Thinking for car change

Ergates

"That will be sufficient for a specific sector of urban dwellers who truly only need a car for local trips to shopping, school run etc"

Which, as the table shows, is the majority of car use in the UK (not just for a "specific set of urban dwellers").   No, it wouldn't be suitable for everyone all of the time, but it would be suitable for most people, most of the time.

Is that particular car good value?   No, I don't think so - given there is one for around the same price with 20k fewer miles on the clock.  Also, one result of the global pandemic has been a restriction on the availability of cars, which has significantly inflated 2nd hand car prices, so now is not a good time to be buying *any* 2nd hand car.

NBLondon

Ergates said:

Which, as the table shows, is the majority of car use in the UK (not just for a "specific set of urban dwellers").   No, it wouldn't be suitable for everyone all of the time, but it would be suitable for most people, most of the time.

I think the table shows it is the majority of trips - but not the majority of cars. If 9 out of 10 trips are less than 10 miles but the 10th is 200 miles to visit elderly relatives then the limited range solution doesn't work. Especially as that might be a weekly pattern. The very short-range solution only works if a) all trips in that vehicle are short b) there is an alternative for longer trips and emergencies and of course c) there is easy access to charging. It's a second car option more than an only car option.

Ergates

NBLondon said:

Ergates said:

Which, as the table shows, is the majority of car use in the UK (not just for a "specific set of urban dwellers").   No, it wouldn't be suitable for everyone all of the time, but it would be suitable for most people, most of the time.

I think the table shows it is the majority of trips - but not the majority of cars. If 9 out of 10 trips are less than 10 miles but the 10th is 200 miles to visit elderly relatives then the limited range solution doesn't work. Especially as that might be a weekly pattern. The very short-range solution only works if a) all trips in that vehicle are short b) there is an alternative for longer trips and emergencies and of course c) there is easy access to charging. It's a second car option more than an only car option.

Yes, *if* that is your driving pattern, you'd need alternative transport for the longer journeys.   But clearly from the data, very few people make a 200 mile journey every 10 trips (given that 99% of journeys are less than 100 miles).  But even if your every 10th journey was 20 miles, a 10 mile range car wouldn't cut it as your only form of transport - might still be OK as your only car though, depends on other options available.

However, that doesn't detract from the general point - a car with the very low range of only 10 miles would still have utility because we can infer from the data available that a lot of people drive less than 10 miles on most days.  So, the assertion that if you bought a car with a range of 25-30 miles you'd very soon be faced with a large bill to replace the batteries is not a generally true statement because the majority of people would still be able to use it for most of their day to day driving, even as the range slowly reduced with time.    Whether such a car is worth £4700 is another matter.

Herzlos

Ibrahim5 said:

Herzlos said:

Ibrahim5 said:

30 miles and decreasing all the time. Well worth the £5k then. And then pay for a new battery? Can't wait to have one of these super duper money saving machine

Like I said, even 20 miles range is enough for most people and could save them a lot of money. I wouldn't want one with less than 10 miles range, though.

A bicycle is much cheaper if it can't go any further than that.

Sure, if a bicycle is suitable.  I'd happily cycle everywhere if I could find somewhere to store the wheelchair.

Anyway. An EV with a 10 mile (though we're actually talking about an EV with 25 miles) would do most of my trips. As a 2nd car it'd be perfect. Would I pay £4700 for one? Not a chance, that's mental, but used car prices are mental at the moment. 

Also at 11 years old it's hurtling towards end of life (average age at scrapping is 13 years).

I wonder what range the other, lower mileage Leaf has. If the 25 mile range is normal or there's a problem with it. Like I said, one of my staff is getting a pretty consistent 80 miles out of the model newer with the larger battery, after 6 years of commuting.

Martyn1981

Cross_Man said:

 Perhaps others can shed more light on whether the battery can be reconditioned rather than replaced and / or the costs of battery replacement. 

