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Yeah, that's a lead acid chart.
Not that it matters, the basic shape of the curve is similar for most batteries.
Someone asked earlier about the Tesla Y, I've had the base model since March and it's brilliant.
Loads of space, fantastic handling, great, usable tech. Just changed the rear tyres at 16k miles which I don't think is bad.
It's a company car, but if I was to move jobs we would really miss it as our family car, but I couldn't afford/justify buying my own sadly.
It's better in every way than my old 2016 BMW 335d estate. Including build quality.
Interesting to hear about people experiences of how the cold affects the miles per kwh readings on various cars. I'm just a week into ownership of a merc EQC, which is known (I think) for not being mega efficient , I'm seeing an average of 2.3miles/kwh over 500 miles last week, this is a mix of very short journeys, maybe 1-3 miles, plus some medium ones (~20 miles) , and a long one (200 miles). Hoping efficiency will improve in the warmer weather...
I'm quite liking the car , its a very refined drive, and a nice place to sit, but the app (and associated back end infrastructure) that allows you to remotely control the car/see charge levels, set preheating etc is unreliable, quite how it can be this bad is beyond me.
A chunk of the range loss is directly due to cabin heating as can be checked by turning your heating on and off, at least in my car (Kia Soul) it can! And I haven't even been driving in the recent frosty weather which will presumably be more demanding.
The hot seat and steering wheel are negligible loads though, so I use them a lot and have the heating on fairly low.
That’s good to know. I’ll stop admonishing the kids about using the rear heated seats constantly on high (one of them is 6 and has a child seat so doesn’t even feel the heat through it! 😂)
the app (and associated back end infrastructure) that allows you to remotely control the car/see charge levels, set preheating etc is unreliable, quite how it can be this bad is beyond me.
Car software seems to be universally rubbish. All the owners' groups I see on facebook are full of complaints about flaky software. I think maybe we haev been spoiled by companies like Apple, Google etc who are really very good at this stuff.
Car software seems to be universally rubbish
I suspect a lot of the manufacturers just use a bought in system, change the skin so it has their branding & wording, but they all suffer the same problems.
I was googling to see if others had experience the same issues with the mercedes app as I was seeing , and came across the porsche taycan forum with people moaning about the exact same error messages & scenarios as I was seeing with a mercedes.
It really is a terrible app so far. The in car systems are all really good, no issues at all with any of that, but the app and its backend is just super flaky.
A chunk of the range loss is directly due to cabin heating as can be checked by turning your heating on and off, at least in my car (Kia Soul) it can! And I haven’t even been driving in the recent frosty weather which will presumably be more demanding.
It's not a lot, if you have a heat pump. In eco mode, my car reports a difference of about four miles over a whole battery charge, it went up to five miles on Saturday in the cold. But I lost about 40 miles of range vs summer, despite the miles/kWh not being much lower.
According to the energy monitor screen, when we set off in cold weather the heating uses nearly a kW, but this very quickly drops down to a small blip, around 300w or so, every five or ten seconds ish. It turns itself off and on all the time rather than run constantly. By comparison, the car is using 20kW or so just driving along. The lights and general car electronics consume about 350W constantly, more if the wipers are on.
That surprises me, as I see something like a 10% difference in projected range immediately on the dashboard when I switch my heating on and off. Which admittedly isn't as big as the effects some are reporting, but it's definitely a fair chunk and on its own would knock 4.5mi/kWh down to about 4.
I haven't looked directly at power consumption but if my car used 20kW just driving along it would only do about 120 miles which is less than half its true range. Of course I'm mostly averaging 40mph on country lanes (based on: 64kWh battery = 3h or so at 20kW = 120 miles, or 128 if you're being a pedant).
Hi @molgrips we're looking at a used Ioniq (38kwh prem SE). I would appreciate a quick summary of your owner experience (or a link to a previous post) if you've written it before. Real life economy, range etc.
Around £13k for a 70 plate with 50k miles at the moment
That surprises me, as I see something like a 10% difference in projected range immediately on the dashboard when I switch my heating on and off.
Do you have a heat pump? If not, that would explain it.
I would appreciate a quick summary of your owner experience (or a link to a previous post) if you’ve written it before.
Summary:
- Annoying infotainment, lots of pointless bings and bongs. On the other hand, it got live charging station data and routing (after an update) - but that may be a payable service after the first few years. Satnav also made odd choices but then it was in 'most efficient' route for a while which may account for it.
