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In the previous post I covered a lot of the general things that I have encountered in over 12 years of driving EV's. This post is more about specific examples/experiences;
My neighbour has a Nissan Leaf, in fact his 3rd Leaf, he loves them. He drives the usual commute distance to work every day, which the Leaf handles easily. He also has a treechange weekender not far from Goulburn which he travels to once or twice a month. "The shack" as he calls it is off the grid and previously when he was there he used to run a generator when the sun wasn't shining and the solar wasn't providing enough power (night time etc). Since he has had the Leafs he has used them to power the shack. He does a recharge at Goulburn on the way down and back and the Leaf runs the shack for a 4 day long weekend easily. Note that it's battery is 40 kWh, which, for example, is almost triple what a Tesla Power Wall provides. Leafs are one of the few EV's that provide V2H (Vehicle to Home) power.
Personally I'm not a big fan of Leafs, they are not a great "car" but for his specific uses they are unequaled.
A personal experience, I few weeks back I had the opportunity to try a Mercedes EQB for a few days. I often travel to Lake Jindabyne with the family towing a couple of jet ski's so I know exactly what my normal routine is. Get up at 4.30am drive ~4.5 hours (my wife also drives, so no concern about driver fatigue), drop off the luggage and in the water by 10 am. I fill up once over the weekend, costs about $130, and then leave at 2 pm on Monday and back home by 6.30 pm for dinner. A very comfortable weekend. that we have done many times.
With the EQB I tried the same schedule, it had about 90% charge when I picked it up (the dealer told me that's what they limit all their EV's to). The quoted range is 440km but with only 90% charge minus the drive to home, I figured on getting 350 km just to be safe. People + luggage + towing on a freeway really knocks the range around and at 200 km it was showing only 30% charge remaining.
Range anxiety kicked in and I used the Chargefox fast charger at Goulburn which cost 60 cents per kwh, around $30 and took about an hour. I topped it up to the 90% limit and set off on the 300 km to Cooma (there is no fast charger at Jindabyne). Recharged to 90% again, another $30 and an hour. Arrived in Jindabyne at around 11.45 am. Did the usual stuff over the weekend then topped up at Cooma and Goulburn on the way home on Monday.
All up charging costs $125, which is not noticeably less than what fuel normally costs and spent almost 5 hours over the weekend charging. Which we all noticed.
That was not a typical experience with an EV out of town, it was relatively smooth, no queuing for chargers and all of the chargers were working which is not always the case. I have had occasions where I have had to que for up to 2 hours while other EV's recharged, plus an hour recharging myself. Especially on long weekends and school holidays, when there are lots more people exploring the limits of their EVs'.
I have also encountered another trap, an EV charger may be rated at, say, 150 kwh but the EV's never accept 150 kWh for the whole charge time. They have to thermally manage their battery while charging so they limit the charge rate. Plus at over ~70% charge the charge rate slows, with the last 15% often taking as long as the first 50%. There is more, I have struck a few chargers when individually they might be rated at 150 kWh but there is an overall power limit on the site, so if other people are also recharging then they don't get anywhere near their advertised charging rate, one couldn't even achieve 40 kWh, but you still pay the 150 kWh rate.
FWIW my current ICEV has 5 years warranty, 5 years free service and 5 years loan car when ever my car needs servicing. So my servicing costs are non existent, so an EV would save me exactly zero in servicing costs.
Not wishing to finish on an EV negative, another of my neighbours has a Tesla Model Y, she absolutely loves it after having a Mazda CX90 for a few years. She drops the kids at school then goes to work for a few hours and picks them up on the way home. Programs the Y to charge from their solar of an afternoon and on weekends. Hasn't spent a cent on fuel for over a year and loves not having to go to the service station.
Horses for courses as they say.
Always a Bulldog
My neighbour has a Nissan Leaf, in fact his 3rd Leaf, he loves them. He drives the usual commute distance to work every day, which the Leaf handles easily. He also has a treechange weekender not far from Goulburn which he travels to once or twice a month. "The shack" as he calls it is off the grid and previously when he was there he used to run a generator when the sun wasn't shining and the solar wasn't providing enough power (night time etc). Since he has had the Leafs he has used them to power the shack. He does a recharge at Goulburn on the way down and back and the Leaf runs the shack for a 4 day long weekend easily. Note that it's battery is 40 kWh, which, for example, is almost triple what a Tesla Power Wall provides. Leafs are one of the few EV's that provide V2H (Vehicle to Home) power.
Personally I'm not a big fan of Leafs, they are not a great "car" but for his specific uses they are unequaled.
A personal experience, I few weeks back I had the opportunity to try a Mercedes EQB for a few days. I often travel to Lake Jindabyne with the family towing a couple of jet ski's so I know exactly what my normal routine is. Get up at 4.30am drive ~4.5 hours (my wife also drives, so no concern about driver fatigue), drop off the luggage and in the water by 10 am. I fill up once over the weekend, costs about $130, and then leave at 2 pm on Monday and back home by 6.30 pm for dinner. A very comfortable weekend. that we have done many times.
With the EQB I tried the same schedule, it had about 90% charge when I picked it up (the dealer told me that's what they limit all their EV's to). The quoted range is 440km but with only 90% charge minus the drive to home, I figured on getting 350 km just to be safe. People + luggage + towing on a freeway really knocks the range around and at 200 km it was showing only 30% charge remaining.
Range anxiety kicked in and I used the Chargefox fast charger at Goulburn which cost 60 cents per kwh, around $30 and took about an hour. I topped it up to the 90% limit and set off on the 300 km to Cooma (there is no fast charger at Jindabyne). Recharged to 90% again, another $30 and an hour. Arrived in Jindabyne at around 11.45 am. Did the usual stuff over the weekend then topped up at Cooma and Goulburn on the way home on Monday.
All up charging costs $125, which is not noticeably less than what fuel normally costs and spent almost 5 hours over the weekend charging. Which we all noticed.
That was not a typical experience with an EV out of town, it was relatively smooth, no queuing for chargers and all of the chargers were working which is not always the case. I have had occasions where I have had to que for up to 2 hours while other EV's recharged, plus an hour recharging myself. Especially on long weekends and school holidays, when there are lots more people exploring the limits of their EVs'.
I have also encountered another trap, an EV charger may be rated at, say, 150 kwh but the EV's never accept 150 kWh for the whole charge time. They have to thermally manage their battery while charging so they limit the charge rate. Plus at over ~70% charge the charge rate slows, with the last 15% often taking as long as the first 50%. There is more, I have struck a few chargers when individually they might be rated at 150 kWh but there is an overall power limit on the site, so if other people are also recharging then they don't get anywhere near their advertised charging rate, one couldn't even achieve 40 kWh, but you still pay the 150 kWh rate.
FWIW my current ICEV has 5 years warranty, 5 years free service and 5 years loan car when ever my car needs servicing. So my servicing costs are non existent, so an EV would save me exactly zero in servicing costs.
Not wishing to finish on an EV negative, another of my neighbours has a Tesla Model Y, she absolutely loves it after having a Mazda CX90 for a few years. She drops the kids at school then goes to work for a few hours and picks them up on the way home. Programs the Y to charge from their solar of an afternoon and on weekends. Hasn't spent a cent on fuel for over a year and loves not having to go to the service station.
Horses for courses as they say.
Always a Bulldog
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