[Rammstein94]

Good afternoon all,

Im all new to this, have been looking to buy an EV for a while now and have finally jumped ship from my Alfa Brera to a Leaf. This is a massive jump for me but one i felt i needed as i really wanted to save on fuel bills and maintenance costs.

Anyway, i will pick the car up on Thursday, is a 2015 24kw Leaf. We have a lot of charge points (both fast and rapid) within a mile of our home, so i was wondering whether it is worth us investing in a home charge point? I would be happy to use the 3 pin plug to charge overnight at home via our garage socket and then whenever needed on the way home from work take advantage of the local chargers. I will be driving around 50 miles per day at a max, to and from work, so do you think the 3 pin plug charging mixed in with local chargers is a go or a no?

Thanks everyone

 

[80698]

It will be way more convenient if you have a proper home charger. 3 Pin granny cable won't be as fast, or safe. If you do use it make sure no wiring is getting hot.

I live without any home charging at all. It is possible, but there are times where you wish you could just charge properly, reliably and cheaply at home.

 

[Rammstein94]

Wow that was speedy!
Thank you, I appreciate any advice and I know what you’re saying about the home chargers.

I have sent a few enquiries out today to get quotes, with the government grant it pays to do it so hopefully the quotes come back quick and we can move ahead with it and it doesn’t take too long for an installation date.

 

[Bill N]

I’ve done about 15k miles since last April with a 3 pin cable fed through the letter box.

 

[Rammstein94]

This would be how I would go about the 3 pin approach so thank you Bill. We have 2 double sockets in the garage which I would use, the house is only 5 years old so the quality of them should be ok for us I would think.

Is the cost of doing this not too bad for you? We will be moving our tariff to a more suitable one and have things in motion with Octopus for the Agility tariff

 

[Blanik]

One other advantage of a home charger is that you may be able to pre-heat ( great in the winter ) if your car has that function - a proper charger will give you enough power to do that, a granny charger will not so pre-heating will eat into the battery charge.

 

[Bill N]

One other advantage of a home charger is that you may be able to pre-heat ( great in the winter ) if your car has that function - a proper charger will give you enough power to do that, a granny charger will not so pre-heating will eat into the battery charge.

This is true, but IME pre-heating whilst plugged in via 3 pin will only eat up 2 or 3 % of charge in my i3, and I’ve never once needed those 2 or 3%.

 

[barneyd]

I’ve never noticed the Leaf using any battery power if you preheat it plugged into the granny charger. To be honest, I often preheat off the battery if I haven’t been charging overnight. Unless I absolutely need the range on the day, theres no particular reason not to.

Personally I would recommend getting a charger but if you’re not sure, see how you get on with the 13A charger and you decide if you think it’s worth spending the money on the advantages it brings. One thing to think about is speed. A few times I’ve been grateful to be able to get a decent about of charge in quickly if I’m using the car a lot over the weekend. A granny charger will give you 7-10 miles of range in an hour, a 32A charger 25-30. The difference is much less if your Leaf doesn’t have the optional 7kW charger. Also most new charge points are smart and some can be integrated with time of use electricity tariffs like Octopus Agile but if your tariff is flat or just day/night then the ti,er in the car works just as well.