- Good drive, a proper car-shaped car with car handling. Soft springs which made it comfy, a little bouncy at times on e.g. the bumps on the M4 by the old toll booth (if you know, you know) but the low centre of gravity meant not much body roll in corners
- A bit slow for an EV, but not slow.
- Interior a bit spartan, hard plastics etc but ours was only a premium not an SE. You'd get leather.
- Well specified
- The auto cruise and other driving aids worked well, for me - when the road got too narrow for the lane assist there's a handy button to turn it off.
- The efficiency was great - over 5 miles/kWh on long trips was often seen if there was plenty of A road, 4.8 on motorways in summer. The worst motorway trip was 4.3. My wife got over 5 most of the year on her commute. Our 2 year average was 4.7 over 15k miles
- Worst indicated range at full charge was 175 or so, best 203 (which is actually more than the WTLP!)
I moaned about the beeps and bongs at the time but I miss the car. It was significantly better for me than the Leaf, when driving any distance. Just a proper handling car type car without any weirdness. Seats were basic but well sorted. I slightly dread long trips in the Leaf because handling and comfort just aren't quite right. The Ioniq was noisier, but it did have shitty OEM tyres on it the time we had it and the Leaf has Contis.
I keep thinking I regret not buying another (or even our leased one) but I have to remind myself it was 50% more expensive. But still...
Anyone got an MG4? I can get one through the company car scheme... Would be used as a run around rather than for anything long distance, would need to take a running pram and be up to taking abuse from todlers.
We've got an MG4 - its my wifes car but I drive it plenty. Real world winter range is still 200+ and she isn't an economical driver.
Its focus sized and a really nice drive. Enough poke without being crazy fast.
She had to change cars when changing jobs as Tusker wouldnt switch the paperwork over. The old one was a Volvo XC40 recharge which she loved, and the MG4 compares really well. Much better than the price suggests.
Anyone got an MG4?
We've had ours since May. 3000 miles ish. Mostly short journeys. Our is the SE (standard range) and in the summer we were getting nearly 200 miles to a charge (my wife is a pretty economical driver but it has done a lot of short < 5 mile) journeys.
Other than lane assist, wide sills which does mean easier dragging dirt into the cabin, not heated seats on our version, nothing to complain about. I really enjoy driving it, hardly ever use 'sport' mode, quiet, stereo is okay, carplay way more stable than my skoda, plenty of poke for overtaking, very easy to park (even without a camera)
My Koraq is going back next year and I'm considering an MG5 to replace it. Been really impressed with the brand/price compared to other EVs.
We’ve had ours since May. 3000 miles ish. Mostly short journeys. Our is the SE (standard range) and in the summer we were getting nearly 200 miles to a charge (my wife is a pretty economical driver but it has done a lot of short < 5 mile) journeys.
Other than lane assist, wide sills which does mean easier dragging dirt into the cabin, not heated seats on our version, nothing to complain about. I really enjoy driving it, hardly ever use ‘sport’ mode, quiet, stereo is okay, carplay way more stable than my skoda, plenty of poke for overtaking, very easy to park (even without a camera)
Sounds good. It's mainly driving to my wifes school, me occasionally going to work, and then going to the shops. All probably 20 mile round journeys. Any must have extras? I'd want heated seats I guess in an EV.
Car software seems to be universally rubbish
Genuinely, the Hyundai app has been refreshingly good, it integrates really well with the car, does everything I need to do (and more, probably) but more importantly, always connects and never misses a beat. Compare this to the skoda app we also have which is an absolute disaster - given up with that completely. The in-car software has also been really good with the exception that on start-up an unnecessary 'drive safely' screen appears which you need to clear but sometimes the 'confirm' is greyed out for about 10 seconds. There doesn't seem to be a way round this. Other that this minor niggle, it's great. I haven't used car-play for 6 months, and I love car-play!
We went for the top spec trophy, which is £330/mo with Tusker All in for 10k/yr/4yrs. My wife wanted the 360 camera which her old XC40 had.
yeah if you want heated seats you have to go for trophy model. at that price difference, we didn't want them that badly!
on start-up an unnecessary ‘drive safely’ screen appears which you need to clear but sometimes the ‘confirm’ is greyed out for about 10 seconds. There doesn’t seem to be a way round this.
On ours, it went away on its own after a few minutes, with no ill effects, but I think that whilst the version in the Ioniq 5/6 looks quite similar it is somewhat different in places.
I wish I could have got rid of the f'in startup fanfare though.
