089 - Solar and Battery, time for an EV

This is two bloke talking electric cars with Steven Fennec and Trevor Long. Thanks to NRMA Insurance and Uniden. Right heavy company and thank you to NRMA and Uniden. NRMA, one of Australia's largest insurers of electric vehicles and helping protect Australians the thing that matters most to Australians for over 100 years and Uniden smart dash cams. We just think you're mad if you don't have a dash cam. I mean aren't you? Award winning dash cams by the way.

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I love you. You're given a hook and that's the Texas long one. It was this it was this all right. You had you try to try to mix it up a bit

Okay, you know

Kind of the safety all the time. You know that Texas long one had I've got the the kind of brown all the one that the like

Recognized you burl in weird. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh you were there. I was there like that is just a long hauls. Yeah

We're just playing a little Germany. Yeah. Burling with a college football had on that is just such a crazy and then when your

Food was what he said long hauls. Yeah. Good times. Anyway, I thought I was seven six five seven six five seven is the number

Send us a text or a WhatsApp. We'd love to have you on the show and chat EVs. Rockies on the line. Get a rocky.

Yeah, mate. How are you? Yeah, really, really good mates. Now a little birdie tells us you're you've got solar. You're doing the

Upgrade on the battery and things like that and you're thinking about going EV. What's what's the thought process? What's

Your mind out right now? So we've had solar for seven years looking at figure it was time to look at the battery thing.

We're buying extra quite a bit of extra capacity and some additional panels because we think we can go completely off the grid.

But on my numbers, I think there's enough capacity there to run an EV basically off the grid as well.

So we'll look at it as as a second car. We're currently that we've got a 2022 Toyota Prado, which is obviously diesel and a 2016 Golf GTI 40 years.

And that's been a great car. But I know I'd that might be a tricky thing to get rid of, but that kind of limits things because it goes really well.

300 on horsepower, I think. And and EV wise, I want, you know, if we replace the Golf would be the car that's going.

And then we replace it with an EV, some restrictions.

It's kind of it's kind of obvious really isn't it that if you got a Prado, unless let's just get it out of the out of the fence early.

Do you go forward driving to go off road or is it really just because it's a big car with good range in terms of being a decent.

Now look, we do we do a lot of trips.

A couple of times a year ago, West Western Queensland, down in New South Wales, out that trip.

That's the deep trail sort of places.

And anywhere is what I'm here. Prado, let's be clear.

Yeah, that's right. Although the BYD shark, I know people bag it, but I've been.

Who bags?

Well, people bag the thing, but I watched a really good video.

Not long ago, but some guys, you took one out to South Australia, Western.

And it was like I was really surprised how good the thing was.

And I'm the sort of guy who stops people in the street when I see him get out of cars and ask them about it.

And there's a local, a local trader here who had a, he just bought a shark and he was delighted.

And he trade in a full range of so for his.

He said his son was going to borrow it to go over.

It might have been more nylon to Australia, one of those places on the beach with it.

They're producing so I don't necessarily want to replace the Prado, but the shark.

There's actually a pretty good thing.

The shark, you realize is a hybrid.

You know that day.

Yeah, that's right.

Yeah, one point three to go.

But the great, the great thing about your situation, though, is it sounds like you know that you've got a bit of spare energy, you know, the solar.

Yeah, plus the batteries will be there so you can draw it at any time.

And I'm assuming those long trips are great, but most of the time, the driving is, you know, short spurts around the place.

So with a thing like the shark, you can be fully electric for a large part of the time, the ownership time.

And it's only when you need to go a bush that you essentially bring in the, the, the petrol part of the car.

Yeah.

So it's kind of the best of both worlds for you.

Yeah, it's pretty, pretty clever.

It's probably a bit big for our garage.

It's one side to golf. It's the other.

But I look a really good thing, but I'm thinking if we swapped a golf out, it would be for something more the size of a model three or a model Y maybe or a pole star or

or, or the seal, actually, the seals the other way.

Yeah, the long range, I think it is to 4.4 to 100 from memory.

Any of these yet rocky or you.

