- This topic has 20 replies, 6 voices, and was last updated 2 years, 5 months ago by Ianfca.
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- October 18, 2021 at 7:03 pm #166981Ianfca
My wife is due to change her car and would like the compromise of a plug in hybrid. The quandary we have is do we need a home charger or is it ok to plug in to a domestic socket overnight. The reason for this is that motability don’t help with home charger for plug in hybrids, although they do provide a charger for purely electric vehicles.
Are there any issues with plugging into a domestic socket apart from the time it takes to charge ? - CreatorTopic
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- October 18, 2021 at 7:11 pm #166982peter
A domestic socket will be fine. I would only have aconcern if my house wiring was ancient.
October 18, 2021 at 7:18 pm #166983We have a Outlander PHEV on the scheme we do have a dedicated home charger, however, for the last 15 months we often charge up at the daughters or plug into the caravans external 13 amp socket no problem.
October 18, 2021 at 7:36 pm #166985A granny charger will give about 9 miles per hour and as long as your house electrics are in good condition you will be fine. However the rules for government grants for wall chargers are changing from April next year. After which grants will only be available if YOU DO NOT HAVE OFF STREET PARKING. As it stands fitting a wall charger for a PHEV using your own money you will, at present, get £350 grant in England and £600 in Scotland this all changing next year when you will only get the grant if you have NO OFF STREET PARKING.
I have no idea how motability will deal with this and niether do they, I asked them and they knew nothing about the changes however the lady was very polite.
The only person who got all his work done by Friday was Robinson Crusoe.
Anything i post over three lines long please assume it is an article lol.October 18, 2021 at 7:47 pm #166986A wall charger for a PHEV is a waste of money. A domestic 13A socket is all you need. As has already been said.
October 18, 2021 at 8:33 pm #166987We have a Outlander PHEV on the scheme we do have a dedicated home charger, however, for the last 15 months we often charge up at the daughters or plug into the caravans external 13 amp socket no problem.
We have a static caravan so I’m interested in how you get on charging it there, how many amps does the granny charge take I’m assuming not all 13, and I’m also assuming 16 amp total supply to the caravan.
Daughters motability car Vauxhall Grandland 1.5 diesel automatic Ultimate.
My car SEAT Ibiza SE Tec 1.2 petrol TSI 2017.October 18, 2021 at 8:54 pm #166989Type 1.
A type 1 charger is your granny charger. The reason being that it’s the slowest charging rate (sorry to all of the granny’s out there!). A granny cable provides power via a 3 pin wall socket similar to those that you plug your vacuum or TV into. This cable will charge EVs at around 10 amps. Which means that in 1 hour you will approximately have 9-10 miles of range added to the battery. A BMW i3 94Ah at home will recharge in 14-15 hours at 10 amps.
The only person who got all his work done by Friday was Robinson Crusoe.
Anything i post over three lines long please assume it is an article lol.October 18, 2021 at 10:57 pm #166998The question was about a plug in hybrid. Between 4 and 5 hours for most on a 13A socket drawing 10A.
October 19, 2021 at 4:00 am #167005Type 1. A type 1 charger is your granny charger.
That’s wrong. “Type” refers to the plug on the output side, not the input side (for granny chargers). There’s Type 1 and Type 2 connectors. In Europe Type 2 is the standard, which is a 7pin connector with a locking pin – as opposed to a Type 1 connector, which is a 5pin connector with a latch.
Indeed the I3 that you took for an example is Type 2 as well.
The input connection is designated by “Mode”. Granny chargers are Mode 2. Mode 2 means there’s a three pin plug on the input.
As a concrete example, the Peugeot 3008 uses a Type 2 Mode 2 cable for granny charging, like this one here.
EV Home Charging Cable | Type 2 to 3 Pin plug | 10 Amp | 5/10 Metre | Mode 2 |
For reference, all plugs and “lingo” explained:
https://www.mobilityhouse.com/int_en/knowledge-center/charging-cable-and-plug-types
Prior: SEAT Ateca Xcellence Lux 1.5 TSI DSG MY19
Current: VW Golf GTE PHEV DSG MY23October 19, 2021 at 4:04 am #167006Are there any issues with plugging into a domestic socket apart from the time it takes to charge ?
