December 2, 2025 • 20 mins
Relebogile Mabotja speaks to Nicol Louw a Technical Expert about the electric bakkie.
702 Afternoons with Relebogile Mabotja is broadcast live on Johannesburg based talk radio station 702 every weekday afternoon. Relebogile brings a lighter touch to some of the issues of the day as well as a mix of lifestyle topics and a peak into the worlds of entertainment and leisure.
Thank you for listening to a 702 Afternoons with Relebogile Mabotja podcast.
Listen live on Primedia+ weekdays from 13:00 to 15:00 (SA Time) to Afternoons with Relebogile Mabotja broadcast on 702 https://buff.ly/gk3y0Kj
For more from the show go to https://buff.ly/2qKsEfu or find all the catch-up podcasts here https://buff.ly/DTykncj
Subscribe to the 702 Daily and Weekly Newsletters https://buff.ly/v5mfetc
Follow us on social media:
702 on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/TalkRadio702
702 on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@talkradio702
702 on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/talkradio702/
702 on X: https://x.com/Radio702
702 on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@radio702
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Seven o two the Car Feature.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Time for our car feature and today we are joined
by technical car expert Nickel Low, which means you can
get all of your technical car questions in on O
double one double A three oh seven oh two and
the WhatsApp line oh seven two seven oh two on
seven oh two. Do your absolute best to include as
much information as possible, but who knows, Nickel might save
(00:27):
you a few rants and sins when it comes to
whatever issues you're dealing with with your vehicle and maybe
what the people you were into have said as well.
But prior to that, we can have a conversation around
electric BUCkies. Nickel, welcome to the show. How are you doing.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
All good than yourself?
Speaker 2 (00:47):
I'm doing well and I'm so excited to hear all
about this this because this week I was test driving
a hybrid electric and petrol car and again the comp
the thought came to my mind about the practicality with
my area having power off and on, and I thought, Okay,
if I were to do electric, it helps having the
(01:09):
backup of petrol if you've got issues in your area.
So I'm actually glad we're having this conversation to see
are they as functional and as what people would need
when it comes to bugies, because I feel like many
South Africans use bugies for their intended purpose, not just
for having a big car on the road.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Yes, and we know our popular bucky seas in South Africa.
And I was actually looking or writing an article looking
toward next year and realizing that we'll get our first
electric Highlucks in South Africa next year. So well, wow,
fights left has been revealed and everyone has had a
few opinions hard than you highlights will look like. And
(01:52):
obviously in the range is also a BEEV battery electric
vehicle Highlucks. And I was just looking on a market
to see what kind of electric BUCkies or hybrid BUCkies
is avilable to the public, and I've narrowed down to
three interesting ones, so I just quickly want to discuss.
So two of them are one is definitely already in
South Africa, the other one will be launched soon. And
(02:14):
obviously Ilux is coming next year. We don't know yet
if it will be available to the puck public or
it will just be like demo models to start off with.
But yeah, IRELUCKX next year, we're looking at a battery
electric vehicle. It will have two electric motors, one on
each axle, so it will be four by four. All
will drive with no mechanical link between the axles. Actually
(02:35):
they climb one hundred and forty four kill or what.
And they state that it can do around just over
two hundred and forty kilometers on a single charge, which
is not a lot. If you compare it to a
like Diesel GD six two point eight, I can probably
do around eight tonnred kilometers seven eight hudred kilometers on
(02:55):
a tank. So it will be interesting to see what
is the take up of the vehicle in South Africa.
