Battery Electric Vehicle News / Enjoying the Transportation Revolution

Martyn1981

Couple of fun stories that may come under the heading of 'smackdown to ICE vehicle'.


First we have a BEV (and the only BEV entry) winning a 3 day event in Australia.

Targa West, Behind The Scenes — From Jokes About Extension Cords To Acing The Field In Tesla Model 3

When Jurgen Lunsmann (a former V8 racing car driver) first entered Targa West 3 years ago, he had to put up with 200 jokes about extension cords from the “petrol heads.” Last year, it was about 100. This year, there was silence as he aced the field in his Tesla Model 3. Winning in a grueling 3 day, 1000 km race over a range of road conditions, he had the only electric car that was participating.

Not only was he racing an electric car, but the car was charged from a mobile generator that runs on reclaimed canola oil from the local chippy (carpenter).

And some heavy plant, proving itself over the course of a year.

Electric Construction Equipment From Volvo CE Passes One Year Test With Flying Colors

Volvo Construction Equipment (no relation to Volvo Cars) is working to create construction equipment and has developed two battery-powered construction vehicles — the ECR25 electric compact excavator and the L25 electric compact wheel loader. Both have been put through a year of trials in Southern California and both have received enthusiastic praise from those who used them at various job sites.

Grumpy_chap

Martyn1981 said:

Cheers, so the Lexus price you gave includes a current discount by Toyota to sell their cars, which I appreciate exists, but we really need to avoid cherry picking any deals, or we'll spend forever altering comparisons as fast as deals arrive or end.

So I'd say it's a £37k v's £41k comparison, 

That is a bit of double standards in the thread then.

So many posts saying the price of the MG5 should only consider the "affinity" discount price, which is only NHS...

shinytop

Martyn1981 said:

Couple of fun stories that may come under the heading of 'smackdown to ICE vehicle'.


First we have a BEV (and the only BEV entry) winning a 3 day event in Australia.

Targa West, Behind The Scenes — From Jokes About Extension Cords To Acing The Field In Tesla Model 3

When Jurgen Lunsmann (a former V8 racing car driver) first entered Targa West 3 years ago, he had to put up with 200 jokes about extension cords from the “petrol heads.” Last year, it was about 100. This year, there was silence as he aced the field in his Tesla Model 3. Winning in a grueling 3 day, 1000 km race over a range of road conditions, he had the only electric car that was participating.

Not only was he racing an electric car, but the car was charged from a mobile generator that runs on reclaimed canola oil from the local chippy (carpenter).

And some heavy plant, proving itself over the course of a year.

Electric Construction Equipment From Volvo CE Passes One Year Test With Flying Colors

Volvo Construction Equipment (no relation to Volvo Cars) is working to create construction equipment and has developed two battery-powered construction vehicles — the ECR25 electric compact excavator and the L25 electric compact wheel loader. Both have been put through a year of trials in Southern California and both have received enthusiastic praise from those who used them at various job sites.

I think the Tesla did even better than the article suggests. It won quite easily in a small and limited class where a lot of the competition was quite old (c. 1990) cars.  What is more impressive is that its time would have put it well into the top half in the open class.  And its refuelling ICE generator was powered by recycled vegetable oil so I doubt "chippy" = carpenter as stated!  

Martyn1981

shinytop said:

Martyn1981 said:

Couple of fun stories that may come under the heading of 'smackdown to ICE vehicle'.


First we have a BEV (and the only BEV entry) winning a 3 day event in Australia.

Targa West, Behind The Scenes — From Jokes About Extension Cords To Acing The Field In Tesla Model 3

When Jurgen Lunsmann (a former V8 racing car driver) first entered Targa West 3 years ago, he had to put up with 200 jokes about extension cords from the “petrol heads.” Last year, it was about 100. This year, there was silence as he aced the field in his Tesla Model 3. Winning in a grueling 3 day, 1000 km race over a range of road conditions, he had the only electric car that was participating.

Not only was he racing an electric car, but the car was charged from a mobile generator that runs on reclaimed canola oil from the local chippy (carpenter).

And some heavy plant, proving itself over the course of a year.

