Adventures in an all electric vehicle.

[not done it yet]

Just googled.
A typical EV does 3 - 3.5 miles on a kwh.
1 litre of petrol is somewhere between the equivalent of 8.9 to 9.7 kwh.
(If Google stuff is close to correct).

No idea what that means without some thinking & maths.

OK...
If 1 litre is somewhere around 9 kwh,

If you get 3.5 miles per kwh, then to do 100 miles you need about 11 kwh?
11kwh @ £0.56 per unit is £ 6.16, which is still only just over 6-pence a mile fuel cost. Is that about right?

A newish petrol/diesel car doing 50mpg, & with fuel at £1.55/litre would need about 9.1 Litres & £14.11, so just over 14-pence a mile fuel cost.

Over say 10,000 miles a year - it's £616 fuelling for the EV, versus £1410 for the ICE - a difference of £ 794 cheaper for the leccy car.

If home charging at say 32p per kwh, Then 11kwh is £3.52 for 100 miles, & £352 for 10,000 miles - so £1058 cheaper.

Am I therein thereabouts?

Nowhere near if home charging - if you are vaguely sufficiently clever enough to select a more suitable tariff. My current tarriff is just under 19p/kWh for virtually all my charging needs. There are cheaper tariffs and my electricity usage is far less than most (until I include the EV charging). I am getting 4 miles/kWh over the last 550 mile, or so. I pay 18.93p/kWh, so 10k miles would cost rather less than £500. I could (and may well) change to another tariff of either (currently) 9.5p or 7.5p per unit. That could halve my 10000 miles energy cost to to as little as £188 (possibly less) but may adversely affect my household energy cost.

I am holding off making my decision re supplier and tariff, at the present time, because my wife has not long to live, so my personal circumstances are bound to change in the very foreseeable future. I could, eventually, change my car for a smaller, more fuel-efficient model, but likely will not - as the AWD and towing capacity are useful assets.

One thing I will not do is revert to an ICE vehicle (I am still running a diesel car, although it does not get much use) I expect (am aiming for) eventual regular trailer usage/availability, behind my EV, thus allowing me to sell the diesel vehicle. Winter is approaching and household electricity usage will rise considerably due to less solar generation and other electrical loads.

Currently, I have more to worry about than piffling vehicle fuel costs, but I would like to think that I am doing my best to reduce fossil guel burning. Also doing my bit in reducing urban pollution. Apparently (and quite clearly) not priorities for many some on the forum.

Watts is the internationally recognised SI unit of power and therefore demands a capial letter, not lower case abbreviation.

One litre of petrol may contain about 9kWh of energy, but nearly 3/4 of that is wasted energy (non-motive). As the grid becomes less reliant on fossil fuels, the difference in wasted energy (compared to EVs), by using ICE vehicles will inevitably rise. In all ways, fossil fuelled vehicles will eventually cease to exist as economical personal transport. Get used to it.

 

[premmington]

Nowhere near if home charging - if you are vaguely sufficiently clever enough to select a more suitable tariff. My current tarriff is just under 19p/kWh for virtually all my charging needs. There are cheaper tariffs and my electricity usage is far less than most (until I include the EV charging). I am getting 4 miles/kWh over the last 550 mile, or so. I pay 18.93p/kWh, so 10k miles would cost rather less than £500. I could (and may well) change to another tariff of either (currently) 9.5p or 7.5p per unit. That could halve my 10000 miles energy cost to to as little as £188 (possibly less) but may adversely affect my household energy cost.

I am holding off making my decision re supplier and tariff, at the present time, because my wife has not long to live, so my personal circumstances are bound to change in the very foreseeable future. I could, eventually, change my car for a smaller, more fuel-efficient model, but likely will not - as the AWD and towing capacity are useful assets.

One thing I will not do is revert to an ICE vehicle (I am still running a diesel car, although it does not get much use) I expect (am aiming for) eventual regular trailer usage/availability, behind my EV, thus allowing me to sell the diesel vehicle. Winter is approaching and household electricity usage will rise considerably due to less solar generation and other electrical loads.

Currently, I have more to worry about than piffling vehicle fuel costs, but I would like to think that I am doing my best to reduce fossil guel burning. Also doing my bit in reducing urban pollution. Apparently (and quite clearly) not priorities for many some on the forum.

Watts is the internationally recognised SI unit of power and therefore demands a capial letter, not lower case abbreviation.

One litre of petrol may contain about 9kWh of energy, but nearly 3/4 of that is wasted energy (non-motive). As the grid becomes less reliant on fossil fuels, the difference in wasted energy (compared to EVs), by using ICE vehicles will inevitably rise. In all ways, fossil fuelled vehicles will eventually cease to exist as economical personal transport. Get used to it.

