wivenhoe

Land Rover are also launching a new insurance service in January as they are losing a lot of sales when purchasers try to insure the cars, especially in London. Be interesting to see if the policy’s are reasonable. I suspect they will have very high compulsory excesses. 
 

Accept your views - I achieve about 220 without much ac, except maybe the point about the charge rate. If you have a home charger then there is no difference in charge rate.
If you’re reliant on public chargers then other than the Tesla Superchargers there aren’t many chargers above 150kw which the RZ accepts.
However, there is only 2 minutes difference in 20% to 80% charge times between the RZ and Y Long Range. The manufactures mislead people by leading with say 250kw charge rate but once a Battery gets to say 50% then no matter what Ultra High Speed charger the car is on, the rate drops to say 100kw which is why the RZ and Tesla takes about the same time. Of course, if you only need to go from say 20% to 40% the Tesla on a Supercharger will be maybe 5 mins quicker. 

If I was using the car for business requiring mainly long drives then I certainly wouldn’t have considered the RZ. That said, I really dislike the look of the Tesla’s and don’t fancy driving without a HUD or Speedo in front of me. Each to their own !

Over the time I have had the RZ I have come to realise that there is a lot of misleading stuff about EV’s, particularly charge rates. How many manufacturers make it clear that irrespective of the charger capacity the charge rate drops off significantly so that 80% to 100% takes longer than 20% to 80% or that in cold temperatures range loss can be up to 40%. People keep comparing against mythical range and charge rates when in real range terms the cars are far more similar than it appears. 
Apologies for extremely long response !

Of course - what a stupid message it is if that is the reasoning. I think the message reveals that the software is not capable of receiving OTA updates and so contact the dealer to receive a dealer installed update. Ridiculous that a so called premium brand offers map updates (including cameras) only every 2 years. 

My May 23 RZ has the 2022 map version and when I asked the dealer about the message, they said it just means you have the latest version. On all my previous Merc’s, BMW & Range Rover the maps were updated OTA or by USB quarterly - not much use having traffic cameras that are at least a year out of date. 
 

11 hours ago, John Adams said:

Talking about range, I've just come back from a very early 80 mile round trip. All 30 and 40mph A roads. Very little traffic and 8 deg c outside temperature. I had to have the fan on because of steaming up. Average speed was 36mph  and total average  of 2.4miles/kwh. Gawd knows what it would be on a motorway but not impressed. Was expecting better.

Incidentally I saw a UK range test last night on You Tube and the guy covered 140 miles miles at an average speed of 60mph and 3miles/kwh. More importantly though, he said the useable battery capacity was 67kwh but he didn't know whether it had a software update because it was a dealer demo car. Could be wrong I suspect

John

I think you need to get your Battery checked. Over the last 2 days I covered 85 miles (recorded by my tracker) and charged to 100% at home tonight. The 85 miles was probably 80%+ on very fast duel carriageways. Sometimes a bit over 80  and generally 70. The temp was about 15c. I also preheated the car on one of the days when it wasn’t connected.  My charger says it took 31.5kw to 100% for 85 miles = 2.7 which allowing for preheat was probably nearer 2.9. I had the front seat on auto +2 and the radiant heater was on throughout. 
My dealer told me the upgrade is now on new cars and still expected available for current cars Q4 - fingers crossed. 

But the 285 miles for the Tesla was in good conditions. The article was that the true range in cold temperatures was severely degraded. My point is that all EV’s suffer in cold temps but some manufacturers are misleading with the actual range in winter. Look at the tests for a Tesla Y Long Range in winter with the heating on at its 159 miles - no worse than the RZ, yet not any better.
A similar article to the Telegraph reported that the very well considered Genesis G60 suffered 35% loss in winter - it’s inevitable with the current Battery tech.  

I am not saying the RZ’s range isn’t a disappointment but other manufacturers aren’t being as honest about range degradation. The EPA range (the test all US reviewers quote to  criticise the RZ) of a Tesla Y Long Range with heating range is only 159 miles.

Article in The Telegraph. No doubt the Tesla fans won’t believe this but it demonstrates there are more truthful manufacturers who are slighted and there are manufacturers who just lie.

The government stupidly banned car insurers from offering cheaper introductory rates, just when more competition is required due to the changed risks of EV’s e.g Battery replacement costs but with far more safety systems as they are newer cars and have to comply with the new regs.
Why they thought that banning cheaper ‘teaser rates’ would reduce the cost to everyone was naive and just shows that they are not living in the real world. It was the ‘teaser rates’ that were used to drive down the policies - how many people got a cheaper ‘teaser rate’ from one of the comparison sites and then have their current insurer meet it. 
I suspect we’ll see a load of MP’s and civil servants walk into well paid jobs in the insurance industry next year !

Just revisited Tesco and put retired in and got a quote - 

Direct line was one of the insurers declined to cover - I suspect they quoted you as an existing client. I just tried Tesco and wouldn’t insure the RZ so tried to get one for a Genesis and that was declined !  North Essex, nowhere near London, max no claims, no claims or convictions, car on drive etc etc  - 68 years old !

