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Just reporting back on the bike rack consumption, I did a 100 mile trip through Wales (fast A-road, a bit of motorway, some pottering through town) in my ID7 on Saturday and got 3.6 m/kWh with two bikes on a towball rack.
Realised I'd never got around to reporting back, have done the same trip twice now without bikes on the back and managed 3.9m/kWh each time - so less than 10% reduction in range. Happy with that.
My previous ev was an i4, with factory towbar option. I found that one bike on towbar rack would have about a 15-20% range reduction over a typical 50-150 mile trip, mainly dual carriageway/motorway and A roads, cruise usually set at 70 max.
I now have an EV3, and it’s getting a towbar fitted tomorrow, I’ll be interested to see if it’s a similar story.
I think the effect of a rack depends on the shape of the back of the car. If you're towing a big vortex everywhere then it makes little difference, as reported by people who drive Passat estates etc, but there aren't many EVs that do that so you will probably notice a hit.
Mid-holiday in Penzance. So far so good, on the way down had a visit with MiL and used an 11kW charger there for an hour or so, then another comfort and food stop at a KFC near Camborne where I could refill while we sat and ate - I didn't need much charge to get to the holiday accommodation but topped it to 80% anyway so we then had some for general use.
The rest of the time has been using carparks with usually 7kW chargers and putting 10-20 kWh in at a time. Got a bit low and needed to plan a charge yesterday but only 20 mins at a place a bit out of the town.
Given it's a major town in the SW Penzance itself has one 50kW charger, one 22kW charger and the rest are 7's afaict. And the 50/22 unit is out of order. That is pretty crap.
Places like Penzance are going to be among the last to get significant infrastructure though. Not really on the way to many other places and not enough population to warrant more rapid chargers. From memory, the town I work is a similar size but would be mid route for many journeys. It's had 5 new rapid sites in the last few years.
It's as much about being near electricity on the way to somewhere as it is cars. I bet Penzance has bugger all supply.
Tiverton equally shit.
The most annoyingly shit place (in terms of EV charging!) I know of is Hereford. It is on the way to places, it's centrally located, but there's only maybe three rapids in the whole place. Shrewsbury's a bit better but not a lot.
It's as much about being near electricity on the way to somewhere as it is cars. I bet Penzance has bugger all supply.
It has a large fishing port and a rail depot / terminus, I think it should have supply. More crap is that its one fast charger is oos and appears to have been so for some time from electroverse. And while not exactly on the road to anywhere (except Lands End) it is quite a holiday hub and us rich holiday makers from the SE need to charge our EV luxury barges somewhere 😉
[It also has about 56 pastie shops which might be where all the power goes]
It has a large fishing port and a rail depot / terminus, I think it should have supply.
It's not about supply, it's about headroom at the substation. A quick Google suggests there isn't any, though the only info I could find was a few years old. Note that the train station isn't electrified.
I found out that the Merc EQC and the Polestar 3 have self levelling suspension. Most people who tow seem strangely unbothered by this but I like it a lot. I really like the look of the Polestar 3 but it's likely way out of my price range for a few more years. The EQC has poor range solo, around 250 miles out of an 80kWh battery, but when towing a caravan that seems to be the limiting factor so everyone seems to get a bit either side of 2 miles per kWh. For the EQC that would give around 160 miles out of an 80kWh battery. That would be comparable to most other options for towing (if I'm right). 250 miles solo I can live with. People seem to be reporting lower miles than that, but I dunno what people do with their cars, some get awful mileage.
But in 2-3 years' time when I come to change, the picture could be different.
I know there could be many reasons, just after ideas. Currently in France and tried to top up the battery. Plugged car in went through menu options but wouldn’t start charging. The other lead from unit was in use. It failed when I tried to use bank car to pay. It wouldn’t recognise or do anything.
Impossible to tell from that but make sure you are swiping your bank card at the right reader. On some units there are two card readers, one for the subscription card and a different one for actual contactless payments. The symbol is similar but different. This confused me once or twice.
