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

motorguy

letom said:

motorguy said:

letom said:

WellKnownSid said:

letom said:

Petriix said:

There does seem to be a correlation between those with an irrational fear of EVs and those unable to construct grammatically correct sentences. While there are some genuine circumstances where EVs would be challenging at this point, most of the arguments amount to a kind of straw-clutching whataboutery rather than genuine concern around a real-world scenario. 

For most people (as in a little more than half of UK drivers) with access to cheap charging, an EV is a reasonable option and the current market is pretty favorable. For the other 40% or so, I wouldn't advise switching if you're going to be relying on expensive public charging. 

You must have come late to the thread, as quite a lot of arguments have been quite rational. Suggest you start at page 1 and work your way through.

I come back to my first point, EVs are an inferior product - evidence, none of the pro EV arguments are that EVs are better, your argument is that "they're sort of the same". One can only deduce that you all do not believe that EVs are actually better than ICE cars but at best they are similar. If I were trying to sell you the new iPhone 16 vs your old iPhone 8, my argument wouldn't be "it's a reasonable choice" (your words). My argument would be the iPhone 16 is better because of XYZ, the iPhone 16 is not similar to the iPhone 8, it is just better.

I'll make the point again, if EVs were better, the government would not be taxing ICE cars significantly more to make the financial difference so wide between an EV and an ICE car.

The public is resistant to EVs, not because they are irrational, but because they are very rational. It would be very irrational to want to move to an inferior mode of transport, ironically that appears to be your argument...

Which EVs have you actually driven?

Aside from being faster, smoother, quieter and less fatiguing over longer distances, I find the ability to just climb in on a morning when it’s minus 8 degrees and drive away much more 21st century.  Oh and they are cheaper - as in free car cheaper - if you can charge at home.

My wife was massively resistant to getting an EV. She knew from all the articles in the press that they can’t be driven in the rain and all EVs cost at least £60,000. Now she can’t be parted from hers 😄

None of those things are inherent to an EV that you can't find in an ICE car, so you haven't really stated why EVs as a product category is better, which as I said isn't your argument, it is that they are more or less the same as ICE cars.

The most fundamental value proposition of any mode of transport is getting you from A to B, it's the raisin d'etre of the product. Visit any EV car home page and the selling points are range and fast charging - ie car makers need to convince you that this mode of transport gets you from A to B - could you imagine a new form of plane where the airline talked about the range of the aircraft and how it could fast charge mid way and then get you to the destination... ICE car key selling points don't say range, because ICE cars deliver on the fundamental point of a mode of transport ie you have ample range in 1 tank, and if you need more, within 5 minutes you have ample range again.

As I say, at the core it's an inferior product. As with all inferior products, EVs would sell better if they were e.g. 40-50% the price of ICE cars, theres nothing wrong with EVs, but to pretend like moving to EVs ie having to figure out whether my car can take me from A to B is some step forward in quality of life and we're all too stupid and influenced by media to see this, is disingenuous. Just own it - quality of life will go down with EVs, but that's a cost to pay for reduced emissions.

Why does an EV have to be "better"?

A car fundamentally is a means of getting from A to B.  The average car journey length is 8 miles.  The average miles per year in a car is something like 5,000 to 8,000 miles.  Any EV will easily do that.  Many will do much much more.

EVs arent about being "better" than ICE.  They're about offering a replacement to burning the earths resources and pumping out the cancerous residuals of that practically in our faces in our towns and cities.  

People need to get their heads around not "needing" a range of 500+ miles but realising their day to day journies only amount to a matter of miles.  Its about thinking differently. 

EV advertising reemphasises the range and ease of charging as thats the two main concerns of potential buyers.

If someone has an EV with a range of 300 miles, they're only looking at charging it maybe once a fortnight.  For many, thats simply plugging it in overnight at their home or at their place of work.  There is no hardship in actually doing that.  Come out the following morning / leave work and the cars fully charged again.

To say quality of life will go down with owning an EV is frankly farcical.

Thanks you just reinforced my point.

"A car fundamentally is a means of getting from A to B"

Product A - gets you from A to B, range is no issue

Product B - here's 2 paragraphs about why range is fine for most, with caveats about distance and how long it needs to charge

Yet you're performing mental gymnastics about why product B is better.

EVs need to be better because they are priced the same or more expensive than the product that is inherently better - it's irrational for the market to adopt an inferior product at the same price as the superior product. That is why the market is resistant to change, there is ultimately limited demand for EVs at the current prices without significant government incentives, evidence being private registrations of EVs in November actually being less than the previous year. This perfectly proves my point of EVs needing to be 40-50% cheaper than ICE cars, which they are via company lease programs which is why adoption via this channel is growing but isn't with private registrations. When the inferior product is more appropriately priced, sales improve, which just simply aligns with basic economic principles.

The point being A to B is, on average 8 or 10 miles, and over the course of a year its not like people go to the moon and back in their cars.

And no mental gymnastics involved.  Just stating facts.  For the record i've just sold a BMW M2, and am using my runabout 2014 Golf TDI, so i've certainly no skin in the game (yet).

I'm following a thread on pistonheads on people who have moved from a performance ICE car to an EV.  Though these made interesting reading....

