In a recent TV programme, Guy stated that EVs were no good for journeys more than 80 miles or so, and only in cities... well, we've just spent 2 weeks in Scotland.

On the first day we went from our house on the Suffolk/Essex border up to Balloch, which is just north of Glasgow. Next day saw us heading for the middle of the Isle of Skye and, 2 days later, we headed off to Dornoch, which is 40-odd miles north of Inverness. A few days ago we went to Blairgowrie for an overnight stop, then a long haul down to Lincoln yesterday. The last leg was today, Lincoln to home. We only had significant charger problems on the trip down the A1 to Lincoln, where we were third in the queue for the chargers.

I don't think 1800 miles in 2 weeks is bad, do you?



[Edited on 4/10/21 by David Jenkins]

One bonus during the visit to my brother in Dornoch - I got the chance to help him to change the cam cover gaskets on this little beast.



I must admit that is was a bit scary when he had the engine running and I was checking for leaks! Although I was a good 1.5 metres from the prop, next to the leading edge of the wing, it was still a bit daunting when he went to near full rpm...

Good to hear you had a nice trip David, and glad to see you debunking some of the nonsense about EVs at the same time!

As I've probably said before, we've had a BMW i3 since January 2017 and it has now covered over 53k miles without once breaking down due to lack of battery power and with very rare cases of "range anxiety" for whatever reason. My wife is the main driver of the car and she uses it for her daily commute which is around 60 miles round trip. We have a 32A charger at home and with our current tariff with Octopus Energy, it costs just 5p/kwh to charge which is roughly 1p/mile.

Just as importantly, perhaps more so, my wife loves the car and loves driving it. Ours is the 94Ah version with the 120Ah being the latest model. We considered upgrading to the newer one when our 4 year lease expired but we decided against it and just bought out the lease instead. The car still has over 3 years worth of warranty left on the batteries and powertrain so we'll probably keep it until we see something else we like. So far the only EV I like besides the i3 is the Ioniq 5 featured in the Guy Martin program as it's one of the few on the market that truly embraces the EV concept from the ground up like the i3.

Cheers,
Craig.

I wanted to get an Ioniq, but as yet they don't do it with the larger battery pack (possibly because of the stylimng?) so finished up getting a Kona

Overall really pleased with the car, tho' it does "nanny" you somewhat, it has a genuine 300 mile range, tho' I know that will be less in winter

What I find frustrating is the lack of 50kW charge points on the motorways or main trunk roads, you certainly don't want to be leaving it to 10% battery or lower b4 topping up. I've been frustrated at several indivudual charge points where either they won't accept payment or the actual charger is inop for another reason, I now only really want to go anywhere to charge that has at least 4 separate 50kW or above outlets

There is also the minor detail of people like Ionity absolutely taking the p1ss with charges of 69p/kw & you can only use their app or RFID card - total rip off

Fortunately I do the bulk of my charging at home, tho' still waiting to get onto a dual tariff thanks to EDF being complete numpties, now switched to Octopus, but have to wait 2 weeks to see if they can read our smart meter

Did a longer trip to a wedding over the w/e & went to 4 cahrging points all of which failed to work for 4 completely different reasons! As the car has such a good range it wasn't a problem as knew I could drop into Rugby services on the way back, still had about 30 miles "in the tank" & Gridserve have 12 charge points, 2 not working, but arrived, plugged in, tapped a contactless card & was immediately charging at 30p a unit, saw a max charge of 75kW (these are 350kW power points! ), so 30 mins later we were on our way with over 50% back on board

If we actually want people to convert to electric vehicles this is the sort of charge system we need!

You need to break that down a bit. It's easy to say evs are great we've done 1800 miles in 2 weeks. That's only 130 a day average. How many charge stops? How long to top up? Did you plan to charge at overnight points only? What the max range you can do at normal cruising speed? How much did it cost to charge on the roadside?

I've recently done a few silly round trips in my 14 yo bmw of 900 miles in a day. Unless I had a very expensive EV and access to superchargers there's no way I could have done the journeys as quickly. Or judging by service station charge prices as cheaply either.

So yes there's a lot of nonsense in guys summary but also a bit of truth. Until the infrastructure catches up they are more suited to journeys less than 150/200 miles rather than schlepping up and down the country. If your in no rush then no problem.

quote:

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Originally posted by sdh2903
You need to break that down a bit. It's easy to say evs are great we've done 1800 miles in 2 weeks. That's only 130 a day average. How many charge stops? How long to top up? Did you plan to charge at overnight points only? What the max range you can do at normal cruising speed? How much did it cost to charge on the roadside?

I've recently done a few silly round trips in my 14 yo bmw of 900 miles in a day. Unless I had a very expensive EV and access to superchargers there's no way I could have done the journeys as quickly. Or judging by service station charge prices as cheaply either.

So yes there's a lot of nonsense in guys summary but also a bit of truth. Until the infrastructure catches up they are more suited to journeys less than 150/200 miles rather than schlepping up and down the country. If your in no rush then no problem.

---

Just thought about this, 900 miles at an average of 60mph, & you'd struggle to average any more than that anything like legally, would be 15 hours driving never mind stops for fuel, loos or eating, not only does that not sound very safe, it also sounds about as representative of a modern car journey as the Guy Martin prog did!

I was talking extremes. But it was doable although not pleasant. But you could even say a 500 mile day and the same principle applies. Your save on fuel soon gets eaten up with a hotel stop. Sadly guys programmes have been getting dumbed down as they go along and agree the eV one was especially crap.

Just to add I'm not anti Ev I just don't think that they are the saviour they are made out to be. And the uptake would be much better if the infrastructure was there. And they are mostly all dull as dishwater until you spend a shed load of cash.

If you can home charge every night for peanuts, don't do any great mileage and dont care about what your driving then agree they are the tool for the job.

Just can't wait for the power shortages to really kick in and then all us neanderthal petrol drinkers can laugh at the leccy cars struggling for juice

[Edited on 4/10/21 by sdh2903]

quote:

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Originally posted by sdh2903
You need to break that down a bit. It's easy to say evs are great we've done 1800 miles in 2 weeks. That's only 130 a day average. How many charge stops? How long to top up? Did you plan to charge at overnight points only? What the max range you can do at normal cruising speed? How much did it cost to charge on the roadside?

I've recently done a few silly round trips in my 14 yo bmw of 900 miles in a day. Unless I had a very expensive EV and access to superchargers there's no way I could have done the journeys as quickly. Or judging by service station charge prices as cheaply either.

So yes there's a lot of nonsense in guys summary but also a bit of truth. Until the infrastructure catches up they are more suited to journeys less than 150/200 miles rather than schlepping up and down the country. If your in no rush then no problem.

---

Yeah I was thinking the same about the 900 mile trip - not something anyone should be doing in a day unless their daily driver is a Boeing 737! Even 500 miles a day is probably reserved for sales reps and the like and I'm guessing a lot of that is done via video call these days.

I once drove from just south of Glasgow to near Peterborough and back in the same day (~690m total) when picking up one of our dogs, and even though my wife did about 1/3rd of the driving, it was not a pleasant trip. And that was in a BMW 535d which is made for long motorway journeys. Statistics show that average car journeys are well within the range of electric cars and even the typical 10k/year figure (used to be 12k/year not so long ago) indicates that the average daily mileage is just 27 miles a day, or 38 miles a day if you assume it's all done during weekdays. I think the most I've ever done in a year was about 23k and that was very exceptional - my 535d is insured for 7k miles a year now and that's about right. My wife does about 12k/year in the i3.

Generally speaking, I'm the type of guy who likes to start a journey fuelled up, and with drinks & snacks at the ready and an empty bladder so that I can drive for around 3 hours (200 miles or so) before the first stop for a stretch of the legs and some coffee and the loo. Of course, that's assuming my passengers are okay with that which varies. However, it wouldn't bother me in the slightest if I had to stop every 150 miles instead in order to charge my car and in fact it's probably better all round. Whilst I've never had any issues with infrastructure, that's largely because things are a bit better in Scotland than elsewhere. But that's a problem that will be resolved over time without a doubt.

I know you were being a bit tongue in cheek @sdk2903 but your suggestion that EV drivers don't care about what they drive and that EVs are dull as dishwater is naive at best. If my wife can drive 12k miles a year in a car that she genuinely loves to drive and finds to be fun and comfortable at the same time, then what's the problem? She literally will never go back to a non-EV and that is her choice, not as some sort of EV or climate change evangelist, but as a normal everyday commuter.

