Categorie: BYD Atto 3

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BYD Atto 3 – 12 Volt battery stays in better condition after software update of February 20, 2023

THIS POST WAS UPDATED AFTER THE  2023-2-20 S/W UPDATE!!!, 

please also read the epilogue at the end of this post

My Atto 3 is doing very well, had no problems or crazy things from mid-November 2022 until now, Feb. 3, 2023. And I don’t expect to have any problems with the car either….

On weekdays I usually drive 100 to 200 kilometers with the Atto 3 and therefore my 12Volt battery is always charged.  But I also store the car sometimes for longer periods in the parking garage.

This electric Atto 3 only charges the 12V battery when the car is started, as most EV’s do- so I have understood.

When the car has not been started, the 12V battery is not charged and can slowly drain the 12V battery, even when you are actiively connected to the car’s charger.

The issue is how much that 12Volt battery drains, because there is only a relatively small battery in the Atto 3, since there is no need to operate a heavy starter motor.

As a precaution, I installed a measuring system on the 12 Volt battery in early February. With that I measured the voltage and discharge.

The discharge seemed to be a bit on the high side but I never had any problems with this myself.

Below my experience and measurement data is shown before and after the latest software update of 20-2-2023.

EXPERIENCES AFTER THE SOFTWARE UPDATE OF 20-2-2023:

Above the updated screen in my Atto shows the new software revision.

On the left on the SOC (state of Charge) printout above from my Battery measurement system you can see that BEFORE the software update the battery still runs down quite a bit in 1 day.

But AFTER the software update which I did at 8am 20-2-2-23 the battery runs down much less and much slower.

You can see that very well in the above picture of 3 days with the old software on the left and the new software on the right.

This is the voltage chart, this shows even more clearly what has changed.

My conclusion is that the 12 V battery will discharge slower after this update.

This will result in better 12V battery oerformence and will certainly prevent  starting problems which could have occured with the old software.

===============================================================

The old article on the how and why of 12Volt battery discharge with graphs and explanation is still available below and at the end our epilogue is added:

Possible problems I would like to avoid. Therefore, among other things, I provided a spare tire in the Atto 3 and made a battery guard ( Battery Guard)) on the 12 Volt battery voltage.

According to Autoweek.nl, ADAC has the following experience with failures in EVs gained in 2020: “The breakdown statistics of the German roadside assistance organization ADAC for the year 2020 revealed that even in an electric car, a faulty starter battery is responsible for 1 in 2 breakdowns. ”

Believe it or not, but the 12 Volt battery is very important in the EV because all on-board functions are provided from that 12 Volt on-board voltage. Actually, the high voltage traction battery is only used to power the car.

Everything else you see that moves or makes noise, everything else is powered by that 12 Volt. For example, even the power steering and power brakes, heat pump (air conditioning), seat heater, all fans and yes, even the battery management system (BMS) of the traction battery is powered from the 12 Volt voltage supply.

So-when that 12 Volt battery is dead nothing really works anymore.

You often can’t even get in then, unless you also got a regular key with the car. I think the BYD Atto 3 luckily has such a key, although I don’t really remember where I put it. Probably still in the dealer folder. Hmm. just put it on the big key ring anyway and don’t leave it in the car.

I once saw on Youtube how that works on an old model Tesla S, when the 12V battery is dead. There are then pull wires under the car to be able to open the hood and charge the 12V battery, then you can operate the doors again.

I am going to make a standard charging cable for my Atto 3 under the car as I did with my motorcycle. At least then you can easily charge the battery. At least when you have a suitable cable to the (external) battery charger.

Anyway, I have recently installed a mini sweater pack 12Volt in the back. With that you can always jump start an empty battery on the road. These packs do not run empty because they are Lifepo batteries. So minimal self-discharge.

A battery measuring system on the 12V battery

As a precaution, I mounted a Battery Guard with bluetooth on the 12V battery. Via bluetooth you can have diagnostic signals pushed to your phone via the app but you can also see for yourself at any time what the status of the battery is. Of course, you have to be within the bluetooth range of the device of about 5 meters.

This Battery Guard is cheap and easy to install. Costs about 20 Euros and it always keeps track of the battery voltage so you can read it with your phone whenever you want. In addition, it gives alarms via the app on your phone when the battery voltage is too low or has been too low. You can also get and/or view graphs from it: This way you will know in time when your battery needs replacement!

