EV Discussion thread

ABrass

Grumpy_chap said:

So I just saw a nice EV for sale, quoted 200 miles range.
For my commute, that is 70 miles each way, no charging at the work place and I don't fancy adding to the commute home with a charge stop.
Is 200 miles too tight in real world midst of winter for a 140 mile journey?

It is academic as the earliest I can buy a car will be next April, but it is worth understanding the options.

It depends on what 200 mile range they are quoting. The US metric (pun intended) is closer to reality than the UK/EU metric. If it's 200 miles US then you'd probably be ok, if it's 200 miles under WLTP then no, I wouldn't trust it.

Grumpy_chap

ABrass said:

It depends on what 200 mile range they are quoting. The US metric (pun intended) is closer to reality than the UK/EU metric. If it's 200 miles US then you'd probably be ok, if it's 200 miles under WLTP then no, I wouldn't trust it.

I kind of assume, if you see a nearly new car of a UK-registered standard model on the forecourt of a main dealer in the UK then they are quoting 200 mile range as per the UK test standard unless specifically highlighted otherwise?

It's surprising, that this is a "premium" brand car and the price not outrageous compared to an equivalent ICE type.  If it becomes an option, I am sure I'll find a suitable choice when I get to the stage of actually buying.

silverwhistle

I've always taken a practical view of cars and spent very little on them so it is ironic that now I'm a pensioner I bought a new EV, and then another new EV two years later after they offered me more than I'd paid for the first.. Before then I drove either cheap and unrefined cars or company pool cars, which were very much the same thing!

But my pragmatic bent means that my latest MG4 is the standard range model which has 218 as its official range, although the GOM has shown more, and the efficiency looks good. The  longer range model would be nice, but on any long trip I'm going to stop anyway even if in the past I've kept going for longer legs that were not necessarily safe. 

Massive batteries weigh more and are pointless carrying around for the 97% of the time I'm within range of home. I'm willing to put up with some very occasional inconvenience and need for planning for a fuel rate per mile of less than 2p.

From my brief experience of it it drives very well, rear wheel drive and a low CG, and far far quieter than my historical norm. Although the £26K new underlines the cost is prohibitive for many, anybody considering an EV should certainly have a test drive. 

ABrass

Grumpy_chap said:

ABrass said:

It depends on what 200 mile range they are quoting. The US metric (pun intended) is closer to reality than the UK/EU metric. If it's 200 miles US then you'd probably be ok, if it's 200 miles under WLTP then no, I wouldn't trust it.

I kind of assume, if you see a nearly new car of a UK-registered standard model on the forecourt of a main dealer in the UK then they are quoting 200 mile range as per the UK test standard unless specifically highlighted otherwise?

It's surprising, that this is a "premium" brand car and the price not outrageous compared to an equivalent ICE type.  If it becomes an option, I am sure I'll find a suitable choice when I get to the stage of actually buying.

Feel free to continue grumpiness but you didn't mention it was on a dealers forecourt, you didn't explain you have done no research and you're oddly coy about naming the vehicle you're not going to buy.

200 mile EV from premium brand. Audi Etron? I wouldn't. If you're going VWG Skoda is the place to be. But it does do well in real world tests for hitting it's quoted range.

FYI as long as you don't quote above the WLTP range you can advertise whatever range you like. I expect the WLTP range will be on a sticker somewhere.

michaels

Grumpy_chap said:

I suppose it is not just Japanese motor manufacturers - there are several major players that failed to move fast enough or just have the "token" EV (even if multi-branded) - Ford, Stellantis, Nissan, Jaguar.  Nissan look particularly unusual as they were among the first with the Leaf but rested on that. 

Of the legacy companies, only VAG, Mercedes, Hyundai / Kia, BMW are really making any real moves and that is to a large part all very recent.

I can imagine the failure to pivot coupled with other impacts on supply-chain right now could well see one or more of the legacy auto brands fail spectacularly.  The only saving grace (for one of them) might well be a link with TESLA.  TESLA cannot ramp up their car production fast enough, legacy auto cannot switch to electric fast enough - a joining of forces between one and the other might well work favourably for all sides.  I'm hesitant to speculate which legacy auto it will be.

