Range and efficiency/consumption

[Cyker]

To be fair I can't think of many EVs that will do 200 miles in cold winter at motorway speeds!

I can't remember off-hand but I think I worked out I'd need something like 150kWh batteries with current levels of efficiency

[adidev]

1 hour ago, Cyker said:

To be fair I can't think of many EVs that will do 200 miles in cold winter at motorway speeds!

I can't remember off-hand but I think I worked out I'd need something like 150kWh batteries with current levels of efficiency

I did some research, and it's difficult to find SUV with that range in this price. I think, the biggest issue is the fact, what Toyota promised on paper and what delivered in real world. This upset a lot of people.

[Mister Mike]

It does make me wonder what a difference it will make when warmer weather arrives.

On a positive note, the remote defrost facility in the BZ4X is a great feature. I’m loving it when I can stick my nose up to frosty mornings. I am missing the rear wiper, though. I wish it had one.

[Kieran78]

Nearly all of the Bz4x models in Ireland are the FWD version at present.

[adidev]

On 12/11/2022 at 1:04 AM, Mister Mike said:

I am missing the rear wiper, though. I wish it had one.

Lol, I never used one in mine Prius+. I remember few years ago, while servicing, they told me that the rear wiper needs replacing as it completely disintegrated. Nice, big side mirrors and reversing camera is a blessing.

[Kieran78]

How is everyone's range over the last few days? What are people getting on a full charge and with the heater on for the full duration of the drive?

[dab1054]

3 hours ago, Kieran78 said:

How is everyone's range over the last few days? What are people getting on a full charge and with the heater on for the full duration of the drive?

I made a long trip (200 mls each way) to Swansea and back at the weekend. Temperatures between +2 and -3C with snow and wet roads, not likely to get much worse conditions in Midlands/SW Wales! Starting with 100% charge I topped up after 152 mls but still had 25% left which means I could have made the whole 200 mls on one charge. The roads were busy so average speed was only 44 mph, although all on dual carriageways. Had Aircon on ECO 19C most of the time and the journey was comfortably warm. The seat heaters and the remote aircon are nice features to have.

Charging was 'interesting'. Stopped at the Tesla Supercharger (open to non-Tesla) at Cardiff in both directions. First problem was the very short cables that can't reach the bZ4X, so you are forced to take up two spaces- doesn't make you popular when there are Tesla's waiting in a queue. Second problem was the unbelievably poor charging power. The Tesla Superchargers claim 350kW but I got 58kW first time and a miserable 28kW on the way back! There is a Tesla dealership on site and at least they are friendly and let you stop for a coffee in their seating area.

bZ4X Motion FWD.

[Kieran78]

2 hours ago, dab1054 said:

I made a long trip (200 mls each way) to Swansea and back at the weekend. Temperatures between +2 and -3C with snow and wet roads, not likely to get much worse conditions in Midlands/SW Wales! Starting with 100% charge I topped up after 152 mls but still had 25% left which means I could have made the whole 200 mls on one charge. The roads were busy so average speed was only 44 mph, although all on dual carriageways. Had Aircon on ECO 19C most of the time and the journey was comfortably warm. The seat heaters and the remote aircon are nice features to have.

Charging was 'interesting'. Stopped at the Tesla Supercharger (open to non-Tesla) at Cardiff in both directions. First problem was the very short cables that can't reach the bZ4X, so you are forced to take up two spaces- doesn't make you popular when there are Tesla's waiting in a queue. Second problem was the unbelievably poor charging power. The Tesla Superchargers claim 350kW but I got 58kW first time and a miserable 28kW on the way back! There is a Tesla dealership on site and at least they are friendly and let you stop for a coffee in their seating area.

bZ4X Motion FWD.

The slow charging speed was most likely down to the car and Battery rather than the Tesla Supercharger as I've read numerous posts from other BZ4X owners on various Facebook groups all saying their DC fast charger speeds are brutal and many believe that it could be Toyota's software that's throttling the speed on purpose for longevity purposes.

