EV conversions

[simonr]

30 minutes ago, cackshifter said:

Well the old Michelin X used to last the life of some cars, so making them last isn't a problem. But making them last and grip....driving a set of X's on a barely wet road was a puckering experience.

True - but there are other examples.  On my RRS I have some Avon tyres which had an 'A' efficiency & 'B' wet rating.  They're really good in the wet (compared to AT's) and have changed my previous 24mpg to 29mpg (averaged over 25k miles).  They are about 50% worn at 25k / 5 years which isn't bad.  A win on both fronts. 

I think tyre particulate problems are more down to cheap, low quality tyres than EV's, even if EV's have contributed to making it worse.

[Bowie69]

Difference is the rolling diameter of modern tyres is so much greater that cars of old, where 20K was about the most you'd get out of a set -there is just so much more rubber there to wear down, and the wheel makes less revolutions.

[Nonimouse]

17 hours ago, Bowie69 said:

Difference is the rolling diameter of modern tyres is so much greater that cars of old, where 20K was about the most you'd get out of a set -there is just so much more rubber there to wear down, and the wheel makes less revolutions.

Added to which modern tyres use different, less environmentally destructive compounds, the bonus of which is that they last longer

[Roverdrive]

Anyone for SATs?

[Aragorn]

On 5/29/2022 at 11:30 AM, FridgeFreezer said:

My buddy bought an ID.4 with the long-range battery - you aren't allowed to tow with it, you aren't allowed a roof rack, and the rear seat is re-designed to stop you putting 5 people in the car because the battery is that heavy.

He's called it Ernie

Interestingly, I have an Enyaq, which is essentially the same car. It can tow 1 tonne, Skoda sells a roof rack for it (and i've taken it on holiday with a Thule rack fitted just last month), and it has 5 seats (we have three child seats in the back of it!)

It weighs a bit under 2 tonnes. Heavy, sure, but not really any different to any other modern vehicle of similar size. Its pretty much the same size externally as my P38, just a bit lower and more streamlined in shape. People like to mention the battery weight, but forget you've removed 300+kgs of turbo diesel, complicated autobox and emissions kit, and replaced it with a much lighter motor and transaxle. In practice, most EV's weigh about the same as an equivalent combustion car.

Clearly if what you say is true with the ID4, its more about marketing than technical limitations. For instance, Skoda does say in the manual that if you dont order it with a towbar from the factory then the car "may" not have the towing spec specified on the VIN plate/V5 (which in turn would mean it cant ever tow). However mine was ordered without a tow bar and the V5 and VIN both state it can tow 1000kg. I'm actually a bit annoyed i didnt order the towbar though, as retrofitting one is going to end up costing twice as much. Granted a tonne isnt huge, but its better than 0!

[FridgeFreezer]

43 minutes ago, Aragorn said:

Interestingly, I have an Enyaq, which is essentially the same car.

Is it the same version with the biggest possible battery? I believe the shorter-range variants can tow something.

[landroversforever]

5 hours ago, FridgeFreezer said:

Is it the same version with the biggest possible battery? I believe the shorter-range variants can tow something.

That hints at train weights being an issue 

[Aragorn]

Mines a 60kwh. The 80kwh version has the same towing limit though.

The 80kwh AWD version can tow slightly more at 1200kg.

The data i can find online for the ID4 shows exactly the same limits as the Enyaq.  So if his really cant tow, its likely hes just been unlucky and got stung by the "we might not put a towing weight on the V5 if you dont order a tow-bar" clause. FWIW, my dealer was useless, told me i couldnt tow as i didnt order the tow bar, but the V5 and VIN plate clearly shows otherwise. Theres even a tow bar listed in the official accessories catalog, he claimed i couldnt order that because i didnt get tow bar prep, i pointed at the brochure and asked "why does it have two part numbers then, one `with prep` and one `without prep`..." he had no answer and said he'd look into it, then called a few days later saying they had no stock of the towbar and no ETA.

Also just realised this was a several month old thread 😂 Happened to restart the browser and this opened in one of the tabs and i set about replying without realising it was a comment from May! Sorry!

[reb78]

1 minute ago, Aragorn said:

Mines a 60kwh. The 80kwh version has the same towing limit though.

The 80kwh AWD version can tow slightly more at 1200kg.

