Buy a EV battery car or not?

LightFlare

Miser1964 said:

HillStreetBlues said:

Just wondering what people class as a long journey that needs a stop? More talking about the drivers limits.

About 3 hours of Motorway/fast A-road driving and I'd be taking a breather for 15 mins, with the option of a fill-up.

Likewise - I usually need to stretch my legs and grab a bathroom break after about 3 hours.

5-10min at most. Usually don’t need a fill up as my diesel will do close to 600 miles on a full tank.

I don’t think I have ever had to fill up at a service station 

RogerPensionGuy

Reference a post earlier, I understand in 2026 EVs will be paying ULEZ or whatever name they will give it, a bit like VED Road tax, think EVs start paying road tax from 2025.

In Europe I think they are about to tax rubber emissions in the future, so again, heavy EVs may get clobbered. 

And if too many EVs don't pay the extra 15% VAT, the government will adjust more stuff, cars are seen as low hanging tax fruits unfortunately. 
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https://www.synergycarleasing.co.uk/guides/are-electric-cars-exempt-from-the-congestion-charge/#:~:text=EV Exemptions From London Congestion Charge&text=This exemption is currently called,Charge from January 1st 2026.

☆☆☆

https://ecostandard.org/news_events/tyre-wear-an-underestimated-source-of-air-pollution-that-needs-to-be-tackled-in-the-eu/#:~:text=What's in the EU regulation,reduce the release of microplastics.

Car_54

RogerPensionGuy said:

Reference a post earlier, I understand in 2026 EVs will be paying ULEZ or whatever name they will give it, a bit like VED Road tax, think EVs start paying road tax from 2025.

In Europe I think they are about to tax rubber emissions in the future, so again, heavy EVs may get clobbered. 

And if too many EVs don't pay the extra 15% VAT, the government will adjust more stuff, cars are seen as low hanging tax fruits unfortunately. 
.

The first two of these are unsubstantiated internet rumours or conspiracy theories.

WellKnownSid

RogerPensionGuy said:

I don't have home charging possibility, so charging is awkward, expensive and will always pay the extra 15% VAT on charging compared to home charging. 

Yeah, that's the killer use-case.  So much hangs on this.

I want at least 300 real miles range(so 330 on spec) for the odd long journey and to only charge it up twice or 3 times a week keeping at least 150 miles range available at most times.

If you're doing 2 charges per week x 80% x 300 miles = 480 miles per week => 25k per year is still quite a high mileage - perhaps worth trying to find / beg / steal / borrow / engineer a way to charge more cheaply... that could change the maths.

Going on all the above, I will need a pretty fancy expensive EV car that will be heavy, produce lots of rubber pollution and buying tyres more often, more prone to damaged bulging tyres due weight and pot holes.

Yeah that.  I think if you've got experience having driven bigger / faster cars then it's not a problem, but I think for some being able to effortlessly outrun a Focus ST at the lights is a novelty that doesn't wear off.  Tyres will be a tradeoff here!

I have friends who have EV cars similar to my situation and they say unless I'm getting car cheap and/or salary sacrifice, an EV just isn't the best for me.

To be honest, we just wanted a cheap nearly new car and EVs are cheaper than the ICE equivalent in several cases.

I've got friends with PHEVs and they say it's cheaper using the engine over the battery and these cars are carting around all the extra weight of the battery stuff all the time, I notice PHEVs are falling out of favour and manufacturers appear to be going much more for hybrids with smaller engines and use the battery stuff to make these car very efficient. 

Check out AutoTrader.  If you look closely you will see hundreds of PHEVs advertised with unopened shrink-wrapped charging leads in the back.  Never once been plugged in  

Also I've been looking at battery performance in range and the makers are  saying a 20 or 30% loss of battery capacity and miles range is considered okay and just put up with it, new batteries can be 10,15, 20 or even 25K to replace.

Anecdotally these are rare - and I would offset that with the many 'just bought a car and the engine blew up' stories.  Peugeot / Ford wet belt anyone?

So unless anyone can talk me out of not getting a battery EV car, think I'll start my research on normal ultra modern ICE(internal combustion engines) and ICE hybrids. 

I love my hybrid - twice the price of our EV.  660 miles range in the summer (although under 500 miles in winter).  Quick off the lights.

But it's not as refined, not as planted on the road as our EV and nowhere near as fun to drive.  We've ended up covering something like 3,000 miles in just over two months in our EV - we've never got out more since getting one.  That's about £60 in TOU electricity charges vs about £500 in our old diesel.  But only if you can charge at home.  And our tyres haven't worn out yet...

PS, just to mention I did an insurance comparison on like for like cars with EV and  ICE/Hybrids, essentially same cars, but on average my insurance on EVs will be 75% more that ICE/Hybrids. 

Fair enough.  In our case annual premium rose by £22 but I think we're a sweet spot in terms of age / location / profession.

WellKnownSid

Oh forgot to mention.  This morning was -7 outside - and number one son spent at least 15 minutes scraping his car before heading off to see friends.  Then SWMBO announced we needed something urgent from the shops...

I looked at the cars covered in a thick layer of ice, then pulled out my phone and said 'no problem'.

By the time I'd been to the loo and put my coat on - I climbed into our warm, fully defrosted electric vehicle...

MikeJXE

WellKnownSid said:

Oh forgot to mention.  This morning was -7 outside - and number one son spent at least 15 minutes scraping his car before heading off to see friends.  Then SWMBO announced we needed something urgent from the shops...

I looked at the cars covered in a thick layer of ice, then pulled out my phone and said 'no problem'.

By the time I'd been to the loo and put my coat on - I climbed into our warm, fully defrosted electric vehicle...

I can do that with my 7 year old Jaguar XE 

WellKnownSid

MikeJXE said:

I can do that with my 7 year old Jaguar XE 

I must admit we use it all the time now.  Nothing better then stepping out of Greggs in the freezing cold and taking the ten minute walk back to the multi-storey to find it's all nice and toasty... 

Now looking forward to Summer - and stepping into a nicely pre-chilled car!

ididgetwhereiamtoday

WellKnownSid said:

MikeJXE said:

I can do that with my 7 year old Jaguar XE 

I must admit we use it all the time now.  Nothing better then stepping out of Greggs in the freezing cold and taking the ten minute walk back to the multi-storey to find it's all nice and toasty... 

Now looking forward to Summer - and stepping into a nicely pre-chilled car!

There’s not many ice cars that have heat pumps. With out a heat pump it would require the engine to be running for quite a while to warm the car up. 

Car_54

ididgetwhereiamtoday said:

WellKnownSid said:

MikeJXE said:

I can do that with my 7 year old Jaguar XE 

I must admit we use it all the time now.  Nothing better then stepping out of Greggs in the freezing cold and taking the ten minute walk back to the multi-storey to find it's all nice and toasty... 

Now looking forward to Summer - and stepping into a nicely pre-chilled car!

There’s not many ice cars that have heat pumps. With out a heat pump it would require the engine to be running for quite a while to warm the car up. 

Which would be an offence if the car was unattended on a road.

SouthLondonUser

WellKnownSid said:

Oh forgot to mention.  This morning was -7 outside - and number one son spent at least 15 minutes scraping his car before heading off to see friends.  Then SWMBO announced we needed something urgent from the shops...

I looked at the cars covered in a thick layer of ice, then pulled out my phone and said 'no problem'.

By the time I'd been to the loo and put my coat on - I climbed into our warm, fully defrosted electric vehicle...

I put a cheap windscreen cover on my old banger, which avoids most of the scraping!