Mach E vs the Ioniq 5

[generaltso]

I like it a lot, but I think it will be a while before they're readily available. I'll see where they are when I'm ready for a new car in 3 years.

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[SteelMach]

On an extended power outage, I'm not sure how I'd feel about leaving my car discharged, with no way to leave the house after powering the house for some limited amount of time. So you'd have a dead house and a dead car, and then what?

You'd be able to configure the discharge limit at all times, just like you can configure the charge limit today.

 

[SteelMach]

Yea, I'm not sure I get the appeal of bidirectional charging. Perhaps I just don't get it.

Wouldn't it make more sense to get a power cell for your home?

Why when you already bought one when you bought the car?

Same reason only the most dedicated people carry a separate camera on vacation, why when your phone already has one?

 

[GoGoGadgetMachE]

interesting. I don't agree the shifter is "much better" - it feels like an example of weird for the sake of weird to me.

this won't be the first car they have with the pull in/out of parking bit (that's mentioned in the video I believe) so I expect that will work well. nice to have buttons on the fob but damn, another big brick fob to carry. (yes I know fobs are perfect and nobody ever has their phone and all apps suck and... save it, don't want to hear it)

800V is nice but it's not unique to them. We don't have it in the Mach-E and that might be a big problem in a while but right now, today, it's not really that big an issue.

the biggest potential here is to have another solid player at a "reasonable" price in the market.

 

[peoples1234]

Why when you already bought one when you bought the car?

Same reason only the most dedicated people carry a separate camera on vacation, why when your phone already has one?

I mean, I get what you are trying to say but using your camera on your phone doesn't have any real appreciable effect on the long-term health of the phone. Using your car occasionally as a backup probably wouldn't either, but to use it every day as a medium to gain peak usage advantages seems like you're adding a lot of unnecessary cycles.

Plus, the car would only supply power if it was plugged in, so what if you left and the power went out. Or if the power was out long term, but you wanted to leave. You're taking your battery pack with you, which is why a dedicated pack at your house seems to make more sense to me.

As I said, I can't see the real benefit/value for me right now. Obviously, you do. I'm keeping an open mind for other potential uses.

 

[SteelMach]

I mean, I get what you are trying to say but using your camera on your phone doesn't have any real appreciable effect on the long-term health of the phone. Using your car occasionally as a backup probably wouldn't either, but to use it every day as a medium to gain peak usage advantages seems like you're adding a lot of unnecessary cycles.

Plus, the car would only supply power if it was plugged in, so what if you left and the power went out. Or if the power was out long term, but you wanted to leave. You're taking your battery pack with you, which is why a dedicated pack at your house seems to make more sense to me.

As I said, I can't see the real benefit/value for me right now. Obviously, you do. I'm keeping an open mind for other potential uses.

Yeah I don't see those as limitations either, honestly. Pretty much the exact opposite haha

Using your car as a home battery won't have any real appreciable effect on the long-term health of the car either. And when the power goes out and you aren't home... then it doesn't impact you, because you... aren't home. I mean sure, the food in the fridge might spoil if it's off for too long, but how long would you be away from home? Most fridges are well insulated and since you're not home, it won't be opened until after you get home and plug in, thereby restoring power anyway.

A Tesla Powerwall is 13.5 kWh and $10k. A Mach-E is 88 kWh, and I've already paid for it.

One day, when used EV battery packs are so cheap that I can pick up a used Mach-E pack and hang it on my garage wall, sure then that might make sense. But I certainly wouldn't want to pay for a new battery just to keep the lights on when I am not home to see them.

 

[DBC]

True Bidirectional Charging, which VW is launching with all 2022 BEVs including ID.4, means that just by being plugged in (with a Bidirectional capable wallbox) the car can instantly take over the *entire* house in an outage, or be used for time-shifting your electricity consumption, storing homemade solar for use later, etc.

No. Not happening for a host of reasons, not the least of which is that code flatly prohibits an EV from feeding the house.

I'd say the 2 biggest things I'm most jealous of are the 800V system, and bidirectional charging. I have 2 EVs with over 100kW of power available in their cells, but no way to use that to power my home in case of emergency.

You still have to run extension cords to everything you want to keep running. Easier to just get a battery backup system. The Tesla Powerwall is great but I don't think Tesla is selling it separately anymore. There are alternatives though.

Of course you can hack the system of any EV for emergency power but you're limited by the 12v.

