Battery Electric Vehicle News / Enjoying the Transportation Revolution

Martyn1981

Just found this report by accident from the Nickel Institue (so perhaps beware of bias) on European TCO comparisons. It's almost a year old, but short and may be of interest:

European Union and UK Automotive ICE vs EV Total Cost of Ownership


[Edit - Sorry, here's the short article announcing the report. M.]

molerat

JKenH said:

Article from Auto Express (electronic edition so unfortunately no link available). 

Personally I love car technology. When I was car shopping in 2017 Apple CarPlay was a must have and I spent a fortune getting it added to my Merc. Not everyone is like me however and I wonder if the high tech interiors of modern electric cars will be a turn off for some people. Take the Tesla touch screen which is a huge attraction to many but might limit the appeal to a significant section of car buyers (my wife for one). 

My neighbour recently purchased a new Audi and I went round to help her set up CarPlay but found the touch screen really difficult to use. I have heard similar complaints about the current Golf. She can drive the car fine without needing to use the touch screen (she hadn’t even heard of CarPlay) but as more manufacturers abandon physical buttons and switch to cheaper screen controlled functionality for their cars it might reach a stage where  people will reject a car just because of its modern tech. 

It seems Electric cars are the ones leading this type of tech and it may be that it has been a big selling point to date for tech lovers but may reach a point where it works against mass market sales. 

Now before someone points out how quickly smart phones were widely adapted and old push button phones abandoned I must make the point that while smart phones opened up a complete new world the latest button free tech in cars doesn’t actually add a great deal of functionality that wasn’t previously available using push buttons and in fact makes using controls more difficult. Can anyone say having to use a touchscreen to open the glovebox is progress?

It is being installed to keep manufacturing costs down and perhaps in Tesla’s case to differentiate it from the mainstream.

I actually like to keep my eyes on the road and in my Leaf am very pleased that most functions can be achieved by feel, particularly driving functions like selecting B mode or e-Pedal.

And finally just to drive the point home.

https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1134233_tesla-phone-key-outage-locks-some-out-of-their-cars-is-this-the-future

I find much of the touch screen technology distracting and probably a safety concern.  To turn my heater fan up or down I have to look for the "buttons" and press in the right place.  On my old car I knew exactly where the big knob was without looking, the selection of where to point the heat is and was the same - fiddly separate button or big knob.  I do love the fact that I don't need to turn on the lights or wipers and the car parks itself, not all bad I suppose.

QrizB

JKenH said:

Personally I love car technology. When I was car shopping in 2017 Apple CarPlay was a must have and I spent a fortune getting it added to my Merc. Not everyone is like me however and I wonder if the high tech interiors of modern electric cars will be a turn off for some people. Take the Tesla touch screen which is a huge attraction to many but might limit the appeal to a significant section of car buyers (my wife for one).

I'm no technophobe but the Tesla touchscreen is a huge turn-off for me, too. I can generally find most of my dashboard controls by touch, possiblty with a glance beforehand to check for the rarely-used ones. A smooth touchscreen prevents that. And that's a safety issue, making the driver take their attention from the road for longer than necessary.

JKenH

Tesla Supercharging Costs Have Quadrupled Overnight

Please read the article not just the headline as it is not* as bad as it seems.

https://carbuzz.com/news/tesla-supercharging-costs-have-quadrupled-overnight



I don’t know if this applies to the UK but I have noticed recently some Tesla Superchargers charging more than what I thought was a standard 28p/kWh. Tesla in Leeds is now 38p/kWh. 

I was also surprised to see when we went to Meadowhall shopping centre in Sheffield this week that the previously free 7kw chargers are now 30p/KWh. When we left home in the morning I was grumbling we had too much charge in our battery and wouldn’t get the full benefit of free charging so I drove faster than usual to make some space in the battery. Fortunately there was still just enough charge left to get me home without a top up.

In winter time the cost saving of an EV if you have to top up away from home compared to diesel for an economical car like my old 1.6 Golf or even my Merc is now marginal despite the recent increases in diesel costs. Good job 90% of my charging is on Go Faster.

Edit: * just realised I omitted the crucial word “not”from the first sentence. Now corrected. Apologies to all.

EricMears

JKenH said:

In winter time the cost saving of an EV if you have to top up away from home compared to diesel for an economical car like my old 1.6 Golf or even my Merc is now marginal despite the recent increases in diesel costs. 

