The Electric Car Thread

Question for the e car people

How often do you plug your car in to charge?

Every day regardless, or do you wait until you drain it to a certain point then plug it in?

We plug ours in when it gets to about 30% charge, and plug in on a Friday night regardless of state of charge just because we don't know what we might need over the weekend.

How often do you plug your car in to charge?

In a normal week, twice.
Tuesday morning for 3-4- hours and Friday afternoon for 3-4  hours. Charge at work almost exclusively and those times suit my schedule. Add about 40% charge each time.

I charge mine daily to 80%. I use about 25% a day and top it up by 20%each night as my cheap tariff is for 2hrs. On my days off when I don't use the car I still charge it to make up the shortfall and make the most of the cheap rates.

Strange tariff with only 2 hours cheap per night?

Every day regardless, or do you wait until you drain it to a certain point then plug it in?

I plug it whenever it's home (unless I know I'm going in and out a lot), which is what Octopus recommend. They want to be able to stick a bit of spare energy in your car whenever it's available - that's why they offer it cheaply.  With an Ohme charger, we set a schedule in the charter that says we leave at 7.30am or whatever each weekday.  Ohme will also turn on the heating/AC/defrost etc at that time.

@andylc I am in Ireland. I get 35c standard rate, 17c 11pm to 8am with 2am to 4am just 10c so I set it to charge 2am to 4am every night and only charge outside that if needed for a long trip etc.

‘How often do you plug your car in to charge?’

When it gets to around 50% at home, and on IO it starts sometime in the evening with a ‘100% ready by 0700’ command in the Octopus App.

It 6 months into a 4 yr leave so I’m not expecting any issues charging to 100% in the time I have the car. It is used daily, generally short miles. Today it’s done around 70 miles and good to see it back up at 4m/kWh now the weather is warmer. (BMW i4 40)

Full EV car get plugged in when it gets to about 30% or so. 4 hours cheap overnight at 7 kW gets it back up to c70/75%.  This is weekly or so.  If long journey then we just charge to 100%

New PHEV van - every other night - empty to full at 3.5kW charging takes 3.5 hours give or take. Get about 30 to 35 miles from a full charge if I'm careful.  Pretty much enough for two days -  mostly running on full electric so far, but it does need to run the petrol engine periodically so I'm not too zealous

Question for Tesla drivers - do they have blended regen and friction brakes, or is the pedal always friction?

Always friction.

That really sounds like a terrible design choice.

Works perfectly. The regen braking is strong and means you hardly ever need to actually use the brake pedals at all. If you want to stop quicker then just use the pedal for additional braking. No need for blending, most of the time it’s one pedal driving.

That really sounds like a terrible design choice

Seems like a good choice to me*

-simpler braking system, less to go wrong

-cheaper to build the cars.

-more consistent pedal feel. I hate the pedal feel of blended braking & when it transitions from regen to friction in the cars I have driven.

-no less efficient than blended braking, as long as the user understands they should not need to use the brake pedal much.

*I'm not a tesla owner.

*as long as you can reduce the regen on throttle pedal lift off in some menu somewhere for when you want to 'press on' for better control/balance of the car.

as long as the user understands

Fine for techie types.  Most drivers don't care about any of that stuff and just want the car to work like they expect.

I hate the pedal feel of blended braking & when it transitions from regen to friction in the cars I have driven.

Out of three cars I've driven with regenerative braking you couldn't tell the difference so it's clearly possible.  Maybe Tesla need to go and ask Hyundai or Nissan to license some of their IP.

The issue i've had with tesla's one pedal driving is when it can't regen, it gives you a bit of a surprise by not slowing down when you lift off the gas!

To my mind the car should always act the same regardless of whether the battery is cold/too full etc.

It still regens when in this mode, just doesn’t slow down quite as much, the difference is noticeable but not major. Still slows the car down more than our Renault Zoe or my Dad’s Kia even when they’re in high regen mode.
Plus fairly predictable as only really happens if you go down a pretty long downhill stretch when you’re already close to your maximum chosen charge level.

To my mind the car should always act the same regardless of whether the battery is cold/too full etc.

Hyundai nailed that too apparently.

BMW have this sorted. My i4 is impossible to tell the difference between regen and friction brakes - if you didn’t know regen was a thing you would just think it’s normal brakes. plus you can change it between almost no regen through to full one pedal driving or my favourite, adaptive regen. Adaptive is good enough that it acts as a kind of mild adaptive cruise control too.

Once you’ve got your preference set up, you can swap between it and one pedal driving with one flick of the drive selector switch / I use adaptive 90% of the time but switch to one pedal for city centre stop start driving on when in stop start traffic jams on the motorway.

