Random EV thoughts.....

Back to tyres, I just checked my tread depth and there's generally over 4mm on every tyre. I'm kind of tempted to leave the current set on until next year

They're 3 years old and have 30,000km on them. I reckon they've a bit of life left in them yet

Not sure what the aversion to public charging is or the time you think it takes. It's always best to charge on DC at the lowest SoC possible.

As an example, last week I left my house with 100% on board. Drove 70km to Carlow where I had a meeting. Since I was going to be parking up for three quarters of an hour or so, I parked at a charge point and left Carlow with 96% on board. Drove to Bray in Wicklow and then from there to Galway docks where I had to pick something up. Stopped for a literal splash and dash to 25% at Galway plaza as the GOM was saying I'd have 3% at my destination. Maybe 7 minutes, but probably less.

After Galway docks had an hour to kill before meeting my son for dinner, so charged up on the Brite chargers in the shopping centre there (good value at 51c btw, but make sure you're not sharing the charger, otherwise it's half speed). Took about 35 minutes to get to 80%, but 10 minutes of that was half speed because I was sharing. Had a coffee while I was waiting. It nearly took as much time to get from there to The Huntsman (Galway traffic is inexplicable).

Then drove home. Stopped at Carrickmines for another splash and dash - 8 minutes there to get to 38% from 12%. 680km in 8hrs 20 minutes at an average 85kph. I clocked 100% battery at just over 350km.

Was doing motorway speed limit + VRT + VAT most of the way. Polestar 2 Performance 78kWh.

TL:DR Public charging on a long trip is a breeze if you manage your stops properly.

Time is a factor because on the outward leg, I have to arrive on time, every time - I need to know that if I leave by 10am, I'll be there by 3pm. It's a regular long trip, usually 9-10 times a year and sometimes more, and I have it down to a fine art in the ICE - I generally stop about 15 minutes and no more for a comfort/refuelling break and driver swap. I also take other long trips as my parents are some 300km away, but this particular trip is the most frequent one and also the one which requires punctuality. I have long wanted to switch to EV, and that's finally on the horizon now - but I have to be able to complete the outward leg of this specific trip without significant hold-ups either due to time spent plugged in or time spent queuing to charge. This is me trying to settle on the right car for my use case - something people are often advised to do in this forum! 😎

@the_amazing_raisin - it's not a case of "oh charging takes so looooong!" - I've already timed refuelling/comfort stops in the ICE many times and between standing there filling the tank, paying for fuel & tolls, going for a slash and getting back out to the car, it always takes 10-15 minutes anyway - more if the place is busy or understaffed. So the time needed to charge an EV shouldn't be much greater - it's not an issue so long as I know I can arrive, plug in, get what I need in 20-25 minutes and hit the road again. For the return journey home, or for a different trip visiting family etc where arrival time isn't as crucial, it doesn't make any difference if I have to wait an extra 15-20 minutes even just to start charging - but the outward leg of this specific trip can't be delayed.

I'm absolutely with you on the cost/benefit analysis - already figured out that between fuel (by far the biggest cost), maintenance & repairs etc, the cost to run the old ICE is averaging over £300 per month. We have solar at home and are planning more in the medium term, so outside of these long trips the cost to fuel an EV would be reduced to negligible amounts. So switching from running a 17 year old Mondeo that we own outright to leasing e.g. a 2-3 year old Model 3 will cost an average of just £65 per month extra. That's a no-brainer for me, but actually getting the leasing part done is a tedious process because it involves public sector bureaucracy. 🙄

My 2c

Since you are so time sensitive on that journey I think you need to lean towards Tesla, not only because of charging speeds/curves etc… but mainly because of access to the superchargers.

I dont know where you are coming from but it must be up way north of NI for the total journey to be 440km to limerick so one option would be to go to Enfield supercharger. Thats probably about 280km's from your starting point? A <20min stop there and then another ~180km's to your destination.

That route will be reliable and consistent in terms of charger access and charge speed. You can also stop on the M1 supercharger.

