How do ordinary people make the switch to electric vehicles ?

Nebulous2

I've posted recently about this, but I've dipped my toe in the water by leasing a leaf.  Just over £200 a month for three years, total cost under £9k.  Its a £30k car and I'd normally expect a new vehicle to lose 50% of retail in three years, or £15k. My lease is costing about two thirds of the likely depreciation cost. I've no idea how they do it, but I'm not complaining. That may not be affordable for some people, but is affordable for me. 

I have a van to carry bikes / tow a caravan and am semi-retired. The leaf is a second vehicle, as I've taken a part-time job 25 miles away, leaving my wife without a vehicle. 

This is a fast-moving environment. Renault are producing an electric van with a hydrogen fuel cell to increase range. By the time my three year lease is up I may well have given up on the full-time job, and that van might be capable of meeting all my needs. Being able to hand back the leaf and move on suits me very well if the technology has moved on. 

I think we are at a tipping point for EVs and are in the process of moving beyond early adopters. Up until the most recent fuel supply crisis EVs were available new. That has disappeared, with stock being hoovered up, and most of them now on factory orders. My car has gone up about £40 a month since I ordered it. 

BOWFER

Nebulous2 said:

I've posted recently about this, but I've dipped my toe in the water by leasing a leaf.  Just over £200 a month for three years, total cost under £9k.  Its a £30k car and I'd normally expect a new vehicle to lose 50% of retail in three years, or £15k. My lease is costing about two thirds of the likely depreciation cost. I've no idea how they do it, but I'm not complaining. That may not be affordable for some people, but is affordable for me. 

I have a van to carry bikes / tow a caravan and am semi-retired. The leaf is a second vehicle, as I've taken a part-time job 25 miles away, leaving my wife without a vehicle. 

This is a fast-moving environment. Renault are producing an electric van with a hydrogen fuel cell to increase range. By the time my three year lease is up I may well have given up on the full-time job, and that van might be capable of meeting all my needs. Being able to hand back the leaf and move on suits me very well if the technology has moved on. 

I think we are at a tipping point for EVs and are in the process of moving beyond early adopters. Up until the most recent fuel supply crisis EVs were available new. That has disappeared, with stock being hoovered up, and most of them now on factory orders. My car has gone up about £40 a month since I ordered it. 

I'm not a fan of hydrogen at all and didn't know Renault were going down this route.
For starters, there's only 11 hydrogen refuelling stations in the UK and I'm not sure there's much appetite to build more as it doesn't seem to have much/any future for your average Joe.
I was speaking to someone who's used and refulled a toyota Myrai several times and he described the process as a PITA.
There is (...or was) an argument for it for lorries and buses, but Scania have turned their back on it (announced early this year) and first bus Glasgow have just opened a huge electric bus charging station and ordered 150 electric buses for 2022.
I think it's dead in the water and I'd venture that in 3 years time the pure battery range of vans will improve to the point they won't need silly range-extending nonsense like this.

MovingForwards

Looking quickly online at a Leaf it's £255 plus electric.

My car it's £95.83 per month for petrol, service, MOT, insurance.

I don't have a drive or garage, therefore no access to privately plug in an EV. Getting stuck in traffic on the way from work could see me getting stranded and running out of charge on a used EV. 

I'm on a lower income, what do I sacrifice to fund the difference of £159.17 each month? My extra  pension payment? My extra mortgage payment? Saving for when I have a home repair bill, need to replace something or if I lost my job? Maybe I could trim a bit off my food shopping? 

Maybe if family do put an EV point in their home and I've paid the mortgage off, it might be viable, but not at the moment.

NBLondon

BOWFER said:

Re-thinking usage is something I was chatting to a London cabbie about last week.
for some weird reason, their electric (PHEV) black cabs are only 28KWh batteries (!!!), which I found incredibly weird when they clearly have the space to fit much larger batteries.

That is odd - those charging breaks are non-earning time.  I would have expected them to want a battery that could run for a typical shift then charge overnight - or maybe a small top-up during a meal break.

BOWFER

MovingForwards said:

Looking quickly online at a Leaf it's £255 plus electric.

My car it's £95.83 per month for petrol, service, MOT, insurance.

I don't have a drive or garage, therefore no access to privately plug in an EV. Getting stuck in traffic on the way from work could see me getting stranded and running out of charge on a used EV. 

I'm on a lower income, what do I sacrifice to fund the difference of £159.17 each month? My extra  pension payment? My extra mortgage payment? Saving for when I have a home repair bill, need to replace something or if I lost my job? Maybe I could trim a bit off my food shopping? 

Maybe if family do put an EV point in their home and I've paid the mortgage off, it might be viable, but not at the moment.

This is the bit I'm interested in.
It seems to be a common misconception that EVs can run out of battery in traffic jams (Daily Mail nonsense).
Petrol/diesel cars are at their most inefficient when sitting idling, electric cars aren't.
I've seen me sitting for an hour waiting for our kids with the radio and heater on, barely using 1% of the battery.

