EEVblog #1337 - I Bought An Electric Car

[timelessbeing]

A thought just occurred to me. What if your battery runs out in the middle of nowhere? There are always unimaginable situations, but lets say the nearest charging station has gone offline or something. Is the tow truck the only option?

Same risk as a petrol car, and same consequences. Let's say you are driving in a rural area and you were relying on the next town having a petrol station, only to find it out of petrol or broken down, you are just as screwed.
With both EV and ICE you can try and find someone local who has either charge or petrol. I'd wager it's maybe easier to find a local who will let you borrow their power point than it is to find a local who has spare petrol in cans or wants to siphon their tank using their garden hose.

If you own a gas car then you SHOULD carry a small gas can in the trunk. I always have.
It's happened to me ands many people. You walk or hitch a ride to the nearest station with my gas can, or call someone who can bring some gas.  Many people have gas cans for their mowers and whatnot. Various roadside assistance providers can quickly bring gas too.

But without a charge point, your battery EV car is immobile right?

[EEVblog]

But without a charge point, your battery EV car is immobile right?

Generator.

[EEVblog]

many have even built their own from scratch

well that's true fanaticism.

So are your posts here.

Careful Dave, he'll take it personally.

He's trolling at this point.

[Monkeh]

A thought just occurred to me. What if your battery runs out in the middle of nowhere? There are always unimaginable situations, but lets say the nearest charging station has gone offline or something. Is the tow truck the only option?

Same risk as a petrol car, and same consequences. Let's say you are driving in a rural area and you were relying on the next town having a petrol station, only to find it out of petrol or broken down, you are just as screwed.
With both EV and ICE you can try and find someone local who has either charge or petrol. I'd wager it's maybe easier to find a local who will let you borrow their power point than it is to find a local who has spare petrol in cans or wants to siphon their tank using their garden hose.

If you own a gas car then you SHOULD carry a small gas can in the trunk. I always have.
It's happened to me ands many people. You walk or hitch a ride to the nearest station with my gas can, or call someone who can bring some gas.  Many people have gas cans for their mowers and whatnot. Various roadside assistance providers can quickly bring gas too.

But without a charge point, your battery EV car is immobile right?

As EVs become more popular, roadside assistance is likely to include some charging capability, whether it be leeching off their own batteries or having a dedicated pack for charging unfortunately empty vehicles. Or, yes, a generator.

It's also possible we'll start to see (maybe we have already seen.. I'm not in the market so I don't pay close attention) 'limp home' capability using the last dregs of the charge - 15-20 miles of restricted power and maximum speed if you manage to run it down. And well, yes, I've run a couple different cars into scavenging the bottom of the tank just this year from being unfamiliar with their real-world range.

[timelessbeing]

If building your own EV is fanatical, are we all electronic fanatics?

We all? I don't know. EEVBLOG forum visitors range anywhere from marginal interest to full blow obsession to professional. I suppose that an electronics fanatic would build something something like a mixed signal DSO +  Network Analyzer by themselves from scratch. Not that there's anything wrong with fanatics. Credit where due!

Does that mean we shouldn't have opinions and our knowledge is corrupted?

Of course not. I never claimed that. You excel at jumping to conclusions.

[BrianHG]

But without a charge point, your battery EV car is immobile right?

Generator.

More solutions for this problem are coming online, see here:



It's a start...

[timelessbeing]

Your ability to do volumetric guesstimating is embarrassing, don't give up your day job.

Whatever you say. My kitchen fridge wouldn't fit under the back seat like that.

[timelessbeing]

That is completely understandable! And if I had one then I would charge it at home at every opportunity. I don't think people SHOULD have to go to a station. I just think the option should be there, because the alternative (getting stranded) is unacceptable.

Then just buy a hybrid! 

I would consider it, but as I said, I'm disappointed with the offerings so far.

Then just wait and let all those other EV owner you're disparaging help drive the market forward instead of endlessly complaining about it 

I will wait for them with pleasure. And I will come here to discuss (not complain) what I think too.

[BrianHG]

But without a charge point, your battery EV car is immobile right?

Generator.

Also, I've once seen a Youtube video where an empty Tesla was being towed by rope by small truck & they got back multiple KM of range after a few minutes due to through regenerative breaking.

[EEVblog]

But without a charge point, your battery EV car is immobile right?

Generator.

More solutions for this problem are coming online, see here:

You could also solve this in the car software by having a setting that will only use say 90%-95% of your pack. i.e. force the user to keep a "reserve" to prevent them being idiots. Never include any of that reserve in the range calc or display etc.
To get the last 5-10% emergency reserve requires some convoluted menu procedure.
As I said, this is the exact same problem as ICE cars have, the problem lies with the human doing calculations and planning.

[timelessbeing]

But without a charge point, your battery EV car is immobile right?

Generator.

Which requires petrol but never mind. How long would it take to charge until you can drive, say 100km?
(equivalent to around 10L of petrol in a modern ICE car)

[timelessbeing]

He's trolling at this point.

Right. Raising legitimate reservations is trolling. Comparing to existing solutions is trolling.

[timelessbeing]

the problem lies with the human doing calculations and planning.

Right because you always have absolute control over every aspect of your situation. Unforeseen circumstances never arise.

[Monkeh]

But without a charge point, your battery EV car is immobile right?

Generator.

Which requires petrol but never mind. How long would it take to charge until you can drive, say 100km?
(equivalent to around 10L of petrol in a modern ICE car)

Total elimination of fossil fuels is not necessary (or likely practical for the foreseeable future). Drastic reduction, on the other hand..

10l/100km is a bit pathetic, my previous car would happily do nearly twice that and my current (admittedly diesel) will do over twice that. Just scaling numbers to anything but fat SUVs for reference.. But anyway, that much is liable to take a fair while longer than emptying a jerry can, yes.

[timelessbeing]

10l/100km is a bit pathetic, my previous car would happily do nearly twice that

Congratulations for your fantastically fuel frugal car. Apparently in your case, a soda bottle of fuel will get me home.


An average portable generator makes what ... Around 7,000W? Will that get you a decent charge in less time than it takes to have the car picked up and towed away?

[Monkeh]

10l/100km is a bit pathetic, my previous car would happily do nearly twice that

Congratulations for your fantastically fuel frugal car. Apparently in your case, a soda bottle of fuel will get me home.

I wouldn't call ~5.5l/100km fantastic, but it's better than a fat and almost entirely empty SUV or a full size saloon with a V8 for one man and his jacket.. I could get it down to about 8l/100km if I felt like being heavy footed, 10 would have involved pretending I have a three speed gearbox (I often pretended it was only four due to a worn gate annoying me..).

An average portable generator makes what ... Around 7,000W? Will that get you a decent charge in less time than it takes to have the car picked up and towed away?

At that sort of rate? About two, two and a half hours. With the pack mentioned earlier, from a quick video skim, an hour or thereabouts. That may or may not be faster than a tow (response times hugely variable). But it's early days and both the fixed charging infrastructure and the emergency charging solutions are still developing.

Also, that's considering normal driving consumption, with a limp home mode range should be extended (and therefore charging time for that range reduced).

[timelessbeing]

Careful Dave, he'll take it personally.

Who is taking things personally? I've been personally called daft, a troll, accused of endlessly complaining, and my guesstimating has been shamed. I can take it of course, but so far all I did was talk about cars.

[jh15]

ven Dave doesn't have all the clues yet. Took me awhile. Tesla S in May 2017. 1st month, charged off garage 120v outlet. 5 mph  of range. Called electrician, Quoted  125.00 if I got the proper materials to put in a 50A 240 volt what would be called a RV or welder outlet. I think 32mph of range. Is what Tesla recommended at the showroom, (not a dealership). and in the booklet.
     
I looked up. garage ceiling has 20 amp 120v for garage doors.
wired up a box to plug in to 15a and 20 amp to the rv plug box i built. 12mph range, been good enough for the almost 4 yrs.
, wall is 15 amp 120v. each has leg one each side of 240V to our house. In USA  a 15 amp is really code for 13 amp, which i set car at.
each morning, about 300 miles of range available.
Cost? haven't seen anything we can figure, maybe 20.00 doll hairs a month?
, it is lost in the dithering of using a/c or cleaning electric oven how long my 500 watt plasma is on, etc.

NO MAINTENANCE  visit to dealer (no dealers) no annoying car ads. , oil, exhaust, emission inspections, no acetone stench in garage when starting... on and on.

of course the hate. Dave won't get that in his car. I tell wife not to park by pickup trucks, you, know, oh! my truck door dinged your car, oops!

[EEVblog]

the problem lies with the human doing calculations and planning.

Right because you always have absolute control over every aspect of your situation. Unforeseen circumstances never arise.

I'm saying the exact problem can happen equally to both EV's and ICE vehicle.

[EEVblog]

An average portable generator makes what ... Around 7,000W? Will that get you a decent charge in less time than it takes to have the car picked up and towed away?

At that sort of rate? About two, two and a half hours. With the pack mentioned earlier, from a quick video skim, an hour or thereabouts. That may or may not be faster than a tow (response times hugely variable). But it's early days and both the fixed charging infrastructure and the emergency charging solutions are still developing.
Also, that's considering normal driving consumption, with a limp home mode range should be extended (and therefore charging time for that range reduced).

The EV actually has several advantages over the ICE cars (that I am aware of, maybe some advanced modern ICE cars have this):
a) The GPS is intimately tied into the range calculation. So you get warning if you try and drive somewhere that it knows you can't make. No forgetting to look at the petrol gauge and then running out, which would, I'd bet, be the biggest reason people run out of petrol.

b) Regen breaking. I just came back from a trip the blue mountains and coming back home I averaged 1kWk/100km consumption down the mountains. For reference, this is 10 times less consumption that I get around town. So if you happen to have lots of downhill to get somewhere you can get vastly more range than you would in an ICE car.

c) Different driving modes that force the car to use less energy from the battery and/or more aggressive regen to charge the battery.

Given these things, along with just more general awareness of potential range issues, it could be argued that you are perhaps less likely to get stuck somewhere in an EV.

[nctnico]

I didn't run the exact numbers on it but the average car roughly needs 20 years or so to reach 300k km given normal use (say 15k km per year). Replacing a car every 20 years on average doesn't seem excessive to me. 500k km would stretch the lifetime of a car to nearly 35 years. Meanwhile safety features and environmental regulations, etc advance as well. And there is the economic part of it as well. Cars do rust and wear so the entire car would need to be much more expensive to reach such a long service life. 300k km seems to be the optimal spot.

People change cars also (and often solely) because their lifestyle changes. Change locations, change jobs, have kids, etc presents different needs.

But that doesn't mean the car gets scrapped; it more likely gets a new owner. And some brands (like Toyotas) are so in demand they get exported to lower wage countries (Easten Europe, Africa) where the repairs are still economically viable.

[EEVblog]

I didn't run the exact numbers on it but the average car roughly needs 20 years or so to reach 300k km given normal use (say 15k km per year). Replacing a car every 20 years on average doesn't seem excessive to me. 500k km would stretch the lifetime of a car to nearly 35 years. Meanwhile safety features and environmental regulations, etc advance as well. And there is the economic part of it as well. Cars do rust and wear so the entire car would need to be much more expensive to reach such a long service life. 300k km seems to be the optimal spot.

People change cars also (and often solely) because their lifestyle changes. Change locations, change jobs, have kids, etc presents different needs.

But that doesn't mean the car gets scrapped

Sure. Didn't say they did. The point is that's one of the huge reasons people are on the lookout to change to a new car.

[nctnico]

An average portable generator makes what ... Around 7,000W? Will that get you a decent charge in less time than it takes to have the car picked up and towed away?

At that sort of rate? About two, two and a half hours. With the pack mentioned earlier, from a quick video skim, an hour or thereabouts. That may or may not be faster than a tow (response times hugely variable). But it's early days and both the fixed charging infrastructure and the emergency charging solutions are still developing.
Also, that's considering normal driving consumption, with a limp home mode range should be extended (and therefore charging time for that range reduced).

The EV actually has several advantages over the ICE cars (that I am aware of, maybe some advanced modern ICE cars have this):
a) The GPS is intimately tied into the range calculation. So you get warning if you try and drive somewhere that it knows you can't make. No forgetting to look at the petrol gauge and then running out, which would, I'd bet, be the biggest reason people run out of petrol.

b) Regen breaking. I just came back from a trip the blue mountains and coming back home I averaged 1kWk/100km consumption down the mountains. For reference, this is 10 times less consumption that I get around town. So if you happen to have lots of downhill to get somewhere you can get vastly more range than you would in an ICE car.

c) Different driving modes that force the car to use less energy from the battery and/or more aggressive regen to charge the battery.

Given these things, along with just more general awareness of potential range issues, it could be argued that you are perhaps less likely to get stuck somewhere in an EV.

Now you are sounding like an EV owner grasping at straws to justify their purchase. Hint: going down-hill needs going up-hill first. 
Besides that an ICE hybrid offers the same advantages for energy regenerating without needing to worry about range. Last but not least ICE cars have warning lights (and beepers) to alert you the fuel is getting low after which you can typically drive at least another 80km. I get that in Australia running out of fuel in the middle of nowhere is an issue. In Europe however there is a gas station along the highway every 40km to 60km and there will be a big sign besides the road if there isn't (but these are very rare).

[Ed.Kloonk]

a) The GPS is intimately tied into the range calculation. So you get warning if you try and drive somewhere that it knows you can't make. No forgetting to look at the petrol gauge and then running out, which would, I'd bet, be the biggest reason people run out of petrol.

The Holden Commodore has a notorious fault with the fuel pump. The pump assembly contains a small reservoir and a check valve so that the fuel pump is able to supply fuel to the high pressure side of the fuel system as the fuel level in the tank falls well below the top of the pump.

What typically happens before 100,000kms is the check valve fails thereby negating the effectiveness of the fuel pump reservoir and you begin to rely on the sloshing around of petrol in the tank to prime the pump (which is supposed to be submerged in fuel).

When that happens, the analog fuel gauge is still showing 1/4 tank left. The dash's not-so-smarts assures you that you still have 120+kms 'to go'. The fuel warning light is designed to illuminate at about less than 40kms or so.

And yet, whether or not you have been driving like Fangio, chances are good you are SOL.

Whilst I realise that these cars are nearing EOL, the fault starts to occur closer to the manufacture date rather than the junk date. But when these cars were made, most were in a significant market share at the time of purchase. And it's just one model that I happen to be intimately familiar with. I'll bet that this sloppy technology is in many other cars too.

What is annoying is that mechanics see the fault and mis-diagnose it as intermittent ignition spark controller, another common, heat-related fault in this model.

 

What I'm interested to see how the next 10 or 20 years of the electric car will affect the repairibility of these things.

[EEVblog]

An average portable generator makes what ... Around 7,000W? Will that get you a decent charge in less time than it takes to have the car picked up and towed away?

At that sort of rate? About two, two and a half hours. With the pack mentioned earlier, from a quick video skim, an hour or thereabouts. That may or may not be faster than a tow (response times hugely variable). But it's early days and both the fixed charging infrastructure and the emergency charging solutions are still developing.
Also, that's considering normal driving consumption, with a limp home mode range should be extended (and therefore charging time for that range reduced).

The EV actually has several advantages over the ICE cars (that I am aware of, maybe some advanced modern ICE cars have this):
a) The GPS is intimately tied into the range calculation. So you get warning if you try and drive somewhere that it knows you can't make. No forgetting to look at the petrol gauge and then running out, which would, I'd bet, be the biggest reason people run out of petrol.

b) Regen breaking. I just came back from a trip the blue mountains and coming back home I averaged 1kWk/100km consumption down the mountains. For reference, this is 10 times less consumption that I get around town. So if you happen to have lots of downhill to get somewhere you can get vastly more range than you would in an ICE car.

c) Different driving modes that force the car to use less energy from the battery and/or more aggressive regen to charge the battery.

Given these things, along with just more general awareness of potential range issues, it could be argued that you are perhaps less likely to get stuck somewhere in an EV.

Now you are sounding like an EV owner grasping at straws to justify their purchase.

Err, no, simply discussing facts about the range issue being discussed.

Hint: going down-hill needs going up-hill first. 

Pro Hint: the trip before your emergency situation is irrelevant to the discussion at hand.
It's easy: you are stranded somewhere you thought had fuel/charge and there isn't any. The next place is say 50km away with significant downhill components. You have 10km of range left in the EV and the ICE car, which one is likely to get there?
Note, this is not pie-in-the-sky, I got 10 times lower consumption figures on my trip back down the blue mountains.
This is a a potential real advantage of EV's in an emergency situation if the circumstances suit.