Any update on “Battery charging impossible”fault? 50% of the EBG Munich chargers in my area have been unusable due to this problem with Zoe for almost a year,and no one wants to discuss it.

donald, you have argued your point about public charging well. I will personally ‘go that extra mile’ (groan) to use my ZOE even if it means inconvenient charging en route – in the same circumstances my wife would probably take the petrol car like most people.

Funnily enough, I agree with you. It will take folks going that extra effort/miles to ‘exercise’ the charging network to see what it can or cannot do, and for those operating the things to gain experience delivering a ‘service’. And in a way, EV driving folks in the future will have today’s ‘hobbyists’ to thank for figuring out the basics by their own [mis]adventures.

So, I take my hat off to the adventurous and the path that they are breaking by trying to use these things. But it isn’t for me, and I don’t believe it is for anyone else who wants ‘a car’ rather than ‘a hobby’.

I’ve too many other projects and problems afoot to tread an EV path for others to follow, beyond actually owning one for commuting purposes. Simply, public charging is not currently viable as a commercial/consumer proposition. I can see why it might be a fun hobby-thing for some folks, but for the majority who just want a car and don’t care if it runs on electricity or beetroot juice even a remote prospect of not being able to charge up when needed is just not an option.

EVs are ‘not for the people with the long journeys’, as Ghosn clarified at the Leaf’s launch. It serves me perfectly as a commuting vehicle and for the other little shopping/taxi tasks I put it to. That’s 95% of my driving. I’ve never had an occasion when I have needed it to go further than the range of the battery, because I never put myself into such a dilemma, and instead take an ICE fit for the purpose.

What I think is important is to get that message across to people in households that already have more than one car so they can begin to appreciate that matching a specific tool to a specific task is a good, efficient and money-saving way to approach things. I do have to wonder if all the effort and talk of public charging is a huge distraction to people who might usefully consider an EV. I mean, if there was simply no public chargers available so it was never a concern/confusion, I’d tend to imagine that EVs might actually become more popular because it would force people to think through if that sort of range is useful to them. But with the melee of chargers and the continual demands from some EV people that they need reliable public chargers else it’s a waste of their time ever getting an EV, it is only going to make the undecided and uninitiated think ‘well, if those guys aren’t happy with the situation, I’m keeping well away from EVs’.

The bottom line is that I am a bit fed up with people who are not EV drivers making policy and budget decisions about what EV drivers want. I don’t want public charging, though a few spots for absolute emergencies would be useful, and those could even simply be a [low-cost] distribution of regular 3-pin sockets in public car parks.

Public charging doesn’t work for me, and I’d never want to rely on it. So to me, public investment in chargers is a waste of tax payers money. What I don’t know is whether I am a single voice, or whether a significant fraction of other EV drivers, or potential owners, agree with me.

Well, I have driven a 1650kg car (Fluence) for 122 miles on 22kWh (5.6mi/kWh) down a motorway at 52mph. In fact, gauge indication says I have averaged 5.22mi/kWh this week. So, yes, I can’t see that their claimed 5.0mi/kWh is any Big Deal. I can’t see it’ll have been dependent on a special motor, though. There is very little technological improvement to be made in motor efficiencies now, because the difference between the current crop of EV motors and ‘perfection’ (100% efficiency) is just a few percent.

Any further improvements in motors will come in the areas of; cost, manufacturability, maintainability, recyclability, environmental impact, NVH or driving characteristics. Efficiency is ‘dealt with’.

The fundamental development for EVs now is the battery. Improvements in longevity, cost, environmental impact, specific capacity, specific power, packaging and manufacturability.

The METRON institute says, they can achieve 700km with 86kWh battery. Do you think Donald, they can drive with a 1700kg car at consumption of 120Wh/km?

Another mystery solved, eh? Well done dobbers!

I have switched my EPC three ways using 238R, 286R & 238R resistors at pin IC – in theory getting approx 9A, 12A and 16A charge rates.

However, I have started to monitor the Zoe’s charge and it seems an interesting story. Because I use my lowest rate ~ 9A to charge at approx 2kW to be within the output of my solar panels (2.5kW on a sunny day) I decided to monitor the progress on charging my Zoe today.

I started with 46% of the battery remaining (approx 10kWhrs) after 7.5 hours I had 83% (approx 18kWhrs) giving a total of 8kWhrs charge. It isn’t rocket science to see that it works out at approx 1kW charge rate – half the theoretical rate.

Next I am going to check the power into and out of the EVSE with an energy monitor to shed light on what is actually happening.

I’ll report back later.

Meanwhile does anyone else have a similar experience with charging a Zoe? I have heard that she is not very efficient at low charge rates so I wonder if power is being lost or she is simply requesting a low charge rate.

