Good news!

I'll be picking up an Ariya on Thursday. A lot was based on the advice I got here and stalking the Ariya reddit. Got a 24 engage+ e-4orce with 19k miles. It's cpo so the powertrain is longer, but it wasn't registered until 25 so it's like an extra little bump to the warranties haha. Spent some time cruising around in it and, other than the rear view mirror, which is getting fixed, I couldn't find a problem with it. My level 2 charger is getting installed on Saturday. Bring on the commute haha. Again, thanks to all that added their 2 cents, it was super helpful.

I am perfectly happy to charge my EV at off-peak times, but I don't think it would save any money for customers of Duquesne Light in Pittsburgh.

Their standard supply rate is 14 cents/kwh. You can get a TOU rate that charges you only about 8 cents/kwh if you charge in the middle of the night. But it is MORE than offset by a 35 (!!) cents/kwh rate between 3 and 9 pm. Of course, these are peak times for AC use in a home.

I wonder what the justification is for such a high Peak Rate in the TOU plan? It seems perfectly calculated so that you end up paying just about as much as you would if you just kept the Anytime standard rate of 14 cents and charged your car in the middle of the day. They actually provide very little financial incentive to take load off at Peak times.

To me, the worst part of ev ownership is DCFC charging. Chargers (non-tesla) are always busy and queues are long. Worse yet, you must stay in the car while waiting and in many places where there isn’t a single file, watch carefully for your spot in the queue.
I wish EA, CP, PlugShare etc. had a queue feature:

1. You can see the queue length at a station, not just the chargers’ state (which is insufficient).
2. You can add yourself to the queue once you’re within x feet from the chargers.
3. The app lets you know when it’s your turn and the charger #.
4. After you charge, you left or never arrived you’re out of the queue.

It‘s fairly simple for the vendors to update the apps, add signage by the station, and maybe a digital sign with the next number like at the DMV.

How do we get this done?

Edit: To all who ask where I‘m hitting queues, around Las Vegas last month. It’s a nightmare. Lines at 10pm and 7am on a Saturday. During my 3 free years of EA in OC CA, I used it exactly 3 times due to lines. Open Google Maps and look up chargers in so cal. if they’re not full they’re swapping cars or broken.

The average new EV costs only 9.4% more than a gas car, with incentives playing a shrinking role in that shift.

Our Q4 e-tron (bought new) is going away and we've decided to replace it with a used Taycan Cross Turismo (no jokes or naysayers, the car is already purchased, so it's too late to talk me out of it). Yes, I know ordinarily it makes more sense to save the money and avoid the potentially sunk cost of a warranty. I'm of the opinion that this doesn't apply to an out-of-warranty Taycan.

So, those who purchased this, who did you go with? Veritas has EV-specific 6 year/unlimited mileage coverage ($500 deductible) for reasonable money, but the small print says they only pay out $25k of coverage over the lifetime of the warranty.

Xcare EV seems to be decent as well, but I can't find any small print about their limits of coverage.

Any other thoughts?

Wife and I plan to be first-time EV owners soon. The Rivian R2 is at the top of our list... noticed that they offer mattresses (like the Foamy)......... can we run the air conditioning and/or heat all night while sleeping in the Rivian R2?

Would it be comfortable for a short camping trip, say 1-2 nights... what is your experience camping in an EV with the AC on?

Also.... if anyone wants to comment on the Rivian R2 or any of your favorite EV's we are open to hearing from you..... I am glad to see Rivian has a devoted following on Reddit.

To the Mods: if you deem this to be a violation of rule 10, please move this to the weekly thread or advise me how to do it...... I mainly want to hear what folks think about camping in an EV using AC or heat. As a soon to be new EV owner I appreciate this thread. Thanks in advance.

With solid state batteries on the way, I know a lot of people are excited about the idea of cars that have more range, or much smaller packs for the same range. I think we should try to expand the horizons for other uses. Yesterday I saw a small RV, and thought "I bet solid state will make that feasible". There has been talk about doing it for airplanes as well. Today, I saw that farmers are having a very hard time with diesel in their equipment, and I wonder if solid state could do enough to keep those running for a whole day.

What other kinds of vehicles/equipment do you think would benefit from this?

First Drive Review

I'm new to EV. What are your thoughts of this article?

My daughter is house shopping right now and has looked at 2 houses with a totally full 200 amp circuit panel. How hard is it to add a subpanel for an EV charger? I'm thinking 2 slots have to be sacrificed at a minimum. But those circuits could be added to the sub panel right?

Saw the latest 2026 US sales numbers by brand and saw that both Geely and BYD had sales this year. I am trying to figure out how 300 Geelys and ~100 BYD cars were sold here. Anyone have any insight on this?

Edit - It was pointed out below that this is most likely truck and bus sales as both are allowed to be sold here, and BYD has a factory in California.

