The big fat Electric Vehicle bashing thread.

Petriix

DB1904 said:

Petriix said:

Ibrahim5 said:

The figures in the spreadsheet don't even add up. No such thing as equity only depreciation. Fuel costs and VED will be less with electric car though dependent on charging at home. Depreciation greater for electric car although appreciate market distorted at the moment. Probably not much difference in total. Main reason to change would be 'going green'. Secondary effects are interesting though. If I bought an electric car I couldn't do the European driving that I am used to. Rail fares are horrendous. I would probably just fly more. Would that be good?

The numbers do add up - only the depreciation is a cost; the repayment of £220 minus the increased equity equals the depreciation. The equity figure is real and important to account for, otherwise you're assuming that the car is worth nothing. Here's the same figures without the offending 'equity':



I've paid out about £6700 in total (including mortgage overpayments), but now owe £17k against a > £22k car. That £5k in equity would be in my pocket (or a deposit on whatever car I replace it with) if I sold it today. So the actual total cost of ownership has been ~ £1700 for 16 months and 14k miles.

The equivalent cost of running the old diesel would have been at least £3k - about £2k in fuel, £800 just to scrape through the MOT in 2020 then a couple of years of VED, a couple of oil changes, another MOT in 2021. So that's objectively at least £1300 saved. 

Now there's currently only 1 MG5 on Autotrader for under £23k so that £5k equity is pretty conservative. It's more like £6k or more, but it's reasonable to assume that prices will settle in the long term. However, with inflation so high, it's not unreasonable to believe that second hand prices might remain fairly constant while new prices continue to escalate.

The only real costs I've had are ~ £400 in interest, £160 for electricity and a £33 service. Everything else I've paid is retained in the value of the car.

But it gets better still. Because I have an EV I was able to switch to Octopus Go in January and fix at 5p off peak, 24p peak, 24p per day standing charge. I've shifted half my home usage to the off peak window so I'm averaging ~ 15p per kWh for my home usage, plus the lower standing charge. That's saving me over £250 vs being stuck on the price cap.

That's a total cost of £350, a saving of over £2500, for the pleasure of upgrading a 16 year old banger to a brand new EV.

Now I'm fully aware that depreciation might accelerate. But it's got a long way to go just to cover that £2500 before it's actually cost me anything. And the savings vs diesel will keep increasing too.

I look forward to some further irrational dispute with my figures. 

You have also failed to appreciate that ICE cars have also increased in value. 

That's a totally valid point. 

It's possible that there might have been value for someone (in hindsight) to pay the £800 to keep my old car on the road. It might be worth £500 now rather than having been scrapped.

It's more viable to suggest that the hypothetical Golf estate I might have bought would have increased in value by £2k. But that still doesn't fully cover the reduced running costs.

How's your crystal ball when it comes to future prices? Would a 10 year old Golf have depreciated sufficiently less than a 7 year old MG5 to offset the difference in running costs?

I'd estimate the savings at a conservative £1500 per year, so £10,500 over 7 years. The cheapest 7 year old EVs (excluding battery lease Zoes) are ~ £9k right now. I'd be surprised if my MG5 was worth less than £10k by the end of 2027. I'm optimistic that they'll be highly sought after as there will be millions of people looking for the best value EVs.

So that 10 year old £13k Golf would need to be worth at least £10,500 at the same point in order to break even with the new MG5. Possible, maybe. So I could have spent £10k less on the purchase to spend £10k more on the running costs. All for the privilege of driving an older car, pumping out 15 tonnes of CO2 and a whole lot of localised particulate emissions. 

DB1904

grumiofoundation said:

iwb100 said:

grumiofoundation said:

iwb100 said:

Herzlos said:

DB1904 said:

Herzlos said:

I don't mean travelling over 100 miles without stopping is extreme, just that for most people it's not really an issue as they can have a coffee/lunch/explore or whatever. 

I do get that EVs may not be suited to a once a year trek across the country and back (although many EV owners don't find it a problem), but I'm not sure it's that big a deal to that many people given the inconvenience is twice a year. It's also worth noting that many households have multiple cars, so many people have the option of using the other ICE car for the holiday road trip.


As for freedom, people can already live and visit where they want; they just tend to want to live close to work and shop close to home and so on.

I'm not convinced anyone can get 12p/mile out of an ICE car now.  50mpg at £1.50/l is 14p/mile

Explore a motorway services. Are you serious?

Be a bit more imaginative. You can charge places that aren't motorway services, so break road trips up by stopping at nice places whilst you charge. 

After 2 hours sat in a car then a short walk around a lake or beach or whatever will do everyone good. We usually do that when traveling with the kids anyway.

