Well it is time to think about selling our 2015 Model S with 68,000 miles on the clock as we have a VIN number for our new arrival.(see other post about that). It is the end of January 2022 and I have just answered a post by a fellow Tesla Owners club member and he would like to buy a Model S.Well I send him the details of ours and he wants to buy it. This was Saturday. On Monday we arranged for him to have a look at it.on Monday he came and he is so impressed with the car that he bought it outright there and then. After sitting for ½ hour in the local Barclays Bank the deal is don and I have my money and he drives it home with about every accessory I bought over the last 6 years including a full set of winter wheels. We decided not to swap over the app yet,but I authorised the buyer to be another driver on my account in order not to jeopardise. A few days later when his new V5C came through we did the swap on the app and I followed the steps on the app and it worked very smoothly and the free supercharging went over without a hitch. BREAKING NEWS: After driving 2000 miles and about a month new owner of car reports that main battery has died. Without a hitch Tesla acknowledges problem and without an hour new owner is furnished with a Tesla loaner : a Model X. Within one week the battery is replaced and car back in the road with new owner. I have not heard from new owner for 4 months now.

I was given the opportunity by our local KIA dealer in Darlington to have a drive in the KIA EV6 DEMONSTRATOR in October 2021. Here is an impression of the interior.Impression: a lot of piano glossy Black used inside and it is already scratched a little.Seats are very good general impression is that it is of good quality.Too many button’s and too fussy layout.Definitely prefer the Tesla Model Y interior.However it has a very good sunroof and it opens as well.Cubby holes and particularly the Glovebox is very big and swallows actually an IPad Pro 12.9.The boot is quite shallow and it is not as roomy as the Tesl Model Y.Generally the EV6 is from the interior smaller than the Model Y and I banged my head a lot on the door frames as they are quite shallow on the rear doors but it makes the car look more like a saloon than an SUV.I am also not I pressed with the switch gear.It is a bit laggy and requires sometimes to press buttons twice.Here is the example for an overload of buttons: Why do you need a power on button on an EV? I have no idea.Some like VW have given that button up now!

The main problem of the KIA EV6 is however the Satnav. It did not feel any different to my classic IONIQ 28kw from 2017.Example: our local petrol station had an expansion of a) an extra 4 Instavolt chargers and b) for some reason they also installed 20 yards away another petrol station.The KIA’s Satnav did not recognise the new Instavolt chargers but it reported on the map the extra petrol station.Why on earth would you have a petrol station on an EV Satnav?

How much does the KIA EV 6 cost.Prices are so near to the Tesla Model Y and that is also concerning. You can specify a Kia with only rear wheel Drive and low battery range for about £40,000 but it soon goes up with higher battery range and four wheel drive to prices Somali to a Tesla Model Y and I would have the Tesla all the way.

The following photos give you an impression the KIA EV6 from the outside.

The day could not come soon enough.After some anxious uploading of the cash purchase price to the Tesla account from our account and acceptance of each chunk on the Tesla app and account and receipted with an invoice the day had finally come to collect our Model Y!

So I am writing this at the end of July 2022 and we have done 4734 miles to date. We have done trips to Farnborough, Bicester, Cragside Hall and many smaller trips within the DL5 area of County Durham including many trips to the local Tip Household Waste Recycling facility as they are known today.

Here I want to spend a few minutes on the updates/upgrades/modifications I have made to the car since delivery.

1.PPF wrapping of front of car and Ceramic coating: The car has had a chrome delete from factory, but strangely enough the badges were still in silver.So at the point of having the PPF and ceramic coating done I had the badges taken off and bought black replacements.OCD detailing in Teesside did a great job and it cost £1250. I am very happy with the work they have done and also the aftercare as they already had to replace some of the wrap which came off.However this was detected after the 4 weekly inspection and quickly rectified.Also the Ceramic coating really gives the colour a boost.

