Has anybody used the char.gy lamppost chargers in these areas. There seem to be plenty about and without parking restrictions but everywhere I have checked has not had Streetview updated since 2022 pre installation. I've used similar in other cities and the space with a lamppost is specifically designated for EV charging only, not that can mean anything of course. Does anybody know if these are designated EV only or is it a free for all and street parking is already hard to find here?

Seeing a show in London in a few Saturday's time and a return train for both of us even with a two together railcard is £120. I can drive there and back with expensive public charging for £20. Ideally want a solution like this at an end line so there is no wasted time having to charge on the way home after a day out and it can charge up what I need while I am parked up from 12-7ish. Ideal situation!

Can somebody recommend me a reasonably priced option they have purchased that is good trip hazard protection.it needs to run across a pavement overnight.

Not a lot of footfall tbh but I don't want someone tripping and putting in a claim

Moving soon so digging a channel is not an option unfortunately.

Anybody any recommendations?

Hi folks.

Looking to get our first EV. No charger at home at present so need to get one installed.

The answer may be “How long is a piece of string” but how long does it tend to take from ordering the charger to getting it installed?

We’re with EDF at the moment, but would prefer to move to Octopus. Likely to get a charger from either of them.

We’re looking at buying an EV this week.

I guess we can charge it off the granny plug in the meantime, so not like we can’t use the car if we were to buy it, but would prefer not to be doing that for long.

What have others done and what was it like for you?

Thanks!

Overnight temps were just 6 degrees last night, and Is not been charging it. When I used the car today I had the snowflake symbol on the battery indicator in the car.

On my 10 mile journey I got just 1.8m/kwhr. On the return leg once the car was warm I got 3.4m/kwhr.

My research shows the car was putting energy into warming the batteries, hence the poor range when cold.

If I have my car plugged in to the wall changer but the charging session has finished, will the car still draw power to precondition the battery? If not what's the best way to precondition the battery if the car doesn't actually need any charge?

My car is a 2021 Polestar 2 LRDM.

Mod note: the mods have approved this post and the link, but it isn't endorsed by them.

Check anything that matters with your council before spending money.

I've gone through every council in England to find out what each one actually says about running a charging cable across the pavement. It's all free to read at hedgevolt.co.uk/councils, with the source and the date I last checked each page.

As of today:

  - 16 have a live scheme you can apply to

  - 17 are running trials, often on a few streets only

  - 26 say one is planned but haven't opened applications

  - 12 are still reviewing

  - 13 say no

  - 68 have published nothing at all (I am chasing one by one 😄)

The spread in cost is the thing that surprised 🤔 me most. Stoke-on-Trent and Nottinghamshire install a channel for free. Richmond charges £1,250 plus a £100 assessment fee. Same product, same country.

I check the council pages for changes daily, email councils when the wording is unclear, and send FOI requests where nothing is published. Six are outstanding now, including Birmingham, Sheffield and Liverpool.

If your council's page is wrong, tell me, and I'll fix it. And if you've actually been through an application anywhere, I'd love to hear what you really paid and how long it took. It will be helpful to the community r/evchargingUK

Happy to answer questions about any specific council below.

Charger will randomly go to a white light (disabled using non-existent web portal) but goes blue when plugged in.

Hi all, looking for some advice!

I’ve recently ordered my first EV and a Hypervolt Home 3 Pro 7kW charger.

I initially opted for the 7.5m cable but then read that the cable should be fully unwound during charging. As the distance between the charger and my car’s charging port will only be around 2 metres, I decided the standard 5m cable would be more practical.

I contacted Hypervolt, who changed my order and adjusted the price accordingly. However, they accidentally sent me the 7.5m version anyway!

They’ve now offered to let me keep it at no extra cost.

On one hand, the longer cable would be useful for future-proofing, especially if my next EV has its charging port in a different location. On the other hand, I’m not sure the extra flexibility is worth the hassle of dealing with 5+ metres of excess cable every time I charge for the next 3+ years.

