are Chargemaster, £7.85 a month fee after introductory offer, free on slow chargers but they have some rapids at 9p a kw which is reasonable but as only a penny less than I get at home I would have to charge over 785kW a month on them to be better off!

We also have some other around here but they charge a flat £5.50 for upto first 45 mins, many times dearer than petrol.

 

[JSC]

The PHEV just doesn't have the battery range to make using any of the pay networks worthwhile as a charge costs more than doing the same distance on petrol and takes ages so why bother?

I echo Bob's advice (given Rich's circumstances), but I'm not sure that it's strictly true that on-street charging is more expensive than petrol. By my calculations (depending on how often you use it, because there's usually a monthly fee, too) it's less than half the cost*. This still means that you're spending several hours tethered to a charger to save 50p, but if you have a daily commute (perhaps to catch a train) where a recharge would help and you can't top up at work, a public charger might make sense. But that's not the case for the OP.

* I'm in the same position as Bob and Rich, so haven't investigated carefully, but are some of the on-street charging systems (other than Ecotricity) free to use, and only carry a monthly fee? Or did I dream that?

your absolutely right, I think your options if your in an urban area may be more flexible but certainly in my usage there is nowhere I could leave the car for several hours free or not, I can do a 20 minute rest stop pretty easily though.

I have not even bothered buying a cable as I couldn't use it.

Most the ones they put around here are Chargemaster, £7.85 a month fee after introductory offer, free on slow chargers but they have some rapids at 9p a kw which is reasonable but as only a penny less than I get at home I would have to charge over 785kW a month on them to be better off!

We also have some other around here but they charge a flat £5.50 for upto first 45 mins, many times dearer than petrol.

I've signed up to the Chargemaster card as there is a street charging station near where I work in Coventry that allows me to park and charge for 3 hours for free while everything else nearby is pay and display at £1 an hour. I roll up and hook up for 3 hours and then move to pay and display later. So it saves me £3 and I get a full charge out of it.

 

[greendwarf]

If you are in or near London then the Source London card is still only a one-off fee (AFAIK) and gives you free charging at most on-street points in the capital and, at least Southend, including those run by Chargemaster and in NCP car parks plus the Ecotricity ones, as well :mrgreen:

 

[Wobblydeb]

There is only one to join unless your determined to be Green at any cost.

Ecotricity, its free and is the only one with a rapid charger network (20 mins 0 to 80% battery).

Just to qualify that this does depend upon where you live.

ChargeYourCar is £20 per year for the RFID card or free for the phone app. That gets you free parking and free electricity here in the Newcastle area, so is very worthwhile.

Looking at the OP's message CYC is not in the Nottingham area. Is there another local network?

 

[jmp]

Dunno if this is true everywhere, but here in South London most Sainsbury's have a free charging point in their car park. I just plug it in and get a free charge. You need to have your own Type 2 cable.

JM

 

[user 816]

Dunno if this is true everywhere, but here in South London most Sainsbury's have a free charging point in their car park. I just plug it in and get a free charge. You need to have your own Type 2 cable.

JM

Our Asda has the same facility, but its only a slow charger so it depends how long you want to shop for I suppose as to how useful it is, the wife and I can do a 2 weeks worth main shop in Lidl in 40 minutes!

 

[CCBigRich]

Thanks gentlemen for confirming my findings got the electricity ( or what ever its called) card through a couple of days ago my local asda and sainos have charge points and if the wife has got to bloody Go to IKEA then there is one there toooooooo :evil:

What about in France anybody got any sound advice on charging there

 

[greendwarf]

Dunno if this is true everywhere, but here in South London most Sainsbury's have a free charging point in their car park. I just plug it in and get a free charge. You need to have your own Type 2 cable.

JM

Our Asda has the same facility, but its only a slow charger so it depends how long you want to shop for I suppose as to how useful it is, the wife and I can do a 2 weeks worth main shop in Lidl in 40 minutes!

You're right, probably not worth a detour but if you are going there anyway or nearby then even a hour on a slow charger will put a significant amount back in - normally enough to make the journey there and back free :mrgreen:

 

[greendwarf]

What about in France anybody got any sound advice on charging there

When I looked into this there didn't seem to be much point. Most of the schemes outside Paris (which is geared to the Renault "Boris style" hire cars) are tied into hypermarkets so you would need to make a detour whilst en route and there is the problem trying to persuade them to send you a card in the UK.

Depending on your destination venue then a Schuko adapter for your charging cable might be more useful. When I took mine skiing last year I found I could have charged up from the external socket on the hotel's veranda.

 

[JSC]

Reported a Chargemaster point in Coventry out of order at 12.25 pm today and it was back up and running within 2 hours. Great service. A Leaf was connected but not charging when I returned to my car, so I used my card to get him going (this point doesn't lock in so he'll be fine to disconnect when he gets back)

 

[JSC]

Chargemaster have now taken over CYC. I've just received an email (copied below) with the details. I'm assuming that much the same arrangement applies to other parts of the Chargemaster empire

Dear Plugged in Midlands member,

We are delighted to announce that from today we are giving Plugged in Midlands customers access to the Charge Your Car (CYC) public network through your existing membership. This means that there will be over 2000 additional points available to you with your current PiM RFID card, including access to more than 300 rapid charging stations.

