Volvo EX30 Dual motor ER or RAV4 PHEV GR Sport?

[Lawnmowerman]

I have ordered a Yaris Cross Excel to replace my PHEV.

1. Don't need such a large car now.

2. Getting fed up with plugging in every night for (in winter) 30 miles. In these lovely conditions - 45 miles. Running 60 miles per day so needing to plug in every day.

I do think there is a bit of smoke and mirrors on the Hybrid side (no plug in left). when having covered 20 miles and the info saying I was 40 - 60% EV it seems strange that my petrol range has dropped by - you guessed it - 20 miles.

So, after 30,000 miles I will miss most things about it, but looking forward to the YX in Scarlet Flare and money  back. 

 

[Cyker]

I'd be interested to hear how they compare - The YC is much lighter than the RAV4 so should feel more agile, but also has a lot less power, so it'll be interesting to see how the responsiveness compares!

On a tangent, I saw a Mk1 RAV4 today and I swear it's smaller than the YC  

[Lawnmowerman]

3 minutes ago, Cyker said:

I'd be interested to hear how they compare - The YC is much lighter than the RAV4 so should feel more agile, but also has a lot less power, so it'll be interesting to see how the responsiveness compares!

On a tangent, I saw a Mk1 RAV4 today and I swear it's smaller than the YC  

Yup, saw a Mk1 at our place recently - so small.

The thing I didn't like about the YX when I first tried one was the sharp crease at the cill which caught your calf muscle - this time I will live with it by avoiding it 👍.

[Nick72]

9 hours ago, ernieb said:

 

This is my worry. What is the real world range especially in winter on the motorway at 70 to 75mph at night. If it gets above my threshold of c. 210 miles (with all the heating on, lights on full) then it's a possibility since it means I only need to charge once on the motorway on the way back home. If if I can get from 10pc to 80pc in 30 minutes on a fast charger then that makes it a bit more palatable. 

Tbetes always been a direct relationship for me on the EV front between range and charging infrastructure. If the range gets to about 450 real world miles then I'll never need to charge whilst away from home for any and all of my journeys. No dependency on infrastructure at this point. C. 210 is the viability point for me having just one return journey charge being required on my longest trip. This will be different for everyone's unique circumstances.

So you're right, the user reviews will be king. This is what put me off the Volvo XC40 EV. Real mileage was as low as 150 or so miles in winter which was massively down on the claimed figures. 

 

[Nick72]

3 hours ago, Cyker said:

Funnily enough it's the fact that Toyota rarely field the latest stuff that I trust them more with; I've come to associate New with Untested, and am happy to let other people be the Beta testers of new stuff while I wait for all the kinks to be found and worked out.

This is especially true in the software world at the moment (Seriously, every time Microsoft, Google or Apple change something they some how make it worse. It's truly amazing - Just when we think something couldn't be worse they find a way!)

I was a bit worried about the engine in my Mk4, since it's a totally new one (And the last time I had a car with the first version of a new engine in it, i.e. the 1.33 Mk2, it just reinforced my aversion to new things with how bad it was!), but so far it's been good... and long may it stay that way!  

I'm with you. Not usually a first adopter but I do like my tech and to be a fast follower once the major issues are worked out. Recall looking at the polestar 2 forum and seeing posts titled "What the **** next?". Replace asterisks with word rhyming with cook. 😂

[AJones]

55 minutes ago, Lawnmowerman said:

2. Getting fed up with plugging in every night for (in winter) 30 miles. In these lovely conditions - 45 miles. Running 60 miles per day so needing to plug in every day.

Yes with a PHEV you need to plug-in most days, so need a charge-point or charging cable set-up so you can just plug it in when you arrive home, if you get that it place it takes under 30 seconds and you don't notice it. 

55 minutes ago, Lawnmowerman said:

I do think there is a bit of smoke and mirrors on the Hybrid side (no plug in left). when having covered 20 miles and the info saying I was 40 - 60% EV it seems strange that my petrol range has dropped by - you guessed it - 20 miles.

On a regular hybrid, or plug-in with no charge running in hybrid mode, the %EV is just the proportion of time it is running on the electric motor without the engine running. But even when running on the electric motor, that energy to drive the electric motor has come from petrol one way or another (i.e. self-charged) either directly from extra energy from the engine running a bit harder to charge the Battery, or some of it indirectly from regenerative braking which is kinetic energy which originally came from the engine at some point. It's a continual process of the electric motor using a bit of energy, the engine or braking topping it up again, repeating continually. It improves efficiency, but that better efficiency is already factored into the range calculation. 

