EV Discussion thread

JKenH

MeteredOut said:

Is anyone aware of the name of the medical condition where someone who has purchased an EV and then changes their mind go looking for as many reasons as possible to confirm to themselves that their ultimate decision was the correct one?

Asking for a friend.

Tell your friend not to worry, it’s quite normal but the symptoms displayed can cause panic attacks in others so if you are of a nervous disposition give him a wide berth. While experts don’t consider there is any immediate cause for alarm, they are worried that because the symptoms can be mistaken for normal behaviour the incidence of the condition may be under-reported. 

To avoid the condition, the advice, currently, if you drive/own an EV, is - avoid long journeys and public charging stations (the condition may be transmitted by contact with out of service chargers or waiting in queues for chargers), leave charging cables on the ground - don’t wind them up as rain helps neutralise the bacteria/virus responsible for the condition. Don’t go out in your EV in cold weather, don’t look at secondhand prices of EVs or public charging tariffs, don’t read the Daily Mail, Telegraph or Express. Do join a pro EV support group such as Facebook EV Driver’s group or forum and participate actively in criticising/discouraging anyone who shows any sign of discontent with any aspect of EV ownership. You will feel far better for it especially if you make the comments personal. Read copious articles and watch videos from pro EV sources - Fully Charged is highly recommended. Key words to search for are FUD, Fact Check, and Myth Busting. Not only will this help ward off any symptoms but you will have the comfort of knowing you are making the nice people who run these channels quite wealthy and they in turn can produce more comforting videos. Remember to subscribe as without your help it would not be possible to make these videos. 

If you have a second vehicle that is ICE powered, you may find you are completely asymptomatic as the presence of an alternative means of transport can be quite calming when faced with the prospect of a long trip outside of your EV’s range. 
😜

silvercar

MeteredOut said:

Is anyone aware of the name of the medical condition where someone who has purchased an EV and then changes their mind go looking for as many reasons as possible to confirm to themselves that their ultimate decision was the correct one?

Asking for a friend.

Evquivocation. 

michaels

JKenH said:

michaels said:

Grumpy_chap said:

JKenH said:

To add range as fast as a petrol car like my wife’s Picanto - 320 miles in 2 minutes 

JKenH said:

a fill up of my motorhome with 75 litres of diesel took just over 4 minutes but part of that was my wife queuing to pay. 

Ken's experiences with and ICE above.
Examples with an EV below:

MeteredOut said:

It's nearer 10 seconds for me. 

Plugging in: get out car, open charging port cover, pick up charger, plug in charger, reach inside car and turn charging off (this last step is only so that Octopus IO will then schedule the charge, rather than the charge starting immediately). Lock the car and walk away.

Unplugging: Unlock car, pull out charging cable, close charging port cover, place charging cable down, get in car.

It would obviously be more work for those with untethered chargers.

Solarchaser said:

I would say on this, if you delete the time that a person would take to walk past the car... as you have to anyway, to walk to house door mine takes 5-10 seconds.
Reverse car into drive, get out and slap charging port, grab cable as port opens and shove cable in.
Walk away.

If its the wifes leaf it's more like 30 seconds as you need to drag the lead to the front of the car for charging port and then walk back to the house

5-10 seconds.
20 seconds plug in and out
30 seconds.

It seems a number of our thread contributors are all set for the Olympic sport version of filling a car with energy.

I actually timed some fills recently.

Firstly, on Sunday, I was at Tesco and filled my wife's Fiesta.  This took 4 minutes, including paying at the kiosk.  Quite similar to Ken's time for the campervan and, possibly, comparable to the Picanto which I understand he used pay-at-pump to get the 2 minutes duration.

Yesterday, I arrived home from work so pulled onto the drive and put the TM3 onto charge as part of the walking into the house activity.  Walked from the car to the wall point, uncoiled the cable, stretched out, plugged in.  Two minutes.
This morning, I had to unplug, so walk to the car, open car, release charge port, walk to back of car, unplug cable, coil cable back onto wall point, lock car.  Three minutes.
Total time for both plug and unplug events five minutes.

(My Tesla App phone key has not been working for a while, I would have saved a bit of time on the unplug if the phone key worked as then I would not have had to open the car, unlock the connected inside the car and lock the car afterwards.  That is, though, academic, as the phone key has been kaput for a few weeks now and nothing seems to get it to reconnect.)

Anyway my times were 4 minutes (ICE) versus 5 minutes (EV).  Certainly nowhere near the "few seconds" that others report for their EV fill events.

May have to do a vid, arrive home, stop car, push charger port release flap while getting out of car - possibly adds one second but I suspect not measurable.  Walk past front of car on the way to front door bend down, pick up charger with one hand while other hand lifts charge flap and then place charger in socket - just timed at 3 seconds.

Returning to car push charger unlock on keyfob as walking from front door - no additonal time, pull out charger and drop on ground and slam close charger flap while waking past car to drivers side - even quicker than plugging in.

Now I admit that I do benefit because I have to walk past the front of the car to get from the drivers door to the front door, if our front door was on the drivers side then this would obviously mean going about 2 steps out of my way both there and back so might add 3 or 4 seconds to both operations....

The big difference between your plug in/unplug procedure and @Grumpy_chap ‘s procedure and time taken is that he winds the cable up and you drop yours on the ground. I would often do that as my charger was in my garage where I parked (and the lead would land on carpet) but is it a good idea to just drop the charging cable on the ground outside, as many do, it seems? In cold weather plastic can be brittle and prone to cracking and over the long term isn’t water more likely to get onto the pins and corrode them.