Wow. I just did a search on Autotrader for new cars nationally sorted by price low-high (for another conversation) and the cheapest cars are all electric - Daia Spring and Leapmotor T03 by virtue of special offers (and Citroen Ami but they are a special case). The cheapest spring is £12k(!) and the cheapest ICE is a Kia Picanto at £14.5k. It's happened. The first couple of pages are almost all EVs.
not driven a leapmotor but the reviews weren't exactly shining .
i have driven a spring and despite thinking it would be a real contender for my next daily car ..... i can see why they are practically giving them away - its slower than my old non turbo berlingo. 19.1 Seconds is the book ... and it felt like every single one of those seconds and more - which when your trying to join a fast A road is frightening.... thats actually slower than a 1990s land rover defender.....
a used leaf was a better buy all day long. ( and thats what we did)
I was watching a review of the Fisker Ocean on Marques Brownlee's YouTube channel. One thing I thought was interesting was that it has a roof covered in solar panels, and that these panels contribute ALMOST NOTHING to the range of the car - about a mile a day, from memory. Probably it's not surprising if you just sit down and think about it (which apparently the Fisker engineers never did).
Just googling 2nd hand EV's:
https://octopusev.com/cars/quote/omoda-e5
Above £299 month with small deposit
Is that good deal?? Not a clue about EV's, Thanks
No idea what’s going on, tried a different charger today same result. Downloaded an app and managed to connect ok.
Just googling 2nd hand EV's:
https://octopusev.com/cars/quote/omoda-e5
Above £299 month with small deposit
Is that good deal?? Not a clue about EV's, Thanks
It's not bad but it's not amazing.
With leases you have to keep looking they literally change all the time.
For ref I just got a vauxhall Grandland Ultimate 73 kWh for 310 first month and 17 months at 310.
I've seen some Konas for good prices on xcitelease where I got mine from.
Leases tend to work best for lower mileage drivers - I'm lucky in that I can build my life around. 7000-8000 miles.
Also watch the extra mileage charge.
Thanks
(which apparently the Fisker engineers never did).You can be sure the marketing department knew what they were doing though.
Interesting piece on bbc breakfast news just before 8am, about the rise of the Chinese electric car companies. From nowhere to one of the 10 biggest globally in 3 years I think it said.
Very interesting was one company is now going with battery swap stations....topped up in I think they said under 5 mins. Pull up to a station, the controller takes over and backs you in directly to the exact place needed for the robotic mechanic to swap out the battery completely and as you'll have 'booked it in' through the navigation app beforehand there's no queue as such as it knows exactly when you're due.
You can be sure the marketing department knew what they were doing though.
Yeah - you'd have to think that the engineers said "this will make f all difference to the range", and the marketing folk said "yeah, we know, but it does look kinda cool". Seems like that happened a lot with that car.
Took the Polestar to another track day - this time a local one to me!
I think Goodwood has been my favourite circuit so far!
DrP
I found out that the Merc EQC and the Polestar 3 have self levelling suspension. Most people who tow seem strangely unbothered by this but I like it a lot. I really like the look of the Polestar 3 but it's likely way out of my price range for a few more years. The EQC has poor range solo, around 250 miles out of an 80kWh battery, but when towing a caravan that seems to be the limiting factor so everyone seems to get a bit either side of 2 miles per kWh. For the EQC that would give around 160 miles out of an 80kWh battery. That would be comparable to most other options for towing (if I'm right). 250 miles solo I can live with. People seem to be reporting lower miles than that, but I dunno what people do with their cars, some get awful mileage.
But in 2-3 years' time when I come to change, the picture could be different.
We're getting 240 miles out of our eqc at motorway speeds in the current warm weather, that works out to be 3 mpwh.
In winter that drops to 180 miles
We're getting 240 miles out of our eqc at motorway speeds in the current warm weather, that works out to be 3 mpwh.
In winter that drops to 180 miles
That's a shocking range drop, to me. I lose about 10%. I get 180 miles in winter from a battery half the size of the EQC. Still - it would be workable for us. Although it would make for a very expensive long trip in winter time.
Very interesting was one company is now going with battery swap stations
I don't think so. Massively expensive infrastructure and investment required, complex engineering at the charging station and the car, and for what? Saves people 15 mins at a coffee break? It's just not worth it.
That's a shocking range drop, to me. I lose about 10%.
We don't make any concessions to improving the range in winter, so that's with the climate control set to 21c and the heated seats on, doing the same speeds as summer (speed limiter set to 85mph, but just flowing with the traffic between 70 and 85). It just gets driven like we used to drive the petrol car.
I'd lump battery swapping in with 500+ mile range and 5-minute charging as things that are designed to persuade petrol-heads to make the switch to an EV but which don't actually make sense once you've made the mental swich required to actually live with one.
