EV Discussion thread

JKenH

I came across this tale of woe last night on Facebook (Nissan Leaf Owners page). I accept it is just one bad charging tale out of many hundreds of satisfactory ones but you have to feel for the driver. Despite all this she still loves her Leaf. I never had a day quite this bad but I had numerous problems trying to charge my Leaf at isolated chargers in pub car parks involving Swarco chargers. Hopefully it won’t happen to you. 

Thought I'd tell you about a terrible journey we had.

We were going to the airport, about 2.5 hours away, so of course had a deadline. To make sure the car was fully charged we set the timer to come on extra early, 11pm. (we use an overnight EV tariff).

In the morning the car hadn't charged.  It turns out we'd set it for 11pm Saturday, not Friday (rookie error).

We gave it a bit of a granny charge and crept to the local McDonalds for a fast charge. It charged for a bit, but was charging so slowly that it we didn't have time to wait for it, so decided to go to a big charging area with lots of chargers, maybe 10 miles away. When we got there some of the CHADEMOs weren't working, some were in use, and we couldn't get any to work (we have had the car for years, so we do know what we're doing, believe it or not!)

Then it got really hairy. My husband decided we might make it all the way to Kettering, so we set off along the A14.

Turns out we didn't have enough charge, and were in an area with no chargers. At this point I'd started to give up on the holiday, and just wonder how we were going to get home. 

We found a slow charger in a village off our route (Joosup, I think), had to load the app, enter an unbelievable amount of personal details to get it to work, and found ourselves trickle charging, just to get somewhere.

Stress levels through the roof, I started to look for taxis to take us to the airport, or flights for the following day (we only have one holiday a year, and didn't want to give up on it). No Ubers were available from the village we were in. It wasn't looking good.

We now had enough charge to get to the next town, where there were two fast chargers in a pub car park. By now we didn't have time to charge the car, drive to airport parking, transfer to the airport and check in.

The pub was closed, but the manager appeared, and I asked if I could use the toilet, and asked whether we could leave the car there for a week. It was no to both 😐. A few minutes later he came out and said they had finished cleaning the toilet, and I could use it, which was good of him. When I came out my husband was talking to him, and asked what would the fine be if we left the car there (we were a bit desperate!) It turns out the charger wasn't working, and we weren't going anywhere! The manager then said we could leave it there for the week (bless him).

We called an Uber, which turned up in two minutes, took us to the airport, and we made the flight by the skin of our teeth (it had been delayed).

Lessons learned? Make sure you set your charging timer correctly. Our car is a 64 plate. Maybe its time to stick to short journeys...and no deadlines!

We had a great holiday.

Still love our Leaf (husband not so much 🤣🤣).

Grumpy_chap

JKenH said:

We were going to the airport, about 2.5 hours away, so of course had a deadline. To make sure the car was fully charged we set the timer to come on extra early, 11pm. (we use an overnight EV tariff).

In the morning the car hadn't charged.  It turns out we'd set it for 11pm Saturday, not Friday (rookie error).

I think, if that was me, and a critical journey to be made, I'd simply set the car to charge as soon as plugged in and sacrifice the cheap rate electricity for the comfort of knowing ready for the journey.
No different to when we were children and Dad would check everything on the car the day or a couple of days before, not something to be left and checked as setting off for the A303 traffic jam.

JKenH

Grumpy_chap said:

JKenH said:

We were going to the airport, about 2.5 hours away, so of course had a deadline. To make sure the car was fully charged we set the timer to come on extra early, 11pm. (we use an overnight EV tariff).

In the morning the car hadn't charged.  It turns out we'd set it for 11pm Saturday, not Friday (rookie error).

I think, if that was me, and a critical journey to be made, I'd simply set the car to charge as soon as plugged in and sacrifice the cheap rate electricity for the comfort of knowing ready for the journey.
No different to when we were children and Dad would check everything on the car the day or a couple of days before, not something to be left and checked as setting off for the A303 traffic jam.

I have had it happen to me, but fortunately not before a critical journey. So has my son, on more than one occasion - he was lucky to have an ICE back up. I have heard that occasionally IOG can mess up and not charge, so, yes, a good plan to charge manually and s*d the expense.

