Battery Electric Vehicle News / Enjoying the Transportation Revolution

michaels

SuzeQStan said:

silverwhistle said:

Well, I've been enjoying the revolution as just got back from Italy on Monday in my MG4SE which is hardly the most expensive or biggest ranged car. Biggest issue was a cracked windscreen and a small delay as we  waited for a big German car to get to 100% at an Ionity charger on a main route. To be honest it must have been an expensive car as the charge curve was still high.

Chatted at the ferry port queue with a lady who loved her earlier EV but approached me as she was wary about taking it to France, so I pointed her in the direction of apps and information resources. Bit by bit!

That is great to hear your positive experience in the EV overseas.  We did our 1st big trip (big for us) last weekend in our EV6 to Whitby and it was seamless.  Contactless charging is the future have deleted all charging apps.

I installed the gridserve app as you get a 20% per unit discount.

Our recent 1000 mile trip in a chademo leaf was almost seamless, only issue was Exeter Moto where despite having about 20 gridserve chargers and a similar number of Tesla ones, there is no queuing system in place - we have solved this problem at petrol stations decades ago but no one thought about it for EV chargers.....

Exiled_Tyke

silverwhistle said:

Well, I've been enjoying the revolution as just got back from Italy on Monday in my MG4SE which is hardly the most expensive or biggest ranged car. Biggest issue was a cracked windscreen and a small delay as we  waited for a big German car to get to 100% at an Ionity charger on a main route. To be honest it must have been an expensive car as the charge curve was still high.

Chatted at the ferry port queue with a lady who loved her earlier EV but approached me as she was wary about taking it to France, so I pointed her in the direction of apps and information resources. Bit by bit!

Would you mind sharing apps and info.  I've a trip planned to France next year and am quite anxious. 

Grumpy_chap

silverwhistle said:

Well, I've been enjoying the revolution as just got back from Italy on Monday in my MG4SE which is hardly the most expensive or biggest ranged car.

SuzeQStan said:

That is great to hear your positive experience in the EV overseas.  We did our 1st big trip (big for us) last weekend in our EV6 to Whitby and it was seamless.  Contactless charging is the future have deleted all charging apps.

michaels said:

Our recent 1000 mile trip in a chademo leaf was almost seamless, only issue was Exeter Moto where despite having about 20 gridserve chargers and a similar number of Tesla ones, there is no queuing system in place - we have solved this problem at petrol stations decades ago but no one thought about it for EV chargers.....

I have to say, I have no qualms at all about long distance trips as my bladder never lasts as long as the battery - that has been my experience so far in a year of ownership.  Only once when I was wholly unable to charge at the planned stop.

I have somewhat of a long-distance test coming up early next month as a poorly coinciding sequence of work meetings will see me in Reading, then up to the Lake District, then back down to the South Coast and then back home all in a week.  I have, so far, merely laughed off the doubters in the office so hope the experience proves as seamless as I am expecting.

I am also interested to learn more about the overseas charging.  My wife and I did have an opportunity for a short-notice leisure trip to Nice only a fortnight ago, but had to drop the idea once we realised it clashed with a pre-planned event.  I was rather blase in dismissing my wife's concerns about getting their and back easily in the TM3.  The notice was so short, we would not have had time to really plan or worry TBH.  Except we didn't get to go anyhow

I sort of suspect the reason there are no great comments about charging and going to France, Italy, Eastern Europe or wherever else forum members have travelled is probably because it all works pretty much as well as it works at home so nothing for anyone to report.  Here's hoping.

silverwhistle

Yes, nothing to report really! The apps I used were ABRP for planning, although I found it slightly pessimistic for my model and suggested some stops I didn't need. The extent and expansion of charging facilities means that replanning is a lot easier than it might once have been. There is an electric icon on the signs outside aires on the motorway which looks a bit like a mouse, so that's what we called them and I recall only one serviced aire not having it, and that one had GPL.

I mainly used the Tesla and Ionity apps for their subscriptions and lower charging and my Electroverse card and app, which is linked to my Octopus electricity account, and also gives me a useful discount.

Ferry was DFDS Newhaven - Dieppe going but Caen - Portsmouth on the way home as it's a very short distance home from there. The former route is a lot cheaper.

