The Electric Car Thread

@snownrock we have a leaf tekna plus as our second car. With the 60kwh battery you get a reliable 150 miles even in cold weather. They’re a lot of car for the money and very reliable in our experience. Worth considering.

Thanks Northernremedy.

Does the later leaf have better battery longevity (less degredation) than the earlier versions? As I said we’ll be planning on keeping it a while so don’t want something 10yrs old that will only do 50miles.

Well it seems to. Ours is a 2021, just ticking over 20k miles and it says battery is 100% health. No noticeable issues.

It’s not the latest in EV tech, but as the second car and in use case you’ve described it’s great for the money

My Leaf is 10 years old.  Its the 24kwh version and now its got 90,000 on the clock – its been driven like its stolen for all those miles, been serviced twice and most of the time it has roofbars and a bike rack on it. Its had 500 quid spent on front coils plus droplinks and many many tyres (they eat tyres) and that’s absolutely it.

I bought it a year old ex demo with 4,000 miles on it for 11k!

10 years ago heated seats, heated steering wheel, remote heating and cooling, 8 speaker bose stereo with subwoofer were what you got on top line mercs and Audi’s

Originally its range was 80 miles. Last week it did 70 miles on a charge.

Best car ever.

EDIT Forgot also wheelbearings x 2 @ 250 a time but that really is it.

@snowrock similar requirement to you, we’ve just upgraded a 15 plate Zoe to a 21 plate Hyundai Kona and are pretty happy with it. It has all the toys, decent range was relatively cheap and is a nice place to be. My e-Tron has barely moved since we got it.

@northernremedy and @davosaurusrex I’ve had an id7 tourer for a couple of months now. It’s absolutely huge in the back and pretty comfortable to be in. Going in our first long (4 hours vs 2 hours) drive today but I expect it will be as pleasant as all the other driving. At the minute I’d choose one again without question.

The back 3/4 is fine

The little plastic triangle with a ‘5’ embossed in it nearly ruins the whole car. It’s ghastly.

I note the new 1-series has it now; BMW can’t help themselves.

@bassmandan let us know how you get on!!! It would tick the sweet spot of the size in back and range.

Part of the difficulty is I’ve seen the performance figures of the M60 i5 ?

With the 60kwh battery you get a reliable 150 miles even in cold weather

@northernremedy Do you have the extended range version? All the ones popping up in my autotrader search are 40kWh which suggest their actual range will be a lot less than 150miles (168 stated).

@snownrock yes we’ve got the tekna + which is the longer range. 63kwh battery or something. They’re understandably more popular but they are about. Worth hunting out. It all does feel a bit dated but if the price is right I wouldn’t discount one. Very solid car.

@bassmandan cheers. I saw a photo of an ID7 tourer parked up next to a new 5 series touring, the passenger compartment of the ID7 with the short bonnet was significantly bigger. For all the good things about the 5 series it’s still a modified ICE chassis. And 20k more and not on my company car list.

I also think the ID7 in the right colour with the right wheels is a good looking car

It’s probably been asked before but seeing as the search function is unstable, I’ll go again.

What are people experiences of the octopus salary sacrifice lease scheme. The headline numbers look good especially on some of their special deals.

Part of the difficulty is I’ve seen the performance figures of the M60 i5

EVs are ridiculous – a couple of weeks ago I clocked a new EV on the drive of my neighbour. It was a very boxy small looking Volvo. Looked OK but nothing special, the sort of car your mum would potter round in. In the past he has had a few performance cars but he’s getting on a bit now so I assumed he’d just grown up.

Chatting to him this morning, apparently it does 0-60 in 3.6 seconds…….I mean it looks like a shopping trolley for gawds sake.

I’m not a fan of the id7 front end to be honest but the rest I quite like (mines black). Drive yesterday was very comfy, very easy, 3.4 mi/kwh average over 230 miles with a bit of rain and the lights mostly on. Made a mistake in charging overnight so it was only at 87% when we left, could have done the whole thing in one go otherwise. 20 mins on a rapid charger gave me a 50% top up. Car was absolutely rammed with stuff and it was barely noticeable. Performance wise, it’s 6.6 to 60 which is plenty quick enough. I don’t really care too much for faster, I’d have it but wouldn’t pay 20k for it.

apparently it does 0-60 in 3.6 seconds

that’ll be the EX30 awd dual motor. The octopus deal on that is about £500 a month all in.

The only things I have against the VW id cars is the driver aids and the steering wheel buttons. The driver aids are far too aggressive and are a right pain to turn off even time you get in the thing. The steering wheel buttons are terrible, especially the cruise control ones. I just can’t seem to consistently get 1mph increase or 5mph increase. Whatever I want, I seem to get the other. Getting the distance setting consistently through those buttons is blinking difficult too.

Here’s hoping their buy in to Rivian will sort this sort of thing at the moment, as it is ruining a very good car (id3) for me.

Going to stick to my diesel Volvo for a good while yet with the id3 as the car for local pootling.

Steering wheel controls on the id7 are fine, similar feel to pressing on my iPhone screen. The driver aids likewise are fine, although lane assistance can be too aggressive on narrow country roads and is a HUGE pain to turn off on the stupid big touchscreen. Have recently realised I can ask the car voice assistant thing to do stuff for me so might see if I can use that. Annoying but easy.

Why do people get hung up on performance figures of EV’s.  I havent got a clue what mine will do 0-60mph in.  I do know its speed limited to 99mph so my daughters fiesta has a faster top speed.  I think i once put it in sport mode and hit the loud pedal.  It went fast, it made a fake engine noise and that was it.  It was actually pretty pathetic as the car weighs over 2t and has the sporting prowess of a MG metro.  I only ever put it in comfort (When i need to warm up quickly) or Economy.  WTF is the point of trying to drive a EV fast?  It makes no sense to me to the point i drive my EV much slower these days because its so quiet and comfortable.

