The big fat Electric Vehicle bashing thread.

Martyn1981

Grumpy_chap said:

Ergates said:

Grumpy_chap said:

An ICE is about 1.2 miles per kWh.  Diesel car at 60 mpg and 1 gallon diesel is about 50 kWh.

An EV is about 4 miles per kWh.  Three time as efficient.

How many kWh of fossil fuel go into a power station to generate 1 kWh of electricity at the plug?

Most diesels don't get close to 60mpg, the average efficiency of a diesel is about 43 mpg, 36 mpg for petrol.
Petrol has about 44 kWh per gallon, diesel has about 45.

Then there is the energy to extract, refine and transport the fuel, which is around 4-6 kWh per gallon (lets call it 5), which, I think means the effective energy densities are: 49kWh and 50kWh.

So, an *average* petrol car runs about 0.72 miles per kWh and an average diesel runs about 0.86 miles per kWh.

Coal has about 6.7 kWh per kg.

Which is about as far as I can take it - how do you compare 1 kg of coal to a liquid....?

OK - so the EV is 4 or more time as efficient as the ICE.
BUT - that needs adjusting for kWh into the power station vs kWh out of the plug.

Thrugelmir said:

Tesla's contain between 1,000 and 3,000 microchips. The average family ICE uses between two and three dozen. 

That is a significant variance - are both the figures current?
Is the comparison like-for-like?  Do the figures compare equivalent equipment specifications of vehicle?
To compare the demand of the two technologies, any chips associated with "non-core" functions such as in-car entertainment, electronic boot release, heated seats, etc., etc. should be discounted.  It is a separate choice whether to have or not have a 16-speaker stereo in an ICE or an EV.

Coal generation is about 33% efficient, but the UK uses very little now. Gas generation is about 50% to 60% efficient with CCGT's* and makes up the vast bulk of UK FF generation, which itself has dropped from about 75% about a decade ago, to just under 40% now.

* Combined cycle gas turbines, there are also OCGT's (open cycle gas turbines) which are only about 35% efficient and are used for peaking services and firm frequency response, they are little more than jet engines, and generate a tiny percentage of our leccy. Batteries are starting to win the peaking and FFR contract roles from them.

So 2kWh's of gas will after generation and distribution losses provide about 1kWh of leccy, but of course the majority of leccy gen is now low carbon (RE (40%+) and nuclear (18%)), so actual CO2 emissions 'from' the BEV need to be reduced further. Also of great importance though is that power stations have scrubbers and other systems to reduce pollution, whereas ICEV's distribute their emissions on the road causing localised pollution, and worsening air quality in cities.


Good point you make about leccy gadgets in cars, since ICEV's are fundamentally inefficient at converting petrol or diesel into motive power, but then when some of that power is taken off to operate the alternator, then you have leccy generation efficiency probably closer to 10%, which is another bonus for BEV's (and PHEV's if it's plugged in to charge).

dipsomaniac

When you can buy a ev for the same price as my focus (£200) I'm all in🙂

[Deleted User]

dipsomaniac said:

When you can buy a ev for the same price as my focus (£200) I'm all in🙂

Haha yes me too, well actually a 7 seater for £10k would do me fine.

I think you have a good point though, people have a budget and money saving is more than just saving a few quid on fuel, if you pay significantly less for your car in the first place then an EV can't touch it for economy.

There are 120,000 cars on Autotrader for less than £10k yet less than 0.1% of them are EV's - there just isn't any choice in the budget range.



Between £10k and £17k there are a further 126,000 cars but only 325 EV's - just 0.26%



Out of a quarter of a million cars on sale on Autotrader only 442 are EV's up to £17k. No choice right now.

As I've said in earlier comments, I'm not anti-EV but there are easier ways to save money, just spend less on the car and you can pocket the different.  The 0.1% - 0.26% example above just shows how niche EV is for budget minded buyers and the total lack of choice - I'm not scraping the bottom of the barrel for my 2nd hand car.

There are lots of comments on this thread about buying a new £20-25k EV being so cheap to run, but compare that to a 2nd hand £10k ICE and you have no chance.

