Travelling On

apple_muncher

I was pleased to find that our current little Hyundai i20 is ulez compliant. But when we change it, we'll have to go hybrid. Probably self charging and petrol. Full electric won't work here as we park so far from the house we'd need at least a 50m extension lead...

Karmacat

Thank you both!  This isn't as cut and dried as it first appears - there's also the sunk cost of the machinery, though that's purely financial, not environmental.  

In the meantime, I've got one over-excited cat here, who regards my fingertips as a catnip mouse!

apple_muncher

That sounds cute yet painful!

Karmacat

Don't worry, apple - he regards them as such, but I'm used to dodging the claw tips of over-excited puddy cats 😾😁  He's found a new place to sit: right by me, behind a closed curtain, on my windowsill ❤
That's supposed to be a red heart!  He certainly deserves it  

Watty1

the car thing is a challenge.  Apparently if i go electric i can write the costs through my company and save A LOT of money as the company car tax bill is very small and the company can pay for a charger to be put in.  But I do so few miles I'm not sure it is worth it when my 4x4 can tackle the rural roads in bad weather and the ancient mini is so economical I use it almost all the time for nipping about.  (The boyfriend sold his car, gave me half what he got for it  and we pool the two cars so having two is not an extravagance to have the 2)

themadvix

While it might not have all the answers KC, it might be worth looking at http://ev-database.org/uk - loads of information on there about the different EVs available.

Karmacat

Watty1 said:

the car thing is a challenge.  Apparently if i go electric i can write the costs through my company and save A LOT of money as the company car tax bill is very small and the company can pay for a charger to be put in.  But I do so few miles I'm not sure it is worth it when my 4x4 can tackle the rural roads in bad weather and the ancient mini is so economical I use it almost all the time for nipping about.  (The boyfriend sold his car, gave me half what he got for it  and we pool the two cars so having two is not an extravagance to have the 2)

Thanks for this, Watty - I'm sure that it's environmentally friendly to carry on using even a *fairly* economical or appropriate car, like your two are, to carry on as long as you can.  In buying one for the first time, rather than continuing it's use, I don't know if I can legitimately use the same argument.  Maybe I can, I'm just not sure yet.

You and the VNM have entwined car finances?  That's really positive!

themadvix said:

While it might not have all the answers KC, it might be worth looking at http://ev-database.org/uk - loads of information on there about the different EVs available.

Very interesting, I hadn't come across that, thank you madvix!  There's so, so much to know!

My mileage will be very small, which is why my brother thought a hybrid would be the best of both worlds.  On the ev database that madvix linked to, there was an advert for carwow, which separates them out, so I'm also going to be looking at that too. I'll be doing that early afternoon - I'll keep going on what I'm doing for now, and post a ta-da list later  

SuperSecretSquirrel

We do very little mileage in our cars KC, we've tried and failed to make battery electric vehicles make sense for us. I'd be interested to know how you get on with the hybrid investigations, my gut feel would be that the extra machinery and cost might mean it's not really the best of both worlds that it might seem at first glance. I would love to be proven wrong, but I think a small, efficient, used, petrol engined car still makes most sense for a low usage "A to B" car where no company car benefit or ULEZ is involved.

Karmacat

Thanks Squirrel - I'm afraid I haven't started it yet, which I thought might happen  - the ta-da is either domestic or fiddly: dishwasher, washing machine, cat litter (good grief that adds up!) and recycling, then looking for the paper records of the SSE shares, plus the copies I made (answer: not very many, will do it all later), and comparing those to the records that SSE has, which are fiddly with the number of sub-pages, but can be found.

I had 90 shares allotted in Sept 1993, I opted for reinvestment basis.  5 the next year, then nothing till 1998 (I think SSE and Scottish Power became separate entities?).  Re-opted for reinvestment basis in 2007, and since then it's normal: I now hold 364 shares, but OUTSIDE an ISA, to my shame - the amount of unnecessary tax I've paid is horrendous.  Anyway, I have paper records from 2007 onwards, you need them to sell and buy-for-an-ISA: I haven't quite finished looking for the earlier ones, this has been tricky, I must say, but I'll carry on.  Can't keep ignoring all that money I'm throwing away by not using an ISA.  

Just about to hop off to send two birthday cards, one to a friend, the other to the family that's struck down with so much illness, currently convalescent.

Checking out the finances of the car, though: it depends on such a lot!
- actual cost of the car.
- cost of insurance for that car.
- road tax, which may vary
- whether I need a charging point, and what financial deals are on offer for that.
- cost of petrol, which is up and down like a yo-yo as far as I can see.
- cost of electricity, and the deals that might be done, which is up and down like two yo-yos.
I'll check out places like the AA and RAC about how to compare the finances of buying different cars.

Ramouth

I have been thinking about getting a small electric car too but am not sure it is actually better for the environment if you are doing low mileage and don’t live in a heavily built up area. Apart from the financial cost, the materials like lithium used for batteries are rare and environmentally costly to mine.  Add to that the fact that, unless you have solar panels yourself,  much of the electricity you are charging with is produced from fossil fuels and / or lost as it is transported across the grid and a small petrol engine starts too look like a good option.  I do like the idea of not having to worry about gears though!