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Or perhaps the demand for new vehicles isn’t quite as strong because high interest rates/other financial challenges are meaning people are eking out what they have at the moment, rather than buying a new car.
There’s still a level of uncertainty in the market about second hand values if there are new entrants (Chinese manufacturers) bringing better value; Tesla reducing the prices of new cars etc etc. That uncertainty means people may be avoiding making that purchase for now. Equally, the demand for company vehicles has also dropped off given the impact of Covid/homeworking changing the way people work.
True. It's also possible that many early adopters are technophiles or middle-class greenwashers who want such a car; now they mostly all have one.
Probably shifting their battery volume to Audi to maximise profit.
Is anyone here on Octopus Agile or Octopus Tracker? prices are absolutely crazy this weekend, half hour prices into minus pricing pretty much all weekend and as low as -18.12ppkwh tomorrow at 2pm. I think I'll put the tumble dryer on all weekend and make some money.
ID3 ordered, 2 year all inclusive lease 77kWh Pro S. should be here end of August. I hope it’s the newest facelift version but it’s cheap enough that I’m not too worried if not.
Is anyone here on Octopus Agile or Octopus Tracker?
No but I’ve seen the Octopus FB group all getting a bit excited 😆
I’m still on Go but hardly ever charge at home anymore so I’ve just clicked to go on to Tracker.
I had a look at the Berlingo, but the 180 mile claim seems far too short. I had a chat with a few postal workers who drive them and they reckon they get less than 110 miles...I reckon that'll be under 100 miles in winter.
Despite that being the ideal car (it was same as the diesel one I have), I can't see past the really poor mileage it'll manage.
My current one is diesel and does just shy of 700 miles on a tank, so the electric distance is a real shocker. Saying that I was hoping for a claimed 250 miles that would be about 200...but is is half that.
Yeah my postie mentioned that but then postie work is all stop start the worst kind of use for economy.
This is why I'm wanting a demo.
100miles is piss poor and all arguments for you can charge as you go out the window when id need 3 charges to get to Edinburgh. But I need 120ish winter for it to be suitable for 95% of our use otherwise it's a problem
The Tesla model y the other week was nice. But not with my money far far to much tech in there to go wrong expensively.
There is good data on Teslas which have arguably worse management – they let you brim the battery to 100% unlike most cars,
I’ve been filling my Model 3 LR to 100% for two years of long-distance commuting (so Supercharging once a week) and the range has gone from 331 miles to 329.
What has tailed off is charge rates and I never see over 200kW, even when rocking up with an empty battery and pre-conditioning on. Leads me to think that the damage is caused by Supercharging to 100% as opposed to trickle-charging your way there.
My Model 3 is 3.5 years old and I just did a longish journey - 230 miles or so with a combination of motorway and country driving - was driving sensibly but not trying overly hard to be efficient. Had I continued at the same rate, total range would have been about 320 miles. This seems pretty great given the maximum range is supposed to be about 345 miles, and is waaay closer to claimed efficiency than most ICE cars, which achieve at best 70-80% of claimed mpg.
Plus - going over old ground but to those claiming there is too much to go wrong, this couldn’t be wronger - there is much less to go wrong.
As for relying on electricity to function being a bad thing - well so does almost every other bit of tech we use, including ICE cars, which in case people haven’t noticed, don’t work if the battery goes wrong as well.
Had I continued at the same rate, total range would have been about 320 miles. This seems pretty great given the maximum range is supposed to be about 345 miles, and is waaay closer to claimed efficiency than most ICE cars, which achieve at best 70-80% of claimed mpg.
Hang on a minute. We're all used to ICE behaviours, in which there are many factors that hugely affect combustion efficiency. Those factors don't apply to EV efficiency. There is an efficiency curve vs speed but it's not as variable, and in my experience your overall speed makes far more difference than how fast you accelerate. Tickling the throttle can be important in an ICE car (or not, depending) but is not really necessary in an EV, I don't think.
