The Electric Car Thread

[By Google Drive I guess you mean Android Auto – GD is their cloud storage]

Ooops yes.  Same combination of meanings,, somewhat different different things!

Yes – if the car doesnt support talking to the charger ( as our car – merc eqc – doesnt support)

AFAIK no charger supports this.

Since they are free it is nice to have this stuff. But not a deal-breaker, and as pointed out on the “what SIM for a car” thread, Google Drive and plugging your phone in* will get you up to date mapping, and arguably a better mapping app, though the native mapping on the Zoe appears OK (I think it is Tom Tom)

Android Auto also doesn’t know how much charge your battery has. So in our car if you’ve planned a route it will adjust the charging stops based on how much charge you have, how much you put in each stop and how you’re doing. E.g. if you get caught in heavy rain and your efficiency goes down it might change its mind about where to stop. Not all cars do this though.

On the plus side, Google routing is better than Hyundai, and if I use Android Auto I can get Amazon Music and WhatsApp, which my car is too old to support. Although Ioniq 5/6s do support Amazon Music apparently.

As another Zoe owner that’s run out of free connective services – I never used them anyhow. I use the phone for navigation and could still connect it to the car but don’t, it sits in the tray by the gear lever charging with the nice Mapy lady telling me where to go (though we often disagree). The car lives in a garage so I don’t pre heat and I’m not wasting leccy pre-heating if it’s away from home at public charger prices. I didn’t use the time or percentage thing, that’s sorted by me or the charger. It’s not that I’m a technophobe (well maybe a bit), but I’m not a geek either, I like simple solutions.

AFAIK no charger supports this.

Yes it is not a direct conversation (which surprises me a little).  The car talks to its server and the charger (or perhaps the charger manufacturer’s server) talks to the car manufacturer’s server (presumably via a published API).  A bit like the way your Garmin talks to your computer via Strava.

Yes it is not a direct conversation (which surprises me a little)

It kinda makes sense.

Your car has an app that talks to the manufactures server* as well so it’s better to just do one upload from the car, rather duplicate the data to the server and to the charger as well.

Plus there’s many makes of charger and the car manufacturer doesn’t want to mess with the software to talk directly to each one.

* (and China – obvs)

Indeed, but possibly a modest open protocol for establishing a secure link over the wire and  another one for agreeing on a charging plan, which would require some exchange of data.  There isn’t a lot of stuff that needs to be shared, I would have thought there would have been some arm twisting from governments to get industry bodies to work this out.

the nice Mapy lady telling me where to go (though we often disagree).

Quelle surprise ;)

I’ve now got two women in the car telling me to go the wrong way. :) But at least the Mapy one doesn’t throw the map book out of the window. The Google one was really annoying, she kept diverting me to the autoroute, I reckoned she was sleeping with VINCI so gagged her, but sometimes untie her for the last km to a Supercharger, she must have a thing with Elon too.

AFAIK no charger supports this.

Yeah I meant indirectly via apis not directly over the charging cable.

Pretty sure you can tell Google to avoid motorways and also avoid tolls which should stop it telling you to go on the Autoroute.

Pretty sure you can tell Google to avoid motorways and also avoid tolls which should stop it telling you to go on the Autoroute

You definitely can and it stores the settings (or it did last summer when we last used it).

Not to be recommended for a route when trying to travel from Derbyshire to Hampshire via the Motorway network (non EV in my case). Top tip when using it to avoid a major motorway hold up while travelling north, remember to turn it off before coming back south a week later. :-(

Your compass direction may vary.

Google should automatically route you around traffic jams too. If it doesn’t, it’s because the alternative is slower despite what it feels like.

What it doesn’t seem to realise is that sometimes driving on open roads is preferable to a sitting in a queue even if it is slower.

Pretty sure you can tell Google to avoid motorways and also avoid tolls

You can but after a few minutes it defaults back to taking you to the autoroute. It also gives route alternatives so I tried selecting the one that didn’t take the autoroute – exactly the same, in a few minutes it defaults back to the autoroute route. Sometimes it’ll take you on a ridiculous detour to get you on the autoroute even when there are obviously quicker routes. It’ll always take you to the nearest échangeur even if it’s through town in the wrong direction and it’s better to avoid the town and take the next one. And it always assumes 130kmh on the autoroute whatever the weather (autoroutes are limited to 110kmh in the wet) or traffic conditions.

Try it the next time you drive in France.

Even when there aren’t autoroutes the route suggested is sometimes bananas. In Toulouse recently and heading for a Supercharger the Google route went through the whole length of the commercial zone to the Supercharger, parallel to the traffic-free toll-free 70/80kmh ring road.

