You're right, I missed that point. I think Geoff had meant to stay on the A9 but those road works screwed him up, he did actually say that that Google maps had showed the A9 as being all red all the way from Perth, to Stirling and onto Falkirk and he was wondering why the sat nav was forecasting well over 4 hours to do 209 miles. So I'm guessing that Google showed the M90 as being OK and so he elected to use the Queensferry crossing instead to save time.

 

Lee did go to Porsche Perth to charge as you mentioned, so did he take the same route or not?

Edited 1 November, 20232 yr by Graham Butcher

@wyx087  The question was to me using the MINI to do 974 miles.

 

So it would not do 120 miles, it would as today need charging before 100 miles.

The Corsa electric could do 120 miles,. but would be slower charging on 50 kW chargers even though it had a 100 kW charging.   I was not paying to use 100 / 100 + chargers.

& i had only 7 kW AC onboard charging.

 

900 miles would be 18 hours driving and the car would be on a rapid / 50 kW charger for 8 or 9 hours.

Too expensive charging North of Inverness to Rapid Charge that amount really. 

 

I will do the North Coast 500 in the Mini and in total do 800-900 miles but it will be be at times when chargers are working and in the past that would be out of season and mid week.

There is no out of season anymore on the NC500 and there are the plonkers in Taycans to be avoided.   They tend to not stay in their side of the road,.

 

@Graham ButcherNo idea what the idiot in the Porsche did to head to their nights stop over and if he went to Edinburgh but if he did then why?

 

They traveled to Scotland while just north & east of where they were going when reaching Perth had a Red Weather Warning, and they were in an Amber & a Yellow and the road works have been well warned in advance if they just bothered to check. 

Edited 1 November, 20232 yr by Rooted

Tortoise and the hare.

 

Mr Battery Life did a, what he calls, Range, Consumption, Best Speed test, does it for many cars he has driven, as he is on the Austrian-German Border he can do some average speed tests at speeds well about the UK national average ie 145 kph /90 mph.  

 

I think we all know the best speed for most cars, ICE or EV, is around 60 mph.

Every car is different.  Aero drag coefficient, charging speed for EVs.  

So Mr Battery life did the below for the ZE40 Zoe, slow charging car,. relatively, 

If one speeds on to 7:30 on the video one can see the cruising speed versus lost time ot charge but then one will probably, I know I do, go quicker than the 90kph optimum cruise as one would arguably go over the optimum ie 100 or 105 kph so one had more time for comfort break.  

Certainly at my age I do not want to, anf struggling with bladder range, do more than 2.25 hours driving in one go so stopping every 200 kms is needed more for me than the car.

 

 

In the video with Richard in the Tesla doing John o' Groats to Land End his first stint of 316 miles done in 5 hours and 25 minutes had him making very good time considering the roads and average speed cameras getting to Perth and then the 23 miles of Average speed cameras Broxden Roundabout Perth to Dunlane. (Keir Roundabout)

1 hour ago, Rooted said:

In the video with Richard in the Tesla doing John o' Groats to Land End his first stint of 316 miles done in 5 hours and 25 minutes had him making very good time considering the roads and average speed cameras getting to Perth and then the 23 miles of Average speed cameras Broxden Roundabout Perth to Dunlane. (Keir Roundabout)

 

All EVs I can think of love trundling along at 60 mph or so and can even do better than there quoted range if they are kept down to 40 mph due to being on slow country roads and being held up by lorries now and then.  

 

The crunch tends to come, not for the Taycan, but for most EVs as they are SUVs or tallish city cars, that their efficiency in miles per KWh goes off quite quickly much over a true 60 mph ie indicated 64 or so.  Tesla Model 3 excluded as it is low, new Highland model I think may even have hunker down mode for highways, even the taller Model Y does pretty well.

  

Tesla software is so intelligent it could probably tell you what the optimum speed is to complete the journey as it already works on which on route chargers are available and their speeds etc.  It cannot tell you, yet, when you need to stop for a jimmy riddle.

 

EV can be constantly talking to various inputs, charging network availability, wind effect on consumption.  Due to the fact that it is electricity being used for motive power and not hydrocarbon juice there is much more scope for journey optimisation and we are only just at beginning of the technical journey to optimise such matters and with the car driving itself shortly it the software will just let you know what it has decided. 

I, robot tunnel scene.....