Whereas the plug-in hybrid with a much larger Battery charged from the grid, when running with a charged Battery is using the energy stored in the battery, so the petrol range does not reduce. 

[lightboxcar]

1 hour ago, Nick72 said:

If it gets above my threshold of c. 210 miles (with all the heating on, lights on full)

Not wishing to influence you one way or another, and we have no knowledge of the Volvo car.

What we can say is in the above scenrio with our bZ4X , we could not get even close to 210 miles in winter with all the heating on.  Much more like 150 miles.

The idea of letting the charge go down to 10%...  When we got to that level of SOC it was really quite scary, as we then encountered multiple chargers that did not work, at one point we were down to 8 miles of range remaining.

Whatever you decide to do, do not rely on chargers being available or working !

Best of luck and hope you find what your're looking for.

[ernieb]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001mwr2/panorama-electric-cars-is-it-time-to-buy

I watched this on the BBC last night. Overall I think it was an honest enough attempt to see what the experience, good and bad, was on the long first time trip. In conclusion I think he loved the EV driving but you could see the real anxiety building when faced with the mid trip charging issues, the charging infrastructure is just not there and the 80% charge limit when travelling makes things worse.

[TonyHSD]

I immediately opted for the Volvo if I had to choose between and I am still for it especially as company car, however I did not notice that the Volvo it’s smaller than the rav4, perhaps this should be more of a difference to think about than the range.
The range only its a trouble if it’s not enough for one working day ( shift) , other than that I don’t see why people are getting so anxious if they can’t drain the Battery in one go. If you travel daily more than the real world range then this car it’s not fit for purpose.
Basically I do my calculations like that:  
if I travel 200 miles a day for work I will need an ev that can do 250+ miles real world to have something in reserve and not think about it. If your commute is around 60-100 miles then any ev with real world range of 150+ miles can do it. Always at least 50+ miles as backup. 
Charging infrastructure should only be your concern if you are going on holidays. Working shifts should be covered on one Battery charge without worrying about being short of a range. 👍

[Cyker]

I think EVs should have been more targeted at the performance toy crowd first - They are just better as track toys than for real world use at the moment.

The performance is unrivalled and the massive amounts of instant torque everywhere makes them hilarious to drive and the range for that segment isn't so important. They're also more interested in the cutting edge of improvements and are used to things breaking.

For normal use their weaknesses are opposite what you'd want: For urban driving you generally want something small and nippy, but most of the new ones are too wide and heavy for cramped urban roads (It's always fun watching SUVs and EVs try to follow me through a 2m width restriction or a sharp turn, esp. after tailgating me  ). For their size and space, you'd expect them to be good for long distance driving, but they loose so much more range at high speed than ICE cars that even the thirstiest car I've owned still has double the real-world range of most of them. Both my D4Ds and the hybrid absolutely blow all of them out of the water, and that's only using 3/4 of the tank!

The whole reason I'm waiting is because I want something that's small and nippy, but has enough range that I don't need to rely on charging infrastructure for 99% of my use-cases; The only time I ever want to be forced to charge away from home is if I'm going on a road trip. As it is, 90% of the time I don't even use different petrol stations, just the ones in my immediate vicinity!

 

[ernieb]

It's down to energy density stored in a particular volume of space, right now it's difficult to match petroleum.

If the second generation of EV batteries make the production market and perform as it's been leaked so many times then we will be getting a much better range even in winter. But the issue is still going be fast charger availability.

Update:

Just seen a news article on NHK news which stated that Toyota will be releasing production cars with ‘solid state’ batteries in 2027. When there get to the UK may be another year later.

[kucyk]

15 hours ago, Nick72 said:

It's about the interior volume which is only slightly shy of the R4P. Externally yes, it's small but the EVs have the edge here.

I don't know Nick, this "average size" guy looks really cramped on the back seat, on the front one as well, this doesn't look nowhere near RAV4 to me.

[Nick72]

14 hours ago, AJones said:

Yes with a PHEV you need to plug-in most days, so need a charge-point or charging cable set-up so you can just plug it in when you arrive home, if you get that it place it takes under 30 seconds and you don't notice it. 

On a regular hybrid, or plug-in with no charge running in hybrid mode, the %EV is just the proportion of time it is running on the electric motor without the engine running. But even when running on the electric motor, that energy to drive the electric motor has come from petrol one way or another (i.e. self-charged) either directly from extra energy from the engine running a bit harder to charge the battery, or some of it indirectly from regenerative braking which is kinetic energy which originally came from the engine at some point. It's a continual process of the electric motor using a bit of energy, the engine or braking topping it up again, repeating continually. It improves efficiency, but that better efficiency is already factored into the range calculation. 

