2degreesofseparation's Blog

Tag: EV

  • First 3 months with an EV

    First 3 months with an EV

    It’s been 3 months since we moved from an Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) to an EV, so I thought I’d step out the good, the bad, and the ugly of the experience so far, in case you’re thinking about making the change too.

    Road trips

    We’re a family of five, who tends to drive to most of our holidays. So clearly one of the biggest fears I had was the dreaded ‘range anxiety’. Would we be able to load the family into the EV and still head out for a trip down the coast without having to stop to charge?
    The short answer is a resounding ‘yes’. We did multiple trips to Sandy Point (150kms), with varying numbers of people, and with and without a cargo pod on the roof without a problem (in fact just over 50% battery left on some trips). We also did from Warnambool to Melbourne (about 230kms) with 5 people and the pod on the roof and had over 50kms of range left. Portland is about another 80kms, so it will be very interesting to see if we can get there with one charge if the car is in ‘eco’ mode, rather than ‘sport’.

    The boot capacity of the Ioniq 5 is on par with other EV’s, but I was surprised at how little it held compared to the Skoda Superb. To be fair, I was always amazed at how much the Skoda could hold, so this is more a case of our older car being ‘great’ rather than the new car being ‘bad’. But the luggage pod on the roof has been sensational.

    An EV with a Thule cargo pod and a bike mount…we’re pretty much Northern suburbs royalty.

    Additional costs

    If you’ve ever decided to reduce the amount meat in your family meals, or you’ve gone gluten free, or you’ve decided to make more salads from the Yotam Ottolenghi book you were given for Christmas, then you’ll know that feeling of ‘Oh for crying out loud, now I have to buy a whole lot of new things that I’ve never needed before, and learn how to cook them’…I call it ‘the chickpea conundrum’. Of course you’ve always had to buy pasta, or eggs or plain flour…it just somehow feels unfair that now you have to buy new things.
    Similarly, we bought a home charger (so that we could charge it any time…particularly when the solar panels were working), and got a roof-rack fitted, and bought a luggage pod to go on the roof-rack. So that is about $2,800 for the charger, $500 for the roof rack, and $1,500 for the luggage pod.
    It could be argued that this is a pretty poor exchange for not having to go to a service station and fill up with petrol for 3 months…but in the long-term…I think it will make an for an amazing Cauliflower, pomegranate and pistachio salad.

    The driving experience

    Forced induction is a very interesting way of delivering more power, regardless of the number of cylinders…Ok…I think we’ve lost all of the people who don’t have an interest in cars or driving…hopefully they’ve just skipped down to the ‘technology’ section.
    The experience of driving an EV is pretty different to driving an ICE car. The power is immediate and linear (which can be great when you need to overtake…but can also feel like you’re driving a dodgem car). Our car is wider and heavier than any other car I’ve driven, and it has a longer wheel-base (so a wider turning circle). So I would never describe the car as ‘fun’ to drive. In fact, every time I hop in our eldest child’s 2001 Subaru Liberty wagon, with its manual transmission and no form of Apple Play, I’m reminded of how much ‘fun’ it can be when you really have to listen to the car and work with it.
    But with more and more driving being little more than a series of 200m bursts between one lot of traffic and the next, the ‘joy of driving’ and ‘fun’ may be things of the past, and so a comfortable, quiet, sturdy car that can make Punt Rd a pleasant catch-up with your ‘podcast friends’ may not be such a bad thing.

