Interesting comparison review on another forum - Model 3 SR+ vs Kona Premium SE

[Glan gluaisne]

Quite why Ecotricity haven't yet been kicked off the motorway services network I don't know. It seems pretty clear that Dale Vince lost all interest in this venture years ago, so it's about time the leases were made available for others to take over.

 

[roadcred]

It is interesting the Kona comparison. I too gave the Kona a miss due to the old fashioned look on the then model.

However I do now have a Kia Soul EV 64. What I noted instantly apart from the much better driving position was how frugal it is. The 280 mile range is not fiction and you will find many YT videos on this drive unit on both Hyundai and Kia demonstrating that fact.
I changed my Model 3 Performance to a Model 3 LR at the end of September and its range of 300+ is a clear fabrication.
Apart from external looks and brute acceleration performance where it is a clear leader over the Kia, there is nothing else to recommend it.

The Kia advantage is its accessible controls, wipers, lights, radio etc; its connectivity to apple and android phone apps: its heat pump and heads up display and its absence of phantom braking when in autopilot. On road the Kia is quieter, has better suspension and doesn't need an app to open the door. It is also more difficult to kerb!

There aren't new updates every week which I quite like but they are not really necessary. There are no games or other distractions which is fine by me. Also there are Kia dealerships and services everywhere.
Surprisingly there are more charging points than you might imagine although I have not needed one yet due to the reliable range.

Strangely although I love my Tesla, the Kia has quickly become my car of choice.

 

[GeorgeSymonds]

I did 35k in my first MS 90D 5 years ago - but my daily commute was a 150 mile round trip with some visits to others offices on other days, the furthest of which had a destination charger . The daily commute though, which I probably did 180 times in the year, was 27k miles before you start looking at other uses and that was all done charging at home every night. I have to say I hated it even with AP1 so good luck to anyone having to do those miles but you can quickly get big numbers on home charging if your daily use is high. I did supercharge but back then ecotricity was also free so I'd often stop and charge while on a conference call when going further afield where superchargers weren't. located (like much of the M1 North of the Midlands).

 

[GeorgeSymonds]

It is interesting the Kona comparison. I too gave the Kona a miss due to the old fashioned look on the then model.

However I do now have a Kia Soul EV 64. What I noted instantly apart from the much better driving position was how frugal it is. The 280 mile range is not fiction and you will find many YT videos on this drive unit on both Hyundai and Kia demonstrating that fact.
I changed my Model 3 Performance to a Model 3 LR at the end of September and its range of 300+ is a clear fabrication.
Apart from external looks and brute acceleration performance where it is a clear leader over the Kia, there is nothing else to recommend it.

The Kia advantage is its accessible controls, wipers, lights, radio etc; its connectivity to apple and android phone apps: its heat pump and heads up display and its absence of phantom braking when in autopilot. On road the Kia is quieter, has better suspension and doesn't need an app to open the door. It is also more difficult to kerb!

There aren't new updates every week which I quite like but they are not really necessary. There are no games or other distractions which is fine by me. Also there are Kia dealerships and services everywhere.
Surprisingly there are more charging points than you might imagine although I have not needed one yet due to the reliable range.

Strangely although I love my Tesla, the Kia has quickly become my car of choice.

The new Nissan Ariya is looking good too - choice choice choice.

 

[Medved_77]

The new Nissan Ariya is looking good too - choice choice choice.

Yes, indeed.

Saw the AutoTrader review of that and thought it struck a nice balance between modern tech and comfort. No drive shaft tunnel either.

If I didn't like my model 3 so much that would be top of my list.

 

[adsheff]

I changed my Model 3 Performance to a Model 3 LR at the end of September and its range of 300+ is a clear fabrication.

300 miles is definitely not a fabrication. You will get this range driving steadily at low-mid speeds on a hot (i.e. 25ish) summer's day. Last summer we did a 50 mile round trip on a mix of A-roads and slow Dual Carriageways, and got an equivalent 350 mile range. It is possible, its just more often than not you will have stop/start journeys, bad weather, low temperatures or high speed and acceleration all of which take their share of energy.

 

[Neilda]

No damage if you don't precondition... it just charges more slowly.

OK - thanks.

 

[interbear]

The new Nissan Ariya is looking good too - choice choice choice.

Hadn’t noticed that before but I went to explore and have to agree, it looks a very nice option. It looks better than the Y (imho) for anyone wanting an SUV type vehicle and range / feature wise seems a strong package. Internal design and UI seem good too, although it’s difficult to really know just looking at a web page and of course prices are not yet clear.

Good to have credible choices emerging though. I’m planning to keep my Model 3 for at least the 4 years it’s in warranty but after that it will be interesting to see what choices are available. I’m beginning to think that the only advantage Tesla will have will be it’s supercharger network, which is a real “USP”, for road trips especially. For 80% of my driving the home charger covers my needs, but when I need to drive up to Scotland or down to France, I rely on that supercharger network, so the 3rd party charger network will have to improve significantly for me to seriously consider an alternative.

 

[ACarneiro]

I’m excited by the “choice choice choice” comment.
This is where Elon wanted to go and I can’t wait for the roads to start smelling cleaner and sound quieter.
Next big thing (no pun intended) is going be replacing the disgusting diesel-belching buses and lorries.

