EV Discussion thread

Grumpy_chap

1961Nick said:

The bottom right hand corner of the screen by default shows the audio settings. You can swipe this left to get trip information & tyre pressures.

Thank you - I found that and it's easy.
I had seen the three dots and thought that indicated swipe for next page, but also thought it referred to the upper picture (where the car is when parked or speed info when driving).  All that did was to make the picture of the car spin around.

I'm really enjoying the car.  Still a couple of things to check out and understand where they are, but that is all part of the fun.

1961Nick

Grumpy_chap said:

1961Nick said:

The bottom right hand corner of the screen by default shows the audio settings. You can swipe this left to get trip information & tyre pressures.

Thank you - I found that and it's easy.
I had seen the three dots and thought that indicated swipe for next page, but also thought it referred to the upper picture (where the car is when parked or speed info when driving).  All that did was to make the picture of the car spin around.

I'm really enjoying the car.  Still a couple of things to check out and understand where they are, but that is all part of the fun.

Just when you think you've figured out all the controls, Tesla will issue a software update & everything will move around.

Martyn1981

1961Nick said:

Grumpy_chap said:

1961Nick said:

The bottom right hand corner of the screen by default shows the audio settings. You can swipe this left to get trip information & tyre pressures.

Thank you - I found that and it's easy.
I had seen the three dots and thought that indicated swipe for next page, but also thought it referred to the upper picture (where the car is when parked or speed info when driving).  All that did was to make the picture of the car spin around.

I'm really enjoying the car.  Still a couple of things to check out and understand where they are, but that is all part of the fun.

Just when you think you've figured out all the controls, Tesla will issue a software update & everything will move around.

Yep, they've just released a biggie, with about 14 changes.

Older news, but Elon said they will be doing some work on the software to better identify rain, and improve the automatic wipers.

Might be my imagination, but I've found that if it is slow to start wiping, then activating a wipe (press in the end of the left stalk), seems to improve things, or maybe I'm just acting before the car.

JKenH

A couple of stories from Fleet News on the subject of EV accident repair costs (from Thatcham Research) and maintenance/servicing costs.

Electric vehicle repair costs revealed versus ICE equivalent

https://www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/latest-fleet-news/electric-fleet-news/2023/07/05/electric-vehicle-repair-costs-revealed-versus-ice-equivalent

Tyre wear rate of electric company cars ‘changes’ SMR spend

https://www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/latest-fleet-news/electric-fleet-news/2023/05/02/tyre-wear-rates-of-electric-vehicle-company-cars-changes-smr-spend

MikeJXE

So not all good news then, more cost to compare to an ice, do pads and discs wear out faster too ?

I was on the M6 on Sunday travelling back from Scotland and joined the traffic jam due to the milk lorry incident. 3 hours in a stop start a couple of yards a time fiasco. There were a few EV's I noticed and wondered how they would fair in that situation, stop start for 3 hours + cold afternoon and evening

Incidentally I drove from home for a distance of 451 miles and still had 231 miles in the tank on the outward journey Jaguar XE 1.8 diesel. My trip there was 8 hours including a stop, the return journey took from 8.15am and I arrived home at 9.45pm Sunday 

Martyn1981

MikeJXE said:

So not all good news then, more cost to compare to an ice, do pads and discs wear out faster too ?

I was on the M6 on Sunday travelling back from Scotland and joined the traffic jam due to the milk lorry incident. 3 hours in a stop start a couple of yards a time fiasco. There were a few EV's I noticed and wondered how they would fair in that situation, stop start for 3 hours + cold afternoon and evening

Incidentally I drove from home for a distance of 451 miles and still had 231 miles in the tank on the outward journey Jaguar XE 1.8 diesel. My trip there was 8 hours including a stop, the return journey took from 8.15am and I arrived home at 9.45pm Sunday 

Don't worry, all good news.

Brake pad wear on BEV's is absolutely tiny. Unless you have to brake very hard, it will all be regen, so just need to use brakes for the last few mph if coming to a complete stop. And even then, because kinetic energy is half mass times velocity squared, using the brake pads to stop the car at say 4mph, is 100th the energy needed to stop a car at 40mph.