Above you can see the daily summary of the voltage of the 12V battery of my Atto3 after I mounted it at 1:00 pm, 2-2-2023. (recorded at 8:00 pm). The first small peak on the far left is from my spare battery, in my garage. That one doesn’t count. (12:00-12:30)

What I notice is that the car charges the 12V battery with 13.8 Volts (left peak while I started the car) and at rest with spikes every hour the car discharges the 12V battery slightly. 13.8 Volts seems on the low side as a charging voltage for a lead-acid battery but is OK in principle, if indeed the battery is already reasonably fully charged. This differs per type of battery.

It is a SCEM-3703010 battery and it has another number on it: 38B20L. According to the sticker, it is a regular 35 Amp-hour (Ah) lead-acid battery. This battery costs about 75 Euro from VMF, among others.

“This battery is also often used in the Suzuki Vitara, Kia Picanto, Honda Jazz, Nissan Figaro, etc. for example to replace the original battery Suzuki 38B20L”.

A word about battery discharge when not driving the car: I am of course very curious as to the reason that this discharge occurs every hour as a kind of peak charge. I have now turned off all communications in the car overnight (sim/OTA, wifi, bluetooth) to see what the effect is. The car is always on the charger in the evening and at night, and during the day I usually drive about 100-200 km. Enough to charge the battery, it seems to me. Next morning there was no difference from before so I just turned the communication back on.

The voltage curve was like this without wifi, bluetooth and OTA SIM:

And (below) as of 07:00 after parking Feb 3, 2023 it looks very much the same with OTA connection enabled, and wifi and bluetooth all on.

Between 06:10 and 07:05 I drove the car, then the system charges the battery nicely. That gives the voltage range between 13.6 and 13.8 volts. Then parked and then the 12V battery discharged so again a bit between 07:05 and 15:20. During the return trip home between 15:15 and 16:05, of course, the 12V battery is charging again.

This weekend I am not driving the car, curious to see what it will look like then in terms of discharging the 12V battery: See below.

The car is discharging quite a bit and the voltage is almost to 12 volts.

Driven for hour in the afternoon of Friday, Feb. 3, the battery charged quite a bit and then idled for over 2 days and discharged to almost 12 Volts. Then hit the road a few times on Monday, Feb. 6, and parked again overnight, as shown on the right on the graph below.

A shame in itself that at this rate the car discharges the battery when stationary, but it is all still good enough to get the car back on after 2 days.

No worries

By the way, I experienced with our Christmas vacation of 2022/2023 that the car also just turns on after 20 days of idling without any problem.

So I’m not worried at all. Nice to see what all is going on in terms of 12 Volt battery usage of course.

 

Why does the voltage level of the 12V battery actually drop?

Of course, it is normal for a 12V battery to lose charge. This already happens because of the self-discharge of these lead-acid batteries but also because of all the bells and whistles we need in modern cars.

There is actually always about 5 milli-amps to 20 milli-amps running from the battery to an average modern car at idle. I have no idea (yet) how that is with the Atto3, I’m going to measure that.

My 2010 Volvo V70 had a resting current of 20 mill-Amps and after half an hour it dropped to 8 milli-amps.

That caused a self-discharge where after 5 to 6 weeks of idling you could no longer start the car with its own battery.

I then put a manually operated ground switch between them for longer idle periods.

I’m going to do the same with the Atto 3.

As a precaution, for times when we travel by other means and are away for a few weeks.

That idle current is caused by such things as the internet connection, key receiving system, alarm and so on. So on average, within a month to 6 weeks, the 12V battery of a modern car is so depleted that successful starting becomes questionable.

In the case of an EV, the idle battery drains even faster simply because it is relatively small.

How does your EV charge the 12V battery?

In an EV there is a DC-DC converter that converts the voltage from the high-voltage traction battery back to a charging voltage of 14-15 volts for the 12V battery.

In almost all EVs, the 12V battery only charges when the car is “on.

That seems to have been copied from ICE ’traditional’ cars. Those also charge only when the engine is running.

But with the EV, you have to have the car turned on, either with the START button or the ON button.

This means that an EV at rest does charge and maintain the high voltage traction battery but the 12V battery is NOT charged at all in that situation, indeed: The charge of the 12V battery is NOT controlled at all when the car is at rest and/or being charged. Actually, this is very similar to a conventional ICE car.

