Hybrid/EV Car Owners

[Kevin33]

I won't consider buying any German marquees hybrid or ev, as the cost of replacing it's battery would cost >120k, which will be out of proportion to it's then market value of an aging car.

Japanese hybrid battery is much reasonably priced @8k only

Agreed. I think hybrid still the best solution for current Malaysian market. Many ppl doesn’t realize EV electricity consumption and the mass weight car if involved on unwanted accidents

[colnagolover]

I was in a briefing meeting some weeks back where malaysian public listed companies will embark on complying to green standards and this includes their suppliers too if they need to keep their service/business with them come by end 2024. One of the area of compliance will be the reduction of the carbon emission and this directly includes changing your car from petrol/diesel to electric power vehicles which has no emission. In a few years starting from the company vehicles and also then onwards - like it or not, our next car will very highly likely be an EV. The infrastructure will speed up to cater for this change of demand also - so this is going to come and come quite soon suddenly.

[Gabillionaire]

BMW reliability & customer satisfaction are often behind Mercedes Benz.

Any opinion on BMW xDrive40e pls?

No way. Benz quality has been deteriorating so much. BMW has been picking up and their quality is very much better than benz. Step into any benz and fiddle around with things, you'll hear so much squeaking noise.

[jbboy12]

I don't know if this counts, but I rented a VW electric car awhile back for almost a week. Gotta say I had a wonderful new experience driving the heck out of it, the fun factor was definitely there. Also the issue about range anxiety was real, and planning for road trips must be carefully calculated between charging points.

IMO, if your mainly doing city driving and you have the budget, it's definitely worth it.

Yeap agreed. I'm from down south but settled in KL but still travel up and down to visit parents. The range is the key reason why I haven't gotten an EV. You only need to be stuck in accident jam or construction works and all the anxiety you talked about will set in hahaha

[gr2k]

as a seasoned-ish EV owner, range anxiety becomes a thing of the past once you pass your first 1 to 2 months of ownership and realise you almost never use that much range in day-to-day driving. My real-world range is around 410km on a full charge, and this has been my experience:

Home Charging
Having a home charger means you can just plug-in whenever you feel like it. For everyday use, I only charge at home once in 10-14 days based on daily commute around Klang Valley. Honestly, pumping petrol now seems like a hassle to me because i used to always forget to stop by the petrol station on the way home only to repeat the same thing the next day.

Let me say upfront that if you stay in a condo with no access to a home charger, your running cost will be more than petrol/hybrids because solely relying on public charging is not cheap at all (nor convenient). So far, all the EV owners I know or have come across live in landed properties for this reason. Average electricity bill from EV charging a month is around RM50 for my use.

Traffic Jams
EVs are highly efficient for city driving. For perspective, you could go on a 3D2N camping trip and sleep in your car with A/C on for 8 hours for 2 nights, and still have ~50% charge to drive the 3rd day. Basically, the battery consumption is negligible in traffic jams.

Long Distance
I did a trip from KL-Melaka-KL without having to stop on the highway at all (charged in Melaka while we were out and about town). Remember, you will practically never drive to 0% and don't need to charge to 100% every time so don't let those 0-100% charging times scare you. Most of the time, you just plug in, go to the washroom, grab some snacks - and you'll have enough juice to continue. This is where 800V architecture on the Ioniq 5 / EV6 / Taycan come in handy because their fast-charging speeds are up to 2x faster than other EVs.

Infrastructure
If you live in Klang Valley, there are more public chargers than the market demands right now (can't speak for other cities). Most of the time, EV charging bays are occupied by plug-in hybrids even if they don't need it because they can't find a parking spot in busy malls. Some countries with higher EV adoption are progressing towards possibility of restricting public chargers to full EVs only.

As for highway charging points, members on EV groups have mentioned around 15-30min charging stops. 15mins to charge and another 15 mins if all the chargers are occupied. The EV community has been largely civil and don't hog DC chargers.

Battery Degradation
EVs have been in the market long enough now that we have ~10 years of degradation data. On average, studies show 1-2% degradation per year depending on use, which means after 10 years the battery still holds 80-90% capacity. This is actually pretty impressive as it is; and remember that this data is from 10-year old tech.

EVs today have much more advanced battery management systems and battery tech. Early studies extrapolate that modern EVs only degrade about 0.5-1% a year which means even by the time a car is sent to the scrapyard, the battery should still have plenty of juice to be repurposed for other uses.


Hopefully this offers a better real-world perspective of these new energy vehicles (:

[HarleMec]

thanks for sharing your insights as a seasoned EV owner. very informative.

I hope you stay long in this forum to share more...

as a seasoned-ish EV owner, range anxiety becomes a thing of the past once you pass your first 1 to 2 months of ownership and realise you almost never use that much range in day-to-day driving. My real-world range is around 410km on a full charge, and this has been my experience:

Home Charging
Having a home charger means you can just plug-in whenever you feel like it. For everyday use, I only charge at home once in 10-14 days based on daily commute around Klang Valley. Honestly, pumping petrol now seems like a hassle to me because i used to always forget to stop by the petrol station on the way home only to repeat the same thing the next day.