Look, my, my exposure to EVs is the ride in the brother-in-law's model Y in the States, the number of ubers here.

I think it was a model S model three model pole star.

And then we were in Europe last year and we're in a neo, I think it was.

It's a taxi, but the other than the roof line in the back just to back knock my head off was a bit low.

But it was amazing. The fit out was incredible.

And you obviously not taking it personally getting a Tesla?

Oh, look, I don't think Elon did brand any factors earlier, earlier this year.

Yeah.

But I think the customer.

I'm not driving the car, mate.

You'll drive. That's right.

Yeah, and customer satisfaction.

The other thing I've looked at, and I'm not sure if your side told you, but after he put me on to your podcast,

I had a five hour drive from Mama's place in a five hour drive back.

So I listened, I think for 10 hours.

I didn't fall asleep, so that's a good song.

It was great.

It was good.

And so all in that, there's some interesting stuff about youth values.

And it was really interesting interview you guys with a seller from Teacles about that.

That's pretty interesting.

Looking for that, wouldn't it, yeah?

That's great that you need to look for that, yeah, for sure.

Yeah, well.

Yeah, so it's like it's interesting.

I'm not sure how long a battery lasts or doesn't last.

I know they say eight years or ten years or whatever, but I also sort of look at the other podcast.

I'll be there, Rocky though, but that no one says eight or ten years.

That's just the warranty.

Yeah.

And, you know, the warranty on a smartphone is a year or two, but they last six or seven years.

The warranty on a battery is eight years because that's what they're, they're warrantying.

It'll last 20 years, mate, but it'll have less power.

So it'll, it'll, it'll actually have less range in, in the longer later part of its life, which is totally fine.

That's just what happens with cars, I guess.

It's fascinating.

The, the other thing I want to listen to was the podcast about trickle charging, extending life.

Battery life.

Well, it's pretty interesting as well.

And you're, by the way, trickle charging, when we had that conversation, I think it was Brendan again.

Yeah.

Pickles that said that we clarified that that also included essentially all home charging.

So, yeah.

Warbox, you know, two phase, three phase, one phase doesn't matter.

Anything below kind of 50 kilowatt charging is trickle charging in the, in the sense of its impact on the health of the battery.

So your, your charging from your direct solar, your charging from your battery storage will both be covered by, you know, that, that advantage of trickle charging

or slow charging being good for a battery.

Yeah.

It's pretty amazing, really, if you think of, of the, of the sun doing that sort of work and still delivering a vehicle.

I, I still think it's unbelievable.

When, when, when we plug the key, there's a huge Kea EV, you know, and we have to do a massive battery.

And you plug it in because the sun's out and it just goes, oh, I'll take what I can get.

And I just think that is phenomenal that, that I can do that.

And I think it's even cooler that you're at a stage of life where you're like, okay, we want to be, we want to be efficient with our resources, both money and power.

And you're thinking, hang on a minute.

I could not only charge the family's home battery to power the home at night, but I'll definitely have enough leftover to do other things.

And you're thinking, well, let's top up the car with it.

Like that's, well, that's, that's what we're thinking.

Well, we're thinking if you did a two hour orbit around Brisbane.

So set to the Gold Coast a bit further north to sunny coasts or, or, or thereabouts and inland up to Tuumba.

That's probably only about 130, 150 kilometres.

So now it's five hour driving.

So you get that straight.

But mostly the most of the things I've kind of read about seemed to would cope with that pretty well, I think.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

So what's the time frame on all this for you then?

Oh, I mean, you're obviously pretty good at it.

But yeah, look, the solar goes in next month.

I think, yeah, it's mid, mid October.

And then we'll probably assess what the, what we shouldn't have any pound.

We'll have a sort of a supply charge, the connection charge after that.

And then I think we'll see what, see how things evolve.

Well, I was just curious whether you guys had any, I don't know, in that sort of golf size range.

You've got cars like Rob said, I was three.

Probably a bit bigger than, that's a bit bigger.

You've got model three.

We want to see.

My, my Cooper born, my Cooper born, I think of it like a, yeah.

Yeah.

Well, that's right.