[dab1054]

8 minutes ago, Kieran78 said:

The slow charging speed was most likely down to the car and battery rather than the Tesla Supercharger as I've read numerous posts from other BZ4X owners on various Facebook groups all saying their DC fast charger speeds are brutal and many believe that it could be Toyota's software that's throttling the speed on purpose for longevity purposes.

Could be the case. Other non-Tesla at same site were also having very slow charging as well so can't be completely sure. When it was warmer (~12C) back in November I got over 100kW from InstaVolt (10 to 80%) so maybe temperature is a big factor with bZ4X? Not on Facebook, but would be interested to hear what others have maxxed out at DC chargers.

[Cyker]

I've heard they deliberately slow their charge speed for non-Teslas for safety reasons, but I don't know how true that is.

You raise a good point about the length of the charging cables tho' - Some of them are a joke - They should be long enough that it doesn't matter if you pull in to the bay front first or rear first, but at the moment as you found, some of them are so bad you need to park sideways!

I'm surprised nobody has developed an extension cable for CCS charging because it seems like a common problem; I see so many people parking the car at an angle because the cable doesn't quite reach, and those are heavy cables too which I'm sure will damage the port over time - Any port or socket should never be load-bearing unless designed to be, and I'm pretty sure CCS isn't!

[ernieb]

The Tesla stations are designed to meet the needs of the Tesla cars everyone else has to make things work as best they can. I’ve seen comments from Tesla owners about non Tesla cars blocking two charging stations because of the awkward positioning of the charging ports. I think I’d probably feel the same if I were a Tesla owner.

[Cyker]

Yeah, Tesla owners really hate that they're opening up their chargers. They consider it their sole privilege, which is a fairly common mindset for Tesla owners;  They see themselves as apart from the rest of the peasant EV people  

[dab1054]

19 minutes ago, Cyker said:

Yeah, Tesla owners really hate that they're opening up their chargers. They consider it their sole privilege, which is a fairly common mindset for Tesla owners;  They see themselves as apart from the rest of the peasant EV people  

The sales manager at Tesla Cardiff told me they were expecting longer cables to be fitted soon. He was actually helpful and tried to pacify mildly irate Tesla drivers…

[philip42h]

6 hours ago, dab1054 said:

The Tesla Superchargers claim 350kW but I got 58kW first time and a miserable 28kW on the way back!

Could you please clarify? Are the 58kW and 28kW figures the peak or average charge rates? Or even the charge taken on in kWh?

And did you charge to a specific level or for a specific time?

[Cyker]

13 minutes ago, dab1054 said:

The sales manager at Tesla Cardiff told me they were expecting longer cables to be fitted soon. He was actually helpful and tried to pacify mildly irate Tesla drivers…

Well that's good to know even Tesla can't take the politeness out of the Welsh  

 

[Rhymes with Paris]

Are Tesla drivers the new version of BMW and Audi drivers?

I have often said to pushy people when out and about, "I'm so sorry, I didn't realise that you were more important than me".

Several missing teeth, and two slowly healing black eyes testify to the folly of this approach.

[dab1054]

1 hour ago, philip42h said:

Could you please clarify? Are the 58kW and 28kW figures the peak or average charge rates? Or even the charge taken on in kWh?

And did you charge to a specific level or for a specific time?

These were the peak power delivered during charging. You can monitor this on the Tesla app. First charge was to 80% from 25% (36kWh). Second charge I gave up on after 30 minutes (17kWh) and drove on to another charger where I got 48kW max at a 50kW InstaVolt. 
 

[philip42h]

22 hours ago, dab1054 said:

I made a long trip (200 mls each way) to Swansea and back at the weekend. Temperatures between +2 and -3C with snow and wet roads, not likely to get much worse conditions in Midlands/SW Wales! Starting with 100% charge I topped up after 152 mls but still had 25% left which means I could have made the whole 200 mls on one charge. ...

Charging was 'interesting'. ... The Tesla Superchargers claim 350kW but I got 58kW first time and a miserable 28kW on the way back! 

bZ4X Motion FWD.

14 hours ago, dab1054 said:

These were the peak power delivered during charging. You can monitor this on the Tesla app. First charge was to 80% from 25% (36kWh). Second charge I gave up on after 30 minutes (17kWh) and drove on to another charger where I got 48kW max at a 50kW InstaVolt. 

