The Electric Car Thread

Tried the beta self steering cruise control, not a fan as it is a faff to change lanes which is self defeating

Yeah. It’s a waste of time.  The constant nagging from the car to wiggle the steering wheel is irritating.

I think my next big trip in the Corsa e will be routed via the Tesla open for all charging stations. There seems to be a few more than this time last year and they are cheap.

Had 4 wheel alignment on the P2 on Sat…

All wheels were toes out a bit… So all 4 adjusted. Despite lowering the car, the camber was still in the green, which is nice!

Does it feel any different… Hmm.. not really! But mentally it’s better knowing it’s fixed, and should show better mileage..

DrP

Boring efficiency update. Just roof bars on my Polestar made little difference, sitting mid-20s kWh/100miles this time of year.

With bike rack (Yakima HighSpeed) and bike (hardtail mtb) on, it gave 28kWh/100miles, so 3.6 miles/kWh. Mixed driving, but mostly motorway, 90 miles in pissing rain. Not too shabby. No more noise than just the bars as well, which was surprising.

Have joined the electron bothering club this week with an orange kona 64kw. Hoping for some calming driving experiences and savings soon.

Bensales….

Still beating my economy.. Even with a bike 🤣

DrP

Mine is the boring slow one though.

3.6 is bloody good with the bike on it. Audi Q4 Quattro Sportback, 3000 miles and long term I’m showing average of 3.4 with an average speed of 30mph. My commute is 70 miles round trip mainly motorway.

Cost wise, electricity bill is averaging at £20 a week (just under). That’s all household electricity, 2 adults and 2 teenagers. So pretty happy cost wise. However very occasionally it will just immediately charge, noticed it twice but noticed it after a good number of hours of  charging.

The bad news is….I really miss my fast petrol cars…..found myself on autotrader having a sneaky look earlier.

The bad news is….I really miss my fast petrol cars…..found myself on autotrader having a sneaky look earlier.

Fast EV…? Woosh woosh…?

The p2 dual motor with performance upgrade is, quite frankly, ridonculous!

99% of the time it’s a lazy cruiser.. plodding around without a care… But if needed..maaaan does that thing pull!

DrP

14hrs on the road yesterday of which just under 3hrs was spent charging. It was done ad hoc rather than according to the plan so it was not optimal in terms of time. Only about 10 mins was spent actually sat waiting when I wanted to leave; the rest was walking around, eating or stretching legs.

A good half hour was wasted in Fort William trying unsuccessfully to get the Tesla charger to work. It wouldn’t talk to the car.

Also the charger in Mallaig, an ancient battered thing only works with the RFID card and not the app at all. However I rang CPS and they were able to order me a card and use that to start the charge. Their website recommends that you get the card due to lack of signal, however it does not say that some chargers are not even app enabled.

Also the charger in Mallaig, an ancient battered thing only works with the RFID card and not the app at all

I know you left it too late to get a card but I did say a decent CPS experience requires the RFID card.

And I would have ordered one if it would have arrived on time.

The advice for cards is related to mobile signal, and I verified that I would have signal. And I do. The annoying part is that nowhere does it say that not all the chargers are app enabled.

The constant nagging from the car to wiggle the steering wheel is irritating.

A solution to dickheads trying to use level 2/3 self driving as a complete autonomous driving solution.

Think mine looks for an input from me every 12 seconds and cuts out after 2o. So i leave my hands on the wheel, and that’s enough for it to detect i’m there.

Yeah my car just detects your hands on the wheel and complains after 10s or so if you let go of the wheel entirely.

Total efficiency yesterday was 4.7 by the way. After the rain stopped on the motorway we were getting 4.8 or so by my calculations.

On the beta self steer cruise, it was more on a busy motorway, changing lane disengages the cruise and the car lurches as the regen braking competes with my attempts to match road speed with the accelerator pedal. It is neither relaxing or comfortable for passengers. Long empty stretches of road would be fine although I prefer to just steer the car.

That’s poor – on mine it stays engaged – as soon as you indicate it disengages the self steering and then when you start to move out the cruise starts to accelerate back to your chosen speed if you’d slowed down.  Works really well, one of the best thought out things on the car.  But whilst it does steer itself it’s only lane assist, it doesn’t claim to be any kind of self driving.

Did 430 miles on Saturday, Bromley to near Poitiers in a 62kwh Leaf. Easy run except for Chargemap recommending a single unit just off the autoroute that was already in use but we pushed on to the next. Last rapid was a bit slow as the battery was hot, so an extra 30 mins waiting on the car rather than the other way around so we could do the last leg in one go.

Octopus Electroverse card has worked on everything I’ve tried so far in France, makes it so easy.

Anyway, the A820 to Mallaig is outstanding. 30 miles of smooth tarmac, no junctions, no traffic and fantastic flow. Restraint is required!

@davy90, there’s no need for any lurching when it disengages, just match the speed with your accelerator then indicate.

Have you got single tap or double tap to engage autosteer turned on? If it’s double tap it keeps traffic aware cruise control on whilst you change and then you re-engage auto steer once you’re in lane.

Have a play with the options but there’s no need for it to be lurching around. 👍

as soon as you indicate it disengages the self steering and then when you start to move out the cruise starts to accelerate back to your chosen speed if you’d slowed down.

Which is the “normal” way to do it. Most cars i’ve tested it on do this. Sometimes they can lurch a bit on the brakes if the radar continues to pick up the car you’re passing, but usually not.

Just seen you’re in a tesla. No idea what’s going on there.

