Electric Money Saving Idea?

Gerry1

st999 said:

Gerry1 said:

When EVs take off the government will no doubt wish to replace the lost fossil fuel taxes, so it's a safe bet that electricity for EVs will be highly taxed.  The apparent low running cost is just bait to get people switching.  It's nearly always like this: the Prius was free from the Congestion Charge, but that was soon scrapped, ditto Tesla's free electricity.  And then there's the cost of coronavirus...

How will the Government know what proportion of electricity is being used to charge an EV to tax it?
Stupid question, they will just increase the VAT on electricity so we will have one rate of VAT for gas and a higher rate of VAT for electricity

The smart meter will probably charge a high Time of Use tariff and / or surcharge all usage above a few kW and / or surcharge monthly usage above a block allowance.  They're not called smart for nothing...

gzoom

Gerry1 said:

The apparent low running cost is just bait to get people switching.  

The running costs for EVs are crazy low, its not made up. I've owned one since 2015, and have done over 60k miles in various EVs since. 

Excluding insurance but including fuel/tyres/servicing my EVs have cost me between 2p-3.5p/mile. 99% of charging been done at home.

Insurance costs actually for me are the same as for a combustion car.

Can you find me a combustion car that costs 3.5p/mile to run including fule/tyres/servicing??

Gerry1

gzoom said:

Gerry1 said:

The apparent low running cost is just bait to get people switching.  

The running costs for EVs are crazy low, its not made up.

I don't disagree, but do you think that will always be the case?  If you think that politicians will just wave goodbye to all that fuel duty and 20% VAT then sooner or later you will get a rude awakening.  With Covid-19, think sooner.

Remember what happened to the Congestion Charge?  It used to be a fiver, it didn't operate in the evenings, or at weekends, or between Christmas and New Year.

Now it's £15 and it operates seven days per week until 10pm. 

I believe the word that applies is 'Gotcha !'.

Cardew

gzoom said:

Gerry1 said:

The apparent low running cost is just bait to get people switching.  

The running costs for EVs are crazy low, its not made up. I've owned one since 2015, and have done over 60k miles in various EVs since. 

Excluding insurance but including fuel/tyres/servicing my EVs have cost me between 2p-3.5p/mile. 99% of charging been done at home.

Insurance costs actually for me are the same as for a combustion car.

Can you find me a combustion car that costs 3.5p/mile to run including fule/tyres/servicing??

The ballpark figure for an EV driven gently is 3 miles for 1kWh. So the OP uses 166kWh a month which equates to approx 500 miles. The cost at a very low 5p/kWh from Octopus is £8.30 a month.

My 1.4 turbo petrol Golf consumption gives 44mpg for general driving and 50mpg on a long trip at legal(ish) speeds. So approx £54 a month. So that costs around £550 pa extra in fuel costs a year.

A new EV costs around £8k to £10k more than the equivalent small car. In economic* terms do the fuel(and current RFL) savings justify the extra cost?

Also the claimed range of EVs is nothing like the 'Real World' range. A relative of mine in California has the latest top of range Tesla(A company car - he owns the company!) with a claimed range of 350 miles; he can not achieve 200 miles.

I drive up to Northern Scotland a couple of times a year - a journey of just 500 miles - which I can do on a full tank. I stopped earlier this summer at a couple of motorway sevice stations and at each there was a queue of cars waiting to use the few charging points.

I don't know the number of people who live in flats, or houses with no garage or driveway. What are these people going to do when IC cars are phased out in 2035?

* I do appreciate that some people buy an EV for environmental reasons

Gerry1

You also have to figure in the rip-off 30p/kWh or whatever you'll have to pay if you're more than half the minimum range away from home.

gzoom

Am not going to get dragged into yet another anti EV argument with people who MUST have a car that can do 8hr+ of driving non stop.