Electric Construction Equipment From Volvo CE Passes One Year Test With Flying Colors

Volvo Construction Equipment (no relation to Volvo Cars) is working to create construction equipment and has developed two battery-powered construction vehicles — the ECR25 electric compact excavator and the L25 electric compact wheel loader. Both have been put through a year of trials in Southern California and both have received enthusiastic praise from those who used them at various job sites.

I think the Tesla did even better than the article suggests. It won quite easily in a small and limited class where a lot of the competition was quite old (c. 1990) cars.  What is more impressive is that its time would have put it well into the top half in the open class.  And its refuelling ICE generator was powered by recycled vegetable oil so I doubt "chippy" = carpenter as stated!  

Yep, very impressive.

Judging by the comments, the author meant chip shop, and 'carpenter' was added by the editor. Unless of course they meant the generator came from the chippy / carpenter ..... the English language is such fun.

True John, but I did mean fish and chip shop - going back to my Yorkshire roots.

EVandPV

Hero Electric joins hands with Massive Mobility to set up 10,000 EV charging stations

Hero Electric on Friday said it has joined hands with EV startup Massive Mobility to set up 10,000 charging stations across the country in one year.

The EV charging network, when up and running, would be open to all electric vehicles and will lead to standardisation between manufacturers.

https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/hero-electric-joins-hands-with-massive-mobility-to-set-up-10000-ev-charging-stations-7503731.html/amp

JKenH

orrery said:

shinytop said:

£26k for a Corsa though.  You can get a really nice car for that...

You can, but not one that isn't leaving a trail of dead bunnies, kittens and babies asphyxiated in its wake.

Seriously though, we all know (don't we?) that EVs are on the standard development curve where the price falls with manufacturing volumes. That means they are more expensive than an ICE at present, but many people will see a lower cost of ownership over the life of the car through lower service and maintenance costs, lower tax and lower fuel costs. Someone doing the standard mileage of around 10k per year should be saving about £1k on fuel per year, assuming they can charge at home on a cheap off-peak tariff.

Electric cars being in a development curve will, as you point out, get cheaper and better value. The downside to that is that as they get better and cheaper buying a new one will make more sense than buying a used one so residual values may fall. We need to see increased demand for used EVs otherwise the supply of used electric cars may exceed demand. 

Currently the tax advantages for companies and individuals, through either BIK advantages or salary sacrifice, are driving new EV sales perhaps at the expense of used EV sales (as well as ICEVs). 

We can’t have it all ways. Cheaper, better new EVs will encourage take up of new electric cars but will inevitably impact on residual values.  If used prices do stay high that may dampen used EV sales. If used EVs fall in price to the value of used ICEVs, it will impact on EV residual values but increase sales. 

It is in the interest of getting wider take up of EVs in the used market that residual prices do fall. If higher EV residuals are seen as a plus point to new EV sales they are a negative to widespread used EV sales. At the moment Tesla, like Porsche enjoy high residuals but still have strong used demand as used buyers perceive there will be good used values when they in turn come to sell in part driven by the control of the secondhand market. That works for the specialist with strong brand image and limited supply but not for the wider market - there are too many alternatives for instance to the Nissan Leaf or ID3.

Bear in mind that people buying used cars are more price sensitive than those buying new. They are usually on tighter budgets. The sticker price is relatively more important on used cars than new. PCPs and lease deals which take into account residuals mask the high list price of EVs. More used cars than new ones I suspect are sold on a cash basis (relatively). PCP deals on new cars are not so financially attractive from an interest rate perspective as new ones where manufacturers support the cheap finance deals on offer. 

Meanwhile new ICE sales have fallen in the last couple of years because new EVs are a financially better alternative and that will limit the supply of petrol and diesel cars coming on to the used market significantly. Unless demand for used EVs keeps pace with demand for new ones demand for used ICEVs will exceed those coming on to the market at the end of lease and PCP deals. If current demand for EVs is 10% of the market we need to see used demand for 2/3 year old EVs at that level in 2/3 years time to keep the market in  balance. Above that level ICEV residuals/prices will fall as supply exceeds demand. Below it and ICEV residuals may improve as there may be a shortfall in supply. 

silverwhistle

EricMears said:

Wimp !

