The Electric Car Thread

I was a serious “petrol head” when I was younger and regularly drove everything from Caterhams to 800 bhp Audis and ridiculous supercharged cobras; the latter was terrifying, you could almost feel the chassis twisting, and the noise had other petrol heads twitching at two miles. I also did trackdays, drag racing, sprints and hill climbs frequently and went to the Nurburgring every year. I enjoyed a lot of very nice ICE cars but I have to say, despite being a fair bit slower than some of my previous cars, the silent acceleration of our Model 3 performance never fails to make me smile, I’m also a lot happier to pootle along and just chill no matter how manically others are driving. As a competent cross country car, it’s outstanding and really doesn’t want for anything on the suspension or brake front. The suspension and brakes wouldn’t be vaguely suited for hammering around a racetrack, then again, I had to swap brakes and suspension on my BMW M3 and many other performance cars.

Maybe I’m getting old, but another thing I love about our M3P is that it’s not even slightly antisocial, it wafts along, barely disturbing anyone’s peace. I loved a BMW straight six howling away, the angry growl of a turboed V8 and that supercharger whine on a large capacity engine; different times though for me and I can’t say I miss the noise. 🙂

I think I’ll get a Nurburgring sticker for the back of the Brabus. As befits its Teutonic design.

MST MK1 with a Millington

My first car, back in 1985, was a Mk1 Escort Mexico. In orange.

It would now be a collectors item/museum piece but it was, by all reasonable measure, shit.

I’m not going backwards

Don’t forget the red seatbelts @deadlydarcy I’m sure they’ll save you from all that power 🙂

I do find the dual-motor = insane acceleration approach with EVs a bit annoying to be honest. I mean I’m sure it’s fun but you don’t half pay for it in insurance premiums. A Tesla Model 3 long range is insurance group 50, which is about as high as it goes and could easily end up costing a grand more per year to insure than a more sensible premium car and that’s for someone in their 50s. OK Tesla’s are particularly expensive to insure but there is usually a decent hike that comes with adding the extra motor. A Smart # 1 Premium is group 32 and a Brabus is group 38, for example

We’ve tended to go for AWD ICE cars as they suit our dodgy Aberdeenshire roads pretty well, but it’s hard to justify a dual motor EV as I don’t think anyone (other than maybe Subaru with the rebadge Toyota, which has its own issues) seems to make an AWD EV with a focus on traction rather than straight line acceleration.

Don’t forget the red seatbelts  @deadlydarcy I’m sure they’ll save you from all that power 🙂

oh Cripes, yes. I totally forgot about those. There are red brake calipers as well I think. Which function way better than the unpainted ones on the other models.

@roverpig our M3P with full business use and loads of extras, inc European cover, legal etc is about £600 with Admiral, which isn’t far off our recent performance VAG cars. Maybe it’s an area thing for some reason? Although as they don’t really get stolen maybe not…

I honestly dont get the EV acceleration.  So much so that i havent even used mine in anything other than economy mode so far.  Why on earth would i want to ‘nail it’ in a family car that weighs over 2t?  Its not as if its a sports car.  It cant go around corners quickly and i dare say my wifes Mini Cooper would wipe the floor with it over a distance.  The only thing i am achieving by stamping on the fast pedal in sport mode is to look like a slightly old, balding cock.  It completely defeats the object of EV’s as well.

I had the choice of AWD higher output motors on my vehicle but when i compared performance and range it was completely pointless.  The higher output AWD version had a smaller battery (I presume to save weight) so a considerably lower range.  BOTH cars were limited to 99mph so it couldnt even go faster.  The only thing it had was the AWD in the winter and a faster 0-60 time.

I would honestly have them limited on their acceleration.  It seems strange that a car marketed on its clean credentials allows itself to burn through its range doing pointless 0-60 times.

I drive in eco mode 99.9% of the time.

Normal mode for the occasional junction.

Sport mode for the fractions of a second that are needed when I cycle through the drive modes to get back to eco.

