Cont: Electric Vehicles II

[erwinl]

I use our car, a Renault Captur, only about 1 day per week.
But that is for my work and is a roundtrip of 400 km in total.
The travel is 2,25 hours on the trip towards work and 3,5 hours on the return trip.
That's always a looong day and I really don't want to extend this day even with a short refueling stop (even without considering the extra 25 cents per liter I would have to pay when refueling next to the highway), let alone a 20-30 minutes stop for topping up a battery of an EV.

On my fuel tank I can get 2 round trips out of it and even have some 100 km left in the fuel tank.

With an absence of readily available chargers at the workplace parking space and it not able to have a charger at home (and that because of a congested electric net), a true EV is simply not in the cards for us.

I am looking at full hybrids for the next car though.

 

[Rolfe]

There are some circumstances where a petrol car is still more suitable, but they're quite unusual these days.

 

[Rolfe]

The GOM om my EV6 is very reliable, except for when I tow a trailer. Then for the first 20-30 minutes of the trip it is very pessimistic, and it feels like I will have to stop and charge multiple times. But after some driving it understands the actual consumption profile and it's back to being accurate.

I've recommended https://abetterrouteplanner.com/ before in this thread, and I still use that for all my planning of longer trips. The default profile for the car model is quite good, but it's possible to tune it based on personal driving profiles. I'm usually withing a couple of % on each charging stop when driving long distances (like Stockholm -> Paris).

I use ABRP, but I don't find it that accurate. I'll bang in a route I'm planning to take and see what it says, and make a mental note of what charging stations are around, but the one time I tried actually following its recommendations was a nightmare. It insisted on four stops for what is an obvious three-stop journey (thought in fact I've done it in two stops four times this year), and I never had time to finish my coffee. On one occasion I only had time to visit the loo and then stand beside my car for ten minutes. And that was requesting "fewer but longer stops". Not doing that again.

 

[Helen]

Mine is what they call a full hybrid so the car charges the battery, you never have to plug it in. According to some reviews apparently can only do a mile and a half in pure electric, but I'm easily seeing upto 5 on pure electric, and then the petrol engine cuts in but only to charge the battery so will be revving at 1000rpm to 1500rpm. I went with the hybrid for the fuel economy as most of my driving is short urban trips under 30mph and I'm seeing around 60mpg in the real world (which is higher than the manufacturer's claimed 55mpg). The reason for not going for an electric is when I move I'll be having to park on the street and the local authority isn't giving planning permission for under pavement installations. Which is what this damned Labour government has said it is abolishing! Why they didn't inform ME a month ago when I bought the new car just shows how terrible they are. That aside I love the ride in the new car, it cleverly uses the electric motor at higher speeds to give you extra "umph" which is great for overtaking etc. It has one "fault", up steep hills or very long inclines it can feel as if it is over reving and you'd expect it to drop a gear, but what it is doing is splitting the revs, so it's as if half the revs are going to keep the battery topped up (to give you the umph even up a hill) and half for the actual climb. This is disconcerting for some owners because usually the engine is very quiet and you hardly ever hear the engine.

Andy Burnham is done?

 

[novaphile]

Hmm...

I missed an opportunity today, because I towed an 8 foot trailer full of stuff to the dump.

It didn't occur to me to check how that affected the range/consumption.

It felt really weird to be towing something other than the kayak.



Hmm... That reminds me, I need to post a pet peeve about driving.

 

[Darat]

Andy Burnham is done?

Absolutely! The bastard!!

 

[malbui]

I don't see why the calculations are necessary, except of course when conditions change (such as hitching on a trailer) and you have to second-guess the GoM till it catches up. Just drive till you see your charge getting lowish then go to a charging station. I mean, Geneva to London is most definitely not the wilds of nowhere.

I would agree, except for one dark and stormy evening where the Tesla supercharger and the first commercial charging station I tried were offline, and a second refused to accept payment by any method. Which close to home can be shrugged off, but in the badlands of eastern France can create a bit of anxiety.

 

[Rolfe]

From what I heard, charging opportunities in France are legion. But sure, stuff happens occasionally. I had just that situation one dark night with petrol stations. Finally got an Asda one to take my bank card.

My closest shave was going south on the M6 one very hot afternoon and driving past Longbridge because I was seeing enough range to get to Cherwell Valley. Forgetting that I had just driven through the M42 roadworks so was seeing more range than I would have on the clear M40. I just slowed down to eke out what I had and got in on 2%.

I noticed a bank of Ionitys (I think) showing on Google maps just off a junction between Longbridge and Cherwell Valley. I must remember that for next time and make a point of finding them.

 

[malbui]

Realistically range is very rarely an issue for me because my batteries last for longer than my bladder does, but nearly eight years of EV ownership have taught me to be on the cautious side.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

I use our car, a Renault Captur, only about 1 day per week.
But that is for my work and is a roundtrip of 400 km in total.
The travel is 2,25 hours on the trip towards work and 3,5 hours on the return trip.
That's always a looong day and I really don't want to extend this day even with a short refueling stop (even without considering the extra 25 cents per liter I would have to pay when refueling next to the highway), let alone a 20-30 minutes stop for topping up a battery of an EV.

On my fuel tank I can get 2 round trips out of it and even have some 100 km left in the fuel tank.

With an absence of readily available chargers at the workplace parking space and it not able to have a charger at home (and that because of a congested electric net), a true EV is simply not in the cards for us.

This is a typical rationalization for avoiding change. Many modern EVs have over 500 km range. You just don't want to change your routine.

But you probably don't want to buy a new car now either. When it is time to replace your Renault, you might want to have a more open mind.

 

[erwinl]

This is a typical rationalization for avoiding change. Many modern EVs have over 500 km range. You just don't want to change your routine.

But you probably don't want to buy a new car now either. When it is time to replace your Renault, you might want to have a more open mind.

That is possible.
I’d like to keep our car for the next 2-3 years, so who knows what is possible by that time. Especially in the case of a home charger.

Of course I also have some limits in how much money I’d want to spend for a new car.

 

[bruto]

Sure, at some future date an all electric car will be more to the point. It's a close call now, though, where I am. The weather is intermittently awful and very cold, the most routine distances, while within that range, are larger than some, infrastructure is weak, and power is unreliable. It's been a few years since the last serious ice storm or blowdown, but we can be without power for a week.