2.New Wheel trims: When we went to the Supercharge event at Bicester organised by the Tesla Owners Group I saw a new supplier with some different wheel caps to the silver ones that were supplied by Tesla. The supplier is called Teslun.co.uk and I am very happy with the quality of the wheeltrims. I think they do a very good selection from Matt to glossy.

Above you can see other accessories I installed myself.The under seat storage containers for the front seat are very good and soft-however Amazon also sells some hard soft flocked ones.That means they are sprayed with some soft thin foam inside.The middle console inserts are also very good.Watch out that you get one with the hole so that your 12V adapter fits through as there is one in the rear front centre console.The grills are for the under the rear seats as stuff can fall in there and it needs a whole battery de-installation to get coins out that might rattle down that fall down the vents in through the hole.

The collection above completes the list of accessories.The Storage devices is to upgrade the recording facility of the onboard cameras that are part of the constant DashCam recording and the sentry recording while the car is parked. I must give the All weather floor protector mats a special mention.For coming all the way from China they were hardly rolled up and fitted extremely well from day one into the car. Also a great thank you to Björn Nyland and his videos who have helped me in installing the cable for the Bluetooth data recorder at the rear of the centre console.

Very handy in the Model Y is the double wireless charger underneath the centre screen in the centre console area.

Model Y driving and efficiency data : Well it makes a huge difference if you are driving a 200 mile capacity (Tesla Model S) car or a 300 mile capacity car like the Tesla Model Y . We at least found that.Wee wee Stopps are definitely more urgent than charging stops. And the car charges so fast as well ! 150 – 170kw, so your car is ready before you are to drive on!These days I can hardly go more than 150 miles without a stop anyway. Bladder range and legs need a break.

Above you can see some images from Teslafi data that shows the efficiency of the Model Y on various trips and different temperatures in U.K.

Here is an example of Audi built quality versus Tesla built quality.Where are the panel gaps associated with Tesla on my Model Y – however the Audi RS3 for over £ 50,000 and it does not look that tight on panel gaps?

This is a review of ONTO electric car subscription service that provides electric cars with an all inclusive car hire model that basically rents you a car on a monthly basis including insurance,maintenance,tyres,breakdown service included and charging costs. You have to be over 25 and less no more than 6 penalty points and only 1 fault claim on your insurance in three years. You can take the car abroad for additional upgrade prices for up to 14 days. www. on.to

In Summer of 2021 our lease to our Hyandai IONIQ came to an end but my wife still needed a car to commute to work. So we looked around and found a company called onto.At the time we went for a Zoe GT LINE 130 and it was their cheapest car at £399/month including charging and insurance.However delivery and collection is charged extra,but 1000 miles for the month included.Also you can buy mileage packages extra to add.

The car delivered to us was brand new and I had to take some plastic stickers off the seats and other areas and had just delivery mileage on it.At the time it was a very good service and never had a problem with the car or charging via the supplied charge network RFID cards from Instavolt,Shell (now includes IONITY ),BP PULSE.

In January of 2022 I sold my trusty Tesla Model S and went to ONTO again to hire a car until our Model Y would arrive.This time it costs us over £600 but still 1000 miles and charging included.However the ID3 from VW had still the old software on it and would not work with the ONTO app.It would not show used mileage at all even though that was resolved in the last days of our hiring period.However I had a dispute over mileage with ONTO and that was only three months later resolved.

I just looked on my receipts and onto charged us: Hire fee:£579.92 including £20 damage waiver from £1000 to £350. Delivery fee:99.50. Collection fee:99.50. Additional driver fee:9.99.

We had the car for two months until our Model Y arrived on the 3rd March 2022.Overall experience is very good, but the dispute over mileage and shaky ONTO app and terrible VW ID3 software marred the experience.However I used almost all the time the wireless APPLE CAR PLAY functionality in the car.

What do I think about the VW ID3? Well I think it is a good car but it needs the software version 3.0 AND don’t go for the “Life” spec.It is apparently bare bones and I would go for a higher spec. As this car had no reversing camera and I missed that very much.Range was very good and around 150 miles, slightly less than the Renault Zoe.