And there are still ICE options that makes EV's look uneconomical, take my use case - a 1,000 miles of road trip with 6 or 7 people in the car simply cannot be done as cheaply, quickly or easily as I do in my 7 seater diesel - and it only needed one stop for fuel and still had more range left than most EV's.

Herzlos

Deleted_User said:

And there are still ICE options that makes EV's look uneconomical, take my use case - a 1,000 miles of road trip with 6 or 7 people in the car simply cannot be done as cheaply, quickly or easily as I do in my 7 seater diesel - and it only needed one stop for fuel and still had more range left than most EV's.

True, the only 7+ seater EV's only do about 100-ish miles to a charge. Except for the Tesla Model X which has 350 miles but costs so much most of us can rule it out. I'd hate to be in fold-up seats in the back of a 7 seater for 1000 miles with a single fuel stop though, that'll have been miserable.
Of course, doing the same run in an 8 seat EV (say the Vivaro Life, ~100 mile range) will save you about 75% of your fuel bill even if it took much longer to achieve. I wouldn't recommend it unless you've got plenty of time. 
It'd still save you your 75% fuel bill for all the other journeys, too.

There aren't many used EV's on the market for lower prices, because there aren't that many EV's which are old enough yet.

The newest car I can find on Autotrader for under £500 (lowest search band) that isn't spares/repair, MOT failure or with serious damage is 22 years old (X reg). There's nothing under £200 that works.

The oldest EV on autotrader is an 11 year old Leaf. So we've got another 11 years before EV's are old enough to be looking at that kind of price point though I suspect they won't drop under whatever the battery value is unless they are scrap, so they may end up with a price floor of maybe £2000.

That said, not everyone wants to drive the absolute cheapest car they can find. Cars have improved vastly in every way over the last 2 decades. My 2020 car is notably nicer than my 2015 car, which was nicer than my 2010 car, and so on, despite them all being in a similar class. My X reg car before I wrote it off was crap. I think all it came with was a drivers airbag and a cassette/radio.

[Deleted User]

Herzlos said:

True, the only 7+ seater EV's only do about 100-ish miles to a charge. Except for the Tesla Model X which has 350 miles but costs so much most of us can rule it out. I'd hate to be in fold-up seats in the back of a 7 seater for 1000 miles with a single fuel stop though, that'll have been miserable.
Of course, doing the same run in an 8 seat EV (say the Vivaro Life, ~100 mile range) will save you about 75% of your fuel bill even if it took much longer to achieve. I wouldn't recommend it unless you've got plenty of time. 
It'd still save you your 75% fuel bill for all the other journeys, too.

I did the 1,000 mile road trip over a few days with full size 3rd row seats in a Ford Galaxy but the 6/7 seats were occupied by kids anyway so even fold ups would have been good enough. The destination was 350 miles and included a ferry to Ireland but exploring during the holiday totted us up to the 1,000 miles.

I did it in a £12k 2nd hand car vs £30k+ for a Vivaro Life EV. I wouldn't have been able to afford to holiday if I'd bought a Vivaro, not that they were available when I did the trip.

I now have a Ford S-Max with the fold out seats for 3rd row because I only do a 6/7 passenger journey a few times a month, but each one saves me a small fortune by not having to get a taxi / hire car etc that easily offsets EV cost.

Anyway, that 7 seat thing is a bit niche as somebody pointed out earlier, just like the people who have solar panels, 5p unit elec, home battery and space to charge a car at home.

My main point was that people with a reasonable budget - up to £17k have a choice of just 442 EV's out of a quarter of a million cars on Autotrader.

Buy a £10k car like I did instead of a £25k MG5 / Leaf / Zoe etc and it will work out cheaper over 10 years depending on annual mileage. And I got just as many high spec driver convenience and safety features, if not more than the £25k EV's are offering.

dipsomaniac

Herzlos said:

Deleted_User said:

And there are still ICE options that makes EV's look uneconomical, take my use case - a 1,000 miles of road trip with 6 or 7 people in the car simply cannot be done as cheaply, quickly or easily as I do in my 7 seater diesel - and it only needed one stop for fuel and still had more range left than most EV's.

