EV Discussion thread

JKenH

BEV was unfortunately the experience I didn’t need. I appreciate things have moved on in the BEV offerings in the, almost, 4 years since I moved back to petrol. I acknowledge that on a very good day you can cover 350 miles in the right BEV with no problem but it is the wrong days that swung it for me. Just a month after I switched back to petrol I had to drive down to a funeral in Surrey (round trip 390 miles) in December when the temperature was -7C. I was so pleased that day that I was in an ICE car - something that perhaps wouldn’t have registered if I hadn’t been through the BEV experience. I count myself lucky.

I must admit that when I first got into BEVs it was a joyous experience - an adventure and a challenge I was happy to take on. Having a lower range BEV at a time when chargers were less widespread (and more reliable?), though, compressed a lot of (bad) experiences (chronicled on here) into a short time frame that gradually wore me down. (Hopefully, now with longer range BEvs and better charging infrastructure, none of you will have those experiences and will remain happy and loyal to your BEVs. I suspect if my first BEV had been a TM3 it might have been a different story for me as well, but once bitten, twice shy. There is still room for a BEV in my life but not as my only car.

I suppose it’s a bit to do with one’s personality. If you are a happy go lucky person a BEV can be a great fit. If like me you prefer to plan for the worst a PHEV or ICE car may be a better option if it is going to be your only car.

michaels

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82020574#Comment_82020574

You do know the latest BEVs can charge as quickly as filling an ICE car?

JKenH

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82021006#Comment_82021006

I think that’s debatable, actually. I have timed (with a stop watch) filling my Golf at less than two minutes from out the seat until back in it and that was before my local Asda introduced contactless. Most petrol stations are drive through so there is no time spent manoeuvring the car, which can add seconds. Most estimates of EV charging time refer to the time taken for the charger to fill up the car once the car is connected. I don’t think they include the time looking for the charger, manoeuvring into position, getting out the car, lugging the heavy charging cable into position, finding your phone, opening the app, starting the charge, ending the charge, disconnecting the charging cable, shutting the flap and getting back into the car. That’s assuming all goes well which in my experience it frequently didn’t. Of course, if you have a Tesla and are charging at one of their chargers, you don’t have the car/charger communication protocols to consider.

Compared with most non Tesla chargers, I would have filled up my Golf and been gone before a charge got started. Charging time, per se, was never the big issue for me. That was a bit of quality time to have a cuppa from the flask I carry with me. No, my bad experience was with finding chargers that worked or weren’t blocked by other cars. Of course, people will say use the app to check all this out before you go to the charger but I have and apps frequently aren’t up to date. People who do regular long distance runs will know where the chargers are, which ones work seamlessly with their car and phone app and which to avoid the same as I know that there is rarely a queue at my local Asda whereas there most likely might be at Tesco. And that brings me to the next stress raiser - queuing. At petrol stations queuing is quite orderly. Tesco near me has 8 lanes of pumps. Once you are in a lane that’s it - no one can jump the queue. Queuing for chargers (so I hear) can be quite stressful with, in most cases, no clearly defined queuing area and no indication who is queuing and whose turn it is next. It’s like queuing for a parking spot in a car park that’s full and etiquette goes out the window. That’s not the type of place I want to be.

Either you’ve experienced these issues or you haven’t and a huge amount of that depends on how you use your electric car. Obviously, most people on here are very happy with the charging experience or perhaps have yet to envy the many issues I did on travels in my Leaf but I wasn’t happy and made my choice accordingly. Perhaps it costs me £600 a year more to have a petrol car but I am happy that I have saved that in depreciation.

Each to his/her own.

Grumpy_chap

You do know the latest BEVs can charge as quickly as filling an ICE car?

I think that might be on the optimistic side of many experiences. None-the-less, I do feel you can happily charge the EV at a stop when you would be pausing the journey anyway for refreshments. If charge stops are so aligned with natural stops, even the comments about time to manoeuvre and park the car become moot as there would be the same effort to park the car in any case in the regular parking bay.