    Technology

    Now I realise that a lot of this technology is available in any new car, so this is not necessarily EV specific…but it has been pretty awesome for the first three months, so I’m going to talk about it.
    On stinking hot Australian days, I can press a button on my phone 10m minutes before we leave and it will start cooling down the car, so that when everyone piles into the car, it’s not a sauna. I am WELL aware of how gauche and unnecessary this sounds…but there have been enough moments in the last three months when this has been an absolute God-send, that I will not be listening to anyone bad-mouthing this feature.
    As someone who regularly parks the car, then 5 minutes later thinks ‘Wait…did I lock the car?!’ the fact that I can now lock the car from my phone any time and anywhere, will hopefully mean a lot fewer grey hairs for me…and a lot less of everyone else having to hear ‘You just keep walking, I’m just going to race back to the car and check something’.
    There is also wireless phone connection, multiple USB-C chargers for phones, a display on the windscreen of how fast I’m going, and a parking camera that shows me an overhead view of the car, which is great for showing how straight I haven’t parked the car.

    But also…the technology

    In my lifetime, car manufacturers have gone from ‘Here’s a V8 with no ABS…good luck!’ to ‘here’s a car with so many alerts and noises, that it feel less like driving a car and more like living in an Aphex Twin track’.
    If you’re in a driveway with any plants, the car will throw more ‘beeps’ at you than the ‘radio safe’ version of an NWA song in the 90s.
    If you’re travelling towards an intersection with a speed camera, it will turn down your music to let you know about it. If you disable this feature, it will still turn down your music…it just won’t tell you anything.
    If you travel more than 2kms over the speed limit it will beep at you…which on the face of it is a good thing…but it also believes that every school zone is perpetually 40kms/h (even at 10pm at night) and so freaks out at your speed, even though it’s perfectly legal. As you drive past the tram depot on St George’s Rd, it’s convinced that you should be travelling at the 10km/h speed of the tram depot rather than the 70km/h speedl limit of the road you’re on…and is not backward in coming forward to tell you about it.
    If you’re driving somewhere there are roadworks, the lane-assist will quite happily steer you to where it thinks the lane should be, rather than where it temporarily is.
    I realise that car companies now have to design their safety features assuming that drivers are on their phone and angry…but for those of us who are neither, it feels pretty patronising.

    Overall thoughts

    I definitely feel that we’ve had to pay more money to get a car that pollutes less…and that sucks. I also haven’t filled up my tyres at a service station, as I’m suddenly not sure if that’s ‘OK’ with an EV. And I really don’t know how well the car will hold its value with how quickly new technology is being developed.
    But I love this car, and our next car will be an EV as well.

  • Anthropomorphisation

    Anthropomorphisation

    I love the word ‘anthropomorphisation’. It’s big enough to sound impressive, but easy enough to break into smaller parts to make sense of it. Like a Scottish accent, it’s something I can do in my head, but struggle when I have to actually say it out loud. But most of all, the fact that it exists is like someone calmly saying ‘Hey, you know that weird thing you do where you give human characteristics to non-human things? Well, it’s actually so common that we felt the need to create a word for it!’
    Like so many things we do in our own heads, it’s nice to know that you’re not the only one doing it.

    I’m an anthropomorphisationator from way back. In my school years cricket bats and skateboards were spoken to like they were people, successes and failures were shared between us. Every bike I’ve owned has had its own personality that I have worked with and around, and I have a vivid memory of thanking my Cannondale 6 for all its help as I finished the bike leg of the Ironman. After all, it was the bike’s dedication through long training rides, early starts and endless hours on the cycling trainer that got us through…I was, in every sense, just a passenger. That bike is still in our bike shed because I feel like I would be letting the bike down by selling it…but I feel equally guilty about letting it fall into disrepair. It really deserves better.

    Pretty sure I’m smiling because as I head off on my second lap, Luke Bell is about to finish his second.


    When the Crepe Myrtle tree that we bought when Josh was born started to look like it was going to die a few years ago, I had many conversations with it. As if what it somehow needed was a Tony Robbins style inspirational speech and some reassurance….as opposed to more water, and less shade from those gum trees.
    I still have the red ‘Have a Coke and smile’ t-shirt I was wearing the first time I kissed Katie, and take it out of the drawer occasionally to use its talismanic powers to reconnect with the 21 yo who wore it as he embarked on the best part of his life.