Thanks for that ... academic interest on my part mainly - I suspect that EVs are pretty much 'there' now but I doubt that the charging infrastructure is quite 'there' yet.

We know from EV lore that DC fast charging works effectively between 10% and 80% and tails off rather dramatically thereafter but we don't have much data specific to the bZ4X charging profile. And this is compounded by the fact that a US spec AWD has a different Battery to a European spec AWD. We have the 71.4 kWh Battery that will charge at a peak rate of 150 kW in both FWD and AWD models.

So far I've found only one set of data for the charge profile - from a US FWD owner:

(this has been shared previously)

Reading across from this data, at a 25% state of charge (your first stop) you should have been able to charge at a peak rate of around 145 kW - a mere 58 kW suggests that the Tesla supercharger wasn't quite up to the job.

You then charged to 80%, drove a round trip of around 100 miles to get back to the same charger - if I've done the arithmetic correctly! I can't sensibly guess your SoC at the second visit, but logically you could have been at around 30%? And at 30% you should still have been accepting charge at a peak rate of 130-140 kW. Again, the figure of 28 kW from the Tesla supercharger seems very disappointing.

But you added 17 kWh (so, ~24%) so you would have been at a 50% - 60% SoC when you left. ?

It would be a complete work of fiction for me to attempt to guess your SoC when you arrived at the Instavolt charger ... 😄

... but there doesn't appear to be that much benefit to be gained from a greater than 50 kW charger once you get above about a 50% - 60% SoC

(The same US based figures reworked to plot charge rate vs SoC ... )

 

[bZ4X]

34 minutes ago, philip42h said:

Thanks for that ... academic interest on my part mainly - I suspect that EVs are pretty much 'there' now but I doubt that the charging infrastructure is quite 'there' yet.

We know from EV lore that DC fast charging works effectively between 10% and 80% and tails off rather dramatically thereafter but we don't have much data specific to the bZ4X charging profile. And this is compounded by the fact that a US spec AWD has a different battery to a European spec AWD. We have the 71.4 kWh battery that will charge at a peak rate of 150 kW in both FWD and AWD models.

So far I've found only one set of data for the charge profile - from a US FWD owner:

(this has been shared previously)

Reading across from this data, at a 25% state of charge (your first stop) you should have been able to charge at a peak rate of around 145 kW - a mere 58 kW suggests that the Tesla supercharger wasn't quite up to the job.

You then charged to 80%, drove a round trip of around 100 miles to get back to the same charger - if I've done the arithmetic correctly! I can't sensibly guess your SoC at the second visit, but logically you could have been at around 30%? And at 30% you should still have been accepting charge at a peak rate of 130-140 kW. Again, the figure of 28 kW from the Tesla supercharger seems very disappointing.

But you added 17 kWh (so, ~24%) so you would have been at a 50% - 60% SoC when you left. ?

It would be a complete work of fiction for me to attempt to guess your SoC when you arrived at the Instavolt charger ... 😄

... but there doesn't appear to be that much benefit to be gained from a greater than 50 kW charger once you get above about a 50% - 60% SoC

(The same US based figures reworked to plot charge rate vs SoC ... )

 

According to this chart, the optimal unplug time to save time is between 60-70%.  If the road is suitable for you to take another short break.

[dab1054]

2 hours ago, philip42h said:

Thanks for that ... academic interest on my part mainly - I suspect that EVs are pretty much 'there' now but I doubt that the charging infrastructure is quite 'there' yet.

We know from EV lore that DC fast charging works effectively between 10% and 80% and tails off rather dramatically thereafter but we don't have much data specific to the bZ4X charging profile. And this is compounded by the fact that a US spec AWD has a different battery to a European spec AWD. We have the 71.4 kWh battery that will charge at a peak rate of 150 kW in both FWD and AWD models.

So far I've found only one set of data for the charge profile - from a US FWD owner:

(this has been shared previously)

Reading across from this data, at a 25% state of charge (your first stop) you should have been able to charge at a peak rate of around 145 kW - a mere 58 kW suggests that the Tesla supercharger wasn't quite up to the job.

