EV (electric vehicle) News & Discussion

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#3074952 11-May-2023 10:18

HarmLessSolutions:

johno1234:

I think my future BEV selection will be limited to those with LFP batteries. I want to be able to 100% charge, every time I have time, I want minimum degradation and and I want maximum safety.

Am I wrong?

I'm watching the progress on Na Ion battery tech with interest. Rumoured to be in the upcoming BYD Seagull but of greater relevance in our situation is how soon this chemistry is available in home storage batteries. Cheaper than Li based batteries with energy density is still catching up but that isn't so important in a stationary application.

Coincidentally was watching this video today on Sodium Ion battery technology.

Looks very promising.

https://youtu.be/RQE56ksVBB4

MarkH67

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#3075013 11-May-2023 14:05

alasta:
So it sounds like, at least at this stage, electric vehicles aren't really that practical if you can't charge at home?

I would rate the practicality as close to that of a petrol car. BEVs are more practical than petrol cars if you can charge at home in the garage or at work (especially good if the employer is willing to let you charge for free). Fast charging on many newer cars will do very little to shorten the life of the battery, especially if you only use a 50kW charger.

One big problem is that you would be paying a hefty premium to buy an electric car, but not gaining in convenience or operating costs (or at least gaining little in total operating costs). In purely financial terms it is not going to be worth the extra cost of the BEV, it would be cheaper to buy a hybrid.

jonathan18

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#3075024 11-May-2023 14:40

Here's a piece of possibly unuseful anecdata on charging methods and their potential relationship to battery health:

My car (a Model Y RWD) has 1.5% battery degradation after nine months and 10,000 km.

A fellow Model Y owner is sitting on 0.5% degradation after the same length of time and well over twice the distance.

His car has been subject to WAY more fast charging than mine (as he travels the country installing towbars on Teslas and other EVs), and similarly has also been discharged to a much lower level than mine (he's comfortable taking his down to a reported range of 0). Whereas I initially generally followed Tesla's advice of charging at least weekly to 100%; but given my typical weekly usage was pretty low the battery often didn't fall below 70 or even 80%.

I acknowledge this is comparing just two cars, but some argue that the batteries 'like' being discharged and used; could it be this has more of an impact than the speed of charging?

alasta

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#3075025 11-May-2023 14:45

MarkH67:
alasta:

So it sounds like, at least at this stage, electric vehicles aren't really that practical if you can't charge at home?

I would rate the practicality as close to that of a petrol car. BEVs are more practical than petrol cars if you can charge at home in the garage or at work (especially good if the employer is willing to let you charge for free). Fast charging on many newer cars will do very little to shorten the life of the battery, especially if you only use a 50kW charger.

One big problem is that you would be paying a hefty premium to buy an electric car, but not gaining in convenience or operating costs (or at least gaining little in total operating costs). In purely financial terms it is not going to be worth the extra cost of the BEV, it would be cheaper to buy a hybrid.

I dunno, I think the MG4 might be a game changer in that regard because the top spec variant is supposed to be $57k with the government subsidy vs $55k for a hybrid Honda ZR-V. Even at $0.80 per kwh, you'd quite easily recover the $2k difference and then there's the cheaper servicing costs.

SaltyNZ

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#3075026 11-May-2023 14:46

Does the Model Y RWD have LFPs as well? IIRC the advice to charge to 100% was because if you don't, the car cannot calibrate what a full charge voltage is (and the difference between full and empty is relatively narrow for LFP). As a result the predicted health falsely appears to fall quickly. In addition, in Teslas the cross links between cells are high resistance for efficiency which means it can take several hours for the cells to balance after the car goes to sleep. It can't take a battery measurement until that is complete, and it needs to do so across a range of different percentages.

In short, it sounds as if you might find you get a bit of health back if you let the car run down much further before you charge it (so it can do measurements at all percentages) and charge it back to 100%.

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jonathan18

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#3075039 11-May-2023 15:34

SaltyNZ:

Does the Model Y RWD have LFPs as well? IIRC the advice to charge to 100% was because if you don't, the car cannot calibrate what a full charge voltage is (and the difference between full and empty is relatively narrow for LFP). As a result the predicted health falsely appears to fall quickly. In addition, in Teslas the cross links between cells are high resistance for efficiency which means it can take several hours for the cells to balance after the car goes to sleep. It can't take a battery measurement until that is complete, and it needs to do so across a range of different percentages.

In short, it sounds as if you might find you get a bit of health back if you let the car run down much further before you charge it (so it can do measurements at all percentages) and charge it back to 100%.

Yep, same LFP battery as the M3.

For the past couple of months I've made a conscious decision to let it run down quite low (eg put it on the charge for tonight at 22%), and typically charged to 80-85% unless going on a long trip. It's fallen a little more over this period, but I noticed it's up a little (now at 1.4%). How long a timeframe (or discharge/charge cycles) would one need before a realistic/accurate figure may reveal itself?

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#3075042 11-May-2023 15:50

jonathan18:

Here's a piece of possibly unuseful anecdata on charging methods and their potential relationship to battery health:

My car (a Model Y RWD) has 1.5% battery degradation after nine months and 10,000 km.

A fellow Model Y owner is sitting on 0.5% degradation after the same length of time and well over twice the distance.

His car has been subject to WAY more fast charging than mine (as he travels the country installing towbars on Teslas and other EVs), and similarly has also been discharged to a much lower level than mine (he's comfortable taking his down to a reported range of 0). Whereas I initially generally followed Tesla's advice of charging at least weekly to 100%; but given my typical weekly usage was pretty low the battery often didn't fall below 70 or even 80%.

