So you’ve got an EV! Now what? Ten things you need. 

There are some very helpful EV drivers out there. When I had just got my E-Niro and waiting to have the home charger fitted I had to use the local Costa coffee Instavolt charger. I pulled up and looked at the charger, then at the Niro, an elderly gentleman approached and asked if I needed any help. He was charging his leaf. We had a great 5 mins chat and he showed me how to use the charger.

Exemplary public information film. Deserves the widest possible audience.

I'd like to see the dashcam review. would be nice to know what kind of drain it has on the car if its in a "sentry" mode etc

The Michelin Cross Climate are an excellent 4 season selection ! Don't trust your AWD if you have one, put on 4 seasons if you don't live in a place justifying for winter tires. Main benefit of your cross climate is that it last really long compared to competition without compromising on its winter performance. Well done Andrew !

Granny chargers in North America only give like 1.25 kW.... For an efficient EV, you'd get about 7 km per hour. And this works for many people! 12 hours overnight is like 90 km. So for a daily go to work car, if work is 40 km away, this works just fine. Can throw in a lunch run just fine also.

Great thumbnail. I've heard of AC/DC but not familiar with other rock bands. I think Granny Charger played the Beach Ballroom in Aberdeen back in the day.😉

You are spot on with your No.1 Topic, "Patience"! I waited for 12 months for a new Kia EV6 to be delivered. After 12 months of patient waiting, I dared to ask when I could expect it to arrive. About another 12 months was the reply! I cancelled the order in January this year and am now patiently awaiting the delivery of a Genesis GV60, due in July........ maybe! This is a REAL lesson in patience!!!!

Crossclimate 2 are probably the best tyre you can put on any car ... they also have a long life and can be used all year round. They are the best tyre I ever used in 45 years of driving .. great on ice/snow/wet grass and light mud - also stable in the Summer at high speed in Europe

Probably one of your better videos. As an EV driver since Feb 2017 and having watched the growth spurt of EVs, it's amazing the lack of knowledge that newer drivers have. I blame this totally on car dealers not getting training by their dealerships. The same goes for their technicians.

After watching your take on the EV structure in the UK I feel blessed living here in Québec. 1. We don’t need to carry charge cables around with us except for the household sockets, all 7 KWh units have cables attached. 😅 2. We only have about 4 different charging companies and they’re all excellent especially Hydro Québec's Electric Circuit. 😊 3. The cost of charging is the cheapest in N America, a 50 KWh charger is $13 ( £9 ) an hour. 😮 I’m about to return to the UK to see family and friends and I was thinking about hiring an EV, but after watching your report and against my philosophy I am going to go for a small ICE runaround. Excellent video.

Nice video Andrew. Happy Easter. Best regards Martin

Great video, loads of good advice and tips. Thanks very much 👍

Very informative thanks

This is brilliant, thank you.

Excellent video, made it very easy to understand,

Great video and well needed, it will be a great help to new EV owners, much appreciated

Great video.

Perfect starter for a newbie. Thank you

Thank you for this, Andrew... it was great! Plus, I really enjoy your on-camera presence!

Good idea Andrew, well done.

I have a Easee charger wall box and love it, I’m with octopus too and they are great, thanks for doing this vid 👍🥰

they also need patience for their own learning curve. day 1 will be their worst time for planning journeys, charging etc. so don't get annoyed and pack it in because you've not given yourself a chance to learn how it all works and get good at it.

I find the video very useful and much appreciated .

excellent, solid advice - patience certainly is extremely important. Would be interested to see you review dashcam/s.

I'd love to see a dashcam review too.

Thanks for your vlog Andrew, not an EV owner yet but looking into it soon…..great advice 👍Thank you

Excellent video of tips and I will be using two of your links (charger for battery and octopus rfid). Please do review the dash cam and also in combination with a ecoflow River 2 for example to ensure the security mode is active once car switched off. That’s just my guess at this moment.

Thank you, exellent information and really helpful! Just signed up to the Octopus Electroverse.

+1 for the dashcam review

ty for the tip on AC, didnt understand why was so slow

Great vlog, thank you for this, informative as always. Battery starter on order.

Andrew, what an awesome video for any EV driver, a first timer or an over 10 year veteran like me!

Thank you for a great video. I've ordered an EV and this has been an excellent introduction to many of the elements of EV driving not always mentioned by many other reviewers.