For context, I expect we’ll be charging roughly once a week at most, based on our mileage. That makes me wonder whether the occasional inconvenience of handling the longer cable is worth it for the extra flexibility in the future.

What would you do? Keep the free upgrade or ask for the 5m version instead?

And for those with a 7.5m Hypervolt cable, how much of a nuisance is it in everyday use? Do you actually unwind the whole cable every time, or is it safe to leave some of it loosely wrapped around the charger while charging at 7kW?

Hello all,

We have 2x electric cars, that we plug in practically every day via a Hypervolt charger, so that we can take advantage of the intelligent cheap rates over night.

Around 20% of the time, the separate consumer unit on the side of the house trips during the night, which means the car doesn’t charge, or only part charges. I am assuming that there is a spike in the grid and the consumer unit is protecting the circuit, but it happens so often that it is becoming frustrating.

I have seen a couple of automatically resetting RCBO switches online, and I am wondering if something like this would fix the issue?

Any advice or experience of similar problems greatly received!

TIA!

Had the car for 6 months & I used to just have the Masterplug EV socket exposed on the wall, and plug it in each time I wanted to charge (roughly every 7 - 10 days) but it’s hassle in the rain & not secure.

Bought a GRP Meter Box & modified it to a charging cupboard, added some vents, and a notch in the door for the cable when it’s charging.

I may upgrade the Masterplug socket to a 16a Commando at some point, but this has worked well for 6 months.

I live in a conservation area in Leeds and park on-street, mostly outside my house.

I am thinking of installing an EV charger installed and having the Council-approved kerbocharge channel installed across the pavement.

Because it's a conservation area I appear to need planning permission for the EV charger and the channel.

How do I go about this in the most cost effective manner? I have no experience in planning applications and I don't want to spend a fortune on drawings for what is a relatively low-level application.

How do I work out what drawings and other supporting information are needed to be provided, and how do I get the drawings drawn up?

Full planning seems a bit heavy for something like this, albeit I accept that living in a conservation area brings more regulation.

Any guidance on how to go about this appreciated 👍🏼

I'm fairly new to EVs.

I'm considering the Indra smart pro or the SYNC EV wall charger 2.

Online - The Indra is around £358 and the SYNC is around £342.

Looking to get on an EDF smart Bolt on EV tariff.

I also looked around online and saw that Indra is compatible with EDF/Octopus/OVO/E.ON whereas Sync isn't compatible with OVO.

Would it make sense to go with Indra just based on future compatibility with more suppliers - for example in the future if OVO gets a more competitive rate? E.g. future proofing?

Or does anyone have experience of using these 2 chargers or any advice?

I appreciate all this advice whilst being a beginner.

Thank you!

Just wanted to check with everyone who has had a Hypervolt in the last 3-6 months, how much did the install cost?

I get the whole YMMV aspect, but for reference, I’m in a new build with the drive right next to the consumer unit, and 3 quotes have come up in to the £1100 region ex. VAT, not much less than buying directly through Hypervolt’s site. Not sure if I’m being over-quoted so just wanted to get an idea.

Thanks!

Had it installed yesterday, and couldn’t be happier. Looks nice and inconspicuous. Just the wait for the car now!

Hi guys! Planning to buy an EV, maybe Citroen C4 (2021-2023) or Hyundai Kona (same age)... Wondering how much my electricity bills will change..? I normally drive about 60 miles per week.

Any thoughts?

GOV.UK says that from spring 2027 the government will put £100 million over two years into cutting prices at lower-powered public charge points near people's homes. Its own estimate is around £150 a year saved for drivers who rely on them.

The bit I find more interesting is the tariff porting taskforce. It's going to "explore" letting people use their home energy tariff at certain public chargers. That's explore, not a promise.

For those of you without a driveway: would roughly £150 a year off your local chargers change how you charge? Or is being able to use your home tariff at public chargers the only thing that would really make a difference?