The blended braking on my A250E was crap. I was never sure what amount of braking I would get on pressing the pedal. Occasionally i could feel the abs kicking in, even though I wasn’t applying much force.

The one pedal braking in the Tesla is much more consistent from what I’ve experienced so far, although I’ve only charged it to 100% once.

Whatgoesup +1, it really is very intuitive and works perfectly

"How often do you plug your car in to charge?"

My routine is to aim to plug in when the Agile Octopus price is right. Often that's during the night, but not always, most of Saturday day it was 0.00p/kwh and a short period during the day on Sunday it was -3.78p/kwh and -1.03p/kwh. If prices are high then I either won't plug in (if the car is full) or just charge enough to get to work (if empty). I pay £10 a year to get 1 week weather data and 48hr price predictions in convenient format. Also, usually weekends are a cheaper period, but mostly if it's windy, it's cheap.
If I'm going somewhere afar beyond routine/commuting/local then I'll just charge as best/cheap I can. At the end of the day charging at home is always significantly cheaper than public charging (outside 4-7pm in the case of Agile Octopus)

-simpler braking system, less to go wrong

Not really, tesla already have brake blending on regen in some models/softwares, so adding it to the brake pedal signal is relatively straightforward. If you've spent any time working out your architecture properly in the first place.

-more consistent pedal feel. I hate the pedal feel of blended braking & when it transitions from regen to friction in the cars I have driven.

Which cars have you driven where you can feel it? I worked in development of brake blending and have spent a lot of time driving cars with it installed, and very few are even noticeable, even if you are looking for it, and can see data logged info on a screen in front of you...

Curious about Agile Octopus - presumably this requires active monitoring and the ability to decide to charge at relatively random times??
Do you manage to get an overall advantage vs Intelligent Octopus? Over the last year for example my average unit price was about 14.5p.

Which cars have you driven where you can feel it? 

Mercedes and Toyota, there's a kind of click/step/notch in the brake pedal travel when braking hard where it switches from a mix of regen and friction to 100% friction. And the notch is at different points in the brake pedal travel depending on something that I can't determine, maybe it's the friction of the surface at the time, or maybe it's speed dependent or something.

Plus they've always felt wooden to me, but that not unique to regen brakes, plenty of normal brakes suffer that.

I know people who do the Agile Octopus thing but they're ubergeeks and have all sorts of home automation stuff. I could do that but I can't be bothered.

Re brake blending, in the Prius you could feel it roll off the regen and onto friction when slowing gently at low speeds just before you came to a stop, but it was barely perceptible. I noticed in the Leaf that the physical pedal was actually on a spring so when the car was off you could just boing the pedal. But it wasn't any different to a normal car in use. You couldn't stab the pedal that hard when driving without doing anything emergency stop. I read the other day that Hyundai have a secondary master cylinder that pressurises the one you feel under the pedal so you feel feedback. Seems to work but allegedly if you need it replacing it's expensive.

The issue i’ve had with tesla’s one pedal driving is when it can’t regen, it gives you a bit of a surprise by not slowing down when you lift off the gas!

In the Model 3 at least there was an update a while back to blend in the friction brakes in high SoC to make the braking/regen consistent no matter what the state of charge. Must admit, I struggled to tell if it was working or not.

Re charging - i plug the car(s...have a LEAF too) in whenever it's at home. Not because we 'need' to keep teh car charged, but as we're on intelligent octopus Go, it 'forces' the whole house onto the cheaper tarriff (of 7.5p/kWh).

So not only is is super cheap electricity to charge the car, but to use the electric appliances too..

For example - IO has cheap hours something like 2330-0430, BUT if i plug the car in at 1657 today, it'll PROBABLY do a bit of thinking,adn offer cheap rate from, say,  1800-1845, 1900-2000, and 2030-0500...

Which is nice.

DrP

Mercedes and Toyota, there’s a kind of click/step/notch in the brake pedal travel when braking hard

Ah, so not normal braking then. That'll probably be the delay between regen running out of steam, the friction brake request being generated, and then the rapid ramp up. Essentially pulling the pads in from "plenty clear" to "hitting the disc with a bit of force" in one step *while you are already decelerating hard*.

There are systems in place to mitigate against that, based on rate of pedal movement, move the pedal over a certain rate and it'll start pulling the friction brake request in earlier, so you shouldn't get the step change in brake force. Not sure who has that incorporated yet, as i'm not working in that team now.

