Hi, and thanks for choosing to buy your new electric car from us.
My name is Miles Roberts, and I’m the Innovation Development Manager for Chorley Group. It’s my job to make sure that all our customers find the transition to electric cars as easy as possible. To that end, I’ve prepared some answers to commonly asked questions, so that you can get the most out of your new electric car from day 1.
You could charge your car off a normal 3-pin socket, although this isn’t recommended for permanent use throughout the year as it’s much slower than a dedicated charger, and also depending on the age of your property it’s possible that the socket could overheat if used for long periods of time.
The 3-pin socket can provide 10A of current, which means that it will only add around 2kWh of electricity (about 6-8 miles) per hour of charge. It can be useful if you haven’t had chance to get a home charger installed yet, or if you visit another house where they don’t have a charger yet. Be careful if using extension leads – most aren’t rated for high current, especially for long periods of time, and must be fully unwound before use.
A dedicated home charge point is recommended, as they are faster and safer in daily use as they are waterproof for outdoor charging all year round. They can provide up to 32A of current, which is about 7kWh of electricity (about 20-30 miles) per hour of charge.
They can either be “untethered” (with a Type 2 socket which you plug your own cable into), or “tethered” (with an attached cable which usually wraps around the charger like a hosepipe, ready for you to plug in).
There are grants available to pay up to £350 towards the cost of installing a home charger, and given that the government wants all new cars to be electric by 2030, you may as well install one now, as it’s sure to be useful not only for your new car, but also may become a selling point for houses in the future!
There are lots of different brands to choose from. Some of the differences are cosmetic (which one would look best on the side of your property?), but some chargers have different features which may be of interest – solar integration (to limit charging so that it only uses what you are generating from your Solar PV array); charging timers (so that you can use an off-peak tariff for cheaper electricity); app-integration (so that you can easily track your usage).
Chorley Group has teamed up with Rightcharge to help you choose the right home charger for your needs – just click through to their website, and they can show you all of the options available.
It may be worth looking at how much you pay for your home electricity – the unit cost (eg. 12p/kWh) multiplied by the battery size (eg 40kWh) will tell you how much a total charge from 0-100% would cost you (although if you’re only half-empty, then the cost will be half as much!). In our example, 12p x 40kWh = £4.80 for a full charge. However, there are a lot of new tariffs which are specifically aimed at EV drivers, which may give much cheaper rates if you charge your car overnight. This can be as low as 5p/kWh or less, which would make a full charge cost £2.00 instead. Again, Rightcharge have an electricity cost comparison tool on their website, which I’d recommend that you check out.
There are lots of publicly available chargers around the UK, which can be useful if you’re planning a journey which is outside the range of a full charge of your car.
There are two main types of public charger:
To see where these chargers are, and to see how to use them (some have contactless payment options, others may require an app to use them), you can check out Zap-Map. They also have an app which is free to download for Android and Apple devices, so you can check out charging options when you are away from home. If you’d like to do a very long journey in your EV, they also have a journey planner, which plans the stops for you.
If you have serious EV roadtrip ambitions, then Plugshare has listings for chargers across Europe and even further afield!
If you want to keep your new electric car looking its best, then we have a range of accessories to help. Interior floor mats, boot mats, and mud flaps will all help keep the interior and exterior looking great. Did you know that we can also offer Supaguard protection for your vehicle, so that the paintwork and interior can shrug off dirt and keep that showroom shine all year round? Please speak to your salesperson if you’d like this adding to your car before handover.
Finally, if there’s anything else that you’re not sure of, please drop me a line at miles.roberts@chorleygroup.co.uk. There are no silly questions – I’ve been driving EVs for 6 years now, so I will hopefully be able to answer anything you might think of, and if I don’t know then I’ll make sure I find out for you!