lol-lol

Well even UK Auto-express say it is generously sized for a Super Mini, I just do not think so but then we are well above average heights in my family. https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/renault/zoe/practicality#:~:text=As a full five-seater,for any supermini out there. As a full five-seater with a 338-litre boot, the Zoe is a wiser choice than the Volkswagen e-up! if you regularly carry passengers and luggage. In fact, the packaging is so impressive that the car’s accommodation is pretty much a match for any supermini out there. Leg room, head room & passenger space There’s a decent amount of space in the Zoe for five occupants, and the rear seats will even accommodate six-footers on a short journey. However, the upright seating position means they may not be terribly comfortable for long. " The UK does not get a whole heap of cars, we should be thankful to get cars made in RHD at all, even though, according to KPMG, we end up paying about 6% more than LHD cars as the smaller run of parts etc adds to the parts. My eldest daughter's beau is 6 foot 4-ish, his brother nearly 6 foot 10, drives a Passat I think. I would not want to be in the back of the Zoe for more than an hour if both front seats were most the way back as I have it when driving. Press say the very popular PSA 208 platform is slightly less generous for space but these are Fabia sized vehicles and not Gold sized. The new EV Megane will address this space issue I expect for us who are more than one standard deviation above average UK height.

UK does not get the proper 75 kwh battery spec that Europe gets, presumably because of the measly EV support bung of £2.5k compared to 2 or 3 times that over the channel.

As with many vehicles, and having seized a few in my time, many driver are shocked how close they get too, or even above the max weight for the vehicle. The Zoe is not allowed to be over 1988 kgs, the e-corsa even lower 1,920 kgs. As these vehicles are 1.5 or even 1.6 tonnes unladen it does not give you much to play with. Just like when one looks at the lift weight it does make one do a bit of maths sometimes. I am 6 ft 1 inch and weight 120 kgs clothed. Add a bit of business stuff, maybe the false floor as an add on and I am already at 1.75 tonnes. I reckon I can take no more than two adult passengers, each with a laptop etc, and be near two tonnes. The Zoe is not really a 5 adult car, not even a 4 adult car. Fabia 2 is only allowed just over a tonne and a half, Fabia 3 only a few kilograms more. Easily surpassed. Seized one Luton and even when I had removed a tonne and half of alcohol it was still on the limit ! Make sure those tyres are well inflated, I run 40 psi all round as do most Zoe owners as the 36 psi recommended just shreds the tyres with the instant torque.

The new format of charging station is as the Braintree one is. There is a Costa, Smiths, Post Office, an EV area which show the latest EV, lease agreements etc. One can spend some of that lump of cash one has saved, catch up with some emails, do that call which is a bit technical that I really should not be making on the move etc. What is really smart is the have a 6 MWh battery storage so they should be able to buy electrically energy at 4.75 pence per kWh, or less maybe, using the super cheap overnight nuclear base load and sell it on again at their 30p a kWh, not a bad margin ! Multi-million pound investment but a sound one and one I am looking forward to trying out their 22 kw AC chargers rather than the 50 kw DC ones, the posts just to the right of the massive solar roof......... Many of these in the planning stage include one in Plymouth.

Along with Bjorn Nyland I do like Chris from Passau Germany who does a fantastic catalogue of EV videos.... https://www.youtube.com/c/BatteryLife/videos One potential useful by-product of his massive body of work is his EV spreadsheet......... As always stunning how good the Ionic is but if it had a proper 50 kwh plus battery it would be so much better ! Consumption in Wh/km °C 90 km/h 110 km/h 130 km/h Month Temp Weather VW eUp 2020 128 165 187 March 2020 7 Dry Wintertyres,no gps Hyundai Ioniq 38 kWh 104 134 163 May 2020 23 Dry Reanult Zoe ZE50 122 158 202 June 2020 24 Dry AC VW eGolf 116 147 192 August 2020 30 Dry AC Mini Cooper SE 117 152 204 Sept 2020 17 Dry VW Id.3 Pro 133 170 218 October 2020 12 Dry 19 inch tires Nissan Leaf e+ 159 189 234 October 2020 12 Dry Winter tires BMW i3s 149 186 247 March 2021 1 Dry Winter tires Polestar 2 194 208 258 April 2021 7 Bit wet Mercedes EQA 250 154 198 248 April 2021 14 Dry 20 inch Peugeot e2008 150 195 250 May 2021 11 Dry 17 inch Kia eNiro 143 179 213 May 2021 13 Dry 17 inch VW Id.4 Max 137 170 205 June 2021 21 Dry 21 inch Fiat 500e 121 156 192 July 2021 25 Dry 17 inch Volvo XC40 161 213 265 Aug 2021 23 Dry 19 inch Allseason Tesla Model Y 123 155 187 Sept 2021 17 Dry 19 inch

