EV general discussion

bigmike20vt said:
Not meaning to be offensive to any poster, but i genuinely struggle to understand some of jpauls posts (possible language barrier or just me being thick, delete as appropriate) so yes i did skip some posts esp as some appeared to just be arguing.
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I just give up after attempting to decode them for the second time.
I am sure we could repurpose an enigma machine.

ChatGPT just returns "error"
 
Jonnycoupe said:
Based on the fuel use most EVs would be fine?
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Journey said:
200 mile range at motorway speeds, or pootiling around town?

Does she have any thoughts on charging speeds vs range?
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I agree. for me so what if once in a blue moon she needs to charge it but she has a fear of being really low on charge and all charge points being down at a service station (not helped because that sort of happened to us)

mixed mode driving 200 mile range as in part .motorway part A roads and in fair weather because she would not do that in winter anyway. the reality is she is not going to go full cross country in it but even if she did there are plenty of hubs.

still it's progress from flat out not wanting 2 full EVs in the family. hell if she were that worried she could take the ipace. In 30 years of driving I think she has gone over 200 miles single digit numbers!

IF she wanted to go to Scotland to see her mate then she is gonna. have to charge.
 
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bigmike20vt said:
My wife admitted to me this morning that, after 10 months of owning a hybrid which has used a grand total of under 20 litres of petrol over 6000 miles , that she would be prepared for her next car to be a proper EV instead of a hybrid.

I am v happy about that as having the REX in our i3 has had no positives so far and only cost us money. it also means cars like the cupra born are back on the table - or if long enough down the road maybe a Renault 5.

only condition is she wants a genuine 200 miles fair weather range (not a problem for the Born but may rule out the R5).
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That's a solid result all told though. Your wife didn't have to make a jump that she wasn't confident in doing and the fuel use (or lack of) played out the reality of how little that REX was actually needed.

In the meantime the range of available cars has increased and the used prices have gone in the other direction.
 
bigmike20vt said:
I agree.
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I wasn't saying she shouldn't get one that does 200 miles, I was asking does she care about charging speed vs getting something with more range or less range? So 200 miles on the dot with 150kW or 230 miles with 80kW charging. You look at the old Kia Niro's with 64kWh battery they'll do 230+ miles, but will charge really slowly, I am sure you can see where I am coming from now.
 
Decided to take the plunge with the Octopus work scheme. Am expecting delivery any day now as just doing the final vehicle checks. Don't really drive much these days so the whole package, free charger, 4000 miles, breakdown cover, maintenance, tyres and insurance covering both myself and the wife didn't seem too bad a deal. Went for a Hyundai Kona Nline as was on special and only setting me back £380 a month.
 
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Journey said:
I wasn't saying she shouldn't get one that does 200 miles, I was asking does she care about charging speed vs getting something with more range or less range? So 200 miles on the dot with 150kW or 230 miles with 80kW charging. You look at the old Kia Niro's with 64kWh battery they'll do 230+ miles, but will charge really slowly, I am sure you can see where I am coming from now.
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For us I just dont think charging speed is an issue (our main car, arguably its biggest weakness is its charging speed but its still fine for me). lets say a car has a reliable fair weather 180 mile range (which is the lower end of any car she would get). The reality is she is never going to go over 300 miles in it in a single journey (and that is a massive stretch). on such a road trip it would just be planned such that at or just after the half way point a stop was needed....... even with 80kw charging by the time she stopped, had a loo break and a sandwich the car would likely be close to fully charged again anyway.
My wifes fear isnt having to hang around an extra 10 mins when charging once in a blue moon. It is pulling into a service station on really low charge due to unexpected weather change causing more energy use than expected, and finding only a handful of chargers mostly out of order with a long queue of angry drivers.

however that said, for a main car for people who pack in the miles, i can definitely see the appeal of a car you can throw in 80% charge in 20 mins, but its just not a consideration for us, esp as a 2nd vehicle. And to be honest even that is overkill.... a usable 130mile range (so for instance had we gone for the i3 with the largest battery and no REX or a 38kwh ionic) would have been absolutely fine.

But media FUD and 1 unlucky experience at a tesla of all places charging station completely knocked her confidence in the technology... its taken the last 10 months to build it back.
(funnily enough her i3 does have an AC charging issue which i need to investigate, every now and then it sends a charging complete halt command to our zappi when not fully charged, sometimes after only a few kw taken, i have been shielding this from her by battling with the home charging myself because it will put us back to square 1. but the thing is, ICE cars get faults as well, i have had my fair share of pita lemons. I am hoping a new 12v battery will fix the i3 but if i am honest i am not that optimistic)
 
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bigmike20vt said:
But media FUD and 1 unlucky experience at a tesla of all places charging station completely knocked her confidence in the technology... its taken the last 10 months to build it back.
(funnily enough her i3 does have an AC charging issue which i need to investigate, every now and then it sends a charging complete halt command to our zappi when not fully charged, sometimes after only a few kw taken, i have been shielding this from her by battling with the home charging myself because it will put us back to square 1. but the thing is, ICE cars get faults as well, i have had my fair share of pita lemons. I am hoping a new 12v battery will fix the i3 but if i am honest i am not that optimistic)
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It doesn't take much and sometimes the ripple effect is quite large. I'm sure one of the reasons that there is a reluctance to go EV at work stems from the boss's father having an absolute mare of a time on his first (and subsequently only) long trip in their new Kona. In short it was a perfect storm of dead chargers (whole set had gone down) > bad advice (they were directed to the nearest charger... in a closed Park and Ride site) > dead charger (same network as the first, maybe a wider issue at the time) > their hotel bailing them out with an extension lead on the 3-pin to get enough charge to start again the next day.

