Any GTAM'ers own an electric vehicle? | Page 85 | GTAMotorcycle.com

Any GTAM'ers own an electric vehicle?

nobbie48 said:
Talked to a Hyundai rep and they might be getting a demo in soon but deliveries won't start until spring.
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You saved me some time, I was going to have a look at it, even though it's really too long car for my garage. Looks like all the EV deliveries in Ontario start in spring 2018 or later ... pls everyone take a note. LOL

It start to look like, I might as well keep driving my old car through winter and see what's shaking up next year in summer and order then, perhaps catching fall delivery lots ... or not.
 
Glad I'm in the market for a 2012-2013 Gen1 Volt, not a new EV off the lot. ;)
 
LBV said:
On post 1663 you said you test drove a 2017 eGolf. So why not ask to buy that one?
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They will not sell it. Every VW dealer who got their 6 units of 2017 cars was mandated to keep one as demo, in waiting for 2018 models. That's how it was explained to me. Plus the rebate is problematic in those cases, not impossible I've heard, but with a brand whose dealers refuse to take the rebate of their price and thus include it in payments, I'd certainly not take a chance of hassling with government. German arrogance says, you deal with government (I have heard the same from BMW dealer yesterday). Chevy, Nissan or Kia dealers I have found have no problem to take the rebate directly off the price (although not every single dealer will do it ... the ones focusing on EV to some degree will certainly do .... service sells cars, not just price haggling). At any rate, I am giving my business definitely to someone who is offering to do that for me. Less paperwork, headache for me ...
 
mxs said:
They will not sell it. Every VW dealer who got their 6 units of 2017 cars was mandated to keep one as demo, in waiting for 2018 models. That's how it was explained to me. Plus the rebate is problematic in those cases, not impossible I've heard, but with a brand whose dealers refuse to take the rebate of their price and thus include it in payments, I'd certainly not take a chance of hassling with government. German arrogance says, you deal with government (I have heard the same from BMW dealer yesterday). Chevy, Nissan or Kia dealers I have found have no problem to take the rebate directly off the price (although not every single dealer will do it ... the ones focusing on EV to some degree will certainly do .... service sells cars, not just price haggling). At any rate, I am giving my business definitely to someone who is offering to do that for me. Less paperwork, headache for me ...
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There were news reports last week of feet dragging by gov't on paying the EV rebate out. Some dealers are behind hundreds of thousands as they are waiting up to 6 months to get the money back. I don't blame dealers for not wanting to get involved with that mess nor buyers for looking for a dealer that deals with the government idiocy and lets them walk away with the car at the discounted price.
 
Yep, one dealer mentioned it too, but don't conflict it as a reason why the VW, BMW dealers are not offering it .... Plus do you really think that a bunch of rebates hanging makes any dent in their cash flow? They don't care, as long as they moved a new car off their lot ... it's not like they are owed the money by a private company or a person. Government always pays in the end ...

So imagine if a dealer with many rebates in the pipeline is waiting, what about me as an individual? .... probably even worse. Not sure if anyone here can chime in, how long they have waited, in case they were the rebate owner.
 
mxs said:
You saved me some time, I was going to have a look at it, even though it's really too long car for my garage. Looks like all the EV deliveries in Ontario start in spring 2018 or later ... pls everyone take a note. LOL

It start to look like, I might as well keep driving my old car through winter and see what's shaking up next year in summer and order then, perhaps catching fall delivery lots ... or not.
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Seems like the situation with Ioniq is different than reported. Just shows that it really depends a lot which dealer is in the loop and which one is just BSing .... Ioniq demos are already out there, with base package units even in stock for sale. Will try one this afternoon.
 
mxs said:
Yep, one dealer mentioned it too, but don't conflict it as a reason why the VW, BMW dealers are not offering it .... Plus do you really think that a bunch of rebates hanging makes any dent in their cash flow? They don't care, as long as they moved a new car off their lot ... it's not like they are owed the money by a private company or a person. Government always pays in the end ...

So imagine if a dealer with many rebates in the pipeline is waiting, what about me as an individual? .... probably even worse. Not sure if anyone here can chime in, how long they have waited, in case they were the rebate owner.
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Rebate took 5 months to get here i just got the check. But i was able to negotiate a better price by doing the rebate myself. It really is easy to do and email the paperwork.

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Thanks. That's pretty long, but I guess you are dealing with a government, so why to expect anything shorter. I thought 2 months max, but I guess I was wrong. I'd still probably opt to roll it in, because I have had yet to find anyone willing to negotiate better than MSRP anyways. I guess it stems from the fact, that most EV's are like un-obtanium. So at MSRP, I will have them to roll it in, period.
 
