EVs anyone?

[Deckard]

I know I sound like a broken record but as a "real" car nut someone please tell me why I would buy a small EV rather than say a Fiesta and also how will the second hand market work for these cars when unlike a "normal" car the batteries will need to be replaced during certain intervals of its entire life....

[Cloudane]

Well it's down to the individual, EVs are not for everyone right now. A lot of people have them as a second car.

tl;dr you don't get one if you want to do frequent journeys of more than 50 miles or so, if you want long established technology and expect a 100% trouble free experience, if you're Jeremy Clarkson, or if your objective is to "save money because electricity is cheaper than fuel" (you don't. I'll get to that)

It's early, "beta" tech and we have a few years ahead of the inevitable queues for charging points as the charging networks inevitably will fail to keep up with demand You wouldn't get one if you do a lot of long journeys and/or hate the idea of stopping every 50 miles or so for a coffee/charge break. Plus real petrolhead types will probably always prefer the smell of the fuel and the manual gears and whatnot. You also wouldn't get one if you want to save money at the moment. It CAN be done, you can get a ~5-7 year old battery owned Leaf for around about what I paid for the Zoe and then only be paying electricity... personally I didn't like how the range sounded on those (40 miles or so?), don't fancy risking a knackered battery and generally liked the look of the Zoe more. IMHO (others may differ, it's a hot debate on EV forums) battery leasing is the sensible route right now and that means £50+/month depending on mileage. I was paying about £50-55 on fuel. The electricity costs and lack of tax cancel each other out. So I break about even - there's no money saving here. There's less to maintain and MOTs will generally just be a case of counting the tyres and charging 40 quid, BUT you have to do approved services as part of the battery agreement and the tyres apparently don't last quite as long, so again, the costs will about even out.

I honestly don't think in the long term that we're all going to be zipping around for super cheap even when they do become popular. The industry knows that the market will bear the monthly fuel costs and find a way to acquire that money through other means like increases to charging point costs, battery leasing etc.

It's worth noting that I calculated the MPG on my 1.6L Focus (BTW the Zoe feels a lot closer to that in terms of power, acceleration etc than the last cheap 900cc petrol runabout I drove) and because I mostly do short journeys I was averaging 20-25. Someone getting more economy out of petrol / driving less would probably find battery leasing an increase in monthly cost.

I got one because I'm a massive geek and absolutely loved the idea of being an early adopter of what is hopefully the next generation of motoring. I just got excited about it, and it's the first time I've been excited about cars in ages. I also wanted a car with more convenience bells and whistles. For just over £6500 (prices were even lower but demand went up a bit) I get a 2.5 year old car still in warranty, it's automatic (well, no gears) which I prefer, and it has all kinds of luxuries I don't think you get in a Fiesta or really many other second hand petrol cars at that price range (especially automatics): satnav / multimedia unit, climate control, reversing camera, cruise control / speed limiting, automatic lights, automatic wipers, hands free proximity locking, rear electric windows, etc etc. For me range is mostly a non-issue as I go to work and back, the next town and back, shops and back, that kind of thing and just the occasional trip out to the lakes or further afield (where I'd suck up the planned charge stops or get the train). Economically speaking I'm the sort of person who does so little it'd be more sensible to get a bicycle, but that's not where the fun lies (I'm aware there are others on the forum for which it does!)

Long as I'm paying £50/month for the privilege I have no qualms about the life of the battery. As for selling it on, no idea, yeah that could be an issue - if battery leasing goes away in the future for example then no one is going to want to buy a second hand car that is stuck with some old battery lease. I'm hoping to enjoy it enough to keep it for 5+ years and if it's worth anything after I'll consider it a bonus. I'm not going to claim that's a financially responsible risk to take. But that's life - not much fun without the odd risk here and there.

[Deckard]

Yeah a risk now and again kept us all alive but I just find the level of coverage in the motoring press incredible for such a niche market - You'd think it had or was imminently going to have say 20% market share rather than the current 1.9%. I'd also love to see the geographical data for ownership as I know from previous experience that charging points seem to be very city based although they are slowly spreading. Can you book these charging points as I imagine if you drove to Falmouth and the grand total of 5 charging points here (2 in a hotel) were being used you'd be rather stuffed.