 But most people can’t be imaginative. If your journey is on a bank holiday down the M6 and M5 for example with your family and all and sundry are also on the road you aren’t going to get people taking detours. They need to get from Cumbria to Cornwall or wherever and they aren’t driving miles out of their way with their young kids in tow. So you need an infrastructure to support the weight of motorway traffic when the majority of it is EVs that allows people either far greater range than exists or simply has charging points in sufficient numbers to support the on road traffic in these sorts of peak scenarios. Service stations each need hundreds and hundreds of working charging points. I don’t think that’s contentious or even necessarily the full extent.

Once that happens I think majority EV ownership might become viable. But it’s an infrastructure issue. And as much as you now talk about ‘oh change your route and lifestyle to accommodate it’ that doesn’t work for most people and also doesn’t work as the number of EVs on the road increases. You aren’t going to want hundreds and hundreds of cars pottering off into Warwick cos they need a charge and it’s better to explore. It’s just backing up problems. People need ready charging on route. I think people can sacrifice charging taking half an hour. Over say 10 minutes to fill up. But they can’t be expected to queue for an hour for a charger then hang around another half hour. Doomed to failure without the infrastructure. 

Obviously that is true but the infrastructure wasn't there for petrol to replace horses. Why didn't that fail?


(I'm not arguing that infrastructure doesn't need improving - it does, and improvement is hit and miss).

Will hundreds of chargers actually be needed at each service station in the long term?
New electric cars have not dissimilar ranges to ICE vehicles. So surely electric cars will only need to charge as regularly* as cars fill up. But as you say takes longer if we use 30 minutes versus 10 minutes would mean 3x the number of rapid chargers needed as petrol pumps?  (Having not been through how many petrol pumps does a service station have 10? 20?) 

*will actually be lower than the number of petrol cars needing to fill up since many cars will charge overnight** and some will never/rarely need to use rapid chargers. 

**this infrastructure needs improving/a solution for those w.o. off-street parking - could argue is actually the bigger issue.

I suspect because the introduction of automobiles was very gradual and had time for the infrastructure to catch up. You now have 30 odd million cars on the road and growing….

I think the problem is bigger than you think. Currently on a long journey like that I’d probably fill up at the services after we’d stopped for a half hour lunch and toilet break. So get to services. Bob in for a sandwich, change and toilet the kids. Back into car, top up at station, which I think on a normal day is under 10 minutes, and then off.

That’s 40 minutes break.

I think you could achieve that in an EV only if there is a charger there and ready waiting for you. Which is obviously the challenge. 

Then you have the problem of what happens when you get where you are going. I’m not convinced that if we are staying with the in laws in rural Devon who don’t have ev charging will be happy for us to plug into their wall sockets…

This is the challenge for infrastructure…it’s fine now for early buyers. It becomes less fine unless the infrastructure improves in line with adoption. And we know already it isn’t. 

As I said I'm not arguing with the need for improved infrastructure (it is improving by the way), but I think you are exaggerating the problems with your claim that 'hundreds and hundreds' of chargers are needed at every service station, maybe I am missing something but I don't see why this many will actually be needed. 

Obviously there is not much anyone can do if the ability to charge a car exists cheaply but people don't take advantage (e.g outside 3-pin plug on a separate circuit costs a few hundred pounds - also useful for any other electric items one might use outside).

How many do you think will be needed to cope with weekend holiday traffic?

Petriix

Grumpy_chap said:

grumiofoundation said:

Ibrahim5 said:

The figures in the spreadsheet don't even add up. No such thing as equity only depreciation. Fuel costs and VED will be less with electric car though dependent on charging at home. Depreciation greater for electric car although appreciate market distorted at the moment. Probably not much difference in total. Main reason to change would be 'going green'. Secondary effects are interesting though. If I bought an electric car I couldn't do the European driving that I am used to. Rail fares are horrendous. I would probably just fly more. Would that be good?

Speaking of figures that don't add up (well I suppose technically as you haven't provided any numbers there is no way they could) it might help if you provided figures rather than unsubstantiated statements with no such as "Depreciation greater for electric car" 

How did you calculate that depreciation for electric cars is greater than petrol cars? Is this all cars, new cars, second hand cars?


Regarding which is more polluting - running an electric car for the vast majority of your journeys and taking a small number of flights versus a petrol car for all journeys will depend on how many flights you take/miles you drive.

The spreadsheet referenced is one originally by Petriix and included a few posts higher up thread.

The pro-EV group always say that depreciation is lower, whereas it seems obvious to me that depreciation must be higher.  The thing is, this does depend on how the depreciation is assessed. 

In the short-term, EVs are holding value very well.  This is in part distorted by supply-constrained market also meaning that ICE cars are holding value better than would normally expected.  I think we can discount that distortion from long-term and general assessment of depreciation.