They are all designed to allow you to drive an EV like you would an ICE car, but that's missing the point. They are different so you treat them differently.
Once you get away from the idea that refuelling is something that you have to make a special stop for (as you do in an ICE car) and see it as something that happens while you are doing other things (eating, sleeping, shopping etc) then the ability to charge quickly (whether ultra-rapid charging or battery swapping) seems pointless.
Similar arguments apply to range. Once you realise that you are going to stop to do something else every xxx miles anyway (where xxx varies from person to person) paying extra for a car that can travel much further than that starts to seem a bit pointless.
Long range and the ability to refuel quickly matters in an ICE car as you can't refuel while doing something else, so have to make a special stop. Most of us have got used to that over many years and just assume that it's normal. But once you've driven an EV for a while, the idea that you have to make a special stop somewhere just to refuel your car starts to seem like the daft idea.
Imagine if EVs had been the norm for a hundred years and then somebody tried to sell us this new technology that required you to visit some special facility every few hundred miles to fill a tank with highly flammable toxic liquid. I think they might struggle to sell 😀
My Skoda Enyaq does about 190 miles in winter (dropped to 175 when we had a week where the temp didn't go above 1c)...spring and autumn seems to be 226 miles and summer is between 245 and 263 miles.
I don't tend to have air con on as I hate the fact it drops the range. I don't get range anxiety, but it annoys me when I have to charge more regularly - no home charger so I need to plan a wee bit.
The battery swap thing sounds good, but it needs lots of places to do this to be practical. I thought there was a Scandinavian company doing this a couple of years back as well...it makes sense to me, but a bigger headache to manage in terms of standards and availability.
The current process of plugging in works very well so the battery swap has a real battle to make it worthwhile.
That's a shocking range drop, to me. I lose about 10%.
I've not come across anyone who gets range like you do in an EV - though I think you're somewhere in Wales where we're up north in Glasgow and temperature makes a big difference.
We see 25 - 30% range hit in a eNiro, all speeds, summer to winter. I do 12K a year, the vast majority is local ( <30 mph) driving, A/C and heating isn't used much TBH.
Battery swaps comes up every now and again, "amazing new tech", "robots", "10 minute swaps", blah blah blah.
It keeps dying. I'm not surprised.
No one is going to keep a triple digit (or even double digit) number of batteries in stock to swap with you at several grand a pop. They still need to be charged as well, there's a massive fire risk with a huge stack of batteries of not 100% guaranteed status in the back of a swapping/charging station. Not to mention all the car side changes that need to be made.
I've not come across anyone who gets range like you do in an EV - though I think you're somewhere in Wales where we're up north in Glasgow and temperature makes a big difference.I lose about 10-12% in Scandinavia, only been down to -20 with an EV, and about the same in a PHEV (-22 IIRC). Ex wife has been driving/using test cars down to well below -40, at the point, even starting the damn thing is a struggle.
For my part i do try and make sure charging finishes just before i leave the house. And i switch the preconditioning on, so at least i can start with a warm cabin.
so that's with the climate control set to 21c and the heated seats on, doing the same speeds as summe
Same here except I stick to the speed limit, both summer and winter.
I do 12K a year, the vast majority is local ( <30 mph) driving, A/C and heating isn't used much TBH.
That's probably it. On a short trip in our car, the heating takes 2kW or so to get up to temperature, but once it's there it only uses maybe 4-500W even when it's sub-zero. When you're driving at lower speeds using 5kW for driving, 2kW is a lot so it ruins the range calculation. When you are driving on a motorway at 12kW then 500W isn't much. Most of our driving is longer trips at higher speeds, by mileage. We see 4.5-4.8 miles/kWh commuting or on motorway in winter, but on a slow trip in traffic it does drop to 3.5, or if we drive on lanes etc. But that doesn't happen often. If we lived in the countryside and drove lanes all the time to local places I'm sure we'd be down to 3.5 in winter.
My wife's commuting profile may change a lot in September (though we don't yet know what it will look like) so I'll let you know!
Anyway @julians those numbers seem compelling as I think my requirements would yield better mileage than that. If I can verify from the EV caravanners that 2.0 is achievable towing, then an EQC would shoot to the top of my list. Ideally I'd have a Polestar 3 but there's zero chance of affording one for a good long time. Downside would be 110kW charging - if you have to stop every 2hrs then a 40 minute charge is annoying, when an Ioniq 5 would be done in 20. But an EQC would be a much nicer car probably.
