Cross shopping w Lucid

[daveo4EV]

the power loss to my knowledge has nothing to do with BMS - it has pretty decisively been related to running of on board electronics so that the Tesla remains connected, online, and accessible to the Tesla app - my Model S/X had a setting to reduce vampire drain but the trade off was that it would take longer to "connect to the vehicle" when it was asleep…

claiming this is related to BMS/battery management is "generous" apology in my opinion - it's quite simply a cost of doing business for an "always" on system…

there is also more data points that if you managed to convince the vehicle/Tesla that there is no hope in connecting to the internet (parking garage with no signal) it eventually gives up until you wake it up manually and when it's given up - vampire drain is far less

also it's keeping a blutooth radio awake for phone as key functionality, and video camera's for sentry mode…

there is soooo much stuff running while a Tesla is parked - the drain is simply the cost of doing business to keep all that connectivity and monitoring systems running.

BMS activity is a stretch…

Sponsored

 

[JonS1234]

That’s a totally fair position to take. However you would have to agree that this isn’t accidental, it was a design decision and a compound benefit of doing it “could” be the cells are constantly on the move.

Every system design decision will have trade offs. I’m just not willing to accept that Tesla ignored this as a “cost of doing business” after 10+ years of designing electric powertrains.

 

[daveo4EV]

That’s a totally fair position to take. However you would have to agree that this isn’t accidental, it was a design decision and a compound benefit of doing it “could” be the cells are constantly on the move.

Every system design decision will have trade offs. I’m just not willing to accept that Tesla ignored this as a “cost of doing business” after 10+ years of designing electric powertrains.

the most I'll grant them on this angle is "happy coincidence" or something we have to do anyways might have some beneficial side-effects - and even referring to them as "beneficial" is generous…

the simple fact of the matter is the major characteristic of battery life is charge/discharge cycles - therefore the best case for a battery is the minimum amount of charging/discharging

so compare two cars over several years

car #1: is high optimized to _ONLY_ use power when "moving" and uses NO/ZERO/NONE power when it's not moving or explicitly "on" (hypothetical) - drive it once a week for 5 years - charge it after each "drive" - 5 * 52 = 260 charge/discharge cycles

car #2 - uses power just sitting there - you are constantly discharging the cells, and then you need to drive it - but you'll need to charge it more frequently because power is drained from it - so you'll need to replace that power to drive it the same distance as car #1 - it will have MORE charge/discharge cycles over the same period of time and same number of miles - it HAS to…car #1 will move fewer kWh in/out of it's battery vs. car #2's kWh's through it's battery = more kWh's of power = more charging/discharging cycles - one battery will have aged more/less than the other - there is no way around that fact - using a battery less = longer life over time - using it more = short life over time…cell balancing in this scenario is weak sauce in my opinon…

my Tesla's would lose 2-3% every 24 hours - during the pandemic my Tesla once sat for 2 weeks with out being driven - 14 days * 3% = or 42% power loss over a 2 week period - 250 mile range on a full charge = 42% of 250 miles = 105 driving miles lost just sitting there

that means annually you're losing 42% battery 26 times a year or 1092% battery capacity annually…

Tesla's battery's are about 80 kWh - so annually the vampire drain is about 873 kWh or nearly a megawatt of power

over the 8 year life of the battery - that's 6988 kWh additional load in/out of the battery to run all the systems…

100,000 mile warranty @ 3.8 miles/kwh = 26,315 kWh in/out of the battery to drive 100,000 miles.

if it takes 8 years to drive 100,000 miles that vampire drain of 6988 kwh will be part of that 26,315 kWh since it will show up in the overall efficiency numbers of 3.8 mile/kWh…

6988 kWh / 26,315 kWh = about 25% of the kWh's in/out of the battery - the battery has been run harder to the tune of about 25% of the battery total life has nothing to do with moving the vehicle.