Your quote "I am holding off making my decision re supplier and tariff, at the present time, because my wife has not long to live, so my personal circumstances are bound to change in the very foreseeable future."

I am really sorry to read this mate. I trully really am....

 

[GRW]

I think you'll find quite a few EV owners do their own calcs - they have accurate records of power supplied by their chargers, a large number of them are logging the data and every public chargepoint that they use is as well. EVs can not only record the miles but the power breakdown of the usage per trip which can be quite interesting.

If you go to https://ev-database.org you will the nominal capacity and the usable capacity of each EV, there isn't a massive difference between the two for most manufacturers, not sure who is the worst culprit. Modern EV batteries behave very differently from lead acid and manufacturers are backing their batteries with decent warranties thanks to their massive data sets collated over many years which give them the confidence to do so. C rates charging are more of a problem than C rates discharging on road cars thanks to the general publics desire to try and get energy into the cars in a similar timescale to refilling an ICE!

I'm aware that the L-ion batteries behave differently - but it's hard to tell by just how much.
It seems that there are still many similarities in behaviour (as you might expect), and the general rules for charging & discharging (in general pattern if not in specific numbers) also seem to apply (I.e. don't force-charge & don't hammer the performance if you want to get anything near the estimated range & lifespan).

With a liquid fuel, the octane rating, & the strict standards regarding fuel consistency, plus the accurate dispensing measurement into a fuel tank of fixed volume - make it pretty easy for anyone to work out what they are getting for their money - as everything is pretty much a consistent constant (except the price!).

IMO it seems not so easy (yet) in the EV world, and not as clearly defined (& we all know that the sellers will exaggerate & inflate (but yes, some more than others) to get the sale unless strictly regulated.
The consumer needs to have a system where the comparison & data between vehicles is all measured & presented in exactly the same way.

 

[not done it yet]

Not done it yet" was rattling on about the driver limiting his charge to 80% & not discharging below 20% ...... the thing is - I'd expect the Mfr to have preprogrammed this into the system to protect the car from its owner - meaning the display visual of battery percentage - might well disregard the "hidden" top & bottom 20%.... so your displayed 100%, might only be a REAL state-of-charge - of 80%?

You clearly don’t read posts properly. I wrote that DC charging was most efficient and fastest between those values. Charging rate, outside those values (particularly above 80%) is much reduced by the BMS. That means (as I said, to anyone who knows more than naff-all about BEVs) the fastest time between two distant points (using DC charging) is to charge between 20-80%. This, of course, may require charging stations actually on the route (not requiring long detours).

I am perfectly happy, if needed, to charge my vehicle to 100% (with my AC charger) on the occasions it is required. On the four DC charging events (in 5 months) I have only needed one charge to make my journey to home - where I can charge at my leisure. Last week I needed about 70 miles range to get home. I added 107 miles in ~14 minutes and arrived home with thirty+ miles range remaining (just in case a steady hospital trip was needed). The previous fast charge left the car with 40 surplus miles - which were (most of it) needed for a hastily arranged hospital appointment.

30 miles range would not be sufficient if a trip to the hospital was required at high speed. My smart meter is currently ‘dumb’ regarding data transfer (apparently failed to transmit data after 11 months and they won’t fix it); I ‘should‘ be reading the meter monthly, according to the electricity supplier, but I was assured (before I opted for the smart meter) that I would never need to read the meter ever again. It is now a case of them manually reading the meter, ‘cos I won’t.

Sorry (to most) re all the brackets, but clearly needed for those that try to cherry-pick to create arguments which are, frankly, just a sign of a conspiracy merchant (no need for names to be mentioned), irrelevant and with no value whatsoever.

 

[daleyd]

I’m not sure that discharge rates are an issue - in normal driving how often do you use full throttle in an ice vehicle? I’m not a slouch and I can say almost never, and the vast majority of the time in this car the power-o-meter just hovers around under 1/4 for probably 95% of the time. Even the worst case scenario I can think of, holding 70-80 mph up a steep motorway incline doesn’t need anywhere near full power…and ours is the lowest powered version with a 0-60 time north of 10 seconds.

The miles per kW figure doesn’t really change, no different to how my average mpg in my ice car doesn’t change. Yes there are obviously differences in day to day figures, but as an average it’s pretty constant. The biggest change is winter to summer, with summer being around 3.4 miles and winter around 3.

