And yet more to come watch out Tesla

[jamesie]

The bulk of my driving is local (within a full charge). Generally my longer trips are to the same locations (visits to family, friends etc). So, I have worked out good charging stops for these journeys. That leaves the odd journey e.g. holiday, that needs a bit of planning. That's not really a hardship. I would want a lot more for my £40k+ to tempt me to go Tesla in my circumstances.

 

[Jaygee]

Individual usage scenarios. Our household is all EV. We rarely need to make long journeys but when we had to the supercharger network was a God send. My other family member had a really difficult time with ecotricity/gridserve and charge place Scotland.
The opening of the supercharger network is a trial and is nowhere near a done deal. There has been quite an uproar amongst Tesla owners on this (quite rightly so as most did not just buy the car they bought into the network so to speak). Tesla has a habit of listening to its customers so the opening up might not actually happen.
I think the gov need to focus more on the charging networks then on ev car sales for now. Once ice people see cars waiting for charging that will automatically dissuade them from going ev.
Looks at zap map. I live in the north east and there are bugerall public chargers compared with further south, with large swathes of area not having chargers. Our local council have installed chargers and that looks great on Zap-Map but when you look closely they are in council car parks accessible to employees or visitors to the council offices only. I have written to them asking them why they have spent my money as such but to date I have had no reply.
Anyway I have had my rant of the day and gone a little off topic. Apologies.

 

[sido]

I recall the first Tesla models were sold with free rapid charging for life of the car. The Tesla business model is based on the cars being built at Low profits with the real money being made by selling carbon credits to others. Tesla made just short of a billion dollars in the first half of 2021 selling carbon credits.China will need a massive amount of carbon credits to sustain its exports in the future, so they will, for a very long time, have sn in country edge on selling electric cars against companies who cannot sell / offset carbon credits as simply as they can. They are also likely to be able to afford to pay more than some of the European competitors. I think this means that Chinese EV prices will remain competitive. Also as they sell more they will invest rather than pass huge dividends to shareholders, that is why I think China and their electric cars will remain popular around the world.
The only thing I see pushing Chinese EV higher is the prices being charged by competitors which rarely seem to come down. Not very likely me thinks.

 

[sido]

That should say 2021 not 2001 sorry

 

[Deleted member 7171]

I live in the north east and there are bugerall public chargers compared with further south, with large swathes of area not having chargers.

Aye we live in the Northern Poorhouse, levelling up is obviously working........ not and never will.

 

[Gomev]

That should say 2021 not 2001 sorry

use the edit function

 

[Cocijo]

I wonder if as the competition stiffens from areas such as China, manufacturers will sharpen their pencils and reduce their profit margins?
I can’t help thinking that a lot of the high cost of EV’s is deliberately baked-in by manufacturers - in particular where grants are available.
They also don’t want to canibaIise their other models if they can help it.
I don’t know, but I would guess, profit margins on EV’s are much greater than on ICE, given the grants and environmental credits available. These have not been passed on to the customer as they should be.

 

[5teep]

I think it’s going to be vital for Tesla to open up quieter sites for other EVs first and keep the saturated sites closed to their own cars only until additional investment can be made. If they open every site to every EV, I suspect they’ll destroy the reason people are willing to pay the premium.

Major issue for that happening is that current Tesla chargers are just not designed for other vehicles to use. If you've ever watched a Tesla drawing up at a charger, they reverse up to a bumper on the road and the lead is just exactly the right length to reach the charging port. On other makes there's going to be much pain and grief trying to get their port within reach.

 

[Cocijo]

It’s an interesting point i’ve not heard before. My initial reaction is I can’t think of many EV’s that couldn’t use a supercharger due to the way the cable/setup is. do you have any in mind?

 

[Lovemyev]

It’s an interesting point i’ve not heard before. My initial reaction is I can’t think of many EV’s that couldn’t use a supercharger due to the way the cable/setup is. do you have any in mind?

I don't think the MG range would have any problem with the cable reaching okay ?.
The one's that maybe a bit tight, is the models that have the charging port right at the back of the front wing maybe ?.
I guess you would need an account set up with Tesla first for taking payment and then an R.F.I.D. card or something, in order for the charger to open up to a non Tesla model ?.
One of the major reasons for buying a Tesla, is the brilliant charging network.
I can not see many Tesla owners taking too kindly to the chargers being opened up for other brands to use frankly.
I can with hand on heart, honestly see both sides of the "fore and against" argument here.
Not expecting it to happen any time soon ( if at all ) and in mass numbers anyway.
I think Tesla are just dipping their toe into the water, to gauge the reaction of this option to it's owners ?.

