When are you going fully electric?

[lordrobs]

It's fine for us since 98% of the time we charge at home, so it's just the odd long journey we have to endure the aggro, but if I was having to use public charging daily, it'd put me off a bit, especially if I was travelling to different places all the time, I'd only consider an EV if it was a Tesla just for the charging network.

It's incredibly useful to hear real world accounts of how people get on using an EV for longer journeys. There is a bit of a push from the new guy at work to get himself an EV as a company car and while I like the idea of slashing my company car tax I don't want to do so at the cost of making my day to day life doing UK wide customer support stuff a nightmare.

I think the natural replacement time for my car will be another couple of years away so I think I'll back away from my support of their efforts to get two cars bought (and offset against corporation tax) and reassess it after they've been the Guinea pig. Also, HMRC really need to do something about 5ppm advisory fuel rate when charging can cost nearly four times that amount! I used to get annoyed at my work miles costing me 2ppm let alone that jumping to 13ppm!

 

[Uther]

Just back from a week or so in the Lake District, 201 mile journey each way, M5, M6, A590..

+'s and -'s from an EV perspective:
Journey Up (Plan was to stop and charge to 75% en-route so we'd arrive with plenty of charge at the cottage).
- Stopped at some services with 4 EV bays, of which only 2 can be used at a time, 1 was Chademo Only and 1 numpty in an ID.4 was overstaying in his spot for over 2 hours, so basically 1 charger between 3 of us trying to do a splash 'n' dash..
+ The cameradery at the services was great, 3 of us all worked together, giving each 15-20 mins to get enough charge. despite all that, we still managed to charge before the family had finished their lunch (being busy it took 30+ mins to get food let alone eat it).
+ Travel Assist on the ID.3 on the M6 was a god send, it really takes the hassle out of stop/start/slow moving motorway traffic.
+ We got 4 m/kwh average with a very full car (4 + dog + weeks luggage), the temperature was 20 degrees, so ideal for longer battery life.. (not too much air con needed, battery chemistry loving 20+ degrees!)

Out and about
+ Despite a total drought of chargers, we had no issues, I used £15 bonnet credit + the first month free subscription to charge @ 0.45p at a Genie point in Ulverston that was always empty. That and using the £5 instavolt credit at the local Booths (they have 4 fast chargers per supermarket site) which invariably only had 1 or 2 max charging at any time so actually never waited once for a charge and using £20 of credit and remaning charge @0.45p/kwh meant we didn't spend much at all on fuel.
- Managed to find a pothole/missing edge of the road at the wrong point and ripped both inside tyres, slightly bending the alloys at the same time
+ The local VW dealer (some 1.5 miles from the pothole!) had 2 spare tyres and managed to get us underway with the caution of getting the alloys changed as soon as.
- the windy/undulating roads with a heavily sprung EV does not lead to a nice ride for passengers, getting a bit car sick in the back after 30 minutes.. I found winding DCC to max (stiffest) stopped the issue, setting it to softest definitely had a bit too much 'bounce'.

Journey Back:
+ Travel Assist once more was so helpful on the usual M6 congestion
- Whilst we did a splash and dash at the Ionity at Stafford, one charger was out, and the one I ended up with wouldn't read my WeCharge card (giving us 0.45p/kwh), I initially started charging using the IONITY app @ 0.69p/kwh until I realised you can initiate a charge using the ID Connect app so taking advantage of the We Charge discounted rates, so stopped after 10kwh's of juice and restarted using the cheaper method. this just shows the faff it still can be.. enough chargers here, but RFID not working, then having to figure out what app allowed what..


Overall it cements that whilst we are very happy with an EV, it only works with a bit of knowledge and prior thought, if traffic conditions change and you need to re-route, it can be luck if you can find anywhere quickly to charge without getting someone else in the car to trawl through ABRP / Plugshare or Zap Maps and there is always a percentage of chargers not working, or some numpties overstaying by hours hogging a spot..

It's fine for us since 98% of the time we charge at home, so it's just the odd long journey we have to endure the aggro, but if I was having to use public charging daily, it'd put me off a bit, especially if I was travelling to different places all the time, I'd only consider an EV if it was a Tesla just for the charging network.

Thanks, it's good to read real life experiences, both good and bad, rather than just haters and fan boys. I want an EV, and most likely my next car will be but I'm not quite there yet, like the charging network. I'm hoping in 3-4 years things look much better.