The 9.5 p overnight tariff is open to anyone with a ev from octopus energy. It’s not tied to any pcp deal, or anything to do with the purchase of the car. We got offered this at the height of the price hikes so hopefully it may even come down again There is a Cheaper one if you have a charger that can communicate with the energy supplier where you get variable times with a cheaper rate, but we don’t have one of these.

 

[daleyd]

Oh and yes, many manufacturers will recommend charging to 80% (I think they are covering their behinds and ensuring their long warranties won’t be invoked) but that’s a recommendation for day to day driving. It’s a setting in the car/app so when we charge it overnight for day to day use we set it at that figure, we are off to the other end of the country again with 2 adults 2 kids, luggage and a dog when the missus gets back from work tonight - so last night I set it to charge to 100%.

I don’t see that as being any different from warnings from an ice manufacturer not to mash the throttle into the carpet when cold…

It’s another thing that sounds like a massive problem, but in reality it makes no difference, other than about 5 seconds to tell the car where to charge to.

 

[Pigeon_Droppings2]

Youll need your connection checked by your dno too, when you install a charge point at home

I'm scared to ask...but what's a "dno".....and is it expensive

The situation I'm in with the electricity supply is....I have a 10mm cable on a dedicated circuit that was installed 12 years ago when we had a new consumer unit. That cable runs to an accessory box on the wall by the drive where it terminates (a nice bit of forward planning hopefully).

I'm not keen on a dedicated EV smart charger at the moment....because I can foresee problems with people simply plugging in and using it!...it's London and I know exactly what people are like here!

So instead my plan is/was to install a 32a socket within a lockable cabinet...I'll then use a 32A to type2 converter cable to charge the car.

This is just the initial setup...maybe I'll go to a smart charger in future to better control when the car charges etc (to get the cheapest tariff)....but for now I was thinking this would work fine?

 

[cheb]

DNO is Distribution Network Operator.

 

[daleyd]

I'm scared to ask...but what's a "dno".....and is it expensive

The situation I'm in with the electricity supply is....I have a 10mm cable on a dedicated circuit that was installed 12 years ago when we had a new consumer unit. That cable runs to an accessory box on the wall by the drive where it terminates - basically I saw a future need for an EV!

I'm not keen a dedicated EV smart charger at the moment....because I can foresee problems with people simply plugging in and using it!...it's London and I know exactly what people are like!

So instead my plan is/was to install a 32a socket within a lockable cabinet...I'll then use a 32A to type2 converter cable to charge the car.

This is just the initial setup...maybe I'll go to a smart charger in future to better control when the car charges etc....but for now I was thinking this would work.

Most chargers you can lock when not in use.

DNO is basically the electricity network company, for us Scottish power. Note this may be different to you actual energy supplier! Similar to how you may buy your broadband from Sky but BT maintain the network.

 

[Pigeon_Droppings2]

DNO is Distribution Network Operator.

Cheers...starting to sound more complicated than I was hoping!

I guess the question is....if I'm installing a 32A socket on a wall what do I need to do and is that different to installing a dedicated EV charger?

I was just hoping to connect a 32A socket to the existing dedicated 10mm feed and that would kind of be it really...but now I'm wondering if theres more that needs to be done?

I've got a mate who's an electrician....time for a phone call me thinks!

 

[Pigeon_Droppings2]

Most chargers you can lock when not in use.

Ah that makes sense...via your phone app?

 

[daleyd]

Ah that makes sense...via your phone app?

Yes some you can - we have an early one that doesn’t have any connectivity so ours is old fashioned with a lockable flap!!

 

[GRW]

You clearly don’t read posts properly. I wrote that DC charging was most efficient and fastest between those values. Charging rate, outside those values (particularly above 80%) is much reduced by the BMS. That means (as I said, to anyone who knows more than naff-all about BEVs) the fastest time between two distant points (using DC charging) is to charge between 20-80%. This, of course, may require charging stations actually on the route (not requiring long detours).

I am perfectly happy, if needed, to charge my vehicle to 100% (with my AC charger) on the occasions it is required. On the four DC charging events (in 5 months) I have only needed one charge to make my journey to home - where I can charge at my leisure. Last week I needed about 70 miles range to get home. I added 107 miles in ~14 minutes and arrived home with thirty+ miles range remaining (just in case a steady hospital trip was needed). The previous fast charge left the car with 40 surplus miles - which were (most of it) needed for a hastily arranged hospital appointment.

30 miles range would not be sufficient if a trip to the hospital was required at high speed. My smart meter is currently ‘dumb’ regarding data transfer (apparently failed to transmit data after 11 months and they won’t fix it); I ‘should‘ be reading the meter monthly, according to the electricity supplier, but I was assured (before I opted for the smart meter) that I would never need to read the meter ever again. It is now a case of them manually reading the meter, ‘cos I won’t.