Yeah.

I mean, you've got to know some cars.

I think the BWAD Dolphin is more, more golf size than more than anything.

Okay.

You know, I think cars are underrated in the electric space.

I may go and drive the car.

Yeah.

See, here's the thing.

If you own a golf GTI, you definitely like driving.

So I would actually recommend you go and buy, you go and buy.

You go and drive a Cooper born.

Because that's why I bought it.

Because I drove it around Canberra at the launch.

Oh, this is a driver's car.

It feels, it gives me that same responsiveness that I want in a car.

And I, you know, my first car was a SAID Ibiza, which is essentially a different brand

golf.

Mate, I think there's some options out there for you that aren't the mainstream.

But then again, your, your, your seal is a beautiful car.

It's just bigger.

I think it's much bigger than a golf.

Yeah.

It's also, I think the three models don't know.

There's the performance, the long range and then the standard memory.

Yeah.

That's right.

That's just all about that's a lot of time.

That's just about range.

Let alone sometimes fit and finish interior, but it's also about the, the drive dynamic.

Because obviously some cars are front, a front will drive.

Some cars are real drive.

Some cars are all will drive.

Most electric cars are either rear or all.

But for example, the, I'm driving a gilly, gilly at the moment.

And it's front will drive.

And it's for a big car.

It's very weird to be front will drive.

Like it just, it's not a dynamic I love.

And you sound like the sort of sort of person that would, that would bug.

Yes.

Yeah.

Might might be interesting.

Yeah.

I listened to another of your podcasts about Penelope.

I think it was.

And there's 16, 16 vehicle test drive.

She's the record holder so far.

Mate, see if you can beat that.

Rocky.

No, I don't think I'm that, that infused about 16 vehicles drive.

But, but a smaller number might be good.

But yeah.

It's interesting stuff out there at the moment.

My good luck with the shopping, good luck with the, with the browsing.

And mate, we want to hear about it when you, when you sign the papers.

All right.

Thanks guys.

Have a wonderful afternoon.

Make stuff really great to hear from you.

Awesome stuff.

And you know, that's the, that's the market.

People are just, you know, considering what they've got.

So you look at that, the Prado versus the golf.

It's interesting that I just assumed the Prado was an absolute kid.

That's, that's these things.

Then there was this little bit of, this little bit of work.

That's his work course.

But again, the size of the B-Widey was, it was, it was sound like the thing that would

be him off because it just wouldn't fit in the garage.

So, true.

Yeah, live and learn folks.

Absolutely.

We'd love to hear from you.

If you want to talk electric cars, we'd love to talk to you.

04-07-657-657.

Two black story electric cars.

Love to hear from you.

We just enjoy talking to people who are thinking electric.

Doesn't matter with your own one, or you're in the market.

We'd love to talk to you.

John's on the line.

G'day, John.

Yeah, G'day, guys.

He's going.

Really, really good, mate.

Where are you at in the world of EVs?

What's your position in the journey?

So, we got our first EV about three years ago.

It was a used 2029, 2019 Hyundai Ionic.

Okay.

And it's been brilliant ever since.

Like, it was just the run-around car.

Bit of a chip, the, the tire and the water sort of thing.

The original Ionic, right?

It's not the current kind of hatchback style or anything like that.

It's the, it's kind of weird kind of.

Yeah, it's a, it's a, it's a sedan-ish hatch.

The one I broke down on the way to Bathastin.

That's it.

And the one when we talked a few months ago about,

I ran it to zero one day one.

Yeah.

What is it with that car and running it to zero?

What is it with that?

So, where are you at now?

So, we had a CX5.

The big car, as we call it.

And seven years old.

And for about the last 12 months I've known we're going to have to get rid of it.

Three kids was just getting too small to, you know, expensive to run.

Yeah.

And, yeah, just, it was time to move, which I was excited about.

So, yeah, kicking off a 12 month journey of trying to convince myself

I could get a 5C EV.

So, when you go straight to all EV.

Yeah.

But did lots of research.

We even hired an EV to do a road trip

from, well, I'm going to Sydney.