The data i can find online for the ID4 shows exactly the same limits as the Enyaq.  So if his really cant tow, its likely hes just been unlucky and got stung by the "we might not put a towing weight on the V5 if you dont order a tow-bar" clause. FWIW, my dealer was useless, told me i couldnt tow as i didnt order the tow bar, but the V5 and VIN plate clearly shows otherwise. Theres even a tow bar listed in the official accessories catalog, he claimed i couldnt order that because i didnt get tow bar prep, i pointed at the brochure and asked "why does it have two part numbers then, one `with prep` and one `without prep`..." he had no answer and said he'd look into it, then called a few days later saying they had no stock of the towbar and no ETA.

Also just realised this was a several month old thread 😂 Happened to restart the browser and this opened in one of the tabs and i set about replying without realising it was a comment from May! Sorry!

Blimey. You've been gone for years. I think you can reopen a slightly old thread..... hows your lexus build going? Think that was you?!

[monkie]

On 5/22/2022 at 7:12 PM, reb78 said:

Be interesting to hear how you get on with the mileages you do Phil. My commute (start and end of a week) is just shy of 300 miles and I can often clock up a fair bit more in a day. An EV just doesn't seem sensible for me at all. Any issue not getting charge or getting stuck in the cold winter in traffic and needing heat and I can see me stranded. 
 

Public transport just doubles the time it takes me to drive and I cant transport much of what I need. Many places I need to visit are nowhere need a train station or bus stop. It also costs as much one way as the return trip in the car and COVID has lessened my desire to use an inconvenient and generally dirty mode of transport even more. 

So Richard, I've currently got a loan of a Tesla for work doing a few hundred miles a day. As it's just a loan, I don't have a home charger so I am totally reliant on public chargers. I have to say I have gone from very skeptical to won over. I really like it. It doesn't take long to charge up, it is a lot cheaper than stopping at petrol stations and I love the instant response of the car. 

I drove from Maidenhead to home (Somerset) and still had over 60% battery left. I've been driving it all over the place since and knocked up some miles in it. Next week I will be driving from home to Solihull, put it on a free charger at the office in Solihull then on the way home I will stop off at the super charger at Gordarno services on the M5 to try them out while I get a coffee. 

If you are skeptical, honestly give one a go. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised, I was. 

[jeremy996]

I've a few clients with Teslas, (and a couple with a Zoe and an i3), and none of them will consider an ICE car anymore. When one couple heard I was buying a Grenadier, I got some earache until I pointed out I needed to tow a racecar trailer, which loaded with everything is very close to 3500kg.

(The Zoe owner is a proper greenie and gave me a bye with the LR110CSW as it ran on waste oil. The Grenadier is going to mean I'll get moaned at on a regular basis, but there appears to be no practical alternative to ICE if you tow larger trailers).

[monkie]

I agree, we aren't there yet for every application. However, given the miles I do for work, I was under the impression that an EV wouldn't be practical for me in terms of range and ease/speed of charging. I stand totally corrected on those points. I am now more certain than ever that the writing is on the wall for ICE. 

[Ed Poore]

What would be a major boost to facilitate the change over to EV is standardising the battery packs so you can recharge as quickly as an ICE vehicle.

Yes I know it will compromise the design initially but being able to pull into a "petrol" station and have a system to swap out the battery for a fully charged one in the matter of a minute or two would be a major win factor in the eye of the consumer.

For example the regular(ish) journeys that @miketomcat and I do to the Highlands and back are bad enough with 2 minutes at a petrol pump to refuel let alone an hour to recharge the battery to continue. It would turn a 13h drive into a slog.

[FridgeFreezer]

@Ed Poore there's a Chinese outfit that does it (I think 5th gear featured them) but I think the battery packs right now are so huge (they're the entire floor of most cars) and thus structural as well as made to fit the exact floorplan of that car, so I can't see it happening. The Hummer EV has two Tesla's worth of batteries, double-deckered

The high voltage 800v+ charging seems to be coming along though - Porsche and Hyundai/Kia appear to be leading on that, and you can move a lot of juice at 800v through water-cooled cables as they do. Silicon carbide semiconductors are seriously ramping up, 1200v charging is on a lot of road-maps right now.

Here's a battery pack teardown showing just how big (and structural) they are - these guys have ripped apart a lot of EV's now including nearly all the Teslas as well as the Rivian R1T.

 

[landroversforever]

I think Fride has nailed the issue on some kind of modular swap-out type battery. They’re just built so far into the car. Which is an advantage in many ways, just the opposite of what’s needed for this idea. 