Been in two Teslas now - zero interest for me as dull to look at and dull to drive - Strange you wouldn't have thought a 0-60 of 4 seconds would be impossible to dullify - somehow they managed.

Much like Grand Designs new "green" house builds I find the eco credentials very lacking - If you want an eco car buy a 2nd hand one not a new one with electric batteries for gods sake.

Asking about though I think most people will be happy for Google or Apple to supply some form of autonomous EV Uber type vehicle with no steering wheel in the future as the majority of people I know rarely enjoy driving and it would be a godsend for so many people and presumably super cheap rather than actually owning a car - I look forward to some future point when I get a automated glass roofed or convertible car back from Bristol to Falmouth late one night and can just lie drunk on the seats and watch the stars go by.....

[Cloudane]

You can't book charging points that I've ever seen.
*allegedly* the charging networks are keeping an eye on uptake and will install more chargers as demand goes up (though we'll see how this pans out in reality and whether they'll start removing them if the idea flops! Which hopefully it won't but you know, it's lucky we're getting as much funding as we are from a Tory government). You do have the issue at the moment of charge point reliability and normal cars parking in the spots (known as ICEing) so yeah it's always wise to make sure there are 2 within range and do short regular top ups rather than driving til it starts beeping at you. Ours in a small Northern market town has been fine so far, and I've never seen anyone else at it. I do know there's another Zoe driver in town. I'm going to Blackpool tomorrow (73 mile trip, charger at the other end, I'll also do a top up halfway) so that'll be an interesting one as there are a grand total of 3 charge points there.

One help is the battery rental on mine includes a flatbed pickup and drop off at the nearest charging point if you go flat (so it's in their interest to make sure you don't)

Never been in a Tesla but I find the Zoe quite exciting. I am admittedly quite easily pleased. To each their own though, again, "no petrol" isn't exactly going to excite petrol heads. I'm more of a electronic gadget person, so always found ICE cars quite boring to be honest

Mine's second hand with batteries, if that compromise is okay with you
On the motorways the Ecotricity points get all their power from renewable energy btw, you can do the same by using them for your tariff at home, before you start with the "electricity still has to come from dirty old power stations" bit. But I didn't really buy it to be smug about "being green" or anything. However remember the source of the power isn't the fault of the vehicle.

I can't see how autonomous vehicles will work out here in the Lakes, but we'll see in time...

[Cloudane]

Forgot to update.

Anyone with a Zoe: if the range is a bit tight (on a trip B reset you should be seeing 80 miles or so, if it's 70 or so or less then it might need it, another sign is >1 hour sat at 99% charge) consider asking for a Battery Management System (BMS) update. Mine was saying around 50-55 miles on a full charge a couple of weeks ago, pretty bad, and I plugged an ODB2 adapter in with the CanZE app to find a shocking battery state of health of 70%!

Fortunately (for me and RCI, who would've had to replace the battery) it was a miscalculation and either the BMS update or the process of powering the main traction battery system down to apply it, has fixed the bad calculation and returned it to 98%. Lots and lots of Zoe owners reporting this. My range shot up to 80 miles and I've actually got that out of it on a charge too. Some say it's just a visual thing that makes the range meter (guess-o-meter) more accurate but whatever, I'll take it So much better now. It's the differnce between taking the mildly illegal back entrance to the nearest Northbound services to charge, exit and get to the southbound junction to merge on, vs. confidently making it to the nearest Southbound.

[matt303]

My late 2015 Zoe was in real need of the BMS update when I handed it back, I tried to get it updated but the dealer gave me a load of crap about how what I was seeing was normal even after specifically booking the car in for the update, so rather than waste anymore time with them I left it to the next owner.