 

[chroniclard]

Travel assist isn't just an EV thing.

Is "EV travel sickness" a thing? My son was prone to getting car sick when younger, 10 ish, seems to have faded now he is 14.

 

[Jonnycoupe]

The biggest issue frequently is the other moronic EV drivers. Parking in EV charging spaces without even plugging in blows my mind people think they have preferential parking whilst blocking a charging station. I had similar experience with an i3 sat at 100% at Gloucester service, I didn’t suffer but the MG5 waiting to charge was. I helped by suggesting they parked where I was and try unplugging the i3 from the CCS. Thankfully it did come out and they could charge, I didn’t stay long enough to see the BMW family return

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

Aerospace wing design, Rolls Royce gas turbines rolls Royce nuclear pressure vessels, bae land and air systems, Babcock and bae nuclear submarines. JET and AWE. Please tell us what ARM is… pointless conversation really if we have to explain that and you cite semiconductors, that stuff is black magic and witchcraft anyway.

Which part does it dismiss, please describe YOUR observation made from the video and conclusion of your statement. I believe it’s a false one. It gets hit, fractures and the car has to be replaced or a massive labour bill to replace casting rather than panels changes/reforming? Supports the how and why as to Tesla are getting into insurance in my views.

And yes the non structural “structural pack” is full of a mess of goop as expected in cell to pack, so much for that “change of a couple of modules” mantra that’s been going around

Yeah these new packs look about as easy to recycle as pringles tins!

We will probably need to apply a tax at some point on items that are not easy to break apart to fix/recycle. Which is a shame as you would hope manufacturers by now would be starting to wake up a little more.

 

[dlockers]

Yeah these new packs look about as easy to recycle as pringles tins!

We will probably need to apply a tax at some point on items that are not easy to break apart to fix/recycle. Which is a shame as you would hope manufacturers by now would be starting to wake up a little more.

They are designed to be "re-used" first and foremost. They could go another 10-15 years as battery storage systems in solar arrays for example.

Agree on the latter point though.

 

[jpaul]

Designed to be re-cycled - the re-use/replacement of individual cells for powerwall type application looks uneconomic (with that tear-down complexity)

to the point that it looks as though tesla is exploiting some loopholes in the re-cycling rules.

edit: do the disassembly in china

Disassembly costs​

The Tesla Model S battery pack disassembly was used as an example to calculate the disassembly cost ((Equation 3), (Equation 4), (Equation 5) and Table S3). The calculated disassembly costs amount to 0.25 $·kWh−1 in China, 0.84 $·kWh−1 in South Korea, 1.68 $·kWh−1 in the US, 4.04 $·kWh−1 in Belgium, and 2.84 $·kWh−1 in the UK (Figure S5). The disassembly cost contribution to the total recycling cost is 2% for China, 5–7% for South Korea, 8–11% for the US, 15–21% for Belgium, and 12–17% for the UK. The cost differences between the four countries originate from the varying labor costs, Belgium having the highest (48.1 $·hr−1) and China the lowest (3 $·hr−1) costs.

[ edit2: ARM - pretty much revolutionised (maybe monopolised) soft core with unified instruction set and low energy architectures .. so worthy of top table in UK engineering ]

 

[sandys]

Doing the holiday tow job this week on the hills of Devon and Cornwall thinking to myself I can't wait until EVs can do this with some range, no dealing with gear management or the diesel belting out its hardest to pull a couple of tonnes which can be felt, I'd guess an EV would be silent and smooth doing this, to have something with 400+hp and all the instant torque would be amazing especially stop start on hills.

 

[Simon]

But the model S battery pack is not a 4680 pack. I’m not convinced it’s going to be as easy as made out

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

Designed to be re-cycled - the re-use/replacement of individual cells for powerwall type application looks uneconomic (with that tear-down complexity)

to the point that it looks as though tesla is exploiting some loopholes in the re-cycling rules.

Its going to be interesting to see how it goes.
The domestic installs using a similar but different tech, more stable, less energy dense. Eg a 9kwh home pack is likely more like 120kgs. Vs Tesla 100kwh 625kgs. (so car roughly twice the energy per kg through different (more volatile) chemistry)
Plus you are going to have to deconstruct the packs and rebuild them, which seems a lot of effort.