Tesla's willing to warranty the battery for about 27,000 kWh in/out…wonder how long they could warranty it if there wasn't any vampire drain - because at the end of the day - battery life = charge/discharge cycle count - and kWh's in and kWh's out _IS_ the result of charge/discharge cycles…if you run an "odometer" on kWh's in/out - your BMS system can determine the age of the cell's and their likely life span - vampire drain is a constant load of kWh's "out" - which must be put back "in"…it's decreasing the cycle count…pure and simple - it can't work any other way.

so Tesla's vampire drain which is a cost of doing business to have all those consumer grade computers running doing neat and useful things (honest true useful and fun and neat and industry leading) - is cycling the battery harder than a car that sits there with no drain on the main battery - it's a fact…

honestly I think ultimately the all the other manufacturers are going to need to add the same types of drains to have the same level of functionality - but rather than "load" the main LiON battery - perhaps this argues for a bigger/deeper/higher-capacity 12V to run all this stuff while it's off - so you don't cycle the LiON battery as much keeping the 12V system topped off…and bonus maybe you make it so the 12V is big enough to run systems for 1 or 2 weeks - on the assumption car will be plugged in at least once, and if possible you top off the 12V from the AC power source when possible, and only use the 400/800V LiON battery when there is no external power source. to decrease the drain on the main battery which equals driving range...

NOTE: for those paying attention and playing along at home - there is NO free lunch here - a bigger 12V battery to manage the vampire drain does not remove the power conusmption and therefore the kWh costs of running all this computer fancy stuff - but it will move the load to a different bucket and shift the load "off" the LiON battery potentially increasing it's "duty cycle" - but over the life of the car the total kWh's consumed will still be higher for the awake car with computers and connectivity vs. a car that is dead/asleep and slow to wake up…there is no free lunch here - only shifting power-cycling to different columns on the ledger…

my opinion - vampire drain of 25% over the life of the vehicle offsets to the negative any "happy benefits" of cell balancing - ultimately I'd rather have that 7000 kwh's for "driving" - which would be another 26,000 miles of driving for the same "load" on the battery - or about another 2.5 years worth of battery life - across a fleet of several million vehicle's - that is huge savings in terms of materials, labor, and over all vehicle life cycle if you can reduce or eliminate vampire drain.

 

[Mr.Smith]

the most I'll grant them on this angle is "happy coincidence" or something we have to do anyways might have some beneficial side-effects - and even referring to them as "beneficial" is generous…

the simple fact of the matter is the major characteristic of battery life is charge/discharge cycles - therefore the best case for a battery is the minimum amount of charging/discharging

so compare two cars over several years

car #1: is high optimized to _ONLY_ use power when "moving" and uses NO/ZERO/NONE power when it's not moving or explicitly "on" (hypothetical) - drive it once a week for 5 years - charge it after each "drive" - 5 * 52 = 260 charge/discharge cycles

car #2 - uses power just sitting there - you are constantly discharging the cells, and then you need to drive it - but you'll need to charge it more frequently because power is drained from it - so you'll need to replace that power to drive it the same distance as car #1 - it will have MORE charge/discharge cycles over the same period of time and same number of miles - it HAS to…car #1 will move fewer kWh in/out of it's battery vs. car #2's kWh's through it's battery = more kWh's of power = more charging/discharging cycles - one battery will have aged more/less than the other - there is no way around that fact - using a battery less = longer life over time - using it more = short life over time…cell balancing in this scenario is weak sauce in my opinon…

my Tesla's would lose 2-3% every 24 hours - during the pandemic my Tesla once sat for 2 weeks with out being driven - 14 days * 3% = or 42% power loss over a 2 week period - 250 mile range on a full charge = 42% of 250 miles = 105 driving miles lost just sitting there

that means annually you're losing 42% battery 26 times a year or 1092% battery capacity annually…

Tesla's battery's are about 80 kWh - so annually the vampire drain is about 873 kWh or nearly a megawatt of power

over the 8 year life of the battery - that's 6988 kWh additional load in/out of the battery to run all the systems…

100,000 mile warranty @ 3.8 miles/kwh = 26,315 kWh in/out of the battery to drive 100,000 miles.

if it takes 8 years to drive 100,000 miles that vampire drain of 6988 kwh will be part of that 26,315 kWh since it will show up in the overall efficiency numbers of 3.8 mile/kWh…

6988 kWh / 26,315 kWh = about 25% of the kWh's in/out of the battery - the battery has been run harder to the tune of about 25% of the battery total life has nothing to do with moving the vehicle.

