Would you have an electric car if you had the money for a new car and were in the market for one?

[Pirahna]

The latest craze, extreme regen braking

https://news.sky.com/video/four-people- ... f-12778864

HTF did they survive?

I'm guessing it wasn't straight down, a very steep incline but not vertical.

[ace llani]

My latest input - sorry, I've not kept up with the thread, but..

As time goes on, the less practical the Leaf is.

During the cold weather, battery range dropped significantly, and not from using the heater too much (works off the traction battery - I try to keep warm off the heated seats and steering wheel).

I should be able to drive to my Mom's house in the midlands to visit without charging on the way (need a full charge to get back) - forget it. My 120 mile range Leaf is getting about 80 miles if I drive like a Chelsea Pensioner.

I use the heater so little the seats and carpet are getting mouldy.

Charging away from home is getting rapidly worse.

We went Christmas shopping from llani to Shrewsbury (50 miles) - should be able to get there and back without a charge (forget it). We needed a rapid charger in Shrewsbury to get home, as next nearest rapid charger going home is 10 miles from home, so wouldn't make it.

There are rapid charge points (rarely more than one) at Asda, Costa and Morrisons in Shrewsbury - all of which were broken on the day. Only working ones were at Bannatine's gym - 2 Instavolt chargers. They cost 0.75p per kilowatt, so no cheaper than diesel per mile. We had to wait in a make shift queue for an hour to charge up (30 minutes).
It's now very rare to drop on a rapid charger (50 kilowatt DC) without a long wait.
22 kilowatt AC charge takes 4 hours.

To visit Mom I now either go on the train (£25 per head) or hire a little car (£37 for 24 hours).

[Pirahna]

Apparently EV's were 80% of new car sales in Norway last year, a place not known for its warm climate.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/23/01/0 ... rand-again

[Count Steer]

Apparently EV's were 80% of new car sales in Norway last year, a place not known for its warm climate.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/23/01/0 ... rand-again

Norway are a bit of a special case. They aim to be carbon neutral by 2030. (They also have lots of luvverly cheap hydroelectric power and appear to ignore all that carbon that they export. At least they kept control of their resources and didn't spaff it all away like some places did...)

Speaking of batteries and cold weather....went to start t'hybrid yesterday...1300 miles on it....battery is flat.

[Mr. Dazzle]

Speaking of batteries and cold weather....went to start t'hybrid yesterday...1300 miles on it....battery is flat.

It may amuse people to know that Teslas - and indeed all other EVs/Hybrids pretty much - are not immune to good old fashioned flat batteries, just like an ICE car. They usually still have a 'conventional' 12V lead acid battery to run all the other stuff which isn't the drivetrain.

[ChrisW]

Speaking of batteries and cold weather....went to start t'hybrid yesterday...1300 miles on it....battery is flat.

I sympathise - my car got a new battery as a slightly early Christmas present.

[Count Steer]

Speaking of batteries and cold weather....went to start t'hybrid yesterday...1300 miles on it....battery is flat.

It may amuse people to know that Teslas - and indeed all other EVs/Hybrids pretty much - are not immune to good old fashioned flat batteries, just like an ICE car. They usually still have a 'conventional' 12V lead acid battery to run all the other stuff which isn't the drivetrain.

Yep. If I can find it (haven't ever opened the bonnet) I'll stick the charger on it and see what happens. Wasn't enough juice in it to start the engine...it struggled to fold out the mirrors. I did use it during the v cold weather so wasn't expecting problems now it has warmed up. May be a 'bathtub curve' battery failure.

[Cousin Jack]

Apparently EV's were 80% of new car sales in Norway last year, a place not known for its warm climate.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/23/01/0 ... rand-again

Lots of Tesas in Norway. Also massive hydro schemes, and probably cheap leccy. Lots of charge points too, compared to the population. Norwegian government is spending billions on road infrastructure, I suspect the charging infrastructure will be matched.

[Mr. Dazzle]

I would guess there are pretty tasty tax incentives for EV's in Norway. I've not looked, but it seems like the kinda thing they'd do.

Norway can/wants to afford it of course. They've got one of the largest sovereign wealth funds in the world despite being nowhere even close to the largest economy.

[Mussels]

I would guess there are pretty tasty tax incentives for EV's in Norway. I've not looked, but it seems like the kinda thing they'd do.

Norway can/wants to afford it of course. They've got one of the largest sovereign wealth funds in the world despite being nowhere even close to the largest economy.

I think they have recently ditched most of the financial incentives, also recently the main charger provider has switched from a flat monthly fee to charging per kwh. They may not be quite so popular anymore.

[Count Steer]

Speaking of batteries and cold weather....went to start t'hybrid yesterday...1300 miles on it....battery is flat.

It may amuse people to know that Teslas - and indeed all other EVs/Hybrids pretty much - are not immune to good old fashioned flat batteries, just like an ICE car. They usually still have a 'conventional' 12V lead acid battery to run all the other stuff which isn't the drivetrain.

Yep. If I can find it (haven't ever opened the bonnet) I'll stick the charger on it and see what happens. Wasn't enough juice in it to start the engine...it struggled to fold out the mirrors. I did use it during the v cold weather so wasn't expecting problems now it has warmed up. May be a 'bathtub curve' battery failure.

