Electric cars

almillar

Now, I could lease a brand new Renaut Zoe for £350 a month

Don't know what your mileage is, but my Kia Soul EV is £241/m, £241 deposit, for 6,000 miles/y, 3 years. A big saving over the Zoe. Don't count on 120 miles of range all year round though.

You mean "persuade my employer to pay for my commute"? Currently, there's no BiK on that subsidy - but that is very likely to change in the future.

As I suspected, scaredofdebt confirms their employer already has chargers. This is a nice benefit, especially if an employer requires business travel.

That's very good of them. Ultimately unsustainable, of course, even notwithstanding tax changes.

Why is it unsustainable to have a few chargers at a workplace?You didn't explain. I use one. Cost? Plug a car into a 7kW charger 9-5 and it'll cost £8.40 (15p/kWh assumed, not filling the car assumed). That won't break the bank for a large business's electric bill. If you mean they won't have 100 chargers in their 100 space car park, fair enough. But again, not everyone will need to be plugged into a charger all day, every day.

scaredofdebt

almillar wrote: »

Don't know what your mileage is, but my Kia Soul EV is £241/m, £241 deposit, for 6,000 miles/y, 3 years. A big saving over the Zoe. Don't count on 120 miles of range all year round though.

I think the quote I got was for 26k, possibly 28k, hence the price!

The Kia Soul is more pricey than the Zoe like for like but it is a nicer car.

Martyn1981

AdrianC wrote: »

That's very good of them. Ultimately unsustainable, of course, even notwithstanding tax changes.

It doesn't need to be sustainable, the economics of EV's will improve over time as costs fall, and I'm sure staff at most companies would be willing to pay for the charge since the facility helps them to own an EV and then benefit from the reduced cost per mile.

Long term we will probably see an increase in the deployment of PV canopies in open air carparks as the economics improve. That will combine clean energy, some vehicle protection (shade or rain) and car charging facilities. This is already happening in sunnier countries where PV economics are better today.

Herzlos

AdrianC wrote: »

That's very good of them. Ultimately unsustainable, of course, even notwithstanding tax changes.

It might not be sustainable when all cars on the road are EV's, but realistically for most big buildings charging an EV or 2 is barely going to cause a blip in their electricity consumption.


There seem to be a lot of employers offering free EV charging at the moment, though I'm not sure it's out of corporate good will, a drive to be environmentally friendly or there are tax/subsidy benefits.

Herzlos

almillar wrote: »

I use one. Cost? Plug a car into a 7kW charger 9-5 and it'll cost £8.40 (15p/kWh assumed, not filling the car assumed).

How long does it take to charge your car after a commute at 7kW? I'm assuming it's closer to 2 hours (£2.10) rather than the 8 hour business day?.

AdrianC

almillar wrote: »

Why is it unsustainable to have a few chargers at a workplace?You didn't explain.

I said "ultimately unsustainable", and assumed that the implicit "once a substantial proportion of the employees drive EVs" would be understood.

I use one. Cost? Plug a car into a 7kW charger 9-5 and it'll cost £8.40 (15p/kWh assumed, not filling the car assumed). That won't break the bank for a large business's electric bill. If you mean they won't have 100 chargers in their 100 space car park, fair enough. But again, not everyone will need to be plugged into a charger all day, every day.

If there's 20 chargers (£8.40/car x 20 = £168/day, £840/week, £44k/year - not to mention the extra 140kW demand), then as soon as there are 21 EVs, the last one in is not charging. A little bit of overlap's not the end of the world for users to manage, because you can arrange with Dave in Accounts to swap over at lunchtime - but once there are significantly more EVs than chargers, it's going to start to cause real problems, with senior management EV users having spaces allocated.

Once there are a lot more EVs than chargers, you're going to find HR imposing restrictions on who's authorised to use them as part of the perks package. In a way, that's easier for the users than the 8.30 lottery, because they have foreknowledge.

Hitman999

scaredofdebt wrote: »

Depends on circumstances.

I currently run a 6 year old Kia Rio, paid £5k for it over 5 years, repayment is around £140 a month.

