The range debate

adunis · 30-08-2020 10:17am #1

Did one of my occasional long journeys on Friday last.
Left home at 0930
130kph up the motorway
Stopped at J3 for 25mins no delays/waiting etc.
Landed in Tesla hq at 1215
Played with a model 3 for 1.5 hrs so excited I forgot to charge .
Popped over to Talbot hotel for 21 mins
Again no waiting/delays.
Shot up to Skerries direction fast as the traffic allowed.
Landed at 1500
Spent an hour dismantling gym equipment and stuffing into the poor ioniq 250kg of weights plus's bench plate rack dipping frame and barbels probably 300kg all in.
Left at 1600 on the nose
130kph all the way back down the motorway
Stopped at j14 for 27mins again no delays/waiting.
Landed home at 1915.
So to recap
610kms
73 mins charging
7 hrs driving
130 indicated the whole way(121 GPS)
Forgot the consumption figures but was pushing 17 k/100 on the way up as bad as ever I've seen it.
Cold wet and rainy going
Better coming home.

Puts a bit of perspective on the whole usability debate I think

Silent Running · 30-08-2020 10:27am

adunis wrote: »

Did one of my occasional long journeys on Friday last.
Left home at 0930
130kph up the motorway
Stopped at J3 for 25mins no delays/waiting etc.
Landed in Tesla hq at 1215
Played with a model 3 for 1.5 hrs so excited I forgot to charge .
Popped over to Talbot hotel for 21 mins
Again no waiting/delays.
Shot up to Skerries direction fast as the traffic allowed.
Landed at 1500
Spent an hour dismantling gym equipment and stuffing into the poor ioniq 250kg of weights plus's bench plate rack dipping frame and barbels probably 300kg all in.
Left at 1600 on the nose
130kph all the way back down the motorway
Stopped at j14 for 27mins again no delays/waiting.
Landed home at 1915.
So to recap
610kms
73 mins charging
7 hrs driving
130 indicated the whole way(121 GPS)
Forgot the consumption figures but was pushing 17 k/100 on the way up as bad as ever I've seen it.
Cold wet and rainy going
Better coming home.

Puts a bit of perspective on the whole usability debate I think

Ioniq is a cracking EV. I miss mine. I don't think any of the current crop come close, just a pity about the small battery.

slave1 · 30-08-2020 1:00pm

Few weeks back I drove from Athlone to Aberdeen and back to Ayr, 970kms in one day, Tesla supercharging the whole way and stops when I would have needed a break anyhow for coffee/food.
We are already there, just need reliable hubs, range not the issue

[Deleted User] · 30-08-2020 3:24pm

In my opinion more range is always better, the less one has to rely on a poor charging network the better.

[Deleted User] · 30-08-2020 3:29pm

I could survive with a m3 SR+ which is around 300 Km real life from what I've heard and supercharging I suppose and just take the Diesel when we need to go on a longer trip to the west + it would keep the miles down on the EV, that's the way I'm thinking now + it will avoid all the issues involved with lack of chargers and queues. Not an issue with the Rex of course but if I change.

zg3409 · 30-08-2020 9:54pm

I have no issue with range anxiety. Its will the public charger be blocked, busy or broken when I get there. Too many single 50kW chargers on main routes, sometimes broken for days, often busy at leak times. Its one thing charging for 40 minutes, but queuing for 60 or waiting on an abandoned car at charger with no idea when they will return, with no other nearby 50kW charger is the issue. I also have a problem with family especially kids in the car who are often asleep and wake up the second the car stops and then are awake the rest of the trip. They would sleep for 3 hours if the EV had 3 hours motorway range.

The solution is clearly hubs of 4+ 50kW+ chargers at key locations between cities, and placing a backup 44kW+ charger next to every 50kW charger in low demand locations. My nearest fast charger was dodgy for 1 year with it taking up to 8 attempts to start a charge.

The cars are brilliant, the public 50kW chargers less so.

unkel · 30-08-2020 11:05pm

adunis wrote: »

130 indicated the whole way(121 GPS)

You need a new phone, yours is broken

130km/h indicated is 125km/h actual speed in Ioniq.

unkel · 30-08-2020 11:07pm

zg3409 wrote: »

The solution is clearly hubs of 4+ 50kW+ chargers at key locations between cities

Brilliant idea. Now who thought of that and implemented that many years ago all over the world with zero cost to the local tax payer? Make that several times faster than 50kW and typically 8 charging stalls and no need for any app or dongle or anything, just plug in and.....super charge

Kramer · 30-08-2020 11:43pm

unkel wrote: »

Brilliant idea. Now who thought of that and implemented that many years ago all over the world with zero cost to the local tax payer?

