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And, fundamentally, I don’t want to buy another Tesla because of Elon Musk.
Just in case anyone is in any doubt about full self drive not working as Musk claimed.
ELECTREK.CO No car company has taken up Tesla’s offer to license FSD.In an earnings call, Elon Musk said it might be because they “still don’t believe it’s real.” He claimed that Tesla is still in talks with other automakers to license the advanced driver-assist feature, that despite the misleading name still requires driver’s to pay attention to the road while using.
"Still in talks"
It's probably at the level of cold calling sales now.
Alex — hybrid possibly, and then re-evaluate in another couple of years time.
Towbar and the like are a big hassle as far as I can see — not impossible, but likes of VW ID3 can’t even support roof bars and > 4 travellers, as it’s not rated for that (as far as I understand)
@kcal - I did look at hybrid last time around but even then, 4 years ago, it felt like transitional technology. Having said that quite a lot of my driving used to be 10 miles or less (because of where we live and nothing being close) but we tend to use the EV for those trips nearly all the time now.
I expect I'll do nothing about it and either buy the Koraq or use the equity in it (quite a lot, great deal when I bought it, quite strong residuals) and buy a 2 year old Octavia estate. I'm a man of a certain age 😉
Anyone want to buy a Leaf?
Have you gone for the Ioniq 5? One thing I meant to ask, which battery has it got? And some of the flashier ‘nice to haves’ that are standard now were extras when it first came out.
Nah. I just realised that I preferred the Ioniq we used to have, so I'm seeing if I can swap it 🙂
It's an Acenta, which means it has adaptive cruise and auto braking, auto wipers and rear view, blind spot warning, heat pump, satnav, the telematics module so it can do live map updates and live traffic routing etc (if you subscribe). It's the 40kWh model.
I meant which Ioniq 5 battery… go for it, you won’t regret it. (Maybe the finance manager will…)
Hi Flaperon, I'd be able to use the referral code for Octopus, please DM if it's available ta!
Hi Flaperon, I’d be able to use the referral code for Octopus, please DM if it’s available ta!
Sent, thanks!
Update.... The OTA performance upgrade is installing as we speak! Will be interesting to feel the difference on the return leg to the UK on Friday! But exciting times!
DrP
A quick question on public charging if I may - I dont do it very often, but had cause to over the weekend coming back from birmingham to manchester.
The car worked out that it would need a charge to get home, so it directed me to a bank of 350kw ionity chargers just off the m6 near stafford. I got there and two were out of order (but thats not the point of this question), I plugged in for a quick 10 minute top up , but the rate of charge was only 80kw, nowhere near the 110kw max that the car should be able to take. Is this pretty typical? The battery was going from 25% to 40% charge, and the car had pre warmed the battery ready for the charge, so I presume it was the charger limiting the current , not the car- but maybe it could have been the car? All the other chargers were in use at the time.
It wasnt a big deal that it only charged at 80kw rather than the 110kw, just wondering if I should set my expectation for 80kw charging usually?
In my experience over approaching 3 years of running an EV, but with limited public charging experience, this is fairly typical. My car handles a max of 75kW and I've only once seen that at a charger that was rated to deliver 150kW.
As I understand it, the chargers monitor the local DNO and vary the charge rate in line with what the local grid can deliver. I've always taken the maximum charge rate with an enormous pinch of salt.
so I presume it was the charger limiting the current , not the car- but maybe it could have been the car?
It could have been either.
The max charging rate of the car is just that. A maximum rate which is at the top of a variable charging curve. The battery will accept different rates of charge at different temps, battery %’s etc.
The Fastned website will show the charging curve for your particular car.
A Mustang mach-e for example will only hit its max charging speed below 20% and then drop to 80kw as shown above
The chargers themselves can also throttle speed based on demand
In this instance my money is on it being the car rather than the charger though. Ionity are usually reliably quick in my experience.
I plugged in for a quick 10 minute top up , but the rate of charge was only 80kw, nowhere near the 110kw max that the car should be able to take.
Fairly typical yes. Whilst your car does attempt to warm the battery it may not be able to get it to the perfect temperature as you're driving because of course that takes power from your driving. Then the charger itself may be able to supply 110kW but some of that power goes to heating or cooling the battery - although a 30kW shortfall seems like a lot. But whatever the reason it seems that cars always fall short of their theoretical max by a fair chunk. I've seen nearly 49kW on my 50kW rated car, but only for about 5 mins then it started to drop.