After a long hybernation I would like to write about our experience of a 1 week holiday with our smaller EV the Hyundai IONIQ in October 2020.The IONIQ only has a range of about 150 miles, but we only live 70 miles from the Lake District near Darlington in County Durham. Why did we take the IONIQ and not our Tesla Model S which has a ihre boot and longer range of about 220 miles.Well we thought we just try it and see.Also the IONIQ is much smaller and not sooo wide, so for the narrow roads in the Lake District it might be better.

Our trip started on the Saturday and we were heading from our home near Darlington on the A688 via Barnard Castle and A66 to the lovely Cumbrian town of Penrith where we filled up the car at a Booth supermarket.There were two Instavolt 50kw chargers and one of them would not work for me at first.None of my credit cards or debit cards were accepted as payments.Not a good start!😤 After talking to the BMW i3 owner that charged his car on the other charger it seemed a problem with Instavolt and not my credit cards.Phew! So I tried a few more RFID charging cards that I accumulated over the years and my virtual ChargePoint card on my iPhone worked in the end and we were charging. (Electric cars need patience!). We are pioneers and I love a challenge! (I contacted Instavolt and they said they would fix the charger and look into my problem.Nonotger Problem ever occurred again the whole time we were in the Lake District charging on Instavolt).

This is why we like the Lake District.Just look at the Autumn colour! You feel you are transported to the Black Forest of Germany but it is sooooo different!

Above picture shows a free Pod-Point charger.You pay for parking, but nothing for electricity.National Park likes you to drive a clean car! This car park is also near Aira Falls and we had a nice walk around there and a cup of tea in the local hotel café!

While Hilary went shopping for our breakfast and tea I made sure that the car got filled up with electrons! No smell and for £10 another 150 Miles!

I think overall the experience with a lower mileage car was very good.I don’t think it matters in the Lake District so much if you have a high or low mileage car – the most important thing is that you have a very agile car that gets round corners well and is not so big. The infrastructure now is good and you can find chargers enough.However you need a bit of pull to get up those steep passes but an IONIQ in Summer,spring and Autumn should be alright.Get winter tyres after 31st of October though as in can be tricky in light snow!

Which tool do use as a daily program to record my Tesla charging and driving data?

As with so many things this question is not so easy to answer as all have their strength and weaknesses.

No 1 Teslafi : I would always subscribe to Teslafi from day 1. The wealth of information is just amazing.From daily driving to minute by minute logging of your data.It does everything, but strangely enough Graphs for charging are not it a strength!Also Teslafi never losses any data and even keeps your data of your previous car.I have tried it and still keep the data that have accumulated from Model S that I sold in January 2022.Detaiked instructions on how to do this is on Teslafi help files.Teslafi cost $50 per year.

No2 Tessie:Useful for day to day driving but Teslafi more useful.There are other apps that are more useful in my opinion.Tessie comes with an Apple Watch extension that I use and it is fairly accurate in giving you the percentage of charge on your watch displayed as a complication. I use that every day. Tessie cost £4.99/month.

No3: TEZLAB: TEZLAB has evolved from an annoying app to being very useful with good graphs and useful information.It has some social media like functionality where it lets you compare your data with others and gives you badges if you have reviews a supercharger site etc.If you are a frequent user if a supercharger site you become the “mayor” of that site. Not sure how useful that is. TEZLAB costs £2.99/month.

No 4 Stats: can not recommend as it looses charging data and developer not fixing the issue and blaming users for not using the app properly .

No 5 Nikola: Good solid app but somehow lost data for 4 weeks while it was not connected to car but did not warn me.I like the graphs and data can not be imported – however data can be exported from it. If you want use Teslafi AND Nikola I would probably recommend that combination.Nokola cost £38.99/year.

There is another good app for the Apple Watch and that is remote.However it has a high price tag and therefore only recommended if you are a money bag and don’t care if you spend the money.Very good interface on the Apple Watch.

