Electric, Hybrid and Alternative fuelled vehicles - News and Discussion

[Nick C]

2 hours ago, 30801 said:

 

But it's not estatey enough for estate fans.

Indeed not - no flat loading bay, which is what makes an estate an estate (rather than a boxy hatchback) - it might not sound like much, but it makes a big difference if you're trying to shift anything heavy or awkward!

[Hobby]

It's also about the length of the loading bay, many SUV "estates" are quite short.

[Nick C]

This looks cool - cheap, lightweight, no-frills and modular, basically a modern version of the Bedford Rascal...

 

 

[Ron Ron Ron]

I spotted my first Smart #1 yesterday.

 

[Ian Morgan]

For all those who think they need to turn the car radio off because it might use up the battery:

 

https://www.gridserve.com/2023/05/18/what-common-things-drain-your-electric-car-battery-and-by-how-much/

 

 

[AndrueC]

One thing not mentioned there. EVs in common with hybrids only have small, low capacity 12v batteries. That's because neither of these types of vehicle require the 12v battery to start an ICE.

 

The issue is that these can easily be drained by the car's standby draw. During the Covid lockdowns Toyota advised hybrid owners to start their cars and leave them in ready mode for an hour every week.

 

There were tales of Corolla owners unable to get in their car after lockdown because the 12v battery had drained which prevented the keyless entry system from operating. We do of course have a spare physical key but it has an extremely small head and the locks are often frozen from lack of use.

[Guest]

49 minutes ago, AndrueC said:

One thing not mentioned there. EVs in common with hybrids only have small, low capacity 12v batteries. That's because neither of these types of vehicle require the 12v battery to start an ICE.

 

The issue is that these can easily be drained by the car's standby draw. During the Covid lockdowns Toyota advised hybrid owners to start their cars and leave them in ready mode for an hour every week.

 

Dunno about Toyotas but sensible EVs wake up every week or so to give the 12v a top-up. The Leaf even flashes the charge light to let you know it's happening.

[AndrueC]

Just now, 30801 said:

 

Dunno about Toyotas but sensible EVs wake up every week or so to give the 12v a top-up. The Leaf even flashes the charge light to let you know it's happening.

That's interesting. I don't know if the Toyota BEV does or not but the hybrids don't. My guess is that they don't because it could (almost certainly would) result in the ICE running at some point to top up the traction battery.

[Ryde-on-time]

Tesla have finally started delivering Cyber Trucks to customers

 

To coincide Tesla released this video which is pretty impressive

 

 

[Ron Ron Ron]

12 hours ago, AndrueC said:

One thing not mentioned there. EVs in common with hybrids only have small, low capacity 12v batteries. That's because neither of these types of vehicle require the 12v battery to start an ICE.

The issue is that these can easily be drained by the car's standby draw…….

Some early production of certain EV’s, such as the VW ID3, had a fault, that meant their 12v battery was draining overnight, resulting in the car’s electronic control systems not being able to correctly function, or boot up properly.

 

It’s a known issue that 12v lead acid batteries are not good enough and some manufacturers are beginning to ditch them in favour of 48v battery and electrical systems in both EV’s and mild-hybrid ICE powered cars.

 

 

.

[Ian Morgan]

20 hours ago, Ron Ron Ron said:

Some early production of certain EV’s, such as the VW ID3, had a fault, that meant their 12v battery was draining overnight, resulting in the car’s electronic control systems not being able to correctly function, or boot up properly.

 

 

It has also been a known problem with Ioniq 5's, but mine has been OK so far. Also not a problem on the 2018 Ioniq I had for four and a half years.

 

 

 

[Hobby]

Mmm, isn't it quiet on here! So, just to liven things up...

 

We got our letter from Motability telling us the three years are up and it's time to change cars. The Octavia Estate with the 1.0l engine/DSG gearbox has been quite a revelation, smooth and quiet and using Fuelly to get an accurate MPG reading averaged just under 49mpg over 27k miles with a total fuel bill of around £3700. Considering it's lugging round a large car that's not bad going. It's a mild hybrid (hence it can be mentioned on here!) and the stop start works well. Lowest mpg I've seen was in the early 40s when around town and best on the German autobahns going at a steady 110kph Just under 70mph) when we saw mid 60s. But as I said it's now time to change and as neither the Golf or Octavia estates are on the scheme it's off to pastures new.

