This week's EV bargain? I am buying.

ironmonkey

Going over to Wales next week to collect my 2015 Nissan Leaf Tekna with 6.6Kw charger. Happy days!
I intend to fly to Bristol and then drive it to Holyhead as the ferry times are better than Pembroke. From there it will be a night run back to the North West.
Any tips for the journey would be great.

KCross

Just remember that you will be generally only charging to 80% on your route home, so account for that when you are planning your charger hops.

Obviously check that they give you both cables.

Check the apps before you leave home to see that all the chargers are still in service that day.

unkel

As an alternative you could consider taking the ferry from Liverpool to Dublin. Liverpool is easier to get too (and I presume easier to charge your car) and takes a good hour less according to google maps. The ferry is nice and quiet and relatively cheap. The ferry takes a lot longer but that means
you could have a few hours sleep in a cabin, a shower and a fried breakfast, so you'd be refreshed to go on your long enough trip to the north west

Best of luck and keep us updated!

ironmonkey

Thanks lads. I’m looking at the different flight and ferry times and it all depends on how things match up. I’d prefer to get within an hour of whichever port I’m going from and get a hotel for the night if necessary (I’m not staying in that kip Holyhead!) rather than go on an overnight ferry.

cros13

Grab a copy of Zap-Map:

For Android:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.zapmap.zapmap&hl=en

Or IOS:

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/zap-map/id964082746?mt=8

You have a list of backup chargepoints then outside the ecotricity network if required.

gally74

ironmonkey wrote: »

Thanks lads. I’m looking at the different flight and ferry times and it all depends on how things match up. I’d prefer to get within an hour of whichever port I’m going from and get a hotel for the night if necessary (I’m not staying in that kip Holyhead!) rather than go on an overnight ferry.

Stay around Chester, very nice city and outlet mall

gally74

unkel wrote: »

As an alternative you could consider taking the ferry from Liverpool to Dublin. Liverpool is easier to get too (and I presume easier to charge your car) and takes a good hour less according to google maps. The ferry is nice and quiet and relatively cheap. The ferry takes a lot longer but that means
you could have a few hours sleep in a cabin, a shower and a fried breakfast, so you'd be refreshed to go on your long enough trip to the north west

Best of luck and keep us updated!

Did that ferry once, very enjoyable, prob the best way home, and your refreshed,

Soarer

ironmonkey wrote: »

Going over to Wales next week to collect my 2015 Nissan Leaf Tekna with 6.6Kw charger. Happy days!
I intend to fly to Bristol and then drive it to Holyhead as the ferry times are better than Pembroke. From there it will be a night run back to the North West.
Any tips for the journey would be great.

Fair play, well wear.

goz83

Have a look at my thread from March. I stayed overnight and travelled from holyhead. Got the slow ferry and got a full charge on the ferry too.

ted1

It’s just only about 300 to get delivered to Dublin

unkel

ted1 wrote:

It’s just only about 300 to get delivered to Dublin

350 plus VAT last time I looked. But yeah that would be an option for some people. I spent about 150 incl. Expenses bringing my car in using an evening of my time. But that did include the free experience of the "Road trip", which I found enjoyable

ironmonkey

I’m bringing my 8 year old son for the ‘roadtrip’ He’s very excited. With this in mind I’m back thinking of the overnight ferry from Liverpool.
I’ve contacted ESB for an ecars card. They won’t give me one until I get proof of purchase and log book. They’ve said I can just phone when I get to a charger and they’ll switch it on. Do people find this in real life?

KCross

ironmonkey wrote: »

They’ve said I can just phone when I get to a charger and they’ll switch it on. Do people find this in real life?

Yes

Ewan Hoosarmi

ironmonkey wrote: »

I’m bringing my 8 year old son for the ‘roadtrip’ He’s very excited. With this in mind I’m back thinking of the overnight ferry from Liverpool.
I’ve contacted ESB for an ecars card. They won’t give me one until I get proof of purchase and log book. They’ve said I can just phone when I get to a charger and they’ll switch it on. Do people find this in real life?

Or, you could use any card with RFID to switch it on. I used my bank debit card a few times. Any card with the symbol on it (like a wi-fi symbol) will do it. I presume this will change when charging for charging comes in next year.

n97 mini

Ewan Hoosarmi wrote: »

Or, you could use any card with RFID to switch it on. I used my bank debit card a few times. Any card with the symbol on it (like a wi-fi symbol) will do it. I presume this will change when charging for charging comes in next year.

