Gone Electric... Xav's Tesla thread

[Xavier]

49 minutes ago, VRS Mike said:

very nice, will your current car get moved on? I'm guessing the 3 will be the family car and roadster for pleasure?

I have no plans to get rid of my current one - hanging on to it, at least for another few years.

Not sure what I'll do with the Model 3 reservation (had it for some time). I initially got it either for my mum or as an investment thingy as existing Tesla owners are apparetnyl having priority over others, so if the market demanded it, I would probably sell it on with just deliver mileage.

[VRS Mike]

1 hour ago, Xavier said:

I have no plans to get rid of my current one - hanging on to it, at least for another few years.

Not sure what I'll do with the Model 3 reservation (had it for some time). I initially got it either for my mum or as an investment thingy as existing Tesla owners are apparetnyl having priority over others, so if the market demanded it, I would probably sell it on with just deliver mileage.

 

Fair enough, are you going to be getting the roadster then?

[Xavier]

Update

Mike, I don't think so, it's just too much money for me to tie up in it right now. I don't have a couple of hundred grand lying around the back of the sofa last time I checked!

 

The few issues I had recently with mine have been addressed - front light unit replaced as the sidelight LED element was starting to fail. I also had a problem with the boot mysteriously locking and not opening. Fortunately, Tesla were able to sort it out within a few days as I drove back to Paris before Christmas.

 

Since then, I've been back down to spend some time with my mum. Had to plan the long journey accordingly. Used https://abetterrouteplanner.com this time. Here's what it came up with:

 

I was also doing some blablacar again - just one passenger from Saintes to Rouen. I left a little later than I wanted to and it did put me under a bit or pressure as  I couldn't afford to miss my Channel Tunnel crossing in the evening as they were all fully booked.

 

So I had to put my foot down a bit more than I had initially planned. It resulted in a shorter drive, at the cost of a slightly longer recharging time overall. The final journey was pretty accurate in total time.

 

Here's what I ended up actually doing (telemetry data via Teslalog)

 

As I was at Rouen, it's a longer stint back to Calais and as I was short of time, I decided to stop half way and top up as it meant I wouldn't do two shorter charging sessions rather than one longer one. It also meant I was able to put my foot down a bit more towards Calais and have some fun once I'd checked no speed traps and helicopters above :p

 

 

I should be going to the West Meon on Tuesday so might see some of you there - welcome to have a look at the Tesla if you haven't seen one yet

[Ryeman]

^^^^ interesting.

Can you make up time on the road by going faster without losing more by having to recharge for longer?.

It seems to complicate matters.

[Xavier]

17 minutes ago, Ryeman said:

^^^^ interesting.

Can you make up time on the road by going faster without losing more by having to recharge for longer?.

It seems to complicate matters.

To a certain extent, yes. As a rule of thumb, charging speed is a lot higher than driving, so total time for "drive faster + charge longer" is less than "drive slower + charge faster". There are a few conditions though for that to be met: you arrive with a 10-20% state of charge and don't need to charge to more than 60% to have enough to reach your next charge as charge speed beyond 60% slows down quite a bit. Also, the battery can only accept the fast charge when it's warm, which won't be the case in the middle of winter when you've only been driving for less than 30 minutes and didn't start off with a warm battery.

 

Say for example you have a 250 mile stint to do. You can just about do the 250 miles on a single charge. But the time taken to recharge that much will be quite long as you'll be charging the battery to, say, over 90%.

On a Tesla Supercharger, the batteries can take around 100kW of power when empty. That power will decrease as they fill up. The amount of time to do 90-100% is almost the same time it takes to do 70-90% which is also the same amount of time to do 10-70% (I'm making these values up for illustration, it might not be exactly that).

So in the time it takes to do a >90% charge, you could do two lots of 10-60% which of course gives you a lot real energy added, so you can drive faster as you'll have the extra energy available for the higher speeds

 

The above only really applies to Tesla for now thanks to the fast Supercharging network. On a lesser charger, the charge times become longer, so there's no overall time benefit as the time you save in speeding up is easily wiped out by the longer time required on the charger.