 

[biffo]

are MGs a problem with their centre port? I’ve seen Audis, etc have an issue

 

[5teep]

are MGs a problem with their centre port? I’ve seen Audis, etc have an issue

Possibly since the (very short) cable would have to come across to the centre of the car or you'd have to park out of position blocking two bays? Only way to find out would be to try it.

 

[Deleted member 6627]

I think it’s going to be vital for Tesla to open up quieter sites for other EVs first and keep the saturated sites closed to their own cars only until additional investment can be made.

I seem to remember this being the reason they are opening up the network. They will use the additional revenue to invest in their charging network.

 

[Les burrows]

It’s an interesting point i’ve not heard before. My initial reaction is I can’t think of many EV’s that couldn’t use a supercharger due to the way the cable/setup is. do you have any in mind?

Well I have seen two in the last week have a problem, First was a taxi (London black cab type FX4 I think they was called once upon a time ) this was due to the way another EV was parked almost sideways making it very hard for the Cabbie but maybe that’s just a one off, or another careless EV owner
And the other was today on a motor way services M6 SB, now both the CAB the other day and the Audi E-tron today have there ports well back on the front wing almost near the joint with the wing and the front of the front door I wonder if the newer Gridserve units might just have a shorter cable the Audi owner seem to think they could be Im not sure anyhow however after a bit of Repositioning once or twice and a few directions from myself he just about managed to plug in, yeh the MGs would have no problem with a Tesla stall along with many others I’m sure but will it come I doubt it, and here’s another reason why Gridserve and others need to up the game ASAP.
Les

 

[5teep]

Knowing people and how lazy they can be, there will be an awful lot of broken Tesla chargers as folk yank on the cable to try and get it that last few cm..

 

[neilp7865]

Will be interesting to see how things with the Giga Berlin work out for Tesla. Given the price hikes for MG supposedly being caused by increased shipping costs it makes you wonder if building in China still makes sense for MG. I saw that MG India want to start exporting. Might be a happy medium.

And india is RHD market too… potentially well positioned to supply UK/Aus. Some reliable Suzukis are built there and exported (perhaps best not to mention the Tata Indica / CityRover)

 

[Lovemyev]

Tesla opens up a limited number ( 15 ) of it's super charging sites, to non Tesla owners in Norway.
It is a trial apparently ?????.

 

[Deleted member 7316]

James did make a good point when he said :-
“If you want to make a LOT of long journeys like this in an EV, then a Tesla is the way to go”.
If your usage case demands these types of trips, then I have to totally agree with him.
The cars inbuilt ability to plan out the route accurately and the brilliant charging infrastructure is what sets a Tesla apart from other EV manufactures.
And I think it will be a long time before it is close to being rivalled.

But automated route planning is just software primarily, Tesla's big advantage is they run their own charging network and they know internally stations that are down, get them fixed or can route plan accordingly.

There is nothing stopping a large manufacturer getting a tie in with an existing network to incorporate their stations into a route generated by the sat nav. The big change for the charging network would be to manage station outages far quicker than they do, I have read reports of some being out of order for days, even weeks.

 

[biffo]

But automated route planning is just software primarily, Tesla's big advantage is they run their own charging network and they know internally stations that are down, get them fixed or can route plan accordingly.

There is nothing stopping a large manufacturer getting a tie in with an existing network to incorporate their stations into a route generated by the sat nav. The big change for the charging network would be to manage station outages far quicker than they do, I have read reports of some being out of order for days, even weeks.

Ideally an EV Network Open API concept where all units, irrespective of brand can be queried by all car sat nav systems which also have awareness of SOC. The advantage Tesla might still have is the knowledge of how many cars they’re routing to station X already and manage this dynamically to minimise queuing. Add in the concept of maximum allowable SOC based on demand and a network with more units (in service) and everyone will be happy to do multiple stops getting highest charge rates rather than linger to 90% and above.

Now, where’s my Dragon’s Den application form…

 

[Gomev]

But automated route planning is just software primarily, Tesla's big advantage is they run their own charging network and they know internally stations that are down, get them fixed or can route plan accordingly.

There is nothing stopping a large manufacturer getting a tie in with an existing network to incorporate their stations into a route generated by the sat nav. The big change for the charging network would be to manage station outages far quicker than they do, I have read reports of some being out of order for days, even weeks.

Zap map / Plug share / WattsUp etc all claim to have tie ins to let us know if a charger is available/in use/down while using their app, but in my experience is not very accurate or charger status is unknown.