Don't get too excited over getting 90% of the WTLP test range. Some cars can meet or exceed it. Driving A roads mine can fairly easily. The official range divided by battery capacity comes to about 4.8m/kWh - I got 5.2 on a recent long A road trip and my wife's currently getting over 5.5 on her commute.
In an ICE the slowing and accelerating on A-roads makes the car less efficient than a motorway trip, but in my EV the lower overall speeds make A roads more efficient than motorways.
Yes I am well aware thanks, but a longish journey where I was mostly travelling at 60mph plus, and lots of it that wasn’t a motorway on hilly roads in Wales, makes this pretty good efficiency in my book. I have yet to meet anyone who has an EV car that would get all that close to claimed range on longer journeys that include lots of motorway driving, indeeed my Dad keeps sending angry from Manchester emails to Kia as he feels that his car should be getting closer to the claimed range, even though I am sure he understands how EVs work.
In fairness, I think EV manufacturers are still not dissimilar to ICE car makers in not being all that clear what they mean by projected range, and of course if you didn’t know better or do some research, it would be easy to assume that driving at a constant relatively high speed might be quite efficient as it is in an ICE car.
Average was about 5 miles/kWh, and I’m well aware that if you go slower you can easily get more than this. Agree A roads are good for range, and commuting in a town / city is always likely to exceed manufacturers quoted range. I do neither of these regularly, due to living in the middle of nowhere, 600-800 feet higher above sea level than any of my places of work. If we’re talking about a commute, I can travel 7.5 miles to one place of work on about 30 miles per kWh, or if I try really hard on a warm day, infinity miles per kWh! Sadly travelling home again is not quite so efficient, and the fun of using almost no energy travelling downhill is more than offset by getting home again.
About 80% of the trip I was talking about was on motorways.
The point is, not achieving claimed range seems to be a big criticism of EV cars, despite the fact that it’s much more difficult to achieve claimed efficiency in an ICE car, in fact I would say it is pretty much impossible. Official mpg figures of ICE cars are completely inaccurate, and always wildly optimistic, in addition to there being a larger variation between manufacturers. Our old Honda Civic got quite close to claimed mpg, but the 2 Minis I have had since have projected mpg figures that are pure fantasy.
I have yet to meet anyone who has an EV car that would get all that close to claimed range on longer journeys that include lots of motorway driving,
I've seen 4.8 on a motorway, more usually 4.6 though.
I can travel 7.5 miles to one place of work on about 30 miles per kWh, or if I try really hard on a warm day, infinity miles per kWh! Sadly travelling home again is not quite so efficient
The 5.5 she gets is the average of both directions.
The point is, not achieving claimed range seems to be a big criticism of EV cars, despite the fact that it’s much more difficult to achieve claimed efficiency in an ICE car, in fact I would say it is pretty much impossible.
That's true, although as you say it does depend on the car a lot. My Passat exceeded the extra-urban figure, my Prius got close as does my Merc. But yeah - there's more scope to cheat and take the piss on the old test. The WTLP one is better.
The point was that the energy gained going downhill is more than offset by going back uphill again, so with 200 metres down and then back up again each day you ain’t getting that close to claimed figures regardless of what speed you drive.
Leads me to think that the damage is caused by Supercharging to 100% as opposed to trickle-charging your way there.
It is, lots of smart charging being looked at now to try and charge as slow as possible (while minimising time at higher electricity rates, and still be charged enough when you want the car) to protect the battery. The strategy on some is to cap charge rates to minimise further damage, which is what you are seeing.
There is good data on Teslas which have arguably worse management – they let you brim the battery to 100%
No, they don't. It's a bit less than 100% of the maximum physical/chemical capacity of the battery, but more than most manufacturers use. It reports as 100% though.
waaay closer to claimed efficiency than most ICE cars, which achieve at best 70-80% of claimed mpg.
At best? That's probably poor driving. Lot of it about. I get 100-110% on most of my driving. Even short hops i can get better than the urban figures.
