Jaan tours the London EV Show

London EV Sow took place on 26-28th November and I flew in to see it all. Here are my thoughts:

Tesla

I want to give a special shoutout to Tesla in regards to London EV Show.
No I’m not biased, I promise! Well maybe a little. But I have a reason today: 

While a big enough event and open to all, The London Show somehow didn’t have nearly any automakers present, just companies for charging and other related EV industry niches.

And me, in my infinite wisdom, flew to London there specifically to test drive all kinds of EV models without checking their website if those models would indeed be present. The biggest EV show in London surely would, right?

Nope. I was wrong.

So when I saw Tesla’s booth with two of their cars there, I specifically went to them and said thanks for doing this. They showed a Model Y and the refreshed Model 3 to everyone, had at least 5-6 team members around, and we also learned they have some for test drives. Although the steering wheel is on the wrong right side for me and my friend Kalmer, we just had to try driving it.

I can confirm the refreshed M3 seems to have better suspension, I do love the new headlights (way sportier look), less noise inside the cabin, and perhaps an unpopular opinion, but the signal stalks as two buttons on the steering wheel felt natural right away.

Great of Tesla UK putting in the effort where others don’t. That’s how you win — butts in seats!

Now, of course I saw quite a lot of other fun things to note as well.

Others

See this video on the best AA van I’ve ever seen:

Maxus beat both Rivian and Tesla to the European market with a very decent electric pickup truck, the eTERRON9 (the name needs work though). 430km range WLTP; V2L from the 2.2kW in the 236-l frunk (!) or 6.6kW in the bed, rear wall of the driver’s cab can be lowered at the touch of a button, and if not, it seats five adults sparingly. It can tow up to 3.5 tons and has max payload of 620km on the bed. Oh, and the infotainment is quite decent. Starts at £49,950 ($62,600) + VAT with most needed features in standard.

The new e-Macan could be spotted in two booths (but Porsche itself wasn’t there…?). XPEL knows how to make an impression:

The only heavy-duty truck at the show was the Renault Trucks e-Tech — well done! I like the number plate as well:

The future of mobility comes in all shapes and sizes:

And in all shapes — EVbreakers, an UK-based company specializing in EV dismantling and used parts — brought a Model 3 that was stripped inside, added roll cage and more.

For an EV charging infra geek, this was a surprisingly good show! For a regular EV-interested person (the show was free to visit) however… not so much, probably, due to lack of EV models.

Alpitronic, one of the best-regarded DC charger makers in our Universe, is going MegaWatt Charging. Now, an interesting bit here that I haven’t seen elsewhere yet is the dual plug—a CCS2 adapter (presumably maxing out at… 350kW or so?) and the bigger MCS charger for the actual 1MW.

I discovered a new entry to the AC charging market in Europe — Humax from South Korea, producing a range of commercial and home chargers, with replaceable panels in front. They are also already ready to provide bidirectional charging, as soon as the carmakers launch the capabilities.

I found that the Lotus’ 450kW harging dispenser are not at all as unique looking (left) as the early launch marketing materials showed us (right)

Star Charge, another Chinese charging entry to Europe went with an UFO halo on top of their charger, but the compact moving arms seem to make the handling of the cable a breeze:

More advertising screens, offered by Willsert (Charger makers keep trying to find value adds to differentiate themselves. Which will stick??

Here’s a differentiating factor indeed: Vestel goes “ultra-slim” on a 60kW DC charger and compact on its 40kW DC:

And here’s a pic of the Zerova chargers that had quite a presence at the show:

Note that there was quite a few other charging manufacturers there that I didn’t take pictures of.

Oh, and this is how you get attention to your trade show booth: mini Cybertruck just chargin’ there:

While in London, I had to go and see some others that don’t have a footprint in Estonia as well — like Polestar and Genesis.

The Polestar 4 is a huge improvement on the Polestar 2 that I tested years ago. The infotainment looks great to use, interior seems luxurious and not that ‘boxed in’ as in the 2, and yes, I did notice that I don’t have a rear window. It starts at £59,990 ($75k).

The Polestar 3, the SUV type, is interesting too. While the interior is similar, the rest has visible differences. One, the Thor’s Hammer headlights much like most new Volvo EVs.

I found quite a lot of efforts on the aerodynamics on this EV design, for example this little guy in the back:

And most notably, this air intake on the front of the hood that I bet you didn’t even notice on the first image of the car (I didn’t notice it either on the actual car from that angle):

Genesis GV60… comes with approaches all on its own, most of which seems to be made to convey “luxury”. In the UK, it starts at £66,900 ($83.7k).

For example, I found this appearing gear selector interesting:

Or these things that I initially thought are small speakers in odd place, but turns out they’re air vents you can put fragrance in, just screw it open:

Of course, these are likely found in other models and me as not a traditional car journalist just haven’t come across them. Oh the joys of not knowing everything and being able to discover everything like a kid for the first time.

This is where I leave you, and if you came here from our newsletter — now’s a good time to head back there. ✌️ 

— Jaan