I know exactly what you mean, because that's exactly where we drive on every holiday trip. That's why we drove yesterday - that was an ideal driving day. 110kph on cruise control (=101km/h GPS) with maybe 10 times where I needed to change my speed on the whole stretch. Any other day, or even a busy sunday, means you're going to lose at least 45 minutes in traffic and the whole equation falls apart.
The Electric Car Thread
- Thread starter Skoop
- Start date
Apparently there are some decent price reductions for inventory Model Y (USA).
Yeah so in Europe it's actually great news if you used ABRP to "test drive" some EVs for vacations. It was way pessimistic as it expected you to fly on the left lane, 77 vs 108 kWh is a huge difference for 25 minutes slower but actually it's just ABRP thinking you would just floor it from here to Frankfurt. No way you can get there this fast.
I'm reconsidering my range requirement, suddenly LR isn't a must have and maybe "just" ~60 kWh is enough?
ABRP had me anxious because it said it would be 50% of our battery to get to our eclipse site. We charged to 100 and decided to seek local charging before returning if we rolled in at 52% or less, but hope to do the round trip on a single charge.
We arrived with 65%.
We arrived with 65%.
I find ABRP spot on, within 2 to 3 percentage points of the final results, usually on the positive side. But I worked for that.
I know that my car is bad at estimating the remaining range, and don't even display the battery level with numbers, I only have a 0-25-50-75-100 bar. I knew it from the start, so I invested in an OBD2 Bluetooth dongle, tested several apps, and subscribed to ABRP. Now the app knows my car, my habits, and my road conditions, which gives excellent estimations.
The small difference usually comes because I drive very conservatively by design. I like to keep the battery graph on to check the slope of battery discharge, and 'beat the slope'. So reaching my destination with 2 points more than the estimation is kinda normal for me.
You just have to be careful of changing conditions between the time you plan you trip and the time you drive. Head wind, colder battery, heavy foot on the accelerator, need for A/C, those are the factors that will impact your effective vs. estimated range with ABRP. Even improvisation and changing the plan mid-trip does not throw it off (but the graph is no longer accurate).
I know that my car is bad at estimating the remaining range, and don't even display the battery level with numbers, I only have a 0-25-50-75-100 bar. I knew it from the start, so I invested in an OBD2 Bluetooth dongle, tested several apps, and subscribed to ABRP. Now the app knows my car, my habits, and my road conditions, which gives excellent estimations.
The small difference usually comes because I drive very conservatively by design. I like to keep the battery graph on to check the slope of battery discharge, and 'beat the slope'. So reaching my destination with 2 points more than the estimation is kinda normal for me.
You just have to be careful of changing conditions between the time you plan you trip and the time you drive. Head wind, colder battery, heavy foot on the accelerator, need for A/C, those are the factors that will impact your effective vs. estimated range with ABRP. Even improvisation and changing the plan mid-trip does not throw it off (but the graph is no longer accurate).
Well, we got our kid that Chevy Bolt I had mentioned back on April 1. It's a 2019 with only 35,000 miles on it, and it got a new battery less than a year ago.
We drove it home to Las Vegas from Temecula CA, and amusingly it gave us less stress on the way back than our Tesla. The guess-o-meter was a little all over the place, but overall it was pretty efficient. The Tesla has its wheel covers off right now and in the bad weather it used way more power than usual, and we got a couple of slow superchargers along the way also.
Using KeySavvy for the Bolt purchase went pretty well; it took a few days to complete but most of the wait was waiting for banks to transfer money and not KeySavvy. Capital One took their sweet time with the ACH. The only thing we're waiting for is KeySavvy to send the paperwork packet with title, temp tag etc. The documents that they generate like bill of sale are available online right away.
The $4,000 tax credit worked just as anticipated. The amount paid to KeySavvy was $9,658: $9,500 + their $158 in fees (it's $79 for each party but we paid both to make the deal the same for them as cash). The seller received $13,500. A++, would do again.
