Random EV thoughts.....

world’s first DC-to-DC rooftop solar-powered hybrid bidirectional EV charger.

I didn't want to clutter up teh EV bargain thread and thought it better here. This relates to a 2014 Model S thats out of battery warranty and a ticking time bomb as per some posts. I'm not adverese to buying a car that has the potential to bankrupt you but I understand the ICE market costs and values much better hence this post.

This whole battery warranty time bomb is interesting. Everyone here is pro EV yet there seems to be a significant concern of risk as battery warranty end approaches or has expired.

What is the long term view on this in general? How do you value the car? Is it a bit like electric forklifts that bascially get treated as a rolling chassis and buy based on that price.

Is that 27k Tesla Model S more like a 15k car? I just did a search on donedeal for 2014 Mercedes C Class and the majority are in the 27k price bracket which is 10-12k above a 2014 E-Class. I think the model S is somewhere between the two but not really sure.

Now if you bought a 27k high mile S-Class run of the mill S-Class you could spend 14k on it over the next 5-7 years with maintenance and unforseen non standard failures but unlikely to replace the engine.

So how does one value these older EV's, not just Teslas. This is obviuously a recent problem as many models are now only starting to reach this point in their lifecycle so data is very limited.

IMO EV's are a better proposition for longer life cycles due to their simplicity. I see no reason why that Model S could not complete two or three battery cycles before its realistically a parts car. Ford alluded to this a little while back as cars as a service and how suited EV's were to it.

So how do you think this will play out long term. For me, that car at 12-15k would be on interest if I could install a new high capacity pack as its still a good car with a lot of life but its not a 40k car if you buy at 25 and install a 14k refurbed pack especially when compared to the M3 prices.

I think the key to this is your comparison with an old Merc that you buy cheap but spend big on repairs. You wouldn’t go near a Merc dealer and would keep it on the road using a merc specialist or a good local mechanic. EV’s like this one need to be repaired independently from Tesla/Main Dealers to keep them financially viable. We’re just not there yet in Ireland as there is very few independent garages willing to get involved with EV’s. Hopefully this will improve as more of these cheaper used EV’s hit the market.

There's already a network of independent EV repair garages. It's HEVRA - hybrid and electric vehicle repair association. The garages get training, certification, and support. For example if they get a car they've never worked on before or a fault they can't figure out - the organisation provides a sort of tech support for them.

I've used one of the garages on my EV which was out of warranty. Dealer didn't have a clue but indy garage was excellent. Replacement part was OEM. Big cost was labour though as is usual on these things.

From what I hear there's a new one in the process of getting signed up as a member. They're around North Co. Dublin area.

Our charging networks are now less regulated than the US networks:

Just to emphasise, the free market loving USA, where a corporation has the same or greater rights as a citizen, now has actual government requirements around fast charging

Needless to say, I'm a bit shocked

Most important bits of the regulations are IMO the requirements for minimum number of chargers per site and the minimum if 97% uptime per site

They didn't say how they're going to track it, hopefully it's something better than getting the networks to self police themselves.

IMO this is something that the Irish government really needs to get on top of.

They need to put EV charging under the domain of the CRU, and while they're at it put some people in charge of the CRU who will actually do something about the problems we're facing with charging networks

Feck, the corpos win again 🙄

They'll want to be very cheap to have a chance against Tesla... Interesting times lie ahead.

VW especially, since they said they wouldn't be lowering prices in response to Tesla and Ford. Can't see them staying where they are for long

The key questions will be.... can Tesla keep the prices down AND more importantly can they deliver the volume quarter after quarter.

If Tesla "only", say, deliver 2000 cars into Ireland this year(they delivered 900 in 2021 and 1300 in 2022)... that will have minimal impact on the market (a net difference of 700 out of a 100k market!). VW/Toyota etc sell 12k+ cars each in Ireland per year so 700 is almost irrelevant.

