Everything you always wanted to know about electric vehicle (but were afraid to ask)

What's the story with battery heating? It's an option in the settings, I've seen one video about turning it on before you get to a fast charger to help speed it up.

But is that the only use? Is there a need to turn it on on a cold morning for just driving? Would it help with range or would the power taken to heat it offset that?

@KCross - "In most cases you just let the car manage the whole thing itself. Its not something you worry about but it depends on the car."

This is the important bit, you don't really need to worry about any of these things yourself, the car will manage it for you. An extreme example is the batteries in most Chinese EVs and in base model Teslas are of the LiFePO4 chemistry, which will be destroyed very quickly if you ever tried to charge them when the pack is below zero celsius. But again, the cars won't let you do this.

There is a button for it so I presume it has some real world use. But since you can't pre heat the battery from the app for a cold morning, it must be just for a fast charge in cold weather so it gets up to max speed faster.

This charger has a 7.5m cable as standard if you haven’t installed yet and would stretch the distance

https://www.electricireland.ie/residential/products/ev-home-chargers

I have installed yes

I know about being ICED at a public charge point but is there one for being blocked by a PHEV who can't charge fast connecting to a super fast charge point when they could just plug into another one?

1. Thats a tough one since you could be doing redundant work now if you are doing an extension in a few years. If you were not doing the extension or if it was, say, 10 years out before you were doing it I'd say spend the €3k and get it done (draw the charge point grant also which will likely be gone "soon") ... but its really only you can answer it based on your finances and future plans.

I do think though that you need a home charge point. Having a charge point at work is great but that potentially means alot of your commute into work is on petrol, particularly if you have done other driving the previous evening. I think you'll be looking at <40km EV range on that car in winter. How long is your commute?

Granny cable charging is ok as a short term solution but you shouldn't really rely on that long term and its also likely that your next car will be a BEV rather than a PHEV which means the granny cable wouldn't likely cut it then, so you'd have to bite the bullet at that point.

Lots of variables here! I guess you can try out the granny cable for a while and see how you go. It will take about 5hrs to charge that car on granny cable.

2: An eCars account would give you access to the majority of the 22kW AC charge points around the country. Its fine to charge your PHEV on those AC units. Its what they are designed for. The honourable thing to do is to move once fully charged. There is no expectation that you move immediately, just as quickly as you can.

Forgot to answer second point.

Public charging for your car is covered 99% by ESB and easygo. Both on prepay, both quite expensive. There will be some other smaller players especially at hotels. but probably you can register on the spot if you need them.

Regarding the form, the car charges on AC only. So you will not charge on the motorway stations at least in theory. However, ESB installs some legacy AC chargers on the same place with DC chargers, in a very stupid layout of 4 plugs/3spaces or similar. If used inconsiderately some AC user drawing 3.6kW might block an 150kW plug. Is not that they do something wrong but it mounts frustration for the others. If you charge at AC only points you use the system as intended although some might comment in this situation as well. My experience with PHEVs it is limited to 2 rentals I had last year for around a week each. One Skoda Octavia and another Audi A6. Skoda I managed to charge twice and while on electric it was a nice ride. With the A6 I didn't have anything handy to charge so I just lugged its battery around Germany with no benefit. Overall my opinion is that it is too much hassle to charge in public for very little return.

At those miles I would not invest anything past the granny charger .

to be honest with that distance I would keep the old car and invest ina good pair of shoes or at a push a scooter !!

I checked and it seems Tesla don't sell them anymore. That's a shame as they were savage value at just €99 shipped for a 3 phase 32A cable

What charging speed can your Tucson do? If it is single phase 32A (7.4kW max), then this cable from Amazon will do the trick, good deal for £105

If your car can do 11kW, you will need a 3 phase cable

Hi, I'm currently trying to work out some cost benefit analysis on an EV, would anyone be able to point me in the direction of current charger costs at forecourts, I'm just looking for indicative kwh unit rate figures for a standard slow charger and a fast charger. I'm looking at the 77kwh iD4 so trying to get an estimated cost for charging both.

Thanks

Have you no home or work charging? If neither, I wouldn't advise on buying an EV until the public charging network gets better. If you do have home charging, you charge up very cheaply on night rate electricity. For most EV owners this is more than 90% of their charging, so it makes not much difference if public charging is €0.30 per kWh or €0.90 per kWh as you'd rarely use it.