If you do not drive your EV very often and/or only for short distances and you have many electrical devices on such as 2x seat heating, rear window heating, heating and air conditioning, windshield wipers and so on, then you will experience the problem with a flat 12V battery sooner than if you regularly drive longer distances.

In that sense an EV is somewhat similar to traditional ICE cars, where a dead battery is also more common with more short trips on average.

The Solution

The solution to this possible 12V battery problem in EVs does not exist (yet). The easiest way, of course, is to add a ground switch to the ground connection of your 12V battery when not using the car for long periods of time. But I never really know in advance when that will occur.

The best solution would be to have a circuit available that automatically disconnects the battery just like a ground switch but when the battery voltage drops below a critical value.

Then you can still start but the battery will not drain further.

Maybe I should develop something like that myself… Or maybe from Aliexpress?

EPILOGUE FROM THE AUTHOR 2023-02-28

IS IT GOOD ENOUGH?:

With the latest software update of 20-2-2023, there does not seem to be a problem anymore, except maybe when the car is not used for a long time. Then it is indeed better to disconnect the battery, but it is still unclear when you should do that.

The logging below shows that the battery does still discharge quite a bit.

I left the car for 4 days (etmalen) after the 12V battery was completely full. Well at the charging station but that does not benefit the 12V battery.

In those 4 days, the battery voltage dropped to about 12.3 volts, enough to start the car again.

But- the State of Charge gives an indication of just above 40% starting capacity after 4 days of downtime. And personally, I do not think that is good enough.

I had already made my decision to install the ground switch “just to be sure” so I am definitely going to do that. The switch will be under the front of the car on the bulkhead, so I can just reach it and don’t have to open the hood. It’s a waterproof surface-mounted switch that can handle 250 amps, with thick ground cables pre-mounted to it.

And I’m assuming I’m only going to use the ground switch when we don’t use the car for more than 1 week, like when we’re on vacation and don’t need the car locally for longer than a week.

As is shown in the graphs above, the 12V battery discharge after 4 days of downtime is too much to get the 12V battery back to normal (12.8-12.9V)  discharging starting voltage after a 1-hour drive.

The discharge voltage directly after stopping with charging is then as the graph indicates only 85% at 12.6-12.7 Volts.  After 1 day, the SOC now already reads 60%.

Under these specific conditions, the 12V battery may  discharge somewhat faster than when the 12V battery was fully charged.

Driving a bit more every day will make the charging results better, obviously.

NB:  All measurements are done in my parking garage where the car is always parked which is at -2 levels, where the temperature is always between 8 and 15 deg C.

TIP OF THE DAY:

If you are worried that your 12V battery may discharge during long periods of not using the car, the following will be possible as precaution:

You can remotely turn on your start button with the app by starting up the A/C system.  This will also start recharging your 12V battery.

This can not be automated, but it is a way to actively prevent draining the 12V battery.

I have tried this, and it is only helpfull if you have preset set the A/C period at the longest possible period.

Do this daily (after the initial 1 week of not-using the car) and it will certainly help conditioning your 12V battery.

It might also work if you do it every other day, I did not test this for all possible intervals.

Only do this of your car is continuously connected to a charger OR when you have charged the car at more than 80% when parked.

Cheers!

 

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BYD Atto3 -Spare tire in the trunk

Above the original filling of the space at the bottom of the trunk of the Atto3 is shown, with a.o. the tire ‘repair kit’.

I like to drive around with a spare tire because I drive on construction sites quite often, and so far I have had 2x tire damage because of that.  And such a damage is not always fixable with a fluid repair kit.

My new spare is a home-bringer also used on a Toyota RAV4 : R17 165/80/17 tire and a 5X114.3X60.1 rim with the same circumference, pitch and center hole as the BYD Atto3.  The RAV4 weighs a bit more than the Atto3, so it should be fine.

At the bottom of the trunk the available space for a home-bringer is only 57 centimeters in diameter for a spare tire.

This means that the spare tire will be slightly higher mounted, on a mounting bracket.  Under the spare tire there is then room for the jack and the likes.

The trunk cover had 2 positions, and this shelf at the bottom of the trunk therefore only comes to one possible mounting depth, i.e. in the highest position.

So- that’s how I positioned the spare tyre (from a Toyota RAV4, 17 inch) in the boot of the car.  Not the nicest way but it works OK. The shelf that comes with the car can be positioned in the upper position no problem.  I added a hydraulic mini jack and a wheel bolt wrench, since this was not part of the car’s accessories.

