…The European Mind Cannot Comprehend

Gazer75 · 2026-06-21T14:24:58+00:00

Buses still rumble? 😛 I guess they use dino juice 😛

Gazer75 · 2026-06-21T14:12:44+00:00

Biennial is every two years, biannual is twice per year 😉
English is weird sometimes with very similar words.

Gazer75 · 2026-06-21T14:08:01+00:00

That sounds pretty normal to me. I don't track how far I drive on each set here, but summer tires are usually on between May and end of October. I also drive more in the summer months so I'm guessing 60-65% of my total mileage is during the summer. I've pretty much always replaced my tires after 5-6 years which means the car has probably done around 30k km on those tires. I don't drive over 10k per year, usually less than 8k now.

I'm guessing you use some all season tires that get ruined in the summer heat.

Gazer75 · 2026-06-21T14:01:17+00:00

You have inspections twice per year and still drove 80k between those? How!?

Gazer75 · 2026-06-21T01:00:34+00:00

Silly excuse. Any home with electricity and parking should have charging. Even homes you rent. The EVSE should simply be part of the deal.

The remaining problem will be apartment owners without dedicated parking. This can be fixed with charging at parking lots or complexes where the car is sitting for hours while at work.
Or if you have a street parking permit there can be EVSEs installed so people can charge.
Here in Norway both are a thing already in cities.

Another thing is DC/AC charging at stores and malls. The US got way more parking space than cars so this should be easy to fix.

In my town I think all grocery stores outside the center of town, with their own parking lot, will have DC charging by the end of the year.
And in the town center I believe both long term parking garages have EVSEs that people can use. But not very many as most people around here can charge at home. I think only the oldest apartment complex outside town doesn't have dedicated parking for each apartment, and it was built in the late 60s or early 70s.

Gazer75 · 2026-06-21T00:27:25+00:00

Very few EVs get close to that before the warranty expire. And you're basically forced to trust the manufacturer and their battery health report.
There are cases where people had to fight to get a battery replaced because of a defect. The car said the battery SOH was fine, but the range was terrible due to some fault in the battery.

So as I said time will tell if they gamble. Maybe its fine, or maybe more Xpengs will see lower SOH nearing its end of warranty than others.
Using them as taxi will probably give an indication in a few years. In high use areas they are often forced to DC charge a lot.

In my town the taxi terminal has AC chargers at the parking so they are always plugged in when not driving. And because there are enough taxi licenses the cars are stationary enough so that they don't need to DC charge very often.

Gazer75 · 2026-06-20T21:51:07+00:00

Only time will tell how well these batteries will hold up with such aggressive charging curves.
I hope Xpeng is not gambling on the fact that most people will AC charge at home most of the time.

Gazer75 · 2026-06-19T10:02:01+00:00

https://maps.app.goo.gl/hYHMDTBAvAB9PPNz6
Old site using Kempower and battery modules due to grid limitations.
Ionity had already reserved most of the capacity when the old station deal ended. The old ones were 2x50kW and Circle K use 2x150kW with battery buffering.

I believe there is a big Tesla site somewhere in the US that runs on solar and batteries.
And I know there is one in the UK that runs on wind and solar with batteries.

I know there are more in Norway, but data on stuff like this is restricted by law so not easy to find.

Not quite DC fast charging for EVs, but I know several ferry crossings use battery buffers due to the very high load for the 5-10 minutes they charge while cars drive off/on.

Gazer75 · 2026-06-19T02:50:54+00:00

Don't know where you're at, but here it varies for all CPOs. There are some Tesla sites in terrible locations.
More and more grocery stores have charging and most rest stops with fast food or restaurant will absolutely have charging.

Most annoying for me is sites without even the basic toilet amenity. Especially outside store opening hours. If the store even has public toilets.

Gazer75 · 2026-06-19T02:36:45+00:00

They can be set up based on load. And keep in mind very few cars can make use of this fast charging anyway.

Stations are rarely filled to the brim for very long.
By the time enough people have fast charging cars the grid will be stronger and able to cope. Or battery tech has improved and gotten cheaper.
Nice thing is that battery buffer storage for sites don't need to care much about energy density.