Probably not. If your wiring is done properly, there shouldn’t be an issue. We’re getting into PHEVs in march too with a Golf GTE, and we’ll charge it via domestic socket for the most part (we will eventually get a charger considering the car after the GTE will be most likely an EV and since we’re paying private rather than going with BP, might as well do it beforehand).
Although, we did mount a smoke detector over the outlet we intend to charge from in preparation. Better to be safe than sorry.
Prior: SEAT Ateca Xcellence Lux 1.5 TSI DSG MY19
Current: VW Golf GTE PHEV DSG MY23October 19, 2021 at 6:25 am #167007There’s really no need for such measures Rene. Charger cables have built in fault and overheat detection circuitry with sensors built into the 13A plug. If they find anything wrong, they shut down the charge.
October 19, 2021 at 8:09 am #167013As previously stated no problem using the granny charger plugged into a 3 pin socket, and has Wigwam has clearly stated they are fail proofed. One of our neighbour’s has a Mercedes he has not bothered with a dedicated charger just plugs it into the 3 pin socket and a waterproof extension lead.
October 19, 2021 at 8:31 am #167015IanIn this instance installation of a charger for a Phev would surely cost more money than the money it would save when operating the car?
The advantage would be it would charge quicker than 3 pin plug but its only advantage would be speed of charging and it would potentially cost a years worth of eleccy.
October 19, 2021 at 8:50 am #167016Absolutely Ian, and if people mostly charge overnight as we do there’s no gain at all.
October 19, 2021 at 8:58 am #167018What’s the maximum length of 3 pin plug cable you could use to charge a PHEV, ours would need to be about 10metres to reach the outside of the house.
What length of cable is supplied with your PHEVs?
October 19, 2021 at 9:39 am #167026What’s the maximum length of 3 pin plug cable you could use to charge a PHEV, ours would need to be about 10metres to reach the outside of the house. What length of cable is supplied with your PHEVs?
I have made up our own extension cable using 2.5mm 3 core orange caravan cable ( be careful some on eBay are only cheap 1.5mm) and fitted a 3 pin waterproof socket.
October 19, 2021 at 10:58 am #167034Supplied cable on the XC40 is 7 metres long. For an extension of 10 metres, 1.5 mm cable would do. Any longer I would use 2.5mm. The issue over cable thickness is voltage drop, not safety. At 10A plugs will get warm, which is normal. They shouldn’t get hot.
October 19, 2021 at 11:40 am #167039Charger cables have built in fault and overheat detection circuitry with sensors built into the 13A plug. If they find anything wrong, they shut down the charge.
While it’s correct that a good cable does work, this is incorrect – and in fact one of the main reasons stated as to why extension leads are “suboptimal” even if you get a proper cable.
The issue is the wall outlet. By using an extension cable you disable the overheat detection, since obviously the granny charger can’t wirelessly measure the socket at the other end of the extension cable. So, no. You actually don’t have overheat protection when using an extension cable. Fault protection should still work i assume, though.
Prior: SEAT Ateca Xcellence Lux 1.5 TSI DSG MY19
Current: VW Golf GTE PHEV DSG MY23October 19, 2021 at 11:45 am #167040I never said a charging lead provided any protection to an extension lead. I did however warn that the plug on an extension lead will get warm but shouldn’t get hot. Simple thing to monitor. And of course whatever socket an extension is plugged into should be in good condition. If in doubt a replacement cost about £3.
October 19, 2021 at 12:35 pm #167046Simple answer too the question:
(a) Is it worth installing a dedicated charging point, well it all depends, we installed a 7kWh Podpoint as we intend switching over to a full EV in the near future, at present our PHEV will only charge @ 3.6kWh, a full charge takes maximum of 3 hours.
(b) To charge up from the granny lead takes about 5 1/2 hours
( c) An extension lead need to be full unwound/uncoiled when drawing high loads, they do get warm and have been know to catch fire? we use a 2.5mm cable which I have spare.
( d) If I plug my granny lead directly into any mains socket the 3 pin plug get very slightly warm.
At the end of the day the choice is yours to make even with the grant you are looking at around £500, that a lot of Octopus Off peak 5 pence kWh, that 10,000 kWh
October 19, 2021 at 7:05 pm #167071IanfcaThank you for all your responses. I think we have decided to not have a home charger as we will only charge our car at night and a 3 pin socket would manage to charge from 0 – 100% overnight. We probably would take advantage of the government contribution and install a charger now but we are planning to move house within the next 12 months.
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