To hold the tire down, I made a mounting bracket from square iron tubing 20-20-2mm with 3 holes: 2 to tie it with M6 nuts to 2 of the 4 already available threaded M6 bolts and 1 hole in the center of the square stock to carry an M10 bolt going UP with a washer and a wing nut. The M10 bolt goes through 1 of the boltholes of the rim.   I welded the M10 bolt in the center of the square steel and made the rear part almost flush with the square steel.  Then, I mounted the bracket down on the floor of the boot with 6mm tubed M6 IKEA nuts that I had lying around from an old double children’s bed.   These nuts are about 15mm in length with a large flathead on top and an Inbus insert in the top.  This is ideal, because the M6 steel bolt-ends that stick up from the boot are only around 18mm in length and don’t stick through the 20mm square stock.

BTW: I shortened the 2 not-used standing M6 bolts to the height that they just carry one M6 nut each, might be useful in the future.

After the spare tire was mounted and secured with the washer and M10 wing nut on the bracket I used the bag that came with the removable part of the pulling rod to store all loose components like the puller for the plastic boltcovers that are mounte in the wheels and o on.  This is placed in the inner part of the spare tire.

Unfortunately, I forgot to take some pictures of the setup of the spare tire mounting bracket, will do that when I can and present this here, later!

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BYD Atto 3 – user’s experiences after 8000 km and 6 months (mid November 2022 => end of April 2023)

Finally, I can share the user experience of my BYD Atto3, after 8000 miles of use.

From my original list of UPS and DOWNS, much just stayed put. The self-thinking wiper is just not on it and neither is the dashcam. I mounted a Garmin mini dashcam myself and as for the windshield wiper, I decided to install an automatic after market system myself.

My car (first batch) has no tow bar homologation BUT for use with a bike carrier the solution has been found at Burghof tow bars.

Possibly future ATTO 3 types do get tow bar homologation with a towing weight credited to the car’s birth tag.

The experiences:

The car drives, springs, steers and brakes fine in my opinion.

As with all EVs, the battery pack drains faster in cold weather than at an average of 20 degrees. I clearly noticed that this winter because I could only get about 320 kilometers far with the full battery. While I never drive faster than 105 km/h but always highway driving.

Now that the average temperature is 11-14 degrees I notice that I drive just a bit more economically than the WLTP estimate of 420 km on a full tank of over 60Kwh. The gauge on the dashboard shows a consumption of about 14kwH per 100 km and I drive mostly highway at 95 kmH maximum speed. Often with the ACC on I stick behind a car in front that drives approx 96km/h which is very relaxed driving. I keep the ACC at a distance of 3 lines.

Fast charging I usually do at Fastned and at about 20- 50% empty tank.

Then the battery is back to +40-45% capacity in 20-25 minutes.

The Atto3 then recharges about 25-30 kW with 88kW in those 20-25 minutes and with that you can drive about 150-200 km (if you take it easy).

And while the car is recharging I feel the need for coffee, so the charging/coffee time passes quickly.

This formula works fine for our travel and driving pattern. Kind of like being on vacation on a motorcycle, where I have to stretch my legs every 200 km and fill up the tank at the same time.

Notes on using the BYD Atto 3:

About the use of the car I do have some remarks in the meantime:

Lane assist: This is often not very useful on secondary roads. The car keeps ‘searching’ between the left and right side of the longitudinal stripes and is constantly steering with jerks. This results in continuous additional steering, not comparable to normal manual steering. So I always turn this function off when using the cruise control outside of straight roads and highways.

Open roof: unusable with the roof fully open, this only works below 80 km/h. The roar of the wind creates such a nuisance that with my then the roof always stays closed. Even on the ajar position with the roof slightly raised in the first automatic position, above 80 km/h it is unfeasible in terms of noise, especially with headwinds or partial headwinds. In any case, the navigation and radio are then no longer usable.