Best thing about moving from ICE to EV is that EV masks a lot of poor driving techniques by regenerating on deceleration, so all those pointless changes in speed have a *far* smaller impact on economy.
No it’s not. If you look at Honest Johns mpg the industry average is 82% of claimed. Mini, as I would expect from experience, are worse than this with an average of 77%. The Honda Civic I mentioned manages 92%. So there is a significant difference between manufacturers.
Personally I would say that driving an EV car encourages better driving, since you are much more aware of energy usage and it helps to change your attitude away from the idea most people have that they are always in a rush. There is a much more obvious benefit to driving efficiently, and a much clearer disadvantage to driving fast.
Don't use the word 'claimed' that's not what's happening.
Personally I would say that driving an EV car encourages better driving, since you are much more aware of energy usage and it helps to change your attitude away from the idea most people have that they are always in a rush.
I agree with that. Lots of sales rep types seem to have got Tesla Model Ss early on then realised that 95mph on the motorway doesn't get you home faster 🙂
Whatever the term is then! I’m not sure why they don’t just drive them around and get an average from real conditions rather than controlled environments. You’re probably going to tell me they do now…
I’m not sure why they don’t just drive them around and get an average from real conditions rather than controlled environments.
because that's not controlled and wouldn't give a like-for-like test. The driving they do is an attempt at real conditions. if your conditions matched the real conditions, you'd get the same results
Which they don’t then, because they don’t. Or something like that…
They all admitted the test was not indicative of real world driving. It said that on all the small print. In the US it said "your mileage may vary" giving us the YMMV internet saying, that's literally what that is about.
It was meant to allow you to compare cars with each other rather than predict what you'd get, but then they started gaming the system and creating engine maps that would look better in the tests (which wasn't illegal) and in VW's case using a different map when the bonnet was up (which was).
No it’s not. If you look at Honest Johns mpg
😆 I love it when noobs pick a fight with Mert over this shit.
It's an indicative comparison, that's all. Plus as he said regen braking masks a lot of bad driver behaviours. It's nothing to do with thinking about bunnies and baby robins.
Indicative comparisons are not much use if the relationship between them and actual reality is not the same between different cars. …but feel free to think it makes sense to make random unfounded suggestions that I can’t drive properly, I don’t really mind!
I’m not sure why they don’t just drive them around and get an average from real conditions rather than controlled environments. You’re probably going to tell me they do now…
Sorry, but they do now, it's called RDE. It was rolled out in, errrrr, about 2014/15? And is effectively used to baseline/anchor the WLTP cycle. I believe there is an adjustment factor as well.
No it’s not.
It is, i've read many reports from customers reporting horrendous fuel economy, 20 minutes looking at the diagnostics you can see why, throttle and brakes are not binary, regularly exceeding 5 g in braking is a lack of planning, not a fault with the car, using wide open throttle to get away from the lights doesn't help, using sport mode and manual shifting is going to hurt your economy.
FWIW You don't have to be *that* aggressive to get a long way from the rated figures. Even all those tiny corrections you make, and probably don't even realise, have an impact.
Not in the current job, but in a previous one, we've had engineers go out to drive customer cars where they are asking for a buy back due to FE, and the car suddenly does 20% better, on the same journey in the same time.
As a challenge, try and drive to work tomorrow using absolutely minimal brakes (if you have an ICE to use). Only use them when you need to stop (lights, badly sighted giveways, stop lines, parking space) and only when you are almost stopped already. Just doing that on my drive to work improves things about 3-5%. I've even managed to the whole journey to work only braking twice, once when backing out of my drive, once when parking up. It's also an interesting experiment in an EV, with one pedal drive turned off. Can get a measurable, but not particularly useful improvement in economy by coasting, a lot.
This is actually what i was talking about with EVs, all those tiny corrections and most badly planned braking events (up to about 1.8-2G), much of the energy goes straight back into the motor, with small adjustments you might get ~2/3rds back, in an ICE, you get zero.
Damn it, all references to g up there should actually be meters per second squared.
