Electric Vehicles: General topics

[Apple fanboy]

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 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.

We’ve been doing contactless payments here for years. The US always seems much slower to adapt to newer banking technology. It was the same with chip and pin. I think you were 10 years behind Europe.

 

[Nycturne]

We’ve been doing contactless payments here for years. The US always seems much slower to adapt to newer banking technology. It was the same with chip and pin. I think you were 10 years behind Europe.

Yeup. A lot of inertia here. But some of it is also due to larger retailers over here wanting to bypass payment processors. Even as both Apple and Google were pushing NFC payment systems here, you had large retailers like Walmart working on a QR-code based system that hooked up straight to checking accounts.

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.

Agreed. A recent study was showing about 22% of individual chargers across a sampling in California were out of order. Another 5% had cables that were too short to be usable in the test. EA had the lowest out of order rate of the sample, but even that was 19%. EA was dinged more heavily than others due to cable length.

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

AWD Pro S. I had a couple drives in a 2021 AWD Pro S before putting the reservation down. But it was the best balance of the different things I wanted. I’m still not a huge fan of all the touch controls everywhere, but the haptic and pressure-triggered touch controls in the ID.4 make it an easier pill to swallow. And the fact that the cargo area has more clearance at the top than my Outback is a nice touch. Not as deep front to back as the Outback, but I can live with it. I don’t have the 12” dobsonian telescope that took up most of the space in the Outback on road trips anymore, which helps. And since a most of my driving is: commute, hauling bikes and people to trail heads, and occasional road trips to star parties and the like, the ID.4 can do it so long as I don’t also need to tow a trailer. ~130mi range while towing a teardrop isn’t good enough for eastern Oregon yet, sadly.

The issues I had with the pedals in the first drive were already much better in the second drive as I was getting used to how the brake pedal behaves, and the pedal placement. Second time around I also spent more time playing with the turning radius. For being a crossover, the thing turns on a dime, and the acceleration.

Really the only mod I’m going to have to make when I get it is a larger hitch receiver, or an adapter. It comes with a 1 1/4” receiver, but my bike rack is 2”, and they don’t make a 1 1/4” model that can carry my unit of an e-bike.

 

[Herdfan]

Oops.

Electric police cars struggle to reach emergencies without running out of power

ELECTRIC police cars are struggling to reach crime scenes and emergencies without running out of power. Officers in rural areas cannot find charging points on patrol and are having to switch to pet…

www.the-sun.com

What's funny is the wife called me yesterday while she was waiting in her car for her Chiropractic appointment to tell me that 3 police cars just went flying by and she thought one was a Tesla.

Turns out she was correct as the City of Nitro has a Tesla police car. Then I saw this article.

Guess there is a little more range out of the Tesla than the Leafs.

 

[Apple fanboy]

Oops.

Electric police cars struggle to reach emergencies without running out of power

ELECTRIC police cars are struggling to reach crime scenes and emergencies without running out of power. Officers in rural areas cannot find charging points on patrol and are having to switch to pet…

www.the-sun.com

What's funny is the wife called me yesterday while she was waiting in her car for her Chiropractic appointment to tell me that 3 police cars just went flying by and she thought one was a Tesla.

Turns out she was correct as the City of Nitro has a Tesla police car. Then I saw this article.

Guess there is a little more range out of the Tesla than the Leafs.

Fake news. This sort of story really is the lowest form of journalism.

 

[Eric]

Fake news. This sort of story really is the lowest form of journalism.

Yeah, didn't even want to respond after actually reading the story. Seems to be a generic hit piece over a poorly planned rollout of electric vehicles. It's like saying "we ordered a bunch of gas powered vehicles without realizing the MPG and calculating local gas stations". You can't blame the car for decisions like that.

 

[Apple fanboy]

Yeah, didn't even want to respond after actually reading the story. Seems to be a generic hit piece over a poorly planned rollout of electric vehicles. It's like saying "we ordered a bunch of gas powered vehicles without realizing the MPG and calculating local gas stations". You can't blame the car for decisions like that.

