OT(again) - Guardian and electric cars

[Jim Stewart ...]

very true I hate chinkies....

[Paul]

Park the car some place where there is a charger ?

The car computer should be able to tell you, while in transit, what the closest charger is. If the charging rate is low (wimpy chargers), there will be lots of drinking time.

And the chargers in car parks aren't usually SuperChargers anyway. Maybe the charging rate is 15kW and not 350kW (so your Taycan will not be mostly filled in 22 minutes). You can sit the car on the charger pad for 3 hours while you drink, and it still won't be full when you get back. No one can claim you're "hogging the pad", if it still isn't full (I don't know what the rules of etiquette are today for this).

Some day, there will be enough fist-fights over this, that some rules will be worked out. Rather than "first come first hog".

If your car stays on the pad when it is full, and does not move off immediately... there is a per-minute charge for that. "Time is Money" to the company providing the charger. When I say hogging, that fee was intended to get you moving off the charge pad when done. I would not sit my car on a charge pad, if there was a danger of hitting 100% full. Maybe there's some way to get the car to send an SMS to your smartphone, when it is full.

You have to be an arithmetic whiz, to own a BEV.

*******

The car computer decides whether you can SuperCharge or not.

Some BEV cars, if all the charges in one month are done at the SuperCharger level, they will switch to a lower charge rate. The computer in the car, figures out the abuse rate, and whether the battery pack will survive to the warranty period. That's how the computer decides what to do next. It is up to prospective buyers, to find discussion threads on this. So while there may be an electrical spec for the "hose" that connects the car to the charger, the innards of the car may not be designed to do that forever and ever. You can be put back on slow charging, by the car computer. So even if you parked in the 350kW pad, you could be charged $$$ rates per minute for 350kW service, while the stupid car sips lekky at 15kW. You are being billed for time, not kilowatts, and if you insist on parking on the 350kW pad, you will pay $$$ per minute and the car had better be able to use the 350kW rate.

This means, you never leave the car, without reading the panel and making sure everything is in order.

In other words, you can't charge at 350kW level, every day for ten years, without melting the battery pack. You get some fixed number of supercharges, on *some* of the brands of cars. Like, we don't know at the moment, whether the Porsche Taycan is warranted to accept Supercharges on every charge.

The Proterra public transit bus, can supercharge for

10 minutes, once an hour, all day long. But it's a bus, rather expensive compared to your Fiat. But at least the charging design, is designed for a particular style of service. (Lots of 10 minute piss breaks for driver.)

Whereas for consumer autos, some of the details are hidden from view, and you really need to find the discussion threads before you buy.

Tesla is switching from Lithium Cobalt to Lithium Iron Phosphate (fairy light batteries). The launch was done in China. But it appears some cars with Iron Phosphate are also being delivered right now in the USA. What the consequence of this will be, needs feedback from early adopters.

And this is the irresponsible nature of modern manufacturing. Don't change the model number on the bag of pretzels, when you change the number of pretzels in the package or what the pretzels are made of.

Paul

[Paul]

Or the Mercedes test car.

# This picture has less advertising.

"621 miles on a single charge"

"drag coefficient of 0.17"

"As exciting as the Vision EQXX may sound, it?s unclear whether or not it will ever hit the road."

Now, that's a car. And it's not for burning donuts in the parking lot either. It's a touring car.

Paul

[Jim Stewart ...]

yuk

[Spike]

Not quite sure how £19pm morphs into £456pa, or £28 into £672...

[Spike]

Caroline Lucas was on the BBC a day or two ago - described by the interviewer as 'a Green Party MP' (so how many do they have?) - and bemoaning the fact that one family in three in London doesn't have a car!

I sense a large helping of doublethink in operation here...

[fred]

Tesla have taken the right approach. Their charging stations are all 'fast' charge and they generally have muitple charge points.

Slow charge points are a waste of space. They need to be updated to fast .

Also standardisation is also a must. Different companies with their own approach won't do. I don't want to join a load of different companies and give them all my credit card details or pay them a depoit. This is just maketing bollix. Just make them all capable of accepting any credit card for payment. Its what all garages do.

I've travelled the length and breadth of the Republic of Ireland in an electric car and a modicum of common sense in anticipating my needs did me fine. Once or twice I've had to wait for a charge point to become clear but i.m.e its a rare occurence. The most of the charge are supplied by the E.S.B., the national electricity supplier, and their ap clearly shows what is available.

Northern Ireland, part of the U.K. is a different story. A real p.i.t.a. I gave up in the end.

[The Natural Philosopher]

s/pm/pf/g?

[Tim+]

No, they have 7kW destination chargers too. Admittedly, most on the motorway networks will be super chargers.

They?re a fraction of the cost to install, require much less in the way of infrastructure and are still very useful. I?ve just 17kWhrs into my car whilst out for a run with a free destination charger.

Well amen to that. If you had to have a different loyalty card system for every different oil company?s pumps there would be riots. The present payment systems for public charging suck big time.

Tim

[Theo]

It's a fixed price contract, like a phone:

either pay a monthly rate over a 24 month commitment, or PAYG at a higher rate.

Although now I look at that again I think that is £456 for 2 services and then £672 for 3, ie roughly £228 per service (which might not be annual, depending on mileage), which is £19pm. But then I don't understand about the £28pm. Like a phone contract, it seems deliberately confusing.

Theo

[JNugent]

[ ... ]

You have there crystallised the issue.

There are at least two ways to address anticipated problems.

One is to have an effective strategy for dealing with them as they arise.

Another - rather better - strategy is to arrange things so that the problems simply don't arise.

In today's circumstances, a trip "the length and breadth of the Republic of Ireland" (or any trip of a comparable length) would be more conveniently and reliably done in a petrol or diesel car. Almost certainly cheaper as well.

[Dave Plowman (News]

Any such calcs would have a short shelf life with petrol etc prices changing by the day?