Tesla's willing to warranty the battery for about 27,000 kWh in/out…wonder how long they could warranty it if there wasn't any vampire drain - because at the end of the day - battery life = charge/discharge cycle count - and kWh's in and kWh's out _IS_ the result of charge/discharge cycles…if you run an "odometer" on kWh's in/out - your BMS system can determine the age of the cell's and their likely life span - vampire drain is a constant load of kWh's "out" - which must be put back "in"…it's decreasing the cycle count…pure and simple - it can't work any other way.

so Tesla's vampire drain which is a cost of doing business to have all those consumer grade computers running doing neat and useful things (honest true useful and fun and neat and industry leading) - is cycling the battery harder than a car that sits there with no drain on the main battery - it's a fact…

honestly I think ultimately the all the other manufacturers are going to need to add the same types of drains to have the same level of functionality - but rather than "load" the main LiON battery - perhaps this argues for a bigger/deeper/higher-capacity 12V to run all this stuff while it's off - so you don't cycle the LiON battery as much keeping the 12V system topped off…and bonus maybe you make it so the 12V is big enough to run systems for 1 or 2 weeks - on the assumption car will be plugged in at least once, and if possible you top off the 12V from the AC power source when possible, and only use the 400/800V LiON battery when there is no external power source. to decrease the drain on the main battery which equals driving range...

NOTE: for those paying attention and playing along at home - there is NO free lunch here - a bigger 12V battery to manage the vampire drain does not remove the power conusmption and therefore the kWh costs of running all this computer fancy stuff - but it will move the load to a different bucket and shift the load "off" the LiON battery potentially increasing it's "duty cycle" - but over the life of the car the total kWh's consumed will still be higher for the awake car with computers and connectivity vs. a car that is dead/asleep and slow to wake up…there is no free lunch here - only shifting power-cycling to different columns on the ledger…

my opinion - vampire drain of 25% over the life of the vehicle offsets to the negative any "happy benefits" of cell balancing - ultimately I'd rather have that 7000 kwh's for "driving" - which would be another 26,000 miles of driving for the same "load" on the battery - or about another 2.5 years worth of battery life - across a fleet of several million vehicle's - that is huge savings in terms of materials, labor, and over all vehicle life cycle if you can reduce or eliminate vampire drain.

Excellent breakdown.
No free lunch needs to applied to Tesla more often


I cancelled my lucid order yesterday. Got the refund the next day

 

[daveo4EV]

https://www.yahoo.com/autos/every-2022-lucid-air-recalled-171700925.html

 

[submatrix]

https://www.yahoo.com/autos/every-2022-lucid-air-recalled-171700925.html

This is the first pic of the Lucid that actually looks decent to me, at least from this angle. All the other two toned variations with champagne/burgundy and such looked horrible imho.

 

[ramib]

Thanks everyone for the input!...so....I saw a Lucid in the "wild" over the weekend. And I decided I just don't love it - the design just doesn't do it for me, whereas every time I see a Taycan with those mission E wheels I get a you know what...Cancelled my Lucid order and put in an order for a '23 GTS. I figured since a 23 MY with no mark up costs the same as a used 2020 turbo, it is a better value + will likely address some of the earlier issues. Downside is 10-12 months wait (!) but my model 2020 Model S has only 20K miles on it and there's absolutely little reason to get rid of it now anyway.
So excited!

 

[Kingske]

 

[Kayone73]

Interesting this topic came up again, I had the opportunity to arrange a test drive of the Lucid Air Gran Turismo trim thanks to a friend who already has ordered a car, went to the Lucid showroom in Beverly Hills where I was greeted by the sales associate who gave me a quick tour of their flagship showroom and then had a nice half hr test drive on a combination of freeway and local streets, both on horrible as well as smooth pavement:

My overall thoughts on the test drive: I was always kind of a fan of the Lucid Air from the first articles and reviews I watched on the internet, and I'll be honest if I was looking for a larger luxury EV sedan with some performance capabilites but the primary focus was to ride in style, comfort with good interior and storage design befitting of a dedicated new EV platform, the Air ranks high on my list, easily over the Benz EQS or the Tesla Model S. I feel like the car strikes a pretty good balance between luxury and performance. The exterior looks are take it or leave but I've grown to really like the exterior design quirks. Some call it a snooze fest and even I thought the same when I first saw one in person but now I grown to like it's low key more alien looks. At least it sets itself apart from the endless sea of Tesla's out there.

