Random EV thoughts.....

Not even AWD? Only 300km WLTP?

Doesnt even seem to have cruise control. What nonsense.

I'd love an electric pickup, probably one of the few that would pay 6 figures for an F150 lightning if they sold it here, but not for that tat

Yeah normally early adopters (technically we were pioneers for years until recently enough) pay a high price for early access to new stuff, but we most certainly didn't.

At one point, I think back in about 2018, I was afraid those super low (or even negative) depreciation rates were not going to last and I was contemplating selling my near 2 year old Ioniq 28kWh (for as much as I bought it new) and buying a supercheap PHEV from the UK as a stop gap until EVs got a big depreciation hit. But I didn't go through with it. Thankfully as that depreciation hit never came

In some ways, I think we are still riding this big wave. Night rate electricity is still many times cheaper than petrol / diesel. And if you bought an EV cleverly right now, you'd still have very little, zero or even negative depreciation. Particularly on the low end EV stuff like early Leafs

Looks like the UK is about to drop the VED exemption for EVs. It's expected in the upcoming autumn statement, according to the FT. Nothing in their article about what it might cost.

Paywalled

a 60k taxi?

What's people's general experience been of wait times? A dealer is telling me 10 months for a Q4 E-Tron. Will that realistically turn into 14 months plus as I am assuming there is a bullsh1t factor built into their estimates. It seems so hard to actually buy something that isn't a Tesla.

It depends on the car, something like a Q4 E-tron is being produced in fairly small numbers, so the wait time could be fairly accurate

On the other hand, there's several people have recently walked into a VW dealership, gotten a cancelled order and had their car within a week

So it really depends on how flexible you are on what car you want. If you've your heart set on the Q4 then you may have to wait, but if you ring around dealerships then you might get lucky

Yes. The on board charger takes in 7/11/22kW and charges the main high voltage battery by DC

On public DC chargers they supply DC direct to the cars battery however the car always decides on the maximum charging rate and the car measures the voltage and temperature of every cell to ensure no cell is every overcharged nor overheated. When car is nearly full the car will tell the DC charger to slow the charging rate to a trickle. You can monitor each cells temperature and voltage yourself on many cars using an app and an odb Bluetooth interface. If battery temperature is in ideal range car can charge quicker do teslas preheat/ precool the battery on the way to the charger for maximum charging rates.

Very interesting, didn't know about the potential explosion risk of Lithium batteries

I do still think that EVs are safer then ICE cars in terms of fire risk, and I believe the statistics still back this up

However there's definitely a gap in training and equipment to deal with an EV fire. Hopefully it gets addressed soon as we're seeing more and more EVs on the market and even at a lower risk per car that will mean more EV fires.

And since every EV fire becomes a national sensation, there needs to be very clear safety messaging around it

Thanks @Gumbo - interesting read as this is an area that is still evolving - as the article states - by the amount of research this is currently underway.

Certainly challenging for Designers and Fire & Building Control authorities alike around the world, knowing that the design of compliant buildings today, especially multi-level & basement carparks, may not fit for purpose in the an all EV future (with regards to fire safety).

The report seemed to say that under the right circumstances LFP batteries could vent explosive gases. Not really sure what those conditions were and if they're ever likely to be met in real world conditions

Stop cutting batteries open to see how they smell! 😉😂

Was an experiment to see how an already very bloated Pylontech pack would behave under full load. It didn't end well 😂

Did you wire it incorrectly? (presuming you've seen the YT videos about problematic pylontech issues and the youtuiber being accused of that)

Next experiment: Will it blend? 😂