Ev Experience

[lharris 0]

Just picked up my smart EV, first day. I wanted one in 2005 but could only buy the CDI, now I have a new 2014. I am excited. Only remaining question is where to retire the old smart though it's kind of neat seeing both of them parked side by side on my tiny driveway. I normally dirve about 304km/week so I suspect I should not have any day to day issues with the Level 1 charger especially since there is charging at work, but I may pickup a Level 2 anyways for home.

[turbomar 13]

Congrats on your ev purchase and welcome to the forum!

[Leadwing 565]

to the club. An EV should be perfect for your particular use.

[dpollo 8]

One month and 1100 kms now for me. Welcome, Leadwing. I hope you will enjoy your car as much as I have so far. I did not sell my '08 Pure.(70 000 kms) My daughter now has it. Three Point Motors offered me only $3850 on a trade. Their "appraiser " took over an hour, suggested that the tires were at 80% and did not check any of the boxes on the sheet.The tires were 2 weeks old with 500 kms ! I do not think this guy was an appraiser , but merely a wash boy brought in for the purpose of flim flamming the customer. I am still angry when I think about it. If there was an alternative dealership I would go there based on this experience alone. I am happy with the Electric but we used the gasser for a longer trip and I must say that I still enjoy driving it and that it is still in the family.I am making a list of warrantee items. Noisy LF wheel bearing, moisture in both the tail light housings and a speedometer which reads significantly higher than the ground speed. (almost 10 percent) . Rear glass needs to be slammed to shut and the screen for the roof does not fit well when closed. Minor items to be sure but the 08 had no such problems.

[MikeT 744]

Wow, that is a lot of problems straight out of the box. And the trade in game is a loser for the customer at all times, so I would never trade any car in, ever.

[swl 13]

I am making a list of warrantee items. Noisy LF wheel bearing, moisture in both the tail light housings and a speedometer which reads significantly higher than the ground speed. (almost 10 percent) . Rear glass needs to be slammed to shut and the screen for the roof does not fit well when closed. Minor items to be sure but the 08 had no such problems.

I don't think I have ever owned a car that had an accurate speedometer - all of them that I checked were in the range of 10% over. The subie is the closest with only 5%. Have not yet checked the ed but will at some point. Do you have the stock tires on? I'm wondering if they build in the 10% for tire variations. By leaving 10% over on the speedometer it means even with bigger tires you wouldn't be unknowingly breaking the speed limit. Mind you 10% is almost 2" so that is a lot of scope for variation. I too have the "slam the rear window" syndrome. The rubbers are new and the car is very air tight. Still I don't like having to force it.

[dpollo 8]

The speedometer issue was dismissed by the service rep with regard to my '08, but the 14 is too far out to tolerate. Tires are OEM.We have several other vehicles , our 12 Dodge Journey and '08 Dodge Ram have bang on accurate speedometers.My '50 Plymouth and my '35 Plymouth are within 3% fast which is a good safety margin. I have often changed speedo drive gears to achieve accuracy on older cars but wonder how this is done on modern electronic marvels.

[swl 13]

I have no idea how the modern speedo's work. I have a vision of it all being digital. If so the readings should directly relate to the spinning of the final drive - no variances amongst vehicles. I'll let you know when I check mine.

[swl 13]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpeedometerLooks like there should be no calibration available on electronic speedo's

Many modern speedometers are electronic. In designs derived from earlier eddy-current models, a rotation sensor mounted in the transmission delivers a series of electronic pulses whose frequency corresponds to the (average) rotational speed of the driveshaft, and therefore the vehicle's speed, assuming the wheels have full traction. The sensor is typically a set of one or more magnets mounted on the output shaft or (in transaxles) differential crownwheel, or a toothed metal disk positioned between a magnet and a magnetic field sensor. As the part in question turns, the magnets or teeth pass beneath the sensor, each time producing a pulse in the sensor as they affect the strength of the magnetic field it is measuring.[1] Alternatively, in more recent designs, some manufactures rely on pulses coming from the ABS wheel sensors.A computer converts the pulses to a speed and displays this speed on an electronically-controlled, analog-style needle or a digital display. Pulse information is also used for a variety of other purposes by the ECU or full-vehicle control system, e.g. triggering ABS or traction control, calculating average trip speed, or more mundanely to increment the odometer in place of it being turned directly by the speedometer cable.

[MikeT 744]

smarts use an average of the 4 wheel rotational speeds to generate a speedometer value.

[GoFaster 9]

... and they deliberately display about 10% higher than the mathematically-calculated road speed.

The speedo error is in there by design. Some speedometer error (displaying higher than actual) is required by the motor vehicle regulations; it's the manufacturer's choice to display even higher than that up to a certain allowable maximum, and 10% is within that maximum.

Just because the displayed speedometer speed is 10% high in NO way implies that the odometer is wrong, either. The needle is just a position on the dial that the electronics tell it to go to. The numbers on that background label can be anything they or you want them to be, with or without any connection with reality. It could be kilometers per hour, or parsecs per nanosecond, or a sequence of meaningless random characters, for all the car's electronics care.

[J&J 1]

and a speedometer which reads significantly higher than the ground speed. (almost 10 percent) . Rear glass needs to be slammed to shut and the screen for the roof does not fit well when closed. Minor items to be sure but the 08 had no such problems.