[sean f]

3 hours ago, landroversforever said:

I think Fride has nailed the issue on some kind of modular swap-out type battery. They’re just built so far into the car. Which is an advantage in many ways, just the opposite of what’s needed for this idea. 

Would it be more of a viable option for commercial / HGV size vehicles as and when they get out and about, I would assume they would either need a serious sized charger or take a long time to charge, I know some of this could be done in drivers required rest times but is there a electric HGV about yet that can drive all day and be charged in a credible time. I know my sisters ex used to drive HGV's and sometime double drive to get places quicker by avoiding stopping for long runs, a quick change out of batteries would seem a good idea in theory. With a bigger chassis and weight / size being less of an issue than on a small car on first look it would appear to be more of an option unless I am missing something.

[monkie]

I don't think we'll ever see this swapping of batteries, because from my experience there is simply no need for it. This is one of the biggest things that has caused me to change my mind about having an EV. 

You need to rethink the concept of a "full tank". When your battery is down to around 20%, charge it to around 80%. Charging the last 20% is slow, but going from 20 to 80% is fast.

You wake up to a fully charged battery (250/300 miles on a long range EV), so for short journies you don't even need to think of charging.

For long journeys like I do, I stop anyway after 150 miles or so for a toilet break and to have a drink/snack as most people would. That is sufficient time at a super charger to get you more power to complete your journey or get you to the next toilet / stretch your legs stop. 

In the pandemic I drove from Yeovil to Glasgow a few times, a journey of around 400 miles. I stopped about 2 or 3 times any way on that journey (Gloucester services, around Warrington and then Tebay services) those stops for around 20 or 30 minutes each would have been ample time to get enough charge for the journey. I think I'm safe in saying that driving from Yeovil to Glasgow is a journey longer than most people would drive on a regular basis. 

[miketomcat]

I agree for daily use an ev makes sense apart from the horrific purchase price and the fact that by the time I can afford one the battery's are likely to be knackered.

I've even said in our situation and ev for me to work (50miles return) and ice for the wife, longer drives and towing. However this all falls apart when she returns to work because then she would likely require an ev as she's likely to work in a town. I also use my truck at work for boat movements from time to time. Worst of all it means selling or converting one of our vehicles. Neither of us want to, the 110 goes tax exempt shortly and conversion just doesn't make sense on a land rover.

Mike

[simonr]

I agree that the cost is on the high side at the moment - but all indications are this will fall to be at least comparable to current ICE vehicles, right down to 'city cars' with limited speed & range, but costing very little.

2 hours ago, miketomcat said:

by the time I can afford one the battery's are likely to be knackered

I disagree with this.  The batteries do not suddenly become knackered, you just loose range as the batteries age.  The amount of that reduction is much smaller than most people imagine.

This is the average across all the vehicles in ths study.  You can see the data for specific vehicles here: https://storage.googleapis.com/geotab-sandbox/ev-battery-degradation/index.html

The average looks like about 10% every 4 1/2 years.
At what point would you (we) consider the battery knackered?  50%? - That's likely to be about 20 years old.

Most vehicle management systems will give you a SOH% - State Of Health of the battery pack.  At the point of buying, you can read this & see what percentage of the original range the batteries can still deliver.  I think this is much more reassuring than trying to guess the SOH of an ICE, perhaps by looking how clean the oil is or at the service history?

It just means you need to figure out what would be a usable range for you and figure out which vehicles / age has at least that range remaining.  OK, it's an additional thing you have to think about / calculate, but not a biggie!

 

I think most current car owners will end up with an EV with enough range for maybe 90% of their journeys, accept that for longer ones they'll have to stop & recharge and occasionally hire a car / truck for the exceptions.  Apparently 90% of journeys are less than 30 miles.

Some (rich) people will have vehicles with 500m+ ranges - but they will be the exception.  Maybe this will be the new gauge of a 'status' car?  How long can you drive without stopping?  I guess even rich people still need 'comfort breaks' though!

I read somewhere that in terms of the cronological evolution of EV's compared to ICE's, we're currently at the stage of the Model T Ford.  It won't take long for our current perceptions of EV's to seem laughable!

[miketomcat]

1 hour ago, simonr said:

I agree that the cost is on the high side at the moment - but all indications are this will fall to be at least comparable to current ICE vehicles, right down to 'city cars' with limited speed & range, but costing very little.

I disagree with this.  The batteries do not suddenly become knackered, you just loose range as the batteries age.  The amount of that reduction is much smaller than most people imagine.

