EV Discussion thread

thevilla

After 70 years of knowing the risks, people still smoke tobacco knowing it is killing them and damaging their kids.  A real term regular increase of fuel duty must be on the cards once a healthy 2nd hand market for EVs is established.

Treat petrol and diesel like tobacco in 15 or 20 years time?

michaels

shinytop said:

JKenH said:

I have copied this from the BEV News thread as some may feel my comments are contentious (I hope not) and start a discussion 

Martyn1981 said:

And the results from the Norwegian jury are in! Looks like they are bouncing against a temporary limit, trying to get the last ~10%, with PEV's at ~90% for a couple of years now.. Should be fun seeing when that last bit goes, maybe it'll hang on for a few years?

The EV revolution might take longer than we are expecting unless governments pump a lot more money in like the U.S. are doing. The alternative is to force the change through by penalising ICE sales and risk a poll tax style revolt. HMG prefers to kick the can down the road and I suspect many other governments will do the same. The technology is not sufficiently compelling for the change to happen purely by customer demand. 

The hard truth is that a modern ICE car is, all things considered apart from emissions, just better at what it does than a BEV.  Just like ff boilers vs heat pumps.  A relatively few enthusiasts on forums like these doesn't change this.

That's the challenge. It has to be done but it won't be easy.

 

With the exception of range and towing an ev is just better at what it does than an ice (if you can charge at home)

Depending on your use case those exceptions may or may not outweigh all the other advantages.

Grumpy_chap

JKenH said:

we need to ask why EV take up, particularly secondhand, is so low.

A lot of people simply cannot afford the upfront cost (even if lifecycle cost is demonstrably lower)

A lot of people don't have anywhere that charging can be installed at home.

Then the restricted availability and limited model choice.

Then the willingness of EV car manufacturers to churn out substandard cars with zero NCAP rating.

Apparently, range anxiety is a thing also.

JKenH

Many secondhand EVs already cost the same as or in some cases less than the ICE equivalent but people aren’t buying them.

I have just done a search on Autotrader for 2019 Mk7 Golf’s and E-Golf’s excluding Cat S etc up to 50k miles. I have excluded a private sale E-Golf which was much cheaper but here is a comparison of a few around 40-45k miles. The prices are very similar. 

Why won’t petrol always be this cheap? Isn’t the narrative that we have passed peak oil demand and prices will fall so that it is no longer economic to extract oil. If petrol is going to keep going up perhaps I should invest my pension in Oil majors instead of renewables. 

JKenH

I filled my Golf up yesterday at Asda while shopping. I had driven 538 miles at an indicted 58.6 mpg. It took exactly 44litres at 144.7p/litre which I worked out as a real 55mpg and 11.8p per mile. 

Now of course everyone on here with solar panels and batteries is going to tell me that it only costs them 2p per mile to fuel their EV, which it probably does. Unfortunately those who subscribe to this forum are not typical of those who will be buying an EV in the future. At best (if they have space to park at home) they are going to be able to get a cheap overnight tariff with a penal day rate which for most will work out on average the same as a SVT at around 34p/kWh which will put the cost of home charging for the typical new EV buyer/user at about 10p per mile. 

That’s all well and good but unless you never get out you are also going to have to factor in some rapid charging so all in a new car buyer will probably work out that the cost of charging is going to be similar to filling up with petrol. 

And it’s not just new car buyers. The EV owner’s forums are continually peppered with posts saying that charging is costing more than their diesel car cost them to run. Not everyone, because forums are populated by folks who are interested in things, so a lot of existing EV owners are happily reporting how little EV charging costs because they have been sufficiently interested to look into it and get a cheap overnight rate (and are happy to ignore the high daytime rate). Others comment that they do use enough overnight to make a cheap rate work for them.

I do understand the enthusiasm of EV owners (and particularly the passion of the recently converted) for whom EVs just work really well. They are a great fit with their lifestyle (even if they take their Tourag for their skiing holiday). For some the driving characteristics outweigh all the practical issues of charging and range anxiety. When I was at Silverstone a friend gave me a lift in his MP3 and demonstrated the gut wrenching acceleration. If that matters to you then there is no economically viable substitute in the ICE world. There are therefore real drivers for EVs but they aren’t the same for everyone. 

I really enjoyed driving my Leaf but for the type of journeys I frequently had to make it presented a level of inconvenience that outweighed the advantages. 

Things may change for me when battery technology lets us drive 500 miles without having to think about charging and when we have to charge there is a reliable network and we know we won’t have to queue for more than a couple of minutes before the car in front has finished filling up.

For others who aren’t as lucky as me (and most, if not all, of us on here) and have to use public chargers all the time the obstacles to EV adoption must be much more daunting given the reports of broken chargers and queues in the media. (It’s all very well those planning the roll out of  chargers deciding that lamp post chargers are a viable alternative but they are not the ones who will have to use them and find they can’t locate one within a mile of their homes that isn’t in use or blocked by an ICEV.)

As @michaels pointed out, for some those use cases outweigh all the other advantages of EVs and we must try and see things from that perspective, not merely our own idealised use case.