Regardless, in the short term, EVs are still holding more retained value compared to ICE.  This is because of short supply of used EV compared to ICE.  That supply imbalance will expire at some time.

The PCP deals are also producing comparable monthly payments in many cases for EV compared to ICE.

However, someone at some point has to pay the higher depreciation over the life of the vehicle.  I will use an example comparing "same" car as ICE vs EV:

• Vauxhall Corsa ICE, from £17,330
• Life = 15 years
• Scrap value £330
• Depreciation = £17k.  £1,133 per year.

• Vauxhall Corsa EV, from £27,055
• Life = 15 years
• Scrap value £3,055 - assuming that the battery will have a value for re-purposing
• Depreciation = £24k.  £1,600 per year.

Based on that type of assessment, it is clear that the depreciation for an EV is greater than the depreciation for an ICE and cannot be anything else.
Depreciation may be similar (or lower) for first-owner of EV, but the higher depreciation has to be borne by someone at some point.

I am quite happy to accept that total cost of ownership will very likely be favourable for the EV compared to the ICE.  The big challenge here is, someone with £15k to get a car will probably find a way to afford the ICE Corsa whereas the EV Corsa is totally out of reach so the lower TOTEX is never available for them.

That's totally reasonable. I'll accept that long-term depreciation on the EV will probably be higher (although you missed the boat with the pre-reg Corsa-Es at around £21k). Don't forget to factor in the cost of borrowing the extra £10k too so add another £2k.

Even if you paid £10k more for the EV, that's just £64 per month in repayments (if, like me, you add it to your mortgage). Your savings in running costs will be greater than that. 

DB1904

Petriix said:

DB1904 said:

Petriix said:

Ibrahim5 said:

The figures in the spreadsheet don't even add up. No such thing as equity only depreciation. Fuel costs and VED will be less with electric car though dependent on charging at home. Depreciation greater for electric car although appreciate market distorted at the moment. Probably not much difference in total. Main reason to change would be 'going green'. Secondary effects are interesting though. If I bought an electric car I couldn't do the European driving that I am used to. Rail fares are horrendous. I would probably just fly more. Would that be good?

The numbers do add up - only the depreciation is a cost; the repayment of £220 minus the increased equity equals the depreciation. The equity figure is real and important to account for, otherwise you're assuming that the car is worth nothing. Here's the same figures without the offending 'equity':



I've paid out about £6700 in total (including mortgage overpayments), but now owe £17k against a > £22k car. That £5k in equity would be in my pocket (or a deposit on whatever car I replace it with) if I sold it today. So the actual total cost of ownership has been ~ £1700 for 16 months and 14k miles.

The equivalent cost of running the old diesel would have been at least £3k - about £2k in fuel, £800 just to scrape through the MOT in 2020 then a couple of years of VED, a couple of oil changes, another MOT in 2021. So that's objectively at least £1300 saved. 

Now there's currently only 1 MG5 on Autotrader for under £23k so that £5k equity is pretty conservative. It's more like £6k or more, but it's reasonable to assume that prices will settle in the long term. However, with inflation so high, it's not unreasonable to believe that second hand prices might remain fairly constant while new prices continue to escalate.

The only real costs I've had are ~ £400 in interest, £160 for electricity and a £33 service. Everything else I've paid is retained in the value of the car.

But it gets better still. Because I have an EV I was able to switch to Octopus Go in January and fix at 5p off peak, 24p peak, 24p per day standing charge. I've shifted half my home usage to the off peak window so I'm averaging ~ 15p per kWh for my home usage, plus the lower standing charge. That's saving me over £250 vs being stuck on the price cap.

That's a total cost of £350, a saving of over £2500, for the pleasure of upgrading a 16 year old banger to a brand new EV.

Now I'm fully aware that depreciation might accelerate. But it's got a long way to go just to cover that £2500 before it's actually cost me anything. And the savings vs diesel will keep increasing too.

I look forward to some further irrational dispute with my figures. 

You have also failed to appreciate that ICE cars have also increased in value. 

That's a totally valid point. 

It's possible that there might have been value for someone (in hindsight) to pay the £800 to keep my old car on the road. It might be worth £500 now rather than having been scrapped.

It's more viable to suggest that the hypothetical Golf estate I might have bought would have increased in value by £2k. But that still doesn't fully cover the reduced running costs.

How's your crystal ball when it comes to future prices? Would a 10 year old Golf have depreciated sufficiently less than a 7 year old MG5 to offset the difference in running costs?

I'd estimate the savings at a conservative £1500 per year, so £10,500 over 7 years. The cheapest 7 year old EVs (excluding battery lease Zoes) are ~ £9k right now. I'd be surprised if my MG5 was worth less than £10k by the end of 2027. I'm optimistic that they'll be highly sought after as there will be millions of people looking for the best value EVs.

