Battery Electric Vehicle News / Enjoying the Transportation Revolution

ASavvyBuyer

Solarchaser said:

JKenH said:

Why did it take nine hours to go 130 miles in our new electric Porsche?

Even the Guardian have jumped on the EV charging nightmare bandwagon. It must be true.

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2020/nov/28/electric-cars-porsche-charging-network?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Yeah, it has all the hallmarks of a telegraph/daily main/daily express article.
Well except for no added peril, id expect the right wing media to throw in some "dimly lit, shady area" or the "thought they may never get home" etc etc.

So what if it was a host of petrol stations that were closed?

Seems if they stopped at the 7kw slow charger for an hour, they would have had enough to get home... meh.

P!ss poor planning leads to....

Yes, looks like extremely poor planning or just a way of trying to get their names in the paper to boast about their new car.

Just a quick check of what rapid chargers are available would have shown 2 Instavolt chargers near Bournemouth where they could have charged up before leaving. I would be very surprised if they were not working.

michaels

Solarchaser said:

JKenH said:

Why did it take nine hours to go 130 miles in our new electric Porsche?

Even the Guardian have jumped on the EV charging nightmare bandwagon. It must be true.

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2020/nov/28/electric-cars-porsche-charging-network?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Yeah, it has all the hallmarks of a telegraph/daily main/daily express article.
Well except for no added peril, id expect the right wing media to throw in some "dimly lit, shady area" or the "thought they may never get home" etc etc.

So what if it was a host of petrol stations that were closed?

Seems if they stopped at the 7kw slow charger for an hour, they would have had enough to get home... meh.

P!ss poor planning leads to....

This article was brought to you by the Tesla corporation

ABrass

michaels said:

Solarchaser said:

JKenH said:

Why did it take nine hours to go 130 miles in our new electric Porsche?

Even the Guardian have jumped on the EV charging nightmare bandwagon. It must be true.

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2020/nov/28/electric-cars-porsche-charging-network?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Yeah, it has all the hallmarks of a telegraph/daily main/daily express article.
Well except for no added peril, id expect the right wing media to throw in some "dimly lit, shady area" or the "thought they may never get home" etc etc.

So what if it was a host of petrol stations that were closed?

Seems if they stopped at the 7kw slow charger for an hour, they would have had enough to get home... meh.

P!ss poor planning leads to....

This article was brought to you by the Tesla corporation

It did say there were loads of Tesla superchargers that they couldn't use.

The crap state of public charging is the biggest advert for Tesla there is.

Martyn1981

Here's another article on BEV police vehicles and the cost comparison v's the ICEV option. Great to see that the economics are so good, pretty hard to ignore now:

Tesla Model 3 Police Car vs. Dodge Charger Police Car — Nearly $7,000 In Savings In One Year

Just looking at fuel and maintenance costs, after one year, the Model 3 saved the police department $6,755. If you consider that a Model 3 Long Range costs $47,000 and a Dodge Charger Scat Pack has an MSRP of $40,500, you start saving money on the Tesla within one year. Choose a lower-end Charger (like the SXT or GT) and it take a bit more than two years. Of course, you could also get the Model 3 Standard Range Plus if 250 miles a day is plenty for your needs, and that option starts at $38,000.

silverwhistle

ASavvyBuyer said:

Yes, looks like extremely poor planning or just a way of trying to get their names in the paper to boast about their new car.

Just a quick check of what rapid chargers are available would have shown 2 Instavolt chargers near Bournemouth where they could have charged up before leaving. I would be very surprised if they were not working.

And then you go on SpeakEV where the locals will tell you that most of the chargers are U/S, the network isn't very good round there and reinforce the main point of the story which is that the assumption that chargers should be working (or repaired reasonably quickly) is a pretty reasonable one.

I appreciate that longer term owners will have encountered these issues (I haven't gone far enough yet!) and do their plan A,B,C _and_ D, but there really shouldn't be the need. Plenty of lessons learned there even if, unfortunately, one is that the charging network is inadequate and badly maintained and maybe wait before getting an EV..

JKenH

silverwhistle said:

ASavvyBuyer said:

Yes, looks like extremely poor planning or just a way of trying to get their names in the paper to boast about their new car.

Just a quick check of what rapid chargers are available would have shown 2 Instavolt chargers near Bournemouth where they could have charged up before leaving. I would be very surprised if they were not working.

And then you go on SpeakEV where the locals will tell you that most of the chargers are U/S, the network isn't very good round there and reinforce the main point of the story which is that the assumption that chargers should be working (or repaired reasonably quickly) is a pretty reasonable one.