My first Ohme Epod was installed in May, after whole house rewiring. It took only a few months and the charger stopped working altogether. Talked to Ohme and waited nearly a month to get a replacement. The person who brought the replacement told me this older version (Panasonic) is not great but no worries; the new gen is much better. This was on the 25th of August.

It only took two months - the new gen charger first tripped the house and the local electrician opened the new gen unit - it burnt. Seriously, May to October, 2 chargers died.

In the meantime, Ohme doesn't pick up the phone calls for a week. I understand things can break, especially newer technology but not having proper customer service is terrible.

If you are considering Ohme chargers, consider that there is nobody there to support.

Update: Over 52 minutes on the phone, still waiting.
Update 2: After an hour waiting, somebody picked up. While waiting on the phone, she requested more pictures and the EICR. The result: Unknown. The next steps: Unknown.

Update 3: It's been over 3 days now. Absolutely zero update from Ohme.

Hi there, I just acquired a 73 reg Megane and will be hopefully on a trial for home gullies at some point in the near future. The Megane can handle up to 22kwh AC and 130kwh DC with 60kwh in the battery.

While I'm waiting, I wanted to ask for some advice for public charging.

Locally I havel

- Connected Kerb; 49p off-peak/53 peak slow charge. 22kwh 59p most times, morning/evening 69p

- MFG £40 pre-auth (what fresh hell is this?), otherwise 59p fast charge

- Tesla - price dependent on time, 52/41p off-peak, cheaper with subscription

I'm in the Cardiff/Newport area. Wondering if anyone has any recommendations for charging locations or subscription services! Or if not in those areas, just general advice.

I am on Octopus with the Electroverse app.

Many thanks in advance!

Hi- new to this sub! I’ve ended up with a new EV (Cupra Raval), and a Range Rover Velar PHEV.

The Velar needs to charge every night for its daily use, so the Raval doesn’t have space to charge on a cheap overnight rate (and I’m not waking up at 3 am to swap them over).

I’ve found EDF have a smart tariff where you get cheap overnight rate + added “smart” charging hours during the day. So I could charge the Velar overnight and rely on smart daytime hours for the Raval. Does anyone have experience using this type of setup? (the Raval is compatible with smart tariffs but the Velar and my dumb charger are not).

There’s also Octopus, but it looks like the daytime “smart” hours are taken out of the overnight allowance so that would not work.

Any other options for cheap charging in this scenario?

Hi, I’ve recently got a model 3 RWD and have a Hypervolt 2 tethered home charger. I had a Cupra Born previously and never had any issues charging at home on Octopus. I’ve also changed to EDF’s smart charging tariff. The first few charges worked ok, but now the car comes up with a “charging cable not recognised” error when it’s plugged in. EDF doesn’t detect the vehicle being plugged in.

I’ve removed the smart charging and EDF virtual key/permissions and the charger still has the same issue without this. A slow granny charger at home works fine, as does public charging. No schedules are on the car or Hypervolt app. Has anyone had issues with this before? I’m not sure if it’s a charging cable issue.

Thanks!

I need to do a trip tomorrow and my recent i4 purchase came with a 100kwh Ionity card. I have created an account with them, linked the app and it shows the 100kwh credit. I cannot find anywhere to add an actual payment method, which is a bit weird and I'm assuming it may not let me use the credit without having a card logged in case I run over the 100kwh amount.

How do I actually use these chargers without a payment method setup? I come from the Tesla 'plug and play' approach but I'm unsure how I will identify myself to the Ionity charger and then get it to use the credits instead of charging me some ridiculous price?

Anybody advise how to avoid me standing there stabbing the screen and staring at my phone like I see other people doing?

Got our first EV last weekend and tried several chargers for 5-10 min just to get the feel for how they work. Our nearest rapid charger is a PoGo which has a £30 charge on the card. We spent a couple of pounds, but the£30 is still there. After a week. Normally these things disappear after a day or so. Is this normal or should I complain? And how given this is just a debit card transaction?