RZ EV Charging units

[ruds]

 

Hey everyone,

Last week I finally took delivery of my RZ 450e from Lexus Leicester 🙂. Excellent service from the dealership as always, with a seamless handover from my previous RX450h.

I am yet to get my EV charger fitted,  doing my research Smarthome charge.co.uk offers the Easee One Charger and also the OhmeHome Pro.  Is there any preference amongst the members over which is the more preferred to work with the RZ 450e?🤔

Point of note - I am an Octopus customer as energy supplier.

[ColinBarber]

Of those I’d get the Ohme because it would allow you to switch to the Intelligent Octopus Go tariff. I’d also get it from Octopus because it appears cheaper than from the site you mentioned. 

[John Adams]

On 10/2/2023 at 11:36 PM, ruds said:

 

 

Hey everyone,

Last week I finally took delivery of my RZ 450e from Lexus Leicester 🙂. Excellent service from the dealership as always, with a seamless handover from my previous RX450h.

I am yet to get my EV charger fitted,  doing my research Smarthome charge.co.uk offers the Easee One Charger and also the OhmeHome Pro.  Is there any preference amongst the members over which is the more preferred to work with the RZ 450e?🤔

Point of note - I am an Octopus customer as energy supplier.

Congrats on the new car and I hope it all goes well. I think that's now 3 of us on here who have bought the RZ  so let us know how you get on.  Does your have the new software update. Apparently  new cars should be supplied with it but existing owners have to wait until December at the earliest

[ruds]

2 hours ago, John Adams said:

Congrats on the new car and I hope it all goes well. I think that's now 3 of us on here who have bought the RZ  so let us know how you get on.  Does your have the new software update. Apparently  new cars should be supplied with it but existing owners have to wait until December at the earliest

Oooh, software update. What is it for and how do I check which version?

[John Adams]

1 hour ago, ruds said:

Oooh, software update. What is it for and how do I check which version?

Basically it is a major update as per the Toyota BZ which should improve the range slightly by reducing the buffer, show the % state of charge and improve the accuracy of range with the AC on. There are other minor tweaks and the update should be coming by the end of year. It will have to go to the dealer was this to be done.

 

According to Lexus CS this has been included in production cars for the last few months so if you can see the % soc on the dash you should have it. 

[wivenhoe]

You’ll also know if whilst parked and a full charge turn, the ac / heating off. Range should be about 220, turn the ac on, without the update the miles will dive to about 175. With the update it should reduce but to nearly 200. 
I have to ask - can you have the heater fan on just by itself to push air through the vents or when you turn the fan on the ac comes on and range dives ?

[John Adams]

13 hours ago, wivenhoe said:

You’ll also know if whilst parked and a full charge turn, the ac / heating off. Range should be about 220, turn the ac on, without the update the miles will dive to about 175. With the update it should reduce but to nearly 200. 
I have to ask - can you have the heater fan on just by itself to push air through the vents or when you turn the fan on the ac comes on and range dives ?

The range on mine doesn't change whether the ac is switched on or not so I tend to leave it on full time

[wivenhoe]

John. That’s really strange. As you know, I can’t have the fan on without the a/c coming on. But if I use the off button to turn the heating / aircon totally then my range increases by up to 45 miles. 

[John Adams]

13 minutes ago, wivenhoe said:

John. That’s really strange. As you know, I can’t have the fan on without the a/c coming on. But if I use the off button to turn the heating / aircon totally then my range increases by up to 45 miles. 

Bob, I think you need to get the dealer to have another look. When I have the fan on, the ac is off by default. If I switch the ac on the range doesn't change so I tend to leave it on most of the time.

 

[wivenhoe]

John. Just some more info please. Are you showing say 220 miles on a full charge with the ac on ?  Mine does 220 without ac but only about 175 with. 

[John Adams]

On 10/8/2023 at 8:32 PM, wivenhoe said:

John. Just some more info please. Are you showing say 220 miles on a full charge with the ac on ?  Mine does 220 without ac but only about 175 with. 

Bob. Fully charged with the fan on but the ac off, my car shows a range of 196 miles.  But if I turn the ac on, it still shows 196 miles which is why I tend to keep it on all the while. If I turn the fan off, the range goes up to 223 miles. It has consistently shown this range from day one.  Obviously your car is performing different to mine particularly as your car has the ac come on with the fan whereas my doesn't' unless I turn it on. It's a mystery and it will be interesting to see how  @ruds car performs compared to ours.

[ruds]

2 hours ago, John Adams said:

Bob. Fully charged with the fan on but the ac off, my car shows a range of 196 miles.  But if I turn the ac on, it still shows 196 miles which is why I tend to keep it on all the while. If I turn the fan off, the range goes up to 223 miles. It has consistently shown this range from day one.  Obviously your car is performing different to mine particularly as your car has the ac come on with the fan whereas my doesn't' unless I turn it on. It's a mystery and it will be interesting to see how  @ruds car performs compared to ours.

