Thread: Personal EV journey.

Originally Posted by Mr Brush

That will depend on whether you use the "Warp Factor 9" capability of your new rocket ship

True, but after a dozen or so hard acceleration demos for my mates I'm fR more interested in range than "g's" and speed.
On Sunday all my Tesla owning brothers were keen on acceleration demos - I just handed over the keys and left them to it.
In the country I'm not interesting in going past 110 and even 100 does me just fine in most cases
'

One annoying thing about EVs (exactly the opposite to ICE cars) is that efficiency drops off for 110km/h cruising on the freeway. I see a big difference in kW/km even between 90km/h and 110 - more wind resistance, and no regen from braking.

Checking the kWhr/km is something i'm looking forward to testing.
BTW My Hiace Van juice consumption also improves markedly by dropping from 110 to 100 kph especially when I had the double roof rack on.

June sales figures for individual models of cars.

The top-selling models overall for the month of June were:

1. Toyota Hi-Lux – 6,142 sales
2. Tesla Model Y – 5,560 sales
3. Ford Ranger – 5,334 sales
4. MG ZS – 3,756 sales (including 387 EVs)

5. Toyota Rav4 – 2,858 sales

As far as EVS go

1. Tesla Model Y – 5,560 sales
2. BYD Atto 3 – 1,532 sales
3. Tesla Model 3 – 1,458 sales
4. MG ZS EV – 387 sales
5. Polestar 2 – 251 sales
6. Volvo XC40 recharge – 156 sales
7. Kia EV6 – 154 sales
8. Volvo C40 recharge – 151 sales
9. Kia e-Niro – 125 sales
10. Mercedes-Benz EQA – 121 sales

Bob,

I normally see around 14kWh/100km for Atto 3 with a mix of freeway and town driving, more like 16kWh/100km if sitting on the freeway at consistent 110km/h. One Uber driver using Atto 3 just around town (Perth I think) posted this screenshot recently showing 9.9kWh/100km

atto3.jpg

Don't think I'll ever get under 12-14kWh/100km, as I do mostly country driving so no low speed crawling in traffic, but thats still a real world range of 380-400km. Unlike Tesla, BYD batteries don't mind being regularly charged to 100% and discharged to stuff all. Some users have reported doing the last few km to their home in "turtle mode" and arriving with <2% battery.....there'e always someone out there pushing the boundaries !

140kW/100km (more simply expressed at 140W/km) is pretty good. I have to drive pretty carefully to get that. After I let my 3 brothers and a BIL play around with it for a half an hour they gave it back having done 197W/km.

My average since getting the car and having done 600km is 167W/km but that includes numerous hard acceleration demos for just about everyone that's had a ride/drive in it.
Mind you the Tesla Y is some 300kg heavier than the Atto which will account for some of that difference..

The instant torque from low speed is a bit addictive, isn't it? You do find yourself overtaking slow cars in spots you wouldn't normally try it in an ICE vehicle.....

I'm late to the party here. We bought a pristine 3 year old 30,000km JDM Nissan Leaf 30kW with all options at auction in Japan for $12k in 2019. Import shipping, customs, GST, agents fees, compliance, etc, cost another ~$8k.We bought a BEV because we live remotely off grid, couldn't export excess electricity, and wanted to use it.

A private import was the only practical option at the time. There were no (i.e. zero) BEVs being sold in Australia then and only 2 secondhand Australian delivery LEAFs on the market, both several thousand kilometres away from where we live.

The car has now done 98,000km, never been to a garage except for suspension lift and several sets of tires. Most driving is on potholed limestone roads so I now run light truck tires and have only had one repairable puncture since.

The most major service has been a replacement cabin filter - DIY cost ~$26. I did put in a yellow top Optima battery to replace the el-cheapo stock Nissan 12V battery, because most Leaf gremlins are caused by poor 12V battery performance which runs all of the electronics.

Like most households in Australia we have more than one car. Our 4WD (Challenger) does everything the BEV can't do like get down rugged tracks to the coast, pull up to 3 tonnes, go outback, pull out trees, etc, but only does about 3,000km per year since we got the all electric wonder.

Savings in fuel and servicing (for an equivalent ICE about $7000+ per year) have more than covered the cost of the vehicle, effectively giving us free motoring. And is a great car to drive and travel in. Best decision I ever made.

Originally Posted by Mr Brush

The instant torque from low speed is a bit addictive, isn't it? You do find yourself overtaking slow cars in spots you wouldn't normally try it in an ICE vehicle.....

yep, the 593 Nm is brilliant. I'm not usually an overtaking kind of person and happy to sit at 55ks in a 60. But agree about overtaking slow cars in tighter spots, and also about being able to confidently pull out across, or into traffic and knowing the car will never stall. At the lights if there's a "hot" ICE vehicle next to me I don't usually accelerate any more than to just stay ahead of them. Unfortunately the fun is over too quickly.

FWIW, Tesla have just dropped their prices by $4k on each model and the most significant thing about this is the cheapest Model Y now comes in under the $70k (for cost of car only with no on road costs) which means it qualifies for the EV vehicle subsidy. There is even some wiggle room for ONE option (coloured paint, or bigger wheels or a white interior) and still keep it under $70k.
When I first saw this I was somewhat but because I got an EOF deal I still got mine for ~$2k less than the latest new prices.

Ι considered one recently for environmental reasons.

What gave me pause is this study, which told me something that hadn't even crossed my mind: when you drive a petrol/diesel car only half of the emmissions come from the engine and the exhaust. The other half comes from the wear of the break pads, tyres and asphalt that slowly turn into flying dust, and also from re-suspending existing road dust. EVs are obviously zero on exhaust emmissions, lighter on the break pad dust because they often use regenerative breaking, but heavier on everything else because of extra weight. Overall by driving an EV we save about half the emissions (or less) depending on break pad type (asbestos or not), what kind of particle we're measuring (pm2.5 or pm10), and what % of regenerative breaking we are achieving.

1-s2.0-S004896972204058X-gr13.jpg
Add the fact that we now have to charge the battery, and we are a coal-powered country. And then we have to recycle it, which we basically don't because we just don't have the tech to do it in a cost efficient way so it will likely end up in landfill sooner or later. And we are using materials that are very hard to scale the production of, and maybe they are better used elsewhere like solar panels.

It's hard to weigh all the above but the benefit definitely seems much smaller than I thought, if any. I'm probably not the target market anyway, I try to work mostly from home and ride my e-bike for most short distance commuting, the car is mainly for picking up the girls from school and shopping. I'm currently down to about 8,000 kms a year.

For me the biggest attraction is that EVs might actually be the most reliable cars on the road today, things don't break or require maintainance because there's nearly nothing to break or maintain. Complex software but simple hardware.

On the other hand I hate doing anything through a touchscreen, much less when I'm driving. But that's common on all modern cars. So I avoid modern cars, for example I'm ok with Golf 7.5 but not Golf 8.

The "12V gremlins" seem to have affected almost all EV brands at some stage, not just Nissan Leaf. The 12V runs all car electronics and systems, and is supposed to be topped up from the main drive battery periodically. All sorts software glitches and other conditions the makers hadn't thought of (like leaving doors open for a long time with car switched off) have contributed to 12V battery failures. The first batch of BYD Atto 3s delivered (fortunately not mine) had a huge number of 12V failures (some people even went through more than one 12V battery) until rectified by an OTA software fix. Some people went as far as installing bluetooth battery monitors to keep an eye on what was happening with 12V battery maintenance, or bought those compact 12V "starter battery" gadgets just in case. Even a small, cheap one of these is good insurance, as it's only running the electronics rather than cranking an ICE so doesn't need high current capability. I know Tesla had this problem in the early days too, as did Hyundai. When the 12V is dead you often can't get in without a mechanical key, and when you do the car won't even turn on. Until recently I believe a lot of roadside service callouts to EVs were due to 12V batery issues rather than running out of juice in the main drive battery.

Originally Posted by Spyro

For me the biggest attraction is that EVs might actually be the most reliable cars on the road today, things don't break or require maintainance because there's nearly nothing to break or maintain. Complex software but simple hardware.

On the other hand I hate doing anything through a touchscreen, much less when I'm driving. But that's common on all modern cars. So I avoid modern cars, for example I'm ok with Golf 7.5 but not Golf 8.

Indeed, but they do have more than their fair share of software problems. BYD have a 4th OTA update coming out just now to fix all sorts of minor niggles with Atto 3, and every OTA they put out seems to break as many things as it fixes. I came to an EV via an 8 year old manual ICE car, so had the added challenge of getting to grips with everything being touchscreen, multiple menu levels, etc. I wish someone would bring out an EV that had the same level of software automation as reasonably current ICE cars, i.e. touch screen for some things, but manual buttons and switches for commonly used stuff. Atto 3 has voice control over most functions which works fairly well - provided you can remember the required wording to get "her" to do what you want. I just bought the wife a 3 year old Hyundai Kona ICE as our second car, and I find that to have exactly the right mix of physical buttons/switches/controls and touch screen functions. Also some of the "driving safety aids" on modern vehicles are downright dangerous on country roads, but in many cars you have to turn all these functions off every time you drive. In the case of Atto 3 it takes 12 buttons across multiple touchscreens to turn off all the stuff I'm not comfortable with on country roads ! I've had intelligent lane assist jerk me into the other lane when confronted with just a hedge slightly close to the edge of the road, and automatic collision avoidance slam the brakes on for no good reason at all twice. I prefer to do the driving thing myself, thanks.

Originally Posted by Mr Brush

The "12V gremlins" seem to have affected almost all EV brands at some stage, not just Nissan Leaf. The 12V runs all car electronics and systems, and is supposed to be topped up from the main drive battery periodically. All sorts software glitches and other conditions the makers hadn't thought of (like leaving doors open for a long time with car switched off) have contributed to 12V battery failures. The first batch of BYD Atto 3s delivered (fortunately not mine) had a huge number of 12V failures (some people even went through more than one 12V battery) until rectified by an OTA software fix. Some people went as far as installing bluetooth battery monitors to keep an eye on what was happening with 12V battery maintenance, or bought those compact 12V "starter battery" gadgets just in case. Even a small, cheap one of these is good insurance, as it's only running the electronics rather than cranking an ICE so doesn't need high current capability. I know Tesla had this problem in the early days too, as did Hyundai. When the 12V is dead you often can't get in without a mechanical key, and when you do the car won't even turn on. Until recently I believe a lot of roadside service callouts to EVs were due to 12V batery issues rather than running out of juice in the main drive battery.

Sure, and it must be very frustrating. But these are still teething issues, because EVs are still in the baby stage of their lifecycle, eventually anything software related will be getting fixed remotely online.

Compare that to all the faults and maintenance we'll never have to deal with again... valves, injectors, pumps, transmissions, catalytic converters, mufflers, sparkplugs, radiators etc... basically most of the crap that breaks.

True - I haven't found anything dripping out the bottom of my EV yet !

Several brands have "over the air" (OTA) updates for software, so at least you don't have to take it into the dealer.