 

As an illustration, here's the logging of a charging session. Look at the blue line which shows the state of charge. You can see how it tapers and really slows down.

The charge started with my battery at about 5%. After 50 minutes charge, I was at 83%. I stayed on the charger till it stopped charging once the batteries were full. That took over another 50 minutes!

Or, 40 minutes charge got me from 5% to 73%, in other words about 68% worth of battery charge added. If I needed to do another really long stint, I would leave at that point, do another sprint and charge again in 125 miles (assuming charger was available there).

 

Remember though that whilst you can get very geeky and technical about it, you don't have to. You can just let the car plan the route for you - it will work out where you need to stop en-route and also tell you approximately how long each charge will be before you have enough energy to make the next leg of your journey:

[Ryeman]

^^^^^^ Being more interested in achieving an economy target these days, I find this fascinating.

To me, it bring a form of strategic planning similar to that involved in F1.

What fun!

 

(one day an economy Dakar perhaps)

Edited 4 February, 2018 by Ryeman

[Xavier]

1 hour ago, Ryeman said:

^^^^^^ Being more interested in achieving an economy target these days, I find this fascinating.

To me, it bring a form of strategic planning similar to that involved in F1.

What fun!

 

(one day an economy Dakar perhaps)

Dakar you say? One day as if it's something that might happen in the future you say?

Sorry to disappoint you old chap, it's already been done!

 

https://electrek.co/2017/01/16/all-electric-car-dakar-rally-acciona/

[Ryeman]

11 minutes ago, Xavier said:

Dakar you say? One day as if it's something that might happen in the future you say?

Sorry to disappoint you old chap, it's already been done!

 

https://electrek.co/2017/01/16/all-electric-car-dakar-rally-acciona/

I’m thinking more along the lines of an economy biased race ie the most (range) from the least (energy).

Unfortunately viewers would have to be kept awake somehow, so I don’t see it coming any time soon   

[Xavier]

Ahh, well, a load of us Tesla folk are organising a "Monte Carlo or Bust" rally this summer, driving all the way down in a convoy of some kind to Monaco. It will be a fun adventure for sure

[wyx087]

Splash and dash is the game here.

 

I've found it to be similar in Nissan Leaf, anything above 60% it starts to slow. So best to drive right down to 10% and charge back up to 70-80% between hops. Unfortunately with currently unreliable charging network and the pitiful range on the Leaf 24 this can't be easily done without charger anxiety (not range anxiety, it's anxiety whether the charger is working).

 

Luckily, Tesla Supercharger is more plentiful and a more reliable. And you get to do that trip for free! Plus you can relax thanks to autopilot. I sooooo want a Tesla........

[Xavier]

7 minutes ago, wyx087 said:

Splash and dash is the game here.

 

I've found it to be similar in Nissan Leaf, anything above 60% it starts to slow. So best to drive right down to 10% and charge back up to 70-80% between hops. Unfortunately with currently unreliable charging network and the pitiful range on the Leaf 24 this can't be easily done without charger anxiety (not range anxiety, it's anxiety whether the charger is working).

 

Luckily, Tesla Supercharger is more plentiful and a more reliable. And you get to do that trip for free! Plus you can relax thanks to autopilot. I sooooo want a Tesla........

Exactly!

We really are spoilt and I cannot thank Tesla enough for the efforts they've put in to the Supercharger network. It really is the biggest element out there and what convinced me to share their road / vision as I wanted to be able to do long trips like this and not have to suffer from charger anxiety! As a side-note, I really want Jaguar to succeed with the Ipace, but the non existant rapid charging network means it's not really viable IMO for long trips yet with nothing better than the relatively "slow" (for a rapid), insufficient and unreliable Electric Highway network.

 

You're welcome to have a look at mine, but I guess you've already had your nose in a Tesla?

 

[Xavier]

Oh @Ryeman, you'll be surprised to hear that I'm still on the first set of tyres at 35k miles!

I'm almost a joke on the Tesla FB group - people saying I must have something wrong with my car as that amount of power and still on the frist set of tyres after 35k miles, something must be wrong!

