The Electric Car Thread

I’m looking for an EV to replace my wife’s PoS Fiesta

Renault Zoes can be had for under £6k. Is a 2014 Zoe worth a punt? It would be used for short urban journeys so a sub 100 mile range shouldn’t be an issue.

Buying a car with 7 year old batteries kind of gives me the fear though

Mind you, I hope the infotainment in that Ioniq 5 is better than the one in my Ioniq.

Molgrips have you checked to make sure you have the latest infotainment firmware? Although my e-Niro is MY21 it didn’t have the latest firmware which you can upgrade yourself via the cars USB port. Not saying it will vastly improve things but it might help.

Two things with the Zoe:

1) Is it battery a battery lease one, saves worrying about the battery but additional monthly cost.
2) Before the ZE50 Zoe they all rapid charge using a Type-2 connector which is mostly no longer supported on new and upgraded rapid charging locations, so not that great for long trips.

I had a Zoe from 2015 to 2017 and even took it on several trips from Derbyshire to the west coast of Ireland and Northern Ireland. At the cheap used end of the EV market I’d maybe be looking at Leafs or a little more for a Soul EV (which I’ve also previously owned)

Renault Zoes can be had for under £6k. Is a 2014 Zoe worth a punt? It would be used for short urban journeys so a sub 100 mile range shouldn’t be an issue.

Buying a car with 7 year old batteries kind of gives me the fear though

Will be on battery lease at that price, ie you buy the car but take over the lease of the battery from Renault. Mileage dependent but from £49pm.

You do get a battery warranty for as long as you have it leased (capacity drops below 70%, Renault replace it) and breakdown cover (including running out of charge) included in that. You can buy out the lease on them now, a couple of grand for a ZE20 (first gen) Zoe.

https://www.gogreenautos.co.uk/buyers-guide/battery-lease-explained

I’ll add that when looking at EVs that are out of the standard warranty check about getting an extended warranty, some of the replacement parts are quite frankly ridiculously priced and will economically write the car off if they fail. Fortunately this is getting better with independent EV specialists and an increasing number of scrapped cars for parts.

This time last year I went looking at 8-9k Zoe’s. All battery lease at the price which I didn’t see as an issue (low mileage). The basic model you got for that was not that great in my view. Wasn’t nice inside and ride was poor. Also lacking power. Gave up on the idea and on a whim drove a 1 year old ze40 with higher trim level to see how they were with more power. It felt like a different car to the point I bought it at the end of the test drive. Was more like £19k though still on battery lease. It’s still not fast but I have an Elise for that. We now use the Zoe more than the golf estate despite the golf being a nicer place to sit. I’ve always been a fan of manuals with power but being able to glide around in the Zoe is nicer most of the time.

Molgrips have you checked to make sure you have the latest infotainment firmware?

Ah no, I’ll check that out.

We are thinking about a real simple thin where you just download the Tesla app, you go to the Supercharger, you just indicate which stall you are in, you plug in your car, even if it’s not a Tesla, and you just access the app to tell “turn on the stall that I’m in for how much electricity”, and this should work for almost any manufacturer’s electric car.

Isn’t that how all the rapid chargers work?

Isn’t that how all the rapid chargers work?

No a lot like Instavolt, Shell Recharge, Gridserve and Osprey you plug the car in and present your contactless bank debit card to the charger and it starts charging. If you have a Tesla and use a Tesla rapid charger you simply plug the car in and walk away, the car and charger take care of the rest. You don’t need an app to buy petrol so it should be the same for buying electrons. If EVs are to go mainstream all charging should be payable by contactless as most people will simply not understand why they should have a smartphone full of apps or a wallet full of RFIDs in order to charge their cars.

using a Type-2 connector which is mostly no longer supported on new and upgraded rapid charging locations,

I have never been to a recent charger without a Type 2. It’s the most common standard out there.

If EVs are to go mainstream all charging should be payable by contactless as most people will simply not understand why they should have a smartphone full of apps or a wallet full of RFIDs in order to charge their cars.

Octopus Electric Juice lets you use one card for many places and it’s just added to your electricity bill. There’s not a huge advantage to this over a credit card, but it does stop places like Instavolt putting a sixty pound hold on your card, and you get a slight discount (5% roughly) for doing it.

The PHEV is thus a 400kg and £10k better solution than pure electric, plus if you mostly do shorter journeys, it is more efficient (due to less weight) than a pure electric version, as well as better for the environment, and more convinient to top-up when a very long journey (>300 miles) is needed.

I suppose it depends on the cost of the servicing,the Tesla Model 3 currently has no servicing requirement. I think they advise changing the cabin air filter yourself after a few years and rotate the tyres but that’s it, the regen braking means you really aren’t using the brakes like a normal car as well.

