EEVblog #1337 - I Bought An Electric Car

[SilverSolder]

I don't see the point, just hold the car with the clutch. No risk of rolling back into someone then.

You have to get from stopped (with the brakes) to engaging the clutch, without rolling backwards.

In Europe, everyone is taught to use the handbrake in that situation (even if there is no hill, you are supposed to use the handbrake at a stop - safety habit).  I like heel-and-toe better but that also takes training and  not all drivers and cars are suitable for it.

[Monkeh]

Clutches are made for occasional low speed control and changing gear, not holding vehicles stationary on hills. Starting from parked requires use of the brake, so why not just use the same secure procedure all the time?

[Howardlong]

It is a more valuable with a manual transmission than an automatic, I guess.  Rolling backwards on a hill is not normally an issue with an automatic....

It is on a steep hill. Above a certain gradient an automatic rolls back when you lift your foot off the brake and accelerator. Not as fast as a manual rolls back, but it still rolls. The only times I have ever used the handbrake in an automatic have been starting on very steep hills and for the annual government mandated inspection.

Speaking of hills, I normally heel-and-toe the brake/gas rather than use the hand brake in a manual car.   Comes naturally with big feet! 

Somebody's boasting! 

[SilverSolder]

It is a more valuable with a manual transmission than an automatic, I guess.  Rolling backwards on a hill is not normally an issue with an automatic....

It is on a steep hill. Above a certain gradient an automatic rolls back when you lift your foot off the brake and accelerator. Not as fast as a manual rolls back, but it still rolls. The only times I have ever used the handbrake in an automatic have been starting on very steep hills and for the annual government mandated inspection.

Speaking of hills, I normally heel-and-toe the brake/gas rather than use the hand brake in a manual car.   Comes naturally with big feet! 

Somebody's boasting! 

LOL my feet are so big I can easily use two pedals at a time even if not intentional! 

I have been doing the heel and toe (actually the two sides of the foot, not really heel and toe) for so long that it's become second nature - good thing I don't have to take another test any time soon!

[coppice]

Clutches are made for occasional low speed control and changing gear, not holding vehicles stationary on hills. Starting from parked requires use of the brake, so why not just use the same secure procedure all the time?

The combination of a dual clutch gearbox (which simulate a torque converter's creep mode by slipping the clutches), a caravan and sloped driveway is well known as a recipe for warranty claims. The clutches don't just wear fast. The whole gearbox overheats, with unpleasant results.

[Monkeh]

Clutches are made for occasional low speed control and changing gear, not holding vehicles stationary on hills. Starting from parked requires use of the brake, so why not just use the same secure procedure all the time?

The combination of a dual clutch gearbox (which simulate a torque converter's creep mode by slipping the clutches), a caravan and sloped driveway is well known as a recipe for warranty claims. The clutches don't just wear fast. The whole gearbox overheats, with unpleasant results.

At least the newer iterations of those are wet clutches, which are a bit more suited to it. They're really nice to drive, too.

[coppice]

Clutches are made for occasional low speed control and changing gear, not holding vehicles stationary on hills. Starting from parked requires use of the brake, so why not just use the same secure procedure all the time?

The combination of a dual clutch gearbox (which simulate a torque converter's creep mode by slipping the clutches), a caravan and sloped driveway is well known as a recipe for warranty claims. The clutches don't just wear fast. The whole gearbox overheats, with unpleasant results.

At least the newer iterations of those are wet clutches, which are a bit more suited to it. They're really nice to drive, too.

I thought the market was moving from wet to dry, for higher efficiency and lower cost.

[maginnovision]

Clutches are made for occasional low speed control and changing gear, not holding vehicles stationary on hills. Starting from parked requires use of the brake, so why not just use the same secure procedure all the time?

The combination of a dual clutch gearbox (which simulate a torque converter's creep mode by slipping the clutches), a caravan and sloped driveway is well known as a recipe for warranty claims. The clutches don't just wear fast. The whole gearbox overheats, with unpleasant results.

Every DCT I know of has hill hold assist so it doesn't matter, I'm talking about cars without(I don't have new cars). I've worked on DCT for many years and typically the failures we saw were from... racing around. Only accumulator pumps usually failed and clutches typically failed from not being properly adapted, aside from normal wear/tear. I don't know if I've ever seen one that had overheated but I only worked for BMW so maybe other manufacturers were worse.

[Monkeh]

Clutches are made for occasional low speed control and changing gear, not holding vehicles stationary on hills. Starting from parked requires use of the brake, so why not just use the same secure procedure all the time?

The combination of a dual clutch gearbox (which simulate a torque converter's creep mode by slipping the clutches), a caravan and sloped driveway is well known as a recipe for warranty claims. The clutches don't just wear fast. The whole gearbox overheats, with unpleasant results.

At least the newer iterations of those are wet clutches, which are a bit more suited to it. They're really nice to drive, too.

I thought the market was moving from wet to dry, for higher efficiency and lower cost.