 

Yes you are right, just looked RSEV video's first leg on Google maps and it says need 6 hours:

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/dir/John+o'+Groats/Abington+Services,+M74,+Abington,+Biggar/@57.3579776,-4.9429875,8.16z/data=!4m14!4m13!1m5!1m1!1s0x489adf22b8be52c3:0x86f8db37f5b5c574!2m2!1d-3.0688997!2d58.6373368!1m5!1m1!1s0x4887e336e93696ab:0xf60a6414675c609!2m2!1d-3.6942407!2d55.5065858!3e0?entry=ttu

Minus possible morning rush hour, it's still very much the "speed limit".

 

For short range EV's, Nissan Leaf 24 kWh (earliest smallest battery) had done the journey in 27 hours and 46 minutes.

https://fuelincluded.com/2015/10/electric-car-trip-from-lands-end-to-john-ogroats-a-record/

This article says 33 charging stops:

https://www.autovolt-magazine.com/john-ogroats-to-lands-end-and-back-again-in-24hours-for-free/

 

The latest and greatest from Germany, in the hands of someone who has zero clue, is as fast as very first gen Nissan Leaf?

 

 

FWIW, in Model Y, I set autopilot at 70 *cough+5cough* mph on the motorway. Same as my diesel Octy, it's use mostly on motorway. My lifetime average over last year is 271 Wh/mi, which translates to 3.69 mi/kWh. As lol said, decrease speed down to 70 mph makes efficiency go up by a lot. During summer trips, drive in slower traffic at ~60mph can see 5 mi/kWh.

 

Edited 2 November, 20232 yr by wyx087

F in cold this morning.   Charged to 99%.   Car showing 93 miles range.  Got 150 miles to go and planning to get on a BP Pulse in 74 miles and use my £18 credit that I got with the subscription.  Then free charging later for 99 miles tomorrow and back to the BP Pulse charger again in 74 miles.   Then some charging in Edinburgh City. 

Saw this laughable "Charge Arm" suggested by people for someone who's got a shared path between their parking spot in communal car park and their front garden.

https://wepoweryourcar.com/about/chargearm/

 

 

Looks perfect for some peoples needs.

Private lanes /mews flats, shared court yard parking and the likes.   Choices and variety is what is needed.

For listed buildings / heritage sites ect then versions of that could be just what is required.

43 minutes ago, Rooted said:

F in cold this morning.   Charged to 99%.   Car showing 93 miles range.  Got 150 miles to go and planning to get on a BP Pulse in 74 miles and use my £18 credit that I got with the subscription.  Then free charging later for 99 miles tomorrow and back to the BP Pulse charger again in 74 miles.   Then some charging in Edinburgh City. 

An EV is ideal for people who don't need to keep to timetables, ie those of us who have retired or don't  need to undertake long trips that often. 

 

Sounds like you have found that suits you perfectly and with you be able to access free charging on a regular basis is a no brainier. 

@lol-lol getting stuck behind can actually increase your range if can get it's slipstream, I have done my self many times in my ICE to increase my mpg to compensate to an extent for low mpg in the city taking son and SWMBO to their places of work and collecting them later.

 

That Taycan while having a low drag coefficient is a very heavy car when compared to say a Tesla or similar car so it uses a lot of power just to keep it moving, making it a bad car for that Jog to LE challenge. As you say, SUVs also catch a dair bit of wind resistance and the faster they go, the worse their range and mpg is. 

Not many retired or elderly that i meet when charging at public chargers.

Also there are plenty doing longer trips working or going places for what ever reasons.

 

There were mums taking their cars to school that unplugged from the AC chargers this morning. 

Often i see Cleaners & Homehelps, Posties, delivery drivers etc plugging in and heading to work or coming back from work. 

 

Scotland has a lot of ev,s around, private or business / work vehicles. 

 

PS

I often draft HGV,s Luton style vans or Coaches.   Coaches are often best on the routes i want to keep up to my max speed limit as they seem to not be restricted according to the Speed Limit the law shows.  Different Speed Limits in Scotland compared to Rof UK on Coach lengths, and a Pilot Speed for HGV,s on the A9.

 

Anyway in the eddy far enough back to see their mirrors and them to see me, and when in the right spot the RPM drops in an ICE or the Power Meter in an EV. 

This has had me stopped twice by Police on the A96 / A90 because i was tailing High Value loads early morning as i tried to get home without a charge or doing only one stop. 