This is the average across all the vehicles in ths study.  You can see the data for specific vehicles here: https://storage.googleapis.com/geotab-sandbox/ev-battery-degradation/index.html

The average looks like about 10% every 4 1/2 years.
At what point would you (we) consider the battery knackered?  50%? - That's likely to be about 20 years old.

Most vehicle management systems will give you a SOH% - State Of Health of the battery pack.  At the point of buying, you can read this & see what percentage of the original range the batteries can still deliver.  I think this is much more reassuring than trying to guess the SOH of an ICE, perhaps by looking how clean the oil is or at the service history?

It just means you need to figure out what would be a usable range for you and figure out which vehicles / age has at least that range remaining.  OK, it's an additional thing you have to think about / calculate, but not a biggie!

 

I think most current car owners will end up with an EV with enough range for maybe 90% of their journeys, accept that for longer ones they'll have to stop & recharge and occasionally hire a car / truck for the exceptions.  Apparently 90% of journeys are less than 30 miles.

Some (rich) people will have vehicles with 500m+ ranges - but they will be the exception.  Maybe this will be the new gauge of a 'status' car?  How long can you drive without stopping?  I guess even rich people still need 'comfort breaks' though!

I read somewhere that in terms of the cronological evolution of EV's compared to ICE's, we're currently at the stage of the Model T Ford.  It won't take long for our current perceptions of EV's to seem laughable!

That's interesting and I hope your right about the future. My biggest problem is still that I don't want to change either of my vehicles. They are not viable to convert to electric because you lose all of the reasons for owning them.

Mike

[David Sparkes]

2 hours ago, simonr said:

I agree that the cost is on the high side at the moment - but all indications are this will fall to be at least comparable to current ICE vehicles, right down to 'city cars' with limited speed & range, but costing very little.

4 hours ago, miketomcat said:

I agree for daily use an ev makes sense apart from the horrific purchase price and the fact that by the time I can afford one the battery's are likely to be knackered.
Mike

I disagree with this.  The batteries do not suddenly become knackered, you just loose range as the batteries age.  The amount of that reduction is much smaller than most people imagine.

 

Simon, thank you for your response as it mirrors my understanding, but I didn't have the detail to support my point of view.

Personally, when I was looking at choosing an EV, I first looked at my normal monthly trips, knowing I would want to complete these trips without recharging (The once or twice a year longer (family) trips I accepted would need charge stops).

I set the parameter that the monthly trips would not use more than 75% of the expected battery life. I left the 25% as margin to cover:
the additional capacity required when I wasn't driving 'economically',
my journeys often took me into the Peak District, where the uphill stretches (especially when accelerating) would increase consumption,
that heating the cabin would drain capacity,
and allowing some degradation in battery performance.

That was in 2017.
By the time I took delivery in April 2018 there was increasing evidence, through 'chatter' on EV forums, that battery degradation was not a 'thing'.
My initial 12 months saw an increase in my yearly mileage, due to more long one-off trips requiring on-route charging.
Travel restrictions due to personal safety (Covid) meant that the mileage over the 4 years (18 to 22) has been significantly lower.

While I readily understand my situation doesn't match yours, I post this to explain a bit of the background around how an EV can work successfully, and to add my voice to the argument that EV battery degradation is not a significant issue.

Regards.

[simonr]

45 minutes ago, miketomcat said:

My biggest problem is still that I don't want to change either of my vehicles.

I completely agree!  There's no point changing until you need to / have to. 

I'm going to carry on driving my thirsty RRS until it dies - then consider an EV.  Hopefully by then I'll be able to find one I can to with.

[FridgeFreezer]

I think Nissan Leafs screwed a lot of the reputation as IIRC they chose not to have any cooling system in their batteries for cheapness and used Leafs can have almost no useful range left - everyone else (especially Tesla) seem to have very good resilience from what I've seen, and they are learning more and building resilience (in spare capacity) into battery packs to help them last longer too, so the controllers never thrash them to 100% capacity which gives them a much longer life.

 

[simonr]

Even Leafs are not terrible.  Below average, but not the worst.

The worst I can find on that list is the BMW I3 - 80% at 3 Years.

 

[monkie]

I hear that both Hyundai and Kia are producing some great EVs that will really challenge the traditional prestigious brands such as BMW and Audi etc. I know someone with a Kia EV6 and it is a really nice car with good specs.