I do a lot of miles, 40 miles commute each way, cost for fuel is around £220 a month and rising. Other cost, MOT, service, tyres etc is around £40 a month.

Now, I could lease a brand new Renaut Zoe for £350 a month, recharge the car at work for free, so it would actually save me money over running the current 6 year old car. My only problem is once or twice a month I do a 120 mile journey so I would possibly have to recharge en-route in bad weather etc.

Assuming my circumstances don't change I will be leasing an EV once I have paid off the current car (2 years), or at least paid off enough so the residual value can pay the loan off, if range has improved slightly then problem solved, if it hasn't then infrastructure will likely have improved enough for it not to be an issue.

Very true . Everyone will need to assess their own circumstances and see if going EV is viable for them. It will also depend on how they buy their vehicle (lease, PCP, HP, cash buyer, loan etc). For me personally range, infrastructure and price would have to improve for me to consider going EV.

scaredofdebt

AdrianC wrote: »

I said "ultimately unsustainable", and assumed that the implicit "once a substantial proportion of the employees drive EVs" would be understood.



If there's 20 chargers (£8.40/car x 20 = £168/day, £840/week, £44k/year - not to mention the extra 140kW demand), then as soon as there are 21 EVs, the last one in is not charging. A little bit of overlap's not the end of the world for users to manage, because you can arrange with Dave in Accounts to swap over at lunchtime - but once there are significantly more EVs than chargers, it's going to start to cause real problems, with senior management EV users having spaces allocated.

Once there are a lot more EVs than chargers, you're going to find HR imposing restrictions on who's authorised to use them as part of the perks package. In a way, that's easier for the users than the 8.30 lottery, because they have foreknowledge.

£8.40 a car - where did you pluck that figure from?

I do agree with your assertion that it might not be sustainable long term as the government will need to compensate for losing 55p plus VAT duty on each litre of fuel.

Herzlos

AdrianC wrote: »

If there's 20 chargers (£8.40/car x 20 = £168/day, £840/week, £44k/year - not to mention the extra 140kW demand), then as soon as there are 21 EVs, the last one in is not charging

1. There are employers paying £44k+ a year per parking space. It's still not that big a deal.


2. Not every car will need to charge all day @ 7kw. That's a depleted 63kwh battery each. Teslas seem to be currently doing about 3 miles/kwh, so your figures are assuming each car is commuting almost 189 miles each way.



Taking the same charging costs, and the average annual mileage of 7,800 miles, assuming it's all commuting 260 days a year gives an average commute of 15 miles in each direction. Assuming they only charge at work, with 30ish miles between charges, we're looking at about 10kwh, or just under 90 minutes to charge.



That means you can charge 6 average journey cars in a working day*, and your 20 car car park will only need 4 charges with a peak consumption of 28kW, and a cost of approximately £1.50/car/day or £7,800/year. That's nothing for a business with 20+ employees.




The other thing to factor in is that the charging doesn't even need to be subsidized - I'm sure people would quite happily pay the £1.50 a day each to fuel their car at work. The same journey would be costing them about 4 times that in diesel.




*I think that currently means going out and changing plugs every 90 minutes, not too onerous, but presumably it'd be possible to provide a charging point with 6 cables that charges either sequentially or in a round-robin style, so that everyone parks up, plugs in and gets charged at some point over the 9 hour day.

AdrianC

scaredofdebt wrote: »

£8.40 a car - where did you pluck that figure from?

I quoted the source in the quote box immediately above the line you now quote. Almillar multiplied 15p/kWh x 8 hours (9-5) x 7kW, and was quite clear in stating how he arrived at that figure.

And, yes, of course he is assuming the charger is running at full 7kW from 9am to 5pm - which will give a nominal 56kWh of charge. And, yes, of course that is far more than is likely to be required for many individual users' daily commute. Working on a rough rule-of-thumb 3 miles per nominal kWh, that'll give a bit over 150 mile range - 75 miles each way, if we assume that beneficiaries of free workplace charging use that instead of paying for home charging. A long commute, but not unheard of. I've certainly done further in the past.