EV Discussion thread

JKenH

Used EV market faces continued volatility as volumes rise

"Volumes of used EVs are growing fast, but consumer demand remains damagingly low," said Cox Automotive's insight director, Philip Nothard.

"The used market for them is yet to find its feet - all of which is fuelling the instability of values”.

https://www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/used-ev-market-faces-continued-volatility-as-volumes-rise

MeteredOut

JKenH said:

<snip>

Edit: see post from Mart a bit further on. These articles are from 2023. No idea why they came up when I went on the Electrek website. Please ignore. apologies to all. 

I've an idea...

I suspect you were so delirious in finding an article that fed into the "EV second hand prices are crashing" narrative that it was more important to post it here first before checking the date

JKenH

MeteredOut said:

JKenH said:

<snip>

Edit: see post from Mart a bit further on. These articles are from 2023. No idea why they came up when I went on the Electrek website. Please ignore. apologies to all. 

I've an idea...

I suspect you were so delirious in finding an article that fed into the "EV second hand prices are crashing" narrative that it was more important to post it here first before checking the date

Thank you for those kind words. New EV prices falling is surely a good thing. 

JKenH

I originally posted a similar article from Daily Mail but given how the paper is regarded on here I replaced it with the same story from Electrek. There are several videos on line from news stations reporting this. 

Dead Tesla cars pile up at Chicago Superchargers in extreme cold

A bunch of Tesla vehicles were unable to charge at Supercharger stations across Chicago amid an extreme cold wave.

Tesla owners are reporting not being able to start charging their vehicles once plugged in. Several of them resorted to having their vehicles towed to the local Tesla service center.

We can confirm a significant issue based on a check on Superchargers in the region.

Edit to add from article: It’s possible that the Superchargers themselves are failing due to the extreme cold weather in the region.

https://electrek.co/2024/01/16/dead-tesla-cars-pile-up-chicago-superchargers-extreme-cold/

MikeJXE

JKenH said:

I originally posted a similar article from Daily Mail but given how the paper is regarded on here I replaced it with the same story from Electrek. There are several videos on line from news stations reporting this. 

Dead Tesla cars pile up at Chicago Superchargers in extreme cold

A bunch of Tesla vehicles were unable to charge at Supercharger stations across Chicago amid an extreme cold wave.

Tesla owners are reporting not being able to start charging their vehicles once plugged in. Several of them resorted to having their vehicles towed to the local Tesla service center.

We can confirm a significant issue based on a check on Superchargers in the region.

Edit to add from article: It’s possible that the Superchargers themselves are failing due to the extreme cold weather in the region.

https://electrek.co/2024/01/16/dead-tesla-cars-pile-up-chicago-superchargers-extreme-cold/

Oh dear 

I can see this post being buried quite quickly 

michaels

On the other hand, it is not the first time Tesla's have been exposed to cold temperatures so you would think if there was a general problem it would have already been known about?

JKenH

michaels said:

On the other hand, it is not the first time Tesla's have been exposed to cold temperatures so you would think if there was a general problem it would have already been known about?

Is it perhaps different battery tech causing problems?

QrizB

JKenH said:

I originally posted a similar article from Daily Mail but given how the paper is regarded on here I replaced it with the same story from Electrek. There are several videos on line from news stations reporting this.

Dead Tesla cars pile up at Chicago Superchargers in extreme cold

https://electrek.co/2024/01/16/dead-tesla-cars-pile-up-chicago-superchargers-extreme-cold/

Yes, that story is in lots of places. I've read a few of them but no-one has yet come up with a convincing explanation for why.

Is it the batteries? The software? The Superchargers themselves?

At least one journalist noted that Teslas and Superchargers work fine in Norway, where it's regularly colder than Chicago, so it's not a global problem - just Chicago now.

Grumpy_chap

QrizB said:

At least one journalist noted that Teslas and Superchargers work fine in Norway, where it's regularly colder than Chicago, so it's not a global problem - just Chicago now.

I was thinking about Norway and the fact there are regular mentions in these forums about how far ahead of the curve the take-up of EV's is there only this morning on my way to work.

Today was the first time it was properly cold (-5degC) and entering the car I was greeted by multiple series of messages:

• Regenerative braking temporarily reduced
• Park assist is degraded 
• Lane departure avoidance features unavailable
• Autopilot speed restricted to 60 mph

Obviously, only the first of these is really associated with being an EV.  There was plenty of space to fill up with recovered energy since I only charged to 80% yesterday.

The other issues are to do with the promise that we have fully autonomous cars "tomorrow".  Frankly, if autonomous assist features don't work in the cold, we are far away from the promise being fulfilled.  I suspect we will have the fully autonomous car the same day as we get that "electricity too cheap to meter" that we were promised.

QrizB

A bit more reading and there's a suggestion that the problem is specific to DC charging at US superchargers. Possibly to do with the NACS plug or port? I'm outside my comfort zone on this.

My ICE has few smart features, but one of them relies on a windscreen-mounted sensor. On Monday my dash warned me that thefunction wasn't available, but it was just that the sensor was obscured by frost. Once I scraped the screen, the warning cleared.