As for power shortages, well that won't just be a problem for folks with EVs and actually, folks with EVs will be in a good position if there are power shortages because the EV can also be used as battery storage system. So even if we can't drive to work, we'll at least be able to heat up some chicken soup in the microwave and keep our heating system running.

Like I said the 900 mile was an outlier. But at weekends with quiet roads it really wasn’t a big deal, bmw 630i, comfy heated seats and a brilliant stereo, 450 miles each way, quick pee and coffee stop half way, lunch and refuel at destination and then same on way home, I’ve done similar a couple of times. During the lockdown I was commuting between Glasgow and Luton every 4 days due to little other transport option, again in an EV the journey would have been considerably more arduous.

The comment on EV’s being dull stands, but it’s only my opinion. I’ve been in/driven a Tesla model 3 dual motor (hugely fast in a straight line plenty of gadgetry, but no character and the weight is noticeable when trying to Chuck it round a bend) a corsa electric, competent, dull as dishwater. And lastly was a Nissan van which was actually very good.

Whilst 95% of the population would be perfectly happy with a dull ‘appliance-like’ vehicle there are still luddites like me who prefer the character of a car with ice rather than its gadgetry. Although I must say I do like the i3 and it hasn’t aged at all. I also like the little Honda ev, but again betrayed by low range and high price.

Like I said I’m not anti ev, they just aren’t for me (yet), when you can show me something genuinely fun, interesting, chuckable, can do genuine 300 miles at any time of the year, equivalent price to a ‘normal’ car and can match the time taken to fill up and grab a coffee I’ll be more than interested.

Speaking as someone with a Rover V8 powered Locost, I totally understand your thoughts on the somewhat “sterile” character of an EV drivetrain, and the suspension response is certainly affected by the battery mass. There is a certain sense of satisfaction in keeping an ICE engine in the power band and anticipating the non-linear power delivery.

I’ve only ever driven the i3 from the EV world and it’s certainly not perfect in terms of the chassis as it can be a bit skittish on rough road surfaces. But I have to say I LOVE the way the powertrain responds to the accelerator pedal. At least up until about 80MPH when it starts to lose urgency a bit due to the relatively low top speed of 98MPH or whatever it is. 170BHP in a 1200Kg car is fairly lively and is only possible due to the carbon fibre and aluminium construction of the i3. I know that Tesla’s are considerably faster but I have zero desire to own a Tesla…

Part of what repels me from the Tesla cars is the fact that they are mostly just conventional cars with an electric drivetrain and terrible dashboard user interface due to the boneheaded insistence of using touch screens for pretty much everything! That and the self-driving fallacy stoked by Elon Musk’s ego is the icing on the cake!

What caught my eye about the Ioniq 5 is that it really seems to have embraced the EV concept in a similar way to how BMW did it with the i3 back in 2013/14. I love the pixelated “8-bit” styling cues and the interior design is very innovative. It’s good to see manufacturers rethinking what a car can be without the constraints of ICE. Add to that the super-fast charging and vehicle-to-grid and it becomes really interesting. The only slight concern I have are the reports of the ride being a bit soft and wallowy. Maybe the sporty version will fix this though.

What I’d love to see next is a roll-on, roll-off high speed train right down the middle of the UK which EVs could board and charge on while travelling at 200MPH+ to one of only a handful of stops, perhaps 100-150 miles apart.

I’d be very happy with an EV that can do 200 miles in any weather, at motorway speeds provided the high speed charge network is fully fit for purpose. If I can add 150+ miles of range in the time it takes to visit the toilet and grab a coffee/sandwich then happy days. It would also have to be sensibly priced of course.

We’re not quite there yet for every type of driver but the last 5 years of i3 ownership has been 100% without regret for us.

Jodel? Very brave standing between the wing and the prop - hope it was well chocked!!!

I’m very tempted by an EV, just not quite sure how it would fit for me.

I tend to drive 100 miles to work, disappear for a while, sometimes just a few hours but often 2 weeks or more. When I get back to my car, I just want to get home and not stop on the way to charge. I’m concerned about the ‘vampire drain’ whilst I am away. I’ve heard Tesla state 2% per day? What are the experiences out there?

I also am anti touch screen! The aircraft I fly is almost all touchscreen which is great for a lot of things, but simple things like adjusting intercom or radio volume, or dimming cockpit lights takes multiple swipes.

so I drive quite a bit - not as much as I used to, but still 30,000 miles a year.
I drive a 63 plate Merc 220d and regularly get 70mpg loaded and over 1000miles of range for a full tank.
Before that I had a V40D4 and used to get 65mpg.

Sooo - based on £6/gallon and an estimated 60mpg then that is 10p per mile so 9p more costly than an equiv EV.
Covering 30,000 miles per annum I will save £2,700 per year. Perhaps a little more if I consider road tax and ULEZ costs.

My Merc cost £12k and an EV (no one makes an Estate EV either) is more than £30,000 - 10 year pay back.
Further I believe that the costing model will have to change - when the tax revenue from forecourt sales stops it will be replaced with an alternate mechanism to tax per mile or replaced with road pricing. So an EV eventually yes, but not quite yet.

Volvo -
V40D4

and Merc -
220D

Some interesting comments - dull as dishwater,- Hmmm, I'd disagree in that some of the designs are quite clever & there's a LOT of electronic kit (lane following, blind spot sensors, radar cruise, electric seats & steering wheel, parking camera & sensors, traffic/pedestrian/accident avoidance etc etc). What I do find dull is that they are nearly all SUV shaped, the only car I found attractive apart from Ioniq/Ioniq5 was the MG estate, which actually looks like a sporty estate not a monstrous jelly mould. I'd have gone for the MG but it doesn't hae the range of the Kona & that was particularly important to me
I also have a problem with the stupid width we now seem to build into everything, but I don't think you could call the Kona, or the ID3 dull - just somewhat plebeian! But, other than something like a 7, a very quick, impractical sports car or a motorbike, what can you actually drive that you can get any significant pleasure from driving? Country lanes are full of cyclists, horses & things the size of a small house like the Q7,Range Rover, X5,6 etc & everywhere else is either chocka block with traffic, has roadworks, or speed cameras! There's very little pleasure in driving anymore except perhaps in the far north of the country, Scotland & a few bits of Wales. I'm pretty sure there's some significance to the fact that of the remaining 6 Furores registered in the UK 2 are in Scotland & another being built up there at the moment

If you think the i3 hasn't aged, then you should take a look at some of what's now out there now! Both battery storage & fast charging has moved on dramatically as has all the other clever electronic stuff

As for doing a 500 mile drive, with the Kona it would probably take me around45 minutes to an hour more than if I was driving petrol/diesel, (& for that to work I'd need to know there was a destination charger where I was going) but then I'm someone that used to drive to the Alps with one loo stop halfway down France, you only have to look at how busy most motorway services are to know that many people want to stop for a coffee or snack/meal every 2 -3 hours & whilst they are doing that the car is charged, they won't lose the time on a long journey that someone like myself would

I would agree that the infrastructure currently is crap, but that is changing & fortunately that does look as though it will improve quite quickly (couple of years or so). One thing that would be a huge improvement & I think will almost certainly come are more destination chargers - a no. of 7kW charge points at hotels, restaurants, for an overnight stop a simple granny plug point would do, sticking 24kW in overnight would more than help with the following days journey

The other thing which is going to need to change dramatically is charging points for flats - I don't think running a 150ft extension cable from a top floor window is going to cut it really!

I agree that EV's are certainly not the answer for everyone, but they are certainly massively more practical than they were just 2 or 3 years ago.

What I can't see ever being realistic unless we find a multiple of 10 for battery capacity vs weight is 40 tonne trucks lugging stuff for 100's of miles, maybe we could actually start using the railways & just use trucks locally at each end of journey

Any gripes with my own electric car? - yes, the heater really isn't very good & yet makes a significant (10% maybe more in cold weather) impact on the range - I really can't understand this - surely shoving best part of 2 tonnes up the road must generate a fair bit of heat!? Why are we not using that to heat the car instead of what I assume is very low resistance stuck across the battery? Strangely the air con makes very little difference to range, I would have expected it to be the other way around?

In terms of the i3 I was talking more on design rather than drive train as other than a nosy round I've no experience of them. All of those electronic devices! How on earth have we coped without all of the nannying that cars do these days and driving standards are generally decreasing, correlation or coincidence?