EDIT just found a blog where someone's getting 1.6 miles/kWh in their EQC - that's not enough, really, when 2 is common. They do have a massive caravan though.
Anyway@juliansthose numbers seem compelling as I think my requirements would yield better mileage than that.
I did do one drive where I tried to get better efficiency so sat at 60 to 65mph on the motorway,it managed 3.4miles per kwh, which works out to be 272 miles
I am currently on holiday at my mums in Scotland so have my EV ( Cupra Born) is set to mph, mpkwh etc rather than the usual km which has made it hard for me to compare to figures mentioned on here. I am happy to find today I got 4.5 miles per kWh on a 90 mile round trip to St Andrews with air on on and 5 in the car, yesterdays pootle to Aberfoyle/Callander was over 6 miles per kWh! Most of this driving is 50/60 mph on B roads. Going to Glasgow on Thursday so will be interested to see what the motorway delivers.
Those carrying bikes externally, any of you tried a roof rack. We are going to look at a id7 tourer hopefully this weekend, it comes with roof bars so we could carrying on using it existing roof rack and 4 carriers. I'm sure this is less efficient than a rear rack but was not sure by how much. I was hoping to avoid the large extra cost for a tow hook and associated 4 bike rack (though this would allow us onto the normal rather than oversized part of the Eurotunnel which might offset the cost).
Generally efficiency drops by quite a bit. In my diesel it dropped by about 25% roughly. So expect to lose 25% range. It's a bummer. Bikes on the back might also lower efficiency but they equally might not affect it or even slightly increase it depending on the shape of the back of the car.
Hmm, becomes a bit of a toss up then. For most trips with bikes on the roof at 25% losses there would be plenty of range. It would be the odd (once twice a year) longer trip fully loaded. I suspect those would be manageable, especially if we kept the speed down and considering the max leg length of 1.5-2 hours (dog and kids!).
Well yes - I have a 200 mile range, and it's absolutely fine. In practice that means 2hrs of driving (about 130 miles) on motorway trips, because I don't run it down to 0% and I don't charge to 100%, although if I do it really will do 200 miles. Set off 9am, stop 11am for coffee (charge), stop 1.30pm lunch (charge) stop 4pm coffee (charge) arrive 5.30pm - that's 8hrs of driving without really being inconvenienced, as I'd be stopping like that anyway. Sure, you might be a hard driving Mad Max type with your pedal to floor for hours on end but in that case - chill 🙂
Mert pretty much sums it up for the battery swap thing Nio are doing. Very good until look at the practicalities of actually setting up the swap stations.
They also become a bit redundant when you have enough high speed chargers as it doesn't take seconds, and doesn't save much compared to a 15 minute charge. Still a decent car though
In terms of range at different temperatures 25°C ambient seems about optimum IME. It's only over 35°C that range drops a little accompanied by the battery cooling system audibly doing more work.
Sure, you might be a hard driving Mad Max type with your pedal
No the organic speed limiter kicks in as soon as moderate acceleration is deployed! Fast speeds only used where legal (Germany) and would not try those with bikes anyway.
Car has nominal 370 mile range so should be ok. Quite glad as tow carrier plus dog looks like a pain!
Bikes on the back might also lower efficiency but they equally might not affect it or even slightly increase it depending on the shape of the back of the car.
Yes, that potential increase may well be true though I doubt it for bikes - but chatting to our Thule Rep, the towbar mounted cargo boxes like the Onto2 and Arcos have fractionally increased range on an Enyaq and Polestar in testing.
Ok getting closer to purchasing either Kia Niro or Hyundai Kona 22/23 64KW. My question is Octopus go tariffs? We have to get charger installed. Seems like most chargers work with Octopus go, only some more expensive ones work with Intelligent Go. Seems off peak tariff is only 1p cheaper on Intelligent.
So is it worth it? I see intelligent does something automatic for you, but Im guessing with regular Go tariff I can just set a charge schedule on charger / car to only charge from 12.30am - 5.30? Or am I missing something more?
ta
Re battery swapping there's the big isssue that a lot of the cars inherent value is in the battery and relative to how new and fresh it is. Can you imagine the lease companies or personally owned ones having a massively tired, knackered battery at the point of return cars and getting a low valuation?
