The all things EV chat thread

[Pants]

Charging an EV is expensive and time consuming

Just lost my EV charging virginity... was down to 39% and therefore decided to get some juice. Our supermarket shows that it has 6 charging stations ( 4 of which are obstructed) - but is the only fast charger nearby. So off i went to seek the holy grail. I have Electorvese and a BMW charge card (which uses Ionicity and BP pulse). Left the house around 11:30, drove past the petrol garage!!. As expected the supermarket one was in use, so parked in the next bay and waited. And waited and waited. Went inside, dropped off some dry cleaning stuff and came back to resume my wait.

Kept looking for other stations in the neighborhood. I know that our town center's multi-storey car park has chargers. So decided to head there. The queues to get in there were a mile long, so abandoned that.

Finally found a fast charger in an office complex. So drove there to find 9 EVBox chargers sitting idle. Unfortunately, it wont accept Electroverse app and needs either a EVBox App or a charge card. Luckily, i had my BMW Charge card. So presto, it allowed me to charge.

At 12:20, I plugged it into a CCS and lo and behold it was a 40kwh one (even though it said 29KwH). The car display said, 80% by 1:18... 1 hour of sitting around. So walked down to our town centre. I never go there - dont like getting stabbed. Enjoyed a coffee, then went and saw the decorations. Went into Waterstones and bought a real book - for reading when i charge next. At about 1:05, the App notified me that the car has hit 80% and unlocked the cable. So scrambled back. Tried to increase target from 80% to 90% (just in case it can get some extra juice - but the car wont do that). Got home for about 1:30. Now the car can do about 180miles on it. The app would not tell me how much it will cost me, other than saying that i put 32KwH

In summary:
Total time to refuel >> 2 hours
Total cost>> 3.95 coffee, £12.99 book and whatever EVBox will charge me.
Plenty of squeaky bum and anxiety trying to figure it out.

Welcome to the world of EVs

Sorry if your bubble has been burst. Just guessing but 32 KWA probably has cost you £20/25 wthout all the other add ons and has given you another 120/130 miles (??). A £25 5 min splash and dash of diesel would give me the same.

Yeh, I get all the environmental stuff (much of it biased I must say) but EV's do not make much financial (and mental wellbeing) sense unless you can use cheap rate overnight charging or "free" daytime plug in at work say. Once out in the big wide world ....

 

[PJ87]

Put you could put out a ICE fire by pis*ing on it... dont try it on a 70KwH battery..

Yet we think nothing of bringing highly combustible gas into our home for heating

When that goes there isn't much left to take a wee on.

 

[Mudball]

Do you not have any kind of charger at home? Even a 3 pin would do and charge whilst you sleep.

I dont have a home charger yet. charging via a regular 3pin would take a day, so not planning to. My 7KwH is coming next month along with the solar... now I cant wait for it to arrive

You really aren't selling them to me.
A mate of mine has an EV Jag, but he won't park it in his massive garage just in case it catches fire!
He doesn't want to incinerate his 'proper car'.

Last month, when the multi-storey at Luton Airport caught fire, the first finger of suspicion was an EV fire. However they have subsequently figured out that it was a diesel Land Rover due to a 'car fault'... So i would tell your friend to keep the EV inside and the proper one outside

 

[PJ87]

I dont have a home charger yet. charging via a regular 3pin would take a day, so not planning to. My 7KwH is coming next month along with the solar... now I cant wait for it to arrive


Last month, when the multi-storey at Luton Airport caught fire, the first finger of suspicion was an EV fire. However they have subsequently figured out that it was a diesel Land Rover due to a 'car fault'... So i would tell your friend to keep the EV inside and the proper one outside

You need to reset your thinking on charging, use the 3 pin until the 7kw arrives mate. Trust me. Charge it whenever your not using it.. if you have a suitable socket available

Yes it would take "a day" but what's your daily use? Mines 35% max of my battery .. 35% of a 45kw battery is 16kw roughly .. that's 8 hours on a 2kw 3 pin

Little and often

 

[Slime]

That would be his "proper car" full of highly combustible fuel that needs a series of small combustions to move as opposed to something that has less fires than ICE engines?

Sounds like your mates a bit of an idiot

Actually, he's not an idiot at all, but thanks for that.

 

[bobmac]

I m going to get some juice tomorrow.