But it's a fully electric highlock. The price has not
been shown yet, so we don't know yet what it
will cost. But if you compare it to other electric
BUCkies out there, I'm sure we've all seen the BYD
Shark six on the roads. That's such electric bid that
(03:19):
is a plug in hybrid Bucky. It made quite a
bit of headlines when it was launched because it's got
a total power output of three hundred and twenty one kilowatts,
and that's because it's got duly electric motors one on
its axle. But it's also got a turbo petrol engine
as well. So if you can bind all those power outputs,
(03:40):
you get three hundred and twenty one killer watts as
zero two hundred times in five point seven seconds, which
is very quick for a bucky, even quicker than the
fourth Ranger wrapped that was sort of the king of
the zero two hundred times in BUCkies. They claim also
that it can do an all electric range on this
(04:02):
viid shock of eighty five kilometers, so you can go
eighty five kilometers before the petrol engine will need to
switch on. And what is interesting is there's also no
physical shaft between the engine and the rear axle. There's
only a battery pack in between that. And what happens
is the engine can drive the wheels, but only the
(04:25):
front wheels, and only if you drive over seventy kilometers
per hour. Then there's a clutch that engages and it
will send power to the front wheels. And you can
imagine they worked it out. That's probably the most efficient
if you go on the motorway to use the engine
as a direct drive and not just as a generator
to generate electricity, because remember, if you generate electricity, there's
(04:48):
a loss efficiency loss to generate electricity, then it goes
to the battery and then obviously it goes to the
electric motors. But if you connected directly motorway driving, then
it's only the mechanical losses of the power train into
the wheel. So in that scenario it's probably better than
just to connect the petrol engine if you go on
a long journey to the wheels, one gear from seventy
(05:11):
kilometers power. So that's the bid shock. Quite quite an
interesting technology nautical vehicle that's survivable. But then the last
one I just want to quickly discuss is the Shangan
Hunter or ee V now that stands for rains extended
electric vehicle. So that has also got a petrol engine. Sorry,
(05:35):
it's a one point five petrol engine the bid shots
that's correct myself there. But the two leter terbo petrol
engine in this Hunter, and that is that is purely
a generator, so it just generates electricity that will go
to again the two electric motors, one per axle. They
stayed two hundred killer watts and they started zero two
(05:55):
hundred in eight seconds, and they state that it can
go up to well combined range with petrol and electric
up to one thousand kilometers of range, which is which
is quite good, I say one hundred and forty five
kilometers or electric range. So yeah, we're sitting in a
country now next year where you can choose between hybrid
(06:17):
parkies and electric parky, which we would have thought. In
South Africa you'll you'll hear about electric and hybrid BUCkies.
That's quite an interesting one.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
It definitely is. And I wonder, like what you said,
what the pricing is going to look like and also
what the uptake is going to look like. But let's see.
I'm pretty sure you'll have those that are very confident
to say I'm going in and I want to be
the first to have this. But now the lines are open,
Oh double one double A three oh seven two, the
(06:46):
WHATSAP line oh seven two, seven oh two one seven
oh two your technical car questions for Nickel low.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
Seven O two the car feature.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
All right, double one double two seven o two, the
WHATSAP line oh seven two, seven oh two seven or two.
Let's go to some questions. Gabor from Rudput says the following.
Heinnekel My twenty seventeen, Polo Vivo's EPC light comes on
when I accelerate hard. The castle drives, but it feels
a bit sluggish. What usually causes that light to come on? Ooh, Nicole,
(07:19):
what is the EPC light?
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Yes, I remember the EPC light, but I remember it's
linked to quite a few fault codes. So unfortunately, you
can check your handbook as well. That will give you
a few that will switch on that light. But you
will need a diagnostic tool to tell you exactly what
is causing that light, because there's quite a few fault
paths that will light that on the instrument cluster. It's
almost like that. We call it a malfunction indicator lamp,
(07:46):
the orange one that looks like a little engine when
that pops up in your car. There's also quite a
few faults that will be linked to that, which is
also linked to an emission fault or something that will
increase the mission output of the vehicle and needs to
be fixed. So some of them, some of the times
you get that fault indicator lamp on, it will be
(08:08):
in a lump home sort of mode where it will
try to protect the engine from itself if some of
the senses has gone wrong and so on. So, but
there's other faults that will not cause any lamp home
or cause any obvious reaction, but it still doesn't mean
you can just continue driving. Better is to get a
diagnostic tool, plug it in, tell you exactly what is wrong,
(08:29):
and then you can decide to go from there. But
there's not one single fault that will lead to that
light coming on.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Okay, thank you so much, Caabler for your question. Tando
says Hire Levilla nicol My twenty fourteen Hundai Eye twenty
keeps making a whining sound when I turn the steering wheel.
Could it be the power steering pump.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Yes, it's one hundred percent so obviously on the steering systems.
I can't remember if that bottle year is just before
they actually went all to electric power steering. So in
a modern cosset with all electrics, so it uses electric
motor on the steering rack to assist the steering force
if you turn left and right. But on the older
vehicles it used to be hydraulic power steering WET. It's
(09:14):
hydraulic fluid that is actually used to assist you, and
you have an electro hydraulic pump giving you the pressure,
and it is possible that if it's still hydraulic pump
that that is causing the noise that you hear if
you turn left and right. Obviously, if you're keeping the
steering will still it's not doing any work, and then
(09:37):
the noise won't be there. So I think it's a
good assumption. If it's hydraulic steering, it might be the
eydrolic steering pump. If it's electric electric motors don't usually
make that noise, it might be the steering rack itself.