So the 2018 Ioniq SE .... definitely not as good as Golf to look at, or drive. Power-wise it felt similar to Golf, definitely slower than i3. Handling not as precise, but would not stop me to consider it. The problem is, no lease rates on 2018's yet ... they don't know when they will have them. Secondly, SE is base model which is nicely equipped, definitely improvement over the Bolt, but behind the Golf. The problem is that they also sell SE with Climate Package (which really is a heat pump and battery temperature control) and that is in my opinion definitely one to get, unless you are doing short lease and don't care. Of course when I asked when could I have this trim, if I order it today ... answer, "probably spring 2018 ...... They all colluded around spring 2018 ... LOL

So slowly, it's becoming clear what will happen here .... I have one car to go and that is Kia Soul on Saturday. If that fails for whatever reason, I will redo this exercise at some point in spring next year ..... or if I will have a crazy moment (because it's just not what I do when I purchase things), I will order the Golf and just wait and wait and wait and wait ...

One more thing about the new Leaf .... so according to the dealer I spoke to, there will be no 2018 unit for demo drives, until Mar 2018. They will have a prototype to show at dealers sometime later this month. They will not have finance or lease rates apparently until Feb 2018. Crazy .... I said. They said ... "Well 24 people already ordered the car and they don't know what they will exactly pay per month and when they will get exactly the car." .... so much hype I guess among some of our populace that they are willing to literally sign a blank cheque.
 
If you look at most reviews of 2017 or 2018 EV's they are mostly good. I have yet to see one where a reviewer would conclude to stay away from it. Of course people misunderstand the consequences of smaller battery, even though many people don't need it and end up paying for larger battery and dragging it around all the time even though they will hardly ever deplete theirs to 90%. So the price of Leaf is OK ... and I say OK, because it's the same basically as Golf. The Golf is the deal to have, but you cannot have one until late spring/summer ... which pretty much is when the Leaf comes around, probably a month earlier. In that case I am ordering Golf, it's a better vehicle for my needs and taste.

The one thing to note which could make a difference to people is what I call "autonomy" features .... I don't care for any of it, exception would be adaptive cruise control, but even that on city car is pretty useless. I'd probably get it only for resell reasons if I go finance which I am trying not to do anyway.
 
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I can see the Leaf being of interest to someone with a 150KM or less per day need, as with a 240KM range, given the loss in the winter months due to temperature and HVAC demands, you get into range anxiety issues at any more than that.

But, I wouldn't personally buy one because of the lack of thermal management in the batteries - why Nissan decided to *not* include active thermal management (like pretty much every other EV out there) on their Gen2 is baffling, especially after their issues with the Gen1. There's a lot of original Leafs out there that have suffered a massive capacity loss in their batteries because of heat damage, some struggling to get 60-70KM out of a full charge now. Even ones in Canada have lost 20% of their capacity at ~60,000KM - if that trend holds you have a 150,000KM car with barely half it's original range.

The key in cooler northern climes with the Leaf seems to be never to charge to 100% as that's when the batteries generate the most heat that passive cooling can't adequately dissipate, lets not even mention those in hot climes who are even damaging their batteries charging at the best of times. But, I don't want an EV with a claimed range that it can't actually achieve without actually harming the battery to accomplish it.

At least it's not butt ugly like the Gen1. It's got that going for it at least.
 
I am not going to get into who has a passive or active battery cooling because it's not exactly openly discussed topic by the manufacturers. I have read conflicting information on-line. I believe the real active cooling is something only Tesla or Bolt has at this moment. Others claim some sort of battery temperature management system, but mostly it means passive air. The Golf doesn't have one either and it seems to be a zero issue ... in Europe where they sold a ton. Is this going to be the same in Arizona? Probably not .... What I understand is that even Tesla recommends to keep battery between 20-80% .... go to 100% only if you need to. So it's Li-ion chemistry in general, not just for Leaf or other non-actively managed packs.

As far as I am concerned, I will lease. So I don't care if the battery degrades to be honest.

Lastly, the drop in range will not happen at rate of 240 to 150km for most people. Most reviews I have seen was 25-30km and that was hwy at 105km/h with AC blasting in summer .... again, irrelevant to a city car, if you ask me.
 
mxs said:
I am not going to get into who has a passive or active battery cooling because it's not exactly openly discussed topic by the manufacturers. I have read conflicting information on-line. I believe the real active cooling is something only Tesla or Bolt has at this moment.
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Actually, most EV's *are* equipped with active thermal battery management. Nissan and VW are the only exceptions AFAIK, and the Leaf has shown to clearly suffer because of it, so much so that Nissan had to admit to the problem and offer a battery replacement plan. The E-Golf hasn't been around long enough to get any solid figures yet, however.

mxs said:
Lastly, the drop in range will not happen at rate of 240 to 150km for most people. Most reviews I have seen was 25-30km and that was hwy at 105km/h with AC blasting in summer .... again, irrelevant to a city car, if you ask me.
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Just so you know, AC causes very little range loss - it's very efficient and doesn't draw a huge amount of power off the battery. Heating, however, will kick the crap out of it in comparison. I was able to exceed 70KM on EV with our Volt this summer with the AC turned on, and that's on a Gen1 rated for only 55KM, and a lot of miles on the battery as well. However, in the winter, even with the heat on the eco setting and set for 22c, we are struggling to reach 50KM in the current ambient temps. I expected that, but not everyone understands it.