At the moment Tesla still have my money, because they braved it and made the others change and that deserves reward.

 

[GeorgeSymonds]

The buses thing is starting to happen albeit slowly as is the reintroduction of trams in a lot of areas - I'm not far from Shrewsbury and we don't but Birmingham is starting to widen its tram network while also introducing some emissions limits and I worked in Manchester for a while and had the construction work outside the office for 18 months while they extended the tram network there. Be interesting if city centres ever go back to what they were with increased remote working and the death of the high street but thats whole different debate

I really wish Tesla had gone for a delivery van rather than the semi. I feel it can't have been a massive task taking the MS chassis on the old spring suspension and turned it into a mid sized van for deliveries. Maybe they couldn't get the price down low enough but with the growth of home shopping and many more home deliveries, it seemed like a obvious market that would also made Tesla more visible to many more people. The semi just seems to be a very long drawn out development that was oversold years ago and not still not here.

 

[ACarneiro]

Trams are of limited benefit and a HUGE infrastructure project. Replacing buses with battery or hydrogen powered ones would be easier and probably cheaper and much more flexible, especially in a. county town like Shrewsbury.

There are rumours of a Tesla van, but God only knows if and when that'll make it out of the drawing board.
To be fair, there is only so much bandwidth they have to deal with transportation solutions and I guess cars, SUVs, pickup trucks and lorries are probably quite enough to keep them busy...

 

[GeorgeSymonds]

Agree with both points - I live 3 miles from the nearest village, there won't be a tram coming here anytime soon, seems we'll have a mix of both trams and electric buses

I guess the point about the Semi v delivery van was given limited resources and a stated overwhelming desire to improve peoples lives, the van would be much easier to do given they had most of the bits already. Maybe manufacturing capacity would hold them back. I struggle to see how articulated lorrys are going to go battery in europe the way they work, and its ok saying they can recharge during their mandated breaks, but we've a million laybys across the country where they stop when needed. Not saying its never going to happen, it just seems a much much bigger ask than cars going electric.

 

[Glan gluaisne]

Electric delivery vans seem a no-brainer, with the main significant issue perhaps being how to efficiently run refrigerated electric vans. I was chatting to one of the supermarket delivery drivers a while ago, and asked how big his delivery round was. It turned out to be around 100 to 150 miles for a whole day of driving (a long day at that, on that occasion over 12 hours). That seems to be the sort of range that should be easily achievable now, just depends on how much energy the refrigeration system needs.

 

[browellm]

Electric delivery vans seem a no-brainer, with the main significant issue perhaps being how to efficiently run refrigerated electric vans. I was chatting to one of the supermarket delivery drivers a while ago, and asked how big his delivery round was. It turned out to be around 100 to 150 miles for a whole day of driving (a long day at that, on that occasion over 12 hours). That seems to be the sort of range that should be easily achievable now, just depends on how much energy the refrigeration system needs.

You'd think those commercial refrigeration units will be sucking something like 2kW. Not insignificant over 12 hours.

 

[Glan gluaisne]

You'd think those commercial refrigeration units will be sucking something like 2kW. Not insignificant over 12 hours.

Actually, if it is only a couple of kW, that might not be too bad. A van with something like a 100 kWh battery pack, that managed to do around 400 to 500 Wh/mile, could still do 150 miles (about 75 kWh maximum) and have enough spare capacity to run the refrigeration unit for around 12 hours. I'm not sure what the operating pattern is for deliveries like this, whether they head out from the depot first thing, and spend all day on the road, or whether they return to the depot for a second load. If the latter, then the opportunity to boost charge during loading might extend their capability.

 

[Rustybkts]

We can only dream of government support like this!

 

[ACarneiro]

Actually, if it is only a couple of kW, that might not be too bad. A van with something like a 100 kWh battery pack, that managed to do around 400 to 500 Wh/mile, could still do 150 miles (about 75 kWh maximum) and have enough spare capacity to run the refrigeration unit for around 12 hours. I'm not sure what the operating pattern is for deliveries like this, whether they head out from the depot first thing, and spend all day on the road, or whether they return to the depot for a second load. If the latter, then the opportunity to boost charge during loading might extend their capability.

Rivian Vans Hit the Road for Amazon - Tesla Motors Club

Not refrigerated but seems like a big step in the right direction, if that's 100.000 fewer ICE-powered delivery vehicles on the roads...

 

[GeorgeSymonds]

Musk and Bezos don't get on from what I can tell and Bezos invested a lot in Rivian who will make the Amazon vans (no real surprise I guess if you own a chunk of both companies). UPS are also investing in Arrival which is British. Maybe the big global buyers of electric vans are buying/investing in the companies that will make them so they can have their cake and eat it, plus they have much greater control over the design, range, order book etc. Musk might not want to get head to head with them as he sees it as a partially closed shop. You have to sell to a lot of smaller companies I imagine to get to the initial 100k sales.

 

[dakaix]

There's also Arrival here in the UK who have the contract to produce vans for UPS & Royal Mail:

 

[Glan gluaisne]

Reminds me that the UK had an electric van and truck company from 1920 right up until 2017, Smiths: Smith Electric Vehicles - Wikipedia

They started out making the very popular electric milk floats that were commonplace all over the UK for decades, but diversified into making site utility vehicles and electric local delivery trucks.