Other way round afaik - VW started with dry and quickly decided wet was better, Nissan's new DCT (which I've driven) is wet.

[Monkeh]

Every DCT I know of has hill hold assist so it doesn't matter

Hill hold assist has nothing to do with saving the clutch from creeping on an incline.

[maginnovision]

What? If it has hill hold assist it gives you plenty of time to move from brake to throttle and you don't even need to touch the clutch until you're ready to move and you won't roll. I must be missing something you're implying.

[Monkeh]

What? If it has hill hold assist it gives you plenty of time to move from brake to throttle and you don't even need to touch the clutch until you're ready to move and you won't roll. I must be missing something you're implying.

...

A: We're talking about a DCT, so there's no clutch pedal for you, and B: Creeping on a hill means slipping the clutch. Slipping a clutch with a heavy load wears and heats the clutch excessively.

[maginnovision]

Yes, DCT is no clutch so you're on the brake then you move to accelerator, no clutch involved from you or the computer until ready to move. Modern manuals with hill hold holds brakes so again no clutch necessary, you hold the brakes until you're ready to move and do so. Creeping isn't something I mentioned so I don't know what to tell you about that other than if you are just creeping and not revving the piss out of the engine it has the same effect as holding the car with the clutch, virtually none.

If you have a large manual transmission vehicle towing a trailer on a hill without hill hold assist... I would still hold the car with the clutch unless I was sure I wouldn't roll back at all without it. From what I've seen of others driving manual transmission vehicles with no hill hold assist I'd strongly recommend they learn to use the clutch similarly because they end up moving to the accelerator and slipping the clutch for 5 seconds at 5k rpm.

[SilverSolder]

Yes, DCT is no clutch so you're on the brake then you move to accelerator, no clutch involved from you or the computer until ready to move. Modern manuals with hill hold holds brakes so again no clutch necessary, you hold the brakes until you're ready to move and do so. Creeping isn't something I mentioned so I don't know what to tell you about that other than if you are just creeping and not revving the piss out of the engine it has the same effect as holding the car with the clutch, virtually none.

If you have a large manual transmission vehicle towing a trailer on a hill without hill hold assist... I would still hold the car with the clutch unless I was sure I wouldn't roll back at all without it. From what I've seen of others driving manual transmission vehicles with no hill hold assist I'd strongly recommend they learn to use the clutch similarly because they end up moving to the accelerator and slipping the clutch for 5 seconds at 5k rpm.

I haven't done the math, but instinctively, the heat dissipated in the clutch is probably is a function of the incline you are sitting on and engine RPM.

Obviously no problem to do it for a few seconds on a modest incline.  But hanging the car from the clutch for a minute while waiting for a light to change on a steep hill with a heavy load is probably a bad plan!

[jh15]

Electric cars have these clutches?

[SilverSolder]

Electric cars have these clutches?

An electric motor has high torque right down to zero RPM, unlike an ICE.  So it doesn't need a clutch for getting the car started from a standstill.

An electric car does have an efficiency problem if the motor is used to hold the car still instead of the brakes.  It is more efficient to use brakes on a hill than it is to run current through the motor to hold the vehicle still.

[ludzinc]

Our Hyundai Tuscon caught me out the other day. 

It was a light raining and I was backing out of the driveway.  As the rain was light the front wipers were on intermittently, and when I went to back out the rear wipers were also running.

I then spent 2 minutes faffing around with the rear wiper switch.  I was sure I hadn't turned on the rear wipers, I confirmed the switch was in the off position, I cycled the switch to on / off and the wipers were still running.  I gave up, backed out of the driveway and was thinking of taking it to the dealer to get it fixed, put in in drive and the rear wiper stopped.

So, the car decided to run the rear wiper when in reverse as the front wipers were on.  Regardless of where I set the switch.  Without feedback.  Ugh.

[Ed.Kloonk]

Don't be afraid.

[coppice]

Our Hyundai Tuscon caught me out the other day. 

It was a light raining and I was backing out of the driveway.  As the rain was light the front wipers were on intermittently, and when I went to back out the rear wipers were also running.

I then spent 2 minutes faffing around with the rear wiper switch.  I was sure I hadn't turned on the rear wipers, I confirmed the switch was in the off position, I cycled the switch to on / off and the wipers were still running.  I gave up, backed out of the driveway and was thinking of taking it to the dealer to get it fixed, put in in drive and the rear wiper stopped.

So, the car decided to run the rear wiper when in reverse as the front wipers were on.  Regardless of where I set the switch.  Without feedback.  Ugh.

That's common in modern cars. Many makes have an entry in the setup menu where you can configure this behaviour, and store it for future use.

[Howardlong]

Our Hyundai Tuscon caught me out the other day. 

It was a light raining and I was backing out of the driveway.  As the rain was light the front wipers were on intermittently, and when I went to back out the rear wipers were also running.