The Long Range has a Battery and drive warranty of 8 years or 120,000 miles (192,000 km), whichever comes first, with minimum 70% retention of Battery capacity* over the warranty period.

I’d say there’s more stuff to go wrong with a phev tbh.

If you have a Tesla and use a Tesla rapid charger you simply plug the car in and walk away, the car and charger take care of the rest.

Yep it’s very slick.

For all the Tesla bashing they did get that right and investing in the charger network.

last time I attempted to use the Superchargers they were rammed, with people waiting (Tebay), I went onto a Booths 4 x Instavolt down the m-way which was empty

Opening them up to everyone is generally a good thing tho, if only to encourage more people to make the leap of faith.

Does anyone have any experience of the Easee Home Robot charger?

Local installation company quoting £800 installed, which is a bit more than I wanted to spend. For an 11kwh PHEV, which charges fine using a granny charger but I figure I should get a proper charger before the grant stops next year.

Most chargers seem to have contactless now.

Type 2 chargers are very common but superchargers use CCS which are ace.

There’s not a huge advantage to this over a credit card, but it does stop places like Instavolt putting a sixty pound hold on your card

IIRC Instavolt’s hold is something like £30 for 2-3 days. Its Ionity which hold £67 and in my experience hold it for 6-7 days. One way round this would be to use a credit card rather than a debit card so you are free to spend your own money whilst the hamsters at Ionity turn the wheels. Gridserve hold £20 but they seem to be processing the transaction as soon as you finish charging.

For all the Tesla bashing they did get that right and investing in the charger network.

I have no idea why they get so much hate, especially from EV enthusiasts. If it wasn’t for Tesla the EV would be at least 5 years behind where it is now. Its only Tesla that’s keeping the legacy manufacturers honest.

Yep it’s very slick.

For all the Tesla bashing they did get that right and investing in the charger network.

That’s because Tesla are essentially a Tech company and knew that selling a service is far more profitable and more likely to build a customer base than selling just a product.

It’s a common theme in almost everything Elon Musk has done.

Paypal made online payment simple and accessible.

Tesla made electric car ownership simple and (mostly) accessible,

SpaceX made Earth to orbit simple and accessible – a service to be bought, not built to order.

It’s something the major automotive companies are just switching on to.

Picked up a 17 plate Zoe, q90 40kwh about 3 weeks ago, when collected from dealer battery range on screen said 205 miles, when I charge it fully it only shows between 139 and 150 any ideas why??

Pay at pump petrol in the UK used to be a £1 authorisation followed by a settlement record for the full amount. The card schemes moved to authorise for maximum amount (and allow issuer to authorise for a lower amount, so if the pump asks for £100, the issuer can say authorised for £80). The £1 scheme put the risk on the petrol station, the new scheme balances the risk and means no long holds.

The same thing could be done for electric car charging – we’ll probably have to wait for the EU to push the card schemes then the UK can adopt it.

The current authorise for maximum amount is good for the charger provider and bad for the consumer – might be worth raising with your MP pointing out the difference between petrol and electric practice?

It guesses based on previous drives. You can reset it on the Zoe (like this, which will show a very high number and it’ll come down as it re-learns.

Even the newest Mercedes Hybrids have a 16kWh battery pack and yet return only 20 miles of real world range on electric power.

Nah – Regularly get 38 miles electric only running from my A Class without trying too hard. Battery is just under 16 kWh, but you can only charge up to 11.

This is significant

https://pushevs.com/2021/07/30/gac-aion-with-fast-charging-speed-comparable-to-refueling/

Wow that’s a game changer. It can charge at over half a megawatt! Just as impressive it’s still charging at 480kW at 80% state of charge. OK 600kW chargers are non-existent in the UK but a car that could charge at 350kW from 0-100% SOC would mean 10 min charging stops.

Nice, that kind of battery tech has been in development for a while, glad someone finally has a car with it.

One of the things that is a little concerning for a natural born tinkerer like myself is that future DIY repair of BEV’s involves some pretty big scary numbers (pasted from the GAC Aion link)
855,6 V
562,8 A

I know EV’s are mechanically far simpler but at some point a motor/controller/battery pack will need repairs. Better dig out my 1000v insulated Marigold gloves!

Petrol is bloody scary stuff as well

I know EV’s are mechanically far simpler but at some point a motor/controller/battery pack will need repairs.

You will be able to isolate the high voltage parts and make them safe, and you will need to do very little if anything to the drivetrain. My Prius had a 300V battery and there was a plug to remove to disconnect everything.

