Electric Cars:what's available?

[myglaren]

Oh dear Yet another vision of ugliness.

[ChrisRobin]

Is it me!
When you look at a lot of these EV's they look like big square boxes on wheels with flat slab fronts, what happened to aerodynamics? Manufactures spent millions on it in the days of designing IC vehicles to get less drag and more MPG over the decades, now all gone, you would have thought the dynamics would work the same less drag more miles per charge, they don't even have a wicking grate engine lump upfront anymore to shroud in bodywork, yet quite a few of them look like bulldozers from the front. ID.3/4 Well what happened there designed in the dark!

[NewcastleFalcon]

Is it me!
When you look at a lot of these EV's they look like big square boxes on wheels with flat slab fronts, what happened to aerodynamics? Manufactures spent millions on it in the days of designing IC vehicles to get less drag and more MPG over the decades, now all gone, you would have thought the dynamics would work the same less drag more miles per charge, they don't even have a wicking grate engine lump upfront anymore to shroud in bodywork, yet quite a few of them look like bulldozers from the front. ID.3/4 Well what happened there designed in the dark!

Welcome to the thread Chris. you make a good point not just for EV's. It's obvious really, lighter and less drag translates into better fuel economy whether ICE or EV. My Nissan Leaf classic shape currently gets 4.6 miles/kWh and is now ancient in EV terms. Some of the heavy SUV style bricks lugging round large capacity heavy batteries on 2 mile journeys to TESCO, barely scrape over 2 miles/kWh. Don't think the public that pcp or salary sacrifice them are concerned about fuel economy.

Mercedes are making a good effort on the slippery shape with this, but little else

Those well known producers of large sheds Mercedes have an ev in development, and literally one in the flesh, which some journo's from Electrek have been taking a look at.

To work at is greatest efficiency an EV should be light and aerodynamic. The Mercedes certainly hits the spot on the first score with a drag coeficient of 0.17 even without wheel covers. Maybe not so good on the second as the quest for groundbreaking range no doubt lugs around an overly heavy battery.

Article is here with pics if you want to take a look, it will be a while before one makes an appearance in the spotter thread on the road if ever!

https://electrek.co/2022/07/25/mercedes-eqxx-drive/

Regards Neil

[CitroJim]

That Merc's styling harks back almost to the days of proper styling... Almost retro

I like it...

[Hell Razor5543]

Croatia have developed their own electric car, the Rimac Nevera. Chris Harris on the new series of Top Gear gave it a try, and found that it was somewhat startling. It is very quick, and just as agile, yet has (for what it is; a supercar) a decent range;

https://www.topgear.com/car-reviews/rimac/nevera

[ChrisRobin]

Have to say I.D3/4 seem to spend more time in our workshops getting software updates than they do on the road, we have only just gone through one phase of 9 hour updates on them, now they are all coming back in for 12v battery issues and software updates, where they get an brand new uprated 12v battery and yet another all day update...
Also had a few Audi Q8 Etrons in now which wont fully charge at home or on the quick charges, the issue there we eventually found out the charging system is set to EU not UK so it charges for around 5/15 mins then stops you have to unplug it leave it a while then plug it back in for another 5/15 mins charge, we were changing charge cables @ £300 a shot, we have changed the charging plug and cabling behind the flap @ £500 a shot, eventually technical came back with a fix, seems you have to go and change the Charging Control Module Country, as the UK has different charging volts! Obvious after you have been told!
But I suppose that begs another question then, how many IC's do you see on the road in the UK with Foreign plates on, does that mean they will issues charging their EV's in the UK? I think as drivers and motorists we are in for a rather steep leaning curve over the next few years.

[Gibbo2286]

It's the garage mechanics who are in for a steep learning curve Chris, if I was new to the trade I'd be up for that it's the future.
I note that there are courses offered through various groups such as this:
https://autotechtraining.co.uk/electric ... JKePD_BwE

[CitroJim]

It's the garage mechanics who are in for a steep learning curve Chris, if I was new to the trade I'd be up for that it's the future.
I note that there are courses offered through various groups such as this:

If I were 30 or 40 years younger I'd be too... Hugely interesting times in the automotive repair/maintenance world...

I'm looking forward to the time when EVs enter the bangeromics arena and working on them at home to get a bit more out of them becomes a reality... And it surely will...

That's when I plan to get involved...

[bobins]

There's an interesting short video from Edd China on what's involved on working on a 'leccy car. He did the basic course at Bosch....

[NewcastleFalcon]

Croatia have developed their own electric car, the Rimac Nevera. Chris Harris on the new series of Top Gear gave it a try, and found that it was somewhat startling. It is very quick, and just as agile, yet has (for what it is; a supercar) a decent range;

https://www.topgear.com/car-reviews/rimac/nevera

Unusually for me I watched that Chris Harris piece on Top Gear on I-Player after your post James.

Chris at the end came up with
"They (ICE Supercars) need to give up on the acceleration and the speed race because these things are so fast there is no catching up. Petrol needs to trade on emotion now, gear changes, sound, go lightweight, but dont try and out-accelerate this monster because you'll lose"

Reminded me of my own conclusions from the pages of the FCF

Volkswagen's sidekick brand Lamborghini is turning electric. I guess VW's wayward child Porsche are a bit tied up with their "we've started so we will finish" e-fuel experiment in Chile to make a similar declaration, for now.

How long before all those supercar engineers trying to tweak the internal combustion engine to squeeze out world beating performance follow Lamborghini and just admit defeat.

