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EVs - are we going to be forced into this before time?

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  • Petriix said:
    Petriix said:
    Let's dispel a few myths:
    1. EVs can't do long journeys... Well there is such a thing as a rapid charger (of which there are thousands throughout the UK). It can take a bit of planning but the necessity of a 40 minute stop every 150 miles is not exactly a hardship. And, guess what, you don't have to drain your battery by driving everywhere at 70+.
    2. People who can't charge at home can't have an EV... Except most people don't drive 200 miles per day, every day. With average mileage of 10k per year, that's less than 30 miles per day so one full charge per week to 10 days. In practice we charge a small amount whenever we can. 40% of my charging is free from supermarkets. People can often charge at work, otherwise it's a case of finding a public charger to use, and there are many to choose from.
    3. EVs are expensive to charge... Only if you solely rely on rapid chargers or have an extortionate home electricity tariff. Octopus are still accepting people onto their Go tariff for EVs. It's 7.5p off peak now. That's about 2p per mile in an EV.
    Using an Audi Etron as an example of EV efficiency is a bit like using a Landrover as an example for MPG. I'm averaging around 3.8 miles per kWh in total over 10k miles. It's cost under £120 in charging, although I do put quite a lot of effort into minimising the cost where others wouldn't bother.

    The fact is that EVs would be impractical for a small proportion of drivers and they are currently financially out of reach for many. As longer range EVs hit the market (range seems to be doubling every 3-4 years), there will be more options for everyone and far less need to really think about charging.
    1. It's in no way practical or convenient to stop every 150 miles for minimum of 40 minutes, assuming no one else is occupying charging station and it's not broken. It you can't charge, you have to look for another charging point while running low on "fuel". Electric cars might be fine if you driving around your area, but certainly not for weekend trips or longer euro-trips. Going to camp site 100 miles away and no electricity there, how do I go back? Have to waste time to find a way to charge my car. I drive every summer min. 1000 miles one way and electric car will never be good for that. I will be that stubborn person, that will keep diesel/petrol car as long as possible. I loved 3.0 V6 diesel, it could take me across Europe on one tank.

    2. Most people don't, but there are people driving longer distances than school, shop, work around corner.

    3. What about others without driveways and charging points at work?

    BTW, there are no public charging points in my area. I haven't seen any on the street or supermarket car park. And it's town within M25.
    It's actually illegal to drive further than 150 miles without taking a break and, in practice, most people stop closer to once every 100 miles. I'm sure there will be some people who chime in with 'I drive 400 miles every day and never slow below 80, even for roundabouts' but everyone should be stopping for regular breaks simply for safety. It's relatively simple to plan stops for locations with plenty of chargers.

    Remember that most places you go will have electricity and more locations are adding EV charging all the time, so you plan to stop for food somewhere you can charge, you book accommodation with charging (or run the 3 pin charger out the window). You adapt around the possible charging options rather than complaining that you can't do everything exactly as you would if you were driving a petrol car. The great thing is that you don't have to stand around waiting for the car to charge, you can go off and do something else.

    You're implying that longer distances than the school run are somehow problematic. That's nonsense. I'm consistently getting about 170 miles of range in winter and well over 200 in summer. That's a hell of a lot of school runs, shopping trips and other local journeys, but it's also enough for a 20 mile daily commute off a single charge per week or 3 days of 25 miles each way. If you're commuting further then the fuel savings would be enormous. 100 miles per day? That's £15 in petrol or £1.50 in electricity.

    I wouldn't currently advise people to switch to EV if they don't have a reasonable low-cost charging option at or near home or work; but it's worth running the numbers depending on your situation before dismissing it out of hand. Generous BIK rates and strong residuals can make the overall monthly costs of 'owning' an EV lower than that of a lower spec fossil fuel car.

    I strongly suspect that you're mistaken if you think that there are any towns within the M25 without chargers, just because you haven't seen them doesn't mean they don't exist. Share the first part of your postcode and I'll show you a map with dozens of chargers nearby.
    If I was stopping every 150 miles, I would never get anywhere on time. Never heard of such rule. I only stop for petrol/toilet when I have to.

    Last year, I was staying in hostel in Wales which was off the the grid, they only had solar panels. There was couple in Leaf and they had to drive to the closest town (which wasn't really close) and spend there most of the day to charge their car. They said, that EV is not good yet and they don't recommend it, until cars will have longer range.

    Regarding comment from another poster, I actually have folding solar panels and power station, but power station would not be strong enough to charge a car. It has limit of 1000W.

    I don't want to change my lifestyle and adapt it to EV, because it works well with my ICE cars now. Why would I make my life more difficult?

    I checked some random map of charging points: Zap-map and according to it, there's no charging point in our town. Closest one is 2 miles away and it's another town. Next one is 2.7 miles away, another town, and then 3.3 miles away, again another town. I checked another website and it showed exactly the same. So there are towns within M25 without charging points.
  • A Prius plug in will be my next car. I can plug it in over night and that will give me enough juice to drive on electric only 90% of the time. 
    When on longer journeys it will go into normal hybrid mode and will do between 50 and 80 mpg. 
    No range anxiety as potentially can do over 600 miles on a full tank of juice and petrol. 
  • NBLondon
    NBLondon Posts: 5,698 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper Photogenic
    Look at the question again - "are people going to be forced to convert to ICE before time"?  If the tax position (both direct through VED and indirectly through local congestion/parking charges) becomes punitive before the fabulous charging infrastructure arrives then there are significant numbers of people who will be between the rock (of needing a car) and the hard place (of both options being more than they can comfortably afford).