Automatic steering corrections: It took a lot of getting used to, especially that it cannot be turned off except to turn it off again each trip. As I noticed, the steering corrections are based on regular roads, with regular road lines. On N roads in the Netherlands, in our area (e.g. Kamerik, Kockengen, etc.) there are roads with no center line and broken side lines. If the traffic on both lanes obeys the side stripes you will collide with each other, due to the limited road width. So you have to drive just over the broken stripes, on the right side of them. Then you can drive normally past the oncoming car. The car cannot handle this and persistently corrects the car back to the left in left turns. Because it is done structurally by the car, I have gotten used to it and am no longer startled by these corrections, which I immediately correct again. By the way, as I can see on the road, it does scare oncoming traffic.

Navigation: the ME-MAPS navigation does not have an integrated function with charging points for the car. That means I have to search for (Fastned and/or Shell recharger) charging points on my phone, and then look them up and set them as my travel destination in the car navigation. Missed opportunity as far as I’m concerned. When car android is finally available for the BYD Atto3, just transfer everything from the phone right away! NB: Apple carplay is available for the Atto3 but I always have Android phones. UPDATE 2023-04-16: The Atto’s navigation does (by now?) have the ability to navigate to the nearest charging point, configurable by capacity, both along the route and fastest reachable. The charging points are just not in the route on the screen. You really have to search separately. With the exception when you get below 50km charging range: Then the navigation would like to navigate you to the nearest charging point as a suggestion.

Air conditioning/heating function: The heat pump provides air conditioning/heating for both the interior and the battery. Apart from the somewhat unfortunate set up of controls with touch screen after touch screen before you have found what is needed, the settings do not appear to work. Setting a temperature does not lead to reaching and maintaining that temperature and the setting automatic does not work at all. The ‘defrost’ button works but none of the function buttons remember the previous usage setting. That seems very strange to me. On the road I am constantly adjusting between very hot and very cold. Only after half an hour of driving can you reach a more or less stable temperature. Why not just a temperature knob that does it? and an A/C knob that can be turned on/off would also be better. By the way, what is very important in our climate and really not possible in the Atto 3 : THE setting of the windshield fan and thereby also the dehumidifier button on/off. These are just not there as a button or setting. What you then have to do to operate this though :: Press the defrost button and then set everything manually each time. temperature, feet and/or body aeration: all can only be set on or off and the fan can only be set for all 3 outlet options AGAINST each other. I experience it as unworkable.

In my previous cars this was always available, therefore I do not understand what is going on here: Did BYD not take our humid and sometimes cold climate into account in the design of the A/C/heat pump controls?

In my opinion, it should be fixable with a software update, so I will also inform the importer about this.

Just a little additional comment about the Atto3’s heat/cool system: : The temperature is not adjustable below 16 degrees, then a LO comes into the picture. While I like to drive in a car in winter that is 10-14 degrees inside the car. Then I like to keep my coat on and the car feels nice and warm in frost when it is 10 degrees inside as well. No problem. But lower than 16 degrees just can’t be set.

After an hour’s drive I park the car and when I get outside in the morning after 5-10 minutes at about 10 degrees the whole car is fogged up, and it takes quite a long time to get ready to drive again. According to BYD this is a known problem that can be solved by locking and unlocking the car twice when parking. Tried that but didn’t solve it for me. See the pictures:

 

 

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BYD Atto3 install automatic front window wiper installation with rain sensor

After over six months of driving my Atto3, I still have 2 “residual” issues that  bother me.  (2023-05-12)

1) The climate control.

It is still not as I would like it to be. The temperature in the car still varies, despite a fixed temperature setting. But it thankfully no longer varies as much as it did when the car was delivered. I always have the car set at 19 degrees Celsius, and the interior temperature varies between 16 and 22 degrees with that. Interestingly, when driving at longer constant speeds, the temperature does stabilize after about 5 minutes at the set temperature. But when I leave the highway or get in a traffic jam, the temperature rises immediately and then it takes about 3 minutes before the temperature returns to the set temperature. If I then drive faster again for a few minutes or more, it gets about 3 degrees colder than the set temperature and only then does the temperature stabilize back to the set value.

After I figured out this “behavior” of the heat pump system, I never adjust the temperature again and learn to live with the increases and decreases because the temperature will eventually be readjusted. But the way this works is very annoying. It has been filed as a complaint with BYD Amsterdam, also because of the constant fogging on the inside of the car’s windows after parking at outside temperatures below 10 degrees Celsius.

2. The lack of an automatic rain sensitive wiper controller.

Due to the lack of automatic wiper control, I am going to fix this myself. So far I have done that with my cars on which no sensor or control of the rain sensitive automatic wiper control was installed off-factory.