But it's definitely something to do with that system.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Okay, we go to the lines. We have Luke in
Winchester Hill's High Luke Hi.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
The Hello High. Hell yeah, so I've got a quick question.
So we're all really interested in ATVs and bvs. But
the challenge I noticed is that from a charging perspective,
there's only two DC charging points in like the whole
(10:19):
of Johanna's work, and then also if you look at
normal AC charging points, it's going to be very few dispersed.
I think that's a real challenge that we'll need to
be overcome, and I don't see any of the obms
doing anything to establish greator charging networks in how thing Specifically,
then you can provide some comments on Metrice.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
Yeah, so if you look at charging infrastructures South Africa,
I think it's actually moving forward. There's obviously companies like
Great Cops that is looking at the expanding the charging
network and you see a lot of charges these guys
at malls and public areas and so on. I think
the problem we sit with with electric viewvehicles is the
(11:01):
battery sizes. So some of these high end electric vehicles
have got very large batteries, and we talk about ninety kilo,
what hours and so on. Some of these hybrid vehicles,
the battery sizes is not that great. So on the
BUCkies we talked about, for example, the bid and at Shanghai,
they both close to thirty kilo what our battery packs. Now,
(11:24):
if you work it out, icy charging, Alternating current charging
is what you can do at your home. That's you've got.
Alternating current is a normal gretted the house runs at.
So a normal socket at home can give you around
three kilo wides. There's a rule of thumb. It's not
exactly that, but let's call it three kilo wates. So
if you've got a thirty kilo what our packet will
charge in ten hours it was completely depleted. But remember
(11:48):
you will never park the call with completely depleted battery.
So eight hours on that kind of battery size is
enough to normally get it up to one hundred percent.
So plug in hybrid costs normally fine. But when you
get to these electric vehicles, I see the eye locks
that we talked about, that's a sixty kilo what hour
I know some of these Etrons and all those type
(12:10):
of performance electric cars, I like ninety kilo hours. So
then then you talk about thirty hours of the charging,
which will not then be able to happen at home.
And then you have to go to your charging stations,
and there they talk about the DC direct current charging.
You'll teach a different plug as well that you used
to plug into your vehicle. And for a long time
(12:32):
in South Africa, the maximum that you can get was
fifty kilowatts. So again, if it's a thirty kilo wat
hour pack, I mean that will take you twenty minutes
or so or just over over half an hour sorry
to charge. But for your larger battery packs like almost
a hundred, it's almost like two hours to or an
hour to charge. At a fifty kilo watch station. Now
(12:54):
they're moving on to one hundred are seen in Europe
you get two hundred kilowat charges, so it's the the
power is increasing. But I think the problem we're sitting
with is the large battery packs that will take a
lot of power to get charged, and you can't really
charge them at a home with a three kilow are
charging because it's going to take forever. There's another option
where they sometimes for the home charging station at your
(13:17):
house if you've got three phase power, and then you
can sort of charge at seven kilowats in that region,
so at least that would help. But for electric costs
to be more popular, will have to increase the charging
station great in South Africa. But I think for now
the hybrid systems make a lot of scenes because when
you run out of electric power is always the petrol
(13:39):
power that will you'll fall back onto that. And with
your plug in hybrids, when you can charge, you can charge,
and you've got your sort of free range of all
electric driving where it's very efficient before the petrol engine
kicks on. So obviously it still the plug in charging
is the most efficient charging if you have to use
the petrol engine to charge, as a battery pack that's
(14:01):
not so efficient. But yeah, that's where we're all with
electric vehicles currently.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
Thank you so much Luke for that question. We have
a voice note on seven two seven O two one seven.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
O two high level.
Speaker 4 (14:15):
I want to ask what is the story about the
wet belt of forty sport one litter A lot has
been said. Some people say it must be changed one
hundred and fifty k kilometers. I went to Ford last time.
They told me about two hundred and ten or two
forty sumwhere what is the right time of changing that belt?
