HOW TO CHARGE CITROEN AMI IN THE UK 

This is a long one - it might help to use these chapters to dip in and out of what you care about/want to see! 00:00 Intro 00:33 Cables and Connectors 01:27 Home Charging (Type 2) 02:45 No tethered chargers! 03:49 Home Charging (3 pin sockets) 06:51 Travelling to a public charger 07:10 Charging Speeds 10:08 Public Charging - Destination Chargers 11:01 Pod-Point Demo 13:30 Travelling to a rapid charger 13:54 Public Charging - Rapid Chargers 17:52 Costs and Summary

Enjoyed watching this while sitting at Tesco's topping up my Ami -for the first time. (for a grand total of 22p). One thing to bear in mind is that the cable on Ami is only 3 metres long so get nice and close to the charger. Also be prepared for members of the public to come and ask questions about your strange vehicle for at least 20 mins.

Well done that should answer a lot of the common questions.

Big thank you for this guide. I have an Ami on loan this week for a review and, having watched this I , successfully charged it at the supermarket today 😀

Never apologise for a 'long' video! 😁 Twenty minutes is a perfectly good time when you're presenting useful information and not some vacuous 'gosh-wow-look-at-me falling over!' garbage. It's odd to think that some people have never sat down with a novel, a manual, or even a good reference dictionary, and lost themselves for a couple of hours. A short attention span is a tragedy. Anyway, I just wanted to say that I've become obsessed when out riding my bicycle (and when watching videos like this) with counting the number of occupants in the cars I see on the road. [I'm in the north of England.] It's shocking that so many have only two occupants; lots have just the driver. Now, I'm certainly not going to criticise people for making the choices they make - only they know why they've bought a 5-seater or whatever, and their purchase decisions are absolutely none of my business - but what I am going to criticise is a car industry that has failed to provide a small, cheap alternative to the vast and luxurious EVs that clutter the roads. People buy a car to suit their anticipated maximum usage - 4 or 5 people, loads of luggage, driving 300 miles to somewhere sunny. But the truth of the matter is that they'll probably only do that trip once every two years. So... they buy a car to suit this max-scenario from what's available at the local dealership. It's a pretty limited choice. What's needed is something much smaller and more practical for the 99.9% of the time when they're just travelling locally. Yes, Citroën has made a start with the Ami (whoopee, bravo, etc), but it'd be great if other big manufacturers produced a weeny EV alongside their whizzy fat-profit models. It'd have to be CHEAP, though, so that it wouldn't be the same financial burden their main car represented. If you're paying £30,000 for your family vehicle, a runabout should cost no more than £6,000 to be manageable. Am I being unreasonable? Yes. Am I asking too much? Yes. But until there are more tiny town-cars on offer, it's not fair to blame motorists for using an enormous and unsuitable vehicle for nipping down to the chippy; blame the car companies.

Some very useful Ami related information Gary. We're collecting our Ami Pop tomorrow; our Honda e and SEAT Mii electric may be relegated to the sub's bench for a time!! 😎

I read something about the Ami not being able to charge bellow -5 °C. Looking forward to some video on that through the winter.

This is great content Gary and just the sort of down to earth information a potential buyer needs to know. Your illustration of how it took you, as an experienced EV owner, several goes to get the charger to ‘accept’ the Ami was a major issue for me. I just imagine the phone call from my wife if she was at a petrol station and the pump not dispensing fuel - yep it would be my fault!

You've done a great job of making the process as clear as possible. Folk will have to choose the right time for some charging methods, but it can never cost too much, because the Ami is cheerful and cheap at the same time😁😁😁😁😁

Sensible advice on the domestic 3-pin socket issues. Have charged a Leaf and a ZS on a dedicated single run 3-pin socket since 2017, checked for signs of heat damage regularly. All fine.

Really interesting video, full of all sorts of useful info. Thanks!

Hit 29mph today on a very slight downhill gradient.

Very clear summary, thanks.

Our Think had a UK 3 pin attached by previous owner. After a prolonged session the Live pin burnt a hole in the plug housing…..since then we’ve been careful of getting GOOD connectors and making sure the wiring is 100%! We’ve also got an original continental type lead and your video has prompted me to buy one of the Ami “Metron” Type 2 adapters to try out. Hopefully that might be a good purchase.