So is it worth it? I see intelligent does something automatic for you, but Im guessing with regular Go tariff I can just set a charge schedule on charger / car to only charge from 12.30am - 5.30? Or am I missing something more?
I have experience of both Octopus Go and Octopus Intelligent Go, so here’s my summary.
For the Intelligent to work, you need either the car or the charger to be on the Octopus list of compatible devices. My last car was a BMW i4, charger is an Easee One. The car was compatible, the charger isn’t, so it all worked.
I now have a Kia EV3, still with the Easee charger, however now with a non compatible car, Intelligent is not an option so I have swopped to Octopus Go.
With my current setup, I have the car programmed to charge when cheap rate, which is 1230 - 530am. I have the car set to stop at 530, regardless of charge level, which has a target I have set in the car of 80%.
Those 5 hours of cheap rate charging will give me about 40%, so if it starts at say 30% it will stop at 530am with about 70% charge. If it starts with say 60% it will stop around 3am with 80%.
Intelligent Go is much smarter, you set the Octopus App to have the car reach your set target charge for a set time, so I would have it set to 80% for 0700. You could plug the car in at any time the day before, with any amount of battery charge and it would find and use cheap slots, in the afternoon, evening, night, to achieve the target. Assuming of course that at 7.5kW/hr the amount of charge required could be delivered in the number of hours between plugging in and the ready by target time you had set.
A further benefit of Intelligent Go is that when car is charging, the whole house goes to cheap rate, so if you see that the App has set up a schedule where it’s charging from say 7pm till 9pm, then a good opportunity to put on dryer, dishwasher etc.
Generally efficiency drops by quite a bit. In my diesel it dropped by about 25% roughly. So expect to lose 25% range. It's a bummer. Bikes on the back might also lower efficiency but they equally might not affect it or even slightly increase it depending on the shape of the back of the car.
I suppose all cars are different, but that sounds pretty high.
Both of the diesel cars I have stuck a couple of bikes on the roof of, have seen about a 10-12% fuel economy hit; no way 25%.
I guess with all the different factors, in reality it will be hard to gauge unless you try it out.
One advantage of assuming very worst case 25%; if its better than that you are winning 👍
but chatting to our Thule Rep, the towbar mounted cargo boxes like the Onto2 and Arcos have fractionally increased range on an Enyaq and Polestar in testing.
have they published this testing ?
suspicious cat is suspicious of people selling things making claims that go against expected outcome.
I have been scratching my head as the most efficient trip I have had was to Cannock with 2 e-bikes on a bike carrier.
I have been scratching my head as the most efficient trip I have had was to Cannock with 2 e-bikes on a bike carrier.
Did you drive slower than usual?
Definitely more carefully !
Speed was dictated by other motorway traffic.
Still, I had expected it to plummet.
'but chatting to our Thule Rep, the towbar mounted cargo boxes like the Onto2 and Arcos have fractionally increased range on an Enyaq and Polestar in testing'
I assume it's possible that it improves the aerodynamics in a not very obvious. Similarly if you are cycling with someone stuck to your wheel it improves the aerodynamics for the leader slightly. (Or so modelling suggests)
suspicious cat is suspicious of people selling things making claims that go against expected outcome.
Yeah this is plausible. There'll be a vortex behind your car that creates a low pressure area that you have to pull air into. Sometimes the presence of something in that vortex reduces it which reduces your drag, but has to be the right size and shape which is probably somewhat smaller than the back of your car. It might be that one of those towbar mounted boxes is nearly the right size to fill up the vortex on certain cars.
Along similar lines, sometimes a little spoiler on the back of a car breaks up the flow so the vortex doesn't form in the same way and counter-intuitively improves efficiency. Those little pop-up ones on Porsches and similar come up when they get to motorway speeds, and it's for efficiency not downforce.
So is it worth it? I see intelligent does something automatic for you, but Im guessing with regular Go tariff I can just set a charge schedule on charger / car to only charge from 12.30am - 5.30? Or am I missing something more?
I'm on Octopus Go but not Intelligent. I wrote an analysis on it a few weeks back, in short with 5 hours a night at 7kW and 3.8mi/KWh that's 12,775kWh or 48,500 miles a year. I do 13-14k which is pretty high and it's barely a third of my capacity.
The comparison was to a new 6hr/night E.On tariff that was a penny per kW cheaper, I don't need another 2500kWh and the £40-odd per year saving - I'd happily pay that to avoid dealing with E.On's service.
