Ah yes Spectrum Park and Ride. Well I never!
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For the past 5 months I’ve been mostly driving a Peugeot e208 for a project at work. We’ve had it for 22 months, clocked up nearly 19k miles and it has been absolutely flawless.
Very comfortable seats, the handling is nimble and although I don’t gel with controls being on a touchscreen, the few physical buttons provided do the commonly used functions nicely.
Unfortunately I can’t provide accurate stats on the range (this is key to the project and under NDA) but the figures shared in reviews online of 170 miles would be typical.
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Can you explain what this shows and what a good one and a poor one look like - and what it means in the real world?
Thanks
John
.sjb
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It’s about how much current or power is drawn from the charger into the battery during its charge. At both ends of the charge, say 0 to 10% and then 90-100%, the power is less to protect the battery. Ideally, in between, it is as much as possible. So the “curve” is more of a plateau.
Many manufacturers quote a maximum charge power of 150 kW or 250 kW. But this is only for a small part of the charge curve. What this means is that a full 0 to 100% charge will take longer if the curve is more of a peak than a plateau. This is why many manufacturers like to quote say 25 minutes from 20% to 80% times, as this is the flattest part of their curve.
My BMW i3s takes its maximum 50 kW from 10 to 93%. Very useful.
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On my EV6 Kia advise charging to only 80% as better for battery health, and 100% once a month or so. I generally follow this unless I need every last mile on a drive. The slowing of the charge in the last 20% is therefore less of an issue in most of my usage, and the high speed DC charging in the main part of the session (much faster than on our i3) is a boon.
Bruce
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That’s good advice and we were told the same when picking up the car, I do the same as you.
Gary
Gary,
Most European and S Korean EVs have a lithium ion battery chemistry called NMC or NCM. This refers to the battery’s cathode chemistry which is a combination of Nickel, Manganese and Cobalt, hence NMC.
There are other chemistries, the other increasingly popular one being LFP, which is cheaper than NMC and has other advantages but also some disadvantages.
Anyway, standardised tests have been conducted with automotive NMC cells, putting them through deep discharge and charge cycles until their storage capacity fell to 80% of the original capacity, which approximates to the battery’s first life in a car.
The tests showed that charging the NMC cells to 100% reduced the cycle life by 2/3 (I.e. a 67% reduction) in comparison with charging to only 80%. This is why most car makers advise us to charge the batteries to 80% full rather than 100% full, unless we need the extra range for the occasional long trip.
Note that this “rule” applies to NMC batteries but not LFP ones, like those being introduced on many Chinese EVs, the new Ford European SUV and entry level Tesla models.
Hope this helps, if only a bit.
Best regards, BF
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Its great advice, thank you for sharing.
Have you any experience of using any of the apps that log your car data, charging, consumption, costs etc, Apps like Tronity & EEVEE are the two that spring to mind, I would be very interest on your views if you have.
Many thanks, Gary
Hi Gary,
I haven’t tried Tronity or EEVEE. Instead, I have found the cars’ own apps & on-board software tell me what I need to know.
The Skoda Enyaq’s on-board iPad screeen showed an average efficiency of 3.1 miles/kWh, which translated to a range of 254 miles on the car’s 82kWh battery pack. That’s consistent with the range of ranges (!) that we experienced: 275 miles in the summer versus 225 miles in the winter. The car had the optional HVAC heat pump fitted to improve range in cold weather.
The Tesla Model Y has lots of stuff that can be accessed via the on-board screen. The Tesla’s powertrain, HVAC system and control electronics are a generation ahead of those in VW MEB platform cars and it shows.
The Model Y is similar in size to the Enyaq, if anything slightly wider, and is of a similar weight, so you might expect its efficiency to be comparable. It isn’t. Where the Enyaq managed a very respectable 3.1 miles/kWh over 20,000 miles, the Model Y is achieving 4.0 miles/kWh with the same driver, same routes and a slightly higher driving speed. That’s a huge difference.
Instead of 254 miles/battery, the Model Y is delivering an average of 300 miles from its 75kWh battery, a battery that is 10% smaller than the Enyaq’s. The Model Y is delivering a range of 270 miles in the winter and 325 miles in the summer.
As far as charging goes, the Enyaq claimed 125kW charging. We managed 125.2kW once, on a sunny day in the south of France at an ambient temperature of 25C and with the battery down at about 10% full. In short, under absolutely ideal conditions. Once the battery was more than 15% full, charging speed plummeted to 90kW then 64kW.
Our typical, normal charge speed for the Enyaq was 63kW, which is rough when you have paid an extra £440 for 125kW capability.
We routinely see peak charge rates of over 200kW with the Model Y in the UK summer months (225kW is the highest yet), when the battery is down below 20% full. That soon drops to 150kW and later to 125kW though. In short, from our experience, the Model Y charges at twice the speed of the Enyaq.
On charging costs, the Tesla Supercharger network is much cheaper (43p-60/unit) than the competition, e.g. Ionity at over 80p/unit. It’s also by far the easiest to use and the chargers actually work, unlike the ABB ones that Ionity and many other use.
So, does all this make me a Tesla fan boy then? Yes & no. I am a 100% fan of Tesla’s Supercharger network for the driving that we do, as we do a lot of 200 mile+ journeys. I genuinely admire the efficiency of the powertrain & HVAC system, but companies like Hyundai aren’t far behind, while Volvo, Polestar, BMW and Audi are quite shockingly off the pace here.
But as a car to sit in, to use and to drive, the Model Y’s ergonomics are genuinely poor and it’s quite soulless. The Skoda Enyaq was a lovely place to be, much nicer than the Model Y on a long journey.