Trip down was via Chartres (Tesla) to avoid Paris at the moment and then cross country to the A19 to the A6 going south. It took a little longer than usual but we did it in a day and then did an overnighter on the way back, getting a cheap chain hotel next to a charging hub, so started the next day at 100%. We didn't book it until we had decided we'd had enough driving for the day.. Accommodation in Italy was next to a public car park with a charger on the other side of a low wall so didn't even need to move my car to plug in as my cable was long enough!

We also did a couple of opportunity charges in Italy which fitted in to what we were doing at the time. As the trip progressed we became a lot more cavalier about fully exploiting speed on the fast roads, with the ability to slacken off a bit if we ate into our contingency. Ultimately over those distances it's human tiredness (and other factors!)  which dictates the stops, not a desperate need to charge. 

Grumpy_chap

silverwhistle said:

Ferry was DFDS Newhaven - Dieppe going but Caen - Portsmouth on the way home as it's a very short distance home from there. The former route is a lot cheaper.

Thanks for your update.  It is all good stuff to see how easy it can be.

We normally take Portsmouth - Le Havre or Portsmouth - Caen, but Newhaven is easy enough for us so will consider that route option in the future if it is cost effective.  

For the recent trip that never happened, the short notice meant ferries were in short supply so we did consider the Channel Tunnel, but they had the cheek to flag up an "oversize" charge for a wide car.  I did not think the TM3 was really that wide.

Probably going off topic now...

Martyn1981

Recently I mentioned that China monthly sales were very close to 50% for PEV's. Also Grumpy Chap and Exiled Tyke mentioned reasons, and policies.

So here's the good news, looks like China passed the 50% point in July.

Typically Cleantechnica do a very detailed report once all of the sales data is in, so that will probably be late July(ish). But thought I'd post this article as it sets out the many reasons and legislative actions that are used to help push the shift to PEV's in China/Chinese cities.

[Note, total car sales fell in July, so that may have temporarily boosted PEV numbers for July, but the underlying trend has been growing steadily.]

More Than Half Of All New Cars Sold In China In July Had A Plug

The headline pretty much says it all. Sales of plug-in hybrid and electric cars accounted for more than half of all new car sales in China in July. That’s up 37 percent from the same month last year. The only other country to post those sorts of numbers is Norway, and the reason in both cases is government policies. Overall, new car sales in China were down just over 3 percent in July according to data supplied by the China Passenger Car Association and reported by Reuters.

CKhalvashi

Grumpy_chap said:

silverwhistle said:

Well, I've been enjoying the revolution as just got back from Italy on Monday in my MG4SE which is hardly the most expensive or biggest ranged car.

SuzeQStan said:

That is great to hear your positive experience in the EV overseas.  We did our 1st big trip (big for us) last weekend in our EV6 to Whitby and it was seamless.  Contactless charging is the future have deleted all charging apps.

michaels said:

Our recent 1000 mile trip in a chademo leaf was almost seamless, only issue was Exeter Moto where despite having about 20 gridserve chargers and a similar number of Tesla ones, there is no queuing system in place - we have solved this problem at petrol stations decades ago but no one thought about it for EV chargers.....

I have to say, I have no qualms at all about long distance trips as my bladder never lasts as long as the battery - that has been my experience so far in a year of ownership.  Only once when I was wholly unable to charge at the planned stop.

I have somewhat of a long-distance test coming up early next month as a poorly coinciding sequence of work meetings will see me in Reading, then up to the Lake District, then back down to the South Coast and then back home all in a week.  I have, so far, merely laughed off the doubters in the office so hope the experience proves as seamless as I am expecting.

I am also interested to learn more about the overseas charging.  My wife and I did have an opportunity for a short-notice leisure trip to Nice only a fortnight ago, but had to drop the idea once we realised it clashed with a pre-planned event.  I was rather blase in dismissing my wife's concerns about getting their and back easily in the TM3.  The notice was so short, we would not have had time to really plan or worry TBH.  Except we didn't get to go anyhow

I sort of suspect the reason there are no great comments about charging and going to France, Italy, Eastern Europe or wherever else forum members have travelled is probably because it all works pretty much as well as it works at home so nothing for anyone to report.  Here's hoping.

Bolded parts roughly in order

Agreed, we're both getting older, the battery range is fine for the Ioniq, the only reason for changing to the ID4 was about charging speeds, not overall range. The Ioniq would do at least 2 hours on the motorway at 68mph from 80% without problems, the issue was taking 45 minutes to charge, which is longer than it takes to use the toilet and get a coffee. The ID4 (and OH's Enyaq, which was used as a testbed for this and has been to Lviv once already) should get around this at around 20 minutes to top up similar range levels.