Edited 2 November, 20232 yr by Rooted

I expect that the police think you obviously look like a dodgy geezer in his high performance Essex White Mini with a limited range capablity, lol 🤣

In a Metallic Grey Corsa.  The first time stopped the HGV driver with his load of alcohol had been tailed for 30 miles by some other car and then not long after by me and called his Emergency number or pressed SOS button or what ever.

2nd time it did not look like an unmarked trailer & i was surprised when the blue light vehicle pulled me.  The officers were familiar with the habit of EV drivers and just warned me to think on. 

1 hour ago, Rooted said:

In a Metallic Grey Corsa.  The first time stopped the HGV driver with his load of alcohol had been tailed for 30 miles by some other car and then not long after by me and called his Emergency number or pressed SOS button or what ever.

2nd time it did not look like an unmarked trailer & i was surprised when the blue light vehicle pulled me.  The officers were familiar with the habit of EV drivers and just warned me to think on. 

Yeah, I was joking about the driver and or the police thinking that a mini posed a real threat to a lorry, regardless of the load it was carrying 🤨

So the numbers are out on the diesel vs EV "race".

Source video on Geoff channel.

 

Some how Taycan driver managed to find all the slowest chargers and stopped 8 times, took over 5 hours of charging time.

 

 

Meanwhile, this is what I got when trying to route via the car's app, using same as in-car sat-nav routing algorithms:

 

At the same time, Google map says 14.5 hours, same route.

 

So Tesla routing thinks only need 2.5 hours of recharging, starting with less than 60%. (my car's current SoC)

 

Whereas the EV in the "race" took over double the time for his charging stops.

 

Inverness supercharger is open to all EV's, 6 stalls, apart from Gretna Green 4 stalls, all other sites have 8 or more charging stalls. Exeter have 32 supercharger stalls.

 

The Taycan using 350 kW Ionity chargers should be able to do it with less than 2 hours of charging:

 

 

A while ago I posted that the ICE could still be further refined and offer far more MPG and be considerably less polluting than the current cars are, and it seems that I was right. In fact, I had actually forgotten that Volkswagen had made some futuristic cars that showed it was indeed possible, and this car featured in the video by Jonny Smith of the Late Brake Show (YT) is one of those cars.

 

It is a diesel PHEV, engine is 2-cylinder turbocharged of just 800cc, 5.5 kwh Li-on battery, CO2 emissions of just 24g/km and top speed of 98mph with a combined mpg of 300miles. What a shame that they never continued to develop the system. Fuel tank capacity is only 2 gallons but would have been the ideal solution to people not being able to home charge, as you had the option of driving in pure diesel mode, so you should be able to drive into places where chargers are pretty rare and not be bothered.

 

 

Shock horror, I just spotted this video which I suspected was more of a clickbait video, but doing due care and diligence checking, turns out to be factual. This is something that I had often wondered just what we do once the most cars were EV's, if electricity becomes in short supply for whatever reason, how will the world cope.

 

Switzerland considers a ban on electric vehicle this winter, here's why - World News (wionews.com)

 

Switzerland will BAN electric cars from the roads during power shortages | Daily Mail Online

 

Is Switzerland banning electric vehicles? Here's all you need to know | HT Auto (hindustantimes.com)

 

The truth behind the rumoured EV driving ban in Switzerland - electrive.com

 

Switzerland to Become First Country to Ban EVs | YoCharge

 

 

 

 

Well......It's not the ICE alone that made the VW car remarkable, it's everything around it.

 

Efficiency is king with everything, so all the aero mods and weight savings etc. Combine with electrification allows it to be efficient. Key isn't engine development. 

 

Unfortunately people want bigger interior in their cars with more head room. Just like some people want 5min refuelling for 600 miles, not willing to budge for a more energy efficient powertrain. 

 

 

The Swiss proposing to prohibit non-essential EV use as level 3 out of 4 energy shortage plan was last year's news during the great European methane fossil fuel shortage. 

 

Well done for doing your research. Shame about the YT video's spread of misinformation "Swiss EV driving ban", there was no ban. 

 

 

12 minutes ago, Graham Butcher said:

if electricity becomes in short supply for whatever reason, how will the world cope.

Simple, more renewables. As the energy shortage was purely because of geopolitical reasons, energy independence is key. In-border energy independence can be achieved by excessively building renewables and any excess can go into car batteries. 

 

If rolling blackout becomes a thing, installing a gateway switcher into any house already with home storage will mean they won't notice blackouts at all. 

So if electricity becomes in short supply, whoever can store and access the most has the most power (literally and pun intended).  

