EV (electric vehicle) News & Discussion

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#3257789 9-Jul-2024 16:31

Kookoo:

wellygary:

I think the OP is impressed that the Sealion 6, which is a reasonably big SUV , is getting only slightly worse "MPG" than a saloon

Ah, that makes sense. Although:

Sealion 6 wheelbase is 2765mm, length 4775mm, width 1890mm, height 1670mm

Camry wheelbase is 2825mm, length 4885mm, width 1840mm, height 1455mm

Which makes the Sealion quite a bit higher, but otherwise very similar to the Camry dimensions-wise.

As well as the form drag from the taller cross section, the Sealion 6 that I drove was the AWD “Premium” model which weighs 2.1T (FWD “Dynamic” is 1.9T) vs my old 2012 Camry Hybrid at 1.5T (FWD). So indeed, to only use slightly more fuel per km, is pretty good.

As far as towing goes, Toyota initially had no tow rating for the Camry Hybrid until Toyota Australia pointed out the number of people wanting to tow trailers. Toyota then gave the Camry a figure of 300kg. I’m not sure what the current generation of Camrys are, but the Sealion is 750kg for the Dynamic and 1300kg for the Premium (braked).

It will be interesting to see if the BEV version, the Sealion 7 comes to NZ. It’s slated for late 2024/ early 2025 for Australia.

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Kookoo

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#3257794 9-Jul-2024 16:41

Dingbatt:

As well as the form drag from the taller cross section, the Sealion 6 that I drove was the AWD “Premium” model which weighs 2.1T (FWD “Dynamic” is 1.9T) vs my old 2012 Camry Hybrid at 1.5T (FWD). So indeed, to only use slightly more fuel per km, is pretty good.

As far as towing goes, Toyota initially had no tow rating for the Camry Hybrid until Toyota Australia pointed out the number of people wanting to tow trailers. Toyota then gave the Camry a figure of 300kg. I’m not sure what the current generation of Camrys are, but the Sealion is 750kg for the Dynamic and 1300kg for the Premium (braked).

It will be interesting to see if the BEV version, the Sealion 7 comes to NZ. It’s slated for late 2024/ early 2025 for Australia.

Ah yeah, that makes sense

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everettpsycho

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#3257866 9-Jul-2024 19:40

Handsomedan:
Scott3:

Interested to hear how money works with the charger (assuming your employer is installing the charger you mentioned at your home?)

From what I can tell, it looks like I'll be paid 40c per KWh for charging at home to compensate for the additional electricity usage. I think the charging unit will be hooked up via wifi to H/O somehow.

40c/kWh is a lot so you'll all be profiting if you charge at home, but it's still cheaper then the 50c a charge net AC charger Clara and much cheaper than the 90c at a fast charger. I assume their overpaying your bill to save them money on you using public chargers. Depending on where you live there's ev plans available you should look in to. In Christchurch you can get it down to 12c/kWh and if your putting 40kWh that's almost $3 profit per charge

gzt

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#3258551 11-Jul-2024 21:49

Bloomberg says OEM battery prices in China dropped 50% over the year:

Bloomberg: Over the last year, the price for lithium iron phosphate, or LFP, battery cells in China has dropped 51% to an average of $53 per kilowatt-hour. The average global price of these batteries last year was $95/kWh.

Electric cars are now on average cheaper than ICE cars in China. It's an odd statistic because China market vehicles are a different mix compared to NZ. It's still impressive. Bloomberg says the biggest winner so far is power grid technologies.

Scott3

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#3258560 12-Jul-2024 00:20

Ariya launch withheld for NZ market

https://www.motoringnz.com/news/2024/7/10/so-close-but-its-sayonara-for-ariya-for-now

Frankly I can't blame them, given the glut of EV in the NZ market at the moment.

The single motor and front-drive Advance and Engage are coming in with a 63kWh unit, whereas the flagship Evolve ramps up to a 87kWh type, with dual motors for all-wheel-drive, labelled E-4orce is Nissan-speak.

Pricing for those cars already shared to dealers is $76,990, $82,990 and $109,990 respectively.

Given one can buy the 430kW kia EV6 GT ex demo for $83k, a LR RWD EV6 ex demo for $60k, An inventory 2024 model Y base for $66,144, or the Long range AWD version for $79k, those prices aren't attractive.

Also Nissan NZ will be a little gun shy after what happened with the leaf, where very large volumes of used cars were imported from Japan (where they picked up a subsidy), and undercut any pricing they could realistically hope to offer. (although this time around they would have some differentiation as the NZ new car would be fitted with a CCS2 fast charge port).

[edit] sadly we should expect more of this, the triple whammy of scrapping the clean car discount, relaxing the clean car standard emissions limits, and hitting EV's with road tax 2.4x what a Yaris hybrid pays is going to seriously cut into the selection of EV's offered into our market.

