Buying a new car advice

Mercdriver

DrEskimo said:

Mercdriver said:

[DELETED USER] said:

Scrapit said:

Has the op said what their milage is? A EV may not be suitable at all. It wouldnt work for me for sevral reasons. Lets not assume EVs are suitable for everyone.

That's like saying a Hummer isn't suitable everyone. Duh, obviously.

You are wrong about the mileage though, with an EV the more you do the more you stand to save. If you are doing say 150 miles a day then you could be thousands a year better off, and save yourself a lot of time by not having to visit petrol stations.

And potentially waste a lot of time waiting to charge the battery.

In the last 17months or so of owning an EV I can't remember a single time I have ever 'waited' for the car to charge...it's charging whilst I get one with my usual daily activities.

Using it 150 miles each way would not involve any charging?  With every EV?  

AdrianC

Petriix said:

It's relatively unusual to drive over 200 miles without a break. Even more so to then return without hanging around for a few hours. There are plenty of EVs capable of doing a 400 mile round trip in a day.

You're assuming that there's destination charging available while the car is "hanging around".

I spent a few months doing a lot of 350 mile+ day-trips the other year. No charging available at my destination - and even within the day, I was often doing a fair bit of local back-and-forth. Typically, it was about a 14-15hr day - 6am departure, 8-9pm return. No way would I have wanted even another hour or two added to that to sit around at a services staring at a charger.

DrEskimo

Mercdriver said:

DrEskimo said:

Mercdriver said:

[DELETED USER] said:

Scrapit said:

Has the op said what their milage is? A EV may not be suitable at all. It wouldnt work for me for sevral reasons. Lets not assume EVs are suitable for everyone.

That's like saying a Hummer isn't suitable everyone. Duh, obviously.

You are wrong about the mileage though, with an EV the more you do the more you stand to save. If you are doing say 150 miles a day then you could be thousands a year better off, and save yourself a lot of time by not having to visit petrol stations.

And potentially waste a lot of time waiting to charge the battery.

In the last 17months or so of owning an EV I can't remember a single time I have ever 'waited' for the car to charge...it's charging whilst I get one with my usual daily activities.

Using it 150 miles each way would not involve any charging?  With every EV?  

Who said 150miles each way?

Petriix

150 miles each way without sticking around for a few hours in the middle is a fairly unusual driving scenario. The point is that it's typical to drive somewhere and park up for a while and, unless you are somewhere without electricity, you can plug in while you are doing whatever you went there to do.

AdrianC

Petriix said:

150 miles each way without sticking around for a few hours in the middle is a fairly unusual driving scenario. The point is that it's typical to drive somewhere and park up for a while and, unless you are somewhere without electricity, you can plug in while you are doing whatever you went there to do.

The return trips I was describing were to my father's 1st floor flat. The only way I could have charged there would have been to throw a long extension lead out of his kitchen window, the only one overlooking the car park, even if I'd managed to park in the one spot abutting that portion of the building.

Many of the trips were while I was sorting and emptying the flat after he'd moved into a care home - hence all the local running to the tip, charity shops, hospital, care home...

Petriix

AdrianC said:
...I spent a few months doing a lot of 350 mile+ day-trips the other year...

...which puts you in a minority of about 0.5% of the population. Congratulations, you've come up with an incredibly unusual edge case where an EV would be entirely inappropriate. You could just as easily have said that you need to transport 40 tonnes of cargo from Cornwall to Scotland or need to get to New York from London in 4 hours. There are other vehicles for such scenarios.

Most people practically never drive more than 100 miles in a day. And, on those rare occasions, could comfortably plan around making a 30 minute stop for lunch en route.

AdrianC

Petriix said:

AdrianC said:
...I spent a few months doing a lot of 350 mile+ day-trips the other year...

...which puts you in a minority of about 0.5% of the population. Congratulations, you've come up with an incredibly unusual edge case where an EV would be entirely inappropriate.

An edge case that only 1 in 200 of the population would ever do? No. You are the one that's extrapolating into the realms of ridiculous there. PLENTY of people find themselves in situations like that.

 But, yes, well done on noticing my point. It's the edge cases that prove viability.

Herzlos

AdrianC said:

Petriix said:

AdrianC said:
...I spent a few months doing a lot of 350 mile+ day-trips the other year...

...which puts you in a minority of about 0.5% of the population. Congratulations, you've come up with an incredibly unusual edge case where an EV would be entirely inappropriate.

An edge case that only 1 in 200 of the population would ever do? No. You are the one that's extrapolating into the realms of ridiculous there. PLENTY of people find themselves in situations like that.

 But, yes, well done on noticing my point. It's the edge cases that prove viability.

Not really, you're still trying your hardest to use an obscure edge case (now it's a 14 hour driving day) to try and claim it's not viable.

Average daily mileage is about 30 miles. Every EV can do that. Your 200 miles each way with nowhere to stop or charge is pretty rare, even if you are in rural Wales or whatever. In your case, you'd be better off with a hybrid.

For everyone else, an EV will do average driving patterns more conveniently (because you can charge whilst shopping or sleeping and never need to visit a petrol station), and the long drives require a little bit of a culture change (like stopping for lunch somewhere with a charger), and is more than compensated for by the huge fuel saving.

I'm pretty confident the OP's car usage is closed to Average than Adrians.

AdrianC

Evangelicals always miss the point completely in their missionary zeal.

Petriix

AdrianC said:

Petriix said:

AdrianC said:
...I spent a few months doing a lot of 350 mile+ day-trips the other year...

...which puts you in a minority of about 0.5% of the population. Congratulations, you've come up with an incredibly unusual edge case where an EV would be entirely inappropriate.

An edge case that only 1 in 200 of the population would ever do? No. You are the one that's extrapolating into the realms of ridiculous there. PLENTY of people find themselves in situations like that.

 But, yes, well done on noticing my point. It's the edge cases that prove viability.

You didn't say "ever", you said "a few months doing 350 mile+ day-trips". An occasional long range trip would be easy to work around without any inconvenience for most people. If you need to regularly drive 350 miles or more in a day then, yes, an EV wouldn't work for you; but that shouldn't concern the vast majority of people (who don't).