Greg & Wayne’s eXCellent XC40EV adventures

Did a “big” loop trip today...dropped the dog (COVID contactless of course!) at Wayne’s mum’s, then met up with another Volvo mate in Castlemaine for a leisurely picnic lunch at the botanical gardens there (very pretty!) From there down to Supercheap Auto in Ballarat (needed a windscreen sun shade for the new car plus some coolant and oil for the ICE - internal combustion engine - cars). Then a stop at Bunnings (misc bits and pieces plus another bag of wall insulation for the shed project). Then a quick charge to test the 50 kW chargers at Ballarat Central Big W. They are RACV/Chargefox collaboration chargers and there’s quite a few including some 350 kW chargers (the Volvo can do 150 kW but we didn’t see the need and the higher charging rates can be harder on the batteries). For example we were charging there for 19 minutes while picked up a few Chinese items at Big W and the car was charging at close to 50 kW and was showing over 200 km/hour added at that rate. Our overall efficiency for today’s drive of 246.5 km was 21.9 kWh per 100 km at an average speed of 69 kph. This trip was mainly on rural back roads, with a stretch of 110 kph freeway between Ballarat and Wayne’s mum’s place in Ballan.

At one stage I overtook a B-double and put my foot to the floor (or nearly) and we were up to 1xx kph in no time flat...and another time in Ballarat we were in the left lane at the front stopped at a set of lights, and the lane ended shortly after the lights. When the light turned green I punched it and we were gone - Wayne said all the blood rushed to the back of his head LOL! This is pretty much the first time we’ve driven it without the dog - until we get the rear seat hammock/protector set-up we’ve been folding down the seats for Penny and putting her bed on top...if we nailed it she’d fly into the tailgate pronto! :)

Another thing - I checked the tyre pressure yesterday and as delivered the car had 34 psi in the tyres. Spec is 41 psi loaded, unloaded or ECO...so I pumped them up to 41 psi. Of course the ride isn’t quite as supple now but the range should be better.

Friday we plan to meet up with some neighbours down near Anakie for an orchid walk and picnic, so another run and this time probably on some unsealed roads. I washed the bugs off the front tonight when we got home and I will put a coat of Meguiars high-tech wax on the front & mirror housings tomorrow so the bugs don’t stick as well!

Fun times and some learning along the way. The Volvo Cars app is pretty useless. I think my phone has only shown the state of charge once...and you’re supposed to be able to lock and unlock the car from the phone - my phone won’t...I think Wayne’s might have given that option at times. About 90% of the time my phone just says “pair a car with your phone” when I log in to the app. I might lodge a call/complaint with Volvo - maybe they’ll give us some free mud flaps or another umbrella? ;) Good news is no trouble with the mobile connection or maps today. The maps tells you the estimated state of charge at your destination and it was within about 1% at every leg of our trip today. “Hey Google: what’s my range?” will give you the estimated driving range (to 0% I assume) at any given time, but “Hey Google, what’s my speed?” - “sorry, I didn’t understand that”...”Hey Google: how fast am I” (it missed the last word “going”) and she replied “I can run at the speed of light” ...LOL

Forgot to mention we were a bit early getting to Castlemaine so detoured past the chargers at the Castlemaine “Maxi SUPA IGA”...couple of Evie 50 kW chargers. Nice to see options in country towns...and great to have the at the grocery store, shopping centre etc. where you typically might want to spend a bit of time while charging.

Did another “road trip” today. We charged up a bit overnight to 80% and then before departing pre-heated the cabin (it was only 6C when we left home! Met neighbours in Steiglitz and from there went into the Brisbane Ranges for a walk to check out the wildflowers and a picnic lunch. The neighbours were nice enough to take some pics of us driving thru a ford...probably as close to off-roading as we’ll ever go LOL! I did give the car a sponge bath and wax yesterday to make the bugs and crap easier to get off during future washes.

We started with 81% SOC, did 143.7 km and our efficiency was 22.7 kWh/100 km. Hoping that the new V1.7 software update arrives soon via the airwaves as it’s supposed to improve range and efficiency by a bit due to optimisation of various systems in the car.

The Volvo Cars app is still working very sporadically and often doesn’t show SOC etc. I’m going to ring the Volvo Aus help number about it.

Forgot to mention the car does quite well on the unsealed roads - quiet, good ride and of course with all that weight it’s stable!

We were messing around with the Google Assistant...trying to change the voice - at one stage when Wayne was driving we were able to get it to speak in a male British voice...but couldn’t do that when I was driving. Faffed around at home on our Android phone devices after the drive and still had no joy really trying to change the assistant voice. The only real way to do it was to set the language as English (USA) and that gives the option of about 5 annoying American voices, one Pommy female and one Aussie female...more investigation needed here. Maybe need to try setting language to English (UK)....would be nice to get the voice of HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey...”I’m sorry Greg, I can’t allow you to do that”...maybe not!

