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why has there NOT been a decent estate EV?
I'd suggest it's partly market forces and partly packaging. SUVs have outsold estates for a while - ever since the Quashqai came out really. Then if you are going to stick a load of batteries under the floor it's easier to do that if you're making a taller vehicle. Now we've got posh estate offerings from VW, Audi and BMW but I think STW has a few years to wait for the e-Octavia
To me that is the problem. Just because ice cars have become large heavy things with 300hp considered normal, evs didn’t need to follow. They may not burn fossil fuel themselves, but there is still a need for efficient use of energy.
It doesn't make a difference to the efficiency.
To give an EV higher max power, you just need thicker wires and a bigger battery*, which also increases the range anyway. In an ICE, an engine capable of higher maximum power is less efficient (to a greater or lesser extent) but this is not the case with EVs.
Even if you use all that power to accelerate it makes little difference to your overall economy. You still need the same amount of energy to get from 0-60mph regardless of how quickly it's delivered; the only thing is that you will waste a bit more energy as heat - but that's trivial compared to the content of a battery pack. If you were accelerating hard and braking hard all the time, like on an actual racing track, then yes you'd lose range, but booting it on a public road to modest speed - barely any difference. Sustaining a higher speed for a long time though, like driving at 80 vs 70 - that does cost you range because of air resistance.
* Caveat: generally a more powerful car would come with wider tyres, which do cost efficiency, but such tyres are also available on lower power cars so it's up to you if you want to factor that in.
EVs also have more torque which means torque steer could be more of an issue.
My Leaf got quite sketchy when booting it with any lock applied.
One thing I have been wondering about - when regen braking, I assume the brake lights don't come on? Surely there is going to be an increased risk of collisions when the person behind doesn't know the car is slowing quickly? The same goes for the assisted braking my car has – if the car in front is slowing, it automatically slows down but I assume the brake lights don't come on.
when regen braking, I assume the brake lights don’t come on? Surely there is going to be an increased risk of collisions
They very much come on, regardless of whether it’s the brake pedal being pressed or regen (most modern EVs actually regen instead of brake when you press the brake pedal anyway, for efficiency.)
It’s ICEs where use of engine braking does not trigger the brake lights which are the higher risk here
Any Enyaq users on here with the standard headlights? Have you found a way to increase the throw of light whilst dipped? I think they are 2 or 3 degrees too low. Absolutely fine for driving at 20mph or in town, but utterly useless on dark country roads (even at 30mph) - just not enough light thrown forward.
when regen braking, I assume the brake lights don’t come on? Surely there is going to be an increased risk of collisions
You might be surprised but you're not the only one to have thought of this 🙂 The govt has made a rule that says brake lights have to come on beyond a certain level of deceleration regardless of how it's achieved.
Have you found a way to increase the throw of light whilst dipped?
I don't know the enyaq specifically, but on our vw tiguan there were small angle adjusters that you turned with an Allen key to adjust the static angle. A quick google should confirm. But if you open the bonnet and look at the rear of head light units it was fairly obvious what the adjuster screw was, it was a whiteish plastic looking adjuster.
but why has there NOT been a decent estate EV?
5 series launched this year. VW ID.7 available as an estate (bit of a barge though)
Audi A6 and A4 launching next year. The A6 looks sublime.
A4 will be on my shopping list when we go EV.
I'm pretty sure ALL cars have headlight alignment adjusters.
You can try that.... Or they might simply be a bit crap!
I think they are 2 or 3 degrees too low
I've had this on several cars (including new) and apparently it is widespread even on new cars. It's utterly insane that no-one cares. Even garages shrugged their shoulders. You need to find the adjusters for your car (the internet can help) and then the little headlight sticker on the front of the engine bay with a percentage next to it. That's the specified gradient of the lights. So you drive up to a wall, mark the cutoff line and the inflection point, then reverse back say 5m and calculate how much lower the line should be and adjust to suit. The inflection point is meant to stay dead ahead of the headlight.
Ok so it wasn't new, but the Leaf's headlights were so badly aligned that I had to stop at midnight on the way back from picking it up, buy some allen keys at a petrol station and adjust them. They were still shit though.
The throw on the lights of my EV6 was awful when I got it. I have no idea why the angle was set so low in the factory. A quick fiddle with the angle adjusters and it was like having different lights.
Can someone just clarify something for me on tesla charging points. I investigated a new site for me to use yesterday that will be handy for any trips going south on the motorway. I just did a quick 2 min charge but it seems they have taken £20. Is this a refundable cost they take on every charge or is there a minimum they have. I dont recall them taking £20 on my visit at gretna a week or so ago.