(14:37):
And is it as bad as some reviews are saying.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
Yes, So that's quitey interesting question. What they're talking about
is a weight belt arrangement. So if we look at
our tunnal combustion engine, it's either got a camp belt
or a camp chin. Now a camp belt was like
the robbery time is not a rubber, but it's about
that connects your valve train with a crank shaft and
(15:07):
you will see if you've got a vehicle with a
camp belt, you will have cam belt changing intervals which
might be three years, ninety thousand kilometers, or you'll see
the changing interval where a camp chain you never had
a changing interval. That's sort of the life of the vehicle.
And then some manufacturers have decided know what they want
(15:27):
to actually still use the belt, but they wanted to
last the life of the engine and they wanted it
quiet and smooth running. So it was actually on the
wet side of the engine, so where the oil is
where the normal cam belt will sit on the outside,
and it's a dry belt system. They talk about a
wet belt which is on the inside of the engine.
But the problem is what they found is there's some
(15:49):
degrading that happens with that belt over time, because obviously
you can imagine the oil it gets to ninety hundred
degree celsius and then cools down again and it is up.
So I think it it's a very bad environment to
try to have a rubber let's call it a rubber
belt arrangement. And what we've seen where the Eco Boost
(16:09):
one liter engine is sometimes that belt can start to
fail and some of the rubber parts comes off and
it starts to block oil galleries and then you will
get oil starvation and the engine can fail. And we've
heard some of the reports on the Rangers as well.
With the Ranger buckets bite the will. I think it's
(16:30):
especially the one. We've also got a wet belt arrangement,
so we'll have to see in the future if the
companies will move away from wet belt or theyre going
to use a better materials. But I think from the
time being, I think it's not a bad idea if
you've got to eco boost one liter to change that belt,
maybe around a thousand kilometer, it's that sort of a
safety safety point of view. I know some of the
(16:51):
dealerships will take your sum the bottom of the engine
often just see how that belt looks like you say,
anywhere on the belt, and maybe it make a call then.
But that's a difference between a wet and a dry belt,
and personally, I think the wet belt wasn't a great
decision to go that route. Flowered by the engineers.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Sure, thank you so much for that question. And then
a question from Nick, what does over or under voltage
due to EVY charging systems?
Speaker 1 (17:20):
So over and under voltage I can only imagine it's
talking about to supply voltage to the charging system, But
remember the system is set up in a way that
it can deal with a variation of voltages coming in.
So obviously, if you're using public charging, they will sometimes
(17:41):
state it's a fifty kilo wart charger. You plug in
and it will tell you, now it's not getting the
fifty kilo artches, maybe getting forty one or something like that.
And maybe it's because the voltage isn't isn't high enough.
But remember the battery system. There's a battery control system
each one of these electric vehicles that will take care
of the battery. If there's a spike, it will shoot,
cut it out. There should be a trip seachus a
(18:04):
switch that will prevent battery damage. If it's under voltage,
it will also deal with that. So I'm not too
concerned about supply vault it's not being correct because I
think the systems will take care of that. Even in
your house voltage sometimes, I mean we state it's like
two twenty vaults, but if you really measure it, it
can vary between say two hundred and eighteen two hundred
(18:26):
and twenty five or something like that. But I think
that's that variance is fine. As I say, the battery
charging system of the vehicle will take care of those
kind of fluctuations.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
All right, here's another quick one for you, Nickel, how
safe is it to be in an electric car when
it's in a bad car accident where the batteries are damaged.
I'm assuming the person is imagining these explosions that we
see on movies.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
Yeah, they always joke that if we add election and
remember electric vehicles preceded internal combustion in and then they
moved internal combustion ins. We always joke that if we
all had battery vehicles and then suddenly he said, oh,
we're going to move into internal combustion engines, you'll have
a fluid in your car that's highly flammable in a
tank and it's under the rear seat, and say, you're crazy,
(19:14):
you can't have a car we just used to internal
combustion engines and fuel. But remember the battery packs themselves.
They also they can be very volatile. If they catch
a light, there's a lot of energy there, and we've
seen all these electric cars burn out. It's not a
pretty sight we've seen even like your laptops and cell
phones that catches a light, it is a lot of
(19:35):
energy going there. But remember that OEMs need to design
these battery packs to also fulfill all the crass criteria.
So if you look at all the crash tasting that
happens all of that, the worst one is actually the
side impact in Europe where they do it like a
pole impact on the side of the car, which is
normally where the battery packs are held under the floor.