The Leaf did the same with re the adaptive cruise; the only weirdness was when the road was open and a car came into range, it would brake rather than just ease down which was a bit weird when the car was 200m away.  This could be alleviated by reducing the range you wanted the adaptive cruise to work at – then it behaved more sensibly.  Hyundai has a setting to adjust how aggressively it maintains the distance, which is also configurable with a button on the wheel.  In queues it’s still a little less fluid than I’d like even on low – but that’s because it’s not looking three cars ahead like a human driver does (or should do!)

Cheers, the beta cruise just cancelled itself when changing lanes, the basic adaptive cruise is fine, I’ve not tinkered with the stalk settings. Coming from a 16 year old car where cruise control just fixes your speed, I find some of automated features an unnecessary distraction. Just need to recalibrate my brain I guess.

I only drive on motorways for long periods for a few trips a year so not really a problem. The model Y is considerably easier to drive long distances than my 1991 Talbot Express :)

I’ve not tinkered with the stalk settings

What’s that? I don’t know of any cruise settings on the stalks, other than one down for adaptive cruise, two down for autopilot and three down for rainbow road cowbells. You can toggle one of the scroll wheels left or right to change the distance between you and the car in front, isn’t that about it?

Octopus Electroverse card has worked on everything I’ve tried so far in France, makes it so easy.

Like, all the big chargers at the motorway services etc? That would be ideal, as when I did a Euro trip i had to use my UK debit card..getting pre authorised £40 each time..

DrP

(i must look for my electroverse card in the car!)

So back from an afternoon hiking in South Yorkshire, park the car back at the air bnb, get the type 2 charge cable out to plug in and the bloody flap keeps closing as soon as it opens irrespective of which of the 5 different ways you can trigger the opening you try…  A bit of googling suggests this is not an uncommon issue.. Held the thing open and plugged it in anyway and it appears to be charging fine… raised a ticket on the Tesla app, waiting for a response from a human..

1 week into ownership… underwhelming but hopefully the warranty service will be more impressive.

Charged to 100% and it now appears to work fine… Mrs Davy90 logged out of the app and logged back in again…. witchcraft…

Some economy data for anyone who’s interested…

Kia EV6 2WD with the long-range battery. General pootling about town is about 14 kWh per 100km (4.4 miles per kWh).

Overall since we bought it is 17.1 kWh (3.7 kWh).

On our last day out to the trails (80km each way of mostly 100km/h hilly, twisty rural highway – similar to an A road through the Lakes or Yorkshire Dales, but without the traffic) it used 24 kWh per 100km (2.6 miles per kWh), but it had two adults, two 12-year-olds, an eight-year-old, a medium-sized dog, all the biking clobber, and was not exactly aerodynamic…

Like, all the big chargers at the motorway services etc?

On the Electroverse app there are absolutely loads of chargers.

On the Electroverse app there are absolutely loads of chargers.

but do not assume it’s the best price though Electroverse. The much touted discounts only apply if you have certain Octopus energy tariffs, and in some cases Electroverse is more expensive than either contactless or using the CPOs card/app. Electroverse is convenient, for sure, but not always cheapest.

Yep, most aires are Ionity or Total. Ionity was 30p/kwh via Octopus (I think the lower power triple head charger I used is cheaper than high power CCS).  Powerdot at the supermarket and even the village 22kw AC post work with it.

The whole roaming charge card thing seems far more joined up in France.

 I don’t know of any cruise settings on the stalks,

Its a setting in the control menu, having done a bit more digging, the default stalk setting is single tap for cruise, if I set the stalk to double tap it sets the cruise with a single tap and the autosteer with the second tap as you say, and it would seem, keeps the adaptive cruise on when autosteer disengages, which should deal with the lurching when lane changing. Will give it a try.

Going back a page, isn’t the wheel size efficiency thing a miscalculation? If the car assumes a typical wheel circumference, then counting wheel revolutions will make the miles come quicker.

I don’t believe 20% difference is realistic anyway, or else all cars would come with the better wheels.

Going back a page, isn’t the wheel size efficiency thing a miscalculation? If the car assumes a typical wheel circumference, then counting wheel revolutions will make the miles come quicker.

When talking about wheel size, it’s assuming the circumference of the tyre remains the same, but the RIM size:tyre size varies.

a 19inch rim may have a 3 inch thick tyre, so total diameter is 9say) 25 inches.

A 17 inch rim will have 4 inches of tyre, so same 25 inch diameter, but more tyre, and normally narrower tyre too..

DrP

isn’t the wheel size efficiency thing a miscalculation?

The poster reported a 22% efficiency gain based one trip that they had previously made many times on the larger wheels.  Of course, that’s not very good data so they may have had a tailwind etc.

Of course, that’s not very good data so they may have had a tailwind etc.

Someone needs their mouth washing out with carbolic then.

That’s anecdata at best.

Yes, but if you regularly make a trip and you know what your efficiency is likely to be in given conditions, then it suddenly jumps up, you can tell there’s been a change.  Obviously more data is much better.

underwhelming but hopefully the warranty service will be more impressive.

Just out of interest, did you get a response? Or is there the option of cancelling the request?

@Tenfoot we told them via the app thread that the issue had resolved itself and they sent a message with a path to log an issue under the service menu should it happen again, which seems fair enough.

Tried the new cruise configuration earlier and it works well with the double tap.

Only niggle now is the auto wipers which are impressively erratic given the tech has been around for over 15 years.

Going back a page, isn’t the wheel size efficiency thing a miscalculation? If the car assumes a typical wheel circumference, then counting wheel revolutions will make the miles come quicker.

Larger wheels are heavier. And not just because of the diameter, but also often the width.

The auto wipers are shit, after 4yrs I can confirm this. I can offer you salvation for this as well.

You can map the left steering wheel scroll button to a variety of functions.  Choose wiper speed as your primary function. You can then tap the end of the stalk to switch the wipers on and the scroll wheel will control the speed. Works really well.