Advisability of buying electric car at this point in time

Herzlos

Goudy said:

The cost of a new BEV is far higher than an equivalent ICE.
As cars depreciate as a percentage over time, it still means used vehicles will be the same sort of percentage more than a used ICE and still be out of reach for many.

Yes, that's normal, unless of course BEV's depreciate faster, there is some evidence of that, which I guess is a positive for those people.

There are currently around 673 used electric cars for sale under £10k on Autotrader compared to 126,000 petrol and diesel (not counting hybrid).
That's 0.5%.

Only 96k if you discount ICE cars older than 2010 (which is the oldest EV for sale that's not a G-Wiz and shouldn't count).

But remember that even in 2010 EV's were virtually non-existant (0.4% of new car sales in 2016), so you can't use that data to extrapolate about what the availability of older EV's will be like in another 7 years when pure ICE sales stop. Pure/hybrid EV's made up 23% of new car sales in 2022.


The bigger concern with cost is that the battery is worth so much that it's unlikely a battery car will reach banger money in the same way an ICE would. Even a worn battery with 20 miles driving range is useful for a domestic/industrial energy storage system.

So EV's probably have a floor price of about £2-3k, whilst ICE vehicles that will pass an MOT seem to have a floor of about £1k now. I fondly remember being able to buy a banger for £100 when I started driving and then run it until the MOT failed or I wrapped it round a tree.

"The average daily driving distance is 15 miles, is it negative to point out that might mean half might do something else, some of those less and some more, with some even doing much more?"

I thought I already raised that; the average EV range is 14x the average daily driving range, so unless you're driving more than 7x as much as average (~105 miles/day) you're not going to need to charge the average EV daily.  Of course maybe the average is badly skewed by a lot of people doing almost no mileage and the mean is closed to, say, 30 miles a day, but that still means we're looking at someone doing 3x the average mileage before needing daily charging.

Anecdotally at least, I don't know anyone doing 100+ miles on a daily commute now; after covid most of the people (including me who had a 90 mile commute) work from home 2/3 days a week, and a lot of the others get the train for most journeys. Ours sales guys who do huge miles up and down the country drive EV's for the tax and fuel savings, and presumably just charge up at customer sites (usually industrial estates in which almost all the ones I've visited have chargers) or doing admin work.

There are definitely edge case car users who wouldn't benefit from an EV, like a user on here who was a ~3 hour drive to the nearest decent sized town which had no charging and needed to tow a horse box regularly.

The only people I know directly/indirectly who couldn't use an EV (cost aside) are farmers who use large 4x4's for fields and towing, but they virtually all have multiple vehicles and could use an EV for most of the day to day stuff.
Whilst there isn't an equivalent to the Rivian over here yet, it shows that even for the most extreme uses electric is even better than diesel - better weight distribution, better power delivery, better wading depths, ability to run 120V tools straight from the battery and so on.

I don't have one yet because I need (want) the towing capacity and the EV I want (Berlingo or SpaceTourer) is out of my budget by quite a margin. If I only needed a normal sized hatchback I'd already have a Leaf.

MacPingu1986

Goudy said:

We have to accept the chargers were probably installed with some sort of incentive.
And what about grants for EV's and home chargers.
Neither of these came from a benevolent individual.

Like I said, if it works for you, brilliant, I am happy for you.
If it doesn't or doesn't yet, you will still pay towards it.

But that mustn't be stated out loud or can you ask for it to work more people, otherwise someone might find a label for you.

I'm not sure what your point is here and why government intervention is an argument against EVs? Government's fund and incentivise all kinds of activity that's developing/emerging, including grants for early adapters of EVs and home chargers because of the wider environmental benefits of reducing carbon emissions and improving local air quality - this helps us all.

We indirectly pay via taxation for all kinds of things we might not use directly ourselves, but have wider benefits for society.

Without wishing to overly repeat the point, as various other posters have said, when we look at usage patterns of the vast majority of UK driving, this could be easily accommodated with  little change into EV charging cycles and the rollout of charging infrastructure is increasing all the time.

Herzlos

Goudy said:

We have to accept the chargers were probably installed with some sort of incentive.
And what about grants for EV's and home chargers.
Neither of these came from a benevolent individual.

People are very resistant to change, especially where they see no direct benefit to them, and thus almost everything needs an incentive. Take low energy lightbulbs - they are just better and reduced the national grid load by something like 5% over the year they were mandated, but people made so much noise about the nanny state. Ditto for stuff like seatbelts.

Or my parents who still refuse to recycle because it means they need to sort their rubbish out. They won't do it unless it becomes more inconvenient not to.

I can't think of any real benefit to people that happened organically without some kind of regulations.

Goudy

Herzlos said:
People are very resistant to change, especially where they see no direct benefit to them.