I'd ignore it, but if you're in an unfamiliar place, and want to navigate somewhere, you have to get past that screen before accessing anything else including maps works - often it's a case of not knowing which way to turn out of a car-park so you've got to wait patiently. As I said minor irritation but it's something that could easily be deactivated.
My start-up fanfare is usually drowned out by kids squabbling or similar so no worries there.
The wife picked up her Ioniq 6 Ultimate a couple of weeks ago from a dealer in Birmingham, full charge at 13 degrees showed 338 miles range, one stop at the new Ionity HC chargers in Carlisle for a top up to 87% in 23 minutes showed 289 miles of range at 7 degrees, charger pushing peak power was 228kw, I was quite impressed, then made it all the way home to Tullynessle in Aberdeenshire, really nice drive and I like the interior apart from some cheap plastic kicking around, and goes pretty well after years of German and Swedish estates.
I'm the same went from an A6 estate to an Ioniq 5 with no regrets. The price jump to get a comparatively specced Audi/ BMW/Merc EV was quite staggering.
my merc app has now started working fine again, it was all offline for about 24 hours in the end. It does say that the in car communications module had a firmware update yesterday, so I presume this caused the outage.
Hopefully it will remain stable now....
Any must have extras [on MG4]?
We got the Trophy because we wanted the 360 cameras and also the powered seat adjustment which makes it easier to swap between the missus and me. To get the same on an ID3, which we also looked at, would have cost zillions.
Overall very happy with the car. Really nice to drive and I still can't get over how you can creep along silently and then ZOOM past everything! The software has some glitches but then (as I mentioned above) that seems to be a common feature of EVs at this stage in their evolution.
my wife is a pretty economical driver but it has done a lot of short < 5 mile) journeys.
Short journeys don't matter much to an EV. The main thing is overall speed, so motorway is bad for range, town is good. The opposite of ICE.
Short journeys don’t matter much to an EV.
It seems like they do matter - at least in the winter anyway (but I do only have a week of experience of this so far) - a short journey of a couple of miles is showing 1.7mpkwh, whereas a longer one (~15 miles) is showing 2.5mpkwh for me. I presume its down the to heating doing a load of work to warm the car up in those couple of miles.
Can see how in the summer a short journey might not matter though.
I presume its down the to heating doing a load of work to warm the car up in those couple of miles.
Yeah, that sounds right. It does work harder to begin with, but not a lot. I mean, short trips for me means < 5 miles. Very short trips are not particularly efficient, not least because they are usually pretty slow and not only does the motor efficiency drop off at very low speeds but the fixed background consumption of the car becomes more of a factor relative to the energy required to move.
Car software seems to be universally rubbish
I think I've already had enough of the software in our Q4. Sometimes the app connects to the car, many times it doesn't.
The charging is unpredictable. I've read countless pages of forums, there's no definitive solutions. Either the car isn't talking to Intelligent Octopus, or IO isn't talking to the car, or the PodPoint is playing up. Sometimes it charges as per schedule, other times it charges as soon as we plug it in with no schedule provided. Some days it charges to the 80% capacity, last week it repeatedly charged to 70%.
This isn't just a car, it's a computer on wheels. If it doesn't work then it's unpredictably useless.
I never switch on my Mac expecting somedays it'll work on other days it won't.
We are paying huge sums to these manufacturers, they are churning out Beta editions of their vehicles.
Rant over.
VW group software IS very bad, and is one of the reasons they're struggling to shift cars, particularly id things
We are paying huge sums to these manufacturers, they are churning out Beta editions of their vehicles.
I was on the cusp of buying one of the new Lotus Eletre’s recently . Decided against it. There seem to be quite a few issues arising and it’s too expensive to be the Guinea pig. I’ll give it 12 months ( by which time there will probably something else to ping my interest)
I’ve gone right off the Tesla. The adaptive cruise control is so bad now that it’s unusable. When you’re driving on the motorway you get random emergency braking if the car nearby drifts in their lane, so you have to turn all the collision mitigation stuff off before you leave.
To be honest, the behaviour of Musk was putting me off having another but this seals it. Worst thing is that it used to be fine on the motorway and now it’s awful. Everyone is assuming that Tesla drivers are brake-testing them and it’s just the car itself.
Hmm.. Is there perhaps a threshold of traffic above which it's not worth using? I think adaptive cruise has to be an option not the default tool.
Interesting Flaperon - which model is that? recent software update? My mate has a Y and we often compare that and my Ioniq5. His Adaptive Cruise was really good when we car shared on the way to work recently.
