[Steph]

My new car is arriving tomorrow! It's an ex demo Tekna 30kwh with a 6.6 charger. My husband is kindly collecting it from the dealers. Am finding all the info on charging points quite confusing. I live near Uckfield and will use the car to travel to Lewes, Brighton, Hailsham and Crowborough. Am pleased I came across the thread. Interested to read about Chargemaster and will ask my husband to make enquiries at the dealers tomorrow.
Do you have to be a member of one of the providers to use the charger at Hailsham?
I see there are some chargers in car parks in Brighton. Does that mean you have to pay to park there in order to use them? Are they free?

 

[MetalHead]

If you use one of the maps such as Zap Map Charging points and electric vehicles UK 2016 - Zap Map or Open Charge Map Open Charge Map then you should be able to find out which network those charge points belong to and whether they cost and if so, how much.
Networks off the top of my head include ChargeYourCar, PodPoint, ChargeMaster, ZeroNet and Ecotricity.
There are others. The maps will tell you which ones you care about. If any

 

[pbceng]

I'd second @MetalHead's comments about ZapMap - I use it a lot. The phone app is very useful and you can filter out by plug type, charger type and network which is very handy.

I'm assuming you have a home charger which should cover you for most of your trips but there are some Charge Your Car rapid chargers in your areas - you can use a phone app of pay a subscription of £20 per year to get a card, the latter is more reliable in my experience. For further afield trips Ecotricity have points on a lot of the major motorway routes but have recently changed their network to an app based (and charged) one so worth setting up prior to any travel.

Hopefully the dealer has explained, but the Leaf comes with type 1 connector for slow and fast charging plus a CHAdeMO connector for rapid DC charging. The latter is the one to use for distance travel and takes around half an hour to deliver about 80% of capacity. As the battery fills up the charge rate drops and the top 10% is very slow indeed so rarely worth the wait. All the CHAdeMO chargers have fixed leads so you won't need to buy one for the car.

The type 1 connector can connect to fast charging AC stations but a lot of public ones are tethered (the have a fixed cable and plug) with a type 2 connector - the connections are identical but you would need an adaptor to use a tethered one. You can use untethered or socketed ones with a type 2 to type 1 lead which can be bought from a number of suppliers online. Leads are typically around £200 but are a useful backup.

Hope that helps and enjoy your Leaf - it's a cracking car.

 

[Michael Gill]

The type 1 connector can connect to fast charging AC stations but a lot of public ones are tethered (the have a fixed cable and plug) with a type 2 connector - the connections are identical but you would need an adaptor to use a tethered one.

I have never seen a fast (7kW) charger in the UK with a tethered cable. Where are these?

And there are no commercially available adaptors for this purpose. Cables shouldn't be daisy-chained.

Steph - if you want to AC charge, you'll need a cable which will be kept in the car. As you've bought a 6.6kW Leaf, the dealer should supply this (it comes as standard).

 

[MetalHead]

All 30kWh cars come with both an EVSE and a type 1 to 2 lead. Even the 3.3kW ones.

Sent from phone.

 

[Colin]

Welcome to the forum @Steph My LEAF Introductory Guide may be of use to you, although it's 2 years old and discusses the 24kWh Carwings system.

 

[pbceng]

I have never seen a fast (7kW) charger in the UK with a tethered cable. Where are these?

And there are no commercially available adaptors for this purpose. Cables shouldn't be daisy-chained.

Steph - if you want to AC charge, you'll need a cable which will be kept in the car. As you've bought a 6.6kW Leaf, the dealer should supply this (it comes as standard).

I was thinking more of the 22-43kW fast chargers which are often tethered although I take the point that most not located at rapids are untethered - i.e.: you can plug into them with a type2 to type 1 lead. There are commercial adaptors available for type 2 to type 1 which should be OK for the 3.3 or 6.6kW onboard Leaf charger.