 

First of all I'll lay down our requirements:

1. Must be on the Motability Scheme!

2. Maximum advance payment of £5k, but preferably below £3k.

3. Large boot, 550l is a round minimum, preferably it should hold SWMBO's folding wheelchair without any extra folding (legs or handles) and all the other gear we have to take away with us on holidays. Bonus of that is that it neatly tallies with carting the layouts around as well, which take up similar room!

4. Not too bothered on fuel, though I'd prefer PHEV, FHEV or EV rather than a mild hybrid as I'd like to get better mpg than at present.

 

So, after a gruelling few hours trawling through the Motability's search car function I've narrowed it down to these cars:

 

Skoda Enyaq and Karoq (smaller boot but has removeable rear seats like the old Yeti and Roomster)

VW ID4 and 5

Peugeot 308 Estate in 1.2l Mild Hybrid (yes, I know!) and PHEV versions

Vauxhall Astra Estate in Mild Hybrid mode (the PHEV is a ridiculous £7500 AP)

Dacia Jogger Estate (not seen yet, so could be deleted quickly!)

Suzuki Swace or Toyota Corrolla (same car, Suzuki being cheaper)

 

I've looked at, and done, the "wheelchair boot test" on all (and several others) but the Dacia/Astra/308, hence the shortness of the list.

 

 

 

This is where I need your help, folks, as I have no experience of EV running costs. I'm not interested in tax, servicing, etc., Motability pay them, just the cost of fuel, i.e. electricity! I'm with Octopus and as some of you are aware I have solar panels as well, though no battery, so:

 

1. What are the costs for a typical 7 or 9 hour overnight charge using Octopus's overnight charging rate (charging to 80% and 100% respectively)? (I'll have a suitable charging station fitted by Motability). I'd expect a charge like that to last at least a week, possible two, if I'm just staying local.

2. More importantly what are the costs of a motorway fast charge of say, 35 minutes, to take it up to 80%?

 

The Enyaq, is for the time being on the back burner as they've deleted the 85 and only left the 60 which doesn't have a very decent range, but it's sibling, the ID4/5 are still there so it's them I'm looking at.

 

Thanks for looking and hope to hear some real world costings!

[Metr0Land]

1 hour ago, Hobby said:

This is where I need your help, folks, as I have no experience of EV running costs. I'm not interested in tax, servicing, etc., Motability pay them, just the cost of fuel, i.e. electricity! I'm with Octopus and as some of you are aware I have solar panels as well, though no battery, so:

 

1. What are the costs for a typical 7 or 9 hour overnight charge using Octopus's overnight charging rate (charging to 80% and 100% respectively)? (I'll have a suitable charging station fitted by Motability). I'd expect a charge like that to last at least a week, possible two, if I'm just staying local.

2. More importantly what are the costs of a motorway fast charge of say, 35 minutes, to take it up to 80%?

 

 

 

I have solar panels, and in October installed a 13kWh Tesla storage unit and a myenergi/zappi car charger.  My car is a Ford Kuga PHEV.  So my experience won't be directly comparable but this is what I've been doing lately.

 

I was on Octopus Go! which had a 4 hour overnight window - overnight rate 9p/kWh, daytime ~30.5p, standing charge ~52.5p

 

I've now managed to get on Octopus Intelligent Go! which has a 6 hours window (typically 11:30pm-5:30am), overnight 7.5p others the the same.

 

So you won't get 7 hours and may need to spread over a couple of nights.  Apparently they can give you more hours and a lower rate as they take control of your charger and car and juggle the charge period/s to balance demand over 000's of users. When I plug the car in after a drive, within a few mins the Octopus app tells me when it will be charging (though if it's really sunny I might go onto direct charge for a while).  I don't really care exactly when they charge as my car will charge in ~3 hours as it's only ~11kWh battery - but a 16pct reduction in the rpice of all my electricity was very welcome.

 

I never charge away from home as there's no infrastructure in Wales... and the price of course would be way higher than petrol.

[Hobby]

Thanks! This is what I'm trying to get my head round, when it says a 7.5p rate, what, in total, does that mean for a 6 hour charge? How do you calculate it? As I said I'm a novice so need it explained!

Edited January 7 by Hobby

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Hobby said:

1. What are the costs for a typical 7 or 9 hour overnight charge using Octopus's overnight charging rate (charging to 80% and 100% respectively)? (I'll have a suitable charging station fitted by Motability). I'd expect a charge like that to last at least a week, possible two, if I'm just staying local.