To those that say you get cheaper electricity when charging....true but in comparison to charging how much do you use? A washing machine for an hour is about 2.1kW - that costs 56p and could be 17p if I ran overnight / at charging times. Is there much hassle to having to rush to get the washing machine on when you realise the car's gone on charge, or can you get devices that recognise that and start the washer accordingly. Bear in mind after a friend's house burnt down, I don't run appliances overnight, and no amount of 'extremely rare' is talking me into being burnt alive to save a few pennies.
aside from the appliances shift (still dont use my tumble drier at night) charge the batteries - 10kw and i heat up the hot water in winter ..... another 14/15kw.
Could easily be 25kw a night .....
Is there much hassle to having to rush to get the washing machine on when you realise the car's gone on charge, or can you get devices that recognise that and start the washer accordingly. Bear in mind after a friend's house burnt down, I don't run appliances overnight,
The times it charges during the day are vanishingly rare - but then I am only charging about 4-5kWh a night usually, but even when I am filling up I rarely see anything during the day. So if you don't want appliances on during the night, don't bother.
PS I suspect you're more likely to be killed whilst driving the car than you are by your washing machine. Drier maybe.
So is it worth it? I see intelligent does something automatic for you, but Im guessing with regular Go tariff I can just set a charge schedule on charger / car to only charge from 12.30am - 5.30? Or am I missing something more?
A further benefit of Intelligent Go is that when car is charging, the whole house goes to cheap rate, so if you see that the App has set up a schedule where it’s charging from say 7pm till 9pm, then a good opportunity to put on dryer, dishwasher etc.
OK, so regular Octopus go doesnt allow you to use other appliances at night cheaply?
OK, so regular Octopus go doesnt allow you to use other appliances at night cheaply?
It does allow that . That's exactly what I have.
Yes, it does, but only between 1230 and 530 am. We aren’t fans of running washer drier etc while upstairs asleep though.
As I'm a bit sad...not emotionally, but as I'm posting this...just charged car to 100% on a 7kw charger and it is telling me I've got 251 miles range...
I don't seem to get a consistent full range guesstimate as it can range by quite a margin. Aware it largely is a guesstimate but it would be really good if it was a more accurate guess.
Yeh not known as a guessometer for nothing - but actually there is no way it can be accurate for what you're about to do because your last journey may have been uphill with the AC fighting against 32 deg c and your next journey predominantly downhill with the ac off.....
My Hyundai tends to sort itself out mid journey (where a decent length of say 25 miles plus) and I now trust it pretty much to get me home no worries down to 2-4% level if needed. Driving Mrs Ps Leaf the other day and that consistently used more range than miles travelled at motorway speeds without adjusting itself which was a bit disconcerting (older tech). Makes topping up with the minimum expensive KWh from public rapid chargers, with just enough range shown to get home, more of a lottery.
When you get to know the car you know how far it will go in a given set of conditions; road type, temperature, terrain etc. and give up taking any notice of the range estimate which is calcualted on the type of driving you've just done not on what you are going to do. Then you learn where the charge points are that make best use of the range you have and are perhaps convenient in other ways. If I head north east I charge at Tesla near Leclerc in Albi, next stop on the A75 etc.
Seems like most chargers work with Octopus go, only some more expensive ones work with Intelligent Go
I have an Indra Smart Pro which is compatible with IOG which was considerably cheaper than the equivilent Ohme / Zappi etc. They seem to be discontinued but still available from a few places https://www.ecowizard.co.uk/ev-chargers/indra-smart-pro-tethered-7-4kw/
I had holiday in deepest SW Cornwall last week, including the drive to and from Penzance (260 miles e/w) so close to nominal range in a 64kWh Kona, but way over considering 4 up and kit at motorway speeds for a fair chunk.
Although I moaned at the availability of fast chargers in the area, I didn't have an issue, never had to wait for a charger to be available*, did a couple of specific trips to use a charger (Tesla at Camborne once, and a 40kW one 3 miles outside PZ once) the rest of the time was on AC chargers in car parks where we were anyway. I never once felt limited.
* in fact the opposite...being Cornwall in summer car parks were busy and a couple of times ICE cars were hovering for parking spaces but I could just get onto a charging space straightaway.
