EV general discussion

[Relentless81]

I'll definitely be going back to ICE; but that's a function of trying to get out of the leasing game and into ownership again.

That's another thing that got me thinking about it, I own my 2015 car. Paid £176 for mot and service yesterday, no advisories for 4th year running.
Other than tax which is £140ish insurance which is £200ish and fuel that's it, its cheap to own

 

[Django x2]

I have the 2.0, I’d say it’s fine and does the job. The firmware was a bit wonky in the early days but they seem to have sorted it now.

The 3 is the same as the 2 from the outside, the inside has slightly different internals due to new government regulations. I think the 3 has capacity for an extra ct clamp but functionally it’s basically the same.

There are a few obvious features which are missing from the solar integration though. For example you have to manually switch it between solar and the regular charge mode. You should be able to set to to hoover up any excess solar energy and then automatically do it’s normal scheduled charge at full power without having to remember to change it but you can’t. If you forget, your car will not charge overnight.

We have a hypervolt 3. We're on a flat tariff (still locked in to a good deal for another 6 months so no point changing), and don't have solar, so we use it completely dumb. Looks better than most chargers, just works, can't fault it

So this is useful, we have offset solar, I wondered how it worked. From what you're saying, I have to tell it to use solar (but how does the house tell it to use solar)? I think my house (being offset) just uses solar energy when and while it can so actually better to charge the car in the day time. I was also thinking about lolling it right up with a couple of portable panels and an ANKER power converter, especially if we had a summer like last year

 

[rG-tom]

I'm just curious with the cost of charging and the cost of buying a BEV plus the cost of living how many will go back to an older ICE car

Not just cost but also the convenience of owning an ICE car

My wife will never go back to an ICE car - for her, the convenience of BEV is far greater than the convenience of ICE. She never does more than a couple of hundred miles in a day, and even then 99% of the time it's well below 50. She never ever has to go to a petrol station now, which she always hated. It's always charged and ready to go from home. She loves being able to heat the car up before she gets to it when her train is pulling in, instead of having to de-ice, and be freezing waiting for an ICE car to warm up.

Between us we've done ~1700 miles since December in it, and only charged outside of the house once. That time, we pulled up to a tesla supercharger, into one of the ~10 free bays out of 16, and it was fully charged within 20 minutes. infact, it was done a little too quick - I had to nip out and move the car as it was done quicker than we had finished picking something up from the shops (it was the Trafford centre superchargers).

From a pure fuel/energy pov, from actual charging costs, have saved hundreds of pounds already, and that includes the supercharger costs which are way higher than charging at home.

For her, the cost of the car is practically irrelevant, as the petrol car she was looking at was almost identical in price. Depreciation may be more of an issue i guess

 

[b0rn2sk8]

I'm just curious with the cost of charging and the cost of buying a BEV plus the cost of living how many will go back to an older ICE car

Not just cost but also the convenience of owning an ICE car

I’m not sure I buy the convenience point, my tesla has been no more or less convenient than my old ICE.

I drove up to Scotland a few weeks ago, ~400 miles and the best part of 7 hours driving. The car needed to stop twice to charge for 20 mins each to get up there. I needed to stop more frequently and as such we were not waiting for the car at all.

Edit: to be clear, that assumes you have somewhere to charge! I wouldn’t buy an EV if I didn’t.

Yeh I get costs, particularly if you want to get out the leasing game or your circumstances change.

So this is useful, we have offset solar, I wondered how it worked. From what you're saying, I have to tell it to use solar (but how does the house tell it to use solar)? I think my house (being offset) just uses solar energy when and while it can so actually better to charge the car in the day time. I was also thinking about lolling it right up with a couple of portable panels and an ANKER power converter, especially if we had a summer like last year

What do you mean by offset solar?

The way it works is that the charger has three modes, super eco, eco, normal. The charger as a power monitoring clamp that goes onto the main cable going into your house. It monitors for power going out from your house and being exported to the grid, it matches the charge rate of the car to make that export zero (or close to). For car charging you need a minimum power of 1.4kw and most chargers that support solar have these three modes.

On super eco the charger will only take excess solar, if the excess solar drops below 1.4kw, charging stops.

On eco, the charger will maintain a minimum of 1.4kw charge rate and fill in any gaps with grid energy.

On normal it will charge at 7.4kw all the time.

