Night prowler
Beating the system.
Due to the impossibility of parking near a lamppost charger in my own street, I tend to top up the e-Tron at some nearby Source London 7kW points.
It’s dark when I arrive for the first time, as I’m a cheapskate looking to take advantage of the overnight discount when costs are capped at four hours between 8pm and 7am. There’s another Audi in one of the three bays, but it’s just an A5 nabbing a space while the wardens are in bed.
I tap the charging point’s screen, scan a QR code with my phone, enter credit card details and we’re charging happily. The MyAudi app says we’ll achieve 100 per cent charge just before 1am, but as I don’t make it back until 7.30am, the usual 7p per minute rate takes over. It costs £18.62 for 681 minutes – with £1.82 of that coming from that extra half hour in bed. Even with the cap that’s 50p per kW versus 14p on a home wallbox, so the cost per mile is nearer 20p rather than the usual 6p.
I immediately sign-up to the £4 monthly subscription service – which drops the rate to 3.6p per minute – and get a swipe card in the mail a few days later. The cost of a (capped) overnight charge comes down to under a tenner once a week.