It is rather a click bait. All advanced countries have plans for what to do in power shortages. It seems Switzerland has identified EVs as a potential load that can be reduced or removed at the third tier of escalation of emergency powers to reduce demand. I suspect they are the first to do this as the plan needs to be ratified by the federal court, it is not yet law. No doubt other countries will follow. The UK will no doubt be a bit behind on this as our plan (Electricity Supply Emergency Code) was last revised in 2019. The ESEC requires increasingly frequent and longer rolling blackouts as it gets escalated. 

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/electricity-supply-emergency-code

20 minutes ago, wyx087 said:

Well......It's not the ICE alone that made the VW car remarkable, it's everything around it.

 

Efficiency is king with everything, so all the aero mods and weight savings etc. Combine with electrification allows it to be efficient. Key isn't engine development. 

 

Unfortunately people want bigger interior in their cars with more head room. Just like some people want 5min refuelling for 600 miles, not willing to budge for a more energy efficient powertrain. 

 

 

The Swiss proposing to prohibit non-essential EV use as level 3 out of 4 energy shortage plan was last year's news during the great European methane fossil fuel shortage. 

 

Well done for doing your research. Shame about the YT video's spread of misinformation "Swiss EV driving ban", there was no ban. 

 

 

Simple, more renewables. As the energy shortage was purely because of geopolitical reasons, energy independence is key. In-border energy independence can be achieved by excessively building renewables and any excess can go into car batteries. 

 

If rolling blackout becomes a thing, installing a gateway switcher into any house already with home storage will mean they won't notice blackouts at all. 

So if electricity becomes in short supply, whoever can store and access the most has the most power (literally and pun intended).  

True, but if they had continued to work at it, we might be able to have a small efficient powertrain, coupled with more roomy interiors today. This high performance cars, be they ICE or EV, are not really the answer, especially here in the UK and for matter a large portion of the world because its not possible to actually use that performance/speed either because of legal speed limits or not having the safe road networks where the speed could be used.

 

On the power supply side of things, if electrical power was to become an issue, is it really that wise to chuck all our eggs in the same basket for energy? PHEV, do seem to better option provided, one system is not tied to other in such a fashion that it becomes impossible to run on just pure ICE if the hybrid side should fail, which currently seems to be the case.

 

God forbid that anyone should ever start another war with us, then all they would need to do to bring the country to its knees is to target the grid, deliver a knock-out blow and cripple the country, especially the armed forces, and prevent them or the civilians from freely moving about, making them virtual sitting ducks. 

VW / Audi built the engine plants and the factories for the diesel hybrid motors and converters etc.  In Hungary and South America.  That was what the Endurance racers were all about.  R&D.  They spent Billions.    Then the Sh|t hits the fan.    They were little cheats with diesel.    There are Audi's that can do amazing efficiency, cylinder deactivation,  hybrid power.  Lighter materials.     There were the A2,s ahead of time.  Each car loses them money.     So in another 3 years Skoda gets a EV that can charge in 12 minutes.     VW just have to imagine it and it happens. 

Edited 2 November, 20232 yr by Rooted

VW group could do better if they just keep buying others technology as they have done for decades but not trying to screw over partners.  They really seem not to be able to employ the best in the world because they are liable to leave them to carry the can and do the jail time.  

16 minutes ago, Rooted said:

VW / Audi built the engine plants and the factories for the diesel hybrid motors and converters etc.  In Hungary and South America.  That was what the Endurance racers were all about.  R&D.  They spent Billions.    Then the Sh|t hits the fan.    They were little cheats with diesel.    There are Audi's that can do amazing efficiency, cylinder deactivation,  hybrid power.  Lighter materials.     There were the A2,s ahead of time.  Each car loses them money.     So in another 3 years Skoda gets a EV that can charge in 12 minutes.     VW just have to imagine it and it happens. 

There is one of those VW  XL1's for sale here in the UK, very low mileage, £85,000 according to AutoTrader.

I am posting about big Audi,s that Audi were going to build.   I have seen the VW stuff over the years.      BMW were on the right track with the range extender carbon body cars they produced and sold.   The issue being they were too ahead of their German competitors that they have been in cahoots with for decades over what is really a cartel.        As it is all this has just meant China has done what they needed to and produce People's Cars for the future, even short term future.    Vauxhall/ Opel now on about £22,000 EVs.     Like VW. Just do it.   Do it and still make profits if they can.