Which leaves us with the old car. Anyone want a well-used Toyota Matrix for $1500?
We drove it home to Las Vegas from Temecula CA, and amusingly it gave us less stress on the way back than our Tesla. The guess-o-meter was a little all over the place, but overall it was pretty efficient. The Tesla has its wheel covers off right now and in the bad weather it used way more power than usual, and we got a couple of slow superchargers along the way also.
Using KeySavvy for the Bolt purchase went pretty well; it took a few days to complete but most of the wait was waiting for banks to transfer money and not KeySavvy. Capital One took their sweet time with the ACH. The only thing we're waiting for is KeySavvy to send the paperwork packet with title, temp tag etc. The documents that they generate like bill of sale are available online right away.
The $4,000 tax credit worked just as anticipated. The amount paid to KeySavvy was $9,658: $9,500 + their $158 in fees (it's $79 for each party but we paid both to make the deal the same for them as cash). The seller received $13,500. A++, would do again.
Which leaves us with the old car. Anyone want a well-used Toyota Matrix for $1500?
On our way home from the first EV road trip.
This time we opted to take 68 through Maryland because there are fast chargers in several towns along the route, instead of having Bedford be the only fast charger between Pittsburg and Hagerstown MD. It added about 20 minutes to the estimated trip time but there was a quantity of chargers along the route that we'd be able to press on to the next station if one was out of service.
The ChargePoint station we just tried to stop at is functional but the entrance to the lot was blocked by road construction. We could have made it to the next fast charger but just as I was looking up options we got the "MOM I NEED TO USE THE POTTY" alarm so instead we snagged a Volta L2 charger a few blocks away and we're having lunch. These kids take forever to eat anyways so we'll likely get enough charge to make it to areas we are familiar with.
Neurotic pre-planning and flexibility means we haven't been stranded but I'm not doing another long road trip until I have a NACS adapter in the back.
This time we opted to take 68 through Maryland because there are fast chargers in several towns along the route, instead of having Bedford be the only fast charger between Pittsburg and Hagerstown MD. It added about 20 minutes to the estimated trip time but there was a quantity of chargers along the route that we'd be able to press on to the next station if one was out of service.
The ChargePoint station we just tried to stop at is functional but the entrance to the lot was blocked by road construction. We could have made it to the next fast charger but just as I was looking up options we got the "MOM I NEED TO USE THE POTTY" alarm so instead we snagged a Volta L2 charger a few blocks away and we're having lunch. These kids take forever to eat anyways so we'll likely get enough charge to make it to areas we are familiar with.
Neurotic pre-planning and flexibility means we haven't been stranded but I'm not doing another long road trip until I have a NACS adapter in the back.
At home, at last.
Total distance: 725 miles
Total charging costs: $3
We didn't go out of our way for free charging, but between the free EA charging plan, the hotel charger, and the Volta mentioned in the last post, only one of our stops was a paid station and we weren't at it very long.
Total distance: 725 miles
Total charging costs: $3
We didn't go out of our way for free charging, but between the free EA charging plan, the hotel charger, and the Volta mentioned in the last post, only one of our stops was a paid station and we weren't at it very long.
Seems like operation dumping failed. €35k for a BYD is just too much but I wonder why they don't just slash the price drastically. Can't be worse than sitting at the docks paying parking fees.
Perhaps the parking fees aren't high enough to be market clearing.
It's maybe good to put this in perspective: around 3 million cars go through the combined North Sea Ports each year, and there's only capacity for around 100k cars to be parked; about 2 weeks of imports worth. It doesn't take much of a slowdown or logistics hiccup to fill up the port's storage capacity.
I'm a bit suspicious of the news article, because it's likely that they're not in port storage but in intermediate storage. Intermediate storage is extremely cheap, e.g. it cost us only about 20 euros per week to store a container (which itself had a value of around 250k), while port storage was more like 50 euros per day. It's not economically viable to leave anything at/near the terminal for more than a few days.