I'm sorry, Sydney to, um, to,

there's more.

And just to kind of just spell the whole, you know,

it's okay to do road trips in EV.

So, we did that with the kids.

It was, you know, not, not once did we stop the charge.

I tried to kind of just charge when I stopped.

Right.

Sorry, what was that is?

What did you do that in?

We hired a poll start to.

Okay.

So, yeah, definitely not something we,

yeah.

So, it's an an, it was just me and two kids.

But I just wanted to make sure road trips were not, you know,

a hassle.

Like, were we waiting for charges?

Were they breaking down?

Yeah.

Um, sort of run and prove that.

Yeah.

It's good.

Yeah.

Smart idea.

Yeah.

It's good.

Do you have a, like a, like a dress rehearsal?

Yeah.

And your own, your own dress rehearsal.

Yeah.

You don't even listen to people.

I asked you can actually give it a crack yourself.

High recurrent and learn the experience.

So, so you obviously proved that it was okay.

So then you're in the, in the mindset that, okay,

let's think about an EV.

What did you think about it?

So then started with the Model Y.

Um, because then, yeah, the new one came out.

I thought, all right.

Let's see how good this new one is.

Didn't love it.

Thought it was better, but didn't love it.

Um, and then the, the kind of started getting too much into the rain

on road trips.

So we put roof boxes on.

We want to have a tow bar with bike racks.

And I'm like, right, how do you work out?

How much range is going to drop off?

So watched lots of YouTube.

Did lots of, you know, Excel spreadsheets around how many.

How many, how many kilometers will I lose from charge to charge?

When I've got all this thing fully loaded.

So I had to, whatever I got, I'd have to be a long range sort of EV,

which sort of narrowed it down to the EV 5 long range.

The Tesla Model Y long range.

And then I was sort of, you know,

toying with an ionic 5, which they've got quite a,

I think they do 570 now.

Get the base model on the big battery.

Yep.

Um, so anyway, spend a good six months test driving them.

Yeah.

The couple of the dealers were pretty sick of me after a while.

I think I did three, three test drives.

And he's like, you, you set a record here.

Like, are you going to buy it or not?

So that was with them.

Was that the Kia?

That was the Kia.

Yeah.

Did that feel jovial?

Or did it feel a little bit pointed to the pressure on you?

Yeah.

No, it was the pressure.

There was, yeah.

Needless to say, I didn't buy from them.

That's unbelievable.

We hear that so much.

Yeah.

Did the Kia guys try to upsell you the EV9?

Were they sort of pushing it all, being a car or not?

No, not really.

They didn't quite, they'd been really get EVs to us.

So I was doing the buying, if you know what I mean.

Like, I knew what I wanted.

Right.

So I did try the EV9.

So yeah, I toyed with the 7-seaters.

Like I tried the EV9.

I tried the buzz.

Loved them both.

I just couldn't, just couldn't justify the money.

It's not a money.

Yeah.

And then actually one thing, which is good for everyone to learn,

because I didn't know was such, I thought my dream was to get a second hand one,

and then lease it.

Oh.

But if it's the cars ever paid luxury car tax, then you can't ever get the FBT exemption,

even if it drops below second hand.

Yeah.

So my dream was to grab like a, yeah, I thought, I saw an EV9 for 75 grand.

And I thought, you beauty, I'm going to lease that.

I'm going to give the EV, the bridge benefits tax benefit.

But no, no dice.

So yeah, one yelling at one bond at the tree with the FBT,

because it's got to be new.

That's the new value.

It's not a second hand value.

Oh.

No, it's you know, it's only if it's a luxury car tax.

It's already done it.

It's what he paid the tax.

That's right.

That car right.

When it was first sold, if it was over, then it can never benefit from the exemption.

But yeah, if it was first sold and it didn't have the luxury car tax paid,

then yeah, second hand, you can see that there's lots of a really good cheap second hand

out there.

You could lease and get, you know, the tax exemption as well.

Yeah, right.

Okay.

So yeah.

So yeah, I definitely played with the EV9.

Where did we end up here?

