EV general discussion

[Bug One]

My point was, we are a forum of geeky, technical minded people generally. Do you think Joe Public is going to honestly do anything other than just plug it in most nights? I'm not saying it is or isn't hard to manage, just the expectations from people are going to be that they want the easiest usage experience. We are talking about a country full of people that do not know how to use the roads and need telling when they have a flat tyre.

The Q8, as default when you get it delivered has an initialization / introduction screen. During that process it forces you to set the battery charge to 80%. It explains on screen quite clearly the effects of charging to 100% all the time. You have to go out of your way to change it to 100%, and ignore multiple warnings.

 

[Bug One]

Note: this might be more of an issue to Audis (and I suspect BMW/Mercedes EVs).

This might not come as a complete surprise, but there's something about being an Audi company car driver that makes you think it's cool to brag about being a complete douche to a car in online owners groups - and not giving a flipflop about whoever gets the car after you're done with it.

 

[jaybee]

So say you buy that Jag listed above at 22K...
What are you doing in 3/4 years time when it's 2027/28, EV tech has moved on, you only have 1/2 years left on your 8 year battery warranty? Who's buying your Jag second hand then? I would have thought nobody. So do you factor that in and just say I'll drive a nice Jag for 3 or 4 years and it will cost me 22K and then it's a bonus as to whether it goes on working for many more years beyond the 8 year warranty and does not write itself off in repair costs?
Is that the mindset?

 

[Nemiyen]

Like myself you are a special type on a special forum these things are fine and simple, explaining this process to my missus who doesn't care enough to want to understand things like off peak charging windows, limits and pre heating, she can’t seem to take in, same with my mother, you see them glaze over as I explain, so I become the chargemaster

Buts it's not for everyone, EV charging is a bit involved for optimal use.

Yes we are I would be happy changing the brakes on my own jag when the time comes too! I just don't want to kill myself by touching anything that's 400 volts lol. I'm fairly sure if I disconnect the 12v battery, a fail safe relay on the 400v traction battery kicks in and isolates the battery, but.....!

I'm not sure if legally, I need to be trained to work on anything for my own eV car or not either. I don't have to be a mechanic to change my own discs and pads

I've already been looking into how I can buy or use the pathfinder software to diagnose my own fault codes etc in the future! This will be moot if I get the warranty but I still like to tinker!

 

[Jonnycoupe]

So say you buy that Jag listed above at 22K...
What are you doing in 3/4 years time when it's 2027/28, EV tech has moved on, you only have 1/2 years left on your 8 year battery warranty? Who's buying your Jag second hand then? I would have thought nobody. So do you factor that in and just say I'll drive a nice Jag for 3 or 4 years and it will cost me 22K and then it's a bonus as to whether it goes on working for many more years beyond the 8 year warranty and does not write itself off in repair costs?
Is that the mindset?

Only for the paranoid.

 

[Nemiyen]

So say you buy that Jag listed above at 22K...
What are you doing in 3/4 years time when it's 2027/28, EV tech has moved on, you only have 1/2 years left on your 8 year battery warranty? Who's buying your Jag second hand then? I would have thought nobody. So do you factor that in and just say I'll drive a nice Jag for 3 or 4 years and it will cost me 22K and then it's a bonus as to whether it goes on working for many more years beyond the 8 year warranty and does not write itself off in repair costs?
Is that the mindset?

My mindset was to buy and then run it into the ground. I don't change my cars unless they annoy the crap out of me so it was going to be kept until it either no longer holds its charge or costs me an arm and a leg to keep fixing!

Battery technology is moving on and that's another reason I keep thinking I should hold off, but the prices being so low is too tempting!

Resale value to me isn't factored in as I won't be selling and will just fix anything I can do myself, hopefully. If the battery fails then I will probably just blow it up like the guy did his Tesla and make money from the YouTube video! (kidding, maybe!)

