No Longer the New New Thing

[Mito Man]

I had a YouTube supercar garage video come up as recommended and it was some rich random guy, I jumped through it but he had 2 Veyrons and spent $1 million upgrading one and something stupid like 5 SLRs - what a silly collection of cars.

Edit - found it


Also had all the other Mclaren road cars - maybe you know him SSO.

[Coaster1]

I guess it’s like collecting stamps for them.

[_andy]

I think he had previously posted on this. I believe on the P1 if, for whatever reason, you let the battery drain to zero (i.e. your trickle chargers dies or power trips off whilst you're away), you have to replace the whole battery pack

Here you go:

The downsides to this are the extra 155 Lbs of batteries mounted directly behind the back wall of the passenger cabin and the fact that the P1 needs to be kept on a massive battery conditioner whenever it is garaged. If the batteries go dead, McLaren will happy replace them for a figure north of $70k. I know of several cases where this has happened. It’s the massive iron battery conditioner which is the weak link in this whole system though. If you have a power outage, you need to manual restart the battery conditioner when power is restored. For most owners this is probably not a major issue or concern. In my case it became a major risk factor as I travel extensively, in many instances for multiple weeks at a time, and live in an area that seems to get hit by power outages at least once every few weeks. Hence every vacation and long business trip came with a potential extra $70k surcharge.

155lb of lithium type batteries isn't a lot, maybe 1000 18650 cells, allowing a bit for the packaging and other crap. I don't know what batteries they are using, but it'll be something off the shelf and not even close to $70k in value. If they go 100% flat then it can fuck them, but as long as there is no drain on them (don't leave the lights on ) then they'll sit there for months without losing any charge, so I wouldn't get to worried about not plugging the charger in, or if you're that bothered a redundant system would be pretty straight forward to implement.

[Richard]

I had a YouTube supercar garage video come up as recommended and it was some rich random guy,


Also had all the other Mclaren road cars - maybe you know him SSO.

You must have been talking into your phone about Bugatti’s

[JLv3.0]

Bugatti's what?

[SSO]

£700k F1 - oof!

Excellent, interesting analysis.

Enzo, LaFerrari, P1 and 918 will continue to slide south in value to a bit below the original list prices before starting to trend back up as they age from latest thing to collectable classic.

You fancying one, two or all three of these then at some point? Can't recall if you'd had any of these already.

I had a P1 and if they get the battery situation sorted, I would be tempted to buy another. Not really interested int he other two. Would much rather have another F50 vs. a LaFerrari and would take a CGT over the 918.

[SSO]

I had a YouTube supercar garage video come up as recommended and it was some rich random guy, I jumped through it but he had 2 Veyrons and spent $1 million upgrading one and something stupid like 5 SLRs - what a silly collection of cars.

Edit - found it


Also had all the other Mclaren road cars - maybe you know him SSO.

Sorry, no idea who he is.

[Mito Man]

Just remembered that his Senna was posted on this forum before, it’s the Marlboro tribute one

[IanF]

I certainly think there are too many super/hypercars coming out at the moment.

And I’m curious what the end result will be. If electric cars can eventually be made to look like anything, synthesise any sound, lighter than the original etc. maybe we’ll just spec the shape we want and they’ll 3D print it. 250 eGTO please or maybe a GTe-40 or Miiura. Would certainly make the death of petroleum-based vehicles more palatable.

[RobYob]

. If they go 100% flat then it can fuck them, but as long as there is no drain on them (don't leave the lights on ) then they'll sit there for months without losing any charge, so

Dark current in vehicle development is a bloody nightmare, I could well believe McLaren had a drain they couldn't track down and decided a "never leave it off the charger" instruction to owners was a faster/cheaper option.

[Orange Cola]

. If they go 100% flat then it can fuck them, but as long as there is no drain on them (don't leave the lights on ) then they'll sit there for months without losing any charge, so

Dark current in vehicle development is a bloody nightmare, I could well believe McLaren had a drain they couldn't track down and decided a "never leave it off the charger" instruction to owners was a faster/cheaper option.

Yep, 300 milliamp drains aren’t uncommon in development. They’ll flatten a battery in 24 hours.

[V8Granite]

. If they go 100% flat then it can fuck them, but as long as there is no drain on them (don't leave the lights on ) then they'll sit there for months without losing any charge, so

Dark current in vehicle development is a bloody nightmare, I could well believe McLaren had a drain they couldn't track down and decided a "never leave it off the charger" instruction to owners was a faster/cheaper option.

Yep, 300 milliamp drains aren’t uncommon in development. They’ll flatten a battery in 24 hours.

How does that work then, I have a 105amp hour leisure battery in the Landry and it will run a plug in fridge for about 2 days. Considering I’d get a true 80amp hours out of it do modern cars run tiny batteries or multiple small ones for the tech inside ?