As long as you've researched everything, you should be fine. I have Ionity, a local Polish app and a local Ukrainian app in my phone. The supercharger at Rzeszow will accept all vehicles, so was more then adequate actually to get us from Rzeszow-Lviv-Rzeszow with a small top up. One way would have been fine in the Ioniq also. I left the car plugged on a slow charger on the last night as we'd used the car in the city, although we use intercity trains in Ukraine purely as a curfew buster (we paid less than £6 each, each way in a mid-spec sleeper cabin from Lviv-Vinnytsia for example, this is about 350km driving distance). Trains can run overnight, we would have had a curfew from 00:00 to 05:00.

In France, the etiquette from what we've seen is for ICEs to only park in EV charging spaces if there are no other spaces available (as seen from Nice). This seems adequate for us.

Whatever you do, prepare. Everything works well, EU charging is easier than UK charging simply due to infrastructure, there's very little to report, however for a slower charging EV, also be aware that there is a lack of 50kW chargers in some areas, meaning that you're paying for the higher capacity without the 'benefit', although the benefit in itself is that the car gets charged.

Martyn1981

Update article on the Chinese BEV container ship, as it is now in operation.

Largest Battery-Electric Container Ship Now Operating — You Know Where

Powering very large ships with batteries may seem difficult and expensive. But don’t jump to conclusions too quickly. Battery prices have come down a ton in recent years, energy density has improved greatly, and a bit of creativity using swappable batteries makes it all the easier and more efficient. And now, it’s being done with an extremely large container ship — in China, of course.

When I saw the news on this recently, I sort of skipped over it because I thought we had already covered it. However, we actually covered it a year ago. In July 2023, Mike Barnard wrote about this battery-powered container ship and its 1,000-kilometer route on the Yangtze River. The news now is simply that the electric container ship has begun regular operations. So, it’s happening.

Martyn1981

Well, to the surprise of nobody, the rapid shift to EV's in China is having a massive negative impact on legacy auto. But the speed of the transition is incredible. If only we'd been saying this for a decade! 

China Is Done With Global Automakers: "Thanks For Coming"

Panic in Detroit - And Everywhere Else

Ford has lost more than $5 billion in China since 2020. Sales are down 70% from their peak. “We’ve never seen competition like this before,” says CEO Jim Farley.

GM is hurting, too. The former poster child for sunny US-China relations, GM has lost more than $200 million so far this year alone. That marks the first time in two decades that GM’s China operations have printed red ink.

Mary Barra says the situation in China is “unsustainable.”

Stellantis already knows the bitter taste of capitulation. Jeep was forced to beat an ignominious retreat from the China market in 2023 after its joint venture went bankrupt.

Detroit is not alone. Almost every non-Chinese brand – German, Korean, Japanese and French – is feeling shell-shocked as they watch their market shares disappear.

The reality is that China as a growth and profit paradise for global automakers has disappeared. It will never return.

Most of them will be shown the door within the next five years. Some will find the exits even sooner.

michaels

Martyn1981 said:

Well, to the surprise of nobody, the rapid shift to EV's in China is having a massive negative impact on legacy auto. But the speed of the transition is incredible. If only we'd been saying this for a decade! 

China Is Done With Global Automakers: "Thanks For Coming"

Panic in Detroit - And Everywhere Else

Ford has lost more than $5 billion in China since 2020. Sales are down 70% from their peak. “We’ve never seen competition like this before,” says CEO Jim Farley.

GM is hurting, too. The former poster child for sunny US-China relations, GM has lost more than $200 million so far this year alone. That marks the first time in two decades that GM’s China operations have printed red ink.

Mary Barra says the situation in China is “unsustainable.”

Stellantis already knows the bitter taste of capitulation. Jeep was forced to beat an ignominious retreat from the China market in 2023 after its joint venture went bankrupt.

Detroit is not alone. Almost every non-Chinese brand – German, Korean, Japanese and French – is feeling shell-shocked as they watch their market shares disappear.

The reality is that China as a growth and profit paradise for global automakers has disappeared. It will never return.

Most of them will be shown the door within the next five years. Some will find the exits even sooner.

I assume the 7% US includes several hundred k Tesla per year so for legacy auto it is even worse.