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Not sure it may tell you on each manufacturers page. Agreed I doubt I’ll pay the £17.50 a month to get the Audi discount once my free year expires.
The 12V battery in my wife's car went flat last night while she was out; we obviously haven't used it for enough long journeys recently. Then this morning the tax reminder for it came through the door.
The EV is an awful lot less faff...
^It isn't always. Several reports now on EV's which do not charge 12v batteries if car is not driven, not all of them Teslas.
It’s then getting to the stage where the big issue is cost. We need 100kW+ charging at c.30p/kWh at lots of locations. Like Tesla chargers. 70p headline numbers are harmful to the EV uptake case even if they don’t end up costing us many £/year
Fuel duty currently raises about £25bn/yr for the treasury.... as we all start to switch to electric cars I wonder how they will plug that gap. Add a specific tax on vehicle charging... or raised via other taxes.. ?
I wonder how they will plug that gap
If they're clever, corporation tax on companies making batteries, EV tech and cars. There's some suggestion that they are trying to encourage that, but we all know they're barely able to organise after work drinks never mind long term economic planning.
The UK Gov apparently provides subsidies to fossil fuel companies to the amount of ~£12.5B/yr. That would do a good job at plugging some of the gap.
The charging network definitely has some catching up to do, and I say that driving a Tesla and being able to take advantage of the supercharger network. I was really marginal last weekend on a trip to the lakes and I was nearly completely snookered by a big diversion off the A66 on the way home. The direct route from Newcastle to near Whinlatter appeared to have 1 50kW BP charger in Carlisle (which I downloaded the app for an pre-paid some credit onto) before I would need to start looking at longer routes. To the North is the Gretna superchargers and to the South is the Tebay superchargers, with a handful of fast 3rd party ones in between. In the end I switched off AC and trundled along with the trucks making it home with 16 miles in the "tank".. Motorway speeds and a geet muckle gnarpoon on the roof narf kills your range!
It's going to be tricky getting people out of ICE's because they're far too convenient to the point you don't even have to think about it or plan anything. They're also far too cheap - even though my full weekend of fuel probably cost less than £3 it would maybe only be £30-40 in an equivalent size diesel car. And to be able to blat up the motorway at whatever speed you want with some nice cool air wafting about the place it's probably a price most are willing to pay.
Once you get into the EV mindset of planning journeys, balancing up travelling a bit slower and completely avoiding charger surfing along the way the whole tooling up lane 3 in a huuge gas guzzling motor at 85mph seems absurd! I spent most of my time on the M6 thinking where the **** are all these people in such a hurry to get to.
There’s a 50Kw charger at the Rheged centre. Still needs improvement yes but since I switched from diesel to hybrid and now EV it has vastly improved.
Thanks Drac that’s good to know. More of a general question (but prompted by looking at that charger on zap map) I assume if someone is using the 50kW Chad connector another user couldn’t concurrently use the 50kW CCS? Just it shows at having 2 50kWs at that location which seems a bit misleading.
Not sure possible not. I know I still get 50Kw when Zoes are sat on their little 7Kw charger for hours on end.
There are 2 charger stations though
Zap-map is good as is a A Better Route Planner.
The direct route from Newcastle to near Whinlatter appeared to have 1 50kW BP charger in Carlisle
There are two Instavolt 50kW chargers at Asda in Carlisle- I used one of them today on our way to Scotland. They take contactless payment so much more convenient than BP. Zap-map is your friend for finding charge points. The chargers at the Rheged centre are Electric highway so chances are they'll be down
There's also Instavolt chargers at Booths in Keswick which is not far from Whinlatter.
Are there any studies as how much reduction in battery life stuffing these huge amounts of kW’s in to them does?
I've exclusively been using public rapid chargers for a yr and a half now and recent tests on my battery seem to show it's fine, I'm still getting it's full range.
There’s also Instavolt chargers at Booths in Keswick which is not far from Whinlatter
When I charged there last they seemed to be quite popular. If a plan B is needed theres a GeniePoint across the road at Morrisons
I assume if someone is using the 50kW Chad connector another user couldn’t concurrently use the 50kW CCS?
