Soldato
So buy the car at end of the finance agreement if you want to do that. Again, to get this back on track, when did/are you getting an EV?
When are you going fully electric?
- Thread starter Ricochet J
- Start date
-
- Tags
- electric
So buy the car at end of the finance agreement if you want to do that. Again, to get this back on track, when did/are you getting an EV?
Soldato
I believe Renault claim to be recycling 100% of the batteries returned to them. And Nissan are re-using old BEV batteries in their Washington factory.
Soldato
My wife is really liking her Mokka and with her commute its going to need charging about every 3-4 days which is easily achievable at home on the pod point. We've put 4.45 of charge in so far (31.5 KW and about 155 miles) at home and get our smart meter installed next week so will switch to a cheaper overnight tariff then.
Associate
Do you think it's better to charge each night to 80%, so if you have to go somewhere further than expected or make last minute changes to plans you have always got plenty of battery available? Given it only takes <5 seconds to plug in and unplug I normally do this. Came in useful the other day when I had to do an unexpected 200 mile round trip!
Soldato
I’m going 100% tonight. I’ve just changed my Ohme to a new car and not logged in just asked for 30% more range when it’s at 88% already. This way I’ll get to full now as I’m on Go Faster 5h from 8:30pm and the API won’t now see the car is full so shouldn’t stop the charge, ideal is I’ll get to 100% and then balance up the pack. I try to do that every 6 weeks. 88% rest of the time 
JB Straubel is involved in some with Nissan, basically cos they have an issue due to the crappy air cooling. Plant in Germany is at 94% of material recovery from a pack, the resulting material is more pure than ores anyway you get from mining... but you don’t need to mine.
saw a green one yesterday on the way to work, did look really cool.
JB Straubel is involved in some with Nissan, basically cos they have an issue due to the crappy air cooling. Plant in Germany is at 94% of material recovery from a pack, the resulting material is more pure than ores anyway you get from mining... but you don’t need to mine.
saw a green one yesterday on the way to work, did look really cool.
Soldato
No plans for a long time, planing on keeping my 2009 VW Tiguan diesel for as long as I can, currently can't justify the cost of electric car, or the range anxiety when we go on holiday.
Soldato
Cost I understand completely.
Range anxiety is 100% in your head. I do 500-1000 miles per week and I get pretty much 220 (very cold night) - 280 (warm day) miles and it takes an hour to go from 20% to 80% or 90 minutes to go from 20% to 100%. I usually only go to 100% when I’m in the daily meeting zoom call as it can go on for 90 minutes so why not? No. It’s not 5 minutes pumping diesel and you need to plan everything regarding your week. And I’ve become more efficient as a result.
Soldato
Range anxiety will always be in peoples head you can’t criticise him for that.
it’s really charge anxiety anyway, if you know you cars range and can do journey, that’s fine, if you need to stop on route and charge that’s fine, if you need to charge but worried you can’t find a charger.... that’s charging anxiety and it exists in real
it’s really charge anxiety anyway, if you know you cars range and can do journey, that’s fine, if you need to stop on route and charge that’s fine, if you need to charge but worried you can’t find a charger.... that’s charging anxiety and it exists in real
Caporegime
- Joined
- 30 Jul 2013
- Posts
- 28,907
I drove 260 miles from Devon to Essex yesterday in my Polestar 2 and only really needed to stop once to charge.
Took 28 minutes on a 50kW charger and that gave me 70 miles extra range. In the meantime me and my wife walked the dog for a bit, got some lunch and generally did things we would normally do when we stopped for a break.
Got 30.7 kWh/100 miles on that journey, with 50% of it in heavy rain and temperatures ranging from 10-16°C
Took 28 minutes on a 50kW charger and that gave me 70 miles extra range. In the meantime me and my wife walked the dog for a bit, got some lunch and generally did things we would normally do when we stopped for a break.
Got 30.7 kWh/100 miles on that journey, with 50% of it in heavy rain and temperatures ranging from 10-16°C
Soldato
I never plan to run with less than 20% battery - that’s 60 miles - and I plan an alternate if my preferred option isn’t available. If I can’t find a working fast charger within 60 miles then something has gone very seriously wrong. I was in the Peak District over the weekend and I planned to charge at the BP Pulse charger in Buxton. It wouldn’t recognize my RFID card. I had 70 miles of projected range. My alternate was in Chesterfield, 22 miles away. And then I would have gone to one of several in Sheffield (12 miles) anyway.
To suggest any kind of anxiety when dealing with electric cars is really a failure to plan ahead. It’s different to ICE, and you shouldn’t fear it, you should work with it.
And having mentioned Sheffield, Meadowhall has awesome numbers of 7kW charging bays. I’d say at least 20 not including 5 dedicated disability and parent/child bays.
