[M0r13n]

I've had a rough time with the last two EVs I've owned. I bought a Honda e in 2020 because of its retro-future charm, but ended up being disappointed by several things:

- the range was miserable

- the software quality was bad

- no OTA updates ever (despite Honda's promises)

- slow charging

- poor public charging infrastructure in Germany

I should have known that a 35 kW battery wouldn't deliver great range or charging speed. But I didn't fully appreciate how limiting it would be.

Last year, I bought a new Mini Cooper e. Larger battery. Better software. BMW's quality actually delivered this time. The car feels objectively nice. The software is polished. There are updates. Few bugs. But the range still leaves something to be desired. In summer it's okay. During winter 30-40% of the range just melts away.

Public charging in Northern Germany still sucks:

- too few public chargers

- chargers are often broken or out of service

- pricing is intransparent

Municipal utility companies ("Stadtwerke") seem especially bad at maintaining their charger fleets. Every second charger that I want to use is out of service. The one next to my apartment has been labeled as "defective" for a couple of weeks now. Nobody seems to care...

I still like (love during summer) my car. It's a cool car. It feels luxurious. It's comfortable. It's fun to tear around corners. It's still compact enough to maneuver through the city. And it looks cool. But it also costs 40-50k EUR and only has limited range. And public charging really needs to improve.

[georgefrowny]

I really don't know why EVs necessitate a new software platform. Car makers are shit at software. Actually nearly everyone is shit at software. I know they want to turn their cars into mobile subscription-based analytics platforms for the money but combining it with the concept of the drivetrain power supply is just unnecessary and it's actually potentially lethal for the future company. Yes it's a nice try to bamboozle people into thinking that it's normal and actually somehow necessary for a car to be a wheeled iPad when it's electric, but that only works if the iPad side actually works.

When people see you your EVs are a bug ridden mess and say no thank you, they're not rejecting your electric cars because they're electric. The answer isn't to retreat from electric and then excrete the same shitty software from the shelved EVs into the legacy ICE models. Now you just made people annoyed by the remaining cars that you do sell.

[silon42]

Yeah, I don't want OTA or "software"... Just make it simple and make it work. For everything complicated that needs"fixing" there's a phone.

[tetris11]

You buy a car, and it lasts maybe 10 years, and then you sell it on to someone else and they drive it for maybe another 10 years.

Updates should not be neccesary. An update can affect the resale value of my car by downclocking it "for safety"

[ndsipa_pomu]

If the manufacturer downclocks your car for safety, can't you sue them for the loss of value? Surely they're admitting that they sold you an unsafe vehicle.

[tetris11]

See Google and the Pixel4 battery debacle.

In theory if you bought your phone from one of their vendors you could get your cash back. In practice, the phone was old enough to have already been resold and there's no way you could claim that rebate

[garyfirestorm]

Inversely I leased a Fiat 500e for a year in Detroit Michigan and had no issues with range ~130 miles. I would plug it in nightly as I had a level 2 charger installed at my house. The experiment was quite successful. I just didn’t like front wheel drive on somedays with heavy snow. I used it for commuting to work, buying groceries and visiting friends nearby. It met my needs and I feel a slightly bigger car with 4 doors and 200-250 mile range should be sufficient for most of the people (assuming it is affordable)

[M0r13n]

Sadly, I don't own a wall box. So I'm dependent on public infrastructure. If I could charge at home I'd be even happier with my car.

[foobarian]

Sadly I think it's kind of accepted by this point that overnight charging is a prerequisite to a good experience with an EV.

[overfeed]

It's not a prerequisite: I see lots of people plugging their cars at public chargers in my residential area; I assume they charge once a week while doing groceries or dining out.

[beAbU]

Public charging can easily be 2x or 3x as expensive.

[masklinn]

And being in your car doing nothing waiting for the charge for 25mn is frustrating. Even more so when it’s the height of summer (and that was in a car where the AC didn’t block charging).

If you can time it with some errands it’s less of a hassle, but that was one of the main non-car annoyances with my EV rental (the other was the flakiness / unreliability of getting a charging session to start).