The other issue that's not really been raised yet is longevity. How many electric cars will live beyond 10 years? Isn't that a huge environmental waste in itself?

But generally it's the cost that's the biggest issue. A standard corsa has a starting list of 16k will easily do 300 miles on a tank whether it's winter or summer and potentially could last 15 years+. An electric corsa starts at 27k has a quoted range of 200 miles (so 150 maybe on a good day in summer?) and could well be at the end of its useful life before its 10th birthday! It will also be hugely heavier and not handle aswell as the cheaper car. So worse to drive, not as capable and hugely more expensive, and that's progress?

Can you honestly ever see the gap between the 2 getting close? Yes I know there are far far more capable EVs but not without a huge cost that normal people can afford.

Bring on synthetic fuels or hydrogen, but that's another debate entirely

Entirely agree about synthetic and hydrogen. Why put all our eggs in one electric basket? Because the hype says so. Are batteries as easy to recycle as ICEs? And what about the issues that exist if one catches fire. We dont have the infrastructure to cope with that either.

"The other issue that's not really been raised yet is longevity. How many electric cars will live beyond 10 years? Isn't that a huge environmental waste in itself?" - I think pretty much everything comes with 8 years warranty on batteries now, so I'd be surprised if they didn't go past 10 years, I would expect range to drop rather than just to give up & drop dead, As regards 10 years plus, look around you on the roads, particularly motorways, how much do you see that's more than 10 years old, I'd say it's below 20% on motorways, a bit higher round town
I assume the manufacturers/recyclers will have a scheme for doing something with the end of life batteries - perhaps I'm being naive as apparently we can't even manage to wrap stuff in recyclable cardboard & paper rather than plastic!

"Can you honestly ever see the gap between the 2 getting close? Yes I know there are far far more capable EVs but not without a huge cost that normal people can afford"

I think the true costs are a LOT closer than you might think, my previous car was a Mazda 6 Sportnav, I bought it new, retail was around £24k, but I actually paid £20,500 on a very good deal (Carwow's best offer was £23k!), I sold it 3 & 1/2 years later with just 17,500 on the clock for £13k, so cost over 3.5 years was £7,5k so around £2150 a year, add to that 3 main dealer services to maintain warranty, around £200 a year plus a largely wasted day of getting the car there & back each time, then add in £140 a year road tax, & around £750 a year fuel, so total £3240 a year, would obviously have been higher if not for Covid basically shutting my mileage down for a 18 month period!

My Kona is on a lease, it's a £35.5k retail car compared with the £24k of the Mazda. I had absolutely no intention of buying one as I have no idea where the market will be in 3 years time, but I suspect range will be better & real prices will have dropped. hence being simply able to give it back was a very appealing option. £2300 up front & £250 a month for 3 years (35 payments), no road tax or congestion charge (not that I use the congestion zone!), just 1 service at 2 years, probably around £150 cos there's really very little to service & fuel costs (taking the same mileage of 17500 to give a fair comparison) probably around £300 allowing for charging away from home 10% of the time at 35p/kW & 5p kW at home comes out at £11,500 or £3833 a year so costing me around £600 a year more for a higher spec car, that's £50 a month & I'd be prepared to bet there are plenty of folks on here paying more than that for their TV package or their mobile phone. As a matter of interest you can have the same spec Kona but with the less powerful motor & smaller battery pack for around £70 a month less, which would actually make it cheaper annual costs than the Mazda

There's an overall time saving, rather than cost as I never have to visit a garage (smug feeling driving past the recent petrol queues!) & it takes around 10 seconds to plug in at home & the same to disconnect b4 driving off

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a particular advocate for electric cars, in fact I think we should have gone for atomic power back in the 70's when we had the original fuel crisis & hydrogen should be the fuel of the future, & we may well still have to go down that road for large transport, however, the gap between fossil fuelled & electric is narrowing & will get narrower during the next few years. There is of course the minor detail that Governments are going to force this on us whether we want it or not

I do regard the new "car" as a domestic appliance used for transport, I don't really see it as a car!

oh yes charging infrastructure - here is a thought - apologies for numbers again - most houses around here have 3 cars, some have a drive, others park on the road.

Ignoring the issue of roadside parking and just looking at a 2 car household with a need to charge two EV - what is the current drain? Is three phase required?

How about the carpark at work or the fast chargers at a service station? Suddenly the largest consumer of electricity in a region is not the aluminium smelting factory (or bakery) but a carpark

Some of the new chargers are 350kw

let's take 26million cars, 13million on the road and 10% charging at anyone time?
30kw x 1.3million - nearly 4GW so an average sized nuclear power station - if I have got some of the maths right.

The infrastructure roll out for for MW level distribution is not trivial and so the way I see it - arrival at driving an EV will be either Tax or Infrastructure

quote:

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Originally posted by russbost
Any gripes with my own electric car? - yes, the heater really isn't very good & yet makes a significant (10% maybe more in cold weather) impact on the range - I really can't understand this - surely shoving best part of 2 tonnes up the road must generate a fair bit of heat!? Why are we not using that to heat the car instead of what I assume is very low resistance stuck across the battery? Strangely the air con makes very little difference to range, I would have expected it to be the other way around?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Mr Whippy
I find many people who don't regularly use an EV come out with the most outrageous and ill informed statements. I just laugh at how wrong they are and one day they will think, God I really was talking through my arse...

[Edited on 5/10/21 by Mr Whippy]

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"what is the current drain? Is three phase required?" - max current draw is 7kW, so it's a simple large dia. armoured cable to the charge point outside - it's something I did miss out of my costing above, but then it's there for life (as long as you live in that house) costs around £5-600 after the £350 Government grant

"Some of the new chargers are 350kw" - yes, but they won't be charging batteries at anything like that capacity, at least not yet, I had the Kona hooked up to one at the w/e, max draw I saw was 75kW

"let's take 26million cars, 13million on the road and 10% charging at anyone time?
30kw x 1.3million - nearly 4GW so an average sized nuclear power station - if I have got some of the maths right" it's not so much your maths that's wrong, more the assumption of the amount of power, how & when. Most EV's will be charging overnight when there is huge spare grid capacity, hence why you can buy electricity for 5p a unit,, they'll be hooked up to home chargers & will only be drawing around 6kW (they rarely charge at full capacity depending on how full the battery is). Not everyone is going to be charging every night, so a more realistic figure might be around 7 million (most people will charge only once or twice a week) at 6kw which, oddly also comes out at just over 4gW - however this is ONLY going to be that sort of draw overnight &, for most people, for only a few hours when that spare capacity would be available, (10,000 miles at 4 miles to the kW is around 48kW a week, so 2 x 4 hour charges) daytime draw would be waaay less

The above figures are also based on ALL cars being electric which we are currently at around 1.5% of that figure, or around 4% if you include all PHEV's as well

I don't know what MrWhippy is basing 120mpg on?

"remote or timed heating the car in the morning" - yeah I can do that with the Kona too, but even if connected to the grid, it's still using power, a bit like going & starting your car up for 10 minutes b4 leaving to get it nice & warm, it's still using fuel, just nowhere near as much as when driving. Bit surprised the Leaf has a heat pump, the old ones could be pretty basic. I'm not saying the heater on the Kona doesn't work, it does, I'm just surprised at how much power it guzzles, doesn't seem to add up, you can have a heat pump, but it wasn't on the spec for the ordinary Premium model which all the leasing companies want to supply

"what sort of prices are you looking at to charge up? Say at a in town charge point and a a motorway services (I assume they're a rip off like petrol?" Oddly it's not expensive at motorway services, it's just particular suppliers that take the p1ss like Ionity at 65p/kW, but typical prices, motorway or elsewhere are usually 30 - 35p/kW. To compare with fuel, a car doing say 45mpg costs about £40 for 300 miles, a mid size EV charging at between 30 & 35p/kW would be around £24, but you are very rarely going to be doing a journey where none of your charging has been done at home, which, even if you're on a crap tariff isn't going to be more than around 20p/kW

quote:

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Originally posted by sdh2903

quote:

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Originally posted by Mr Whippy
I find many people who don't regularly use an EV come out with the most outrageous and ill informed statements. I just laugh at how wrong they are and one day they will think, God I really was talking through my arse...

[Edited on 5/10/21 by Mr Whippy]

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Care to elaborate?

Can I also ask if not charging at home/destination what sort of prices are you looking at to charge up? Say at a in town charge point and a a motorway services (I assume they're a rip off like petrol?)