Believe it or not, ended up back to the very first car I looked out, which was a cheese

torrento.

And I wanted a cheese torrento plugin, but they were just so hard to come by.

And 12 months ago, they were the premium was so much,

it was like, when they were first sold, they were like 18 grand more than the petrol cars.

Right.

And I just couldn't justify that premium.

I'm like, that's a lot of difference.

So what I've done now is I've leased a second hand, a 2021 cheese torrento plugin,

which are now, they dropped a lot in the last six months.

And they're only now about four or five grand more than the petrol equivalent.

I promise, you know, second hand market point of view.

Right.

So yeah, it's costing me more than an EV5 water, which is weird.

It was cheaper than an EV5, but it's, you know, that tax benefit is kind of kicking in.

But it's seven cedar.

I can throw roof racks on, roof capsule, bike racks,

do the Sydney and Brisbane troops.

No worries at all.

But 95% of the time, it's 50Ks around the school run, the sports run.

And you're driving in such a way that you know how to just go fully electric and live

the electric dream there on those basic day-to-days, but you know,

take advantage of the longer trips when you need to.

Can I ask, what, what, what was it other than the dealership experience,

which didn't seem amazing with Kia?

What was it that put you off say the EV5?

EV5, it sort of, it was, I guess the long range one was long-ish,

but it was super inefficient.

Like I still think, like my original ionic does like 12 kilowatts per hundred.

The EV5 is about 23 kilowatts per hundred, so it's, it's a massive battery.

And it's just, you have the expensive to run compared to another EV.

Then there was just, you know, the weird middle console.

I still couldn't quite get over that.

That little, you know, the little plasticky armrest just never felt quite nice.

But probably the main thing that put me off, and you know, I'm coming from one of the slowest EVs,

the ionic.

When you put the foot down in the ionic in sports mode, it's fun.

It's not an amazing fast car, but it's a bit of fun.

But I put the foot down in the EV5, and I was like, there's nothing there.

Because the thing's just so heavy.

I don't think the engineer there for fun.

You're driving a right now, Steve.

Yeah, no, I've got it.

It's a, does the job for me, but I'm not racing it or anything.

So I've got the G2 line at the moment right now.

So do you, I mean, without the, without the benefit of the DeLorean or otherwise,

do you see this has been your last petrol car, or do you think that the EV market's got a long way to go

before you could go fully EV?

No, I do, I do.

I did it for three years, because the other thing about the EV5 and Kia,

they wouldn't tell me what their plan to be could agree with.

So, you know, it's annoying if there was a bit more certainty on that.

I'd be like, right, I will, I will invest in it.

That's not something you're going to get out of the deal, or is it?

There's struggle to sell you an EV, let alone understand that stuff.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's right.

Yeah, no, I was telling them more about it than they knew.

Yeah, so the, yeah, the long term thing would be, yeah, three years with this car.

And then, yeah, then hopefully there's a nice second hand buzz or EV9,

or I don't know, maybe a 7C, PYD, Apple, and or a 7C.

Oh, Trevor's car in three years, mate.

Yeah, when he's done with his one, he'll give you mates, right?

Yep.

Pretty sure.

I'm pretty sure I'll own that car two of the day.

I don't know, I don't know that I'm ever going to get out of it to be honest.

Yeah, fine.

But it'll go for that.

It'll go for a long time, so we can be right.

Yeah.

I love the car.

And mate, we're going to drive the ID buzz later in the year.

I think I think we put that in the door for just before the end of the year.

So I can't wait to drive that.

I was at the shop earlier today, and there was a guy pulled up in an ID buzz,

which is, you know, modern comedy, basically electric comedy,

and he gone for blue, like the light blue with the white, because they're dual time.

Yeah.

And I just went, dude, you're just living the dream.

He's just gone, I'm going to go blue and white on this thing,

and it's such a funky looking car.

What a great way to cruise around.

So that's a good little dream to have.

Yeah.

In three years, go go secondhand ID buzz.

And because mate, let's be honest, the second hand market is a buyer's market.

There's value.

Yeah.

That's it.

Absolutely.

Yeah, and they're bringing in good, good volume of them in there.