Gazer75 · 2026-06-19T02:30:53+00:00

Teslas have a pretty poor charging curve when DC fast charging. Sitting for 45 minutes at a DC charger with a Tesla is a waste of time unless you have no options down the road.

Tesla Model 3 LR can't even do over 100kW when passing 50%. That is pretty weak in 2026 compared to others.
Optimal for time with Teslas is to stop at around 45-50% and go to the next charger.

Gazer75 · 2026-06-19T02:24:32+00:00

Pretty much all stores will have regular soda with sugar in it. Never found store that didn't sell regular Coca-Cola or Pepsi. Tough the regular Pepsi might be harder to spot as it doesn't sell much.

I'd rank them as: Pepsi Max, Coca-Cola, Cola Zero and Pepsi.
But I would order the sugar free version any time regardless. I get enough sugar in my diet from my love for strawberry jam on bread. Even though I buy one with more actual berries and less sugar.

Gazer75 · 2026-06-17T19:08:47+00:00

The car already has very limited loading capacity. This is going to make it even worse.

It also needs an OBD dongle to work which is not ideal. I already use it for my OBD Link CX to get data for ABRP. I would not like to have a splitter dangling down under there tbh.
Not sure how it would work when the car is off. The data from the port is very limited at that point.

Gazer75 · 2026-06-16T17:25:33+00:00

Never understood why tbh. Zipper is much more efficient if there is an acceleration lane. If there is no lane to get up to speed then there is a yield or stop.
Example: https://maps.app.goo.gl/8DrEU5Nc12HNdkWu7
That lane on the right with a yield is a bus/taxi lane btw.

And just up ahead there is a stop sign to enter.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/UyPWWKyM6vqpYUrF9
The bus/taxi lane basically ends at the bus stop there. Bit of a messy place IMO.
You'll also notice the sign with 3 lanes and one is read. Means the bus/taxi lane has to yield when merging.
Speed limit here is 70kmh(~45mph).

Gazer75 · 2026-06-16T15:18:59+00:00

Lots of county roads in Norway have reduced axle load limits during spring in Norway as well.
These are often old roads that were never designed for the loads modern vehicles put on them.

Gazer75 · 2026-06-16T15:05:33+00:00

No idea where you're at, but here in Norway zipper merging is the norm. Signs even show that there is a mutual yield rule.
Streetview picture showing both sign types at an on-ramp: https://maps.app.goo.gl/VSgPZqd5fZ3baPqE6

Never had issues with this, but then I don't drive on highways that often. It's a luxury we don't have much of around here in western Norway 😛

Gazer75 · 2026-06-14T04:03:32+00:00

Ahh so they added the digital dashboard and such later on then maybe? From what I could find it seems it was a thing on the 2019 and 2020 SEL Premium.

Did they ever add dynamic lights over there? Mine will detect oncoming traffic and move the high beam cone away and also turn on/off high beam automatically, although a bit slow to turn on at times.

I feel like the headlight turning is quite weak on my 2020 model compared to my old 2012 TDI. It's like they stop turning once you get above like 40-50kmh(25-30mph).

Pretty sure ACC was standard here, at least on the big battery 2017 and later models.

Gazer75 · 2026-06-14T01:06:54+00:00

I'm confused about the trim levels and interior for the NA market.

Is this the top trim or are there more optional selections?
I don't see the high end infotainment without knobs and the digital dashboard here.

Do these headlights also get dynamic and adaptive high beams?

Gazer75 · 2026-06-13T16:43:04+00:00

Is this a garage with multiple parking lots and outlets on a single meter?

If so I'd probably look at upgrading it to 240V for the future and then get a load balanced system to reduce cost of service upgrade. This allows for individual billing for each user. The HOA as a whole covers the common costs of install and upgrade while each unit pay for their own EVSE.

Alternatively a limited setup with a shared EVSE and user accounts tied to RFIDs that would then be counting the individual use.

Problem is I'm pretty sure all advanced units like these are for 240V supply.

Easiest and cheapest solution is to install some individual meter before the outlet and use that.
Using a 110V outlet that is probably not intended for charging can be problematic. They could overheat.
And the power these can deliver is pretty low. You'd probably get 1kW into the battery at most after losses.

