Electric cars

silverwhistle wrote: »

It's exactly the high use vehicles in urban environments that we're talking about. Someone who is a regular 30/40 mile each way commuter is ideally placed to benefit from an EV. If you look at the accounts of people who have EVs it's exactly those who tend to have them, and in families with two cars often the ICE is kept for occasional long trips, but low usage on an annual basis. It's far from greenwash.

I'm doing a 50 mile round trip to work each day in my leaf, including other journeys I'm doing about 14K a year - so not roving travelling salesman territory but about double the uk average (which is about 7k/year).

It's our only car, not a second car. I can do the commute two days running without a charge (I see 107 miles quoted above, I'm finding 120+ with normal driving). I don't feel the need for a backup ice, I guess if I was going to France or somewhere where I didn't know the lay of the land I'd probably just hire an ICE. I wouldnt want the burden of owning one just for an obscure journey like that.

Always the same anti EV sentiment,

It wont go far, Its inconvenient, I dont want to stop for 20mins to charge on a long day out. Its slow, Its a Milk Float, Its a rich mans mobility scooter, It wont work in the rain.

EVs were off my radar altogether till a year ago,

I am a high mileage user, 35 to 40k a year average. I bought my EV (BMW i3) to do the local runs up to 100 miles and kept an ICE for long distance work. It only took a few weeks to see the 90% saving when driving EV made it nonsensical to keep an ICE, so I modified my driving to accommodate the EV use. I quickly sold my backup ICE and replaced it with a second EV. (Both OH and Self are fully EV now)

Now my £300 a month Diesel Bill is gone and my electric costs £30 a month. My £400 per 12500 Mile service bill is gone. I dont pay CC to get into London or parking in London.

I have a 20min stop on the way down to London to Charge and a 20min stop on the way home in the evening to charge (140 Miles each way from North Notts).

Yes my day is roughly an hour longer but I use the time at the charger to sort out work emails etc.

No matter how loud people moan about it its going to happen, and its happening because when people finally try an EV they see what they have been missing, a calm and relaxing drive

I would love the ICE drivers to stick with them as long as possible (For purely selfish reasons) because as soon as the momentum moves to EV the Govt will switch the taxation burden from ICE to EV. So the longer the Posh 4WD tractors and chuggers are on the roads being penalised for every mile they drive then the EVs can swoop along subsidised and free from tax. As soon as the majority move over the taxes will follow.

So thank you Nay Sayers, Stick with it till the end and when you finally come over to EV it will then be expensive and taxed and road charged etc etc etc (And you can feel you were right driving an EV is no cheaper than ICE)

Could this be the answer to charging your car on a long journey ?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/technology-40805733/could-solar-roads-help-generate-electricity

Electric trains run by getting their power from cables above the train, so why not power your car from solar panels beneath it in the road ?

So we would need brushes on the underside of the cars
Just like the scalextric ones - anyone who had one will
know how frustrating they were
Will we need the slot too ;-)