Vauxhall Corsa electric 2020 Fault (maybe faults) in first 6 weeks & various over the next 3 years.

[Ootohere]

My car has pretty much been fault free since i had it.

Just the annoying light for the heated steering wheel or the car deciding that i asked the heated steering wheel to work and it might be cold and it has more important things that need electricity.  Maybe a few weeks yet before i need that.

 

The cars connectivity to my phone is a PITA.

I think there have been Over the Air updates and things might settle with that.

PITA that it tells you where your phone is, not where the car actually is.

 

Increased my tyres by 4 PSI, i should have done so much earlier.

Quite a change on the range with the common practice i might have of 6 or 8 times a day doing just 1 mile each way.

Generally the car at 13 months old and 12,000 miles is better than it was a year ago and that is without Arnold Clark being allowed to do 2 software updates that i believe take 4 hours but they will not reveal if this is how long, or if they can successfully apply them, as plenty have let them try and regretted it.

 

 

[lol-lol]

9 minutes ago, e-Roottoot said:

My car has pretty much been fault free since i had it.

Just the annoying light for the heated steering wheel or the car deciding that i asked the heated steering wheel to work and it might be cold and it has more important things that need electricity.  Maybe a few weeks yet before i need that.

 

The cars connectivity to my phone is a PITA.

I think there have been Over the Air updates and things might settle with that.

PITA that it tells you where your phone is, not where the car actually is.

 

Increased my tyres by 4 PSI, i should have done so much earlier.

Quite a change on the range with the common practice i might have of 6 or 8 times a day doing just 1 mile each way.

Generally the car at 13 months old and 12,000 miles is better than it was a year ago and that is without Arnold Clark being allowed to do 2 software updates that i believe take 4 hours but they will not reveal if this is how long, or if they can successfully apply them, as plenty have let them try and regretted it.

 

 

 

 

Hi George, what have you raised your tyres pressures too, and that is on your 17" wheels.

 

Is your current range shown after charging 160 to 170 miles looking at your phone app ?

 

I have been slow to install the Renault app as it so badly thought off, mainly the English version of the software which the French do not seems put much effort in to the UK language version.

 

I chickened out of my 200 mile run down to Reading and back as I wanted to do it at 75 mph indicated average and with 3 people in the cars and I did not think the Zoe would do it.

 

So may tricks and optimising techniques to learn, such a good community though both the EV and Zoe ones, so glad I took the plunge.

 

 

 

 

 

[Ootohere]

Just at 40 PSI all round just now with the 205/45 R17  Alpin 6. 

 

If i go away 20 miles to Brechin and charge or not even charge and drive back it might show 4.5 miles per kWh and show 229 miles when i put on the charger.

If i was to be driving just back and fore to Brechin on the back road it might do 200 miles plus & have 11 miles range when the battery warning comes on..

Maybe 3.1-3.5 kWh.

If i drive out to the A90 and then go to Brechin and back it might be just 135 miles it will do before the battery warning.

Location & weather and regenning matters so much.

 

Ambient temp between 10 & 20*oC better than in the mid 20's for range IME with PSA vehicles.

 

This is the highest it has ever shown really, but has done that and had range left, but that is with an average speed below 50 mph and lots of climbing and long stretches descending. 

Near the Coast to Mountains (Cairn O Mount) and long run down to the coast (Moray Firth) and then around the coast & then cross country to home makes for the best range IME.

Doing it  Clockwise works, but reverse the journey and go Anti-Clockwise and charging is required.

Not enough short sharp uphills and long downhills.

 

If i was to be changing tyres now i think CrossClimate 2 would be a good choice but that Alpin 6 have been great for grip.

 

Edited 25 September, 2021 by e-Roottoot

[Ootohere]

 

 

I have been waiting to see how he got on.

 

Mine has bugs now between the Car and Smart phone.

It does not often show percentage of battery now on phone App, and even stops showing on the phone while the car is charging and phone is connected by cable.

