The Electric Car Thread

It seems to be that car manufacturers want you to treat an EV like a piece of consumer electronics. They are packed full of tech that the manufacturers have no intention of supporting beyond a few years.

Not here. Hyundai are still updating software on my discontinued car with actual significant improvements and features.

Also, my range estimate number is accurate (actually conservative) and it hardly deviates from the WTLP in winter whilst exceeding it in summer.

I think the poor range numbers in winter are perhaps clouded by short trips in slow traffic with the heating on high. This means that the heater is always pulling 1.5kW to get the car warm in a short period but you’re doing very few miles against which to offset that. This causes the range figure on your dash to plummet. But that’s not really important since by definition if you are doing short slow trips you don’t need a lot of range. Get on the motorway for an hour and then heater consumption drops to 300W and you’re doing 70mph the range will look far better.

Maybe a 2WD car with decent tyres and decent traction control would cope OK.

I live on a hillside, accessed by a dirt track in a forest in Scandinavia, i’ve got stuck once in 2 decades. Driving an assortment of 2wd cars.

Including a good number of single motor EVs. A few lowered Volvos (R-Design and Polestar engineered) plus some Porsches, Audi, Tesla, VW (EV and ICE).

Anything modern will do it, no problems.

Drive your car up to a ski resort in January, leave it outside then get back to us with how much range you have and the amount of regen braking on tap. It’s quite handy having a warning about limited regen because when you’re used to one-pedal driving it’s a bit odd having to brake for bends.

The regen issue (changing response to one pedal drive) is 100% a car problem, it’s running old hardware/software. Brake blending is pretty common now. The range issue is just physics, so as expected. Should leave it plugged in, even a 13 Amp socket should have enough grunt to keep the battery charging (albeit slowly) and warm. It does when i bring EVs home and charge on the drive.

It seems to be that car manufacturers want you to treat an EV like a piece of consumer electronics. They are packed full of tech that the manufacturers have no intention of supporting beyond a few years.

The core systems used in EV are no different to motor/drive systems used in industry. I have a few companies that keep my shop floor running down to component level of repair. There’s no reason why these companies couldn’t repair EV drives and charging systems.

Grey/after market will spring up to repair/replace touchscreens etc. My 20year old Porsche LCD screen has a fading issue – replacements are available from eBay @ £50. The outdated entertainment system is replaceable either via an updated Porsche factory unit or aftermarket Android.

Fundamentally EV’s are far simpler and easier to keep running long term than an ICE, I’m looking forward to £500 EV bangernomics where I don’t have to worry about engines and gearboxes.

Should leave it plugged in, even a 13 Amp socket should have enough grunt to keep the battery charging (albeit slowly) and warm.

I’ll ask the ski resort to equip every parking place with a 13A socket like they do in Finland. ;)

That’s an interesting question. Which EV has the best audio system?

My Tesla Model Y has the best sound system of any car I’ve owned.

I’ll ask the ski resort to equip every parking place with a 13A socket like they do in Finland. ;)

Hmmmmm, most of the resorts i’ve been to in the Alps have had outside sockets for either block heaters, or just because. Though i’ve not been to an Alpine resort since before the kids were born!

My Tesla Model Y has the best sound system of any car I’ve owned.

Didn’t they do a sneaky downgrade on a good number of the sound system options on some Teslas last year?

Lower spec/smaller speakers and a reduction in number? (Even have a vague recollection of a cheaper amp?)

Believe the sound system is downgraded on the base Model Y RWD on US produced models only so far. European and UK cars come from Berlin and China. Ours (picked up in May) still has a subwoofer..

Currently plugged into the wall in the parking space at the ski chalet we’re staying at in the Tarantaise area.

The drive down here from London was uneventful and long. Going back we’ll spend a bit more time planning as a few of the Superchargers we used coming here were in random locations with no facilities, so we couldn’t easily overlap charging the car with family refueling..

The bike on the roof reduced efficiency a fair bit. Sea Sucker rack was fine though..

I was told that the “Premium” audio in the Long Range variant is unbranded Bang and Olufson. Take that as you will.

Would have an ID 7 over a Model Y at this point. Better build quality, more space, longer range, not going to be keyed by everyone who walks past it, and no money going to Musk Enterprises. Especially not since they tacitly admitted on Twitter that they have no intention of bringing things like auto park to the UK due to the fact we’re RHD.

be keyed by everyone who walks past it,

Is this a thing with a Tesla?

I suspect the kind of people who object to Musk aren’t the kind of people who’ll key cars :)

The kind of people who would key cars are the type of people who would definitely key a Tesla though.
Tesla drivers get pigeonholed in much the same way as Audi drivers and white van men.

