JBChiangRai

Vinny, could you research the claim made by Sam in the video that Toyota's sales have declined 7 months in a row and tell us where it came from?

Nevertheless, he had a claim issue and his views about the company are on trustpilot and they haven't changed following the reply he got.

My friend Charlie Badenhop posted about them on AN, he had a claim issue, he also wrote about his experience on Trustpilot.

It wouldn't be appropriate. I'm not a customer. I researched them in great detail and I would rather stick pins in my eyes than give them any of my money.

On the subject of Trustpilot positive 5* reviews One is from a Manuel Ollivier, could it be the same one as the business card below? Another is from a Patrick Lorentz, could it be the same one who owns WRLife?

It would be helpful to other members if someone started a thread on rejected claims.

Akio Toyoda is now crying because he realises he has been wrong all along. His legacy will be that of the man who destroyed Toyota.

Were not going to agree, I appreciate your point of view even though I disagree with it.

I rejected the TV and the free soundbar and got a message yesterday saying my refund is on its way. I don’t use COD because of the fraud risk, however, I may reconsider that one some items after the recent consumer legislation.

The underwriter is WrLife Participative Insurance Ltd, you will find it regulated by the island of Nevis. I've enclosed a screenshot of the registration together with an organisation chart for WRLife that another AN member obtained direct from WRLife.

Let's not lose context or twist my post, your post was in response to mine (above). Whether some manufacturers haven't reached their anticipated profitability yet doesn't mean they are dumping or that it's unsustainable. All new models are sold at a loss until development costs are recouped. They need either substantial cash reserves or financial support until they hit that point. Unsustainability only occurs if they run out of finance before that point. That can be down to many factors. If a Chinese manufacturer can make and sell cars at a profit (eg BYD) than that means it's a sensible price for that segment. It's up to the competition to compete. It's not right to say the price is wrong and unsustainable as one manufacturer has already demonstrated it's ok. If the competition is selling for less than that, it could well be unsustainable.

That doesn't help your point as none of those automakers are in the general Thailand yet. By far the largest Chinese automaker sold here is BYD who are profitable. My point stands that prices here in Thailand should not be substantially different from China. Chinese automakers are not dumping their cars in China and if they are being sold elsewhere for more than that, then they are not dumping there either. Yes, it's perfectly normal. Costs are taken upfront and profits are taken as they are made.

I would prefer to see some evidence of that....

I think there is an issue with how we consider depreciation of EV's. A car (to take Vinny's example) that used to cost 1,189k and now costs 599k by comparing to a purchase cost of 1,189k will have depreciated massively. But if we compare it to the new cost of 599k then it hasn't depreciated so much. I think the moment a manufacturer slashes the price of their cars, all used examples take an extra hit of depreciation. Is it fair to say EV's depreciate rapidly because of that? aren't we taking an extraordinary event to make a generalised conclusion? I think manufacturers are finding their feet regarding pricing of EV's. Particularly the Chinese who aren't slashing their prices to survive, they are simply adjusting them to what they should be, and especially with the price of batteries falling. Chinese EV's are sold in China at a realistic price, nobody thinks they are dumping product there, yet their cars are much cheaper there than Thailand which IMHO should be harmonised to that price structure. There is no valid reason they should cost so much more here. I think they entered the Thai market thinking they could make a quick killing and now that they have competition, ( mostly from each other) they are stabilising to real price and real value. The big issue I think, is if China can build and sell quality EV's in China to a price, why can't the rest of the world even get remotely close to that? Competition is great for the consumer, it pushes price down and quality up.

I can only use it exactly the same charges as the other promotion.

LOL, my 30,000 THB credit is subject to the same conditions as the free charging promotion. It's non-transferable, I don’t think I can even charge my daughters car or my friends X-Power, though I will try.

We have a house in Bo Sang with a wall charger, I can charge there at normal PEA rates, which is better than the paid Rêver chargers. I would like to charge for free but it’s a fair drive to the free ones and eats into my time with my daughters. After January promotion ends it should be ok.

Definitely no jealousy here, I could have had one at any time in the last 30 years. They are bad for business too, your customers think you're making too much money and that you make questionable decisions. They are also uncomfortable, impractical and until recently, unreliable, maybe they still are. I would take a Porsche over Italian exotica every time (and I did in Thailand 3 years ago). My style is more comfort, though I do like performance, but preferably in silence.

I agree with you, it didn’t go far enough by explaining how large the effect was. I tend to believe what the Tesla Guru says and that higher state of charge is detrimental. It’s what I’ve also read on battery university. EE does explain the chemistry behind this and it make sense. Generally, I find EE quite good, he spent almost 18 minutes explaining why a high charge state degrades the battery and only a few seconds saying there’s one study that contradicts this. It’s easy for me to keep my SoC low because most of my journeys are 10 to 30 km, I only go to Chiang Mai occasionally and only once further than that in the last five years. Until I watch that video, I used to keep SoC between 80 and 100%, I don’t do that anymore.

On the face of it, that’s a very valid concern. The reality is most owners of EV’s will never use a charging station. I’ve had EV’s for five years and I’ve used a charging station en-route once because I needed to, I was there for 12 minutes only and a few times because charging was free thanks to BYD. Unless I travel more than 400 km I will never need to use a charging station.

What you do is a compromise. Maximum battery longevity is achieved through inaccurate range display. Accurate range display will not achieve maximum battery longevity. So you have to decide which you want. You can have one or the other, but you cannot have both.

Again, watch the video if you want to know why they recommend this. This will not give you the maximum battery life.

Sorry, you didn’t address this to me, but I will jump in if that’s OK. I am fairly sure BYD use active balancing, the BMS is balancing the cells all the time so speed of charging probably won’t affect that process, other than it may not have finished balancing the cells for some considerable time after finishing charging. For those cars that have passive , balancing, typically MG, then the balancing occurs at the end of the AC charge cycle. The system uses a system of resistors and wastes a little energy as it brings all the batteries to 100%. Individual cells either take more charge or blow off the excess power through resistors generating heat. When I built the LFP battery pack for my solar power, I added active balancers. I did that specifically because I didn’t want to ever charge them past 80% unless notified of a power cut if I had allowed passive balancing then they would never have balanced because I never charged them to 100%.

I don’t know by what percentage this makes a difference. He also covers in passing that temperature has a significant effect. I would be interested to know by how much temperature makes a difference. My garage is air-conditioned, but I only tend to turn it on when charging, and we have a significant surplus in solar power. We have 18 kW of grid-tied inverters and it’s very difficult to output more than maybe 8 or 9 kW, charging the car when it’s sunny, allows me to get the full output power of the inverters, but not always, we still derate to 12 kW sometimes.

To be clear. Regarding BYD LFP cars… Charging to 100% calibrates the 100% SoC level. Discharging below 10% tells the car what the capacity of the battery is (ie what SoH is). The cars BMS uses 2 techniques to determine both SoC and SoH. The first is Coulomb counting (this gets less and less accurate until it’s recalibrated by discharging below 10% followed by recharging) and secondly achieving peak voltage which tells the BMS the SoC is 100%. Charging to 100% does not tell the BMS the capacity of the battery. Measuring coulombs from 100% SoC to less than 10% or recharging from below 10% to 100% allows the BMS to measure the Coulombs and determine SoH.