I would honestly have them limited on their acceleration.  It seems strange that a car marketed on its clean credentials allows itself to burn through its range doing pointless 0-60 times.

If you if go you down that route then limit ICE cars acceleration also as they’re burning through petrol which is more of a problem than using a few electrons.

When EVs were first commecialised the petrol heads rolled out the usual milk float jibes. Once the Tesla Model S was released all of a sudden they started arguing 0-60 times weren’t important after obsessing about 0-60 times for decades. Having fast EVs removes a big argument against them used by a very vocal constituency.

To me that is the problem.  Just because ice cars have become large  heavy things with 300hp considered normal, evs  didn’t need to follow.  They may not burn fossil fuel themselves, but there is still a need for efficient use of energy.

I honestly dont get the EV acceleration. 

Just because ice cars have become large  heavy things with 300hp considered normal, evs  didn’t need to follow.

Absolutely agree with this but there seems to be an expectation of quick acceleration/0-60 times – I have an EV with a 0-60 of 5.3 seconds and some of the reviews about it say things like  ‘it’s sufficient but not amazing’ and ‘not as fast as a Tesla’ etc. A few years ago, that acceleration would make it one of the quickest mass-market cars out there.

Thanks @steamtb that’s very interesting. You seem to be paying less for your IG 50 EV than I am for my IG 22 ICE car, so I must be doing something wrong 🙂

I honestly dont get the EV acceleration. So much so that i havent even used mine in anything other than economy mode so far. Why on earth would i want to ‘nail it’ in a family car that weighs over 2t?

Whilst I agree doing sub 5s 0-60 shouldn’t be a focus of why people are buying EVs nor encouraged I have to say after 18 months of EV ownership I still like being first at a red light where it’s safe to floor it (my commute is mostly on 40mph limited dual carriageway with several sets of lights). It’s a brief source of puerile enjoyment to go 0-40 in a couple of seconds (and the only remotely enjoyable thing about driving for me), I’m sure everyone behind me is muttering “what a tit” to themselves but I don’t care :p It’s a bit less than 1% battery but as it’s a rare occurrence I’m first at the lights and my commute otherwise is only 4% of my battery I don’t feel I’m killing the planet every time I do get the opportunity (and don’t have discernable wheel spin either so not unduly wearing out my tyres).

There’s also so many idiots around that do 30-40mph on the on slip when joining a motorway (where traffic isn’t crawling along) I appreciate being able to quickly accelerate up to 60-70mph to more safely match the traffic flow.

There’s also so many idiots around that do 30-40mph on the on slip when joining a motorway

Possibly this is because there are many drivers who seem to identify a car as their entry point to the motorway and match its speed rather than identifying a GAP and setting themselves up for that.

Many folks joining motorways do not seem to recognise that slip roads end in a junction where motorway traffic has right of way. German and Dutch colleagues used to get quite perturbed at British motorway drivers slowing down to let slip road drivers out.

On the EV acceleration. Yes! It is very handy at times.

It is very handy to have quick acceleration on hand at times – I like it. I may trundle around 99% of the time but occasionally if I want to overtake someone, I want it over and done with as fast as possible. Note I just mean like sub 7 secs to 60 or whatever, not 3 seconds.

I overtook a car in my EV for the first time yesterday and had a hairy moment – I put my foot down hard, expecting it to ‘wind up’ a bit before accelerating (because of a lifetime of driving ICE cars), but it shot off before I had properly pulled out and I had to lift off and start all over. It wasn’t close to being an accident, but the whole family in the car with me were like ‘WTF are you doing’?

Lesson learned.

I think the fast get away wears off for me I spend most of my time driving as normal,  Its nice to have but nowhere to use.

I’m determined to hand our Model Y back with the original tyres after three years, so pootle about in ‘chill’ mode. It’s plenty fast enough for most comfortable driving with passengers.

Instant torque was great climbing hairpins in the summer.