I’m looking forward to some cheap charging over the next few days thanks to the remnants of a hurricane and the possibility of some sunshine on some solar panels somewhere in the country. Agile tariff and a 3 pin plug.

Radio in the ioniq is ok. I’m no audio expert so not to fussy.

It seems to be that car manufacturers want you to treat an EV like a piece of consumer electronics. They are packed full of tech that the manufacturers have no intention of supporting beyond a few years.

There are legal requirements in most markets to support with service, spares and software for around a decade after end of production (think the shortest is 7 years, longest might be 12. I’d have to double check though.)

Some manufacturers get round this by calling a major facelift or new top hat a completely new model. But the authorities are getting wise to this. Will be an interesting thing to watch for, especially as everyone is moving to much more long lived platforms, with multiple tophats.

The thing you will probably lose sooner is feature upgrades and improvements. That might only be a couple of years after end of production, or you might need to pay for it, if the hardware is still capable of carrying the upgrades. But the update cycle for automotive OS is much longer than most consumer electronics and the backwards compatibility requirements much stronger.

Interesting times.

I suspect the kind of people who object to Musk aren’t the kind of people who’ll key cars :)

We’ve had our Tesla test cars keyed, on site.

I really wish Elon would settle TF down…

I’m just about ready to go electric on the family car after long agonising over it.

It needs to be new, as it’s being purchased through business, and the model Y ticks pretty much every box.

Pleasingly, I found out last week that Tesla have a Highland popup test centre in Inverness with a Y and a 3 so I took the Y out for two hour blocks. It’s really, really good.

I’ll likely order a long range this week, but the behaviour of the CEO certainly gives pause.

He’s just such a high profile bellend despite heading up some incredible people doing spectacular things.

There’s a fair chance that the top brass in other large companies I’ve dealt with recently (RBS, Currys, VW, Amazon , Microsoft, FB, Tesco, Lidl….)are also throbbers, but conveniently keep it lower key.  Musk is a level above in the dickhead race.

What a great car though!

bedmakerFull Member
I really wish Elon would settle TF down…

I’m just about ready to go electric on the family car after long agonising over it.

It needs to be new, as it’s being purchased through business, and the model Y ticks pretty much every box.

Pleasingly, I found out last week that Tesla have a Highland popup test centre in Inverness with a Y and a 3 so I took the Y out for two hour blocks. It’s really, really good.

I’ll likely order a long range this week, but the behaviour of the CEO certainly gives pause.

He’s just such a high profile bellend despite heading up some incredible people doing spectacular things.

There’s a fair chance that the top brass in other large companies I’ve dealt with recently (RBS, Currys, VW, Amazon , Microsoft, FB, Tesco, Lidl….)are also throbbers, but conveniently keep it lower key.  Musk is a level above in the dickhead race.

What a great car though!

Yeah hard to partition that sometimes. Especially when he’s taking such a load of cash from Tesla.

Does the Y use indicator buttons instead of a stalk like the new 3?  If so how did you find it?  I think it would drive me crackers.

Does the Y use indicator buttons instead of a stalk like the new 3? If so how did you find it? I think it would drive me crackers.

Still stalks, the update to similar spec to the 3 is due next spring sometime apparently.

I didn’t drive the 3, but I’d imagine the lack of stalks is a backwards step, like the hideous haptic touch buttons on the VW idbuzz.

Musk is a level above in the dickhead race.

Can’t argue with that but I’d rather buy a car from a dickhead than from a company that has killed thousands of people by selling cars that broke emissions limits, been fined billions and had a senior executive sent to prison.

Can’t argue with that but I’d rather buy a car from a dickhead than from a company that has killed thousands of people by selling cars that broke emissions limits, been fined billions and had a senior executive sent to prison.

Hmm, not sure about this.  I’d suspect that VW aren’t doing these things any more, but Musk is still a dick.  Let’s not forget that lots of companies of all types did shitty things in the past. The Ford Pinto scandal was far worse than what VW did.

@bedmaker what other cars did you try? Plenty of choice out there.

I’d suspect that VW aren’t doing these things any more, but Musk is still a dick

Why don’t we add conspiring with BMW and Daimler to fix the price of steel and restrict the deployment of emissions reduction technology? But never mind all that, one of 180,000 people at Tesla is a dick so we mustn’t buy any of their cars.

Can’t argue with that but I’d rather buy a car from a dickhead than from a company that has killed thousands of people by selling cars that broke emissions limits, been fined billions and had a senior executive sent to prison.