At least it would be if we weren’t worrying about fast charger availability all the time…
On costs, the car will tell you driving efficiency but not the per unit cost of electricity. We have 4 different costs at home: 3 from the Octopus Flux tariff, plus whatever rate we explain to ourselves for surplus solar. Then the fast charger rate depends on the network & time of day. Then there are all the destination chargers (typically 7.5kW) from the likes of Pod Point.
Hence, the weighted average cost/unit can only be done by the user, if they really are that obsessed by it. We just fill up whenever possible at home using the cheap night rate & surplus solar, or try to use Tesla Superchargers. We will each find our own way on this.
Hope this helps, as this is where owning an EV is genuinely different to driving a petrol or Diesel car.
Best regards, BF
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Some useful real information here. Tesla and their network are great, easy to use, and good value. Rarely any waiting time either.
Battery chemistry needs to change if we are to get a better range and lower battery weights. The Chinese are leading the way with this via legislation and building as many nuclear power stations as they can to meet demand. Twenty-six as of today are under construction compared to three in Europe and zero in North America, with Egypt and Turkey building four each right now.
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Lucid were quoted in Autocar mag v recently as stating a ‘mid-term’ target of 8m/kWh using denser (and presumably more compact) battery tech. When we get to that sort of stage I would have to raise the white flag and acknowledge ICE tech is for the museum. I suspect we’ll see this within circa 5 years - complete guess on my part.
I’m slightly curious about how the different generations of battery tech are going to be catered for by the commercial charging infrastructure. As tech develops, will the chargers remain universal for all battery types to use or will the older ones be like computers and simply no longer supported?
Peter
Thank you again for a great reply, I do use the EEVEE app mainly for the home charging costs, which its pretty good at, I have tried the Tronity, it does give lots more information, but its a faff, which I don’t need at the moment.
Like yourself I use the ID3 screen to show efficiency after journeys and at the the moment, the average efficiency is 4.7 miles/kWh over the lifetime of the car, which I think is pretty good, again like you, have discovered the difference in winter driving compared to summer, especially on icy mornings, going to work, its not uncommon to see the journey average drop to around 2.1 miles/kWh, my ID3 is not fitted with a heat pump.
Your Tesla comparison confirms what other owners have said that it leaves VW/Volvo etc miles behind on charging and software, and the Tesla supercharging network compared to Ionity and others is years ahead in both use and cost.
I do like my ID3 very much. we find it nice and comfortable to drive, its easy to live with, and more importantly for us, fits in the garage.
The 64,000 dollar question is, would I go back to driving an IC vehicle, NO, would I leave the VW camp, again not at the moment.
Gary
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Dont worry about EC charging being abe to charge an EV in the future. Your charger and battery are matched. Just add DC or AC. Ev will work it out and in 20 years time.
Hi Peter,
The efficiency in miles/kWh is only partly dependent on the battery.
It’s about efficiency and minimising losses. For the battery, this primarily means keeping the internal resistance of the cells as low as possible. This is not the main source of losses.
To get to 8miles/kWh, in terms of the powertrain you need to minimise the amount of electrical current flowing, have super efficient inverters, converters and motors, then maximise braking regeneration.
We will see more 800V electrical architectures, then 1200V electrical architectures because a 1200V system needs only 1/3 the electrical current of today’s 400V systems to deliver the same power, so electrical losses in wiring and everything else fall accordingly. Lucid is already leading the pack with a 900V system but it’s only going to go higher.
In terms of the vehicle, you need super slippery aerodynamics and low frontal area, less weight and less tyre friction drag (but not less grip for emergency braking!)
So long as the chargers have the same connectors as the cars (CCS in Europe, NACS or CCS in the USA), then the cars only need a “twin channel” battery pack or something called a DC-DC converter to charge on a 400V charger and raise it up to 800V inside the car. These exist today.
Today’s fast chargers will gradually become obsolete because either they weren’t engineered to last long enough outside as a piece of infrastructure (take a bow ABB here) or because they only put out 50-150kW. The future for fast chargers is 350-600kW chargers for cars and 1-3MW chargers for heavy trucks.
A company called Nyobolt has just demonstrated a small, light electric car with a 35kWh battery. It only needs a small battery because it takes 4mins 37 seconds to charge from 10% to full. That’s the same as it takes to fill most cars with petrol or gasoline… If you do an internet search for Nyobolt fast charge demonstrator, you should find articles about it.
Best regards, BF
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Here you go:
I give you the BMW i3!
It only weighs 1,300 kg. Yes, the battery could be larger, but with today’s batteries, that would just mean more weight. Yes, the air resistance could be less; just keep it below 65 mph, and all is good. It manages its efficiency quite well via the drive modes. Use Eco Plus if you want uber-minimal power to ancillary items (A/C, fan, lights, acceleration). And yes, in five years, we will laugh at what we needed to do to get 160 miles out of a 42 kWh battery. But right now, mine ticks a lot of boxes. It costs 2p/mile to run on electricity, 95% of which is from home.
Sports mode allows you to leave others way behind at the lights, have fun in the corners, and easily chew up the rear tyres at £250 per corner.
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Have UK added taxes on EV cars made in China like EU recently have done? I believe it’s between 10-35% right now.
All great stuff BF and thanks for taking the time to set it out for us. Any idea how far off the 800v+ roll out is likely to be in years? Perhaps a long way off given the massive investment in battery production plants which will all have chunky pay back periods. Or perhaps the industry is much more flexible and anticipated such developments when designing the production facilities. Any insight you may have on this would be interesting.
Peter
Golly. I haven’t got to buying new tyres for ours yet. Anyway, now I’m warned!
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You are not driving it properly!!
The i3s has only one “choice” of tire front and rear.
Fronts are cheaper and could last forever. Rears, um…15,000 miles would be good. I’ll need to buy a pair before winter. As always Blackcircles can give an indication of price.
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