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Charging at rapids is expensive - but I don't do it very often. 99% of the time I use my home charger, and quite often it's using power solely from my solar panels (not much in winter, obviously). When using solar I get paid for using the car, as I get money for everything that comes off the solar panels, and my charger is intelligent enough to divert exactly the right amount to the car without taking anything from the grid.

When travelling I looked at the petrol/diesel prices at the motorway services - they're always expensive, but now they're plain ridiculous (£1.50+ per litre). So paying extra at rapid chargers follows the trend... but I know that most sensible ICE drivers always try to avoid filling up at those places!

[Edited on 5/10/21 by David Jenkins]

I've been actively considering an EV, as I like the idea of it and the reduced cost of ownership.

Right now, I have 3 old used tin tops, because no one vehicle does everything I want properly, and it's totally cost effective to run 3 old vehicles instead of 1 new one.

I run an old 4x4 @ 20mpg for the odd weekend jaunt into the hills, carrying lots of equipment and in rough locations, sometimes towing.
I run a sports car for fun, 20mpg, it's very impractical but is nice to drive in a way that a fast estate or similar just isn't.
I run a slow small estate @ 60mpg diesel for long runs and carrying a smaller amount of stuff, because fuel is expensive.
I use my car for very little in terms of local runs, two trips a week within 10 miles, two within 60 miles, and occasionally (weekend) I do 250-300 mile round trips into the wilds where there are no EV infrastructure and often no IC infrastructure, and I carry spare fuel just in case.


I priced up a new decent sized EV (EV6 2-300 mile range) and the depreciation alone costs more than buying and scrapping all the above each year, according to the finance calculators.
I priced up a used (2018) i-pace, and the purchase cost is still 40k, it can do 80% of everything I need but not quite 100%, and the monthly repayments are more than my fixed costs and fuel usage on 3 used cars.
I priced up a used Audi RS6 estate - this is by far the closest to the ideal, but it's not perfect and it's still about the same cost as having my current cars.

So unfortunately I re-learned two things:
1) If you don't get out into the wilds much, an EV probably works a treat.
1.5) The reduction in fuel costs is significant, but not significant enough to offset the other costs in my case. The fact that the bulk of my charging would be done at rapid chargers would make the fuel quite expensive.
2) EV infrastructure is probably fine if you don't generally push long distances into random locations, and if you normally plan your drives like a retiree.
3) New cars are abominably expensive.
4) No point getting an expensive compromise, if you already have a perfectly usable set of older cars and can fix them yourself.
5) This is the same position I was in 5 years ago.
6) The only thing that will change that is to actively penalise old car owners, which will make folk poorer and reduce their quality of life at the benefit of businesses and (potentially) the environment.

OF course most folk don't have a set of cars to use and are probably just looking at whether to flush cash down the drain on a new IC car or new EV car, and in which case I'd say the choice was more obvious.

[Edited on 5/10/21 by coyoteboy]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mr Whippy

Just looking at my phone app, in the last 4 months I've done 3742 miles, using a total of 1018.5 kw, and that has cost a total of £162.96, no road tax either to pay and the insurance is less than my VW Up was.

---

That's very car dependant, most data shows EV batteries are *significantly* outlasting their warranty, more so if you only use them sporadically for short journeys.

True. I was reading earlier that there's a bit of noise coming from vw ID owners where battery range is decaying much quicker than it should. Wonder if they've been fudging the numbers again

quote:

---

Originally posted by coyoteboy

3) New cars are abominably expensive.
4) No point getting an expensive compromise, if you already have a perfectly usable set of older cars and can fix them yourself.

---

I can't comment personally on EV cars - I've never owned or even driven one.

Something I watched recently on YouTube that caught my interest was an episode of Harry's Garage and his visit to JCB.


https://youtu.be/19Q7nAYjAJY

[Edited on 5/10/21 by nick205]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mr Whippy

After all it's just a big hole under the car you could fit anything too.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by russbost

quote:

---

Originally posted by coyoteboy

3) New cars are abominably expensive.
4) No point getting an expensive compromise, if you already have a perfectly usable set of older cars and can fix them yourself.

---

You could pretty much have skipped the rest of your post, if you're able to fix it yourself & you're happy to run older vehicles then it can hardly come as a shock that buying anything new is going to cost bundles more, plus you're never going to find one vehicle that does the job of the other 3 - that's why you have 3 in the first place!

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Yeah but how many people actually buy new cars? Id hazard a guess a high percentage are on pcp or pch and never actually 'own' them. EV's even more so as they are so expensive.

quote:

---

Originally posted by russbost
"what is the current drain? Is three phase required?" - max current draw is 7kW, so it's a simple large dia. armoured cable to the charge point outside - it's something I did miss out of my costing above, but then it's there for life (as long as you live in that house) costs around £5-600 after the £350 Government grant

Ouch - can it be self installed - LOL

"Some of the new chargers are 350kw" - yes, but they won't be charging batteries at anything like that capacity, at least not yet, I had the Kona hooked up to one at the w/e, max draw I saw was 75kW

"let's take 26million cars, 13million on the road and 10% charging at anyone time?
30kw x 1.3million - nearly 4GW so an average sized nuclear power station - if I have got some of the maths right" it's not so much your maths that's wrong, more the assumption of the amount of power, how & when. Most EV's will be charging overnight when there is huge spare grid capacity, hence why you can buy electricity for 5p a unit,, they'll be hooked up to home chargers & will only be drawing around 6kW (they rarely charge at full capacity depending on how full the battery is). Not everyone is going to be charging every night, so a more realistic figure might be around 7 million (most people will charge only once or twice a week) at 6kw which, oddly also comes out at just over 4gW - however this is ONLY going to be that sort of draw overnight &, for most people, for only a few hours when that spare capacity would be available, (10,000 miles at 4 miles to the kW is around 48kW a week, so 2 x 4 hour charges) daytime draw would be waaay less

thank you - I am genuinely interested in EV and have a Polestar on the potentials list - not low cost outlay but maybe a realistic proposition if the aim is to tax us high mileage drivers out of our diesels.

The above figures are also based on ALL cars being electric which we are currently at around 1.5% of that figure, or around 4% if you include all PHEV's as well

- future state of many more cars and the infrastructure is what I was thinking - certainly the drive (excuse the pun) is for faster charging and many more electric cars


"what sort of prices are you looking at to charge up? Say at a in town charge point and a a motorway services (I assume they're a rip off like petrol?" Oddly it's not expensive at motorway services, it's just particular suppliers that take the p1ss like Ionity at 65p/kW, but typical prices, motorway or elsewhere are usually 30 - 35p/kW. To compare with fuel, a car doing say 45mpg costs about £40 for 300 miles, a mid size EV charging at between 30 & 35p/kW would be around £24, but you are very rarely going to be doing a journey where none of your charging has been done at home, which, even if you're on a crap tariff isn't going to be more than around 20p/kW

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by nick205
I can't comment personally on EV cars - I've never owned or even driven one.

Something I watched recently on YouTube that caught my interest was an episode of Harry's Garage and his visit to JCB.


https://youtu.be/19Q7nAYjAJY

[Edited on 5/10/21 by nick205]

---

Quote:
I don't think 1800 miles in 2 weeks is bad, do you?

Neither is 1500 miles in France in one week in a 14 year old MX5 bad but hey ho!!!

"I am genuinely interested in EV and have a Polestar on the potentials list" - Yeah, it'd be on my list too except for the price tag!!!

quote:

---

Originally posted by russbost
"I am genuinely interested in EV and have a Polestar on the potentials list" - Yeah, it'd be on my list too except for the price tag!!!

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by russbost
"Some of the new chargers are 350kw" - yes, but they won't be charging batteries at anything like that capacity, at least not yet, I had the Kona hooked up to one at the w/e, max draw I saw was 75kW

---

Very interesting that Polestar have become the first manufacturer to publish CO2 comparisons between their EV cars and conventional cars (Volvo].

Looks like you have to do 80-100,000km before the EV has less life time CO2 than an equivalent ICE car! After a ‘full life’ of 200,000km it still emits around 2/3rds ton CO2 of a combustion car... so that’s claiming a life cycle of 125000 miles in English.

All makes interesting reading and hats off to the for publishing the data. It shows how much energy/CO2 battery production consumes/produces. It would be interesting to see how hydrogen production compares.
https://www.datocms-assets.com/11286/1630409045-polestarlcarapportprintkorr11210831.pdf

quote:

---

Originally posted by JC
Very interesting that Polestar have become the first manufacturer to publish CO2 comparisons between their EV cars and conventional cars (Volvo].