[Cloudane]

If it ended in TXE I ended up with it Great now though. The dealers are very reluctant to do it as it's a day's work for them fully powering the car down, 2 hours to apply update, all the tests to do etc and chances are you'll ask for a courtesy car so that you're not kicking around their waiting room for 6-7 hours. So they do tend to try and bullshit you.

I think of it as like going to the doctors - if you go in and tell them what drugs you want, they'll get arsey. If you tell them the symptoms that match the solution number for the BMS update (as found on RZOC's site) then ooh, now your symptoms match what they decide for themselves is the right treatment...

Or worst case you pay them to do a diagnostic with their CLIP tool and confirm what you confirmed over ODB2 that it's less than 75% SOH and needs replacing with a new pack and oddly enough they get hold of Renault's Monsieur Scotty who tells them to do the BMS update before jumping to such conclusions!

[matt303]

We took the car to the RZOC recommended dealer in Leicester and while we were there inquired about getting a new Zoe. I have a very low tolerance of being messed around and between how we were spoken too about the BMS update and inability of the dealership to even provide prices for a rapid charging 40kWh Zoe that one dealership visit made me cross getting another Renault off my list.

[Cloudane]

Low tolerance indeed
Some dealers are good, some suck, also some are franchised. As much as I enjoy RZOC and am very grateful for things they do like figuring out the BMS situation, I tend to take the whole "club dealer" and "club recommended charger" ideas with a pinch of salt - no idea if they get commission but in my mind it's a group of people on Facebook (and a fairly quiet traditional forum), not a partnership service.
Mine (DSG) is somewhere in the middle, they get things sorted when you chase them around, but you do have to chase them around.

[random_dave]

I bought a 2nd hand Leaf a month ago now.

We did a lot of thinking about what our journeys were like in the car, and with my office moving out of walking distance and the wife getting a "real" job (3 days a week) across town there was no way that my Alfa was going to be wise having to try and be a second car again.

Once we actually thought about it, probably 90% of our car journeys are probably a 10 mile round trip, and if not through town, certainly still on the edge of town

I can't charge at home easily, but although the local infrastructure could be better, there's at least usable chargers in convenient places for the wife to park in town one day, around the corner from my current office, and supermarkets that we usually shop at, with a couple of free rapid chargers dotted around a little out the way (although it's worked out that my favourite is near a supermarket, so at least i can do a weekly shop if i go there, and it's in a quiet location (at the weekend anyway) so it's a nice excuse to take a flask of tea and read a magazine for half an hour whilst it juices up)

A full charge will see us through a week nicely, but obviously we take opportunities to keep it topped up here and there when convenient.

we've used £20 of diesel in our other main car (Seat Leon) and the alfa has been sat in my office car park, waiting for me to take it to someone who wants a summer project to work on.

Initial calculations, assuming it was a 2nd car, replacing the Alfa, it would save us around £1600 in fuel per year, but with how little we've had to use the Seat, I can see it saving a fair bit more than that (also, calculations were made by spending £0.15 per KW/h, but in realty we've not had to pay to charge, occasionally we'll be paying to use a pay and display car park with free charging, but we'd probably have had to pay for parking in those situations anyway)

I thought that coming from an Alfa, and the "sports" model of the Leon (and a performance/race car background) i'd hate it to drive, but it's odd. Its a completely different experience, but equally as pleasurable, in a different way. Especially as it's a car for driving around the city, it's just so comfortable and relaxing and effortless to drive around in traffic or slow streets, with the suspension managing to smooth out the potholes and speed humps, but the battery location preventing excessive body roll, and probably my favourite thing is that I can listen to podcasts without having to turn the volume up to the point that it nearly hurts (my oh my the diesel Seat seems ridiculously noisy now)

So, although we definitely need the Seat for the long range capabilities, by the time we're looking at replacing it I'm hoping, and can pretty honestly see that tech will have advanced to a stage where we will be able to replace it with a future generation EV that will have the longer journeys covered, I'd have absolutely no problem with going with another electric car.