    I'm glad to see that my local council (London Borough of Lewisham) is slowly introducing on-street charging.  Right now - they don't seem to be heavily used since all the local early adopters have driveways anyway.  If I went electric; it would require a bit of planning and the savings would probably not pay back the cost to change for some years.  But if the council continues down it's track of discouraging cars (especially ICE cars) that calculation changes.

    I'm employed with no mortgage - I can do that calculation.  There are blocks of social housing in the same neighbourhood.  .  No sign of the housing association installing chargers.  Not all of them have parking spaces anyway and some have more than one car per household.  Can they all afford a second-hand Leaf/Zoe? Will all 30 of them be fighting for 4 public chargers?  


    I need to think of something new here...
  • k6chris
    k6chris Posts: 784 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 500 Posts Name Dropper Photogenic
    If you are minded to purchase an ICE car, keep in mind that there is no deadline for ICE vans or lorries, which are diesel powered.  Diesel should be OK re fuel availability, petrol perhaps not so much?  Taxation may be an issue of course.
    "For every complicated problem, there is always a simple, wrong answer"
  • MEM62
    MEM62 Posts: 5,309 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    I notice the increase in VED across ICE cars, I wonder how far they might be willing to go to tax ICE cars off the road completely and how society might react to that?


    The truth is you can impact on a certain level of behavior through taxation but, generally speaking, will not tax people out of cars.  It has not worked in the past and will not work in the future.    
  • Grumpy_chap
    Grumpy_chap Posts: 18,230 Forumite
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    henry24 said:
    could you show me where it says it's illegal to drive more than 150 miles without taking a break as that could be as little as 90 minutes 
    I understand that type of behaviour regularly results in an early stop far less than 90 minutes with a free light show  ;)
  • henry24
    henry24 Posts: 418 Forumite
    Eighth Anniversary 100 Posts Combo Breaker
    You are right Grumpy_chap that's what happens on a phone at work that should be 130 minutes 
  • Herzlos
    Herzlos Posts: 15,851 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Photogenic Name Dropper
    henry24 said:
    Petriix  could you show me where it says it's illegal to drive more than 150 miles without taking a break as that could be as little as 90 minutes but a truck driver can drive for 270 minutes without stopping and how would the police be able to prove how long you'd been driving for 
    The highway code recommends stopping every 2-3 hours for a break. So it's not illegal but it'll definitely look bad if you cause an accident due to tiredness. 

    Drivers with a tacho need to stop every 4 (?) hours too. 

    Realistically, stopping every 150 miles isn't going to cause any real problems for non-professional drivers. The money saved in fuel will more than make up for it. You could treat yourself to a decent coffee or meal at most stops and still be better off.

    Even the travelling salesguy who does 30k miles a year almost certainly has enough admin work to occupy his refuelling stops.
  • Grumpy_chap
    Grumpy_chap Posts: 18,230 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    I checked some random map of charging points: Zap-map and according to it, there's no charging point in our town. Closest one is 2 miles away and it's another town. Next one is 2.7 miles away, another town, and then 3.3 miles away, again another town. I checked another website and it showed exactly the same. So there are towns within M25 without charging points.
    Where do you live that has all these small towns?  A town is bigger than 2 miles.  Two miles is from the church at the end of my road to the next church, it takes a reasonably unfit person 30 minutes to walk between them or a fit person 20 minutes.  "Couch to 5k" would take you well past 2 miles.  Perhaps you live in some really rural and remote part of the country where there are very small hamlets of barely more than a dozen inhabitants or so, though if that is within the M25, you'd need a car fitted with a flux capacitor also.  Either that, or your estimation of distances is rather out.
  • Some basic points

    Domestic chargers range from 230V 13A (12 hour charge) or 230V 32A (6 hour charge) - these are single phase units

    Domestic charger can only be used on private property  you cannot trail 230 power leads over public pavements and roads.

    At present only Utility companies installing Street Furnture can install 230/400V electrical equipment on public areas, roads, and pavements

    Private and publiuc car parks use 400v 32A chargers and multi-chargers - these are known as 3 
    phase units.

    It is doubtful if there are any 2 phase chargers - 2 phase used to be 440V it is no longer used or supplied unless in special installations. It cannot be used in outside locations due to the absence of an earthed centre or reference conductor.

    All EV charging points require an indepedent earth system (TT) which is not part of a different electcal system i.e house. No PME alowed

    It is unlikely that 230v charging systems will be allowed on the pavement or roadside and all charging will have to be done on private property parking, private car parks or montitored public car parks.

    Finally the EV battery is the car - there was a recent case of a £32,000 Mercedes which had a failed battery after the warranty expired - a replacement battery was priced at £34,000.
    If the battery fails - the car is scrap





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