(19:57):
So it's designed to resist those kind of packs and
to be in an area in a car which is
side So I don't think the electric vehicles are any
more unsafe than other vehicles out there. There's a lot
of precautions that they do as well. There's some safety
switches there. It will disconnect the battery in case of
a severe accident. But fire is a problem in a vehicle,
(20:19):
and that goes for electric and for internal combustion for example,
petrol vehicles.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
Especially because that's just in general things happen on impact.
We're going to have to leave it the nickelotal next time.
Seven o two the Car Feature.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Time for our car feature and today we are joined
by technical car expert Nickel Low, which means you can
get all of your technical car questions in on O
double one double A three oh seven oh two and
the WhatsApp line oh seven two seven oh two on
seven oh two. Do your absolute best to include as
much information as possible, but who knows, Nickel might save
(00:27):
you a few rants and sins when it comes to
whatever issues you're dealing with with your vehicle and maybe
what the people you were into have said as well.
But prior to that, we can have a conversation around
electric BUCkies. Nickel, welcome to the show. How are you doing.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
All good than yourself?
Speaker 2 (00:47):
I'm doing well and I'm so excited to hear all
about this this because this week I was test driving
a hybrid electric and petrol car and again the comp
the thought came to my mind about the practicality with
my area having power off and on, and I thought, Okay,
if I were to do electric, it helps having the
(01:09):
backup of petrol if you've got issues in your area.
So I'm actually glad we're having this conversation to see
are they as functional and as what people would need
when it comes to bugies, because I feel like many
South Africans use bugies for their intended purpose, not just
for having a big car on the road.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Yes, and we know our popular bucky seas in South Africa.
And I was actually looking or writing an article looking
toward next year and realizing that we'll get our first
electric Highlucks in South Africa next year. So well, wow,
fights left has been revealed and everyone has had a
few opinions hard than you highlights will look like. And
(01:52):
obviously in the range is also a BEEV battery electric
vehicle Highlucks. And I was just looking on a market
to see what kind of electric BUCkies or hybrid BUCkies
is avilable to the public, and I've narrowed down to
three interesting ones, so I just quickly want to discuss.
So two of them are one is definitely already in
South Africa, the other one will be launched soon. And
(02:14):
obviously Ilux is coming next year. We don't know yet
if it will be available to the puck public or
it will just be like demo models to start off with.
But yeah, IRELUCKX next year, we're looking at a battery
electric vehicle. It will have two electric motors, one on
each axle, so it will be four by four. All
will drive with no mechanical link between the axles. Actually
(02:35):
they climb one hundred and forty four kill or what.
And they state that it can do around just over
two hundred and forty kilometers on a single charge, which
is not a lot. If you compare it to a
like Diesel GD six two point eight, I can probably
do around eight tonnred kilometers seven eight hudred kilometers on
(02:55):
a tank. So it will be interesting to see what
is the take up of the vehicle in South Africa.
But it's a fully electric highlock. The price has not
been shown yet, so we don't know yet what it
will cost. But if you compare it to other electric
BUCkies out there, I'm sure we've all seen the BYD
Shark six on the roads. That's such electric bid that
(03:19):
is a plug in hybrid Bucky. It made quite a
bit of headlines when it was launched because it's got
a total power output of three hundred and twenty one kilowatts,
and that's because it's got duly electric motors one on
its axle. But it's also got a turbo petrol engine
as well. So if you can bind all those power outputs,
(03:40):
you get three hundred and twenty one killer watts as
zero two hundred times in five point seven seconds, which
is very quick for a bucky, even quicker than the
fourth Ranger wrapped that was sort of the king of
the zero two hundred times in BUCkies. They claim also
that it can do an all electric range on this
(04:02):
viid shock of eighty five kilometers, so you can go
eighty five kilometers before the petrol engine will need to
switch on. And what is interesting is there's also no
physical shaft between the engine and the rear axle. There's
only a battery pack in between that. And what happens
is the engine can drive the wheels, but only the
(04:25):
front wheels, and only if you drive over seventy kilometers
per hour. Then there's a clutch that engages and it
will send power to the front wheels. And you can
imagine they worked it out. That's probably the most efficient
if you go on the motorway to use the engine
as a direct drive and not just as a generator
to generate electricity, because remember, if you generate electricity, there's
(04:48):
a loss efficiency loss to generate electricity, then it goes
to the battery and then obviously it goes to the
electric motors. But if you connected directly motorway driving, then
it's only the mechanical losses of the power train into
the wheel. So in that scenario it's probably better than
just to connect the petrol engine if you go on
a long journey to the wheels, one gear from seventy
(05:11):
kilometers power. So that's the bid shock. Quite quite an
interesting technology nautical vehicle that's survivable. But then the last
one I just want to quickly discuss is the Shangan
Hunter or ee V now that stands for rains extended
electric vehicle. So that has also got a petrol engine. Sorry,
(05:35):
it's a one point five petrol engine the bid shots
that's correct myself there. But the two leter terbo petrol
engine in this Hunter, and that is that is purely
a generator, so it just generates electricity that will go
to again the two electric motors, one per axle. They
stayed two hundred killer watts and they started zero two
(05:55):
hundred in eight seconds, and they state that it can
go up to well combined range with petrol and electric
up to one thousand kilometers of range, which is which
is quite good, I say one hundred and forty five
kilometers or electric range. So yeah, we're sitting in a
country now next year where you can choose between hybrid
(06:17):
parkies and electric parky, which we would have thought. In
South Africa you'll you'll hear about electric and hybrid BUCkies.