Loaded my E-Tron up and drove 268 miles to the west coast of Scotland on Thursday. Stopped at Sterling Park and Ride for some food a sleep as I’d been at work. An hour later on my way fully charged, it’s cost me a total of £0.

Stopped at Sterling Park and Ride for some food a sleep as I’d been at work

If you mean my home town Stirling then you are braver man than I. With Chargeplacescotland network changing admin from BP Chargemessup to Swarco there were reports of the CYC app not working even though the official changeover date was 26th June so when we travelled up to Scotland on the 16th July I chickened out and took our diesel simply because we had to make a trip down the Mull of Kintyre and there are no non-Chargeplacescotland charger options there and of the Chargeplacescotland chargers only the in Lochgilphead one appeared to be in operation. Good luck with the rest of your trip as post change over Chargeplacescotland network appears to be a complete sh!tshow. Hopefully Swarco will get their act together soon. We stayed in the Premier Inn in Stirling for a couple of nights and I noticed the nice new fast chargers in the car park opposite on Forthside Way. Hopefully I can make use of them when I’m next up end of August.

Oh I was nervous but you can just ring them tell them there’s an issue and they’ll activate it. I just used my CYC card.

Does anyone have any experience of the Jaguar iPace? Hints/tips? Reliability?
My dad is thinking of getting one and isn’t sure about buyng a used one, though it looks like you can get one about 2 years old, 20,000 miles for £20k less than new which is pretty significant!
I’m also assuming that there is a long wait to get a new one?
He’s also more of a buy it outright than get a lease sort of buyer.

The current authorise for maximum amount is good for the charger provider and bad for the consumer – might be worth raising with your MP pointing out the difference between petrol and electric practice?

Tesco have already started charging max authorisation at the pumps, they can bugger off if they’re starting that nonsense.

You will be able to isolate the high voltage parts and make them safe, and you will need to do very little if anything to the drivetrain. My Prius had a 300V battery and there was a plug to remove to disconnect everything.

Awesome, how did you check the circuit was dead and had no residual charge? Disconnecting the battery is the easy bit, checking its safe isn’t, even trained sparks screw that bit up.

Awesome, how did you check the circuit was dead and had no residual charge? Disconnecting the battery is the easy bit, checking its safe isn’t, even trained sparks screw that bit up.

It’s relatively easy to isolate the battery from the rest of the car because the battery contactors open when they lose 12v power.

Personally I think this is as far as the home mechanic would ever need to go.

Seems that it’ll just drop into the same sort of situation like at home where you can safely and cheaply do your own plumbing but you’re an imbecile with a death wish if you attempt to step up to your own gas work.

It’s relatively easy to isolate the battery from the rest of the car because the battery contactors open when they lose 12v power.

Which is exactly my point, that proves absolutely nothing. Residual charge is a thing and a very bad thing at that. Your average home mechanic is utterly ignorant to the risk as they aren’t electricians used to high power circuits.

Which is exactly my point, that proves absolutely nothing

Well, what was your point? You can’t service any of the high voltage parts of an electric car yourself but the rest of it is fair game.

You can kill yourself in a thousand creative ways working on any car – whether that’s injecting super-pressurised diesel into your body; creating sparks near petrol vapour; dropping a spanner across a 12v battery; or just by being crushed by it.

My dad is thinking of getting one and isn’t sure about buyng a used one, though it looks like you can get one about 2 years old,

No personal experience but I’ve seen lots of comments that they, the early ones at least, don’t play well with public rapid chargers.

Awesome, how did you check the circuit was dead and had no residual charge?

I removed the battery safety plug, which is specifically designed to make the car safe (so I doubt Toyota would have designed in the chance of killing a mechanic), then I un bolted the battery and removed it, testing everything I could find at every step of the way. Then I put it on the bench, stripped the casing off it and using tools with insulation tape wrapped on the handles I removed the bus bar from the battery, which was the only risky part – wearing high voltage insulating gloves all the while. But because of the way it’s built you can only accidentally touch neighbouring battery modules so you would only get 8 or 16V or so. To get a 300V shock you’d have to grab opposite ends of the thing which you could only really do on purpose.

Jaguar iPace

When I was looking, a couple of years back, I saw too many reports of relatively poor consumption per mile. I recall that Harry’s garage fellow getting 440Wh/mile on a steady 75mph motorway journey, which in my subsequent experience isn’t great, over 30% worse than my similarly sized (albeit lower, but the ipace is only really half SUV) car does in similar use. It’d move real world range from a non issue to a fairly regular inconvenience for me.

I’d be very disappointed if the public charger trouble wasn’t dealt with by now.

440Wh/mile

If my maths is right that’s 2.2 miles per kWh which is about twice what my Hyundai uses, although I drive at 70 rather than 75.