Battery Electric Vehicle News / Enjoying the Transportation Revolution

Grumpy_chap

JKenH said:

, big and powerful BEVs may be in the same range as most diesel or petrol vehicle

Shouldn't "big and powerful" EVs be compared to "big and powerful" ICEs rather than "most" ICEs?

ed110220

gefnew said:

They will become more expensive to run when the Government bring in new taxation to cover loss of fossil fuel income, eg road pricing, tax on charging points to replace lost revenue etc etc. VAT on charging points will be 20% instead of 5% even at home due to your chargers being networked.

Can't see electricity being taxed at a higher rate for road transport than for domestic use as people will just find a way round it by plugging into ordinary sockets. It's not as though they can check your battery for red electricity.

Road pricing will probably come eventually and makes some sense.

JKenH

Used Tesla prices are out of control – some Model Ys with over 30,000 miles are selling for more than new vehicles

CKhalvashi

ABrass said:

JKenH said:

New Green NCAP emissions ratings cast doubt on electric cars’ green credentials

A significant conclusion drawn by Green NCAP is that “while compact and mid-sized BEV show slightly less life cycle GHG emissions than conventional powertrain cars in the context of the European average electricity mix, big and powerful BEVs may be in the same range as most diesel or petrol vehicles”.

https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/news/357817/new-green-ncap-emissions-ratings-cast-doubt-electric-cars-green-credentials

Edit: The green cap press release:
https://www.greenncap.com/press-releases/lca-how-sustainable-is-your-car/

It looks like they've just repeated the same mistakes by the same author.

For example they seem to have estimated the EU grid will have the same carbon intensity for the next 16 years and that battery production hasn't improved since 2014.

It does highlight though that we do need to increase the green mix of electricity.

After all, after the initial carbon output, the sun and wind are free, natural and clean.

It's the same as the current state of aviation. I'm willing to put up with a few hours on a 239 seat A321NEO to reduce my carbon footprint, bearing in mind most of my international travel is for work. Compared to some routes (and I'm using the worst I can think of out of London, this isn't representative) operated by a 787 with roughly the same number of seats, my seat is using roughly half the fuel. Flew on one of Ryanair's MAX's 8200's the other week and it was a similar story. Of my 6 flights this year so far, (including a self-connection so 2 trips), 3 have been on the A321NEO and 1 has been on the MAX, with around a 20% reduction in CO2 compared to older generation aircraft.

shinytop

CKhalvashi said:

500 miles a week at 7l/100km (62 miles, with some London driving) at the £1.71/l I saw today = £95 in diesel per week or around 19p/mile.
500 miles a week at 4-ish miles/kWh, even at the price capped 28.5p = 125*.285, or £36 of electricity per week or 7.2p/mile. I pay a bit less than this, as I'm sure do many here.

£3000/year in savings on the price cap (I had a very decent tariff before it expired at the start of this month so was spending less than 3p/mile on charging).

Mine's a '21' plate sitting on around 19k miles at the moment, don't have historic figures for petrol/diesel, but at an educated guess it's saved 10-12% of the purchase price of the car so far in fuel alone in about a year, so after part exchange I'm around £13k down and 'earning' around £250/month. It's also cost around £200 in servicing, compared to the £4-500 my old car would have cost.

I don't think of cars as an investment, but a current effective 12.5% ROI on the cost of an equivalent new asset or 18-19% ROIC isn't too bad in the current climate. Bearing in mind I was going to change the car anyway when it was bought, it's made up the difference already compared to a mid to high end Focus and after depreciation I'm probably up a bit at this stage.

The two crucial points here are that you are a high mileage user and you can afford a new EV.  It's the other 90% of people (I'm guessing this number of course) that I worry about.  Maybe the days of cheap personal motoring for the masses are coming to an end;  this is (sort of) fine, but if so we shouldn't pretend otherwise.  

JKenH

The last month has cost me virtually nothing in charging costs, apart from a few pence when solar charging on a predominantly sunny day. A few clouds and kettle boils meant 15% of my charge came from the grid that day. I got a free 48% charge at Donington Park on Monday and 30% at Tesco today. Depreciation over the 2 years I have owned the car is hard to predict but possibly £4-5k (retail price is about £2k less than I paid but I wouldn’t get that) and I’ve had a couple of dealer services which have come in at less than £400 total. Most of my charging has been from solar or Octopus Go/Go Faster so very little cost. Insurance is around £500 for two years. I can’t grumble that a new car has cost me around £3k a year to run. 

Had I kept my 2017 Golf, I would have used around 1000 litres of diesel, say £1500 pa, a couple of MOTs, a bit more servicing and insurance about the  same. It would have gone up around £2k in value though so would have cost me around £1k a year. 

Strange times we are living in and things don’t always work out the way we expect them to. Who would have predicted the massive rises in petrol/diesel or gas and electricity or the rise in used car values? 

My attitude would be to get the car you want and enjoy it. After that, how much it will cost you to run is pretty much out of your hands. 

JKenH

Breakdown costs ‘almost three times higher’ for an EV than ICE vehicle

https://www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/latest-fleet-news/electric-fleet-news/2022/04/27/breakdown-costs-almost-three-times-higher-for-an-ev-than-ice-vehicle

JKenH

EVs hailed as cheaper to run than equivalent petrol cars

https://www.energylivenews.com/2022/04/27/evs-hailed-as-cheaper-to-run-than-an-equivalent-petrol/

CKhalvashi

Grumpy_chap said:

JKenH said:

, big and powerful BEVs may be in the same range as most diesel or petrol vehicle

Shouldn't "big and powerful" EVs be compared to "big and powerful" ICEs rather than "most" ICEs?

The issue is that you're then looking at a 1000+ mile range, as Jeremy Clarkson proved driving a Jag from somewhere in France to Blackpool, most of it not economically.

Bearing in mind the only comparable car is already £100k+, is this realistically a viable option at this time?

Martyn1981

Future battery tech, but if it works, then astonishing battery charge rates, equivalent to 22MW for a 1,000lb battery pack (rates are given in charge rate per kg of battery, see article). I'd suggest that at current charge rates of 250-350kW, we are already at a point where BEV's can charge during a short(ish) driver break, but I'm sure there will be benefits for this tech somewhere, perhaps coaches or trucks with driver changes.

Korean Researchers Develop Battery Tech With Blistering Charge Speeds

22.6 kW might not sound good at all for most EV owners these days, but consider that they’re talking about the speed per kilogram of battery. For other idiot Americans like me, that’s 22 kilowatts for every couple of pounds of battery weight. So, a battery weighing 1,000 pounds could achieve a battery charging rate of 22 megawatts. That would charge a vehicle 220 times faster than current charge sessions if there’s a way to deliver that much power to the vehicle somehow. So yes, it would definitely be able to get in under a minute for a full charge.

Unfortunately, most battery tech like this takes years to get to market, assuming it ever actually gets there. It’s one thing to invent something cool, but it’s another matter entirely to mass-produce it at an affordable price. Plus, there’s the problem of delivering megawatts of power to a car to charge. So, don’t get your hopes up too much at this point!