I’d really like a proper posh British male navigation and assistant voice...someone to make me feel impotent...er, I mean important! ;)

Chris

You want the Jeremy Clarkson version then :) I believe it used to say things like "No, you stupid man, I said turn right" and "More powaah" Oh and remember if you got the Hal version it would lock you out of the car and attempt to kill you...

The way the software is on this Recharge I think Hal might be more appropriate LOL!

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Here’s the article I wrote comparing the XC40EV to the 240EV for the Nov/Dec edition of Rolling Australia if anyone’s interested and not a member of one of the Volvo Clubs in Australia.

Drove down to Moorabbin to display the car last night at the Volvo Club of Victoria meeting (held at the awesome Chevrolet Car Club rooms!) It was great to see the level of interest amongst most club members (until the pizzas arrived). There were several "hecklers" asking questions like "but can you tow with it?" and "what happens in 10 years when the batteries are dead?" I'd like to think we helped educate those who were willing to listen and learn. We're not ones to say an EV is suitable for everyone, and yes, they do have some drawbacks, and yes, you have to drive it for several years before there's any environmental benefit vs. an equivalent petrol car. But, for many people when the prices come down and there are more options available in the marketplace, I think we'll see rapid adoption. The worry is will charging infrastructure keep up with the EV sales pace? We did a 15 min charge at one of the new Ampol petrol station DC fast chargers run by the EVIE network as we weren't quite comfortable with the car saying we'd only have 14% charge remaining upon our return to home. Until we have a bit more experience with it we will play it safe. We weren't sure whether the Chevy club would have a power point near the car space, but they did and in the 2.5 hours we were there we added another 8% to the batteries on the 10 amp "granny charge" cable which would have negated the need to charge at the Ampol charger earlier. We did see our best ever efficiency on the drive to Melbourne in warm conditions at 16.5 kWh/100 km. Return trip in cool conditions and going back uphill was more like 23.5 kWh/100 km. Total trip was about 280 km and we left home with 80% charge. Had we charged to 90% we could have done the trip with no charges and probably would have gotten home at about 10%. Every new drive gives use more data and higher confidence level.

Stopped at IKEA as well...should have gotten the requisite IKEA/Volvo pic...sadly the IKEA restaurant is still closed due to COVID so no Swedish meatballs. I think it will be opening again soon. Our next "road trip" will be down to Moriac on Saturday for a mate's 60th birthday BBQ.

Took a spontaneous "road trip" to get out of the house yesterday. Packed a sandwich lunch and headed from home to the west to Creswick. From there we drove up thru Clunes and Talbot. Heading towards our lunch stop in Avoca, we travelled through some very dry bush land. We stopped for a walk in the Bung Bong Nature Conservation Area. Penny enjoyed getting out to stretch her legs. Our lunch stop was in Avoca, which has a very wide centre median parking area flanked by trees and low stone walls for seating, so it was a nice shady place for a picnic. We chatted with a local who was walking past with his groceries - turns out he lived at the home across the road where we spotted a couple whippets. After lunch we headed to Maryborough to check out the new "Charging the Regions" charge point there. It's labelled as a 50 kW charger but we actually saw 57 kW (and a charging "speed" of 255 km/h). We didn't need to charge but decided we'd plug in for 10 minutes (and gained 11% charge). The temp on the car's instrument cluster was showing 39-41C. Needless to say we sat inside with the AC on while we waited. The thermo-fan came on high speed shortly after we started charging, so I suspect the car was actively cooling the batteries. We headed back home from there via Yandoit, Newstead, Hepburn Springs and Daylesford. At one point we overtook an over-size load farm harvester...I put my foot down and Jesus did the car take off. I kinda got a fright but for whatever reason I didn't let off the accelerator and we were around them in no time. It almost felt like all 4 wheels spun when I hit the accelerator as it was a bit of fine loose gravel on the road. I guess when the battery is warm the acceleration is even more instant - wowee! The overall trip average economy was 22.0 kWh/100 km - pretty much what we're used to. On the way to Maryborough we averaged 19.6 kWh/100 km but on the way back the AC (and I guess battery cooling) were working quite hard, so we got 26.1 kWh/100 km. I do get a bit jealous when I see people with Kona EVs and Tesla Model 3s posting their average economy down in the 15-16 kWh/100 km range, but I guess the vehicle and performance are so much different (AWD super-brick Volvo vs. FWD mini-SUV Kona vs. RWD aerodynamic Tesla sedan). I recently joined the somewhat satirical "I ruined the weekend" Facebook page that touts weekend the exploits of EV drivers in response to Scomo's infamous pre-election comments. It's been fun to see what can be done with an EV in Australia - I thought the charging infrastructure was a bit too sparse, but people are definitely getting out and about more than we are. Fun times?