I'm a bit suspicious of the news article, because it's likely that they're not in port storage but in intermediate storage. Intermediate storage is extremely cheap, e.g. it cost us only about 20 euros per week to store a container (which itself had a value of around 250k), while port storage was more like 50 euros per day. It's not economically viable to leave anything at/near the terminal for more than a few days.
Forgot to add the link:
European ports turned into ‘car parks’ as vehicle imports pile up - https://on.ft.com/43OrRc7 via @FT
Maybe it's not the docks themselves but intermediate storage but that also is used during normal operational, if someone fills it up with inventory it messes up getting cars off boats asap. "Port of Antwerp - Bruges" who complained on record can run both dockside and slightly further away storage.
Anyway, it's a mess.
European ports turned into ‘car parks’ as vehicle imports pile up - https://on.ft.com/43OrRc7 via @FT
Maybe it's not the docks themselves but intermediate storage but that also is used during normal operational, if someone fills it up with inventory it messes up getting cars off boats asap. "Port of Antwerp - Bruges" who complained on record can run both dockside and slightly further away storage.
Anyway, it's a mess.
This side of the Channel (just up the road from Felixstowe and Harwich) it's usually WWII era runways - hectares of concrete good enough for storage.
A curiously inelastic market - usually dirt cheap, right up till the moment someone else will pay more for that storage space then the price rockets to get the incumbent out. We saw it a few years ago with empty containers.
A curiously inelastic market - usually dirt cheap, right up till the moment someone else will pay more for that storage space then the price rockets to get the incumbent out. We saw it a few years ago with empty containers.
Dutch financial newspaper (think local WSJ, paywalled) reports on overflowing car parks, https://fd.nl/bedrijfsleven/1513506...oom-van-onverkochte-chinese-elektrische-autos
In the whole country every piece of concrete and asphalt are getting booked. Even temporarily, like a empty terrain where a new warehouse will be constructed in the summer.
Same story as already reported, the new brands don't use dealers that have their own storage so any unsold car gets stuck near a port. Low supply chain experience/skills makes it harder for newcomers to book transport and actually get EVs sold - cars sit up to 1.5y in storage before moving on, that's a crazy amount of time in EV land where every year something new and exciting happens.
In the whole country every piece of concrete and asphalt are getting booked. Even temporarily, like a empty terrain where a new warehouse will be constructed in the summer.
Same story as already reported, the new brands don't use dealers that have their own storage so any unsold car gets stuck near a port. Low supply chain experience/skills makes it harder for newcomers to book transport and actually get EVs sold - cars sit up to 1.5y in storage before moving on, that's a crazy amount of time in EV land where every year something new and exciting happens.
That's a pretty crazy amount of time period for something representing that level of frozen capital? Each vehicle is a great deal of unrealized, depreciating, and at risk (shit happens particularly with ever more global warming) money/resources, like if nothing else the same money going into the vehicle could be just earning a return on the market or in bonds. Even if EVs were already into the more shallow part of the S-curve (and they definitely don't appear to be yet, on the contrary we seem more into the crazier parts) not great to have expensive inventory sitting around for a year+.
Does kind of feel like we're going to see a bit of a, I dunno, step-function in EVs? Probably with some tipping points built in too, but even so different audiences have different minimum requirements that they want hit before replacing ICE. EVs may be in a situation where they finally hit the point a decade ago where their features/value were suddenly a match for the first time for a truly solid slice of the car market... but very much not the whole thing or even the majority. Yet going from near zero to a solid slice looks like crazy growth, particularly when supply constraints are high, and everyone piled in, but then things caught up with demand/perceived value before that could keep rising to match more and more market segments. So rather then a smooth uptake curve, maybe it'll be more "hit good enough for a chunk, get bought, run into the wall of not good enough yet for another chunk, have to get that far and then expand again" a few times until ICE vanishes into niches. I'm still waiting for a decent truck for example, with at least 6ft and preferably 6.5-8' bed, and enough range to get me to my local jobs and back even in the winter (so probably at least 380-400 make believe miles, translating down into 260-270 real miles). All gas stations converting to charging could be another approach, and/or chargers even for residential being just everywhere, but again in the category of "promising developments absolutely accumulating, but check back in another few years".