Hysteresis was my first thought. The inherent loss of converting AC to DC or visa versa. Bigger the converter the bigger the losses... https://resources.pcb.cadence.com/blog/2020-hysteresis-loss-in-a-transformer-and-how-it-affects-ac-circuits#:~:text=Hysteresis loss in a transformer occurs due to magnetization saturation,generated by an AC current. Also George makes a good point with just losses ie showing the display when charging which is a fixed loss which will affect the smaller charging systems proportional more than the fast chargers. I am more worried about damage, even slight, of fast charging repeatedly. A happy medium of 3,7 or 11 sounds good to me, 22 at a push, I hope to avoid 50 kw charging as much as possible.

Seen a few vids of this guy "Batterylife" doing his quite useful and technical videos and I think he rivals Bjorn N for superb details about cruising speeds, temperature effect on range and this one on charging efficiency. Strong case for not using the 3 pin home charger with its 20% losses but all the other chargers seem pretty similar. I had started to get worried that my little 3.6 kwh charger was a big mistake and I should look at an early upgrade to 7 kw or even a twin outlet charger but he had the efficiency percentage pretty similar. Also very interesting that the 50 something kwh ID3 was not charging at above 50 kw even when plugged in to a 100 kw charger compared to 50 kw charger. Also Mr Batterylife makes a throw away comment that the 3,5,11 kw chargers are best for battery life, presumably compared to regular use of fast DC ie 50 kw and above. The two vids on Tesla energy consumption is interesting as the power consumption in full protection mode is huge and can leave the car dead after a couple of weeks ! Reminds me of the David Crowe Dry Bar sketch....

I like to hear some of good ideas and experience from some of my learned colleagues who have had EVs and I am enjoying the first steps on EV ownership. As to others I have thought for some time that Darwin rules. I have taken onboard what some of the EV adopters have expounded and done my own research. When the fuel crisis came, same as the massive UK government tax rises it is just a technical problem as an analyst to work around. I would like to think 1 person or a few might be swayed and adopt EVs sooner rather than later if not we all are buggered but in the mean time I will do my bit whilst the majority follow the Pied Piper. At least there is comedy......

If weight of vehicle is such a big deal then cars around the 1 to two tonnes mark is going to be small beer compared to trucks at 16, 32 and 44 tonnes. I recall reading reports when the max tonnage for trucks was to go from 38 tonnes to a 44 tonnes and all the concern about that, might have been in my year with Department for Transport before joining HMRC, thereabout. Once of the equations on damage for the axle weight to the forth power which worried the Dept Boffins that the damage would be huge. If we need another test on the tyres ie so they include Fuel economy, Wet grip, Noise and purpose, but one for PM production and import controls that we do not get really poor ones arrive on the UK market. New EU labels Regulation (EU) 2020/740. Perhaps next time if we keep up with EU standards.

Facts are EV do not produce emissions from combustion. EVs hardly use their brake as they use Regen. EV are usually a bit heavier but at 1.6 tonnes it is hardly heavier than many ICEs, heavier than a Kodiaq which can be over 1.7T curb weight ? The key take away seems to be that certain poor quality tyres give off loads of PMs. The Zoe came with Michelin Primacy tyres so not cheap lower or even mid range tyres. We have really problems to sort out here and go do without Donald Trumpesque is-information when the world is at stake.

I have come across Emission Analytics before over sensational emissions claim on certain cars pollution levels and it does not surprise me they are your source. I see he has an MA from Oxford, shame it is not a science degree. I can see why you empathise with him. Emission Analytics is a tiny company with a turnover of less than £1M. https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/07576124/filing-history