Not sure that is true, stellanis or whatever they are now called have a plethora of models in Europe but are behind in the US, whereas GM and Ford are actually ramping extremely fast in the US despite that market being behind Europe and China. 

However everywhere is battery constrained so prices are inflated, when the battery bottleneck clear s(which might not be for a long time given the level of demand) then we will see what it actually costs to produce an EV compared to an ice, although batteries take a lot of raw materials I suspect that they will become cheaper and cheaper materials (LFP replacing NCM and perhaps soon silicon replacing Li) they will become as cheap or cheaper than ICE ever was (although perhaps not visibly as cars now must have a lot of expensive electronics/safety) that will equally inflate the prices of ice and bev.

Martyn1981

Grumpy_chap said:

So I just saw a nice EV for sale, quoted 200 miles range.
For my commute, that is 70 miles each way, no charging at the work place and I don't fancy adding to the commute home with a charge stop.
Is 200 miles too tight in real world midst of winter for a 140 mile journey?

It is academic as the earliest I can buy a car will be next April, but it is worth understanding the options.

Don't want to mislead you, and if it was life and death, then perhaps not a wise gamble. But, I suspect you'd probably get away with.

Let's start by knocking 20% off for bad weather and cold batts. That's still 160 miles. I appreciate that's a small buffer, but you can also help by moderating your driving a bit. This doesn't mean all the time, just on the odd occasion when all factors are against you. Also, if you are OK for most trips, then having to stop and charge wouldn't be so bad, if it's rare.

Also worth considering the vehicle's specs. having heated seats and a heated steering wheel uses a lot less energy than heating the cabin.

Hope that makes sense, 140 at worst v's 200 at best, is probably OK, but not quite enough wiggle room to rule out issues in the worst case.

Also worth remembering that unless you are in Scotland, the really extreme low temps won't bother most people, most of the time, and BEV's don't seem to lose as much range as was once feared. They are very popular in far colder countries than the UK. But at the same time, headwinds, and wet roads, do have an impact on range too, and the UK is quite good at both of them. My cycling experience of strong(ish) winds on a local open stretch of road (on a mountain bike) was that my average speed of ~15mph on the flat, would switch to 7mph and 22mph when windy (headwind/tailwind), but we don't appreciate it so much in our nice quiet cars.


Edit - Been pondering what Silverwhistle posted, so thought I'd check the EV-database for the MG4 standard range, and it suggests 130 miles of range for cold weather motorway driving. Bear in mind that's 70mph, and -10C, so 140 miles sounds OK if it's not 'extremely' cold, and you are willing to lift off to say 65mph. So a practical solution, at a good price.

Grumpy_chap

Martyn1981 said:

Don't want to mislead you, and if it was life and death, then perhaps not a wise gamble. But, I suspect you'd probably get away with.

Let's start by knocking 20% off for bad weather and cold batts. That's still 160 miles. I appreciate that's a small buffer, but you can also help by moderating your driving a bit. This doesn't mean all the time, just on the odd occasion when all factors are against you. Also, if you are OK for most trips, then having to stop and charge wouldn't be so bad, if it's rare.

Well, I popped down and spoke to the Dealer at Lexus and he said the official range is 196 miles but they get about 160 from the vehicles they have run as a Dealership.  He also said the range will drop off as the weather changes by around 10-15 miles down, so winter range of 140ish.

That's too tight for a 70 mile each way commute.

There remain a good choice of vehicles that meet the range, though I will keep reviewing options for something that also ticks the comfort and price-point boxes.

Grumpy_chap

BMW just sent me a marketing e-mail letting me know they have launched an iX1 with 272 mile range.
At >£50k, the "from" price is a £20k uplift on the "from" price for the ICE X1.  Quite a prohibitive uplift.
I not convinced that this is a compelling package given the cost to enter.

There is also, apparently, an i7 launched with 387 mile range and the "from" price £110k much more aligned to the market price point for that grade of car.

