EV Owners Thread

[mustang1]

Tesla owners have their own charging network as well . Has that been opened up to all and sundry yet ?

I think some of the lower powered Tesla chargers have been opened up to non-Tesla cars but I heard it's still not as simple to charge a non-Tesla than it is to charge a Tesla. With a Tesla car, you simply plug-in and it takes care of the rest. For non-Tesla cars, you have to do some other shenanigans. Once Tesla chargers are fully open to non-Tesla cars hassle free, then I might look into getting a non-Tesla EV but until then, forget it.

 

[mustang1]

Accoring to a press report a few days ago, a business lass undertook a long distance drive in her posh BMW EV which had a range, as she said of 180 miles but realistically was about 160. Long story short, by the time she'd found chargers that were either not occupied or not broken on her planned regharging route, the journey took nearly 12 hours. In an ICE car, it would have taken about 4 1/2 hours.

But in a Tesla, where all the chargers work all the time and there is always one available, the journey would not have taken as long.

When you buy a Tesla, you buy into the Tesla infrastructure, and not just the car. When you buy any other brand of car, you're only buying a car and putting up with the crap infrastructure of numerous electric companies with numerous apps and numerous tariffs. Sod that, I have no interest.

 

[CXRAndy]

Accoring to a press report a few days ago, a business lass undertook a long distance drive in her posh BMW EV which had a range, as she said of 180 miles but realistically was about 160. Long story short, by the time she'd found chargers that were either not occupied or not broken on her planned regharging route, the journey took nearly 12 hours. In an ICE car, it would have taken about 4 1/2 hours.

Because she's dopey. Only an idiot buys a BMW EV to do long journeys.

Tesla has the range and Supercharger network which other manufacturers would die for

 

[CXRAndy]

I think some of the lower powered Tesla chargers have been opened up to non-Tesla cars but I heard it's still not as simple to charge a non-Tesla than it is to charge a Tesla. With a Tesla car, you simply plug-in and it takes care of the rest. For non-Tesla cars, you have to do some other shenanigans. Once Tesla chargers are fully open to non-Tesla cars hassle free, then I might look into getting a non-Tesla EV but until then, forget it.

No the supercharger network has been opened up to others

 

[Tenkaykev]

No the supercharger network has been opened up to others

I’m genuinely interested in this. I know Tesla spent a heck of a lot of money on their charging infrastructure, and by all accounts it is exemplary and probably contributed a lot to people’s purchase decisions. If they now open the chargers up to one and all, won’t that have a negative effect? ( Tesla owners not being able to charge at “ their” chargers due to Joe Bloggs in his Nissan Leaf taking up the charging bay for example)

 

[icowden]

Not quite sure how you could turn that into 7 hours.

I think there was a fair bit of not prepared to wait so drove to another supercharge location. Plus quite a lot of exaggeration.

 

[CXRAndy]

I’m genuinely interested in this. I know Tesla spent a heck of a lot of money on their charging infrastructure, and by all accounts it is exemplary and probably contributed a lot to people’s purchase decisions. If they now open the chargers up to one and all, won’t that have a negative effect? ( Tesla owners not being able to charge at “ their” chargers due to Joe Bloggs in his Nissan Leaf taking up the charging bay for example)

Tesla are charging a premium of 75p/kW. You need to have the app from Tesla.

Tesla will be working that once other owners experience the slick supercharger network first hand, it will entice drivers into Tesla cars

 

[icowden]

Tesla are charging a premium of 75p/kW. You need to have the app from Tesla.

Also unless you have a car with a port on the passenger side rear or driver side front, you won't be able to connect the cable to your car as it won't reach.

 

[cougie uk]

Also unless you have a car with a port on the passenger side rear or driver side front, you won't be able to connect the cable to your car as it won't reach.

Presumably there's some kind of extension cable you could buy if you need to do that a lot?

 

[CXRAndy]

Also unless you have a car with a port on the passenger side rear or driver side front, you won't be able to connect the cable to your car as it won't reach.

You could if available borrow the charger next to bay you're in.

 

[MrGrumpy]

Judging by the replies on here , if you can charge at home EVs will work . If not don’t bother !

 

[Jameshow]

Tesla are charging a premium of 75p/kW. You need to have the app from Tesla.

Tesla will be working that once other owners experience the slick supercharger network first hand, it will entice drivers into Tesla cars

Other ev drivers will be subsidising Tesla drivers for years to come just like ice drivers are, in paying Ved.

 

[Jameshow]

For many years my walk to work took me past our local substation. I worked in Electrical Engineering including transformers, and the local substation had three medium sized transformers with the individual oil reservoirs above them. Several years ago I saw that they were boosting the capacity by installing automatic cooling fans on top of the transformer enclosures, there's been a lot more activity over the last month with a crew there for several days. I'll have to have a bit of a nose and see if I can spot any mods.
There's a lot of infrastructure work that will be required to boost availability. One of the companies we used to do maintenance for had some new plastic extrusion machines installed and the extra load that they would take required a new HV supply. It cost them a small fortune to have a new cable run over a kilometre to the factory ( the upside was they routed the cable underground along an existing footpath / cycle path which meant the path got resurfaced )

Spoke to a national grid engineer this morning and he was sceptical as to the capacity of the grid to cope with mass EVs. The forecasts vary and the best are always presented but the less optimistic suggest the grid won't cope.

 

[Milzy]

In a few years I can see the EV’s been charged per mile & fully GPS tracked. Your thoughts?

 

[cougie uk]

In a few years I can see the EV’s been charged per mile & fully GPS tracked. Your thoughts?

All cars will be paying per mile driven probably.