[beAbU]

I charge my car with the granny charger dangling out the window next to where I park. Been doing so for 2 years now. I have some high density foam packed in the window crack to keep the cold out. Im in Ireland.

[Marsymars]

I like the form factor of the 500e, but boy do I not trust Fiat.

[olyjohn]

My friend has had one for about 6 years and put about 40,000 miles on his. Then one day some battery control module died. Now the car is a brick, and isn't worth fixing. The whole battery has to come out to get to the module, and it's possible that the battery itself is still bad. But we won't know until the module is replaced... which means putting the battery back into the car before knowing it's condition.

[Marsymars]

Shouldn't that still be covered under the battery warranty?

Related: The problem I have with Fiat is that there's an obvious step to combat the impression of poor reliability/durability: Increase the standard warranty. If Fiat declines to increase the standard warranty, the impression is even worse — it's that they're not increasing the warranty because it isn't financially viable for them to do so, because the reliability is bad and that Fiat can't afford to warranty the cars past 3 years. Compare to e.g. Hyundai with a 10-year/100k-mile powertrain and 5-year/60k-mile general in the USA.

Also related: I'm in Canada but looked up Hyundai's USA warranty there just to give more-broadly-applicable numbers. It seems that Fiat's warranty in the US is actually better than in Canada, where it just seems comically low — other than for the high-voltage battery the Fiat 500e new vehicle warranty is lesser of 3-years/37k miles.

[TheScaryOne]

>Compare to e.g. Hyundai with a 10-year/100k-mile powertrain and 5-year/60k-mile general in the USA.

Most cars are sold by the first owner between 30,000 and 60,000 miles. Hyundai's warranty is cut in half for the second owner, 5/50k powertrain and 2.5/30k general. There's nothing to cover, so it's basically free to put 10/100k in all of the commercials.

[Marsymars]

If it's basically free, then Fiat should offer it for the 500e, and I might consider buying one.

[pink_eye]

How is all this Battery waste good for the environment?

#ElectrifiedEnvironmentalDestruction

[beAbU]

Ice car engines also sometimes grenade themselves for no reason sometimes. Same story: too expensive to fix and on cheaper cars that means a write off.

Lithium batteries are highly recyclable, so is all the copper in the motor. I can promise you that fiat will never en on a landfill battery and all.

[TheScaryOne]

>Lithium batteries are highly recyclable

And fake meat is highly edible. But do many people eat fake meat? No. Do many people recycle lithium ion batteries? Also, no. Less than 5% is the current estimate for what percent of lithium ion batteries is recycled.

[JuniperMesos]

Mostly by replacing the use of a gasoline-burning internal combination engine car.

[TheScaryOne]

And instead moving to a component made of critical raw materials with recycling rates of <5%.

[pshirshov]

> poor public charging infrastructure in Germany

Dunno, had a trip through it last year, there are more than enough chargers. Some of them were literally free.

I have 70kWh battery though. Also, I paid much less than 40k for my chinese SUV. The software is buggy though, a random reboot on motorway doesn't feel nice.

[BobaFloutist]

Does the random reboot affect the motor, lights, defogger, signals, anything else absolutely essential to driving?

Don't get me wrong, I'd be annoyed and unsettled if the sound system or gps or whatever rebooted while I was driving, I'm just curious just how dire it is

[sjducb]

It’s just the Android bit that reboots, so maps and music.

The rest of the car drives fine.

[StilesCrisis]

American safety standards require that the car be more-or-less entirely functional without the infotainment system.

[magicalhippo]

On my Renault Megane e-Tech, the Android infotainment system sometimes requires a reboot while driving. If I have the route visualized on the instrument cluster screen, that stays working fine while the infotainment reboots.

So clearly entirely separate systems, despite it is obviously also running Google maps to show the route. Presumably this is quite common.

[BobaFloutist]

Well we're talking about a Chinese-made car purchased and driven in Germany, so I'm not sure what American safety standards have to do with the situation...

[StilesCrisis]

Cars which are built to sell into the US market (Japanese and European) all follow these regulations. If the EU has similar laws, then a Chinese car that sells into the EU would need to follow the same rules here, but I don't know enough about EU safety regulations to be sure.