I really wanted to write this reply to the above Facebook post: You don’t buy a Tesla with “posh” – you buy it with dosh!
Work hard and save and then you can afford a Tesla – like we did.
Started with a Citroen C-zero and then decided to go with a Tesla as the savings on similar sized petrol car were big.
Never seen nicer people at the Tesla meet ups than in the last 5 years.
We now drive an IONIQ as well after the Citroen C-Zero was sold with a profit overall and would never see it as an inferior car. Better car in some respects as it navigates much easier round the small roads of the Lakes and Tesco and Lidl car parks.However if I change my Tesla and just go for one car – it would be the coming Model Y or the forthcoming IONIQ range of cars.Not being part of the Tesla charging infrastructure would fill me with slight dread as even Instavolt recently failed on me and put me in a panic after I tried 4 different debit/credit cards and none were accepted.

Only a virtual RFID card in my Apple phone wallet saved me from waiting another 20 minutes in the October rain before the BMW i3 was finished with the AMEX card quite blearily working that tried only 2 minutes earlier on my charge post with a very negative result.

When I put my experience on Facebook Instavolt replied and were shocked and got the details off me and said that they would put it right .

However they never replied or followed it up what the problem was with the charger and if it was a card reader problem.

They also stated that they were inspecting their chargers at least once a week.

Tesla statistics Apps.Which ones do I use on a daily basis?

First of all I have to mention Teslafi. I think I am subscribing to this Website (teslafi.com) for 4 out of 5 year ownership of my Tesla (since December 2015) to it and never regretted it!

I like Teslafi because it never loses data as the data is stored on their own Server. It also sends me emails when a charge or a drive is finished with and I get a summary of the stats.

The next app I would like to talk about is Stats or also know as Tesla Stats. Some say at £38.99 it is a tad expensive but there is no subscription involved and you get updates and a watch app for free.However my criticism is that it loses sometimes my charging data and therefore can not wholeheartedly recommend it.

Tesla Remote is also expensive at £28.99 and does not offer any Car stats while driving or on charging.It just remotely opens your boot or doors or displays your battery stats of charge on your watch.

TEZLAB app is free but for the really good features you need to subscribe at £2.99/month or £48.99 per year.Tezlab loads data from its servers and displays it on your device, so no possible data loss but restoring takes a little while if you are moving devices every year!

In summary I would say that Teslafi wins for an forever stats app, but Inlike graphs and therefore would go with stats app as my to go to graphs app.Apparently updates are promised in the New Year of 2021 to Tezlab app!

Tesla have decided that the main computer on the car should log every file and every autopilot and navigation detail to a chip on the main computer.However this chip was not designed in size and in capacity to last the lifetime of the car.

So in November 2019 owners of cars made before March 2018 all will have a problem and need this chip replacing otherwise the computer might stop working and some aspects of the car will be disabled.

We opted for a preemptive replacement rather than wait for it to be broken and possible needed the car to be towed to a service centre or a third party.

We had this done in June 2020 and are very happy with the the result.It cost about £450 and the Computer is much more responsive now.

Tesla are offering for all cars build before June 2019 a CCS upgrade.This consists of a ECU upgrade under the rear seats,some cabling and an adapter.

The whole upgrade can be carried out by a Mobile Technician and the price has just been dropped in August 2020 to £280 inclusive VAT.

My upgrade was carried out in November 2019 and you can see that it is working great on Instavolt chargers and also Tesla Version 3 chargers.

We have 3 EVs in the family and your decision depends on a few factors regarding your lifestyle and not if you can see the cars near you.

Before you go to ANY showroom you should do your research on what you really need and ask yourself the following questions:

What daily commute do I do in miles?What extra miles during the working day do I do if I can’t charge before coming home?

Do I need to do a lot of long range journeys over the weekend?

How many passengers do I have on a regular basis?