I enjoy to watch all your your videos. Even when some of the infomations are UK only (and I live in EU/DK). Would be interested to see you review dashcam/s 👍

great blog Andrew, patience is a great point for both charging, infrastructure, other not so thoughtful ev drivers and ice drivers. I have recently seen on two occasions where a Tesla driver has parked in a non tesla charging bay and tried to charge to a 100%😩 and on another occasion a jag driver parked across two bays preventing anyone else from charging.

Really good advice Andy

Hey you back I have not seen your videos for a while 😊

Perfect video for me, first ev due in June and I'm a little nervous

This has been far more helpful than any car reviews so thank you for taking the time.

Good refresher for existing EV owners too.

I’m intrigued by the dashcam as I’m considering getting one for my EV6 as I have to charge at public 7kw charge points, so the ‘sentry’ function in particular is of interest to see how well it functions. Thanks.

Beautiful video, such sensible advice. Hope many people watch this. I don't think I'll buy an EV, I won't be able to afford one but nevertheless I hope the infrastructure and costs come down massively.

The Tyre advice is great, totally agree. I put All Season Tyres on mine and the difference is literally unbelieveable. More people should bother to change them.

Thanks, I really enjoyed this and learned some stuff. I've been driving a Nissan Leaf since late 2019 and I love it - despite being entirely the wrong sort of person to run an EV. I'm a free-lance musician and all my journeys are long ones, often to places I don't know, and I have to be there at a specific time. What I have got much better at is extending my range between charges by driving more slowly and at as even a pace as possible - which I thought was going to be part of your "No. 1 Patience" bit. It can be difficult sometimes with other drivers but there are journeys of c. 100 miles that I used to plan a charge stop for and now always do on one charge, having filled up the night before at a (cheaper) slow charger. The driving time is longer but the overall journey is shorter and easier to plan if you're not having to worry about whether a charger is going to be available or working. Also, it's better for the planet and you're less likely to get done for speeding.

Really good overview, thanks Andrew! Maybe interesting for the "Charge cheaper" section: You can rate chargers and get rewarded with free charging credit🙂that can be redeemed at Octopus, Elli, KIA, Hyundai etc.

Just used the Octoverse link, thank you!

Andrew, #1 is patience, that was beautiful 😻 And especially the add on, maybe angry people shouldn’t have EVs, yet. Your video is a 10+++, even without your wife.

13:11 That battery monitor is fantastic! I have one installed on my Ford Cmax PHEV because the voltage kept dropping below 12 volts shortly after driving. The car only charges the lead acid battery when the EV battery is charging. Our Tesla Model 3 is always monitoring it’s lead acid battery and can send power to it at any time.

Thanks for this Andrew - I'm in SW France and have just got my lovely Dacia Spring. I am a complete newby, and am trying to get as much information as possible. This is so helpful. Thanks again.

Yes please do the dashcam review. There are so many out there and I'm looking to buy one. P.S. great video

Thanks Andrew, I really have enjoyed your RU-vid Videos, Just wanted to share some of my thoughts now that I've an Ioniq5 Limited for almost a year with over 18K miles. Overall it's been a great experience. As a fan of Tesla and a relative who has both a model S and X. I've had some experience in what it's like to own and EV. Before I bought the Ioniq5 I drove the ID4, MachE, and Tesla Model 3 as well as the Ioniq5. Since my wife liked the Ioniq and it was the first one available, I bought it. So far, I have to say it's performed as advertised. The dealer is okay but has little knowledge of the Ioniq so I'm apprehensive in having them look into minor problems. I use the free EA charger in town even though I have a level 2 charger at home. My new solar panels should be activated in the next couple weeks. My goal is to charge at home when the free 2 year charging ends next year. Btw we have net metering so we should be able to access our excess power. Looking ahead we're interested in the next gen Tesla model 2. We have an older BMW 3 series that we like but its got 130K so we're thinking of replacing it. Anyway, keep up the goood work.

Dashcam - we fitted a dashcam into our new Golf Hybrid & our Insurance dropped by £60 per annum. Did teh same on our Discovery but £80 this time! Worth doing as it saves costs in the long run

Hi Andy, according to an RAC driver I met a few years ago, 90% of puncture related breakdowns can be rectified by re-inflating the tyre with getting off the motorway being the first objective. I’d avoid using gunk until I’ve tried this as a repair in a tyre shop is cheap. Cheers G

I cannot charge at home and never have been able to. I charge at Tesco which is a two minute wak from where I live, so I plug mine in and walk back home until it is ready and thern walk back down and pick it up. 44p per kwh. Never failed. Been driving my Zoe since 2015 and it is ten years old at the end of the year.