Unfortunately you have to manually swap between those modes and any schedule you may want to apply, it doesn’t take take the excess solar in the day if you left it on an overnight schedule and forgot to swap it and vice versa, you may wake up to an empty car if you forgot to swap it back to an overnight charge.

They say they are working on that but I don’t buy things on the promise of a future update.

If you have a hot water cylinder or plan to get one, you may be better off with a Zappi so you can also use their Eddi device. The zapppi is cleverer than a hypoervolt but it looks a bit like a toilet seat (sorry- once you have seen it, you can’t un-see it).

 

[chanjy]

Guess I'm one of few on my second EV?

We are on our third

I’d love to swap our second car over (diesel) too but the cars I want are just a bit too expensive to justify it unfortunately

 

[Richie]

For her, the cost of the car is practically irrelevant, as the petrol car she was looking at was almost identical in price. Depreciation may be more of an issue i guess

What were the ICE cars she was looking at and the prices of them and the car she eventually got?

In everywhere I have looked, you can get a much higher quality/spec of ICE car than a BEV car for the same cash or to put it another way, the equivalent ICE car would be a lot lower cost than the BEV.

 

[rG-tom]

What were the ICE cars she was looking at and the prices of them and the car she eventually got?

In everywhere I have looked, you can get a much higher quality/spec of ICE car than a BEV car for the same cash or to put it another way, the equivalent ICE car would be a lot lower cost than the BEV.

Purely objectively you'll perhaps be right broadly speaking, but also only if you ignore performance too.

In reality, there was a tiny overlap of cars that fit the practicality requirements for load space, my requirement of being no slower than my 440i, and her requirement of her "liking it". The only cars on the market that got all three ended up being Porsche Macan S, Cayenne ehybrid, or a model Y.

The current shape Macan feels incredibly dated inside even with the poor attempt at a facelift, and whilst a little better put together it's not the gulf the internet would make you believe at all. It also had loads less usable space in the same envelope. The model Y and macan are much closer in quality than either are to the cayenne. Macan S was a couple of grand more in with similar spec to the model Y performance she ended up buying (which is absolutely loads quicker in basically any scenario other than perhaps extended track sessions)

To get even close to the space of the Y you needed to go up to the Cayenne which IS a much nicer place to be than the macan or Y, but it was 30% more expensive to get remotely similar spec, and hugely more expensive to run.

So Model Y performance it was. I set out wanting to hate the Tesla and was heavily guiding her to the macan or Cayenne, but came away from driving all three on the same day not liking the macan at all, loving the Cayenne but it was just too much more money and stupid lead times, and being incredibly surprised by the model Y.


Her money her choice and it was an easy win for the Y, and I've come to quite enjoy it.

 

[Jonnycoupe]

I'm just curious with the cost of charging and the cost of buying a BEV plus the cost of living how many will go back to an older ICE car

Not just cost but also the convenience of owning an ICE car

The ratio of buyers to company cars would be pretty telling I think.

 

[Murf]

I wouldn't be considering an electric car if it wasn't for the bonkers salary sacrifice discount.

 

[squerble]

What were the ICE cars she was looking at and the prices of them and the car she eventually got?

In everywhere I have looked, you can get a much higher quality/spec of ICE car than a BEV car for the same cash or to put it another way, the equivalent ICE car would be a lot lower cost than the BEV.

When I've compared similar cars before, I've found it always falls in favour of the BEV after running costs are taken into account. I compared an MG5 to a Hyundai i30 Tourer, for example, and found I'd be £1100 better off over a 3 year lease just on "fuel" cost alone, and that was before having to pay higher VED and servicing costs on the i30.

 

[Simon]

When I've compared similar cars before, I've found it always falls in favour of the BEV after running costs are taken into account. I compared an MG5 to a Hyundai i30 Tourer, for example, and found I'd be £1100 better off over a 3 year lease just on "fuel" cost alone, and that was before having to pay higher VED and servicing costs on the i30.

Would be interested in seeing the calcs on that

 

[jpaul]

Unfortunately you have to manually swap between those modes and any schedule you may want to apply, it doesn’t take take the excess solar in the day if you left it on an overnight schedule and forgot to swap it and vice versa, you may wake up to an empty car if you forgot to swap it back to an overnight charge.

They say they are working on that but I don’t buy things on the promise of a future update.

sounds like tesla need more intelligence in their charging system app, so, you specify what charge rate to use based on it accessing published data on pv/battery status
ie put the intelligence in the car not the charger.