JKenH

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82021376#Comment_82021376

The time it takes to charge whether 10 minutes or twenty minutes isn’t the issue for me. I just felt the need to respond to claims that you can charge a BEV in the same time you fill up an ICE car. Some EV advocates such as Richard Symons tend to refer to the time to fill up a petrol or diesel car as 10 minutes when that isn’t the case and imply there is no time involved in the process of connecting and disconnecting cables and using apps to communicate with chargers. (His day job is selling EVs so he would say that wouldn’t he). I never felt the need to time a petrol fill up until such claims started appearing and I was genuinely surprised how little time filling up with petrol takes. It isn’t only “EV haters” spreading misinformation.

As I said having a cuppa while the car is charging is quality time. It is more the fact that one has to find a charger when it probably isn’t the most convenient time to do so and finding that working charger for me was usually quite stressful (I didn’t have a Tesla). And, yes, I did loads of preparation before a long journey (should I count that time as well?) and still encountered problems. With a petrol car if you can’t make the trip on one tankful then it’s no stress to stop at a petrol station and top up - no planning/no apps and extremely unlikely that there isn’t a working pump at the first garage you drive past.

I accept the point that the time in parking up at a charger is no longer than in a parking space if one can clearly see the charger is working but how often do we drive round looking for the charger, or find there is an issue and have to move to another charger or spend time shuffling the car because the car in the next bay is badly parked or using the wrong lead. Incorporating coffee or meal stops into charging nowadays is, of course, more problematic as at some locations penalty charges are applied for overstaying or even charging over 80% so that relaxing coffee or lunch stop ceases to be relaxing if one has to break off and move the car.

If I need a break on a journey in my ICE car I can have it when it suits me and, if I don’t want to, I don’t have to get out of the car in the pouring rain and I certainly don’t have to pick up a dirty charging lead someone has dropped on the ground then have to go wash my hands before I can eat my home made sandwich. On long trips I ask my wife if she needs a stop or should we carry on to the next service station and choose a stop where it suits us without needing to check if there is a working charger available. People often say they are grateful they don’t have to go to smelly petrol stations anymore but I am equally grateful that I don’t have to handle dirty, cold and/or wet charging leads or stand in the rain while I push buttons and wait for lights on the charger. (Tesla owners can skip the buttons and lights bit).

I am not trying to convince any EV driver that they have made the wrong choice. If you are happy with your EV experience as many obviously are, that’s the right choice for you and it’s fine by me. You don’t have to defend your choice - I understand (having owned one) why you like your EVs and that, for you the upsides outweigh the downsides.

What I find slightly frustrating is that people can’t accept that what works for them might not work for me, that people can’t understand I have reached a different (irrational) conclusion about EVs contrary and chosen to go back to petrol (for now). I think there is an assumption that I can’t be in possession of all the facts as otherwise I would reach the same conclusion as them. I don’t think I am missing any of the facts to enable me to reach my decision- I just have different priorities, weigh the pros and cons differently and reach a different conclusion. There may be many more people like me who are in possession of the full facts and have similar priorities or they may just still have their own reasons for not wanting an EV. We are not all idiots as one social media EV experts like to suggest.

Martyn1981

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82021376#Comment_82021376

I think that makes a lot of sense. Wifey has made a few trips with friends to Scotland. Depending on route ~400+ miles. She tends to do three stops (wee, lunch, wee), so no additional time stopping, possibly less if the ICEV driver also makes those stops, plus a diversion to the fuel pump. For a quick top up whilst going for a pee, I've found I'm using the phone app (whilst walking back to the car) to stop the charging, as it already has more than enough to complete the trip.

Another wifey trip to the Peak District was interesting, where she and friends were staying had a home charger. So no need to charge on way up, or back, but they still stopped for a break each way. Side issue, AirBnB owner decided that the leccy (night cheap rate) cost was peanuts, so no additional charge.

@Exiled_Tyke :- PHEV was the experience I needed to go full EV too and I wouldn't consider going back now.

Really silly thought, spurred by your comment, but I may have done similar going PHEV first. Hear me out - we had a petrol Zafira, getting old and tired (the car too!) and decided to get a second hand BEV as a second vehicle. Mostly, because I was determined to 'enjoy' the BEVolution. So we got a 70 miles (down hill) first gen 24kWh Leaf.