Only works on *some* FCPs. Doesn't work on SCPs.

ironmonkey

Does anybody think the alloys look a bit small on this?

goz83

No, they look fine.

cros13

ironmonkey wrote: »

Does anybody think the alloys look a bit small on this?

Nope... those are the 17s... photo taken at a bad angle I'd say.

gally74

ironmonkey wrote: »

I’m bringing my 8 year old son for the ‘roadtrip’ He’s very excited. With this in mind I’m back thinking of the overnight ferry from Liverpool.
I’ve contacted ESB for an ecars card. They won’t give me one until I get proof of purchase and log book. They’ve said I can just phone when I get to a charger and they’ll switch it on. Do people find this in real life?

Yes it works fine

unkel

Yes that works fine. The phone line is manned 24/7. Also a lot of chargers work with any RFID, so your bank card, leap card, phone with android pay, etc

ironmonkey

This probably a question for the importing a vehicle thread but how did people pay for vehicles while minimizing hassle over there. The last time I brought in a car I brought a Euro equivalent bank draft and the dealer called the bank to ensure funds were there and then handed over the keys. My bank are now advising that I pay by electronic transfer 3 days before I go. To combat the obvious downside to this I’ve done my haggling over the phone and we’ve agreed that if it isn’t as described the payment will be returned. For what it’s worth I’m dealing with a large franchise dealer. Any other ideas?

Soarer

They'll only take a certain amount in cash. So maybe ask them that and bring that much over.
I had to split the remainder across a few debit cards. PTSB allow something like €1500 per transaction, and a max of €3000 per day. Other banks might have no such restriction, so just lodge the money into your current account and away you go.

ironmonkey

So I’ve settled on the journey anyway. I’m flying into Bristol and then get a bus to Newport. Then get the jammer and hopefully get on the road for about 4 ish. Then 4 hours up the road through Snowdonia National Park to Caernarfor and stay there for the night. Then the morning ferry back from Holyhead.

Soarer

I love a good plan.

ironmonkey

Let’s hope it comes together. I’m creating a driving anthems playlist. Might have to include the A Team theme music after that.

I’m also going to get my son to consider selecting his English Premier league team to follow. This will come second in importance to Sligo Rovers but let’s just say if he doesn’t pick Liverpool it could be an awkward trip home.

viking

I brought a Leaf back at the start of the month, same as you I had my kid with me for the road trip.

Really enjoyed the drive, good music is a great way to pass the time.
Also toilet breaks before you start, I asked my daughter several times before we left and she swore she was fine. 30 minutes later and the inevitable happened, so we had an unexpected stop
I paid the balance to the dealer via CurrencyFair who have Faster Payments set up and the money is in the account within an hour or two.

Safe journey!

ironmonkey

First leg started - 5.45 train to Dubs. Lads on the road trip!! Interesting planning the route you quickly rule out anything that isn’t a fast charger as not being feasible for an efficient journey and the middle of Wales has no fast chargers!

unkel

Good luck!

manonboard

Best of luck with your adventure 🀗

DM1983

ted1 wrote: »

It’s just only about 300 to get delivered to Dublin

Can you provide details for this please? I'm not tempted by the road trip myself but def want to buy from UK.

ironmonkey

Short version: trip started extremely well and then went downhill before ending in triumph!

Long version: headed off at the crack of dawn under the threat of the winter vomiting bug as the two other children had been up puking the two nights before.

After a very pleasant flight which included a chat with the lovely Derval o Rourke and a trip to the cockpit for the young fella. We arrived at Bristol to be collected by the sales rep.

This is where things went south. It took ages to complete the sales process. Eventually we headed off after a trip to Pizza Hut. We barely got as far as Hereford with the charge we had and ended up in an industrial estate in the middle of nowhere. The fast charger was a Polar Instant job. I downloaded the app and paid a balance but could not get the thing to start. Called the number and after half an hour of heated debate she reluctantly remotely turned on the slow charger.

So there we were 6 o clock in the evening freezing cold ( I didn’t know you could run the heater while charging) looking at 3/4 hours of sitting around. Also it looked like the rest of the trip was unfeasible.

Eventually got enough charge to get to the Ecotricity fast charger in Shrewsbury I had already registered so this connection went well. The relief to get up to 80% was immense.

A quick fast charge half an hour later saw us doing the longest stretch of the journey to north wales. At this stage the little fella was found asleep with his heated seat on! A big scare was the way the range went off a cliff when climbing a mountain or even a hill. Luckily we regenerated enough going down the other side to make up. But with 1C outside temp and no heater on to preserve range it was extremely cold uncomfortable and stressful.