On range - estimates were a bit sketchy on the drive there and back. To start it was saying I had just enough to make it but clearly I could see my trip average and estimate from % battery what I thought that would do and it was a fair bit less than the car was saying. Then as it used more battery the car's estimate and mine started to coalesce. As long as you can do basic maths (and the current average is accurate) I know each 10% gives me 6kWh and so on.
It's also not about what the range is when you're calculating your 'comfort' level.....rather what your 'spare' is compared to the journey. When I had 100 miles to the intended stop and the car said I had 130 miles of range (but yeah, chinny) you're a bit nervous. When you get to 50 miles to go and 70 miles of range it's a different thing. And then getting to 25 to go and 40 of range and you start to relax.
It's funny how the number on the geussometer seems to generate so much interest when, in practice, I find it to be almost irrelevant. Forums, facebook pages etc are full of people posting and pontificating over whatever number is showing in their car today. My own car (EV3) insists on showing the number prominently on the dashboard at all times. Although it then shows you a min and max that basically says "this number is effectively meaningless". And most of the time it is.
I can charge overnight at home (most things with an EV change if you can't) and I know that an average day of commuting and other trips uses around 20% of my battery. So, double it and add a margin get's me to 50%. If the battery is above 50% at the end of the day I know I will have more than enough for the next day (unless I know I am doing something unusual). If not I'll stick it on charge overnight. So, for 90% of the time the range number is irrelevant. I know the car has enough capacity to cover the journeys I will do today and it makes no difference to me what the capacity is when I plug it in as I'll be asleep while it is charging.
You might think the guessometer would be more useful on a long trip, but I've not found that to be the case either. For a start, it is less accurate as the mix of roads on a long trip tends to be different to the mix at home (on which it is basing its estimate). But again it's not really what matters. All I care about is whether I can reach my next stop or not. I have a little window on the navigation page that tells me what it expects the percentage to be at the next stop. If that number is above 10% I can just forget about range. If it drops below 10% I might have to start thinking about whether I want to stop earlier or whether I want to slow down a bit to ensure I get to my stop with plenty left. The range estimate doesn't tell me anything useful. All I care about is whether or not I can reach my next stop and an estimated percentage at the next stop is far more useful than an estimated range.
It's funny how the number on the geussometer seems to generate so much interest when, in practice, I find it to be almost irrelevant
It matters when you have a journey to do that is close to your max range and if there aren't many chargers on your route. You have to gamble on wether or not to stop, but you'd rather not as rapid charging is so expensive. We went to my parents' the other weekend and had forgotten to top the car up so we started with 75%. We topped up before coming home, which cost £6 but it nearly quadrupled the price of the trip. In that case the estimate is important.
I've got my car connected to Home Assistant so have that configured to give me an effective 100% range by dividing the car's guess by the charge %age. As you can see it bounces around a bit (line is mean, shading is max and min) and depends as much on whether I'm mainly doing local miles or motorway as the temperature. Ignore the peak in Feb - that was an error.
First longish trip to London 322 miles with the Grandland EV.
Charge up at home.(73kWh battery) @6.7p pkW
Return 4.7kWh
Charge at hotel for 20 mins get 15kwh £12
Get home with 60 miles to spare. (Basically what I put in as safety net.)
Looks like it did 330-340 miles on the tank but likely range is slightly conservative or m/kWh is optimistic.
Either way that is not what I expected for motorway M1 driving. Better than expected. Probably 70% on dynamic cruise too.
Car freshly cleaned as I reckon that's worth the effort.
It matters when you have a journey to do that is close to your max range and if there aren't many chargers on your route. You have to gamble on wether or not to stop, but you'd rather not as rapid charging is so expensive.
Ok, maybe I’m being pedantic (nothing new there) but I’d still argue that what you want there is not a range figure but an estimate of the remaining charge at your destination. Luckily for me my car will give me both. You could argue that it amounts to the same thing but quoting an estimated range rather than estimated percentage at the destination plays into this myth that range is all that matters with an EV when in practice the number itself is irrelevant and all that really matters is whether you have enough or not
I’d still argue that what you want there is not a range figure but an estimate of the remaining charge at your destination.
Well, when you know you have 60 miles to go and the dash says 65 miles, you need to know it's accurate. That's more useful than estimating 2% charge left at your destination, IMO. Maybe headroom is more useful i.e. the difference between projected range and remaining distance.
