EV Discussion thread

silvercar

Grumpy_chap said:

I have noted a change in the recommended charge level for my TM3.

When I collected the car, it had been charged to 90% and the representative said that was the recommendation for daily use and to only charge to 100% when specifically required for a trip.  The owners manual said to charge to 90% for my battery type.

I noticed the last three times I plugged in, the app has said "Charge Tip:  80% recommended for daily driving"
Are other owners seeing the recommended charge level revised, and does anyone know why?

Also seeing the same.

Grumpy_chap

silvercar said:

Grumpy_chap said:

I have noted a change in the recommended charge level for my TM3.

When I collected the car, it had been charged to 90% and the representative said that was the recommendation for daily use and to only charge to 100% when specifically required for a trip.  The owners manual said to charge to 90% for my battery type.

I noticed the last three times I plugged in, the app has said "Charge Tip:  80% recommended for daily driving"
Are other owners seeing the recommended charge level revised, and does anyone know why?

Also seeing the same.

Did you change the set point?
I wonder what the consensus is on this change.
Does anyone know why?

It seems rather counterintuitive to pay extra for a big battery and then only use 80% of it.

Martyn1981

Grumpy_chap said:

silvercar said:

Grumpy_chap said:

I have noted a change in the recommended charge level for my TM3.

When I collected the car, it had been charged to 90% and the representative said that was the recommendation for daily use and to only charge to 100% when specifically required for a trip.  The owners manual said to charge to 90% for my battery type.

I noticed the last three times I plugged in, the app has said "Charge Tip:  80% recommended for daily driving"
Are other owners seeing the recommended charge level revised, and does anyone know why?

Also seeing the same.

Did you change the set point?
I wonder what the consensus is on this change.
Does anyone know why?

It seems rather counterintuitive to pay extra for a big battery and then only use 80% of it.

It's, dare I say, always been a general best guidance rule. Our 2014 Leaf actually had a setting so that it only charged to 80%, when plugged in and left.

The idea is simply that for normal daily driving, 80% is fine, but if you need more range, then charge higher. Going to 100% isn't a problem, it's just a way to minimise any battery degaradtion over the long term, but that degradation will be small anyway.

For LFP's, the guidance sems much looser, as they don't mind going to 100%.

So don't worry about charging over 80%, but if you're thinking very long term, then avoiding 80%+, when unnecessary will be even better. Also, not ideal to charge to 100% and leave it like that. The typical guidance is to try to aim to reach 100% shortly before your journey starts.

But again, this is all about chasing perfection, not a major concern. And ironically, for ultra-fast charging, you wouldn't really want to go over 80% anyway, as charging speeds will be slowing, so better to move on, and charge again, later in the journey.


Just a semi-silly point, but there's also re-gen to think of, especially if you start your journey up a hill. The first time I charged the Leaf to 100% (for a long drive), I set off, driving down our steep road, and there was no re-gen whatsoever, and I had a teeny panic and hit the brake pedal a bit too hard, thinking something was wrong with the car (only had it a couple of weeks), then it dawned on me, full battery .... so of course no re-gen. Doh!


Edit - Regarding what Netexporter mentions - When we asked for advice on the Hyndai IONIQ owners group before buying the 28kWh model, we were told that they have quite a big buffer, so don't worry about charging to 100%. In fact it's currently charging on PV, and closing in on 100%.

Netexporter

EV batteries generally have some "hidden" capacity, these days, so you can't fully charge or discharge them. I usually only charge to "100%" when I'm being paid to use electricity. Charging becomes less efficient above around 80%, so it costs you more/pays you more per kWh squeezing the last drops in.

Petriix

I actually ran a test and found that every charge to 100% in my MG5 wastes around 1kWh of energy through balancing the cells and reduced regen. I generally operate between 50-80% day-to-day so that there's plenty of room for free solar charging, only plugging in overnight if I end the day below 50%. However, I don't hesitate to charge to 100% if I'm doing a longer journey. 

Netexporter

I have an MG5, too. I don't have solar, yet, but being an idle OAP I rarely have to go anywhere, so I can pick and choose when to charge most cost-effectively. I usually go for a blast round the mountains the evening before a plunge day to get the maximum benefit.

silverwhistle

Netexporter said:

I usually go for a blast round the mountains the evening before a plunge day to get the maximum benefit.

Why not use the V2L and plug in a hot air heater the night before. There's a degree of inefficiency on the round trip but if you are paying pence (or them paying you!) it's a good solution all round!

Netexporter

Mine's pre-facelift, so no V2L.