My RZ renewal quote was about £ 300 more, which is in line with what I’ve seen as general increase for insurance. However, I am thinking that I am lucky, as when I went to other market leading insurers for an online quote I couldn’t get past the page with the model details - presumably because they were refusing to insure. I just hope the insurers get more data in the next 12 months that means they are not so nervous covering EV’s. 

Not helped by a much cheaper Toyota looking almost exactly the same - end of that ‘exclusive’ look then - at least the BZ did look a bit different 

I’m sorry to be a doom monger but I think the thieves will keep finding ways to defeat the manufacturers as there are now so many functions dependent on chips & wiring. Look how often Microsoft & apple have to keep updating to keep the hackers out - somebody took control remotely of a Tesla’s CanBus !

As long as used prices remain high, new cars on long delivery and spares costing a fortune it’ll remain a thieves dream - with no real policing the chances of getting caught are minimal and ill gotten gains high - they’ll find a way. 

With insurance claims and therefore policies rocketing, the government quietly grabs 12% tax, which a lot of people don’t appreciate. It was 2.5% when it was brought in and has doubled in the last couple of years. Yet another stealth tax. 

I sold my Range Rover partially because of the insurance hike - NFU now refuses to insure RR’s younger than 5 years. My RZ (possibly confused by insurers as a RX derivative) cost £200 more to insure for next year compared to this one. The renewal was without a tracker. I spent 20 mins going through the whole quote in a call with NFU and the policy new includes my top of the range S5 Tracker from Tracker. The renewal reduced by 50p !

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 ?

IMG_4696.heic

11 hours ago, Malc1 said:

myohmy .........   some £200 a day for the residual capital loss if you sold her today, let alone the capital and possible finance cost, pain of purchasing new some 5 months back 

No health warning on buying new cars eh !    BUT that euphoric moment of driving off, that day in your brand new car 😃

AND now knowing insurance costs are going thru' the roof too for EVs generally 

I'm quite certain, intuitively, that your tale is not uncommon amongst EV purchasers .....  from nouveau rich to nouveau poor in 5 months ........ 

Not sure what else to say other than to offer my commiserations on your loss

Malc

 

Malc - Thanks for your commiserations but because of the vastly inflated px I got for my Range Rover and intending to keep the Lexus, I won’t feel the loss for quite some time - which helps.
Have just got my renewal though for the insurance and for my RZ and wife’s new Yaris on a dual car policy, it’s gone up £ 300 - I was expecting a lot more. I am paying £ 500 less for both cars than Lexus wanted just for the RZ. NFU couldn’t tell me back in May, when I bought the RZ, how much more the Range Rover would be other than lots !  
The Range Rover Velar forum I was on had guys saying they were being quoted up to £ 3k, where they could get a quote and add to that servicing was about £ 800 / year. 

I think the car market is all over the place at the moment - European & Japanese EV’s are still too expensive just as the Chinese are making big moves into the UK with much cheaper offerings. Dealers don’t know how this is going to pan out so are rightly being cautious about bidding for expensive / prestige EV’s. Not at all helped by the government moving the goal post by 5 years. 

I suspect that if or when buyers start reporting quality and reliability issues, together with a lack of service centres, the value will return to the prestige marques. I for one don’t want to drive a car that could be monitored and taken over by someone in Beijing !  The government banned Huawei from providing 5g equipment but are not stopping Chinese cars full of surveillance tech (over the air updates for instance) to UK buyers. 
 

Whoever - despite my concerns over range I went with the RZ as it had been preordered and was available in May - decided with the insurance rocketing and used car prices reducing my Velar would not hold the px offered so no brainer. I got £62k px - £ 8k less than bought for my 2 year old Velar P400e so something like 10% for 2 years. I put it in WeBuy tonight and it had melted to £ 48k so lost £ 14k in 5 months. Back in May they offered £ 60k. 
That said, I just put my RZ in and they offered £ 42k which is £ 30k loss in 5 months !
 

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 - 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. 

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

League table 

I subscribe so the summary is 

There has been a lot of criticism on here, particularly about the range.  I did my research and so wasn’t deeply disappointed about the range, except the loss of range using the ac - we were ‘promised’ an update in Sept which would significantly improve this - nobody now knows when this will be. 
Burning question for me is - can you have the fan on without the ac / heater. I can’t, turning the ac off makes no difference- on a full charge my car shows 220 miles (this is reliable), if I turn the fan on and ac off the range still goes down to about 175 - what does your do ?

ruds - I think there are only 2 others on here with a RZ. How long have you had yours and what’s your thoughts on it ?

ruds - my RZ had a flat Battery and the electronic doors wouldn’t open, even with the manual key. AA sorted it using the manual key after a real struggle so that error is nothing to do with a flat Battery, as you say. Then I had a “charging malfunction” message and I found the AA  much more helpful than the dealer - they came and disconnected the 12v Battery to reset the system (Lexus doesn’t give them access via the computer port)  That sorted the error so I could drive and charge using DC only whilst it took 6 weeks to get the AC charging module changed.

I very much doubt this will work but give it a try - the manual has emergency starting of the EV - good luck