2011 - As ANCAP Technical Manager - supervised the crash testing of a Mitsubishi iMIEV in
Japan.
January 17, 2022 (from Solarquotes
blog)
I have been driving a Volvo XC60 T8 Recharge (PHEV) for a
few months under a wide range of driving conditions. As I
type this it has almost completed recharging its ~10kWh
battery from home solar (smug mode engaged). That gives me a
pure electric range of about 35km or so around Sydney I
rarely use the petrol motor. These are typical (petrol) fuel
consumptions for various scenarios:
City local trips: zero
Cross-city trips (~50% electric): 3L/100km
Sydney to Canberra (~10% electric): 7L/100km – very
little regeneration due to flat motorway and I set the speed
limiter on my car to try and travel at a constant speed.
Sydney to Canberra towing a 1.5t caravan
(full height) 15L/100km !
I guess these figures can be used as a rough guide to
the effects on range for a pure electric vehicle. For
example driving on a mostly flat motorway at 110km/h easily
halves the range usually quoted by manufacturers (3L c.f.
7L). The range towing a caravan with an EV doesn’t bear
thinking about! Hence my choice of a PHEV.
2 Nov 22: Solarquotes
blog:
I recently completed a second big tour with a Volvo XC60
PHEV and small (1.5t) caravan covering Queensland, NSW &
South Australia (well also a corner of Victoria - Mildura).
Actually today's flood maps of NSW more or less cover the
towns we went through. So far we have travelled about
12,000km with the caravan.
Anyway, I certainly could not have done the trips with
a pure EV due to the lack of charging facilities and the
reduced range when towing. Also the mostly flat roads out
west meant not much advantage from regenerative braking.
Without a caravan or roof pod the car predicts around
800km range on a full tank of petriol and 35km on a full
battery (~10kWh capacity).
When towing at 100k/h the petrol range drops to about
350km (~16L/100km) and the electric range maybe 15km so
topping up petrol at most large towns is wise when towing.
The Volvo has a feature where the battery can be
charged from the petrol engine and sometimes when I am
approaching a town I charge the battery to give me that
extra range once the petrol tank if full. When towing, I
like to keep the battery on hold at half capacity so I can
engage the electric drive for long/steep ascents and ease
the load on the petrol engine (it still has plenty of ICE
power for towing up steep hills).
At powered caravan sites I like to charge the battery
from a 240V outlet, if acceptable to the owners. This is
also good for driving around the town on pure electric.
BTW - It is pleasing to see that many of the caravan
parks that we stayed at had workers in cabins and caravans
who were working on solar or wind farm installations.
February 2024 - From Solarquotes
blog
I am planning a trip from Sydney to the Snowy Mountains in
a BYD Dolphin, with a claimed range of 480km (taken with a
grain of salt). There are a sufficient number of fast
chargers (CCS) along the way, although Canberra seems a bit
light on. Cooma and Jindabyne have a couple of fast
chargers.
Anyway, my reason for posting here is to point out that I
need at least six apps that require credit card details in
order to use the chargers along the way, if prudent.
So far it seems I need:
NRMA
(most
highways - you can have an EV only account instead of
membership)
EO
(some council car parks)
Jolt
(big kerbside
boxes)
Chargefox
(a variety of chargers)
BP
Pulse (some
BP service stations but not Canberra)
Evie
Charging (some service
stations, incl Canberra)
Plugshare
(map of locations)
Other potential suppliers:
Tritium?
Ampol? (some Ampol
Foodary stations at highway service centres)
Plus the Wallbox app for Type
2 charging at home
A list of the EV network suppliers is here
May 2024 Solarquotes
I was with a friend when she picked up a Tesla S a couple of months ago. That model had steering wheel stalks. Left side turn signals. Right side gear selector (not the expected wipers)! Maybe complaints about that stupid design resulted in the decision to drop stalks?
Having been involved in research
on driver distraction, I was alarmed at the lack of
critical information, like speed, directly in front of the
driver. Ron says you get used to looking at the screen for
this information but that is not the case in situations
needing high attention, when the centre screen is filled
with other information. Furthermore most critical vehicle
settings are adjusted via tapping/swiping the screen which
can be very distracting. I suspect that is one reason that
Euro NCAP plans to penalise vehicles that don’t have
physical buttons for these functions*.
And when I asked how to connect the car to my iPhone
with Carplay I was told that is not possible. The car will
happily download all your contacts for use in its own way
but otherwise your phone becomes a dumb device to serve the
car.
For what it is worth, I strongly support the EV
transition. Our little BYD Dolphin is a delight to drive and
doesn’t have the “issues” that I describe above.
* ETSC March 2024: Cars
will need buttons not just touchscreens to get a 5-star Euro
NCAP safety rating.
Created by Michael Paine, February 2021.