Electric Vehicles in Thailand

[Bandersnatch]

47 minutes ago, Andrew Dwyer said:

So, if an EV comes with 11kw AC charging power and I have only single phase would I get 7kw or would it be only 3.6kw ?

7kW for single phase, but someone like myself with solar 3 phase or even DC is very attractive as I can make 20kW of power in the middle of the day and it would be a shame to waste it by only putting 7kW of power into the car.

 

 

  

[Bandersnatch]

14 minutes ago, Bandersnatch said:

7kW for single phase, but someone like myself with solar 3 phase or even DC is very attractive as I can make 20kW of power in the middle of the day and it would be a shame to waste it by only putting 7kW of power into the car.

This is the sort of thing I would like to use if it was avaible in Thailand:

 

https://enteligent.com/dc-coupled-dc-evses

 

 

[JBChiangRai]

1 hour ago, Andrew Dwyer said:

So, if an EV comes with 11kw AC charging power and I have only single phase would I get 7kw or would it be only 3.6kw ?

7Kw

[Gweiloman]

Went to look at both the MG4 and BYD Dolphin today.

 

MG4 doesn’t have one pedal driving. Apparently Dolphin doesn’t have either.

MG4 doesn’t have physical autohold button. It can only be activated via the touch screen - not ideal

Dolphin doesn’t have electric seat controls. Supposedly, the higher end model (not yet available) will have it. MG4 has for driver seat only

Neither vehicle has HUD.

MG4 only has 4 yr warranty. Service every 6 months/10k km

Dolphin has 8 yr warranty, service every year/20k km

Both have 8 yr warranty on battery. Both are lithium iron phosphate batteries.

MG4 is rear wheel drive, Dolphin FWD

MG top of range 956,000 baht. Dolphin 799,999 baht. I prefer the looks of the MG but Dolphin seems better value?

[JBChiangRai]

On the MG4 regeneration is called KERS (Kinetic Energy Recovery System), it defaults to maximum.  Initially I hated it because it’s a new way of driving and it’s a pfaff to adjust it through the screens.  But I have grown to like it, you can drive it in one pedal mode just using the brakes to bring to a final stop at walking speed. You can feather the regen with the accelerator so it’s not such a violent slowdown.

 

I’m not sure where the autohold feature on the infotainment system is, maybe I turned it on a few months ago, but now it is engaged by giving a firm push on the brake pedal when stationary (which seems to be common on German cars), so you can pretty much set it and forget.

 

My daughter MG EP+ has it on a switch, but it’s less useful, if it’s turned on then it’s difficult to maneuver for parking as it jumps off the line and has it turned off all the time.

 

There seems to be a trend on EV’s to remove physical buttons and bury them in pages of menus.  I don’t like it much.

 

The Lane Keeping Assist is turned on by default, there is a button on he steering wheel that opens a “quick menu” where you can turn it off with lots of other settings.  I don’t like the adaptive cruise control which slows you down on corners, but I have found a work around by setting it to limit mode instead.

 

The lane keeping is not great, you can combine it with cruise control (they call it LJA) and the car will drive itself like a Tesla on major roads, but the car does try to kill you occasionally. Hopefully it will get better with OTA updates.

 

The other issue I have with the MG4 is the tyres, sometimes the car struggles to get all the power down and it’s not unusual to get a few squeals all the way up to about 50kmhr with the traction cutting in and out. Ideally, I would like to replace the back tyres with bigger and better and I’m keeping an eye on the MG BEV forum in the UK to see what tyre combo’s they go for.

 

I sometimes drive it fairly spirited and I’ve had it at the limit a couple of times and it’s quite forgiving, no great drama.

 

I would describe the MG4 as a hot hatchback, reminiscent of the earliest Golf GTI’s. Lots of fun to drive.

 

I don’t know anything about the Dolphin, what did impress me about the Atto was the wheels and tyres.

[Andrew Dwyer]

2 hours ago, JBChiangRai said:

 

I don’t know anything about the Dolphin, what did impress me about the Atto was the wheels and tyres.

Not sure which tyres come as standard on the Dolphin but the Atto 3 tyres ( Atlas Batman ) have come in for a lot of bad press. A lot of owners in TH, Aus and NZ have changed them fairly sharpish, noise and slippery in the wet being the major concerns.