Each time I've shared a charger with another car capable of drawing 50kW they've both dropped to half whatever one car was charging at - for example thze Orlen ones in Poland.
Are there any studies as how much reduction in battery life stuffing these huge amounts of kW’s in to them does?
I don't know about "studies" but forum feedback on the early Nissan Leaf with a 23kWh battery and 50kW charging says that that was to fast on an uncooled battery. Up to 10kW of charging for 10kWh of battery capacity don't worry about it. Manufactureres are using more and more sphisticated algorithms to manage charge rate as a function of temperature and charge level, and offering longer battery guarantees. I would assume they don't charge the battery so fast as it will fail within guarantee.
Edit: if I try to fast charge the Zoé with a freezing battery it won't even take 22kW. The first charge at 22°C it takes 48kW. The third charge on a motorway run with mid 30s°C it starts around 35kW and drops form there.
Manufactureres are using more and more sphisticated algorithms to manage charge rate as a function of temperature and charge level,
They’re also using a proper coole\ing system. This is where Nissan/Renault got it wrong. Something I believe they corrected.
Renault still uses the same system which is cool air from the same heat pump as the air con. It works fine except for fast running and multiple charges on Summer days in the 30s IME, the heat pump then runs continuously and the charge slows down.
Nissan used uncooled air on the Leaf, I don't know if they've improved on that.
They have, I think.
In other news, yesterday the car did a commute, an emergency school pickup and a trip to Ikea, about 30 miles all in, and we got 5.7m/kWh. Quite a bit of crawling traffic and some 50mph, in 22C still weather. Quite pleased with that. Long term average over the first 800 miles is now 4.7m/kWh.
That's seriously impressive.
Normal, Drac. Had a look at the Zoé to compare: trip last zeroed 311km ago before two trips up to the ski resort and some town use. 10.2kWh/100km which is 6.1m/kWh in your money. Perfect conditions, 22°C and nothing on apart from the radio and the heater fan on 1.
Molgrips drives an Ioniq though.
Now that summer is here I regularly see over 5 miles/kWh around town from my e-Niro.
Drac the super fast charging on your e-Tron is supposed to make up its crap efficiency 😉
Which is only a few kgs more than the Zoé and similar in terms of aero. The Ioniq is a better package though with more accomodation. My point is that it's what you'd hope an Ioniq would achieve in perfect weather conditions rather than being seriously impressive. People seem to be far too pesismistic about what EVs will do and disbelieving of the official figures when they can be met without much effort as Molgrips and myself have demonstrated.
Drac the super fast charging on your e-Tron is supposed to make up its crap efficiency
Thankfully yes and large battery, I’m getting about 2.7m/Kw now. 😂
My point is that it’s what you’d hope an Ioniq would achieve in perfect weather conditions rather than being seriously impressive. People seem to be far too pesismistic
Hope and reality are different things though. I still find it seriously impressive that such a large car can achieve that. I’d expect it in small hatch
Large, light for its size and battery capacity and reasonably aero, it's the future if only the buying public can be convinced of it.
Yeah the weight they achieved is excellent. I think more and more are looking listening. Now ranges have gone up, charge times fallen and prices becoming more accessible.
People seem to be far too pesismistic about what EVs will do and disbelieving of the official figures when they can be met without much effort as Molgrips and myself have demonstrated.
I'm sure I could eke out the claimed 300 miles range of the e-Niro but where's the fun in that😁
One reason for choosing the Ioniq over the Kona was the fact it is clearly more aero. The offical range figures are similar, but I figured that the Ioniq must surely do better on motorways.
The commute, by the way is slow but quite stop start, and not at all flat, so it's far from perfect conditions. We're going to my folks at the weekend, probably be a mix of suburban DC and undulating open country roads on the way up and about 70% DC/motorway on the way home. In the Passat the country road option was slightly better on MPG despite the section with loads of roundabouts, it'll be interesting to see which is better with the EV.
Tesla Model 3 LR on order. Managed to do it at exactly the wrong time so now they have to post it from China in August.