But i have still not put the car in for the 2 Service Campaign / Recall update, once Arnold Clark give me a car for the day, or longer if they mess up it will go in. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited 9 October, 2021 by e-Roottoot

[Ootohere]

The past 2 nights when my car has been parked and unused overnight i have noticed quite a big drop in the batteries charge.

That is from about 6pm to 6am and about 10% over the 12 hours with maybe 6 of those being at or just above freezing.

This is more loss than was happening last year at lower temperatures than this.

Maybe only 10% over 2 days if the car was unused.  This is without any pre-heating of the car or battery happening or even opening and closing doors.

 

Going to try over the next 24 hours from the car showing as being at 100% charged at home.

Not going to be so cold though and warmer weather is coming. 

On the local public charger it was at 100% and 2 miles later was showing as only at 97% when plugged in and on my charger.

 

As it is the Guessometer on average miles is having a brain fart after a few miles use in the past days with Heater turned up, heated seat and heated steering wheel used.

 

If i set off now the miles would probably show 160 miles range available within 10 miles of driving and might actually do that. 

 

Edited 16 October, 2021 by e-Roottoot

[lol-lol]

2 hours ago, e-Roottoot said:

The past 2 nights when my car has been parked and unused overnight i have noticed quite a big drop in the batteries charge.

That is from about 6pm to 6am and about 10% over the 12 hours with maybe 6 of those being at or just above freezing.

This is more loss than was happening last year at lower temperatures than this.

Maybe only 10% over 2 days if the car was unused.  This is without any pre-heating of the car or battery happening or even opening and closing doors.

 

Going to try over the next 24 hours from the car showing as being at 100% charged at home.

Not going to be so cold though and warmer weather is coming. 

On the local public charger it was at 100% and 2 miles later was showing as only at 97% when plugged in and on my charger.

 

As it is the Guessometer on average miles is having a brain fart after a few miles use in the past days with Heater turned up, heated seat and heated steering wheel used.

 

If i set off now the miles would probably show 160 miles range available within 10 miles of driving and might actually do that. 

 

 

I try and help the Zoe range predictor by resetting the trip I can if I start a journey which is going to be a cruise after having just done a blast and he consumption has gone down to between 3 and 4 miles per kWh.

 

It helps but does not fully reset the range prediction as there is clearly another range recording within the car that I cannot see which it is also referring to.

Odd that the car does not have 2 or 3 power usage recording "registers" like ICE cars do, seems it only has one visible and one the car keeps to itself.

 

Had to nip down to Gloucestershire as one of the ICE cars had a cracked diesel injector that was flooding the engine.

So many things to go wrong with those complex ICE machines.

 

Overhead motorway signs stating GLoucester service EV charging out of service.  At least it got a mention on the road signs.

 

More one gets to know EVs the more one starts to appreciate their foibles.     As a newbie wondering how much fast charges damage the battery compared to slow charging ?

 

Should I expect to show 1 or 2 % every 10K miles I half expect.

 

[Ootohere]

Only showed a 1% drop over night and since yesterday afternoon, but it was milder night.  That was plugging in the charger this morning  to see the percentage.  I will have a 15 mile run up to the Angus glens and a quicker 10 miles run back which is all down hill and gets max regen and see just what the miles per kWh shows when I get back and then compare what battery  % shows plugged into the public charger and then 1 miles later what it is on my 3 pin charger.  The public charger even on AC will show more than the battery is actually at. 

Edited 17 October, 2021 by e-Roottoot

[Ootohere]

Car's brainfart has sorted it's self.  Battery warmer and calculations on todays current use. 

Now battery charge and kWh usage between car and phone as it should be after a run and onto a charger twice for a few minutes.

The Dash and the screen in the middle never quite match though.

Best i got at displayed @ 10-11*oC was 4.1 miles per kWH, that was at pretty slow speeds never up to 50 and mostly in the last 10-15 miles at 25mph on single track roads i usually cycle and that are downhill or flat.  So acceptable but not good.

I will do the same again when the air and road temp is a 0*oC. 