Flaperon
Full MemberI’ve gone right off the Tesla. The adaptive cruise control is so bad now that it’s unusable. When you’re driving on the motorway you get random emergency braking if the car nearby drifts in their lane, so you have to turn all the collision mitigation stuff off before you leave.
To be honest, the behaviour of Musk was putting me off having another but this seals it. Worst thing is that it used to be fine on the motorway and now it’s awful. Everyone is assuming that Tesla drivers are brake-testing them and it’s just the car itself.
My friend has this problem on his one, and it was something to do with the camera alignment being wrong. Tesla diagnosed it remotely somehow when he complained about it.
Just been to Mercedes dealer again for some cheap part, walking past all their lovely new cars. They had an AMG EQE-63.. Oof.
Interesting Flaperon – which model is that? recent software update
A 2021 Model 3, on 2023.38.6. I’ve had a bloody good whinge to Tesla about it and their service response was along the lines of “we know, everyone is complaining about it but we [Tesla UK] can’t fix it”. Because you need to dive into the settings and inhibit the emergency braking system on every journey, it’s easy to forget if you’ve jumped out to open a gate or something.
It stamped on the anchors in front of a police car the other day, who judging by the siren and blue lights wasn’t particularly impressed. Although maybe he just learned a valuable lesson about keeping his distance from Muskmobiles. Anyway, I’m worried sick now.
Is that a fleet car? Can you return it if not fit for purpose? Sounds a real PITA. It seems all modern cars are going this way, not just EVs.
There is nothing intrinsically electric about that fault, for sure.
Sounds like something the DVSA should be aware of. My Leaf had a very rare fault where it would accelerate when cruise control was disengaged in very rare cases, and Nissan had to recall them all. This sounds way worse.
DVSA: “…if the emergency brakes are applied by the Front Assist system, the driver will be alerted by the infotainment system and the brake lights will function to warn other road users. To conclude, whilst I acknowledge a performance concern may exist, DVSA are currently unable to conclude that this concern meets the definition of a safety defect.”
Doesn’t seem to mention anything about the driver of the car behind sitting up to their neck in their own excrement.
I guess they are expecting other drivers to be prepared for the driver in front to brake at any time....
It stamped on the anchors in front of a police car the other day, who judging by the siren and blue lights wasn’t particularly impressed.
What did they say?, shirley it's their responsibility to leave the appropriate braking distance for just this reason ie emergency braking.
Must admit i generally didn't have a problem and what odd daft stuff autopilot did was fairly consistent so I knew when to be ready to act. Slamming the brakes on the motorway does sound decidedly unhealthy and I'd be pretty cheesed off about that as it's the main place you want to use it to make the journey a slightly more relaxing experience.
interestingly on the consumption, I had a very slow rush hour drive from west of Glasgow to Leith this morning, in air temps of about 1.5 degrees. Average speed was 25.2mph, and car did 3.7mi/kWh, taking 2hrs and 6 minutes to cover the 51 miles. The exact return journey at lunchtime, took 1hr 16 mins, at an average of 39.7mph (and sitting at 70 ish when I could on the M8) and consumption was 3.2mi/kWh, air temp about 3.5 degrees.
so slower is better ! total consumption for the day, 29.1 kWh, at a grand cost of £2.18 🙂
BMW i4, air on at 20 degrees throughout, heated seat and wheel for first 10 mins of each trip.
slower is better
Yes, very much so. The most efficient speed for an EV is around 20MPH ish from memory - although that probably changes with temperature as the parasitic losses due to heating change. There are some graphs published for Teslas if you google it - the absolute efficiency values might change but the shape of the curves should be pretty much the same
It did seem a bit of a backward step for Tesla to move from camera + Lidar to camera-only, even the former isn't 100% accurate when it comes to object detection etc. but it's a lot better than camera alone. Similar madness to remove the parking sensors and rely on cameras only to.
The most efficient speed for an EV is around 20MPH ish from memory
I don't think you can give a number. It'll depend on the car and all sorts of other things. The motor has an efficiency curve but the actual speed that corresponds to depends on the final drive ratio and the wheel size. And the efficiency of the car's other electrical systems, aerodynamics and the driver's preferences all play a part. The more you use for cabin heating, the faster you have to go to offset that against miles driven.
It may vary a bit with the factors you mention but all the analysis I've seen suggests that EVs are very much more efficient at lower speeds and tail off quite poorly when going fast whereas ICE have a bit of a sweet spot more like 50mph.
