Charging electric cars on Club sites.

Why is that if it "powers" the Batt?

Yes, the difference being if a vehicle is or is being used for business purpose and owner paid fuel allowance should they expect the club to pay for their electricity. Several site have workers / contractors or residential residents on them for the 21 days and then move to the next site.

Our Aldi heating is only on in March, April and November and then very low for max 3 hours in the day. Modern caravan are well insulated and retain the heat very well

No because the car is a much higher price to pay to buy it in the first place so the fuel allowance is needed to pay the increased cost of the finance. After paying this increased cost, there's no money left to pay extra for electricity and it would be unfair for sites to make such a charge. After all,  you don't expect to pay extra for electric everytime you turn your kettle or heating on, do you, so why discriminate against EVs?

Neither, JVB66, is an electric car running and drawing power 24/7. It only needs 6 hours for a full charge assuming that the battery is completely empty, an unlikely scenario! Most EVs start charging whilst the battery has at least quarter power left. Furthermore, the EV will be out on the road from time to time and therefore not drawing any power whilst being driven. Your Alde heating probably costs the club more in electric than an EV overall.

I think you will struggle to charge from empty in 6 hours with only 10amps available via the caravan socket.

As far as I can make out the Smart has a 17.6kwh battery, so it will be nearer 8 hours from empty.

As to heating (of any type) v EV charging.......

presumably you would not normally need any heating on overnight?  I know we have rarely felt it necesssary even at zero degrees outside, so you would be plugging in the EV then.

Come morning, the EV is charged, you turn on your heating as usual and go about life as usual using exactly the same amount of electricity as usual, but.......you have used electricity overnight to charge the EV in addition to your usual consumption.

This is the point everyone is making, you will be using additional electricity that has to be paid for.  Now, not many people will be doing what you are doing, so the additional cost, which remember will have to be spread over all members who use Club sites, will be small.  But as more EVs come into use, the extra cost will rapidly escalate.

That is why the Club needs to explain to members what they plan to do about this.  

EV owners cannot realistically expect all members to pay an increased pitch fee to  cover these  costs .

To quote: "Your Alde heating probably costs the club more in electric than an EV overall."

This assertion is poorly thought out for not only the reason stated above, the heating not being on overnight.

The heating even in the extreme of cold will still cycle on and off and through the main of the year not be on space heating at all. Even the water heating role only pulls power for at the most 30 minutes per full tank load and less when the water is at summer air temperature.

The EV will be pulling high power levels for hours on end, not only when Alde and Truma users need heating but every day of the year out camping, when car use is undertaken.

The arguments being made time and again confuse the Amps so power being drawn, with Amp hours reflecting the total energy being taken. The utility providers don't charge for "power" (kW), they charge us for the "energy" (kWh).

Plus I am not convinced those charging EV etc do so as an alternative to powering their vans, but in addition to, thus by definition can't but consume more energy than the typical camping user.

I would suspect our site fees are based on the average nightly use of energy not on the amount of energy from pulling our allotted 16 Amps for 24 hours a day?

As we are pushed to adopting these vehicles the club will have little option but install some form of metering, it is only a matter of time till the burden comes too high to stick with the present system.

Unless dedicated metered bollards are introduced, everyone else on site will end up subsidising those who have chosen the electric car route. 

The energy used by electric cars is in addition to their owners normal caravan and motor-home domestic use. What is required eventually, are either a number of metered normal bollards for those with EVs  OR dedicated car charging metered bollards at a central point on each site OR an extra charge per day for those with EVs to charge.

This will ensure that those who do not have electric cars will not end up subsidising those who do.

No because the car is a much higher price to pay to buy it in the first place so the fuel allowance is needed to pay the increased cost of the finance. After paying this increased cost, there's no money left to pay extra for electricity and it would be unfair for sites to make such a charge

So are you now saying that members and the club should be subsidising your traveling cost because you need the fuel allowance to pay for the car or am I  reading and not understanding this correctly.

I f you install seperate charging points, how do you ensure they are used rather than pitch electricity? What type do you install? Not all EVs use the same fast charge connectors.

I think the only real answer is to meter all pitches. The Club now has the ideal excuse to undertake this task.

peedee

I think the only real answer is to meter all pitches. The Club now has the ideal excuse to undertake this task.

Metering is not the only answer at all. No need to install on pitch charging systems either. At present levels unlikely to add more than 4p to pitch fees.

Next step 'You want to charge a car from your caravan? certainly and that will be an extra £2.50 a night'. 

'You think that to dear? Charge off site then'.