Is the new OBU going to reduce your EV’s range? That was the first thought I had in my mind. There has to be a significant reduction in battery life on your electric car with an introduction to a touchscreen, additional GPS components, and a processing unit. I’ll cover why you may like to change your IU to an OBU and why you shouldn’t. You may just be compelled to change it in the future but currently, there is no necessity to do so.
Positives of an OBU
The positives may be evident but I would cover it anyway!
Future-proofing your vehicle would be a good way to think of this, the unit is a welcome change and gives your vehicle a free change of IU if you are facing any issues with your old unit.
Alerts or Warnings are possible with the new OBU. This has helped me stay alert to bus lane timings, speed cameras or road closures that are happening nearby. This is a pretty useful feature
Parking availability while driving around town is displayed on the unit while you are driving around. Not sure how they determine when to show this to you but the unit shows you available parking for each location nearby which was awesome and I wasn’t sure how the unit gets the information in real-time. This was a pleasant surprise for me and I was a welcome feature in the new version of IU.
Event Updates gives you updated information about events that may affect your route or inform you about road closures.
Touchscreen Functionality, this enables you to navigate the menus but most importantly it will help disable a function that is commonly used by drivers.
“Please remove your cashcard before exiting the carpark”
Everyone must remember this phrase when attending a wedding or receiving a complimentary carpark coupon at the mall. With the OBU, you can now disable this at the touch of a button. Just remember that this function does not work while your car is in motion. I have not tested this with the ERP, I hope the ERP will still be able to deduct the amount with this function disabled.
Negatives of an OBU
New Designs may be under the covers as the government may decide to change designs due to the unit’s bad implementation and reviews so far.
Noisy beeping will irritate you if you are really sensitive to the beeping every time it gives you warnings, road information and deducting of parking fees.
Excessive Heat is noticed at the legs where the card reader is. This could be really irritating to the driver or the passenger wherever you decide to put this unit.
Summary
While I think that additional devices will reduce the range of my electric vehicle, the unit didn’t affect much range from the limited tests I have done. The main reason could be that these devices are connected to the 12V battery instead of the main battery and aren’t turned on unless the car is on.
It is also a coincidence that my high voltage battery has surfaced some issues after a couple of months after I changed to this OBU but good to add a note here for some who are not willing to take risks to change their IU in their vehicles.