Hiya, you may be interested in this vid from Bobby (Kryten) of Fully Charged. He recently got his battery replaced. He owned the 24kWh Leaf from new 2011 (I believe) and range was down to about 30 miles. He got a 40kWh battery fitted and range is now around 150 miles.

Note however, that as he stresses, this is really something specific to the early Nissan Leafs. They were at the very start of mass production BEV's, they had small batts, so for any given distance the batts get more wear, they have no active cooling. He points out that for newer BEV's you will not need to swap batteries.

Return of the LEAF: Robert drives his range extended EV home from Holland

My comments (not Bobby nor Fully Charged) - Our first BEV was a 24kWh Leaf, it could do about 60-70 miles on a charge. We had a petrol Zafira for longer journeys. As others on here have pointed out, the majority of trips though are short, so after 8 months when we decided to sell the Zafira and get a secondhand Hyundai IONIQ 28kWh BEV (130-140 miles), the Zafira had only had two tankfulls during that time, and most of the second was still in the car when traded in.

Modern BEV's should do something like 200k to 500k miles on a battery (depending on battery size and brand), but even then they will still have 70%+ range, so as an older secondhand car are still ideal for folk driving shorter distances. And even then (again) the batts can be used for stationary storage or ultimately recycled.



Regarding re-conditioning, yes that can be done, but needs each cell to be checked to find the bad ones that are dragging down the battery pack. But again, less important now, things have moved on extremely quickly.


As you point out, some people are trying to make much, about BEV's in general, based entirely on (some) early Nissan Leafs. I liked our Leaf, but compared to current Tesla with around 300 miles of range, and the ability to charge about 150-200 miles in 15 mins at a supercharger, there is no contest, times they are a changing.

PS - IONIQ is currently chugging away electrons at ~2kW from our PV generation, literally driving on sunshine!

Ibrahim5

So £4k for a specialist company in the Netherlands to put in a second hand battery from a scrapyard. But don't worry no other electric vehicle will ever need a new battery.

Martyn1981

Ibrahim5 said:

So £4k for a specialist company in the Netherlands to put in a second hand battery from a scrapyard. But don't worry no other electric vehicle will ever need a new battery.

Yep great news isn't it.

But please accept my apology, I didn't intend to make all of your earlier comments look silly and pointless by providing some facts and information.  But hopefully your concerns are now lifted.

Petriix

People getting hung up on an 11 year old EV 'only' having 30 miles range are maybe unaware that they only started with 60 miles of range. With the price around £5k, you have to remember that the resale value of the used battery is likely around £3k.

Such a vehicle probably has more value as a V2G vessel than primarily being used as a car. By way of comparison, I'm paying around £4k for a home battery with a lower usable capacity.

In any case, technology has moved on so much since then that it's hardly comparable to a modern EV. Degradation is predictable and far lower with bigger batteries that have active thermal management.

A typical pattern would be 4% lost in the first year then 3% per year thereafter; with a buffer usually hiding all of the initial degradation. That's ~ 30% loss of range after 11 years. So EVs with 200 miles initial range will still have 140.

The battery will not 'need replacing' but it may gain a reasonable portion of the lost range back by swapping out one or two modules for reconditioned ones as it's often just a couple of weak cells bringing the useable capacity down. This procedure is available today on many EV models, costing a few hundred pounds - comparable to replacing a clutch for example.

Ibrahim5

OK so you have an old EV sat on the drive that you can't get anywhere because the battery is dead. Who do you phone up to take it away and give you £3K? The local scrapyard? Specialist scrapyard?

ontheroad1970

Ibrahim5 said:

OK so you have an old EV sat on the drive that you can't get anywhere because the battery is dead. Who do you phone up to take it away and give you £3K? The local scrapyard? Specialist scrapyard?

This is getting tiresome.  This has nothing to do with the OP whatsoever. Fred, if you'd like to debate battery issues, perhaps you should open a new thread on it instead of derailing yet another thread.

Admins, I would report this but you've gone down the avenue of multiple choice buttons rather than actually give a comment box and there isn't a relevant button.  So it's self defeating.