Ionity are usually reliably quick in my experience.
It must depend on the site though. Does somewhere with twelve 150kW chargrers and a bank of 8 200kW Tesla chargers really have a 3.4MW supply?
Does somewhere with twelve 150kW chargrers and a bank of 8 200kW Tesla chargers really have a 3.4MW supply?
Of course not. The chances of every charger being occupied by a car at the same time which is able to draw power fast enough to meet that peak demand is negligible. They do load sharing between chargers to balance supply and demand.
One small consideration that I have found with our Kia is that if, as an example, your car comes off the road because of water/ice and headbutts a load of logs/wood at the bottom of a pretty severe ditch (just as an example you understand...), there is a lot of anxiety while you wait to find out if the people assessing it will write it off due to damage to the batter compartment.
Have spoken to a lot of mechanics and there is a general lack of experience and knowledge around this amazing new tech, so when they see even cosmetic damage, they get a bit scared and don't want to take the risk that the car will explode in their workshop.
Luckily our Niro only needs plastic replacing (snow is soft) and some sensors replaced (logs are not) and we only have to worry about a three month lead time for repairs.
In this instance my money is on it being the car rather than the charger though. Ionity are usually reliably quick in my experience.
The car is a merc eqc, and according to the graphs I can find online, it should support >100kw charging from slightly above 0 up to about 50%, from which point it starts to decrease
.. under optimum conditions...
under optimum conditions…
yes, but conditions seemed pretty optimum to me at the time. Not cold outside (15c) , car had warmed the battery, and had driven about 60 miles before stopping to charge, battery was being charged from 25% to 42%, was plugged into a 350kw charger.
Not a big deal , just working out whether this is likely to be typical , I dont public charge often enough to make a judgement using my own experiences...
4.5 years of 100% charging on the public DC charger network (altho mostly on the same public chargers near work) and yes your experience is pretty much what I've experienced. Only once in that time has a car maxed out at 172kw that was a model3 SR on ionity at gretna green services. I don't think I ever had a Tesla supercharger anywhere near it's supposed max rate. Reasons are as already stated by people above. Battery temp and where your soc is already I've assumed to be the main reasons in car, and throttling by the DNO at the other end I've assumed.
I understand there are DC chargers now that have battery storage buffer and can allot your car what its capable of taking. Can't remember the name.
I was parked next to an EQC at Ionity Glasgow a few weeks back and was surprised how slowly it was charging. I was there 20 minutes and put 50kWh in. I saw on the display that they had been there 35 minutes and put in 20kWh. It looked like our starting SoC had been similar, around 20%.
I don’t think I ever had a Tesla supercharger anywhere near it’s supposed max rate.
My old Tesla did a few times… this was at Fort William once
But whatever the reason it seems that cars always fall short of their theoretical max by a fair chunk.
That’s not really been my experience. Pretty much every time I’ve used a 350kw charger the car has taken the electrons at close to top speed, assuming battery preheating.
Having said that it’s rarely been in Winter so the ambient temperature has usually been in my favour.
Have spoken to a lot of mechanics and there is a general lack of experience and knowledge around this amazing new tech, so when they see even cosmetic damage, they get a bit scared and don’t want to take the risk that the car will explode in their workshop.
Mate runs a bodyshop with 3 staff (insurance approved etc) and he doesn't touch ev repairs, not worth the hassle.
I've seen >200kw only a few times, Ionity in France and once at Gridserve in UK. All in the summer with air temps >20 deg c (no pre-heating on my car).
Even in what you would think are ideal conditions I've never seen more than 160kw on the Ionity network in the UK so I wonder if they throttle it.
Anything over 150kw is a game changer as barely enough time for a loo stop, but it is frustrating how much both the car's and the charger's BMS vary the speeds you actually get on any one given day.
I've used the fort William ones a couple of times on the same day as making the long journey north and remember not getting more than 80kw, possibly it's a time of day thing with some banks of chargers or pot louck.
To add to what I said above, I have had the local 75kw osprey chargers max out once or twice in two years of maybe 2x a week charging. Anyhow, I've now bought my own EV so will be charging at home from now on.
thanks all, interesting stuff, seems like pot luck as to what you might get then. I did have a look on zap map at the comments for the chargers I used and there was a recent'ish comment saying they were a bit slow.