Incidentally I looked a bit more carefully at my heating cost and it's more like 7% of the range when I turn it on and off, a bit lower than the 10% I mentioned before. I'm pretty sure it's a heat pump but could be wrong.
all the analysis I’ve seen suggests that EVs are very much more efficient at lower speeds
This is true yes, but whilst the optimum speed is low it varies a lot by car. And in ICEs it varies a lot more and on more factors. I pretty much always set the cruise control to 70mph in any car, but certain journeys give better results in some cars but not others. It's a pretty complicated calculation in an ICE I think.
The impression I get is that EVs are a lot more susceptible to headwinds because 100% of the energy generated goes to propulsion, whereas for an ICE vehicle it’s only about 10%. So going slightly faster has a much greater effect, and a 20mph headwind is like bumping your speed from 70mph to 90mph (worse, actually, because you don’t actually get to your destination any faster).
In 40mph sections of roadworks I see my predicted range well in excess of 450 miles.
The impression I get is that EVs are a lot more susceptible to headwinds because 100% of the energy generated goes to propulsion, whereas for an ICE vehicle it’s only about 10%.
Hmm no, don't think so - most of the energy in any car goes against air resistance. In a headwind, both kinds of car will do the same amount of extra work, but in the ICE two thirds of the fuel will still be wasted either way (diesel engines about 35% efficient ish).
'Making progress' driving, temp set at 21 degrees, outside 5 degrees, 2020 tesla without a heat pump. Cabin heating is an astonishing amount of the total.
Note re the most efficient speed - Molgrips is correct, you can't it changes between cars and conditions - hence why I said "20MPH ISH"
Drive ratios etc don't matter for EV efficiency by the way unless they're way out of wack- that just changes where the motor is operating in its speed range and the efficiency curve is fairly flat compared to the large change in power consumption with speed.
What determines the most efficient speed is a pretty basic balance between speed independent "per time" energy usage rate - e.g. power for the lights, heating etc etc and the "per distance travelled" energy usage rate. Given that the "per distance travelled" rate increases with higher speed (rolling resistance a bit, but aerodynamic drag increases with the square of speed).
If the fixed energy rate loss was not there then the most efficient speed would be almost zero, to minimise drag. But of course fixed losses are real, so whilst driving at 1MPH might be efficient from a drag point of view you'd drain your battery before getting very far. What makes an ICE cars most efficient speed so much higher are the increased fixed losses - even at low speed and engine power you're losing quite a lot to waste heat. They're typically more like 40-50 MPH ish. ICEs are also more variable in terms of where this most efficient speed is for various reasons, a key one is that an ICE engine has a much less flat efficiency curve than an electric motor both in terms of speed and load, and each engine and car setup is different. It's also rare to drive an ICE at its most efficient point in its operating map which is typically around 2-2.5K RPM and 3/4 of full throttle ish. (getting closer to doing so is one of the points of a hybrid system).
One outcome of all this is that the most efficient speed for an EV will likely actually be slightly higher in winter than summer as the fixed losses (heating) are greater. Either way the EV max efficiency speed is typically so low that for real world driving "slower is more efficient" is generally true.
Re headwinds - the same lack of fixed losses mean that the increased power that has to expended to drive into a headwind is more noticeable, it's not "diluted" by the higher fixed losses of an ICE.
Hmm no, don’t think so – most of the energy in any car goes against air resistance.
Propulsion is equal to air resistance plus tyre drag…
In that screenshot posted by Picton road it says that the brake pedal cost 0.6% and that you should use regeneration where possible instead of braking, which implies that a tesla doesn't automatically use regeneration when you press the brake pedal.
Is that right that tesla don't regenerate automatically when you press the brake pedal? Seems a bit backward if that's the case, but tesla are usually pretty sharp so what's going on with this.
I haven't been in many evs but I think they all automatically regenerated when you pressed the brake pedal, up to a point where the retardation requested could not be achieved by regen alone and then they engaged the friction brakes as well as regen.
Is that right that tesla don’t regenerate automatically when you press the brake pedal?
On mine you get full regen by lifting off the accelerator. Brake pedal is just normal brakes but rarely touched.
On mine you get full regen by lifting off the accelerator. Brake pedal is just normal brakes but rarely touched.
Does that mean the brake lights come on when you lift off part/most of the way or is it just like engine braking on an ICE?
Sorry maybe a numpty question but I followed a model 3 the other day and the brake lights were on and off like they were being operated by a sugar loaded toddler who'd just discovered the light switch. Just wondering if they were utterly incompetent or this was some EV trait.
