Electric cars

Martyn1981

Herzlos wrote: »

I'm not convinced; cars will still be a status thing, and people will still want their own personal space at least some of the time. They might get rid of the need for 2nd cars though.

Yeah, 2nd cars (and 3rd etc) in a household could see a massive decline.

Only pondering, but many 2nd+ cars will be secondhand, so the knock on effects of a drop in demand, could be quite 'interesting'?

Martyn1981

NigeWick wrote: »

If Tony Seba is correct, and I think he is, I'll get my last car in August.

Ours is about 5yrs old, so we've got about 5yrs to decide. Falling prices, increased choice and of course, 2nd hand availability will all have improved by then.

Wifey and I were chatting recently about the Kona, as feedback on forums, such as here seem good. Not so much about us getting one, but what would be practical size and range wise, and that looks OK, especially now that Buster the doggie has moved from a large boot crate to the back seats, so our Zafira can't quite be justified anymore on a boot size basis.

Lots of little things to think about, but just enjoying going with the flow for now, and waiting for more feedback from folk like yourself.

Herzlos

An electric Zafira with a 200 mile real world range would be a game changer.



The drop in additional cars could go either way - if they are usually bought used and run into the ground they'd result in a drop in demand and push the price of used cars down. However if they are usually bought newer and sold on later they'd result in a drop in supply and push the price of used cars up. There'd likely be a huge drop in ownership demand if robo-taxis were popular though, which would have to push up the price of private ownership.

Martyn1981

Herzlos wrote: »

An electric Zafira with a 200 mile real world range would be a game changer.

Especially if they are giving them away for £9.5k like our baby back when Vauxhall were 'dumping' excess stock. Well, one can dream!

David_Aston

Could I ask you guys, how well modern electric cars hold their charge?
If I don't start our Jazz for two months, say, I don't expect that the petrol in the tank will fail to work. With a current electric, might I need a bit of charging, beforehand?
what I am getting at, is an additional expense of electric cars possibly, for a low mileage user such as myself?

NigeWick

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Falling prices, increased choice and of course, 2nd hand availability will all have improved by then.

I must admit to seriously thinking about what is coming in the next three years. I am therefore considering buying my 30kWh Leaf when the lease runs out in June, cancelling the Kona order and seeing what's available in 2021. It seems that Hyundai keep postponing delivery dates due to demand from what I'll term "influencers" who are getting priority.

Gloomendoom

David_Aston wrote: »

Could I ask you guys, how well modern electric cars hold their charge?
If I don't start our Jazz for two months, say, I don't expect that the petrol in the tank will fail to work. With a current electric, might I need a bit of charging, beforehand?
what I am getting at, is an additional expense of electric cars possibly, for a low mileage user such as myself?

I keep my IC car hooked up to a battery optimiser/charger when it's not being used for long periods.

I can't see it being a problem with an EV. I would expect the static drain on an electric car's battery to be roughly similar but, in comparison, the battery capacity is huge.

If you are worried, you could always just leave it plugged into the charger when it isn't being used. That is what I would do.

docmatt

David_Aston wrote: »

Could I ask you guys, how well modern electric cars hold their charge?
If I don't start our Jazz for two months, say, I don't expect that the petrol in the tank will fail to work. With a current electric, might I need a bit of charging, beforehand?
what I am getting at, is an additional expense of electric cars possibly, for a low mileage user such as myself?

If I left the Tesla for two months it would be dead as a doornail and would need recovery. In these current temps I’d expect 2% a day loss. Leafs are pretty good I think not like Tesla’s.
It’s called ‘Vampire Drain’ if you want to google it.

David_Aston

Thanks for your comments guys.
So, purely on a running cost basis, the cost of petrol/diesel is replaced by the increase in one's electricity bill in order to charge the car. Additionally, presumably, the constant trickle charge to ensure it will start after two months does become a significant extra compared to oil based fuel?

silverwhistle

You'd only want to partially charge it every few days and then top up the previous night if you knew you were going to be doing a longer journey.



I've got an ICE but don't do much mileage, but I always have enough petrol for unplanned dashes to the hospital when ancient parent has problems. For longer trips I'd make sure I fuelled up, but these days I bnever get a full tank. You could probably work out a similar protocol for an EV: I don't think you'd waste much through battery loses.