Given the source it’s more likely not even true. Probably the car was just a promotional job (I’ve seen my own i3 made to look like a police car, but they never actually made any).
The Sun is a rubbish tabloid newspaper.

 

[Herdfan]

Given the source it’s more likely not even true. Probably the car was just a promotional job (I’ve seen my own i3 made to look like a police car, but they never actually made any).
The Sun is a rubbish tabloid newspaper.

The part about them not being able to keep them charged may not be true, but they did buy 75 Nissan EV's (66 Leafs and 9 NV200's)

Multiple stories about that online.

 

[Eric]

The part about them not being able to keep them charged may not be true, but they did buy 75 Nissan EV's (66 Leafs and 9 NV200's)

Multiple stories about that online.

But you can't blame the car for their poor planning, if they can't calculate mileage vs charging that's on them. Someone in their engineering department needs to be fired.

 

[Apple fanboy]

So on the way home had one of these up my backside at the lights reeving his huge twin exhausts. Clearly expecting me to be in his way.

So decided to take it out of eco+ mode and select comfort mode. Could of gone full sports mode, but why bother? Left him for dust up to 60MPH (the speed limit), then just pulled over and let him get on with burning fossil fuels. He roared past me and then cut into my lane at the roundabout as that type of driver does.

 

[SuperMatt]

I ended up renting a VW ID.4 SUV from the Turo app for a trip this past weekend. After figuring out where the “gear shift” was (behind the steering wheel), it was a pretty nice vehicle to drive. It charged quite fast at DC fast charging stations, basically only constrained by the kW of the charger itself. Driving over the Continental Divide, I realized the range estimates of the vehicle can change rapidly depending on the grade. “Oh look I only have 80 miles range left!”... then start going down a steep grade for 2-3 miles ... “Hey I’ve got 125 miles range left!” It has wireless charging and wireless CarPlay, which I really appreciated, although I ended up plugging the phone in (USB-C plugs BTW) because if you are driving over bumpy roads, the phone can slide around slightly, taking it off the “sweet spot” of the wireless charger.

 

[Eric]

 

[DT]

So on the way home had one of these up my backside at the lights reeving his huge twin exhausts. Clearly expecting me to be in his way.

So decided to take it out of eco+ mode and select comfort mode. Could of gone full sports mode, but why bother? Left him for dust up to 60MPH (the speed limit), then just pulled over and let him get on with burning fossil fuels. He roared past me and then cut into my lane at the roundabout as that type of driver does.

Well, hahaha, it's just a BRZ/86 (that photo has an aftermarket body/aero kit), it's only 228HP out of a flat-4 They handle pretty solid, really get down to business with some coilovers, better wheel/tire setup.

 

[Apple fanboy]

My heated seats work fine thanks. However not getting a lot of use. Mostly the AC! Love cooking the car down before I leave. Especially as we are in the middle of a heatwave.

 

[Apple fanboy]

Well, hahaha, it's just a BRZ/86 (that photo has an aftermarket body/aero kit), it's only 228HP out of a flat-4 They handle pretty solid, really get down to business with some coilovers, better wheel/tire setup.

This was the closest photo I could find online. Not sure of the exact specs. Well except for the dick behind the wheel!

 

[DT]

Ioniq 6 officially revealed!

Hyundai’s Ioniq 6 could be your next home away from home office

Space for your laptop, lots of ports, and even a notes app.

www.theverge.com

A lot of great stuff happening with this car, 379-mile range with the long-range 77.4-kWh battery (WLTP, EPA is more like 330-ish), super-fast charging (mostly limited by charging locations), AWD option (I can't tell you how much I love having an AWD sport sedan), some cool stuff like multi-color interior lighting, a workspace option for working on the road, tons of charging ports, lots of slick tech.

Pricing TBD, but it's being built in the same platform as the Ioniq, I'd suspect $4-5K at each price tier more expensive (so maybe starting around $45K).