So that 10 year old £13k Golf would need to be worth at least £10,500 at the same point in order to break even with the new MG5. Possible, maybe. So I could have spent £10k less on the purchase to spend £10k more on the running costs. All for the privilege of driving an older car, pumping out 15 tonnes of CO2 and a whole lot of localised particulate emissions. 

I know of several ICE cars that that have gone up more than your 2k.

Interesting how you talk about MG as if it's a desirable brand. I can't see there being a great demand for a used on once the mainstream makers are competing with them. 

Herzlos

grumiofoundation said:

Herzlos said:

Grumpy_chap said:

grumiofoundation said:

Ibrahim5 said:

The figures in the spreadsheet don't even add up. No such thing as equity only depreciation. Fuel costs and VED will be less with electric car though dependent on charging at home. Depreciation greater for electric car although appreciate market distorted at the moment. Probably not much difference in total. Main reason to change would be 'going green'. Secondary effects are interesting though. If I bought an electric car I couldn't do the European driving that I am used to. Rail fares are horrendous. I would probably just fly more. Would that be good?

Speaking of figures that don't add up (well I suppose technically as you haven't provided any numbers there is no way they could) it might help if you provided figures rather than unsubstantiated statements with no such as "Depreciation greater for electric car" 

How did you calculate that depreciation for electric cars is greater than petrol cars? Is this all cars, new cars, second hand cars?


Regarding which is more polluting - running an electric car for the vast majority of your journeys and taking a small number of flights versus a petrol car for all journeys will depend on how many flights you take/miles you drive.

The spreadsheet referenced is one originally by Petriix and included a few posts higher up thread.

The pro-EV group always say that depreciation is lower, whereas it seems obvious to me that depreciation must be higher.  The thing is, this does depend on how the depreciation is assessed. 

In the short-term, EVs are holding value very well.  This is in part distorted by supply-constrained market also meaning that ICE cars are holding value better than would normally expected.  I think we can discount that distortion from long-term and general assessment of depreciation.

Regardless, in the short term, EVs are still holding more retained value compared to ICE.  This is because of short supply of used EV compared to ICE.  That supply imbalance will expire at some time.

The PCP deals are also producing comparable monthly payments in many cases for EV compared to ICE.

However, someone at some point has to pay the higher depreciation over the life of the vehicle.  I will use an example comparing "same" car as ICE vs EV:

• Vauxhall Corsa ICE, from £17,330
• Life = 15 years
• Scrap value £330
• Depreciation = £17k.  £1,133 per year.

• Vauxhall Corsa EV, from £27,055
• Life = 15 years
• Scrap value £3,055 - assuming that the battery will have a value for re-purposing
• Depreciation = £24k.  £1,600 per year.

Based on that type of assessment, it is clear that the depreciation for an EV is greater than the depreciation for an ICE and cannot be anything else.
Depreciation may be similar (or lower) for first-owner of EV, but the higher depreciation has to be borne by someone at some point.

I am quite happy to accept that total cost of ownership will very likely be favourable for the EV compared to the ICE.  The big challenge here is, someone with £15k to get a car will probably find a way to afford the ICE Corsa whereas the EV Corsa is totally out of reach so the lower TOTEX is never available for them.

Ok, sure, a more expensive car will have a higher depreciation in absolute terms, but I don't think it'll actually work out that way as the ev price will be kept higher due to higher demand due to the lower running costs. 

At least you've conceded the EV is going to be cheaper to actually run. 

It's also worth noting that the base EV will be higher spec and higher performance than the base ICE, I'd need to do a bit of research to figure out the closest parity point spec wise. 

I do see the posters point but it does assume average lifespan of EV/ICE car will be the same. 

With increases in battery technology will this be the case? Is it the case now for older electric vehicles?

I guess it depends on how quickly the battery degrades. If we assume a 3% drop a year, then a 15 year old car could still have 60 miles of range (assuming it started with 100) and could be fine for much longer. Other than that, there's less to go wrong so it's less likely to be written off due to a big bill, so we may actually get longer out of them.

I suspect the depreciation curve will be a lot shallower, too. In normal times a 10+ year old Corsa is worth pretty much scrap value until it's finally scrapped, but I don't think the same will apply to an EV which is going to have the price held artificially high due to the running costs right up until the point it gets scrapped and the last owner is stuck with it.

Assuming an EV saves an average owner £500/year in fuel and servicing (a pretty low estimate) then the EV is always going to be worth at least £500 more than the ICE.