The Polestar, and a few other Volvo/Geely vehicles use Android Automotive, which is kinda android auto BUILT IN to the car’s native entertainment unit..

The great thing there is that is

a – uses google mapping, which is great, and

b – knowns the cars SOC and therefore will route you to chargers en route if you plot in a 6000 mile journey. It’ll also precondition the battery pre-arrival at the charger.

Is it as FAST as a modern phone plugged in…possibly not (my car is a launch edition from 2021, and the polestar 3 and 4 have newer infotatinment units…) It gets OTA updates all the time so should stay up to date, but I wonder how well the hardware will fare in 15 years time!

The screen AKA brain IS replacable (i had mine replaced under warranty) so i wonder if there’s ever the option to replace a 2020 screen/brain with a 2028 one, when the time comes??

DrP

DrP

Try it the next time you drive in France.

I can’t imagine how the French version would be coded to forget your preferences when in the rest of the world it doesn’t.

Google should automatically route you around traffic jams too. If it doesn’t, it’s because the alternative is slower despite what it feels like.

I am fairly certain the algorithm is weighted to keep people on major roads and not send everyone through nearby towns and villages* (up to a point – i suspect theres a tipping point in terms of delay times).

Also it certainly does have a habit of changing your route – the thing pops up saying ‘faster route found, click here if you DON’T want it’, and if you’re not paying attention it changes your route without you realising.

*This is nicely balanced out by the way in rural areas it’ll take you off the perfectly servicable B-road, and send you down almost impassable farm tracks for 3 miles, because it’s 1cm shorter, and being ungraded, technically is an NSL road…

Early satnavs would route based on the classification of a road on the map, and its speed limit; but Google routes you according to how fast people actually travel on it. It’s logging when and where all its users are driving and how fast they are going. It flags it as a traffic jam when people are going significantly slower than the typical speed for the road.

So it SHOULD know how long a country lane takes to drive normally better than you do. The only problem with that in the UK is that it only takes a few cars to turn a lane from a clear run to a bottleneck, so we as drivers may not want to take the risk. We also know that lanes are harder work to drive on even if they are quicker. For example, when I drive to North Wales Google wants to send me up a B road from Llanidloes to Llanbrynmair because it’s a fair bit shorter. However it’s a big climb and pretty windy, so you might enjoy it if you want to rag your car but if you are after a relaxing drive you won’t. The journey is certainly much easier if you go the longer way. It also doesn’t seem to care if you are on a 30 min drive or a 5hr one.

So yesterday i did my first real longer distance round trip in my new EQA.  The car ‘should’ have been able to do the full trip without top up but motorway speeds meant in reality it might not.

So it was a 240ml round trip.  The car has a range from 250-300mls and it started the journey with about 96% charge.  I got to the half way point with 49% battery used so i was pretty confident of getting back.  I put the return journey in the sat nav and it said i wasnt getting back without a charge on-route.  In the end i decided to just back off the speed a little and save range which worked and i could easily have made the full journey without a charge.

However, i also decided that this was a good opportunity to try out the public Tesla superchargers.  I was very impressed with them.  Plenty of chargers with some marked as Tesla priority (understandable) and the rest free to use.  Drove up, plugged in, flashed my bank card and walked off. £0.48 per KW.  I was only testing it out so i thought i would see how much it would put in if i just went inside, had a pee and came back out.  In the 6 mins it took to do the business it put in 10.685Kw costing £5.12.

I know thats not the cheapest way of charging but for convenience it takes a lot of beating.  At those figures, going for a coffee and coming back, say 30mins i would be looking at  fairly full battery for £25 with little inconvenience

So it SHOULD know how long a country lane takes to drive normally better than you do. The only problem with that in the UK is that it only takes a few cars to turn a lane from a clear run to a bottleneck, so we as drivers may not want to take the risk. We also know that lanes are harder work to drive on even if they are quicker.

I think there are some roads that it just doesn’t even have data on. Earlier this year it sent me down a road in mid-Wales that was basically a farm track; I scraped the bottom of my car on a rock, had branches slapping the sides of the car all the way down, and had to go through the middle of a farm, watching out for dogs and ducks etc. Coming home I returned on the well-surfaced B-road that it had eschewed, and it was a lot quicker and easier!

i also decided that this was a good opportunity to try out the public Tesla superchargers……..Drove up, plugged in, flashed my bank card and walked off

can you use bank cards to start a charge at a tesla charger now? when I last used one (in august) you had to use the tesla app to start the charging process, they didnt take contactless cards. It worked fine as long as you had a cell signal to get an internet connection for the app.