@johndoh I’ve had similar while pulling out into gaps in traffic. Where previously a car would be passing, my brain would process time to move, move foot from brake to accelerator, auto box would start to engage, engine winds up, car starts to move a bit then really gets going… now the car has auto hold so my foot is already on the accelerator, as I’m processing ‘let’s get going’ my foot pushes the accelerator and the car rockets forward. I’ve not had any near misses but have been a bit too close to the rear of the passing car for my liking.

Just seen this, looks ace. Shame it’s a one off and won’t be made though 🙁

Looks nice. I wonder if they’d do one in colour 🙂

I know it’s just a concept but it’s interesting to see that (like a Tesla) it doesn’t actually have a bumper; in the sense of a sacrificial bit of plastic that is designed to take the hit and protect the rest of the car. I was reading something recently about why Tesla’s are in such a high insurance group and this was given as one of the reasons.  Any small bump is likely to result in damage to a main panel and therefore an expensive repair.

Bumper looks pretty similar to the original? It is there, just not a very obvious panel join.

The original was expensive to repair I think because it was aluminium. Presumably the bumpers are plastic.

Is it still a bumper if it doesn’t stick out 🙂

So it looks as though you can’t get an AWD EV without also getting bonkers acceleration, which means higher insurance costs. I’m not ruling that out but I am questioning whether I need a dual motor EV. My main motivation is improved traction in winter conditions (which we still get a fair bit of up here in the frozen North).

So, if I go for a single motor setup and with traction being the key is it still better (as it was with ICE cars) to go for FWD over RWD?

So, if I go for a single motor setup and with traction being the key is it still better (as it was with ICE cars) to go for FWD over RWD?

The only reason people used to say a fwd car had better traction in poor grip conditions than a rwd car was because the engine (and therefore more weight) was typically over the front wheels.

In an ev the motor is over the axle it is driving, so it doesn’t matter ( in terms of weight distribution ) whether you go fwd or rwd from a traction point of view, also the battery spreads it’s weight more evenly. You still have the characteristic that in a fwd car the power from the wheels is steerable, whereas in rwd it is not steerable

Maybe fwd still is just ahead of rwd for poor grip conditions because of the steerable power, but I reckon there’s less in it than there used to be.

I’d still say get a twin motor car though, the extra insurance cost must be minimal for an oldish person with a clean licence and no previous claims.

Thanks. I still tend to think that FWD will perform better in snow/ice than RWD but that may just be years of driving ICE cars. Somehow being pulled along feels like it should work better in those conditions than being pushed along and understeer is much easier to control than oversteer. But then modern cars have electronic stability packs, so maybe it is irrelevant.

As I say, I’m not ruling out a dual-motor EV but it generally means a higher purchase cost, higher insurance costs and less range than the single-motor alternative so it’s a bit harder to justify.

i reckon an EV with CrossClimates would be pretty effective in wintry conditions.  It is still gong to be a very heavy sledge if/when braking forces, whether regen or discs,  are overcome though by gravity.

Yes, tyres are still king 🙂

I’ve done a bit more digging and I think I’ve now convinced myself that RWD is better than FWD for an EV. As @julians says, weight distribution is different to an ICE car, which was the main reason for preferring FWD in an ICE car. EVs also have more torque which means torque steer could be more of an issue. Finally, when you accelerate the weight tends to shift from the front to the rear anyway, so RWD should actually give better traction . Of course all modern cars have so many traction aids that it probably makes little difference in practice , but I do like to sweat the details 🙂

Of course, if you accept that RWD is better than FWD that does rule out many popular offerings from Hyundai, Kia and almost anything French, which is a shame 🙂

my EV is RWD, with standard tyres, which are big fat ones, and it’s laughably crap in the snow.  I only had the opportunity to try it once last winter, which was my first one with it, and I won’t be repeating it. It’s an i4, and brought back memories of my 520d Tourer from 10 years ago..  It’s a lease car so I can’t swop the tyres.