Of course it also probably doesn't help that a lot of holdouts don't like many of the directions/fads modern cars are doing anyway, even putting aside the drive chain and power entirely. Decent physical controls, cars that aren't yet more grasping to squeeze us for subscriptions, etc. It'll get there, along with ever more compelling unique value that BEVs can offer and ICE just can't, but it's a slow process and footguns don't help bridge the early gaps
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A co worker had his Tesla basically bricked yesterday. Won't start, throws error codes that there's something wrong with the 12V system, and can't get it towed by a regular tow truck because the parking brake is locked.
You're never supposed to tow a Tesla with a regular tow truck, flatbeds only.
Anyway, that's not what bricked means. It's got a dead 12V battery. This is common with them.
Anyway, that's not what bricked means. It's got a dead 12V battery. This is common with them.
I think he tried jumping it and failed. Maybe just didn't leave connected long enough. Possibly if there's nothing else wrong just replacing the 12V battery will cure it. It would be nice if modern cars gave you some friggin warning that the 12V system is in decline (not charging or whatever) before they just stop working and your car won't go.
Yeah, I know you're not supposed to tow them with one of those old fashioned trucks.
Yeah; that would be nice. I guess there's that battery light (is that still a thing) but iirc that just shows if the alternator is charging I think; at least that's how my Saturn behaved when the alternator wasn't working right.
My battery died in my CX5 and wow does that cause some odd things to happen now that everything is electric.
A silly number of modern cars, including some Tesla models - require working 12V power to get mechanical access to the 12V battery.
I think Tesla's route out of Catch 22 is removal of the front bumper to expose 12V injection terminals.
I think Tesla's route out of Catch 22 is removal of the front bumper to expose 12V injection terminals.
Market note for everyone.
There are some very steep discounts on the Kia EV6 and EV9. I wish my lease was closer to being done. I still have six payments left.
Even a CX-90 PHEV would be great right now if I had only four or less payments on my CX-9 left since they have a great pull ahead program and $2K for lease-to-lease loyalty.
There are some very steep discounts on the Kia EV6 and EV9. I wish my lease was closer to being done. I still have six payments left.
Even a CX-90 PHEV would be great right now if I had only four or less payments on my CX-9 left since they have a great pull ahead program and $2K for lease-to-lease loyalty.
That's not the case for mine, but I'm not 100% certain about other models. You do need to pop the front trunk which requires power, but that has some access terminals hidden away on the exterior of the car. That's why you don't leave valuables in there as well, because supplying power to the terminals will open it up in a few seconds.
I don't own a tesla, but I did watch this out of curiosity.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAd5eiJxiLg
An aside: I think the term "frunk" is stupid and further accelerates the dumbing-down of language. But it raises a question: In British English, the bonnet is the hood (which covers the engine), and the boot is the trunk (luggage space). Typically the bonnet is in the front of the car and the boot is in the back. But do those two terms refer to their purpose (bonnet = covers engine, boot = storage) or is it relative to the location (bonnet = front, boot = back)? If it's the latter, referring to the frunk as the "bonnet" would be far more eloquent. (Though since a lot of EVs still have some mechanical bits under the hood, maybe "bonnet" could still apply even if there's storage space there?)
As I recall the one I watched the owner have issues with was an early Model S and it didn't have the nice access hatch.
But it's not Telsa specific issue - lots of new cars are similarly stupid.