The video in the link is, umm, weirdly interesting, a little too overproduced, but you get a good sense of the car's features.

For me, even more exciting than the Ioniq 6 featured in the video, is the little blurb at the end, where the unidentified vehicle comes flying by them the other way, that's their N product tease (which is their R/M/whatever performance badge).

Kia and Hyundai continuing to deliver.

 

[SuperMatt]

Ioniq 6 officially revealed!

Hyundai’s Ioniq 6 could be your next home away from home office

Space for your laptop, lots of ports, and even a notes app.

www.theverge.com

A lot of great stuff happening with this car, 379-mile range with the long-range 77.4-kWh battery (WLTP, EPA is more like 330-ish), super-fast charging (mostly limited by charging locations), AWD option (I can't tell you how much I love having an AWD sport sedan), some cool stuff like multi-color interior lighting, a workspace option for working on the road, tons of charging ports, lots of slick tech.

Pricing TBD, but it's being built in the same platform as the Ioniq, I'd suspect $4-5K at each price tier more expensive (so maybe starting around $45K).

The video in the link is, umm, weirdly interesting, a little too overproduced, but you get a good sense of the car's features.

For me, even more exciting than the Ioniq 6 featured in the video, is the little blurb at the end, where the unidentified vehicle comes flying by them the other way, that's their N product tease (which is their R/M/whatever performance badge).

Kia and Hyundai continuing to deliver.

Looks like a great vehicle. But the first picture is hilarious.

“What are your plans for the afternoon?"
“I’m going to hang out in the hot sun in a parking lot and draw on an oversized Microsoft tablet plugged into my car!"

I also like that it appears to have a standard control console for the basics like HVAC. Touch screens are great... unless you’re driving.

 

[Eric]

Ioniq 6 officially revealed!

Hyundai’s Ioniq 6 could be your next home away from home office

Space for your laptop, lots of ports, and even a notes app.

www.theverge.com

A lot of great stuff happening with this car, 379-mile range with the long-range 77.4-kWh battery (WLTP, EPA is more like 330-ish), super-fast charging (mostly limited by charging locations), AWD option (I can't tell you how much I love having an AWD sport sedan), some cool stuff like multi-color interior lighting, a workspace option for working on the road, tons of charging ports, lots of slick tech.

Pricing TBD, but it's being built in the same platform as the Ioniq, I'd suspect $4-5K at each price tier more expensive (so maybe starting around $45K).

The video in the link is, umm, weirdly interesting, a little too overproduced, but you get a good sense of the car's features.

For me, even more exciting than the Ioniq 6 featured in the video, is the little blurb at the end, where the unidentified vehicle comes flying by them the other way, that's their N product tease (which is their R/M/whatever performance badge).

Kia and Hyundai continuing to deliver.

Couldn't get through it, way too much that had nothing to do with the car's features, what a ridiculous piece of over-hyped marketing crap. Will look for more practical and to the point videos after it's released.

 

[DT]

OMG, yes, that video is super silly, I just FF'ed through anything that wasn't showing video of the actual car.

Looks like a great vehicle. But the first picture is hilarious.

“What are your plans for the afternoon?"
“I’m going to hang out in the hot sun in a parking lot and draw on an oversized Microsoft tablet plugged into my car!"

Hahaha, an odd choice to show off, umm, I guess that the car can provide external AC power?

 

[SuperMatt]

OMG, yes, that video is super silly, I just FF'ed through anything that wasn't showing video of the actual car.



Hahaha, an odd choice to show off, umm, I guess that the car can provide external AC power?

Maybe show a George Foreman grill plugged into it for a cookout or something...

 

[DT]

Maybe show a George Foreman grill plugged into it for a cookout or something...

The whole scenario is confusing, a huge tablet that I would assume runs on battery, she's sitting at some kind of outdoor cafe-ish looking place? But she's parked right up next to the table ("Hey lady, you can't park there!!") - or - her table is in the road.

And she appears to be sketching something, but looking up, so I'm assuming some sort of giant robot that's looming over the city ...