?

.

Black_Knight · 31-08-2020 12:05am

zg3409 wrote: »

The cars are brilliant, the public 50kW chargers less so.

You mention broken chargers being an issue along with blocked and busy ones, but is broken that prevalent? Ecars say their fast chargers are 99% available, meaning at any given time just over 1 fast charger is broken. Looks like it's tullamore at the moment. 2 nines is pretty poor availability though IMO. Assuming a different unit isn't failing every day, it implies that ecars are just very slow to fix a unit when it needs fixing.

I have seen/heard a few chargers having RFID issues though, which I assume ecars doesn't count as being an issue.

Silent Running · 31-08-2020 8:05am

Black_Knight wrote: »

You mention broken chargers being an issue along with blocked and busy ones, but is broken that prevalent? Ecars say their fast chargers are 99% available, meaning at any given time just over 1 fast charger is broken. Looks like it's tullamore at the moment. 2 nines is pretty poor availability though IMO. Assuming a different unit isn't failing every day, it implies that ecars are just very slow to fix a unit when it needs fixing.

I have seen/heard a few chargers having RFID issues though, which I assume ecars doesn't count as being an issue.

A couple of years ago Ecotricity said that about their Electric Highway chargers in the UK. You could hear people blowing tea out of their noses from here. :P

copeyhagen · 31-08-2020 8:48am

drove to portlaise last week for work, on the way home popped into the new service station on the midway roundabout.

ESB have a new 'supercharging' stall there. 40kw... thats what i was getting anyway through the CCS in the model 3. now, granted it game me about 70km of range in about 20 minutes but still...

the bighger question is why is there a maximum of 4 cars can be charged at once, in a station built in 2020, like wake the **** up.

Black_Knight · 31-08-2020 8:50am

copeyhagen wrote: »

drove to portlaise last week for work, on the way home popped into the new service station on the midway roundabout.

ESB have a new 'supercharging' stall there. 40kw... thats what i was getting anyway through the CCS in the model 3. now, granted it game me about 70km of range in about 20 minutes but still...

the bighger question is why is there a maximum of 4 cars can be charged at once, in a station built in 2020, like wake the **** up.

I believe the new units at midway are limited for now. And free.

Black_Knight · 31-08-2020 8:54am

Silent Running wrote: »

A couple of years ago Ecotricity said that about their Electric Highway chargers in the UK. You could hear people blowing tea out of their noses from here. :P

Might add some logging around availability to my script, get an idea around the actual reported availability. 99% is probably right for availability as the app says so, but we all know the app can take a couple of days to reflect reality. Still, 99% is low imo.

copeyhagen · 31-08-2020 8:58am

Black_Knight wrote: »

I believe the new units at midway are limited for now. And free.

yeah, i just checked my recdents and it says promotional offer, should have stayed longer.

are they supposed to be 110?

zg3409 · 31-08-2020 9:07am

Black_Knight wrote: »

You mention broken chargers being an issue along with blocked and busy ones, but is broken that prevalent? Ecars say their fast chargers are 99% available, meaning at any given time just over 1 fast charger is broken. Looks like it's tullamore at the moment. 2 nines is pretty poor availability though IMO. Assuming a different unit isn't failing every day, it implies that ecars are just very slow to fix a unit when it needs fixing.

I have seen/heard a few chargers having RFID issues though, which I assume ecars doesn't count as being an issue.

ESB lie on their statistics. If you ring them to tell them a charger is faulty they often mention others have also reported the same charger faulty that day. The app shows the charger is 100% OK. Its ESB policy to not count a charger as faulty until and engineer visits, resets it and attempts to fix it. Only then if they cannot fix it, and leave, do they mark it on the app as faulty, and let people know. Only then does the timer start. They also don't seem to fix them at weekends.

For example a charger goes faulty on a Friday, is down Friday, Saturday, Sunday and engineer visits on Monday. They give the charger a kick and it works again. According to ESB zero down time, but for users 3 or 4 days. How many people get a shock when this "OK" charger does not work for them all weekend. Take other sites where chargers were marked as due replacement say like clifden 22kW AC. That has been broken for months. Do they count a "due for replacement" as faulty. I don't think so. They removed the 50kW charger in laghy Donegal for 3 or 4 months due to resurfacing car park, was that counted as faulty or OK? Often it has taken me 3 or 4 attempts to get charger to start (record was 8). The charger near Dundalk southbound RFID reader has not worked for weeks (if not months), but can be started using the app Plugshare app is good for seeing real status and cpinfo.ie was good for archived esb status. There is 3 Facebook groups, 2 ROI, 1NI where users post issues. Ionity seems worse, often at least one charger seems to be down on each site, the next day a different one is not working. Lots of people got stranded recently in Sligo when the charger in grange was dodgy for weeks, app said it was OK. Laghy next charger north of it was offline too. Some people ended up on AC chargers slow charging to try reach next charger. Its a real problem. Out of the 3 times I tried easygo 50kW 2 of 3 it did not work even after phone calls. The new 44kW chargers in kells and Cavan all gave issues,