Looks like you have to do 80-100,000km before the EV has less life time CO2 than an equivalent ICE car! After a ‘full life’ of 200,000km it still emits around 2/3rds ton CO2 of a combustion car... so that’s claiming a life cycle of 125000 miles in English.

All makes interesting reading and hats off to the for publishing the data. It shows how much energy/CO2 battery production consumes/produces. It would be interesting to see how hydrogen production compares.
https://www.datocms-assets.com/11286/1630409045-polestarlcarapportprintkorr11210831.pdf

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by coyoteboy

quote:

---

Originally posted by russbost
"Some of the new chargers are 350kw" - yes, but they won't be charging batteries at anything like that capacity, at least not yet, I had the Kona hooked up to one at the w/e, max draw I saw was 75kW

---

That's limited by the car, not the charger, and the car limits it depending on the state of charge, temperature etc etc.
Here's some examples of charge rates off the exact same super high power charge points:
https://twitter.com/Fastned/status/1110157257256386560

---

One thing that EV cars don't do is emit a massive amount of pollution in cities, unlike petrol, and particularly diesel, cars do. You only have to stand in London opposite Madame Tussauds to appreciate that! (not long ago this was rated as the most polluted road in Britain, IIRC). I have been there, many years ago, and even then it was choking - the atmosphere there is disgusting.

This video is quite enlightening:

It's a shame the video is quite so obviously biased as the vast majority of it is, I believe, correct. Also a shame that they got one of the figures wrong by a factor of 10, 43,500 on the voiceover became 435,000 on the screen - I don't know which is right, but suspect it's the lower figure; they also can't spell wasted correctly, which surely someone should have picked up pre- production? It makes the whole thing look somewhat more amateurish

EV's do still pollute a little in cities, apparently rubber particles from tyres are more prevalent in air than you might think, but as well as the obvious tailpipe emissions being gone, so has virtually all of the brake dust as nearly all braking is done by regen.

Something that's not been mentioned which could become very relevant is the possibility by 2026 of hydrogen boilers & a mix of natural gas & hydrogen being supplied to homes & factories for heating as opposed to natural gas boilers - if this happens then surely hydrogen production costs would drop which could make a huge ipact on the viability of hydrogen as a vehicle fuel

I was once told by what I thought was a reliable source that there wasn't enough lithium in the world to power all the cars we currently have - no idea if that's true, but it's starting to look a bit like what we were told back in the 70's - that we'd run out of oil by 2030 - that one seems a bit wide of the mark now!

It's a fact that when we burn petrol or diesel in our ICE engines 70% of that is turned into heat rather than powering the vehicle, I've never heard any mention of this in terms of overall heating of the planet, but it surely can't help! I wonder whet the comparable figure for an EV is, ie how much goes to the wheels & how much just generates heat into the atmosphere?

Yes, the silly mistakes are unfortunate - this was a pre-production version, and when I first saw it they apologised for the errors. I haven't seen the final version yet.

When I was on a ferry across Cromarty Firth in Scotland I saw something that really brought the situation home to me - the first image is a whole host of oil rigs and exploration vessels languishing in the bay. Some are there for maintenance, or being stored for future use, but most of them are just redundant and parked - the locals hate them. I couldn't get a decent picture showing all of them, so this is just a selection. Many other lochs and firths are similarly blemished by these things.



The next picture is looking the other way across the Firth - these are the bases for wind turbines. They are towed out to sea and put on the sea floor, and the mast and turbine is mounted on top.



I think this suggests the way things are going...



[Edited on 6/10/21 by David Jenkins]

I should add, BTW, that I really don't have a 'head in the clouds' attitude to electric cars. My own views, in no particular order, are:

1. They aren't the solution to the petrol/diesel car crisis - not by a long way.
   
2. Battery EVs may eventually get replaced by hydrogen fuel-cell cars, or something else, but not for a while.
   
3. They are way more expensive that ICE cars - but that's mostly due to European, Japanese and Korean manufacturers choosing to make them all 'luxury'. The Chinese make a lot of cheap EVs, and heaven help the other manufacturers when they finally start importing the basic models here. They've already started with the MG EVs, and already have cars that cost the equivalent of under £6000 in China. Obviously this will increase when factoring in the cost of certification, etc, but there's a lot of wriggle room there. One is already appearing in Europe, being sold as the Dacia Spring, which is likely to cost around £11,000 - however Dacia haven't yet decided yet whether to import them to the UK. it's not a brilliant car, but it would be good enough for many people.
   
4. We simply can't keep on using oil the way we do now.
   
5. EVs are way, way cheaper to maintain that ICE cars - everything is so much simpler. This may break the current dealer servicing model (this has started already).
   
6. I love driving my EV - it's easy to drive, powerful, and does everything I want. And, of course, it's cheap to run, although I'm realistic enough to realise that this will not go on forever. I'm sure the government will want to recover the lost fuel revenue somehow.
   
7. I believe that the thing that will kill ICE cars in the future will be the difficulty in getting hold of fuel. Oil companies are already cutting back production, petrol stations are closing, and this will continue as the fuel producers realise that they can't/won't sell as much as they used to in the past.
   
8. Lithium batteries can be recycled, the technology exists, although there aren't many companies doing it yet. Many used EV batteries are being repackaged and used for domestic storage batteries, very successfully.
   
9. There are many sources of lithium in this world - it's a reasonably common element - although some are currently too expensive to extract, or just too difficult, at the moment. There's even a proposal to extract it from Cornish tin mines!
   
10. There is a whole heap of mis-information, lies and plain cr*p currently being pushed out by certain parts of the media, especially the Daily Mail and Daily Express, although there are many others. Researchers have examined these media sources and have found direct links to oil companies - Rupert Murdoch is a major example.
    

Well all I can say is that I will never again buy a car with an engine, it's as simple as that.

quote:

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Originally posted by Mr Whippy
Well all I can say is that I will never again buy a car with an engine, it's as simple as that.

---

Excellent, leaves more fuel left for the rest of us

Wow, this thread certainly took off since I last looked! Hopefully Chris is getting some revenue to keep the servers running as a result!

A couple of points I'd like to raise from a quick skim of the thread:

1. When considering the cost of ownership of an EV. Don't just look at the purchase price. You need to look at the cost of purchase but subtract the lower cost of running plus the lower cost of servicing. That makes a huge difference. For example, my wife's i3 was something like £400/month on a 48 month PCP deal with something like a 2k deposit and 9k end of lease balance. BUT, she was saving something like £120 a month on fuel vs electricity and servicing was £325 for 5 years. This was on a 12k miles per year, realistic lease not some contrived 6k miles per year lease with 20p/mile overage charge. And this wasn't a Vauxhall Corsa experience, this was a premium BMW experience and it felt that way.

2. When we bought our i3 I specified a heat pump heating system because I knew it would be highly beneficial. As a result, our range doesn't drop that much during winter. Also, the recommendation is to use heated seats rather than cabin heating as much as possible because they are much more efficient.

3. I don't recall who raised a question about whether EVs will be still viable after 10 year but seriously that's the most ridiculous criticism I've heard in a while. Speaking for the i3, it has an aluminium chassis, carbon fibre shell and ding-proof plastic body panels which will probably outlast all of us. It also has an 8 year warranty on battery and drivetrain which suggests it will last well beyond that in general before major failures. But even if it does have a battery or motor or control unit failure, these parts will be available to purchase. Yes, a battery pack might be something like £5k but that's no worse than and auto box on a modern BMW. Yes a motor might be £2-3k but that's better than a full petrol or diesel engine... Yes the control unit might be £2k but that's not any worse than a petrol/Diesel engine either.

That is all for now.
Cheers.

Any Locostbuilder in the know about wind turbines....

My Wife showed me a picture purportedly showing fields of wind turbine blades abandoned because they had reached their life limit and are unrecyclable. Not sure if it was fake news.

What is the life of a wind turbine blade? I presume that they are Kevlar/carbon fibre?

