Battery Electric Vehicle News / Enjoying the Transportation Revolution

Martyn1981

Grumpy_chap said:

Martyn1981 said:

You might even want to consider Onto who do short term leases (from 1 month) to try out a car and see what you like, or don't, before taking the plunge.

I have seen various times that there have been suggestions to take a short-term EV to trial the concept and assess the extent to which it "works" with the individual's car use profile.

I have always failed to understand how this is proven (either way) without having home charging installed.

I note the Onto scheme linked includes free public charging but is there a possibility that only serves to prove the "unsuitability" of an EV?

The idea of an EV and having to use public charge-points (with no home charging alternative) would fill me with dread.

Ah right, I think you've misunderstood again.

My response was to 2nd time buyer, as I'd got the impression (possibly wrongly) that they are planning to get a BEV and are trying to work out which one would suit them best. So my suggestion regarding Onto, was for them to try out a BEV (or three) to see if the vehicle suits them before choosing which BEV to buy.

Also, you don't have to have a 7kW charger to enjoy a BEV, we didn't even book one till 6 months after getting the Leaf, and thanks to Covid, we didn't get it for almost another year. We happily used the granny charger, and once PV gen was high enough (around Apr) we switched back to the granny charger for the summer, only recently have we gone back to the 7kW & E7. So a 'proper' charger is great, but access to a suitable 13A socket will suffice for average UK driving needs.

Martyn1981

EricMears said:

Grumpy_chap said:

We were always told that the mobile phone battery must be fully discharged and then charged to avoid the battery getting a memory that it only had a small cycle.  Indeed, many phones even had a discharge function to activate to flatten the battery before plugging in.

Probably true for really old phones with a NiCad battery  but Lithium cells have long since displaced them.

Yep, that takes me back to my first electric car, a 1/10th scale RC Tamiya Frog*. It could do about 30mph. As you say, with NiCad the recommendation was for thorough charge/discharging, but not so for modern Li-ion.

*Even back then (in the 80's) it did cross my mind that at £70, it had a full scale price equivalent of ~£70k if one could be made. Turned out a lot cheaper now, taking inflation into account.

Coastalwatch

Martyn1981 said:

Yep, that takes me back to my first electric car, a 1/10th scale RC Tamiya Frog*. It could do about 30mph. As you say, with NiCad the recommendation was for thorough charge/discharging, but not so for modern Li-ion.

*Even back then (in the 80's) it did cross my mind that at £70, it had a full scale price equivalent of ~£70k if one could be made. Turned out a lot cheaper now, taking inflation into account.

Think I can concur with that Mart as my son was racing RC cars in that era, as you say batteries were drained to zero and charged to 100% in order to gain the best performance from them. From memory Nickel Metal Hydride, or something similar was also a preferred with up rated battery packs coming on stream every couple of months or so. If you wanted to be competitive they were must haves so quite an expensive hobby.

I do have to say how impressed I was with the boys driving skills as it's relatively easy controlling a car when it's travelling away from you, however, at the far end of the circuit when it starts heading back it's totally different game. Respect to all those involved.

orrery

Grumpy_chap said:

We were always told that the mobile phone battery must be fully discharged and then charged to avoid the battery getting a memory that it only had a small cycle.

The 1st version of the Leaf, 24kWh, had an 80% charge function* but that was removed with subsequent versions as they gained more confidence. Car manufacturers reserve a few % of battery space at the top and bottom to prevent under and over charging, which is very damaging for the battery.

The other thing that helps is that the battery stack in an EV is charged normally, all batteries in series, but then each module is individually adjusted to balance the charge equally, so there are individual connections to charge each module.

* The recent VW group EVs have this function too.

Solarchaser

Back to the kw discussion. 
9.5kw showers are basically standard these days, so 40a fuse, I have a couple of those and a 50a for the ev so 12kw charging definitely electrically possible. 

As my go faster is 4.5p for 3 hours the equivalent gas price would be 3.375 (75% efficient) and since gas is now up to 3.6p I'm now seriously looking at replacing the gas boiler with a hot water tank which could be heated with a 10kw element during off peak fir the central heating... likely with a heat exchanger so we don't have 80c radiators 

JKenH

Tesla have opened up superchargers to other drivers in a trial in the Netherlands. 

https://youtu.be/z0EBVQVmMn4

edit: 
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-59122605?fbclid=IwAR06axxdNMJI5Nn_glx5360mqYZgu8mylBbjrUbMIfAe1HtUq60JF8DAIG8

Grumpy_chap

VW to unveil the ID.5 at 13:00 today (03/11/2021):
https://www.volkswagen-newsroom.com/en/live-stream-5455?dbgid=10299153&dbg_campaign=C000007510&variant=VW_SAL_ID5_PRO_211102_MOS10_EMT01_MOS02&one-tid=88038895-ce9d-8137-eb3a-47c62bda44cb

EVandPV

Portable electric vehicle chargers that look like suitcases and fit in a car's boot will be sold next year and offer 20 miles of range from a half-hour charge

Concerns about finding an available charge point for an electric car could be a thing of the past with the introduction of a new portable device that drivers can carry with them to replenish the batteries of their EVs.

 
https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/cars/article-10156975/amp/Portable-electric-vehicle-chargers-available-year.html

Martyn1981

That's a fun idea. Reminds me of SparkCharge in the US. When I first heard of them (a company started by a group of students) I thought it was a bit odd, but then they explained that a lot of 'tow truck' call outs in the US are for vehicles that have run out of fuel, so the driver just loads up a SparkCharge unit instead of a jerrycan. And they are modular for larger charges.

So many solutions.

2nd_time_buyer

Superficially seems like a good idea (certainly for breakdown recovery to carry around). However, would it not be better to have a slightly bigger battery in the car and a "reserve tank" in the software.