I think the Corsa, like the 208 etc, are handsome cars, but with some of its design choices, even things like 17 inch wheels, I think PSA, or whatever they call themselves now, made decision which affected range over sex appeal in the show room. Renault say the range could drop by 40 % in winter conditions (-6 C) so which would give me 145 miles range but they also add that one should be using the APP and finishing off the car charge and pre-condition, in effect, the battery and toastie the car on the charger. https://www.renaultgroup.com/en/news-on-air/news/electric-cars-how-to-maximize-your-range-during-the-winter/ So I grabbed 14 kwh of cheap nuclear lecky between 0030 and 0430 on the Octopus 5 p a kwh tariff and got up to 94% with it showing 200 miles range. So if I was going to My Tilbury office tomorrow, 175 miles distant, then would probably be wise to pre-condition and bring battery up to 100% even if it using the daily tariff of 16p a kwh as it is only grabbing 6% more visible on the percentage scale though I suspect it actually goes to more like 102% ie the full 55 kwh capacity as I seem to drive the first near ten miles before it drops down to 99%. Shame fitting narrower and smaller winter tyres is such a pain as the TPM would not like it unless one bought a second set of TPM valves. I wish the Zoe was more Tesla shape but then Renault will say you will have the chance to buy the Megane EV soon. Elon Musk has made over $100B this year, not bad going !

The additional PMs is only for additional weight as I understand it and taken as a whole I cannot see that a little EV like mine is producing similar PMs to an average ICE car, particularly diesel emissions, and brakes is another area as we tend not to use brakes to slow down in an EV but we use regeneration. I have read a few articles on this and here is, I think, I well written and balanced appraisal of it.... (Feel free to add your recent scientific source on the issue).... https://epha.org/electric-vehicles-and-air-pollution-the-claims-and-the-facts/ It sounds like we need some better tyre constructs. A recent Zoe test had the car go 424 miles in standard tyres and 475 on special tyres, quite a difference. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Electric vehicles and air pollution: the claims and the facts 1.EVs reduce pollution from brake and tyres On brake pollution, conventional internal combustion engine (ICE) cars mainly use disc brakes to slow the car down, which emits particle pollution. In contrast, EVs use “regenerative braking” as it restores braking energy back to the car’s battery to power the car. This process reduces the need to use the brakes and therefore reduces particle emissions. On tyre pollution, EVs have heavier weight compared to ICE cars and, according to some reports, this extra weight increases wear and thus particle pollution. Yet, EVs are mostly fitted with special tyres designed to cope with the heavier weight of batteries to ensure that they do not wear out too quickly. More studies are needed to measure particle emissions from tyres, especially from EVs, but all road vehicles, including heavy SUVs, are to blame for tyre pollution. 2. EVs reduce particle pollution Focusing on ‘primary’ particle mass (PM) emissions, i.e those particles which are emitted directly from the exhaust, tyres and brakes, should not lose sight of ‘secondary’ particle pollution. These particles form in the air due to other pollutants such as nitrogen oxides (NOx), hydrocarbons (HC) and ammonia (NH3) emitted from the tailpipe. Like primary particles these ‘secondary’ particles also contribute to PM2.5 (particles smaller than 2.5 microns) and PM10 (particles smaller than 10 microns) pollution, thereby causing poor air quality. According to a recent study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), these secondary particles can contribute up to 29% of the total PM emissions of a car. Most importantly, the OECD study found that when all particle sources associated with cars are counted, including secondary particles, EV cars contribute less PM2.5 and PM10 than diesel or petrol cars................................... In conclusion, EVs do not produce more pollution than fossil fuelled cars. On the contrary, they eliminate emissions from engine exhaust and significantly reduce emissions from brakes. The evidence on tyres is more mixed. However, claims that EVs create more particle pollution due to tyres are misleading as they ignore their overall air quality benefits. Particle emissions should not be used as an excuse to slow down the transition to zero emission mobility. Instead, regulations should address pollution from brakes and tyres to ensure that emissions from these sources are reduced for all road vehicles.

There is electricity just about everywhere and it just needs more organising to get it run out there. Why more pubs and guest houses do not add EV charging as part of their offering is a question even if it is 2 or 3 kw granny charging. If you have saved someone a small fortune in fuel then happy days to make hay, charge the guest 25p a kwh for lecky and buy it in at 5p a kwh during the night. Another angle to make money. We must get out CO2 quickly else Climate change will kill millions. DVLA need to monitor mileage via MOT etc and get those doing miles to change over either by good deals or it looks like ever higher oil prices will do it anyways. Not just the fuel but the engine oil waste and not just the CO2 but the NOX and PMs through towns. If the charger is defunct, though ZAP should be able to tell you this or the power network provider then at last resorts one get the RAC etc out. They will use their onboard Maybe a Tesla Powerwall with some portable gadget when we get the rolling blackout due to shortages of oil and gas !