At the next Ecotricity charger I couldn’t connect because for some reason the 4g was gone on my phone and the wireless on the charger wasn’t working. After an extremely frustrating 20 minutes I turned the phone off and on and it rebooted.

Anyway we arrived at the hotel at about 2 am. I had called ahead - twice - to explain we would be very late and was assured twice that the night porter would be there - no problem. So at 2.30 I’m still banging the sh&t out of the door windows etc. when he eventually answered the door I’ll be honest I’m not proud of what I said to him.

I was never so happy to get to bed. After 24 hours on the go I was wrecked.

The next morning things went back to being fairly straightforward. A big breakfast and we were off. Got to holy head in plenty of time but again I could not get the Ecotricity fast charger to start. I was beginning to think it was me when another leaf pulled in at the one beside it and the English guy went bananas when he couldn’t connect. He then gave out for about half an hour about how patchy the network of chargers was.

Once we got to Ireland it was simple my bank card started the three charge points we used on the way home. I finally turned off eco mode and we relaxed on the trip home.

Lessons learned:
Leave more time for transfer of keys.
The Ecotricity network is not enough.
Just because you set up the app and lodge a balance this does not guarantee it will work.
The leaf I have was set to stop charging at 80% this is the ‘long life battery setting’ check this before heading off we could have done with that 20%.
In real world eco mode driving at a steady 50 /55 mph - range is still about 25% less than what shows available. I expected it to be less but not by this much.
Leave not just more time but significantly more time on long EV journey than ICE time.

FWIW I’m off work today with the Vomiting bug!

Gumbo

The only up side to this, is that because of what you have done to get the car here, and worked through those issues, you will find using the car at home easy

Enjoy

NIMAN

ironmonkey, sorry to hear you had such a bad introduction to EVs.

Mine was a bit similar, although not quite as bad, coming across public chargers that weren't working or the call centre couldn't get to work. When you are a new owner it can be scary, but its all behind me now.

unkel

ironmonkey wrote: »

Leave not just more time but significantly more time on long EV journey than ICE time.

You need to Leaf a lot of time

I'm relieved you didn't get the vomiting bug on your journey. That would have been a disaster. Glad you got your car home safe and sound. Maybe our charging network is not the worst there is after all!

ironmonkey

I’ve read the comments on the thread about charge network and didn’t contribute because I don’t know enough about it yet. But my limited experience tells me that the Irish system is more accessible, faster, cheaper, more reliable and overall a more pleasant experience
- that can’t be all bad!

goz83

ironmonkey wrote: »

Lessons learned:
Leave more time for transfer of keys.
The Ecotricity network is not enough.
Just because you set up the app and lodge a balance this does not guarantee it will work.
The leaf I have was set to stop charging at 80% this is the ‘long life battery setting’ check this before heading off we could have done with that 20%.
In real world eco mode driving at a steady 50 /55 mph - range is still about 25% less than what shows available. I expected it to be less but not by this much.
Leave not just more time but significantly more time on long EV journey than ICE time.

FWIW I’m off work today with the Vomiting bug!

When I bought in the UK earlier this year, the whole transfer took less than an hour. Paid 5k + 5k with two prepaid revolut cards and the final 1k by credit card. Would have been great if the rep had collected us, but we got a taxi from airport.

ecotricity was enough from london to holyhead. We used a Nissan rapid charger at one point because of a diversion and didn't want to backtrack, or go too far off-route.

The battery saver 80% setting might be useful info. Though I didn't really charge more than 80% at any chargers. I can imagine the trip would have been more challenging in this cold weather.

Definitely good idea to leave plenty of time....whether ICE or EV. You never know.

Anyone who caused you stress is probably feeling the symptoms of the vomiting bug now.

ironmonkey wrote: »

I’ve read the comments on the thread about charge network and didn’t contribute because I don’t know enough about it yet. But my limited experience tells me that the Irish system is more accessible, faster, cheaper, more reliable and overall a more pleasant experience
- that can’t be all bad!

I think the ecotricity network was pretty good. I didn't run into any queues iirc. They aren't 24/7 customer support though, so that is a potential nightmare.

ELM327

ironmonkey wrote: »

I’ve read the comments on the thread about charge network and didn’t contribute because I don’t know enough about it yet. But my limited experience tells me that the Irish system is more accessible, faster, cheaper, more reliable and overall a more pleasant experience
- that can’t be all bad!