Sure I really really like the feel of a planted 3 litre V6 (although it's not actually got that much more range than some EV's) and the fact i can very quickly top it up and be on my way, but last time I had to drive it to Scotland it cost a small fortune (£60 per 250 miles approx) and it wasn't really that comfortable at the end of the day, and I couldn't fit much in it (I was quite surprised how spacious the rear seats and boot of the Leaf are, I assumed they would be compromised with the battery platform)

Perhaps I've just grown up and I am a bit more sensible about where I get my thrills from (pedal a bike up a hill, throw myself back down, 0 fossil fuels burnt) It really does feel like (at least living in a town/city, and with a not excessive commute) that EV's are definitely the future

[Cloudane]

Will admit, I'm starting to see that they'll need a bit more reliability for mainstream adoption, or maybe it's just that mine's French.

Currently I'm trucking around in an 8 seater diesel from Enterprise, because a "Check electric system" message came up and wouldn't go away (ordinarily it's the 12V battery needing a charge after having sat around for too long, but mine hasn't been and the battery is still within its warrantied 3 years, so it could be something more serious). So it's back at the dealer being looked at (eventually - they warned me from the outset they're very very busy and will get around to mine when they get around to it). I'd have considered it an isolated incident, but judging from the forums, the Zoe is a bit of a boomerang with the dealerships where electrical errors are concerned.

[matt303]

I've got to admit I thought long and hard about reliability stories when getting our Zoe, it does seem to suffer more than any other EV, some of it's down to it's "unique" charging system and some seems to be down to Renault not rolling reliability feedback into updates to production. You hardly see any reports of problems from Leaf owners even with about 4 times more of them on the road.

While I'm posting, the Soul EV is easily returning 120 to 135+ miles of range per charge now the weather has warmed up, very pleased with it

[Cloudane]

I have her back now, it was the DC-DC converter that keeps the 12V battery charged off the 400V one. I explain it to others as "basically like the alternator"
Previously they used to change the entire PEC (or PEB on older models, I think it's Power and Electric Controller/Block) which took months and cost them £5000 a pop. Thankfully now the dealers are allowed to open it up and replace components within. Sounds like they already had the DC-DC unit and that as I noted it's a common fault, but because they noticed some bus bars (that distribute the power) were a bit worse for wear, something about cracks in the ceramic coating, those had to be ordered from France.

In total it took a week, including bank holiday, so not too bad. With a bit of luck the replacement parts are more reliable revisions. Touch wood, most seem to motor on trouble-free after the common warranty-covered DC-DC failure. I'll definitely be extending the warranty though.

[Yak]

I'm still very happy with my Zoe, it's been hassle free since I've had it (the only flaw I've noticed is that every 4 weeks or so I lose a bit of tyre pressure in the back right tyre and need to top it up from ~30PSI to 36). I've a Rolec charger at home, and by far the bulk of my journeys are no more than 20 miles hither and yon so it fits my usage profile very well. I am thinking that maybe by the time I've had it a year I might look into the possibility of trading up to one with the larger battery and quicker charging, we'll see what they say at the dealership around that time. It'd just be that bit more convenient on the odd occasion I have to do longer journeys.

We've got a short break coming up in a few weeks in mid Wales and I close a B&B place that also has a charger. Really if I were running any kind of a business where you might expect people to hang around for a few hours putting in a charge point ought to be a no brainer. Especially here in west Wales where once you're off the M4 it's a bit of a desert for charge points.

Love it to drive though. Having got used to just how nice it is driving an EV I don't think I'll ever be able to go back.

[Cloudane]

Common wisdom on the Zoe forums is to have the tyres at 40PSI to reduce wear on the outer edges - speculation abound that they have a deal with Michelin to make them wear faster with the manufacturer's recommendation

Rolec here too, love the simplicity.

Definitely wouldn't go back. One thing being that I felt it was time for that kind of "green progress" and it'd be a great shame to regress. Also getting her back after the big noisy diesel people carrier I was loaned, was a case of re-living the blissful silence and the way you just "whoosh" instead of "grr" when you welly your foot down! That 0-40 acceleration is something else...
Fossils just feel archaic now. Like going back to a typewriter or at least a CRT display.