£560 option DC Rapid charger

[uktechie]

Hi,

Has anyone worked out how many chargemaster charges i.e £7.50 per half hour it would take to make this worthwhile.

I am debating whether I should pay for this option as I currently cannot see many anywhere in UK.

If you compare it to full tank of REX about £12.50 then it looks ok for a £5.00 saving so would need to use it at least 112 times to break even unless there maybe still some free or lower cost DC rapid stations.

I need one along A55 in North Wales but none and cannot find out if any planned, hardly find any fast chargers either.

 

[BrianStanier]

I see no point in using Chargemaster. AFAIK there are very very few CCS rapid chargers that the i3 can use yet in the UK. Ecotricity will be converting their (free at present) network to CCS by the end of the year.

 

[afx]

I signed up specifically to ask this same question, hello forum

My company is weighing up an outright purchase of an i3 versus BMW Corporate Finance.

With the latter, the car will be provided with the DC Rapid Charger with no option to not have it - my local dealer says this is because BMW are betting that there'll be lots more DC chargers in the country 3 years from now when I have to hand the i3 back and they will want to sell it on, so it'll add value.

But if we decide to purchase outright, I can't decide whether to go with this or not... That £560 could potentially be spent on other optional extras. Tricky!

 

[GMac67]

I signed up specifically to ask this same question, hello forum

My company is weighing up an outright purchase of an i3 versus BMW Corporate Finance.

With the latter, the car will be provided with the DC Rapid Charger with no option to not have it - my local dealer says this is because BMW are betting that there'll be lots more DC chargers in the country 3 years from now when I have to hand the i3 back and they will want to sell it on, so it'll add value.

But if we decide to purchase outright, I can't decide whether to go with this or not... That £560 could potentially be spent on other optional extras. Tricky!

Of course I don't know how fast the number of DC Chargers will be rolled out in the UK, but in NL the pace is picking up. With more cars (read VW Group, MB) coming to the market with CCS implementation, it will only speed up I guess.

For me the DC Charger option, combined with the REx makes sense as it allows for longer rides beyond the range, back and forth on the same day, e.g. I need to drive to Germany (Dusseldorf) from Rotterdam, approx 250KM, with the DC Charger near the boarder, I can do this with minimal gas usage. The DC charger lets you charge in 30min, so I guess adding 30 min to a 2 hour 30 min drive isn't much as I tend to stop after 2 hours anyway.

So for me, buying a i3 without the DC Charger option is a definite no-go.

 

[logorrhoea]

I signed up specifically to ask this same question, hello forum

My company is weighing up an outright purchase of an i3 versus BMW Corporate Finance.

With the latter, the car will be provided with the DC Rapid Charger with no option to not have it - my local dealer says this is because BMW are betting that there'll be lots more DC chargers in the country 3 years from now when I have to hand the i3 back and they will want to sell it on, so it'll add value.

But if we decide to purchase outright, I can't decide whether to go with this or not... That £560 could potentially be spent on other optional extras. Tricky!

I got the 'DC preparation' option on my business lease for the reason mentioned before: betting that there'll be lots more DC chargers within the 3 year term of the lease but also because it only added a couple of quid a month. I'm guessing the low cost of the option is because of the residual value.

Reason I'm not going for outright purchase through the company, by the way, is because I think the technology will move on a lot over the next 3 years and by the time the lease is over, I know I'll be hankering after an upgrade and I don't want the hassle of trying to sell an asset.

 

[afx]

Reason I'm not going for outright purchase through the company, by the way, is because I think the technology will move on a lot over the next 3 years and by the time the lease is over, I know I'll be hankering after an upgrade and I don't want the hassle of trying to sell an asset.

Very good point. Doing some rough maths it seems like BMW are betting that a £30k-ish model will be worth £13-14k in 3 years time and that DC will be (a lot more) prevalent.

Hmm... lease is seeming more attractive the more I type

Thanks

 

[uktechie]

Decided to opt for it in the end as by time order arrives expecting RCN to keep promise of 74 across major routes port to port.

So now plenty of time to sort out my garage