Their driving style was very much "surge, slow, repeat".
On mine you get full regen by lifting off the accelerator. Brake pedal is just normal brakes but rarely touched
So it doesn't coast when you lift off the accelerator? Again i thought that was supposed to be pretty inefficient...
Edit: ignore have read that tesla do coast it just doesn't need lift of the accelerator to do it
@flaperon kind of
The impression I get is that EVs are a lot more susceptible to headwinds because 100% of the energy generated goes to propulsion, whereas for an ICE vehicle it’s only about 10%.
ICE is at most 30-40% efficient. Most of the energy from fuel is turned into heat. The AAA had a nice headline ages ago along the lines of ‘2/3 of your fuel is wasted’.
EVs are about 90% efficient at turning stored energy into movement.
Both are affected by headwinds in the same way of course for a given drag factor. But I suppose you’ll notice the difference in consumption in the EV first as it will be proportionately bigger.
Edit - just saw @whatgoesup gave a comprehensive answer.
Sorry maybe a numpty question but I followed a model 3 the other day and the brake lights were on and off like they were being operated by a sugar loaded toddler who’d just discovered the light switch. Just wondering if they were utterly incompetent or this was some EV trait.
Their driving style was very much “surge, slow, repeat”.
In the Teslas if regen engages above some, fairly low, level the brake lights come on because the car is decelerating. It can look like folks are tap dancing on the brake pedal in slow moving traffic. Because of the deceleration, the brake lights are a reasonable warning measure.
The relatively quick acceleration and aggressive regen may take some getting used to for folks used to, for example, a sluggish diesel ICE I suppose.
Also the brake lights come on whenever the car stops. This seems common in most modern cars though.
In some ways it's an atypical journey as it was almost all empty b roads so the brake pedal was deployed in a wanton manner.
I'd say you could drive almost every journey in a tesla without touching the brake pedal with just a hint of anticipation.
It does however illustrate that even when you're acting the tit, regeneration takes care of most of your deceleration requirements.
On mine you get full regen by lifting off the accelerator. Brake pedal is just normal brakes but rarely touched.
Are you sure? Brake pedal should also activate regen unless the deceleration you've requested is greater than what can be obtained using regen. I'm pretty sure all EVs and hybrids blend regen and friction brakes regardless of what pedal you press except the BMW i3, which is one reason I didn't get one.
Re brake lights, there is a rule that specifies they must come on when the deceleration is more than 0.7g I think again regardless of how that's obtained. Although, 0.7g is quite a lot...
have read that tesla do coast
Of course, otherwise the wouldn't be able to do consistent speeds. In an ICE, the accelerator and brake pedals operate mechanical systems, and you have to operate them to get the car to do what you want. An EV can do things differently, so now the pedals just indicate how fast you want to be going (or not) and the car takes care of the rest.
Are you sure? Brake pedal should also activate regen unless the deceleration you’ve requested is greater than what can be obtained using regen
not with teslas- apparently - brake pedal on tesla is purely friction brakes.
Interesting ish article here on the different strategies employed by various car manufacturers - TLDR : there are lots of different way of achieving the same end result.
I have my car set to coast when I lift off and only regen when I press the brake pedal - I tried the various other modes including one pedal mode and didnt like it much, but I guess I'd get used to it over time. Good to have the choice though.
Are you sure? Brake pedal should also activate regen unless the deceleration you’ve requested is greater than what can be obtained using regen. I’m pretty sure all EVs and hybrids blend regen and friction brakes regardless of what pedal you press except the BMW i3, which is one reason I didn’t get one.
Brake blending was developed for the XC40/PS2 launch, a couple of other manufacturers who use the same core brake module launched at almost the same time. Treats the motors and brakes as two braking systems and divides brake torque between the systems based on capacity. Does this continually, monitoring capacity of each system plus requested torque. So even if you do a full on stop, you'll still be using as much regen as the car is capable of producing plus the friction brakes. (ignore ABS in this case!)
Prior to that you had systems that would only regen on accelerator lift off and use brakes if you pressed the brake pedal.
Other systems would also allow regen on brake pedal, but only in perfect conditions with no disturbances (or they would use, or suddenly switch, 100% to friction brakes, and then stay with friction brakes until stop). This wasn't very good.
Brake lights usually come on at about 0,6 to 0,8 m/s2 with regen from lift off of the accelerator pedal, and immediately when you press the brake pedal.
