Hello from a Newbie

[Stu]

Hi everyone

I had a test drive yesterday in a white GX4hs at my local dealer and they also had a blue GX4h unregistered with zero miles in stock and ready to go, so I made a bit of an impulse buy and I'm picking it up on September 1st. Seemed to be a bit of a result as I've read that others are waiting 3-4 months for delivery.

Like a few existing members I'm running it as a company car and was drawn to the £60-odd monthly BIK. I'm paying around £300 at the moment so, despite not having done any research on the car, it's already looking like I'll be more than happy.

A couple of quick questions, I know the car comes with a lead for charging via household wall plug, but what if I want to use the public 'black post' style charging points, do I need to buy a separate lead?

Also, what charging schemes are people in the UK using? My initial research has come up with Charge Your Car for most of the public points and Ecotricity for motorway services. Are there any other/better schemes?

Many thanks in advance.

Regards
Stu.

 

[maby]

I'm not convinced that public charging points make that much sense for many of us. I will occasionally drive into London to work for several hours at our head office - I may go out of my way to go to a car park where I can charge because I'll be there long enough to fully charge the battery ready for my trip home. But how much sense do charging points in supermarkets and similar make? In the half hour or so that I'm shopping, I'm not going to get enough charge in to make it worth while - specially if I'm having to pay for access to the point. I guess that fast chargers may be a bit different, but the Mitsubishi FAQs make it clear that frequent use of fast chargers can shorten the life expectancy of your batteries. Personally, I'll give the batteries a standard charge most nights and probably get a Source London card which will give me access to a point on my occasional trips into the office.

 

[jdsx]

Hi Stu

Congratulations on your impending purchase. You were lucky to get the best colour/model going :lol:

I'm a relative newbie too, but here are a couple of answers to be going on with:
You will need a 'type 1 - type 2' lead for most public charging. These are available for about £160-170 (don't buy one from Mitsubishi for £299!). If you live in the north-east (England), I think you will need a CYC card for this - it costs £20 pa. In some places you get free parking/charging so worth getting, IMO.
You can also use 'rapid' chargers at service stations - these have their own tethered leads and plug into the larger socket (in the car). You can get a free card from Ecotricity. I think these also work at IKEA but haven't tested it out yet. You can only charge up to 80% at these, so unless you live close to one it may not be worth it.
I would recommend getting a home charging unit as well. There are various options for this (tethered/non-tethered, 16A/32A), you can probably check out this forum (I'm sure the topic has been covered before) or there's quite a good general EV forum at speakEV(dot)com