I mean, there was no point him buying a lottery ticket that week :D The problem is it knocked their confidence, the Kona hasn't been taken beyond its range since and has become the local run around car. He's sworn off EV for life and its his sons only experience of EV. His son therefore is reluctant to give his employees (aka me) the same hassle as part of their working day so is reluctant to allow them as company cars.

Opinions change one way in an instant but take a LONG time to recover. I'm trying to help with that though :p
 
lordrobs said:
It doesn't take much and sometimes the ripple effect is quite large. I'm sure one of the reasons that there is a reluctance to go EV at work stems from the boss's father having an absolute mare of a time on his first (and subsequently only) long trip in their new Kona. In short it was a perfect storm of dead chargers (whole set had gone down) > bad advice (they were directed to the nearest charger... in a closed Park and Ride site) > dead charger (same network as the first, maybe a wider issue at the time) > their hotel bailing them out with an extension lead on the 3-pin to get enough charge to start again the next day.
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some of that is down to manufacturers to fix thought we are waiting for google/waze to fully integrate API charger status information,
and car manufacturers to either see the native Android Automotive light (like renault/polestar did) or invest correctly in their home brew nav/charge systems,
my parents wouldn't want to be playing with apps on a phone.

e: hmmh seems stellantis recently improving situation for some
e2: built in precondition ?

e-ROUTES is developed primarily for customers who purchased an electric connected vehicle without the navigation system.

Its main scope is to provide to customers an intelligent trip planning solution capable of supplying always updated navigation guidance based on real-time vehicle data, such as the battery charge level, battery capacity, air temperature, etc. e-ROUTES promises to its users:
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jpaul said:
some of that is down to manufacturers to fix thought we are waiting for google/waze to fully integrate API charger status information,
and car manufacturers to either see the native Android Automotive light (like renault/polestar did) or invest correctly in their home brew nav/charge systems,
my parents wouldn't want to be playing with apps on a phone.
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i agree this is part of the issue, a lot of cars already have this ability (though i cant attest to how accurate they are) but this often involves extra subscriptions which are really not cheap and barely worth it if only needed a handful of times a year.

the main issue however is, we really should not need an app to tell us if a charging point is actually working or not. Some companies are worse than others but the expectation should be that charge points work..... simple as that. I dont worry if a BP pump is working or not, because i know 99.9% of the time it will be. Sure once in a blue moon i get there and a pump may be out of action. or maybe even they ran out of petrol. At which point i moan and move on........ but this is really really rare and i can be certain that if this happens the next one will definitely be working.

having live information on the availability of charge points is a very nice to have feature...... but part of the reason they are needed is because of poor maintenance, they are minimising the symptoms but not really addressing the main cause.

in truth if you stick with major charging hubs its generally not an issue, and there are enough of them around that for most people with a high range car you can just use them on a long road trip..... it is the smaller local ones with only a couple of DC chargers or destination AC ones which tend to be a bit crap, which is unfortunate because for many it is those smaller ones which are needed, esp for those without home charging (not me thankfully)

The EV "problem" is very different for those with the ability for home charging and those without. Those with it, it is pretty easy to avoid problems, but for those without i see why they are reticent to go electric.
I just came back off my hols and whilst there i was chatting to a Londoner who lives in a flat. No chance of him home charging, but he did say there were a lot of roadside charging points, which is great and everywhere needs them not just London.

BUT he said they are almost always taken up by taxi drivers/uber drivers and it would not be something he could rely on. I cant speak with experience of this personally but i have no reason to doubt him. Maybe taxis/ubers should be blocked from using residential charging points?
 
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After just over two months with my Leaf I have finally gotten rid of the bloody awful Sunny ditchfinders the Nissan dealership fitted after I test drove the car. Stupidly I didn't check that the Goodyear Efficient Grip Performance were still on all four corners when I picked the car up and didn't notice the ditchfinders until a couple of weeks later when I checked the tyre pressures (I was still getting used to a EV so hadn't pushed her as of yet). If I noticed when I picked the car up I would have complained about them. After scouring many, many reviews I finally settled on Dunlop All Seasons 2 in 215/50 R17 XL on all four corners for £493 fully fitted. It was a case of price/performance and these suited my needs. They are rated B for economy and B for wet so while not the best wet grip they are massively better than the ditchfinders which aquaplaned at the slightest sign of moisture on the road. Driving home on a fast twisty road they have impressive grip and are much quieter than the awful Sunny's. These tyres did well in the snow/ice and we have quite a bit of that in the Winter up here so that is why I went for all season tyres.
 
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bigmike20vt said:
BUT he said they are almost always taken up by taxi drivers/uber drivers and it would not be something he could rely on. I cant speak with experience of this personally but i have no reason to doubt him. Maybe taxis/ubers should be blocked from using residential charging points?
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Difficult one because those Uber drivers and cabbies most likely take their cars home and have the same charging needs as everyone else overnight.

I've got no experience of charging points first hand but I agree with your comments that the expectation needs to be that they are working all the time. I lose my rag if the pay at pump has run out of receipt paper, let alone if the thing won't give me my go go juice!
 
Is there a particular time of the year when these vehicles available on salary sacrifice get cheaper?

I check our octopusev scheme at work and the prices fluctuate. I'd be damn annoyed if I buy in then find the prices drop a good chunk a month later.
 
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