Let me say upfront that if you stay in a condo with no access to a home charger, your running cost will be more than petrol/hybrids because solely relying on public charging is not cheap at all (nor convenient). So far, all the EV owners I know or have come across live in landed properties for this reason. Average electricity bill from EV charging a month is around RM50 for my use.

Traffic Jams
EVs are highly efficient for city driving. For perspective, you could go on a 3D2N camping trip and sleep in your car with A/C on for 8 hours for 2 nights, and still have ~50% charge to drive the 3rd day. Basically, the battery consumption is negligible in traffic jams.

Long Distance
I did a trip from KL-Melaka-KL without having to stop on the highway at all (charged in Melaka while we were out and about town). Remember, you will practically never drive to 0% and don't need to charge to 100% every time so don't let those 0-100% charging times scare you. Most of the time, you just plug in, go to the washroom, grab some snacks - and you'll have enough juice to continue. This is where 800V architecture on the Ioniq 5 / EV6 / Taycan come in handy because their fast-charging speeds are up to 2x faster than other EVs.

Infrastructure
If you live in Klang Valley, there are more public chargers than the market demands right now (can't speak for other cities). Most of the time, EV charging bays are occupied by plug-in hybrids even if they don't need it because they can't find a parking spot in busy malls. Some countries with higher EV adoption are progressing towards possibility of restricting public chargers to full EVs only.

As for highway charging points, members on EV groups have mentioned around 15-30min charging stops. 15mins to charge and another 15 mins if all the chargers are occupied. The EV community has been largely civil and don't hog DC chargers.

Battery Degradation
EVs have been in the market long enough now that we have ~10 years of degradation data. On average, studies show 1-2% degradation per year depending on use, which means after 10 years the battery still holds 80-90% capacity. This is actually pretty impressive as it is; and remember that this data is from 10-year old tech.

EVs today have much more advanced battery management systems and battery tech. Early studies extrapolate that modern EVs only degrade about 0.5-1% a year which means even by the time a car is sent to the scrapyard, the battery should still have plenty of juice to be repurposed for other uses.


Hopefully this offers a better real-world perspective of these new energy vehicles (:

[dpkong]

Unless there is great adoption of EV and extended warranties, potential new owners will be wary. I am told the mechanical parts for EV can be very costly. I heard prices of the AC condenser unit is really high. Not an owner and didn't check out other part prices but keeping an eye.

[gr2k]

Unless there is great adoption of EV and extended warranties, potential new owners will be wary. I am told the mechanical parts for EV can be very costly. I heard prices of the AC condenser unit is really high. Not an owner and didn't check out other part prices but keeping an eye.

I've not personally heard of aircon components costing more on an EV but they aren't too different from modern hybrid cars that use a fully electric compressor so it shouldn't be any more expensive. Even a Honda City Hybrid from a few years back uses one of these.

Fully electric compressors are more energy efficient and significantly quieter than the one on regular cars. In cold climates, there are heat pumps built into the AC unit to warm up the batteries so they can charge more optimally - this adds to the cost but it's not used in cars exported to / built-in warmer climates.


Longer warranties are always welcome whatever it is we buy. Most brands today offer 5 year vehicle warranties with a standalone 8 year battery warranty. As for maintenance and servicing, there are some common misconceptions:

Brake Pads will wear out faster because EVs are heavy
False. EVs use a combination of regenerative braking (using the electric motor) and friction braking (brake pads). Most of the time you're actually braking with the motor (which also recharges the battery). Friction brakes are usually applied under heavy braking and the final few meters before rolling to a stop. You'll be amazed how much stopping power the motor alone has.

Tyres will wear out faster because EVs are heavy
True. But the difference in lifespan based on mileage is so negligible you won't notice it at all.

EV maintenance is actually not cheap
False. If you look at the 8 year service schedule, the only thing that gets replaced regularly is the aircon paper filter. There are also 2x "major scheduled service" which is just replacing coolants for the battery and motor. Service cost over 8 years is only around RM8-9K which is actually much cheaper than the brand's equivalent maintenance for a regular car. If you go for a Chinese brand, an 8-year service package is just under RM5k.

All EVs are super quiet inside
False. All EVs don't have "engine sounds" - but if the car has insufficient noise insulation and dampening, the tyre roar and wind noise become very apparent because there's no engine sound to drown out these noises. For example, I test drove an Atto 3 out of curiosity and at any speed above 70km/h, it's actually noisier than a Toyota Corolla Cross. While on the other hand, the Ioniq 5 and EV6 are incredibly quiet - matching what some German EV SUVs deliver in terms of cabin quietness.

Advertised EV range by different brands are all equal
False. In Malaysia, you will commonly see 3 range ratings: WLTP (current European standard), NEDC (obsolete European standard), CLTC (Chinese standard). WLTP is the most realistic test standard and CLTC is the most optimistic.

In the real world, most people won't achieve any of these advertised ranges. Just using 500km as a reference number, you will likely get:

• 90% of advertised WLTP range (500km WLTP = 450km real world range)
• 75% of advertised NEDC range (500km NEDC = 375km real world range)
• 72% of advertised CLTC range  (500km CLTC = 360km real world range)

Note: If you drive mostly in the city and leisurely it is very easy to get 15% more range. While a lot of long-distance highway driving will get you up to 20% less range.