Battery Electric Vehicle News / Enjoying the Transportation Revolution

JKenH

NigeWick said:

These articles seem somewhat selective in a significant manner to provide an anti-Tesla narrative.  Now I don't have any EV and certainly no reason to favour any company over another but, as a prospective consumer, I would expect to see fair and objective reporting to allow proper comparison.

I had a 64kWh Kona. At 70mph in 28F freezing fog it would do just over 200 miles with heating & aircon on. I reckon to get about 260ish out of my TM3LR under similar circumstances.

From various articles I have read/videos watched I don’t doubt that Tesla has one of the most efficient if not the most efficient drivetrains in any EV so I was surprised to see it figure so badly in the MPGe and efficiency tests. Clearly your experience reflects it is very efficient. Perhaps What Car should try the 70mph in freezing fog test next.

Joking aside, if the Tesla models are all doing poorly in the What Car efficiency and the Sprimonotor.de test then there must be a reason for it. I don’t buy into the anti - Tesla narrative when it comes to publications such as Autocar/What Car. I am naturally inquisitive and want to understand what is going on. 

As @Solarchaser has pointed out Teslas do seem to cover high mileages and they aren’t going to do that sitting behind lorries at 56mph so that helps put the Sprimonitor.de results in context. 

MPGe takes into account more than rolling efficiency and that is why I posted one or two observations from long term Tesla owners who have highlighted some of the other stuff going on under the Tesla bonnet particularly with pre heating of the battery. Now if one is starting a long journey from home with the car fully charged then that is not going to be an issue and you will benefit from the inherent rolling efficiency of the Tesla and very high miles/kWh. Which of course is what many people do. That is not, though, what the MPGe test is about - it includes charging. So possibly it is the battery management system (which is also one of Tesla’s strengths) that pushes it down the league tables on the What Car type of test and on overall consumption ratings. 

The forum quotes I included highlight just how much the intervention of the battery management system can impact on overall electricity consumption from the plug, particularly on short journeys. 

Also Tesla does have a lot of systems running in the background even when standing idle and something like SentryMode can add significantly to power draw. 

Now please correct me if I am wrong but does the wh/mile display on the M3 not just display the energy required to drive the car down the road? 

If we are going to do a comparison between efficiency of electric vehicles then for some people who through force of circumstance have to rely solely on public chargers then the overall consumption is going to be as important as the rolling consumption. 

To you or me who can charge at home on very cheap rate chargers a difference between 3 or 4 mpk is of little or no consequence but when all the background systems, sentry mode and preheating plus charging losses all have to be paid for at public chargers then the overall consumption is what matters. I think in principle that is what the MPGe figures are trying to reflect and at the same time providing a like for like comparison to ICEVs.

I think it is fairer for those considering EVs that the true cost in terms of energy from the plug is made clear on this forum rather than just the headline 4mpk figure from the vehicle display that is so often quoted.

shinytop

Maybe Tesla drivers are the BMW drivers of the EV world; hard acceleration and braking, tailgating, lots of headlight flashing (but no indicators).    

Bur seriously, driver behaviour could easily be a factor as well as the types of journeys done.  Are Teslas actually faster/more powerful than other EVs? They are certainly marketed as such. 

Solarchaser

Teslas are certainly amongst the most powerful, the 3 lr is around 450bhp from my calibrated bum feel.

But heating on is definitely counted in early mpg on the display, as its also much higher at the start. 

I've actually switched off sentry now, not because of battery draw which can be mild to wild.. but because having to delete 25 videos of people walking past the car in a multistory carpark was a little irritating.

I haven't driven the leaf in a while I have to confess 😢

The Tesla has been 99% public charged and on the 50kw chargers still seeing 96% ish percent on all charges.
Be interesting to see if that decreases in the winter as 9 times out of 10 I'm sitting in the car doing paperwork while it's charging, so still have music and heating on, so while that would hinder charging efficiency (kwh put into car vs kwh getting to battery) anyway, it will be much more noticeable when the outside temp is 4c than 15c I'd think

JKenH

Solarchaser said:

Teslas are certainly amongst the most powerful, the 3 lr is around 450bhp from my calibrated bum feel.

But heating on is definitely counted in early mpg on the display, as its also much higher at the start. 

I've actually switched off sentry now, not because of battery draw which can be mild to wild.. but because having to delete 25 videos of people walking past the car in a multistory carpark was a little irritating.

I haven't driven the leaf in a while I have to confess 😢

The Tesla has been 99% public charged and on the 50kw chargers still seeing 96% ish percent on all charges.
Be interesting to see if that decreases in the winter as 9 times out of 10 I'm sitting in the car doing paperwork while it's charging, so still have music and heating on, so while that would hinder charging efficiency (kwh put into car vs kwh getting to battery) anyway, it will be much more noticeable when the outside temp is 4c than 15c I'd think

Thanks for clarifying that.

Martyn1981

Solarchaser said:

Teslas are certainly amongst the most powerful, the 3 lr is around 450bhp from my calibrated bum feel.