Oh, I didn’t realise there were only 2 auto manufacturers…

Oh, I didn’t realise there were only 2 auto manufacturers…

Just one example. I gave two others above who’s corporate cultures and ethics you might like to consider before buying from them..

He’s very much a far-right throbber and I have no doubt that Tesla management are working on a way to evict him from the job. Until then though he’s having a massively negative effect on their sales in the UK, in my opinion. The people who subscribe to his views are now in prison as opposed to buying Teslas – although I wouldn’t be surprised if this works as a sales boost among the rednecks he’s courting in the USA.

I’ve still not decided whether to get a replacement Model 3 on the work scheme and it’s about 90% down to Musk, and 10% down to “this car doesn’t feel like great value for money” with the number of features on the new one that are locked out or inop for RHD markets. On the bright side the Australians like Teslas, and they mostly subscribe to his unpleasant and backward opinions too.

I’m not one for arguing over which multibillion dollar corporation is better, but the obvious difference between Elon and VW is that VW were caught and punished, whereas Elon has been getting worse and worse since the Thai cave rescue fiasco and gets away with it.

I don’t think owners of Tesla’s are all far right misogynistic incels, but I do think they care more about how well the buttons work in their cars than how much damage Trump and Elon are doing to our civilisation.

Personally I wouldn’t buy a Tesla and that is down to Musk, but I wouldn’t have any issues buying a VAG car. Don’t suppose it makes sense but I doubt I’m alone. Most car purchases are pretty irrational really.

Anyway, back to more interesting things:

I live on a hillside, accessed by a dirt track in a forest in Scandinavia, i’ve got stuck once in 2 decades. Driving an assortment of 2wd cars.

Thanks. I guess it’s been over 20 years since we last bought a 2WD car. Although I know that 2WD+good tyres beats 4WD with average tyres I still think that 4WD+good tyres is going to be the safest option up here. But we don’t get the snow we got 20 years ago and obviously traction control systems (and tyres) have come a long way in that time. With ICE cars there wasn’t really a reason not to go with 4WD (or AWD) cars. They were a bit more expensive to buy and run but didn’t really change what you can do other than being a bit safer when conditions were bad. With EVs you have to sacrifice some range to get a dual motor setup (as there is usually a single motor version of the same car that goes further) so you could end up regretting that decision on longer journeys I guess.

Thanks to all the people who took the time to respond to my comments/questions. I won’t quote them all here but have read them all and found them very useful.

I’m now wrestling with this issue of insane power in an EV. It seems strange to live in a world where I could buy a car that goes from 0-60mph in under 4s. That is the super-car performance that my adolescent self dreamt of and since I never actually grew up it is very hard to resist. But we’re back to the dual motor issue and the price you have to pay in reduced range. Plus would/should I actually use that insane acceleration. A few people have commented that they don’t but obviously still like having it. But if you aren’t going to use it is it really worth paying the price in reduced range/efficiency? Where is it actually a real-world advantage to be able to accelerate that quickly?

I’ve never had an issue getting up to speed on a slip road. I guess it would allow me to nip out in front of people who are a bit closer (or going a bit faster) at junctions and roundabouts. But is that a good idea? If they are too close for you to be able to pull out in a car with normal acceleration maybe they are just too close. If in doubt, chicken out as the driving instructor tried to drill into my son.

I do use the acceleration of my current car to get in front of other cars sometimes, but nine times out of ten it just results in them being even more determined to get past again, which they can always do by taking more risks or being more aggressive. So you end up doing 100 mph down the dual carriageway trying to see who can brake later and hang on round the roundabout. Well I do, which probably means that I shouldn’t be allowed to drive anything that accelerates faster than a milk float :)

Where is it actually a real-world advantage to be able to accelerate that quickly?

It isn’t. It never was. It’s a bizarre trend started by Tesla as a way to convince petrolheads that electricity is ‘better’

It always makes more sense to have a single motor and bigger battery (range). It irritates me when makers have a big battery EV, and it’s only for the dual motor model.

Polestar have got this right (long range, single motor) and Volvo missed it (XC40 – Single motor, smaller battery) despite being the same company. I think they are waking up to it on the new models though.

A proper 500mile range EV at a sensible price point will be a game changer. BMW are promising it on the next gen EV, but we’ll see.

Plus would/should I actually use that insane acceleration.

I would not use it as a matter of course, but IMO when overtaking slower traffic it could be useful. If you live in an area where the main roads are windy and single carriageway then it can make a difference. That said, a 6 or 7s 0-60 time is probably enough. I don’t think I would get a dual motor car to lose 10% of the range.