Not sure about Tesla as I have never used them but I have used various other providers who do place a £20 pre authorised charge on your card then refund you whatever you don’t use. I have found it more common with chargers that you tap a bank card to use and less common on ones that use an app. I guess it stops people tapping then charging up only to find they have insufficient funds to cover it. Sometimes it has taken a few days to come back to me.
edit. Some chargers have a minimum fee too (say £5), I see this with charge place Scotland.
yes, they take a fixed amount, sometimes £10 sometimes £20 and it gets refunded within a day or 2.
Thanks guys
I'm about to take the plunge and get my first electric car. My current Hyndai Tuscon has been good but it's on a lease and will have to go back at the end of November. I've been looking around at what floats my boat and took a Ford Explorer out for a test drive, which ticked most of my boxes. These come in two trim levels, Select and Premium and there is an optional Driver Assistance Pack which includes HUD, 360 degree camera, etc. So I thought that Select with the DA Pack would be ideal. I then spotted that my work Salary Sacrafice scheme has a special offer on a Jaguar I Pace, slightly more /month than the Explorer so I'll be getting a Jag. No doubt I'll have loads of questions about charging but I'm looking forward to having a green stripe on my numberplate.
Re: Tesla chargers
I thought I would try a supercharger last week for my Ioniq (old shape). Frustratingly the Tesla CCS connector wouldn’t fit my car socket - Tesla seem to have an extra lip of material which catches on the little light above the charge socket. A combo of my car design but as this has never been an issue over 3 years and 70000 miles, I assume Tesla plugs are not quite the same as the CCS standard. Lesson learned and fortunately there were some great Fastened chargers round the corner. A little disappointed but be wary if trying them.
I'm certain I've tried all of the Tesla charging options on the open for all network with my old style Ioniq and one of the connectors needed inserting at an angle to fit. Could of been slightly worn out but I don't think it was the case.
It just needed another 5mm to make a connection and all would have been grand!
That is a known issue with one of the Supercharger variants and Ioniqs. However there may be other issues as I failed to get a couple of chargers to work at Fort William; according to some, one of the banks works with Ioniqs and one does not. I'm not sure if this also applies to other non-Tesla cars.
I encountered the fort William super charger issue with the Ioniq. 3 work 3 don't. Other cars didn't have an issue from what I saw. I think it was just the old chargers and maybe they will be updated with newer versions at some point? Seems a well used Tesla station.
I didnt notice anything different to be truthfull. Worked no problem on my Mercedes
I think it was just the old chargers and maybe they will be updated with newer versions at some point?
Here’s hoping they do, and also put longer cables on so that non Teslas aren’t taking up two bays.
There was a Merc and another right sided port car taking up 3 bays when I was there. The other 3 chargers were the ones that didn't work with the Ioniq. I returned to the chargers at 6 am for a session before the drive home.
I plugged a code reader into the Corsa e to try and find the fault related to the HVAC problem it has. The topdon reader did a pretty good job. It served to suggest that the right hand side fan motor wasn't working and another fault which I can't remember what it was.
The air conditioning compressor seemed to work. The reader showed the compressor working or at least increasing pressure.
Test of the day was spent cruising along in the Ioniq to Blackpool to check out the lights. Just under 5 miles/KW at slow motorway speeds.
That set of errors could easily be leaves or a foreign object in the system. I had a vibration from the fan on my second Ioniq, turned out to be a leaf in the fan. Try taking out the cabin filter and see if you can access the fan and check it turns.
Quick update on my experiences with my Mercedes EQA AMG 250 Premium Plus.
Yes i did get the refund from Tesla for using their supercharger. All happy days and i plan to use Tesla chargers as my main supply if i need to charge away from the home. Simple, quick and pretty good value for money. I am slowly building up a list of chargers for when i need them. I'm pretty consistent in my destinations so it will work for me well this way.
I read a few of the comments on here about the regen settings and decided to change from the intelligent setting to max recuperation. Now that i have the hang of it i hardly touch the brakes at all and it has definitely improved my efficiency. I turn it off on the motorway and put it back on intelligent setting.
Did a trip to Bolton & back yesterday. 240mls round trip. Had 13% battery left at the end which i was quite happy with and in general it is averaging 3.5mpkw and slowly increasing. For example my 8 mile journey to work and back averages 5mpkw so this will slowly improve my average.
So we're slowly getting round to buying a used EV. Contenders at the moment are the Ioniq 5, iX3 and Q4. I am edging toward the ioniq as it's a newer design and was built to be an EV rather than adapted like the BMW and audi, but it seems the ioniq has some major security flaws so it's easily nicked. Any views on pros and cons of those 3?