If there's 60 miles to go I take no notice of the predicted range, I drive in a way that with the % battery remaining I know I'll get there. On one occasion a few years back we rushed junior to the airport to catch a plane in unfavourable conditions (cold, raining, head wind). Predicted range on dropping him off said there wasn't enough to get even half way to the next charge point. However, I knew that at 50kmh the car would do it and it did, fortunately it was very early morning with no traffic so not too anti-social.
Yes, maybe a “will I make it” gauge on the dash that goes from “no worries” to “no chance” 😀 Of course, in practice whether it shows predicted range (plus miles to go) or predicted percentage at destination doesn’t really matter and we ca work with either. But I don’t think this obsession with range as a number is helping.
For example, it leads to a situation where consumers think that a car with a 500 mile range is de-facto better than one with a 400 mile range when for most people it is just a car that is more expensive than it needs to be.
Phone manufacturers don’t seem to bother trying to calculate exactly how long the battery will last. I’m sure it’s buried in the specs somewhere but it’s not a number that is considered to be important. If they talk about capacity it’s usually just in a “plenty to last a day” sort of way. I think EV manufacturers would be better off adopting a similar stance. Yes WLTP range needs to be in the specs and for some people it might be important, but for most of us, once it’s “enough” the actual number doesn’t really matter.
Phone manufacturers don’t seem to bother trying to calculate exactly how long the battery will last. I’m sure it’s buried in the specs somewhere but it’s not a number that is considered to be important.
they do . its not buried - the below quote is the 4th of about 18 sections on the first phone that came to mind on its main spec page -they seem to deem it more important than the camera specs.
I bought my current phone due to its 10000mAh battery.... they marketed that as the most important feature on the phone.
Battery and charging
Exactly, it’s the 4th not the first (and sometimes only) thing people talk about as it is with an EV. Also they don’t try to quote a lifetime, which was my point. Instead they say it should last at least a day and might last three days under certain circumstances.
Obviously battery capacity matters. It’s the relentless obsession with a meaningless number (predicted range in miles) that I can’t understand. Just say it has an xx Kwh battery which should be good for around yy days of normal usage, like that phone advert.
Saying this car has a range of 250 miles immediately makes people think “I might want to travel further than that sometimes”. Saying it has a big enough battery to last a week of normal driving paints a very different picture, even if it means the same thing in practice
I just can’t understand why EV manufacturers have allowed themselves to get sucked into a relentless focus on a largely meaningless number. For most of my driving life my car has just had a gauge that tells me roughly how full the tank is. It’s only recently that I’ve had petrol cars that try to convert that to a range and even then it’s usually buried in a menu. So it’s not as though EV manufacturers had to do this because it was what we were used to.
and that'll be down to how quick and convenient it is to return that gauge to full.. perhaps the inherent inconvenience of an away from home charge is why they think like that.
Over the last few years I've been in several situations where an EV has either run out of juice and needed to be recovered (it was the Scottish highlands to be fair!) or the driver has had to substantially alter their route/plans to not run out. Simple things like driving from Brighton to the 02 for a gig and having to scrape around dodgy parts of London at midnight afterwards to find power because the O2 chargers were offline etc etc. This is all because the cars in question had 'a range' that was not enough or the driver hadn't charged enough before leaving. Its not just a number at all - its a very real thing. With an EV you really do need to plan ahead - some people like doing that, some people don't. I fall in to the latter camp and so would only consider an EV that had much more range than I needed to cover every eventuality. My experience of the charging infrastructure and EVs in general is that when they work and everything is going smoothly then its the best kind of motoring but it doesn't take much to make what should have been a simple journey into a time consuming nightmare. I can't remember when I last had a problem with an ICE car but I certainly haven't broken down or run out of petrol, or had to alter my journey for a problem with the car for at least 20 years, probably longer.
This is all because the cars in question had 'a range' that was not enough or the driver hadn't charged enough before leaving.
Isn't that the same as just not filling your car up with petrol enough?
My take: the infrastructure is too expensive and messy to leave to the private sector.
This would have been a golden ticket for huge state intervention and a consistent approach.
Multiplier effect would have been huge.
(Obviously cars have to be cheaper still etc.)
Isn't that the same as just not filling your car up with petrol enough
How do you put more range in a battery that only takes X.
Where X is the capacity of your battery
I think you missed this, Trailrat:
This is all because the cars in question had 'a range' that was not enough or the driver hadn't charged enough before leaving.
Which part have I missed? Before the or statement or after?