Thank you, someone gets the point.
If there no direct benefits or dare I say negative cost implications, what then, more resistance seems the answer.
Why does that surprise everyone?

Like I wrote, I'm not resistant to the idea of BEV's but some of the other obvious problems with them and how they will be overcome and I admit, some sound fairly viable but others don't.

My point about the chargers is they have been likely financed with government incentives (our money), but they don't work and won't likely work until the infrastructure changes.

It's been discussed in this thread already about the infrastructure needing changing, I don't doubt that, but if there's no or little funding for that are we going to carry on financing useless chargers because we need chargers and just ignore the fact we can't power them.
Or
Finance the charging infrastructure more with our money.
Or
Let industry sort the problem and pass all the costs onto the user.

Either way it's pay pay.

If we scale up the chargers to the amounts required, is the problem likely to get worse or better?

So we're all paying up front, it's sort of working but could be better and as yet, for various reason it isn't benefitting everyone, though it should.

To me and some others, it doesn't look like a good deal, yet we're berated if we mention that or called edge cases or anti, which trust me, isn't helping the situation one bit. 

This forum is about money saving and currently BEV's might not save everyone money, but mention that and you're still berated.

henry24

CKhalvashi said:

henry24 said:

CKhalvashi said:

henry24 said:

CKhalvashi said:

henry24 said:

Earlier in this thread the subject of lorries came up which nobody has answered now I've something else, over the last 3 days I've been driving a combine using 47 litres an hour of diesel how's that going to work with electric 
Unless every vehicle is made to change then there's no point and if we have no food then so be, if we shut all the shops that will save the planet 
I think everyone should have the right to decide what vehicle they drive and not be told what to do 

As something I don't know a lot about, what is the power output on that at a typical rpm?

What is the average hours of use daily also?

I can attempt to calculate on that number a battery requirement and associated weight.

You have asked a question here I didn't realise I want to know the answer to!

CKhalvashi  it's a 8.7 litre 6 cylinder developing 276kv at 2100 rpm, length of day varies with the weather the last few days I've done 2 12 hours and a 15 it's now parked up until weather improves. Altogether during the harvest period it will do around 240 hours 

If that is the actual output in use, I agree that you may struggle at the moment to get something within the weight you need.

The next generation of batteries are likely to be acceptable for the job though.

If the actual power use is around 100kW, then a 1MW battery will weigh 5-6t and should last around 10 hours in actual use. That is around £150k of battery.

Throughout the year with tractors, vans/lorries for farmers markets etc, something with similar power output to this should work for you. I have no idea on the cost of plumbing it in, but a look online shows it shouldn't be too high. https://aec.energy/charge-complex-t/en

Depending on conditions the engine is working between 60 and 80% of power how this compares to your figures I don't know but for a farmer to spend £150k on a battery it's not going to happen 
I've just looked up the neighbours combine and it's 515kw what battery will it need 

At 80%the battery will last 5 hours.

At 60% will last about 8 hours.

The question has to be what £150k is as a proportion of the equipment cost and what the cost savings are of this.

EVs are cheaper to maintain than ICEV's.

This may be a compelling case for hydrogen also, there is no point in this discussion to discount alternative green fuels.

Interesting if the battery only lasted 5 hours it would need 3 batteries or £450000 against £300000 for a ready to work diesel combine and you'd still have to buy the combine and then there's the difficulties of getting the batteries charged and taken to the field 
Being cheaper to maintain wouldn't make much difference as it's only really engine oil and filters it's all the other bits that cost the money 

HillStreetBlues

Herzlos said:

People are very resistant to change, especially where they see no direct benefit to them, and thus almost everything needs an incentive. Take low energy lightbulbs - they are just better and reduced the national grid load by something like 5% over the year they were mandated, but people made so much noise about the nanny state. Ditto for stuff like seatbelts.

Or my parents who still refuse to recycle because it means they need to sort their rubbish out. They won't do it unless it becomes more inconvenient not to.

I can't think of any real benefit to people that happened organically without some kind of regulations.

I think light bulbs are a bad example.
There was a real push to get people to use Compact fluorescent lightbulbs, they were being sent out free. They were horrible would flicker, duller and took time to get fully bright, These also contained mercury.  Then LEDs came along, brighter, instance and no flicker, and no mercury.
So I can see why some are currently being put of EV as the current crop might end up being the  compact fluorescent lightbulbs car world.
EDIT
And were Compact fluorescent lightbulbs greener, with those now in landfill somewhere?

HillStreetBlues

Herzlos said:

The bigger concern with cost is that the battery is worth so much that it's unlikely a battery car will reach banger money in the same way an ICE would. Even a worn battery with 20 miles driving range is useful for a domestic/industrial energy storage system.

So EV's probably have a floor price of about £2-3k, whilst ICE vehicles that will pass an MOT seem to have a floor of about £1k now. I fondly remember being able to buy a banger for £100 when I started driving and then run it until the MOT failed or I wrapped it round a tree.

