30 kW Nissan Leaf

Richard53

ElefantEd wrote: »

It will be interesting to see how long the batteries generally last. And of course it's not like they completely fail, just have a lower range. So even a car with a 50% battery is still viable for at least some people (ie those who only do short-ish trips).

Also, given that the maintenance of a petrol/diesel engine is not cost free, whereas the maintenance cost on the battery of an EV is essentially zero (as you can't really do any as far as I know!), I wonder how the lifetime costs stack up against each other.

As the technology improves, I am sure that what you are saying will come to pass. I still think there will be a huge psychological block in people's minds, though. Say you have two cars, petrol and electric, and run them for 100k miles. Adding up fuel, servicing and repair costs for one, and charging and battery costs for the other, say they cost the same per mile overall. People are used to paying relatively small amounts quite frequently for running repairs, whereas being hit with the whole bill in one go when the battery dies is likely to be a show-stopper. If owners could be persuaded to put the equivalent of an annual service/MoT and a few repairs into a savings account, so they have the £5k ready when the battery dies, that would be fine. But I reckon most people would treat the low running costs as a bonus, and then find the inevitable bill later a on a nasty shock. That may be wrong, but it's human nature, and must have a significant effect on the perceived value of an older electric car.


As you can tell, I am not 100% for or against electric cars, but at the moment I would need a lot of persuading. The discussion is interesting, though.

almillar

Also made sure I'd never set foot in a Renault dealership again, nor buy a Renault product (and it's my mission to put as many other people off Renault products as I can).

Well, that's down to your personal experience, so fair enough. My experience of purchase was that I got a great deal, the dealer wasn't very knowledgeable about the car or the admin side, but I had done my own research.
Just got it serviced there for £85 with no problems at a different dealership.
There are plenty of moans about Renault when things have gone wrong with Zoes (yes it does happen), but if you're able to just buy the car and stay away from the dealership as much as possible, you do get a great car.

BeenThroughItAll

almillar wrote: »

Well, that's down to your personal experience, so fair enough. My experience of purchase was that I got a great deal, the dealer wasn't very knowledgeable about the car or the admin side, but I had done my own research.
Just got it serviced there for £85 with no problems at a different dealership.
There are plenty of moans about Renault when things have gone wrong with Zoes (yes it does happen), but if you're able to just buy the car and stay away from the dealership as much as possible, you do get a great car.

I should have known better based on previous experience running a fleet of Renaults for a previous employer. Half a million quid's worth of downtime in 12 months should have taught me something.


In this case, the dealerships (I used 3 in the end due to issues with each), Renault UK customer services, and RCI Finance were all diabolical. Took three months for Renault to settle the PCP, in which time RCI were busy placing late-payment markers on my CRA files (since removed). UK customer services missed callbacks, gave misinformation, and refused to accept my right to reject. The courtesy cars both had faults whilst in my possession, even. The dealership the car was with towards the end even tried to get me to pay for the car's first service, in spite of the fact it'd been in their workshop for almost three months when it became near-due. The whole experience was painful.


Unfortunately, with a fault which manifested itself less than 3 hours and 30mi from my picking up a brand-new car, staying out of the dealerships wasn't an option. If, when I first suggested they simply replace the car (less than three weeks after purchase), they'd just done that, I'd have been a happy customer - but as it was they did everything in their power to make like difficult throughout my 'ownership'.

gzoom

Real life battery degradation on all the current EVs have been much lower than expected. I charge my Leaf to 100% every time, often leave it plugged in even when 100% full - which is almost as bad a leaving the pack totally dead, in 11K miles I honestly cannot say the range has changed at all.

Data points provided by Tesla owners show an average!loss of charge capacity at 23 miles after 100K miles, bare in mind Tesla's have 200miles+ range.

http://www.teslacentral.com/worried-about-tesla-battery-degradation-its-23-miles-every-100000-driven

This one particular owner used their car as a Taxi, daily charged to 100%, 6%!loss in charge capacity!in 200K. So charging to 100% daily and than using the battery charge fully may not be that bad for the battery at all.

https://eideard.com/2016/10/03/tesla-taxi-crossing-200000-miles-maintenance-costs-battery-life-impressive/

ElefantEd

Yeah, I concur, we nearly always charge to 100%, and leave it plugged in once its charged (I didn't even know that was supposed to be an issue). No detectable loss of range after just over two years and 53k miles. If anything, the range has improved, I suspect because we've improved our style of driving it.

sillygoose

ElefantEd wrote: »

Yeah, I concur, we nearly always charge to 100%, and leave it plugged in once its charged (I didn't even know that was supposed to be an issue). No detectable loss of range after just over two years and 53k miles. If anything, the range has improved, I suspect because we've improved our style of driving it.

Leaving it plugged in isn't a problem, certainly not on my PHEV, my charger is connected via a sensitive power monitor, I can see when the battery is full the power drawn drops to nothing, charging stops so being still connected is irrelevant.

It is however handy when in the morning I switch the cars heating/demisting on remotely from my phone as the charger supplies most the power again leaving my battery hardly touched.

ElefantEd

sillygoose wrote: »

Leaving it plugged in isn't a problem, certainly not on my PHEV, my charger is connected via a sensitive power monitor, I can see when the battery is full the power drawn drops to nothing, charging stops so being still connected is irrelevant.

It is however handy when in the morning I switch the cars heating/demisting on remotely from my phone as the charger supplies most the power again leaving my battery hardly touched.

Yes, we have that, you can set the heating to come on, say, half an hour before you'll be taking it out (or launch it via phone app) and it uses external power rather than the battery - which doesn't matter too much, but having a nice warm car in the depths of winter is rather nice!

AnotherJoe

Half an hour?! I hope it doesn't take that long for the heating to work in an electric car or I'll be changing my mind about buying one !

buglawton

How many fossil fuel cars have a timer that warms the car in advance of your morning commute?

BeenThroughItAll

buglawton wrote: »

How many fossil fuel cars have a timer that warms the car in advance of your morning commute?

My old 5 series did, as did an old Discovery I had, both fitted with night heaters. My motorhome has a timer on the central heating too and one on the Webasto, but it's not that practical for the commute.