I’m not disputing the time it takes  to plug in - for you it is obviously a very quick procedure - but invariably when I get in or out  my car I have something else in my hands, be it a coat, phone, shopping bags or, when I was working, a briefcase and suit jacket, which I would probably take into the house first then sort out the plugging in. Presumably you leave the on board timer set the same everyday for cheap rate tariffs but I found when I was on Octopus Go I would always be adjusting the timer so the battery charged to around 80% as there is no facility in the 40kWh Leaf to set an 80% limit. Perhaps your V2G charger handles all that automatically.

My earlier posts about only taking two minutes to fill up the Picanto, and later the Golf, were not intended to suggest filling a car with petrol was quicker than charging at home but simply to counter the exaggeration over fuelling times that is frequently made (for example, Richard Symons in his YouTube video said that it takes “at least ten minutes” to fuel an ICE car.  I doubt many EV owners had actually ever timed a petrol car fill up before quoting the 10 minute figure but it is often used in defence of how long it takes to charge an EV at a rapid. So I timed filling up and now @Grumpy_chap has. 

FWIW I never gave it a thought and certainly never timed filling a petrol or diesel car until Richard Symons made his ridiculous claim. I never had a problem with the time taken to plug in and set my charge timer on my Leaf either. Nor, for that matter, did I have a problem with how long it took to charge my Leaf at a rapid charger - I was usually just so relieved that I had found a working charger. It was the hassle of having to stop with the attendant planning and uncertainty that I found frustrating. The contrast, with my recent experience with my petrol car certainly brought home to me how relatively more convenient an ICE  car can sometimes be for some people. I filled my Golf up at Asda on Saturday 17th February and drove 8 miles home. I didn’t use it again until Saturday 24th when I drove 140 miles (round trip) to and from a track day at Donington. It was a lateish finish and although I knew I was going to a funeral in Wales on Tuesday I just wanted to get home for some food so didn’t stop to top the tank up. We set off for Wales using Google maps which showed we had a 45 minute margin on time but on the M62 near Leeds the matrix signs flashed up a 45 minute delay. We diverted onto the M1 to take the A628 Woodhead Pass and got stuck in traffic in Penistone. We just made it to the funeral in time and then drove to the reception before driving home again - a total of 330 miles. Again, keen to get home, I dove as fast as legally allowed and arrived with 95 miles left (no stops required).Total distance driven 478 miles since refuelling. (On the way to the funeral I saw the “take a break” light come on after 3hours 20 minutes of driving - first time I’ve seen this in the Golf

While at the funeral I was talking to someone from the other side of the family who recounted his experience with a Tesla Model Y Performance which he kept just 3 months before going back to an ICE BMW X5. He loved the car but the range was nowhere near what was promised (and that was in the summer) and the charging times were far longer than Tesla advertised particularly when sharing a charger. He was on the road all week staying in hotels and rarely got the chance to charge overnight as with late finishes the chargers were nearly always taken. He said he was late for too many meetings so went back to the X5 despite it costing him more than £500 a month extra in BIK. That’s the first person I have met who, like me, has gone back to ICE.

Horses for courses. 

I think that is all fair enough.   I tend to try and drop the charger plug onto my foot; it is the granny cable and seems quite robust and the cable is in the garage with just a few feet poking out under the door and where it sits the water doesn't puddle and it is slightly sheltered by the garage door overhang.  It is on a smart plug for the charge time, we use the car every day and it is a 24 so don't worry abut the 80% (9 years old, 85k miles, battery state of health 11/12 bars, 82%)

Whilst I can imagine a fill up of 2 mins for a small tank and 3-4 for a large one with pay at pump, I can also remember queuing for a pump and also queuing to pay, not sure if this still happens as haven't filled up an ice for a coupe of years now.

My DKs will likely learn only on an auto ev as they are so much easier to drive but currently this does reduce your choice/increase cost if you are hiring on holiday.

MeteredOut

Can't see it happening myself, but this would be great news for those that think a bit more progressively than "but what about the value of my current EV!"

https://twitter.com/electricpetrol/status/1763508405677830534

Grumpy_chap

MeteredOut said:

Can't see it happening myself,

Also can't see it happening.

An internet search for more returned articles "SMMT urges Jeremy Hunt to cut VAT on EVs".
A wish list from a lobby group can be far from policy.

Spies

The point would be that they're not really losing out in the VAT because if that's what makes the difference to people buying them or not, they wouldn't be getting VAT off no existent purchases anyway? 

JKenH

Spies said:

The point would be that they're not really losing out in the VAT because if that's what makes the difference to people buying them or not, they wouldn't be getting VAT off no existent purchases anyway? 

If the argument is that zero vat on EVs will drive people to buy one instead of an ICE car then HMG loses the VAT from the sale of the ICE car. 

Grumpy_chap

Spies said:

The point would be that they're not really losing out in the VAT because if that's what makes the difference to people buying them or not, they wouldn't be getting VAT off no existent purchases anyway? 

People can only spend each £ once.
If they spend many £'s on a VAT-free EV, that is many £'s not spent on something else liable to VAT.  The "something else" may well be several smaller purchases: TV plus carpet plus holiday plus etc.

It would also be seen as a tax break for the rich.  IIRC, ending a tax break for the rich was part of the explanation for withdrawing the previous capital contributions to EV's.

paul991

or would sit in the bank,But at least put money back in economy via car dealers finance ect and loads to China

Spies

No / little VAT worked to get Norway driving EVs but maybe their people are generally better off than us anyway?