The irish system is cheaper.
That's the only pleasantness.
If I had to bet my left testicle and it depended on arriving at a working charge site I'd be betting ecotricity every day of the week.
The units are often the crappy DBT units and they may be slightly (~10%) down on power at some locations compared to the Irish 50kW efacec standards but they are more reliable by far. Not least as there is usually at least 2 per site. I'd pay extra for that alone.

The only downside (other than having to pay! which is not a negative as the rates are fair, 15p/kWh or 30p/kWh) is the lack of phone support 24/7.

ironmonkey

Well I’m not going to bet my testicle - left or right, but that’s been my experience to date!

Soarer

Fair play Iron Monkey.

Quick question though. You say at the start of your journey that you only got so far "because of the charge you had". Did the garage not have it fully charged and/or heated for you?
Or did they collect you in it, and run down the battery?

Either way, it's shoddy out of them, especially knowing the journey you had. The whole thing probably would've went smooth as silk if the start was right.

But besides all that, you made it through, and now it's time for the good stuff. It'll be a funny story to tell in a few weeks!

Well wear.

ironmonkey

On the first leg we went from Newport to Hereford which was about 45 miles. I think they must have had it charged up to the 80% mark. The dealer experience for me was patchy. Some things were excellent - others not so good. In the next couple of weeks it will become clear whether I got the deal I was looking for.

I’ve already had the family in stitches about the trip. The skeptics about EV in our house have been vindicated (partially). But this is short sighted. The real benefit will be in my 55k daily commute with home charging.

On long journeys I think there are two types of drivers the ones who quite happily drive along with the fuel warning light on (me) and the ones who have never seen a fuel warning light. In order to drive EV you have to become the latter.

spyderski

Sounds like you had a nightmare of a trip home. Is there any reason why you didn't go Newport to Fishguard (c.160km on mainly motorway) and then get the Ferry to Rosslare? Seems like an awful lot of hardship when there was an easier route home....

ironmonkey

Yeah looked at fishgaurd and even pembroke which was closer again but the ferry times did not add up. Then I’d have had a much longer journey from Rosslare up to Sligo on this side.

unkel

You didn't consider L'pool? The journey would have been so much easier (nearly all motorway with plenty of chargers I would imagine). Would probably have been a lot cheaper too as you can sleep on the ferry.

goz83

ironmonkey wrote: »

On long journeys I think there are two types of drivers the ones who quite happily drive along with the fuel warning light on (me) and the ones who have never seen a fuel warning light. In order to drive EV you have to become the latter former.

Unless you've got a Tesla....it's the former.

ironmonkey

unkel wrote: »

You didn't consider L'pool? The journey would have been so much easier (nearly all motorway with plenty of chargers I would imagine). Would probably have been a lot cheaper too as you can sleep on the ferry.

I did consider it but I wanted to get the young lad into a hotel for the night. We did get to use the hotel leisure centre in the morning which broke up the trip and gave him a bit of a laugh.

oinkely

Well folks, the bargains seem few and far between these days. I'm keeping my eye out for a replacement for the Leaf i sold before Christmas but haven't seen anything recently at the right price.

ELM327

I've just sold my leaf too and I'm keeping an eye out myself either for a "stopgap" until I can get a model S in 9-12 months, or for a super cheap model S now.

The days of a €5k leaf are long gone. For now. I reckon once leaf 2.0 is on the road the first gen will plummet.

cros13

Sold Leaf just before christmas as well.

Waiting for our new 40kWh eNV200 to arrive in April.

ELM327

That's going to be a rare sight on these roads I'd say cros13, 40kWh eNV200!

Bigus

I think, once the new Leaf hits the streets , the Ársé will well and truly fall out of used gen 1-2 Leaf values , so I wouldn't panic , and maybe drive a cheap ice as a stopgap. Anybody want a cheap iPhone 4 ?

oinkely

Bigus wrote: »

I think, once the new Leaf hits the streets , the Ársé will well and truly fall out of used gen 1-2 Leaf values , so I wouldn't panic , and maybe drive a cheap ice as a stopgap. Anybody want a cheap iPhone 4 ?

I'm not so sure on this. There are a lot of people coming to the realization that an EV is the best option for a second car in a lot of houses. Like me, a lot of these can't / won't buy a new car. The only option then is the current generation of Leaf etc, which is in short enough supply (well in SVE spec with 6.6 charger anyway!). I can see a situation where demand keeps used prices reasonably strong as the mass market realises that EV motoring is a very viable alternative to ICE in a lot of use cases.

If you are right i'll be happy as i will be able to get myself a very cheap car for commuting and we plan on holding onto our other leaf for many years yet as it fulfills our needs perfectly, so won't be upset if prices plummet.