Thread: EV general discussion

Originally Posted by Homestar

The only way to test a battery is to run a full controlled charge and discharge cycle - we do this with our batteries at work every few months. The baby 9.6KWH batteries take around 2 days to test and return a result and the 45KWH batteries take over a week. This is with a commercial tester - I’m sure there are different ones that can do the discharge quicker as you’ll need to with an EV battery. Maybe some enterprising individual will start a business to test them and issue a report the owners can use when they sell a car on - it’s the only way I’d look at buying a secondhand EV.

Teslas have a battery test mode built in - but you have to have them plugged into a charger and be prepared to do without the car for a day or so.

I think the whole battery degradation thing is over hyped. With Teslas anyway. Frankly I've been reading your posts for a while and I can't see any circumstance in which you'd buy any EV let alone a second hand one.

Originally Posted by scarry

So ran into a customer of ours,who bought a BMW EV a few weeks ago.
He is finding it difficult to get used to,compared with the last ICE BMW.

Gets 5 yrs of free charging,as long as he uses a certain charger,luckily there is one near him.
But no doubt there is a guesstimate on how much power he will use and it is hidden in the vehicle cost.
Forty five minutes from 30% to 90%, which equates to a week of driving for him.
I forgot to ask what range he gets out of it.

BMW have said only charge it to 80% as that is better for the battery,but he likes to go to 90.

How the battery condition is won't really worry him as he changes vehicles over every 3 to 5 yrs.

Which brings up another point,the second hand market for EVs is going to be a nightmare,as some batteries will be in much in better condition than others.Maybe developing a way to do an accurate test might be the go.



So if it is only charged to 80%, that is 20% of range already gone,then allow at least 10% for margin,no one wants to run out,so down to around 70% of rated range.
And as we know the ‘real actual range’ will be even less.

There has been by a bit of opposition to brands selling cars with "free charging" as it encourages owners to camp out at public chargers when many people can charge at home. Seems reasonable given public charging is still developing.

EV owners call for end to free fast charging to prevent charging queues

Originally Posted by Captain_Rightfoot

There has been by a bit of opposition to brands selling cars with "free charging" as it encourages owners to camp out at public chargers when many people can charge at home. Seems reasonable given public charging is still developing.

EV owners call for end to free fast charging to prevent charging queues

Nothing ever suits everyone.
So now they want to control where a vehicle is charged up?

And no doubt BMW,or whoever,won’t give two hoots about the problem.

The real problem is there are not enough public chargers,which is a problem that blind Freddy could see was going to happen.

Originally Posted by Captain_Rightfoot

Teslas have a battery test mode built in - but you have to have them plugged into a charger and be prepared to do without the car for a day or so.

I think the whole battery degradation thing is over hyped. With Teslas anyway. Frankly I've been reading your posts for a while and I can't see any circumstance in which you'd buy any EV let alone a second hand one.

Well you haven’t read all my posts by a long way then as if you had you’d know I like EV’s and the tech, and am likely to buy one when we retire as a daily. I haven’t driven a heap of them just to rag on them but to see which ones I actually like. My points against them are based on my Electrical Engineering and Infrastructure knowledge, so I understand how hard it is going to be to scale them up which many people think it is so easy.

Hmmm, having to park 50 feet away from a structure could interfere with charging....

Originally Posted by Homestar

Well you haven’t read all my posts by a long way then as if you had you’d know I like EV’s and the tech, and am likely to buy one when we retire as a daily. I haven’t driven a heap of them just to rag on them but to see which ones I actually like. My points against them are based on my Electrical Engineering and Infrastructure knowledge, so I understand how hard it is going to be to scale them up which many people think it is so easy.

The failed three year old Tesla battery replaced did show they can remotely find faults. Noting that before it got back to them it was not possible to charge it at all. Blind Freddy could tell it was problem when that occurred

Info copy and paste as usual for me
The Tesla battery is rated to IP66 or better, which means it is protected against strong jets of water1. The battery's electrical components, particularly those in the high voltage sections of the motor, speed controller, and battery, are rated to IP66 or better1. One or more modules are combined within an IP67-rated steel enclosure2.

The post water fires show what Blind Freddy should know that the Tesla IP66 rating which is NOT water proof for swimming should take the advice if the car is sunk

PS My very light running watch is rated to 100M underwater. NO WAY I take it diving. My very old Seko automatic Diving watch is the only one for that The fires in EV or faults in ICE post a deep swim are expected I think for most types.
Ps I brought a TOUGH diving watch when doing my 2nd Diving course with the Navy, First was PADI ( fun but PITA now)

I broke the tough one rated to 50m every day for 4 days in less than 10 metres of water, A sad day on the 4th day when I accepted a 100 m watch IF I DID NOT bring it back broken the next day, IT Broke at 10 M or less!

Not grumpy as it is funny!
EDIT I check my Diving log for the 10metre water edit

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A mate of mine used to say that the metre rating specified on a watch meant how far one had to keep it from water.

Originally Posted by scarry

Hopefully they can find suitably qualified people to do all this work.

I wonder who is going to end up paying for it all?

What you are alluding to, perhaps without knowing it, is something called the "resource curse" which says that countries blessed with resources just exploit those without investing in the welfare, education and training of their people.