I appreciate that longer term owners will have encountered these issues (I haven't gone far enough yet!) and do their plan A,B,C _and_ D, but there really shouldn't be the need. Plenty of lessons learned there even if, unfortunately, one is that the charging network is inadequate and badly maintained and maybe wait before getting an EV..

At the moment doing a long trip in an EV is, for me, a bit of an adventure So I have put up with the non working chargers and moved on to find another one. If I had to rely on my EV to get me to meetings as my ICE car used to when I was working it would be a different story. 

I think many of us as first adopters are evangelical about EVs but the reality is most people, driving beyond the safe range at motorway speeds of their car, will usually experience some degree of range anxiety. As a practical proposition for the majority of the population there is still a long way to go. 

My impression is that the companies such as Shell and BP operating charging networks don’t really have their heart in it. Each transaction generates perhaps £5 of revenue and each charger will only see a handful of visits a day so why would the operators rush to get an engineer out to fix problems? As for free destination chargers there is no incentive.

silverwhistle

Today I used the free 7kw charger at my local supermarket, it seems very reliable but busy, so that's a good sign I suppose..

Those large companies will probably make more money from your coffee and pasty so if they install them in the right places there should be a margin of profit: it's not as if there's a very big mark up on petrol.

Martyn1981

Carbon Commentary newsletter extracts:

4, Electric vehicle registrations. The sales performance of electric vehicles around Europe has been extraordinarily strong over the last months. My guess is that market share in the typical European market has approximately tripled over the past year, although total sales of all cars have been depressed. EV sales in Germany reached 18% share in October, of which over 8% was pure electric. One commentator calculated that if sales in the UK continued growing in 2021 at the same rate as 2020 (unlikely), EVs would account for over 50% of the total market by the end of next year.

Solarchaser

silverwhistle said:

ASavvyBuyer said:

Yes, looks like extremely poor planning or just a way of trying to get their names in the paper to boast about their new car.

Just a quick check of what rapid chargers are available would have shown 2 Instavolt chargers near Bournemouth where they could have charged up before leaving. I would be very surprised if they were not working.

And then you go on SpeakEV where the locals will tell you that most of the chargers are U/S, the network isn't very good round there and reinforce the main point of the story which is that the assumption that chargers should be working (or repaired reasonably quickly) is a pretty reasonable one.

I appreciate that longer term owners will have encountered these issues (I haven't gone far enough yet!) and do their plan A,B,C _and_ D, but there really shouldn't be the need. Plenty of lessons learned there even if, unfortunately, one is that the charging network is inadequate and badly maintained and maybe wait before getting an EV..

Maybe Ive been extremely fortunate, but in 2 years of EV I've only encountered a couple of chargers that were not useable and 1 that was behind a locked gate.
All were in southern England.
And in reality if I had looked at zap map instead of the in car stuff, it was fairly clear.
So I've never went with multiple plans. I drive till there's about 20 miles left, then see whats nearby or enroute. 

I did have  situation last year where in Ayrshire the whole network went down for all of their chargers forcing me to go to a fast charger, but no issue with a lack of chargers.

Martyn1981

The  VW Group are taking BEV's and Tesla very, very seriously now, even organising a meeting of the senior executives called Mission T.

VW CEO reveals ‘Mission T’ to ‘catch up with Tesla’ as he faces vote of confidence

As a result, we had to tailor Volkswagen’s strategy to keep up with these new competitors. To this end, we organized a second workshop with Professor Malik in April 2020. 31 senior executives from Volkswagen, Audi and Porsche were involved in ‘Mission T,’ as it was dubbed. The event revolved around how we can catch up with Tesla — a company focused exclusively on the future, without a traditional car business. Its Silicon Valley-style ecosystem is influenced by software capabilities, focus on technology and risk culture. The workshop was held over three days — under special constraints with masks and social distancing due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The opening question was: ‘What do we have to achieve in the next six months to catch up with Tesla in terms of technology by 2024?’

So, what can they do in the next 6 months to catch up with Tesla by 2024, given that Tesla is ahead, accelerating faster than them, and doesn't have any of the old ICE infrastructure such as dealer networks to worry about - invent a time machine perhaps?

But Kudos to VW who accept reality and are doing what's necessary in the face of the coming disruption. Ford CEO on the other hand, made an insane comment about Tesla a while back, saying that they weren't worried as Tesla was going up against Henry Ford. Somebody should have told him that 1. Henry Ford is dead, and 2. what he's remembered for is innovation and disruption, something that Tesla has in spades, and Ford couldn't find, these days, with a map and a spade.