There are also a few different versions of emergency brake boost, where the brake system will ramp up over and above the expected level if you hit the pedal "emergency stop" quickly. That can give you a click/step feeling.

There should be virtually no difference in feel as you switch to friction brakes, unless they are corroded or damaged.

Curious about Agile Octopus – presumably this requires active monitoring and the ability to decide to charge at relatively random times?

I only charge fully three to four times a month but Intelligent Octopus works much better for me than Agile. Whenever the car gets a charging slot the house battery refills at the same time, so over the last six months my overall average unit price is 7.6p/kWh.

@andylc Yes requires active monitoring, I'm not sure it'd work for someone with a busy work/family life. Also might only work if you can shift house use outside 4-7pm and requires everyone in the house to buy in. It would definitely work if you have a battery/solar etc. I've only recently switched from the original Octopus TrackerV1 which was cheap enough to stick on, but now all the old version smart tariffs have been withdrawn by Octopus and everyone migrated onto the latest version, the new Tracker tariff (Dec23V1) is not as cheap. If Agile doesn't work or I don't save much for the extra work involved, then I'll switch to Go/Intelligent. I can't give you any total figures as I've not been on it very long, but purely car charging in March has been 274kwh @ 6.77p/kwh and more than likely the washer/dryer/oven have been used at those times as well. On Sunday morning when the price was -3.68p/kwh the car was charging, all the frozen pizzas in the fridge were put in the oven and the washer was on 😀 .
As Molgrips says, the geeks and sad people's tariff

where it switches from a mix of regen and friction to 100% friction

I don't think it would ever be 100% friction, would it? I'm not sure it would ditch regen altogether unless its a full on ABS firing emergency stop perhaps.

*Adds crap braking to the list of internet based Tesla faults*

I heard brakes were an optional extra that Elon wants away with...

DrP

FWIW I've found the Tesla one pedal driving to be perfectly calibrated and much better than the Kia/Hyundai system which wouldn't bring the car to a stop without application of the left hand steering column paddle. The Nissan Leaf one pedal mode is pretty good as well.

Yep agree. My Dad went from Leaf to Kia and although the Kia is overall a better car, he much preferred the Leaf for one pedal driving. Equally I far prefer the Tesla over Renault Zoe in this respect, and having test driven Kia and MG electric cars, prefer the Tesla feel on pedals / brake. 1 pedal driving isn’t possible with any of the other cars.

I don’t think it would ever be 100% friction, would it?

It seems to in the merc, it has a gauge showing how much power is being generated by regen, normally it shows a varying amount between 0 and 80%. If you brake hard it goes to 100%, then if you push the pedal harder you get the click/step in the pedal and the regen gauge goes to 0%, but the car carries on slowing down, no abs or anything at this point, just fairly heavy braking

My old tesla M3 had the option to turn off one pedal driving, my newer one doesn't (or I haven't found it yet). I'm a bit disappointed about that as a friend suffers from car sickness and aggressive regen seems to make things worse.
I had one pedal driving on all the time in the old M3 and loved it, the ID3 I then had for 2 years for some reason I preferred with regen off (D mode?). I can't articulate why I didn't care for it on the ID3, maybe just because it wasn't one pedal driving so it seemed a bit pointless having regen on when many a time you were having to press the brake pedal anyway (I assume it will mostly regen whenever you press the brake pedal anyhow). In both cases, on fast roads I'm always using adaptive cruise, so it's just slower speeds/urban driving where it matters and one pedal driving is the best IMO.

I far prefer the Tesla over Renault Zoe in this respect

I have a 2016 Zoe that does not seem to have a one pedal mode.  Is that something just on new Zoes?

I don’t think I would ever want to use one pedal mode on a car when there is the potential for me to drive a regular 2 pedal car.

Maybe I misunderstood but ...

I think from April next year EV will have to pay road tax of £180, so to (slightly) minimize the period you pay tax, you can renew now, to take your renewal date to March next year.

Do I have that right?

If you brake hard it goes to 100%, then if you push the pedal harder you get the click/step in the pedal and the regen gauge goes to 0%

Huh, interesting. Neither of mine did this.  Well - the Hyundai doesn't show current braking power, just how much you've recovered in that particular braking event, so maybe.

FWIW I’ve found the Tesla one pedal driving to be perfectly calibrated and much better than the Kia/Hyundai system which wouldn’t bring the car to a stop without application of the left hand steering column paddle.

I'm not talking about one-pedal driving.  My car doesn't offer it, although Ioniq 5s and 6s do. I'm talking about traditional style braking with the brake pedal. I think that one-pedal or alternative styles of driving should be optional for those who want them - not mandatory; and if you use the pedal it should regenerate wherever possible.  Because people will continue to do what they've always done, and if the brake pedal results in friction brakes only then loads of energy will simply be wasted.  Forcing change on people who really don't want change forced on them and probably can't deal with it is a bad idea.