I did this calculation a few days ago for another forum :- 

At £1.60/litre a gallon costs £7.28.  (we're not quite there around here but DERV prices have crept over 150ppl and I doubt they've stabilised yet)
At 25mpg that would be 29 pence per mile
At 40mpg that would be 18 pence per mile

Even if you pay 60p/kWh and only get 3 miles/kWh that's only 20p/mile.
At a more realistic 40ppu and 3.5 mpu  that drops to 12p/mile.

And lets not forget that if you've fully charged car at home (as JKenH & I would) at 5.5p/kWh, the first hundred (even 200+ ?) miles are at less than 2p/mile so average cost for a 500 mile journey should be less than 10p/mile.  You'd have to get 75+mpg to match that.

JKenH

EricMears said:

JKenH said:

In winter time the cost saving of an EV if you have to top up away from home compared to diesel for an economical car like my old 1.6 Golf or even my Merc is now marginal despite the recent increases in diesel costs. 

I did this calculation a few days ago for another forum :- 

At £1.60/litre a gallon costs £7.28.  (we're not quite there around here but DERV prices have crept over 150ppl and I doubt they've stabilised yet)
At 25mpg that would be 29 pence per mile
At 40mpg that would be 18 pence per mile

Even if you pay 60p/kWh and only get 3 miles/kWh that's only 20p/mile.
At a more realistic 40ppu and 3.5 mpu  that drops to 12p/mile.

And lets not forget that if you've fully charged car at home (as JKenH & I would) at 5.5p/kWh, the first hundred (even 200+ ?) miles are at less than 2p/mile so average cost for a 500 mile journey should be less than 10p/mile.  You'd have to get 75+mpg to match that.

Which is not impossible in a Golf 1.6tdi. Over my ownership of the car I averaged 60mpg.

Exiled_Tyke

JKenH said:

EricMears said:

JKenH said:

In winter time the cost saving of an EV if you have to top up away from home compared to diesel for an economical car like my old 1.6 Golf or even my Merc is now marginal despite the recent increases in diesel costs. 

I did this calculation a few days ago for another forum :- 

At £1.60/litre a gallon costs £7.28.  (we're not quite there around here but DERV prices have crept over 150ppl and I doubt they've stabilised yet)
At 25mpg that would be 29 pence per mile
At 40mpg that would be 18 pence per mile

Even if you pay 60p/kWh and only get 3 miles/kWh that's only 20p/mile.
At a more realistic 40ppu and 3.5 mpu  that drops to 12p/mile.

And lets not forget that if you've fully charged car at home (as JKenH & I would) at 5.5p/kWh, the first hundred (even 200+ ?) miles are at less than 2p/mile so average cost for a 500 mile journey should be less than 10p/mile.  You'd have to get 75+mpg to match that.

Which is not impossible in a Golf 1.6tdi. Over my ownership of the car I averaged 60mpg.

Indeed! With my driving now all short stop-start journeys I'm averaging 45mpg from my A6. When I was driving the length of the country 65-70 was normal. 

michaels

Depends on your journeys - we were happy to get over 30 when we had a diesel having swapped from a 1.6 petrol which gave low 20s mpg - we get over 4 miles per kwh from the leaf.

JKenH

michaels said:

Depends on your journeys - we were happy to get over 30 when we had a diesel having swapped from a 1.6 petrol which gave low 20s mpg - we get over 4 miles per kwh from the leaf.

It will, as you say, depend on usage pattern. ICEVs are at their worst on short journeys and around town when EVs do well. On motorways the situation is reversed as EVs are less efficient. My Merc was geared to do 70mph at 1400 rpm and top (9th) was only available above 60mph. Most long trips will involve some Motorway or dual carriageway so EV efficiency could be compromised.

The photo below was taken after a trip from home in my Merc (on rural roads then Motorway then local roads) to Manchester and half way home again when I stopped for fuel. 

 I get over 4mpk in summer in my Leaf but the last few hundred miles (all local) haven’t seen better than 3.8 indicated. When I checked against actual kWh used a 3.6 mpk indicated trip actually worked out at 3.1. 

Grumpy_chap

I think the requirement for compulsory EV charging points with new developments was mentioned in this thread a couple of weeks back, but here it is on the BBC today:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-59369715