@mert this is what I learned in my Prius. The default dash display had a big yellow bar of instantaneous fuel consumption. Driving along a flat road and easing down on the pedal the tinest amount, giving literally imperceptible acceleration caused the yellow bar to plummet. Micro-accelerations and decelerations all the time does harm fuel economy, that's why I started to use cruise control wherever possible.
I also think that in EVs, accelerating twice as fast uses just over twice the power, but you get there in half the time so broadly the same amount of energy. In an ICE I think that isn't the case. There's a sweet spot of efficiency vs time taken to reach the target speed, and I don't think it's easy to calculate. It seems to vary by car depending on the engine technology.
good post Mert...
FWIW, my leaf can provide about 0.25g of 'braking' via regen... so as you say, anything over that (and 2g is WHOA territory!) and it's using the friction brakes...
I ALWAYS drive in e-pedal mode... i just prefer it.. I wonder how much (if at all) my EV economy would be in normal mode..?). I use adaptive CC all the time anyway, so that may skew things?
DrP
I wonder how much (if at all) my EV economy would be in normal mode..?)
Probably no different. In most cars I think (except for BMW) the one-pedal or regen settings simply change how you slow the car down. If you turn off one-pedal or reduce the 'regen' setting, you still get the same regen if you press the brake pedal to slow down the same amount. When you press the brake pedal, the pedal travel indicates to the car how quickly you want to slow down and the car will engage as much regen as it can then if that's not enough activate friction brakes. The faster you're going the more regen is available. If you slow down at say 0.1g on a motorway you might use all regen, but at 5mph in a car park it could be mostly friction.
That's my understanding, at least.
There's a review of the Ioniq 5 on YouTube (Top Gear maybe? I can't remember, black guy and a blonde woman) where they take turns driving. He gets 4m/kWh and she gets low 3s IIRC, and they discuss driving technique.
I comfortably match the official figures for my vivaro - low 40s over a number of years - and have been well over the estimate so far for my kia soul EV. Of course I don't thrash them down motorways at 80+mph and the EV is just summer usage so far....it's a lovely relaxed drive though.
There’s a sweet spot of efficiency vs time taken to reach the target speed, and I don’t think it’s easy to calculate. It seems to vary by car depending on the engine technology.
More likely to vary according to the power curve and in turn the gearing. IIRC just under the turbo threshold was the right spot but I could be very wrong about that.
molgrips - that what I believe too..
I must say, I'm super impressed at the leaf's one-pedal mode - honestly, it feels seamless coming to a stop when you lift off the pedal.. like a REALLY well controlled braking effort! barely feel the final friction brake crossover kick in..
DrP
Tesla software update now uses friction braking to replicate the effect of regenerative braking when the battery isn't warm enough to use maximum regeneration (It also blends in brakes to come to a stop).
Shows that one pedal driving is now the 'norm' for cars. Something I have to remind myself every time I nearly roll straight through the first junction in my diesel truck...
Sorry if this has been discussed before (97 pages to look at!). Does anyone have any info or experience of installing a charging point with no private off road parking?
We are on a mid terrace with a front yard onto the street but no private parking space so the charging cable would have to run across the pavement. The street is very regimented with parking so we are always able to park in front of our house. The question is: is it possible to install a charging point then sign up for an electric car tariff in this situation? From my online research it is not possible however I've seen several examples of such setups around town.
Thanks!
Something I have to remind myself every time I nearly roll straight through the first junction in my diesel truck…
When I sit in the Octavia, I'm just super confused at how to get the thing turned on and rolling for the first few seconds....!
DrP
Sorry if this has been discussed before (97 pages to look at!). Does anyone have any info or experience of installing a charging point with no private off road parking?
We are on a mid terrace with a front yard onto the street but no private parking space so the charging cable would have to run across the pavement. The street is very regimented with parking so we are always able to park in front of our house. The question is: is it possible to install a charging point then sign up for an electric car tariff in this situation? From my online research it is not possible however I’ve seen several examples of such setups around town.