That's quite an interesting one.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
It definitely is. And I wonder, like what you said,
what the pricing is going to look like and also
what the uptake is going to look like. But let's see.
I'm pretty sure you'll have those that are very confident
to say I'm going in and I want to be
the first to have this. But now the lines are open,
Oh double one double A three oh seven two, the
(06:46):
WHATSAP line oh seven two, seven oh two one seven
oh two your technical car questions for Nickel low.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
Seven O two the car feature.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
All right, double one double two seven o two, the
WHATSAP line oh seven two, seven oh two seven or two.
Let's go to some questions. Gabor from Rudput says the following.
Heinnekel My twenty seventeen, Polo Vivo's EPC light comes on
when I accelerate hard. The castle drives, but it feels
a bit sluggish. What usually causes that light to come on? Ooh, Nicole,
(07:19):
what is the EPC light?
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Yes, I remember the EPC light, but I remember it's
linked to quite a few fault codes. So unfortunately, you
can check your handbook as well. That will give you
a few that will switch on that light. But you
will need a diagnostic tool to tell you exactly what
is causing that light, because there's quite a few fault
paths that will light that on the instrument cluster. It's
almost like that. We call it a malfunction indicator lamp,
(07:46):
the orange one that looks like a little engine when
that pops up in your car. There's also quite a
few faults that will be linked to that, which is
also linked to an emission fault or something that will
increase the mission output of the vehicle and needs to
be fixed. So some of them, some of the times
you get that fault indicator lamp on, it will be
(08:08):
in a lump home sort of mode where it will
try to protect the engine from itself if some of
the senses has gone wrong and so on. So, but
there's other faults that will not cause any lamp home
or cause any obvious reaction, but it still doesn't mean
you can just continue driving. Better is to get a
diagnostic tool, plug it in, tell you exactly what is wrong,
(08:29):
and then you can decide to go from there. But
there's not one single fault that will lead to that
light coming on.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Okay, thank you so much, Caabler for your question. Tando
says Hire Levilla nicol My twenty fourteen Hundai Eye twenty
keeps making a whining sound when I turn the steering wheel.
Could it be the power steering pump.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Yes, it's one hundred percent so obviously on the steering systems.
I can't remember if that bottle year is just before
they actually went all to electric power steering. So in
a modern cosset with all electrics, so it uses electric
motor on the steering rack to assist the steering force
if you turn left and right. But on the older
vehicles it used to be hydraulic power steering WET. It's
(09:14):
hydraulic fluid that is actually used to assist you, and
you have an electro hydraulic pump giving you the pressure,
and it is possible that if it's still hydraulic pump
that that is causing the noise that you hear if
you turn left and right. Obviously, if you're keeping the
steering will still it's not doing any work, and then
(09:37):
the noise won't be there. So I think it's a
good assumption. If it's hydraulic steering, it might be the
eydrolic steering pump. If it's electric electric motors don't usually
make that noise, it might be the steering rack itself.
But it's definitely something to do with that system.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Okay, we go to the lines. We have Luke in
Winchester Hill's High Luke Hi.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
The Hello High. Hell yeah, so I've got a quick question.
