On Saturday October 8th, 2023, we had the opportunity of visiting the R M Williams Bush Learning Centre in Eidsvold, about 80ks north-east of our home town Gayndah in the North Burnett region. The function that attracted us was a display by noted photographer to the country music industry and the music industry in general, John Elliott. John is a writer, photographer and documentary maker and was Slim Dusty’s preferred photographer for many years. Among his many success was his 2004 exhibition in Canberra’s National Portrait Gallery which he entitled “1000 Mile Stare”.
While John and the Bush Learning Centre have little to do with our BYD ATTO 3, the fact that we were able to get there in it after having the car for a couple of weeks certainly does. I only heard about his launching of the exhibition the day before, so making sure that the car had enough charge to get there and back was a lesson to be learnt early in our ownership of it.
There are no fast chargers out here, the nearest being two hours away on the east coast. And given that most of our driving is in town, like running the grandkids to school or going to buy groceries, keeping a high SOC is not a high priority. At this point, we have only that 10amp granny charger that came with the car so charging is relatively slow. I did order a 15amp version earlier in the week but must have ticked the wrong square on the order and a 10amp version was in the box. So it went back. Fortunately we were able to charge the vehicle enough overnight to cover the 160k round trip.
The trip gave us the opportunity to try out a some of the tech available on the car. First there was the navigation. Although we didn’t really need it, we set it up to see how it works. It was really good, given that there are some real back roads around here that we could have taken. It told us about speed cameras which I don’t think were really there but may have been there in the past. Also warned us of school zones.
An interesting setting was the option of having the map always facing north or facing the direction you are going. We chose the second option since that is the way we used the map on our phone. Another option is for the map to find the nearest charging stations. It had no problem finding those at Gympie, Gunalda, Maryborough, Childers, Gin Gin and Miriam Vale, all of which were QESH and more that two hours away from our position at the time. I think we will be able to use the car’s navigation system instead of our phones in the future. It will be much more convenient.
Next on the list was Spotify. Although I do have a subscription to Spotify, I haven’t had much luck with it in the car. That is not the car’s fault, its mine because each time I try to make it work I am driving and it gets a little dangerous trying to drive and look at the screen. An aside here. I wonder why it is highly illegal to touch your phone while driving but there seems to be no problem touching the car’s screen.
Our grand kids have had much more success with Spotify that we have. Maybe cause they are not driving at the time. I wanted to listen to a podcast but was unable to make that happen, maybe because there was no 4G connectivity for much of the drive. Will try again when I am not driving.
The “Hi BYD” assistance was really useful. Our drive home was in temperatures of the low 30Cs so we were able to give the AC a good run. We felt it worked well and kept us comfortable. It was convenient to be able to adjust the speed of the fan and the temperature level via a voice command. One problem is you have to learn the command prior to leaving. We did try opening the blind, by voice command, to see how hot the sun was through the sun roof. Even at these relatively low summer temperatures, we had to close the blind quickly. No problem with the blind closed.
We felt the car was very comfortable to both sit in and drive. The cruise control worked well. It slowed us down when following other vehicles (caravans) and kept us a safe distance back, even to driving slowly through town. It seemed that if I wanted to slow down, just had to touch the brake pedal lightly and the regen seemed to take over.
I don’t understand the reviewers who say that the tyres are no good and that the suspension needs retuning. We set the cruise control on 100 for almost all of the trip and everything went well. Also the regen was on high and the drive mode on Econ. We had one emergency stop when we were driving through town, but everything worked well there. Thankfully we didn’t have to avoid a kangaroo in an emergency but I guess that will happen one day. I wonder what the camera will show then.
A couple of things I haven’t been able to work out and can’t find in the manual. First when setting the cruise control for the first time, the speed is set at 30k and you have to increase it in 5k blocks to what ever speed you want, in our case it was 100k. It would be great if it remembered what the previous speed it was set at and went straight there. Second, can’t work out how to set the odometer to measure trip rather that total distance. If anyone can answer either of those points, a comment below would be appreciated.
