DrFfybes wrote:AF62 wrote:9873210 wrote:
There may also be a question of making sure the car has some minimal range most of the time, in case there is a power failure or you need a trip to the hospital or similar. Just because you say you don't need to use it before 7AM doesn't mean you won't occasionally need to use it before 7AM.
It does it whether the car has 10% charge or 90% charge when it starts charging, so that seems unlikely.
So when you plug it in, do you tell the system when you will be unplugging the car, or do you set it to charge after midnight (or whenever your cheap rate is)?
I do not have it set to charge at specific times, although both the charger and the car allow that - you could set either the charger on a timer or the car on a timer. Instead I have told the charger what electricity tariff I am on and set it to charge at no more than 5.5p and then let the charger work it out when it needs to turn on and off.
The tariff I am on has a period from 20:30 to 01:30 (but other times are available to choose from) that the tariff falls to 5.5p, so when I plug the car in at 6pm the charger has a quick burst of power for a few seconds to confirm everything is good and then goes quiet until later.
I can then see from the charts the charger's app produces that there is a period of half an hour or so where the charger puts in charge at 20:30 before then going to sleep whilst it works out what time it needs to restart to hit the percentage target* I have set by 01:30.
*You don't have to just have a full charge you set charger to charge the battery to 50%, 70%, 90% 100% - whatever you want. You might pick a lower percentage ifyou got free charging at a location, say at work, and just needed enough charge to get there.
DrFfybes wrote:I can see an initial top up would be useful - as above what happens if you change your mind and need to nip out,
You just unplug it and do your errands and then plug it back in when you get back and it will carry on as before. As before, the car is set to charge immediately it is plugged in (so it works if I need to top up at a public charger when I am out) and my home charger will deliver charge to whatever is plugged in which needs charge when it is the cheap rate.
Theoretically this is a small risk as if I was away then some random person with an electric car could park at my house and charge, but that isn't likely to happen where I am, and if it did my phone would be notified that someone was charging so I could turn it off remotely, or if I was that worried I could simply set the charger to charge to 0% whilst I was away.
DrFfybes wrote:or there is a power cut?
Your car doesn't get charged! But if it is only a temporary cut then it just restarts itself and carries on where it left off.
DrFfybes wrote:or someone unplugs it, [1]
Paul
[1] Seems like a great teenage prank - unplugging cars charging on the street. More fun than knocking on doors and running away.
The cable is fixed to the charger (it is a 'tethered' cable) and the current standard for charging plugs is that they lock themselves into the car socket when plugged in and can then only be released by pressing a switch inside the car or on the remote control.