How do ordinary people make the switch to electric vehicles ?

Herzlos

Advocado said:

Herzlos said:

Marvel1 said:

Leaves me with public places, what am I suppose to while charging? Stand around.

You don't need to supervise it, so you can do literally anything you want.

For the average motorist, you can probably just charge whilst doing the weekly shop since the cars parked outside the supermarket for 30+ minutes anyway doing nothing.  Or when you're at work, near a train station, shopping centre, cinema or whatever.

But this is assuming there will be charging points available when you go to do your shopping or whatever.

I have a colleague who doesn't have a home charging point. He often has to spend his lunch break sitting at a charging point to top up enough to get home.

That's the chicken and egg part. The more EV users there are, the more chargers will become available, but the more chargers available the more EV users there will be.

I wonder if it's bad planning by the colleague since he *should* be able to find somewhere to charge whilst he's working, or that he's just bought something without enough range for his commute.  In Edinburgh/Glasgow, all of the park and ride car parks have EV charging, but I dare say if you work in an industrial estate or something it may not be practical to leave a car in an EV space.

Has he asked your employer if they can install some charging in the car park (if one exists)?

Vegastare

Wasn't there grant funding a few years back for home charging points...75% grant I think.....don't think many took it up back then

BOWFER

born_again said:

BOWFER said:

jimbo6977 said:

I'm not convinced too many are. I think they are buying them because they are the cheapest sensible EVs available. 

How many people buying a Citroen have any concept that they are buying a Dutch-Italian-American car?

I've zero doubt the MG badge helps, adding an air of familiarity.
You'll never convince me the cars would sell the same if they were badged SAIC, even with the cheap cost and long warranty.
I'd venture SAIC have thought the same, or they wouldn't have bothered.

Only the same as when the like as Datson (Nissan) came over back in the 70's. Look at them and other Japanese manufactures now.

Datsun took a long time to get a foothold.
Hyundai and Kia were also making horrible cars for years and only became successful when they hired an ex-Audi designer (Peter Schraer) to make their cars look better than the awful things they were before.
Look at how he changed the Sportage, the one before him was god-awful.
MG/SAIC have pretty much hit the ground running, partly because it's a cheap EV  with a decent warranty but also ,I'm sure, because the MG brand gave people instant familiarity and acceptance.

BOWFER

Advocado said:

Herzlos said:

Marvel1 said:

Leaves me with public places, what am I suppose to while charging? Stand around.

You don't need to supervise it, so you can do literally anything you want.

For the average motorist, you can probably just charge whilst doing the weekly shop since the cars parked outside the supermarket for 30+ minutes anyway doing nothing.  Or when you're at work, near a train station, shopping centre, cinema or whatever.

But this is assuming there will be charging points available when you go to do your shopping or whatever.

I have a colleague who doesn't have a home charging point. He often has to spend his lunch break sitting at a charging point to top up enough to get home.

Does he moan about having to do this?
I'd guess not as he was clearly aware he didn't have home charging when he got the car.
If he's having to do it a lot, then he's arguably got the wrong car for his journey and should consider a larger battery car.
I don't do it now that public charging is charged in Scotland, but I used to do it all the time when it was free.
Drive 0.5 miles to the local P+R, sit and have my lunch and browse twitter while it rapid charged on one of the many there.

BOWFER

Marvel1 said:

What outs me off EV is charging, cannot install at home.

Leaves me with public places, what am I suppose to while charging? Stand around.

Recently visited Mcdonald got a space next to EV charger, noticed 2 cars parked in the available - none were charging.

Were they electric cars though?
Very common for entitled ICE drivers to use EV spaces, same sorts of nuggets that park in disabled and mother + child spaces.
If you're sure they were both EVs and both not actively charging, then that's unusual and they were chancing being berated by an EV driver who really needed the charger.
If you don't need a charge, you don't use an EV space - it's that simple.

motorguy

Ectophile said:

If the European car makers don't get their act together soon, and start offering sensibly priced EVs, then the Chinese are going to move in and walk all over them.  They are already buying up factories in Europe.

The Chinese manufacturers are churning out thousands of EVs, running from the ridiculously cheap (Wuling Mini EV) through to luxury models.

Which european manufacturers arent?

Peugeot / Citroen / Vauxhall have electric cars available, reasonably priced.

BMW, Mercedes, Audi also have offerings in this space, though likely dont feel an urge to have "sensibly priced" offerings.

MINI have cars in this space also.  In fact the MINI is relatively unique in being reasonably priced and Fun.

Volkswagen have the ID.3 and ID.4 which arent crazy money.

SEAT have electric car offerings coming this year.

wongataa

Advocado said:

Herzlos said:

Marvel1 said:

Leaves me with public places, what am I suppose to while charging? Stand around.

You don't need to supervise it, so you can do literally anything you want.

For the average motorist, you can probably just charge whilst doing the weekly shop since the cars parked outside the supermarket for 30+ minutes anyway doing nothing.  Or when you're at work, near a train station, shopping centre, cinema or whatever.

But this is assuming there will be charging points available when you go to do your shopping or whatever.

I have a colleague who doesn't have a home charging point. He often has to spend his lunch break sitting at a charging point to top up enough to get home.

The public charging point infrastructure isn't perfect yet but it is improving all the time.  No doubt it could be improving more quickly.  In some places it is better than others but eventually it will be very good as it has to be when most vehicles are electric.

You can easily look up where charging points are and what type they are so you can see if it is possible to see if they make it suitable to run and EV for your use case.

BOWFER

Jenni_D said:

https://mgmotor.eu/model/marvel-r

The big touchscreen is very Tesla-esque. Hopefully the CPU/RAM behind the system is beefy enough to make the system smooth and quick - something lower-end cars with such displays are often criticised for.

BTW @BOWFER the nearest dealer to you is Mackie Motors in Brechin.  

When they get a Marvel-R in I'll have to go look.
The interior is bloody lovely, and it might be a possibility for replacing our Evoque.

Advocado

BOWFER said:

Advocado said:

Herzlos said:

Marvel1 said:

Leaves me with public places, what am I suppose to while charging? Stand around.

You don't need to supervise it, so you can do literally anything you want.

For the average motorist, you can probably just charge whilst doing the weekly shop since the cars parked outside the supermarket for 30+ minutes anyway doing nothing.  Or when you're at work, near a train station, shopping centre, cinema or whatever.

But this is assuming there will be charging points available when you go to do your shopping or whatever.

I have a colleague who doesn't have a home charging point. He often has to spend his lunch break sitting at a charging point to top up enough to get home.

Does he moan about having to do this?
I'd guess not as he was clearly aware he didn't have home charging when he got the car.
If he's having to do it a lot, then he's arguably got the wrong car for his journey and should consider a larger battery car.
I don't do it now that public charging is charged in Scotland, but I used to do it all the time when it was free.
Drive 0.5 miles to the local P+R, sit and have my lunch and browse twitter while it rapid charged on one of the many there.

He very much moans about it.

His plan was to charge it (an id3) a couple of times a week at the supermarket when he does the weekly shop or somewhere he’s working (we don’t have a permanent place of work so to speak).  But he often struggles due to charges being in use or, in the case of his chose supermarket, often out of order (something about not accepting his card or something).

He also tells me that charging points often don’t charge as quickly as they should, so he often only gets something like half the charge he was expecting during his time in Tesco.

[Deleted User]

movilogo said:

Electric cars are too expensive. Charging takes too long. 
Ordinary people can continue with cheaper, better petrol/diesel cars as long as these are avaialble.

This is a common thought among people who have never owned one and who haven't looked at prices recently.