EV general discussion

b0rn2sk8 said:
So the conversation over the last few days has been interesting. Here is a video about a new VAG MEB clone that looks quite interesting in an attempt to move things on.


Lets discuss - I like it, it appeals to my inner chav much like the Born and my new found sense of grownupness with its big boot.

Why would you buy an ID.4 over this?
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I love mine (V2). Done 1600 miles so far and it’s just a cool car that’s lovely to drive. I wrote up a few negatives in the design a few pages back, I may have forgotten most of them already lol.

I commute a few days a week in it, for which it has been comfortable, quiet (unless I’m blasting the music) and frankly, enjoyable. Especially in the cold with pre-heat and auto steering wheel heating.

Family duties (1x 3 year old) outside that. Easy to get kid in and out, fill the boot with their crap etc.

So far no issues. It’s been very uneventful, inc the one long journey, my first in an EV too.
 
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b0rn2sk8 said:
Depends on the car, most are 70% at year 8 with 100k to 120k milage limits. Tesla S and X had unlimited mileage warranties for 8 years.

Don’t forget, it’s a warranty, there will be a huge safety margin built in. Even replacing a very small single digit % under warranty would wipe out profit on the vehicle.

How many ICE cars come with 8 year 100k+ warranties on their drivetrains? None. That’s the level of confidence they have in the reliability of their cars.

Here is some Tesla’s:
www.chargedfuture.com

Electric Car Battery Degradation: Trends, Battery Life, Replacement Cost & More - Charged Future

Electric car battery degradation occurs about 1-2% per year. However, there are several factors at play: TMS, DCFC frequency, hot climate, and more.
www.chargedfuture.com www.chargedfuture.com

Want something in video format? Here is an abused Model S on 190k with the original battery:

Sure an engine will go 190k if looked after. However, can you really call it ‘original’ after ~19 oil changes and several thousand £ in parts it would likely need to keep it going for that long. Triggers broom is the relevant term.

This paper was published recently: https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2...teries-may-last-up-to-40-longer-than-expected

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-024-01675-8

There is shed loads on information out there if you actually look, most of it shows that the battery will outlast the typical lifetime of the car.

Edit: pretty sure this is the 400k Tesla report: https://cleantechnica.com/2024/07/14/another-tesla-with-over-400000-miles-on-one-battery/amp/
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Apologies, I meant to respond to this sooner but completely forgot!

Thanks for the reply, it's quite interesting. I'm a bit disappointed that I don't have a drive atm but it's definitely something I'll be looking in to next time we move. Like I said an EV would be absolutely perfect for us, and little bonuses like preheating the cabin are actual game changers.


Hmmm, maybe I should check out some lease deals to give one a try.
 
I cant post photos said:
Apologies, I meant to respond to this sooner but completely forgot!

Thanks for the reply, it's quite interesting. I'm a bit disappointed that I don't have a drive atm but it's definitely something I'll be looking in to next time we move. Like I said an EV would be absolutely perfect for us, and little bonuses like preheating the cabin are actual game changers.


Hmmm, maybe I should check out some lease deals to give one a try.
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That was the clincher for me, coming out to my car frozen solid when my wife’s mini was completely defrosted, plus warm seats and the steering wheel. Worse, on the coldest days mine will then take a good few minutes/miles to actually put out any heat, the electric car will do so instantly regardless of preheating or not.

The start of my journey also sees me on a dual carriageway pretty early on, again, the engine is cold and so if I do push it I’m risking damaging it, the EV is just good to go.
 
It’s a bonus yes. But a EV still has oil in the gearbox to warm up and other moving parts so shouldn’t just jump in and rag.

Mind you having an oil change is triggers broom now ? Most modern engines will go 200k miles without anymore than a service. So let’s not start making stuff up. A tesla probably has had 19 ball joints by 200k miles.
 
b0rn2sk8 said:
Pretty much all EVs have a reduction gear on the motors which will be in a sealed ‘maintenance free’ gear box.

A couple of EVs (Tycan and Audi etron GT) have a 2 speed automatic gearbox.
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Byd seal wet motor is 40k miles ODI. Motor and reducer share the oil
 
Simon said:
It’s a bonus yes. But a EV still has oil in the gearbox to warm up and other moving parts so shouldn’t just jump in and rag.

Mind you having an oil change is triggers broom now ? Most modern engines will go 200k miles without anymore than a service. So let’s not start making stuff up. A tesla probably has had 19 ball joints by 200k miles.
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Only one forward gear on mine. Preconditioning can improve battery efficiency when really cold, but otherwise it’s good to go. I certainly don’t need to be as gentle as I would be with my ICE. Tyres need a warm up of course.
 
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CaptainRAVE said:
Only one forward gear on mine. Preconditioning can improve battery efficiency when really cold, but otherwise it’s good to go. I certainly don’t need to be as gentle as I would be with my ICE. Tyres need a warm up of course.
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Indeed one gear but two gears that still mesh. Yes im being OTT but EV still need some sort of mechanical sympathy when cold. No where near an ice of course

Ask the Hyundai owners who needed new reducer boxes, later tech bulletin for magnetic plug and oil change seemed to help a bit. Once the gears wear/pit they are very loud especially when there’s nothing to mask it.

