 Poster: A snowHead
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| DanishRider wrote: |
| Tesla Bjørn (YouTube Tesla channel) did technical walkthrough of this functionality, and apparently Tesla have some software in place, that senses the current traction, and automatically adjust the regen to fit the level of traction. I have tested my Tesla in pretty severe condition, and it works great - But you can only manual adjust it servicemode:-) |
Hadn't heard that, but good to know. Not done much driving on snow on this trip, but the little I have done the car seemed very sure-footed, even when I abused the accelerator a little as an experiment.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Anyone drive down over the weekend and can report how busy the autoroute chargers such as Ionity were? Lots of queues or all good?
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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What with covid and then family responsibilities I haven't been skiing since I've had an EV and not done many trips in the UK either but never had a problem charging. Planning both last year and this it's noticeable how many more hubs there are, plus Tesla opening up to us poorer drivers with MGs and the like! The MG4's charging speed isn't too bad: it certainly gives you time for a coffee, loo and stretching exercises. I've never gone in for proper meals when driving long distances. Prices in France are cheaper, a lot more so if you can hit Lidl or have a Tesla or Ionity subscription. Electroverse also gives an 8% discount if you have the Intelligent Octopus tariff.
No prizes for guessing where I want to go (I used to live in the Aosta valley) and although I've often done it in a day on my own in nondescript ICE buzz boxes age is catching up with me, and retirement will allow me the time for an overnight stop if I need one. One option I'm considering from Hampshire is via Le Havre or Dieppe (DFDS is a lot cheaper) and then Rouen, Evreux, Dreux, Chartres to avoid Paris and then across to the A6 and the standard route to the M.Blanc tunnel. On the way home I always plan an overnight stop to allow for weather and do Caen/Portsmouth as when I dock it's then only a quarter of an hour drive home.
I'll contine to follow this thread with interest, so thanks for all the informative and up-to-date posts. Just a question.. has anyone driven from Cervinia down to the main valley in an EV? With all the regeneration, what percentage battery did you use? 
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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| Fontinalove wrote: |
| Just a question.. has anyone driven from Cervinia down to the main valley in an EV? With all the regeneration, what percentage battery did you use? |
Not sure about the drive from Cervinia to the bottom of the valley, it’s been a long time since I did that route. For me the equivalent drive is from Les Arcs 1800 to Bourg St Maurice, an altitude drop of about 1,000m. In that drive I gain about 2% or 3% battery charge.
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I gained 5.5 kWh coming down from Val D to BSM. Used zero, battery capacity approx 84 kWh, so a decent gain. 20 mile journey.
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@Fontinalove, dfds don’t seem to do le havre ?
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Charging on the ferries would be great!
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| kitenski wrote: |
| @Fontinalove, dfds don’t seem to do le havre ? |
But they do go to Dieppe, and are cheaper.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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| kitenski wrote: |
| @Fontinalove, dfds don’t seem to do le havre ? |
I wasn't quite clear. Britanny Ferries from Portsmouth do Le Havre etc. but are a bit expensive. DFDS do Dieppe as mentioned above plus they give a discount to pensioners!
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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BMW 330D could almost do a trip to Les Arcs in one trip! Now have Ioniq 5, last Feb took 4 or 5 stops to get to Les Arcs using just IONITY chargers (octopus electroverse rf cards)
In August drove to Verdon, again all IONITY chargers all the way down, I think 4 charges (and it's much further down) but it was the summer, both occasions driving around 80 mph.
From my experience in winter I can get around 230 miles and summer close to the 300 miles.
I probably could get more efficiency if I drove at 70 mph or mess about with the regen etc.
I prefer IONITY as it's very quick to get to 80%, and if in no rush I let it trickle to 90%. I use the inbuilt sat nav to direct to these chargers as I heard it helps with pre heating the batteries.
Do I miss my Touring... Yes
Going again this Feb, but driving a day earlier (school inset day) to stay in Aix Les BAins so hopefully avoid the Chambéry traffic.
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| DM118 wrote: |
| BMW 330D could almost do a trip to Les Arcs in one trip! |
Your bladder must be made of inflatble plastic and buns of steel!
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You know it makes sense.
