EV Discussion thread

Martyn1981

QrizB said:

Martyn1981 said:

Also worth remembering that in the summer, a BEV is far more efficient at cooling, whether it has a heptpump or not. Since it's using the battery leccy, rather than generating its own, from the already inefficient ICE, which could lead to leccy generation efficiency of just 10-20%.

I might be misunderstanding you, but conventional ICE AC compressors are belt-driven from the ICE, so there's no additional electrical conversion involved.

So ICE > compressor not ICE > alternator > electric motor > compressor.

Thanks, so it's then the power take off from the ICE, which is running at about 20%-25% efficiency.

CKhalvashi

Grumpy_chap said:

Martyn1981 said:

In this example, there are currently too many EV spaces (20%), which is upsetting ICE owners, and I can get that with parking limited. Spare spaces will encourage EV ownership, or at least reduce fears, so I guess it's a no-win situation, at the moment for LA's.

In our area, there are EV charge sockets being installed to lampposts.  Apparently, the Council is not able to designate the spaces as EV only, so these are available to all.  Most of the streets are back-to-back parked cars.  I have never seen anyone actually plugged into the lamppost chargers.

In other streets, there are fast chargers with the spaces designated as EV spaces.  The chargers seem to be out of order so no-one parks there at all whether EV or ICE.

We have just got back from a long weekend in Nice and there are a lot of chargers on the street close to the apartment we stayed (close to Alsace Lorraine tram stop, it's mainly residential there). Not so much in other parts of the city though.

The French seem to have gone with only parking ICE vehicles in these spaces when there are no other options. This seems fair to me, however I'm not sure that mentality would work here. I'd go with that for car parks though in the area I live.

JKenH

This FleetNews article on used car prices suggests used electric cars are increasingly popular. Their values have fallen less than ICE cars this month and they are selling quicker. The Toyota Prius tops the charts for desirability among dealers and several used EVs feature on the list.

Toyota Prius tops Aston Barclay’s desirability index

This month’s desirability index, which ranks all makes and models processed through the auction halls based on web views prior to sale, number of physical and online sale bids, and sale price achieved as a percentage of CAP average, reflects the current market trend where dealers’ confidence is growing to stock sub-£15,000 used hybrids and EVs on their forecourts.

Seven out of the top 10 fit this bill with the BMW i3 and MG ZS EV in fifth and sixth, while the Kia eNiro, Hyundai Ioniq, Renault Zoe and Nissan Leaf make up the remainder of the top 10.

https://www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/largest-drop-on-record-decline-in-used-car-values-continues

1961Nick

Last night's IO charging session was a bit of a mess with 3 x 30 minute slots & a longer session to finish. Normally if I saw that I would switch IO off & let the charger manage the charge, however I thought it would be interesting to see what happened with the temperature dropping below zero.

For each session there was a 10 minute countdown before charging commenced & between 9 & 11 minutes pre-heating. This meant that the 30 minute slots became 20 minutes & half of that was spent conditioning the battery.

17.7kWh was delivered to the car to achieve an 11kWh charge resulting in a 38% charging loss. This compares with an average charging loss of just 7% so far this year.

Given the low temperature & the relatively small amount of charge required, I would have expected a loss of around 10% so about 5kWh were wasted by breaking up the session into 4 slots. I won't lose any sleep over the lost 37p but I'll continue to restrict IO to charging only when the battery is very low so there aren't any gaps.

CKhalvashi

JKenH said:

CKhalvashi said:

Grumpy_chap said:

Martyn1981 said:

Grumpy_chap said:

Are EG group buying the current network of SCs?
That is how the article reads at the start.

Later, it simply refers to making the technology available to EG group and others "excited to make our fast-charging hardware available for purchase to EG Group and other leaders in the space"

Nope, they are just buying SC's from Tesla. BP announced a $100m deal last month for deployment in the US.

The Tesla SC's have a great reputation, and are being churned out far cheaper than other models, so they've started to sell them to other companies for deployment.

Other articles on the decision aren't misleading:

EG Group Acquire Tesla's Ultra Fast Chargers

Thanks - I can see how the EG Group press release may have been mis-read.  "AQUIRE" does tend to have a loaded meaning when used in press releases.

It is, though, very poor journalism by Car Dealer Magazine as their headline and leading paragraph would seem to be wholly incorrect:

"Asda’s owner to take over and rebrand Tesla’s network of Superchargers"

"Tesla’s network of ultra-fast chargers is to be bought by the petrol station giant that owns Asda"

So, there is no "taking over" and no purchase of the "network".
Perhaps the incorrect conclusion was jumped to from the use of the word AQUIRE, especially in the context of EG Group who have driven a large amount of the business expansion through ACQUISITION...

I need to be careful how I word this as I have a financial interest in a network and also a charging station manufacturer that sells to that network (and others), but I'm not sure they're the cheapest, but can be pretty sure that they're the most well known reliable option for now (speaking generally as technology is quickly moving).

The last purchase agreement was for €46000 per 440kW charging unit, to be split between 2 parking spaces. I'm not sure of the latest Supercharger rates, but the maximum is 360kW for a single car charging for one of these. The order (for clarity) was for 11 units and for the mainland EU market (with a grant of approximately 45% of that back from the national government).