Whereas the plug-in hybrid with a much larger battery charged from the grid, when running with a charged battery is using the energy stored in the battery, so the petrol range does not reduce. 

For me I drive mostly electric in the PHEV. Charge 2 to 3 times a week from the home wall box. Covers my normal commutes.

But, I'm driving up to the lakes for pleasure and long business trips probably a few times a month. Longest trip is usually under 200 miles each way.

So the PHEV works well for me. 50mpg typical once the 42 to 56 miles of charge has been used. It does however start to get to the tipping point where I might be able to do it all EV and save a little extra money versus my allowance in the process. Company car arrangement.

[Nick72]

3 hours ago, kucyk said:

I don't know Nick, this "average size" guy looks really cramped on the back seat, on the front one as well, this doesn't look nowhere near RAV4 to me.

Yeh I saw similar. The only person in the back for me will be daughter. Very petite. Whereas I'm 6ft3 so that wouldn't work. I do however love the R4P for its space inside.

[Nick72]

13 hours ago, lightboxcar said:

Not wishing to influence you one way or another, and we have no knowledge of the Volvo car.

What we can say is in the above scenrio with our bZ4X , we could not get even close to 210 miles in winter with all the heating on.  Much more like 150 miles.

The idea of letting the charge go down to 10%...  When we got to that level of SOC it was really quite scary, as we then encountered multiple chargers that did not work, at one point we were down to 8 miles of range remaining.

Whatever you decide to do, do not rely on chargers being available or working !

Best of luck and hope you find what your're looking for.

Thanks. It's important advice and why I've not yet taken the plunge. In the Volvo's top spec with big Battery they're talking 300 miles. If that's above 210 in winter on the motorway then for the occasional long business trip it just means I need to find a working charger on the route back home. Vast majority of all other trips will be charge once and at home, which works for me. I need to see real world mileage reviews from real users I think.

 

[Nick72]

6 hours ago, ernieb said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001mwr2/panorama-electric-cars-is-it-time-to-buy

I watched this on the BBC last night. Overall I think it was an honest enough attempt to see what the experience, good and bad, was on the long first time trip. In conclusion I think he loved the EV driving but you could see the real anxiety building when faced with the mid trip charging issues, the charging infrastructure is just not there and the 80% charge limit when travelling makes things worse.

Feels like at least another 5 years off. If Tesla opens up their infrastructure as they're talking about then this should help. My neighbour just books the charger ahead of time for his Model 3. He's not had an issue yet with charging. That's kind of the standard the infrastructure needs to meet.

[Nick72]

5 hours ago, TonyHSD said:

I immediately opted for the Volvo if I had to choose between and I am still for it especially as company car, however I did not notice that the Volvo it’s smaller than the rav4, perhaps this should be more of a difference to think about than the range.
The range only its a trouble if it’s not enough for one working day ( shift) , other than that I don’t see why people are getting so anxious if they can’t drain the battery in one go. If you travel daily more than the real world range then this car it’s not fit for purpose.
Basically I do my calculations like that:  
if I travel 200 miles a day for work I will need an ev that can do 250+ miles real world to have something in reserve and not think about it. If your commute is around 60-100 miles then any ev with real world range of 150+ miles can do it. Always at least 50+ miles as backup. 
Charging infrastructure should only be your concern if you are going on holidays. Working shifts should be covered on one battery charge without worrying about being short of a range. 👍

Agree with the thinking there Tony. For sure.

Size wise, a lot less back row room but then it's only the petite daughter and on occasion. Enough room I suspect.

Boot although not as long is deeper than the R4P. This probably means there's not a huge amount of volume difference when you also include some small frunk space.

Long items may be an issue.

[philip42h]

9 minutes ago, Nick72 said:

In the Volvo's top spec with big battery they're talking 300 miles. If that's above 210 in winter on the motorway then ...

I tend to work with EVDB figures / estimates - specifically the Highway Cold Weather figure. And for the EX30 Twin Motor Performance they are estimating 160 miles.

(For the bZ4X they estimate 140 miles - and that seems to be around the figure that owners are reporting.)

[Nick72]

5 hours ago, ernieb said:

It's down to energy density stored in a particular volume of space, right now it's difficult to match petroleum.

If the second generation of EV batteries make the production market and perform as it's been leaked so many times then we will be getting a much better range even in winter. But the issue is still going be fast charger availability.