Our current EV is a 6 seater for adults, does 0-60 in 4.9 seconds, yet costs me 3.5p in running costs including fuel/tyres. In 3 years and 36k miles of ownership its servicing costs have been £0. The equivalent performing combustion car would be something like a SQ7 or Range Rover Sport SVR. The upfront purchase costs are actually the same but the difference in maintenance costs is staggering.

There are now plenty of cheaper EVs, MGs, Renault Zoe, the new Mini E etc.

The amount of money I've saved by running an EV instead of an equivalent high performance combustion car is quite ridiculous, and oh this is my home energy bill in April this year. That includes refuel costs for the EV to cover about 500 miles that month .

There is lots of things you can argue about EVs, but cheap ownership costs isn't one of them. Even on deprecation most EVs out perform combustion cars. Ours is sitting at 30% in 3.5 years, some used EVs are appreciating, cheaper new EVs are deprecating by less than £1k a year.

Emmia

Gerry1 said:

gzoom said:

Gerry1 said:

The apparent low running cost is just bait to get people switching.  

The running costs for EVs are crazy low, its not made up.

I don't disagree, but do you think that will always be the case?  If you think that politicians will just wave goodbye to all that fuel duty and 20% VAT then sooner or later you will get a rude awakening.  With Covid-19, think sooner.

Remember what happened to the Congestion Charge?  It used to be a fiver, it didn't operate in the evenings, or at weekends, or between Christmas and New Year.

Now it's £15 and it operates seven days per week until 10pm. 

I believe the word that applies is 'Gotcha !'.

Presumably once the tax revenue on fuel falls too low, they'll look at other options like per mile road pricing / tax instead...

Cardew

gzoom said:

Am not going to get dragged into yet another anti EV argument with people who MUST have a car that can do 8hr+ of driving non stop.

Our current EV is a 6 seater for adults, does 0-60 in 4.9 seconds, yet costs me 3.5p in running costs including fuel/tyres. In 3 years and 36k miles of ownership its servicing costs have been £0. The equivalent performing combustion car would be something like a SQ7 or Range Rover Sport SVR. The upfront purchase costs are actually the same but the difference in maintenance costs is staggering.

There are now plenty of cheaper EVs, MGs, Renault Zoe, the new Mini E etc.

The amount of money I've saved by running an EV instead of an equivalent high performance combustion car is quite ridiculous, and oh this is my home energy bill in April this year. That includes refuel costs for the EV to cover about 500 miles that month .

There is lots of things you can argue about EVs, but cheap ownership costs isn't one of them. Even on deprecation most EVs out perform combustion cars. Ours is sitting at 30% in 3.5 years, some used EVs are appreciating, cheaper new EVs are deprecating by less than £1k a year.

Why is that if any disadvantages of EVs are pointed out, the poster is branded as 'anti EV'.

A point of clarification please. You appear to have used 12 kWh night rate electricity from 21 April to 21 May.

Every source I have read indicates that a small EV driven gently will cover approx 3 miles on each kWh. This report on 22 EVs https://www.whatcar.com/news/what-car-real-range-which-electric-car-can-go-farthest-in-the-real-world/n18159 gives their 'Consumption' ranging from 2 miles/kWh to 3.5 miles/kWh

That would indicate a range of 36 miles for the 12 kWh(94p). Yet for your High performance 6 seater that 12kWh 'includes refuel costs for the EV to cover about 500 miles that month' so you achieve a remarkable 41 miles for every kWh some 14 times better than a small car!!  Put another way your 500 miles in April/May(99% charging at home) for 94p indicates a cost of 0.188p a mile.

Could you please give us the make and model of this remarkable car.

 

Gerry1

12kWh daytime electricity in 30 days is pretty remarkable as well, equivalent to 146kWh per year, about 1/20th of the average usage.  Where can I buy some of these magic electrons?

gzoom

Gerry1 said:  Where can I buy some of these magic electrons?

It actually relates to exactly what the OP was asking, there is nothing magical about the sun, it comes up every day, but sadly in the UK we often have cloud/rain which means its hard to capture all that electricity. But when we do get clear weather, solar + battery storage really can reduced your gird usage.