 

When i set off next time it will be showing the range based on 3.7 miles per kWh in the battery probably. 

 

Car sits a few hours as the ambient temp gets higher and without it being driven the cars is deciding that the range has increased.

It is just all a guessamation on how it will be driven.  Interested to see tomorrow morning what range it decides to show and battery percentage dropped if any as the weather will be warm tonight and tomorrow morning. 

 

 

Edited 17 October, 2021 by e-Roottoot

[lol-lol]

Does the e-corsa do over the air updates ?

 

I think their occasional one happening for various sub systems on the Zoe.  It did a multi-media one a few days ago, took about 10 minute of the Zoe's EE OTA connection.

 

Lost a bunch of settings.

 

As to the range calculation does seem to have a occasional re-think after a charge.  Maybe it is doing another calculation on range when the car is asked to re-initialise some time after a recharge and take in to account ambient temperature when doing so, would not be surprised and in fact would really expect it too.

 

As long as the recalc follows a logical pattern ie its got colder and it knocks a few miles off but as long as these recalc still sounds good on the useful and expected range for the Zoe.

 

Next tests will be to precondition the car whilst it is still tethered to the Pod Point and see how that effects range between start of preconditioning and leave moment.    

 

[Ootohere]

@lol-lol

Looks very much like there has been an over air update,

or the car was reading my mind and was going to Arnold Clarks to be abused by their incompetent employees.

 

So today the weather was in the mid teens, the car thinks it is doing near 5 miles per kWH.  Everything is behaving as it should.

 

By the end of the week i will be away and driving an ICE, and i will not be using an EV when the 'Polar Plunge' descends over Scotland for a few days and according to the Daily Record Snowmageddon hits 'High Routes'.

It will be a near a month before it is driven again so i am interested how it fairs battery and 12v battery wise sitting unused.

I will leave it at 100%. 

[Ootohere]

So colder weather this week for 3 days & night time.   (only 1 frost though.)

My local authority are now charging 23 pence a kWh to charge.

 

This week i have only done 19 miles locally from being charged on Sunday night until now. 

3-6 miles a day and sitting doing nothing the rest of time.

 

So 26 kWh required to be sitting charged to where i was on Sunday night.   

That is a lot of loss of kW from the battery per 24 hours.

 

That is OK at free as i have charged at Tesco.

If i had a Off peak  5 pence tariff then £1.30 would be much cheapness. 

If on my home tariff of 18 pence that would be £4.68

& if at 23 pence on the Public Chargers that is £5.98

 

So basically if public charging the electric & paying for the charger it can be cheaper to run just to the shops or short runs than a gas guzzler

but not as cheap as an efficient ICE that can maybe get 10 miles per litre of fuel. (45 mpg ish.)     

 

My Auto Picanto used to get 42 mpg with similar use & that was over about 7 years.

My Auto Jimny's never bettered 25 mpg over 17 years.

 

Tesco 7kW free charging.

Edited 5 November, 2021 by roottoot

[lol-lol]

20 hours ago, roottoot said:

So colder weather this week for 3 days & night time.   (only 1 frost though.)

My local authority are now charging 23 pence a kWh to charge.

This week i have only done 19 miles locally from being charged on Sunday night until now. 

3-6 miles a day and sitting doing nothing the rest of time.

So 26 kWh required to be sitting charged to where i was on Sunday night.   

That is a lot of loss of kW from the battery per 24 hours.

That is OK at free as i have charged at Tesco.

If i had a Off peak  5 pence tariff then £1.30 would be much cheapness. 

If on my home tariff of 18 pence that would be £4.68

& if at 23 pence on the Public Chargers that is £5.98

So basically if public charging the electric & paying for the charger it can be cheaper to run just to the shops or short runs than a gas guzzler

but not as cheap as an efficient ICE that can maybe get 10 miles per litre of fuel. (45 mpg ish.)     

My Auto Picanto used to get 42 mpg with similar use & that was over about 7 years.

My Auto Jimny's never bettered 25 mpg over 17 years.