There is nothing to stop you buying a charger on-line and paying an electrician to install it wherever you want it - as long as you're not breaking any regulations its perfectly legal.
I did this because i wanted an additional 13A outside socket and a few other bits doing - I did a bit of the 'first fix' - running the cables in - total cost wasn't much over the price of booking an installation on line.
No issues signing up to Octopus Go with regard to showing proof of EV ownership etc. Probably not cost effective to be on Go without an EV (or batteries) to be honest.
You do need to prove you have the right equipment for Intelligent Octopus, but that’s mainly so they can control the charge times.
Probably want to get one of those yellow and black cable protector things if you’re taking it across the pavement. Also, while the cable locks into the car it doesn’t necessarily lock into the charger if you’re using an untethered version so if you don’t trust the local scribes then this is something to bear in mind.
Thatcham Research has just released a report highlighting the issues of BEVs on the insurance industry. The full report is linked in the article
"BEV claims are already ~25.5% more expensive than their ICE equivalents and take ~14% longer to repair."
"A depreciation curve based on battery cost versus average used value shows that battery replacement expenditures exceed most BEVs used value after only one year. Thatcham Research‘s report also shows that VDAs have very few tools/techniques to sufficiently assess HV battery damage as part of the damage assessment, especially if the damage is relatively minor or not apparent without close inspection." https://www.thatcham.org/thatcham-research-innovate-uk-bev-report-2023/
“BEV claims are already ~25.5% more expensive than their ICE equivalents and take ~14% longer to repair.”
I wonder how much of that is skewed by Tesla being a large proportion of BEVs, and their parts availability being utter poo? Thus people are waiting huge times for repairs and incurring large car hire fees in the process?
I tihnk a big factor will be that a large number of ICE claims are on old, cheap cars only worth a couple 1000.
If you compared ICE to BEV and removed all cars sub 40K value you'll get a different number.
You'd expect Thatcham to be neutral and not anti-EV, you'd also have expected them to take that into account. I'm assuming when comparing claim cost they are looking at like-for-like cars in terms of value.
But I'd be interested to see if there end up being fewer claims. To offset costs EVs seem to be stuffed with gadgets including automatic emergency braking - even cheaper models. And the more accident prone demographics probably are not currently driving them. Although, when the boy racers of tomorrow get their hands on Teslas with ludicrous speed, it could be messy.
More write-offs should result in more battery modules becoming available, which will make battery refurbs nice and cheap; but more write-offs will reduce used supply and hence keep prices high. I do think the second hand market will start to look pretty different in future.
I was looking at the cheaper end of used EVs and there are Hyundais (with known good battery management) that are 3 years old with 80-100k miles on. So interior-wise they should be great, batteries should be good, it might be worth a punt. I should put my money where my mouth is 🙂
hot version of the MG4 has just been announced - 430bhp for £36,500 is pretty good value. Might be a bit toy-town inside though
I’m still dreaming of the Kia EV6 GT…… yummy!
DrP
I’m still dreaming of the Kia EV6 GT
Ugh no. Ugly things. Give me an Ioniq 6 any day (in that price range).
the kia and ioniq are almost certainly nicer cars, but the MG is £25k (40%) cheaper. I suspect there'll be a fast instance of the (frankly gopping) ioniq 6 in due course.
The styling of the Ioniq 6 is subordinate to the fact it's actually designed to be good at what it does, rather than appeal to fashion. In other words, it's aero. It's bonkers that people bitch about range then makers make (and people buy) SUV shaped EVs.
the difference in aero between suv-shaped and not can be surprisingly small. The range on the model 3 and model y is almost identical (<5% less on the model y from memory).
there are ways of doing aero without it looking gopping. the ioniq has a coefficient of 0.21 - that's bettered by the eqs and model s, and almost matched by the porsche taycan. The XL1 had a coefficient of 0.18, but it might have had less packaging considerations.
I guess you can't get away from the need from a cab-forward teardrop shape, but there's ways to detail it that are less offensive (to my eyes). Still, different folks like the ioniq 6, so they obviously did their research