I then spent 2 minutes faffing around with the rear wiper switch.  I was sure I hadn't turned on the rear wipers, I confirmed the switch was in the off position, I cycled the switch to on / off and the wipers were still running.  I gave up, backed out of the driveway and was thinking of taking it to the dealer to get it fixed, put in in drive and the rear wiper stopped.

So, the car decided to run the rear wiper when in reverse as the front wipers were on.  Regardless of where I set the switch.  Without feedback.  Ugh.

That's common in modern cars. Many makes have an entry in the setup menu where you can configure this behaviour, and store it for future use.

Frankly, I'm finding a lot of it quite unfathomable.

The Ioniq I've had for about ten days, I'm still trying to figure out whether or not I've switched it off or not. Sometimes I find it still bongs at me, but doesn't explain why. I live in trepidation I'll come back and find the battery's drained.

On the plus side, one of the compliants I used to have with my old Prius plug in hybrid was that hardly any of the free charging points provided at some supermarket car parks ever worked, so I just gave up using them. Thankfully, five years later, we seem to be in rather better shape regarding this, although they do tend to be slow rate chargers.

I've tried using CarPlay and I'm not really sure why I would use that and not the built in sat nav.

Today's in-car tech needs an 8 year old's mindset to make it work. It's just a shame 8 years olds can't drive cars.

[mikeselectricstuff]

The Ioniq I've had for about ten days, I'm still trying to figure out whether or not I've switched it off or not. Sometimes I find it still bongs at me, but doesn't explain why. I live in trepidation I'll come back and find the battery's drained.

The main on-off indication is the green car with arrows logo.

Not sure if it's same as the Ioniq but my Kona has different "On" modes depending on whether or not you have your foot on the  the brake while pressing the "power" button - this is not well explained in the manual, and it doesn't help that the different LED indication colours are shown in black & white !

[SilverSolder]

Our Hyundai Tuscon caught me out the other day. 

It was a light raining and I was backing out of the driveway.  As the rain was light the front wipers were on intermittently, and when I went to back out the rear wipers were also running.

I then spent 2 minutes faffing around with the rear wiper switch.  I was sure I hadn't turned on the rear wipers, I confirmed the switch was in the off position, I cycled the switch to on / off and the wipers were still running.  I gave up, backed out of the driveway and was thinking of taking it to the dealer to get it fixed, put in in drive and the rear wiper stopped.

So, the car decided to run the rear wiper when in reverse as the front wipers were on.  Regardless of where I set the switch.  Without feedback.  Ugh.

That's common in modern cars. Many makes have an entry in the setup menu where you can configure this behaviour, and store it for future use.

I'm not a big fan of cars deciding to turn stuff on and off by themselves.   For example, let's say the rear wiper is frozen to the window due to a winter storm...  or it is broken for some other reason - vandalism, whatever -  so you decide not to use it...    too bad you were overruled by a device with less IQ than an ant! 

[coppice]

Our Hyundai Tuscon caught me out the other day. 

It was a light raining and I was backing out of the driveway.  As the rain was light the front wipers were on intermittently, and when I went to back out the rear wipers were also running.

I then spent 2 minutes faffing around with the rear wiper switch.  I was sure I hadn't turned on the rear wipers, I confirmed the switch was in the off position, I cycled the switch to on / off and the wipers were still running.  I gave up, backed out of the driveway and was thinking of taking it to the dealer to get it fixed, put in in drive and the rear wiper stopped.

So, the car decided to run the rear wiper when in reverse as the front wipers were on.  Regardless of where I set the switch.  Without feedback.  Ugh.

That's common in modern cars. Many makes have an entry in the setup menu where you can configure this behaviour, and store it for future use.

I'm not a big fan of cars deciding to turn stuff on and off by themselves.   For example, let's say the rear wiper is frozen to the window due to a winter storm...  or it is broken for some other reason - vandalism, whatever -  so you decide not to use it...    too bad you were overruled by a device with less IQ than an ant! 

Most people find it a convenience. If you don't like it, disable it. Its no big deal.

[Ed.Kloonk]

I'm not a big fan of cars deciding to turn stuff on and off by themselves.   For example, let's say the rear wiper is frozen to the window due to a winter storm...  or it is broken for some other reason - vandalism, whatever -  so you decide not to use it...    too bad you were overruled by a device with less IQ than an ant! 

Most people find it a convenience. If you don't like it, disable it. Its no big deal.

It's the thin edge of the wedge. First they start by activating the wipers, eventually the car will wind up doing all the driving by itself.

[Monkeh]

I'm not a big fan of cars deciding to turn stuff on and off by themselves.   For example, let's say the rear wiper is frozen to the window due to a winter storm...  or it is broken for some other reason - vandalism, whatever -  so you decide not to use it...    too bad you were overruled by a device with less IQ than an ant! 

Most people find it a convenience. If you don't like it, disable it. Its no big deal.

It's the thin edge of the wedge. First they start by activating the wipers, eventually the car will wind up doing all the driving by itself.

Experience on the road tells me this is only a good thing.