JKenH

Interesting breakdown of where a Tesla bull sees the value in the company. Only about a fifth of the value is seen to be in the core auto business. 

The bulk of Jonas' 320 valuation of Tesla stock includes $68 per share for the core auto business, $61 per share for Tesla mobility, $39 per share for Tesla as a third party supplier and $38 per share for Tesla's energy business. Jonas values Tesla's "network services," which include full self driving and charging infrastructure, at $108 per share.

https://www.investors.com/news/tesla-stock-bull-says-ev-giant-could-lose-money-cathie-wood-buys-shares/

JKenH

This article mentions the Tusker SalSac leasing scheme covering more than one in five employees. I would be interested to hear others’ opinions on SalSac schemes. If you can join one, then great, but if you are someone doing a similar job in a company that doesn’t operate one, is that fair? Should you get special tax breaks depending on who your employer is? Would it not be fairer to allow all employees to offset the cost of leasing an EV against tax through their annual tax return? 

Is it possible that SalSac schemes could be having a negative impact on demand for EVs among the non qualifying public? Would you buy the same product at full price knowing your neighbour gets a 40% discount or would it make you feel you were somehow losing out? Would you invest in a private pension if you only qualified for tax relief through an employer’s scheme? No, probably not. We know SalSac schemes obviously do drive demand so why has no politician thought to suggest extending tax relief on leasing EVs, new or used, to all workers? 

Tusker car fleet now three-quarters fully electric

The business, acquired by Lloyds Banking Group at the start of 2023, saw its fleet grew by more than 90% in 2023, with EVs accounting for 82% of the cars delivered and 75% of the fleet as a whole.

While EV demand may have slowed down in the wider new car market, Tusker is continuing to see growth in orders for electric cars, as the company continues to break its own records for deliveries month on month.

Tusker’s scheme is now available to more than one in five employed people in the UK across a broad selection of blue-chip corporations, SMEs, third-sector and public bodies.

https://fleetworld.co.uk/tusker-car-fleet-now-three-quarters-fully-electric/

Veteransaver

JKenH said:

This article mentions the Tusker SalSac leasing scheme covering more than one in five employees. I would be interested to hear others’ opinions on SalSac schemes. If you can join one, then great, but if you are someone doing a similar job in a company that doesn’t operate one, is that fair? Should you get special tax breaks depending on who your employer is? Would it not be fairer to allow all employees to offset the cost of leasing an EV against tax through their annual tax return? 

Is it possible that SalSac schemes could be having a negative impact on demand for EVs among the non qualifying public? Would you buy the same product at full price knowing your neighbour gets a 40% discount or would it make you feel you were somehow losing out? Would you invest in a private pension if you only qualified for tax relief through an employer’s scheme? No, probably not. We know SalSac schemes obviously do drive demand so why has no politician thought to suggest extending tax relief on leasing EVs, new or used, to all workers? 

Tusker car fleet now three-quarters fully electric

The business, acquired by Lloyds Banking Group at the start of 2023, saw its fleet grew by more than 90% in 2023, with EVs accounting for 82% of the cars delivered and 75% of the fleet as a whole.

While EV demand may have slowed down in the wider new car market, Tusker is continuing to see growth in orders for electric cars, as the company continues to break its own records for deliveries month on month.

Tusker’s scheme is now available to more than one in five employed people in the UK across a broad selection of blue-chip corporations, SMEs, third-sector and public bodies.

https://fleetworld.co.uk/tusker-car-fleet-now-three-quarters-fully-electric/

I have access to this scheme, but unless all your income salary sacrificed to the scheme is saving you 40% tax or more, I don't think they represent great value compared to what you can lease yourself. 
If you have particularly high insurance costs they can make a bit more sense though. I don't know anyone at my work who have got one through the scheme though. It makes more sense for really high earners though, ie once they've maxed out on £60k pensions etc or to preserve things like free childcare, child benefit and personal allowance.

michaels

JKenH said:

This article mentions the Tusker SalSac leasing scheme covering more than one in five employees. I would be interested to hear others’ opinions on SalSac schemes. If you can join one, then great, but if you are someone doing a similar job in a company that doesn’t operate one, is that fair? Should you get special tax breaks depending on who your employer is? Would it not be fairer to allow all employees to offset the cost of leasing an EV against tax through their annual tax return? 

