[Carlotto]

Hi Forum,
I ordered a fairly full-spec I-Pace end early February and I'm promised delivery end of June. I got the impression I was the first customer in Cyprus ordering one.
My main concern is how to charge the car. In the end I may have to do the main charging from a standard house socket (around 3.7kW max, 240V and 13-16A).



My house has a supply of 240V / 40A max and I'm trying to see if that can be upgraded as a normal 32A home charger box would use almost 100% of my supply (unplug fridge, turn off lights....). Typically for Cyprus, I cannot get a straight answer from anyone at the moment. OK, there are some (2-3) public chargers in Limassol, not too far away so I'm not totally lost.


I've looked at putting in 3-phase (as I then get 400V and could use a dedicated phase for this) but that looks prohibitively expensive. Electrician told me he has to change all electrics in the whole house even though I don't need the 3-phase other than for the car. So it is likely going to stay with 1-phase. It would be nice if there was a "charger" box that would let me set the charging power continuously between 3-7kW depending on the rest of use in house - on the fly via an app of course. I haven't found that animal yet, the best I found was "Juicebox", a German thing that could use varying max current and change via app (waiting to get that confirmed).


I prefer the looks of the Andersen EV charger (UK made) but that can only change the charging current via phone call to Andersen and they access remotely. Not exactly on-the-fly.



Other minor worries - will any insurer even touch the car? A friend has an Ariel Atom sports car and he can only get 3rd party insurance. We'll see there. Looking forward to the delivery in any case.
/Carl

 

[jsimon7777]

Congrats!

Considering how small Cyprus is, and double so since it's split in half, you must drive relatively short distances each day. If you charge every night on 3.7kW, you should get a full charge pretty much every single day. I don't think you should worry about it.

So how far do you drive in a normal day?

 

[Time2Roll]

I would start by getting a clamp on ammeter and measure your actual loads as you live normal. I think you may have more power available than you realize.
You still may want to charge at 240v to keep the load balanced. The charging spec goes down to 6 amps if needed.

Openevse is easily adjusted. https://www.openevse.com/stations.html

 

[Carlotto]

Driving in Cyprus

Congrats!

Considering how small Cyprus is, and double so since it's split in half, you must drive relatively short distances each day. If you charge every night on 3.7kW, you should get a full charge pretty much every single day. I don't think you should worry about it.

So how far do you drive in a normal day?

Well you are right - Cyprus isn't big and of course one of the reasons I chose an EV. The other reason - I'm looking at possibly building a house and I could then maybe incorporate solar EV charging. Bit of a minefield, what is allowed and not but that is a later problem Right now I still have to charge from the grid.


Longest normal distance in Cyprus would be Nicosia - Paphos, around 150 km, so probably approx 50% of the real range of the car. Going that distance and back would require some juice along the way but I would probably never do this. Normal daily drive might be less than 100 km in total.


On distances - I don't count the North (Turkey-ish). I wouldn't dare taking the car in there although it is simple nowadays. No idea if they have chargers. What if something happens... I would need a donkey to drag me back. Keeping a petrol car as well in household so that cover the odd trip to the North.


Greetings!
Carl

 

[Carlotto]

Openevse charging

I would start by getting a clamp on ammeter and measure your actual loads as you live normal. I think you may have more power available than you realize.
You still may want to charge at 240v to keep the load balanced. The charging spec goes down to 6 amps if needed.

Openevse is easily adjusted. https://www.openevse.com/stations.html

Thanks for the tips. I do have a problem that the house main fuse trips now and then. With only 40A = some 8kW practical max, house trips if I put on oven, toaster and air condition at same time. I can simply flip the fuse back again, so no big deal. But you are right - I need to check the amount of amps really used for various things, never thought about the clamp meter - good idea!


The OpenEVSE is interesting, it certainly has what I would want, but I can't find the products in Europe and importing from US is too much hassle, customs, duties, delays. I found one half-DIY in the Netherlands, but that didn't have the full Wifi so I would need to connect a terminal, that is too geeky and messy.


I can probably use any European charger, set to 16A max and 1-phase. Then turn charging off when using more stuff in house. But it doesn't let me tweak to more amps say overnight when house is idle. I might settle for that solution in order to get nice design, wifi etc without any hassle. I prefer this one (from quality and design points):
https://andersen-ev.com/andersen-a2/
It can be set to a number of different steps of charging amps, but only from the manufacturer (messy). Must call them, they access remotely and change. Apparently not available in the app for the user to do himself. Not ideal, but I like the rest. I particularly like that it doesn't look like a snake pit of DIY cables from Radio Shack. There aren't many boxes with nice designs out there.

 

[Carlotto]

Moving this to Charging, energy use etc

I'm moving the rest of this thread from now to a more suitable forum as we got off topic of new member presentation.

 

[Time2Roll]

Do you have US style split phase 240v/120v 60 hz service or Europe 230 50hz?

The A2 link seems to be 230 50hz. (or 3 phase) Probably more options in a Europe message board.

Also might be worth a call to an electrician that is familiar with a load shed device to automatically limit your loads and give priority to certain circuits. Possibly check the circuit if a larger main breaker might be available option. Even a 50 amp breaker would help.

Best of luck.