Plugged in Midlands and Charge Your Car have been working hard to form a partnership and simplify public EV charging for drivers by reducing the amount of charge cards needed in your wallet.

The new sites added to the network can be found all over the UK and are available to view on our map here. What’s more, over 90% of the new charge points are free to use for all PiM plus members and we are currently* offering the others for just 9p per kWh excl. VAT.

During the first stages of the partnership, the CYC site information on our map is not live and customers won’t be able to collect Plugged in Midlands points at these locations to use when bidding for the EV Experience, however we will be adding live information to our map as soon as possible. You can identify which points this applies to by clicking on the individual site icons here.

We hope that you agree that this is a great step in public electric vehicle charging and look forward to expanding our network even further in due course. If you do have any questions about the expansion and how this affects you, do not hesitate to e-mail us at [email protected].

 

[Muddywheels]

There is only one to join unless your determined to be Green at any cost.

Ecotricity, its free and is the only one with a rapid charger network (20 mins 0 to 80% battery).

The PHEV just doesn't have the battery range to make using any of the pay networks worthwhile as a charge costs more than doing the same distance on petrol and takes ages so why bother?

The non-Ecotricity chargers are really financially scaled for things like Leaf's that can get much bigger viable range out of one and besides at critical points must charge somewhere or finish their journey on a tow truck dead in the water.

So easy, charge at home cheap, charge at work, Ecotricity at motorways and few other places like Ikea for free.

Being a newbie I too was looking for a recommendation but looking at Ecotricity website it says £6 for 30 minutes fast charge - this must be dearer than using petrol at £5 a gallon :shock:

The Mitsubishi lead is £299 so I would need to charge away from home many many times to recoup the cost especially if paying for electric or am I missing something :?

I've done 245 miles now - only used petrol twice so far due to exceeding battery range/unable to charge at home and Fuel gauge still showing over 3/4 of tank (£40 fill after I collected) :mrgreen:

 

[CJ1045]

The Ecotricity cost is way too high for a PHEV but their leads do directly plug into the PHEV so you don't need another lead.

CJ

 

[JSC]

There is only one to join unless your determined to be Green at any cost.

Ecotricity, its free and is the only one with a rapid charger network (20 mins 0 to 80% battery).

The PHEV just doesn't have the battery range to make using any of the pay networks worthwhile as a charge costs more than doing the same distance on petrol and takes ages so why bother?

The non-Ecotricity chargers are really financially scaled for things like Leaf's that can get much bigger viable range out of one and besides at critical points must charge somewhere or finish their journey on a tow truck dead in the water.

So easy, charge at home cheap, charge at work, Ecotricity at motorways and few other places like Ikea for free.

Being a newbie I too was looking for a recommendation but looking at Ecotricity website it says £6 for 30 minutes fast charge - this must be dearer than using petrol at £5 a gallon :shock:

The Mitsubishi lead is £299 so I would need to charge away from home many many times to recoup the cost especially if paying for electric or am I missing something :?

I've done 245 miles now - only used petrol twice so far due to exceeding battery range/unable to charge at home and Fuel gauge still showing over 3/4 of tank (£40 fill after I collected) :mrgreen:

Hi Muddywheels

You're quite right about Ecotricity. Most of the comments were written before they started charging. Everyone on this forum agrees that £6 for an 80% charge is nonsense.

Regarding the cost of a cable, you can get a cable for between £100 and £150 without too much trouble. I reckon that you need to use it for a full charge from a free source around 20-25 times to make that worthwhile. I charge from a free street charger about twice a week on average, so it works for me.

Cheers JC

 

[Muddywheels]

That makes sense JSC

I am hoping during week to charge from home and stay within battery range. I will go further at weekends and that's when I may need a lead if I can find free charge points as paying for electric seems as expensive as petrol :?

I would appreciate advice on how find free chargers :mrgreen:

 

[JSC]

Hi Muddywheels

A lot of the Chargemaster points are free to use, and others charge 9p/KWh, which is about what you'll pay at home. You can get a Chargemaster / Polar card either by signing up to Polar plus on their web site https://polar-network.com/, or one of the regional operations who are subsets of the same network. I have a Plugged in Midlands card, which I know works in the Midlands and Cambridge. The card is free initially but then costs £7.85 per month, so you need to be using it at least a couple of times a month for a full charge to make it worthwhile. Others on the forum can probably tell you about other Polar based networks around the country.

Beyond Polar, I have used one Pod Point public charger which was free, but they seem to be few and far between. I also used a CYC (Charge your Car) point which cost me £1, but as these have now all been taken over by Chargemaster they will probably become part of the Polar network. Looking at a different forum (https://speakev.com/), a lot of the CYC points are in Park and Ride car parks.

I hope that helps

JC

 

[Muddywheels]

Cheers JSC