Electrickery II

Had a play with the VW e-Up! yesterday - sounds like something from deepest Yorkshire.

Started by having a look at the charging point on the car and cable supplied with it.

It is capable of taking two types of connecting cable; a fast charging Type 2 (the upper section of the connection) and a CCS (combines part of the upper connection with the DC pins of the lower section) which facilitates rapid charging (DC charges much faster than AC).

The photo below is the charging cable that comes with the car, which is a Type 2 fast charging cable (not as fast as a CSS rapid charger).

I connected the cable, despite not having a charger, just to see how it fitted. However, I couldn't remove the damned thing. It took me about 15 minutes to realise that you had to unlock the car to release the cable. That actually makes sense, as you don't want some bugger running off with your cable while the car is unattended.

Below is what's under the bonnet. A total mystery to a piston-head like me.

Given we don't have a charger at work, I took the car to our local Morrison's, which has three different connector types - Type 1, Type 2 and CCS. I chose the CCS rapid charging connector.

Then came the kerfuffle of following the instructions on the charging unit. There's no app and you have to login to a website to register your vehicle and buy £10 of credit. It took a few attempts before I managed to get the current flowing. Then off I toddled for about 15 or 20 minutes of browsing in Morrison's.

The application allowed me to monitor the charging remotely, although I didn't have a clue as to whether I'd reached 100% capacity or not.

On returning to the car I noticed the battery level monitor (on the right) was close to 100% and so called it a day.

I received an email telling me how much I'd spent, which didn't tally with the figure shown on the software application while I was in Morrison's.

I'd been charged £1 for some 60 odd miles worth of electrickery juice, which had taken some 15 or 16 minutes to load. Very economical indeed, and fast.

Next came the quandary of which charging unit to choose for work, as this is the way the business is headed. The Type 2 ones were between £300 and £400, the difference being down to whether they came with a tethered cable or not. They are more than adequate for our business, as we can charge cars overnight; however, when it comes to customers, they may want to charge their car rapidly through a CCS cable. That's where you run up against horrendous cost, as they are between £7,000 and £8,000.

I decided to go for the Type 2 charger below, which is what most domestic chargers are.

Yes, we could have gone for the government scheme whereby if we get one installed by an approved installer we can get a £500 rebate, but a) we don't have the time to go through all the hoops, and b) an approved installer would be much more expensive than our tame electrician anyway, so it's doubtful we'd make much of a saving. The registered installer would obviously have to pass on the cost of registration to his or her customer (like a Corgi registered plumber - basically it's a bit of a scam), and wouldn't know our electrical system that well, which is littered with quirks that only John knows intimately.

Then came the biggest problem - I ordered the charging unit from Amazon using my Prime membership and a promised one-day delivery. It was only after having paid for the unit that I discovered that it won't arrive till Monday 9th December. At least I can carry on using my Genie Point credits till then

The car is currently having a service and MoT. Our usual mechanics have never had an electric car to service or MoT and there was a lot of hilarity when they asked whether we required the car to have an oil change.

I get more impressed with this car by the day and everyone at work is queuing up to drive it when it returns from the garage. Valeting will have to be conducted somewhat gingerly, as we don't want any water near the motor.