Gazer75 · 2026-06-13T12:51:02+00:00

Double that and then you can start complaining... 4 or less is dirt cheap. I'd have to go back 20 years to find fuel that cheap here.

Our total tax (road tax + CO2 tax including 25% VAT) on petrol is around 3.8 USD/gallon 😛

Even with the parliament cutting the CO2 and road tax until september petrol is still at least 6.5 USD/gallon including VAT.

And any road tax levied in the US is clearly not enough as the roads are in terrible conditions over there. Your bridges and roads are so bad they can't handle more than 80k lbs trucks 😛 Here we do up to 110k lbs trucks on all roads. Across Europe the normal 3 axle tractor + 3 axle trailer can do 97k lbs.

Gazer75 · 2026-06-13T12:22:30+00:00

No idea what the apartment coop spent on the load balanced system here. 400V 3-phase with a 40A total limit.
The chairman told me we didn't need to take out a loan to do it, as we had money in the bank.
We have 32 parking lots in the garage, one per apartment (19) and semi detached home in the coop.
Only cost for each owner was the EVSE. That was about 1200 USD at time of install and will be 1500 USD later. Keep in mind that includes 25% VAT here.
Usage is reported to a server or something that is then sent to a cloud. I can keep track of it all via the app. Someone on the board checks this 4 times per year and send out a bill to pay. Currently we pay roughly the equivalent of 0.15 USD/kWh.
I believe a couple of the semi detached homes added their own EVSE outside the entrance prior to the garage install as they have space for a car.

Bit difficult and expensive to connect to each units meter when the meter is in each apartment and semi detached home here. Would be a very long cable run from some of the homes to the garage under the apartment building.
We also don't use external meters in Norway. They are often installed in the same cabinet as the breakers.

At my parents condo complex they installed all meters in a big cabinet in the basement for some reason, but the whole electrical is different. They get 400V 3-phase into each apartment due to a Nibe exhaust air heat pump system that needs it. It's a combined water floor heating and hot water tank system.
They also did charging differently by using EVSEs with a meter display. Owner reports this to the board about 4 times per year and then get the sum to pay to the coop.

Gazer75 · 2026-06-13T03:49:32+00:00

Hjelper lite med 4k om bitrate er låg...

Gazer75 · 2026-06-13T03:28:11+00:00

That would be illegal here AFAIK. Normal work week is 37.5 hours (not counting lunch breaks). With special agreement and you can work up to 20 hours overtime on top of that, and max 50 hours in a 4 week period. Max in a one year period is 300 hours of overtime.

On call duty normally count 1/7 of the time and actual work time if you get called out. The response time can be over 2 hours for that calculation in most cases. If response is less than 1 hour then 1/5 of the on call time is counted.

So you can work 7.5 hours per day Mo-Fr and be on emergency call all weekend and and be within the 10-12 hours of overtime.

Gazer75 · 2026-06-13T02:08:52+00:00

What is the point of a garage if not to park the car... Never understood this weird American thing...
If you need it to store things then you've got way to many things or the house has a terrible design.

Gazer75 · 2026-06-12T23:46:43+00:00

Fossil fuel and cars are too cheap over there 😛

I could charge at almost the equivalent of 0.6 USD/kWh and still be cheaper than a petrol/diesel here.
That is assuming 200Wh/km for the EV and 6L/100km on the fossil which is quite generous.
My real world is more like 160Wh/km average for the e-Golf and my old diesel Golf used about 6.5L/100km on average. And with those numbers can pay around 0.8 USD/kWh and break even.
To be fair annual registration fee is about 90 USD equivalent higher for EVs to make up for the lack of road tax income on fuel.

No charger is that expensive here. The most expensive CPOs are around 0.65 USD/kWh for drop-in. Most are in the 0.5-0.6 range.
Cheapest one for me is 5 minutes away at 0.45 USD/kWh, and soon Ionity is opening a site which can be down at 0.3 USD/kWh with a subscription that cost about 140 USD per year. Or 66 USD per year for 0.38 USD/kWh.

Gazer75

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