Advisability of buying electric car at this point in time

MX5huggy

@MEM62 why would that not work for you? Or are you driving 100 miles per day while at work on top of the 90? 

Deneen6543

if you find a reliable and well-maintained second-hand electric vehicle that fits your budget and driving needs, it could be a fantastic choice for you and the environment. Just do your research, check out the available options, and maybe take a test drive to see how it feels.

Martyn1981

Also the cost savings. 90 miles, at a reasonable 45mpg (some cars will be a bit better or worse), is about £13, but even at a relatively low 3m/kWh, 90 miles is 30kWh, which if charged on a cheap rate tariff, might be £3?

Goudy

How much would it cost if you haven't access to a cheap rate tariff and had to use an on street charger?

There are three different on street chargers near me.
Cheapest off peak is 40pkw +12p connection (midnight to 7am)
60pkw plus 12p connection peak, plus a £4.75 per hour parking charge at peak.

Dearest is 75pkw flat rate with no parking charge.

Home charging isn't an option in my local area, every building is flats and apartments, most cities seem to be full of them.

I'd love a reliable, cheap and effective solution but it just isn't happening.

henry24

I'd also like to know where all the trucks are going to charge up possibly twice a day 

castle96

NO NO NO !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Herzlos

I love how this starts as a pretty specific query about the merits of a 2nd hand EV, and within a couple of pages has filled up the usual anti-EV bingo. None of which seems to be relevant here.

Why do EV's upset some of you so much?

Herzlos

Goudy said:

How much would it cost if you haven't access to a cheap rate tariff and had to use an on street charger?
...
Dearest is 75pkw flat rate with no parking charge.

At a fairly pessimistic 3kwh/mile your worst case is 25p/mile.

A diesel ICE car @ 45mpg, with diesel @ £1.45/l works out at about 15p/mile.

So if you only charge your car with the most expensive electrons, it'll cost more than a fairly efficient combustion car.

The EV won't only be cheaper if there were other savings such as parking, BIK or congestion charge. 

But is it realistic that you'd only ever charge at the top rate? That you never take the car to a supermarket, there's no charging at your work site, your local park & ride station, and so on.

Generally though, EV's only make economic sense if you have access to cheap charging somewhere.

TooManyPoints

Why do EV's upset some of you so much?

At the risk of further derailing the thread, I don't think it's EVs per se that upset people so much. It's the fact that they are being encouraged to make the change now when, for many, it is clearly a practical impossibility (either because of financial reasons, charging practicalities or both). As well as that, with the current state of the infrastructure together with the woeful progress in expanding it, for many an EV will never be a practical alternative to an IC car.

With the proposed embargo on the sale of new IC cars due in less than seven years, one of two things will happen: either the rollout of charging infrastructure (not forgetting grid capacity) must be dramatically improved or the government of the day will preside over the end of mass private car ownership. One thing is for sure - without the first the second is an inevitability.

Martyn1981

Just to calm concerns/fears, we do need to apply some context here. Firstly, 2030 is seven years away, that's quite a long time. Next, the ban is only on full petrol/diesel vehicles, PHEV's (plug-in EV's) will be allowed till 2035. So it's actually 12yrs before folk won't be able to buy a new ICE if they really want too.

But the majority of people don't buy new cars, only about 20% of car purchases each year are new, the majority being secondhand.

Even if new car sales reach 100% BEV in 2030, the displacement of the older ICE fleet will still take another ~15yrs, so the full ramifications won't be felt till around 2045+.

The grid doesn't really require any expansion in capacity, as mentioned earlier, with the link to the National Grid (posted by Petriix). The estimate for additional demand for a whole BEV car fleet is about 10% (net*). And leccy demand has fallen by more than that this century. To put that +10% in context, the UK has been displacing FF leccy off the grid at roughly 3.5%pa since around 2010. In fact RE deployment has been accelerating, and hopefully will approach 5%+pa in the second half of this decade. So +10% for BEV's, over the next 22+yrs, isn't a problem. Heatpumps are a much bigger issue (but still fit within that growth rate, perhaps +7%, from 2030 onwards).

Obviously, the charging infrastructure needs to be expanded massively, and I'd suggest the Government is currently behind the curve, so that's a biggie. But there are many solutions for slow charging where folk don't have a dedicated space or driveway. Such as councils installing a small gulley across the pavement for a cable to be run, or chargers added to lamposts, or pop up chargers installed on mass. Then we get to the more fun options, like induction charging pads in parking spaces/bays, or, as is being developed and tested, induction charging on the go which would allow for smaller batts, and cheaper lighter BEV's:-

Hybrid Toyota Drove in Electric Mode for 100 Hours Nonstop

The RAV4 Prime covered 1,200 miles using Electreon’s wireless electric road technology that charges your car while you drive.

If it becomes possible to charge cars at 7kW+ whilst they are moving, then that translates to roughly 30mph. Allowing cars to drive without consuming onboard energy. If the charge rate is greater than the vehicles consumption, then it may become possible to actually charge the car 'up' whilst travelling, on certain main routes. Don't hold me to this, but I think induction charging is about 80% efficient, v's about 90%+ for normal charging. Don't know if the vehicle being lighter makes up for this loss, but possibly.

*The +10% net figure for a full BEV car fleet, is after savings from the reduction in fuel refining, and also the reduction in fuel consumed in transporting fuels. I believe cars account for about 2/3rds of UK road fuel consumption, so the figure for all transport may be around +15%.