Thread: EV general discussion

Originally Posted by DoubleChevron

I saw a news article on it a while back. You get free "rescue" with telsa services. They flat tray your car to a dealer and fit a loaner spare wheel. The problem was the car was stuck at the top of a parking tower, and they couldn't get a tow truck to it

No spare and no jack in a country like australia has to be the dumbest crap I've ever heard of, especially in these stupid modern cars with ludicrously giant sized clown wheels with rubber band tires. You don't so much get a flat as destroy the wheel and tire when you hit a pothole. without a full sized proper spare, you really are in trouble.

I guess its less of an issue in an electric throw-away as they should never be far from a city center where it can be charged easily With other proper... "real" cars though, its just insane

seeya
Shane L.

So nothing to to with Tesla or EVs then, plenty of cars don't have a spare these days.

Our Subaru has done 330,000 km in 16 years, and never needed the spare, there have been times I'd have been nervous without it, but most of the time I'd be happy with pressure monitoring and a plug kit.

The Landy not so much.

Tony

Originally Posted by TonyC

So nothing to to with Tesla or EVs then, plenty of cars don't have a spare these days.

Our Subaru has done 330,000 km in 16 years, and never needed the spare, there have been times I'd have been nervous without it, but most of the time I'd be happy with pressure monitoring and a plug kit.

The Landy not so much.

Tony

My younger sister lives in regional Qld and drives a Subie, as it was the only vehicle that had a full size spare.

Run flats, mini-spares and no spares are for 'Slickers'.

Originally Posted by TonyC

So nothing to to with Tesla or EVs then, plenty of cars don't have a spare these days.

Tony

Yes, but an electric throw-away is really less of an issue, as lets be honest, your not going to find one very far from the nearest starbucks .....

The lack of spare is just nuts, my wifes poogoe I managed to squeeze a 16" wheel into the recess in the boot (at least it had a spot for a spare, even though it didn't come with a spare). The issue is of course, it won't clear the enormous front brakes. so if I get a flat, the "spare" needs to go on the back, and the inflated tire moved to the front.... Just nuts. A spare is something that should be a part of every cars design brief.

seeya
Shane L.

One of the qualifications I used in buying a car to relace my D2 was that it had a full size spare. I really hankered after a Mercedes GL 350 but the later ones do not have a spare at all. Later Touregs have a ridiculous system of a deflated collapsable spare and a compressor plus you have to take off a trim panel to jack it. I can recall on another site reading that an X6 driver with the monstrous v8 version wanted to travel to Sydney from Perth "via backroads" until I pointed out that there were no run flats in Australia to fit his car.
I ended up with an Everest which I am pleased with as the nearest thing to a successor to a D2. The spare is still a PITA under the bumper bar. One of the conditions also had to be a length of less than 4.8 metres as my garage is only that long so please no Prado suggestions as they are too long.
If you want to tow a van around OZ there are few options, although I agree the spare is a security blanket as I have never had a complete tyre failure in the bush although I have had several bloody builder's nails in the city which I was able to plug.
The worst situation is riding a motorcycle over the Harbour Bridge where I picked up nail after nail which were dropped by tradies and brushed into the centre of the lane by traffic.

Please no reliability BS. The failure rate of EGR coolers looks to be on par with engine complete failures in RRS and Ford has issued a 10 year warranty on them. I have a letter confirming that. The 3.2L 5 is a great engine. Mine has been great after a warranty replacement by Ford of the adblue cooler and new glow plugs replaced by the seller. The transmission is the same design as the RRS 6 speed. And steel springs instead of crap air suspension , great for Europe but pretty hopeless in the OZ bush. At least one sprung a leak on every Range Rover Club trip I went on. So much so that the club had to buy a diagnostic tool to enable all the cars to continue the trip.
REgards PhilipA