[pshirshov]

Lane keeping stops working for a minute, so the car suddenly feels like a dumb one.

[M0r13n]

It depends where you are. I live in a somewhat rural area in Northern Germany. There are some chargers, but many of them are out of service like the one next door. I've never stumbled upon a free charger though.

[beAbU]

Do you not charge at home? I charge at home 99% of the time. I only really need the public infra when I'm going to the big city, or when going on a roadtrip.

I charge with the granny charger at home.

[thirdsun]

Not OP but chances are they are renting (like a large part of germany's population are) and therefore don't have the option of installing a wallbox.

[Gud]

I work all over Europe and I’m not super impressed with the state of charging infrastructure in general and it seems particularly bad in German.

One thing that’s super annoying and this is not specific to Germany, but why the fuck do I need some shitty app to use your charger? Should be tap and go like any other purchase. You know, like how I pay for my petrol?

Seems to me like everyone wants to force an app down my throat where it’s really not needed. It especially sucks when you’re a visitor to the country.

[toast0]

> why the fuck do I need some shitty app to use your charger?

I have PHEV that doesn't pull much from a charger, and I usually don't use chargers for money, but... When I charged for fun while I was shopping at a grocery store, it ended up being like a 70 cent charge. If you bill 70 cents to a credit card, it doesn't make sense. Tieing it to an app, you can either charge more and have me loan you the balance, or you can wait until I acrue enough debt that it's economic to charge me.

With full EVs, they can usually pull enough current to reach a billable amount in a short time, but aggregating charges may still be useful.

[georgefrowny]

This is where China has it right. You can pay 1 yuan by WeChat no problem. Scan the QR code, enter "1", the shop terminal says "1 yuan paid" out loud, job done. And yes some things are 1 yuan, for example picking up a parcel from a parcel locker a day late.

Yes, the entire economy is beholden to two payment portals (WeChat and Alipay) and I'm sure the analytics are off the scale and you're completely fucked if you can't use or get banned from the platform but the actual 99% user experience is exactly the microtransaction dream that people have been unable to solve in the west for decades.

[Marsymars]

It doesn't have to be an app to handle small transactions - different countries already have mechanisms in place to handle that - e.g. any credit card purchase under $5 gets a $1 surcharge, to avoid the surcharge you can tap with a debit card (with much lower transaction costs).

[Dylan16807]

Paypal will do small payments for 9 cents plus 5%, or 7 euro cents plus 6.5%. That can handle pretty small charges.

And a charger network can have a running balance for small payments without a garbage app.

[inglor_cz]

One of the interesting trends in my life (I am 47 now) is the slow collapse of the "in Germany, things WORK!" concept.

It used to be actually true in the 1990s, but right now, I definitely expect better public services in Poland than in DE.

[notrealyme123]

Sounds Bad in the north. In the south I have a charger max 10 min away in every direction. And 300kw charger are also the norm for long distance charging. I was surprised to see that even some Aral gas stations removed some of their pumps and replaced them with high speed chargers around here.

[padjo]

You're making me very happy with my decision in 2021 to resist the appealing design of the Honda and buy an id3 with a reasonably sized battery.

Also your in winter are you running the heater constantly? I find just dressing for outdoors, leaving the heater off and using heated seats/wheel means I only lose maybe 15% range.

[Asmod4n]

The temps don’t affect your range that much, it’s mostly the tires.

I got a heat pump and using the heater or AC only needs around 1 kWh during the winter or when it’s hot.

But winter tires increase the power consumption by 30%, just like with a diesel.

[themafia]

> are you running the heater constantly?

Something every car prior to this has been able to do without any impact on performance.

> means I only lose maybe 15% range.

Which could be a reasonable sacrifice if you choose to make it. It's certainly not included in the marketing for these vehicles.

[wongarsu]

Running a heater is easier the less efficient your engine is, because there's more waste heat to work with. ICEs have the clear advantage there

[1718627440]

If the energy is used for something intended (e.g. hot air) than it is not inefficient.

[Marsymars]

That's not really the context of the comment though. The point is just that an EV turns ~80% of its fuel energy into motion (with the rest as heat) and an ICE turns about ~30% of its fuel energy into motion (with the rest as heat).