SaltyNZ

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#3258583 12-Jul-2024 08:14

Scott3:

[edit] sadly we should expect more of this, the triple whammy of scrapping the clean car discount, relaxing the clean car standard emissions limits, and hitting EV's with road tax 2.4x what a Yaris hybrid pays is going to seriously cut into the selection of EV's offered into our market.

Yeah, we voted for a government that wanted to us back to the fut^H^H^H1970s and we got it.

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kingdragonfly

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#3258789 12-Jul-2024 12:20

Just waiting on the Roadster and rebuilding the Puerto Rico Power Grid rebuild first :)

Reuters: Tesla delays robotaxi launch to October, Bloomberg News reports

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DS248

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#3258844 12-Jul-2024 15:48

Scott3:

Handsomedan:

Looks like I am getting a BYD Atto3 to replace my Toyota RAV4 Hybrid as a company car.
Getting the charger fitted in a month and the car in around 6-8 weeks.

Anyone have one, or have any experience with one?

... Interior styling is weird (dashboard styling inspired by a muscle, door pockets inspired by a Guitar etc). My 6 year old loved this.
...

I just looked up BYD's website, and it looks like they are no longer selling the Standard range, so you might be in luck and get the extended range (420km WLTP conversion).

If I recall correctly the spec is quite good, with stuff like 360 degree camera, vehicle to load (I didn't try that), rotating screen etc.

..,

We hired one (Atto 3 long range version) for 16 or so days while in Perth in Feb (our first and only use of an EV). OH did almost all the driving. I only drove it once.

Details

Weather: ranged from severe heatwave at start (44C+) to typical Perth summer towards end (mid-20's to mid-30's)
Mix of city (mostly highway = 60 - 80+ kph) and rural driving. The latter mostly highway or freeway with speed limit often 110 kph (up to ~100 k to E of Perth, and one trip down to Busselton)
Ironically, it effectively the cheapest option for a newish vehicle of that size that I found (IIRC something like NZ$75/day + insurance). All comparable size IC vehicles were dearer or quite a bit dearer. Not certain if that was an introductory price as a few weeks after we got back it seemed to be quite a lot more for the same vehicle.
Discovered to our surprise (probably didn't read closely enough beforehand) the flat fee rental included not only unlimited km, but all electricity use as well (at least from specific but reasonably well placed charging stations in the areas where we were). So the NZ$75/day + insurance was 100% of what we paid for vehicle use. FWIW, the rental & insurance was through Booking.com.
Had made sure we could trickle charge overnight at our accommodation (3 places), though at some places that would have involved long power chords. But after discovering that charging was free, we never used the three pin charging at our accommodation. All our charging was done using fast chargers (~20kW to 350 kW). Did not see any benefit chargers over 50 - 70 kW though. Charge times were OK, even for 20% to ~100% battery capacity (mostly charged to ~90%+). Don't think we were hooked up more than an hour anywhere. Most times shops nearby so charge time was not an issue. Did sometimes go a bit out of our way to get to the free (for us) chargers but that cost us nothing anyway ('free' electricity). Partly that was to avoid the 7kW chargers (probably ~half the 'free' options). Never did use any of those.
Actual range was of course lower than 'claimed' but was adequate (hot temperatures, and mostly city highway or motorway driving). Off hand don't recall the stats (perhaps ~80% of stated and a bit less at 110 kph or very high temperatures). I did record usage for personal interest & to have more reliable info for planning re-charging stops.
Supposedly the car can work with Android Auto but ours was not set up to.

I thought it was fine, if a little more funky interior-wise than I would normally care for. Others have mentioned that. But it was 'OK'. OH not so impressed by the vehicle and would not buy one anytime soon.

First up, the 'China' concern (if push comes to shove ... "might disable all Chinese made vehicles in the west ...")
Too sluggish for her liking. Had been expecting every EV to be very punchy.
Annoyed by the frequent 'exceeding the speed limit' warnings everytime 1 kph over (& more ...). Not helped by SatNav issues (below) and two independant speed limit sources. One from the SatNav maps, the other from cameras reading speed signs. The latter not confined to this vehicle of course and can be a bit problematic. Missed/partly obscured speed signs; speed limits changing with time (variable speed limits on some highway & motorway sections, school zones). All three places we stayed turned out to be within school zones. So drive in with sign saying say 50, then may be 40 when leave later (and vice versa). Since heading out, may not see another speed sign until several kms away. The morning I did drive it (to local shops), the car was saying the limit was 40 kph. It was not until returning from the shops and encountered a 50 kph sign that I registered what had happened. The school zone speed zone is an active one and changes depending on time of day. When we had come back to our unit the afternoon before, the sign had been saying 40 kph and the car had retained that overnight.
The built-in SatNav seemed sluggish at times with the result that it would sometimes be too late advising to turn, or to take a motorway exit ramp. That could be very frustrating, especially at night, especially as we were often driving in 'unfamiliar' territory. Have been to Perth many times (not so recently though) but motorway/highway development there is constant and at breakneck speed so many parts not familiar with.
That was compounded by incorrect or out of date maps in the SatNav (even though the car was only a few months old - about 10k on the clock when we picked it up). A problem further compounded by the rate of road development ... Google Maps (on phone) was quite bit more responsive and up-to-date, though even that occasionally had speed limit errors. Not helped by the often multiple changes in speed limits up and down, even along a single section of highway.
Annoying simulated car noise (whine) at low speeds. Even I got annoyed by that at times
Quite a bit of road noise. Of course, not really a premium car so I guess you get what you pay for. But with that and the above it did not seem any quieter than many IC cars (& often noisier than my ancient Audi).

