Electric Vehicles: What have you spotted?

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Electric Vehicles: What have you spotted?

Post by NewcastleFalcon »

If EV's are going to progress towards a little section on the FCF to call their own, (subject to a referendum of course :) ) the first stage could be more than one thread :!: :) (There is Simon's blog on his Peugeot Ion in the blogs and galleries section too of course in the members area)

So keep it simple....

What EV's have you spotted? And to add a bit of interest, have you had a chat with the owners see what their views are?

I think I am getting far more nosey as my interest grows, but most owners are more than willing to exchange pleasantries with you about their car :-D

So 50 points for me for an unusual spot today in Nissan Leafland, a Renault Zoe in white in Cramlington :!:

I did see a Kia Soul in Consett, but it's badge on the back was something like cdti or something similar, so I guess it wasn't an electric but it was a two tone which I do like.

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Last edited by NewcastleFalcon on 29 Jun 2017, 07:09, edited 6 times in total.
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Re: Electric Vehicles: What have you spotted?

Post by myglaren »

I've seen lots of Teslas in Birtley, of all places. So much so I don't notice them any more.
Also a few Leafs? & Zoes - someone in the next street has a Zoe.
My eldest daughter has one too but that's my granddaughter :)
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Re: Electric Vehicles: What have you spotted?

Post by Zelandeth »

We've got quite a few Teslas going around MK, including a P90D in the deep metallic blue which looks to be kitted out exactly like I would have had it a year back! Will report in on any other spots of note.

There used to be a black Zoe parked up just round the corner from here regularly, but haven't seen it in a few months.
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Re: Electric Vehicles: What have you spotted?

Post by bobins »

I saw a Model S on the way home this afternoon, and I know it doesn't count as a pure electric, but I saw a Porsche 918 Spyder hybrid going through town last year - you definitely don't see many of those around :)
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Re: Electric Vehicles: What have you spotted?

Post by NewcastleFalcon »

Tesla stores are popping up across the country, Manchester, Knutsford, Solihull, Cambridge, Edinburgh. Bristol, London of course, so hopefully will be a regular spot on Uk roads. I am still a. Tesla spotter virgin, looks like I may have to start hanging around Birtley.

Out of interest I had a quick look at the jobs on the Tesla website. Welcoming people into the stores, being enthusiastic and informative about the cars, taking a few people out on test drives sounds ok to me!

Anyone interested, here's a link to that type of job at the Edinburgh store

https://www.tesla.com/en_GB/careers/job ... urgh-47146

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Re: Electric Vehicles: What have you spotted?

Post by NewcastleFalcon »

Pheonix Taxis at Blyth do have a model S to look out for...

http://www.phoenixtaxis.net/tesla-taxi-service.html

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Re: Electric Vehicles: What have you spotted?

Post by NewcastleFalcon »

Shamrock spot today...3 Leaf's....two whites and one red :-D

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Re: Electric Vehicles: What have you spotted?

Post by RichardW »

I've seen quite a few Leafs in the last week - including one here in Grangemouth being run as a taxi, and one N/B on the M6 yesterday.
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Re: Electric Vehicles: What have you spotted?

Post by NewcastleFalcon »

Anyone fancy playing Nissan Leaf Snooker?

I am doing quite well over the last couple of days

Two Cue Balls
One Red
and today One Blue

Black should be easy enough, but could be waiting some time for a pink, and yellow, green and brown may be thin on the ground :)

Not entirely impossible though

http://o.aolcdn.com/dims-shared/dims3/G ... k-leaf.jpg

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Re: Electric Vehicles: What have you spotted?

Post by mickeymoon »

I'd win as there's a red and two black ones on our little estate!

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Re: Electric Vehicles: What have you spotted?

Post by demag »

Leafs everywhere round here and little Renault up the road.

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Re: Electric Vehicles: What have you spotted?

Post by Mandrake »

There seems to be a black Tesla Model S living somewhere near us, I've seen it on our road going past our house three times now in the last few months. In black it's very incognito - I'm very attuned to Tesla's and am constantly on the lookout for them, and yet each time I see it I still only recognise this black one as a Tesla just before it passes me when I spot the Tesla logo on the front! In brighter colours especially red its obvious what it is from a mile away. So if you want a Tesla and don't want to draw attention, get black - it really does blend in! :twisted:

A couple of the parents that bring their kids to the school I work at seem to own Tesla's - one white, one black! I've seen them both a couple of times in the mornings outside the school.

As I mentioned in my blog not long ago the one time I've used public car park Level 2 charging (leave your car charging while you go to work length charing) I saw a Kia Soul, BMW i3, Mitsubishi Outlander, a Leaf and about 3 Zoe's. When I've stopped to Level 3 Rapid charge in a public car park (80% charge in 20 minutes) I've encountered another Zoe and a Mitsubishi Outlander on two separate occasions. No Tesla's yet! :(

You'd think that a public Rapid charger would be a good place for Tesla spotting but it probably isn't for two reasons - one is they have access to Superchargers which are much faster and generally available without queuing because only Tesla's can charge at them, (and they all have multiple stalls) and secondly because they have over 200 miles range even on the lowest spec model (and over 330 miles on the high spec) they probably don't need to charge away from home unless they're on a long road trip! So you're unlikely to find one charging at a public charger somewhere ordinary like Hamilton.... but on the other hand you're much more likely to find one charging somewhere like Aviemore!

