PJWedlock said:
Hi
I purchased my PHEV last week and generally I've been really impressed with it. As instructed, I took up an offer with Pod Point to have a charger installed at my home. I agreed to pay a little bit extra and get a 7Kw unit installed at the house instead of the free 3Kw unit. Have I made the right choice? I've read that the car is only capable of handling 16amps so I'm wondering if I have paid extra for nothing (I have no knowledge of electricity so I'm not even sure if the 7Kw unit operates off 32Amp or 16Amp).
Also, I've just found out (rather annoyingly) that I will need to purchase an additional cable to be able to use public charging points (which I'm likely to make use of). Can anyone recommend the best value for money product in the UK?
Hi PJWedlock,
I've been sorting all this stuff out for my dad this week, not heard the charge points referred to in kw ratings tbh but I will assume it is the choice of 16A or 32A we are talking about.
I have instructed a firm called nuworldenergy.co.uk (or .com) to fit my dad's home charge unit and the following is all that I found out speaking to them;
First of all the unit I chose through them was the Rolec 32A non-terminated version.
The options were 16A or 32A terminated or unterminated, with nuworldenergy BOTH the 16A and 32A terminated units are free of charge, well fully covered by the current OLEV grant scheme.
The 16A is basically the current technology standard as used on the current Outlander PHEV, 32A is where the industry is going and will charge quicker. You can use either on the current PHEV as it will only take 16A, even from the 32A capable charge unit, it won't blow it.
So, as they explained to me, their advice was to go for the 32A as it future proofs you. Let's say you want another new PHEV in 3 years time, at the rate the tech is moving the PHEVs produced in 3 years time may well be 32A and to take advantage of the faster charge times you would need the 32A charge unit. However by then the OLEV grants will most likely have stopped or greatly reduced and therefore you would have to foot the bill to upgrade yourself, not cheap.
So that's why we opted for 32A, with this supplier it was still free, future proof and so a no-brainer.
The terminated or non-terminated aspect however was where the extra cost came for us.
Basically the terminated unit was still free however the cable is permanently attached to the charge unit, you have to wrap it around the charge unit to keep it tidy'ish, like a wall mounted hosepipe.
The non-terminated option means you can detach the charge cable from the charge unit and store it when not in use, much tidier in my opinion, however this cable takes you over the grant limit and as such they charge £165 for this 5m cable. Though they have given us a voucher to get £20 off that price so it will cost £145.
However, this 5m detachable cable is the very same cable you use to hook up to public charge points with, the one the Mitsubishi dealer tries to sell you for £299 when you buy/order the car. So we thought it represented good value, a tidier looking charge unit on the house without the cable wrapped around it and a public charge cable for half the cost of the dealer's one.
So you may have paid a little more than us but if you decide to stick with EV vehicles in the future then you haven't wasted your money at all, you've probably saved yourself some longer term.
Obviously we are very happy with this and the firm is only 4 miles from us so any issues and we can be knocking heads together very easily :lol: There may be even better deals but there is a chance they won't be around for long it seems.
One other thing, what stage are you at, has your unit been fitted yet? Just wondered because my dad's old consumer unit (main fuse box) wasn't up to the job, so we are having to have that replaced before the charger can be fitted. Not an issue though as these things really should be updated anyway if they are old units like his, fitted and certificated cost of that is £250-350 it seems.