Found an Ioniq 38kWh relatively local for a good price. It would cost me a bit more than the Leaf, per month, but it's a much more useful car, more comfortable, better equipped and much better technology. Decision time...
out of interest, how much is an Ioniq?
My OH now has the LEAF, which suits her perfectly as she jsut does localish trips, or can drive to her folks (who have an EV charger).
I'm loving the Polestar - not the most efficient EV, but the range and comforts are phenomenal. Gonna make a separate thread about my 600+ miles trip through Europe in a bit!
DrP
£12-13k mostly.
Agree that electric motoring is better by far.
As an aside, someone's started parking a Zoe on the road near us. It's white, with some blue details and a slight blue tint on the side windows - looks really good!
Nice!
This is an interesting video talking about highway chargers.. (the rest of his videos are awesome too!)
It's American, and I didn't realize the us Tesla have a different plug.. over here I'm sure it's all CCS...
Interesting to understand that often it's not the car, but the charger, throttling the charge due to being stuck to 200amps max..
DrP
US charging is a mess, there are several standards or even proprietary plugs, however there is now some sort of concession that they will all use the same one going forward. But that doesn't help the cars that have already been sold so it's still a mess.
Did a bit more reading. The Ioniq has a.LFP battery which means it's more robust than others as well as more eco friendly. It's also liquid cooled and heated. That makes it a much better proposition for long term ownership. However (and I didn't realise this before) the charging curve is terrible, with a 10-80% time of 54 minutes. The only time I ever needed a big charge in the last car I also needed dinner. Seems poor given the heating and cooling capability. Even the Leaf can beat that with no cooling at all.
But if you're mainly home charging, does it REALLY matter?
DrP
But if you’re mainly home charging, does it REALLY matter?
No, hence reserving it. One stop of 45 mins or whatever is no issue, that means a North Wales trip is perfectly feasible - the extra range gives enough buffer to deal with the lack of chargers in mid Wales. A proper long trip like say going to Germany this summer would still require the diesel.
Even the Leaf can beat that with no cooling at all.
The Leaf also has poor battery life. Fast charging a hot battery leads to premature battery deterioration. Cars with charge rates beyond 100kW for 100 kWh of battery capacity deteriotated faster in the early days of EVs, notably the Leaf with 50kW Chademo with a 23kWh battery. I'll be interested to see how more recent cars with high charge rates hold up. However, cars with lower charge rates are holding up very well, early Teslas and Zoés in particular though that may have something to do with the qulatity of the batteries used too:
AUTOCAR.CO.UK Pau to Poland in a Zoé that was adding around 200km in an hour even on the hottest days which was fine Molgrips, about 3-4 hrs of charging each day (about 800km a day) and a charge at destination each day. Three or four breaks corresponded to what a truck driver would have take in terms of rest by law, similar driving speed.
The Leaf also has poor battery life.
From hanging around on the FB group the consensus seems to be that the first two model years, 2011-2013 were the worst, but they gradually bring in software changes to manage charging and discharging. Then the 30kWh model is worse again, not sure why. They seem to be the cars to avoid. Then the 40kWh one has good battery longevity, but again at the expense of usability since they can overheat on long trips with multiple rapid charging and force you to slow down even in a typical UK summer.
Three or four breaks corresponded to what a truck driver would have take in terms of rest by law,
30mins in 6hrsbor 45mins for 9hrs ? El rapido charging
My Leaf seems to think it's battery is doing pretty well after 176000 kms. Leafs in hot countries do not do well though.
You can't even charge a lot of modern cars to a true 100% as the battery is capped capacity wise
You can’t even charge a lot of modern cars to a true 100% as the battery is capped capacity wise
That is standard these days.
Our i3 still seems to be doing well at 80000mi - it's advertised as a 33kWh battery, but is actually 27.2kWh. In winter, we still get 120 miles and in summer it's over 140miles, so 4.4mi/kwh or 5.2mi/kWh. So it can't have decreased much.
You're right on driving times, trailrat, I travel a lot by coach with school kids and thought the frequent breaks were a legal obligation. They're not, just company practice it would appear.
I travel a lot by coach with school kids and thought the frequent breaks were a legal obligation
I think it's different for people driving passengers rather than goods, no?
I think it’s different for people driving passengers rather than goods, no?
It is not.