Assuming you had plugged in last night you would have added 90-100 miles of range even at 30p per kw that's under £10. There would have been no reason to go looking for more ''fuel'' today, especially at the prices the public system charges for fast charging.

Little and often

It's called grazing.
Rather than filling your ICE up once a week, you charge little and often

 

[bobmac]

Actually, he's not an idiot at all, but thanks for that.

Hybrid cars had the worst fire record.
Hybrid cars had 3474.5 fires per 100,000 sale;
Petrol cars had 1,529.9 fires per 100,000 sales and
EVs had just 25.1 fires per 100,000 sales.

20 Jun 2023

 

[cliveb]

Sorry if your bubble has been burst. Just guessing but 32 KWA probably has cost you £20/25 wthout all the other add ons and has given you another 120/130 miles (??). A £25 5 min splash and dash of diesel would give me the same.

You have a diesel that uses 19p of fuel per mile? What is it - a bus?

 

[cliveb]

Hybrid cars had the worst fire record.
Hybrid cars had 3474.5 fires per 100,000 sale;
Petrol cars had 1,529.9 fires per 100,000 sales and
EVs had just 25.1 fires per 100,000 sales.

20 Jun 2023

I'm suspicious of those stats.
Add the figures for petrol and EV together and you get 1,555 fires per 100,000.
What is it about hybrids that makes them more than twice as likely to catch fire than the aggregate of cars using the two types of motive power?
What other system(s) do they have that is massively susceptible to catching fire?

 

[Bunkermagnet]

Most ICE fires will be down to electrical issues, and the main reason cars catch fire is brake fluid onto hot exhaust parts.

 

[Mudball]

Came across this video about real world stats and charging... Matt is brilliant as always... (from Feb 2023)

 

[bobmac]

I'm suspicious of those stats.

You have every right to be suspicious of those stats, just dont choose an ICE car over an EV because you think it is less likely to catch fire than an EV because it's not true.
Unless of course you have other evidence to prove otherwise.

 

[larmen]

Came across this video about real world stats and charging... Matt is brilliant as always... (from Feb 2023)

I like him. I probably would check out a carwow video before buying a new one.

There is also a Norwegian guy Bjorn who drives cars to their ‘death’. He does it in the cold, even more real world.

 

[Mudball]

I like him. I probably would check out a carwow video before buying a new one.

There is also a Norwegian guy Bjorn who drives cars to their ‘death’. He does it in the cold, even more real world.

i agree Matt is good... though these days he seems to have been bitten by the american bug of racing cars and exotic cars. Going down the Clarkson route.
His USP was that he was a very practical guy with a good brit sense of humor..

Will look up Bjorn

 

[larmen]

Hybrid cars had the worst fire record.
Hybrid cars had 3474.5 fires per 100,000 sale;
Petrol cars had 1,529.9 fires per 100,000 sales and
EVs had just 25.1 fires per 100,000 sales.

20 Jun 2023

We had these numbers here before, but they are still astonishing.

3.5 in ever 100 ice cars catch fire. That’s 1 fire in this road or the 2 next ones. All around the country. I have never seen a car fire.

 

[PJ87]

We had these numbers here before, but they are still astonishing.

3.5 in ever 100 ice cars catch fire. That’s 1 fire in this road or the 2 next ones. All around the country. I have never seen a car fire.

Ive seen 2 in my life, both last few years. They were terrifying to drive past .. real wow hope everyone got out moments

I had smoke fill inside of my car once (the big one) luckily the coolant had just been changed and the leak on the hot engine had caused the smoke .. but was scary

 

[Bunkermagnet]

I decided to give that video a go.
The one thing that stands out for me, is the weight of the BMW, 2.6 tonne unladen!!

 

[bobmac]

We had these numbers here before, but they are still astonishing.

3.5 in ever 100 ice cars catch fire. That’s 1 fire in this road or the 2 next ones. All around the country. I have never seen a car fire.

I'm sure if the figures were wrong you'd have every petrol and diesel company and every ICE company calling them out

 

[Mudball]

I decided to give that video a go.
The one thing that stands out for me, is the weight of the BMW, 2.6 tonne unladen!!

I have one.. and it is a very heavy car.... but the drive is superb and it feels lighter than my prev low weight SUV.

 

[Pants]

You have a diesel that uses 19p of fuel per mile? What is it - a bus?

Nah! Just a lazy bit of poor maths. Was thinking £20/25, about 3 gallons, 42mpg, 126miles.