Soldato
I've used my EVSE a couple of times just to see if the places I went would be kind enough to indulge me, I've yet to be refused access to a socket by anyone I've asked. More of a social experiment I suppose, than an EV charging one, but I was on-site at one place for the best part of 5 hours, so added around 10kWh or over 25% of my battery.
I also used it at a camp site last year, albeit it at very low amps, again just to see if I could as it all goes into the information store for future reference. I've got a 30m IP65 rated extension reel, maybe I'll pop that in the car, just to be totally sure I can make use of one.
I also used it at a camp site last year, albeit it at very low amps, again just to see if I could as it all goes into the information store for future reference. I've got a 30m IP65 rated extension reel, maybe I'll pop that in the car, just to be totally sure I can make use of one.
Apps could help in this respect ?
- after seeing engineering explained youtube where guy was castigating them for not choosing charge points where battery would be at the sweet point to accept charge,
a secondary criteria would be that app had identified contingency charger within general direction of travel;
(an anonymised app where you could submit your public charge record easily would help too to establish real time availibility for others - must already exist.)
which colour then - no pics. ?
two tones on the i3's make those very distinctive.
Soldato
Yes, all the charge point providers show their charge points as 'in-use' or out of commission if that's the case. The issue in Buxton wasn't that the charger wasn't working. It was. BP Pulse (formerly BP Chargemaster, formerly Polar) have recently rejigged their machines to allow easy payment with a contactless debit or credit card. Which is great. Part of that has now resulted in some machines accepting the membership card on the chip and pin reader and some do it on a separate RFID reader in the centre of the charger. The one in Buxton would have happily given me 50kW as a non-member but neither scanner would accept my membership card (the one I pay £8 per month for and gets me 15p/kW charging). On the way to Chesterfield I phoned BP Pulse Customer Service who (un)helpfully said they were aware that there was a programming issue on that charger and it wasn't reading anyone's membership cards but they would fix it. But because of COVID (after 15 months is anyone really still not able to cope because of COVID restrictions?) they didn't know when. Until then I could pay with my debit card and they would refund me the difference.
I updated Zap-Map with that information and went to the BP Pulse charger in Chesterfield where I charged successfully.
And yes, ABRP and Zap Map (among others) show the activity status and functionality of chargers. What you don't get is the real-time updates to the sat nav that Tesla have. You know before you arrive there will be an available charger and generally, in my experience, they worked. I can't say too much but one of the better known 3rd party navigation apps has an EV specific alpha version in testing that shows when a user is charging and how long they intend to stay at that charger, plus whether or not they found a charger working. It works the same way you would report heavy traffic, an accident or a pothole in real-time and all other users are then updated. This information can be used to route a user to a working charge point of an appropriate brand. So it's quite like Tesla. Obviously it needs lots of users to work properly and like everything else in BEVs, it's getting better every day.
Soldato
Not had much chance to take any yet, but these are a couple I have.
Its the Quartz Grey, SRI Nav Premium so comes with active cruise and lane keep, reverse camera, car play, keyless entry and go, LED lights etc its pretty well spec and drives very nicely. Its never going to set the world on fire from a performance prospective but its more than rapid enough and the range of about 200 miles works perfectly fine for what she needs. We've always got the 840i for when we want to go a much longer trips, but thats a totally different style of car.
How do you plan for turning up at several chargers all not working then?
Soldato
Hotel, ground floor room, granny charger out the window.
Sorted.
My insurance also gets me free recovery if I run out of charge. But I’ve never had to use it.
Try that with an ICE car when the tanker drivers go on strike or someone hacks your pipeline. Or they’ve just shut the petrol station and you literally have no fuel left.
With the new V2L cars you can charge one car from another car. It’s just like siphoning petrol out of someone else’s tank. Without the bad taste in your mouth.
And it’s not like people don’t run out of fuel all the time with those SO easy to refuel ICE cars...
Last edited:
Soldato
It's not in my head, a couple of years we drove to Marseille, stopped at Dijon overnight, which 413 miles, which is halfway, so another 400 the next day. When we go on holiday we regularly drive 100s of miles, think Cornwall, Lake District, Wakes, Scotland, all a long way from where we live near Dover.
Try doing your 500 miles in one day, it's easy when spread over a week. What car do you have? What I can afford simply wouldn't have that sort of range.
At this stage EV's aren't for everyone - if you need a lot of daily range then just wait for the battery / charging tech to improve.
Permabanned
Not had much chance to take any yet, but these are a couple I have.
Its the Quartz Grey, SRI Nav Premium so comes with active cruise and lane keep, reverse camera, car play, keyless entry and go, LED lights etc its pretty well spec and drives very nicely. Its never going to set the world on fire from a performance prospective but its more than rapid enough and the range of about 200 miles works perfectly fine for what she needs. We've always got the 840i for when we want to go a much longer trips, but thats a totally different style of car.
Looks pretty nice that.