A proper 500mile range EV at a sensible price point will be a game changer

I think this would be a terrible idea. No-one needs to drive that far in one go. For perspective, it’s 417 miles from London to Edinburgh. Can you imagine there being no free rapid chargers anywhere along that route? Even today there are hundreds. A 500 mile car is going to use 50% more valuable battery resources than is realistically needed, and for what? Hardly anyone is going to use it. You’re not going to drive 6-7hrs in one go.

What we need is 300 mile cars that charge quickly, and charging stations everywhere. If we can halve the average time spent charging then we will effectively double the number of available chargers. That said, I think that when people stop they often tend to stop for at least half an hour anyway, so maybe even that’s fast enough.

The second biggest problem for Teslas is that they are ugly.

If you live in an area where the main roads are windy and single carriageway then it can make a difference.

Good point and I do :) It’s probably the only place where I could legitimately argue that my car is safer than, say, my wife’s car as I spend less time on the wrong side of the road getting past slow moving traffic. Mind you, that does mean that I look for spaces to pass in my car but when I’m in my wife’s I don’t bother looking unless there is a long clear straight and just stick on a podcast instead (and annoy all the people behind who now have two cars to try to pass :) ).

It does make me wonder why people always quote 0-60 times though when something like 40-70 is a more useful real-world measure. This is where the old petrol turbo engines were fun. Not so fast off the line as the turbo didn’t kick in until 2,000 rpm but a nice bit of power just where you needed it. I guess with an EV that isn’t an issue though and the 40-70 mph time will be proportional to the 0-62 anyway.

It’s probably the only place where I could legitimately argue that my car is safer than, say, my wife’s car

As you allude, a faster car should not be safer as you should never overtake in too small a gap. The faster car can be quicker because a smaller gap is now safe and there are more smaller gaps.

In terms of acceleration, in an EV it does tail off as you go faster unlike an ICE which builds as you go up through the rev range.

That said, a 6 or 7s 0-60 time is probably enough.

This is the question I’m trying to wrestle with. A sub 7s 0-60 time is plenty. That’s hot hatch territory. Why would I possibly want more than that? Except I could have something that could do 0-60 in under 4s and how cool would that be :)

A 500 mile car is going to use 50% more valuable battery resources than is realistically needed, and for what? Hardly anyone is going to use it. You’re not going to drive 6-7hrs in one go.

This gets back to a point I was making earlier about not understanding the obsession with range. I still think what we need (and what will come) is better charger infrastructure rather than ever longer range. But, to be fair, a 500 mile WLTP range probably wouldn’t be any more than 400 miles on the motorway (maybe less in winter) and you wouldn’t want to drop below 10% or charge beyond 80% so you need to look at 70% of that, which is “only” 280 miles between refuelling stops. That is still a bit less than most petrol cars do on a tank of fuel. Given that you can fit a fuel tank of almost any size in an ICE car, there is presumably a reason why most ICE cars can go at least 300 miles between refuelling stops. I guess that marks the point at which “range” stops being an issue (i.e. you will almost always want to stop before your car says you have to) with the current infrastructure. So I guess it’s not a bad benchmark for an EV.

A quick squirt of the accelerator is fun and helps get around traffic. I use it once or twice per commute I guess (yes, the ability to accelerate amazingly fast is turning me into a bit of a nob).

Really not noticed a significant impact on range as a result. Don’t forget that the increased speed will get scrubbed off by regen braking, so used charge is recovered somewhat.

If you’re that troubled by it, most electric cars have an Eco mode which limits the max acceleration (they also have a sporty mode which opens it up more).

I think you’re overthinking all this. Buy a car, use it.

Having driven in the UK recently I can’t get my head around people here seeing overtaking performance important. Most people were driving up to the limit and if anyone wasn’t a queue soon formed so I’d have had to overtake dozens of cars to achieve anything other than change my place in the line.

Other people were sensibly not bothering to try to overtake, there were few gaps in oncoming traffic and if there was a gap the next on-coming car was often speeding.

High risk no reward. Pointless. Leave a good gap, relax and enjoy whatever you have on the audio.

A proper 500mile range EV at a sensible price point will be a game changer.

Absolute bobbins. Mine does 280miles to a charge. No way am I driving that far without a break, and if I’m having a break I might as well charge, and I’ve never had an issue charging.

Buy the car. Use it.

A quick squirt of the accelerator is fun and helps get around traffic. I use it once or twice per commute I guess (yes, the ability to accelerate amazingly fast is turning me into a bit of a nob).