Done. Trying to multi-task and not being very successful. The Zoe has gone from a 22 kwh car to a 52 Kwh car in less than a decade and more power, better lights ie LED. Proud to own a heat pump even if it is in the car as the heat pump is being demonized at present quite wrongly in my opinion.

Well I am in the range 3.5 miles per kw to 5 miles per kw at the moment. Not been anywhere I have to pay but I am looking forward to maybe using the Rugby charging where they have a dozen 350 kw chargers, yes I can only charge at 50 so it seems like overkill and I was hoping they would do a half bank of 22 kw AC chargers maybe at 25 p a kwh as surely these are cheaper as no AC to DC is required with the 10% or so loss in power. If I was doing less that 3 miles per kwh I would consider using a ICE instead but we have only been down to 2 C so far so nowhere near that the range is getting below 150 miles. https://www.gridserve.com/2021/04/30/electric-highway-opens-uks-largest-high-power-motorway-charging-site/

I think so. My company has been quite poor at encouraging adoption of EVs which odd considering our involvement in batteries etc and even just good business practice for its employees. We got our new Heathrow HQ in 2017, fresh build and somewhere somebody thought 10 chargers was the right number for an office that probably house about 200 workers. Oddly I think 6 chargers are 3 kw, OK for a PHEV but not a BEV and 4 are 3 phase 11 kw AC which the Zoe will love, used the wrong one last time but as I still had 140 miles charge left did not bother to swap it over plus it did not release my lead so I ended up pulling the ROLEC post in half to get my lead by, fortunately Leckies on site made it safe and all the charge post will now have their cable locking pin greased up so it does not happen to a client or staff member. But I do go to lots of clients and the big ones often have charge points for use by staff and visitors. Worse case many offices have an external waterproofed 240v 3 pin plug socket so I can use my granny cable and pick up a few kwh of power.

The EV using a lithium ion battery is very similar to any other lithium ion device we have ie our smartphones and rechargeable headphones and not actually as bad as common car batteries...... What annoys me a bit is, as with George, miles of range seem to disappear as each degree lower it gets, with the Zoe they come back again when it gets warmer so one takes it all with a pick of salt. If one can heat the battery by a bit of driving then some if it can come back as the interior of the car gets warmer and the battery pack gets warmer. Different battery tech ie the Lithium Metal Polyimide we used in our cars and now on Mercedes buses like the battery to be toastie bit like the diesel engine being left to idle to keep the jacket water temperature up. The car manufacturers each do their own bit of nanny state if telling the car operator only half the truth. I would rather have amps and volts and a measure of Joules in the battery, the real figure ie the 55 kwh 200 MJ that it actual has and show the real data and perhaps saying that 10 or 20 MJ become temperature locked or something like that. Instead the range meter comes up with it guess each time I switch it one or phone the car up on the Renault App. I would rather the raw facts but that would not suit most I guess but I have been a student of thermodynamics for the last 45 years thru OND and degree level. With half a million charge points by the end of this decade and few places more than a dozen miles from a bank of points plus advanced rental of that point, for a few pence, nearly everybody should be happy.

Indeed so, sorry, both the Zoe and Clio have proved very popular with buyers. Zoe is probably only just losing it crown as the most popular EV in Europe now the Telsa model 3 is in big production and sales and the ID 3/4 has finally started to ramp up the numbers. Clio, mk4 has been massive success for Renault too and continues through the mark 5 and the Dacia of course. It is just the Clio seems like it has nowhere more to develop other than hybrid but then nice to see the return of the Renault 5,as an EV,

I am not sure there is any real sticks in the UK ie nowhere where you are say a hundred miles from a bank of chargers and with the roll out of chargers at Lidl and Tesco they tend to be within 50 miles of just about everybody. Problem is that drivers want at least 22 kwh chargers rather than the 7 kwh and even near useless 3 kwh chargers and off course preferably the 50 kwh DC and above chargers to make charge time in the matter of a few minutes rather than an hour or two as with 22 kwh and even longer than that for those chargers below 22 kwh AC. What EV drivers note, and each EV is often quite different in the way they charge but generally one is only charging between 10% and say 80% ie a 70% circa two thirds charge rather than a nothing to full as the last 10 or even 20% can be quite slow. But one should be leaving home with a full charge after charging overnight. Easier for those two-thirds who can use a home charger of 7 kwh or even me with my bijou 3.6 kwh charger. Those without drives are adopting so hairy solutions like handling the granny lead from upper bedroom windows and taped high up on a lamppost unless lucky enough to get the charge posts put in on the kerb as is happening in London and other cities. With E10 giving us less range in our petrol cars, a thousand new charge points a month appearing and the roll out of dedicated EV charging station like Braintree appearing the change over looks like being quite rapid, spurred on by £1.50 a litre fuel compared to 1p a mile electricity from home, free at work for many or 6p a mile at public chargers is impossible for any ICE to match.