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@luanb, Funny that. I was thinking all EV drivers must suffer from weak bladders. They all use the excuse that the time taken to recharge their milk floats fits in with their need to stop for a pee & coffee? My cars range on a full tank is 1200 kms. I can easily drive for 5,6,7 hours without a need to stop. It's usually the OH who needs to first!
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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| Old Man Of Lech wrote: |
| @luanb, Funny that. I was thinking all EV drivers must suffer from weak bladders. They all use the excuse that the time taken to recharge their milk floats fits in with their need to stop for a pee & coffee? My cars range on a full tank is 1200 kms. I can easily drive for 5,6,7 hours without a need to stop. It's usually the OH who needs to first! |
What with the milk float jibes? Most EVs will run rings around your average ICE. Are you feeling that insecure? Does the thought of driving EVs make you feel less of a man?
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Poster: A snowHead
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@luanb, best ignoring trolls, they are just seeking attention.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Thanks boredsurfin; not a resort I plan on going to but a good illustration of how things are going. Anybody who has done those trips in 10+ year old Fiestas, Fabias and i20s will understand how I'm looking forward to doing it in my lovely quiet MG4!
As for people who come on forums which do not interest them and, worse, then post to prove it I find strange. Most of us probably wish to avoid somebody who has been driving for 5,6,7 hours...
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So driven midlands to an overnight near dijon today. Broadly speaking went v well with no faulty chargers or big waits. Key points:
Efficiency struggled with wind against (its a tall car) standing water and need to not let wife get too cold
Ionity all good with free working chargers that gave good speed.
Charging speed was much better than ive been seeing in uk at similar temps. 10-11 deg c but getting 70-120 kw. No preheat but this is twice as good as uk experience during nov and dec. maybe long autoroute miles slowly build up battery temp?
Bit frustrating to not use max dry driving speed limit on quiet stretches. Over 76 and i noticed
significant drop in miles per kw that just didnt stack up in terms of the stops. Missed the old IC in terms of battering along at 85.
One non ionity stop at an aire with 8 posh covered new chargers was busy and a bit of a bun fight as the people queueing were blocking the car park roads and trying to be polite whilst getting into a space. IC drivers getting v cross at the blockages and being aggressive about getting past in the confines. Needs better access and waiting spaces planned otherwise there will be conflict and accidents.
With a charge to 80-85% this only gives 175 (10% SoC as a buffer) realistic fully laden range in wet cold weather and thats just 25-50 miles too soon for a journey of this length. So consequently 2 too many stops and 90 min too long to be ideal.
Next gen of cars will have this licked though.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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| MHskier wrote: |
With a charge to 80-85% this only gives 175 (10% SoC as a buffer) realistic fully laden range in wet cold weather and thats just 25-50 miles too soon for a journey of this length. So consequently 2 too many stops and 90 min too long to be ideal.
Next gen of cars will have this licked though. |
That seems to be reason Tesla have it sorted. With better efficiency than everyone else and a more integrated network (meaning you can run to <10% confidently) they're already the next generation.
Now if they'd just knock £15k off the price....
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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| paulhinch wrote: |
| MHskier wrote: |
With a charge to 80-85% this only gives 175 (10% SoC as a buffer) realistic fully laden range in wet cold weather and thats just 25-50 miles too soon for a journey of this length. So consequently 2 too many stops and 90 min too long to be ideal.
Next gen of cars will have this licked though. |
That seems to be reason Tesla have it sorted. With better efficiency than everyone else and a more integrated network (meaning you can run to <10% confidently) they're already the next generation.
Now if they'd just knock £15k off the price.... |
Better efficiency than everyone else? 
Charger network on the continent from the likes of Fastned, Ionity, Shell, etc is already very good.
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| mooney058 wrote: |
Better efficiency than everyone else?
Charger network on the continent from the likes of Fastned, Ionity, Shell, etc is already very good. |
Yeah. Better efficiency than everyone else.
I've not seen any other real world efficiency match Teslas. What models beat them?
As for network, it's the integration and cost that's miles and miles better than everyone else. The fact you can just bung a route in and it'll know if a charger is working, in use etc, automatically preheat etc etc etc.
I'm not some Tesla fanboy. I've got a Volvo V60.
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You pay a massive efficiency penalty in an IC car if you batter along at 85 too!