Does the later leaf have better battery longevity (less degredation) than the earlier versions? As I said we’ll be planning on keeping it a while so don’t want something 10yrs old that will only do 50miles.

Yes, the 40 and 62kwh cars use a different type of cell. There are still possible thermal issues but for degredation they seem to be holding up nicely. The later cars still have the “bars” display of battery capacity like the earlier ones, it’s just buried in a menu – incredibly rare to see a mk2 Leaf lose a bar (15% capacity loss) and I’ve yet to hear of a 62kwh one lose more than 10% yet.

I like ours and given it’s such a simple, well known and well understood platform it’s the EV I’d choose if I was planning to keep for 10+ years. There’s even CCS adaptors now which gets around the risk of fewer CHAdeMO chargers in the future.

Thanks @simon_g much appreciated

My #1 wished me a Merry Christmas this morning. It doesn’t make up for it having pretty shit software. But I hated her a little less.

Why do people get hung up on performance figures of EV’s.

It’s all numbers and data isn’t it! It might not be your cup of tea, but don’t yuk other’s yums!

People have been boosting and modding cars forever…now we’re a bit older and lazier, some people still like the idea of a powerful/fast car..and an EV allows that with realtive ease.

Unlike some modded and uber powerful ICE cars, an EV can have a billion BHP, yet drive very comfortably and quietly using only a few of them 99% of the time.. We’re just big kids really!

DrP

@DrP nail on head. Firstly I’ve always found fast estates cool. Cos. The beauty of an EV seems to be it can be very fast for the 3 times a year you want to giggle like a child, then be perfectly normal and chilled (accepting slight efficiency loss from extra motor etc, before anyone points it out). Unlike a v8 petrol which will always be flawed ie emissions and mpg.

What are people experiences of the octopus salary sacrifice lease scheme. The headline numbers look good especially on some of their special deals.

anyone using this? Be particularly interested to know what the exit terms are like if you leave a job.

Do all new home chargers need to be connected directly to your meter?

I’ve had a Pod Point for about 8 years and its in my porch, nice and dry and convenient. Its connected to my consumer unit in the garage. Unfortunately its an old 3.6KW and has a type one tethered connector so it will need to be upgraded. I just looked on the Octopus site (I’m already with them) and it seems all their choices have to be connected direct to the meter which is absolutely miles away from my porch and will mean ugly cables being run around the house – I’ve just had new paths and patio built so I can’t bury them.

Is this just an octopus thing?  I’ d just assumed I could swap my old charger for a new one using the existing wiring?  I know it s a question for a charger installer but I thought I’d check if people were always getting chargers wired direct to meter?

@winston You could just replace the type1 cable for a type2 cable. Also an opportunity to buy a longer/shorter cable if it was ever a wish.

@winston my understanding of this (I am not an electrician but mate is) is the best practice has changed. They used to like it connected to the consumer unit. They now like it connected to the meter, but the gubbins (isolator etc) not in the fuse box. So you end up with a little box next to the meter cabinet. Ours is connected to the meter (3 years ago) but with the gubbins in the meter box. Happily our DNO haven’t kicked off. But it has been commented on. I’m not sure why the consumer unit vs meter.

@B.A.Nana – I really want to upgrade the power. 3.3 is fine for my Leaf as its got a tiny 24kwh battery and the onboard charger can’t cope with anything higher anyway (it hasn’t got the upgraded 6.6). However our next car will be something that has a battery 3 times the size and can charge at least 7kwh so our existing charger would take about 2 days to fully charge it!

@northernremedy – yes I was afraid that things had changed. That will be a pain. However I was just chatting with my neighbour and they had a charger fitted three years ago direct to consumer unit so I guess it might still be a thing

I had a charger fitted a couple of weeks ago. The guy said he could have wired it into our CU but we only had one slot left, it needed a few because it has a surge protector included, so went to the meter with a separate CU.

what capacity slot do the chargers require?

This is what PodPoint sent to me last week

We’ll need:

A minimum of 6mm SWA 3-core cable supplying the sub-board from your house – 4mm is not sufficient.
Supply from main board to garage to be a minimum of 40A – this may need to be greater if you have many electrical components on the sub-board (i.e. a fridge or freezer etc).
Supply to the sub-board is either non RCD protected or protected by a Type A RCD.
A Spare 32A or 40A MCB available on sub-board which is either non RCD protected or is protected by a Type A RCD.
All MCBs and RCDs on one board must be the same brand.
If your electrician suggests running a new feed from the meter, please consult with us first as this would change the requirements in terms of cabling needed

The eqc broke down today,  in waitrose car park. it thought that the charging cable was connected when it clearly wasnt (and hadn’t been plugged in for a few days) , which meant that it wouldn’t do anything. We tried locking and unlocking it, press start button etc, but the error persisted.

Called merc assistance, who sent the rac round, but they had a 2 hour lead time on getting to us.  Tried again with the turn it off and on again and this time it sprang into life with no errors showing and has been fine ever since. We cancelled the rac and got on our way.

Am wondering whether it’s the start of something failing or just a one off software glitch.

I had one of those glitches when I first had my iX3 .

we went to Killerton for a Christmas Lights show , and when we returned the car would start up , but wouldn’t engage drive . Tried several times to lock / unlock etc.  Called BMW assistance and was told about an hour to get to us. I walked back up to the house to use the toilet and then when I got back I thought I would try once more , and it worked .

Phoned the assistance to let them know , then we passed the recovery lorry as we drove out .

Never happened again and had no further issues during ownership