On long trips I attempt to fill to 80% at every 50kW charger, because the next charger may or may not work. I go out of my way to pick routes with more chargers, as many national roads only have single chargers. People are buying cars with 64kWh batteries as public charging is a problem, and these people are still having problems when they do stop on longer trips.

lies damn lies and statistics

zg3409 · 31-08-2020 9:28am

A snapshot provided by ZapMap for 29 May 2019 showed that almost a quarter of chargers (in uk) were out of service. Of those, 7.5% were flagged up with a problem while 16% were not communicating their status, leading Zap-Map to assume they were not working.

Found this too
While uk data from July 2018 showed that 8.5% of devices were out-of-service (including 1.1% partially operational), this has now reduced to 5.8% (1.9% partially), year 2019, a reflection of the ongoing investment by UK networks in new charging infrastructure.

For North of Ireland the ESB chargers are very unreliable with many AC units broken for years. Many DC units are Chademo with no CCS cable.

If ROI was say 5% faulty 50kW at any point in time (due to newer chargers, better repair times, its still a big problem with single 50kW per site. If only 1% show as faulty on the app, then this gives a high chance people are visiting known faulty chargers.

The Irish EV owners association suggested to ESB that the app should be modified to show green, yellow, red, where yellow would indicate issues reported by users but not yet confirmed by a site visit. However the app is a bought in format, so if they even wanted to do this, it might require expensive customisation of app. At least easygo say on Facebook when they have chargers down. Ionity also seem to show chargers down on app.

slave1 · 31-08-2020 9:33am

copeyhagen wrote: »

drove to portlaise last week for work, on the way home popped into the new service station on the midway roundabout.

ESB have a new 'supercharging' stall there. 40kw... thats what i was getting anyway through the CCS in the model 3. now, granted it game me about 70km of range in about 20 minutes but still...

the bighger question is why is there a maximum of 4 cars can be charged at once, in a station built in 2020, like wake the **** up.

Your charging speed probably limited by battery voltage/SOC when you arrived.
In my S, I can't get more than 43/44 from the 50 units regardless of SOC

copeyhagen · 31-08-2020 10:11am

now that you emntion it, at castlebellingham, the car started to charge at 110 but dropped to about 60/65 average for the majority.

when i was there in the S last eyar im sure it was 110 for way way longer. maybe im remembering it wrong!

beauf · 31-08-2020 10:24am

zg3409 wrote: »

....I also have a problem with family especially kids in the car who are often asleep and wake up the second the car stops and then are awake the rest of the trip. They would sleep for 3 hours if the EV had 3 hours motorway range.
...

Maybe they could create a music track of road noise you could play through the speakers and gently rock the car... Even a fake motor noise...

unkel · 31-08-2020 10:34am

Kramer wrote: »

?

.

I know you are posting in jest, but Ionity only started in 2019, is far from reliable, you still need app / card, their charges are very expensive and it was posted here recently they did get a little bit of tax payers money

But at least they are moving in the right direction. Unlike the 100% tax payer funded ESB who seem busy replacing relatively fast AC charge points with very slow DC charge points :rolleyes:

KCross · 31-08-2020 11:23am

unkel wrote: »

Unlike the 100% tax payer funded ESB...

How did you come to that conclusion?

liamog · 31-08-2020 11:30am

unkel wrote: »

I know you are posting in jest, but Ionity only started in 2019, is far from reliable, you still need app / card, their charges are very expensive and it was posted here recently they did get a little bit of tax payers money

But at least they are moving in the right direction. Unlike the 100% tax payer funded ESB who seem busy replacing relatively fast AC charge points with very slow DC charge points :rolleyes:

Point of order, the current eCars expansion plan is 50% funded by the Climate Action Fund, the other 50% comes from ESB.

krissovo · 31-08-2020 11:31am

My sweet spot now for range is 250 > 300 kms in the primary family car, I can go anywhere I need in the country in a reasonable amount of time following natural breaks I would take anyway. Any more than that, now that I am experienced is waste for my needs, the only reason now I would want more is if there is a way of powering my home in the event of a power outage.