I suppose the only thing I would add is if you are lucky enough to have solar panels, your charge can effectively be free 🙂

Very important point on two to three pin adapters. Agreed if this pulls a constant eight amps over three hours it’s a sustained load over time. So personally I would say only charge as per Ami handbook and Citroen advice (if anything happens then you don’t invalidate your warranty) Now that the cold weather is coming you are getting people connecting multiple convector heaters up to thin four gang extension leads. The cable alone is not big enough to handle and kind of sustained load and the whole thing is catching fire. We had an old Science teacher explain to us that you need to think of electors passing down a cable a bit like football fans trying to get out of a gate after the game. If it’s small gate less can go through at one time and they get all hot, jammed and bothered. In that state maybe even fights break out. People get injured and the Police are involved. (That’s too thin a cable with too big a load) Yet if you open another gate or just make it a much bigger and wider gate more fans can exit at the same, they can flow through properly and they don’t get all heated up (a thicker or bigger cable to take the bigger load) We have an extension lead we can use on camp sites (well I think my sister in law has it) I would say just like yours that would take the load over time but again I would agree with you and say as per Citroen only) At least for me just to protect my warranty at first!

15:49 We also suffer the similar problems in France about several difficulties of attempts to charging and errors display with several public charging stations. Indeed public chargers paying have not been working properly because they encounter some problems of communications for payments. Globally the free chargers use to work usually fine because there are neither technic or software for the payment.

Interesting information, thank you!

The comments below are correct , leaf draws 10a so Ami should be fine at 8a. Interesting video , would love an Ami.

A great and informative video Gary.

Excellent.this is exactly the kind of information I needed...Excellent

Where I live in England is not conducive for electric cars......there is only one public charging station and I have to park on the road some distance from my house. The local council will not install any more charging stations until the government start dishing out cash to incentivise them to do so. Next nearest public charge point is 15 miles away, so we don't see many electric cars around here.

You can get an IP66 (outdoor) Schuko socket for about £15 and unlike UK sockets Schuko is rated for 16A constant current so 8A should be a walk in the park. Having said that my basic UK outdoor socket is rated for 13A and happily charged at 10A via the granny charger for months before I got my PodPoint. Watched the Tesco clip and thought RIP Argos St. Oswalds.

Very informative vid. Thanks 👍👍

Thanks for a very informative video. How much might it be to get a dedicated 3 pin socket fitted to your garage outside wall compared to a type 2 charging point. For home charging of course. Will you need heavier duty wiring on such a socket. Thanks.

Motoring made complicated. Thank god I woke up. I was so enthralled with the ami. But there is no substitute to the sound of a straight six

Does the charging connector lock in when charging in the event of having to leave the vehicle I wouldn't want any toerag to come along and unplug or worse run of with the lead or adapter or both

It's strange that Citroen advise charging with type 2 but failed to add a proper type 2 socket to the car or even an adapter that is more automated than that. it's a bit archaic imho. You're trying to charge the car not start a jet engine lol.... Thanks for the content :)

Thanks, the Tesco Pod points are now more available after they started charging, ie charging to use. You still get 15 mins free without the app, and just unplug and replug, and it starts all over again. 15 mins just about covers my cost of driving to the store, which is what it is all about, and you get a good parking slot.

Good video! I see you have a separate mic - was it working when you recorded? The audio is quite echoey.

May sound a stupid question but could you tell me the size of the front and rear number plates in inches and cm, I asked about personalised plates previously, and knowing I need to change I wanted to get plates in advance of delivery. However, I have the same model like yours with blue front, but don’t know the size of plates to order front and rear. Apparently the black fronted one has either both plates larger or the front and back have two different sizes. Just wanted to ask so I can pre plan changing to personalised plates, as a gift for my wife to use as she has asked for this car since it was first mentioned. Keep up the good work, letting me know all the details before ours arrives in 2 weeks!

Not being an EV user one thing that I have a question about is security (how easy is it for someone to disconnect the cable from your Ami, connect it to their vehicle (with you still paying the bill) and then later coming back to connect it back up to your vehicle. Will the unit just refuse to continue charging as soon as it is disconnected?

