When are you going fully electric?

Indeed lots of theorising. LFP isn’t as power dense either. So the dual motors won’t be moving any time soon based on the current and hence C demands on battery discharge.

We will be wondering why Tesla cos a bomb to insure with all these casting. Let’s see how loud the champions are of this when it’s considered in conjunction with the throw away culture it moves the products towards.
 
Aren’t most cars an insurance write off if any of those individual pieces which are welded together are damaged anyway?

E.g. anything other than a ‘mild’ front end collision will likely bend the frame/chassis rails at the front of the car and cause it to become a write off regardless of whether it was one piece or multiple pieces all glued and welded together.

Sure some are repaired and put back on the roads but they are always a Cat X car which was previously seems a write off.

Most people don’t want their cars back after they have been in a substantial impact. I certainly wouldn’t!
 
But if the bodywork is expensive to fix they will end up getting thrown away for minor damage once they depreciate a bit. Not exactly green and it pushes premiums up for everyone else.
 
Guilty pleasure watching some of the dash cam compilations but mostly due to Wham Bham Tesla Cam channel. At times it did seem every other Tesla crash was either 10s of thousands or a write off. Even though most of the time it was just rear end bumps or side glances.

Recently they started another channel to cover other OEMs and sure enough every other crash was expensive or a write off so modern crash protection is a big blame for this it seems.
 
bimbleuk said:
Guilty pleasure watching some of the dash cam compilations but mostly due to Wham Bham Tesla Cam channel. At times it did seem every other Tesla crash was either 10s of thousands or a write off. Even though most of the time it was just rear end bumps or side glances.

Recently they started another channel to cover other OEMs and sure enough every other crash was expensive or a write off so modern crash protection is a big blame for this it seems.
Click to expand...

It’s a bit of that but also that insurance companies require it to be repaired back to OEM spec where by any bent metal needs to be fixed. That combined with cars that are designed to bend to protect the occupants often means lots of metal to replace and interior parts due to airbags now covering almost every orifice of the car.

People that repair the cars themselves don’t take that approach and tend to go with a ‘good enough’ mantra which very few would accept if they knew about it.

Russinating said:
Don't feed the troll.
Click to expand...

sorry, it’s a guilty pleasure sometimes :p
 
b0rn2sk8 said:
People that repair the cars themselves don’t take that approach and tend to go with a ‘good enough’ mantra which very few would accept if they knew about it.
Click to expand...

Yep, I have seen some of the "repairs" that are classed as good enough. Had a colleague who was delighted when she bought a category C repair and was harping on about getting a 6 month old £25K car for £15k. She was not pleased when I said that I would not trust a Cat C repair and that technically it is not a £25k car, it's a £15k car because that's what she paid for it and that's what it's worth.
 
Last edited:
b0rn2sk8 said:
Aren’t most cars an insurance write off if any of those individual pieces which are welded together are damaged anyway?

E.g. anything other than a ‘mild’ front end collision will likely bend the frame/chassis rails at the front of the car and cause it to become a write off regardless of whether it was one piece or multiple pieces all glued and welded together.

Sure some are repaired and put back on the roads but they are always a Cat X car which was previously seems a write off.

Most people don’t want their cars back after they have been in a substantial impact. I certainly wouldn’t!
Click to expand...

We shall see, the higher value of the cars may change that. I would only really see it as a concern if Tesla started getting into offering insurance for their products…

Oh wait :p
 
The self-drive ev capabilities might reduce number of write-off accidents - although proposed for UK motorways initially - don't they represent a disproportionate number of write-offs.

(weight reduction Tabless/4680 type cells could still provide a car weight reduction, they can be charged faster, so battery range/weight could acceptably be reduced)
 
I’ve seen that video, the car ‘cold gates’ quite a lot and doesn’t pre-heat the battery effectively. But it is being tested in temperatures far lower than we would ordinarily get here so not entirely relevant to the U.K.

Edit: it could also probably be fixed with software.
 
Oh please dont tell me 'cold gate' is now an actual term? Maybe for the BMW only to brush those grill teeth? :D

In terms of the battery not being hot enough to give max charge speed, Its annoying i guess but the opposite of keeping a battery warm in that sort of weather is crazy in terms of energy use, the battery wont be required to provide massive power as its traction limited anyway and doing long distance at those sorts of speed is a bit of an extreme event.

And how that could ever be a test to take any meaningful real world consumption from! Its covered in snow.
 
Cold gate is most definitely a term, I guess opposite to ‘rapid gate’ which was coined after the release of the second gen leaf overheating issues when rapid charging.

I guess it’s more of subjective ‘this is what you can expect if you let the battery get really cold’. In the i4 that means power limit and really slow charging that takes awhile to get back up to a reasonable rate.

Like I said, the navigate to charger pre-heat could probably be fixed with a software update to be more effective but the rest of the car seemed to perform well or as well as any other. Yeh, I wouldn’t be worried about a power limit in those conditions.
 
I think it’s more a case of that what’s your get if the batteries aren’t warmed from ambient. You cant expect a car to keep battery’s warmer than ambient.

Agreed the warming isn’t great. No sure about software, if the 7kW heater is putting coolant into the battery at the same time air, spray and cold snow is taking heat out it’s a problem.

unfortunately for BMW it looks like the same issue as the IPACE and the cooling plate is on the bottom of the cells close to that massive heat sink baseplate.
 
Soo just had a trail of the new Vauxhall vivaro -e whilst I have been on call as part of a company trial.

And i'm sorry to say the mileage anxiety is real, especially when fully loaded. 200 miles was nearer to 150 with a full load and welsh hills.

The interior was the standard vauxhall fare, plastic but solid, in car entertainment was a tad buggy, the charger just worked which was nice.

The low centre of gravity was great for hander ling, it didnt wallow around corners like the diesel version did.

The biggest issue was the state of the chargers in south/west wales, they were either being used, faulty or didnt work with the van. Having to add a extra 2 hours to a call out response was bad because i used the mileage up got home plugged it in for 2 hours then got called out.

For regional workers the van isn't worth it, but for local delivery/ tradesmen it might be worth it. But fully loaded the mileage drops significantly.
 
Jonnycoupe said:
I think it’s more a case of that what’s your get if the batteries aren’t warmed from ambient. You cant expect a car to keep battery’s warmer than ambient.

Agreed the warming isn’t great. No sure about software, if the 7kW heater is putting coolant into the battery at the same time air, spray and cold snow is taking heat out it’s a problem.

unfortunately for BMW it looks like the same issue as the IPACE and the cooling plate is on the bottom of the cells close to that massive heat sink baseplate.
Click to expand...

It’s all about trade offs though isn’t it?

My making the battery perform better in very cold climates, you make it perform worse when ragging it down the autobahn in the height of summer.

Let’s face it, very few people actually live in these cold climates compared to more temperate locations. Nearly everyone else, including U.K. buyers will want better performance in warmer weather.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom