EV general discussion

GM Volt did make it to a mk2 but not in the EU. I think the badge was its biggest barrier! i8 was put into normalish cars, ie the MINI countryman Cooper SE, X1 and the 225e stuff.

The new wave of PHEVs are pretty good - you always need to recognise the range versus vehicle cost. Even Renault are now offering a Clio plugin... aswell as Captur & Megane. Also Evoque and Discovery sport do it weill with decent range and no effect on the boot space. Then if you want mega range theres the BMW x5 and Merc GLE. you can see the trend there between sgement/cost and range down to utlimately battery size and cost.

in EV stuff, Lucid Air looks pretty bonkers fast.
 
So when we do get an EV the fuel saving side of the argument will be irrelevant, it will instead be all about the drive.

Which is why you might find that 'second car' usage actually starts to increase significantly. Although recognise I think you still live in the arseend of no where not not typical for majority of the UK population. 30mile drive for a loaf of bread etc :p
 
The increase in Ionity pricing recently is eye-watering. They're charging 79p/kW whilst home charging can easily be below 10p/kW.

Using the iPace for example which manages about 220 miles on 80kW ish. That's £63.20 to do 220 miles! That's more expensive than my old 530D by almost double.

Outside of Tesla's setup rapid charging looks a total mess, Ecotricity seems deeply unreliable but holds the monopoly for Motorway Services and the prices at Ionity are setting a worrying precedent.
 
That's what's annoying about GM killing the Volt, it was a great little car with a fantastic drive train that would have helped the transition. Same goes for the BMW i8, great drive train which could have been toned down a bit and put in a normal car.

Yeah, I was close to pulling the trigger on an Ampera when i got the Zoe, the issue for me was the age - all at least 4 years old, so coming to the end of warranty (I wanted something to keep for at least 3 years)
 
The increase in Ionity pricing recently is eye-watering. They're charging 79p/kW whilst home charging can easily be below 10p/kW.

Using the iPace for example which manages about 220 miles on 80kW ish. That's £63.20 to do 220 miles! That's more expensive than my old 530D by almost double.

Outside of Tesla's setup rapid charging looks a total mess, Ecotricity seems deeply unreliable but holds the monopoly for Motorway Services and the prices at Ionity are setting a worrying precedent.

If you get the Jaguar plug share app it’s 29p similar for BMW. Most are still on free vend anyway. Step away from rose article headlines ;) anything other than ecotricity is welcomed anyway!
 
To be fair though even if it did cost £50-60 to fill your EV up, it'll be filled up very quickly at an Ionity charger as they're all 350KW and 800V systems afaik? And how often would you actually do that in a year, once or twice on a long roadtrip for a holiday so i don't really see what the big deal is.
 
Yup, real world 200 miles (~50kwh battery) + reliable 100kw charging (e.g. a full charge in ~30-40 mins) I think is going to be the sweet spot. Lets face it, most people are going to want a toilet & snack break after 200 miles/3-4 hours of driving anyway.

Agreed. I think the Corsa-e that I get next week will work for a lot of people. Same tech will go into next years new Mokka, for those who want a small SUV/crossover.
 
To be fair though even if it did cost £50-60 to fill your EV up, it'll be filled up very quickly at an Ionity charger as they're all 350KW and 800V systems afaik? And how often would you actually do that in a year, once or twice on a long roadtrip for a holiday so i don't really see what the big deal is.

That needs the cars to be able to cope with that level of charging. Only Porsche can get anything close to that at the moment. Most cars have 100kw max, and I see that even many versions of the ID3 will only have 50kw (what are VW playing at?).
 
To be fair though even if it did cost £50-60 to fill your EV up, it'll be filled up very quickly at an Ionity charger as they're all 350KW and 800V systems afaik? And how often would you actually do that in a year, once or twice on a long roadtrip for a holiday so i don't really see what the big deal is.

No cars do 350kW. 800V relies on the car being 800V HV Bus. Taycan is about peak at 265kW. Even Supercharger V3 is 250kW peak. We are seeing some capping of Telsa charging to 120kW on some of the batteries...

Like the PHEV stuff where you want big batteries, for charging you have to pay for the privilege and not all cars will afford the space or feature cost. Reality is 2, 3 or even 4 100kW chargers is money better spent than a single 350kW at this phase of roll out - IMO.
 
No cars do 350kW. 800V relies on the car being 800V HV Bus. Taycan is about peak at 265kW. Even Supercharger V3 is 250kW peak. We are seeing some capping of Telsa charging to 120kW on some of the batteries...

Like the PHEV stuff where you want big batteries, for charging you have to pay for the privilege and not all cars will afford the space or feature cost. Reality is 2, 3 or even 4 100kW chargers is money better spent than a single 350kW at this phase of roll out - IMO.

Yeah i totally agree, i guess i was more thinking in 5+ years when the speeds are up there it woudln't be unreasonable to pay extra for an ultra fast charge but like you say we're a way away.

If i was building a charge station i think 100kw chargers are the sweet spot at the moment

Especially as almost all new cars seem to struggle to charge at anything like 100KW which is fairly bizarre, like you say it's even an optional upgrade on the ID.3 which is crazy
 
Isnt the issue that as you ramp up the charging speed your having to deal with more and more heat (or in reality the same heat give or take but in a much shorter window), where as over the longer time its less to deal with at any one point in time and hence the costs of dealing with a lot of heat doesnt balance well against the fact that most of the time most of the people wont need the uber fast charging?
 
Indeed, the current is pretty nuts. Hence the charge cables are water cooled and you need to consume more power during charging to drive the cooling systems on the car.
 
The other issue is on the supply side, the bigger the intermittent load, the higher the electricity costs. Hence the higher cost to the consumer.

You only need 4 of these in one place and all of a sudden you have a potential need to deliver 1mw of power which in theory could turn off in the space of a few minutes, not be used for 3 hours and turn back on again for a period of time. That's not ideal from the grids perspective and the bigger hubs are getting static storage to shave the peek demand.
 
The other issue is on the supply side, the bigger the intermittent load, the higher the electricity costs. Hence the higher cost to the consumer.

You only need 4 of these in one place and all of a sudden you have a potential need to deliver 1mw of power which in theory could turn off in the space of a few minutes, not be used for 3 hours and turn back on again for a period of time. That's not ideal from the grids perspective and the bigger hubs are getting static storage to shave the peek demand.

This sounds like an ideal scenario to recycle old EV batteries :)
 
Indeed, the current is pretty nuts. Hence the charge cables are water cooled and you need to consume more power during charging to drive the cooling systems on the car.

Thanks had assumed this was the case
Does the battery cooling fluid have any other use, such as cabin heating during the winter or is all the heat absorbed by the fluid in effect wasted do you know?
 
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