Tesco 7kW free charging.

 

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.

      

[Ootohere]

I am off down to Tesco for my paper and fruit so will plug in for 15 minutes and see what the battery % is after only 5 miles since yesterday.

That used almost no energy as 2 1/2 miles was downhill and then back uphill.

 

The battery can only take in a charge because of the loss since charged yesterday.   It is nothing about what the guessometer shows as available miles.

 

So i will be away to Edinburgh and charging in Perthshire before getting home.

The car will do what ever miles per kWh today by how i drive it.  

After getting charged tonight to 98% before being parked up i will then see how much loss there is when parked up.  I might leave it unused for 48 hours.    EDIT.  Battery was showing at 92% from 99% yesterday but less than 10 minutes on the 7kW charger and already at 95% and showing 136 miles range. I will unplug when that changes to 142 miles and see what % shows, likely 97 %.   By the time I get to Perth in 30 miles it will be at 136 mile range showing and probably 95% battery.. 10 degrees C this. Morning. 

Edited 6 November, 2021 by roottoot

[Ootohere]

So left at 98% and 35 miles to Perth park and ride and it was and is torrential rain.  Arrived with 78% and showing 105 mile range. Got on 1 rapid charger of 3 only 2 are in service. 

The 1st one had never been fixed in 18 months at least. 

 12 Tesla chargers unoccupied as usual.   Not going to Edinburgh to cycle in this weather.  So will hypermile when heading home.  More down hill than up.  

 

Amazing but a Tesla turned up to use a Tesla charger.

& the first Driving Instructors e-Corsa that i have come across.  A nice man a very nice man. 

What is not surprising the out of order charger that has been for such a long time.

 

 

Edited 6 November, 2021 by roottoot

[Ootohere]

Charged the car at home to 99% and have unplugged and locked it and going to have it sit for 24 hours before plugging in and seeing what it shows as battery percentage.

Not that cold, around 10*oC and in the shade. 

 

The car and phone shows the same % when actually working as the car keeps losing Bluetooth connection.

Also has failed to show the 'Maintenance' scheduled dates / miles since Arnold Clark last had the car to service it and did nothing but look as there was no EV Technician Available.

There must have been some incompetent that plugged it in though and could not complete the 'servicing' information so just left it.

 

 

Edited 9 November, 2021 by roottoot

[Ootohere]

Only 20 hours but sitting over a coldish night and 3*oC this morning. 

This is what the Battery level is showing without plugging in to charge.  I will do that later. 

Edited 10 November, 2021 by roottoot

[vrskeith]

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/vauxhall-cuts-corsa-e-and-mokka-e-prices-£3000

 

[Ootohere]

Sitting charging for free.   I save lots buying reduced price stuff in the supermarket.  Also if in before the crazy mobs doing trolley fills.   Also the charger busy times now.    Lots of energy used each day / night even if doing 6 times just under 1 mile a day.  2 .5 kWh.   If paying a home tariff of 20 pence that would be 50 pence a day.   OK but this is real world and not what journalist  or YouTube reviewers or manufacturers show. 

 

Edited 21 December, 2021 by roottoot

[AnnoyingPentium]

17 minutes ago, roottoot said:

I save lots buying reduced price stuff in the supermarket.

 

Even better with a Clubcard at times, George.

 

That way you can pass your savings onto charging the car at places that are less than free. 

[Ootohere]

I use a Club card plus and always have done.  Used to pay into it every month and bought all fuel on it before that scheme stopped and new one started.  Used a  Asda credit card when that gave 2 pence a litre off,  then Santander 123 card when that was good.    I always Double up or treble the Tesco points for rewards. That paid Family RAC cover for a few years.  Now at 22,000 miles in the Corsa with only 2 X CPS cards @ £20 and 3 times on InstaVolt chargers. That was under £15.   I have used a couple of hundred quid on an Audi Card with £800 credit to use super quick chargers but that was on other people's cars.  Much cheapness is the name of the game.  For 45 miles a week on little short journeys £3.50 for electric home charging is about half the cost of an ickle petrol car needing 5 litres of supermarket finest.  