This is where it will affect me. never paid more than £500 for a car pre 2010 most were far below that. Nearly all of them died by rust (or by me), the only one I remember that didn't was the head gasket. When I started to drive again last year it was £1500 for my car (how times have changed). But I still can fill up and do over 300 miles, so know in the future I will be paying more for less. I have no issues with an EV, for me it's purely a numbers game.

Goudy

HillStreetBlues said:

Herzlos said:

People are very resistant to change, especially where they see no direct benefit to them, and thus almost everything needs an incentive. Take low energy lightbulbs - they are just better and reduced the national grid load by something like 5% over the year they were mandated, but people made so much noise about the nanny state. Ditto for stuff like seatbelts.

Or my parents who still refuse to recycle because it means they need to sort their rubbish out. They won't do it unless it becomes more inconvenient not to.

I can't think of any real benefit to people that happened organically without some kind of regulations.

I think light bulbs are a bad example.
There was a real push to get people to use Compact fluorescent lightbulbs, they were being sent out free. They were horrible would flicker, duller and took time to get fully bright, These also contained mercury.  Then LEDs came along, brighter, instance and no flicker, and no mercury.
So I can see why some are currently being put of EV as the current crop might end up being the  compact fluorescent lightbulbs car world.

I think it's not a bad example but perhaps add in that everyone's house needs rewiring to make them work and the government will finance some of that, but not the rewiring from the grid to your door.

But live in a flat and they won't help with anything but eventually you will have to use them anyway.

God forbid we then invent LED's!

terry2

 I too have been thinking about moving to an electric car, but so far I haven’t seen anything I consider really sensible.

Mainly I do short journeys but once a month I drive 250 miles and then back 2 days later, so until there are lots of fast charge outlets there is a problem, and that isn’t going to be fixed in any decent timescale.

Now as far as I can see most of the hybrid cars are just normal IC cars with the (powerful) engine driving the wheels, albeit with a bit of battery assist.

What I would like is something where the battery drives the motor and you have a small IC engine whose sole purpose is to top up the battery as needed.  Naturally one where I can also top up the battery from the mains at home.  

 You would have thought planning for an interim solution something like this and then gradually reducing the size of the IC engine as the number of charging points increase would have been a sensible precaution rather than assuming we can move to electric in the government’s timescale..

WellKnownSid

terry2 said:

Mainly I do short journeys but once a month I drive 250 miles and then back 2 days later

...

What I would like is something where the battery drives the motor and you have a small IC engine whose sole purpose is to top up the battery as needed.  Naturally one where I can also top up the battery from the mains at home.  

You're talking about a range-extender - but these were not so popular.  That said, there are plenty of PHEVs which will give you a similar benefit - the ability to run on EV for 30-or so miles for your short journey needs, but a much longer range with the engine.

I guess your milage may vary.  I've just completed a short UK break - covering 800 miles.  Being in a diesel that meant a £30 top-up somewhere in the middle when I spotted pumps selling at £1.38 a litre.  How feasible would that have been in an electric car?  Well, this was of interest because we'll likely be swapping one of our other cars for an EV this time next year.

• At every services we stopped at, there were plenty (more than 3) free EV charging points.  No fighting / punch-ups / brawls that have been widely reported
• Multiple car parks and attractions - places you wouldn't expect charging points - either had charging points - or they were clearly being installed (car park spaces marked out, equipment installed but cordoned off).
• Most supermarkets were well equipped with chargers
• There was NO charging facility at our hotel, a national chain, nor any signs they were thinking about it.
• From services to tourist hot-spots to random car parks, on our travels we counted 47 'not yet connected' charging points in total.  Clearly a work in progress

Overall - I'm pretty confident I could have completed the entire journey in a 200-mile-claimed-range car with little or no planning, effort or inconvenience.  The sun was out and I wasn't in a hurry.  In the middle of winter, with the rain hammering down and a deadline - who knows.  It might be a right royal PITA.

Here are some fun additional facts:

1. I have never seen so many Teslas on the road!  Honestly, if you're travelling on any motorway in the UK - you'll have one in front of you and one in your rear view mirror at all times.  They are EVERYWHERE.  Usually in white!
2. Same is true in car parks - every car park, always a Tesla.  If you don't see a Tesla you're not looking hard enough.
3. I don't think I've seen older drivers behind the wheel of an EV before, but this summer I've seen a huge amount of grey hair!
4. I didn't see a single EV charging point with a roof.  Come on - every petrol station in the known universe has a roof - what gives?  Are EV drivers expected to only come out for a drive in nice weather?  This is the United Kingdom - our green and pleasant land is formed thanks to guaranteed rainfall!  This is the sort of design that comes about when you hand a project over to someone who has never driven a car before, let alone driven an EV.