Charging – Page 2 – Ewing VinFast of Plano

January 15, 2025January 14, 2025

VinFast VF9 vs Tesla Model X

When it comes to electric SUVs, Tesla is kind of the OG in this department with the Model X. It has enjoyed a number of years as the premier luxury electric SUV. However, that’s slowly but surely been changing since its debut in 2015. With vehicles like the VinFast VF9, the Model X is aging in comparison. Or is it? Let’s compare the two in this week’s versus.

Meet The Tesla Model X

Like the VinFast VF9, the Tesla Model X only has two flavors for buyers: the Model X and the Model X Plaid. Unlike the VF9, though, it is pricey. How pricey? Well, here’s where it gets weird: Tesla says the Model X has a starting price of $65,990… but then, in fine print, it mentions, “Includes any applicable federal tax credits and estimated gas savings.” So, that means you can add back the $7,500 federal tax credit to better understand the base price, but what are the estimated gas savings? That’s just deceptive practices. Car and Driver says the Model X starts from $81,630, while MotorTrend says it is priced from $79,990. Tesla says the Model X Plaid retails for $88,490, but the car magazines say $94,990 and $96,630, respectively. Short of calling or going to a Tesla dealer and asking, the price is anyone’s guess.

Powertrain Options

When choosing the base Model X, buyers will get a dual-motor and all-wheel drive with an output of 670 horsepower, according to Tesla, and 713 lb-ft of torque, according to Car and Driver (Tesla does not list torque for the standard model). However, the tri-motor Model X Plaid features a massive 1,020 horsepower and 1,050 lb-ft of torque. Those are wild power numbers, which makes sense since the Plaid can reach 60 mph in just 2.8 seconds, while the standard model is a bit slower at 3.3 seconds. The EPA says that the standard Model X has 329 miles of range with 20-inch wheels. However, Tesla says this number drops to 322 when optioning the 22-inch wheels. The Plaid model has 314 miles of EPA-estimated range with the standard wheels, while the optional 22s will force that range down to about 300 miles.

Meet The Honest VF9

Finally, we come to the star of the evening, the VF9, which is available in either Eco or Plus trim levels and starts from $71,000. Eco models will give buyers a healthy 330-mile driving range, and Plus models offer 291 miles, which makes the VF9 about equal to the Model X. Like the Model X, all VF9 models come standard with all-wheel drive, and both also use dual-motor setups. The 123 kWh battery pack provides 402 horsepower and 457 lb-ft of torque. This gives the VinFast plenty of oomph, with a claimed 0-60 of roughly 6.5 seconds. The VF9 comes standard with a Head-Up Display (HUD), something most other vehicles can’t attest to, so drivers never have to take their eyes off the road to see navigation information, range, music, and more.

Sony RIDEVU Is Amazing

Something that neither Tesla nor any other EV on the market can lay claim to is Sony RIDEVU. RIDEVU allows passengers in the VF9 to watch 2,000 different Sony-owned movies and TV shows either on the main infotainment screen when the vehicle is in park or on any device that is on the in-car WiFi. The 2025 VF9 offers drivers and passengers a 15.6-inch infotainment touchscreen display plus six standard USB-A ports with one 90-watt USB-C port, which means two per row. Buyers who opt for captain’s chairs will find two extra USB-A ports in the center console.

Safety First

VinFast believes in giving drivers the latest and best safety features as standard. No matter whether you get a VF8 or VF9, your VinFast comes standard with Traffic Jam Assist, Adaptive Cruise Control, Highway Driving Assist, Lane Keeping Assist, Lane Departure Warning, Lane Centering Assist, Blind Spot Detection, Automatic Emergency Braking, Intelligent Speed Recognition, Traffic Sign Recognition, Forward Collision Warning, Rear Cross Traffic Alert, Blind Spot Detection, Door Opening Warning, Front Automatic Emergency Braking, Emergency Lane Keep Assist, Front Parking Assist, Rear Parking Assist, backup camera, Automatic High Beam, and a 360-degree Surround View Camera system. All VinFast VF9 models feature 11 airbags as standard safety equipment.

A Warranty vs Kind of a Warranty

When it comes to protecting your investment, VinFast goes all out. Every VinFast model comes with a 10-year, unlimited-mile battery warranty, as well as a 10-year, 125,000-mile bumper-to-bumper warranty. The Tesla, however, only gets a 4-year, 50,000-mile basic warranty and an 8-year, 150,000-mile battery warranty. No one’s really keeping score here, but that seems like a win for the VF9.

Which To Get…

Ultimately, which one should you choose, the Tesla Model X or the VinFast VF9? It’s your money, and you should spend it as you see fit. But, since you asked, when taking into consideration the odd pricing alone, the Tesla Model X doesn’t seem too honest. And then, once you look at the battery warranty, you notice it is 150,000 miles versus unlimited miles for the VF9. If you just want to show off at traffic lights, maybe the Tesla is the best car for your needs. However, if you want a vehicle that’s focused on quality over bragging rights, then perhaps the VinFast is the right car.