Edited 21 December, 2021 by roottoot

[Ootohere]

This morning as i check myVauxhall phone app to see how the charge is compared to last nights 92% and 124 mile range it is showing 180 miles which is nice as i have not seen that even at 100% since last summer.

 

Odd thing is the car is showing as having done 3,000 miles less than yesterday.  Last week at one point the car dash showed 10,000 miles lower than it had done at 12,000 miles.

 

I will see what the car shows when i get to it.   Over the air updates gone wrong.

 

Last week parked near a major route the car locked me out and everything was shut off and back to factory settings.  ie in Spanish.  

[Ootohere]

Car dash showing it having done only 12,003 miles & a service spanner,

so over 11,000 miles clocked off the car and showing a range of 118 miles. 

On a slow charger now but later I will put it on a 100 kW charger and see if that shocks it back to reality.  

 

 

Edited 12 March, 2022 by roottoot

[Ootohere]

No call back from Arnold Clark Scotlands biggest Motor Group who need to sort out not having done a Service properly on my e-Corsa and reset the Service Indicator or carried out 2 Recall Actions.  1 is Safety Critical.   Supposedly.

 

They do not have Automatic Courtesy cars but only they can Service the Motability car even if i could find a Vauxhall Dealer that is not AC and is a Motability Approved Dealer.

 

 

Any improvement on Range / Efficiency of the latest e-Corsa's would be good, but time will tell, i will try one at some point.

 

 

 

 

Edited 13 April, 2022 by roottoot

[lol-lol]

4 hours ago, roottoot said:

No call back from Arnold Clark Scotlands biggest Motor Group who need to sort out not having done a Service properly on my e-Corsa and reset the Service Indicator or carried out 2 Recall Actions.  1 is Safety Critical.   Supposedly.

 

They do not have Automatic Courtesy cars but only they can Service the Motability car even if i could find a Vauxhall Dealer that is not AC and is a Motability Approved Dealer.

 

 

Any improvement on Range / Efficiency of the latest e-Corsa's would be good, but time will tell, i will try one at some point

 

The lady goes to several 22 kWh charger, all look like AC ones and I have never heard of a 22 kWh DC charger but she witters on about plugging in to these chargers but does not seem to work out that she is only getting 7 kWh out of any of these, oh dear.

Not to good at maths and not even ready the spec of the car she is testing or perhaps understanding what these specification means ie 7.4 kWh onboard charger means that is your limit of what you will get from that AC charger.  Be interesting to try and explain single phase and 3 phase electricity to her.

 

This is one of the problems with Youtube I suppose that you do not need any qualification, GCSE Physics or anything to make such videos or at least run it past someone with a  half decent level of technical knowledge so you do not look a muppet and mis lead potential buyers.

 

 

[Ootohere]

My car has surprised me today.  I parked it last Sunday morning and have not used it until today.   It was at 30% and 37 miles then and exactly the same today.  It was a roaster of a week and so different from times in the past when parked up in cold weather and the car was always doing Over Air Updates and resetting to factory settings.     So car is 2 years old in August and actually built about 30 months ago as it was caught up in lockdown.    It had done over 28,000 miles.  The disc brakes are a rusty mess.  The first service was not correctly done.  The 2 nd service will not be done if the Vauxhall dealer can not decided if there is one due and can they do 4 outstanding recall actions and supply an automatic courtesy car.     As it is I think they will ruin the car.      If it could go 50 miles further it would be good and if I took off the winter tyres it might do 20 more miles but I am not doing that.   Going to miss it in 1 year if it goes back then which it will have to.   I want a EV van but probably will not get a 200 mile range one and it needs to be a People Carrier from Motability where the seats can come out probably.     Time will tell.   For comfort the Corsa is my ideal.  I do not like a Mokka or the other taller cars from Stellantis.     Other thoughts are Kia Soul but more likely a MG estate.