So we're all really interested in ATVs and bvs. But
the challenge I noticed is that from a charging perspective,
there's only two DC charging points in like the whole
(10:19):
of Johanna's work, and then also if you look at
normal AC charging points, it's going to be very few dispersed.
I think that's a real challenge that we'll need to
be overcome, and I don't see any of the obms
doing anything to establish greator charging networks in how thing Specifically,
then you can provide some comments on Metrice.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
Yeah, so if you look at charging infrastructures South Africa,
I think it's actually moving forward. There's obviously companies like
Great Cops that is looking at the expanding the charging
network and you see a lot of charges these guys
at malls and public areas and so on. I think
the problem we sit with with electric viewvehicles is the
(11:01):
battery sizes. So some of these high end electric vehicles
have got very large batteries, and we talk about ninety kilo,
what hours and so on. Some of these hybrid vehicles,
the battery sizes is not that great. So on the
BUCkies we talked about, for example, the bid and at Shanghai,
they both close to thirty kilo what our battery packs. Now,
(11:24):
if you work it out, icy charging, Alternating current charging
is what you can do at your home. That's you've got.
Alternating current is a normal gretted the house runs at.
So a normal socket at home can give you around
three kilo wides. There's a rule of thumb. It's not
exactly that, but let's call it three kilo wates. So
if you've got a thirty kilo what our packet will
charge in ten hours it was completely depleted. But remember
(11:48):
you will never park the call with completely depleted battery.
So eight hours on that kind of battery size is
enough to normally get it up to one hundred percent.
So plug in hybrid costs normally fine. But when you
get to these electric vehicles, I see the eye locks
that we talked about, that's a sixty kilo what hour
I know some of these Etrons and all those type
(12:10):
of performance electric cars, I like ninety kilo hours. So
then then you talk about thirty hours of the charging,
which will not then be able to happen at home.
And then you have to go to your charging stations,
and there they talk about the DC direct current charging.
You'll teach a different plug as well that you used
to plug into your vehicle. And for a long time
(12:32):
in South Africa, the maximum that you can get was
fifty kilowatts. So again, if it's a thirty kilo wat
hour pack, I mean that will take you twenty minutes
or so or just over over half an hour sorry
to charge. But for your larger battery packs like almost
a hundred, it's almost like two hours to or an
hour to charge. At a fifty kilo watch station. Now
(12:54):
they're moving on to one hundred are seen in Europe
you get two hundred kilowat charges, so it's the the
power is increasing. But I think the problem we're sitting
with is the large battery packs that will take a
lot of power to get charged, and you can't really
charge them at a home with a three kilow are
charging because it's going to take forever. There's another option
where they sometimes for the home charging station at your
(13:17):
house if you've got three phase power, and then you
can sort of charge at seven kilowats in that region,
so at least that would help. But for electric costs
to be more popular, will have to increase the charging
station great in South Africa. But I think for now
the hybrid systems make a lot of scenes because when
you run out of electric power is always the petrol
(13:39):
power that will you'll fall back onto that. And with
your plug in hybrids, when you can charge, you can charge,
and you've got your sort of free range of all
electric driving where it's very efficient before the petrol engine
kicks on. So obviously it still the plug in charging
is the most efficient charging if you have to use
the petrol engine to charge, as a battery pack that's
(14:01):
not so efficient. But yeah, that's where we're all with
electric vehicles currently.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
Thank you so much Luke for that question. We have
a voice note on seven two seven O two one seven.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
O two high level.
Speaker 4 (14:15):
I want to ask what is the story about the
wet belt of forty sport one litter A lot has
been said. Some people say it must be changed one
hundred and fifty k kilometers. I went to Ford last time.
They told me about two hundred and ten or two
forty sumwhere what is the right time of changing that belt?
(14:37):
And is it as bad as some reviews are saying.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
Yes, So that's quitey interesting question. What they're talking about
is a weight belt arrangement. So if we look at
our tunnal combustion engine, it's either got a camp belt
or a camp chin. Now a camp belt was like
the robbery time is not a rubber, but it's about
that connects your valve train with a crank shaft and
(15:07):
you will see if you've got a vehicle with a
camp belt, you will have cam belt changing intervals which
might be three years, ninety thousand kilometers, or you'll see
the changing interval where a camp chain you never had
a changing interval. That's sort of the life of the vehicle.
