Hi, not Ducati related, but, I hoped someone on here may be able to give advice. I'm taking delivery of a "plug in hybrid" company car this month. Rather than using an electrical point in the garage and having to mess around with the garage door & security every night, I'm looking at having a charge point mounted on the outer wall of the garage. I'm looking for the 32amp socketed version, and will use the lead that comes with the car. I have a few questions (I know I can google some of this, but, I do like feedback from people not web sites) Has anyone had a charge point fitted? Any recommendations for a Midlands based fitter, or someone covering the Midlands? What kind of cost to have a point fitted (I've seen prices from £149 with a grant, to £700)? Anything to watch out for?
32amp seems a little excessive for what should be nothing more than a glorified battery charger. Anyhoo, if 32amps is what you need, you'll need the correct wiring run back to your distribution box if it has a spare fused outlet. Electrician will need to be Part P certified and must issue a certificate of installation conformity. You could run the cabling yourself and get the electrician to do the end terminations which might reduce the cost and the mess. Andy
I would use twin and earth wire (size depends on length of run but say; 6mm) and run a spur (single length of cable) from an RCD (I wouldn't go via an MCB) on the distribution board, through an internal or an waterproof external isolater switch and then to a waterproof outlet. Not hard to do yourself if you know what you are doing - but it won't get signed off. A decent sparky shouldn't charge more than £300 including 'parts', but again it all depends on where / how the run has to go.
@Android853sp 32amp is over kill, but, its a little bit of future proofing at no extra cost. I can run the simple charger supplied with the car, from a standard 13amp socket. But the charger is not waterproof, hence the need to mess around with the garage door and trying to get the lead under the door as the charger needs to be in the garage. There are options for a charge point on the outside of the garage wall that is like the road side / motorway services type charge point. This is basically the female side of a dedicated cable. All I need to do, is use the cable that comes with the car, plug one end in to the car and one end in the socket on the wall, all waterproof and no need to go in the garage. Hopefully a quick and simple job that will not become a PITA job each night. The charge points come in 16amp, or 32amp for fast charge, no difference in cost, hence fit the 32amp version in case I need it in the future. If I can not find a recommended installer, than I will buy the kit, run the cables exactly how I would like them, then pay a sparky for the connection and sign off.
Can you ask the people who supplied the car, they must get this asked all the time and may have a local deal going. Back in the day when automatic washing machines first came out deals where to be had with all the washing machine sales outlets. £150 a time all cash in hand (allegedly) .... those were the days.
I went for the 32amp to future proof. I also had one with a 5m tethered connector. A lot more convenient than having to get the home charger out. With the government grant it cost me £300. There were some mods needed to my supply cabling.
I had a Nissan LEAF company car a few years back, it came with a home charger and the installation wasn't a 5 minute job or something I could have done myself. I've managed to find the pics of the installation. Everything you see on the board and the charger itself was included. The installer was there about 5 hours putting it all in which included hammering in the biggest earth rod I've seen into the ground. Even though there are 2 meters, I think this was all down to monitoring my usage at the time, as it was quite a new thing. So these may not be necessary, the uprated RCB was. Cost, sorry, it all came with the car at the time. The 13A 3 pin plug in charger that came with the car used to take 11 hours to charge it, this charger did it in about 4 hours from empty. I believe they have moved on since then too. Oh, it cost about £1.80 to fully charge too.
I'm also looking at a plug in hybrid, obviously for nothing more than to save tax. Without going in to detail, the car I have now is a hybrid (non plug in) but as it also has a v6 petrol engine it's still fairly pricey on tax. If I got a BMW or Merc plug in hybrid as my next car, I can save up to £285/month in company car tax That's a panigale paid for
You qualify for a government grant to install an EV charge point. There are loads of approved companies out there that will do the work. The grant forms are easy to fill in. Mine took 5 days from first contact with company to it being installed. I found a local company using Google.
@damodici I've gone for one for the similar reasons, we used to have all fuel paid for which is a massive tax bill. I will be saving almost £350 per month by dropping private fuel and taking a plug in hybrid ..... the other benefit is the performance, nearly 300bhp and 0 to 60 in 5.9 sec @chrisw I did find a "local ish" company offering the Rolec charge point at a reasonable rate, based on applying for the grant. Just would have been nice to use a company that came recommended. @Robarano after looking in to it a little more, I think I will leave the install to a professional. If all I was doing, was running a 13amp socket outside, no problem. Running the cables for a 32amp socket and being happy that I'm not going to burn the house down, or blow up the car .... think I will use a professional with some come back if I have a problem.
Thanks to everyone for their constructive comments ....... I did expect a bit of piss taking ... having a milk float .... how to increase the range, get a longer extension lead .... sponsored by Duracell etc etc
The only thing I thought was that the 32 amp may seem more than needed but like others mentioned, it's probably future proofing it for when charging systems are able to fully charge faster by pumping in greater amounts quicker A quick question, Does the car charging on these cars give you a lower rate depending when you charge them a bit like economy seven?
I thought they still ran through your traditional meter, therefore any cost at specific times was dependent upon your usual tariff. I was not aware of any separate billing system that runs alongside your usual energy bill.
Does anyone still have this? Switch to air sourced heat pumps.... Every £1 you spend on electric heat you'll get £4 worth of heat from an air sourced heat pump and when you want it.