But heating on is definitely counted in early mpg on the display, as its also much higher at the start. 

I've actually switched off sentry now, not because of battery draw which can be mild to wild.. but because having to delete 25 videos of people walking past the car in a multistory carpark was a little irritating.

I haven't driven the leaf in a while I have to confess 😢

The Tesla has been 99% public charged and on the 50kw chargers still seeing 96% ish percent on all charges.
Be interesting to see if that decreases in the winter as 9 times out of 10 I'm sitting in the car doing paperwork while it's charging, so still have music and heating on, so while that would hinder charging efficiency (kwh put into car vs kwh getting to battery) anyway, it will be much more noticeable when the outside temp is 4c than 15c I'd think

Yeah it's a shame Tesla aren't more open about the bhp figures. I've seen ~450bhp used as an 'official' figure for the TM3 performance in comparison vids, but higher figures when the cars are dyno tested. The TM3 LR seems to get over 400bhp at the wheels, and about 500 with the power boost download, but that still doesn't unlock all of the power that they come with to justify the higher price for the performance model (even though the cars are basically the same, just software locked).

The S and X's are over 700bhp I believe, and of course the Plaid models are simply beyond ludicrous.

Regarding charging, I heard something new a couple of days ago about Tesla Superchargers. Now the background is a bit weird and relates to arguments over the actual batery size in the Lucid cars, which is reported as 118kWh, but one vlogger has raised the fact that the EPA documentation shows ~136kWh when you multiply the volts by the Ahrs. For the Tesla S 100 the EPA docs work out at about 106kWh.

This argument is still ongoing and a recent vid showing a Lucid rapid charging from 0-100% appears to show it consuming 134kWh. This combined with previous Tesla rapid chargers reported by a magazine as being 99% efficient, seemed to support the argument that the Lucid battery is bigger. BUTtttttt ........ here comes the interesting bit, apparently Tesla Superchargers don't charge you for the leccy they consume, they charge you for the leccy that the battery gets.

I didn't know that. So if you get the chance to use a range of chargers, especially ones that display power on the charge unit, I'd be really interested to know if it's true. Presumably a 50kW DC charger should be pretty efficient, whereas I'd have assumed (always risky to assume) that chargers putting out 200, 300, even 350kW must be suffering losses, especially if the cables are liquid cooled.

Clearly, I'm way out of my depth here!


Oops, almost forgot, another bit of news regarding Tesla, batts and performance, the new TMY's base models in China will have the LFP batts, which bring lots of benefits, they're harder to abuse, ignite, cheaper etc, but of course can't deliver as much power, so whilst the range has gone up slightly, the 0-60 has slowed from 5.6s to 6.9s. That almost seems like a good thing, where the base cars are fast, just not quite as silly fast.

Solarchaser

JKenH said:

michaels said:

Our leaf is older (a 15 24kwh) - we tend to get a year round average indicated miles per kwh of 4 but I have no idea of the accuracy of this.  The v2g charger is chademo which puts the car at quite a high level of 'standby' even when it is neither charging nor discharging so we try not to leave it switched on in the day (plug it in in the evening it discharges, leave it plugged in and it is 'full' at our set time in the morning, it chooses when to charge - but these 12 odd hours probably suffer 1kwh of standby losses.

I think we can excuse the standby losses as they are incurred for the benefit of V2G and not really part of owning the car. I noted before the good mpk you get. What’s your use profile like? When I first got a Leaf I used to try and squeeze the last mile out of every KWh but now I only tend to do that on long trips. Driving around locally I tend to drive the car like an ICEv (70 on dual carriageways and motorways etc) and enjoy the torque but still make the most of the regen making full use of the ePedal. That means I don’t lift off quite as early as I would when trying to stretch the mileage.

Perhaps it’s because I like numbers and also have a Zappi (shows kWh used to 2 decimal places) and LeafSpy that I pay so much attention to efficiency. From an economics point of view charging on Go Faster it’s neither here nor there whether I get 3 or 4mpk but of course it does come into play on a long run when I do change my driving style to minimise charging stops. 

As far as the point Mart made about the Ioniq, I agree that Hyundai/Kia seem to be the kings of efficiency. I saw someone a while back post an indicated 6+ mpk from an e-Niro on Facebook which gave a theoretical range of 350 miles. I asked if it really did translate into that in practice and apparently some people have done over 350 miles on a charge!

As far as battery degradation is concerned, it is still happening. My son’s 2017 30kwh Leaf is down to 81% battery state of health (one battery bar gone) at just 30,000 miles. It has had a gentle life charging with not that many rapids. People are reporting losing more than 4bars (dropping below 70%) and Nissan are doing a BMS reset to restore the bars rather than swapping batteries. 

My 40kwh Leaf (20 months old) is at 93% SoH according to LeafSpy but the majority of that drop occurred in the first 12 months. I could still get 160 miles on a good day (100 on a bad day) and haven’t really noticed any drop off in range. The weather on the day is a bigger factor. Tesla battery health seems good but it is too early to say how the newer BEV manufacturers will fare. 

