5 grand grant off electric car Jan 2011

Poshbird

morganslv wrote: »

Ford Focus will be electric soon. I hope this 5grand grant wil still be around in a few years.

You can see the E focus at the geneva show, here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONbDtWHysyY

davidjwest

Electric cars are a useful stop-gap until we get fuel cell technology that will allow for hydrogen power to become widespread.

That's 20-30 years off at a guess, with EVs becoming mass-produced, the technology will improve and prices fall.

Same as they did for petrol cars back in post-war era, only the rich could afford cars back then but gradually they became more affordable and reliable.

Poshbird

Yes now every major manufacturer is making electric cars.

So has anyone bought one and got 5K grant yet?

Poshbird

Chatting to my local Toyota dealer he says the plug in Prius has been delayed in the UK due to the nuclear crisis and wot not.

I want to get on a waiting list as soon as they get details of release dates in the UK.

As has been said before why would anyone buy an old style Prius new, when you can get 5K government grand of the plugin version.

davidjwest

I've considered it but it's still not practical for me. The Nissan Leaf is probably the best of the bunch at the moment as it has a range of 136 miles, but that's more like 80 miles in normal conditions and as bad as 40 miles in cold weather. So I wouldn't even get to work in that as my daily commute is 70 miles each way.

The savings for me in fuel are going to be huge, around £250 a month taking into account the increased electricty usage at home, but if I am going to pay around £24k after the subsidy then that's going to take 8 years to get my pay-back and then a new battery is likely to be long overdue as that would mean I'd have done around 180k in the vehicle.

The new hybrids look better, the Chevrolet Volt etc with a range of over 300 miles but then you're not getting the 2p a mile running costs of an all electric vehicle. Actually scrap that, the actual figures for the Volt are only 90 odd MPG (Equivalent) at best so it's not really worth considering that as an option.

This subsidy only really makes sense to those well-off enough who would normally pay around £30k for a car and then only use it to run around town.

What we need is EV/Hybrids that cost around £15k new, have a range of about double what they have now where the batteries last for more like 200k miles, then we'll see people adopting them en-masse.

B00st

Poshbird wrote: »

Chatting to my local Toyota dealer he says the plug in Prius has been delayed in the UK due to the nuclear crisis and wot not.

I want to get on a waiting list as soon as they get details of release dates in the UK.

As has been said before why would anyone buy an old style Prius new, when you can get 5K government grand of the plugin version.

May be because a normal Prius can do more than 80 miles in a day so is actually useful.

Poshbird

B00st wrote: »

May be because a normal Prius can do more than 80 miles in a day so is actually useful.

The plugin can only do 14 miles just on electric then you would be just the same as a normal prius.

The point is you can get 5K grant off a plug in but not a normal prius. So why would anyone pay 5K more for a normal prius when the plugin is finally released?

Poshbird

davidjwest wrote: »

Electric cars are a useful stop-gap until we get fuel cell technology that will allow for hydrogen power to become widespread.

That's 20-30 years off at a guess, with EVs becoming mass-produced, the technology will improve and prices fall.

Same as they did for petrol cars back in post-war era, only the rich could afford cars back then but gradually they became more affordable and reliable.

I can see electric cars becoming far more widespread especially in the city.

Have you seen that idea that you call into a fuel station and park over a machine that will slide out your battery and slide in a new fully charged one.

Strider590

Poshbird wrote: »

I can see electric cars becoming far more widespread especially in the city.

Have you seen that idea that you call into a fuel station and park over a machine that will slide out your battery and slide in a new fully charged one.

There was an idea some years ago to place induction loops under the road surface to power city buses. THIS would be the ideal solution for electric vehicles, no need to charge your car EVER, no batteries = light weight = better economy.
However as the govt is only interested in making money, I can't see this happening any time soon.

They don't really want us to stop using our cars, they just want an excuse to make more money from it.

pitkin2020

Strider590 wrote: »

There was an idea some years ago to place induction loops under the road surface to power city buses. THIS would be the ideal solution for electric vehicles, no need to charge your car EVER, no batteries = light weight = better economy.
However as the govt is only interested in making money, I can't see this happening any time soon.

They don't really want us to stop using our cars, they just want an excuse to make more money from it.

I totally agree, until the car can be charged on the move it will never work on a large scale. Its all good and well being able to plug your car in at night to charge but where are you supposed to do it if you aren't fortunate to have a garage or a drive??
I can see it ending up with petrol/diesel cars being heavily penalised when they mainstream EV's which will never help the situation if they don't implement charging areas everywhere. Those that aren't rich enough to afford their own home with a drive are unlikely to be able to afford a brand new electric car.

It'll be great in large cities like london for sure but larger more rural areas will never have enough facilities to make it work.