JKenH

Netexporter said:

I have an MG5, too. I don't have solar, yet, but being an idle OAP I rarely have to go anywhere, so I can pick and choose when to charge most cost-effectively. I usually go for a blast round the mountains the evening before a plunge day to get the maximum benefit.

I suspect your comment was tongue in cheek but is what you earn in plunge pricing sufficient to cover the cost of the trip. While the electricity is perhaps only costing you 2p/mile and tyres 1 p/mile but there is wear and tear and more importantly depreciation to take into account. A 50k mile MG5 might be worth £15k but a 100k mile car might only be worth £10k. That’s 10p /mile in depreciation. There will be some wear and tear and replacement parts as well (it is a Chinese car after all) that you might incur just through higher mileage - steering/suspension components particularly (even if not brakes).

I think many of us who have (had) EVs, perhaps, use them more than we would an ICE car as the perceived marginal cost per mile is so low - just a couple of pence per mile. You might use the car just to pop out for a newspaper. I am conscious now (living 4 miles from the nearest shop) that fetching my Saturday newspaper, posting an eBay parcel etc now costs me around £1 per round trip compared to about 15p in electricity (or nothing in the summer I would tell myself). I always think twice about using an ICE car for a short trip because of the wear and tear on and the increased fuel cost of a cold engine. With an EV even a trip to the letter box that I could walk would make sense. 

The consequence of this is that we may use our EVs more (and some articles I have seen do suggest that EVs do higher average mileages than ICE cars). 

Edited for typos and punctuation.

JKenH

Do our EVs actually cost us more than our old ICE cars to run?

In replying to @Netexporter above I started thinking maybe our EVs are actually costing us more than the ICE cars they replaced. It is not uncommon for people who have been die hard used car buyers all their life to splash out on a new EV on the basis that the fuel savings will cover the cost of purchase but in a lot of cases it’s man (or girl) maths in operation. A typical £40k EV will probably be worth half that in 3 years time so the cost is north of £6k per year in depreciation. That’s probably on a par with buying a similar priced BMW ICE car but would we have bought a £40k BMW? No, we probably would have bought a nearly new £20k ICE car in our old pre EV lives. (I use those figure because they are the prices I might  consider if changing my car now)

Yes, there are savings on servicing but insurance for EVs can be more (not for everyone but on Facebook or forums many do report higher premiums) but the bottom line is many of us buying a new EV are exposing ourselves to twice the depreciation we might have experienced with a cheaper ICE alternative. 

That’s not a fair comparison you might say but the reality is for a lot of people buying an EV it is an alternative to the cheaperused  ICE car they would normally have bought. (The logic goes like this. I have a £400/month motoring budget. I spend £200/month on petrol but an EV will only cost me £40/month to fuel so I have £360 to spend on a new EV finance compared to £200 which would only get me a used or budget ICEV).

OK, everyone is going to shoot me down and say how much cheaper EVs are to run than the equivalent ICE car but that argument is only valid if you were genuinely considering buying a similarly (or near similarly) priced ICE car. So before you comment please ask yourself if I hadn’t wanted an EV on principle how much would I have actually spent on an ICE? Or if you were never going to buy an ICE car again how much did you spend on your last ICE car and how much did that cost you to run? How does insurance compare? And do you do more miles in your EV than your old ICE car? And if using solar to charge your car have you considered what you might earn exporting the electricity instead - currently 15p/kWh on IO?

And the big one - have you taken into account depreciation? Or the opportunity cost of your capital?

And, in the round, has buying an EV actually saved you money over your old car? (This is a money saving forum so that’s a fair question to ask even if you bought an EV purely for ethical reasons.) I am not interested in what CleanTechnica or Transport and Environment say about how much cheaper it is to run an EV compared to the equivalent new ICE car, I am looking at our experience as individuals, largely switching from ICEvs bought secondhand.

Please be honest and not just cherrypick the figures or rule out depreciation on the basis “I will keep my car forever”.

Well, it is (was) a quiet Sunday morning. 

Edit: as a PS, in 2020 I bought a new Nissan Leaf and paid £23.5k. When I bought my Golf last year I walked into my local car supermarket and said I have between £5k and £20k to spend on a used car, not too big, with a big boot (no SUVs, thank you). I did consider a BMW touring at around £20k and a Skoda Scala at £5.5 k (very high miles) and walked out with a 2020 £16.5k Golf Estate. What I am saying is I would spend and have spent more on an EV to do the same job and from what I have seen on here most others would do the same.