Mostly fibreglass.
Yes they have a life, it's usually decades.
They're very hard to recycle in a useful manner.
It's still greener than oil.

quote:

---

Originally posted by craig1410

3. I don't recall who raised a question about whether EVs will be still viable after 10 year but seriously that's the most ridiculous criticism I've heard in a while. Speaking for the i3, it has an aluminium chassis, carbon fibre shell and ding-proof plastic body panels which will probably outlast all of us. It also has an 8 year warranty on battery and drivetrain which suggests it will last well beyond that in general before major failures. But even if it does have a battery or motor or control unit failure, these parts will be available to purchase. Yes, a battery pack might be something like £5k but that's no worse than and auto box on a modern BMW. Yes a motor might be £2-3k but that's better than a full petrol or diesel engine... Yes the control unit might be £2k but that's not any worse than a petrol/Diesel engine either.

That is all for now.
Cheers.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by coyoteboy
Mostly fibreglass.
Yes they have a life, it's usually decades.
They're very hard to recycle in a useful manner.
It's still greener than oil.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Schrodinger

quote:

---

Originally posted by coyoteboy
Mostly fibreglass.
Yes they have a life, it's usually decades.
They're very hard to recycle in a useful manner.
It's still greener than oil.

---

Isn't fibreglass made from oil?
As I understand it the turbines have a 25 year life.

---

"Running costs are a lot cheaper if you're willing to throw thousands at depreciation, which is a spectacular waste of cash" - but that's true of buying any new car

A few years ago I bought a VW Phaeton (that's the one that's identical to the Bentley with different body panels), it was just over 2 years old & had done a bit over 90k miles, I bought it for £13k - it came with all original docs from the selling dealer - puchase price? £55k - now that's what I'd call a spectacular waste of cash, their loss my gain

I gave a price breakdown in an earlier post, but it's pretty clear some haven't read it so I'll put it in again here

I think the true costs are a LOT closer than you might think, my previous car was a Mazda 6 Sportnav, I bought it new, retail was around £24k, but I actually paid £20,500 on a very good deal (Carwow's best offer was £23k!), I sold it 3 & 1/2 years later with just 17,500 on the clock for £13k, so cost over 3.5 years was £7,5k so around £2150 a year, add to that 3 main dealer services to maintain warranty, around £200 a year plus a largely wasted day of getting the car there & back each time, then add in £140 a year road tax, & around £750 a year fuel, so total £3240 a year, would obviously have been higher if not for Covid basically shutting my mileage down for a 18 month period!

My Kona is on a lease, it's a £35.5k retail car compared with the £24k of the Mazda. I had absolutely no intention of buying one as I have no idea where the market will be in 3 years time, but I suspect range will be better & real prices will have dropped. hence being simply able to give it back was a very appealing option. £2300 up front & £250 a month for 3 years (35 payments), no road tax or congestion charge (not that I use the congestion zone!), just 1 service at 2 years, probably around £150 cos there's really very little to service & fuel costs (taking the same mileage of 17500 to give a fair comparison) probably around £300 allowing for charging away from home 10% of the time at 35p/kW & 5p kW at home comes out at £11,500 or £3833 a year so costing me around £600 a year more for a higher spec car, that's £50 a month & I'd be prepared to bet there are plenty of folks on here paying more than that for their TV package or their mobile phone. As a matter of interest you can have the same spec Kona but with the less powerful motor & smaller battery pack for around £70 a month less, which would actually make it cheaper annual costs than the Mazda

quote:

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Originally posted by HowardB


My Merc cost £12k and an EV (no one makes an Estate EV either) is more than £30,000 - 10 year pay back.

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Are any leccy cars homogolated for towing? I'll bet towing would crucify the range too.

quote:

---

Originally posted by sdh2903
Are any leccy cars homogolated for towing? I'll bet towing would crucify the range too.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by ianhurley20

quote:

---

Originally posted by HowardB


My Merc cost £12k and an EV (no one makes an Estate EV either) is more than £30,000 - 10 year pay back.

---

There are two EV estates, one is a Tesla that a company in Dereham, Norfolk converts to an estate (so a cheat , yes) The other is the MG5 which seems very good value for money as you can find new discounted models at about 21,000 and quoted ranges seem good - not visited a showroom to look at one yet but I will be doing so fairly soon

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by coyoteboy
Running costs are a lot cheaper if you're willing to throw thousands at depreciation, which is a spectacular waste of cash.

Not sure this is realistic TBH.

On a 10 year old car, no-one buys a new engine, or ECU if it fails, they scrap the car or buy a used unit. But I think the problem is there may not be any economy in buying a used battery - a used engine at 10 years will likely last another 100K miles, a used battery won't. But it probably won't be as bad as it seems and the naysayers make out. So overall I don't see that being much different really except the supply will likely be a bit smaller as batteries are specific to a model, not to a range of models.

[Edited on 7/10/21 by coyoteboy]

---

I couldn't even slightly afford a new EV but I didn't have to since they've been decent EV's around for about 12 years now and fortunately they do deprecate very quickly like most cars. I've spent most of my life driving old cheap cars, £250 - £500 was my normal budget for a car and I was quite happy to work on them to keep it going.

But tbh a modern car is so much better in everyway and a EV so much better than an ICE car that I'm perfectly fine paying a few hundred a month to have the pleasure of driving it. Yeah I could go back to old cars and noisy engines but I'd rather not.

It's kinda funny, I know lots of kids cos of my kids and none of them, not one seems to want anything other than an EV when they grow up, their all about technology and gadgets, the environment etc. It's that generation I think that will make a sweeping change and ICE cars will be seen as grandad's smell old thing that's laughably slow and noisy.

Haha, yeah I know what you mean. I think it's a Volvo EV advert on TV where the "granddad" is making "broom broom" noises while playing with a toy car with his grandchild and they are just looking at him as if he's crazy. Then they drive off silently in an EV.

Well................ i log into a kit car building forum to see a 3 page thread on electric cars. I must admit.....it hurts. There is no mention of fuel leaks, float bowls leaking, bhp............. what has the world become!!!! I expect to see most of you glued to junction 4 on the M4 over the next few weeks

quote:

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Originally posted by number-1
Well................ i log into a kit car building forum to see a 3 page thread on electric cars. I must admit.....it hurts. There is no mention of fuel leaks, float bowls leaking, bhp............. what has the world become!!!! I expect to see most of you glued to junction 4 on the M4 over the next few weeks

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I hope the cold weather doesnt drain the battery by as much as expected. Drones loose as much as 80 percent in the cold!

quote:

---

Originally posted by number-1
I hope the cold weather doesn't drain the battery by as much as expected. Drones loose as much as 80 percent in the cold!

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mr Whippy
I couldn't even slightly afford a new EV but I didn't have to since they've been decent EV's around for about 12 years now and fortunately they do deprecate very quickly like most cars. I've spent most of my life driving old cheap cars, £250 - £500 was my normal budget for a car and I was quite happy to work on them to keep it going.
.

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" For a decent sized capable ev you're looking at 600-1200 a month" - You're joking right? You'd get a Polestar or high end Tesla for that, I've already pointed out my Kona, which is very, very capable, is just over £250 a month & less than £2.5k down - yes, it's pretty soul less, but then so is pretty much everything modern as they all have full on Nanny facilities built in!

I've been reading this thread with interest to hear some real world experience from people who actually have EVs and know something about cars in general rather than all the tosh you hear from folks who haven't even sat in one. Thank you Guy Martin for catalysing the debate.

My own EV experience has been from company cars - most of my career I worked in an industry (construction) where almost all grades get a company car. As the years passed and tax rules removed any benefit of having a company car I drifted off into taking the cash allowance equivalent instead and sourcing my own car but instead of an unlimited choice the firms still restricted the max CO2 and age of car you could claim the allowance for so "bangernomics" wasn't an option. In 2013 I went back to a company car when I found that by getting something with a really low CO2 I could pay peanuts in company car tax and the only estate car (which I needed) on my list of choices which had low enough CO2 was a Prius+. It had the added benefit of 7 seats if ever needed and burnt petrol at a similar rate to previous diesels I'd had and qualified for a 2p per mile higher business mile rate than diesel so I was quids in there too (circa 20k business miles pa). Okay, not really an EV - maybe 2 miles of ICE off range but that did get me from the bottom of the M32 to where I parked in central Bristol if I was light on the right hand pedal so good for city air quality. Everyone laughed at me but I was 2-3k a year better off than them in their diesel Passats. I spent that 2-3k per year on kit cars and motorbikes like any good Prius driver should... The Prius couldn't tow though.