What type of chargers do I have nearby or can I charge at home?Have I got Solar PV that I can use to minimise my electric bill?

How much spare cash per month do I have to afford a car?

After answering those questions you can draw up a shortlist of cars and look on the Internet which ones you like the look of and which showroom you want to visit.Also of course do not dismiss YOUTUBE and watch owners reviewing their cars.

You can buy now electric cars for all budgets.

Citroen C-Zero which will give you in Winter only 40 miles but in summer up to 80 miles.cost Peanuts to buy.

RENAULT Zoe cheap to buy but a pain to charge as it has no DC Rapid Charging for long journeys.

Nissan Leaf 2.0 between 120-170miles of range.More expensive and bigger family car.My son has just bought one 8 weeks ago and loves it for his family of four.

Huyandai Ioniq Great car absolutely love it and the wife finds it so easy to use.Got loads of extra like heated seats and heated steering wheel and great timer function for charging and heating up in the morning but no online access to the car to do these functions online via app.

Very efficient for its 28kw battery and does 100-140 miles.Good long range car as it has battery cooling and warming during winter or protects against overheating in summer.

KONA of course the greatest of them all but small for a family car and high in price in comparison to all of them but range should be in the 200 mile range.Excellent for travelling salespeople.

What about the LAND ROVER IPACE?

I would not touch it with a barge pole.It is at the Tesla price point, but you have to charge for at least 1.5 hours at the current Ecotricity and Podpoint Motorway Chargers as they only deliver 32kw/h – where as Tesla Superchargers deliver up to 120kwh and they go most of the time at over 60kwh. At least the Ipace has a 90kw battery but tests have shown it is worse in efficiency than a Tesla Model X at almost 3000kg in weight.

what about the Mercedes EQC?

Mercedes EQC – well nobody has driven it in 2018 and in my opinion at 80kw Battery capacity and 2400kg in weight it is only going to deliver about 200 miles in range. Again Charging is an issue as no public charger delivers 100kw. You will be competing for chargers on the Motorway with KONA,Ioniq, Leaf, Zoe and if they take off you have a problem as there are currently only 2 chargers per Motorway services.

Last but not least Tesla.

We got one for the last 32 months and would not part with it.Cost a lot in Finance but we love it and the fantastic Supercharger network is excellent.The quality of the car and acceleration is just unbelievable.Also the flexibility of the load space is amazing in the Model S and Model X. The concept of the big screen controlling everything is just great. The new over the air security update with a “PIN to drive ” was asked for bu UK owners and was implemented after 6 months by Tesla!

After choosing your car you need to look at Finance options:

Leasing,PCP or HP or Buying outright. I have all three running at the moment

Tesla on HP, Leaf on PCP and Ioniq on 4 year lease.

If you have experience with PCP go for that, but sometimes companies like DRIVEELECTRIC can give you better deals than your local dealer even though the car might still come from your local dealer and is fully warranted by them.

I am only going to pay £19,000 for a £30000 Ioniq over 4 years but never own the car and can’t do ANY modifications to that car.To me that is a good deal.

However we are paying the Tesla in full over 5 years and might drive it for another 3 as the drive train and battery are guaranteed for 8 years.

Hope this helps!

After 30 months of owning our Tesla we finally are going on a Road trip.

The NC 500. It took me a couple of days to look on Bookin.com and the Tesla destination charger map to find some hotels as we set ourselves a budget for the B&Bs we wanted to stay at.In the end I book direct and with Booking.com.

A few of the hotels with Tesla destination chargers were very expensive and I excluded them.Why?Well Scotland has a network called the Chargeplace Scotland Network and it is free.All you need us an account with CYC or Charge your Car and also a £20 RFID card.Your Account needs to also have a verified payment method via debit or credit card.

I also paid £35 to become Member of the NC500 explorers club, which gives you a map and two hard copy booklets.One is the “Rough Guide to the NC500” and the other one is the NC 500 passport.

The Route in the passport is Anti clockwise and I prefer actually the clockwise route.

