𝚝𝚛𝚔

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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 16th, 2023

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  • Like the Volkswagen ID.Buzz, Kia’s PV5 looks more like a minibus. At 4,695 mm long, 1,895 mm wide, and 1,899 mm tall, Kia’s passenger electric van is slightly smaller than the European ID.Buzz model (4,712 mm long, 1,985 mm wide, 1,937 mm tall).

    Its a pity the only EVs that are getting announced are small, and aimed purely at the people mover market. I guess because service vans are usually bought based on price, and BEV is just not enough available power to cart a tonne of gear around over long distances.

    I’m looking to replace our diesel service vans (mix of Toyota HiAces and Hyundai iLoads) and I want to go up a little in size, not down to the tune of 500mm or more.

    Come on BYD, take that Shark 6 idea and make a van out of it. The Whale 6. I’ll take half a dozen.

    Toyota Hiace LWB
        5265 (L) x 1990 (H) x 1950 (W)
    Hyundai iLoad
        5125 (L) x 1935 (H) x 1920 (W)
    
    vs
    
    Volkswagen ID.Buzz
        4712 (L) x 1936 (H) x 1985 (W)
    Kia PV5
        4695 (L) x 1899 (H) x 1895 (W)
    









  • Our EV doesn’t have a spare, which I wasn’t concerned about as I’ve had maybe two flats in my driving history and one of those I just pumped up and drove to the tyre shop for a repair.

    What did catch me out recently was not having a jack. It makes sense though - car has no spare, so why include a jack?

    We got a screw in the tyre a few weeks back and it was leaking too bad to pump up for even a short drive. I figured I’d jack up the car, take off the rim, and take it in the wife’s car to the tyre joint.

    Things to note:

    1. No jack, as mentioned. Went to the local auto store and bought a pretty mid range scissor jack that looked like every other car jack I’ve ever used.
    2. EVs are really bloody heavy. A standard 1600KG scissor jack could barely move the thing. Went back and bought a much heavier duty trolley jack.
    3. A 3200KG trolley jack makes lifting the car easy, but the jack itself is huge and leaves no space on the lifting points to put jack stands.
    4. An EV is really stiff - lifting the rear passenger side resulted in every wheel except the front drivers side coming off the ground.

    Didn’t want to leave it perched on a jack and a single wheel, so took the tyre off and ended up replacing the screw in the hole that was leaking with a bigger screw… Then pumping it up and driving it to the tyre joint.

    Moral of the story - might be easier to just carry a small selection of different sized screws and a screw driver.







  • American cars are so bad. We did ~3000k of driving last year in the US and noticed that most of the cars on the road were new. Didn’t take long to realise why - between terrible driving standards causing them to crash regularly, terrible build quality causing the interior to fall apart, and needing to drive EVERYWHERE so you flog the thing out in about 12 months vehicles are practically disposable.

    There were late model cars still rocking the flashing brake light as an indicator wtf lol