Electric Vehicles: General topics

[Apple fanboy]

I had to drive my wife's X1 last week while mine was in the shop and was definitely thrown a bit as I haven't driven ICE in a long time, the biggest thing I noticed was how it would roll on it's own (in idle) with your foot off the breaks.

Well there is that as well. Mostly I just noticed how much I hated putting £55 in it in petrol. Still that should keep Mrs AFB going until I can convince her we don't need a second car anymore.

 

[Nycturne]

Nice, I haven't had a chance to drive one, just spent a little time in/around one at the show.

Yeah, I do want to see if I can get some time on some of the competitors like the Ioniq 5 and the EV-6, but it's still not a terrible people/cargo mover with the AWD package. I wouldn't be surprised if I liked driving the Hyundai or Kia better based on what I'm seeing, but they do sacrifice cargo space. The dealers are also doing a 5-10k markup on them in my area over MSRP, making the ID.4 up to 15k cheaper for similar packages. Oof.

The body roll, even given the size and height, is not unsurprising - these bespoke EV platforms are basically a skateboard, with that very low deck being a significant amount of weight, so the center of gravity is exceptional (and a ratio that's nearly impossible to achieve in an ICE vehicle). I've seen crashes/testing for Teslas - like side exits from the road - where the car simply does not roll over, like it seems to defy the laws of physics, but of course, my perception is based on the behavior of cars with a much higher COG (it's a reason Tesla has an outstanding crash safety rating, what I'm sure will translate to other manufacturers).

Oh, I'm not surprised by the fact that it is stable, it's just something that jumped out to me at how flat it turns, as it's been one of the complaints I've had of taller vehicles in general.

 

[Herdfan]

Here the get called frunks. That’s weird though as we call it a boot when it’s at the back. But a foot wouldn’t work.

 

[Herdfan]

Not sure I 100% agree with the premise, but I do expect the Asian manufacturers to do well.

Sorry Elon Musk. Hyundai is quietly dominating the EV race

The hottest things in the auto industry now come from Hyundai and Kia

gulfnews.com

 

[Nycturne]

If you can charge 5-10k over MSRP and still sell every one you make…

 

[Apple fanboy]

So my friend just drove to Scotland and back in his VW ID3.
He picked me up on the way. It’s 520 miles each way and lots of hills. I contemplated going in my i3 but it was easier and cheaper to share the driving.
It was a really good experience for me as I’ve never used the public charging network. There was a good selection to choose from. Twice we had to wait for a charger. First time as there was a bit of a queue at Getina. The second time because some idiot in a Porsche was charging to 100%. They had only just picked up the car. We explained as they left that 80% is the way to go.
Mostly they could do with more chargers at the service stations. But even when we waited it was only 10-15 minutes extra.
My favourite charging station was this one at BP

No need to wait with all those.
Price varied from free (issue connecting so they put it on free vend for us), to about £35. We will work out the total cost and do a comparison with our friend who drove his diesel Skoda. I think we roughly spent a quarter of what he did. He was very anti EV’s so we will be sure to mention it often!

 

[Apple fanboy]

So planning my first long solo trip tomorrow. Off to see my Mum for the first time in 5+ years. Anyway I have plan A, B, C and D set up for charging. Its 206 miles. So figure one stop there, one stop on the way back. Hopefully I can steal a bit of granny charge whilst I'm there. 4-5 hours of that should save me a bit of time on the road. Its a 3 hour 50 minute ride without stops as it is.

 

[Eric]

So planning my first long solo trip tomorrow. Off to see my Mum for the first time in 5+ years. Anyway I have plan A, B, C and D set up for charging. Its 206 miles. So figure one stop there, one stop on the way back. Hopefully I can steal a bit of granny charge whilst I'm there. 4-5 hours of that should save me a bit of time on the road. Its a 3 hour 50 minute ride without stops as it is.

Nice! It's one thing to see the specs on paper and it's another to actually put it to a real test, you'll get to learn all the benefits and quirks on a trip like that.

 

[Apple fanboy]

Nice! It's one thing to see the specs on paper and it's another to actually put it to a real test, you'll get to learn all the benefits and quirks on a trip like that.

I'm sure it will be fine. The trip with my friend to Scotland (who's on his second EV) has helped my confidence a bit. My range is 175 miles, but at this time of year 130 is about right. Not unless I want to crawl all the way there!

We had to wait for charging a couple of times, but its not that long and I don't have a specific time I need to be there. Should sort out a decent playlist though!

 

[Apple fanboy]

Put the car on charge so I can leave at 100% in the morning. Mrs AFB just asked me has my car finished eating yet! Lol.

 

[quagmire]

Not surprising, but ICE will still reign supreme for now when it comes to towing.

 

[Apple fanboy]

So quick write up for my 230 mile trip (each way) in a car with a 130-140 mile real world range.

First of all I drove at 65mph. I could have got a bit more range at 60 or even 55mph, but decided 65 was an okay compromise on speed and time.

So left at 100%. My first stop was at around 120 miles. However the bank of chargers at Cambridge services were all offline. So I had a plan B and C lined up, but none had as many charging points. Anyway settled for a McDonalds about 15 minutes away. When I arrived I was down to 20% and starting to feel a bit nervous. But although there were only 2 chargers, they were both empty when I arrived. Buy the time I left there was a bit of a queue so I unplugged at 79%. This was enough to get me to my destination.

The return trip needed a couple of stops as I wasn't having the luxury of starting at 100%. My first point was a nice supermarket in a nice town. Had a really nice aray of chargers (slow, fast and rapid). I went for the rapid and took the opportunity to do a bit of photography and stretch my legs.
My next planned stop I actually went for a different one as I was starting to feel a bit hungry. So stopped around 10 minutes earlier when I saw a charging point coming up. Again there were only 2, but neither was in use when I arrived or when I left.

Stop one 46 minutes £17.11
Stop two 41 minutes £15.57
Stop three 36 minutes £12.49

Total trip 460 miles. Cost £45.17
Conservative estimate for the equivalent petrol cost would be £90+.

Truth is I'd have stopped once each way either way but maybe not for that long. So pretty happy with my first long road trip in a low range EV.

 

[Yoused]

Not surprising, but ICE will still reign supreme for now when it comes to towing.

Of course, this is assuming that people will be doing the same things with EVs exactly as they are done with ICEs. Most likely, not taking the freeway would have given him cosiderably better range. Even a tall canopy would have helped. But, as I see it, the product that will show up will be zero-inertia (i.e., powered, tongue-load-sensing) trailers, which will allow anyone, even a small EV, to tow a trailer with effectively no loss of range.

 

[DT]

Of course, this is assuming that people will be doing the same things with EVs exactly as they are done with ICEs. Most likely, not taking the freeway would have given him cosiderably better range. Even a tall canopy would have helped. But, as I see it, the product that will show up will be zero-inertia (i.e., powered, tongue-load-sensing) trailers, which will allow anyone, even a small EV, to tow a trailer with effectively no loss of range.

You're right on, there's a number of products in development. One of the campers has gyros, and can be driven around on its own with a smartphone, like it's unhitch, but want to move it a little closer to the lake

One of the trailers will let something like a Model Y with 3500 lbs tow capacity handle 6000+ lbs with very little reduction in range.

 

[DT]

Apprehension, not so much, but rather the more I look at the engineering decisions, I cringe.

I look at the execution through the lens of someone who's: owned about 25 vehicles, many tuned and raced, driven a significant number high speed track events (and cleared for instruction), been involved in motorsport, helped to develop aftermarket parts, been obsessed with cars for, well, let's just say a long time - and - someone with an engineering background.

As a car, the AWD system is superb. The performance is stellar. We hop in, and it just works, it's ready to run, quickly. The audio system is outstanding - the visibility (something many people don't consider) is excellent, it's easy to set up a really good driving position (or several), the brakes have good feedback (keep in mind, I have the Performance model), the steering has a - quite frankly - surprising amount of nuance (and I've owned or driven cars like an S2K, M2/3, GT3 ...)

As an EV, the efficiency and power management is outstanding, the charging infrastructure is stellar (i.e., it works with L1/L2 EVSEs, it works with Superchargers, with non-Tesla DCFC, etc), it charges quickly, the payment process is seamless, the navigation system cleverly ties into the SuC network allowing me to determine availability - and recently to predict and even reroute based on charger availability - and the SuC are usually well maintained (something people don't factor in, when I see road trip reports from other cars indicating things like, "The entire <some_non-Tesla_DCFC> location was inoperable").

To be clear, I'm not trying to convince you of, anything really

Only that if our M3P wasn't a good vehicle, I wouldn't own it - if it wasn't a good EV, I wouldn't own it. I see people get into the weeds on particulars, the air vent controls, the single display, even really silly things like the frequency of the sub-woofer crossover - if any of that didn't work for me as a car enthusiast, I'd return it tomorrow, I'd put in an order for an i4 M50, I'd say, to heck with it, I'm going back to ICE till there are more options for me, and order an RS3.

At the time I purchase just over a year ago, nothing else made sense when I weighed my preferred car + EV attributes. In a couple of years? Sure, I'll evaluate the marketspace again, and I suspect there will be way more options, and companies like BMW will have their dedicated EV platform up and running, and I'd __assume__ the charging infrastructure in the US will have greatly expanded, both through Tesla's opening of their network to other vehicles and other options like Electrify America, EVG, etc., also expanding.

 

[Apple fanboy]

I look at the execution through the lens of someone who's: owned about 25 vehicles, many tuned and raced, driven a significant number high speed track events (and cleared for instruction), been involved in motorsport, helped to develop aftermarket parts, been obsessed with cars for, well, let's just say a long time - and - someone with an engineering background.

As a car, the AWD system is superb. The performance is stellar. We hop in, and it just works, it's ready to run, quickly. The audio system is outstanding - the visibility (something many people don't consider) is excellent, it's easy to set up a really good driving position (or several), the brakes have good feedback (keep in mind, I have the Performance model), the steering has a - quite frankly - surprising amount of nuance (and I've owned or driven cars like an S2K, M2/3, GT3 ...)

As an EV, the efficiency and power management is outstanding, the charging infrastructure is stellar (i.e., it works with L1/L2 EVSEs, it works with Superchargers, with non-Tesla DCFC, etc), it charges quickly, the payment process is seamless, the navigation system cleverly ties into the SuC network allowing me to determine availability - and recently to predict and even reroute based on charger availability - and the SuC are usually well maintained (something people don't factor in, when I see road trip reports from other cars indicating things like, "The entire <some_non-Tesla_DCFC> location was inoperable").

To be clear, I'm not trying to convince you of, anything really

Only that if our M3P wasn't a good vehicle, I wouldn't own it - if it wasn't a good EV, I wouldn't own it. I see people get into the weeds on particulars, the air vent controls, the single display, even really silly things like the frequency of the sub-woofer crossover - if any of that didn't work for me as a car enthusiast, I'd return it tomorrow, I'd put in an order for an i4 M50, I'd say, to heck with it, I'm going back to ICE till there are more options for me, and order an RS3.

At the time I purchase just over a year ago, nothing else made sense when I weighed my preferred car + EV attributes. In a couple of years? Sure, I'll evaluate the marketspace again, and I suspect there will be way more options, and companies like BMW will have their dedicated EV platform up and running, and I'd __assume__ the charging infrastructure in the US will have greatly expanded, both through Tesla's opening of their network to other vehicles and other options like Electrify America, EVG, etc., also expanding.

I’ve been pleasantly surprised by my road trips this past week. You hear a lot of how bad the charging networks are. But they all worked on contactless. Just tap your card and away you go. Couldn’t be easier than that.

 

[Nycturne]

To be clear, I'm not trying to convince you of, anything really

Only that if our M3P wasn't a good vehicle, I wouldn't own it - if it wasn't a good EV, I wouldn't own it. I see people get into the weeds on particulars, the air vent controls, the single display, even really silly things like the frequency of the sub-woofer crossover - if any of that didn't work for me as a car enthusiast, I'd return it tomorrow, I'd put in an order for an i4 M50, I'd say, to heck with it, I'm going back to ICE till there are more options for me, and order an RS3.

Awful lot of effort to put into a post that’s not trying to convince me of anything, TBH.

The bolded bit is interesting, because when we talk about preference in the market, a lot of it can be nit picking. But I don’t see that as a failure, I see that as a sign of good fundamentals across the industry in general. But it means companies also need to be on their game when it comes to the details (safety, reliability, etc), and understanding their target markets.

I’ve been pleasantly surprised by my road trips this past week. You hear a lot of how bad the charging networks are. But they all worked on contactless. Just tap your card and away you go. Couldn’t be easier than that.

I wouldn’t be surprised if charging networks in different parts of the world are maturing at different rates. Contactless payments never really took off in the US, for example, as folks jumped over to mobile apps which can be a bit messy. I’ll find out more what things are like once I actually have a chance to use charging stations in the area further down the road.

Features like Plug and Charge should help as well as it gets more widely deployed. It is one of Tesla’s advantages at the moment.

I did put down money for an ID.4 reservation. Realistically I expect delivery to happen in 2023 at this point. So I’m now in the waiting pattern. No rush though.

 

[DT]

Awful lot of effort to put into a post that’s not trying to convince me of anything, TBH.

Previously written weeks ago for another [car related] site where I supply some content - thought you might appreciate it, I guess not

 

[DT]

I’ve been pleasantly surprised by my road trips this past week. You hear a lot of how bad the charging networks are. But they all worked on contactless. Just tap your card and away you go. Couldn’t be easier than that.

I follow quite a few car sites, including a number that are EV specific, and that's just what I see here in the US, with regard to the non-Tesla infrastructure.

I mean, as just a totally random sample, when were headed to The Keys a few weeks ago, one of the last charging areas at the end of Florida had an 8 station SuC (only 150Kw), and in the Walmart parking lot behind that (where I walked to hit the head ...) there was an EA station with 2 chargers, and the one had a totally funked up LCD display, like it was random characters and unreadable, the other side was fine, but that's 50% out at a pretty critical location (The Keys is a void of chargers).

That needs to improve for everyone. I'd gladly use an EA location with a CCS adapter under the right circumstances, but obviously it has to be working.

 

[DT]

I did put down money for an ID.4 reservation. Realistically I expect delivery to happen in 2023 at this point. So I’m now in the waiting pattern. No rush though.

Excellent, I'll be super interested to hear your take on it, er, when it eventually arrives. What's the spec?

I have a couple of other vehicles on order, they're __way__out__, so they really don't even factor into our plans, and we can't take delivery of both anyway, and we've got two cars already, hahaha, I figured I'd get ahead of the game a little