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Yes agree and know all that about teslas albeit they were having to queue at their chargers yesterday evening and that aero efficiency is achieved by looking like…..well a tesla 
Tbh for the 98% of my 35k miles including more relaxed summer euro tours im v v happy with my choice. Comfy spacious performance and looks. Happily run the trustworthy % into single digits when heading to home or known chargers. Just a bit mor cautious on this trip with a need to get there with family without dramas!
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Drove back to the UK yesterday. Much like the drive down it was very straightforward, although with that first EV experience the return journey was more relaxing for me as I knew what to expect. I left Les Arcs at 5.30am, arrived home (SW London) at 7.30pm. Door to door journey was maybe a 90+ minutes longer than I would have done in an ICE car, but if I normally had one extended stop en-route for a sit down meal the additional journey time would be less than that. However, I’ve always pushed on with that drive, having sandwiches in the car, typically stopping twice to refuel and four or five short stops to use the toilet or stretch my legs. So stopping for 30+ minutes for an EV charge adds at least 20+ minutes compared to my normal routine.
In terms of charging on the drive back I decided to (mostly) let the Tesla navigation do its thing, subject to one change. I left Les Arcs at 95% SoC and the route suggested four stops were required to get home. I added an additional stop early on to change the location of the first charging destination as I wanted a Supercharger next to a supermarket. That additional stop was at zero time cost however, as I needed just six minutes to add a few kWh and my phone pinged to tell me it was done before I’d left the toilet in the services.
Of the five stops I made four of them were at Superchargers which were no more than 50% occupied, mostly near empty. The one exception to this was at Reims, where there was a 15m queue to start charging. There was a nearby high speed charger, Ionity I think, but I knew there was a short wait at the Tesla charger before I got there and had already decided it didn’t affect the travel plan. The charging stops were mostly around 30-35 minutes, but two of the stops I’d consider to be “zero minutes”: one was completed before I’d finished taking a pee; one was at the Eurotunnel terminal when I was waiting for my boarding call.
I didn’t pay much attention on the way home to battery efficiency or anything like that, just wanted to keep an eye on my estimated time of arrival at the Calais Eurotunnel terminal. I drove in the exact same way as I’ve always done in an ICE car, setting the cruise control at the speed limit, so the actual driving time was no different. Fuel cost would have been a little more than the drive down to the Alps as I started this journey with a battery charged at public price rather than my domestic rate, 42c per kWh rather than 7.5p. Cost at the Tesla Superchargers was 32c, 32c, 35c, 38c and 44c at the Eurotunnel (which was at peak rate). The charger I used in Les Arcs was part of the Shell Recharge network and cost 42c per unit. I’ve not looked at the invoices for the charging sessions, but probably around £70-£75 for the journey.
Overall, I don’t think there was any significant difference for me between EV and ICE driving. Obviously it’s a bit longer from door to door in an EV, but not so much that it changed anything about what I’d normally do on a travel day. Although it’s not an EV-specific feature, the combination of quiet French autoroutes, cruise control and auto lane-steering (which I’ve not had previously) made the drive down and back on this trip without doubt the most relaxing I’ve ever had. An EV specific feature was the cost of fuel, which was significantly less than half of what I would have spent on diesel.
Last edited by Ski the Net with snowHeads  on Sat 30-12-23 9:56; edited 1 time in total
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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| paulhinch wrote: |
| … it's the integration and cost … |
I agree. Lots of people mock those of us who buy in to the whole “Apple ecosystem” of hardware, software and services, but I think it’s the absolute key part of the whole ownership experience. I think it’s exactly the same with Tesla, especially any journey which involves charging en-route. The seamless integration of hardware (the car), software (the navigation system) and the service (Supercharging) is what I think makes Tesla a compelling choice at the moment. No doubt there are better individual elements, nicer or better value cars, better software, etc, but taken together I think Tesla still has the edge. That advantage is getting smaller, which is great news for EV choice in the future, but I think it is still a meaningful advantage especially on a long journey of the kind we are talking about here.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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@rob@rar, thanks a lot. Your detailed summary is very useful.
As for tesla specific comment, they were indeed better than late entrants to EV market. Every car has issues and teslas have a fair share of them. Totally get and agree on the ecosystem argument. But not sure i can agree tesla is being the single manufacturer with that approach. This may have been true 5y ago but not anymore.
