Advice needed: 6 days in Perth with a two year old and farm stay in March?

[Dannnn]

On 6/5/2024 at 8:02 PM, Lala81 said:

My friend is in Melbourne now. Got a 385 dollar fine.

15 kph above speed limit. 

your friend still in Mel, and so fast already receive/know the fine ?

[Lala81]

On 6/6/2024 at 10:31 AM, Dannnn said:

your friend still in Mel, and so fast already receive/know the fine ?

I dunno. I also surprised lol. 

Collect money i guess most govt is fast hand fast leg.

 

Edited June 6, 2024 by Lala81

[teomingern]

On 6/6/2024 at 10:31 AM, Dannnn said:

your friend still in Mel, and so fast already receive/know the fine ?

I think you're given the ticket on the spot and you know how much the fine is also... that's what I remembered from my family's misadventure in NZ... think they're similar...

[teomingern]

On 6/6/2024 at 9:58 AM, therock said:

Yeah

we are on holiday don’t over commit and end up rushing 

enjoy the road trip 👍 

remember that bro Teo 😉 

Ha ha... I don't rush bro... I just drive fast and adjust itinerary on the fly... my itinerary always modular... can discard stuff along the way... must always have Plan B... and C and sometimes D...

[teomingern]

On 6/5/2024 at 8:18 PM, Voodooman said:

I don't speed in Australia as it is just not worth it.  

But I just prefer to drive a 2 litre car over a 1.5 litre 4-wheeler when I can help it.  I think driving an underpowered car is a freaking torture (and sometimes risky especially when traveling on single lane road requiring overtaking).  If driving is just a point A to point B thingy, we should all be driving the horrible Mitsubishi Attrage.

Understand what you mean... sufficient power is good enough... underpowered is bad...

[macrosszero]

So here's the overdue FR renting an EV for a Perth trip:

I eventually followed through and rented a BYD Atto 3 (and did get an Atto 3) from SIXT

At 33k kms old it was no spring chicken but nothing was falling apart either. The nice thing was that it came fully charged, which was a pretty key, as my first overnight stop after landing at Perth, was Busselton. Boot space was a little small initially, due to how high the loading floor was (eventually I found out that it can be lowered). I was assured by the rental agency staff that chargers were easy to find in and around Perth...

Still, with a full charge, I was feeling pretty confident with 480km range showing on the car, and a ~233km trip from Perth International to Busselton... which we aimed to reach before sunset. I didn't figure on phone eSIM issues that resulted in us faffing about at the airport for an hour (I eventually just spent $25 for an Optus 60gb/1 month plan) before setting off to look for the renters' office, which was another adventure in itself as the desks within the terminal were closed, and the actual offices were on the other side of a fenced-off construction site. 

Anyway, with the fading light and hungry stomachs, we stopped at Bunbury for dinner before plugging on towards Busselton. By the time I got to Busselton, posted range was down to 130km. I mean, what gives? 480 minus 233, even with a 5km detour for dinner, should easily yield 200kms remaining range right?

Seems not quite. Apparently, at least for this EV, it lives and dies on regenerative braking and there isn't much of that happening on the freeway. 

Good thing there's a charger about a 10 minute walk away from the hotel then... I'd checked and confirmed there were at least 3 Chargefox chargers around Busselton with the ChargeFox app.

With a day trip the next day to Margaret River, I did need to ensure I had enough volts so after bedding down the family I headed over to put some in. 

In strong winds. 

And the rain. 

In 10 deg C weather.

Now, learning about how to operate a new device doesn't come harder than this - even though I have an RFID tag on the car key to unlock chargers, I needed to figure out where I needed to flash the damn RFID tag... only to eventually figure out that the fast charger wasn't working (and stayed broken for 3 days. I saw another fast charger elsewhere also broken, with an estimated date of parts replacement in September). It was a further fuss to dig into the back of the car to find the provided charge cables to use the slow charger, which thankfully did work, but would require 7-8 hours to charge up...

So the thing about fast and slow chargers is that there are generally idle fees at fast chargers, but not at slow chargers. At least with a 7-hour charge time, I could leave the car there overnight and (fortunately) walk back to the hotel for a night's rest before picking it up the next morning, which was what I did. 

And so we got a fully charged Atto for the next day's adventures through Margaret River, which unfortunately was washed with strong winds and rains, which dashed a lot of our outdoor activities planned, but we did get to the farmers' market (many of the stall owners will move to Busselton's market the next day), for which there was an actual working fast charger nearby. 

At this point I'd also point out that the Atto's onboard navigation isn't reliable and had a few times brought us to the wrong place despite the correct address being entered.  ended up using Apple CarPlay and Waze. Tesla's implementation of navigation, particularly to their charging network, especially with real-time charging status, was better in my opinion. The ChargeFox app does provide a similar status update, which tells you have many ports and what types are available, how long a port has been used for, and sometimes even the charge state of the car being charged. Owners can also leave a message how long they plan to charge. But, in a situation when all ports are being used, you don't get visibility if there are other EVs waiting for their turn to get a charge......