They will need changing though, down to a couple of mm.

Edited 5 February, 2018 by Xavier

[wyx087]

Thanks. I've been to the Tesla store at Brent Cross more times I care to count  

 

The guy who took his Model 3 across American and Canada are doing similar thing next month for UK and Europe. I'm hoping to take half a day off and see the Model 3 near Heathrow when he comes round.

 

To me, the car itself is only half the reason to buy Tesla. The supercharger network is the main reason. Otherwise EV's will have an invisible string attached to the home charger, no matter the battery size. To truly replace ICE cars, high availability, reliable 100kW+ charger is a must.

 

 

On tyres, I guess you must have regen braking turned on high and drive relaxed. My theory on why EV doesn't go through tyres is because they promote calm driving: no vrrm vrrm noise, with regen you have the mindset to harvest energy rather than waste it as brake disk heat. Smooth acceleration also helps massively.

[Xavier]

Haha, OK, so you're another Tesla stalker!

I'm in touch with You Xie doing the worldwide tour in his M3. I might be helping out with some charging problems - certainly should see him at some point (and the car!)

Regarding tyres, I'm sure the smooth driving and regen braking all help to minimise wear. My brake pads are probably still in good condition too, despite being a 2.4 ton car. Although the track day will have had the biggest impact on both, I'm sure. Still was fun though even with the OEM "economy" tyres.

[Ryeman]

What’s with the inability of the e-car industry to come up with a cooperative system of compatibility, or are government and dealers doing their best to put off the dreaded day as long as possible?.

I can imagine fast food outlets also hoping there was some sort of clarity around adaptability.

Without any sort of leadership and left to manufacturers we end up with unnecessary duplication surely.

[Ryeman]

18 minutes ago, wyx087 said:

Thanks. I've been to the Tesla store at Brent Cross more times I care to count  

 

The guy who took his Model 3 across American and Canada are doing similar thing next month for UK and Europe. I'm hoping to take half a day off and see the Model 3 near Heathrow when he comes round.

 

To me, the car itself is only half the reason to buy Tesla. The supercharger network is the main reason. Otherwise EV's will have an invisible string attached to the home charger, no matter the battery size. To truly replace ICE cars, high availability, reliable 100kW+ charger is a must.

 

 

On tyres, I guess you must have regen braking turned on high and drive relaxed. My theory on why EV doesn't go through tyres is because they promote calm driving: no vrrm vrrm noise, with regen you have the mindset to harvest energy rather than waste it as brake disk heat. Smooth acceleration also helps massively.

I’ll be a one pedal driver for sure.  

[Xavier]

27 minutes ago, Ryeman said:

What’s with the inability of the e-car industry to come up with a cooperative system of compatibility, or are government and dealers doing their best to put off the dreaded day as long as possible?.

I can imagine fast food outlets also hoping there was some sort of clarity around adaptability.

Without any sort of leadership and left to manufacturers we end up with unnecessary duplication surely.

Sadly, it is a rather fragmented thing with everyone "doing their own thing". There are standards - now, the EU dictates Type 2 and CCS as the physical charge port types and charging methods, but that's just for the electricity bit. When it comes to authentication, usage, etc, everyone's screaming for a simple, clear way. Like contactless / credit / debit cards. No faffing around with the correct card for the correct network.

Fortunately, there are some groups trying to help this by having agreements with different charging networks so you only need one card. Chargemap and The New Motion are just a couple.

 

Then, the even simpler way is to do without cards entirely. Any form of identification is done through the car electronically. This is how the Tesla Superchargers work. Whilst my car has free unlimited supercharging, new cars only have a yearly quota free then pay on top for extra (unless they buy their car through me or some other referred owner). Billing then happens when you get your car serviced, etc.

Since the very beginning, Tesla has offered their Supercharger network to other car manufacturers providing they help fund the deployment and pay towards the running costs. To this day, no one else has signed up, and despite many rumours of Jaguar doing so to give the Ipace a massive headstart, that's apparently not the case.