As the Zafira was the 'main car'*, I think it could be argued in a fun way, that the combination of the two makes for a PHEV. As I said, a silly thought, but possibly valid.

Regardless, it worked. I've always thought that perhaps the best way for folk interested in getting a BEV, but unsure, and who have a 'second' car, they should test the waters by replacing the second car with a cheap(ish) SH BEV (short range if that helps with costs).

Might work even better in a household with older children, who drive, but haven't flown the nest yet. Get one SH BEV, maybe 50-150 miles of range, that they can all share

*That didn't last long, the Leaf almost immediately became the first choice. And boosted by the reduced Covid travelling in 2020, the Zafira only had two tank fillups from Nov 2019, to August 2020 when it was traded in, with half a tank still remaining.

Grumpy_chap

@JKenH If filling up with petrol, should the driver count the time taken to queue at the petrol station for a vacant pump to become available?

silverwhistle

I've the lower range nearly 4 year old MG4 and once again this summer will be doing French coast to Italy in a day. Overnight stop on the way back to safely get a more convenient ferry time. If I were doing it in the winter it would be an overnighter both ways but beyond perhaps a little extra planning it's still a far more pleasurable experience than in the sort of ICE cars I used to drive. Certainly it's not a big enough issue for me to write screeds on the matter to convince others, it's all very normalised these days.

QrizB

You do know the latest BEVs can charge as quickly as filling an ICE car?

Are any of these cars actually on sale in the UK? And are there any compatible chargers?

JKenH

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82021637#Comment_82021637

If one has to queue, then there is an argument that one should, as of course you should with a BEV but as with EV chargers, some times there are queues and others not. As we tend to fill up at the supermarket we can just drive on by and fill up next time . A tankful lasts a month generally (in both cars) so no pressure.This morning we went to Tesco Extra in Scunthorpe in the Picanto and to reach the store car park you drive round 3 sides of the petrol station so can asses the situation. There were cars queuing as we went in and as we had just under half a tank just drove past. (By queue I mean there was a car waiting while two others each lane filled up). There were several free pumps as we came out so drove straight onto the pump. I started filling up while the wife went to the kiosk to pay (no queue in there either) and I drove forward and picked her up as she came out the door.

We are driving down to Fowey in Cornwall for a holiday in 10 days time. The trip is 338 miles according to Google Maps and my car has a range of 500+ miles the way I drive so we should be able to drive down there and plan out stops to suit us without having to worry about petrol.

I will probably fill up when we go to the supermarket next week to stock up for the hols. Our holiday cottage doesn’t have a petrol pump (nor does it have a charger) so we will be reliant on finding a petrol station within 160 miles or so of our destination. I imagine we will drive past a petrol station some time before we run out and hopefully one without a queue. Needless to say I haven’t felt the need to start searching for petrol stations but had I owned an EV I would have been researching charging in the area and it might even have influenced (limited?) my choice of accommodation.

Out of curiosity, I asked Google where the nearest Tesla Supercharger was to Fowey and apparently it’s 21 miles to the NW at St Columb, a 30-35 minute drive. Google says to expect congestion and potential queues. I asked Google if there were any rapid chargers in Fowey and Google said No, the nearest being 8 miles away. (Gridserve 82p/kwh). Now that would cause me more stress than having to queue behind a couple of cars for some petrol if it gets busy in Fowey. Also if I did a bit of driving around I might need to buy electricity for 500 miles including the trip home - that’s about £136 at Gridserve rates. Assuming I could drive all the way down there on cheap electricity from charging at home (say7p/kWh) it would cost me about £8 so total electricity cost would be £144. 838 miles in my petrol car would cost me around £112. Maybe the cost of the trip to you in your Tesla would be closer to my petrol cost, perhaps even a bit less depending on your home electricity cost. In the grand scheme of things fuel costs are only a part of the cost of running a car and the cost of running a car is just a part (more significant to some than others) of why we choose a particular car

None of this is intended to suggest that petrol cars are in some way superior to ICE cars. I’m just trying to explain why a petrol car meets my needs better (and, of course, an EV suits you better.)