Buying an EV in 2024 will be exciting. My list of alternatives to tesla offerings:
-model 3: id7, polestar 2, renault e-scenic, huyndai
- Y: enyiak, aryia, mb eqb and new offerings in 2024 like polestar 4, audi q6, kia ev5
-X: ev9, EQS Suv, etron, bmw iX
Apologies for going into car specific discussion as being on a market for an EV this thread interests me a lot. Just can’t contain my cynicism to outdated claims of tesla being the most efficient, etc. Loads of tests and reviews about tesla over optimistic estimates. Teslas are certainly not bad. Just still branding them as best EVs is not accurate. Some of it is very individual and drivers are very different and tesla experience after a diesel golf might be overly positive but that should not be automatically assumed as teslas are still the best at electrifying cars and user experiences.
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| mooney058 wrote: |
| ...not sure i can agree tesla is being the single manufacturer with that approach. This may have been true 5y ago but not anymore. |
Who else has that level of integration?
I certainly agree the advantage is narrowing, which I entirely celebrate, but when I was making my EV choice in January and February 2023 there were no other manufacturers that I could see that offered that level of integration. I had a number of test drives or looked very closely at a range of alternatives to the Model Y (including the EV6, Ioniq5, Polestar 2, Enyak, MG4) and lots of research around real world ownership. While I liked elements of all of them more than the equivalent feature in the Tesla, overall none of them offered the ownership experience that I thought the Tesla would offer, principle of which was that none of them offered that integration of hardware, software and services.
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You know it makes sense.
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I'm looking forward to thinking about a small EV in 2 or 3 years.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Meanwhile there's nothing that can approach the overall cost of my small 7 year old ICE
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Poster: A snowHead
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@mooney058, we were talking EVs in the pub the other night - 2 mates who are confimed petrol heads and are desperate for someone to invent carbon-free petrol, a slightly cynical EV driver (has an Etron Q and me - on my third EV (currently iX with the small battery). The petrol-heads were all “ah, it all sounds good but the infrastructure’s not there” (neither drive more than about 20/30 miles each way - both in Range Rovers!), the cynic “just wants an EV that will do 400 miles on a charge” (because once a month he does a 200 mile return journey and it gets a bit squeaky bum coming home - but he “doesn’t want to charge” at his destination, despite being there for 6-8hrs) and then me - I do c8k miles a year and in 2 years of having the iX I’ve charged away from home or work once.
I’ve ordered an EX90 on salary sacrifice, as this’ll be my last posh car before I slow things down workwise, and I’m looking forward to seeing how a 100kWh+ battery performs, but I have to say with my lifestyle (local journeys, a once a week 100 mile return trip to the office and a regular 130m return trip to Manchester/airport), the 70kWh of the BMW is ample. I may give Morzine a go once I have the Volvo, but have to admit that as it’s usually just me and a mate flying to geneva makes more sense at the moment (whatever I was driving).
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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| mooney058 wrote: |
| Just can’t contain my cynicism to outdated claims of tesla being the most efficient, etc. |
I think it's right to be cynical about such things. It seems to me that EV design and manufacture is evolving much more rapidly than the far more mature market for ICE cars, so reputations and comparisons can quickly become outdated. For example, Tesla had a well deserved reputation for their early cars built in California being sloppily manufactured with appalling panel gaps. But these days I think there really aren't any significant problems in that front, especially for their cars manufactured in Shanghai and Berlin (which is all new Teslas sold in the UK). Yet people still say Teslas have terrible problems with panel gaps...
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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@rob@rar, I think that if you’re going to regularly charge away from home then your reasoning is spot on - thankfully for me that’s not a consideration (I’m not a fan of long car journeys), and the other elements have always been more important for me - but I agree as an “ecosystem” Tesla has got it more right than anyone else. I did have some high hopes for Ionity (is that jointly owned by VAG, Ford etc?) but there just aren’t enough of them yet.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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There is an interview with the ford ceo who explains the Tesla integrated software stack is a massive advantage for them and a huge headache for ford who take components from many suppliers and have to then integrate them and make them talk together.
