Bandersnatch

I started this discussion over 2 years and 7,000 posts ago. My intention was to try and help people considering an EV in Thailand to distinguish the facts from the fiction. 

 

Most of the contributions have been helpful and supportive from the growing number of EV owners on the forum, however there have been a vocal minority of EV haters who feel that their uninformed opinions are more important that the facts.

 

So I want to share a little book of EV Myths written by ex Top Gear presenter Quentin Willson:

 

https://www.faircharge.co.uk/little-book-of-ev-myths

 

5 hours ago, greg71 said:

Interesting vid about geofencing of ev cars 
https://www.instagram.com/p/C7j0X7zCBBa/?hl=en

You have joined a discussion about Electric Vehicles in Thailand and your contribution is a link to instagram page of an EV hating vet in the UK quoting another EV hater quoting an EVs terms and conditions that he clearly doesn’t understand and you describe this twaddle as “interesting vid” 

3 hours ago, Presnock said:

If I were to buy an EV then first I would buy solar panels to assist in the daily charging.  As high temps daily continue to spread everywhere, A/C use can greatly increase electric bill so I would definitely have an EV that I could charge at home.  Though to tell the truth, I like gasoline hogs but then I am just an old fart anyway and don't know any better.  Good luck to all with whatever...

 

That’s exactly what I did. I have had solar for 7 years and EVs for over 3 years. It took me that long to persuade the EV dealers in Thailand that I could charge an EV just from solar.  

 

I don’t have a meter so I don’t get electric bills and I power 2 EVs and an electric motor bike 100% from my home solar.

 

My latest EV has bi-directional charging so that gives me more backup power for the house

 

 

Interesting to compare BYD+Tesla sales in May for Australia and Thailand 

 

“Tesla faces strong competition in Australia from Chinese manufacturer BYD which set a record in May with the sale of 1914 vehicles, compared to Tesla’s 3567 cars”

 

https://thedriven.io/2024/06/17/china-versus-tesla-why-australia-is-enjoying-an-electric-vehicle-price-war/

BYD Thai 1,958 Aus 1,914

Tesla Thai 384 Aus 3,567

 

5 hours ago, marino28 said:

Strong discount for the Byd dolphin 

Dolphin Day!

 

 

On 6/18/2024 at 6:17 PM, josephbloggs said:

notice you didn't post the video of the petrol station fire in Pattaya.

There was a fire at a Petrol station in Surin this week,  one of the few that didn’t have any EV charging! 
 

I drove past it yesterday and it was totally gutted. The sooner they are replaced by clean safe EV charging stations the better.  
 

Thailand has some of the worst air pollution in the world they should seriously consider Ultra Low Emission Zones for city centers with financial incentives to help people dump the pump.

 

 

 

19 hours ago, balo said:

 

 

Are you planning to drive with it in Thailand?  Maybe good for Bangkok traffic?  Just make sure the battery will survive the rush hours.  

 

I drove a Fomm one at the BKK Motor in 2019. At the time I thought it was a lot of car for the money, particularly as it’s also a boat. In recent years there has been increased competition in the sub ฿500,000 EV market.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Seal number plate holder. 

 

The standard number plate holder is grey - there is no grey on the car unless you have a grey car and it definitely doesn’t match my white one.

 

 

The screws holding it together are already rusty and the BYD REVER logo is already fading badly.

 

 

There are 4 captive nuts built into the car which is great but only 2 bolts are used on each plate supplemented with some double sided tape at the bottom! Will be ordering 4 more bolts from BYD.

 

I replaced the holders with white ones to match the car and they have a perspex sheet to protect the number pate from damage.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

6 hours ago, josephbloggs said:

just anti-Chinese nonsense. Getting very very boring now.

 

Ignoring the nonsense is the way to go IMHO

https://www.nationthailand.com/business/automobile/40038515#

 

 

Prior to giving my meter back PEA changed it 5 times thinking it was broken due to the fact that it wasn’t moving.

 

When I installed solar 7 years ago the main PEA office in my province had no experience with Solar but they were so convinced I was trying to spin my meter backwards (to the exact same reading every month) that they called in the solar team from PEA Korat to inspect my system. I have had 3 inspections over the years. At each meeting I requested a digital meter but it was never installed

 

I now use my EV instead of PEA as a just in case backup.

 

 

 

22 minutes ago, In the jungle said:

 

The solar system was free?

 

It seems to be in your calculation.

Before you reply it’s best to carefully read the post you are responding to so you don’t waste people’s time explaining the obvious.