There seem to be a lot of models of EV's driving around that I'm not familiar with so I should do a bit more research to find out what they are - although it's likely that a lot of them are PHEV's, as I don't think there are THAT many current models of pure electric EV's out there, at least other than the models we're familiar with.

In all my travels so far I've spotted exactly zero Ion/C-Zero/i-Miev's on the road, other than my own!! They seem to be something of a rarity compared to the ubiquitous Leaf and Zoe which make up most of the numbers in the UK.
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Re: Electric Vehicles: What have you spotted?

Post by Mandrake »

RichardW wrote:I've seen quite a few Leafs in the last week - including one here in Grangemouth being run as a taxi, and one N/B on the M6 yesterday.

Surely not as a Taxi, with an 80 mile per charge range ? :lol:

I wonder if its a 30kW model, with a whole 100 miles per charge range. :lol:

Mind you there are two free public Level 3 Rapid chargers in Grangemouth according to zap map - perhaps they stop every 4-5 hours for a 30 minute break while they charge ?? And EV's do make good mileage in slow stop/start city traffic, which is what Taxi's tend to do...

(Edit: I take it back, they're in Fallkirk. One at Fallkirk Stadium, one in Fallkirk Grahamston Railway Station, but not that far away)

That brings up an interesting point - although Taxi's can legally use free public chargers in Scotland just like anyone else, (and therefore run for free, apart from maintenance...) I think it's generally frowned upon in the EV community for Taxi's to monopolise public chargers! So I wonder what happens if a lot more EV Taxi's come onto the scene - are Taxi operators expected to install their own on-site rapid charger so as not to be constantly hogging nearby public chargers with a steady stream of Taxi's in need of a charge ?

Perhaps the problem will become moot once true 200+ mile range arrives, if they can do most if not all their driving on a single overnight charge with maybe one topup during the day if they really needed it...
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Re: Electric Vehicles: What have you spotted?

Post by RichardW »

Mandrake wrote:Surely not as a Taxi, with an 80 mile per charge range ? :lol:
Definitely - I was surprised too. Seems there's possibly a fleet!

http://www.falkirkherald.co.uk/news/fal ... -1-4369701
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Re: Electric Vehicles: What have you spotted?

Post by Mandrake »

RichardW wrote:
Mandrake wrote:Surely not as a Taxi, with an 80 mile per charge range ? :lol:
Definitely - I was surprised too. Seems there's possibly a fleet!

http://www.falkirkherald.co.uk/news/fal ... -1-4369701

Ha, funny, I had just been looking at the pictures of the chargers in Fallkirk on plugshare.com and I recognise the background of the photo in the story as the Rapid charger at the Fallkirk Stadium. :twisted: Good luck getting in there to charge your Taxi when there is a big game on... :)

If he's saying 100-120 miles it must be a 30kWh model, although 120 is still pretty optimistic even for those. I guess Taxi's don't drive as far as we think each day! I suppose even if he did 200 miles in a day he would only have to stop once in the day for a 30 minute charge, which might be a good time for lunch and a toilet break, as unlike ICE cars, people can't drive all day long without stopping for amenities... :)

Once again I see the claim that seems to be made in every puff piece about electric cars:
Derek drives a Nissan Leaf and expects it to cost him two pence a mile to run compared to between 10 and 13 pence for a diesel car.
I'd really like to know where all these news stories keep getting 2 pence a mile from - I've done the sums on my Ion (which is more economical per mile than a Leaf) and the only way you can get 2 pence a mile today from ANY electric car is either a) charge it exclusively on the night rate of an Economy 7 tariff (which is about 7p/kWh at night) and never during the day at the higher rate, or b) Blag at least half your charging from the free public charger network in Scotland. The latter is certainly possible, if inconvenient, if you have a suitable charger nearby however relying on such free public charging to make your sums work is shortsighted as free charging will eventually go away. (And has to, to make EV's sustainable in bulk)

I base my commuting costs on a daytime charge of 13p/kWh at home and approximately 4p/mile in summer. In winter I expect it to go up to 5-6p/mile through heater use, although that's still a lot cheaper than the 28p/mile of the V6 or the 10-13p of a Diesel. If I really wanted to cut my costs further I could switch to Economy 7 to halve it again, or in the short term at least, blag more from public chargers... [-X As it is now I don't go out of my way to use public chargers but I have used the nearby Rapid charger a couple of times to get me topped up really quickly for going a long distance a second time in the same day without enough charging time in between for a standard charge.
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