They say they'll do a vehicle to group.

Yeah.

They actually say they will.

I think Volkswagen are quite ahead on that in Europe.

Yeah.

And the last point I'll make to someone on the plug-in is the latest per hundred.

So like, like I think there's even a report out today saying,

if you don't drive a plug-in hybrid properly, they're actually, you know,

they're not great on emissions and fuel efficiency, which is absolutely true.

Yeah.

But this one's done 9,000k's on like the trip computer.

And it's got average of 2.2 liters per hundred.

Wow.

Like, do you feel like that's your hybrid?

Do you feel like you're playing that?

Like are you thinking about it as you drive it?

Are you thinking about the driving experience to achieve that?

Well, I've only done the last 1,000k's of that 9,000k's.

Okay.

So yeah, I'm definitely trying to just, you know, I'm flooring it when I want to.

And the engine kicks in.

I'm just charging it every day at home.

Or, you know, it's at home most of the day.

We didn't soak out the solar.

So no, I'm definitely on starting off with.

I'm just going to do the first couple of months.

It's just not trying to be efficient here.

It just still happens.

Yeah.

Well, it's done.

Good stuff.

Great to hear from you again, mate.

Enjoy the Kia.

And, yeah, disappointed that you didn't find yourself another full leave.

But you'll be back.

You'll be back, mate.

We'll be back, John.

That's it.

Good on you, mate.

Great to hear for again.

Thanks, guys.

Cheers, mate.

Now, always at all.

That's someone who had a full electric car.

Yeah.

And has gone back now to having petrol in their life.

Because the plug-in hybrid, you know, suits.

And also, it just disappoints me the dealership experience

that people are having.

Yeah.

They'll find that extraordinary.

Like, you know, it's a...

And it's not the first time we've heard it about Kia.

Yeah.

Yeah, true.

True that.

Not the first time we've heard it about Kia.

Just not trying to sell you the car.

Not understanding the cars.

Don't you think he'd be a natural upsell for the EV9?

They didn't even mention it.

Well, I mean, I think he was probably out of the price market for it.

Maybe.

But yeah, it's funny how they don't even try.

Yeah.

You don't know unless you ask.

That's what I wanted.

Let me...

Like, if I was a salesperson, I'd be like, just...

Just take off your driver.

Let's do some numbers.

Yeah.

You know, because funnily enough, when you're...

Especially when you're, you know, doing a loan or a lease,

I've been...

There are...

Most of us have in our head a little bit of a variance.

You're like, oh, I'm spending a thousand bucks a month now.

I could probably do 2,500 or 2,200 or...

Yeah.

You know, you might be able to go an extra 150...

On the lease.

Because saving the petrol you're saving.

And, you know, a smart salesperson is going to need anyone.

It's a beautiful car.

It's a big car.

It's going to do five years.

Do five years instead of three.

You know, that reduces the...

That's what I did.

I mean, I couldn't afford a EV9 if we did a three-year lease.

You kidding?

Yeah.

No way.

Yeah.

But the salespeople aren't trying.

No, I think there's some work to do there.

Yeah.

Anyway, we'd love to hear from you.

If you want a bi-electric car, we'd love to hear from you.

0-4-double-7-6-5-7-6-5-7-7.

Send us a text and we'll get you on the show.

Great taking you calls.

Great talking about electric cars.

If there's a topic you'd like us to cover on electric vehicles, send us a text.

Yes.

We're happy to then talk to you about it or just uncover it and talk about it ourselves.

If you've got questions about the topic.

We are working on a couple of episodes that'll be a little bit evergreen.

Yes.

The kind of 100 episodes.

Yeah.

Bring back some of the learnings that we've had from you, our listeners as well as things that we know generically.

And just try and make those a starting point for people.

A lot of people went out 90 odd episodes into the show.

It's a lot to go back and listen to the early ones.

So we definitely have a couple of episodes coming up where we can just unpack some of the basics for people that have in the market.

We'll be one episode.

Yeah.

And people that have just bought electric cars so that you've got that kind of sense of learning to come from those things.