What are your thoughts on battery longevity on the Ami? I think they have ternary batteries right? Just wondering that does the lack of any battery cooling mean that battery health is potentially going to be affected or does the low amperage and slow charging rate negate that?

Are you going back working on the old cars you have or have you got rid of them when you moved ?

Thanks for the update can you do something other than the French elephant in the room !! Too many compromises etc what about the test drive forecourt that was fun or the news….something different ?

I’m confused. Can we charge from a normal 3 pin plug at home?

About £40-60 on aliexpress and a hacksaw and you can take a type 2-schuko adapter cable and remove just over a 1/4 inch off the type-2 side and you should be good for a tethered charger. I've got one of these hacked cables on hand just for general emergencies. Issue is proximity pin is too short, obviously for avoiding daisy-chaining. Effectively just cut to the point where you've removed the locking pin hole. :)

regarding the 12v service battery - presumably it tops up from the traction battery, but does this happen when the vehicle is switched on but stationary, or does the vehicle need to be in motion?

Is one side-effect of needing to operate the switches on the T2 adapter, that you couldn't use a timer on your home charger?

Glad I found this video. Its a real shocker(no pun intended), So offically no home charging with a 3 pin socket. Its a lovely car but have Citroen made any efforts at all with their introduction to the UK of this car? No home charging and still a left hand drive. I get it, If I buy one I can charge it how I want, but if I charge it the most convenient way I almost certainly void the warranty, wether I buy it with cash or PCP. I am left with driving to a supermarket once a week to charge it which means the return trip has to be taken off the range, 7 miles in my case. If I run out of juice I can't charge it from someones house AND I have to wait with the car 3 hours to charge it at a supermarket.. Its pretty much a deal breaker for me. I think I will probably wait for the Silence S04

Looks good for getting around town but what put me off is the fact that they can charge from a domestic socket in France but Citroën have decided we cannot charge from a domestic socket in UK. Surely it is not that difficult for Citroën to sort this. With the range limitation I would think the vast majority would be charged at home and used for local shop trip and visiting friends locally. Would seriously consider an Ami if Citroën sorted this.

Does the adapter only have a switch to lock it to the station, not a key switch? Then anyone can just flip the switch to onlock and grab the adapter.

Check your house socket is 16 amp, not 10 amp (its on the breaker in your wall unit) use a cable rated for 16 amps (16amp sockets should not be used for more than 80% draw, so 12.8 amps) most heavy duty extension cables use wire that is 1.5mm2 safer to buy one that uses 2.5mm2 cable, more expensive but will not get hot if you draw 8amps for 6 or 7 hours (always un-wind your cable fully as coiled up cables are not safe to use. I always charge my Citroen C zero 8 amps on a 50 metre cable of this specification to my household socket...no problems. Quality cables are the key.

I think if you're gonna 3 pin plug it on an adapter I'd plug it in for half an hour then unplug it to let it cool - even mobiles and chargers get warm pulling less amps

how long does it take to charge from nearly dead?

Do you know if that EU > Type 2 adapter is especially outdoor rated, I couldnt get a good look at it, but i dont think i saw seals that would limit water ingress

100% needs a not a Tesla prototype sticker :) you really went to Tesco to buy the discount pumpkins right :D

8amps for 3 hours is hardly a problem. I charge for 8+ hours at 10amps. Just check for any overheating iisues at the socket. Get a quality cable and make sure it's fully unwound.

Some countries have regulations prohibiting charging rates by kWh. Then they have to sell a service by the minutes. Then you pay for theoretical energy, according to available power. Then 22 kW will cost 10 times what you would expect to pay by the kWh. As long as it is by the kWh you are safe, if it is by the minutes, you might be in for a surprise.

You can Charge a Normal Car Battery from your normal house socket. I mention that because you can Charge the Ami from a Normal Car Battery. Have you tried that?

How about having a qualified electrician install a lockable EU external socket.

Let’s talk about real problems. In case you use Type 2 adaptor without any Switches. What’s your options in order to stop charging and extract cable successfully ?

8 amps is just the same as a 2 bar heater...

Any night driving please?