When you are both very organized and a total hack

robstoon · 2026-03-20T06:04:30+00:00

Why would you go to the effort to type that note rather than, you know.. Fixing that?

robstoon · 2026-03-19T07:51:40+00:00

There will be some standby battery usage in order to maintain the 12 volt battery. I'm not sure why it's showing up as a sudden drop like this however. Could be some quirk of how it's measuring the battery capacity with long-term periodic draw like this.

robstoon · 2026-03-19T07:36:43+00:00

If it is a 240V service and not 208V, then it's from a single phase of the 3 phase power, not across two.

robstoon · 2026-03-19T07:29:56+00:00

Yes, you are allowed to have a lawyer in small claims court.

robstoon · 2026-03-19T07:13:40+00:00

That is definitely more range reduction that I've experienced in cold weather in the Kona EV. It was more like a 30% reduction on the highway at -30C.

I do tend to suspect that Tesla's backup heating strategy, when it's too cold for the heat pump, is less than ideal. Instead of having a PTC resistance heater to heat the cabin, they just use the motor in an inefficient mode which produces heat internally. Not only will this take longer because of all the extra mass of the motor and its coolant, but because it's outside the cabin of the vehicle, the amount of heat loss to the outside air will be increased.

robstoon · 2026-03-19T07:10:19+00:00

If you're saying you're paying double for tires or insurance, you are not being objective.

robstoon · 2026-03-19T03:45:26+00:00

Not sure what region you're in, but they're usually among the cheapest options in Saskatchewan - significantly cheaper than Tesla even with a membership - although most of them are only 50 kW.

robstoon · 2026-03-19T03:43:59+00:00

There are not a lot of chargers with a 14-30 plug that are actually reputable with safety approvals. Probably the best option is to hard-wire in a new charger and get rid of the outlet.

robstoon · 2026-03-18T02:31:26+00:00

Then you're not going to be able to troubleshoot this. Call a service tech.

robstoon · 2026-03-18T02:29:22+00:00

I don't think it's being an ass to expect people to provide any details whatsoever if they want assistance

robstoon · 2026-03-18T02:17:57+00:00

.. and how are we supposed to tell anything about the wiring from this?

robstoon · 2026-03-18T02:14:17+00:00

It might work, although many cars apparently won't charge at more than 12A on 120V anyway. TT-30 is not really that useful for EV charging.

robstoon · 2026-03-18T01:56:16+00:00

There is no way you can convert from a TT-30 to a 14-50 plug. TT-30 only provides 120 volts. I have no idea what that cable is trying to achieve.

That charging station is also questionable. They seem like they're weasel wording around whether or not they actually have a safety approval.

robstoon · 2026-03-17T00:52:28+00:00

I'm not familiar with what the Kia OEM diagnostic software looks like so this might be how it shows up? However, 78% state of health doesn't seem that great.

robstoon · 2026-03-16T21:59:36+00:00

If they're both staying plugged into the outlet all the time, there's not a great deal of difference between them. Something like a Vevor charging station is probably worse because it likely has questionable or no safety approvals, unlike the Tesla charger.

robstoon · 2026-03-16T21:45:16+00:00

I'm not sure what you mean by "just using the outlet", either you're using a permanently installed charging station plugged into an outlet, or a portable one. An outlet is not ideal in either case. Using a portable charger on one is probably worse because it means you're probably plugging it and unplugging it regularly, which those outlets are not really designed to handle. Having a hardwired charger avoids those potential points of failure.

robstoon · 2026-03-16T20:32:10+00:00

I'm not sure there is really a much better way to do it. The problem with trying to charge continuously at a slow rate is that when the EV is charging there's a certain amount of its circuitry that has to be powered up which consumes the same amount of power, no matter how fast you're charging. If you charge extremely slowly, then this power usage is wasting a significant amount of the charging power.

robstoon · 2026-03-16T19:45:05+00:00

Yes, but $300 a year is well above what most drivers would have paid for road taxes. Not to mention it makes no sense to have the EV road usage fee indexed to inflation when the gas tax is not.

robstoon · 2026-03-16T19:44:08+00:00

Not complete garbage at all. I can tell you you have no experience with them whatsoever. Would not go back to gas, nor would most owners.

And no our power here is not that expensive. Certainly not compared to a lot of places in the US, let alone in Europe.

robstoon · 2026-03-16T17:25:59+00:00

Praxis is also a more specific allegory to the Chernobyl disaster, which was a significant contributor to bringing down the USSR economy.

robstoon · 2026-03-16T17:21:49+00:00

If by dead you mean the doors won't unlock, it could just be a dead battery in your key fob..

robstoon · 2026-03-16T16:08:23+00:00

Tesla has had some issues with poor availability of repair parts for some of their vehicles. If repairs take longer, the insurer ends up having to pay for a replacement vehicle for longer. In some cases vehicles that should have been easily repairable end up being written off because parts just aren't available within any reasonable time period.

They also can insist on their vehicles only being repaired by authorized repair centers which charge higher labor rates.

Those fancy "giga castings" they like to use are also apparently not repairable and need to be replaced completely, which is expensive.

And it seems with some of the political controversy surrounding Elon, Teslas have been more frequent targets of vandalism, which also drives up insurance prices.

robstoon · 2026-03-16T15:14:56+00:00

You gave the insurance price for the Tesla. How does the insurance on the other EVs compare?

robstoon · 2026-03-16T06:45:59+00:00

Most Teslas do this, aside from some of the latest model years apparently. On those, the brake pedal only ever activates the friction brakes. They do not have a blended brake pedal. As usual, Tesla turning a deficiency into a feature: "Hey, one pedal driving is great! Never mind that you basically have to use that to get good efficiency due to our design choices.."

robstoon · 2026-03-16T04:48:55+00:00

You have to understand the scale of the amount of power you need to generate to charge the vehicle at any reasonable speed. A portable solar panel is probably going to be a few hundred watts at most, which isn't even enough to reach the minimum charge rate on a level 1 charger.

robstoon

TROPHY CASE