We must also realise that the high speed of uptake to date was initially among those who were very environmentally conscious, perhaps had solar panels and convenient home charging and perhaps a second car and has then been driven on by those for whom BIK advantages (SalSac and company cars) made the proposition irresistible. Having exhausted these markets progressing further will be more difficult. 

Grumpy_chap

JKenH said:

Many secondhand EVs already cost the same as or in some cases less than the ICE equivalent but people aren’t buying them.

I have just done a search on Autotrader for 2019 Mk7 Golf’s and E-Golf’s excluding Cat S etc up to 50k miles. I have excluded a private sale E-Golf which was much cheaper but here is a comparison of a few around 40-45k miles. The prices are very similar.

As I understand it, the e-Golf really is a very compromised EV so, for me at least, if the choice was binary between an ICE Golf or an e-Golf, then the ICE Golf would be an outright slam-dunk.

If the choice was between an ICE Golf or MG4, it becomes much closer and the EV wins.

I, though, am still smarting from the failure to buy an MG5 (which I preferred to the MG4) and now need to wait for the TM3 to reach MG price point.

1961Nick

Grumpy_chap said:

JKenH said:

Many secondhand EVs already cost the same as or in some cases less than the ICE equivalent but people aren’t buying them.

I have just done a search on Autotrader for 2019 Mk7 Golf’s and E-Golf’s excluding Cat S etc up to 50k miles. I have excluded a private sale E-Golf which was much cheaper but here is a comparison of a few around 40-45k miles. The prices are very similar.

As I understand it, the e-Golf really is a very compromised EV so, for me at least, if the choice was binary between an ICE Golf or an e-Golf, then the ICE Golf would be an outright slam-dunk.

If the choice was between an ICE Golf or MG4, it becomes much closer and the EV wins.

I, though, am still smarting from the failure to buy an MG5 (which I preferred to the MG4) and now need to wait for the TM3 to reach MG price point.

The e-Golf if very compromised because it’s an ICE vehicle with an electric motor. The MG4 & the Model 3 are EVs right from conception & that makes them more desirable & efficient… and cheaper to manufacture.

Martyn1981

Grumpy_chap said:

JKenH said:

Many secondhand EVs already cost the same as or in some cases less than the ICE equivalent but people aren’t buying them.

I have just done a search on Autotrader for 2019 Mk7 Golf’s and E-Golf’s excluding Cat S etc up to 50k miles. I have excluded a private sale E-Golf which was much cheaper but here is a comparison of a few around 40-45k miles. The prices are very similar.

As I understand it, the e-Golf really is a very compromised EV so, for me at least, if the choice was binary between an ICE Golf or an e-Golf, then the ICE Golf would be an outright slam-dunk.

If the choice was between an ICE Golf or MG4, it becomes much closer and the EV wins.

I, though, am still smarting from the failure to buy an MG5 (which I preferred to the MG4) and now need to wait for the TM3 to reach MG price point.

Hiya GC, good news is that VW have announced a Golf BEV on a dedicated platform, I think they are aiming for ~2030 if you're not in a hurry.

Fingers crossed you'll get your wish and see the TM3 and many others falling in price. Sorry for the digression, but we may get a good indication of how things are going when the quarterly results for Tesla and BYD come out. If Tesla doesn't lose too much margin (after the price cuts), that may suggest that falling costs are kicking in. The same for BYD, their price cuts in Q1 are roughly equal to their net profit margin per car in 2022. So .... stick with me ..... after the price cuts, and losing the EV subsidies paid directly to the supplier in China, if they still make a profit, then they will have seen cost reductions.

Given how vertically integrated BYD is, and being largely China based, their Q1 results will probably be a better indicator of cost trends. I appreciate one quarter is too small, and costs could spike back up, but it may give us something to ponder as we wait for longer trendlines to kick in.

ABrass

JKenH said:

Many secondhand EVs already cost the same as or in some cases less than the ICE equivalent but people aren’t buying them.

I have just done a search on Autotrader for 2019 Mk7 Golf’s and E-Golf’s excluding Cat S etc up to 50k miles. I have excluded a private sale E-Golf which was much cheaper but here is a comparison of a few around 40-45k miles. The prices are very similar. 

Why won’t petrol always be this cheap? Isn’t the narrative that we have passed peak oil demand and prices will fall so that it is no longer economic to extract oil. If petrol is going to keep going up perhaps I should invest my pension in Oil majors instead of renewables. 

Because a lack of demand will ruin the busines models that exist to extract, refine, ship and sell Petrol.

Because it will be taxed more heavily in the future.

Because cost to extract is only rising.


I'm not sure what you're trying to say with proof that, for one moment in time, there were three EV golfs and three Petrol Golfs for sale at the same time.

ABrass

JKenH said:

We must also realise that the high speed of uptake to date was initially among those who were very environmentally conscious, perhaps had solar panels and convenient home charging and perhaps a second car and has then been driven on by those for whom BIK advantages (SalSac and company cars) made the proposition irresistible. Having exhausted these markets progressing further will be more difficult. 

That's a bold prediction, you believe that EV growth will slow down now, both in the UK and Globally?