Sorry (to most) re all the brackets, but clearly needed for those that try to cherry-pick to create arguments which are, frankly, just a sign of a conspiracy merchant (no need for names to be mentioned), irrelevant and with no value whatsoever.

What's the curve on a typical L-ion battery on an x-y? My experience is yes with Lead-acid.... but the reason (apart from longevity) is that the flattest part of the curve (I.e. where you get the least voltage drop for a given load is (you've guessed it!) between 20% & 80%.
Below 20% & voltage plummets & damage starts. Between 100% & 80% & again voltage decreases sharply to 80%, where the curve flattens.

Consequently (as that's the battery happy range & where its most efficient. You want the most bang for buck, & look after your battery, then that's where you need your battery to live.

Now... given the advice for EV charging is pretty much identical to best practice for lead-acid cells.... that suggests their performance curves aren't all that different.

However - you still appear determined to consider that I haven't a clue, cannot read properly, and am a bit thick. I think that I cam demonstrate that I'm not totally in the dark, and do have a few brain cells scampering about.

I think that simply because I'm not on the EV train & IMO are not "the answer" to all transport for all of us, while you do.... you're looking to discredit anything I say by any means possible (including inferring that I'm totally ignorant & clueless.
Basically you just don't like my opinion.

BTW.... you've come out with enough things that aren't quite correct - to demonstrate that you don't fully understand the subject yourself - and are compensating with bluff & bluster.

You have my deepest sympathies for your personal situation & that of your wife - & I can understand that this cannot be helping one bit.... but I do think you might try winding back on the condescension & rudeness a tad?

 

[GRW]

Just grabbed this off the Web.
Yep, the discharge curve shape of a L-ion battery is very similar to a deep-cycle lead acid battery.
Sojust as an intelligent lead-acid charger will ramp-down charge current to stabilise voltage (aka Absorption period) - then the BMS on an EV system is doing pretty much the same thing.
In fact the lead-acid chargers I was programming would only auto-charge to 80% (& cut off load before damaging discharge levels) unless the user manually did an override to charge to 100% (known as an Equalisation or "Gassing" Charge as a periodic maintenance task & to alleviate electrolyte stratification & sulphation of the charge plates immersed in the solution).

So overall, so far its not looking so different in behaviour (or in the way you charge & use) to me.
Everything so far still indicates to me - that Fast-Charging a L-ion battery isn't best practice.

 

[daleyd]

Cheers thats good to know...is that easy to setup with any provider?...it's a 64kwh battery so I make that £6.80 per 270 miles?

Petrol prices really annoy me because they just seem to charge what they can get away with...I can't wait to be free of that nonsense!

Sorry just seen this question.

Yes, it wasn’t difficult at all. You will need a charger - you can’t just install a 32a socket though! I think all new chargers have to have some sort of connectivity required, some you can link to your providers app and you get longer off peak Charging hours at a lower rate, but the times can be variable when grid demand is the lowest - you will be guaranteed a certain amount of hours so if you are ok with putting the car on charge at night then you should be quids in.

On ours we didn’t have this as it was a dumb charge box, with no internet connection. So we are stuck with a fixed hours tariff from 0030 to 0430 at 9.5p. It sounds restrictive but we’ve never needed to top up outside these hours, and that’s for probably 12-13000 miles per year. And that’s only topping up a couple of times a week generally. 4 hours a night adds around 120 miles on a 7kW charger.

Bear in mind that you generally don’t need to treat it like a petrol car, where you run it until you need to fill up. When my missus gets back from work every few days we just plug it in, takes about 10 seconds. Our driving pattern is such that we can do this because we know we can run it down and not need the mileage, but if you have unpredictable journeys then just plug it in every night and it’s full ready to go. We’ll generally let the range run down to about 80-90 miles then plug in.

Range anxiety - first time we drove it, we became paranoid looking at the range meter. For about 3 days, then after the initial nervousness it just doesn’t even register any more. For long journeys there are apps that show you where charging stations are, and whether they are occupied or broken etc. There’s no point me sugar coating the fact that if you regularly do long journeys (ie longer than the range of the vehicle) then an ev probably isn’t the best choice, but we have done longer journeys in ours and it’s been pretty painless to be honest. Convenient as an ice? No, but also just a matter of some simple forward planning can make it very unobtrusive.