Well driving one of the current popular EV vehicles is generally pleasurable, the quietness, the instant acceleration but range anxiety is a factor with all of them I would have thought even Long Range Tesla Model 3s and P75s and even P100s etc as they do not do the 400, 500 or 600 miles we get on many of our ICE cars. That said the two ideas that the fuel can cost next to nothing and one is making journeys with almost zero pollution is very satisfying to me. I just tripped over the 1000 mile mark in a little trip to St Andrews football ground in Birmingham and then back to Worcester and the onboard computer is still showing a fairly good range considering late autumn cool temperature driving..... zoe-dash 7-11-2021.jfif So getting a projected range of around 218 miles, down from 238 miles when it was warmer in early September and a lot less than the 260 I was seeing on A road runs in the warm weather spell in mid-late September. Learning where the free and cheaper charge points are but total running costs are overall cheaper in the Zoe EV than in Octavia I had and that is with all the advantages of a fuel card. Just need my employer to consider charging my fuel card to an EV charge card with Gridserve and/or even Tesla when that network become available to all EVs in the UK as appears to be the intent ! Still got a ICE backup but only using that when the EV is not practical to use on those long fast journeys when charging would be difficult.

Looking forward to popping in to the Braintree Grid-serve EV charging facility before Xmas on the family visit run........ Also looking forward to using the Rugby one which is not as cosy but looks well served by charge points and will glad to see Stevenage on the A1M and others , especially Plymouth my home town, joining the Gird Serve network and 30p per kWh sounds quite reasonable and just to get a £5 fill of 75 miles or a tenner getting me 150 miles.

That is an interesting set of maths. We all have our different configurations of vehicles, chargers with their different tariffs and as a new EV owner it is the changing of ambient temperature and its effect on which is the optimal vehicle to use that was suspected that it would be significant but the actual experience of it brings a host of primary and secondary questions. What is very real is that for each degree centigrade the ambient temperature drops the EV/battery pack seems to lose a percentage point or so of range so when going out to the car with the temperature at 2C I am seeing only 200 miles predicted rather than 240 miles when the temperature was 20C or so. The power usage, as displayed on the dashboard seems to show that instead of about 4 and a half miles per KwH it is now more like 3 and half miles per kWh. I do not believe the car is actually using about 30% more energy per mile, some I will concede as the Heat Pump and I will monitor that more closely that power usage. I am actually concluding that the battery capacity diminishes with temperature and the car effectively mis-reports energy usage as actual loss of percent battery capacity due to the lower temperatures. Interesting comment I have seen on the ZE forum and by Bjorn N that sometimes it is actually better to drive a bit quicker in cooler weather, say 60-65 mph rather optimum 55 mph as it warms up the battery pack to a better temperature which is going to allow a fuller charge. Must use pre-conditioning to give that an evaluation. Octopus still only charging 5p a kWh and charging up for free at an 11 kWh charger at Heathrow work office is good, via an external 3 pin socket and granny cable at my Cambridge office not so much but free is free. Had to use the Clio for the 350 mile round trip from Worcester to Worthing, semi happy that the ICE waste heat kept me warm, ICE cars start to make more sense on those colder and longer journeys until I get the longer range, better fast road more aerodynamic Megane e-tech hopefully at some point.

We have been using this tech for most of the last decade. We have about 5,000 cars on the Paris car sharing scheme with 30 kWh LMP batteries, we start to run it out in London too along with our owning/running of Source London but Paris Met Authority wanted to go a different way so we pulled the plug on the whole thing. We do some similar stuff in Singapore with the buses and cars but do not do the cars anymore and sold Source London to Total. Yes they are fine for Deep cycle and thousands of recharges, they like to be permanently or the charger keeping them up over 50C most the time and were ready to use. Record rental was 40 on one car in a day. 6 minutes was the minimum rental and then in blocks of 6 minutes. Might be all you need to go from Gare du Nord to Gare to Sud. Overheating not a problem like with Charge-gate. We work quite a lot with Super Capacitors and that is where much of new development is to work in unison with the battery and with the regen and fast resupply to the motor. Zap charging..... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woMjb7kfgOU