EV general discussion
- Thread starter Ricochet J
- Start date
You can’t charge a non-Tesla at any Tesla supercharger and it’s unlikely they ever will unless they are forced to open up the network through regulation.
You can charge a non-Tesla on a Tesla destination charger. But these are just dumb 7.4kw chargers which are free to use by anyone. The business where it’s installed takes the hit on the electric, Tesla paid for the charger.
The charging more thing is exactly how ionity works, if you have a car from a partner brand it’s cheaper than say a Tesla.
Soldato
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Ah yes, you're right, I'm confusing Superchargers with Destination Chargers.
I am fully electric. Or was.
I've been EV for c.3 years now. Love it. Huge supporter. The infrastructure isn't quite there but I'll live with the deficiencies. I did 30k miles in the first year of having my i3s and saved enough on fuel to pay for the lease and then some. It didn't even need a service, brilliant. My previous car used to need one every 12k miles and I didn't really care about the cost but it became a hassle as in-between services it would need something daft like brake pads. Condition based servicing is extremely annoying at high mileages. I enjoyed never having to scrape the ice off my car, it was cool when I got in it in summer, I drove it 650miles in one day, for free, across Germany. Awesome. I'm a huge gadget nerd and it was a gadget on wheels. I used to talk to Google Home to start the aircon. With no warm up time I used to hammer onto the motorway a few mins from my house at full power with no regard to mechanical sympathy. Instant torque makes it feel far faster than it is on paper.
An expanding family has meant the i3, with its stupid doors, had to go. I took delivery of an E-Golf 3 weeks ago. Then things went wrong. When things don't go smoothly the industry seemingly cannot yet cope with this tech.
When the car was less than 2 weeks old it broke down. Some minor problem with the heater but as it's run by the high voltage pack it disconnected the whole circuit and immobilised the car. Annoying, but these things happen. AA van after a long wait "can't touch that, can't tow it either". So why send a van at all? Wait restarts for a flat bed. Eventually get it to a dealer. They take a few days to diagnose it. Then a few days to get the part in. Now here's the amusing part, they got it on the ramps and half way through the job before realising they need to discharge the main battery. No problem. Except, this requires a specialist machine and cable. Now I don't know if they're exaggerating, but apparently there currently aren't any in the UK! They're trying to source one from Germany. But it gets even better, the fault which was stricken my car is part of a bad batch of heaters, there are lots of of E-Golfs currently immobilised and needing the same tool.
There's no ETA for the repair. No plan for getting the cable they need. No idea when they'll get the car back to me. The garage had to reassemble whatever they took apart to get it back off the ramps and out of the workshop. People are coming out of the woodwork on forums with the same issue. How could they not know they need this tool before commencing the work?!
I've been EV for c.3 years now. Love it. Huge supporter. The infrastructure isn't quite there but I'll live with the deficiencies. I did 30k miles in the first year of having my i3s and saved enough on fuel to pay for the lease and then some. It didn't even need a service, brilliant. My previous car used to need one every 12k miles and I didn't really care about the cost but it became a hassle as in-between services it would need something daft like brake pads. Condition based servicing is extremely annoying at high mileages. I enjoyed never having to scrape the ice off my car, it was cool when I got in it in summer, I drove it 650miles in one day, for free, across Germany. Awesome. I'm a huge gadget nerd and it was a gadget on wheels. I used to talk to Google Home to start the aircon. With no warm up time I used to hammer onto the motorway a few mins from my house at full power with no regard to mechanical sympathy. Instant torque makes it feel far faster than it is on paper.
An expanding family has meant the i3, with its stupid doors, had to go. I took delivery of an E-Golf 3 weeks ago. Then things went wrong. When things don't go smoothly the industry seemingly cannot yet cope with this tech.
When the car was less than 2 weeks old it broke down. Some minor problem with the heater but as it's run by the high voltage pack it disconnected the whole circuit and immobilised the car. Annoying, but these things happen. AA van after a long wait "can't touch that, can't tow it either". So why send a van at all? Wait restarts for a flat bed. Eventually get it to a dealer. They take a few days to diagnose it. Then a few days to get the part in. Now here's the amusing part, they got it on the ramps and half way through the job before realising they need to discharge the main battery. No problem. Except, this requires a specialist machine and cable. Now I don't know if they're exaggerating, but apparently there currently aren't any in the UK! They're trying to source one from Germany. But it gets even better, the fault which was stricken my car is part of a bad batch of heaters, there are lots of of E-Golfs currently immobilised and needing the same tool.
There's no ETA for the repair. No plan for getting the cable they need. No idea when they'll get the car back to me. The garage had to reassemble whatever they took apart to get it back off the ramps and out of the workshop. People are coming out of the woodwork on forums with the same issue. How could they not know they need this tool before commencing the work?!
Caporegime
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I think it is just normal for most sectors. Get the product out the door. Training comes second.
That sounds like a nightmare!
I'm looking to replace the Jeep with an EV and the i3 and e-Golf were probably top of my shortlist - I'd be interested to know how they compare?
The i3 is the best for the EV tech. Faster charging, better range, thermal management so it charges faster in the extremes of temperatures (it can cool or heat the battery pack). It's also quicker. One pedal driving. But the ride is awful, the seats aren't very supportive, rear tyres were £250 each for the i3s (unique 20" 195 width tyre size), the carbon fibre chassis made it very rattly and scuttly over bumps and the rear doors were so impractical with a baby seat we avoided using it. And dear god the brakes were hopeless, it has hot hatch performance but it would not slow down quickly for anything. Perhaps down to the bicycle front tyres. Also very vulnerable to crosswind on the motorway.