Previously I used the rain tracker RT-50A kit from Hydreon/Sonic for this purpose and since it is no longer available I use similar systems that are available in the market.

 

29-07-2010 Pont de Normandie, France with the Rain Sensor sticker. The installation is neatly concealed and the sensor sits against the inside of the windshield of the DS, just behind the mirror….

install_rt-50

RT-50A_Install_xbase.cdr

Vehicle-Specific Installation Notes RT50A

Actually, I would prefer to install an OBD2 system, but so far I have not been able to find an after market system for that. And building something like that all by myself will be too much work for me, also because I am not sure if the BYD Atto3’s wipers are indeed controlled with an addressable proprietary OBD2 control module.

Therefore, I will go for the old school solution with standard wiring and an installation on the existing wiper switches. But then in the wiring harness under the dash. I know it’s not practical to “hack” such a drastic solution into the car in a relatively new auo but my irritation with the absence of this option is so high that at one point I seriously considered trading in the BYD Atto 3 for a Hyundai Kona or the like for this alone.

The standard wiring requires, in addition to the power supply from the switched 12V on-board voltage, an intervention in the connections between the wiper switches and the wiper motor. I am going for the simplest solution where I use the new module as an assistant for the existing installation. Then I can activate the new module with 1 extra switch that I neatly tuck away flat in the underside of the steering column. And then all the functions of the existing switches will remain intact. The new module then works in parallel with the original ‘single-wipe’ switch. So that means I will NOT have the ‘HIGH SPEED’ option automatically activated by the new module, and the new module will only use the default wipe speed for both single-wipe and continuous wipe.

This is the new module I ordered from FRUUGO (China):

 

As shown in the above wiring scheme for a system where the wiper motor is used in the ‘positive’ power ON way (*and the motor’s common connection is towards GROUND), the connections of the following wires need to be made in the car:

CUT the existing connection from the interim controller to the wiper switch (that is on the steering column)  AND connect the wire you just cut (that comes from the INT switch) to the new module’s BROWN wire.  This is the main connection that sends a 12V pulse whenever rain is detected by the newly installed rain sensor.

Furthermore, connect the Grey and Red wires from the new control box to the switched 12Volts so the new module receives working power supply voltage.

Also, connect the Black wire to Ground, anywhere on the car.

Tham CUT the connection between the steering column’s wiper switch that is responsible for the SLKOW connection to the wiper’s motor an conne ct both cut ends to the White and Yellow wire from the new controlmodule.  Be  aware to connect the in the right way, i.e. YELLOW towards the wiper motor and WHITE towards the wiper switch!

Lastly, the GREEN wire from the new connection box needs to be connected to the HIGH speed wiper cable.

Since there is no on/off switch in the setup, the rain sensor will always be active as long as you set the existing wiper switch to the setting where the INT (or a chosen INT position, as for the Atto3 has multiple INT settings) position is connected to the  module’s active pulse wire (BROWN).

Hopefully the wiper switch will not be based on OBD2, since this will make it a bit more difficult to get the rain sensor module installed because it will then need to be hacked into the wiring of the wiper motor directly, and will require a to be installed hardware  switch to choose between the old and new situation.

For the Atto3, I will make a dedicated wiring scheme for the above whenever I will get to install the new system,  that will probably be during my summer holidays 2023 July/ August.

All in all, this is not a difficult installation BUT if you don’t get it right, you could damage the car’s electronics and I will not hold any responsibility for any damage fiollowing my setup for this or any other install.

 

 

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BYD Atto 3: User experiences after 9 months and 10,000 miles

This review replaces my previous reviews of my Atto 3, as all of my desired software enhancements have been completed filled in by BYD.

Meanwhile, software version 1.4 was loaded into the car via OTA on 18-9-2023 and as far as I am concerned, the car is completely OK in terms of software.

This is of course very personal. by now I am used to the beeps and other sounds the system makes when something is signaled or detected that I do not always immediately interpret as dangerous.

I have even learned to appreciate the fact that the system intervenes in dangerous situations. The other day I was driving behind a driver who suddenly hit the brakes in the middle of the intersection for some unknown reason. Before I could brake, the car was slowed down so that no collision occurred. I had not had similar intervention from the car before and was very pleased with it. It also shows that you really only know what you need when you have (unnoticed). So at this point I’m all over the place. Safety sometimes seems patronizing but avoiding a collision is enough reason, as far as I am concerned, to learn to appreciate the safety aspects of the Atto 3.

