Time Flies When You're Driving Fun!
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Rocinante
Half-Year Anniversary

July 4, 2024


This month we’ll cross the half-year threshold since taking delivery of our Ioniq 5 Limited AWD. It seems fitting for July 4th this year to celebrate our continuing Independence from fossil fuels by posting a summary of how our 3rd EV is shaping up after 6 months.


Recently its odometer crossed the 5K threshold, as you can watch in this movie:


As of this post, here is the odometer reading that also shows our miles-per-kWh energy efficiency to date:


’Tis true that Rocinante is not as energy efficient as either our previous LEAF or Model 3, but so far its miles-per-kWh average exceeds the EPA’s rating of 99 MPGe:

3.4 mi/kWh x 33.7 kWh/gallon = 115 MPGe

There is no way a gasoline car could hope to achieve that level of efficiency. Here is a table with more stats:


Lately I have seen a real blitz of anti-EV articles, videos, and comments on the internet, obviously funded and posted by pe’trolls who work for the greedy fossil fools. I can only conclude that the purpose of their campaign is to discourage consumers from buying EVs and encourage them to just keep burning their gasoline to pile up more and more profits —no matter the consequence to people and planet. One of their arguments is that EVs pollute as much as gas cars by shifting their emissions to a “long tailpipe” at the power plant. They also claim that fueling EVs costs just as much as gasoline. The following graphics for Rocinante over these first 6 months clearly debunk such myths:

Just like when powering our EV with our rooftop solar at home, Electrify America only uses renewable energy with its DCFC stations, so our roadtrips are just as pollution free as when driving around town locally. As for costs, Rocinante came with two years of free 30-minute charge sessions with Electrify America. Consequently, that fee of $20 shown above was what I had to pay at one station that was on reduced power, thus slowing the charge to longer than a free session. My guess is that the slower rate was probably because some naysayer idiot had cut off one of the station’s cables:


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Whenever pe’trolls express the above criticisms of EVs, I suggest that they use my online tool to compare the emissions and fuel costs of their gas vehicle with my Ioniq 5, and report back to me their results. Funny thing… they never do. The petrolganda they have heard convinces them that they’re right, but they quickly go silent when facts and math prove them wrong.

Another petrolganda argument disseminated by pe’trolls is that owners will need to replace their expensive EV batteries after only three, four, five years. That claim is a gross exaggeration, concocted from half-truths that might have once been the case over a decade ago, but it is now pure, unadulterated FUD.

For example, my first EV, a Nissan LEAF, came with a 5-year/60,000-mile warranty on the battery that its capacity would not drop below 70%. During the 6 years that I owned it, I carefully tracked the battery’s SoH (“state-of-health”) on a regular basis via an OBD-II device and a LEAFStat app on my phone. Here is a screen shot I took of the app when I first downloaded it. It reported that the battery had dropped to 83.54% capacity:

Unlike current EVs, the LEAF didn’t have a thermal management system to keep the battery at optimal temperature, and because we live in a very hot, dry, desert climate, just a month before the 5-year mark, the battery had indeed dropped below the warranty threshold:

Consequently, Nissan had to replace the battery free-of-charge. Of course, I also continued to monitor the SoH of the replacement battery until I sold the LEAF after more than 6 years and 62,339 miles:

The Model 3 came with an even better 8-year/100,000-mile warranty on its battery. My only complaint with it was that, unlike other automakers, Tesla flatly refused to cover the electronic components in its HV Battery Service Panel under the HV Battery Warranty —which cost me a huge repair fee out-of-pocket. That refusal was one of the reasons —among many others— why I decided to get rid of the Model 3 and buy this Ioniq 5.

I couldn’t use my OBD-II tool with the Model 3, so to monitor the battery’s SoH, I simply extrapolated its capacity according to the predicted range every time I charged it. That method worked surprisingly well, and when I traded it in after nearly 6 years and 78,737 miles, the battery seemed to retain about 94.35% of its original capacity:


Out of curiosity, when I brought the Ioniq 5 home, I thought I’d try extrapolating its battery capacity using range estimates, like with the Model 3. That method has proven entirely futile. The range display in the Ioniq 5 is what we EV aficionados call a “guess-o-meter,” for it can only guess at the miles remaining in the battery according to one’s driving habits over the last several miles. If you’ve driven around town on city streets with lower speed limits, the range guess’timate is huge. If you’ve driven on a roadtrip at freeway speeds, the range guess’timate drops precipitously. Using that method, I’ve seen battery capacity guess’timates as high as 147.12%, and as low as 88.12%. Below is a graph of those extrapolations that I have compiled to date. You can clearly distinguish the roller coaster highs when driving locally, and the deep dips when on a roadtrip:

Obviously, such guesses are nothing more whan wild speculation, and certainly not a reflection of the battery’s true capacity.

The good news is that my LEAF’s OBD-II tool also works with the Ioniq 5 using a new phone app “Car Scanner.” This app is much more powerful and sophisticated than LEAFStat, capable of measuring practically every particular of the battery pack, from individual cell temperatures to overall capacity. Here is a screenshot of just one of its 27 displays that shows the latest battery SoH in the upper right hand corner:

I have committed to use this tool on the first day of every month to determine the actual battery capacity in Rocinante. So far, these are how the SoH readouts plot on a true capacity graph:

There is no doubt that the Ioniq 5’s battery is still at 100% capacity. I’ll be curious to see after how many months and years the line starts to barely inch downward. Time will tell! The point is that I very seriously doubt that the capacity will dip below 70% before Hyundai’s 10-year/100,000-mile warranty expires. Yes, you read that right: its warranty is the best of any EV maker to date. And what’s even better news is that Hyundai does cover the battery’s electronic components under that warranty —unlike Tesla.

So… when and if a pe’troll tries to tell you that you’ll have to pay beaucoup bucks to replace your EV’s battery after only 5 years, you can take that accusation with an entire granary of salt. It ain’t gonna happen! Indeed, in many cases, I project that the battery will outlast the car, and then be repurposed for energy storage or recycled.


Likes

Overall, I am more than thrilled with Rocinante. It has many great features that make it the best EV we have owned:


Dislikes

In all honesty, I also have to point out that there are a few things that need improvement with our Ioniq 5


Oooookay! Those are more than enough observations and suggestions for a mere 6-month review. We’ll see what points I can add when we have our first-year anniversary with Rocinante. Maybe, with fingers crossed, we’ll then be able to use a J3400 adapter at Superchargers when the “free” Electrify America stations are broken or completely occupied. Below is a movie with various scenes of our Ioniq 5 journey so far.


Click to watch a slide show movie of our first 6 months with Rocinante: