The future of convertibles in the electric era?

MattMattMattUK

Sea_Shell said:

Also what about towing?

I'm guessing even if an EV has the power to tow a caravan, it's range would be substantially reduced.

Local caravan holidays only!! 😉

Reduced roughly in line with the proportionate range reduction from a tank of petrol, although probably somewhat mitigated by the better torque profile of electric vehicles. As an example a Tesla loses around 45% of it's range when towing a 1,500 kg trailer which is slightly better than most ICE vehicles of similar size, which lose 50-55% of their range depending on the profile of the route.

Sandtree

Sea_Shell said:

I'd hope that insurance could be arranged wholely independent of one's own car insurance, so that any incidents involving your car, whilst on hire, would not reflect on you or your claims history, or NCD.

They should not even be notifiable incidents.

Do other counties (Australia?) do insurance differently?  Like insure the driver (in anything) rather than the car?

You would need a lot of trust in the person that they have insured the car properly as if there is something wrong with their insurance your insurance would have to respond under the Road Traffic Act and as you gave permission for them to drive it then your insurers can recover their outlay from either the driver at the time or you as the policyholder.

Really for it to work the P2P network itself has to arrange the insurance, there is still a risk but most would trust the network more than the random stranger.

Lots of countries have significantly different laws on both compensation from accidents to how insurance works. Some countries there are fixed tariffs for injury claims and not individually negotiated settlements, they tend to be much lower than here and here is massively lower than the USA. In some countries the "third party" element is paid for by the government and funded either by something similar to roadtax or fuel duty and insurance is therefore purely optional and only covers the fire, theft and own damage aspects - you therefore never get an uninsured driver or hit and run type issue.

In the UK as well we must have unlimited cover for physical damage and injury (commercial motor insurance can have a limit to the PD aspect but its a very high limit) whereas in Florida you are only required to have $10k PD and $10k injury insurance with you personally liable for anything above that... as mentioned the US compensation is much higher than here, having seen an auto claim recently that had 3 fatalities the grandparents (so not financial dependents etc) are being paid $1.5m each for witnessing the deaths of their grandchildren and there is currently a $10m reserve for each of the spouses/partners... this policy has a high limit but had it been the $10k minimum allowed then the estate would be having to find over $34,490,000 

scrappy_returns

Herzlos said:

scrappy_returns said:

Or estates, the mg and the genesis don't count, one doesn't work as an estate and the others a shooting brake.

In what way does the MG5 not work as an estate?

All ways.

Herzlos

NBLondon said:

Herzlos said:

scrappy_returns said:

Or estates, the mg and the genesis don't count, one doesn't work as an estate and the others a shooting brake.

In what way does the MG5 not work as an estate?

I guess scrappy means the MGZS which is an SUV.  I just Googled the MG5 and it looks comparable to a Focus/Astra/Golf estate.  There's no electric option if you like a traditional full-size estate with high roof line - but that's a declining sector anyway.

You can get an electric version of the Citroen Berlingo or Vauxhall Combo Life. They are technicaly MPV's but they are what I assume you'd call a full size estate with a high roof line, given they are essentially vans with 5/7 seats.

Herzlos

Sea_Shell said:

Also what about towing?

I'm guessing even if an EV has the power to tow a caravan, it's range would be substantially reduced.

Local caravan holidays only!! 😉

Towing is the big disappointment with EV's at the moment, but I think it's largely down to demand and the cost of type approval.
Towing a caravan, sticking a roof box on, etc, will hurt the range of an EV more than on an ICE because the ICE is so much more wasteful anyway. Basically if the ICE is only 70% efficient and you increase the drag you're only decreasing the efficiency of the 70% going towards motion and not heat, but on an EV you're decreasing the efficiency of the 99*%.

You're going to notice the efficiency loss a lot more as well due to the smaller range and the nightmare you'll have trying to get to a charger with a trailer on the back given that most charging sites at the moment are in a conventional parking space 1 car deep and people won't be happy if you need to take up 5 bays. Nor is it particularly practical to detactch the caravan in a different bay, charge and then reconnect.

It's a shame too, because a lot of people don't even want to tow caravans across the country, but want bike racks or small trailers for trips to the dump, shops, etc.

Herzlos

scrappy_returns said:

Herzlos said:

scrappy_returns said:

Or estates, the mg and the genesis don't count, one doesn't work as an estate and the others a shooting brake.

In what way does the MG5 not work as an estate?

All ways.

Can you be a tad more specific? Because it looks like it'd work fine as an estate to me.

NBLondon

Herzlos said:

You can get an electric version of the Citroen Berlingo or Vauxhall Combo Life. They are technicaly MPV's but they are what I assume you'd call a full size estate with a high roof line, given they are essentially vans with 5/7 seats.

I mean an estate version of a medium/large executive car.  Skoda Superb estate, Mercedes E-class, Volvo V90. I'm guessing that's what scrappy meant by dismissing Genesis G70 Shooting Brake which has a more sloping, coupe-ish roofline.    (Which is where Mercedes has taken the term "shooting brake" to as opposed to it's earlier meaning)

Herzlos said:

Can you be a tad more specific? Because it looks like it'd work fine as an estate to me.

I agree - it looks like it would work in place of a Focus/Astra/Golf estate.

Grumpy_chap

None of these recently mentioned cars - MGZS, MG5, G70, Berlingo, Combo - are going to make particularly suitable convertible EV's assuming the OP meant "convertible" as in "roof down" and not "convertible" as an adaptable from a passenger vehicle to a load carrier.

Sea_Shell

Grumpy_chap said:

None of these recently mentioned cars - MGZS, MG5, G70, Berlingo, Combo - are going to make particularly suitable convertible EV's assuming the OP meant "convertible" as in "roof down" and not "convertible" as an adaptable from a passenger vehicle to a load carrier.

Thread drift! 😉

scrappy_returns

NBLondon said:

Herzlos said:

You can get an electric version of the Citroen Berlingo or Vauxhall Combo Life. They are technicaly MPV's but they are what I assume you'd call a full size estate with a high roof line, given they are essentially vans with 5/7 seats.

I mean an estate version of a medium/large executive car.  Skoda Superb estate, Mercedes E-class, Volvo V90. I'm guessing that's what scrappy meant by dismissing Genesis G70 Shooting Brake which has a more sloping, coupe-ish roofline.    (Which is where Mercedes has taken the term "shooting brake" to as opposed to it's earlier meaning)

Herzlos said:

Can you be a tad more specific? Because it looks like it'd work fine as an estate to me.

I agree - it looks like it would work in place of a Focus/Astra/Golf estate.

Read the reviews for it.