There’s no doubt that it is an issue, and hopefully it will improve but even now it’s not unworkable. Of course if you drive 700 miles each day, across the arctic towing a trailer uphill both ways then you might have a different outlook

Despite what some people would have you think I’m no ev evangelist, if it was rubbish I’d say so, and if it wasn’t working out I’d have no problem going back to a petrol car. I can only give you my experience of owning one, which has been overwhelmingly positive, with some caveats.

Undoubtedly they won’t suit everyone, but some of the things that I hear and read about them just don’t match up with what I’ve experienced. We bought ours with no environmental agenda, or preconceived ideas - in fact we had pretty much ruled out buying one before we went. We just liked the space, comfort, quietness and economically it made sense. As ever, what is our situation won’t be the same for everyone.

 

[Maker]

Watts is the internationally recognised SI unit of power and therefore demands a capial letter, not lower case abbreviation.

By that logic, seconds, metres and litres should be capitalised too, but they're not.

The symbol for a watt is capitalised because it's someone's name (James Watt), like how joules and amps are J and A, but a gram is written as g not G, because it's taken from a Latin word, not from a name.

 

[My Old Landy]

We have three diesel vehicles but we are looking at replacing the Kuga with an EV. We hope to do a few weekends away and when not working from home my commute is only 28 miles round trip.
I can no longer work on my vehicles so getting an EV will make no difference to maintenance.
The cost is irrelevant really, for me it will be about comfort and ease of use.
I certainly don't have a 'green' agenda, my 1987 Ninety is is testament to that but not having to drive several miles to the nearest fuel station to fill up is appealing
It will probably be a second hand one (Hyundai Ineos) as they seem quite good and sub 20k for three years old.

 

[daleyd]

Just grabbed this off the Web.
Yep, the discharge curve shape of a L-ion battery is very similar to a deep-cycle lead acid battery:

View attachment 414419

What you access as part of the usable range of the battery doesn’t include the top and bottom % of the total battery capacity. So you’re effectively never allowed to start running the battery down below the point where it would damage the battery, and you can’t charge it to the point where it would damage it - that isn’t available to use. Given the sophisticated battery management systems they have it’s frankly inconceivable that they would allow you to do this.

Given they are offering 8-10 year warranties is it possible that they would allow you to run the batteries to such a state where they would be damaged and they might be liable to have to replace them? I appreciate they would do their utmost to wriggle out of it but it’s not very likely they would intentionally leave themselves open to that sort of process, or the loss of reputation/sales that might come with it.

EVs Explained: Battery Capacity, Gross Versus Net

Automakers quote their EV battery capacities in kilowatt-hours, but be careful when comparing across makers: not all capacities are the same.

www.caranddriver.com

 

[not done it yet]

By that logic, seconds, metres and litres should be capitalised too, but they're not.

The symbol for a watt is capitalised because it's someone's name (James Watt), like how joules and amps are J and A, but a gram is written as g not G, because it's taken from a Latin word, not from a name.

Agreed. I didn’t reference ALL SI units. I was specifically referring to the unit of power. Watts in the SI System is an upper case letter. OK?

 

[GRW]

View attachment 414421

What you access as part of the usable range of the battery doesn’t include the top and bottom % of the total battery capacity. So you’re effectively never allowed to start running the battery down below the point where it would damage the battery, and you can’t charge it to the point where it would damage it - that isn’t available to use. Given the sophisticated battery management systems they have it’s frankly inconceivable that they would allow you to do this.

Given they are offering 8-10 year warranties is it possible that they would allow you to run the batteries to such a state where they would be damaged and they might be liable to have to replace them? I appreciate they would do their utmost to wriggle out of it but it’s not very likely they would intentionally leave themselves open to that sort of process, or the loss of reputation/sales that might come with it.

EVs Explained: Battery Capacity, Gross Versus Net

Automakers quote their EV battery capacities in kilowatt-hours, but be careful when comparing across makers: not all capacities are the same.

www.caranddriver.com

I think that's pretty much just what I already said!
The charge curves I've seen (& that are in the manuals for the chargers of lead-acid traction stuff) mirrors the L-ion curve in shape (the numbers will of course be different, as they will be with other cell types like Ni-Cad which have a higher charge voltage than Lead-acid).

High fast-charge rates though....Still suggest that doing this isn't the best for the battery long term. I suspect the monitoring system will record & file every charge - how long and at what rate.... & the cynic in me knows that if a punter were to fast-charge regularly & then have a battery fail - that this will then mitigate or invalidate some or all of the warranty (read the small print etc which no-one does cos it'd take a week!)

Is the EV Battery warranty a Pro-Rata warranty (like the industrial traction packs are)?
I'd be surprised if they'd missed that clause out.