On the positive side

Boot space seemed pretty good
3D camera was great
Overall seemed well made

A final comment (re Perth, not the car) - a very impressive & extensive highway network throughout the city

deepred

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#3259191 13-Jul-2024 16:36

SaltyNZ:

Scott3:

[edit] sadly we should expect more of this, the triple whammy of scrapping the clean car discount, relaxing the clean car standard emissions limits, and hitting EV's with road tax 2.4x what a Yaris hybrid pays is going to seriously cut into the selection of EV's offered into our market.

Yeah, we voted for a government that wanted to us back to the fut^H^H^H1970s and we got it.

EV carless days next on the horizon?

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#3260236 16-Jul-2024 13:19

Interesting to see that Kia has pushed back the release of the EV5, despite only launching it last week. Is this a rethink on the price and/or spec to adjust to the current challenging market conditions?

https://evsandbeyond.co.nz/kia-nz-delays-just-launched-ev5/

Obraik

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#3260665 17-Jul-2024 11:16

maoriboy:

Interesting to see that Kia has pushed back the release of the EV5, despite only launching it last week. Is this a rethink on the price and/or spec to adjust to the current challenging market conditions?

https://evsandbeyond.co.nz/kia-nz-delays-just-launched-ev5/

I think Kia has a bit of an EV pricing problem. For most people, why would they pay more for an EV5 when you can get a Model Y for less money or for around the same price as the EV5, an EV6? The EV5 should be the price that the Niro EV is and the Niro should be at the price the MG ZS/Atto 3 is.

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maoriboy

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#3260697 17-Jul-2024 11:51

Obraik:

I think Kia has a bit of an EV pricing problem. For most people, why would they pay more for an EV5 when you can get a Model Y for less money or for around the same price as the EV5, an EV6? The EV5 should be the price that the Niro EV is and the Niro should be at the price the MG ZS/Atto 3 is.

I agree with that assessment. The Niro is overpriced for what it is, and there are other options to the EV5 that do just as much, for less. It was/is still a car I'm interested in (esp with V2L on the higher specs) but at that price, the KGM Torres, Skoda Enyaq, Omoda E5 etc are all there or thereabouts, as well as the EV6 and Ioniq 5. It will be interesting to see what Kia do.

HarmLessSolutions

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#3260701 17-Jul-2024 11:57

maoriboy:

Obraik:

I think Kia has a bit of an EV pricing problem. For most people, why would they pay more for an EV5 when you can get a Model Y for less money or for around the same price as the EV5, an EV6? The EV5 should be the price that the Niro EV is and the Niro should be at the price the MG ZS/Atto 3 is.

I agree with that assessment. The Niro is overpriced for what it is, and there are other options to the EV5 that do just as much, for less. It was/is still a car I'm interested in (esp with V2L on the higher specs) but at that price, the KGM Torres, Skoda Enyaq, Omoda E5 etc are all there or thereabouts, as well as the EV6 and Ioniq 5. It will be interesting to see what Kia do.

More accurately the latest Kias offer full bidirectional charging so capable of filling V2H/V2G function rather than just V2L. V2G is still some way away in NZ as the regulatory platform and lines companies catch up with progress internationally but the pressure is on as criticism of EV's load on our grid grows. Better EVs be part of the solution than of the problem.

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RogerMellie

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#3260708 17-Jul-2024 12:21

Received an email today from BP to say a charger of theirs that I have previously used now has variable pricing, but doesn't state what the variation in prices are. Visited the charger site in the BP Charge app, but again it doesn't say the range in prices/kWh, just the previously known $0.75/kWh

Does anyone here know?

jonathan18

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#3260974 18-Jul-2024 11:10

About time! - there's now a 'real' EV station wagon (ie, one built on an EV-specific platform) with the release of the ID7 Tourer, which is apparently the replacement for the ICE Passat wagon. Reviewed here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fuz8VkAxyg&t=636s

I'm a sucker for wagons, having resentfully settled for an 'SUV' form EV only due to a lack of options, so it's good to see. Not unusually, I also think it's much better looking than the ID7 hatch (see comparison photos below). That said, personally I'd think twice about buying a car from the VWG, even if it was available in NZ (which it won't be according to this article).

The ID.7 Tourer Is Volkswagen's First ... 2025 Volkswagen ID.7 Preview

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