 

[SteelMach]

No. Not happening for a host of reasons, not the least of which is that code flatly prohibits an EV from feeding the house.

Someone ought to tell Lucid, VW, and a host of other automakers that will have bidirectional EVs on the roads of the US within the next year, then.

Just like when you have solar on the roof, you put an isolation box to prevent the house back-feeding into a dead grid. Problem solved. This is a total non-issue.

 

[milepost1]

And next week another car maker will announce they have the next big thing. The next new shiny thing i have to have now, next year will be a standard feature on most cars vs premium or exclusive features on 1 or 2 cars.

 

[gnaark]

Don't forget that Hyndai doesn't sell their EVs in non-ZEV states. Only 10 states can buy Hyundai vehicles. it's a major hassle and the car can be as cool as you want but you can actually buy the Mach-E in any state right now.

 

[CHeil402]

On an extended power outage, I'm not sure how I'd feel about leaving my car discharged, with no way to leave the house after powering the house for some limited amount of time. So you'd have a dead house and a dead car, and then what?

Also keep in mind that the battery packs in EV's are BIG. We tend not to think of that because we complain about low range, but compared to a house load an EV is big. Without my A/C running (which I can live without or raise the set point in an extended outage) my house uses about 17 kWh per day. The MME ER has 88 kWh, so that's over 5 days of power with no other changes to my behavior (keep using TV with all lights on and electric range for cooking).

Typical power outages tend not to be that long, and if it was between powering my fridge and lights for a day or saving 51 miles of range, I know what I'm picking.

To be fair, I have solar and 2 Powerwalls (13.5 kWh each = 27 kWh) but I would gladly switch cars to get this capability in an emergency extended outage (especially in the winter when solar isn't producing a ton). Look at what happened with the Texas power outages; having that capability would be a literal life saver for some.

 

[CHeil402]

Someone ought to tell Lucid, VW, and a host of other automakers that will have bidirectional EVs on the roads of the US within the next year, then.

Just like when you have solar on the roof, you put an isolation box to prevent the house back-feeding into a dead grid. Problem solved. This is a total non-issue.

Agreed. I'm interested to see how this is handled from a regulatory stand point, but this hasn't been an issue with whole home generators which face the same problem (albeit they are unidirectional, so easier to isolate).

An updated NEC to handle bi-directional EV's might require a new type of transfer switch (be it automatic or manual) such that the car can always be powered, but the car can only back-feed when isolated from the grid. Not as simple as just plugging in an EVSE, but certainly not a deal-breaker for those who want this feature to implement it safely. It definitely needs some planning (per the point of @DBC that it's not just a feature an EVSE can enable without modification), but certainly seems achievable in a short time frame (even if it takes a while for the NEC to catch up).

 

[Davedough]

The other vehicle based on this platform, the EV6 has a GT model coming out soon that, like the Mach E GT, claims 3.5 0-60. It definitely made me raise an eyebrow, but I'll be staying with my Mach E GT reservation for now

 

[jsteach]

Truth be told. Solar battery for the home are not of the same quality as ev car battery.
In fact for a while Tesla(Musk) was buying rejected cells for ev cars and was using them
for his power wall. Major Ev Researching has found the use of (cycling) ev car battery's are twice as long life as most home ev battery. So a 10 year old home Battery has 50 to 60% capacity to charge and a car ev battery has 75 to 80% capacity to recharge up to 20 years.
They did not mention Brand names of home battery use in there testing. There are plenty
of people out there with real knowledge, maybe they can weigh in.

 

[DBC]

Just like when you have solar on the roof, you put an isolation box to prevent the house back-feeding into a dead grid. Problem solved. This is a total non-issue.

Guess again. Yes you will need something to stop back feeding the grid but that's the starting point not the ending point. The box isn't just a switch, it's a piece of software. To get this approved you will need to rewire the main panel. Then you will need to get a signed interconnect agreement from the utility, which will of course require everything to be installed by a licensed electrician and inspected. Not to mention the box will have to be approved in the first place AND the national and local building codes will have to be amended.

Then you move on to the connectors. A J1772 connector and the dedicated circuit it's on likely won't support the power draw needed on startup. How are you going to connect to the box? Will there be a separate connector? How does that get approved? How large will the cable for the box be?

I can see a connector running to a box into which you can plug extension cords. That's bi-directional and doable. But plugging the car into the whole house? Not happening. Basically the less you know the simpler it all seems. IOW your "non-issue" is shorthand for "no-go".

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