Excellent info, brilliantly summarised and presented. Your expertise and experience with a broad range of vehicles, apps and charging networks really shines through. I especially like that I don't have to comment "yes, but Tesla/Merc/etc. already support this" - you've already done your homework and have probably already driven those cars, so you know what's up!

Great video and not just for NEW EV owners thank you I would like a review on the dashcam you show in it thanks in advance Les

North of the border, one Chargeplace Scotland RFID card covers the entire council run network of 2400+ public chargers which also includes some 50 KW rapid chargers.

Another great video Andrew. I think I’m in step with most of your top 10. I have a Wallbox, Michelin Cross Climate 2 tyres, Octopus Go, tyre inflator and never plan for charging stops to 100% unless absolutely necessary. I never transferred my Nextbase dashcam from my old car, however I’d be interested to see your review of the 70mai omni. Happy Easter, I’ve just been Route planning a trip to Normandy on ABRP! T

Outstanding! I believe my next car will be an EV!

Always look forward to your videos, particularly like the interaction with your wife, she's a bit more sceptical . I've had my MG Ev for a couple of months, however you say it's cheaper to use off peak tariff, that's only so if you charge at least 3 times a week. Otherwise you pay more overall.

Thanks for the very useful video, awaiting delivery of my first EV Enyaq IV Sline, and as an Octopus customer I have just signed up for Octopus Electroverse using your link and £25 credit already applied, Thanks. 👍

My off peak rates are 12.6p ( 21:00hrs - 07:00hrs ) , this rate also applies all weekend . My peak is 53.6p . I also have a 3.2kw PV ARRAY off grid system which charges my leaf 40 and other household stuff .

Great video Andrew. Like you we have driveway charging and 9KW of PV + off peak. As we hit the end of March we have plenty of surplus generation and the car /s are a great place to dump the surplus (26 KW the other day ). So with a bit of local driving and daily charging, like you, we get most of our driving for "free" late March to early November. For our longer trips we just take the hit from public charging. EV driving just takes a bit of thought and a slight change of habit. Would I go back....no.

Just used your Octopus referral! 😊

Excellent! Quite possibly your best … and no Flaviana either 😮

#11: when you go to your favourite kerbside charger remember that you need coins (yep, how quaint !!!) for the kerbside parking charge.

Great little video, most car dealers could learn a thing or too from it. I added a dash cam to my car because I see so much crazy driving. A dash cam is the same price as my insurance excess and could help me get my excess back in a bump.

Many thanks for this. Couldn't make your affiliate links work though. But I tried!

Thanks, I am a long term EV owner, and I think you have covered many of the points new owners need to know. Tyre inflaters, I use a portable one rather than a plug in one, very important to keep the correct pressure for best range. Your Zappi is very good, but all the exposed wiring is awful, still it works OK, but I like neat and tidy. I use the Granny on 6 amps when I am at a holiday cottage etc. You are correct to point out that your AC charging speed is determined by your car on board charger, the public chargers are really just AC supply points, not chargers, and this frustrates many new owners.

Octopus go is good if you use the car to commute long journeys but if doing short low mileages the higher daytime rates for your other elec uses negates the off peak benefit.

Great video and a must watch for newbies - and some veteran EV owners. Glad you mentioned etiquette - MOVE YOUR CAR WHEN FINISHED. Also - if you own a Tesla, do NOT criticise Tesla or Lord Elon on forums or social media lest you are ostracised by the Fanboys. Also - if you own a Tesla, remember Lord Elon knows best so don’t complain about no ultra sonic sensors, lousy wipers, lousy positioning of speed display etc. ELON IS RIGHT.

Thanks Andrew. Very informative for beginners. Elli is a great rfid card to have with their subscription. As well as ionity, Osprey and Shell amongst others are all 35p kWh to charge which is a massive saving. Soon pays for the monthly subscription cost and invaluable if you cover alot of miles. 60p plus is just way to expensive to pay for charging.

I am interested in seeing a review of that dashcam you were showing, especially if how big the impact on the 12V battery is!

My top 4. 1. Driveway or garage with electrics, 2.Level 2 charger 3. Warm clothes and heavy jacket 4. Possibly an off-peak tariff depending on mileage (do the numbers). There are no free chargers any more and charging externally is going to cost you a packet on long trips like 70p+ on fast chargers...which means your spending almost double compared to a petrol car. Half the time chargers are not working, and there are so few fast chargers it's a nightmare. I have owned EVs for 10 years. Oh and public charging was never any good...in a 250 mile journey back down the M1 7 years ago, I did not find a single working charger!!

We generally have that daily standing charge for electricity in Australia too. It bothers my mum especially. It is ridiculous really

I really like your number one, patience. Really what’s your rush? Whenever something is amiss I think about the early automobile owners. They didn’t even have decent roads! Surely we can deal with an occasional issue at a DC fast charger on the occasional road trip. Assuming it improves pretty soon.

Great advice. New EV owner, 1 week old!

My 1st EV, a 2nd hand 40kw Leaf, two weeks in and one pedal driving is the best thing so far.

Also patience on a long journey - slowing down by a few mph eg 70 to 65 can significantly improve economy and reduce the number of charging stops and also reduce the cost

Caution. Some OBD dongles can put a permanent drain on your 12v battery. I tried a 'tracker' dongle and if you didn't drive for few days, you could hear the reluctance of the battery to spin the engine... (This was in MB E220D)

I'd love to see a full review of the omni camera please. The last point you made, about Patience made me chuckle to think of Flaviana who I imagine to be somewhat less chilled than you😅.... but then I thought of my wife who also is somewhat lacking in the patience department. Driving an ev seems to have really made her chill out. I can only think that perhaps it's the quietness and lack of engine noise which is less stressful, it's quite odd. Have you noticed this phenomenon? 😄 Great video Andrew, I'll be sharing it with a friend who is planning for an ev. Ooh I'll use your link for the 12v charger thingy and monitor too. 👍👏

Patience.

I have been contemplating buying a second set of wheels and putting cross climates on them. Steel 18 inchers for the ID.3 would be just fine for October to April.

Awesome video. Wow fast chargers are expensive in the UK. The most expensive here in NZ is about 42p

Octopus go or any other time of day tariff is a bit of a false economy as the other 20 hours are more than the EPG rate. I recommend OVOs add on called anytime drove, it costs 10pkw at any time and normal usage is the standard. Worth a look

Patiently awaiting my EV6 GTline-S awd on it's way from South Korea. Ordered last April.. Already have a 3 phase 22kw Charger installed at work (EV6 can do 11kw). Planning on getting a booster pack going off the scare stories on face book pages etc.

Quick note on the EV Tariff. There's another one from octopus (Intelligent Octopus), which is 10p/KWh between 11:30pm and 05:30am (and sometimes a little longer)

Please could you also talk about trickle car charging. Is it really useful ?

Can I just add a point about joining Octopus. I agree that joining it for the car-specific tarrifs is a good idea, but be aware you have to join on their standard tarrif first, and then, when they have been receiving reliable half hour readings from your smart meter for at least 20 days you can switch to Octopus-go. So make the switch at least a month before you need the tarrif. If you haven't already got a suitable smart meter allow longer time. They have also introduced a new tarrof (Intellegent Octopus) which gives even cheaper charging for longer, but both car and charger need to be compatible. My Kia Niro EV and BG eSync are both not supported.

Andrew, excellent summary thanks. However, you completely distracted with AC DC the Australian band, so much so I had to go and check the lineage 😂😂😂 lots of Scottish origin band members and a Geordie frontman. I guess it’s where the record label is registered. Pub quizzes watch out 👍

Probably worth mentioning that there is still a government grant available for those in rented accommodation to get £350 off your charger. We have just done this to get our Ohme charger down to £650 with installation:)

Dash cams are example eligal in Denmark so !

Great video. Another point in the charging speed section is that it can be the cable that is limiting you speed on the AC 22kw charger. Lots of slightly grumpy MG4 LR/trophy drivers plugging in with their MG cable only getting 7kw when they’ve heard they can get 11kw, but the MG cable is only a 7kw (single phase) cable, you need a 3-phase cable to get more than 7kw.

