[Electric Annie]

It's been a while since i came on here , still loving my Nissan Leaf 2019 car . I still have not got a charge point in yet. I would like to put point that can be used so i have the option to use it in the garage and from my driveway so in between . I have only looked at pod point as they seem to be the cheapest ,any thoughts welcome of other companies .
The distance between where i think i will place the charger is around 7.5 meters to each place i will keep car * garage /driveway although it may be a bit tight cable wise . Any thoughts ?
Also as i have not got a home charger I charge when out and about , i have avoided the fast charge as i read that this can have a negative impact on long term battery life , welcome thoughts on this too
Anne

 

[HandyAndy]

7.5 meters distance is a fair length, I think most tethered EVSEs have a 5m cable. But I've just bought a 10m Type-2 cable for my untethered EVSE, so you'd be okay with that combination. You have to think about whether the cable would be left connected to the EVSE when the car's away, and whether it could get stolen; some people here have fitted a shackle/padlock to keep their safe. Or else you'd have to take the cable right out & pack it away when the car's away. This can probably be a nuisance to have to do, when it's cold & wet, and the cable's a but muddy.

General opinion on any charging is, don't leave the car sitting at 100% full for days, try & set out on your trip soon after a 100% tillup. But exactly how soon is "soon" I don't really know. Overnight may be ok. Rapid charging I can't comment on, but there are appends about Leaf taxis getting Rapid charged all the time, and lasting very well indeed, so perhaps not worth bothering too much about, just use the car as you feel like.

 

[Mach993]

Pod point used to have 7.5m as an optional extra for tethered units vs the standard 5m that I bought in the spring but as of Aug 2020 all units now ship with a 7.5m tethered cable as standard. May still be a bit tight for you depending on exact unit placement so going for an untethered unit with a separate cable as HandyAndy has suggested may still be the way to go.

 

[dk6780]

Annie
What type of connector is on your LEAF - Type 1 or Type 2? If it is a Type 1 it is likely that your next one will be a Type 2, so it is probably better to go untethered and change it when you change the car.

 

[Electric Annie]

Thanks , It is Type 2 , it's one of the newer LEAF , i think pod point said they come with a 7.5 I have measured it , It is around 7.5 my measuring tape is not great as it is not a straight line to measure. I have been looking into where to buy a 10 meter one if i do go down that route .Also should i get a16 or 32 ?

 

[Electric Annie]

THe person from the company i spoke ti said not to leave it outdoors has to be put away

 

[HandyAndy]

Don't get a 16A (3.3 kW) EVSE unless there's some strong electrical reason why your house can't take it. 32A ones are (or should be!) only a little more cost, and more & more EVs now are coming with 7 kW domestic charging as the standard. The Ev will take what it wants, up to the max the EVSE offers. You can't damage a 16A-capable EV by plugging it into a 32A EVSE with a 32A cable connecting them. Going for 32A cable & EVSE future-proofs you as much as is possible for most of us. Domestic EVSEs are'n going to get much more powerful than that, for ages yet! We can forget about 3-phase 11 or 22 kW exotic stuff as hardly any houses have 3-phase her ein UK.

As far as make of EVSE's concerned, I'm tending to like the easily repairable dumb ones more & more. There are only 3 interesting things inside my Rolec; ECU (brains controller), RCBO, and Contactor, these last 2 are industry standard things you can get from local electrical outlet. And the ECU (Rolec brand) can be swapped for a Viridian Mainpine one for £80. The Rolec RCBOs are generally reckoned to be cr*p and have given the brand a bad name, so many of us are ditching then in the trash-can & fitting a £25 Garo replacement which is a quality item. The Contactor seems to be lasting ok (but cost about £65 if needing replacing). So these are repairable by any electrician for modest cost of parts.

I've been in touch with someone who has a broken Pod Point Solo; his builder jiggled the cables into it, it "made a funny crackling noise" and died. He took the top off and asked here for help. Builder had knocked a couple of components off the Circuit Board, a Pod Point custom item of course; I replaced them carefully, but the board was still dead. Pod Point are quoting him over £400 quid to repair it! There isn't any such circuit board inside the Rolec. Viridian themselves sell EVSEs, so they would also be on my list to look at. See ecoHarmony .

I think there's a lot of rip-off pricing going on here; I can't see any justification for prices much above £350 tbh for these things, uness they're really fancy. Someone here has just made their "dumb" EVSE "smart" by wiring in a very low-cost remote-controlled switch, again this is the kind of modification that can be done by any electrician given the bits and instructions. Would be good to see some of these really simple improvements made available as a kit-of-parts, or even just a shopping list of bits plus photos & docs to show us how to fit these. I'm intending to do my own solar panel sensing from my Rolec, now I have an EV that can benefit from this.

 

[Electric Annie]

Hah ha,I am afraid you have lost me on this one , a lot of electric talk , I appreciate your reply but I don't understand most of what yiu are explining . I had wondered about the 16 as i believed the batteries last longer if you slow charge them but you are recommending 32 so i will look into this more . What companies have people used for both the charge points and the cables. Are you saying an electrician can help with things related to the charger / cable ?