The Golf is by far the better car. Way superior adaptive cruise control implementation (I love this so much, the i3 uses a camera and not radar). Smooth ride. Normal doors, decent boot, comfortable, android auto and Apple carplay for free. The phone app is actually more powerful. But less efficient in winter as it won't pre heat the battery and charges a bit slower. Oh, and mine is broken. iDrive in the BMW is a much better infotainment system but Apple Carplay negates this.
I preferred the Golf, when it was working. In a perfect world you would take the i3 drivetrain and drop it in a car with a normal chassis and then you're onto a winner. I can't seem to find this. The electric Mini has this but it's only 3 door. Model 3 was out of my price range.
If you haven't ordered an E-Golf you're too late as they've stopped taking orders and will soon stop building them in preparation for the iD3 release.
Anymore questions shoot. I could talk at length about either.
Interesting, it needs to be a reasonably practical second car so maybe the i3 isn't going to be suitable. The roads are terrible around here too so bad ride would be annoying, the Jeep just soaks up potholes.
I live in the US and there are tons of 2019 E-Golfs sat on dealer lots here so availability isn't an issue, they aren't selling so dealers are offering huge discounts and combined with the NJ state and Federal tax credits I'd probably be able to get a brand new SEL Premium for $18k which is pretty tempting to be honest.
The Mini Cooper S E looks interesting too but definitely too small, it's such a shame they aren't making a Clubman version.
The Tesla Model Y would be cool but it's a lot more expensive as it doesn't qualify for the $7,500 Federal tax credit plus I don't need the extra range that it offers.
I live in the US and there are tons of 2019 E-Golfs sat on dealer lots here so availability isn't an issue, they aren't selling so dealers are offering huge discounts and combined with the NJ state and Federal tax credits I'd probably be able to get a brand new SEL Premium for $18k which is pretty tempting to be honest.
The Mini Cooper S E looks interesting too but definitely too small, it's such a shame they aren't making a Clubman version.
The Tesla Model Y would be cool but it's a lot more expensive as it doesn't qualify for the $7,500 Federal tax credit plus I don't need the extra range that it offers.
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you have a loaner car.
the heater/battery cooling on e-golfs sounds similar to the hyundai ev's, touched on a couple of pages back, where some models have a heat-pump, and some a resistive heater ... haven't heard which way the id3 goes, but this does sound an interesting criteria to consider on a purchase
(looking at winter and summer range generally), even, for tesla , they're not so upfront about it. (4Kw/hr all air con on think it was, albeit -10)
The loaner they’ve given me a is a budget base spec manual petrol through Enterprise. Not equivalent, and I’m having to pay for fuel. But that’s a separate discussion I’ve taken up with them and applying a lot of pressure to sort. I would definitely be a lot less vocal and happier to wait if they had something equivalent available!
heat pump vs resistive heater can make a huge difference. The heater on most Tesla’s is 7kw, with another 7kw to heat the battery, but they get away with it by having large battery packs.
Nice to see Tesla still working on the range of the older model cars, they've just updated the S/X to 390/351 (EPA measured) miles respectively on the 'new' Long Range Plus models.
Wonder how long it will be before they push this sort of range to the Model 3, can't see a 400 mile range car being far away now, add on top the best charging network and best in-car software and the incumbents have a not so much an up hill struggle, more like a mountain to climb to catch up.
Wonder how long it will be before they push this sort of range to the Model 3, can't see a 400 mile range car being far away now, add on top the best charging network and best in-car software and the incumbents have a not so much an up hill struggle, more like a mountain to climb to catch up.
https://jalopnik.com/the-fascinating-engineering-behind-vws-electric-car-pla-1829257860 probably been linked here before ...
That's the downside to a successful company they've sold their full quota of cars! Only time before they reduce the incentive in the UK too. I may try to upgrade to a Y if it becomes available before the grant ends.
The heat pump thing is quite amusing. It's standard kit (for the UK market) on all Tesla models, as well as the Leaf (Acenta trim and up), Ioniq, Kona, 208e, I-Pace and even the Zoe. So basically, most of the main EV manufacturers consider it standard for this market.
But not the Germans. VW and BMW both list it as an optional extra, along with a bunch of other things which come as standard on other EVs.
By-and-large, that's what put me off the eGolf. There were some good lease deals back in September. But it was missing stuff that my 2014 Leaf and 2016 Zoe had. In total, it was going to cost me £1,200 to add the missing stuff!
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I had a similar battle with Renault when my Zoe broke back in 2017 (broken charging circuit, rather than heater). The first dealer it went to lied about having a qualified technician and told me they'd fixed it. A couple of days later, I lost power on the M6...
Start to finish, the process of getting it fixed took months, first due to the above mistake, and then due to a shortage of parts. The loaner car wasn't too bad though. I insisted on an automatic (as they couldn't provide another EV). The local Enterprise gave me a choice of an Aygo (I think. It was something really small), or a Juke in the top trim with all of the extras. Wasn't a hard choice (even if the Juke is ugly). And Renault agreed to pay my fuel. They settled my fuel receipts monthly, and didn't even question trips to Cornwall and Scotland. The dealer who eventually fixed the car (Holdcroft) even arranged the return of the hire car for me.
Soldato
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I’m pretty sure tesla don’t use heat pumps.
They are great vehicles, I hope you enjoy using it.
Did you get the Premium or Premium SE?
it will be interesting to see how it all pans out. Talk on some other forums is that Tesla is really pushing the batteries and longevity/future warranty claims might be an issue. They seemingly reduce the charge speed after a certain amount of DC charging and mileage.
I have an iPace and apparently Jaguar are extremely conservative on the amount of battery they allowed to be useable, to ensure they don’t end up with a load of warranty claims at 6 years (they use LG batteries) but in reality I’m not bothered either way, partly because 200 miles (at 80mph motorway speeds) is more than enough, and party as it’s leased anyway so Long term doesn’t bother me.