Eventually managed to get consent from the council for the charger (listed building) but now just discovered that the electricity supply is looped, and there's no way that it can be un-looped without digging up a cobbled street.
60A fuse so hoping that the DNO will give approval for a smart charger with automatic load limiting.
Strikes me that these hoops to jump through are hardly a unique case and going to cause a lot of headaches when new ICE cars are banned in 2030 and everyone's trying to do it.
We have a 60a main fuse and a 32a charger without any smart stuff. It’s all down to how much other stuff you have - we don’t have electric showers, induction hob etc.
To be honest even a 16a charger is ok unless you’re regularly arriving home late with an empty car and need it full for the morning.
Our Ohme smart charger is having a hard time communicating with the car. They emailed me saying that Hyundai had changed the API and it stopped knowing what charge the car had, then it started working then stopped now it's got the SoC wrong, it thought we were on 26% but we were on like 90% so then it got all upset when the car stopped charging.
We have a 60a main fuse and a 32a charger without any smart stuff. It’s all down to how much other stuff you have – we don’t have electric showers, induction hob etc.
That's good to know, thanks. No electric showers or induction hobs here either so fairly optimistic. The charger company won't touch a looped supply without DNO approval unfortunately, which is mad when I could get a 32A commando socket installed with no questions asked.
@flaperon you should be reet. I had a 32a pod point for our Model 3 for 12 months on a 60a main cutout. Local independent company fitted the charger rather than pod point themselves so think they sorted all of the DNO paperwork. After 12 months I was sorting a load of other house shit and contacted the DNO who got it upgraded to 80a. They weren’t bothered in the slightest about the 32a charger on the old 60a cutout. I think the podpoint has something in it that will restrict the car charging if I went mad and had a tumble dryer party or something. It gets 28 miles/hr into the battery.
I've started to think more about an ev, but it feels a bit too early to jump currently. I'm currently enjoying my ice octy but with 3 kids I've been looking at bigger cars. I was keen on something like an ice XC90 then covid happened just before baby #3 so doing very few miles and have made do... Originally the wife squeezed in the middle in the back seat but as 2nd daughter got bigger and swapped car seats the 3 kids now fit on the back. However as they grow it'll get increasingly uncomfortable, I reckon I'll be buying a bigger car in 2-4 years. Now full ev big cars seem very limited in choice right now but what do people think the future, the 2-4 year future, has in store? I was disappointed in the t7 multivan release this week, no full ev and the phev range is only 31miles. That's not even enough to get cheap road tax as far as I understand.
Sorry for the somewhat rambling observations, I'm just trying to work out when the right time to swap to an ev is. It feels like it's not here for big 7 seaters, but given that if I end up paying for a new car i will want to keep it for many years, I hope it gets here in the next couple of years. Will it?
There's a lot of SUV style EVs as it's easier for them to convert to EV.
You can sort by body style on there.
The id buzz is VW's electric van. Expect massive prices though if it's got enough battery to push that body along
Not much in the way of 7 seater out there but I've just ordered a Skoda Enyaq as my next company car. Sat in one at the dealers last week, front and boot space about the same as my current Passat GTE estate, rear passenger space is a good bit bigger though. I put the drivers seat right back and could sit behind it with to to spare and I'm 6'3" with long legs. Flat floor makes a big difference too. Middle seat a bit compromised but isn't it always these days. Think you can also get seat back tables with phone/tablet holders as part of a family option pack
Ugh, photo linking. Getting one like this in a few months, looking forward to it.
Question on the new generation of smart chargers - I have an older "dumb" 7kW Rolec. I know some now can do clever interfacing with solar panels but beyond that and setting charge times and limits (which I think you can generally do in the car anyway), what other advantages do they have?
AHH yes, the I'd buzz. It looks quite a bit smaller than the t7, more s-max size. This may suit in the end, but it's not really comparible to the t7 is it?
AHH yes, the I’d buzz. It looks quite a bit smaller than the t7, more s-max size.
