EV Owners Thread

[albion]

Heinz or Daddies?

 

[CXRAndy]

Over 90% of my mileage was done between Essex and places like the Lake District, home charging is no use if the battery runs out half way up the A1. There's a couple of chargers in the station car park here, whenever I've been past the spaces are always being blocked by cars not using them. I wonder how many miles a battery will do queueing on a 1 in 3 to get over Hard Knott & Wrynose, hopefully they won't be putting any chargers up there. If my house flooded tomorrow that would be a tiny fraction of the flood-free 64 years I've been here, but I still wouldn't be waiting around for it to happen again. I use a dumb phone because the 'benefit' of a pocket full of needless technology isn't worth all the disadvantages of a smartphone.

There aren't more chargers than petrol pumps, and each petrol pump can refuel hundreds of cars in the time it takes a charger to do just one.

Electric cars need to come, but they could do to address the friction in owning one, and it still doesn't do anything to reduce car dependency and congestion.

Home charging got you half way up, then stop, have a break, rapid charge EV, continue journey

There is no friction to owning an EV. There a many upsides like very cheap to run. Our family has over 250,000 miles in BEV since 2017. My wife's car just passed 100k miles, no servicing required except tyres and washer fluid

 

[FishFright]

Heinz or Daddies?

HP !

 

[roubaixtuesday]

25 terawatt-hours lost ......... Any ideas yet?

Sorry, but your sparse sentences are impair for me to understand.

 

[BrumJim]

Hard Knott and Wrynose are much better in an electric car. Not wasting energy (and clutch linings) trying to get going again when you have stopped, and then getting a good chunk of it back again when you go down the other side.

 

[albion]

The extra 800kg being hauled up complicates the equation.

 

[roubaixtuesday]

Hard Knott and Wrynose are much better in an electric car. Not wasting energy (and clutch linings) trying to get going again when you have stopped, and then getting a good chunk of it back again when you go down the other side.

Would you get much back from regen down a 1:3? I'd guess you end up on the brakes down such a gradient - but that's just a guess.

 

[figbat]

The extra 800kg being hauled up complicates the equation.

But this same 800 kg helps with the regeneration on the descent. Besides, which EV is 800 kg heavier than its equivalent ICE model?

 

[icowden]

Over 90% of my mileage was done between Essex and places like the Lake District, home charging is no use if the battery runs out half way up the A1.

But why would it? For a use case like that you'd look at something like a Tesla 3 long range which would give you 235 miles at least at motorway speeds. You would need to stop once at the Trentham Tesla Supercharger hub (17 chargers to choose from ) at about 175 miles for about half an hour - have a bit of a rest, cup of coffee and a wee.

Then there are 4 instavolts by Windermere, 16 chargers or so around Kendall, 2 in keswick, or you've probably got enough charge to get back to Trentham on the return journey.

There's a couple of chargers in the station car park here, whenever I've been past the spaces are always being blocked by cars not using them. I wonder how many miles a battery will do queueing on a 1 in 3 to get over Hard Knott & Wrynose, hopefully they won't be putting any chargers up there.

It might take more energy to get *up* a mountain, but then you get regen all the way down.

If my house flooded tomorrow that would be a tiny fraction of the flood-free 64 years I've been here, but I still wouldn't be waiting around for it to happen again. I use a dumb phone because the 'benefit' of a pocket full of needless technology isn't worth all the disadvantages of a smartphone.

Ah, you're a luddite.

There aren't more chargers than petrol pumps, and each petrol pump can refuel hundreds of cars in the time it takes a charger to do just one.

That's hilarious. There are about 8500 petrol stations with an average of 15 pumps per station. That's 127,500 pumps in the UK. Each one services on average 150 cars on any given day. That's 1.9 million cars. There are just under a million EV Chargers in the UK and that isn't including 240v sockets. Sure, the vast majority of those are home chargers, but there are over 60,000 public chargers for 1.1 million cars but 96% of those cars are charging at home. Public superfast charging is an exception case.

Electric cars need to come, but they could do to address the friction in owning one, and it still doesn't do anything to reduce car dependency and congestion.

What friction?

 

[icowden]

Would you get much back from regen down a 1:3? I'd guess you end up on the brakes down such a gradient - but that's just a guess.

The brakes *are* the regen. Most of braking is just upping the ratio of regen to slow the car further.

 

[roubaixtuesday]

The brakes *are* the regen. Most of braking is just upping the ratio of regen to slow the car further.

Yeah, I get that, but I assumed there would be a limit, and descending a 1:3 would be well beyond it. But that's just an assumption, I've no idea what the reality is.

 

[CXRAndy]

Would you get much back from regen down a 1:3? I'd guess you end up on the brakes down such a gradient - but that's just a guess.

No the car would actually stop fully if you don't touch the throttle That's how good regen is

To go down a descent you actually need to have some small amount of throttle or regen just brings the car to a stop.

 

[icowden]

No the car would actually stop fully if you don't touch the throttle That's how good regen is
To go down a descent you actually need to have some small amount of throttle or regen just brings the car to a stop.

As an anecdotal, my neighbour has a Tesla 3 performance and has just been driving around Portugal in it. He described getting very anxious having reached the top of a mountain with only 16% left in the battery - and not enough to get him to where he wanted to charge. By the time he got down to the bottom of the other side he was back up to 29% with range in hand to get to the charger. The only problem he encountered with charging was using non-tesla chargers and not speaking Portuguese - although locals did help him find the right app to use.

 

[roubaixtuesday]

No the car would actually stop fully if you don't touch the throttle That's how good regen is

To go down a descent you actually need to have some small amount of throttle or regen just brings the car to a stop.

Fair enough. As I said, I was only guessing. I'm surprised the regen is so effective vs such high forces, but my surprise is no guide to anything!

 

[BrumJim]

Would you get much back from regen down a 1:3? I'd guess you end up on the brakes down such a gradient - but that's just a guess.

Quite a lot, as long as you don't go too fast.

The car will be limited as to how much power it can put back into the battery. Power = Force x Speed, so if you are going slowly down a 33% gradient on a single track road with hairpin bends, you aren't generating much power (but a lot of energy). Going down a 1 in 6 straight road and keeping to the national speed limit isn't as effective in getting the energy back.

One thing my car is missing is an audible indication when you are getting close and exceeding the recharging limit on your car. Would help me to stare at the road rather than the dashboard a bit better.