Thanks Donald for a reality check. I thought the article can be translated by Google, but you got the gist anyway. They say the car has a 86kwh battery, so they can’t possibly drive 700km at 200Wh/km. I will write to them, what rubbish they are serving to the newspaper guys.

Otherwise, i like this innovator, he has electricized abou 10 cars so far, but i guess his emphasis on marketing is a bit over the top.

My Solvenian isn’t what it used to be, but the article is just fluff.

So they are talking about a motor that is more than 90% efficient. 90%!? Pah! The Renault motor is far more efficient on the road than 90%. Most are. Induction motors like the Tesla is a little less efficient because it is not a synchronous motor but is still going to be over 90%. It is ridiculous to claim high mileage is down to the motor. It’s all down to the battery!!

“Pri vožnji v strm klanec smo res porabili za 50 odstotkov ve?, toda po klancu navzdol regenerira prav tako skoraj 50 odstotkov. To je izjemen podatek, kajti vsi elektri?ni avtomobili, ki sem jih imel doslej, so regenerirali manj kot trideset odstotkov.”

Really? Only 30% regeneration with current cars? I think not. Now that’s more like 90% with the Renault externally excited motor.

“Pri polno obremenjenem vozilu – testnem enoprostorcu za šest ljudi – poraba ne preseže 200 watnih ur na kilometer, kar pomeni, da z eno samo kilowatno uro lahko povpre?no prevozite do sedem kilometrov.”

Eh!? How does 200Wh per 100km translate into 7km per kWh? 200Wh/100km is 3mi/kWh, very ordinary.

“Poraba na tej poti, kjer smo prevozili 1600 metrov višinske razlike, je bila samo 187 Wh na kilometer, kar je glede na velik avto, strm klanec ter dokaj hitro vožnjo na meji verjetnega. Prevoziti 700 km brez polnjenja je z enakomerno var?no vožnjo pri tem visokonapetostnem pogonu povsem uresni?ljiv cilj.”

700km at 187Wh/km without recharging, so they are confirming they’re carrying a 130kWh battery???

This looks to me like a bit of guff, whatever language it is in.

My socket is my freedom. How about a range, that keeps me independent. Company LETRIKA that produces electric motors for Twizzy, has announced the end of development of a new electric motor. They also presented a car, that can do 400km on a highway or 700km in ideal circumstances. I hope we’re getting towards a range, when driver needs to rest before the battery runs out of juice.
http://www.rtvslo.si/gospodarstvo/z-novim-letrikinim-elektromotorjem-700-km-povsem-uresnicljiv-cilj/336787

Trevor, OK joke is the wrong word. Too strong. I couldn’t think of the word I quite meant (it is an age thing)!!

Correction – IMHO public charging is a gimmick.

The drives you describe (though I do not in any way suggest visiting relatives is not important) would matter little if something went wrong. You’d just call up and say your charge points have all failed en route so you’re heading back home (flat bed or otherwise) and will see them another day.

In my opinion public chargers are a gimmick because you cannot rely on them, there is no contractual relationship to ensure service, there are not enough of them and never will be while we have 100 mile range EVs, and, quite simply, if your journey was important but was beyond the range of one battery charge then I don’t believe you’d take an EV if you had an alternative. There’s no one to sue for loss of service because there is no contract of service. That makes it a gimmick.

It’s a gimmick if you only go on longer journeys which are, themselves, ‘gimmick’ drives.

I also cannot help but wonder if the charger failures many Leaf owners are seeing (apparently, if my reading between lines is still up to the task, the buck-boost diodes typically fail) are due to faulty public chargers. There is no regulation/control of the standards, there is no right of redress to the suppliers of these things, you have no idea if the leads and plugs are damaged that will cause damage to your car when you plug them in, you have no idea if the voltages are too high or if there is too much harmonic noise or spikes. There are already queues building up at some locations, yet there are only a few thousand EV drivers in the whole country, folks are now being charged £13.70 for 20p worth of electricity, and the rapid charger network fails for long stretches of motorway meaning it has become impossible for some folks to do longer journeys as there are so many failed rapids that they can’t ‘hop’ that far to the next one.

As Ghosn clarified in an interview, these cars aren’t made for people doing the long journeys. It’s a gimmick in the same way that a cheap torch is that you have found in a box of Frosties. You’d not rely on that torch if you needed it for your job inspecting something. You’d get a proper torch. Same with public charging – it is a freebie like you get in cereal packets or Happy Meals.

Until there is someone I can sue in court for losses arising from a failure of contract for either not making a working charger available at a designated site or having chargers over-subscribed that I cannot get on one at a site, then it is a gimmick.