Why Electric Vehicle and Why Tesla

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148 posts

Master Geek

#3250339 18-Jun-2024 11:11

We (wife) bought a M3 almost 3 years ago, we were looking to upgrade our 2 cars, mine a diesel ute. Plan was to offset the likely ute tax with the EV discount.

However after driving the M3 and being able to charge it for free (Contact 3 hours or Z EV plan) it didn't take me long to decide the ute wasn't going to replaced with an ICE motor, in fact the M3 is my goto for any driving now that doesnt require the ute, which is a lot of it.

At 45000km it hasn't had a single issue (apart from the auto sensing wipers being crap to start with) which is more than I can say for almost any previous new car we have had inc, Honda Accord, Subaru Legacy, Toyota Hilux, Suzuki Swift.

Being car agnostic I have zero brand loyalty but right now, I don't think we would buy a different EV. The Chinese models coming out are better value for money I think, but I would rather wait a couple of years to see how their body work holds up before buying one.

heavenlywild

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#3250342 18-Jun-2024 11:15

Let me answer the question "Why Tesla?"

To be honest it's not about the brand, it's about the support and the constant updates and enhancements. This is a piece of technology at the end of the day. Every month, at a minimum, there would be a software update to enhance the UI and UX and often with new features that add value to the end user.

It's the reason why I don't buy Oppo phones - they have better phones than Samsung but their software updates, software quality and overall support is inferior to Samsung. If that were to be turned on its head, then I would be using an Oppo. Same logic with EVs, it's not about the brand.

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Obraik

2123 posts

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#3250347 18-Jun-2024 11:29

heavenlywild:

Let me answer the question "Why Tesla?"

To be honest it's not about the brand, it's about the support and the constant updates and enhancements. This is a piece of technology at the end of the day. Every month, at a minimum, there would be a software update to enhance the UI and UX and often with new features that add value to the end user.

It's the reason why I don't buy Oppo phones - they have better phones than Samsung but their software updates, software quality and overall support is inferior to Samsung. If that were to be turned on its head, then I would be using an Oppo. Same logic with EVs, it's not about the brand.

Yeah I should have expanded on that myself. My nearly 5 year old car still gets most of the new features that the 2024 cars are getting. There are some exceptions where there are hardware limitations, but my car has exceeded many Samsung phones for software support.

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tweake

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#3250349 18-Jun-2024 11:33

Obraik:

tweake:

i think the first thing is to work out the km's you do per day and what charging you can realistically do at home. also factor in failure modes ie power cut and no charging. do you have another car? is your run short enough you can miss a charge. then cost and practicalities of installing a faster charger etc.

edit: to add, if your required range is short and your in no rush to get a new car, then it might pay to hold off for a bit. the reason is sodium batteries. i think there is only one car out with them at the moment, byd is building its new battery factory, so it should not be to long before byd start offering models with them. that should bring the cost down. the downside is the lack of range.

The sort of power cut that you need to factor in as an issue for an EV will also be an issue for ICE vehicles (no power, no petrol pumps)

Holding off for the next best technology is also not very practical. Having a new to market sodium battery tomorrow isn't going to make the mature lithium battery in your EV today suddenly worthless.

no, not at all.

with ICE its rarely an issue and only because your silly enough to run it down to empty so much you can only get fuel from the nearest gas station. ev on the other hand, you might do enough km's especially with the smaller battery models, to actually be quite low when you get home. this is why you need to buy something with the right battery size for the use. you could just buy the biggest battery model, but thats a lot of extra cost and more weight to lug around for nothing. easy enough to understand the driving distance and charging abilities.

its not the next tech like solid state batteries that we are forever waiting for. this is tech thats is actually being manufactured in small scale and a major manufacture about to ramp up large scale production. if that tech works for your situation its not a bad idea to wait a bit.

Scott3

3963 posts

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#3250356 18-Jun-2024 11:36

Nj11:

Hi all

We have been thinking about going electric. However, two very basic questions come to mind

Are there any real benefits in buying electric vehicles? After the latest ACC Levy, I have calculated that I will save around $40 per 1000 km. I am a conventional Auckland driver with work to home to kids's activities kind of drive. EVS still need WOF and the insurance is generally higher than traditional cars, which offsets any savings on servicing etc.
If there are any real benefits (including saving the environment), is Tesla better than other cheaper alternatives like BYD.
cheers

In terms of finances, it depends on what your comparison car is.

