Electric Vehicles

[Luckypants]

That article says what I have been saying. It is recommended to keep your state of charge (according to the article) at 40-80%. BEV manufacturers say the same thing more or less, to keep SoC at 20-80% (Tesla would say 10-90%) for day to day driving in order to prolong battery life. This is not imposed by the BMS (battery management system) of the car, it is a choice the user can make. All BEVs will have a charging control menu that allows you specify the max SoC for any particular charging session - the software makes a suggestion on 80% usually. Most people allow that to default to 80% as that is enough for daily needs. For a long trip, charge to 100% timed to complete just before leaving to get maximum range.

There are additional buffers imposed by the BMS of 1 or 2 Kwh at the top and bottom of the battery capacity, to prevent overcharging or complete discharge. Hence ID.3 has usable battery of 77Kwh from total of 82Kwh in my previous example. So you do not lose 20% of capacity as you stated.

That article also talks about trickling in the charge in the top 20% to extend battery lifespan, which is what the BMS does in EVs. When rapid charging, it is better to leave with 80% to get to the next charger than to hang on the extra time to top up to 100% at a low charge rate. When you see a car will charge at 150kw that is the max charge rate, but the BMS will start throttling that down from 40% SoC or so until at higher SoC it will only be charging at 5-10Kw. Better to leave with an 80% battery and drive to the next charger or destination than wait a long time for not a lot of gain.

[Sir Trev]

I cannot keep up with this thread, especially at beer o'clock on a Friday after a hard week at work. To answer a query from two pages back (sorry, I forgot who posed it) our old friend Brettus had a BMW i3 I believe. Unfortunately we've not seen him on here for quite a while now.

[gadget]

My mrs works for Nissan and I have been lucky enough to have tested the new 'leaf', must say I was very much impressed with it overall, very torquey, smooth, very quiet ( road noise wise) and even managed to get a smidge under 240 miles on one charge! And that was driving as I normally do our insignia diesel.
We even thought of perhaps buying one but the cost is astronomical if with her employee discount, I think the best way forward if considering one of these cars is to lease it, sure .. you'll never own it but then you won't have to take the massive hit come sale time.

[DJ123]

with time the cost of them should come down, as the technology will be wider spread and more common by then.

So your current EV's like the Leaf, Honda E, Mini E and so on rather than being 30k+, they should be more like 20k/equivalent to the ICE cost. Then it makes it more attainable to the average motorist - if the range & infrastructure is up to scratch by then too.

[Bibio]

Originally Posted by DJ123

with time the cost of them should come down, as the technology will be wider spread and more common by then.

dont hold you breath. has the cost of fossil fuel cars ever come down, no it just keep rising. window sticker prices have rocketed in the past 5 years to a point they are forcing people to go PCP as there is a massive profit to be made. the same will be true for leccy cars and you wont be able to actually buy one and everybody will be forced to go lease/pcp.


dont know if its still true but when you buy a leccy car you have to lease the battery's separate?


think i'll buy a horse and cart

[johnnyrod]

All interesting stuff, I didn't know about the UK energy mix and the g/km of electric. Regarding banning of gas boilers, the idea is to use heat pumps instead, where the heating capacity is determined by its COP which is a multiplier, so e.g. a 10kW heat pump with a COP of 2.5 uses 10kW of power but provides 25kW of heat. They're about 5x the cost of a boiler though and better suit things like underfloor heating.
I've got a Toyota hybrid now, it's not perfect but it gets 55mpg which is a lot better than what it replaced. Battery would be nice but the purchase price is horrendous, as said above. I'm still unsure about battery leasing, I don't think you do any more.

[Seeker]

Originally Posted by Bibio

think i'll buy a horse and cart

wait till you see the vet's bill for colic and then the farrier's bill for re-shoeing every 6 weeks

[DJ123]

Originally Posted by Bibio

dont hold you breath. has the cost of fossil fuel cars ever come down, no it just keep rising. window sticker prices have rocketed in the past 5 years to a point they are forcing people to go PCP as there is a massive profit to be made. the same will be true for leccy cars and you wont be able to actually buy one and everybody will be forced to go lease/pcp.


dont know if its still true but when you buy a leccy car you have to lease the battery's separate?


think i'll buy a horse and cart

Cars can be made cheap, but with all the new tech being added they only get more expensive due to the R&D involved.

Look at basic cars like Dacia, no fancy stuff just a basic A to B car, which is a low price compared to others with toys added.

[Sir Trev]

High Wycombe now has an electric vehicle hire scheme. On my daily walk the other day I noticed parking bays for them in several places and today the vehicles have now been placed out and available for use. Alas they are e-scooters from Zipp Mobility and I've already had some spotty Herbert student-type come at me on one on the pavement...

I don't buy the local paper any more but I can imagine the letters page will be full of grumpy people moaning about them.

[DJ123]

Originally Posted by Sir Trev

High Wycombe now has an electric vehicle hire scheme. On my daily walk the other day I noticed parking bays for them in several places and today the vehicles have now been placed out and available for use. Alas they are e-scooters from Zipp Mobility and I've already had some spotty Herbert student-type come at me on one on the pavement...

I don't buy the local paper any more but I can imagine the letters page will be full of grumpy people moaning about them.

I find the E-scooter situation odd. Seeing as they are not legal to be used in any public environment. Yet, they can be hired out . . .