Has something changed?

edit : according to tesla you still need to use the tesla app to start a charge in a non tesla car – so either the tesla website is out of date, or those werent tesla chargers you were using

Hi Julians.

Yes 100% they were tesla chargers.  The site i used is the gretna village site and from what i saw its two big banks of tesla chargers.  Actually i took a photo of the unit/screen (to show colleagues) and it says Tesla all over it.

I was a bit dubious myself (Which is why i wanted to try it out in a non emergency type situation).  It didnt look like a normal card payment setup.  I put my phone on payment and it beeped as accepted.  Happy days.

Nice, look like the newer tesla chargers allow contactless cards then, that’s a good improvement. The tesla app works fine, but it would be easier with just a payment card.

My one and only use of Tesla chargers in a hired Merc EQE and I had to download the tesla app stood next to the charger at the Trafford Centre, super easy once I’d downloaded the app and registered.

I put my phone on payment and it beeped as accepted.

Are you sure it was the card payment it picked up, not interacting with the Tesla app?

I’m doing the rounds of testing various EVs with a view to making a private purchase before the end of the year and have driven two this week.  The first was a Lexus UX 300e which was more ICE like than I expected, apart from the 0-40 pickup and was pleasant enough to drive.  I then drove a Volvo EX30 today which had one pedal driving and a revelation to me, but the ride was hugely fidgety on poor country roads which is a deal breaker for me.  I’ll definitely be revising my list to only one pedal driving.

molgrips…….i dont have the tesla app

shinton.  What is 1 pedal driving?  Is that where it has huge recuperation breaking?

Yes, that’s the one.  As soon as you take your foot off the accelerator the car slows significantly compared to an ICE and it becomes a really nice way to drive once you get used to it.  In theory you should hardly need to use the brakes.

put the return journey in the sat nav and it said i wasnt getting back without a charge on-route

mine does this if the battery will fall below something like 10 or 20% on the trip so plans in a stop just in case. On my journey yesterday it said I needed a stop so I did and once the charge got about 50km over the distance left it recalculated and said a stop was no longer needed. I got home and calculated I would of made it without the top up charge.

One Pedal driving is called i-pedal in Hyundais.

<geek alert> Apparently it uses both motors (max regen) for drive (so 4 wheel drive) so actually using econ and level 3 regen rather than i-pedal which is 2 wheel drive and doesn’t quite bring you to a stop, is considered the most efficient mode.

Is the Lexus UX300e not the one that has the Chademo charging?

I’d avoid that if so.

My recommendation would be whatever Kia/Hyundai e-GMP platform car tickles your fancy. There are a fair few variants about now and the platform is, in my opinion, currently the best available. I’m awaiting delivery of an EV6 after having had a Genesis GV60 which was excellent.

Yes it does PP.

Chademo is the Betamax of charging standards. Probably technically superior but the battle for supremacy was lost long ago. Get a CCS car.

re: Tesla chargers – the latest V4 ones (solid inside, longer cable on the outside) have contactless readers.

V3 and earlier (empty middle, cable inside) don’t so you need to use the app.

I’m awaiting delivery of an EV6 after having had a Genesis GV60 which was excellent.

I’ve put in a request in for a test drive of the GV60. Also going to look at the Smart #1 but it has the same base as the EV30 so the ride may be similar.

The GV60 is my favourite car I’ve ever had.
Not perfect though. Boot is relatively small, no rear wiper, rear visibility is poor and it had the turning circle of an oil tanker. Styling isn’t to everyone’s taste but very much was to mine
Other than that it was brilliant. I’d have another tomorrow if it was an option.

simon_g that sounds like the reason.  If thats the case, how are you supposed to know if a site has the latest chargers etc?  A bit of a minefield tbh

As soon as you take your foot off the accelerator the car slows significantly compared to an ICE

That’s just the ability to adjust the regeneration effect when you lift off. One-pedal driving means that the car will actually come to a stop, so you don’t need the brake pedal at all. My Ioniq Electric has three settings for how much regen you get when you lift off, but it won’t actually stop so it’s not one-pedal.

In most cars this setting just changes which pedal you have to press to slow down and how much – it doesn’t change the actual amount of electricity regenerated since the actual brake pedal will also use regeneration. There are a few exceptions though.

The EX30 just has an option to enable/disbale OPD.  It does stop the car and engage auto hold but if you disable OPD it enables ‘auto creeping’.