Well, that was a little 'technical adventure'. I thought I'd stick the battery charger on it. Ha! The 12v battery is under the rear seat and although I could unlock the drivers door with the physical key, I couldn't open the rear door. In the end I manoeuvred the other car close enough to the front end to get jump leads connected. (There's a jump lead connection point in the fuse box under the bonnet). Taadaaa! Let it charge a few minutes, then went out for an anti-eco drive trying to keep the engine running as much as possible, so went quite heavy on the throttle. Seems fine and will see what happens tomorrow.

I suspect that, although it's quite good at looking after the lithium pack, lots of short journeys mainly on electric and the 12V lead acid jobby gradually gets run down.

Just glad it didn't happen somewhere, off the drive, in a monsoon.

[Mr. Dazzle]

Teslas can/could get themselves into a sort of death loop - the 12V is charged from the big battery of course, but if the 12V gets too low it can't power the electronics which tell it how to charge from the big battery. You also then can't charge the big battery because the electronics are down

Hope they've fixed that design flaw!

[Count Steer]

Teslas can/could get themselves into a sort of death loop - the 12V is charged from the big battery of course, but if the 12V gets too low it can't power the electronics which tell it how to charge from the big battery. You also then can't charge the big battery because the electronics are down

Hope they've fixed that design flaw!

That's pretty much what happened. The 12V boots the electronics, no electronics, no nuffink.

(First time I tried to start it there was enough power to deliver a string of error messages/warnings...which finished off whatever juice was left. ).

[Cousin Jack]

If it is like mine on the Lexus, the lead acid battery is a leisure battery, not an automotive one. Mine doesn't do much except sort out all the big contactors that join up the lithium battery. That does all the work like starting the engine. The bad news is that the leisure battery will not be in stock and will take several days to obtain. DAMHIK.

[Pirahna]

The latest craze, extreme regen braking

https://news.sky.com/video/four-people- ... f-12778864

The bloke driving has been arrested for the attempted murder of his family.

[Count Steer]

If it is like mine on the Lexus, the lead acid battery is a leisure battery, not an automotive one. Mine doesn't do much except sort out all the big contactors that join up the lithium battery. That does all the work like starting the engine. The bad news is that the leisure battery will not be in stock and will take several days to obtain. DAMHIK.

Well, so far it seems OK (but, if it ain't one thing it's another, now the wife's HP mini-tower seems to have died ). If it happens again, I'll do the jump leads thing again, drive it to the dealers, chuck them the keys and say 'sort it'. It's only a few months old.

[Horse]

https://all-car-news.com/en/british-par ... g-garages/

Dangerous situations
Electric cars do not have a heavy gasoline or diesel engine “under the hood,” but a compact, lightweight electric motor. But because of a hefty battery pack, EVs are often bulky. An electric car sometimes weighs as much as 500 pounds more than a similar model with a traditional powertrain. This can create dangerous situations, according to the British Parking Association.

Ford Cortina
Indeed, according to the British Parking Association, there are some 6,000 multi-story parking garages in the United Kingdom, most of which were built to guidelines based on the weight of popular cars from the 1970s. What was the most popular model in the United Kingdom at the time? A Ford Cortina Mk 3.

Electric cars heavy
The differences between modern cars and the Ford Cortina of old are huge. The Cortina is a likeable but slow bolide, which, moreover, would not yet achieve a 1-star in a Euro NCAP crash test. But it is not heavy, and modern cars are. An average EV – such as a Tesla Model 3 (1,819 kg) – weighs almost twice as much as a Cortina (960 kg). Cars with regular powertrains have also gained considerably. A new Volkswagen Golf easily weighs 1,400 kilograms. Moreover, more and more people are opting for a large, heavy SUV. So it’s not just electric cars that the BPA should be concerned about.

Checks
Chris Whapples, structural engineer and member of the BPA: “When you see the weight of electric cars coming out of the factory, you begin to wonder if the existing standards are adequate. We haven’t had an incident yet, but I suspect it’s only a matter of time. We encourage owners of older parking garages to check.”

[Mr. Dazzle]

Is this like that thing when they say "when they built the library they forgot the weight of the books"?

It does raise an eyebrow though yes. I wonder how many fewer cars you get in a carpark now though, sure they all weigh twice as much but if you can only fit half as many in.....

[Horse]

I wonder how many fewer cars you get in a carpark now though, sure they all weigh twice as much but if you can only fit half as many in.....

Few years back I went to a meeting at the AA's Fanum House in Basingstoke. 1972's brutalist concrete at its best.

Two of us drove into the multistorey car park, reversed into spaces almost opposite, looked at each other, laughed, drove out.

In the spaces - but not possible to open the doors!




Similar in a hospital car park in Southampton:

20230105_090604.jpg (1.56 MiB) Viewed 777 times

[Mr. Dazzle]

Yeah it's definitely noticeable in a lots of place. There's a pretty new multi level here in MK which opened a couple of years ago, the spaces are massive and they have foot wide white lines between each one. The street spaces outside the same car park are properly "breath in when you open the car door"