That said, not everyone wants to drive the absolute cheapest car they can find. Cars have improved vastly in every way over the last 2 decades. My 2020 car is notably nicer than my 2015 car, which was nicer than my 2010 car, and so on, despite them all being in a similar class. My X reg car before I wrote it off was crap. I think all it came with was a drivers airbag and a cassette/radio.

I drove a 2021 Hyundai last week and I would rather drive my £200 (Facebook marketplace 2.5 yrs ago) 2003 focus any day of the week.  The steering and suspension on the 2021 car was too soft, buzzers and pings were constantly going off on the dash. I didn't like the auto parking brake.  Have no idea how much a headlight bulb would cost but I am sure I'd would be more than the £3 (5 mins to fit) on my focus

MacPingu1986

dipsomaniac said:

Herzlos said:

Deleted_User said:

And there are still ICE options that makes EV's look uneconomical, take my use case - a 1,000 miles of road trip with 6 or 7 people in the car simply cannot be done as cheaply, quickly or easily as I do in my 7 seater diesel - and it only needed one stop for fuel and still had more range left than most EV's.

That said, not everyone wants to drive the absolute cheapest car they can find. Cars have improved vastly in every way over the last 2 decades. My 2020 car is notably nicer than my 2015 car, which was nicer than my 2010 car, and so on, despite them all being in a similar class. My X reg car before I wrote it off was crap. I think all it came with was a drivers airbag and a cassette/radio.

I drove a 2021 Hyundai last week and I would rather drive my £200 (Facebook marketplace 2.5 yrs ago) 2003 focus any day of the week.  The steering and suspension on the 2021 car was too soft, buzzers and pings were constantly going off on the dash. I didn't like the auto parking brake.  Have no idea how much a headlight bulb would cost but I am sure I'd would be more than the £3 (5 mins to fit) on my focus

We all have our own preferences, but whether someone prefers the steering or suspension on an older car compared to a newer car isn't relevant to whether that car is EV vs ICE. To follow on from Hezlo's point above -  the % of drivers who want to drive the absolute cheapest car possible is very small, for those drivers EV's arn't for them at the moment, but likely will be in future.

This is the big point whenever the "new vs used" point comes up... That used car was new once - without new cars coming on the market there won't be the used cars for people to subsequently buy cheaper. There arn't many cheap used EV's on the market now - but that's changing as the market matures.

Petriix

People keep going on about the purchase price as if it's an absolute limiting factor. But anyone with access to sufficient credit isn't limited in that way. If you're only paying 2% interest on that £20k, it's just £33 per month. if you're saving £100 on fuel then you can factor in the cost of the interest. For me, running a £23k EV has been cheaper than running a £200 banger.

Herzlos

Deleted_User said:

My main point was that people with a reasonable budget - up to £17k have a choice of just 442 EV's out of a quarter of a million cars on Autotrader.

Oh I totally get that. The thing is you won't be able to make the same claim in another few years; the problem is that EV's, particularly 6+ seaters are too new to have hit that price point yet. Wait until the current fleet of Berlingo/Combo Life/Rifters hit 3/4 years old and you'll get a lot more choice of electric 7 seaters for your £17k bracket. Personally, as soon as Vivaro Life SE is available under £20k I'll be ripping the dealers arm off for it.

You are still of course focused on the purchase price of the car and not the total cost of ownership. It's entirely possible that a £25k EV could be cheaper to run over a few years than a £10k diesel, though it's entirely possible it won't either. If you're driving into a chargeable congestion zone it's almost a no brainer.

Thrugelmir

Petriix said:

People keep going on about the purchase price as if it's an absolute limiting factor. But anyone with access to sufficient credit isn't limited in that way. If you're only paying 2% interest on that £20k, it's just £33 per month. if you're saving £100 on fuel then you can factor in the cost of the interest. For me, running a £23k EV has been cheaper than running a £200 banger.

The days of 2% interest rates will soon be in the past. That's if you could get that rate in the first place. 

The limiting factor for the average person will be affordability in accessing £20k plus credit facilities.