And then some manufacturers have decided know what they want
(15:27):
to actually still use the belt, but they wanted to
last the life of the engine and they wanted it
quiet and smooth running. So it was actually on the
wet side of the engine, so where the oil is
where the normal cam belt will sit on the outside,
and it's a dry belt system. They talk about a
wet belt which is on the inside of the engine.
But the problem is what they found is there's some
(15:49):
degrading that happens with that belt over time, because obviously
you can imagine the oil it gets to ninety hundred
degree celsius and then cools down again and it is up.
So I think it it's a very bad environment to
try to have a rubber let's call it a rubber
belt arrangement. And what we've seen where the Eco Boost
(16:09):
one liter engine is sometimes that belt can start to
fail and some of the rubber parts comes off and
it starts to block oil galleries and then you will
get oil starvation and the engine can fail. And we've
heard some of the reports on the Rangers as well.
With the Ranger buckets bite the will. I think it's
(16:30):
especially the one. We've also got a wet belt arrangement,
so we'll have to see in the future if the
companies will move away from wet belt or theyre going
to use a better materials. But I think from the
time being, I think it's not a bad idea if
you've got to eco boost one liter to change that belt,
maybe around a thousand kilometer, it's that sort of a
safety safety point of view. I know some of the
(16:51):
dealerships will take your sum the bottom of the engine
often just see how that belt looks like you say,
anywhere on the belt, and maybe it make a call then.
But that's a difference between a wet and a dry belt,
and personally, I think the wet belt wasn't a great
decision to go that route. Flowered by the engineers.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Sure, thank you so much for that question. And then
a question from Nick, what does over or under voltage
due to EVY charging systems?
Speaker 1 (17:20):
So over and under voltage I can only imagine it's
talking about to supply voltage to the charging system, But
remember the system is set up in a way that
it can deal with a variation of voltages coming in.
So obviously, if you're using public charging, they will sometimes
(17:41):
state it's a fifty kilo wart charger. You plug in
and it will tell you, now it's not getting the
fifty kilo artches, maybe getting forty one or something like that.
And maybe it's because the voltage isn't isn't high enough.
But remember the battery system. There's a battery control system
each one of these electric vehicles that will take care
of the battery. If there's a spike, it will shoot,
cut it out. There should be a trip seachus a
(18:04):
switch that will prevent battery damage. If it's under voltage,
it will also deal with that. So I'm not too
concerned about supply vault it's not being correct because I
think the systems will take care of that. Even in
your house voltage sometimes, I mean we state it's like
two twenty vaults, but if you really measure it, it
can vary between say two hundred and eighteen two hundred
(18:26):
and twenty five or something like that. But I think
that's that variance is fine. As I say, the battery
charging system of the vehicle will take care of those
kind of fluctuations.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
All right, here's another quick one for you, Nickel, how
safe is it to be in an electric car when
it's in a bad car accident where the batteries are damaged.
I'm assuming the person is imagining these explosions that we
see on movies.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
Yeah, they always joke that if we add election and
remember electric vehicles preceded internal combustion in and then they
moved internal combustion ins. We always joke that if we
all had battery vehicles and then suddenly he said, oh,
we're going to move into internal combustion engines, you'll have
a fluid in your car that's highly flammable in a
tank and it's under the rear seat, and say, you're crazy,
(19:14):
you can't have a car we just used to internal
combustion engines and fuel. But remember the battery packs themselves.
They also they can be very volatile. If they catch
a light, there's a lot of energy there, and we've
seen all these electric cars burn out. It's not a
pretty sight we've seen even like your laptops and cell
phones that catches a light, it is a lot of
(19:35):
energy going there. But remember that OEMs need to design
these battery packs to also fulfill all the crass criteria.
So if you look at all the crash tasting that
happens all of that, the worst one is actually the
side impact in Europe where they do it like a
pole impact on the side of the car, which is
normally where the battery packs are held under the floor.
(19:57):
So it's designed to resist those kind of packs and
to be in an area in a car which is
side So I don't think the electric vehicles are any
more unsafe than other vehicles out there. There's a lot
of precautions that they do as well. There's some safety
switches there. It will disconnect the battery in case of
a severe accident. But fire is a problem in a vehicle,
(20:19):
and that goes for electric and for internal combustion for example,
petrol vehicles.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
Especially because that's just in general things happen on impact.
We're going to have to leave it the nickelotal next time.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Bobby Bones Show
Listen to 'The Bobby Bones Show' by downloading the daily full replay.