Buy a EV battery car or not?

Bigwheels1111

As an ex HGV1 Driver it quite funny when it comes to breaks.
It is mandatory for a 45 minutes break after 4.5 hours driving.
But nothing is set in stone for car drivers.
A visit to my parents is 3.5 - 4 hours each way.
The only planed stop is when I get to their house.
Plus a stop at the kebab shop just before I get home.
Its a 2 or 4 times a year trip. It can be done in one day, with a 4 hour visit.
This is where ice cars win. I can do this trip and drive around all month on the one tank of diesel.
An EV would require 3 or 4 breaks on the trip there and back, let alone the rest of the month.
The EV maths don’t add up for me.

Herzlos

Unless you can charge whilst spending 4 hours at your parents house.

But yeah, assuming your 3.5 hours is purely motorway you're looking at a max of 245 miles each way, more realistically under 200. 200 mile EV's are readily available and some will do 400 but cost a fortune.

If you tried to do it in an older 100 mile EV you'd probably need 1 or 2 stops each way, but with a 200-ish mile range you could potentially do it with 1 additional stop (none if your parents have an EV charger).

But as you said, you only make the trip 2/4 times a year so it's definitely not worth paying for a 400 mile EV to do it.

born_again

SouthLondonUser said:

I think poor charging infrastructure can be, depending on usage, a deal breaker even if the charging infrastructure is fine for 95% of your needs.

Let's say you use the car mostly around your city, or between two cities, and the charging infrastructure is fine there.

But you go twice a year to Cornwall, or the Scottish Highlands, or wherever, and the charging infrastructure there is poor. What do you do? Buy a second car just to use twice a year? Rent a petrol car for those 2-3-4 weeks? That's an option, but not a cheap one.

At the same time, I genuinely wonder if the economics justify installing enough chargers in those places, if they'd remain mostly unused outside of the tourist season.

I don;t know in other cities, but in certain (not all!) parts of London having an EV without having a home charger seems easier than I would have guessed 5 years ago. Lamp-post charging points are few and often occupied by petrol cars; but I see more and more charging bays dedicated to EVs only; f you live close enough to one of these, you could leave the EV there in the evening and pick it up in the morning. And you won't need to do this every day, of course. I have a couple of colleagues who do exactly this.

Reminds me of a u-tuber who did a 200+ mile trip from South Wales to the midlands.
Was not happy that there was no charging for 8 miles around the hotel he started from... Shame he missed the 16 chargers that are just the other side of the fence next to hotel.🤣

WellKnownSid

Bigwheels1111 said:

Its a 2 or 4 times a year trip. It can be done in one day, with a 4 hour visit.
This is where ice cars win. I can do this trip and drive around all month on the one tank of diesel.

This was the initial problem I had with EVs.  Until I realised that for the other 363 days of the year I would benefit by driving around in a significantly quicker / quieter / more refined car for the same or less money (if you buy nearly new).  And because I was able to charge at home the 'all month on one tank of diesel' wasn't a thing either because my car is now as full as I need it to be every morning.  Those 'just need to pop to get fuel before I set off tomorrow' thirty minute round trips to the filling station are no-longer required.

Ganga

Bigwheels1111 said:

As an ex HGV1 Driver it quite funny when it comes to breaks.
It is mandatory for a 45 minutes break after 4.5 hours driving.
But nothing is set in stone for car drivers.
A visit to my parents is 3.5 - 4 hours each way.
The only planed stop is when I get to their house.
Plus a stop at the kebab shop just before I get home.
Its a 2 or 4 times a year trip. It can be done in one day, with a 4 hour visit.
This is where ice cars win. I can do this trip and drive around all month on the one tank of diesel.
An EV would require 3 or 4 breaks on the trip there and back, let alone the rest of the month.
The EV maths don’t add up for me.