 

The government is IMO is doing what it can, but it can't be expected to do everything. The future diesel bans / green zones, etc, should be enough to incite manufacturers to get in gear, but divering decades of ICE investmend and development isn't a desired option. But, I'd argue, there's sufficient traction on the EV side for it to be an "adopt or die" approach.

[Ryeman]

Sadly it might end up with McDonald’s outlets declaring their choice of vehicle that they will provide a recharge facility at all their stores worldwide......a selling point for the chosen one.

I’d say that would cause the odd boardroom meeting on short notice.

[Xavier]

14 minutes ago, Ryeman said:

Sadly it might end up with McDonald’s outlets declaring their choice of vehicle that they will provide a recharge facility at all their stores worldwide......a selling point for the chosen one.

I’d say that would cause the odd boardroom meeting on short notice.

It's become very popular for companies to jump on the EV bandwagon as a quick, good "Green PR" stunt. If they limit it to certain criteria, it will quite easily backfire. As people become more knowledgeable on the whole EV thing, people aren't being duped so easily. Well, that's my belief. Having an open platform is the only way forward. They could however partner with the charging station network and offer discounted rates via redemption or something. So anyone can charge there, but customers will get the benefit of a discounted / free charge session. That would the way I'd do it if I were in it for the money as much as the PR

[Ryeman]

As we get closer to the banning of ICEs in large cities like Paris and inevitably London etc it’s already speculated that the leasing and finance sector will see a slump in residuals as inevitable and that will be a major factor in further undermining ICE development expenditures.   As always it comes down to where the money goes.

[KenONeill]

On 2/5/2018 at 09:23, wyx087 said:

Splash and dash is the game here.

 

I've found it to be similar in Nissan Leaf, anything above 60% it starts to slow. So best to drive right down to 10% and charge back up to 70-80% between hops. Unfortunately with currently unreliable charging network and the pitiful range on the Leaf 24 this can't be easily done without charger anxiety (not range anxiety, it's anxiety whether the charger is working).

 

Luckily, Tesla Supercharger is more plentiful and a more reliable. And you get to do that trip for free! Plus you can relax thanks to autopilot. I sooooo want a Tesla........

Aren't those the same thing if there is only one viable route from A to B, and that depends on the charging point at I being operational and having a free connector for $vehicle_type?

[wyx087]

18 minutes ago, KenONeill said:

Aren't those the same thing if there is only one viable route from A to B, and that depends on the charging point at I being operational and having a free connector for $vehicle_type?

Range anxiety is whether the car will make it to the charger or destination. Not really an issue because home charging is so easy. You always leave home with full charge and a known range plus a route plan.

 

Charger anxiety is whether you can get a charge at the charger, it is infrastructure dependent, range is not a question because you've planned it into your route.

 

I find I only get anxious when there are factors I can't control. Range can be easily controlled and planned, charger availability can't be planned. It's the same feeling when the low fuel light comes on and the petrol station are closed. This charger anxiety only applies to EV's because of current poor infrastructure, only have 1-2 unreliable DBT unit at most motorway services unlike Tesla's 4+.

[Ryeman]

That’s the point.  Not knowing if you can get a bay when you arrive at an enroute facility and on a long weekend frinstance.....having to queue up and wait for how long.

[KenONeill]

5 hours ago, wyx087 said:

Range anxiety is whether the car will make it to the charger or destination. Not really an issue because home charging is so easy. You always leave home with full charge and a known range plus a route plan.

 

Charger anxiety is whether you can get a charge at the charger, it is infrastructure dependent, range is not a question because you've planned it into your route.

 

I find I only get anxious when there are factors I can't control. Range can be easily controlled and planned, charger availability can't be planned. It's the same feeling when the low fuel light comes on and the petrol station are closed. This charger anxiety only applies to EV's because of current poor infrastructure, only have 1-2 unreliable DBT unit at most motorway services unlike Tesla's 4+.

That's exactly my point; if I can't get a charger at I then I'm in trouble because I can't get to a public charge point.

[Ryeman]

Tesla does better than expected -

https://www.marke****ch.com/story/tesla-fourth-quarter-resultsits-all-about-model-3-production-live-blog-2018-02-07