    But my guiltiest secret is how much I talk to the cars I’ve owned, as if they were supportive friends. I have quite literally sat in every car and thanked it for all that it’s done to help me when it’s come time to sell or trade in. Which is, of course, completely insane. The car is not choosing to work or not work, it’s not choosing to take me on adventures, it doesn’t see us a team, and it certainly isn’t going to be sad that we’re breaking up. It quite literally can’t give a shit.
    But I can…and do.

    All of this is top of mind, because in the next day or so I will be saying goodbye to our Skoda Superb. I will say to anyone listening, that this is the best car I’ve ever owned. It’s not living and breathing, but it’s been the conduit to so many moments that make living and breathing so great! It’s taken us on roadtrips through Tasmania and NSW. It’s been up in the snow, and down at the beach in the heat of summer. On cold dark nights out taking photos, it’s been the warmth and comfort to return to. On family trips to Sandy Point it’s been the TARDIS that can fit more stuff in the boot than should be possible. It’s taken us to birthdays, weddings and funerals. It’s taught Josh how to drive, and at the end of every mid-winter bike ride, or trail run it has started on cue, played the tunes I wanted to listen to, and its seat warmers have gently warmed our frozen butts.

    A very muddy day on the trails at Westerfolds Park

    The only reason we’re selling it, is so that we can get an EV, and when the EV arrived, after 6 years of never missing a mechanical beat, the Skoda suddenly needed new front suspension…then yesterday, it just wouldn’t start and needed a new battery. It’s very hard not to see the Skoda as a spurned lover, looking at the car who replaced it and screaming ‘HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME?!!’
    But on the bright side, I’ve sold the car to my Dad, because the best thing you can do when you break up with someone, is manufacture a situation where you continue to see them at every family function!

    As advances in AI blur the line further between animate and inanimate objects, perhaps anthropomorphism will become a thing of the past. But in the next few days I’ll be taking the time to have a chat with the Skoda and thank it for everything it’s done for me…and I’ll be secretly glad that it can’t talk back.

  • To EV or not to EV

    To EV or not to EV

    There were quite a few times in my early 20s when I left a dance party while I was still having a really good time, just to head off the risk of it getting a bit shit, and that being my final memory of it. So I definitely have a personality that errs on the side of ‘bad things are probably coming, so let’s get out while the going is good’.
    Which brings me to our current car, a 2018 Skoda Superb wagon. It is without a doubt the best car I have ever owned. We’ve had it for 6 years and it has not missed a beat. It has taken us on roadtrips to Tassie, NSW and Nhill. In the summer months it’s transported the family, plus surfboards, plus dog to many a beach destination, and it has been the haven of warmth at the end of winter trail runs and taboganning trips to Mt Donna Buang.
    And yet…and yet, I fear that the longer we keep it, the greater the risk of it having an issue that costs a fair amount of cash to fix.
    As someone who would like to play a part in not destroying the planet, I also like the idea of taking any opportunity to move towards having a smaller carbon footprint, and so maybe now is the perfect time to get an EV?

    *cut to montage of Chris falling down rabbit-hole of EV car reviews and way, way, waaaay too much information*

    I won’t lie, if there is a perfect time to get an EV for a family, it certainly isn’t now unless you are someone who has a lot of cash, and a deep, abiding love of SUVs. I’m not sure if EV manufacturers heard Scott Morrison say as PM that ‘converting to EV’s would mean the end of the Aussie weekend and we would no longer be able to spend our weekends driving SUVs’ and said ‘No worries, we’ll only make cars in sedan or SUV variants…best of luck station-wagon lovers!!’, but I can tell you, brands like VW are actively not releasing the station wagon/estate/tourer versions of their EV cars here in Australia. So, as someone who views SUV’s as one of the 4 horsemen of the modern apocalypse (the other three are; screen addiction, polarised political opinion, and NFTs), I am having to do a LOT of mental and moral gymnastics convincing myself that this is a good idea.

