Have we ever been in a worse car buying era I don't know where to turn next.

Spies

WellKnownSid said:

Spies said:

Goudy said:

Spies said:

I like driving my EV more than the petrol Clio I had previously but I got extra creature comforts like heated seats, lane keep and radar cruise which aren't exclusive to EVs... my main issue is not the range (100-120mi), its about the crap-shoot when it comes to publicly charging, they're either really expensive or unreliable.

Do you have to depend solely on public charging?

As for competition making public charging cheaper, how exactly is that going to work.
Three of four different company sockets to each lamp post or three of four different company chargers in a car park?

No I only use pulic charging when I go beyond the range of my vehicle, typically rapid chargers as there aren't really that many destination charges in useful locations

Any public Tesla options along the route?  I see you're Cumbria, we generally do Scotland to London with a single stop at the superchargers at Trentham gardens because it's about half the price of motorway charging.  Cheap and reliable.

I was on the M58 near Liverpool, the original idea was to charge in Kings Dock car park on a destination charger but due to the weather I wasn't able to make it that far and didn't want to venture too far off route, so I stopped at Old Meadow Services, the charger I tried to use wouldn't work so I phoned the operator and they managed to restart the entire bank of chargers instead of just the one I was calling about which terminated everyone's charge and sent two more units offline.

Arunmor

Petriix said:

. But, even more importantly, a small amount of inconvenience pales into insignificance against the backdrop of catastrophic climate change.

Climate has always changed, your whole hypothesis hinges on it being man made.  There are robust counter arguments to that and more and more companies are exiting the Net Zero coalition. CO2 is the gas of life and there is currently only 0.04% of it in the atmosphere, more CO2 means a greener planet and more currants and raisins!

booneruk

Fossil fuels are a finite resource and subject to geopolitical issues. There's no sensible argument for keeping the nation addicted to them.

Goudy

WellKnownSid said:

Arunmor said:

The reason the converts are so keen on EVs is they are not paying their fair share into the 53p/litre fuel duty pot.

If they were I wonder how keen they would be in overpriced EVs?

This is a money saving forum.  I’m happy paying 1.5 pence per mile plus saving a further £300 a month on electricity with my EV-only tariff. It pays for the EV. 

Money saving for some, break even for some, very much neither for a lot and I'm not comparing EV's with ICE's.

The niggle, resistance, negativity whatever you want to call it is partly because of this.
Yes I admit there are those that will never accept the idea, but that's not everyone we come across on here.

I guess it could be hard to understand as the "shoe fits" for those that promote or defend them, yet there is a readily accepted notion that if you can't charge at home they probably aren't for you, but there are plenty that can't and won't ever be able to.  

I am positive the number of public chargers will increase, there's no argument from me there.
What I don't agree with is they will be as cheap to charge via an on street charger than they would be at home, ever.
So if you have no likely possibility of charging at home, the cost of ownership is never going to be even.
Some realise they are going to have to make a decision that's not going to be popular.

When EV's are the only choice, what happens then?
Try not to think of the EV in it's self but where they live and what are current economics are based on, property.

You can have a car but it's cost to run is actually far far higher then it needs to be, far higher than perhaps living in some other property but you probably can't afford to live in as where you actually live now is far less than you paid and where you want to live is far more than it's ever been plus it comes with some extra taxes.

And what segment of the public is this likely to effect and what will their alternatives be?
I don't need to go into the socio economic status of all the people living in these types of properties really, so lets just say more will likely need an alternative and those options are always subsidised.
But the purse these subsidises come out of have shrunk, obviously. This means the government go after what's left as they are the dripping tap that can be forced open. 

It's not that they need to be cheaper than ICE, that's not the point.
It's really the costs of running them need to be more even for everyone. If that is cracked, most but the most ardent naysayer will melt away.

If a wedge is driven in between the differing costs to running them, it's not surprising some aren't fully on board. 

There are of course things that can be done to even these costs up, but most aren't commercially viable and public chargers are a commercial operation. It's ok saying it will happen, but no one has yet come up with anything remotely viable.
We're going to be left with a two tier system that really suits no one in the long run.
Those that can't are going to need an alternative paid for by those that can and those that can are going to pay through the nose just to keep one, or better still just have the ability to keep one.

It's not like driveway taxes haven't been on the cards for the likes of Sidiq and other majors.

WellKnownSid

In Norway, ICEs aren't banned, just that few want to buy them any more.  Per capita they also have five times the number of public chargers than the UK which is telling.  

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cg52543v6rmo

henry24

I wonder what the difference in cost is between public chargers in Norway and UK

WellKnownSid

Google is your friend.  2-3 Krone so around 14-21p per kWh

Average household electricity cost per kWh in July 2024 was apparently 17p/kWh

Goudy

14-21 pence per kWh compared to what, 60-75 pence per kWh in my local area.
Obviously we're comparing like for like, public on street chargers.

So the home and public charging network are closer in price and the uptake per capita is greater?

Does anyone know if they charge a connection fee like my local chargers?

henry24

So when the price here is around 17p maybe more people will change to EVs

Spies

henry24 said:

So when the price here is around 17p maybe more people will change to EVs

Which won't happen any time soon whilst Gas power generation basically dictates the price