The difference between needing heat vs AC, coupled with a 20-30% range reduction from ambient temps (lithium batteries produce less power in cold temps), it almost certainly has a bigger effect on range than you think. That 240KM "Perfect world" advertised range will almost certainly sink significantly south of 200KM in the winter ESPECIALLY on an EV without active thermal management - the Volt/Bolt/Ioniq/Tesla/etc for example at least keep their battery warm in cold temps - the Leaf and the e-Golf, not so much, so they will suffer even more range loss.
 
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On that topic, we are expecting a decent cold snap this coming weekend - overnights of -10c Sunday/Monday. Maybe our Bolt EV owners in the thread could post up their observations on the ambient temperature effect on range, as well as how the much higher HVAC demand effects it as well.
 
I thought we were talking strictly about "active cooling" ... heating is certainly something all do as far as I know. Let me know where it says that Soul, Ioniq have active cooling. If it confirms that they don't, it makes it with eGolf and Leaf easily the majority EV's without one and that was my point .... at any rate, as I said, it really doesn't matter to my intended three year lease scenario. People who want to keep the car is another ball game though.

If you look at most winter reviews, with non-hwy use they don't drop much past 30km loss of range ... remember, I am talking 2017,18 models ... which most of those either come with heat pump system or you can opt for one (I also expect to leave with a car pre-conditioned in the morning in the garage). That changes things quite a bit opposed to old fashioned resistive heating. It's mind boggling that Bolt doesn't have one (I guess they had to cut corners somewhere to get that price). Combine that with no standard heated seats and wheel and you can see how someone opts for heated vest and socks ... LOL .... just kidding, certainly not with that huge battery.
 
mxs said:
They will not sell it. Every VW dealer who got their 6 units of 2017 cars was mandated to keep one as demo, in waiting for 2018 models. That's how it was explained to me. Plus the rebate is problematic in those cases, not impossible I've heard, but with a brand whose dealers refuse to take the rebate of their price and thus include it in payments, I'd certainly not take a chance of hassling with government. German arrogance says, you deal with government (I have heard the same from BMW dealer yesterday). Chevy, Nissan or Kia dealers I have found have no problem to take the rebate directly off the price (although not every single dealer will do it ... the ones focusing on EV to some degree will certainly do .... service sells cars, not just price haggling). At any rate, I am giving my business definitely to someone who is offering to do that for me. Less paperwork, headache for me ...
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When I asked my Hyundai rep about the rebate he said I would have to apply for it and wait. I'm not sure if that's a Hyundai corporate thing or up to the dealer. The $14,000 rebate doesn't come off the selling price. You pay the HST on the whole shebang as I understand it and get $14,000 back. If they gave the dealer the cash to knock down the price you'd be about $2K ahead.
 
Both the Kia and Hyundai both have battery cooling - it's just a fan that moves air through the battery, but it's something at least, but way less effective vs a system that actively uses the AC system to remove heat. But, again, better than nothing, which is what the Leaf (unsuccessfully) and the Egolf have opted for.

There's some interesting reading on the Egolf's lack of active cooling here. I hope the engineering results and real world results end up being the same - sometimes those things don't work out so well, however.

As for the heat pump vs grid heating, don't get too excited about it - heat pumps only work down to about -10C, and cars equipped with them very much do still have resistive heaters that kick in during high demand, or when the outside temps drop too low. When I did some digging VW themselves also mention that it's only ~30% more efficient than the grid heater as well.

My experience with heat pumps, admittedly not recent, was not great - low vent temps that maintained a temperature decent enough, but useless for rapidly heating up a space (which people expect in a car) so electric grid comes into play quickly...and once outdoor temps start to creep too low for a heat pump to work efficiently, you are basically back to grid heating.

Found lots of references to sub 200KM ranges in the winter as well.

Some more interesting reading on grid vs heat pump here, specific to the Ioniq.
 
nobbie48 said:
When I asked my Hyundai rep about the rebate he said I would have to apply for it and wait. I'm not sure if that's a Hyundai corporate thing or up to the dealer. The $14,000 rebate doesn't come off the selling price. You pay the HST on the whole shebang as I understand it and get $14,000 back. If they gave the dealer the cash to knock down the price you'd be about $2K ahead.
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In Hyundai's case it seems to be corporate directive, at least that's what he was trying to say today. I was upfront, whoever rolls it in for me, so I don't have to deal with government, gets more then likely my business. It will be pretty easy to stick to since there's not that many cars from brands and dealers who refuse to do it. They roll it in, lowering the amount, so it comes out to 14K after taxes ...
 
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