Next company car choice came four years later and the tax benefit on ordinary hybrids had disappeared. They then had the Passat GTE plug-in hybrid in estate form on my list and the tax was almost nothing. I went for that. Claimed 31 mile EV range which I actually got sometimes, in fact I actually achieved a PB of 36 miles once. Mostly it was 25 miles though and in winter 21 if I didn't use the heater, 19 if I did. It was a 21 mile commute for me then so the heater stayed off. No charger at work but for the first year they turned a blind eye to me running an extension lead out of the window. As such all my home to work miles were EV and only the "to" miles were on my leccy bill. It could also tow so I got a trailer for track day at that point. Sixteen miles on EV towing.

I actually think this plug-in was a great concept. In my first year 65% of all my mileage was done on electric. No range anxiety as I also had a tank of petrol and a 1.4FSi ICE to fall back on. With both EV and ICE running together it was mighty quick and put a few big BMWs to shame. If I needed to drive from Bristol to Newcastle, no bother, just use the petrol engine once the leccy has run out. Still got 42mpg on petrol.

As a concept for clean air in cities it is perfect. It had a hold mode where you could save your electric for the final phase of your journey if you were doing a motorway run with a final leg in an urban area.

Big downsides - 16A max charge rate so public charging just wasn't worth it unless you were parking for a long time. If you were buying it with your own money, big initial cost!

quote:

---

Originally posted by russbost
" For a decent sized capable ev you're looking at 600-1200 a month" - You're joking right? You'd get a Polestar or high end Tesla for that, I've already pointed out my Kona, which is very, very capable, is just over £250 a month & less than £2.5k down - yes, it's pretty soul less, but then so is pretty much everything modern as they all have full on Nanny facilities built in!

---

There's little point in arguing the toss tbh as you'll never please everyone and even if EV's could do everything an ICE car could, they'd still argue so I don't care less if anyone switches to EV or not, after all it's not me who pay's their bills.

Like it or not EV's will eventually replace ICE, not yet but maybe in the next 10-20 years as cars improve and fuel costs continue to rise or have limited availability, almost everyone will turn to electric. Like I said younger generations like my kids only want an EV and even this morning on the way to school were complaining that engine cars stink, literally

All I'd say is if an EV can work for you, maybe as the main car then you can save a lot of money and should offset the cost of still having an cheap second ICE car for when the EV doesn't quite have the range or capacity. I have still got my little Fiesta which is used very rarely for towing a small trailer and our trailer tent and that's my solution.

I have notice a lot of people buying Hybrids thinking that they are similar to EV's but that's mainly due to them not understanding the difference and then being confused as to why they are not seeing any saving at all. One day they may actually figure it out but I won't hold my breath.

[Edited on 12/10/21 by Mr Whippy]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mr Whippy
I have notice a lot of people buying Hybrids thinking that they are similar to EV's but that's mainly due to them not understanding the difference and then being confused as to why they are not seeing any saving at all. One day they may actually figure it out but I won't hold my breath.

---

"I have no idea how you're getting that price - for a 30K car (even a year old the lowest spec is ~30K) I've not found a kona EV poverty spec cheaper than 500 a month with a 5K deposit." Ha, Ha! You need to look a LOT harder, first forget PCP cheapest PCP deal I found was around £100 dearer & higher deposit for virtually no advantage, mine is far from poverty spec & is brand new (delivery mileage was around 250 IIRC) on a 21 plate it's the Electric Kona Premium 150kW motor, 64kWh battery & it's also pearl metallic which should have been extra but came FoC! Must admit I couldn't work out how they can do a £35,500 (over £36k actually with the paint) car for that money, but I'm not arguing, it's on my drive & definitely not a figment of my imagination - the only downside if you can call it that is that is that it's based on 8,000 miles a year, but even if you go over a bit it's not too onerous

As regards decent sized, it's perfectly adequate I would say for a family of 4 to go on holiday in, & plenty of room for 5 in comfort if you're not carrying tons of luggage, I'd much have preferred an estate like the MG simply because it's so much more versatile (& better looking), but range is nowhere near as good

TBH, so far as I can see what you are describing is a van, minibus or camper & you certainly don't want something like that on a lease as the chances of returning it without damage given the type of use you describe, is about nil, add to that that even ICE vans are utter extortion for what they are (a tin box with a plush cab!) & you would most certainly be talking big bucks. Electric vans at present are crap, with very limited range if carrying significant loads so far as I'm aware problem being that if you take up load space with batteries, you've basically defeated the object of it being a van!

I believe Tesla have a sort of monster luxury 7 seater thingy, & I believe it has good range, but dread to even imagine the price tag. The iPace is ugly, not a lot bigger inside than most medium SUV's & starts at base level at silly prices - I did say that I'm not particularly an advocate of electric cars & they certainly aren't suitable for everyone nor for all types of use

Below is a screenshot from Zapmap, this happens to be Cornwaii as you mentioned beaches "beach locations 150 miles from a charger/fuel station" - if you can find a beach location anything like 150 miles from the nearest charge point I will personally give you a prize! Ok, they aren't all fast charge points, but if you're stopping somewhere to eat or sleep that is far less relevant. If you think I chose Cornwall as it has the best charge points, actually quite the opposite, even the Highlands of Scotland & the Scottish islands have charge points

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A plug in hybrid solves absolutely nothing, it's simply an ICE car dressed up in an electric frock - most of them can't do much more than 30 miles or so on pure electric

"Plus of course, PCP on a new car is just laughing wildly while throwing cash onto a bonfire" - well I can agree on that, hence why I don't use PCP & never have - but that goes for ICE or electric it has nothing specific to do with one or the other.

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Originally posted by sdh2903
Excellent, leaves more fuel left for the rest of us

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Originally posted by russbost
A plug in hybrid solves absolutely nothing, it's simply an ICE car dressed up in an electric frock - most of them can't do much more than 30 miles or so on pure electric

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Originally posted by Mr Whippy
Like it or not EV's will eventually replace ICE, not yet but maybe in the next 10-20 years as cars improve and fuel costs continue to rise or have limited availability, almost everyone will turn to electric. Like I said younger generations like my kids only want an EV and even this morning on the way to school were complaining that engine cars stink, literally

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Originally posted by russbost

A plug in hybrid solves absolutely nothing, it's simply an ICE car dressed up in an electric frock - most of them can't do much more than 30 miles or so on pure electric

"Plus of course, PCP on a new car is just laughing wildly while throwing cash onto a bonfire" - well I can agree on that, hence why I don't use PCP & never have - but that goes for ICE or electric it has nothing specific to do with one or the other.

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Originally posted by Sanzomat

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Originally posted by russbost
A plug in hybrid solves absolutely nothing, it's simply an ICE car dressed up in an electric frock - most of them can't do much more than 30 miles or so on pure electric

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I'm going to disagree with that statement. Putting aside the embodied carbon of the additional ICE for a moment, when I had my Passat GTE plug-in I kept a record of my miles done on petrol vs EV and 65% were on electric despite only a 30 mile range. I don't think 2/3 of total mileage done is insignificant and despite lugging around an ICE and fuel tank I was lugging around a lot less weight of battery so the miles per kW/hr were similar to most pure EVs. Also, urban air quality which is arguably one of the main reasons for going EV - box ticked as it should be possible for all urban journeys to be done on the EV range.

Whilst a large part of the carbon footprint of building an EV is the batteries, having a car with just enough range for most short journeys to be EV but then using an ICE for longer journeys actually makes sense to me. If I managed 65% of my total miles on battery with only 30 mile range then I guess most people could. The embodied CO2 of the bigger battery needed for full range is probably similar to that of the ICE?

Also, no additional electric infrastructure needed as most users can charge their little battery at home overnight from a 13A socket and if they get caught short while out and about just fire up the ICE for a bit.

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"They're a tool, not a joy" - I'd second that, I regard mine as a domestic appliance rather than a car!But then for the vast majority of the current generation they already regarded the car as a domestic appliance - hence why most of them have no idea what goes on under the bonnet anymore than they understand the workings of their washing machine & why many of them fail to understand why anything should need "servicing"!

I don't know, its a long time since I've enjoyed driving a car so much and I don't think a car has to be fast and noisy to be fun.