Thankfully I can WFH much of the time so don’t ‘have’ to use it in snowy weather (high part of South Lanarkshire so we do get some proper winter conditions most years), and we do have 3 FWD petrol cars in the household, one with CrossClimates all round.

OOhh..someone outside the surgery was parking a 24 plate BMW estate EV… M sport version, and it looked LOVELY!

I know it’s been said before, but why has there NOT been a decent estate EV? (MG kinda counts I guess..)

DrP

why has there NOT been a decent estate EV?

I’d suggest it’s partly market forces and partly packaging. SUVs have outsold estates for a while – ever since the Quashqai came out really. Then if you are going to stick a load of batteries under the floor it’s easier to do that if you’re making a taller vehicle. Now we’ve got posh estate offerings from VW, Audi and BMW but I think STW has a few years to wait for the e-Octavia

To me that is the problem. Just because ice cars have become large heavy things with 300hp considered normal, evs didn’t need to follow. They may not burn fossil fuel themselves, but there is still a need for efficient use of energy.

It doesn’t make a difference to the efficiency.

To give an EV higher max power, you just need thicker wires and a bigger battery*, which also increases the range anyway. In an ICE, an engine capable of higher maximum power is less efficient (to a greater or lesser extent) but this is not the case with EVs.

Even if you use all that power to accelerate it makes little difference to your overall economy. You still need the same amount of energy to get from 0-60mph regardless of how quickly it’s delivered; the only thing is that you will waste a bit more energy as heat – but that’s trivial compared to the content of a battery pack. If you were accelerating hard and braking hard all the time, like on an actual racing track, then yes you’d lose range, but booting it on a public road to modest speed – barely any difference. Sustaining a higher speed for a long time though, like driving at 80 vs 70 – that does cost you range because of air resistance.

* Caveat: generally a more powerful car would come with wider tyres, which do cost efficiency, but such tyres are also available on lower power cars so it’s up to you if you want to factor that in.

EVs also have more torque which means torque steer could be more of an issue.

My Leaf got quite sketchy when booting it with any lock applied.

One thing I have been wondering about – when regen braking, I assume the brake lights don’t come on? Surely there is going to be an increased risk of collisions when the person behind doesn’t know the car is slowing quickly? The same goes for the assisted braking my car has – if the car in front is slowing, it automatically slows down but I assume the brake lights don’t come on.

One thing I have been wondering about – when regen braking, I assume the brake lights don’t come on?

If deceleration is above a certain amount, whether by the use of physical brakes, or by regen, brake lights are required to come on.

when regen braking, I assume the brake lights don’t come on? Surely there is going to be an increased risk of collisions

They very much come on, regardless of whether it’s the brake pedal being pressed or regen (most modern EVs actually regen instead of brake when you press the brake pedal anyway, for efficiency.)

It’s ICEs where use of engine braking does not trigger the brake lights which are the higher risk here

My brake lights definitely come on – verified in a dark tunnel. I had the same worry!

Re estates – id7 is not quite an estate (it’s a bit taller) but it’s that body shape and cavernous interior. I think more will come.

Any Enyaq users on here with the standard headlights? Have you found a way to increase the throw of light whilst dipped? I think they are 2 or 3 degrees too low. Absolutely fine for driving at 20mph or in town, but utterly useless on dark country roads (even at 30mph) – just not enough light thrown forward.

when regen braking, I assume the brake lights don’t come on? Surely there is going to be an increased risk of collisions

You might be surprised but you’re not the only one to have thought of this 🙂 The govt has made a rule that says brake lights have to come on beyond a certain level of deceleration regardless of how it’s achieved.

Have you found a way to increase the throw of light whilst dipped?

I don’t know the enyaq specifically,  but on our vw tiguan there were small angle adjusters that you turned with an Allen key to adjust the static angle. A quick google should confirm.  But if you open the bonnet and look at the rear of head light units it was fairly obvious what the adjuster screw was, it was a whiteish plastic looking adjuster.