My wife now uses the Leaf for 90% of her journeys, only using the Picanto if her destination has really tight parking (or when she wants to take her bike). She likes driving the Leaf but insists her next car will still be a petrol Picanto. She is going to buy the  last one ever made, she says. 

Hi Ken, just for quick figure comparison,  I decided I'd have a wee drive of the leaf today. 
It's still a lovely wee car, it's missing that "one pedal" driving I've gotten used to in the Tesla, though I think your leaf does that?
Regen on the 24 Is waaaay lower than on the tesla, initially I really disliked it, whereas now it feels like the way driving should be done and so I feel the leaf is wrong, funny how different experiences colour your life view.🤔

Anyway I've said a few times I think that the leaf has done 18k miles since getting it, its a 15 plate we have had for 3 years, it's pretty much always been charged to 100%, unless getting used for longer journeys, which was rare anyway, and now is non existent (tesla does those), but even then it would be charged to 100% before starting journey obviously. 
So anyway when we got it it was at 91.3% state of health, with double the mileage and 99 times of 100 charged to 100% it's now at 86.6%

So I gotta go on my own evidence and say it is fine being charged to 100%, or at least I see no sizeable damage that would cause me to rethink charging it to 100%, so I'll continue to do that.

In terms of charging patterns, when it's sunny I don't give a monkeys what it's at, it gets plugged in, and when the wife is using it for commuting etc, then its say 40-60% then charged to 100%

I'm not rubbishing the claims of damage, and certainly the Tesla keeps telling me I shouldn't charge it to 100% or it will damage the battery, so there's definitely something to it, but on my experience I'd say it's by no means catastrophic to the wee leaf 24.

EVandPV

Octopus in NatWest deal to accelerate electric car business

The high street lender's Lombard division has provided a credit line to Octopus Electric Vehicles that will help it buy £500million of cars from Tesla, Volkswagen, Nissan and others over the next year.
Octopus leases the cars to firms looking to reduce the carbon footprint of their company car fleets. 

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/cars/news/octopus-in-natwest-deal-to-accelerate-electric-car-business/ar-AARd1MR

Grumpy_chap

EVandPV said:

Octopus in NatWest deal to accelerate electric car business

The high street lender's Lombard division has provided a credit line to Octopus Electric Vehicles that will help it buy £500million of cars from Tesla, Volkswagen, Nissan and others over the next year.
Octopus leases the cars to firms looking to reduce the carbon footprint of their company car fleets. 

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/cars/news/octopus-in-natwest-deal-to-accelerate-electric-car-business/ar-AARd1MR

I am not sure that I understand this part of the article:

"Firms provide the cars to employees, who pay part of their gross salary to cover the costs of buying and running the vehicle, typically £35 less a month than for petrol or diesel cars."

I have read that as suggesting salary sacrifice at only £35 per month, but the number is not in the range that you'd normally expect for that.

Not that it matters to me as my employer does not have this scheme.  Just for the sake of interest and understanding.

michaels

Grumpy_chap said:

EVandPV said:

Octopus in NatWest deal to accelerate electric car business

The high street lender's Lombard division has provided a credit line to Octopus Electric Vehicles that will help it buy £500million of cars from Tesla, Volkswagen, Nissan and others over the next year.
Octopus leases the cars to firms looking to reduce the carbon footprint of their company car fleets. 

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/cars/news/octopus-in-natwest-deal-to-accelerate-electric-car-business/ar-AARd1MR

I am not sure that I understand this part of the article:

"Firms provide the cars to employees, who pay part of their gross salary to cover the costs of buying and running the vehicle, typically £35 less a month than for petrol or diesel cars."

I have read that as suggesting salary sacrifice at only £35 per month, but the number is not in the range that you'd normally expect for that.

Not that it matters to me as my employer does not have this scheme.  Just for the sake of interest and understanding.

You don't think it means £35 less per month than a similar book price petrol / diesel car?

Martyn1981

Grumpy_chap said:

EVandPV said:

Octopus in NatWest deal to accelerate electric car business

The high street lender's Lombard division has provided a credit line to Octopus Electric Vehicles that will help it buy £500million of cars from Tesla, Volkswagen, Nissan and others over the next year.
Octopus leases the cars to firms looking to reduce the carbon footprint of their company car fleets. 

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/cars/news/octopus-in-natwest-deal-to-accelerate-electric-car-business/ar-AARd1MR

I am not sure that I understand this part of the article:

"Firms provide the cars to employees, who pay part of their gross salary to cover the costs of buying and running the vehicle, typically £35 less a month than for petrol or diesel cars."

I have read that as suggesting salary sacrifice at only £35 per month, but the number is not in the range that you'd normally expect for that.

Not that it matters to me as my employer does not have this scheme.  Just for the sake of interest and understanding.

Remember all the discussions about how BEV's (or some BEV's) may be cheaper to run per month than an ICEV? "Typically" could be misused in many ways here, but on the face of it the sentence/article suggests to me that 'on average' a BEV will be ~£35pm cheaper than a comparable ICEV.