When I was a teenager I'd had a few very thirsty cars, low 20's or less and going for a drive simply meant burning money. It was a real put off for wanting to use them. However I got a 1.1 Fiesta which meant suddenly I was getting over 55 mpg, I drove and drove that thing everywhere, till someone crashed into it

I find the EV is the same. We're going on trips every weekend we'd never have done because of the cost of petrol. I'm just going off for drives in the countryside sightseeing, just for the hell of it

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Originally posted by Mr Whippy

I find the EV is the same. We're going on trips every weekend we'd never have done because of the cost of petrol. I'm just going off for drives in the countryside sightseeing, just for the hell of it

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Originally posted by Mr Whippy
I find the EV is the same. We're going on trips every weekend we'd never have done because of the cost of petrol. I'm just going off for drives in the countryside sightseeing, just for the hell of it

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I actually think that us lot who drive kit cars are the ideal target audience for EV's as our dailies. Certainly for me I didn't have a problem having a Prius as my company car as that was basically a tool for getting from A to B. A few years later an ordinary plain vanilla EV would be similar. When making journeys with the family it is still basically a tool/appliance but whenever I want to drive for pleasure I roll out one of the kit cars and get the pure analogue driving experience. It must be much harder for those poor souls who only have the one vehicle that has to fulfil all driving needs.

I also use that argument to justify doing track days from an environmental point of view. By having a separate track car (and one made out of recycled scrap parts at that and one that is fast by virtue of being light, not by having a huge powerful engine) I'm happy to have a much more basic economical car for the vast majority of my driving. If I didn't have a kit car I'd probably want to drive something fast/fancy and no doubt much less environmentally friendly every day. Okay, I doubt Greta would buy that argument but it makes me feel better!

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Originally posted by Sanzomat
I also use that argument to justify doing track days from an environmental point of view. By having a separate track car (and one made out of recycled scrap parts at that and one that is fast by virtue of being light, not by having a huge powerful engine) I'm happy to have a much more basic economical car for the vast majority of my driving. If I didn't have a kit car I'd probably want to drive something fast/fancy and no doubt much less environmentally friendly every day. Okay, I doubt Greta would buy that argument but it makes me feel better!

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Originally posted by Mr Whippy
I don't know, its a long time since I've enjoyed driving a car so much and I don't think a car has to be fast and noisy to be fun.

When I was a teenager I'd had a few very thirsty cars, low 20's or less and going for a drive simply meant burning money. It was a real put off for wanting to use them. However I got a 1.1 Fiesta which meant suddenly I was getting over 55 mpg, I drove and drove that thing everywhere, till someone crashed into it

I find the EV is the same. We're going on trips every weekend we'd never have done because of the cost of petrol. I'm just going off for drives in the countryside sightseeing, just for the hell of it

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I don't have a PCP thing on the car either, it's just a normal loan.



There seems to be several topics being discussed in this one post (as usual for this forum...)

1) Are EV's limited to 80 miles range - no that's just daft

2) Are EV's useful with their current range - yes perfectly practical but depends on personal circumstance

3) Are EV's too expensive to justify buying them compared to an ICE - depends on personal circumstances, how much money people are willing to pay for a car anyway, second hand they are much the same cost which is why I have one. Their new tech so that is always more expensive, it's expected they will reduce in price as they gain a footing.

4) Is it better to run an old car than to buy a new one - depends on personal circumstances, all new cars depreciate very fast so its always been a personal preference for people who do that they're happy to foot the cost for having something new. This does not only apply to EV's or cars but everything.

5) Are EV's fun to drive - Yes actually, quite a lot of fun, their fast, smooth, wheel spin like crazy and sound like a jet car certainly gets me smiling

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Originally posted by Mr Whippy


1) Are EV's limited to 80 miles range - no that's just daft

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The op -

"In a recent TV programme, Guy stated that EVs were no good for journeys more than 80 miles or so, and only in cities... "

A daft sweeping statement, rather like saying cars are no good for speeds over 150mph

If Guy Martin did in fact say this and it wasn't taken out of context, then I'd say he probably has very little experience with EV's and really should not be commenting at all.

It's also daft in that it does not take into account you can simply rapid recharge your car, like that's not a thing and filling your car up is only available to ICE cars.

Just to clarify, my 4 year old Leaf was £11.000, with just 16k miles on it and has a range of 120 miles (I have got 140 miles out it and sometimes a lot less depending on what I'm doing with it). As far as car prices go, that really isn't very expensive. So the claim that practical EV's are not affordable doesn't wash with me. Sorry.

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Originally posted by sdh2903

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Originally posted by Mr Whippy


1) Are EV's limited to 80 miles range - no that's just daft

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Actually not so daft. For those looking at buying a cheaper car, i.e older, there are countless used cars for sale that clearly state a range of less than 80 miles. Even cars at only 6 or 7 years old with less than 40k on them.

Yes if you can afford to splash the cash on a new(er) ev then yes it's probably daft.

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I think you'd be surprised, I was. Just 2 I looked at randomly.


https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2015-White-Nissan-Leaf-Tekna-24kw-Low-Milage-/393538221988?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&_trksid=p2349624.m46890.l49286& ;mkrid=710-127635-2958-0

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2011-Nissan-LEAF-24kwh-Very-Low-Mileage-Extensive-Nissan-History-BATTERY-OWNED-/294454059975?mkcid=16&mkevt=1& _trksid=p2349624.m46890.l49286&mkrid=710-127635-2958-0

Mr Whippy - you talk a lot of sense.

There are lots of people around who would be very happy with a second-hand EV that gives a range of around 100 miles - my wife, for example. Your Leaf is also a good car - the early models being far better than the latest efforts.

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Originally posted by sdh2903
I think you'd be surprised, I was. Just 2 I looked at randomly.


https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2015-White-Nissan-Leaf-Tekna-24kw-Low-Milage-/393538221988?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&_trksid=p2349624.m46890.l49286& ;mkrid=710-127635-2958-0

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2011-Nissan-LEAF-24kwh-Very-Low-Mileage-Extensive-Nissan-History-BATTERY-OWNED-/294454059975?mkcid=16&mkevt=1& _trksid=p2349624.m46890.l49286&mkrid=710-127635-2958-0

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Originally posted by sdh2903
I think you'd be surprised, I was. Just 2 I looked at randomly.


https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2015-White-Nissan-Leaf-Tekna-24kw-Low-Milage-/393538221988?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&_trksid=p2349624.m46890.l49286& ;mkrid=710-127635-2958-0

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2011-Nissan-LEAF-24kwh-Very-Low-Mileage-Extensive-Nissan-History-BATTERY-OWNED-/294454059975?mkcid=16&mkevt=1& _trksid=p2349624.m46890.l49286&mkrid=710-127635-2958-0

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Originally posted by David Jenkins
Mr Whippy - you talk a lot of sense.

There are lots of people around who would be very happy with a second-hand EV that gives a range of around 100 miles - my wife, for example. Your Leaf is also a good car - the early models being far better than the latest efforts.

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Originally posted by russbost
With a 24kWh battery you'd expect over 100 miles if not using lots of "extras" (I think Nissan gave 160 miles as top range?)

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Originally posted by SJ
I agree - Would be a perfect second car for us. There would be no point swapping our 2016 Swift for one though given the swift will no doubt continue doing what it does for the next 10 years with minimal maintenance and not much petrol. Filling up with petrol once every couple of months is also significantly less hassle than plugging in regularly at home.

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Originally posted by David Jenkins

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Originally posted by SJ
I agree - Would be a perfect second car for us. There would be no point swapping our 2016 Swift for one though given the swift will no doubt continue doing what it does for the next 10 years with minimal maintenance and not much petrol. Filling up with petrol once every couple of months is also significantly less hassle than plugging in regularly at home.

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We're in a similar position - my wife has a 2015 Citroen C1 that is working OK just now, and she only does 3 - 4 thousand miles per year. It has a dubious service history and may need replacing in a year or two, at which point we'll probably get a second EV. However it's working at the moment, and she likes driving it, so there's no rush to replace it. She does want an EV though...

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Originally posted by Mr Whippy
4) Is it better to run an old car than to buy a new one - depends on personal circumstances, all new cars depreciate very fast so its always been a personal preference for people who do that they're happy to foot the cost for having something new. This does not only apply to EV's or cars but everything.

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On a related topic it surprises me the government are allowing what amount to electric mopeds to be used free of tax, insurance & MOT. I'm not complaining as I think things are regulated far too much but I really don't see something like a velosolex, which is basically a pushbike with an engine should be any different to a modern e bike.

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Originally posted by SJ
On a related topic it surprises me the government are allowing what amount to electric mopeds to be used free of tax, insurance & MOT. I'm not complaining as I think things are regulated far too much but I really don't see something like a velosolex, which is basically a pushbike with an engine should be any different to a modern e bike.

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