Anyhow, between Busselton's slow charger and Margaret River's fast charger, I had enough volts to make it back to Perth, easily, without worrying further about range on the Atto. But it did calibrate me, in a sense that ICE cars were better on highway, and EVs were better for cities vis-a-vis their reported range at full capacity.

Contrary to some opinions here regarding speed limits, while they are there, there are no laws preventing you from accelerating briskly, and the 300+ nM torque was readily available as long as you were willing to floor it. The tires on the car were sh!t though, and given that it is an FF layout, traction control often cut in especially if the road was wet. But it was useful in urban situations if you are a lost tourist and found yourself one or two lanes away from where you needed to be. 

All in all, after this extended test drive of the Atto 3, I'd say it is a car I would buy, if I needed to buy one at this point of time. I'd buy it over the Tesla Model 3, just because it was less quirky and an easier transition from existing ICE cars. Honestly, Tesla tries too hard, with the deleted driver's cluster, and electronically-operated everything. But in a Singapore context - if you have your own charging at home to keep the car's volts topped up, range anxiety and charger availability are never really going to be your problem. 

But I don't need a car now, and when I got back into my own car when I came back, I didn't feel like it was a downgrade at all.

[therock]

Nice review bro

IMHO, I still pay for a regular data plan... too hard for me and myphone google works better than any GPS.. hope you enjoyed it 🙂

[macrosszero]

On 9/1/2024 at 6:02 PM, therock said:

Nice review bro

IMHO, I still pay for a regular data plan... too hard for me and myphone google works better than any GPS.. hope you enjoyed it 🙂

Oh yes - total distance covered was just over 1,000km and it would’ve cost me ~S$120 in petrol.

Would I do EV again for the same loop?

Probably not. I didn’t like being constrained like that. The convenience of a 10 minute splash and dash at any petrol station with multiple availability pumps still trumps the savings and the performance.

But aside from that, it was pretty transparent from a daily driving perspective and I didn’t have to make any huge adjustment.

[Tohto]

On 9/1/2024 at 8:46 PM, macrosszero said:

Oh yes - total distance covered was just over 1,000km and it would’ve cost me ~S$120 in petrol.

Would I do EV again for the same loop?

Probably not. I didn’t like being constrained like that. The convenience of a 10 minute splash and dash at any petrol station with multiple availability pumps still trumps the savings and the performance.

But aside from that, it was pretty transparent from a daily driving perspective and I didn’t have to make any huge adjustment.

Exactly the reason on a overseas road trip, I will never rent a EV. Especially for Aussie such a big country which often long distance driving. Range anxiety is real in a EV.

[macrosszero]

On 9/1/2024 at 10:07 PM, Tohto said:

Exactly the reason on an overseas road trip, I will never rent a EV. Especially for Aussie such a big country which often long distance driving. Range anxiety is real in a EV.

Personally I feel it’s the maturity of one network (EV) over the other (petrol stations). 

In the early days when people transitioned from horse carriages to cars I am sure petrol stations weren’t freely available 

But if Tesla’s network is anything to go by, and fast chargers are as ubiquitous as petrol stations are today, then the EV revolution will spread beyond inner-city to intra-city travel

[therock]

Australia is huge... in the city, there were no issues in Perth, but even driving down to Caversham, it's not so simple

So if you have kids and need to make pit stops, you have one more variable to consider and that's harder for the driver, so I may stick to ICE and keep it simple.. 

Likewise, if I'm traveling around NZ or USA on long trips outside of the cities, maybe a ICE is safer for now, but things may change..

[macrosszero]

And in any case my review was factual and not biased to or against EV. It’s only relevant to what it is two months back in 2024 and not before or in the future. Y’all need to figure out your own choices - whether it is to rent an EV for a vacation or buy one for yourself in Singapore (or wherever it is you may live)

[Lala81]

On 9/1/2024 at 10:41 PM, macrosszero said:

And in any case my review was factual and not biased to or against EV. It’s only relevant to what it is two months back in 2024 and not before or in the future. Y’all need to figure out your own choices - whether it is to rent an EV for a vacation or buy one for yourself in Singapore (or wherever it is you may live)

I'm just kinda surprised the rental company doesn't only rent out Teslas for their EV models. 

[Tohto]

On 9/1/2024 at 11:57 PM, Lala81 said:

I'm just kinda surprised the rental company doesn't only rent out Teslas for their EV models. 

I saw under SIXT, they are renting Tesla, BYD Atto 3 and also MG ZS.

 

[therock]

It's back to Perth this month... if anyone has new places to eat in the CBD area or places to explore please sound out too, cheers

[Tohto]

On 2/1/2025 at 7:48 PM, therock said:

It's back to Perth this month... if anyone has new places to eat in the CBD area or places to explore please sound out too, cheers

Very hot summer time..

[Hubwee]

On 2/1/2025 at 7:48 PM, therock said:

It's back to Perth this month... if anyone has new places to eat in the CBD area or places to explore please sound out too, cheers

Can check out this SG / Malaysia’n restaurant , Hey Hawker at 28A Chapman road …

SG / Malaysian style food . 
tabao from from them at least 5-6 times during my half month stay there last year .

[therock]

On 2/2/2025 at 10:14 AM, Tohto said:

Very hot summer time..

Work meeting la, added a little R&R