End of free plug-in hybrid and electric vehicle charging on UK motorways

[FROSTYBALLS]

See http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/cars/article-3678631/End-road-free-electric-car-charging-motorway-services.html

[Cyker]

Surprised it didn't happen sooner TBH, although £5 for 20 minutes seems a bit steep!

 

[Anthony Poli]

I wouldn't have thought any Prius pip would bother using them since the range is limited. Surely cheaper to drive and let the engine recharge the Battery. I know even less about other phev's, but would imagine It would be cheaper and quicker to recharge on the move. We will have to wait and see if tesla, wants to compeat with ecotricity. They have bought a solar panel manufacturer recently.

Time will tell since we don't have a crystal ball ;-)

[FROSTYBALLS]

With the charge being introduced, it will be cheaper, but prior to the charge, why not take advantage of 15 miles range at nil cost.

"Plug-in hybrid drivers will now have to pay £5 for around 15 miles of electric-only miles - they'd cover the same distance with £2 of petrol"

[johalareewi]

20 hours ago, Cyker said:

Surprised it didn't happen sooner TBH, although £5 for 20 minutes seems a bit steep!

 

Maybe not if you have an electric car.  20 mins fast charge could get you 50-60 miles.

It will discourage slow-charge cars from 'hogging' the charging points which is probably what the aim is.

[Sooty]

Call me cynical, but I reckon it's not the supplier forcing this, but it's the government finding more ways to sting the driver as usual

[Duffryn]

Nah. it'll be Ecotricity wanting to throw even more money at Forest Green Rovers FC!

[kithmo]

8 hours ago, johalareewi said:

Maybe not if you have an electric car.  20 mins fast charge could get you 50-60 miles.

It will discourage slow-charge cars from 'hogging' the charging points which is probably what the aim is.

But in the Prius £5 could get you 60-70 miles worth of petrol.

[Sagitar]

I've never charged my PiP other than at home - it's just not practical.

A full charge is not more than 3.5 kWh and at home that costs me less than 36p (I pay 10.268p per kWh for my electricity)

Given the nature of the journeys that I do my total fuel costs are just over 6p per mile so, £5 will take me more than 80 miles.

£5 to put in 3.5 kWh will give me less than 15 miles so it's a long way from being a bargain.

I agree with johalareewi; this is to discourage the slow chargers.

[Cyker]

Wow, what a bargain, £5 for 36p of electricity! 

It does feel a bit discriminatory to me tho', and what are they going to do when even more electric cars start to appear? When the Tesla 3 comes out I'm expecting a noticeable increase in the numbers of electric cars on the roads - If they're having to discriminate against PHEV's already because there aren't enough charging points, what's going to happen then?? 
 

[TomdeGuerre]

Last time I was in the Toyota dealers I picked up a brochure on the Plug In Prius. It uses a 3.6 kW charger and needs plugged in for 90 minutes to give approximately 15 miles travel. My electric kettle is 2.2kW so that's the equivalent of boiling my kettle for well over 2 hours. Cost of that must be considerable, especially if I was doing it several times a week. 

2 hours ago, Cyker said:

If they're having to discriminate against PHEV's already because there aren't enough charging points, what's going to happen then?? 

I predict a huge rise in Personal Wind Farms, sort of stowaway propellor things mounted on the car roof.

[FROSTYBALLS]

48 minutes ago, TomdeGuerre said:

I predict a huge rise in Personal Wind Farms, sort of stowaway propellor things mounted on the car roof.

Such as .....

[Anthony Poli]

I know a few people who could use a turbine built into the car seat and I'm sure they could keep on motoring without having to plug in or fill up ;-)

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[timberwolf]

6 hours ago, TomdeGuerre said:

Last time I was in the Toyota dealers I picked up a brochure on the Plug In Prius. It uses a 3.6 kW charger and needs plugged in for 90 minutes to give approximately 15 miles travel. My electric kettle is 2.2kW so that's the equivalent of boiling my kettle for well over 2 hours. Cost of that must be considerable, especially if I was doing it several times a week. 

I predict a huge rise in Personal Wind Farms, sort of stowaway propellor things mounted on the car roof.

According to the calculation in the link below it cost 2.5 pence to boil a full kettle at 2013 tariff prices.

https://blog.npower.com/2013/02/ever-wondered-how-much-your-appliances-cost-to-run/

[TomdeGuerre]

11 hours ago, timberwolf said:

According to the calculation in the link below it cost 2.5 pence to boil a full kettle at 2013 tariff prices.

https://blog.npower.com/2013/02/ever-wondered-how-much-your-appliances-cost-to-run/

But that's not calculating how much it is to boil the kettle continuously for over two hours. 

[TomdeGuerre]

17 hours ago, FROSTYBALLS said:

Such as .....