If you're planning to carry a battery/booster to cold boot from - check that you can access its storage location without 12V power too. You may not be able to open the cabin or cargo area doors too.
But it's not Telsa specific issue - lots of new cars are similarly stupid.
If you're planning to carry a battery/booster to cold boot from - check that you can access its storage location without 12V power too. You may not be able to open the cabin or cargo area doors too.
As I understand it, yes, trunk/boot means storage, and, in ye olden thymf, they were so named due to actual luggage being strapped to the back of the buggie/carriage/car. So, "frunk" is just a front-trunk. As you note, in some cases there is no real storage there due to mechanical bits, which means it should then just go back to hood/bonnet nomenclature. If it functions as both boot (storage) and bonnet (cover), well, then you wind up with a botnet, and no one wants that.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but some British English speakers have started using their own cutesy term: froot.
I despise portmanteaus. And tortured backronyms, which I see a lot of in my line of work.
"Backronym" is itself a portmanteau, so I hate them twice as much.
"Backronym" is itself a portmanteau, so I hate them twice as much.
I don't mind frunk, "Front trunk", I dunno what a better name would be.
Anyway, Tesla specifically seems to abuse the 12V battery. Syonyk had a good write up but basically they don't charge them properly and they're undersized. Tesla has recently switched to Lithium for the 12V pack (LiFePO4).
But yes, most vehicles (all Teslas?) don't have any manual frunk release, so if the 12V system is dead you have no way of getting to the 12V system.
Tesla's have two leads you can pop out of a front access hatch to unlock the frunk directly.
Anyway, Tesla specifically seems to abuse the 12V battery. Syonyk had a good write up but basically they don't charge them properly and they're undersized. Tesla has recently switched to Lithium for the 12V pack (LiFePO4).
But yes, most vehicles (all Teslas?) don't have any manual frunk release, so if the 12V system is dead you have no way of getting to the 12V system.
Tesla's have two leads you can pop out of a front access hatch to unlock the frunk directly.
I’m just glad that, with perseverance, one can setup an iphone so one can tell Siri to open the Tesla frunk hands free (ie when walking to car with full hands, angling voice down to front shirt pocket).
It’s an easy to understand name, unlike froot which sounds like fruit. But, tomato tomahto, tire/tyre GERD/GORD etc etc etc.
It’s an easy to understand name, unlike froot which sounds like fruit. But, tomato tomahto, tire/tyre GERD/GORD etc etc etc.
I know that the ID.4 can charge the 12V off the traction battery, and there's an option (off by default) to allow it to do so when the car itself is "off," at what it warns will be a small cost to efficiency.
I just looked it up and the 12V battery is easily accessible under the hood and the hood release is wholly mechanical, so that's good. Hope I never need it....
I just looked it up and the 12V battery is easily accessible under the hood and the hood release is wholly mechanical, so that's good. Hope I never need it....
The MachE for example only charges the 12V battery when the vehicle is "On". Not while plugged in/charging. There is an emergency charge, but it's set at 30% capacity, which for a lead acid means it's already doing damage to it.
It's all just stupidity on the OEMs part. The DC-DC converters can be programmed to do whatever they want.
It's all just stupidity on the OEMs part. The DC-DC converters can be programmed to do whatever they want.
Mine does. There was a recall on the DC/DC conversion system and the techs didn't fully seat the cable and it jarred loose, got the warning of hybrid system malf.
Also, the 12V is located in the trunk, but there are charge points in the hood as well, just hook up a battery to that and you can open the rear hatch and replace. And there's manual key entry on the drivers side door, and the fob still has a manual key that's normally unused.
The ID.4 hood release may be purely mechanical, but the doors are all electronic. If the 12V battery is truly dead and the doors and windows are closed, that detail is not going to help.
View: https://youtu.be/oHRKvuJjOQI?si=vxZfgwsuwpoT6NAp&t=11
(better video)
There's apparently a hidden manual keyhole to open the driver door.