True but the daft part of HGV rules is you could finish work in your truck and jump into your private car and drive for as long as you wanted fuel and tiredness permitting   

HillStreetBlues

Bigwheels1111 said:

As an ex HGV1 Driver it quite funny when it comes to breaks.
It is mandatory for a 45 minutes break after 4.5 hours driving.
But nothing is set in stone for car drivers.
A visit to my parents is 3.5 - 4 hours each way.
The only planed stop is when I get to their house.
Plus a stop at the kebab shop just before I get home.
Its a 2 or 4 times a year trip. It can be done in one day, with a 4 hour visit.
This is where ice cars win. I can do this trip and drive around all month on the one tank of diesel.
An EV would require 3 or 4 breaks on the trip there and back, let alone the rest of the month.
The EV maths don’t add up for me.

That how I would have done it when I was healthy. Now can't even do an hour.
It must vary quite a bit person to person, just like how much sleep a person needs.

born_again

Bigwheels1111 said:

As an ex HGV1 Driver it quite funny when it comes to breaks.
It is mandatory for a 45 minutes break after 4.5 hours driving.
But nothing is set in stone for car drivers.
A visit to my parents is 3.5 - 4 hours each way.
The only planed stop is when I get to their house.
Plus a stop at the kebab shop just before I get home.
Its a 2 or 4 times a year trip. It can be done in one day, with a 4 hour visit.
This is where ice cars win. I can do this trip and drive around all month on the one tank of diesel.
An EV would require 3 or 4 breaks on the trip there and back, let alone the rest of the month.
The EV maths don’t add up for me.

How far is  the trip? Time means nothing, as it depends on the roads. Given it can take over a hour to travel 15 miles at times..

Bigwheels1111

born_again said:

Bigwheels1111 said:

As an ex HGV1 Driver it quite funny when it comes to breaks.
It is mandatory for a 45 minutes break after 4.5 hours driving.
But nothing is set in stone for car drivers.
A visit to my parents is 3.5 - 4 hours each way.
The only planed stop is when I get to their house.
Plus a stop at the kebab shop just before I get home.
Its a 2 or 4 times a year trip. It can be done in one day, with a 4 hour visit.
This is where ice cars win. I can do this trip and drive around all month on the one tank of diesel.
An EV would require 3 or 4 breaks on the trip there and back, let alone the rest of the month.
The EV maths don’t add up for me.

How far is  the trip? Time means nothing, as it depends on the roads. Given it can take over a hour to travel 15 miles at times..

165 miles.
The maths don’t work either.
On average it is around 10k more for an EV  compared to an ice vehicle.
I can’t charge at home, no local chargers that suit.
The closest one is expensive and I need to pay to park in the car park while charging.
Diesel is £1.38L where I filled up today £6.25 a gallon.
I get 40 - 54 mpg. At 40 mpg it is 15.6p a mile.
At 54 mpg it’s 11.5p a mile.
Looking at figures online, from EV owners and my friends MG ZS EV.
3 miles per kWh to 4 or 5 miles per kWh is common.
Local charger is 75p kWh.
My ice car still wins.
Euro 6 the cleanest engine ever.
All the manufacturing co2 etc has already been used up.
I am to keep it 15 - 20 years.
No way does changing make any sense.
As I only do 3k a year, changing to an EV, all the pollution co2 etc to make the new car is complete madness.
Let alone price.

Arunmor

The majority of European drivers purchasing a used car are foregoing second-hand electric vehicles (EVs) in favour of their combustion engine equivalent, car dealers suggest – a development set to undermine the EU goal of cutting road transport emissions.

https://www.euractiv.com/section/road-transport/news/eu-targets-to-suffer-as-consumers-shun-used-electric-vehicles/

WellKnownSid

Arunmor said:

The majority of European drivers purchasing a used car are foregoing second-hand electric vehicles (EVs) in favour of their combustion engine equivalent, car dealers suggest – a development set to undermine the EU goal of cutting road transport emissions.

https://www.euractiv.com/section/road-transport/news/eu-targets-to-suffer-as-consumers-shun-used-electric-vehicles/

Can’t really blame EU drivers for that - manufacturers have been working hard to stop EVs - Toyota probably the worst offender because they have the most to lose, peddling batteries made out of unobtanium which will cost nothing, charge in 10 minutes and last for 1,000 miles. All these things are arguably true - just not in the same battery 😉

Then there’s hydrogen!