Many Thai going for 19/20” wheels despite losing range,  I don’t mind the standard Atto wheels personally. On the positive side , a lot of cheap Batman + wheel available if you fancy a full size spare.

Apparently European Attos will get Continental tyres in the near future.

[JBChiangRai]

I didn't notice the make of the tyres on the Atto 3, but I was impressed that the tyres were wide and the wheels looked fairly big.  Both the MG4 & EP+ could do with wider tyres, they both struggle to get the power down in the dry.  The rainy season might be interesting...

[Gweiloman]

21 minutes ago, Andrew Dwyer said:

Not sure which tyres come as standard on the Dolphin but the Atto 3 tyres ( Atlas Batman ) have come in for a lot of bad press. A lot of owners in TH, Aus and NZ have changed them fairly sharpish, noise and slippery in the wet being the major concerns.

Many Thai going for 19/20” wheels despite losing range,  I don’t mind the standard Atto wheels personally. On the positive side , a lot of cheap Batman + wheel available if you fancy a full size spare.

Apparently European Attos will get Continental tyres in the near future.

For the Dolphin, the tyres are, wait for it, Linglong Dolphin. Yes, there is actually the imprint of a dolphin on the side wall of the tyre. Apparently, this is custom made by “Linglong” (lol) for BYD

[JBChiangRai]

13 hours ago, Gweiloman said:

 

MG top of range 956,000 baht. Dolphin 799,999 baht. I prefer the looks of the MG but Dolphin seems better value?

I think you need to test drive them both, and maybe compare the sizes of both cars.  If you're in Chiang Rai or Chiang Mai, you're welcome to take my MG4 out or my daughter's EP+ and try them.

[Gweiloman]

3 hours ago, JBChiangRai said:

On the MG4 regeneration is called KERS (Kinetic Energy Recovery System), it defaults to maximum.  Initially I hated it because it’s a new way of driving and it’s a pfaff to adjust it through the screens.  But I have grown to like it, you can drive it in one pedal mode just using the brakes to bring to a final stop at walking speed. You can feather the regen with the accelerator so it’s not such a violent slowdown.

 

I’m not sure where the autohold feature on the infotainment system is, maybe I turned it on a few months ago, but now it is engaged by giving a firm push on the brake pedal when stationary (which seems to be common on German cars), so you can pretty much set it and forget.

 

My daughter MG EP+ has it on a switch, but it’s less useful, if it’s turned on then it’s difficult to maneuver for parking as it jumps off the line and has it turned off all the time.

 

There seems to be a trend on EV’s to remove physical buttons and bury them in pages of menus.  I don’t like it much.

 

The Lane Keeping Assist is turned on by default, there is a button on he steering wheel that opens a “quick menu” where you can turn it off with lots of other settings.  I don’t like the adaptive cruise control which slows you down on corners, but I have found a work around by setting it to limit mode instead.

 

The lane keeping is not great, you can combine it with cruise control (they call it LJA) and the car will drive itself like a Tesla on major roads, but the car does try to kill you occasionally. Hopefully it will get better with OTA updates.

 

The other issue I have with the MG4 is the tyres, sometimes the car struggles to get all the power down and it’s not unusual to get a few squeals all the way up to about 50kmhr with the traction cutting in and out. Ideally, I would like to replace the back tyres with bigger and better and I’m keeping an eye on the MG BEV forum in the UK to see what tyre combo’s they go for.

 

I sometimes drive it fairly spirited and I’ve had it at the limit a couple of times and it’s quite forgiving, no great drama.

 

I would describe the MG4 as a hot hatchback, reminiscent of the earliest Golf GTI’s. Lots of fun to drive.

 

I don’t know anything about the Dolphin, what did impress me about the Atto was the wheels and tyres.