I had one pedal driving in the Leaf and I didn't use it except in queueing traffic.  And that was only needed because the adaptive cruise disengaged itself if you'd stop for more than about 3 seconds. In the Hyundai, adaptive cruise stays engaged in queues, you just have to dab the accelerator or press 'resume' to get moving again, then it continues. So one pedal is not needed in that respect.

Because people will continue to do what they’ve always done, and if the brake pedal results in friction brakes only then loads of energy will simply be wasted.  Forcing change on people who really don’t want change forced on them and probably can’t deal with it is a bad idea.

Which is why proper brake blending exists.

Any brake request is applied to any available system that can provide braking.

*Adds major Swedish manufacturer to potential purchase list*

Kia/Hyundai system which wouldn’t bring the car to a stop without application of the left hand steering column paddle

That has not been my experience. I-pedal on the GV60 reliably and predictably brings the car to a complete stop.

I rarely use it though. The auto regen setting adapts on the fly to suit the driving conditions and it is witchcraft.
I’m unable to discern any switchover from regen to friction brakes either.  I do need to turn the regen off every couple of weeks to polish the friction brakes up a bit as they seem to be rarely used.

That has not been my experience. I-pedal on the GV60 reliably and predictably brings the car to a complete stop.

It is available on the E-GMP cars like yours, but not on early ones like my Ioniq Electric, original Kona, e-Niro etc.

I do need to turn the regen off every couple of weeks to polish the friction brakes up a bit as they seem to be rarely used

Not sure that's needed. I have read that some cars dab them periodically anyway for this reason, but no car can bring you to a stop with regen only so friction brakes will always be used to slow down to a stop.  This is because I think the maximum current available to a generator is proportional to axle speed.

*Adds major Swedish manufacturer to potential purchase list*

Another one on the horizon??!

In the Polestar (AKA Volvo) the one pedal driving is fab. In fact, it was fab in the leaf too. I barely use the actual foot brake pedal.

The ACC is great too. A bit like the Leaf it'll 'not engage follow' if you've stopped for more than a few seconds, but will 'ping' at you to remind you to drive away when the car in front pulls off. A TINY depress of the accelerator gets the ACC following again. The difference is that in the Leaf I think it turned off the ACC, wheras it remains on in the P2 and you just need to tap the accelerator.

DrP

The difference is that in the Leaf I think it turned off the ACC

Yeah this renders it pretty useless for queues as you have to be over a certain speed to re-engage it.

Not sure that’s needed.

Genesis recommend that it’s done periodically. My drive is on a slight incline and if I don’t do the brake cleaning then after a couple of weeks they start to bind ever so slightly when it’s parked overnight.

I do need to turn the regen off every couple of weeks to polish the friction brakes up a bit as they seem to be rarely used.

Yes, the brake cleaning functions are "problematic". How often you do it, how long you do it for, what should be the threshold for engaging it. And it's getting worse as cars can do more braking on regen and people get better at driving EVs as well. On a well sorted car, used well in bad weather you can get enough corrosion on the discs to touch the pads...

It is available on the E-GMP cars like yours, but not on early ones like my Ioniq Electric, original Kona, e-Niro etc.

Again related to brake blending *or* the motor type. Some motors have very poor control at low rpm on regen. some you can control to zero (or at least to the point that all the friction brakes need to do is grab the (almost) stationary disc). If you can't control to nearly zero rpm, you need good brake blending, which is also hard to do at low speeds... So some cars you simply can't stop on regen/one pedal drive.

In the Polestar (AKA Volvo) the one pedal driving is fab. 

Cheers 🙂

These at home charging tariff things. Do they need a functioning smart meter? Because our's has never been smart due to poor signal.

I believe they do - I think they are meant to broadcast every 30 minutes.

These at home charging tariff things. Do they need a functioning smart meter?

The smart ones do yes.  Probably also needed for the dumb off-peak tariffs as well, because otherwise when they read your meter after 6 months they wouldn't know how much was used when. Pre-smart meters, if you were on Economy 7 you had two meters.

If you can’t control to nearly zero rpm, you need good brake blending, which is also hard to do at low speeds… So some cars you simply can’t stop on regen/one pedal drive.

Funny thing about my car is that you can bring it to a stop without the brake pedal by holding the left paddle shifter, so it clearly is capable of one-pedal driving.  It just isn't coded to do it.