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‘It was OK until the update…’

8 December 2021

‘It was OK until the update…’

It’s a common frustration. A piece of electronic equipment that was working well suddenly stops doing so after a software update. 

It’s typically encountered with computers and mobile phones but Pete Beach, sales and marketing manager with welfare unit manufacturer Genquip Groundhog, has now experienced such as issue with his Jaguar iPace electric vehicle (EV). 

As blog subscribers will know, I regularly report on Pete’s experiences with the car to provide an unscientific but real-life study into the practicalities of EVs for higher-mileage drivers. (In the most recent post, Pete actually decided that he would eventually switch back to a diesel or hybrid model, but that will take time given supply chain issues.)

“The car received a Wi-Fi update yesterday,” he told me as he was driving from his Sheffield home to Genquip’s Neath factory. “It was meant to improve charging efficiency, but it’s actually made it worse. 

“When travelling I try to find 120kWh ‘fast’ chargers that normally add the equivalent of 100 miles of range per hour. But this morning I stopped to charge up at the Tamworth motorway services and I was getting just 40 miles of charge in the same time. 

“I phoned the dealer and they said that other people had contacted them with the same issue. They suggested it was something to do with the charge point, but another EV driver plugged in next to me was getting the faster rate. The earliest appointment I can get for the dealer to look at it is 13 January. 

“It’s just another frustration with EVs for high-mileage drivers,” said Pete, who typically covers 40,000 miles a year. 

Separately, EV sales are seemingly outstripping the supply of charge points. The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) reports that 21,000 EVs were sold in November, twice as many as in the same month last year. However, SMMT analysis also suggests that only one new standard public charge point is currently being installed for every 52 new electric vehicles registered. 

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