How did we get on?

Well in the Tesla it is a doddle as you have over 200 miles to play with.so we did Home-Abington-Aviemore-Dingwall on the first day.350 Miles.A little long but works out fine as we only had 5 days.

You can find quiet spots on Motorway Service stations .Here Abington Welcome Break in Scotland.

We stayed in the Turloch Castle Hotel in Dingwall and it has 1000 years of history.There is a 55kw Free Charger in Dingwall town centre.Easy to find with PlugShare.Do the Ghost Tour after Supper At around 9 or 9:30 and Graham is a great raconteur of the history of Turloch castle and the Davi(d)son family.

On our 2nd day we went to Rogie Falls(highly recommended) and saw our first live otter swimming in the falls hunting.

After Rogie Falls we went to Attadale Gardens.Great but a little small a just about worth the £8 Entry fee.Beware on a Sunday only open between 14:30-17:00.Diy café only!Yup you make your own tea or coffee and leave money according to the price list.

After Attadale Gardens We headed for Gairloch and the distance was a little long as we forgot to charge in Torrington but managed.Other EVs beware.No other chargers between Torrington and Gairloch.

Book a Seaview room in the Gairloch hotel and you will not be disappointed!Worth the extra few pounds! Shower and toilet in a little cupboard but no matter big enough! Have a walk on the beach and it is also worth it.We had dinner in the glass extension and staff are very good -food is a mix of good hearty restaurant food.

From Gairloch we made our way to Ullapool and charged up.Also a sea voyage was beckoning.Catamaran and sedate or Rin and bone shaking?The choice was taken away from us as the Rib operator was not ready for the season.What?Hottest week since record began.Anyway the Diesel powered catamaran tour was great and really enjoyed the 16knot speed and comfort of the boat.we saw plenty of seals and a white tip sea eagle.We also stopped at a grotto used in the reformation times as a church meeting ooont for worshippers in their small rowing boats!Toor lasted for 2 ½ hours and worth it for £35each.

From Ullapool we made our way Northwards to Scourie and stayed in the Scourie Lodge B&B with a Tesla destination charger AND a normal charger.We made history the Landlord told us as for the first tome ever two Tesla were charging overnight!Yeah.

Before we got to Scourie Lodge wee needed some dinner and where should we go?Well a sign to a hotel and the view of an emerald bay came into view and I decided to take the plunge and check it out! Good decision as the photo shows it was seafood for me all the way! Kylesku Hotel has gorgeous views over Loch Gleann Dubh.

From Scourie to John O’Groates you really have to have your wits about you regarding driving.Roads vary from single lane to two lanes. Don’t play chicken as people are far too nice and it just makes you feel bad.Some motorbikes need a little education that a Tesla is a big car though.

We visited on our way to John O’Groates a cave which was highly recommended on the NC 500 rough guide booklet.It was great and we even had a little tour deep inside with climbing into a little dinghi etc.Well Wirth the £7.

We had a little peek at Castle of Mey before settling down for the night and decided to visit it the next day.

We stayed in John O’Groates in the Seaview hotel and it was a good decision.We were put in the Annex over the road and found a Charger.Yeah again! While unfortunately charging in Gilles Bay we looked for places to eat and came across a very small selection of establishments to eat around such a touristy place.In the end the Castle Arms Hotel.Good Food again served by European waiters which were very attentive and seemed to have gone through the proper waiters school.Would recommend their menu to anybody.

After a hearty breakfast off to the castle of Mey on our penultimate day before driving down Nessieland!

We arrived after 16:00 in Drumnadrochit and charged up and had two hours to kill.So e went to the Loch Ness Monster Investigation Bureau and had a good Media show of the latest evidence for and against the existince if Nessie.If you have are a National Trust Member you get a discount by the way.For tea it was gold old fish and chips on the side of the road.

We stayed in the Loch Ness Clansman Hotel and had a beautiful view over Loch Ness.

