How to get the real lowdown on a an Electric car

[Suff]

And it is not this way.

https://youtu.be/0dipTAQsBgk

That link is to a review of the VW ID.4 crossover electric vehicle. It is a 500 mile drive comparison review of the Tesla Model 3 long range and the only ID.4 currently available, with all the bells and whistles and a price to match.

I have several issues with the comparison.

First they didn't wait for the Tesla to reach 100% charged before leaving. Which distorts the review. The Tesla had driven up from Bournemouth the day before, all 500 miles and arrived early morning/late night. Plugged into a slow charger was not fully charged when they left, it only had 90%.

When they got to Leeds, the Tesla still had 6% of its battery left.. But, in reality, it was 16% because they didn't start with the same charge.

Then they insisted on comparing the two cars on the same Ionity charger when a Tesla supercharger was "just down the road" for a vehicle which still had 6% of battery left and started 10% light. I'm sure this was because they knew that the Tesla would only charge at the same speed on an Ionity (foreign), charger when it would charge much faster on a Tesla charger. Nobody with a Tesla is going to charge at an Ionity charger when a Tesla supercharger is in range.

During the entire video, they go on about how the Tesla is "much more efficient" than the VW. Yes, but they don't tell the whole truth. First the Tesla is _far_ more powerful than the VW, much quicker off the mark, is significantly easier to drive on two way road overtaking.... AND, if we talk MPGe (miles per gallon equivalence), does 16mpg MOREthan the VW. In other words, for your extra money, you get more power, easier driving and you use less fuel. This is the opposite of more powerful fuel powered vehicles which cost more, are more powerful and burn a LOT more fuel.

Then we have to talk software. The Tesla works. That's it, talk to it, ask it to do something, press the screen, tell it to navigate somewhere, it just works. VW, who have had 2 years of crappy software, lack of OTA (over the air), updates crashes, significantly crap response to voice commands, cruise control that can't work out which country it is in and disengages when overtaking a truck on the "wrong side" or will suddenly switch to km/h instead of mph in the middle of overtaking. No the only comment on that is that well past leeds the reviewer is using his mobile phone because the VW navigation system has crashed and is still back in Scotland. This is post a stop and charge up. You actually need to reboot it before it will come back and you need to know how to do it.

In short, the VW is cheap but shoddy. The Tesla is more expensive and of significantly higher quality. The VW will leave you slave to chargers all over the place and the Tesla will get you to where you are going. Worse, that 16% gap in power on the Edinburgh to Leeds run is far more significant when you are not plugging into an Ionity 350kw charger but a 22kw charger. Where you will spend 3 hours trying to get enough charge in your car to carry on to Bournemouth.

I find the whole thing distasteful. Reviewers who really should know what they are talking about talking up a competitor because they like their fuel burning cars.

How is the poor bloody punter supposed to know what to choose.

On the upside, how many people expected to be able to do an Edinburgh to Bournemouth run with one stop for a meal and charge the car? It was, in the end, only an hour to charge the vehicle and a pitstop with a meal can easily burn that.

On a side note, when Ionity came out with the 350kw chargers Elon musk waded in with "If you charge over 200kw to 250kw you will knacker the batteries in a year. The only cars which will use the 350kw charger at full capacity are the Porsche Taycan. Just recently Taycan owners have been having a go at Porsche because their batteries have degraded to an unacceptable level. Porsche pointed out that they have been charging at full speed and it is their own fault.... The Porsche answer? Allow the customers to restrict charging speed to a pre set value (such as 250kw).

And Musk gets a bad name!

[cromwell]

Suff, Tesla don't advertise - VW do.
Years ago a classic car mag compared an MGB GT with a Triumph GT6. They found out that although on most measurable factors the Triumph came out on top, there was "something" that made them conclude that the MG was thge better car.

[Suff]

What you mean the advertising that pays their wages....

They'd better work it out. Tesla is still the fastest selling Battery EV in the world. As fast as their factories grow, they sell out. If you look for VW ID.3, you find a full 50% of them are dealer registered and you can already find them discounted and being sold off.

Tesla won't advertise until it needs to. So far they don't. That is tens of billions of $ gone into production and growth and not into the pockets of advertisers.

If you look at Tesla's mission statement, paying the wages of advertising execs has no part in it.

Tesla’s mission is to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy.

Then there is Elon Musks "secret" master plan posted on their blog back in 2016.

Build sports car
Use that money to build an affordable car
Use that money to build an even more affordable car
While doing above, also provide zero emission electric power generation options

If you are interested have a read. It has technical details about why, even on natural gas power, you are better off running an EV than a fossil burner or even a Prius which does not plug in.

But none of this fits the traditional model of manufacturer with heavy advertising, dealer and customer.

In fact, the dealers are not happy selling EV's because their servicing requirements are very low and in some cases close to nil.

[cromwell]

What you mean the advertising that pays their wages....

Exactly so.

In the MG / Triumph comparison, the GT6 had a production run of 40,000. The MGB GT sold 125,000, all variants sold of the MGB came to 513,000.
So more MGs survive, so there are more MGB owners, so if you conclude that a smaller selling car was actually better you stand a good chance of upsetting more of your readers. So you don't...