I was convinced that the two braking systems were blended on my Prius. When the car had been sat for a few days you could hear the friction brakes working (or not) due to the rust on the discs, and it seemed to work as I described.
On the Leaf, there's a regen meter and you get the same number of blue bars if you brake at roughly the same speed using the pedal, or using the one-pedal feature or B mode. Of course it's not a scientific test. Certainly if you lift off you get some blue bars, then if you touch the brake pedal you get more blue bars.
Brake lights usually come on at about 0,6 to 0,8 m/s2
Ah yes, 0.7m/s2 makes way more sense than 0.7g!
What tyres for EVs ?
Some random observations and anecdotes which may or may not be valid ... EV are relatively heavy and hence wear out tyres more quickly than lighter cars. EVs are supplied with low resistance = low grip tyres in order to pump up the apparent range numbers. People are having to get new tyres as soon as 10k miles. Winter is coming.
So should we be thinking of replacing our OEM tyres with 4-season, and if we do, what effect on the range can we expect?
I’m running CrossClimate 2 on my Model 3.
30,000 miles now of mostly motorway driving and still 5mm of tread all round. I think there’s a small hit in efficiency and noise levels but the trade off is worth it for me. I drive like James May which obviously helps.
On mine, the brake light comes on if you hard lift off the accelerator in ‘iPedal’ (one pedal) mode, but also the highest regen settings. Lifting off lightly has no effect on brake light, even thou there is a regen:/braking effect. At the lower regen settings lifting off slows the car (mildly, as you would expect) but with no brake light activated. I assume this all correlates to the 0.7m/s^2 threshold. Though touching the brake pedal puts the brake light on irrespective of how lightly the braking force.
EDIT: just read Mert’s post above which corresponds exactly!
re tyres i got michelin primacy 4 for my ioniq last time - big improvement on the OEM michelins previously fitted. I was wavering about getting cross climates as had them on my previous corolla hybrid and they were excellent with no impact on efficiency, but i was swayed by A rating tyre efficiency and keeping range. I think that when i next replace the tyres i will go with cross climates as have had a few moments recently to make me want the better mechanical grip year round over a few miles extra range (and there are more quick chargers on the few regular long journeys i do).
Re: blended braking - my corolla hybrid had this and it worked really well - initially was regen then on harder braking the 'normal' brakes would come in. My ioniq does the same thing - as mentioned above can hear sometimes when the discs bite and scrape off the overnight rust - often not for quite a while into a journey if been braking gently.
Re tyres, is there really much real world range difference between say an A rated efficiency tyre and a C rated efficiency tyre?
Tried to find some objective independent testing for the above, but failed miserably, so can only conclude that the efficiency rating makes negligible difference to real world range.
I did find some results that said that some high efficiency tyres were notably worse for grip in certain circumstances though, think it might have been wet braking.
probably not much difference. the primacy tyres i have are supposedly better in wet braking than a cross climate (according to labels) but reading up that is in the summer. living in a rural area with narrow roads, i will often have to dip the wheels onto the verge - with the current soft ground and the fact that regen means the car brakes as soon as i lift off this has led to a few no grip moments and i think that in future i would rather have the extra mud traction than save a few miles range!
all the analysis I’ve seen suggests that EVs are very much more efficient at lower speeds
Ideal.
low resistance = low grip
Hold on a minute. Low rolling resistance does not always have to mean low grip. Yes, the ones that come on your car are shite, even those that bear the same name as aftermarket tyres, but if you buy quality you can get both low RR and good grip because rubber engineering and compounds and whatnot. Yes, the higher RR ones are a bit better, but only a bit.
Re tyres, is there really much real world range difference between say an A rated efficiency tyre and a C rated efficiency tyre?
People on the Leaf Facebook page are amazed that we still get over 4 m/kWh at 70mph in our Leaf even in winter, but we don't do anything other than set the cruise control. The only difference is that we have Conti Eco Contact 6 tyres on.
On my Passat I went from 55mpg on a regular motorway run to 60mpg when moving from Dunlop Sport to Nokian H. Seems like 5-7% improvement is normal going from average to the best A rated tyres. I gained more on the Merc but that was an extreme case: I went from wide super low profile sporty tyres to still quite wide still quite low profile premium touring tyres and gained about 12% on a regular trip.
Tried to find some objective independent testing for the above, but failed miserably
The ratings are now A-E and each rating is a 0.1l/100km jump, presumably on some typical test setup. The more efficient your car to begin with, the more is saved in terms of litres.