You have multiple options on the way home but you said thats less of an issue anyway in terms of time.

Enfield is open to non-Tesla's too but some of the other sites are not.

Pulling into somewhere like Mayfield is a lottery as to whether you'll get on the charger or not on arrival so I think you need to give extra weight to getting access to the supercharger network with the Tesla.

If you're looking at an ID.4 1st then you'll want to be sure the software is updated to 3.2

As well as making the UI a lot more liveable, it unlocks the faster charging speed of 135kW

However, you only get the really good charging curve if you plug in below 15% and with a warm battery. Anything over that and you'll be punished with a slower charging curve

The UI in the ID.4 is...fine. It isn't going to win any awards for user friendliness, but it does all the things it needs to do reasonably well

VW have their own Autopilot called Travel Assist. It's not available in the 1st but is in the 1st Max, as well as some other subsequent trims (Tech and Max I think). It's basically ACC with auto steering, so it'll just follow the lane and bit crash into whatever is in front

I will say from driving all over Ireland, France and the UK with it, it's absolutely brilliant. I would highly recommend it or something similar for long drives

I still think the Tesla edges out the VW in this case, but it's still a possible contender

It's correct but in many cases you'll only get that curve if you plug in below 15% SoC

If you plug in at say 40%, then you won't get 125kW from the graph, you'll get around 75kW

That's been my experience at least, pretty sure I was being limited by the car

For example I recently got 18kWh in 15 mins from a Supercharger. Quick maths gives an average of 72kW. As I recall I plugged in somewhere around 30-40% after about an hour of driving on a warm day

I've gotten 125kW exactly once (back when that was the limit) from an Ionity charge after driving for 3 hours and plugging in around 10%

Seems to be a VW thing, other ID owners can probably chime in with their experience

I guess whoever designed it always waits until their fuel light is on before filling up 🤷‍♂️

They seem to have dramatically improved it with the newer generation of cars because they now have a button to precondition the battery. The cars will also precondition when navigating to a charger (the thing they were supposed to do in 2020) and will display the max available charging power, taking the guesswork out

Apparently the current version of software shipping on cars (4.x) is already EOL and Cariad are working on version 5

And then Cariad will probably be shuttered in favour of the joint venture with Rivian

It's Windows ME all over again 🤣

Fastnet charge curves are best case ideal curves. If your battery is hotter or cooler than ideal , typically 30 Celsius, then rate will be slower. As battery ages the speed may drop too.

Fiat are to have integrated charging cables, starting with the Grande Panda next year. Obviously only for AC due to cooling issues, and even at that, only up to 7.4kW. There will be another normal charging port for DC up to 100kW. I hope it also allows faster AC or the whole thing seems a bit of a waste.

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/technology/fiat-integrate-charging-cables-electric-cars

You might be right. I assume it's just easier. I've seen it demo'ed and it looked convenient. Pros and cons as you say.

Good news for anyone travelling on the M1 and looking for somewhere for the kids to burn off some energy, Applegreen have significantly improved the play area in the Lusk service stations

Looks like the bathrooms got redone as well so they're less of a horror show

Bad news is there's still a single charger at each service station, so you could end up with plenty of time to spare if there's a queue 🙄

Is it too much to ask to get good facilities and good chargers in the same place?

Yeah it's very frustrating, there's Ionity in City north but that has nothing going for the service station

There's also Clonsaugh coming soon hopefully, but again not a place you'd want to spend any amount of time there

The Applegreen sites at least have some decent facilities (because TII probably forced them to) but a single charger per site

Unless you've a Tesla of course

If Applegreen would speed up their rollout, and increase the scope it would improve things a lot. At this stage 2 chargers per site isn't going to be enough when 5-6 is becoming the norm

And Applegreen don't even have 2 chargers per site 😬

When I got my EV there were a mixed set of no name tyres but decent reviews. One deformed (lowest load rating one) So I replaced them all with higher load rating sporty tyres. Definitely noticed a slightly stiffer ride and a slight increase in noise. The other half didn't notice. Ramps probably the only place I notice it.