    Also, I’m someone who has always had an interest in cars…but that means very little in this brave new world of terms and features to get used to, not to mention new brands like Tesla, Polestar and Cupra…throw in Kia and you’re suddenly one of those people who finishes every sentence on an upward inflection.
    Plus, whereas in the past if you bought a car and the new version came out the next year, it was probably going to have slightly different coloured side view mirrors or better cup holders…now a new version may come up with a 100kms of additional battery range, or brand-new ‘everything’ inside, or now it doubles as an aeroplane.
    The tech in the cars is evolving faster than the tech in my cameras, and it makes it VERY hard to commit to something!!

    The other problem is that there just isn’t the range of cars that exists in the petrol/diesel world. In petrol/diesel world, you have a price range, and then a range of cars in the price range. In EV world, everything starts more expensive, and there limited options in each price band. The EV equivalent of our Skoda Superb (albeit not in station-wagon form) probably costs about $85K, which is *checks down the back of the couch, and in pockets of jeans he wore last summer* a fair bit more than I have to spend.
    So…problem solved! Don’t buy an EV! After all, it would be insane to sell a perfectly good petrol car in order to buy an EV that I can’t afford. I can just show the world that I’m a great person by talking about how much I would like to buy and EV…without actually having to commit any money to it, because I can’t afford it. Virtue signalled…cost of living crisis adhered to.


    Except…except, novated leasing.
    Now I realise that if I haven’t lost you with discussions of ‘preferred body shapes for cars’, then I almost certainly will with ‘discussions of tax-based financing of car purchases’. But here goes anyway…maybe you should imagine Margot Robbie explaining this in a bath.
    A novated lease is basically where you lease a car through your work, and the repayments for it come out of your pay. The cool thing is that a portion of this comes out of your income before tax, so you pay less tax because your taxable income is less. If this feels like the sort of thing that really benefits rich people…then yes it is.
    After all, if you go and buy a $200K car and can then claim the repayments as a tax deduction, that’s a pretty sweet deal that is only available to people who can afford a $200K car. So one way around this for the tax department, is to charge a ‘Luxury car tax’ for cars worth over about $80K.
    Cool story so far, I know.
    But the Govt is keen for you to buy and EV, and so they have made it so if you buy an EV then the full amount of the repayment comes out before tax (remember earlier how I said that part of the payment usually comes out before tax…well for EV’s it is now ALL of the repayment, which saves even more on tax), AND the luxury car tax doesn’t kick in on EV’s until just over $91K.
    In short this means that you can get a $10K nicer EV car, and you’re going to pay less in tax. Plus, the repayment amount includes things like rego, servicing, tyres, insurance etc, so instead of those things hitting like a kick in the proverbials each year…they’re spread over the full year, like a firm massage. It is a pretty good deal, provided you and your employer are keen to continue your current practice of you giving them the majority of your waking hours…and them wanting to continue to pay you for it.

    We’re currently on a holiday in the Northern Rivers region of NSW, where it has rained so much, we’ve actually had the time to sit down as a family and discuss the options. It was such a relief after having all of this info bouncing around in my head for a few months, to be able to explain that I really didn’t want to sell the Skoda, but if we did, our best options were the Polestar 4, and the Kia ev6. So let’s make a choice.
    After about an hour of discussion, and debate we finally made a decision…we really don’t want to sell the Skoda, but if we do, our best options are the Polestar 4, the Kia ev6, and the Hyundai Ioniq 5.
    So…yeah…somehow I’m now actually further away from a decision than I was when we started.
    But we have hired a Polestar 2 for our holiday, and it has been great!
    It took us everywhere we wanted to go, it handled like it was on rails, and there is something quite awesome about not having pay for petrol on a holiday!
    So who knows, having already said good-bye to a manual gearbox on my last two cars…maybe it’s time to fully embrace middle-aged comfort, and get an EV.