Why Choose Ewing VinFast

At Ewing VinFast of Plano, we have the best prices on dozens of new VinFast EVs and used cars. Our well-educated sales staff and finance department will happily assist you with your EV questions and needs. Our fantastic service department will ensure your vehicle stays in the best condition.

We look forward to serving you.

January 10, 2025January 14, 2025

How Does Fast Charging Affect Battery Health

New VinFast App for iPhone and Android Smart Phone

A battery is a battery, whether it’s in your phone, a camera, or a car. Like every other piece of technology, batteries will slowly degrade over time. It’s perfectly normal and natural. However, there are things you can do to mitigate battery degradation in devices. While it is rare, sometimes batteries can lose some of their abilities more quickly, which is why VinFast has the best battery warranty in the business with its 10-year, unlimited-mile warranty.

Learning How to Charge

Remember back in the day when cell phones were first coming out? It was recommended to charge them to full, then let them fully discharge on their own, and then from there, you could use them as normal. Well, now, especially with lithium-ion batteries in EVs and smartphones, it is recommended that batteries always charge between 20% and 80% most of the time. This is why car manufacturers like VinFast tell you the charging speed is between 20% and 70 or 80%.

Should You Be Worried About Battery Degradation?

It can be tricky to know the best practices because, simply put, you are just trying to live your life and drive your car as you need to. One thing people are starting to ask is how much your VinFast is affected by charging the car via a Level 3 DC fast charger. That charger carries the most kilowatts to charge cars more quickly. In the case of a VF8 or VF9, that’s about 25 minutes to get you up to 70%. But does it hurt your battery life? Well, yes… kind of. Should you worry about it? That depends.

Where is it Best to Charge?

No matter what, it is always easiest and cheapest to charge at home. So, say you use 50% of your battery range by driving to and from work every day. When you plug into your home charger, which hopefully is a VinFast Home charger, the car and the charger will communicate. This will get you up to 80% at a reasonable rate and then relax the charge on its way up to 100% so as not to put too much strain on the battery. It is important to note that your EV is very smart and works hard to protect the battery system in your car.

Some Studies Show Promising Results

Luckily for EV owners, some studies show that using fast chargers can have negligible degradation effects over time. That being said, if you do lots of long-distance traveling and utilize Level 3 chargers, not only will you be spending more money to charge your car, but over time, this could contribute to your battery health dwindling from 100% of capacity down to 90 or so percent after a couple of years of doing this. That means that your maximum range will drop by 10%.

When In Doubt, Charge at Home

There is still plenty of testing to be done to determine how batteries will last over time when charged more quickly and subjected to heat and stress. This is why it’s always best to charge your VinFast at home as much as possible.

Why Choose Ewing VinFast

We look forward to serving you.

January 5, 2025January 14, 2025

Should I Always Charge My EV at Night?

There are many questions new electric vehicle owners have. It’s kind of like having your first baby—although it’s nothing like having a baby, except in the sense that you wonder if you’re doing anything wrong, given you’re in an unfamiliar position. A question experts get asked all the time is when is it best to charge your VinFast EV? While it seems like a no-brainer to say at night, that answer is changing slightly in the current charging landscape. Thanks to new studies and information from companies like Recurrent Auto, we have more information than ever about charging and EV battery health.

To Charge Overnight or to Not Charge Overnight…

Charging your VinFast at night is, in most cases, a logical answer to when you should charge your car. Fewer items in your home are bogging down the grid. While you may be running your dishwasher at night, it’s rare that you’re also running your washing machine and the dryer, all while charging your car while you are sleeping. This means that energy costs and usages are typically much lower, as even your AC or heating system isn’t running as often or as hard, in most cases. However, it should be noted that energy companies could, at some point, start pricing their energy higher due to more demand at supposed off-peak hours around or after midnight.

Check If Your State Uses Solar Energy for the Grid

With that being said, there are states, like California, that utilize and take advantage of solar energy during the daytime when the sun is out and about up in the sky. This window is between 10 am and 4 pm. These would be optimal times to charge a car, as the grid is emitting less carbon dioxide (CO2) and various greenhouse gases. Instead, it’s being charged more naturally by the carbon-neutral sun. According to Recurrent, though, in California only about 25% of all EV charging occurs during 10 am to 4 pm.

Can the Grid Have Too Many EVs Charging?

Now what happens if there are multiple EVs in your neighborhood that are all plugged in overnight? Well, believe it or not, the meter attached to your house is pretty intelligent. Most meters attached to houses are now called AMRs, or Automated Meter Readers, which send all your power and energy usage digitally to the energy provider. With the switch to digital, that means the meters and the grid as a whole can monitor things more closely. For instance, if you have a dozen cars on one street that are all plugged in to charge overnight, the meters and overall grid communicate with one another. They know the energy/charging needs of each car and can appropriately choose which vehicles to charge first. The systems also know when you typically plug your car in to charge and when you unplug your car. So, it will attempt to charge your car to 100% before the usual time that you unplug your car to leave.

What to Do?