So we'll unpack all that stuff as the time comes around.

But we'll go back to your calls now.

Alan's on the line.

Get out.

Hey.

Hey, really, really good.

You've got an EV.

And you want to have a chat about both your EV and charging, mate.

Yes.

That's right.

Yeah.

So I guess to start with, I've had a Nissan Leaf for about five years.

Great little thing.

The OG.

The OG electric car in Australia really is.

Well, almost because it's a second gen 40 kilowatt hour.

Yeah.

But it's not only has a range of 240 kilometers.

So it takes a bit of charging if I just go a long way.

Yeah.

But I'm still able to do a drive to and from work 100 kilometers, you know, 50 each way.

And charge just on the powerpoint on the front brand.

Wow.

So, yeah.

Yeah.

So it's, um, it's a little worried about.

It served you well that car by the sounds of it.

And then what when you are through the powerpoint that there's that replenish overnight, what you use

every day.

Is that how it's working?

Yeah.

If I'm just going to and from work, it works perfectly.

But sometimes I need to go and visit family or whatever.

Yeah.

And, um, especially if I do it mid, mid week.

And then I'll get home late.

I don't have the full charge by the next morning.

Yeah.

So usually I can just take a couple of days to build it back up.

But sometimes, yeah, because I live up in the blue mountains and going up the hill.

I need to make sure I've got plenty of power.

That's true.

And, um, yeah.

So.

It's a big difference going up the hill versus going down the hill, Alan, isn't it?

Um, and you say you said it was in your message.

You notice, uh, there's not a lot of support for 22 kilowatt charging.

So your leaf does what does not do 22 kilowatt?

My leaf only does three.

Oh, right.

Yeah.

It's a Japanese import.

Um, so yeah.

But that's shown me that the different difference it can make when you've got decent charging.

Now, at Pinterest, which I pass every day, going to and from, um, there's, uh, let's see,

there's a bunnings on the corner of my goal road there.

And we've got an AC charger from exploring and we've got the DC charge of from EV.

Um, so I can compare what goes on there.

And a couple of times recently, I thought I'll just see even though it's painfully slow for me.

I'll see what happens if I charge on the, uh, 22 kilowatt charger.

And I've met a couple of people there and learned some things about, um, the response to the 22 kilowatt charging.

Yeah, but firstly, I haven't met anyone who can actually charge a 22 kilowatt.

No, it's very rare.

Um, yeah.

So, um, one of the persons I met there was, uh, drove, uh, see, EV 5 from Kia.

Yeah.

And it had government lettering all over it.

Um, but, um, the guy there was sort of a bit concerned, you know, that he couldn't get the rate of 22 kilowatts.

I said, well, your car can only do 11 kilowatts.

And, um, he said, but I'm only getting seven.

And then we looked at the lead and it looks fairly thin.

They don't only give in yours one phase lead.

So the variables are the concern here.

It's almost a fascinating thing because in the end, um, this is one of those things.

And I think we talked about this when you got your Mercedes because it was at 11 or 22 that you,

uh, I thought I might charge at home, could handle up to 32.

Yeah.

But the Merc is only capable of 11 AC on AC.

Yeah.

And look, well, I think I've only ever plugged in one car.

The smart hashtag three, uh, Brabus model, uh, did, I think it did 22.

Yeah.

I'm looking at going, wow, this is, uh, this is happening here.

And so I think, Alan, what you're exposing to people is the, the variability that can exist in, in charging circumstances.

So even though a charger publicly listed charger says it's 22 kilowatt doesn't mean that your car is going to get it.

You're specifically Alan because, and it's funny because again, I referenced the Australian EV Association there.

Their fact sheet on the Nissan leaf explicitly says important note, private import Japanese 40 kilowatt Nissan Leafs charge at a maximum of 3.3 kilowatts.

I mean, did you know that before you imported the car?

Yes, I did.

Didn't put you off.

I looked into it.

Um, I've learned since then, um, well, okay, studying.

I knew that I was going to be able to drive to and from work, charge at home.

All that was no problem for me.

So the day to day use was wasn't a problem for me.