 

 

Don't think in terms of charge time. Think in terms of of kWh used. Go for a rough figure of 4 miles per kWh and work out your daily use.

As mentioned, you'll want to fit your charging into the cheap rate window. If your house electrics are up to it you'll be getting a 32A charger that will charge at 7kW.

Since you say you won't be doing many miles double check that an off-peak tariff does actually work out cheaper since your daytime use will be at a higher rate.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Hobby said:

Thanks! This is what I'm trying to get my head round, when it says a 7.5p rate, what, in total, does that mean for a 6 hour charge? How do you calculate it? As I said I'm a novice so need it explained!

 

That's per kWh. Probably that will get you about four miles of travel for that.

[Metr0Land]

15 minutes ago, Hobby said:

Thanks! This is what I'm trying to get my head round, when it says a 7.5p rate, what, in total, does that mean for a 6 hour charge? How do you calculate it? As I said I'm a novice so need it explained!

 

It depends on 2 things, a/ the rate at which your house and charger can deliver b/ the rate your car can accept.  My house and zappi charger will deliver 7kWh but my car can only accept 3.8kW (most newer cars will be higher)

 

So for 6 hours at 3.8kWh it's 6 x 3.8 x 7.5p = £1.71 for 22.8kWh delivered

6 hours at 7kw x 7.5p = £3.15  for 42kWh delivered.

 

There's a vast difference between the miles/kWh you get in summer and winter.  My Kuga has 2.5L petrol engine and 11kWh battery.  In summer I get 3.5 electric miles per kWh in winter 2.2.....    It's miles/kWh which allows you to compare with ICE cars.  If you know how many miles/kWh you're getting and price per kWh you get cost per mile.  And of course with ICE you know the price of petrol/diesel and use mpg to get pence per mile. 

 

My petrol cost would be ~11.5p/mile.  Even with poor performance in winter, electric is ~3.5p/mile.  In summer I'm expecting it to drop to just over 2p/mile if I'm paying 7.5p/unit.

 

btw the Octopus prices I quoted include vat.  

 

As 30801 stated you need to check daytime rate as well as night rate as some suppliers claw back the good rate by screwing you in the daytime.  If funds permit it's worth considering storage devices but as with a lot of green stuff it's quite an upfront payment to get longer term gains.

 

If it helps, it's taken me since 2021 to get my head round this.  I knew a BEV wouldn't meet my needs so went mild-hybrid. It was only after several months I realised PHEV would be best for my circumstances and fortunately could afford to change after 18 months.

[Metr0Land]

Another thing is you might need your house fuse changing but this should be FOC and no great hassle.  Because I had the Zappi and Tesla powerwall installed together it meant I was potentially drawing 7kW off the mains for several hours at a go to 'fill' them both in the night period.

 

My house had a 60A fuse coming in via the meter cupboard.  The installers got approval from Western Power (who represent National Grid around here) to use the new setup temporarily.  Whoever installs your charger should be able to advise if an upgrade is needed, though with everyone doing more and more solar/stoarge/car-charging I think the Grid will just want to do it anyway once they know you're adding the charger.

 

In due course a man from Western Power came and changed to house supply to 80A and some kind of device that was 100A on the supply side.  No hassle - 30min job.

[Stanley Melrose]

All I'll offer (tho' there are probably sme who are bound to disagree) is don't go near anything from the VW stable. My experience of the VW software requires me to advise anyone who is inerested in a BEV to look elsewhere.

 

My 4 year lease expires in September and I will certainly never consider a VW (or any of their other ranges) in future.

 

You have been warned!

 

Stan

[Hobby]

I know @BR traction instructor had an ID3 recently and didn't seem to have any issues.

[BR traction instructor]

...our 2022 ID3 has been near to flawless for over 35,000 miles and I would recommend it to anyone.

 

BeRTIe

[Ian Morgan]

Trying to explain it simply, ignoring reducing charging rates with temperature, etc.

 

Power is measured in kW. (kilowatts)

Energy is Power multiplied by time, measured in kWh. (kilowatt-hours)

 

Most home chargers can supply 7kW, if the car can handle that. Most new cars can do that easily.

 

So one hour plugged in should add 7kWh to your battery, incurring 7 times the cost per kWh specified by your supplier.

 

If your car has a 28kWh battery, a full charge from empty could take 4 hours (4*7). This would cost 28 times the cost per kWh specified by your supplier.

 

Of course, few people will let the battery go down to anywhere near empty before plugging in.

