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Cool! I’ve converted to miles, and assumed this was assuming 20kwh of battery, so I’m using:
mpkwh = (((689.722/SPEED_IN_MPH)^1.95)*0.62137)/20
In reply to: Coventry to Minehead
The ZOE always used to charge fast above 80% but I wonder if the upgraded chargers now charge the ZOE at the same rate as the Leaf, i.e slowly.
I don’t know much about the battery balancing; but could it cause different charge rates depending on how balanced the battery cells are? Eg. if your cells are already fairly balanced, it might charge quicker; and if they’re not, it’ll have to slow down much more while balancing?
In reply to: Thoughts on an electric Twingo?
How about this for a radical idea… Ditch the back seats and put a hefty battery in the back instead to make it a 300 mile range two-seater EV. I’d go for that!
Hi
Reading various journalists output on charging the Zoe it could easily lead the innocent public into thinking that there are different charging voltages and that the charging point – or electric pump – controls the charge to the car. Obviously some of the contributors on this forum are better informed, but I haven’t seen a ‘pinned’ technical note setting out the facts. Apologies if someone has done it and I’ve missed it.The Z0E appears to charge at 230V single phase (phase to neutral voltage) or 230V three phase (230 V AC from each phase to neutral).
(The 400V figure comes from the phase to phase voltage – sounds more powerful but it isn’t.)When the EU decided to harmonize supply voltages 230V wasn’t a standard, most supplies in Western Europe were mostly 220V or in the UK 240V. They were harmonised by calling them 230V +/- 10% (nominal) so Z0E has to work at anywhere between 206 and 255 V AC 48Hz to 63 Hz, or thereabouts.
The communication between the car’s Chameleon charge controller and the charge point presumably tells the car what current it can draw without tripping the protection circuits of the charge point. Hence the Chameleon charge controller can adapt to the electrical environment. I assume that’s why the need for the EVSE “Granny cable” in-line box, to act as the responding part of the charge point.
It seems to be able to draw between 10A single phase (2.3 kilowatt) and approximately 62.3A per phase (for 43 kilowatts). Of course I should use KVA since the power factor is unlikely to be 0, but that doesn’t help clarity.
Its a long time since I was involved in switched mode power supply design and the technology has moved on, but that’s a heck of a range of input conditions to precisely control the charging rate of a 400V battery at high current. And it explains why it is difficult to maintain charging efficiency.
Over to the experts…
I hope we end up with a correct explanation that non-tech folk – even sales executives – find helpful.
Best wishes
FredIn reply to: Thoughts on an electric Twingo?
Not really sure where they fit in relation to Clio/Megane
The Kadjar and Captur are both “crossover” cars, which appear to be quite popular. A crossover is essentially a regular car but with SUV styling, height, and lofty driving position, but unlike a real SUV, they have no off-road capability.
In the Renault line up the Kadjar is the bigger one (equivalent to a Nissan Qashqai) and the Captur is the smaller (like a Nissan Juke). Put another way, Kadjar is a crossover Megane, Captur is a crossover Clio.
So, given their proportions, there’s probably space for a battery in the Captur and Kadjar, so they could be contenders for an electric variant too. That would make an interesting line up! Electric Kadjar anyone?
In reply to: New or used and deals
I’m sure the contract says you can change your mileage, and even gives a formula for calculating the price? Maybe they just don’t have a band above 17k?
(That said; it’s not clear if you mean for the battery rental or PCP?)
Experienced my first broken charger today! ;(
Had around 70 miles range this morning. We went to Llangolen, approx 35 miles away. Rather than stop somewhere on the way back (the only Rapid down that way is a slight detour) decided we could make it back home with careful driving. Dropped family at home then headed to the Rapid charger at Chester Services (home charger won’t be fixed until Tuesday, granny lead would take 10+ hours for a full charge).
Got to the services with 6 miles range.. At 8 miles, my car chirped and asked “Considered the ECO Process?”… Possibly a bit late to ask me to use ECO Mode! Discovered a Leaf charging on one charger and the other quite broken (someone has pressed the emergency stop button, and it’s failing to automatically recover… not sure if it’s broken because the E.S. was pushed, or the E.S. was pushed because it was broken).
Of all the days to experience a broken charger, it’s the one where I ran the battery right down!
I could’ve made it back home (5.5 miles) but it would’ve meant charging with the granny lead and coming back tomorrow so I tracked down the manager to see if they could power cycle the charger to see if it’d recover… Unfortunately, the only way they could do this would reset the other charger too and they didn’t want to do this while someone was charging (understandably).
While stood chatting with the manager (she’d had a Prius, so was curious about plug-ins and didn’t realise these were pure EVs with no petrol fallback!) a family came back and got into the Leaf. So, managed to get a charge (around 70% in 15 mins) then notified them as Ieft, in case they wanted to try cycling the chargers.
All good fun! Could’ve been a long day if there had been a Tesla using that other charger! 😉
In reply to: ever been blanked by a "fellow" EV driver?
I have seen it banded around that the 22kwh battery is actually 24kwh
It’s rumoured that the battery is bigger than 22kwh but I’ve never seen an official figure. The battery is only ever charged to 22kwh, this has several advantages. Not charging fully means that the car can charge at a faster rate for longer. Not charging fully is kinder to the the battery and should result in a longer life. The battery has a bit in reserve so the car appears to have full battery capacity for longer even though there has been some degradation.
For rapid chargers, yes; but their site says the 22kw chargers can do two at the same time (not sure why – unless they’re slowing down, wouldn’t that mean the smaller ones can do 44kw without all the cooling the big rapids have?!)
That’s the beauty of AC charging, the charger is in the car, the post is just a supply with a relay to switch the power and a control box to switch the relay on and off when a car is plugged in and the RFID card has been read. The DC chargers have to convert the supply to the correct DC voltage for the car and control the current for the car. This is the reason that the combined chargers are so large and have all the fans in them. AC only chargers can be a lot smaller and cheaper!
Right. I love it already. First impressions are very positive indeed.
However, every Zoe I have seen has a revometer / energyometer inbetween the battery and speedo but mine hasn’t. I can’t seem to see how to get it up. The system had an update yesterday as I checked on the screen. How do you get it up?
I got into a bit of a panic when I practiced charging at ecotricity. Could I get the bloody plug out of the nose? Not for love nor money. I almost called ecotricity but then i realised I hadn’t pressed the unlock button on the key fob to release the plug!
In reply to: Thoughts on an electric Twingo?
but where would the batteries go?
Just like the Zoe is similar size to a Cleo but taller and with a higher driving position so the batteries can go underneath, it occurs to me that the new shape Twingo is quite tall for a super-mini footprint. I wouldn’t be surprised if they designed it this shape so that a battery could fit in a future electric variant.
There won’t be a new Smart Fortwo ELectric Drive until late-ish 2016.
The Twingo may have a shared chasis with the Smart ForFour, but I don’t think they’d have to wait for the newer Smart Electric to be able to do an Electric Twingo. All they need to do is fit the new Renault-made Zoe engine to the current Twingo chassis.
Hard to say without knowing how it compares (is it bigger? smaller?).. But looking at pics online, it’s a bit ugly?
From the Twingos I’ve seen at Renault dealerships, it’s certainly better in the flesh than in photos. I think it’s quite funky looking, and certainly much better than old-shape Twingos. It’s definitely a city car though, small footprint, tight turning circle, easy to park, ideally suited for an electric variant! I think I’m like you though, Dan, the Zoe is about the right size. Any smaller an it probably wouldn’t handle so well on faster roads, but then again it might be a surprisingly good all-rounder?