 

[Bug One]

So say you buy that Jag listed above at 22K...
What are you doing in 3/4 years time when it's 2027/28, EV tech has moved on, you only have 1/2 years left on your 8 year battery warranty? Who's buying your Jag second hand then? I would have thought nobody. So do you factor that in and just say I'll drive a nice Jag for 3 or 4 years and it will cost me 22K and then it's a bonus as to whether it goes on working for many more years beyond the 8 year warranty and does not write itself off in repair costs?
Is that the mindset?

I keep forgetting I'm supposed to be scrapping my worthless old Nissan Leaf. First it was because the batteries would only last 5 years. Now at 10 years, it's surely no longer a functioning car - right?

 

[Jonnycoupe]

Just leaf it, yeah?

 

[lordrobs]

My point was, we are a forum of geeky, technical minded people generally. Do you think Joe Public is going to honestly do anything other than just plug it in most nights? I'm not saying it is or isn't hard to manage, just the expectations from people are going to be that they want the easiest usage experience. We are talking about a country full of people that do not know how to use the roads and need telling when they have a flat tyre.

I wouldn't imagine so. I mean, I pass a petrol station every day but I don't stop in on my way home everyday to fill up so I'm at 100% range before my next 30 mile commute. No reason why I'd be any different in an EV.

Also, give me the choice of stopping off at a petrol station every 2 weeks or just plugging the car in at home twice a week and the latter is still way more convenient.

What you might see from those people who are desperate to not depart from their ICE filling model is running an EV down to say 30 miles range and then "brimming it" to 100% which will have negligible difference to charging it to say, 90% daily.

 

[Bug One]

Yes we are I would be happy changing the brakes on my own jag when the time comes too! I just don't want to kill myself by touching anything that's 400 volts lol. I'm fairly sure if I disconnect the 12v battery, a fail safe relay on the 400v traction battery kicks in and isolates the battery, but.....!

I'm not sure if legally, I need to be trained to work on anything for my own eV car or not either. I don't have to be a mechanic to change my own discs and pads

I've already been looking into how I can buy or use the pathfinder software to diagnose my own fault codes etc in the future! This will be moot if I get the warranty but I still like to tinker!

Most of an EV is just a normal car - with normal every day car issues. There's nothing 400v that you'll accidently touch when changing a set of brake pads. Just avoid going anywhere near the big fat orange cables with a sawzall.

Oh, and don't do anything to void any warranties. They're worth more than a set of brake pads.

 

[jaybee]

I keep forgetting I'm supposed to be scrapping my worthless old Nissan Leaf. First it was because the batteries would only last 5 years. Now at 10 years, it's surely no longer a functioning car - right?

I'm sure it functions fine and will go on functioning ok. Not many people will want to buy it though. That's the point. Buying a second hand EV that's a few years old, you have to factor in whether you can afford to live with that car potentially for the rest of the realistic life of it, or take a massive hit selling it later down the line.
Traditionally with ICE cars, people buy them a few years old not having to worry about tanking value. They tend to more progressively depreciate. People still have the fear of batteries dying and writing the car off, more so than an ICE car's engine completely failing writing the car off.

 

[chanjy]

I'm sure it functions fine and will go on functioning ok. Not many people will want to buy it though. That's the point. Buying a second hand EV that's a few years old, you have to factor in whether you can afford to live with that car potentially for the rest of the realistic life of it, or take a massive hit selling it later down the line.
Traditionally with ICE cars, people buy them a few years old not having to worry about tanking value. They tend to more progressively depreciate. People still have the fear of batteries dying and writing the car off, more so than an ICE car's engine completely failing writing the car off.

That'll change in a few years.

And as said, you can get battery health reports as well so actually there's more transparency with battery vs ICE engine/gearbox etc. which very frequently and conveniently go kaput just after some poor sod has bought it in a private sale

 

[Bug One]

Most prestiege cars tank in value quite rapidly from new, EV's don't appear to be any different in that regard. High initial value, hard to repair cars are always undesirable 2nd hand. Just look at older Range Rovers, or 7 series.

Some EVs hold their value much better though - Kia eNiros, for example.

 

[Kenai]

I think the whole "omg who is going to buy an old EV" thing will sort itself out as more cars age and people realise the batteries don't all just suddenly stop working at 8 years old, the same way engines don't automatically die at 100,000 miles.