 

[HandyAndy]

I've just bought a 32A Type-2 cable for my untethered EVSE from evconnectors.com . This is the one I went for, which is what you'll need.
62196-2 Male to Female 32A EV Charging Plugs / Lead Type 2 to Type 2 32A EV Charging Cable
Its Type-2 to Type-2, as EVSEs use Type 2 socket, and also your Leaf does. It's 32A so I can charge at up to 7 kW speed on a 32A EVSE, that's approx 25 miles per hour plugged in, and it's Single Phase as that's what we're all using on the 3.3 or 7 kW EVSE chargers. I like this company; I've used their Type 1 cable for 5 years now on my Ampera, and it's been fine. I like the fact that they tell me all about what I'm buying; some of the sites selling these cables don't say if they're single or 3-phase; 3-phase ones are more expensive, will works just as well for you, but you're paying extra for a couple of thick copper cables in there which won't get used! So a single phase cable is the one to go for.

If you visit a friend with, say, a 16A EVSE, you can use your 32A cable in that just fine. Your can might charge more slowly than your own 32A one, that's all. And if your car is 16A charging (3.3 kW) only, then you'll always be limited to that max rate, but your next Ev will probably go quicker, as you'll already have everything 32A in place.

Whether or not you charge your Ev at 3.3 or 7 kW, this speed is so slow that here won't be any damage to the car's batteries from this. These are very, very gentle charging speeds. It's the big Rapids (ChaDEMOs, ...) at the motorway service stations etc doing multiple daily Rapid charges at 50 kW or thereabouts, often more, which worry some people a bit. But unless you're doing high mileages belting up & down motorways, don't worry about them.

 

[cdlb]

I had wondered about the 16 as i believed the batteries last longer if you slow charge them but you are recommending 32 so i will look into this more

A 16A charger will never be able to charge faster than 16A, but a 32A charger can charge slower than 32A. My 32A charger has a programmable limit that can be set to anything between 7A and 32A, and my car also has an option to charge at a reduced rate. Available options will vary by charger and car, so just check some instruction manuals and/or chat to your installer to find out what is available and to make sure that you'll get the things that are important to you.

 

[HandyAndy]

You'll need an electrician to wire everything up. It sounds like your EVSE needs to go on a post or wall outside the house, so there will be a long wire to reach to it, and that might have to be buried underground. That's going to cost extra of course. I can't help you with that, perhaps someone locally can suggest some electricians. When I got my Rolec with the Gvt OLEV grant, Rolec found a local electrical firm to come & do the work for me.

 

[HandyAndy]

What cdlb says is good. When a charger is labelled 16A, this doesn't mean it's always going to be pushing 16A into the car. It doesn't work that way, as it's the car that's really in charge here.

All it means is that it offers the car this much current. That's the most the car can take from this particular charger. Some cars can be set to charge more slowly, which you might want to do if using a mains portable "granny" charger for example, as 13A plugs can get rather hot above 10A! And a 32A EVSE offers 32A to the car, provided the Type-2 cable you plugged in is also 32A ! If you went and plugged a 16A cable into the 32A charger, the charger detects this & says "Whoops, thin cable here, I'll only offer 16A" so the car only gets offered 16A and cannot grab any more than that.

 

[Mach993]

I had wondered about the 16 as i believed the batteries last longer if you slow charge them but you are recommending 32 so i will look into this more .

Worth noting that when people talk about repeated ‘fast’ charging impacting battery health, they are generally referring to ‘Rapid’ charging which is 50kw+ and therefore generates a fair bit of heat in the process, hence some impact on long term battery health if rapid charging frequently.

At 32 Amps (7Kw) and lower there is no need to worry, very little heat is produced and so battery degradation will be as little as it can be.

 

[sizzlechest]

7.5 meters distance is a fair length, I think most tethered EVSEs have a 5m cable. But I've just bought a 10m Type-2 cable for my untethered EVSE, so you'd be okay with that combination. You have to think about whether the cable would be left connected to the EVSE when the car's away, and whether it could get stolen; some people here have fitted a shackle/padlock to keep their safe. Or else you'd have to take the cable right out & pack it away when the car's away. This can probably be a nuisance to have to do, when it's cold & wet, and the cable's a but muddy.

General opinion on any charging is, don't leave the car sitting at 100% full for days, try & set out on your trip soon after a 100% tillup. But exactly how soon is "soon" I don't really know. Overnight may be ok. Rapid charging I can't comment on, but there are appends about Leaf taxis getting Rapid charged all the time, and lasting very well indeed, so perhaps not worth bothering too much about, just use the car as you feel like.

Just a comment... I have a tethered Pod Point and have not been disappointed with it. If travelling some distance I use Public Rapids and quickly discovered that my EV (Hyundai Ioniq) will not allow a Rapid to deliver more than 94%. Do other EV's offer similar protection?

 

[HandyAndy]

Not sure if that's "protection", or simply the particular Rapid EVSE drawing a limit somewhere. I charged my Ioniq 38 from 80% to 100% on a Polar 50 kW Rapid, took forever it seemed, as was down to about 2 kW at the very end! No-one else there wanting it v early in the morning, and I needed 100%, so no problem except sloooooow!