300 mile range when travelling on motorways at 80mph is less than 4 hours so it would agree with stopping every couple of hours.
Combine this with <20 minute charging then you will be able to recharge within the length of your toilet & coffee break - the car will then comply with your own behaviour rather than the other way around - no longer the tail wagging the dog.
Its much better to take that break as well, the young may go longer but attention is most definitely waining.
Can you just confirm what you are talking about! (ooooerrrr missus!)
If you can get onto a charger - not always possible and could get worse before it gets better if EV popularity takes off.
Note that I didn’t actually say EV batteries would need replacing after 8 years, just that the battery warranty on the BMW is 8 years so it seemed a convenient length of time over which to try to compare running costs.
Yes, although we’re in a similar situation as with software - how much do you trust a garage to do this work. Perhaps if fully sanctioned by the manufacturer with full access to info on the battery internals - though I agree, I fully expect this sort of work to start to be done, especially by independents. In fact it already has - I see FB ads from some unit explaining how they saved some customer £1000’s because they were able to “component level” fix her Zoe battery management unit where as the Renault dealer wanted to replace the whole thing for a hefty 4 figure sum.
However we are in “get it wrong and things are liable to spectacularly catch fire” territory.
Don’t forget that outside the Tesla Supercharger network the highest power you might find is likely to be 50kW - so 20mins charge will add about 50 miles range. If you have a 600 mile journey, the last half is going to be pretty tedious.
OK more than 300 miles in one stretch and you probably do need a rest and 600 miles will need an overnight stop in most circumstances - but on Sunday I will drive just shy of 300 miles to the port, then about 180 miles in the UK to get back home, doable in a single day and one tankful in a diesel powered car. How long would it take me in an EV?
If we assume I can get into the UK with about 40 miles range I need to find a charger fairly quickly and will need probably a 60% charge. On a 50kW station at least 90 mins added to the journey.
PS just looked at the Zap map - indeed 50kW is the most I’m likely to get close to the port on the UK side and half the ones I looked at showing issues/out of service.
Massive depends on the vehicle, 1.5 hours longer as a ball park, schedule your food breaks around the recharging stops and doubt you would notice much difference. Thats how it currently stands but things are improving all the time.
More importantly we cannot just continue as we are burning fossil fuels, thats the issue we face and an extra 1.5 hours compared to floodings and droughts.
My food break will be on the boat.
Change it a bit, baring in mind how often is this trip compared to your average journey
Basically never in this specific guise - I’m trying Newhaven-Dieppe to see if is feasible as the crossing is much cheaper than Portsmouth-Caen even adding tolls and extra fuel but have come to the conclusion that 300 miles in one stint coupled with 180 miles in another only a few hours (and no sleep) apart is no fun. I was wiped out by the time I got to the house.
Going Portsmouth-Caen I could do it on one charge as long as a 300 and a bit mile range is achievable which would make it do-able, if not terribly convenient as I’d need a full charge on arrival.
I understand, Used Newhaven Dieppe a lot in the past. If one of the party is 60+ and you phone and book you can ask for a discount which is around 15%.
Charging before dieppe is a necessary as most EV’s at motorway speed will not do over 240-250 miles and of course depends on how loaded the vehicke is as it could be less still.
At least you can get a good sleep on the ferry especially if not eating.
But it’s my one and a half hours and their flooding and drought.
Seriously though you are right and it’s one of the reasons that I would prefer not to wait too long - I could wait for new battery technology but we need to start reducing CO2 now. The pandemic hit economies severely but it only reduced CO2 by about 10%.
And whether the next battery technology is just around the corner as you think or might take longer as I suspect, it won’t change the basic energy economics of the cars - drive 100 miles and you will need about 30kWh which will take about 40 minutes on a 50kW charger - battery chemistry is not going to change that.
Older Leafs in hot climate definitely had battery issues. However, the restyled 2018 40kWh onwards have different battery chemistry & thus far have not shown significant degradation in temperate climates.
My 2018 40kWh Leaf can still charge to a similar range to when I first bought it (over 270km), but it’s only done 30 000kms. At it’s recent service Nissan reported a very healthy battery.
My 2005 eNV-200 which is only 24kWh, uses older battery chemistry but does have battery thermal management still reports 130km range on a good day. It’s got 65 000kms on the clock.
I’ve not done a lot of long range trips, but pre-pandemic I took the car to the UK a few times, encompassing trips that took in London, the West Country & places in between. Although charging needed a bit of thought it was never a big deal; I used a mixture of public rapid chargers & private domestic opportunties
It tends to be the older leafs that are picked on as an example of the whole range of EV’s but that isn’t an honest appraisal as Jonathan has just spoken about.
Me, still want an eNiro but hoping they will revise it with a higher charging rate.
No, it was just that specific Leaf 30kWh unit - but my point was not so much to extrapolate from one problematic battery pack for one specific vehicle to the claim that all battery packs in all EV’s are going to be dead after 8 years.
It was more to point out that it’s still a maturing technology and mistakes can happen - and often it is the consumer footing the bill.
Jonathan’s experience is reassuring - though even 65k on the clock (40k miles) is not high mileage yet - our diesel estate has racked up 80k miles (125k km) since 2016 - we do most of the trips to France in it as my car is really not suited to long family journeys. Mine has somewhat over 90k miles but is a lot older so quite a bit lower average mileage - in fact I probably don’t do more than 4000 miles per annum at present in it.
Does this not depend upon how much you use your car?
We use our car very little and the cost of buying a new EV, which could easily be superceded quite soon is very offputting.
Yes, certainly - I based the figures above on 8000 miles per year - very slightly over the official figure of 7400 miles per year for the average driver.
If, as I do, you drive less then the savings over petrol will be lower.
But we only have one planet and if we screw it up there’s nowhere else to go.
As well as electric cars, I see that it looks like we shall be getting electric propelled air taxis sometime in the future, currently being developed by Rolls Royce! Sorry to go off thread.
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OK but one thing I *don’t* see any time soon, or ever, is an electric jumbo - the energy density of batteries is just too low.
Understood, but an ICE engine used very little can suffer more than an electric motor. A number of manufacturers are also looking at upgrade paths for batteries as new chemistry emerges but be assured lithium ion is currently the best and the others I mentioned are less effective but a whole lot cheaper to make. They are offsetting the less effective mainly charge density by faster/higher recharge power.
If you dont use the car a whole load is a lease deal appealing as you dont commit a large amount should the new tech prove better? It is certainly something I would consider as I approach retirement and look a bit more for not having to change vehicles.
I’ve yet to see a lease deal which makes any sort of financial sense for an individual.