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do i understand right that you can put your journey into the trip computer / satnav, and it’ll tell you where to stop to top up if needed, etc.?
the BMW satnav does just this, and it will pick out unoccupied chargers as it picks up real time info, Tesla ones too. It can be done from the screen in the car or the phone app. In the case of the journey I mentioned earlier, one of our stops was actually about 10 mins longer than scheduled as my boys were wanting food and the Burger King queue was a bit long..... The car then recalculated the remaining trip of it own accord and reduced the proposed charging at subsequent stops.
Similarly if you need to add in an unplanned toilet stop, then if you use the satnav to look for fast unoccupied chargers, say in the next 10 miles of the journey, and ask it to take you there, it will also precondition the battery, to maximise charging rate.
So basically if you let the car work out your stops in advance, it splits them into what it thinks are sensible chunks of journey for tiredness and comfort, directs you to unoccupied and working chargers, and preconditions the battery, every time. Just so darned simple and clever. This is on the BMW i4, different cars have different functionality.
I've yet to cover many miles in my 2nd hand ioniq. 250 miles so far with a third on the motorway and the rest on urban roads. Averaging around 5.2m/KW overall. Urban around 7m/KW.
I'm enjoying the car. Had a go with the active cruise control and lane keep steering on the motorway today. A step up in comfort and trickery from the roomster it replaced.
do i understand right that you can put your journey into the trip computer / satnav, and it’ll tell you where to stop to top up if needed, etc.?
The Ioniq5 does this pretty well flawlessly, across Europe too. It let's you know live how many chargers available, out of order etc at a station. Took me a while to figure out how you can tell which of the stops it recommends are proper service station stops (coffee, toilets etc) vs a random charger tucked away in a park & ride, but once I did (and after a few charging stops in the middle of nowhere!) it was great. Having just one system to do this in is brilliant, rather than having somebody on Zap map, somebody looking at google etc. As above, Tesla not on there yet, but easy to figure out separately if you need, though a lot of Tesla chargers don't have the max speed that the I5 can charge at. (I think the latest superchargers might be better though?)
Wow...pretty good economy there!
Top stuff!
DrP
There's a feature on the Ioniq that alerts you to 'special offers' based on nearby business, which I obviously turned off. However, in order to do this it knows where businesses are and that includes your favourite coffee chain etc. What I want is to be able to tell it that I want to stop at a charger with a coffee shop and that I prefer Starbucks over Costa. I am not sure it does this, but there is another update due in a few weeks (not bad for a discontinued car!) so we'll see if it's there. As it stands I am able to select 'favourite' chargers that I want to stop at where I know there are amenities I want - for example, the Starbucks at Carlisle with the 8 rapid chargers and the seagull has been favourited.
it took 10 to 15mins less for a 7 mile commute than the car
My commute takes ~15 minutes longer by bike than by car, so it's not something you can say is always true.
That being said, I cycled in today as I usually do despite leaving 2 cars and my wife working from home. I've always preferred a bike ride to work though. In 23 years post university I have car commuted regularly for ~3 of those years and that was to a train station cos London, Cambridge to London and back daily wouldn't be for me.
I can't comment on the use of EVs and the cost, lots of those I see round my village still seem to be on short trips to drop kids at school or, ironically' drive somewhere to walk the dog!
Uni reference wasn't aimed at you, I used to work for Manchester Uni before I retired and it used to annoy me that the EV owners with large cars would get free charging. Very little was done to promote better ways of travelling other than suggesting it. Key annoyance for students was that they had to pay to park.
'In Norway they have good take up of EVs but have not got people out of there cars. Employers like Universities providing free charging just encourages the use of cars. Subsidies of EVs favours the better of at the expense of the less well of.'
I am well placed to comment on this - I bought a Leaf 5 years ago as it was the cheapest car to run, and the cost was comparative to ICE car thanks to tax breaks on the high purchase taxes attached to cars. It has been a much better experience than I could ever have imagined. Power to charge at night is very cheap 6 months of the year, reduced running costs such as servicing , 'bompenger' (road/commuter tax) and parking, insurance reasonable, servicing cheap. It's no surprise that EV's make up 85% of new car sales (down from 93% though).
Generally cars do not depreciate much here, compared to the UK. That's true of EV or ICE, and it's because second hand cars are very often exported if they're cheap, so there's no banger market (banger here is <20K). The reason 2nd hand stuff depreciates so much in the UK is , there are lots of new cars, and the wheels on the wrong side, so who's going to buy a second hand car for more than buttons?
So the devil here is getting people onto public transport. In the summer cycling, especially ebikes is a lot more popular , but 6+ months of the year commuting on a bike here is miserable, far worse than the UK. It's windy, rains a lot, and non stop for weeks , though not especially cold, and it's a long way to work. There's also a big challenge with getting people onto public transport. If you live in a centre it's good, but I don't,and here it's non existant. If I drive to work it's 15 minutes. If I get the bus, it's 90, and I'm not spending 2 1/2 hours extra day on a bus. It's extremely spread out, with all the problems that makes for public transport ( and public transport here is a bit of a public scandal, much money, bad results, and will blow up again soon as it's costing so much)
Sorry for the derailment
To be fair he’s not wrong and you’re not either.
Fair. I doubt EV owners are the worst offenders when it comes to the overuse of vehicles. Having an EV probably indicates a level of environmental conscientiousness. The comment about “holes in hedges” and “making progress” is tarring us with the wrong brush (although Tesla insurance premiums would indicate the opposite…).
FWIW, I commute by bike/train, and my partner/son go as many places by bike (with the macride) as possible.
My Audi Q4 is still hovering about 3.6kw/m, even though the weather has warmed up. Even in the cold spring it was averaging 3.6. I’m still driving sensibly. It’s quite a lot of motorway miles over 60mph so I suppose that doesn’t help.
In terms of cost though. I’ve gone from £60 a week in petrol to currently £19 a week for electricity (all household and car charging). I have to go to London once a month, it’s difficult to book in advance as diary clashes are difficult to manage, so tends to be less than a weeks notice to buy a train ticket, cost is on average £250 (standard class). Would cost me about £40 in the car and would be immeasurably more comfortable.