If you compare say an e-208 with a yaris hybrid, Home charging power + RUC works out to about the same as petrol. (The EV is much cheaper to fuel, but is paying 2.4x the road tax of the Yaris Hybrid.

But if you compare against say a petrol SUV burring 10L/100km of petrol, the EV will be much cheaper to run.

Insurance is very model / brand dependent. Should note that many EV's are a lot more powerful than the cars that the owners had before, something that is considered an insurance risk.

In terms of the non cost stuff:

Positive

More convenient to full up at home than to go out to a petrol station.
Generally EV's are smooth, powerful and quiet.
Nice to be able to leave the air con running in the car if you are waiting for something, but without the cost & emissions of idling an engine. If my child falls asleep in the car i will leave it in the driveway with the aircon running (and a baby monitor) so I don't have to wake them and bring them inside.
Nice to be able to set a preheat / cool timer so your car has a warm cabin when you leave in the morning.
Generally less maintenance.
Environmentally better in NZ: https://www.eeca.govt.nz/insights/eeca-insights/lifecycle-assessment-of-electric-vehicles/
Using NZ generated electricity, as opposed to imported petroleum (some of which comes from not so nice contries)
Some EV's have vehicle to load, so you can plug appliances into your car.

Negatives:

I consider off street parking with a means to charge at home (or workplace) essential to make EV ownership viable in NZ.
Long trips are somewhat less convenient. While ranges & charge speeds on modem EV's are getting really good, they still aren't as good as petrol cars.

On Brand of EV, this largely comes down to personal taste. I don't think there are significant environmental differences between EV brands.

Tesla Model 3 & Y favor performance over stuff like acoustics. Cars are very basic to make then cheaper to build (no dashboard instrument cluster, no conventional fob included etc.), but they are quite tech focused with stuff like a built in dash cam. Also some tesla superchargers are tesla only, and tesla drivers get cheaper rates than drivers of other cars. (Not such a big deal in NZ as we have other good charge networks, but a huge deal in the USA).

BYD has features like vehicle to load which tesla lacks.

And there are a raft of other strong players in the market too.

tweake

2391 posts

Uber Geek

#3250358 18-Jun-2024 11:38

heavenlywild:

Let me answer the question "Why Tesla?"

To be honest it's not about the brand, it's about the support and the constant updates and enhancements.

support is a very good point.

there is a new player in the ev market, which has been here a while selling their other products. one of which we have and recently had a problem with it. the support was woeful, they had no techs. it was just them forwarding messages to china. there is no way in hell i would be buying an ev (or any other car) based off that level of support.

robjg63

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#3250360 18-Jun-2024 11:39

Taubin:

is Tesla better than other cheaper alternatives

I've never been in one, but the amount of build issue I've heard about coming from them, I'd never own one. Even their "older" models seem to have build issues. They also have lied repeatedly about their capabilities (self drive) and range. For some reason they seem to get a pass from a large sector of the public, or it's just really good marketing. Either way, I'd avoid them.

That build issue is based on poor assembly on older models coming out of the USA plants.

They seem to have improved QA greatly in the last couple of years but the meadia likes to repeat old articles.

The vehicles coming out of the Greman and Chinese plants are as good as any other vehicle.

All RHD models come out of the Chinese plant.

I own a 2023 model Y - I can not see any build issues.

Would buy again.

The software/feature updates are miles ahead of anyone else - sure - they sometimes get it wrong, but updates are frequent. I dont know of any other manufacturer that has such a good update process.

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tweake

2391 posts

Uber Geek

#3250361 18-Jun-2024 11:43

Scott3:

Positive

Nice to be able to set a preheat / cool timer so your car has a warm cabin when you leave in the morning.

thats a major reason i would get an ev. being able to get the car heated up, windscreen cleared, very quickly. especially on short drives.

Scott3

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#3250363 18-Jun-2024 11:47

tweake:

Scott3:

Positive

Nice to be able to set a preheat / cool timer so your car has a warm cabin when you leave in the morning.

thats a major reason i would get an ev. being able to get the car heated up, windscreen cleared, very quickly. especially on short drives.

And even if you don't preheat, no need to wait for the engine to warm up before the heater works.

alasta

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#3250369 18-Jun-2024 12:14

I get that IT people will have a different perspective, but as a traditionalist I hate the idea of having software 'updates' constantly pushed out to the car. My car needs to be reliable and I don't want the manufacturer treating it like an ongoing science experiment.

Dingbatt

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#3250375 18-Jun-2024 12:39

The software is definitely superior in the Tesla, but in an “Apple” kind of way. Apart from choosing what colour your car is and where to display the blindspot image, everything else is where the Tesla engineers put it. There is a “task bar” at the bottom of the display as well I guess.

The only OSs I have tried that come close are BMW and Mercedes. The ones from VWAG (VW, Skoda, Cupra, Porsche and Audi) have high quality displays backed by substandard software. MG and BYD have good software that is let down by lower quality displays. I’d probably put Polestar just above BYD in that respect.

I have said to people that they shouldn’t expect $70000 quality from a Tesla, it’s more like a $40000 car with a $30000 battery.

Tesla and the Chinese manufacturers, they have certainly kept the traditional automakers honest when it comes to price for EVs.

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cddt

1548 posts

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#3250381 18-Jun-2024 12:51

heavenlywild:

To be honest it's not about the brand, it's about the support and the constant updates and enhancements. This is a piece of technology at the end of the day. Every month, at a minimum, there would be a software update to enhance the UI and UX and often with new features that add value to the end user.

That's also an argument against. If I'm getting in the car to go somewhere I don't want to start driving and then find the UI has changed.

Long gone are the days when software updates were rigorously tested - Microsoft has made me extra suspicious of updates...

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Obraik

2123 posts

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#3250409 18-Jun-2024 13:50

cddt:

That's also an argument against. If I'm getting in the car to go somewhere I don't want to start driving and then find the UI has changed.

Long gone are the days when software updates were rigorously tested - Microsoft has made me extra suspicious of updates...

To Tesla's credit, in the time I've had my car I have yet to receive an update that broke my car or its functionality. They are pretty rigorous with their update rollout, starting off with very small stages before it eventually gets to everyone over a period of a few weeks.

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jonathan18

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#3250492 18-Jun-2024 16:19

Obraik: To Tesla's credit, in the time I've had my car I have yet to receive an update that broke my car or its functionality. They are pretty rigorous with their update rollout, starting off with very small stages before it eventually gets to everyone over a period of a few weeks.

That said, I had a freaky experience of a pushed update occuring when I was driving - with all the family in the car on SH1 near Kaikoura - without any warning. Screen went completely blank for a while, lost indicators (not sure about other lights). That was somewhat freaky and luckily was a once-off (and this wasn’t a standard update but rather pushing out a free trial of enhanced auto pilot).

Putting that aside, this constant improvement (well, sometimes there are some backwards steps - the uncessary slowdowns on auto pilot being one that’s still hanging around 5-6 months later) is one of the main advantages of Tesla ownership. In 22 months we’ve had a Model Y there have been so many improvements rolled out - eg the side camera view popping up when indicating. By comparison, my wife’s MG4 is currently dependent on the car going in to the dealer for updates, which we’ve not had done once in about six months of ownership - so her car still has the same cr@ppy aspects that have apparently been tidied up with newer software.

jarledb

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#3250678 19-Jun-2024 01:25

jonathan18:

the uncessary slowdowns on auto pilot being one that’s still hanging around 5-6 months later)

Apparently a feature of any modern car with lane assist / adaptive cruice control. Renting a Toyota BZ4X in Norway at the moment, and I must say it is every bit (and then some) as quirky with lane assist / adaptive cruice control as the Tesla. Would say I feel safer using the features of the Tesla than the Toyota.

But this is not a Tesla or EV problem. It is a modern car problem, from what I have understood.

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