More logicalal is to salvage the packs for commercial level storage. As these tend to be more like containers, then they can be designed that the packs fit it unmodified, so you would have a container full of 1 or 2 packs types, which may mean individual cars packs go to different containers.
Standardisation of packs in the container would make it far easier to control, to fit out etc

The end state, the salvage part has plenty of time yet. Seeing as the cells will be recovered for material salvage only would mean that low to medium damage to the cells would be fine, where as salvage of "good" cells for repurpose into further energy storage would require those cells to come out in perfect condition.

 

[b0rn2sk8]

66p/kWh for Instavolt from 15th August…

 

[chanjy]

Its going to be interesting to see how it goes.
The domestic installs using a similar but different tech, more stable, less energy dense. Eg a 9kwh home pack is likely more like 120kgs. Vs Tesla 100kwh 625kgs. (so car roughly twice the energy per kg through different (more volatile) chemistry)
Plus you are going to have to deconstruct the packs and rebuild them, which seems a lot of effort.

More logicalal is to salvage the packs for commercial level storage. As these tend to be more like containers, then they can be designed that the packs fit it unmodified, so you would have a container full of 1 or 2 packs types, which may mean individual cars packs go to different containers.
Standardisation of packs in the container would make it far easier to control, to fit out etc

The end state, the salvage part has plenty of time yet. Seeing as the cells will be recovered for material salvage only would mean that low to medium damage to the cells would be fine, where as salvage of "good" cells for repurpose into further energy storage would require those cells to come out in perfect condition.

Yeah second life application won't be powerwalls. It will be grid applications like solar and wind farms where you have plenty of land to stick a few containers of batteries in.

 

[Psycho Ned]

66p/kWh for Instavolt from 15th August…

Gonna start getting to the point where those miles/KWh figures which most people probably didn’t care about when it was cheap as chips to charge now become more interesting!

My old skool Ioniq will do 5.5-6 all day long this time of year. Plenty of cars 3-4 is an achievement!

 

[Simon]

2.5m/kWh at 82mph cruise is fine with me. Rapid chargers should be seen as a distressed purchase anyway, most charging needs to be on a £1000 charger to unlock the real EV savings right now. But I do see this as a hurdle for mass adoption for those who can’t charge at home.

 

[sandys]

Is that not service station charging though which like petrol is silly, my local fast charger only 150kw is 39p, seems OK if you need a quick fill.

 

[chanjy]

Don't forget the grid connections and chargers need to be paid for as well as the wholesale cost of electricity.

Probably not something you want to do every day but it's fine if you only do occasional long trips.

At 39p/kWh for a 150kW charger they won't be making any money at all!

 

[Psycho Ned]

2.5m/kWh at 82mph cruise is fine with me. Rapid chargers should be seen as a distressed purchase anyway, most charging needs to be on a £1000 charger to unlock the real EV savings right now. But I do see this as a hurdle for mass adoption for those who can’t charge at home.

Kind of feel I just about got in to EVs while the going was still good in Aug 2020. Got the grant off the Charger and my car for about the same money it is now 2 years later!

Also had 2 years of 5p per kWh of Octopus for home charging. You sign up to all this stuff now it’s a whole different story!!

 

[Simon]

Yeh. Bring back the V8s. To be honest the Goldilocks time of EV has passed now it would seem.

Energy prices up (as some expected but for diff reasons). Raw material prices driving up EV premium and no more EV grants on cars or subsidies for home chargers. Lack of availability means no discounts from the OEMs either.

 

[Gregvivi0401]

If they are become more cheaper maybe then??

 

[fastwunz]

I have a close family member who is very high up for a major energy supplier in the south.

There is literally nowhere near enough capacity on the network to provide enough electricity to an exponentially growing EV audience especially during the evenings and overnight - currently wholesale electrical suppliers can hardly service the constantly growing new build market and associated electrical connections let alone the EV market.

There is a troubling disconnect between this massive push towards EV’s and the amount of actual available electrical supply/physical connections to cater for it.

My company for instance sent a group wide ‘fleet’ update yesterday saying that they will stop allowing fossil fuel cars (hybrids are currently acceptable) to be ordered as part of their drive toward a ‘sustainable transport solution’…….

‘Sustainable EV’s!’ Lol!