Originally Posted by PhilipA

One of the qualifications I used in buying a car to relace my D2 was that it had a full size spare. I really hankered after a Mercedes GL 350 but the later ones do not have a spare at all. Later Touregs have a ridiculous system of a deflated collapsable spare and a compressor plus you have to take off a trim panel to jack it. I can recall on another site reading that an X6 driver with the monstrous v8 version wanted to travel to
REgards PhilipA

I put it down to "**** happens". I've had to go rescue two cars in the last year here with flats. Not punctures but the stupid modern alloy wheels with rubber band tires, they just can't handle poor roads. The wifes car cracked an alloy wheel (fortunately didnt' destroy the tire) the daughters little car bent the alloy wheel and destoryed the 2 week old tire. I hammered the alloy wheel back round with a sledge hammer and had another new tire fitted. In both cases, stupid little compressors and tire snot would not have worked (daugher was stuck on the side of the road in the dark ... luckily not remote, only 10minutes drive from me).

We might not have another flat for 10years .... or might have one today. Who knows, what I do know is there MUST be a spare there.

Being in a 4wd does not make you immune, I kept staking the bridgestone all terrains I had on the ****box here ... it was driving me crazy. They rode well though .... I ended up fitting a setup of BFG all terrains .... other than making it ride like a dump truck (man they must have side walls made of cast iron) ... but they sure have lasted well.

seeya
Shane L.

Yes one of the blokes in my Probus club has a modern Merc. Hit a pothole and over $1000 for a new rim and tyre. he was not happy.
Regards PhilipA

Originally Posted by DoubleChevron

Yes, but an electric throw-away is really less of an issue, as lets be honest, your not going to find one very far from the nearest starbucks .....

The lack of spare is just nuts, my wifes poogoe I managed to squeeze a 16" wheel into the recess in the boot (at least it had a spot for a spare, even though it didn't come with a spare). The issue is of course, it won't clear the enormous front brakes. so if I get a flat, the "spare" needs to go on the back, and the inflated tire moved to the front.... Just nuts. A spare is something that should be a part of every cars design brief.

seeya
Shane L.

I once had to change an older lady's tyre late one night after work, it was a skinny space saver, later I thought I should have really moved a good tyre to the front and put the spare on the back, especially as it was a front wheel drive car.

Originally Posted by DoubleChevron

No they can't. They won't mouler in a scrap yard due to fire risk (they must have a 15 meter exlcusion zone around them).

So you think people are going to remove a big heavy battery from an EV, remove its cooling systems, heating systems, exotic battery management systems, and place those fire prone, aged, possibly damaged batteries on there house ..... where the family sleeps.

No, they can't be recycled. Well, in theory they can. But the recycling plants burn down like clockwork. Even the latest, newest big whizz bang recyling plants are burning (infact there is one in america they has burnt several times in the last few years).

These aren't old AAA duracel batteries we are talking about, they are leaking, aged, dangerous cobalt based lithium batteries that can suffer "thermal run-away" at any point.

Lets say by some miracle they managed to recycle the batteries safely in Europe or America, and actually fully process the batteries (not just create stock piles of black dust). How do we get the big dangerous car batteries too this location? There has already been 3 cargo ship sunk in the last few years moving brand new batteries in brand new cars. How many will sink if we start shipping damaged, aged batteries?

Like I said, these environmental disasters will just get buried for everyones safety.

seeya
Shane L.

Look.. I know this is unlikely. But if you actually believe anything that I can offer, understand that the biggest selling EV's in Australia are LIFPO4. I think all the BYD's and all the RWD Teslas. The top 5 selling cars are majority LFP.

All Korean, Japanese and european stuff is cobalt still. AFAIK.

Yes they are Lithium batteries like the cobalt technologies, but they are very different in many ways. One of which is they are intrinsically less prone to catching fire. Some other handy traits are they don't really care too much about how they are charged, and they tend to last a very long time.

Cobalt batteries are an older tech. They were the default but are now increasingly just in the high performance long range models where their higher energy density is required. And phones.

The only cobalt in my car is in my phone and watch.