Where would you get a fan belt to ft that?

[timberwolf]

24 minutes ago, TomdeGuerre said:

But that's not calculating how much it is to boil the kettle continuously for over two hours. 

The 2.2 KW rating is for one hour. To boil the kettle for 1 hour would be 2.2 KW. One KW equals one chargeable unit of energy, let's say approx 20 pence, so to boil a kettle for 2 hours would be 88 pence.

A Prius Plug-in has the added Li-ion? Battery with a 4.4 KW/hr capacity. The 3.6 KW charger refers to how much power is put into the Battery over 1 hour, and approx 1.5 hours to fully charge the 4.4 KW/hr Battery.

(BTW because we only boil a kettle for about 3 minutes we use a fraction of the 2.2 KW of power)

[Sagitar]

On ‎08‎/‎07‎/‎2016 at 11:43 PM, Sagitar said:

I've never charged my PiP other than at home - it's just not practical.

A full charge is not more than 3.5 kWh and at home that costs me less than 36p (I pay 10.268p per kWh for my electricity)

Given the nature of the journeys that I do my total fuel costs are just over 6p per mile so, £5 will take me more than 80 miles.

£5 to put in 3.5 kWh will give me less than 15 miles so it's a long way from being a bargain.

I agree with johalareewi; this is to discourage the slow chargers.

Boiling kettles and doing extrapolations is interesting, but the figures in the quote above are real figures taken directly from charging a PiP. The charger in my garage measures and displays the amount of energy used in charging the vehicle Battery. I have a record of every kWh that I have put into the Battery and what it cost. I also have a record of every litre of petrol that I have put into the car and what it cost. The total of those two figures and the total number of miles that I have done in the car gives the figure of just over 6p per mile that I have quoted. I mentioned the nature of the journeys that I do, because the efficiency of the PiP is affected hugely by the proportion of the total mileage that is done on the Battery alone.

[PeteB]

6 minutes ago, Sagitar said:

... the efficiency of the PiP is affected hugely by the proportion of the total mileage that is done on the battery alone.

Absolutely.  That why I was so gutted when I found it didn't have a spare wheel, which is the only reason I didn't get one.

For about 26-28 days of an average month I would use virtually no petrol (except maybe if the heater is needed - I hate heated seats) as I do several short journeys with an opportunity to charge in between.

And on the couple of days I do longer trips, one or two of my regular coffee stops have chargers so I would certainly have topped up the car while I top up myself! (as long as it makes economic sense).

Out of interest Chris, does the PiP force the ICE to fire up if the front demist switch is pressed as the Gen 3 ordinaire does?

[timberwolf]

16 minutes ago, Sagitar said:

Boiling kettles and doing extrapolations is interesting, but the figures in the quote above are real figures taken directly from charging a PiP. The charger in my garage measures and displays the amount of energy used in charging the vehicle battery. I have a record of every kWh that I have put into the battery and what it cost. I also have a record of every litre of petrol that I have put into the car and what it cost. The total of those two figures and the total number of miles that I have done in the car gives the figure of just over 6p per mile that I have quoted. I mentioned the nature of the journeys that I do, because the efficiency of the PiP is affected hugely by the proportion of the total mileage that is done on the battery alone.

Thanks. I think your real world figures confirms that my method was reasonable for "napkin" mathematics if not the actual values used.

A further thought, why is electricity so expensive compared with petrol, if we take all the taxes off both energy sources, how do they compare?

[barrycoll]

Even more importantly, this news will inevitably increase the sales of high mpg Gen 4 Prius.....free advertising for Mr T.

Not that one ever see the new Prius in any advert!

[FROSTYBALLS]

1 hour ago, barrycoll said:

Even more importantly, this news will inevitably increase the sales of high mpg Gen 4 Prius.....free advertising for Mr T.

Not that one ever see the new Prius in any advert!

Here you are:

 

[barrycoll]

True Frsoty, but the Prius is a newly launched model, while the other hybrids are getting on.

So, no mention of the new technology within the Prius, just a overall push for the hybrid concept.....which could include the VW GTE or the Audi sibling

 

 

[FROSTYBALLS]

Aside from the Rav4 hybrid.

[Sagitar]

13 hours ago, PeteB said:

Out of interest Chris, does the PiP force the ICE to fire up if the front demist switch is pressed as the Gen 3 ordinaire does?

I have seen it do it, but I wouldn't swear that it always does it - my observation isn't that good.

The engine occasionally switches on when I really don't expect it to. A few weeks ago, on my way home from a local trip, with the car warmed up and plenty of electrical miles left, I stopped at a red light. The engine switched on and ran for the whole period that I was stationary and didn't switch off until some time after I was in motion again. The car went in for a service a few days later and I mentioned this strange behaviour. They did all the appropriate diagnostic checks but found nothing wrong.