And I also knew that I would be able to use the chat about charges that are still around.

Yeah.

If I didn't need to top up, so I can do that.

Um, but as I said, having learned a bit, um, at panoramic, um, the 22 kilowatt charger costs 45 cents per kilowatt to charge.

Yep.

The EV charger just across the car park costs 73 or 78 depending on when you're charging.

Yeah.

Which is considerably different price.

It depends on the time you've gotten how fast you want your car charge.

See, I'm the kind of person that always ask, you know, well, I ain't giving a rat.

So I want the juice because I'm only using a charge like that on a big road trip.

Okay.

Well, you want to get moved on, don't you?

Yeah.

So if you're on a road trip and you do lots of road trips regularly, certainly the DC charging is the most important.

But if you live around town like me, yeah, I just need a top up, you know,

a quarter of the battery or something just to get up the hill, then the AC charging at 22 kilowatts would be perfect.

And, you know, I've worked it out, you know, in generally, you'd be able to get over 100 kilometers range within an hour.

Yeah.

So if you stopped it somewhere to get it with it's got a 22 kilowatt charger, did you weekly shopping?

By the time you come back, you'd have 100 kilometers extra.

Yeah.

So a lot of people living in town do that twice a week and they cover you, you know, cover what you need.

Yeah.

It's a fascinating observation, Alan.

You've dug into that probably more than most of us ever would.

But, you know, I think that's the challenge with this learning.

Look, it's great information, Alan.

Thank you so much for reaching out, mate.

And good to chat.

We'll keep looking at that.

It's one of the things I look at now when I'm reviewing cars.

When I plug it in, I kind of look at what rate it's charging at just to see whether or not we're getting more than your average.

Absolutely.

I should say Alan pointed out in his message to me that the Zika 7X, he says, he's got it right,

he can charge a 22 kilowatt AC and over 400 kilowatt DC.

Wow.

So, that's a win.

Yeah.

That's the one you said the smart.

The smart hashtag 23 was doing 22 as well.

Yeah.

So that's through the, through the wall box, 22 for home.

Yeah.

That's right.

But again, like an interesting observation of that person, he met Robin and Kear with a small cable, which is a one-phase cable

that's never going to do the full one.

Yeah.

And the Explorer one, you've got to bring your own cable.

Right.

And so that's going to make a difference.

Yeah.

Whatever cables in the car is going to make a difference.

That's going to make a difference.

Is it at one cable you buy that can handle up to a certain point?

Well, no, they're different cables you can buy.

It's like what a USB-C.

Yeah.

You know, you can buy a USB-C cable that charges and does data transfers.

You can buy some that only charge.

And I think, you know, a CSC 2-2, you know, like the laser one, we've got the early one.

Yeah.

That's a fat cable.

Yeah.

Because it's three-phase and it can handle.

We could probably do the full 32 or more, whereas a single, a thin, single-phase one is probably more convenient

to wrap up and put in a smaller space, but it's not going to do the faster charge.

Yeah, right.

You live and learn, folks.

You live and learn.

It's a school day.

And we're here to learn from you.

We can learn from everyone.

Great to have you company and we'd love to hear from you if you want to talk EVs.

We've got a lot of cars we're driving.

We'll cover those over the weeks ahead as well.

And continue to talk about those.

We've got some very cool cars coming up in the dark because we really want to get Stephen into that Porsche.

That's happening later in the year.

That's coming.

We're going to make him a Porsche man.

That's what's going to happen.

It's my goal in life right now.

Sounds good.

I'm up for it.

All right, Stephen.

We'll do it all again next week here on two-bikes talking electric cars.

Thanks to the great people at Unident and in our main service.

Thank you.

089 - Solar and Battery, time for an EV

Toyota Prado

Volkswagen Golf Gti

Byd Shark 6

Tesla Model Y

Hyundai Ionic

Mazda Cx5

Kia EV9

Kia EV5

Delorean DMC-12

Volkswagen Id Buzz

Nissan Leaf

Dodge Charger

Zeekr Zika 7X

Ford Explorer

Porsche Man

About this episode

Original notes