Intervention by the car on the steering wheel when you approach the edge of the road too much I previously found very annoying, and so did the accompanying beep. But I can also keep a little more distance from the shoulder and avoid the intervention. Matter of doing.

As I had mentioned in my earlier reviews, there were quite a few things that were just not set up nicely, which made driving the car uncomfortable. These were things like faltering A/C controls, or just the wrong air freshening functions available but also things like the fact that the A/C did not remember what the last setting was and should start with that again by default next time. That’s all fixed now, though.

Also promised afterthoughts like Apple Carplay and Android auto have been around for a while. I myself use Android auto and that works absolutely great!

Issues that remained:

1) I have the tow bar, but the car is officially not allowed to tow any weight because the car is not “homologated”. That is, there is no towing weight on the car’s Certificate Of Conformity. You can never get that later, only when the car is registered. Very unfortunate, especially since we were more or less verbally promised at the time of purchase that all that would still come.

2) No standard dashcam function while the cable is just pre-mounted. The camera is not mounted off-factory (for NL). I fixed this recently

3) No rain sensor for the windshield wiper. I was not used to that at all so it was getting used to having to operate the switches myself all the time. I can fix this and ordered the parts but I haven’t started yet. Read the progress HERE .

Other topics:

I retrofitted a spare tire myself, of course you never need it but when you do… yes, exactly!

And immediately upon geting the car I had the standard summer tires replaced with all-weathers.

Driving experiences

I have liked the car from my first drive in November 2022 in terms of driving experience and handling. The software improvements have made my experience even better. The Atto 3 does not drive like a small mid-size car but behaves on the road very similar to my previous car(s), Volvo V70. Maybe an odd comparison, but I also drive other cars with regularity and with that I experience difference but between the Atto 3 and a latest version V70 so not. You could also say that a V70 is a dodgy car, but that is not my experience with the last made version V70’s. PS: My last version V70 F (BW), 2 liter gasoline/LPG had an empty weight of ‘only’ 1450 kilos, the Atto weighs empty 1825 kilos….

Anyway, I was and still am very satisfied with the Atto 3.

As far as driving experiences and the range of the car are concerned, I have also experienced a few things over the past 15,000 kilometers.

Driving an EV is very different from driving a fossil fuel car. Filling up the charge level takes longer than filling up at the gaspump.

The Atto 3 weighs 1,825 kilos. Minus point associated with a relatively heavy EV: You really have to be very careful with some speed bumps, not to always just go over them at the advised speed. Often it goes well but I now have 1 in my route where I don’t want to go faster than 40 while there is an advisory of 60. On an 80 km/h meg. driving on it is OK, but when driving off at 60km/h it’s like falling off a platform.

Consumption and charging

But, especially on the trips abroad this past year, it turned out that everything goes very well when you check in advance WHERE you can charge WHAT with which pass or app. Because the Atto3 can ‘only’ fast charge at 88 kiloWatts it does take a while to charge the car all over again. So I do that at 40-50% remaining charge. And then 15 minutes is enough to be back at 90-95%. Then you may have to stop more along the way but I don’t mind that for 15 minutes. You drive with the Atto 3 from 100% to 50% about 210 kilometers. So stopping at about 200 km after 2 hours of driving so suits me very well.

And then you come to the real difference between fossil driving or electric: Everything you do costs electricity, and with an EV, so does range. Headwind: 10% less range. Average consumption at 90 km per hour is about 14 kW for 100 km, so a full tank of 60 kWh will get you over 400 km, even 420 km WLTP. At least, in summer at 90-95 km/h on a flat road without storm, without headwind and without too much load.

I have tried a number of driving scenarios and my most notable one is on the A2 from Breukelen to Abcoude at 130 km/h with no headwind or storm, though at night with lights on. Average consumption: 35 kW for 100 km. So if you would drive 130 km/h for a longer period of time, you would get barely 250 kilometers and then the battery would be empty.

Suddenly I understood why the Atto 3, but now most new EVs are capped at 160 km/h….

If you drive mostly on county roads and/or urban and you can control your foot a bit with acceleration, you can easily stay under 15 kW/100km, I sometimes even manage to average 14 kW/100km.

Of course, it still remains a small/medium SUV and the streamline also affects consumption….

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