I got to the end of my biking days many years ago but when I was biking,  there was no such thing as a 'season'.  When it got cold I wore electrically heated gloves and when really cold I had other electrically heated garments.

Wimp! ;-)

When I was biking back in the late 70s/80s there wasn't such a thing as electrically heated gloves etc., and if there were I wouldn't have been able to afford them. I didn't even have leathers but some cheap stuff from the company engineering stores, a newspaper as discardable insulation and luckily a full fairing. Thames Valley to Southampton many weekends, particularly during the winter football season, and you could ride a 250 on an L plate in those days..

orrery

JKenH said:

Electric cars being in a development curve will, as you point out, get cheaper and better value. The downside to that is that as they get better and cheaper buying a new one will make more sense than buying a used one so residual values may fall. We need to see increased demand for used EVs otherwise the supply of used electric cars may exceed demand.

Guessing residual values is a fools game. EV residuals have held up well, despite the increase in range over time.

The elephant in the room was always the usefulness of old s/h EVs - my first EV was a 2014 Leaf 24. It had 85 miles range from new, but that is likely to be down to about 60 now. New 300 mile EVs will still have a useful range as older s/h cars, at least above the 200 miles believed to be the critical number. That, and the fact that there will an increasing number of garages able to deal with battery repairs - a Leaf battery fix (replacing a few duff modules) is only about £400.

The s/h value will be determined by the 'pull' of people wanting EVs. The word will get round that EVs are simply better in almost every respect.

JKenH

orrery said:

JKenH said:

Electric cars being in a development curve will, as you point out, get cheaper and better value. The downside to that is that as they get better and cheaper buying a new one will make more sense than buying a used one so residual values may fall. We need to see increased demand for used EVs otherwise the supply of used electric cars may exceed demand.

Guessing residual values is a fools game. EV residuals have held up well, despite the increase in range over time.

The elephant in the room was always the usefulness of old s/h EVs - my first EV was a 2014 Leaf 24. It had 85 miles range from new, but that is likely to be down to about 60 now. New 300 mile EVs will still have a useful range as older s/h cars, at least above the 200 miles believed to be the critical number. That, and the fact that there will an increasing number of garages able to deal with battery repairs - a Leaf battery fix (replacing a few duff modules) is only about £400.

The s/h value will be determined by the 'pull' of people wanting EVs. The word will get round that EVs are simply better in almost every respect.

We are part of an online community interested in renewable energy, electric cars etc and spend much of our time ingesting articles from sources with a green bias or even agenda. There are thousands, perhaps millions out there who see the world similarly.

We mustn’t assume however that everyone sees the world that way. There is a whole other community out there who don’t see the world the same way. Perhaps because I am in a older age group I come across more of these people. Soon we/they will die off but I hope it will be a few more years yet. 

I was at Donington Park circuit yesterday and both my son and I had our Leafs plugged in which tends to trigger conversations. We take every opportunity to explain the benefits of EVs to our fellow car and racing enthusiasts but in a community such as that there are very few takers around. These are not bigoted uneducated people, in fact on the whole they are successful people, but surprisingly they are on the whole resistant to the idea of electric cars. In time that will change but it may take longer than we might think. 

The point I make is please read the negative press as much as you read the positive press and try and understand why people are resistant rather than dismissing those stories out of hand. Denying there are issues with the charging infrastructure and maintaining everything in the EV garden is rosy is just sweeping obstacles to adoption under the carpet. 

The negative stories may be click bait but there is often an element of substance behind them. To be believed and to be convincing we need to be honest about EVs, good and bad. 

QrizB

JKenH said:

I was at Donington Park circuit yesterday and both my son and I had our Leafs plugged in which tends to trigger conversations. We take every opportunity to explain the benefits of EVs to our fellow car and racing enthusiasts but in a community such as that there are very few takers around.

I do occasionally wonder if this is because electric cars aren't very exciting to look at / listen to. Take the Tesla Model S, for example; performance-wise it's in supercar territory but it doesn't pop and grunt like a tuned Subaru, or look like an Aventador, or smell of Castrol R.