That’s the problem. I don’t think I need any help in that department :)

I think you’re overthinking all this.

Oh, that’s a given. Overthinking is what I do best.

The thing is that there is this (hypothetical) sensible option I could (and should) go for. But then there is this bonkers option that I could (but shouldn’t) go for too. The bonkers option makes no sense except to my inner child. But then my inner child isn’t suddenly going to shut up just because I went with the sensible option. Maybe I should just save the money I was thinking of spending on an EV and spend it on therapy instead :)

Having driven in the UK recently I can’t get my head around people here seeing overtaking performance important. Most people were driving up to the limit and if anyone wasn’t a queue soon formed so I’d have had to overtake dozens of cars to achieve anything other than change my place in the line.

It all depends on where you are. In many places, yes you’re absolutely right. But in say, Mid Wales – take the A470 as an example – it’s generally pretty quiet, but you do get held up by single 40-50mph vehicles quite often. So the ability to get past them easily and get on with your journey really does help, even if you are sticking to the limits yourself.

The i4 40 does a claimed 5.7 to 60 and is plenty quick – faster than could ever be needed. It drives like a car that’s quite a bit quicker as the power delivery is instant – no waiting for turbos to spool up, change down a gear or two or the revs to build.

A real world range of 300 miles is absolutely enough.  There is no way I could ever drive it from full to empty without at least a couple of stops. 300 miles is 5 hrs driving at an average 60MPH – you can’t do average of 60MPH in the UK for that long unless you’re purely on motorways and it’s very quiet. In the real world it’s more like 7 hrs to drain the battery.   What the longer range DOES do is give more flexibility to charging stops, so you can cherry pick the lowest cost or most convenient or the one without any queues etc.  Or – more commonly for me – be able to do fairly long round trips without charging at all (or at least very little) which keeps the cost down.

It seems strange to live in a world where I could buy a car that goes from 0-60mph in under 4s. That is the super-car performance that my adolescent self dreamt of and since I never actually grew up it is very hard to resist.

And then you get into BEV supercar territory where 0-60 is a chunk under 3 seconds and then they keep on accelerating at the same rate. 0-200 kph in ~10 seconds is organ re-arrangingly quick and i would doubt whether even 1% of the customers buying these cars (even the sub 5 second ones!) are in any way capable of dealing with that sort of acceleration if they get even the slightest bit outside the envelope where traction control helps. (or when they turn it off.)

It’s a bizarre trend started by Tesla as a way to convince petrolheads that electricity is ‘better’

Pretty much this, if you want a big battery that charges fast, and motors/invertor/battery that are efficient and allow you to regenerate even the smallest amount of energy, speccing the powerpack up to accelerate like a race car is just a matter of going from 16 mm cable to 20mm and changing a few of parameters in the system. Then managing the heat. The rest of the hardware is already there and capable.

He’s just such a high profile bellend despite heading up some incredible people doing spectacular things.

He mostly gets in the way, shouts at people and sacks them if they disagree with him or if they refuse to sign off on something that he thinks is good enough. There are some issues at Tesla which the authorities are picking at now. God knows how many court cases his legal team are fighting at the moment. Certainly into 4 digits.

The A470, the most dangerous road in Wales, and still up there even if you take into account the length.

I worked for Welsh Water based in Aberaeron for 5 years driving 20 000 miles or more sampling, investgaing, site visiting so I’m familiar with those roads which despite low traffic levels have a lot of crashes, often misjudged overtakes.

My landlord’s son, a farmer, had an overtaking accident – a tractor pulled out only looking the way he was expecting cars to come from. He lived. Decades later I was reading the Welsh press online and realised the person killed in a similar collision was the landlord’s grandaughter. :(

A car that accelerates well gives drivers the feeling the can make safe overtakes with shorter gaps. The reality is that when you overtake another vehicle doing 50 you’re on the wrong side of the road well over the speed limit and someone doing the same as you might be coming the other way.

The reality is that when you overtake another vehicle doing 50 you’re on the wrong side of the road well over the speed limit and someone doing the same as you might be coming the other way.

Yep, all part of how to drive in the countryside. But the point stands – UK roads are not all as you describe.

I can’t find a reference to the A470 being the most dangerous road though. I have regularly driven some awful dangerous roads and I can’t say I’ve ever felt the A470 was dangerous. Windy roads between population centres or linking up bits of motorway tend to be the worst – the A417 between Ledbury and Gloucester was utterly terrifying on a daily basis when I drove it 20 years ago.

sounds like surfmat has been resurrected and has now got an EV……  :)