Last time I looked I had 'full charge' at 195 with fan on, not done the scientific test with a/c.. Not had the chance to test this properly yet esp with my issues over the w/e.  I'll charge it up overnight/tomorrow and feedback.  

[wivenhoe]

Appreciate that. I have a feeling if you turn the fan and ac off you’ll show about 235 miles !

[ruds]

too wet today to go to the car - I managed to pull this data from the app this morning though.

[wivenhoe]

ruds - that was my indicated range before using a lot of dual carriageways at 70 but shows about 45 loss with the ac on full blast. Next time you’re in if you can, please turn the ac and fan off, then turn just the fan on and see what the indicated mileage is. In mine, fan on ac off it still drops and the ac is on. I have changed the “ac on with On” dozens of times and it doesn’t make a difference. 

[ruds]

Hi @wivenhoe just checked. With fan and ac off I get 234, with fan on low or high I get about a 45 drop. With fan off ac also switches off therefore it looks like the fan rather than ac, is the significant draw. 

[John Adams]

17 minutes ago, ruds said:

Hi @wivenhoe just checked. With fan and ac off I get 234, with fan on low or high I get about a 45 drop. With fan off ac also switches off therefore it looks like the fan rather than ac, is the significant draw. 

That's my conclusion that the fan is the significant draw.  Turn the fan off and I only  get around a 30-35  mile increase  but it doesn't change with ac on or off. One thing I discovered this morning, I turned the fan off to use the radiant heaters which is more efficient that using the fan/heater. The only problem is on cooler/wet mornings like today the windows steam up badly which means you have to put the fan on which seems to defeat the point of these heaters to save power. @ruds @wivenhoe, do you get that problem?

[ruds]

2 hours ago, John Adams said:

That's my conclusion that the fan is the significant draw.  Turn the fan off and I only  get around a 30-35  mile increase  but it doesn't change with ac on or off. One thing I discovered this morning, I turned the fan off to use the radiant heaters which is more efficient that using the fan/heater. The only problem is on cooler/wet mornings like today the windows steam up badly which means you have to put the fan on which seems to defeat the point of these heaters to save power. @ruds @wivenhoe, do you get that problem?

Not had the need to de mist yet - we have been blessed with a sunny October in the main.  Appears then that the need for fan will still be required in the winter months - I'll report back on this when I can.

[John Adams]

10 minutes ago, ruds said:

Not had the need to de mist yet - we have been blessed with a sunny October in the main.  Appears then that the need for fan will still be required in the winter months - I'll report back on this when I can.

Many thanks.

[wivenhoe]

John yes, it’s the misting which is the major irritation. I can only demist by either losing 40 miles or keep turning the ac on and off. Really poor design. When I complained to Craig about it he said precondition the car - I pointed out that is only good for about 10 mins - he said he would lodge it as a fault. 
As there is an ac on/off switch they intended the fan to work without the ac (otherwise no point having the ac switch) but the software needs updating as it is clearly wrong. As you say, if you have to have the heating on to demist defeats the advantage of the radiant heaters. 

[ruds]

I’ve just experienced this 🤔 needed to keep having fan off/on to keep windscreen demisted. As you say, once fan comes on EV mileage drops 

[ColinBarber]

This certainly sounds like a software issue - it is the estimation that drops, not the actual range as a fan would have negligible impact on that. It seems the range impact of the AC has being triggered by the fan operation and not the actual AC operation.

[wivenhoe]

Had a strange, possible improvement yesterday. In the past, if I put the “front” switch on then the fan and ac kicked in and directed air to the windscreen, which made sense. Yesterday, with a bit of misting, I turned it on but this time I didn’t turn it off when it cleared but turned the main unit “off”. The “front” remained lit and the screen remained fairly cleared whilst the side had a bit of misting. With the unit off but “front” lit there was no loss of range (as you say, no fan = no loss of range). Next time it mists I’ll repeat and see if it was just a coincidence yesterday. 

I finally understand the “auto” switches above the seats. The car reflects the external & internal temp and switches the seat heating / venting accordingly. With “auto” on yesterday with a relatively cold day, the seat heater came on and also the radiant heating. Hours later when the temp went up to about 18, when I drove away the seat cooling came on. I never noticed this in the summer as the ventilated seats never made as much of an impact as the heating does. 

John & ruds - have you worked out the customisation of the “auto” - there is an option to increase / decrease the setting by up to +2 or -2. I can’t get my head round does that increase the heating and ventilation or just the heating ?

 

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