I acknowledge this is comparing just two cars, but some argue that the batteries 'like' being discharged and used; could it be this has more of an impact than the speed of charging?

anecdotally my ex Nissan leaf drops a bar every time i am away for a few weeks and someone accidentally charges it to 80% and doesn't drive it

with my replacement Leaf if it gets charged to 100%, it is also discharged to low, and if i charge it to 100% and have plans cancelled i will drive it around to discharge it! after a few years i will know the result of my behaviour.

my ex Leaf was only limited to 80% and apparently that isn't good either, someone said i must charge it to 100% for battery balancing

the leafs have cost me the price of an e bicycle so i'm ok with the experiment but i don't want to pay 100k and suffer as a result of buying an expensive car. petrol has none of these issues.

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SaltyNZ

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#3075117 11-May-2023 16:49

jonathan18:

Yep, same LFP battery as the M3.

For the past couple of months I've made a conscious decision to let it run down quite low (eg put it on the charge for tonight at 22%), and typically charged to 80-85% unless going on a long trip. It's fallen a little more over this period, but I noticed it's up a little (now at 1.4%). How long a timeframe (or discharge/charge cycles) would one need before a realistic/accurate figure may reveal itself?

I think it takes a couple of calibration cycles, so a few weeks. For reference, our Model 3 is now about 15 months and 41,000km old. A full charge when we got it was 431km, now it's 424km, so we've done about 4x the distance to get around the same apparent capacity loss.

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Obraik

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#3075127 11-May-2023 17:23

Keep in mind that reading the max range is not a true indication of degradation, as this value will fluctuate.

My own Model 3 gained 30km of range over the last couple weeks.

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tdgeek

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#3075130 11-May-2023 17:48

alasta:

then there's the cheaper servicing costs.

Not dismissing your post, but a key gain was with only 20 moving parts, its cheap. But way back in this thread, despite all that, buyers that buy brand new EV's are locked into high annual servicing costs (to keep the warranty intact) Having said that, dont brand new buyers get X kms free annual servicing?

Ive never bought a brand new car, best was one 6 months old, 18km (still have it)

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#3075131 11-May-2023 18:02

tdgeek:

But way back in this thread, despite all that, buyers that buy brand new EV's are locked into high annual servicing costs (to keep the warranty intact)

While I know about the controversy around servicing charges for the Atto 3, which other EVs have 'high annual servicing costs'? I don't recall seeing any such requirements for my Tesla...

HarmLessSolutions

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#3075134 11-May-2023 18:29

Likewise we left the Polestar place last July after taking ownership and were told that they'd see us in 2 years or 30,000kms. Checking out a minor software issue saw us visiting them in September but otherwise I expect July 2024 will be our next visit there.

https://www.harmlesssolutions.co.nz/

tdgeek

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#3075287 12-May-2023 07:33

jonathan18:

While I know about the controversy around servicing charges for the Atto 3, which other EVs have 'high annual servicing costs'? I don't recall seeing any such requirements for my Tesla...

Without trawling through 8700 posts, a while back, and certainly pre Atto there were comments about servicing costs on a new EV. $700 annually springs to mind. This was on the back of one of the many benefits of an EV, this one being low or no servicing, i.e. just wiper blades as someone mentioned. Realistically there will have to be annual servicing on any new car to keep the warranty valid, buit if its just checking tyres, wiper blades, lights etc it should be very very minimal.

What is the typical annual servicing costs on a new EV these days, and what does that cover?

jonathan18

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#3075302 12-May-2023 08:08

Yep, as I already mentioned, the Atto 3 is the one model (maybe brand; we'll have to see when the Dolphin's released here) that I'm aware of where buyers may face regular servicing costs; my point was your post clearly intimated this was common for many EV brands: "buyers that buy brand new EV's are locked into high annual servicing costs (to keep the warranty intact". I'm interested to know if you're aware of other brands that have the same requirements, or whether it was a generalisation off the back of a single model? This may sound pedantic to you, but it's a really important distinction that should be clarified; there is already enough misinformation and disinformation about EVs out there that this forum shouldn't add to...

Anyway, for a specific example of a new car: Tesla is clear that "your Tesla vehicle does not require annual maintenance or regular fluid changes" (1) so there's no annual cost for us Tesla owners.

The manual (2) for my car goes into more detail as to what they recommend:

Service Intervals

Your vehicle should generally be serviced on an as-needed basis. However, Tesla recommends the following maintenance items and intervals, as applicable to your vehicle, to ensure continued reliability and efficiency of your Model Y.

For more do-it-yourself maintenance procedures and information, see https://www.tesla.com/support/do-it-yourself-guides.

For more information on vehicle alerts, see Troubleshooting Alerts.

Brake fluid health check every 2 years (replace if necessary).
A/C desiccant bag replacement every 4 years.
Cabin air filter replacement every 2 years (or 3 years for HEPA and carbon filters, if equipped).
HEPA filter replacement every 3 years
Clean and lubricate brake calipers every year or 12,500 miles (20,000 km) if in an area where roads are salted during winter
Rotate tires every 10,000 km or if tread depth difference is 1.5 mm or greater, whichever comes first

Reminds me: I've just passed 10k km so should look to get the tyres rotated, I guess. How important is this to do?

tdgeek

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#3075306 12-May-2023 08:30

Thanks for the detail. The points that popped up re servicing was a while back, not that many new EV's around then, but yes, I did state it as inferring all. I meant that high annual servicing costs for new EV' s was raised in the past, not inferring all new EV's. Just checked MGEV, yes you do need annual servicing, doesn't say the cost. Point being, it should be very low cost. I recall at the time it seemed like inkjet printers , cheap to buy they get you with the ink.

So, apart from the Atto, there is no requirement to get servicing for a new EV (although you should re the points you made above) ?

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