Our 08 and 09 smarts (with stock tires) both read 8 or 9% high on the speedo (compares to a Scangauge and a GPS), but the odometer is bang on. to do 50 we go 55, to go 90 we go 99, etc.

[MikeT 744]

Our diesel smarts both read 3-4% high.

[Alex 21]

Our diesel smarts both read 3-4% high.

Rana Smartii as well, in the present tense? How do you know it's still like that?(Sorry for that, I know you're still grieving. I've had some bad dreams lately about mine, I really hope I'm not prescient) Yes, as long as the odometer is accurate, the speedo is almost irrelevant.

[MikeT 744]

Well, read may be read as read or read!

[swl 13]

Here's some charge data:

Marc do you have enough data now with this logger that you can plot range versus temp?

I applied for the study but heard nothing back

[Graham 0]

Just checking in to see how the smarties are doing.One thought came to mind reading the energy consumption figures. Here in Ontario, energy costs are much higher than the 10.5c/kwh quoted for BC. Rough calculation indicates the $1.85 in BC may translate to over $3.00 in Ontario. Still better than a diesel and a lot better than a gasser. At least until they start taxing the kwh used for vehicles :(Hopefully EVs will cost less to maintain. Maybe they will get overtaken by technology before they wear out!Interesting to get first hand experience.Happy New Year smarties.Graham

[MikeT 744]

In effect, EVs don't pay road tax (gas tax) so one of these days, a little something special from governments to EV owners is to be expected.

[dpollo 8]

Alas, some things are too good to last, but if there are no incentives offered, there is no economic case to be made for the electric car unless you are a fleet owner located in a city.On a more positive note, I have had my electro-smart for 5 weeks now and 1400 kms. I am much more comfortable driving it and the range anxiety has abated. Not that one can afford to be complacent. The estimated distance to zero is the most important readout for me but I have yet to have the % of charge go below 20% I can often work the ECO scale up to 99% and occasionally 100%. I live at the top of a hill and it is interesting to note that there is no regenerative braking for the first kilometer out because the battery is at full charge. Today, my route took me from 450 feet in elevation to sea level and I covered about 6.5 kms on 2.5% of the charge. The advantage is lost when going home, ( at least it is not uphill both ways like when I had to walk to school.) Perhaps the most challenging aspect of ownership has been to get my CDs transferred onto a memory stick which plugs into the USB port located in the glove box...... for someone whose first cars had tube type radios which were AM only ... and remembers the HiWay Hi Fi record player offered in 56 and 57 Chrysler products, this is quite a challenge.I will have to admit that I am pleased with my purchase of the Smart EV but still harbour serious reservations about the dealership. However, that goes with the territory on auto row.

[swl 13]

In effect, EVs don't pay road tax (gas tax) so one of these days, a little something special from governments to EV owners is to be expected.

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-...aying-gas-taxes

[Pete 2]

Virginia State Senate repealed the "Prius Tax" back in January.

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-...hybrid-cars-tax

[SmartElectric 31]

. Here in Ontario, energy costs are much higher than the 10.5c/kwh quoted for BC. Rough calculation indicates the $1.85 in BC may translate to over $3.00 in Ontario.

Pardon? Ontario Hydro RatesMy routine charge is over night on L1 EVSE that came with the car, and I plug in around 6pm and finish charging at 4AM.So, the bulk of my recharge is at the time of use rate overnight at 7.2c/hwh, or course additional charges apply to the bill.Additionally, I pay for 100% renewable power from "BullFrog", which ends up costing me another $3 a month for my EV usage...nothing really.BullFrogPowerThis car is the absolute least expensive to run I have ever owned. Loving it.

[swl 13]

Pardon? Ontario Hydro RatesMy routine charge is over night on L1 EVSE that came with the car, and I plug in around 6pm and finish charging at 4AM.So, the bulk of my recharge is at the time of use rate overnight at 7.2c/hwh, or course additional charges apply to the bill.Additionally, I pay for 100% renewable power from "BullFrog", which ends up costing me another $3 a month for my EV usage...nothing really.BullFrogPowerThis car is the absolute least expensive to run I have ever owned. Loving it.

@smartelectric I too got sucked into Ontario Hydro's hype over power costs. You see that 7.2c everywhere! Truth is that is only the generation costs. When you look at your bill the true costs come out. Those 'additional charges' are far from being trivial.In my bill I have about $51 in 'electricity' costs. My bill however is $120! Most of that is in "Delivery" - $60. The rules governing these charges are almost as complex as Canadian Tax Laws. http://www.hydroone.com/RegulatoryAffairs/...iveryRates.aspxIf I follow it correctly there is a fixed component $24 + HST, and the rest seem to be per Kw/hr. The $24+ is already paid so shouldn't be included in the cost of operating the EV.So that says my per/kwh 'extra costs' can be calculated like this (hopefully my math is somewhere close).Bill - electricity costs - fixed component of delivery.120 - 51 - (24 +(.13*24)) 120 - 51 - 27$42This is for 628Kwh so 42/628= $0.067 or 6.7c/Kwh bringing the off peak rate to almost 14c/kwh!YMMV

[marchanna 115]

My average rate per KwH is 14.3 cents all in.

[marchanna 115]

My total cost/kwh off peak is 10.8 cents - kwh+delivery+tax-10% discount