NWR EV thread (was "Anyone buying a Tesla Model 3 (or any BEV) ?")

Jason Michelle

Jason Michelle

Location
Berkshire
Alex, I’ve had a look at EV.energy and it seems to do something similar to Ohme Pro which is the charging station I’ve install at home. I think there are quite a few of these smarter chargers. However Ohme have not sent me any Amazon vouchers!
 
Alex Lake

Alex Lake

Location
Deep South of Cambridgeshire
Jason Michelle said:
Alex, I’ve had a look at EV.energy and it seems to do something similar to Ohme Pro which is the charging station I’ve install at home. I think there are quite a few of these smarter chargers. However Ohme have not sent me any Amazon vouchers!
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I also have an Ohme, but with the crap firmware!
The notion is that every time you get a 10kWh+ charge that was controlled by the app, you get a point. Once you have 20 points, you qualify for a £5 Amazon voucher.
Given that a 10kWh charge on Octopus Go might cost just 50p, that means you could theoretically spend £10 on electricity and get half of it back!
 
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Tom Mann

Location
Lancashire, UK
Have just got back from a whistle stop visit to the Chicago Auto Show. I only spent time on the Ford stand but there is no question they are coming into the electric vehicle space in a very serious way.

The tech is very impressive and the range is pretty good - 300 miles or so, even for a massive F-150 truck. The sheer torque you get from these engines is insane.

My concerns are twofold.

1) what happens to the range after a couple of years of use. Are these batteries able to do more than say 1000 charge cycles?

2) my biggest concern is what happens to these cars when they reach the end of a cycle. Volvo did a study last year where it says that the electric version of one of their cars will take until about 65000 miles driven before it becomes as green. What happens when all these batteries and drivetrains need to be recycled which are full of lithium & cobalt?
 
Alex Lake

Alex Lake

Location
Deep South of Cambridgeshire
After being in a car, the cells can be used in something less demanding, like a powerwall. But degradation is not too bad. I suspect the number of miles to achieve equivalent “greenness” depends on the definition. For me it was always more about air pollution in town. Plenty of misinformation around on things like brake pollution, though. The fact is that regen makes pad wear remarkably low.
 
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max.oldfield

Location
London
I drove my I D 4 TO Bradford yesterday morning. Earlier in the year I had travelled to Stowmarket and around the area and on my charging unit I still had 80 miles if needed so up to 300 miles. Yesterday I left London on a full charge and made it to my destination with 10 miles only left bearing in mind it was wet and dark on departure. So 200 miles maximum. After fully charging I arrived back to London with 3 miles only in reserve. It pissed down and was dark on my return. Excellent in summer and poor in winter is my conclusion.
 
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max.oldfield

Location
London
It is not unreasonable for drivers of electric vehicles to expect to be able to charge if and when needed by just use of a debit or credit charge without have to join various charging companies app. All commercial chargers should be a minimum of 50 kilowatt hour chargers and be as easy and frequent as fuel stations
 
Alex Lake

Alex Lake

Location
Deep South of Cambridgeshire
Indeed, but a shame that people quoting the article do so selectively! Passions do tend to run high on this topic. Sometimes I wonder if the act of buying an EV is considered an act of aggression - or some kind of indication of an assumed "holier than thou" feeling.
 
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Alex Lake

Alex Lake

Location
Deep South of Cambridgeshire
max.oldfield said:
I drove my I D 4 TO Bradford yesterday morning. Earlier in the year I had travelled to Stowmarket and around the area and on my charging unit I still had 80 miles if needed so up to 300 miles. Yesterday I left London on a full charge and made it to my destination with 10 miles only left bearing in mind it was wet and dark on departure. So 200 miles maximum. After fully charging I arrived back to London with 3 miles only in reserve. It pissed down and was dark on my return. Excellent in summer and poor in winter is my conclusion.
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That should be a well-known fact. How fast were you driving? Does the ID4 make it easy for you to see how well you're doing on the basis of navigation (eg. that motorways and hills will have higher consumption).
Where did you top up?
 
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Alex Lake

Alex Lake

Location
Deep South of Cambridgeshire
max.oldfield said:
Exactly Ray. Until the charging away from home is as easy as it is for combustion cars and payment the same long trips remain difficult
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The payment thing is pretty inexcusable. Funny thing is that the reason that so many of them don't seem to take contactless payment is because they lose their connection to the central hub, whereas the ones with smart cards seem to be able to operate without that bit working. Funny how it's the networks run by the oil companies that seem to be the worst offenders...

In general, you're OK with a Tesla, so if Tesla open up to all cars, that will be OK (although you're going to get a lot of grumpy Tesla owners!) except there are black spots. East Yorkshire is terrible!
 
Alex Lake

Alex Lake

Location
Deep South of Cambridgeshire
Tom Mann said:
I found this about the recycling - which is interesting, if a little vague on details...

BBC story re recycling of batteries

If Ford can get traction with their electric truck, it will be a gamechanger for the industry I think. Apparently their truck division is bigger than Nike & Coca-Cola put together! (726,000 F-series trucks sold last year).
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On the first point, it's a pretty lame article IMHO. To the best of my knowledge, cells are very recyclable. See Sustainability although MRDA? I would hope that recycling is economically worthwhile for such materials, although I don't have the figures for that.

If Ford can release an EV F-150 or F-250, they should do very well indeed, I agree. As long as they're not all driven by rednecks! ;-) I'd love to see how the Tesla Cybertruck does in the US (it's not coming here, at least in its current form, although they're talking about a more compact verion). Some interesting concepts being explored.
 
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