JKenH

Grumpy_chap said:

Martyn1981 said:

Don't want to mislead you, and if it was life and death, then perhaps not a wise gamble. But, I suspect you'd probably get away with.

Let's start by knocking 20% off for bad weather and cold batts. That's still 160 miles. I appreciate that's a small buffer, but you can also help by moderating your driving a bit. This doesn't mean all the time, just on the odd occasion when all factors are against you. Also, if you are OK for most trips, then having to stop and charge wouldn't be so bad, if it's rare.

Well, I popped down and spoke to the Dealer at Lexus and he said the official range is 196 miles but they get about 160 from the vehicles they have run as a Dealership.  He also said the range will drop off as the weather changes by around 10-15 miles down, so winter range of 140ish.

That's too tight for a 70 mile each way commute.

There remain a good choice of vehicles that meet the range, though I will keep reviewing options for something that also ticks the comfort and price-point boxes.

Do not buy an EV with a useable range of 140/160 miles if it is your only car. You will regret it. 

3 years ago it didn’t seem such a bad idea. All the myriad apps/RF cards were annoying but you eventually got all you needed and rarely did you have to queue. Now there are more chargers and thankfully more are contactless. However there are proportionally more EVs so there is more demand for chargers but at the same time anecdotal evidence suggests reliability has taken a nose dive. 

Much as I love driving my Leaf, 2 more airport runs have convinced me it is time to give up trying to make it work. 

The first run, 3 out of 4 charging attempts didn’t work with the car. Scrolling down the comments on ZapMap, showed I was not alone in experiencing problems with Osprey chargers. The car would connect and charge for 10 seconds then switch off. 

Second run, I headed for the charger near the airport that had worked for me the first run. Both chargers were occupied so I plugged into the 7kw charger and waited. After 15 minutes a rapid became free. I plugged in but it wouldn’t charge even though the CCS had worked fine for the previous user. Back onto the 7kw and 20 minutes later the other rapid came free. I moved over and finally got the 15 minutes charge I needed to get home. All in, an hour wasted.

There were 3 potential solutions to my problem; buy an EV with a huge battery (like a TM3LR, Ionic 5 or EV6), get a PHEV (and get stung with premium car tax) or get an ICE car. I went for the latter option and picked up a 2020 Golf Estate for £16.5k. I am keeping my Leaf (for now) but will only be using it for journeys within its range. That will be most of the time though and it will cost me peanuts. The perfect second car!

Incidentally, when I went in to buy my new Golf, I explained why to the salesman and he said I was the second person to moan about charging problems that day. The first was a Tesla driver fed up with having to wait to charge.

No doubt someone will delight in telling me I made the wrong decision but it seems the right one for me so it really doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks. 



 

Grumpy_chap

JKenH said:

There were 3 potential solutions to my problem; buy an EV with a huge battery (like a TM3LR, Ionic 5 or EV6), get a PHEV (and get stung with premium car tax) or get an ICE car. I went for the latter option and picked up a 2020 Golf Estate for £16.5k. I am keeping my Leaf (for now) but will only be using it for journeys within its range. That will be most of the time though and it will cost me peanuts. The perfect second car!

 

Thanks @JKenH - a very useful post and I like your notes as they are true reflection of your experiences, whether good, bad or indifferent.

I think the EV as the "second car" is a common approach and definitely part of the evolution process.  Having said that, my brother picked up an i3 earlier this year with the thought of it as being the second car.  The ICE was kept as well.  Their confidence to use the car for longer journeys has increased and they like it so, in actual fact, they now use the i3 whenever they can and use the ICE only when the journey exceeds the capacity of the i3 or they need two cars.  I guess that really means the EV is the first car and the ICE is the second car.

I'm actually thinking that a change of car will be on the cards from April next year and would like it to be an EV. 
I also want a car that is more "luxury / premium".  It makes it hard as £20k will get you a nice XE / A4 or similar.  For an EV, the option of used is still restricted.
Also, my mileage is now much reduced since before COVID when I was doing 35 - 40k miles per year so the lower running costs would offset the higher acquisition cost.  With a much lower mileage of one day per week in the office, that makes tolerating the cost of entry to an EV a bigger challenge.