 

1 hour ago, Bandersnatch said:

charged from excess home solar production.

 

The solar system was installed to remove the need for a PEA connection.

 

 

 

Road Tax, Servicing Costs and Fuel costs for EVs in Thailand

 

We have already discussed insurance costs for EVs in Thailand and thanks to all those who shared their quotes, do please keep them coming.

 

The example I will be sharing is my 2023 BYD Seal AWD Performance and I will be comparing it to my previous ICE Car a Mitsibishi Triton 4 door.

 

Fuel Costs:

 

The Triton: ฿5,000 per month. The Triton was a thirsty beast. I  should point out that Surin has an excellent 4 lane ring road system with protected left turns at most junction lights, meaning that if you turn left at every junction you never have to stop at any lights. It does mean that you can clock up the miles as nearly all driving is done at highway speeds.

 

 

 

BYD Seal: ฿0 per month. Apart from the first week of ownership when I did some test charges on different chargers I have not paid for any driving as it has been 100% charged from excess home solar production.

 

Road Tax:

 

Triton ฿4,761

BYD Seal ฿380

 

 

 

 

Servicing:

 

BYD: ฿0 per year

My BYD comes with 8 years of completely free servicing (parts and labour) I have had only one service and it cost nothing. I watched the guy do the service from the customer lounge and it seemed to mainly consist of checking torque setting on some key bolts.

 

Triton: ฿9,283 per year

Mitsu insisted on 6 monthly servicing to maintain the warranty. You can see from the invoice that the biggest ticket items are #6 + #7 both for engine oil.

 

 

 

Only Electric Cars suffer from water damage ICE cars are waterproof, it’s obvious,  it’s in the name: ICE is frozen water  

 

 

 

8 hours ago, connda said:

Let's carpet farmland, lakes, and deforested forests with solar panels.  <laughs>  I wonder how much farmland you need to cover with solar panels to run a 5 GW AI data center?

 

Only someone who has never grown anything in Thailand would say something like that.

 

The one thing that Thailand has too much of is sunshine.

 

My intensive veggies are all grown under shade cloth. 

 

agrivoltaics makes a lot of sense in Thailand 

 

 

Covering lakes is one of your better ideas apparently EGAT agrees with you

 

2.72GW capacity equates to 8TWH/year

 

 

People always overestimate the amount of space needed for solar to power a country. So nobody is going to be cutting down forests for solar.

 

In reality there is already enough roof space and car parks to meet Thailand’s PV needs

 

 

 

57 minutes ago, connda said:

Get real.  Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand Mae Mot coal generation plant in Lampang has added capacity.  What hydro?  From the Mekong River?  Renewables?  Where?

 

The citation I used was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Thailand I didn't post the link because the screen print showed Wikipedia in the title, I assumed it was obvious, apparently not! 

 

I don't know if you have ever contributed to a Wikipedia article but they are peer reviewed and most are pretty accurate. If you feel that the statistics quoted in the table were inaccurate, maybe you have some more up to date data you can edit the wiki yourself once you have signed up for an account.

 

These are the refences that need your attention:

 

 

57 minutes ago, connda said:

If they are smart they'll get serious about nuclear

 

This was a recent discussion on Nuclear in Thailand with a focus on SMRs

 

https://aseannow.com/topic/1328635-thailand-urged-to-embrace-nuclear-power-to-meet-carbon-zero-goals

 

This was my reply to that discussion: 

 

As of 2023, only China and Russia have successfully built operational SMRs

 

The US Department of Energy had estimated the first SMR in the United States would be completed by NuScale Power around 2030, but this deal has since fallen through after the customers backed out due to rising costs.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_modular_reactor

 

 

57 minutes ago, connda said:

Solar and wind is a waste of money and inefficient on a good day. 

 

I am not an expert on wind. I did test the wind speed on the third floor of my house using an anemometer, but never got more that 5M/s which is not enough for domestic VAWTs

 

I would consider myself a bit of an expert on Solar having been off-grid with solar in Thailand for 7 years now. 

 

The payback on my solar system was 6 years so it's already making a surplus.  Even if was 10 years that is a 10% return on investment and you consider that a "waste of money"

 

You claim that solar is inefficient this shows that have no clue at all how solar works. 

 

Solar power for my home is 95% efficient panel to plug 

Powering my EVs it drops to 90% due to the double inversion required. 

 

The average efficiencies of power generation are 35% for coal, 45% for natural gas and 38% for oil-fired power generation. 

https://geospatial.blogs.com/geospatial/2010/01/energy-efficiency-of-fossil-fuel-power-generation.html