As for stop / start driving, then the BEV is perfect, with the ICEV the engine is running all the time (although engine shutdown when stationary may help a bit), whilst the BEV will just be running background stuff (like A/C if you have it on, but powered efficiently from the batts, not via an inefficient petrol generator). 

And whilst nobody wants to be stuck in a traffic jam, I now find it far more pleasant, as you can just use one pedal driving to move you on a bit each time - no need to balance the clutch, and burn fuel in 1st/2nd gear. Certainly one of the big wins.

Martyn1981

Giant Aussie mining trucks will hopefully get cleaner as they move from diesel-electric to electric. And looks like RE will get rolled out near sites to help produce some of the leccy. Efficiency findings seem similar to those that VW produced (and I posted recently).

Australian Mining Companies Chose Battery-Electric Over Hydrogen Fuel Cell Mining Trucks

Mining companies like BHP, Rio Tinto, and Fortescue don’t care a fig about zero-to-sixty times, massive touchscreens, or vegan leather interiors. Their concern — their only concern — is for the bottom line. As the green revolution moves forward, they are looking for ways to lower the carbon emissions associated with their mining activities, and that means moving away from diesel engines. What are the alternatives for massive mining trucks that can weigh hundreds of tons? There are two — batteries or hydrogen fuel cells.

Both provide the electricity needed to turn electric motors, so which is better? The companies have done their research, gathered the data, and created the spreadsheets. For them, the answer is clear. Battery-powered mining trucks are the way to go. Why? Efficiency. BHP has now joined Rio Tinto and Fortescue in preferring electric mining trucks over hydrogen fuel cell trucks because they are more efficient. Not a little bit more efficient, a lot more efficient.

Electric trucks demonstrate an overall efficiency of around 80%, while hydrogen and diesel trucks show only about 30% and 20% efficiency, respectively. These figures consider the complete fuel-to-wheel energy efficiency losses, making the electricity-to-battery-to-electricity process more efficient than the electricity-to-hydrogen-to-electricity cycle, according to Energy Innovations.

Cost savings for electric mining trucks are also higher than initially estimated. Comparisons focused on the hydrogen fuel that is already created, ignoring the losses involved in hydrogen production. Energy expert Saul Griffith points out that even with a perfect machine, only a little over 70% of the energy generated from solar cells can be converted into hydrogen. This means that almost 80% of the original renewable energy generated for the hydrogen system would be lost by the time the truck’s wheels were moving. In contrast, electric trucks require less wind and solar energy to cover the same distance and offer more cost savings.

Grumpy_chap

MikeJXE said:

I was on the M6 on Sunday travelling back from Scotland and joined the traffic jam due to the milk lorry incident. 3 hours in a stop start a couple of yards a time fiasco. There were a few EV's I noticed and wondered how they would fair in that situation, stop start for 3 hours + cold afternoon and evening

I think this is the perfect situation to be in an EV rather than ICE - no fuel burned at all while stationery unlike the ICE which is very inefficient under these conditions.

MikeJXE

My Jag has start stop so no fuel burned either, also 1 peddle operation as it's auto

I wasn't knocking the EV 
I was just interested wether a situation like this had any effect on EV battery drain hence range 

Exiled_Tyke

Martyn and Grumpy-chap are spot on.  EV is far more comfortable in stop start traffic. Much smoother on the move off too.  My Audi diesel worked well with the stop start but after a while it would keep running. I presume this was because the starter motor had drained the battery too much and not had the chance to recharge OR the dpf was starring to get clogged (which often happened and the engine would keep running to deal with it).   Although that car was automatic so no gears to worry about it still was relatively clunky and spuing whenever it restarted.   My current car tells me when it's time to go again and if I've only been stopped for a few seconds will go again on it's own or if it's been stopped a little while will remind me to hit the cruise button to follow the car in front.  So in those circumstanes it reall is zero pedal driving as it will apply the brakes when needed too.  I really wouldn't go back now.