What is the answer? Well, home EV chargers can be set to charge to full by a certain time manually via the actual charger or by the app on your smartphone. If you leave for work at 7 am, then you’ll want to make sure your charger knows this and to tell it that you don’t care when your car gets charged, so long as it’s topped up to 100% by 7 am. Some utility companies offer users the ability to tell them when to charge your car, and some companies are working together to develop even smarter home charging systems that can learn when charging is cheapest, as well as automatically charge from renewable energy sources, whether from your house or the grid.

Things Are Changing Quickly for the Better

The EV industry is changing rapidly, bringing new questions and added solutions. For now, it’s best to plug your car in nightly at home and to tell the charger when you need your VinFast to be fully charged.

Why You Should Choose Ewing VinFast

We look forward to serving you.

December 15, 2024December 18, 2024

Alternative Charging Apps

VinFast has worked hard to provide customers with an excellent mobile app that allows owners to schedule and monitor vehicle maintenance, approve vehicle repairs, check the charging status of their VF8 or VF9, and plan a trip with scheduled stops for charging, among other useful features. One feature that seems to elude most manufacturers of other electric vehicles is the ability to use just one app to pay for charging at any station in America. However, VinFast has easily figured this out and provided it to customers in the VinFast mobile app.

The VinFast Mobile App

While the VinFast mobile app is a great all-in-one accompaniment to your VinFast, there are good reasons to ensure that you have other charging apps downloaded just in case. For instance, there could be a network or server outage where the VinFast app has an issue when paying at the pump. While this is unlikely, it is nice to have a backup plan just in case. Below are some other apps that can handle finding charging stations and payment with various pros and cons.

Some of the Different Charging Companies

Each charging station company, such as Electrify America, EVgo, ChargePoint, etc., all have their own apps that may even offer discounts if you choose to pay for a low monthly membership to use the chargers. This could be helpful if you live, work, or run a lot of errands near one of the major charger brand stations.

PlugShare Mobile App

One app that all EV owners should download and utilize is PlugShare, which not only shows you the locations of all charging stations, including Tesla Superchargers, but also provides user data with reviews and photos of each station to help you avoid areas that are always busy, have inoperable chargers, and the like. On both iOS and Google, the app has an average rating of 4.7 out of 5. The app also allows you to connect your credit card information to pay at any station quickly and easily. As one of the five-star reviews says, “Last month’s round trip between east coast and Kansas was our first … Being able to map out entire 1500 mile northern and southern routes, planning for adequate charging and our overnight stops was pretty easy and confidence building.” However, it’s not all wine and roses for PlugShare. As one reviewer said, “Used this for a trip from LA to San Fran. I’d say the best way to use plugshare is to open Google Maps first and figure out in which city you want to make a stop, then go in plugshare and search that city. The trip planner is a good idea but needs work.”

ChargePoint Mobile App

ChargePoint is the largest EV charging network in the world. In the United States alone, there are more than 30,000 stations with about 50,000 Level 2 and Level 3 DC fast chargers. The app reviews are good, averaging 4.5 out of 5 on iOS and Google devices. One reviewer says, “ChargePoint is a great service and they did a great job with this app—so much so that I bought a home EV charger from them. The app makes it pretty easy to find and monitor charging stations … The home charger integration works seamlessly allowing you to control charging times and even choose from multiple utility rates (or set manually) to track spending.” On the not-so-positive side, though, multiple users have complained that the app has been buggy due to recent updates with their personal home ChargePoint chargers.

EVgo Mobile App

Another large charging company, EVgo, has its own app that assists EV drivers in finding their respective chargers. The app has an average rating of 4.2 stars for iPhone users and 4.6 for Android users. While users seem to enjoy the app, they don’t like that the chargers seem unable to work without the app. Also, sometimes, the chargers themselves are down for maintenance issues, which the app does not seem to fully disclose when drivers are on their way to a station. It seems VinFast owners should probably steer clear of EVgo in general until the user experience improves.

Electrify America Mobile App

Electrify America is one of the largest networks that aims to try and give EV owners a good, non-Tesla Supercharger experience. While they have fallen short of that over the years, the company has dedicated hundreds of millions of dollars to updating and upgrading their charging system to make the chargers more reliable for owners. The app has a cumulative 4.7 stars on the Apple App Store and 4.6 on the Google Play Store. With over 4,000 Level 3 DC fast chargers across America, they offer drivers the ability to drive cross-country or from state to state without having to wait forever to charge their vehicle from 105 to 70 or 80%. The app allows you to track your charging status and will even notify you if you are waiting for a charger at a busy station. However, users complain that the app is confusing and convoluted. Some even say that the app will let you know that your vehicle is charging, and then minutes later, they say there’s a charging error, except the car is still charging. So, obviously, there are some kinks.

The VinFast App Seems to Reign Supreme

While it is important to check out the other EV charging apps to ensure you have all of the information you can get about stations and overall networks as you drive around, especially in unfamiliar areas, it seems that some of these apps lack usability. That’s why it’s essential to use the VinFast mobile app as the primary way to charge your vehicle at stations, along with the other apps as backups, just in case. Everyone must remember that EVs are still relatively new, and the charging networks, while not perfect, are getting better at a quicker rate than before. Although, patience is key.

Why Choose Ewing VinFast of Plano

We look forward to serving you.