I do wonder what'll happen to ICE and particularly diesel prices in 10 years time since they'll be likely to be facing big bills (DPF stuff) and won't be able to compete with EV's for cost, but will be inflated slightly by a lack of supply. By the time we get to 2030, will be there enough people who still need or insist on a diesel to keep the prices up?

Petriix

DB1904 said:

Petriix said:

DB1904 said:

Petriix said:

Ibrahim5 said:

The figures in the spreadsheet don't even add up. No such thing as equity only depreciation. Fuel costs and VED will be less with electric car though dependent on charging at home. Depreciation greater for electric car although appreciate market distorted at the moment. Probably not much difference in total. Main reason to change would be 'going green'. Secondary effects are interesting though. If I bought an electric car I couldn't do the European driving that I am used to. Rail fares are horrendous. I would probably just fly more. Would that be good?

The numbers do add up - only the depreciation is a cost; the repayment of £220 minus the increased equity equals the depreciation. The equity figure is real and important to account for, otherwise you're assuming that the car is worth nothing. Here's the same figures without the offending 'equity':



I've paid out about £6700 in total (including mortgage overpayments), but now owe £17k against a > £22k car. That £5k in equity would be in my pocket (or a deposit on whatever car I replace it with) if I sold it today. So the actual total cost of ownership has been ~ £1700 for 16 months and 14k miles.

The equivalent cost of running the old diesel would have been at least £3k - about £2k in fuel, £800 just to scrape through the MOT in 2020 then a couple of years of VED, a couple of oil changes, another MOT in 2021. So that's objectively at least £1300 saved. 

Now there's currently only 1 MG5 on Autotrader for under £23k so that £5k equity is pretty conservative. It's more like £6k or more, but it's reasonable to assume that prices will settle in the long term. However, with inflation so high, it's not unreasonable to believe that second hand prices might remain fairly constant while new prices continue to escalate.

The only real costs I've had are ~ £400 in interest, £160 for electricity and a £33 service. Everything else I've paid is retained in the value of the car.

But it gets better still. Because I have an EV I was able to switch to Octopus Go in January and fix at 5p off peak, 24p peak, 24p per day standing charge. I've shifted half my home usage to the off peak window so I'm averaging ~ 15p per kWh for my home usage, plus the lower standing charge. That's saving me over £250 vs being stuck on the price cap.

That's a total cost of £350, a saving of over £2500, for the pleasure of upgrading a 16 year old banger to a brand new EV.

Now I'm fully aware that depreciation might accelerate. But it's got a long way to go just to cover that £2500 before it's actually cost me anything. And the savings vs diesel will keep increasing too.

I look forward to some further irrational dispute with my figures. 

You have also failed to appreciate that ICE cars have also increased in value. 

That's a totally valid point. 

It's possible that there might have been value for someone (in hindsight) to pay the £800 to keep my old car on the road. It might be worth £500 now rather than having been scrapped.

It's more viable to suggest that the hypothetical Golf estate I might have bought would have increased in value by £2k. But that still doesn't fully cover the reduced running costs.

How's your crystal ball when it comes to future prices? Would a 10 year old Golf have depreciated sufficiently less than a 7 year old MG5 to offset the difference in running costs?

I'd estimate the savings at a conservative £1500 per year, so £10,500 over 7 years. The cheapest 7 year old EVs (excluding battery lease Zoes) are ~ £9k right now. I'd be surprised if my MG5 was worth less than £10k by the end of 2027. I'm optimistic that they'll be highly sought after as there will be millions of people looking for the best value EVs.

So that 10 year old £13k Golf would need to be worth at least £10,500 at the same point in order to break even with the new MG5. Possible, maybe. So I could have spent £10k less on the purchase to spend £10k more on the running costs. All for the privilege of driving an older car, pumping out 15 tonnes of CO2 and a whole lot of localised particulate emissions. 

I know of several ICE cars that that have gone up more than your 2k.

Interesting how you talk about MG as if it's a desirable brand. I can't see there being a great demand for a used on once the mainstream makers are competing with them. 

The MG EVs are desirable because they're cheaper per mile of range than any other EVs and will remain so. They're also far more practical in terms of size than the closest equivalent EVs in terms of price.

The mainstream market will never be competitive with the MGs. Because they don't have an equivalent value model now, they won't have an equivalent value second hand option in 7 years. 4 year old Konas still cost more than my 1 year old MG cost when new. What 7 year old EV will have > 150 miles of range for a comparable price? I can't think of one from the current market. 

Thrugelmir

ComicGeek said:

Thrugelmir said:

ComicGeek said:

iwb100 said:

Herzlos said:

DB1904 said:

Herzlos said:

I don't mean travelling over 100 miles without stopping is extreme, just that for most people it's not really an issue as they can have a coffee/lunch/explore or whatever. 