 

Public fast and superfast chargers can supply power at anywhere between 50kW and 350kW, again limited by what your car can handle, the weather, etc, etc.

 

So, the same 28kWh battery could get a full charge from empty using a 50kW charger in just over half an hour. The same amount of energy, but over a shorter time.

 

Public fast charger costs are rising rapidly, so expect to pay anything up to 85p per kWh (so approaching £25 for a full 28kWh charge)

 

The ZapMap App on your phone will let you see the power and cost of all the public charges on your route when planning a long journey.

 

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Efficiency in the UK is measured as miles per kWh rather than miles per gallon. In Europe, they tend to use litres per 100 km  and kWh per 100 km and you may see the latter quoted which can be confusing.

 

As with IC engines, efficiency very much depends on the way you drive and the weather.

 

3 miles per kWh or less is pretty poor. 5 or more miles per kWh is very good. The 2018 Ioniq I drove for 4 years could do 5 miles per kWh for me, but this dropped when my other half drove it. I now drive an Ioniq 5 and can get over 4.5 miles per kWh, but it is a bigger, heavier beast.

 

I have a home charger, so very rarely need to use a public charger, especially now I have the new Ioniq with a range of well over 200miles even in winter.

 

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I found this video interesting in countering many of myths surrounding EVs, although it did not cover everything:

 

 

 

 

[Hobby]

Thanks, folks, I went to bed before Ian's post and then spent the next few hours with my brain in a whirl trying to figure it all out, bad idea but I couldn't shake it off!

 

I've got the "mpg" thing, I think, looking at various reviews of EVs I get the impression that most think that 2 kWh/mile is low and if you can get 4 then that's good, but even around 3.5 is ok!

 

 

It's the cost of charging that I was struggling with, therefore if I'd have read Ian's post before going to bed I may have slept better!

 

The VW website for the ID4 (82) has a useful "how long will it take to charge" calculator which if reasonable accurate gives me the following:

 

Charging times for 10% to 80%:

Wall socket 30h 

Home charger (7.2kW which I think is what Motability pay for) 7h 55m

Public 22kW 1h 55m

Motorway 50kW 55m

Motorway 150kW 37m

 

Right now down to costs, forget wall socket, it doesn't seem like it's worth bothering unless you're really stuck!

 

Home charge first, if I can get Octopus's 7p kW that works out at 49p per hour and roughly £4 for per charge, so it's using 56kW?

A 22kW public charger at, say, 55p per kW, would be £30.80.

A 50kW motorway charger at 79p per kW would be £44.24.

 

Now if I can get an average over the year of 200 miles per charge (hopefully more, but erring on the low side) that would work out at:

 

Home charge 2p per mile.

22kW public 15.4p pm

50kW motorway 22.12p pm

 

Against my current petrol of 13.5p pm.

 

Going in deeper! Since retiring I'm doing roughly 9000 miles per year. Main holiday would be roughly 2000 miles, another couple of shorter holidays, say 1500 and another couple of longer trips for model railways, etc., say 1000. Continuing with the 200 miles average range that would be:

 

4 Motorway charges at £45 each, £180

18 public charges at £31 each, £560

23 home charges at £4 each, £92

 

Giving a total of £832, or 9.2p per mile, so £2500 over 3 years as against £3700 currently

 

Does that look right?

 

Edited January 8 by Hobby

[black and decker boy]

Yes, I’d say you are looking at £800-£900 per year to run an EV

 

I’ve been doing decent mileage (20k+) in EVs since 2019. 
 

im on Intelligent Octopus so get the 7.5p/kwh overnight rate

 

i need to use motorway charging periodically.

 

all in, my current running cost is 4p/mile.

 

i get just under 4miles per kWh.

 

ps: once you are on IO tariff and have a solar battery, you can export 100% (at 15p/kwh) and charge your battery overnight (at 7.5p/kwh) to use for your domestic consumption. Win-Win

[Metr0Land]

Hobby: Agree most of your assumptions though Intelligent Octopus is 7.5p not 7p - not a big diff.  From those VW figures you wouldn't get a 10-80% charge in 7 hours but......  If you're down to 10pct and at home and as you don't do a huge mileage simply set the car up to charge to say 50pct on night 1 and then 80pct on night 2.  When there's the incentive of such a cheap rate it's surprising how amenable we are to changing mindset!

 

Your car and your wall charger will both have apps to let you decide just what pct you want to charge the car tonight.