With that range I can get from my home in Cork County to my regular routes, the family home in Kerry (188 kms), Dublin (240) and Rosslare Harbor (170) when I visit family in the UK.

Prior to covid with my regular site visits to Belfast from Cork closer to 400 would have been the sweet spot.

Our 2nd car realistically only needs a max 150kms of range.

KCross · 31-08-2020 11:40am

liamog wrote: »

Point of order, the current eCars expansion plan is 50% funded by the Climate Action Fund, the other 50% comes from ESB.

Dont let facts get in the way of a good rant though!

And as a comparison Ionity is 20% taxpayer funded iirc.

And importantly they are feeding different segments of the market. Ionity is doing motorways only. eCars is covering alot more than that including AC so its not an apples to apples comparison to begin with.

liamog · 31-08-2020 11:58am

KCross wrote: »

Dont let facts get in the way of a good rant though!

Just wait till we reveal that Fortum is a Finnish semi state

unkel · 31-08-2020 2:27pm

liamog wrote: »

Point of order, the current eCars expansion plan is 50% funded by the Climate Action Fund, the other 50% comes from ESB.

Is that new? They actually partly use their own funds? Haven't seen that mentioned here before.

liamog · 31-08-2020 2:41pm

unkel wrote: »

Is that new? They actually partly use their own funds? Haven't seen that mentioned here before.

Sorry I thought that was common knowledge. Here's something to back it up

This initiative is 50% financed by the Government's Climate Action Fund with the remainder funded by ESB.

https://www.constructionireland.ie/construction-news/258005/20m-investment-triggers-national-rollout-of-ecars-charging-network

Miscreant · 31-08-2020 5:22pm

zg3409 wrote: »

ESB lie on their statistics. If you ring them to tell them a charger is faulty they often mention others have also reported the same charger faulty that day........

For example a charger goes faulty on a Friday, is down Friday, Saturday, Sunday and engineer visits on Monday......

On long trips I attempt to fill to 80% at every 50kW charger, because the next charger may or may not work. I go out of my way to pick routes with more chargers, as many national roads only have single chargers. People are buying cars with 64kWh batteries as public charging is a problem, and these people are still having problems when they do stop on longer trips.

lies damn lies and statistics

I have edited the above as I didn't want to quote the entire thing but you can read the original above anyway (thanks ZG3409).

This entire post is the reason why I had "Charger Anxiety" in a Kona 64 when I had one for a weekend. The whole palaver about getting to a charger, making sure it works, if not having to move somewhere else, all while having somewhere to be sounds absolutely exhausting and a complete PITA to me.

If companies are not taking it seriously and providing proper fixes within a reasonable timeframe then the charging network/infrastructure will be useless. I think this has been borne out of the fact that charging here was free for so long so there was no incentive to fix a faulty charger. The "ah sure, you're getting it for free, stop moaning" attitude seems to have won out.

I hope, now that EV owners are being asked to pay for charging, that this all changes and chargers become more reliable or fixed quicker. I also hope that the landscape is not so fractured in future, as from what I can see, you need multiple RFID cards/Apps to be able to charge an EV these days.... Just give people a charger that accepts a Debit/Credit card and charges accordingly, it will take all the initial stress out of the whole process for EV newbies like I will be in a couple of years time (once most issues have been ironed out with the network).

All this being a bit off topic I realise but to answer the original point of this thread: For my requirements (I won't use the term "needs"), an EV with 250km range at an average of 100kph would be perfect. I drive Dublin to Galway every 2 weeks and would do it without stopping (only a couple of hours). I can use a 3 pin charger once I get to my destination so that is no biggie. €35k is also too much to pay for a car with that range but that is a different discussion. I know you save money on fuel but why pass that money to the vehicle manufacturer instead? Sub €30k EVs with the above range requirements are only a couple of years away, at that point I think mass adoption will kick in but the charging infrastructure needs to be ready.

Black_Knight · 31-08-2020 6:07pm

Second hand market will start to open up EVs to more in the next year or so. Year old konas will be going for around 31-34k, and they'll do 400km for you. Same with the niro.
The well respected ioniq28 is around 18-19k now for a 3 year old one, and no sign of battery degradation.

markpb · 31-08-2020 6:14pm

Miscreant wrote: »

I also hope that the landscape is not so fractured in future, as from what I can see, you need multiple RFID cards/Apps to be able to charge an EV these days.... Just give people a charger that accepts a Debit/Credit card and charges accordingly

I'd imagine the lack of card acceptance is for a reason. Unattended card acceptance charges (for merchants) is expensive.

The range debate

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