I do get that EVs may not be suited to a once a year trek across the country and back (although many EV owners don't find it a problem), but I'm not sure it's that big a deal to that many people given the inconvenience is twice a year. It's also worth noting that many households have multiple cars, so many people have the option of using the other ICE car for the holiday road trip.


As for freedom, people can already live and visit where they want; they just tend to want to live close to work and shop close to home and so on.

I'm not convinced anyone can get 12p/mile out of an ICE car now.  50mpg at £1.50/l is 14p/mile

Explore a motorway services. Are you serious?

Be a bit more imaginative. You can charge places that aren't motorway services, so break road trips up by stopping at nice places whilst you charge. 

After 2 hours sat in a car then a short walk around a lake or beach or whatever will do everyone good. We usually do that when traveling with the kids anyway.

 But most people can’t be imaginative. If your journey is on a bank holiday down the M6 and M5 for example with your family and all and sundry are also on the road you aren’t going to get people taking detours. They need to get from Cumbria to Cornwall or wherever and they aren’t driving miles out of their way with their young kids in tow. So you need an infrastructure to support the weight of motorway traffic when the majority of it is EVs that allows people either far greater range than exists or simply has charging points in sufficient numbers to support the on road traffic in these sorts of peak scenarios. Service stations each need hundreds and hundreds of working charging points. I don’t think that’s contentious or even necessarily the full extent.

Once that happens I think majority EV ownership might become viable. But it’s an infrastructure issue. And as much as you now talk about ‘oh change your route and lifestyle to accommodate it’ that doesn’t work for most people and also doesn’t work as the number of EVs on the road increases. You aren’t going to want hundreds and hundreds of cars pottering off into Warwick cos they need a charge and it’s better to explore. It’s just backing up problems. People need ready charging on route. I think people can sacrifice charging taking half an hour. Over say 10 minutes to fill up. But they can’t be expected to queue for an hour for a charger then hang around another half hour. Doomed to failure without the infrastructure. 

I have done many thousands of miles in my EV, have only used a public charger once - the required reliance on a massive charger infrastructure is massively overstated for the vast majority of people. If you always left home with a full tank of petrol, how often would you actually need to fill up when out?

What EV do you drive? 

It's a Skoda Enyaq 80.

Not a vehicle affordable to the mass market. Range comes at a price. 

ComicGeek

DB1904 said:

grumiofoundation said:

iwb100 said:

grumiofoundation said:

iwb100 said:

Herzlos said:

DB1904 said:

Herzlos said:

I don't mean travelling over 100 miles without stopping is extreme, just that for most people it's not really an issue as they can have a coffee/lunch/explore or whatever. 

I do get that EVs may not be suited to a once a year trek across the country and back (although many EV owners don't find it a problem), but I'm not sure it's that big a deal to that many people given the inconvenience is twice a year. It's also worth noting that many households have multiple cars, so many people have the option of using the other ICE car for the holiday road trip.


As for freedom, people can already live and visit where they want; they just tend to want to live close to work and shop close to home and so on.

I'm not convinced anyone can get 12p/mile out of an ICE car now.  50mpg at £1.50/l is 14p/mile

Explore a motorway services. Are you serious?

Be a bit more imaginative. You can charge places that aren't motorway services, so break road trips up by stopping at nice places whilst you charge. 

After 2 hours sat in a car then a short walk around a lake or beach or whatever will do everyone good. We usually do that when traveling with the kids anyway.

 But most people can’t be imaginative. If your journey is on a bank holiday down the M6 and M5 for example with your family and all and sundry are also on the road you aren’t going to get people taking detours. They need to get from Cumbria to Cornwall or wherever and they aren’t driving miles out of their way with their young kids in tow. So you need an infrastructure to support the weight of motorway traffic when the majority of it is EVs that allows people either far greater range than exists or simply has charging points in sufficient numbers to support the on road traffic in these sorts of peak scenarios. Service stations each need hundreds and hundreds of working charging points. I don’t think that’s contentious or even necessarily the full extent.

Once that happens I think majority EV ownership might become viable. But it’s an infrastructure issue. And as much as you now talk about ‘oh change your route and lifestyle to accommodate it’ that doesn’t work for most people and also doesn’t work as the number of EVs on the road increases. You aren’t going to want hundreds and hundreds of cars pottering off into Warwick cos they need a charge and it’s better to explore. It’s just backing up problems. People need ready charging on route. I think people can sacrifice charging taking half an hour. Over say 10 minutes to fill up. But they can’t be expected to queue for an hour for a charger then hang around another half hour. Doomed to failure without the infrastructure. 

Obviously that is true but the infrastructure wasn't there for petrol to replace horses. Why didn't that fail?


(I'm not arguing that infrastructure doesn't need improving - it does, and improvement is hit and miss).