Are the flaws present on the Ioniq 5? I thought it was just the older Ioniq that came in hybrid form popular as taxis.
EDIT seems like it's any Hyundai/Kia from a certain era with a key that you have to turn to start - so my car and i5s are unaffected. I still keep my key in a pouch though.
EDIT2 apparently there's another attack which does include Ioniq 5s.
apparently there’s another attack which does include Ioniq 5s
Yes seems to be some sort of key emulator so not a relay or cloning exploit, they don't need any access to the original key to get in and drive off. I'm guessing a decent immobiliser should help but a) that's 500 quid I shouldn't have to spend and b) there's probably still consequences from a failed attempt.
But... Is it actually a local issue that's been magnified by the Internet (North London seems a hotspot)
I've been round in circles contemplating various different EVs over the past few months. If you look too deeply at any of them (and especially if you look on the owners forums) they all seem to have some issue that looks like an absolute deal-breaker. It's saved me a fortune so far 🙂
@thepurist Owner of a 2024 Q4 55 Sportback. Pretty sure it was built to be an EV? Has a completely flat floor, no drive train bit in the way.
Amazingly comfortable thing to drive. I’m very impressed with it. Previously had an AMG Merc GLC and a Cupra. Was going to keep the Cupra but the Audi is all I need. I kind of miss a quick car with the paddle gears, but not enough to have kept the Cupra.
If you haven’t done so I’d recommend a test drive. My friend has an i4, the M50 version. Its really nice, I prefer the Audi but I guess that’s because it’s mine!
Had my EV6 for a week now. It’s growing on me. A bit firmer and more stable in the corners than my GV60 but less plush and the software is less polished Bigger boot though. Otherwise it’s equally as good.
It’s black and gives me Batmobile vibes every time I look at it.
Far better than the hateful ID4 which I had as a temporary solution. Nice car but the software and stupid touchy buttons made me despise it more with each passing day.
Getting rid of the MG5 to replace with the outgoings EV6 model. Work have decided to supply an upgrade. Hopefully it will feel like one. Just hope the seat base comes out for chucking bikes in.
The rear seat base is removable in an EV6 but it’s fiddly and not really advisable as there is quite a lot of electrical connections and gubbins in and under it.
We’ve got an IX3 and it’s been a great car for the last couple of years. Range is ~ 240 in summer and 200 in winter. Comfortable and (I find it) good to drive.
It has a major flaw IMO which is that the radar sensor is very vulnerable to theft - ours and all the IX3s in our area have been stolen and the replacement cost is over 4k!
For this reason I’d probably not buy again
Must admit I dropped the Ioniq 5 from my (2nd hand) short list due to the Hyundai/Kia theft vulnerability issue. I also questioned whether the abundance of silvery plastic trim might look shabby in 6 years (sun light discoloration, scratches, paint chipping or whatever) and possibly also dated by then.
..
Thanks folks. Think I need to do some more legwork then decide which issues are deal breakers and which I can work around.
The adjustable headlight setting on my Enyaq appears to do nothing...lights are on, car is on and I can set the angle to 6 (lowest setting) and the lights don't drop when they are shining against the wall of the house. I then set it to 0 (highest setting) and again, no movement from the lights.
I've had a nosey under the bonnet and I can't really work out what I should be adjusting, but I'll have another look today as it appears to be a screw behind the light unit...so I'll give that a wiggle and see if it does anything manually.
They really are bad...on the motorway (so a relatively straight road), driving at 65mph, I can see 4 white line spacers ahead of me - which should be good except the gap between the white lines at 65mph is only just visible, so they are close together. It lights up the ground, but anything above the ground and it is just blackness. Full beam is great, but I can't drive round with that on permanently. You can't look ahead at where you are going as nothing is lit, so you are peering over the bonnet, which isn't great. It is just as bad at 45mph on a country road (that is NSL).
I will be calling the garage as I'm sure this can't be right.
Is this Kia theft issue all kias, or just certain models? Should I be worried about leaving bikes in the back? If I can get them in that is. EV6 has more hoot space than my outgoings MG5 in paper, but I'm yet to find out if it's as useable.
Yes EV6 seems to be vulnerable too - it's being referred to as Game Boy theft because the device they use apparently looks like a Nintendo. Reports are that it's an expensive bit of kit too at 15k or so, which means it's organised crime rather than opportunists.
Edit - reports that a London based group have been caught and sentenced, but that doesn't fix the vulnerability.
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/keyless-car-theft-gang-london-nintendo-gameboy-b1185089.html
@dickbarton are they projector headlights with a cheaper halogen bulbs behind them? If so they will be useless, you can get drop in led replacements but have to swap them in/out for every mot