The concept is just over 5m long which is in the middle of t6 lengths. I would guess no motor at the front means the interior is likely the same as an xlwb t6, so a fair bit bigger than a smax
Yes just read a bit on it, no engine bay and wheels in corners maximise the inside space. Concept can seat up to 8, I guess that's 4 rows of 2 as it looks narrow but looks can be deceiving. Pricing starting from £50k according to top gear, who say vw have said it'll be no more than the equivalent ice vehicle, and range of 370 miles. Looks like one to watch, exciting.
That Enyaq is rather nice. The choices since I ordered mine a year ago has come on bounds.
In case anyone's interested the A-road route to my parents resulted in 5.0m/kWh, my wife says she wasn't trying to be careful (I wasn't in the car as I was cycling). On the way back I drove fairly modestly before hitting the DC where I set the cruise to 70mph, and I got 5.0 as well. Pretty pleased with that, four of us in the car and the air-con on in temps of 27 degrees.
It was also fantastically relaxing with some smooth roads, light steering, supple ride, no engine noise or wind noise in that car. Turn the lane assist off on country roads though.
Something else I thought about yesterday:
We've got two years on the lease, by which time my youngest will be in high school and she'll be getting the bus to school; and my wife could get the bus too (or e-bikes have been discussed) if she's still at her current job. So in theory, we COULD get by with only one car. But we would want something that could tow, such as the really interesting looking Polestar 2. Available with a 330 mile range in 2WD or 300 in 4WD. Someone tested a Model X with a caravan in the USA and found it got half its range. However, US trailers tend to be much heavier, and the towing speed limit is the same as normal, so it was probably driving faster than I would. I'd be hoping to get 55-60% of the published range when towing UK style - which wouldn't be too bad, I could live with it. And whilst the Polestar is more than I would normally have expected to spend on a car it's not particularly expensive by EV standards. And with only one car I could afford to spend more on it.
That’s great stuff.
The Mrs had to take our eldest for cobid test yesterday. 70 mile round trip on mainly dual carriage ways. As likewise temps were in the high 20s they had the aircon on. Still returned 2.5m/KWH still way higher than in the winter.
The Polestar is very nice... but in 2 years time there will be cars available with 100 kWh batteries I think so I'd relax and see what turns up.
Else you can buy my Cybertruck 😉
Interesting local cost comparism..
Base Tesla 3 - 349,000 NOK
Base Polestar 2 - 389,000
Base E-Niro - 389,000
Base Audi A3 - 467,000 !!!
Hi , I hope it's ok to pop a few queries here. I'm just in the process of changing jobs and with that I get a company car. The company are looking to go fully electric, and I'm guinea pig number one! I'm quite excited by this and keen to go electric. I've been doing my research and for the budget and ultimately range (I'm doing my numbers on 250miles real world), and decent charging options, the Hyundai Kona/ Kia E Niro cars seem to be hard to beat. Both 64kWh versions, very similar cars albeit the Niro being a little bigger.
My slight issue is home charging. We have a garage and space in front however this is not attached to our house directly but instead backs onto our neighbours and getting power there may prove tricky, permissions etc, but looking into it. I can use a 13A feed (with a suitably sized cable/protection) but anymore than a few hours might be an issue. No other place to park unfortunately.
I'm based in Reigate and the office is in High Wycombe, a 50 mile commute each way on the best bit of the M25! I'll be working from home, with an expectation to go into the office two or so days a week and the others will be on site (Midlands and lower) and home, this will chop and change. The office has charging, currently 3kW but being upgraded as we speak to 7kW or possibly 22kW. When on site, these will normally be all day visits, so would try to destination charge.
We have two chargers within a 5 min walk from home. 1 x 50kW rapid (free 2 hr parking) and a couple of 22kW (parking free after 5). There are plenty of others around too and Cobham services has some decent rapid ones which would charge the Kona at a max of 76kW.
Does anyone here rely entirely on the public charging network? There seems to be enough of them around me to make that bit work, but will it work in the real world? Does it come down to me planning a bit more, picking the car with the most range, and just re-learning the way we do things, which I'm very happy to do, as keen to make this work. The price of public charging is another conversation which I need to work out with work also. Any ideas or thoughts much appreciated. Thanks!