I can't disclose more without speaking to the FT, as I don't want to be seen to advertise.

Thanks, I’ve wondered about the economics of EV charging and that’s really useful to know. Obviously the government grants help quite a bit. Now all we need is the installation cost which will vary considerably location to location and in some cases the cost of bringing an upgraded supply (and transformers?) to site. Can you give any indication of cost if there is an adequate grid supply to the site within say 5m of the location of the chargers? Do the grants generally make a contribution to the installation cost as well or is it a fixed amount per charging point?

That I'm not sure but there was a subsidy in 2 parts, first from the landowner, second from the national government.

As I'm aware, the fitting costs for 2 units operating at (different) international airports were cheaper than those on the roadside, so I think even a ballpark is going to be difficult to give.

Michaels hits perfectly an approximate target profit figure, although in 1 case there is an agreement with a commercial operator, meaning the costs should be covered much faster than in other cases, albeit at a unit rate discount built into their app via NFC.

The units are expected to be in place for approximately 8 years. Once again, I can't reveal more information without speaking to the FT due to financial interests, but these units are not (currently) UK approved, so any discussion is moot in any event.

1961Nick

1961Nick said:

Last night's IO charging session was a bit of a mess with 3 x 30 minute slots & a longer session to finish. Normally if I saw that I would switch IO off & let the charger manage the charge, however I thought it would be interesting to see what happened with the temperature dropping below zero.

For each session there was a 10 minute countdown before charging commenced & between 9 & 11 minutes pre-heating. This meant that the 30 minute slots became 20 minutes & half of that was spent conditioning the battery.

17.7kWh was delivered to the car to achieve an 11kWh charge resulting in a 38% charging loss. This compares with an average charging loss of just 7% so far this year.

Given the low temperature & the relatively small amount of charge required, I would have expected a loss of around 10% so about 5kWh were wasted by breaking up the session into 4 slots. I won't lose any sleep over the lost 37p but I'll continue to restrict IO to charging only when the battery is very low so there aren't any gaps.

Following on from the above, I used the Zappi to manage the charge last night rather than letting IO manage it. The charging loss dropped to 4.2% (33.4kWh delivered ~ 32kWh received). The overnight temperature was similar & the battery did pre-condition before charging commenced... but just the once instead of 4 times!

30 minute charging sessions - or 20 minutes if the 10 minute countdown operates - are pretty inefficient based on this data. IMO the charging slots should be for a minimum of 60 minutes especially during the colder months. Efficiency still wouldn't be great, but a net 10 minute charging slot is pretty pointless if it's only going to deliver 1.2kWh to the battery & use over 2kWh of energy to do that

Grumpy_chap

A couple of queries about the TM3.

Firstly, for the first time, I had to interrupt a charging session to respond to a couple of urgent matters that arose.  So that means charging in three stints rather than one solid stint.  Will that have any effect on anything?  Will it make the charging less efficient?  (Nick's data above suggests it may be.)

Secondly, I have started to notice when pulling off the drive way that the brakes squeak rather loudly.  I suppose this is because of always using one pedal driving / regenerative braking so using the brakes so rarely they have the same outcome as leaving the car parked for a while.  Does this mean I need to use the brakes for a bit every so often to clean any accumulated rust / dust?

Thirdly, the air vents on the driver section are as they were from the factory so delivering a "natural" wave of air.  On the passenger side, i inadvertently selected one funnel, then two funnels, of air but cannot reset it back to the natural / automatic direction / wave.  The manual only seems to say how to direct the two stream that I now seem to have.  There does not seem to be anything saying how to go back to "natural".

Netexporter

No.

Yes.

Don't know.

silvercar

Grumpy_chap said:

A couple of queries about the TM3.

Firstly, for the first time, I had to interrupt a charging session to respond to a couple of urgent matters that arose.  So that means charging in three stints rather than one solid stint.  Will that have any effect on anything?  Will it make the charging less efficient?  (Nick's data above suggests it may be.)

Secondly, I have started to notice when pulling off the drive way that the brakes squeak rather loudly.  I suppose this is because of always using one pedal driving / regenerative braking so using the brakes so rarely they have the same outcome as leaving the car parked for a while.  Does this mean I need to use the brakes for a bit every so often to clean any accumulated rust / dust?

Thirdly, the air vents on the driver section are as they were from the factory so delivering a "natural" wave of air.  On the passenger side, i inadvertently selected one funnel, then two funnels, of air but cannot reset it back to the natural / automatic direction / wave.  The manual only seems to say how to direct the two stream that I now seem to have.  There does not seem to be anything saying how to go back to "natural".

I think you get the heating vent system on the screen and put two fingers on the two funnels (one on each) and pull your fingers together. Hopefully the two funnels unite into one.

reported a minor fault (boot button on the car not working) and they are sending a ranger out to repair - saves visiting a dealership. 

Added:

That was easy. ranger arrived (though not dressed in forest green with a bow and arrow as I had imagined). changed the parts and off he went. All done in 10 minutes.

michaels

Anyone else as underwhelmed as I am about the Cybertruck?  2 years later than advertised and yet no where near meeting the design parameters promised.

48v and steer by wire are interesting but it is model X all over again, much too complicated/innovative and therefore difficult/expensive to build.