For reviews, this guy does loads but he always seems to be at a Goodyear testing facility so, who knows. But he does compare a load of tyres most of which aren't Goodyear. He does regular videos too when new things come out.
And there's website version of the same content - mercifully!
https://www.tyrereviews.com/Article/2023-Tyre-Reviews-Summer-Tyre-Test.htm
I was convinced that the two braking systems were blended on my Prius.
There's been a few attempts, mostly using some version of the "regen/friction until the car gets a wobble on, then use only friction until we either stop, or have xx seconds of no braking at all."
"Proper" blending is continuous and can switch back and forth, except when ABS or TC is activated, which adds all sorts of extra, difficult to deal with, effects. And everyone deals with them differently.
I really like the regen on my kia. It's not proper one-pedal driving but quite close to it, I hardly touch the brakes in normal driving around on local roads and it slows down nicely for corners etc.
I can tell from the sound when the proper brakes come on, at least early in a trip.
and edit, I do also use the paddles mentioned in that linked article, at least when I remember to. I have it set on the 2nd level, but may switch to the highest 3rd level for steep descents.
My i4 can do one-pedal or not (or adaptive where it decides for you which work brilliantly well in this car*), but either way it doesn't seem to affect the regen-physical brake balance.
When you press the brake pedal it doesn't engage the brakes to start with, rather it starts the regen process. Only when you're braking fairly hard i.e. beyond the capability of the motors to regen or the limits of grip do the brakes start to work. Given it's rear wheel drive hence rear wheel regen only I hope that in wet / icy conditions it balances this out with the front brakes and doesn't just effectively pull the handbrake on. With the icy weather coming up in next few days I'll have an experiment in a suitably slippy, empty carpark.
* I had an Audi Etron with adaptive regen. That was awful - whether you would brake hard or just carry on coasting when lifting off the accelerator seemed totally random. The i4 is really nicely calibrated and is both predictable and does exactly what I think it should every time. It appears to be witchcraft.
Given it’s rear wheel drive hence rear wheel regen only I hope that in wet / icy conditions it balances this out with the front brakes and doesn’t just effectively pull the handbrake on. With the icy weather coming up in next few days I’ll have an experiment in a suitably slippy, empty carpark.
Yes, this is exactly what it's designed to do. At a certain point it'll switch from rear axle only regen to rear regen/front friction to maintain balance. It also can lead to car sickness, excessive braking on the rear axle only.
There's also some arguements about limiting regen on accped release to a level that can safely be done on the rear axle only. Though i don't know what the BMW strategy is, as i've only had a quick trundle round the car park 😀
I had an Audi Etron with adaptive regen. That was awful
It's also really really really hard to do right.
There’s also some arguements about limiting regen on accped release to a level that can safely be done on the rear axle only. Though i don’t know what the BMW strategy is, as i’ve only had a quick trundle round the car park
116KW max regen for the RWD car. That's plenty to lock the rear wheels up in slippy conditions.
I'll let you know what happens when trying it out on icy / frosty / snowy ground.
116KW max regen for the RWD car.
Edit - I doubt that's all available from just lifting off - I'll see if I can figure it out though.
let you know what happens when trying it out on icy / frosty / snowy ground.
It was minus 6 here this morning and I had a play about, it seemed to work exactly the same as on a dry grippy road, which was a relief ! Not sure what’ll happen in snowy conditions..
Sorry maybe a numpty question but I followed a model 3 the other day and the brake lights were on and off like they were being operated by a sugar loaded toddler who’d just discovered the light switch. Just wondering if they were utterly incompetent or this was some EV trait.
Their driving style was very much “surge, slow, repeat”.
In the Teslas if regen engages above some, fairly low, level the brake lights come on because the car is decelerating. It can look like folks are tap dancing on the brake pedal in slow moving traffic. Because of the deceleration, the brake lights are a reasonable warning measure.
The relatively quick acceleration and aggressive regen may take some getting used to for folks used to, for example, a sluggish diesel ICE I suppose.
Also the brake lights come on whenever the car stops. This seems common in most modern cars though.
Thanks. I've never noticed it before in quite such an extreme way. I suspect a new to EV or just clumsy footed driver now I understand how that works. Following at a safe distance (as is my default) it wasn't an issue just a bit odd to see. If it had been an ICE I'd probably not have noticed and the acceleration/deceleration would probably have been less marked I guess from your comments. I'm yet to drive one as budget and function are not yet aligning for my requirements. I keep looking and trying to learn though.