[Orange Cola]

Dark current in vehicle development is a bloody nightmare, I could well believe McLaren had a drain they couldn't track down and decided a "never leave it off the charger" instruction to owners was a faster/cheaper option.

Yep, 300 milliamp drains aren’t uncommon in development. They’ll flatten a battery in 24 hours.

How does that work then, I have a 105amp hour leisure battery in the Landry and it will run a plug in fridge for about 2 days. Considering I’d get a true 80amp hours out of it do modern cars run tiny batteries or multiple small ones for the tech inside ?

One, sometimes two big ones. Combine that with the fact they’re being started and stopped regularly, which obviously takes a fair bit of effort, they drop off nice and quick.

[_andy]

. If they go 100% flat then it can fuck them, but as long as there is no drain on them (don't leave the lights on ) then they'll sit there for months without losing any charge, so

Dark current in vehicle development is a bloody nightmare, I could well believe McLaren had a drain they couldn't track down and decided a "never leave it off the charger" instruction to owners was a faster/cheaper option.

These are the regen braking/torque fill ones though, they almost certainly aren't powering the normal 12v systems so it's unlikely they could have a drain that couldn't be tracked down. One issue I could see is if you put the car away with the batteries in a high state of discharge, then don't drive it for a few weeks. They could potentially drop to a voltage that they could not recover from.

[V8Granite]

Yep, 300 milliamp drains aren’t uncommon in development. They’ll flatten a battery in 24 hours.

How does that work then, I have a 105amp hour leisure battery in the Landry and it will run a plug in fridge for about 2 days. Considering I’d get a true 80amp hours out of it do modern cars run tiny batteries or multiple small ones for the tech inside ?

One, sometimes two big ones. Combine that with the fact they’re being started and stopped regularly, which obviously takes a fair bit of effort, they drop off nice and quick.

That’s the constant starting and stopping then, not the 300ma current drain.

I’m surprised at how many annoying alarms we get in the ML during winter without a journey over 10 miles or so. The wife gets in, heated seat (which is too hot for me) rear screen, a 1.5 mile trip maybe 10 times in a week and we get all manner of alarms at start up.

Dave!

[RobYob]

. If they go 100% flat then it can fuck them, but as long as there is no drain on them (don't leave the lights on ) then they'll sit there for months without losing any charge, so

Dark current in vehicle development is a bloody nightmare, I could well believe McLaren had a drain they couldn't track down and decided a "never leave it off the charger" instruction to owners was a faster/cheaper option.

These are the regen braking/torque fill ones though, they almost certainly aren't powering the normal 12v systems so it's unlikely they could have a drain that couldn't be tracked down. One issue I could see is if you put the car away with the batteries in a high state of discharge, then don't drive it for a few weeks. They could potentially drop to a voltage that they could not recover from.

But the 12V controls stuff like the safety systems around the 400V EV battery, so a dead 12V from dark current might escalate into the 400V going into emergency discharge "crash" mode. Just one hypothetical scenario.

[Mito Man]

It sounds like the simplest thing with these hybrid super cars is just to connect them to power when parked up and spend a few grand getting a automatic generator connected to the garage - which is probably something you’d want anyway if you live somewhere with frequent power cuts.

[SSO]

It sounds like the simplest thing with these hybrid super cars is just to connect them to power when parked up and spend a few grand getting a automatic generator connected to the garage - which is probably something you’d want anyway if you live somewhere with frequent power cuts.

I did think of that but that small gap in-between when the power drops and the generator kicks in I'm not sure the charger would stay alive.

[Orange Cola]

How does that work then, I have a 105amp hour leisure battery in the Landry and it will run a plug in fridge for about 2 days. Considering I’d get a true 80amp hours out of it do modern cars run tiny batteries or multiple small ones for the tech inside ?

One, sometimes two big ones. Combine that with the fact they’re being started and stopped regularly, which obviously takes a fair bit of effort, they drop off nice and quick.

That’s the constant starting and stopping then, not the 300ma current drain.

I’m surprised at how many annoying alarms we get in the ML during winter without a journey over 10 miles or so. The wife gets in, heated seat (which is too hot for me) rear screen, a 1.5 mile trip maybe 10 times in a week and we get all manner of alarms at start up.

Dave!

Err no, go stick a constant 300 milliamp drain on your car - that’s draining 24/7 even when the ignition is off - and see how long your battery lasts.

[JLv3.0]

It sounds like the simplest thing with these hybrid super cars is just to connect them to power when parked up and spend a few grand getting a automatic generator connected to the garage - which is probably something you’d want anyway if you live somewhere with frequent power cuts.

I did think of that but that small gap in-between when the power drops and the generator kicks in I'm not sure the charger would stay alive.

A UPS could have bridged the gap. Still quite an installation to have just to park the car up!!