I think cleevely EV is still doing 40k mile oil changes on the Tesla’s as part of their service
 
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Simon said:
Indeed one gear but two gears that still mesh. Yes im being OTT but EV still need some sort of mechanical sympathy when cold. No where near an ice of course

Ask the Hyundai owners who needed new reducer boxes, later tech bulletin for magnetic plug and oil change seemed to help a bit. Once the gears wear/pit they are very loud especially when there’s nothing to mask it.

I think cleevely EV is still doing 40k mile oil changes on the Tesla’s as part of their service
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Cleevley do an "end of warranted" check where they will make sure all is well and you get in to get anything done that is covered before it ends. No oil check apart from the brake fluid condition and they recommend a brake check to make sure its all free still as the brakes suffer from not being used too much.

I had this done last year totalling 360 +vat for both brake check/lube and end of warranty inspection (and this is all i have spent on servicing for 60k miles. There are no official services due on a Tesla but mine is lease and I do plenty of miles a year so it seemed prudent. This was done using there mobile mechanic and he was really good.
 
CLA/merc architecture is the new kid on the block with a two speed gearbox and top-end.

e: thread I just read on multi-gearing
Most of the Teslas except carbon sleeved motor Plaid, have single gear set-ups that are unnaturally short, that results in the POWER curve of the engine dropping drastically after only 70-75 mph. (And yes I said power curve not Torque curve! - which is crazy) This yields a very odd unnatural high speed acceleration profile. Post 70 mph, friction increases exponentially with speed and while you need exponentially more power your power decreases almost linearly with RPM! Most likely driver here was around US being the primary market for Tesla initially, where speed limits are typically around 70-75, they wanted to make the car as fast as possible up to that speed for "wow factor", and completely ignored the higher speed implications (massive inefficiency and significantly decreased acceleration towards top speed). If they were focused on finesse and natural driving dynamics, they would either put a taller gear ratio at the expense of a little longer 0-60 time (driving enthusiasts would not care), or if they are so obsessed with keeping the 0-60 time low, they would put a 2-gear set up, similar to Taycan.

After watching neighbour idling their ICE for 10min plus to melt ice on these frosty morning, and wondering how I'd be able to get an EV to wake-up to defrost, living in a mobile reception blackspot as we do;
was reading that most cars should wake-up if the connected charger sends them a charge available message, so seems I might be able to send a spoof/brief charge message and then communicate with woken car over wifi
to get a pre-heat underway - would that work in practice ?
[my ice defrost strategy is just a bowl of water splashed across windscreen, seconds before you jump in car, run the wipers turn ignition and drive off]
 
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OK - The goal is to do initiate the pre-heat from inside the house if, in particular, the morning is frosty, that should be a big plus of the ev - I want it all
(I thought dlockers had also previously commented on not being able to do that on his corsa-e because it could not be woken via flakey 4g reception,
but if you just need to pretend you want to charge it via the charger , that is not difficult, he was only using a granny charger though)
 
No idea what you are on about, you are in car night before and set predictioning for a time much like an alarm clock and leave it at that. All this deliberation? Might get a EV in 2040 and burnt through gigabytes of chunder and “educational” YouTube videos when you are the one who needs the education.
 
weather is erratic at the moment in Cambs - some mornings you'd need to melt the frost and have to pre-heat sufficiently, others you don't ?
I use wifi calling inside the house but outside the mobile reception is erratic and can just be cut-off, a first world/UK problem;
as the pope would say, the devil is in the detail
 
jpaul said:
weather is erratic at the moment in Cambs - some mornings you'd need to melt the frost and have to pre-heat sufficiently, others you don't ?
I use wifi calling inside the house but outside the mobile reception is erratic and can just be cut-off, a first world/UK problem;
as the pope would say, the devil is in the detail
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Car is set for departure time daily, why do you need to mess with it at all? It will be at the temp you set every day, regardless if that is heating it up or cooling it down.
 
I'm having some small issues with public DC chargers, any tips welcome.

I have an Octopus Electroverse account and card. I want to charge at an Osprey charger, that has CSS and Chademo cables. I touch the card to the RFID reader and the small screen say "Select charger". Touching all the thigs around that look like buttons doesn't do anything. How do I select a charger?

I decide to use the app. There are 4 individual chargers at this location, all shown in the app. But I can't figure out how to find which of the chargers in the app corresponds to the physical charger I parked in front of.

Tried the OVO Charge app and it's the same.
 
SkyTerran said:
I'm having some small issues with public DC chargers, any tips welcome.

I have an Octopus Electroverse account and card. I want to charge at an Osprey charger, that has CSS and Chademo cables. I touch the card to the RFID reader and the small screen say "Select charger". Touching all the thigs around that look like buttons doesn't do anything. How do I select a charger?

I decide to use the app. There are 4 individual chargers at this location, all shown in the app. But I can't figure out how to find which of the chargers in the app corresponds to the physical charger I parked in front of.

Tried the OVO Charge app and it's the same.
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Osprey use a few types you'll have to be more specific

Is it one of the new Kempower ones? They have a button I think
 
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