At the moment, there's more people desperate to spread a bit of baseless FUD around than examples of old EVs to point at without problems but that will change over time.

 

[Chrisc]

I think the whole "omg who is going to buy an old EV" thing will sort itself out as more cars age and people realise the batteries don't all just suddenly stop working at 8 years old, the same way engines don't automatically die at 100,000 miles.

At the moment, there's more people desperate to spread a bit of baseless FUD around than examples of old EVs to point at without problems but that will change over time.

Having watched a couple of youtubers who have ran electric cars well over 100k miles, that concern for me soon went away.

 

[pc-guy]

The reality is, if the collection of parts welded together which make up the section of the car being replaced by the large case piece is damaged in an accident, the car is highly likely to be written off anyway, casting or not. The reality is an insurance approved 'back to factory' repair just isn't cost effective. For that part of the car to be damaged, the reast of the car around it will be a crumpled mess because it is designed to do that in a collision.

The cost of the disassembly, parts, labour, reassembly and hire car costs tend to be greater than the insurance playout less the salvage value. It really doesn't take much to write off a car these days, the damage can be non-structural on a relatively expensive car and it can still be a write off.

The battery can be removed from the car and it can support itself as needed. I'm not sure where you are going there?

Cars are so much more complex now and they are not built like they were 'back in the day' for crash protection and pedestrian safety reasons. New cars crumple in a collision and outside of a light 'fender bender' are not economically repairable. The general consensus is people would prefer the car break into 10,000 pieces and they walk away than to be taken away in a body bag. It is what it is and this has been the direction of travel for a very long time and what manufactures are doing very recently with single piece castings isn't really changing that because crashed cars with structural damage are already salvaged rather than repaired.

If this illustration becomes real, the body work repair cost will be astronomical. Any body work damage will likely to result in a write off.

 

[Jonnycoupe]

Can’t see how complex means £100/hr rates, just means lots of hours!

FWIW I have no idea what that illustration it, what it’s showing or what the point you are making is.

 

[Kenai]

FWIW I have no idea what that illustration it, what it’s showing or what the point you are making is.

Tesla patent drawing for their unibody casting process, which I think they use on the Model Y (or at least wanted to)

 

[bigmike20vt]

So say you buy that Jag listed above at 22K...
What are you doing in 3/4 years time when it's 2027/28, EV tech has moved on, you only have 1/2 years left on your 8 year battery warranty? Who's buying your Jag second hand then? I would have thought nobody. So do you factor that in and just say I'll drive a nice Jag for 3 or 4 years and it will cost me 22K and then it's a bonus as to whether it goes on working for many more years beyond the 8 year warranty and does not write itself off in repair costs?
Is that the mindset?

why would that be the mind set?

so what if wv battery tech has moved on. if the car does what you need it too after 7 years then why is it suddenly just pot luck it keeps working after 8?
personally I got my car at 2.5 years old and I am hoping to own it for 10 years at least
it could fail and I could end up with a big out of warranty repair bill. I hope not but it could happen.
you would not want to hear the bill my mate got for his out of warranty Mazda RX8.... he had to do a full on engine rebuild and apparently this was not unusual. so this isn't just an EV only issue it's high performance cars in general ...

 

[jaybee]

why would that be the mind set?

so what if wv battery tech has moved on. if the car does what you need it too after 7 years then why is it suddenly just pot luck it keeps working after 8?
personally I got my car at 2.5 years old and I am hoping to own it for 10 years at least
it could fail and I could end up with a big out of warranty repair bill. I hope not but it could happen.
you would not want to hear the bill my mate got for his out of warranty Mazda RX8.... he had to do a full on engine rebuild and apparently this was not unusual. so this isn't just an EV only issue it's high performance cars in general ...

Yes that's fine you've said yourself you aim to keep for 10 years. Some people might need to change their cars from time to time to meet usage requirements I don't know, say you have kids or whatever it may be. The very thread title here is when are you going fully elec. Hence people look at the total cost of ownership over time and analyse purchase decisions.