----

( thought the fleet versus private ev buyer ratio was now 2:1, up from 1:1 up to 2021)

 

[b0rn2sk8]

sounds like tesla need more intelligence in their charging system app, so, you specify what charge rate to use based on it accessing published data on pv/battery status
ie put the intelligence in the car not the charger.

----

( thought the fleet versus private ev buyer ratio was now 2:1, up from 1:1 up to 2021)

It’s nothing to do with the Tesla or the car. It’s not even a specific issue with tesla, the same would apply to literally every other EV.

The solar system is a completely separate device from a completely different manufacturer that any BEV would be completely blind to that.

The 1.4kw (6A) minimum charging limitation is the EV regs themselves which they all have to comply with.

 

[Jonnycoupe]

( thought the fleet versus private ev buyer ratio was now 2:1, up from 1:1 up to 2021)

I love facts like that, especially when they are made up.

 

[squerble]

Would be interested in seeing the calcs on that

I binned them ha but to be clear, it was tailored to my circumstance at the moment. I based it on:

• 10p/kWh - this was to factor in 99% of my usage that can be charged at home (7.5p/kWh on OctoGO), and only using public charging once or twice a year
• 4mi/kWh efficiency on the BEV - I get higher than this as I'm mostly around town, typically seeing closer to 5 over summer, and only just dipping under 4 over winter. I also add on 10% charging loss to calculated kWh requirements.
• 35mpg on the ICE - this is again because almost all of my driving is around town, and this has had huge impact on my fuel economy in previous cars.
• Think it was done at around £1.45/litre on petrol, it's obviously dropped a few pence now.

I made sure both leases were 3 years (9+35), 8k miles. Then just totted up total lease cost and estimated fuel costs based on the points above. I did a few other comparisons, and most of the time it was in the region of £100-£1100 in favour of the BEV over 3 years. I found I often had to "up-spec" ICE cars as their BEV equivalents seemed to be offering better equipment as standard.

 

[sandys]

When I've compared similar cars before, I've found it always falls in favour of the BEV after running costs are taken into account. I compared an MG5 to a Hyundai i30 Tourer, for example, and found I'd be £1100 better off over a 3 year lease just on "fuel" cost alone, and that was before having to pay higher VED and servicing costs on the i30.

Not really like for like, one is an established brand who's quality and reliability is known the other is MG.

If MG did the 5 in petrol it'd be at least 10k cheaper, you only have to look at ZS vs ZS EV.

 

[stuie]

it all depends on how you buy your cars
if all you do is 3 year leases and swap them out then im sure EV's are better value
if you want to buy a car and keep it for 10 years, EV's just arnt an oprion compared to ICE or Hybrids, Ive just bought an IS300H, if the batteries die I dont have to throw the car away cause swapping the batts is more costly than the value of the car.
Once batteries get to being realistically usable beyond 10-15 years things might change till then the 3 -5 year old second hand car market will still be for fuel based cars

 

[jpaul]

It’s nothing to do with the Tesla or the car. It’s not even a specific issue with tesla, the same would apply to literally every other EV.

of course, but thought you had a tesla and they seem to have most open systems, if you are into home assistant the automation of ev charging could be handled similarly where you can write your own charging algorithm,
where you can say schedule your washing machine because you know the published TOU tarif is cheap at a particular time

I love facts like that, especially when they are made up.

just because you don't remember SMMT facts - have a look back through earlier posts, not just mine.

 

[Simon]

Quite timely. My SS is via zenith so I filled in their survey.

EVXperience - Zenith

Welcome to Zenith’s second EVXperience report into the lives and experiences of the UK’s Electric Vehicle (EV) drivers. Read more.

www.zenith.co.uk

86% won’t go back to ICE only. Beat thing about experience: low cost due to BIK. (EV ponzi of ICE tax paying for the shortfall-for now)

 

[Deleted User 298457]

Quite timely. My SS is via zenith so I filled in their survey.

EVXperience - Zenith

Welcome to Zenith’s second EVXperience report into the lives and experiences of the UK’s Electric Vehicle (EV) drivers. Read more.

www.zenith.co.uk

86% won’t go back to ICE only. Beat thing about experience: low cost due to BIK. (EV ponzi of ICE tax paying for the shortfall-for now)

Yup. For every anorak preaching the physics of EVs and the complex charging network; there are 100 berks like me who simply got one because it was dirt cheap with no payment up front - tax and insurance thrown in.

86% won't go back because they're now trapped in the PCP/lease cycle, lol.