Update:

Just seen a news article on NHK news which stated that Toyota will be releasing production cars with ‘solid state’ batteries in 2027. When there get to the UK may be another year later.

That'll be a good step forward. Nothing exotic is required to see a 3 fold increase in specific energy over the next 5 to 10 years. At which point a 600 or 700 real world range is going to cover most of the bases for most folks who can just charge at home. Although it might take a little more than an overnight charge at 7.4kW!

[Nick72]

39 minutes ago, philip42h said:

I tend to work with EVDB figures / estimates - specifically the Highway Cold Weather figure. And for the EX30 Twin Motor Performance they are estimating 160 miles.

(For the bZ4X they estimate 140 miles - and that seems to be around the figure that owners are reporting.)

That would be 50 miles short for me so I'll be waiting eagerly for user test results.

[Roger_N]

40 minutes ago, Nick72 said:

Thanks. It's important advice and why I've not yet taken the plunge. In the Volvo's top spec with big battery they're talking 300 miles. If that's above 210 in winter on the motorway then for the occasional long business trip it just means I need to find a working charger on the route back home. Vast majority of all other trips will be charge once and at home, which works for me. I need to see real world mileage reviews from real users I think.

 

Personally, I would take the view that once you are down to 40-50% of charge remaining you need to be looking for a charge point and taking advantage of what’s available as this should give more choice of places to charge. As once you get to 10-20% that’s when range issues kick in.

The downside of course is that you will need more stops, they should be shorter but possibly more annoying as in having to break the journey more often.

[ernieb]

14 minutes ago, Roger_N said:

Personally, I would take the view that once you are down to 40-50% of charge remaining you need to be looking for a charge point and taking advantage of what’s available as this should give more choice of places to charge. As once you get to 10-20% that’s when range issues kick in.

The downside of course is that you will need more stops, they should be shorter but possibly more annoying as in having to break the journey more often.

That might work if you could charge to 100% but you’re limited to 80% and once the charger works out you have 40-50% it’s likely to slow down. It seems that the current Battery technology would be significantly damaged if it was charged whilst on a trip regularly to 100%. 

[Roger_N]

The numbers I used were arbitrary Ernie, just trying to make the point you can’t let the Battery get so low that you then get in a situation where it causes anxiety but I take your point about causing Battery issues.

[Flatcoat]

For me an EV is still not viable for many of the above stated reasons and I can’t see the Volvo suiting the OP’s needs in winter. I noted earlier today over on Autocar website reference to solid state batteries appearing in Lexus from 2027/8 which have much longer range. Personally I still think hydrogen ICE and efuel is the future, perhaps before later introduction of BEV when the tech and infrastructure are sorted. 

[Cyker]

8 hours ago, ernieb said:

It's down to energy density stored in a particular volume of space, right now it's difficult to match petroleum.

If the second generation of EV batteries make the production market and perform as it's been leaked so many times then we will be getting a much better range even in winter. But the issue is still going be fast charger availability.

Update:

Just seen a news article on NHK news which stated that Toyota will be releasing production cars with ‘solid state’ batteries in 2027. When there get to the UK may be another year later.

That is the whole difficulty; Chemical fuels have something like 2 orders of magnitude better energy density than batteries, so even if an ICE is only 20% efficient vs an EV's 95% efficiency, the EV still can't get close to the energy at the ICE's disposal. When things like diesel and the newer hybrids are closer to 40% efficient, that just makes the shortfall even worse.

The only way to fix this is invent better batteries - We'd only need 2x the energy density and that would be enough for most people; I worked out for my hypothetical Yaris EV I'd need 120kWh, maybe 100kW if the EV is super efficient, for it to meet my needs, but we're a long way off that in something the size of a Yaris!!

I am a bit concerned about the state (haha) of solid state batteries at the moment - They haven't shown anywhere near the energy density increases I'd been hoping for - 10s of percent vs the 2x I was hoping for.

Also, Toyota seem like they're positioning themselves for short-range rapid-charging EVs, so e.g. you only have a 100-150 miles of range but you can charge in 5-10 minutes instead of 30-60 minutes.

This does have a lot of advantages, as their cars will be lighter and more efficient, but makes them very dependent on the charger network, which I'd not be willing to risk - At the end of the day, I have a car to get from A to B with minimum hassle and travel time. If I wanted to stop repeatedly and didn't care about travel time, I'd take a bus or a train!

Edit: I read that article - Maybe I'm wrong and they changed their minds! That 700+ mile car in the article looks *mahoosive* tho'... Definitely not a contender for a Yaris-replacement!