Will hundreds of chargers actually be needed at each service station in the long term?
New electric cars have not dissimilar ranges to ICE vehicles. So surely electric cars will only need to charge as regularly* as cars fill up. But as you say takes longer if we use 30 minutes versus 10 minutes would mean 3x the number of rapid chargers needed as petrol pumps?  (Having not been through how many petrol pumps does a service station have 10? 20?) 

*will actually be lower than the number of petrol cars needing to fill up since many cars will charge overnight** and some will never/rarely need to use rapid chargers. 

**this infrastructure needs improving/a solution for those w.o. off-street parking - could argue is actually the bigger issue.

I suspect because the introduction of automobiles was very gradual and had time for the infrastructure to catch up. You now have 30 odd million cars on the road and growing….

I think the problem is bigger than you think. Currently on a long journey like that I’d probably fill up at the services after we’d stopped for a half hour lunch and toilet break. So get to services. Bob in for a sandwich, change and toilet the kids. Back into car, top up at station, which I think on a normal day is under 10 minutes, and then off.

That’s 40 minutes break.

I think you could achieve that in an EV only if there is a charger there and ready waiting for you. Which is obviously the challenge. 

Then you have the problem of what happens when you get where you are going. I’m not convinced that if we are staying with the in laws in rural Devon who don’t have ev charging will be happy for us to plug into their wall sockets…

This is the challenge for infrastructure…it’s fine now for early buyers. It becomes less fine unless the infrastructure improves in line with adoption. And we know already it isn’t. 

As I said I'm not arguing with the need for improved infrastructure (it is improving by the way), but I think you are exaggerating the problems with your claim that 'hundreds and hundreds' of chargers are needed at every service station, maybe I am missing something but I don't see why this many will actually be needed. 

Obviously there is not much anyone can do if the ability to charge a car exists cheaply but people don't take advantage (e.g outside 3-pin plug on a separate circuit costs a few hundred pounds - also useful for any other electric items one might use outside).

How many do you think will be needed to cope with weekend holiday traffic?

The furthest I've travelled on holiday in the UK is 220 miles - I wouldn't need to charge on the way for that, just charge when I get there. Same on the way back. If I'm travelling to see family then the furthest is a 160miles round trip - I don't even have to charge for that.

How many people actually travel those distances on a regular basis? If it's one day a year then building in a short stop isn't really much of an issue. I just don't believe that, at a time when there will be that many EVs on the road, a significant proportion of them will need to charge at exactly the same time.

I can certainly see charging stations providing bookable time slots for a premium rate in the future. Those who aren't in a hurry, or want to save money, will queue up for the cheaper ones.

Thrugelmir

grumiofoundation said:

iwb100 said:

grumiofoundation said:

iwb100 said:

Herzlos said:

DB1904 said:

Herzlos said:

I don't mean travelling over 100 miles without stopping is extreme, just that for most people it's not really an issue as they can have a coffee/lunch/explore or whatever. 

I do get that EVs may not be suited to a once a year trek across the country and back (although many EV owners don't find it a problem), but I'm not sure it's that big a deal to that many people given the inconvenience is twice a year. It's also worth noting that many households have multiple cars, so many people have the option of using the other ICE car for the holiday road trip.


As for freedom, people can already live and visit where they want; they just tend to want to live close to work and shop close to home and so on.

I'm not convinced anyone can get 12p/mile out of an ICE car now.  50mpg at £1.50/l is 14p/mile

Explore a motorway services. Are you serious?

Be a bit more imaginative. You can charge places that aren't motorway services, so break road trips up by stopping at nice places whilst you charge. 

After 2 hours sat in a car then a short walk around a lake or beach or whatever will do everyone good. We usually do that when traveling with the kids anyway.

 But most people can’t be imaginative. If your journey is on a bank holiday down the M6 and M5 for example with your family and all and sundry are also on the road you aren’t going to get people taking detours. They need to get from Cumbria to Cornwall or wherever and they aren’t driving miles out of their way with their young kids in tow. So you need an infrastructure to support the weight of motorway traffic when the majority of it is EVs that allows people either far greater range than exists or simply has charging points in sufficient numbers to support the on road traffic in these sorts of peak scenarios. Service stations each need hundreds and hundreds of working charging points. I don’t think that’s contentious or even necessarily the full extent.

Once that happens I think majority EV ownership might become viable. But it’s an infrastructure issue. And as much as you now talk about ‘oh change your route and lifestyle to accommodate it’ that doesn’t work for most people and also doesn’t work as the number of EVs on the road increases. You aren’t going to want hundreds and hundreds of cars pottering off into Warwick cos they need a charge and it’s better to explore. It’s just backing up problems. People need ready charging on route. I think people can sacrifice charging taking half an hour. Over say 10 minutes to fill up. But they can’t be expected to queue for an hour for a charger then hang around another half hour. Doomed to failure without the infrastructure. 