Is it possible that SalSac schemes could be having a negative impact on demand for EVs among the non qualifying public? Would you buy the same product at full price knowing your neighbour gets a 40% discount or would it make you feel you were somehow losing out? Would you invest in a private pension if you only qualified for tax relief through an employer’s scheme? No, probably not. We know SalSac schemes obviously do drive demand so why has no politician thought to suggest extending tax relief on leasing EVs, new or used, to all workers? 

Tusker car fleet now three-quarters fully electric

The business, acquired by Lloyds Banking Group at the start of 2023, saw its fleet grew by more than 90% in 2023, with EVs accounting for 82% of the cars delivered and 75% of the fleet as a whole.

While EV demand may have slowed down in the wider new car market, Tusker is continuing to see growth in orders for electric cars, as the company continues to break its own records for deliveries month on month.

Tusker’s scheme is now available to more than one in five employed people in the UK across a broad selection of blue-chip corporations, SMEs, third-sector and public bodies.

https://fleetworld.co.uk/tusker-car-fleet-now-three-quarters-fully-electric/

I have suggested on a couple of occasions that the sal sac scheme whilst driving business purchases is also deterring private buyers as it is part of the reason residuals are so poor.

shinytop

michaels said:

JKenH said:

This article mentions the Tusker SalSac leasing scheme covering more than one in five employees. I would be interested to hear others’ opinions on SalSac schemes. If you can join one, then great, but if you are someone doing a similar job in a company that doesn’t operate one, is that fair? Should you get special tax breaks depending on who your employer is? Would it not be fairer to allow all employees to offset the cost of leasing an EV against tax through their annual tax return? 

Is it possible that SalSac schemes could be having a negative impact on demand for EVs among the non qualifying public? Would you buy the same product at full price knowing your neighbour gets a 40% discount or would it make you feel you were somehow losing out? Would you invest in a private pension if you only qualified for tax relief through an employer’s scheme? No, probably not. We know SalSac schemes obviously do drive demand so why has no politician thought to suggest extending tax relief on leasing EVs, new or used, to all workers? 

Tusker car fleet now three-quarters fully electric

The business, acquired by Lloyds Banking Group at the start of 2023, saw its fleet grew by more than 90% in 2023, with EVs accounting for 82% of the cars delivered and 75% of the fleet as a whole.

While EV demand may have slowed down in the wider new car market, Tusker is continuing to see growth in orders for electric cars, as the company continues to break its own records for deliveries month on month.

Tusker’s scheme is now available to more than one in five employed people in the UK across a broad selection of blue-chip corporations, SMEs, third-sector and public bodies.

https://fleetworld.co.uk/tusker-car-fleet-now-three-quarters-fully-electric/

I have suggested on a couple of occasions that the sal sac scheme whilst driving business purchases is also deterring private buyers as it is part of the reason residuals are so poor.

I think you're right.  It's one of the main reasons I'm reluctant to spend my own, tax-paid money on a new EV. 

Petriix

Grumpy_chap said:

JKenH said:

We were going to the airport, about 2.5 hours away, so of course had a deadline. To make sure the car was fully charged we set the timer to come on extra early, 11pm. (we use an overnight EV tariff).

In the morning the car hadn't charged.  It turns out we'd set it for 11pm Saturday, not Friday (rookie error).

I think, if that was me, and a critical journey to be made, I'd simply set the car to charge as soon as plugged in and sacrifice the cheap rate electricity for the comfort of knowing ready for the journey.
No different to when we were children and Dad would check everything on the car the day or a couple of days before, not something to be left and checked as setting off for the A303 traffic jam.

If it was me I wouldn't be planning a long journey in a 10 year old, short range EV. In any case, it's hardly rocket surgery to double check that the car is charging at 11pm. I definitely wouldn't be going to sleep and assuming it was fine before such an important (in terms of arrival time) journey. However, the lovely thing about Intelligent Octopus Go is you can usually plug in first thing in the morning and get some extra cheap charging slots so the overnight window isn't so important. 

JKenH

Some decent discounts on “new”  Tesla model 3s - zero miles but old model I think. That is though £7,600 cheaper than a current model 3 LR.




https://www.tesla.com/en_GB/inventory/new/my