I think this is what VW, Ford, Honda etc are banking on. i.e. that Tesla wont be able to ramp up enough to seriously erode their sales figures.

If Tesla can deliver multiples of that, THEN the other OEM's are in trouble. The Q1 and Q2 figures will be an interesting insight of what's to come.

An interesting anecdote... I was looking at VW Tiguan prices the other day. VW sold 2600 of those in 2021 and 1500 in 2022. VW sold 3000 ID4's! The market is voting with its feet/cash!

Of the 1500 Tiguan's sold in 2022, 90% of them were diesel (50/50 split between manual/auto). The cheapest diesel Tiguan is €42k for a 122HP manual! An automatic is €48k which is €1k more than a base Model Y which will be its direct Tesla competitor. If Tesla deliver big numbers it would be hard to look past a Model Y vs a Tiguan! Each to their own, of course, but its alot easier to make that decision now after the Tesla price drop.

UK market pretty irrelevant these days and even the German market on its own is nothing compared to the big two. The EU market as a whole is still the biggest in the world though.

I agree. Ireland is irrelevant in terms of global car markets.

Im just giving a probable reason for why VW Ireland (and others) have not decided to compete on price.... yet.

If Tesla eat their breakfast they will have to drop prices then. They wont go for the knee jerk reaction of chasing Tesla to the bottom of the market... as unkel said, they are too indebted and have too low a margin... they need to milk that ICE train more first!

You can be sure they are discussing it in their board rooms though!

Tesla need to deliver much higher volumes to hurt them and I suppose people need to want to buy a Tesla.... Tesla's are not for everyone so some will happily pay 5-10k more for a VW or Merc or Toyota etc even if the Tesla has a better spec on paper.

The CEO is gone now and he was anti-EV. They are making the right noises about BEV now but they have alot of catching up to do. They are saying Lexus will be all EV in a few years. Lets see if they deliver on that.

I suspect Toyota will survive. They are too big to be left fail. Japan will look after them like Germany will look after its industry.

I think you nailed it there, car industry employs a lot of people in <insert country name> and that gets them a lot of political clout

Look at how GM and Chrysler got bailed out by the US government.

Random question that might fit this thread....

I don't drive enough here at home to give up a (pretty economical) 3.0 petrol, 15 year old car and bear the expense of a move to EV (yet). I travel a bit for work and when I rent I try to rent something interesting and EV where possible.

I had a Polestar 2 for a weekend in Spain recently. Nice car, bit cramped inside and I wasn't blown away by the tech. All in a good experience .

My question is around charging; I plugged it in via the granny cable at the villa I was staying in and walked away for the night. Car lit up and said "initializing charge" or something to that effect. Walked away but when I came back the next day, it had not worked and lost charge. Assumed I had done something wrong and went about my day. Had to return it full to avoid charges so looked up public chargers nearby. Got up early on Sunday, drove to the first one, downloaded the app, connected up the fast charger, registered my card and......nothing. Rang an EV owner friend who helped to ensure everything was connected correctly and still could not get it to work after multiple attempts.

I drove to the next charging point as per the Shell App reccomended by Hertz, 10 mins away. Infuriatingly, this was inside the locked courtyard of a Ford Dealership. Next one was 5 mins away, outside a closed Burger King and was switched off. So, getting increasingly annoyed / worried I drove to the next one 10 mins away in a fairly crappy industrial estate. I repeated the exercise and still nothing. This time though, I fiddled with the display screen in the cabin that showed "amps" on a sliding scale. I bumped it up to the maximum and the car started to fast charge. Fully charged it and returned to the villa.

Plugged it in again (it was at about 96% now) via granny cable, same as before it just got stuck on initializing charge. I fiddled with the amp setting but still no bueno.

So my question is, was I doing something wrong or did I just come up against bad chargers? Is there any reason it wouldn't charge at home?

TLDR: Had issues with charging at home and at public stations. Operator or hardware error?

If it wasn't a very big island, an E36 318tde might also fit the bill 🙂