On my Haval, the one pedal brings me to a complete stop if I judge the distance and speed correctly (which is prettier much intuitive after a while). I love this feature and use it pretty much exclusively for town driving, negating the need for the autohold brake. With autohold brake, one needs to step a bit more forcefully on the accelerator pedal to disengage the brake and to move the car forward. I don’t like this much as I prefer to roll the car forward a little before accelerating slightly for a smoother ride. Since the MG doesn’t have full one pedal driving, I feel that the autohold feature should be activated/deactivated by a button instead of being in one of the menus. Additionally, not having full one pedal could cause some excitement when I switch between cars, if you know what I mean :).

[JBChiangRai]

Yes I appreciate the difficulty in switching driving styles between cars.  You only need to touch the accelerator very gently in the MG4 and it rolls slowly away.  The EP+ lurches away which makes parking maneuvering tricky, so much so that my daughter doesn't use it on her car, at least she has a physical button to turn it on and off, it's not buried in a menu somewhere.

 

 

[Gweiloman]

9 minutes ago, JBChiangRai said:

I think you need to test drive them both, and maybe compare the sizes of both cars.  If you're in Chiang Rai or Chiang Mai, you're welcome to take my MG4 out or my daughter's EP+ and try them.

Thank you very much for your generous offer:)

 

I really like the EP+ but as this is meant to be a second car, mainly for my better half to drive around CM, I feel a hatchback/B segment vehicle is the better option for her (relatively new driver with 3-4 years experience and most of all, Thai haha). I already have the Haval SUV for when I need the luggage space.

 

The BYD salesguy reckons that an upgraded Dolphin would make its way to these shores in a couple of months so I will test drive it then.

 

The MG guy reckons that the govt incentive will cease by next year. Is he scaremongering or is that true?

[JBChiangRai]

Just now, Gweiloman said:

The MG guy reckons that the govt incentive will cease by next year. Is he scaremongering or is that true?

I don't know, I do feel the discounts on offer have been reduced somewhat with new models, the EP+ got about 230,000 off whereas newer cars are more like 150,000 and who knows what the unsubsidised price really is because they weren't marketed before at a higher list price.  I suspect when the subsidy does finish, the price will not increase by the full amount of the subsidy.

[Gweiloman]

@JBChiangRai May I ask, did you purchase the 869k or 969k baht MG4? And why this model over the other?

[JBChiangRai]

1 hour ago, Gweiloman said:

@JBChiangRai May I ask, did you purchase the 869k or 969k baht MG4? And why this model over the other?

I bought the 969k one, I don’t think it’s worth that much more than the other one, but I liked the colour, the Blue is eye catching.

[Bandersnatch]

Update on Tesla Supercharger/Destination charger locations in Thailand, which are all currently located in central Bangkok. Tesla previously listed “coming soon” on it’s charger map, but that is no longer the case. Current roll-out rate is less than one location per month.  None of the chargers are open to non teslas. Tesla does have a link on it’s website for anyone interesting in hosting a supercharger location. 

 

 

 

[JBChiangRai]

Once you own a BEV you realise that you will never use a DC charger in your home city, what you need are chargers on the road for road trips.  Destination charging is also important, but that should be on the periphery of the city on all major roads accessing the city. In a couple of decades the existing petrol stations in cities can be redeveloped into something else.

 

The existing condominiums/apartment blocks need to get their act together and start to provide charging facilities.  At least one of my friends canceled his order for a BEV because the condo's he lives in at Rayong, Bang Saen & Chiang Rai won't fit them.

[VocalNeal]

^ I'll wait for an NREV????

[macahoom]

1 hour ago, JBChiangRai said:

Once you own a BEV you realise that you will never use a DC charger in your home city,

In my case, that’s not quite true.

 

Once a month or so, at 6am, we take both our EVs to a local PTT EV Station PluZ and charge while my girlfriend shops in Makro (which opens at 6am).

 

It suits because she likes to go to Makro at that time, regardless.
 
The EV Station PluZ off peak rate is only 4.5 baht, so for two cars it’s a significant saving on what we pay at home for charging.

 

By the time she has finished her shop, both cars are charged.

[JBChiangRai]

43 minutes ago, macahoom said:

The EV Station PluZ off peak rate is only 4.5 baht, so for two cars it’s a significant saving on what we pay at home for charging.

 

What do you pay at home?  My last bill was 4.04 baht per KwHr inc ft & VAT and unusually large last month because of the hot weather and 2 girls home from university camping in their bedrooms with A/C running 24/7 and that is despite generating over 2,000 KwHr's from solar.

