How do ordinary people make the switch to electric vehicles ?

Sea_Shell

I think the bigger issue, nationally, is going to be for those for whom owning/running a car is borderline affordable ATM.

Those driving £500 15-20 year old "ordinary" cars (Focus/Astra), being their only means of getting to work, to maybe do a minimum wage job.

Can we foresee a time when EVs really become that cheap, relative to wages.   Especially if they need replacement batteries or motors?

Do we know yet the lifespan of these electric motors?  Will they do the "starship" mileage of an old diesel?

Will those at the "old banger" end of the market be eventually priced out of motoring?

BOWFER

born_again said:

With any luck Chinese EV's will be hitting the UK soon & some of them are massive & well priced. Nio ES8

As I mentioned in another post, they're going to hit all kinds of jingoistic nonsense here.
Would the MG5 and MGZS electric cars have sold so many if they were known as the SAIC5 and SAIC-EZS?
Not a chance.

motorguy

Sea_Shell said:

I think the bigger issue, nationally, is going to be for those for whom owning/running a car is borderline affordable ATM.

Those driving £500 15-20 year old "ordinary" cars (Focus/Astra), being their only means of getting to work, to maybe do a minimum wage job.

Can we foresee a time when EVs really become that cheap, relative to wages.   Especially if they need replacement batteries or motors?

Do we know yet the lifespan of these electric motors?  Will they do the "starship" mileage of an old diesel?

Will those at the "old banger" end of the market be eventually priced out of motoring?

Theres already an industry springing up refurbishing electric car batteries at a fraction of the cost of a new battery.   

Theres also electric cars about with well over 150,000 miles.  Found this one with 138K miles after a cursory look on autotrader.

I think we're probably 25 years away from losing the cheapest of bangernomics cars.  I guess by then public transport will be better.  I think theres a significant element of people who chose to drive cars at the banger end of the market so i guess ultimately they'll have to up their budget if they want to continue to have personal dedicated transport.

JJ_Egan

Judged by the OPs Energy similar post , they want to go green but cannot afford it .

BOWFER

motorguy said:

  Found this one with 138K miles after a cursory look on autotrader.

i follow an indy EV specialist on twitter and they had a Zoe with 400K miles last week, 96% battery health.

[Deleted User]

There's a chart I saw a while ago about Tesla batteries, some years old and doing 300-400k miles (e.g. taxi) and virtually none of them are under 90% battery capacity which, for a car with say 350 mile range new, is not worth replacing.

In terms of EV, new cars can be bought up to 31/12/2029 and run for as long as you can fix them and get petrol. UK won't be running out of ICE cars into the 2040s, perhaps even 2050s, unless fuel shortages cause them to be uneconomic. 

BOWFER

Deleted_User said:

There's a chart I saw a while ago about Tesla batteries, some years old and doing 300-400k miles (e.g. taxi) and virtually none of them are under 90% battery capacity which, for a car with say 350 mile range new, is not worth replacing.

Tesla's own estimates are <10% loss for 200K miles.

motorguy

WJB1971 said:

BOWFER said:

I don't accept that anyone earning £20K a year can't lease an electric car.
If anything, it's the best way to do a car on a limited budget as the costs are pretty fixed, no repairs etc.
Then you have the fuel savings, especially if you sign up to a cheap tariff (as I have).
You can easily lease a Leaf or Zoe for not much more than £200 a month
Your trouble is you want an electric car equivalent to your massive XC60.
I find it hard to believe anyone needs a car of that size, so perhaps your expectations and sense of entitlement need to change a bit in line with reducing excessive consumption?

I have scrimped and saved for 25 years to get to the car I wanted and which works for my family as it currently is.

I look forward to the day I won't need such a big car.

However, if you think I have £200 a month going spare to fund the switch, I can tell you I do not.

There in is the problem, I cannot even afford to lease a new Leaf or Zoe, so I will be in the market for an old Leaf or Zoe with their restricted range (yes it is an issue) and the expense of then having to replace an old battery (no I cannot afford to do so).

Then i think you need to resign yourself to driving an ICE vehicle until your needs change.

Herzlos

motorguy said:

Well theres cheaper options available if someone wants / needs something bigger.  My point was, i'd find it hard to believe someone "needs" a £60K SUV.

Especially one with less internal space than a £20k MPV.

But still, if someone is used to a big SUV, then it may be a bit jarring to move to something smaller just to go green.

You can lease a Vivaro e-Life (long) for about £400/month, and that's essentially a minibus.

Herzlos

Sea_Shell said:

I think the bigger issue, nationally, is going to be for those for whom owning/running a car is borderline affordable ATM.

Those driving £500 15-20 year old "ordinary" cars (Focus/Astra), being their only means of getting to work, to maybe do a minimum wage job.

We've still got 9 years before you can't buy a conventional ICE vehicle anymore, so there are going to be 15-20 year old ordinary cars for about another 26 years. That's a lot of time for electric cars to get old or technology to improve.

Range aside, EV's should be a much cheaper car to own as they age, too since there's less to go wrong. By 2040 there will likely be charging facilities everywhere, so I assume many people could get by with an EV with a range of about 20 miles which is an enormous battery degradation for anything current.

Will we still be relying on private vehicles by 2040? Will we be able to produce basic EV's for those who can only just afford a car currently?