Great video Andrew. I'm seven years into EV driving myself, and your top 10 list is really useful - not only for people starting fresh with EVs. As we are planning to drive to UK this summer, I have two questions/comments to what you stated: 1) The Octopus Electroverse app/RFID you suggest is only available to UK residents. What would be your next-best suggestion for foreigners? Bonnet was previously available to me, but they kicked out all Norwegians late 2022. You suggested Elli, but I see that they lack roaming with e.g. MFG and Mer (and where Mer - a Norwegian company - does not allow Norwegians to download the Mer UK app!). Any suggestion for what is the best option wrt coverage for non-UK residents, not necessarily the best price? (And any help in getting Octopus to also support foreigners would be appreciated!) 2) You state that the UK EV infrastructure is a bit inadequate. Would you say that it is still manageable for tourists, even if our accommodation lacks destination charging? I managed navigating rural south-eastern France last summer without difficulties under the same conditions, although with a little planning.

Thanks very much Andrew for this great video - really very helpful. Once question, though - if your EV’s 12v battery is dead, how do you get under the bonnet to connect up the jump-started, as all the doors are 12v battery driven, right?

First point and second in the video...A charger. I 'll give the tip that you also can buy a protable charger with the possibility to charge in 3 phase, 11KW total. (Not with this leaf but for all EV's with a 3 fase AC onboard charging). The charger I have can be adjusted to the situation by choosing the Ampere for charging. It's 8,10,13 or 16 ampere , for each phase the same. Also it's easy, with an accessoire , to connect it to a normal house plug (one phase). The choices for ampere are the same...maximum charge in one phase is 3,7KW (16Amps) at 230Volt european (continental) sockets. This is cheper than a wall box because also easy to use somewehre else than at home only... 80% charging? Yes with a lot of cars. A friend of mine (TeslaS85 ) charged only to 50% because the charghedrop curve in the Tesla made it faster to charge more often to 50% thaen to 80% some fewer. I charge mostly above 80%...not because that is faster but because I'm not ready with my coffee when the car is already on 80% ( the ioniq 5...18 minutes is really short if you need a sanitair stop and a coffee after a few hours driving) Some advice (if they read it)...for the producers and providers from rapid chargers. Just make it IMPOSSIBLE to charge to 100%. By stopping the charging. (May be when the speed drops below a certain powerlevel AND the battery is 80+%..or simply on battery %. ). This makes the queues at charging stations much shorter because waiting until 100% is no longer an issue. Indeed in all those EV years I've had to wait one time on such a lady....because one ionity was in repair, the other was occupied by this lady charging very slow those 10% on a 350KW charger. 90% can be reached fast with my ioniq 5 5...even charging up to 100KW until 87%. 18 minutes from 10 to 80%, another 10 minutes to 90% but more than 90% is slow.

Check that your home electricity supply is suitable for a charger. It took the energy board about nine months for them to fit a new supply to my property.

Well done Andrew. Excellent info. I would observe that electricity costs have gone up hugely. When I bought the Tesla 3 years a go, Superchargers cost me 24p/kWh. Last year, they went up to 63p/kWh during the day 42p/kwh after 6pm. Still not as expensive as Ionity which was around 89p/kwn 3 years ago so definitely subscribe to card which covers those. Ive made a note about the Octopus card. But on your trips to see in-laws, what would you recommend as a good card for European travel? For the geeky:- Charging a battery is like filling a tank of water from the bottom. When theres hardly any water in it, it goes in quite fast. The more water you put in, the slower it gets because the water in the tank is "pushing back!". Same happens with batteries which is why your rate drops off. So the Tesla starts about 120kw and at about 60% is down to 80kW. At 80% is getting to less than 50kW and as you say, it drops even quicker after that.Its only around 25kw near 100%. The other thing to note about charging to high levels of charge is that with :LiON batteries, you do start growing crystals that head from one terminal towards the other. If they meet up, its a short. Mobile phone batteries are quite prone to these and the phones start to die fairly rapidly as they just wont hold charge. Car batteries can do the same thing so again, another good reason not to charge to 100% as your battery may die sooner than you think. (most car batteries have a guarantee of 7 to 10 years but best not to push your luck).

For me, the scary bit is the initial outlay cost of the vehicle! (and all the head-cases driving around, out there!)

Fuming with octopus, they wanted £148 a month on D/D , when I’m paying less than £100 with British Gas ….octopus seem very backwards on paying as we pay quarterly with BG, why don’t octopus …..not overpaying them each month