You then charged to 80%, drove a round trip of around 100 miles to get back to the same charger - if I've done the arithmetic correctly! I can't sensibly guess your SoC at the second visit, but logically you could have been at around 30%? And at 30% you should still have been accepting charge at a peak rate of 130-140 kW. Again, the figure of 28 kW from the Tesla supercharger seems very disappointing.

But you added 17 kWh (so, ~24%) so you would have been at a 50% - 60% SoC when you left. ?

It would be a complete work of fiction for me to attempt to guess your SoC when you arrived at the Instavolt charger ... 😄

... but there doesn't appear to be that much benefit to be gained from a greater than 50 kW charger once you get above about a 50% - 60% SoC

(The same US based figures reworked to plot charge rate vs SoC ... )

 

Your guess was not far off! Drove from Cardiff to Swansea and back, 100 miles and 40% remaining at the Tesla Supercharger, hoping to get to 80% quickly which would have got me back comfortably to Nottingham.  After abandoning the Tesla charger I reached the InstaVolt charger on 42% Battery and probably could have got home but decided to play safe...

The original charge plot you showed (I have also seen this before) was done at 15C so would be interesting to see how it looks in the -3C to +3C range typical of the current winter driving conditions. Temperature is clearly a big factor affecting both the car Battery management system and, I suspect, the DC charger function. The nice replot of charge kW vs SoC is very informative in selecting sweet spots when fastest charging is needed.

What I am seeing now, after researching, is that the bZ4X loses range in winter just like any other EV but Toyota have left slightly larger margins at the high and low end of the Battery capacity. 200 miles range in current weather is really not bad at all and compares well with other makes with similar battery capacity including Tesla (check out the Tesla forum). We can expect range to improve significantly in summer.

One thing I did note was that Tesla drivers have a much more informative app with loads of data/calculations regarding charging and efficiency in an easily accessible form. I hope Toyota in future will improve the current EV app for bZ4X which is really very basic.

[Kieran78]

There's a new article on the Elbil24 website about Toyota's planned changes to the bz4x. Did you all receive an email from Toyota about this ?

https://www.elbil24.no/nyheter/na-toyota-gjor-endringer-pa-bz4x/78076539

[Beyondzerocustomerservice]

My Norwegian is a little rusty…. What is the jist?

[Kieran78]

5 minutes ago, Beyondzerocustomerservice said:

My Norwegian is a little rusty…. What is the jist?

If you use Google Chrome it'll auto-translate to English.

[bZ4X]

8 hours ago, Kieran78 said:

There's a new article on the Elbil24 website about Toyota's planned changes to the bz4x. Did you all receive an email from Toyota about this ?

https://www.elbil24.no/nyheter/na-toyota-gjor-endringer-pa-bz4x/78076539

Hope they can improve the range and consumption in the winter. 

[philip42h]

8 hours ago, Kieran78 said:

There's a new article on the Elbil24 website about Toyota's planned changes to the bz4x. Did you all receive an email from Toyota about this ?

https://www.elbil24.no/nyheter/na-toyota-gjor-endringer-pa-bz4x/78076539

42 minutes ago, Beyondzerocustomerservice said:

My Norwegian is a little rusty…. What is the jist?

30 minutes ago, bZ4X said:

Hope they can improve the range and consumption in the winter. 

The key paragraph (reputedly from Toyota) is as follows:

Quote

"The battery in the bZ4X has a relatively high residual capacity after the display shows 0 kilometers. The buffer is at least eight percent of the battery capacity and this is included in the calculation of stated range (WLTP). We understand that this is not in line with the expectations of the customers, and we are now studying a change that better visualizes the available range for the driver, as well as a display in the car of the current capacity stated as a percentage. The changes will be made available in the future and we will inform customers as soon as they are implemented."

I.e. they will reduce the size of the reserve so that drivers will have an apparently greater range and smaller reserve.

And they will implement a % SoC display.

But that apart, nothing will change at all ... 😉

And no timescale is given ...