 

[Mr.Smith]

Interesting this topic came up again, I had the opportunity to arrange a test drive of the Lucid Air Gran Turismo trim thanks to a friend who already has ordered a car, went to the Lucid showroom in Beverly Hills where I was greeted by the sales associate who gave me a quick tour of their flagship showroom and then had a nice half hr test drive on a combination of freeway and local streets, both on horrible as well as smooth pavement:

My overall thoughts on the test drive: I was always kind of a fan of the Lucid Air from the first articles and reviews I watched on the internet, and I'll be honest if I was looking for a larger luxury EV sedan with some performance capabilites but the primary focus was to ride in style, comfort with good interior and storage design befitting of a dedicated new EV platform, the Air ranks high on my list, easily over the Benz EQS or the Tesla Model S. I feel like the car strikes a pretty good balance between luxury and performance. The exterior looks are take it or leave but I've grown to really like the exterior design quirks. Some call it a snooze fest and even I thought the same when I first saw one in person but now I grown to like it's low key more alien looks. At least it sets itself apart from the endless sea of Tesla's out there.

Your thoughts on ride quality and chassis compared to the Taycan?

 

[Kayone73]

Your thoughts on ride quality and chassis compared to the Taycan?

Depends on what exactly you mean by ride quality (performance vs comfort?).

I'm guessing you mean performance, well on this test drive I was obviously not taking it on the track or doing proper canyon carving in the mountains with multiple but it seemed like a pretty solid and well tuned chassis from driving it in Sport mode, did not wallow or Bob like a luxury boat. Very planted and composed. Obviously I have no idea what it would be like driving it on the edge of grip but that's also not what this car is designed for. I would imagine that the Taycan had the superior edge in limit handling by a long mile.

If you're asking comfort and smoothness of ride, the active dampers in its most comfortable setting is great and it easily steamrolls over some of the absolute garbage roads we took on the test drive, probably better than the Taycan would even in its most comfy setting. In in most aggressive sport mode the susp feel was definitely stiffer.

Overall the cabin of the Lucid Air was a really nice place to be.

I don't know if I answered your question.

 

[hitmonlee]

Depends on what exactly you mean by ride quality (performance vs comfort?).

I'm guessing you mean performance, well on this test drive I was obviously not taking it on the track or doing proper canyon carving in the mountains with multiple but it seemed like a pretty solid and well tuned chassis from driving it in Sport mode, did not wallow or Bob like a luxury boat. Very planted and composed. Obviously I have no idea what it would be like driving it on the edge of grip but that's also not what this car is designed for. I would imagine that the Taycan had the superior edge in limit handling by a long mile.

If you're asking comfort and smoothness of ride, the active dampers in its most comfortable setting is great and it easily steamrolls over some of the absolute garbage roads we took on the test drive, probably better than the Taycan would even in its most comfy setting. In in most aggressive sport mode the susp feel was definitely stiffer.

Overall the cabin of the Lucid Air was a really nice place to be.

I don't know if I answered your question.

Great write-up! Thanks for sharing.

While I certainly don't blame Lucid and MB for prioritizing drag coefficient/range, I personally don't mind sacrificing a little bit of range for a better exterior. IMHO Taycan just looks way better from the outside.

 

[Kayone73]

Great write-up! Thanks for sharing.

While I certainly don't blame Lucid and MB for prioritizing drag coefficient/range, I personally don't mind sacrificing a little bit of range for a better exterior. IMHO Taycan just looks way better from the outside.

My overall take between Taycan vs the Lucid. If you want a Porsche and an EV that drives like a sports car, go for the Taycan, it's still the best drivers EV on the market.

However the Lucid is a more comfortable, luxurious vehicle and even in these early models with their glitch early software builds, a better overall luxury EV due to its more clever design, fantastic range, efficiency and still has incredible power and performance.

If I didn't prioritize wanting a Porsche and a driver focused car, the Lucid would be at the top of my list.

 

[jvincent]

Pretty impressed by the new Stealth package. Adds a little sport and subtracts a little Buick.

 

[Hirschaj]

Pretty impressed by the new Stealth package. Adds a little sport and subtracts a little Buick.

Good step in the right direction.