[macahoom]

25 minutes ago, JBChiangRai said:

What do you pay at home?  My last bill was 4.04 baht per KwHr inc ft & VAT and unusually large last month because of the hot weather and 2 girls home from university camping in their bedrooms with A/C running 24/7 and that is despite generating over 2,000 KwHr's from solar.

For the month of April - per unit: 6.12 baht inc. VAT.

 

We live in a gated estate. That’s the PEA rate; no mark up by management.

[JBChiangRai]

5 minutes ago, macahoom said:

For the month of April - per unit: 6.12 baht inc. VAT.

 

We live in a gated estate. That’s the PEA rate; no mark up by management.

I live in a gated estate too, I think you have one 3 phase meter supplied by PEA and then private meters to split the bill according to usage?  They are probably charging you a commercial rate.  I took a different approach when I developed this estate, we have individual meters outside the estate and within the property we put our own copper cables underground.  We do have a small house for the gardener/handyman and that supply also runs the water system and lights around the lake, we split that bill by water usage for the pump part of the bill and we split the rest equally amongst the owners.  

 

Our supplies are all single phase and not very strong, I charge at 24 amps during the day and 10 amps at night but only if really necessary.  If I try to charge at 32amps, it will do it if the sun is shining, but when it stops charging it crashes the inverters and they reboot.

[macahoom]

17 minutes ago, JBChiangRai said:

and then private meters to split the bill according to usage? 

Correct.

[macahoom]

18 minutes ago, JBChiangRai said:

They are probably charging you a commercial rate

Correct, I think.

[JBChiangRai]

You might be able to renegotiate it as it's clearly a residential development, a case of Thai Whisky often helps...

[macahoom]

16 minutes ago, JBChiangRai said:

You might be able to renegotiate it as it's clearly a residential development, a case of Thai Whisky often helps...

Oh, we've been through hell and high water with PEA over the past 14 years. Enough!

 

I'm too old and ugly to be bothered!

 

But thanks for the suggestion.

[JBChiangRai]

1 hour ago, macahoom said:

Oh, we've been through hell and high water with PEA over the past 14 years. Enough!

 

I'm too old and ugly to be bothered!

 

But thanks for the suggestion.

You have my sympathies, on the plus side, if you put in Solar, your neighbours will all be buying your excess capacity at 6.12 baht per unit, and fully legal, you don't need permission if all the energy is being used on your estate's side of the PEA meter. ROI in as low as 2.5 years then you're in profit.

[BKKBike09]

On 5/16/2023 at 10:03 AM, JBChiangRai said:

I didn't notice the make of the tyres on the Atto 3, but I was impressed that the tyres were wide and the wheels looked fairly big.  Both the MG4 & EP+ could do with wider tyres, they both struggle to get the power down in the dry.  The rainy season might be interesting...

I've still got the Atlas Batman tyres on my Atto. Have done about 4000 km since I got it in January. They're okay, but  I don't have much confidence in them as far as overall grip is concerned. It's very easy to make them chirp with a heavy foot below 50 or so kmh. You can hustle the Atto along quite nicely but the stock tyres and suspension are not intended for aggressive driving. I'm waiting to upgrade the suspension before doing anything about the tyres. I've not noticed them being particularly noisy. 

[Ste78]

Hello,

received NETA V last weekend; 

coming from Isuzu Mu7, here my considerations:

-obviously much easier for parking due to dimension, but also to camera and partking sensors

-comfort (small wheel, very reactive)

-performance (even if only 90cv, immediate power for fun)

-no noise

-normal home charging from 30 to 85% in 10h which is great (380km estimated mileage, very optimistic)

-max speed is only 125kmh, which is more than enough for driving in Thailand; anyway at that speed the remaining km will drop significantly (I would say double than with normal driving)

-tried all possible charging companies (5 app installed!): the max power for charging is 40kwh,  at the same stations I tried many times but 50/100/120kwh not charging!

informed the seller which says they need to update something, so this is really annoying

 

let me know if anyone has any questions

[3NUMBAS]

MG cyberstar is delicious buy 1 right away