Tesla is updating Roadster design, 0-60 mph in mind-boggling 1.1 sec with SpaceX package?

Porsche's e-fuel from Chile is going to have to be pretty powerful stuff to compete.

REgards Neil

[ChrisRobin]

Hi Gibbo
"It's the garage mechanics who are in for a steep learning curve Chris, if I was new to the trade I'd be up for that it's the future."
Back street boys are, Dealership Techs have been on courses for EV's for a few years now, as have the rest of us but ours is a lot more simplified as in DON'T TOUCH THE ORANGE CABLES. What I meant was the owner/driver of the vehicle who gets no training on it they have to work out themselves how to operate it, some of the tec they have is quite confusing.
To be fair a lot of our customers can't even understand their own IC car (not always old people either) for example hill hold, applies handbrake to stop you rolling works between 5/10 seconds dependant on model, customer thinks this is actually the hand brake and leave them on the drive with hill hold active and switch off go in house, occasionally they roll away then get booked in for hand brake fault??? we had a chap in a Passat had it for 2 years from new he was in his 40's Mater tech went out with him on a test drive nothing to do with H/Brake tech drove, on return he parked outside garage door, slight incline he pulled up button for hand brake, chaps asked him what was that? Hand brake was the techs response, chap said oh I have never pulled that up it comes on automatically so tech had to explain hill hold to him, 2 years he had the car and never once put the hand brake on! UP's with city braking, we had loads in our bodyshop as customer thinks city braking is collision avoidance and car will break for them at any speed, WRONG! now it is wet/frosty season we will get lots of cars booked in for loss of power on roundabouts and pulling out of junctions only for a second or so, some even report a funny picture on the dash a car with squiggly lines under it, yep that's your traction control kicking in.. city breaking ok that's fairly new but traction control, electronic hand brake none are new kids on the block are they, the 1st time I drove a Q8 Etron it took me 10 mins just to turn the radio off and to get use to the fact they don't creep either which initially was quite intimidating for such a large vehicle, especially in a tight workshop space.

[CitroJim]

That makes for some very scary reading ChrisRobin

[ChrisRobin]

Oh you could write volumes on it Jim....
we have at present two faults viaing for top silliest complaint of the year. The VW customer complaint, who complained to VW UK about us breaking his radio, VW UK ripped into us about breaking and demanded we replace it, customer came in we looked at it and pressed the "ON" button, turns out the tech had turned it off during service, customer had no idea how to turn it on, that has been knocked into 3rd place now. We have:

No1 -- Audi A3 - 12 months old. Fault: when pressing the accelerator the engine gets louder. We had it in, diag, nothing, road test, nothing, on the ramp, nothing, everything is at is it should be, vehicle is in perfect condition, handed key back to young lady, 1 hour later her farther is in kicking off on us for not fixing it. absolutely nothing wrong with it, the noise he pointed out on test drive whilst in a temper is the normal operating noise of an accelerating engine! But still ranted at us for not "fixing" it!

No 2 --- Skoda Superb about 1.5 years old, Fault: 1st thing in morning vehicle is bouncy and unstable when driving after a couple of minutes is ok. (3 times this has been in now) No Fault Found.. Skoda UK on our case now as we can't fix it, 4th time here we take it back to him this time, with still no fault found, the driver when turning into this chaps road realises it is un-adopted so just gravel, going to his house is pretty good as it has a kerb stone, from his house side of the road is fields and no kerb stone so all the small gravel has washed away leaving a very lumpy road surface, so when he leaves his house in the morning he drives on the uneven lumpy side of the road for a few minutes until he get to tarmac, Service Manager had to take him up there in Seat Arona, and a VW Golf before he accepted it was his road. The fact the car has only been doing this for 8 months which oddly was the same time he had moved into this house didn't occur to him, this Guy in region of late 50's, been driving for decades apparently.
Nowt as odd as Folk, but yes Jim VERY SCARY!

[NewcastleFalcon]

Oh you could write volumes on it Jim....

Interesting stuff Chris. Always used to enjoy Barry Cade's Garage Casebook in Car Mechanics Magazine back in the 70's/80's. If there is enough material (which I'm sure there is!) maybe you could start a thread "ChrisRobin's Garage Casebook!" Plenty on here would find it interesting, me included. No matter if it's mainly VW Audi Skoda the off-topic chat lounge section is more "chatting in the pub" than purist French Car, and to be realistic the car industry is global these days anyway.

You may find this post of interest on the VW front on "Car News Global and Domestic". Car news these days is indeed all electric, so there is always a bit of thread overlap.

viewtopic.php?p=732946#p732946

Regards Neil

[mickthemaverick]

Oh you could write volumes on it Jim....
we have at present two faults viaing for top silliest complaint of the year. The VW customer complaint, who complained to VW UK about us breaking his radio, VW UK ripped into us about breaking and demanded we replace it, customer came in we looked at it and pressed the "ON" button, turns out the tech had turned it off during service, customer had no idea how to turn it on, that has been knocked into 3rd place now. We have:

This reminds me of a little conversation I had with SWMBO a couple of weeks ago. She had been doing a late night babysitting job for her daughter and had to drive home from Buntingford to Hertford at about 01.00 on a Sunday morning. I was dozing on the sofa when she arrived and exclaimed "That was a horrible drive down the A10, the fog was so thick all I could see was a white wall of the headlights on the fog!"
"Oh, are your foglights not very good on the ground then?" asked I carelessly.
"What foglights?"

Still she's only had the car 2 years so give her time!!