DrEskimo

MovingForwards said:

I don't have a drive or garage, therefore no access to privately plug in an EV. Getting stuck in traffic on the way from work could see me getting stranded and running out of charge on a used EV. 

Why would being stuck in traffic mean you run out of charge? You use barely any energy whilst stationary. You are not travelling any further, so are just reducing your average speed. If anything, you would see substantially lower consumption. You also get to sit in a nice warm car without having to worry about leaving your engine running idle.

Herzlos said:

laidbackgjr said:

Ioniq is more Focus sized and spec, not Mondeo - biggest issue is lack of range - I can get 700 miles out of tank with my Mondeo - I regularly drive 200 mile non-stop journeys - I need an EV with a range of at least 300 miles to be realistic.

No, you need to re-think your vehicle usage. 200 miles non stop is ~3 hours at best, which is reasonable enough. There are already EV's that can do 200 miles between charges (I think we're up to about 250ish excluding long range variants).

Would you consider taking a break in the middle of the journey if it knocked the fuel costs down by half? If that lunch and coffee was essentially free?

According to honest john https://www.honestjohn.co.uk/realmpg/ford/mondeo-2015 the best fuel economy from a modern mondeo is 55.2mpg. Assuming a modest 1.30/l for diesel, gives you a cost of about 10.6p/mile. That 200 mile jouney would then cost £21.38.

A Hyundai Ionic does essentially 4miles/kwh. Assuming you charge domestically and not for free, on an average UK electric source at 17.2p/kwh, you're looking at 4.3p/mile. So the same journey would cost you £8.60, saving you £12.78. It's harder to estimate cost properly because if you've got an EV charging at home you're probably on a better tarriff, but you'd likely need to top up at a fast charger which costs more so it really depends on where/when you'd stop and how you could charge at the other end. You could charge 150 miles of range at 17.2p/kwh at home, and then add the last 45 miles of range at 40p/kwh from a service station and recharge at your destination or whatever.

If you're not doing that journey very often, then it's really not that big an inconvenience. If you're doing it a lot, then you'd save a fortune. Assuming you can schedule things properly, then you could just plan for the stop around lunch or whatever.


I do agree though, that the biggest concern with EV ownership is range anxiety, but I believe that it's completely unfounded beyond the most extreme edge cases and even for most of them the cost saving is more than enough to compensate for it.

I get maybe 400 miles from a tank of diesel currently, but I reckon I could drop down to something with a worst case range of 100 miles for pretty much all my usage beyond the occasional road trip where I can stop at a rapid charger as required.

I recently drove around 200miles on holiday in my now approaching 5yr old Renault Zoe. Was very impressed to see it got a solid 150miles in modest temperatures driving at ~70mph on the cruise control.

Charged up to 100% overnight using £0.05/kWh tariff, so that was £3 for a full battery. Left around 10am and after about 1.5hrs driving we got hungry so stopped off at a nice farm shop off the M1 and had lunch. They had 6 22kW chargers, and all were free. Plugged in and after about 45mins (time it took to get food and eat, buy a few bits) I was back up to 100%. Arrived at destination with ~40% charge still.

In all, completely hassle free, would have done the exactly same journey/time in an ICE, and it cost me £3 all in to drive 200miles.

Sea_Shell

So are EVs, whilst stationary, effectively "off" if you're not using heating/cooling/radio* etc. ?

The motor only spins up when you press the throttle?



* Although I realise that the "media centres" on modern cars are never really "off" like an old school radio/cd/aux.

BOWFER

DrEskimo said:

MovingForwards said:

I don't have a drive or garage, therefore no access to privately plug in an EV. Getting stuck in traffic on the way from work could see me getting stranded and running out of charge on a used EV. 

Why would being stuck in traffic mean you run out of charge? 

Daily Mail scare story bullpoop.
And people just take it as gospel, as can be seen by the poster saying it's a possibility without even checking with 'us' (people who actually know) first.

MovingForwards

Because reading this thread, the distance an old battery can go and knowing how far I commute each day, could drop me in the poo.

Remember, I'm one that can't afford the new EV, with the great battery that goes for miles, but an old one with a worn battery, and I don't have a charging point at my flat.

My knowledge spans to using a phone, laptop and other irrelevant items on a daily basis, seeing the battery run down and if not charged it cuts out. I haven't looked into EV's as they're not being cost effective for me or my circumstances.

As for being a DM reader, I wouldn't even being it into house for my cat to pee on.

robinwales

The starting price for the XC40 petrol is about £31k, yet you describe yourself as an 'ordinary person'. Our income is £54k a year and we drive a new Polo Gti which cost £25k two years ago. I know yours is not new, but you are looking to replace it with something similar on an income of £20k. Or do I have that wrong?

Also, the electric versions, which go up to £58k are not exactly green, even though they are electric. It weighs 2.1 ton and although it's carbon-free on fuel the environmental cost of making a largish car like that and the extra electricity required to haul that 2.1 ton around is considerable. I'd suggest the Peugeot e-208, which is about £28k.