From Loch Ness it was pretty much a road trip of 350 miles back home.Due to the fantastic weather we were able to have a lovely Picknick

Lunch again at Abington Supercharger and we’re soon home again.Not before stocking up on great provisions at the Tebay Supercharger and Services on the M6.

Here is a video of our experiences:

It seems that without me paying a lot of attention we suddenly got a lot more rapid chargers in our area.

Bannatyne Health Clubs have added a lot of chargers in their car parks for all to use.Usually you have two to choose from and they have both DC CCS and Chademo available.So Ioniqs and Teslas and Nissan Leaf can charge there.At the time of writing all Instavolt Chargers are on free vending. Just swipe your contactless Debit card or credit card on to the area designated on the Charger and your transaction will be authorised.Swiping for ending the session again.

A great resource if you need to do a lot of driving and need a quick charge in the Darlington or Durham area.There are certainly not a lot of Rapid chargers in Durham and Darlington area as I have reported earlier.Durham Services Rapid Charger has no CCS adapter and the charger at the Holiday Inn on the A1 near junction 59 is permanently off.

I am now owning my Tesla Model S for 30 months and my Hyandai Ioniq for 12 months.It is time to reflect of what we have learned so far.

Yesterday I was traveling to Leeds and I was mightily impressed. P&R (Park and Ride) facilities are great at Temple Green and Elland Road.

Lots of slow chargers (11 at Temple Green and 6 at Elland Road plus 1 Rapid 55kw). Charger).Even with a Nissan Leaf 2.0 or a Ioniq you can easily travel the 70mes and charge for £1 and get filled up for the way back.£3 for the buses into town is very good value for Money.

Don’t forget your CYC card though.Activation by app was not offered on the slow chargers.

Who says electric cars are dirty and powered only by coal! My new Zappi Charger uses surplus solar energy and pumps it into the car! The best bit is that Chancellor Hammond paid for 75% of my Zappi! Thank you all you other nice taxpayers for my new charger.Also it works really well with our 4kw solar panels and input gets monitored all the time by Harvi.Available under OLEV.

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Ŵe have a Solar PV array of 4kw and 2 electric cars.I also recently had a disaster with my Rolec charger outside. It blew up and damaged a charging cable. Luckily it was inside the warranty period and I got my money back for it.So we now have a new charger called a Zappi. Here is the reason why we went for a Zappi charger.

Every kWh to charge my car cost me 12 pence.If I feed any surplus energy, that my house does not use, back into the grid I only get 1 pence back.So I am making a 11p profit if I feed that surplus energy into my car.That is the economics that the Zappi is build on.Even though it is called the “FEED-in Tariff” it is actually the worst named sound bite ever.

There are two parts to the Feed-in Tariff.One is for you generating power with your Solar PV array and another part for “feeding” that back into the grid.

Everything you “generate” you get 59 pence (highest part) irrespective of you using it in your house or “feeding” it back to the grid.The smallest part (only 1 pence) you get for putting it back into the grid.So it actually makes no sense at all to feed anything back to the grid but use it yourself.Of course you need to be at home to be able to do that.

However this is where Tesla Powerwalls and Ikea batteries come in.If you are not at home with your car feed the extra solar (surplus) into a battery or your hot water cylinder and you have hot water in the evening when you come home and have a “free”bath!

The makers (myenergi) of Zappi have a gadget for that called Eddi.

The diagram in the picture shows you how it works.

I have Zappi and Harvi here installed at home.I need Harvi because it is a wireless unit.My Zappi is installed a little bit away from the house ( on a brick pillar)so I could not get a cable for monitoring the house electric supply easily to it.But if it is installed in the garage or outside of the garage you don’t need Harvi.It Just gave me more flexibility.

You need an approved Zappi installer like the Phoenixworks.com to install it all for you though or to help you to find your bespoke solution.Search on YouTube for Zappi and Fully charged and other UK based youtubers have reviewed the Zappi.It is a UK based company who have crowd funded this invention to bring it to market.