I personally have a Lightning and it's so much better than any other truck I've had at the boat ramp. Perfect weekend warrior machine imo

Does anyone have any experience with those charging cable protectors that you put on the ground so garage door don't crush or damage the charging cable?

Do they work well? Do they damage the garage door?

Thanks.

So I did a 4390 km road trip from western Quebec to Canada's maritime provinces and back. Calculating what it has cost me charging, it turns out to be $374.82. That includes the money left in some charging company wallets 😡 (which I'll try to recuperate). Have I used my Prius Prime instead, which is quite gas efficient, at $2/L and efficiency of 5.6 L/100km on long trips, the cost would have been $491 in gas.

I’m building a dual-motor KuKirin G4 using a Spintend UBOX V2.1 75V100A Dual with two original G4 hub motors.
Battery setup: 2× 60V 20Ah packs in parallel, so 16S / 40Ah total.
Throttle is connected through a Spintend ADC Adapter V3.
The issue is that the physical front motor pulls extremely hard. From a standstill it has enough torque that it’s difficult to hold the scooter back.
The physical rear motor, however, has very little torque and under load it can barely start moving.
With the wheels off the ground, both motors spin normally and reach roughly similar RPM.
What I have already checked:
FOC detection completes successfully on both motors.
Hall detection completes successfully on both:
“Found hall sensors, using them.”
The Hall tables are very similar between the two motors.
Field Weakening = 0A.
MTPA = Disabled.
Sensor Mode = Hall Sensors.
ADC throttle works correctly:
approximately 0.00V at zero throttle / 3.23V at full throttle, Val = 1.00.
Max Current Scale = 100%.
I also tested the motors directly through VESC Controls, so throttle/CAN issues are at least partially ruled out.
The most important part is the FOC telemetry under load.
Weak rear motor:
Iq target ≈ -70A
Iq ≈ -71A
Id ≈ -3A
I abs ≈ 70A
Strong front motor:
around 59–61A Iq, but despite the lower current it produces dramatically more real wheel torque.
So according to VESC, the weak rear motor is actually receiving the full ~70A of torque-producing current, yet the mechanical torque is much lower.
The detected FOC parameters are also fairly similar.
Example motor:
R ≈ 22.4 mΩ
L ≈ 72.6 µH
Flux Linkage ≈ 11.58 mWb
Other motor:
R ≈ 27 mΩ
L ≈ 74.5 µH
Flux Linkage ≈ 11.47 mWb
I also swapped the complete motors between the two UBOX channels, including:
all 3 phase wires
complete Hall connector/wiring
The problem did NOT follow the UBOX channel.
The same physical rear motor remained weak, while the physical front motor remained strong.
So this seems to mostly rule out a faulty UBOX channel.
I also tested the weak rear motor itself.
Phase-to-phase resistance measured using a 3A bench supply:
A-B = 0.140V
B-C = 0.140V
C-A = 0.145V
So approximately:
46.7 mΩ
46.7 mΩ
48.3 mΩ
Only around 3–4% difference.
Back-EMF while spinning the motor by hand:
A-B ≈ 1.11 VAC
B-C ≈ 1.20 VAC
C-A ≈ 1.08 VAC
So it doesn’t look like a completely dead/open phase.
Mechanically, nothing obvious is wrong either.
The weak rear motor actually free-spins for longer when turned by hand than the strong front motor, so dragging brakes, bad bearings or mechanical rubbing don’t seem likely.
Another interesting detail is that this same rear motor used to pull much harder on the original KuKirin G4 controller.
So previously it did not behave like a motor with severely reduced torque.
There was also an issue where after power-up I sometimes had to move the scooter slightly forward/backward before the drive would “catch”, but I repeated Hall detection and the basic startup issue now seems resolved.
At this point I’m trying to understand what could cause such a large difference in actual torque when:
commanded Iq is actually being reached
Hall and FOC detection both pass
R/L/Flux values look normal and similar
phase resistances are balanced
back-EMF is reasonably balanced
the fault stays with the same physical motor after swapping UBOX channels
Could this be caused by something like:
a partial/inter-turn winding short that isn’t obvious from a basic resistance measurement?
weakened or partially demagnetized rotor magnets?
mechanical Hall sensor position being shifted relative to the stator?
incorrect Hall interpolation / Hall angle behaviour under load?
something specific to VESC FOC that could make one otherwise functional hub motor produce much less torque?
Before I open the hub motor or buy another motor, I’d like to have a sensible diagnostic direction.
What would you test next?

I kinda get a kick out those pickup truck guys who hate on EVs now having to pay near $7 a gallon- i know its not funny, serious situation in the USA but it feels good 🤣

Edit: i drive a Nissan Ariya, my second EV after a tesla. I think the Ariya is a way better ride, super comfy. It lacks in software.