If you need heat, an EV needs to turn more of its fuel energy into heat, while an ICE can just repurpose what was otherwise being dumped.

[themafia]

The second factor is your battery needs heat. So you may be forced to generate excess heat even if you aren't using it in the cabin.

The point being is that EV cars are a great idea, but the American auto market was not a good _general_ fit, and manufacturers didn't tailor their products enough to actually be successful. They really just pushed a bunch of product onto the market to capitalize on government subsidies.

Which, to me, is the real "risk." Manufacturer incompetence. That all being said my next car will probably be a hybrid.

[padjo]

What is your point exactly? That EVs manufacturers should be held to standards higher than everyone else who markets products by focusing on the upsides? Or that we should continue to use inefficient climate destroying technology because it happened to provide a side benefit that we've become habituated to?

[nslsm]

> That EVs manufacturers should be held to standards higher than everyone else who markets products by focusing on the upsides?

Eh, yes? They are presenting a new technology and want us to switch - they should prove their technology is superior.

[M0r13n]

> Also your in winter are you running the heater constantly?

Nope. But last winter it got really cold (< -10°C). Also the Honda was aggressively heating the battery

[Asmod4n]

Seams to be a non issue in the south, I can charge near my house, everywhere I have to do something and at work.

Aka, every super market has at least one charger. Most parking spaces have 2-3 chargers. From various vendors. Some even for less money then you can get for your own house per kWh.

I also had no issues in the north east so far or in north rein westfalia.

Chargers usually don’t break but get shut down when the grid can’t handle their load currently.

[sigio]

Public AC charging in Germany isn't great, but DC/Fast charging is quite good. I traverse the entire country with a Kia Nero EV, and that's not really a problem using either EnBW, Tesla or Ionity chargers. Besides these networks there are enough others with mostly nation-wide coverage (but not as cheap as these).

(EnBW and Ionity for 39ct/kwh, tesla for a bit more or less, depending on time and location)

[oompydoompy74]

Might I suggest choosing an EV that has more range?

[speedgoose]

The Mini Cooper E, the one adapted from the i3 platform from 2013 but without the nice parts of the i3 such as the light carbon fiber monocoque, the aluminium frame, and the rear wheel engine and rear wheel drive?

[anarticle]

Probably the J01 SE, an electric model not available in the US due to tariffs, but available everywhere else.

[speedgoose]

Oh I see. It sells extremely poorly in Norway. Looking at the specs, I could guess why.

[M0r13n]

yes!

[colechristensen]

Basically there's an adoption curve. "Western carmakers retreat" is showing they pushed ahead of the curve and got bitten so they're correcting.

THIS is where public subsidies makes the difference, finding and spending the way out of the pain points to make the adoption curve steeper.

[dangus]

I hate to say it, but doesn't a lot of this have to do with your poor choice of vehicles? You bought a 35kW battery-equipped EV and replaced it with an EV with a 32.6kW battery. What did you expect?

I don't see poor software as a problem that's related to the powertrain. My ICE vehicle from 2016 has poor software that never gets updates.

You overspent on a Mini because Minis are overpriced vehicles. On mobile.de I see a used VW ID3 (82 kW (Pro S)) with 60000 km miles on it listed for 22000 euros. I see a Kia EV6 GT-line with 18000km (77 kW) for 33000 euros.

I totally understand the issues with broken and insufficient chargers, as we have that same issue in the USA, but that's why you maybe avoid getting the kind of vehicle that has some of the smallest battery on the market if you need that range.

[M0r13n]

I agree. Though I replaced it with a car with a capacity of 40 kW and better overall efficiency. You're right, however, that I could have bought a used VW ID.3 or similar. But I can't stand how these cars look or feel. I'm also not complaining. I really like my car. I just wanted to share my experience :)

[giardini]

Two bad purchases from normally high-quality companies and you're still good to go for more! Amazing!

[PearlRiver]

Germany is a car country. They live in the cult of ICE. It seems to me that the less people give a shit about cars the more likely they are to embrace EV.

[silon42]

Or maybe there aren't good EVs... however, ICEs are becoming worse, so the crossover might be happening eventually.