I’ve not seen other EVs get close to Tesla efficiency, my iPace had a larger battery and half the winter range of my Y! Would be interested to know what other EVs are as efficient?
The other thing (which is improving) is pulling up and plugging into a Tesla charger, charging, unplugging and driving away. I was on holiday in the Peak District and thought I’d take advantage of a public charger whilst shopping. Took 20 mins to download the app, register, preload it then plug in! The new rules that chargers must support contactless will help this.
Other EVs (VW, Porsche, Skoda, Peugeot that I know of) are still having to go back to the dealer for major software updates!
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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| andy from embsay wrote: |
| @rob@rar, I think that if you’re going to regularly charge away from home then your reasoning is spot on - thankfully for me that’s not a consideration (I’m not a fan of long car journeys), ... |
I think that's a good point. I think I've used high speed chargers maybe 20-25 times since I got the EV in early March, but that's across maybe 10 actual trips away from home as some of the drives will have required more than one charging stop. So while the high speed charging network is critical to the ease of those long drives, for me it's relatively rare that I do more than 250 miles in a single day. Less than that and I don't give a second thought to high speed charging, in fact for most days I ignore the Tesla navigation system altogether as I prefer to manage things via Apple CarPlay. While there is all sorts of attention on high speed chargers I think investment in slow speed, kerbside, charging facilities is far more important and sadly significantly underinvested for the day to day demands of most people who might want to own an EV.
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| kitenski wrote: |
| Other EVs (VW, Porsche, Skoda, Peugeot that I know of) are still having to go back to the dealer for major software updates! |
I did the so-called Holiday Update last night when I got home. Looking forward to trying the new parking assist function.
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The trouble with the non-Tesla manufacturers is that they refuse to recognise they are so far behind in terms of integration, and even further behind in terms of the capabilities we see in the consumer electronics market. They just need to agree to cooperate on standardised stuff like outward-facing vehicle APIs*. But they won’t.
So every manufacturer, model and often variants within them have a different, proprietary API for asking what their state of charge is. The charge point manufacturers and energy suppliers do their best, but the scale of the implementation is just too big. So only a subset of vehicles have the SoC API implemented. And only that subset can be charged to a nominated % when you plug in to one of only a few home charge point products.
This attitude permeates almost all of the vehicle manufacturers and results in poor integration and poor functionality. They tried to ignore Apple CarPlay and then in the end had to concede on implementing integration with that. Similarly with Android. They never seem to learn and now with EVs the purchase decision is nothing to do with engines, gearboxes and transmission, and much more to do with range and user interface functionality.
My prediction is that other than Tesla, it’s going to be some Far Eastern or Chinese manufacturer who comes to dominate the range and the integration battle. Just because the legacy corporates (i.e. not Tesla) haven’t seen the writing on the wall.
*API = Application Programminge Interface: standardised set of commands/data formats for communicating data and actions between two software systems.
Last edited by Then you can post your own questions or snow reports... on Sat 30-12-23 12:40; edited 3 times in total
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@LaForet, absolutely true. I'm on the Octopus Intelligent tariff (smart charging at home for EVs) which for me has always been absolutely flawless and simple to manage, integrating my car and my home charger with Octopus' Kraken system to deliver dynamic charging to reduce peak load on the national grid. As you say, it relies on the Tesla API to make it simple and reliable. But I've read countless stories of people who struggle to use this tariff to charge their car because the integration between their EV, their charger and the network is just too flaky.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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I think the earlier comment about the Ford exec says it all. They think that Tesla are better because they own the component manufacturers. But that’s not the case. Tesla sources components from elsewhere just like anyone else. What Tesla gets right is in integrating those effectively - I assume using software engineering principles that are just standard practice in the consumer electronics and application development world. And in applying the principle of user interface design which places the starting point with the user, not the programmer.
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| pam w wrote: |
| Meanwhile there's nothing that can approach the overall cost of my small 7 year old ICE |
Indeed, it's also the best for the environment to keep your current car for as long as you can. I've ran my last 2 ICE cars for 11 years each and got an EV a couple of years ago because the combonations of things made sense to get one then.
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FAQ
For the winter season, 4 charging points of 300 kw on Plagne 1800 and 2 charging points of 300 kW on La Plagne Montchavin have already been set up.