Obviously that is true but the infrastructure wasn't there for petrol to replace horses. Why didn't that fail?


(I'm not arguing that infrastructure doesn't need improving - it does, and improvement is hit and miss).

Will hundreds of chargers actually be needed at each service station in the long term?
New electric cars have not dissimilar ranges to ICE vehicles. So surely electric cars will only need to charge as regularly* as cars fill up. But as you say takes longer if we use 30 minutes versus 10 minutes would mean 3x the number of rapid chargers needed as petrol pumps?  (Having not been through how many petrol pumps does a service station have 10? 20?) 

*will actually be lower than the number of petrol cars needing to fill up since many cars will charge overnight** and some will never/rarely need to use rapid chargers. 

**this infrastructure needs improving/a solution for those w.o. off-street parking - could argue is actually the bigger issue.

I suspect because the introduction of automobiles was very gradual and had time for the infrastructure to catch up. You now have 30 odd million cars on the road and growing….

I think the problem is bigger than you think. Currently on a long journey like that I’d probably fill up at the services after we’d stopped for a half hour lunch and toilet break. So get to services. Bob in for a sandwich, change and toilet the kids. Back into car, top up at station, which I think on a normal day is under 10 minutes, and then off.

That’s 40 minutes break.

I think you could achieve that in an EV only if there is a charger there and ready waiting for you. Which is obviously the challenge. 

Then you have the problem of what happens when you get where you are going. I’m not convinced that if we are staying with the in laws in rural Devon who don’t have ev charging will be happy for us to plug into their wall sockets…

This is the challenge for infrastructure…it’s fine now for early buyers. It becomes less fine unless the infrastructure improves in line with adoption. And we know already it isn’t. 

As I said I'm not arguing with the need for improved infrastructure (it is improving by the way), but I think you are exaggerating the problems with your claim that 'hundreds and hundreds' of chargers are needed at every service station, maybe I am missing something but I don't see why this many will actually be needed. 

The Government estimates that 280,000 public charging points will be required by 2030. That's over 550 a week to be installed to meet forecast demand. 

TooManyPoints

Petriix said:

I look forward to some further irrational dispute with my figures. 

How do you get a "fuel" cost of just £10 for the the EV when diesel costs you £130. Assuming your £130 worth of diesel gets you around 1,100 miles (£1.70 a litre and 65mpg) where can you get charging for that distance for £10? Or are you including the savings made by running your washing machine during the night in that figure? I don't know much about the costs of charging an electric car (and have little incentive to find out). But just skimming through some basic information I see that to charge a small electric car (with a range of about 200 miles on that charge) would cost about £7, so 1,100 miles would cost about forty quid. Octopus Go (which, incidentally, is 7.5p per kwH and 41.39p per day where I live) suggests you can keep your costs down to 2p per mile. So even if that questionable claim were true, it would still cost you more than twice as much as you have quoted.  

I regularly make a journey of 185 miles from Kent to Dorset to visit a relative. Most of it is on either motorways or decent A roads (until I get to Dorset where there are neither). It can take me as little as three and a bit hours and as much as six hours. I don't usually make a stop unless the traffic is bad and if I do it is at the Rownham Services on the M27. That service area has a grand total of three chargers. In the summer one is lucky to be able to park there at all (once or twice I've had to abandon my stop and drive on), let alone charge up an EV. I doubt I could make that  trip on a single charge, even if all the stars were aligned, but assuming I might, I certainly wouldn't make it back on that single charge so I'm then faced with the problem of charging up to return. My relative doesn't have a charging point (and even if he did I don't expect him to pay to fuel my car). So I would have to seek one out and make my way there and back. In short, the idea of an EV to complete that journey (which is not unique among my travels) is a complete non-starter. This is by no means a long trip; it's certainly not Cumbria to Cornwall which I agree is probably an exceptional distance for mot people.

EVs are a nice gimmick and those with time on their hands will be happy to faff about seeking out charging points before and whilst going about their business or pleasure. Unfortunately, along with domestic heat pumps and anything else associated with the unachievable "Net Zero" concept, the policy has been devised by politicians who have absolutely no idea how their aim will be achieved and who have no concern for the practicalities (mainly because they are unlikely to affect them personally). And like much in the UK, the idea is grand but the implementation is largely ill-thought out (if it is thought out at all). There is no way that adequate public charging facilities will be provided before the number of EVs becomes unmanageable. Advising people to change their habits to accommodate this nonsense will not work because for many people such a change is impossible. The resulting shambles will add to the many which are enveloping this country and hastening its decline into mediocrity.