"I have done exactly this OP, went from a C63 estate to a Tesla Model 3 last year.

Financially it was probably the best decision I have made in years!

The technology is pretty impressive and every time some one non new who is anti-EV goes in the car they are surprised, by not only the performance but the ease of everything.

If you do change, I recommend switching to Octopus Energy and get a wall charger installed.

I probably won’t go back to ICE for a daily."

And another 

"It's got to the point that I only actually give any thought to the need to public charge if I'm in the extremieties of the UK, the rest of the time I'm flippant about it tbh, I never plan anymore. If the car dips below 20% and I'm not going to make it home, I stop at whatever rapid charger it shows as available - zero planning or thought goes into it."

And another

"just get the lower-range, smaller car if that's what you want. For the majority of your journeys you'll do home to home and it'll be dirt cheap to charge/run. For the occasional longer journeys, they'll take a bit more planning to work out where to stop, but just embrace it, grab a coffee (you'll have saved many, many multiples of said coffee over the longer-term) and enjoy the break.

I've got a RWD MY, it'll do 240 miles in the summer, probably closer to 200miles in the winter. Tomorrow I'm doing a 300 mile round trip - I'll leave with a full charge, stop once on the way down, once on the way back for a toilet break (have 2 small children who will need a break too), arrive back with very little charge left and stick it on charge tomorrow night while I sleep. It's not as difficult as some people make out"

HHarry

Herzlos said:

HHarry said:

Herzlos said:

It may only take me 5 minutes to refill the car with diesel, but the equivelant charging would take me maybe 30 seconds in total of person time (and maybe 10 hours of car-sat-on-driveway time).

 That is a ridiculous statement.

What's ridiculous about it? 

How long do you reckon you actively spend charging your phone over a week? Do you stare at it for 2 hours every day?

Realistically with a home charger (my example), I'd park, plug it in whilst walking past and forget about it until I use the car next. Assuming that takes as long as 10 seconds to plug in, 3 times, then that's all the time I spent on it. How long the car takes to charge given it'll sit on my driveway without moving for 18 hours is pretty much irrelevant.

Even if it somehow took me a full minute, assuming I need to stow the cable in the boot, configure an app or whaever, that's still going to compare favourably to the time taken going to get diesel even if there's no traffic or queue. It took me 10 minutes earlier and it was raining.

If I was talking about refuelling at a motorway stop it'd be a different matter altogether, where ICE clearly wins, but that's not the case here.

 How long does it take to boil an egg?  Oh, just the 10 seconds it takes to get an egg from the fridge and put it in my pan.

 

jeffuk

MeteredOut said:

jeffuk said:

MeteredOut said:

jeffuk said:

Herzlos said:

HHarry said:

Herzlos said:

It may only take me 5 minutes to refill the car with diesel, but the equivelant charging would take me maybe 30 seconds in total of person time (and maybe 10 hours of car-sat-on-driveway time).

 That is a ridiculous statement.

What's ridiculous about it? 

How long do you reckon you actively spend charging your phone over a week? Do you stare at it for 2 hours every day?

No, I can use my phone while it charges.

How many hours a day do you drive your car?

Between 1 and 9 hours.

 I suspect we 

You seem to be presuming that I am anti EV, that isn't the case, an EV would be perfect for me if I could charge at home but I can't. There will be millions like me too. 

motorguy

letom said:

Petriix said:

@letom you've used a lot of words (which, to be fair, form reasonably intelligible sentences) but your argument doesn't really make sense. I don't recall anyone claiming that EVs are a better choice in all circumstances; that wouldn't be at all credible. There are, of course, pros and cons and myriad factors to consider.

There is no credible argument against rapidly transitioning away from burning fossil fuels so it's entirely reasonable for the government to tip the balance towards EVs where people (and 'the market') might otherwise be reluctant to change. While EVs are definitely not a panacea, they are objectively far less damaging than their fossil fuel equivalents.

While there are some factors which make EVs a worse choice for some, many of the arguments against them rely on overstating the perceived negatives. Examples include:

Expensive battery replacement (except almost no one ever actually has to replace an EV battery) 

Insufficient range (except most people don't actually drive beyond the range of a typical EV) 

Slow charging (except most people would be able charge while the car is parked for a prolonged period anyway so won't actually be waiting) 

Expensive and unreliable public charging (except most people will only occasionally require public charging) 

Fear of EV fires (except vehicles with combustion engines are between 30 and 60 times more likely to catch fire than pure EVs). 

The pros of EVs are well documented but, if you need a reminder, they are:

Vastly more efficient, faster, smoother and easier to drive, cleaner, greener, more reliable, cheaper to run and maintain, and (for many) more convenient to refuel. 

I have read the thread. I mostly don't bother entering into debates where the discussion has veered towards the irrational. However, my aim is not to change the minds of those who cling to their misguided beliefs, but to present some balance for those who aren't aware of the incredible amount of misinformation being shared. 

The most important pro of an ICE is that it takes you from A to B without any need to consider range, this is the fundamental point of a mode of transport. I suggest you read the post from Motorguy, he's quite elegantly shown why as a product category EVs are inferior.

As has been said by others, thats a ridiculous conclusion.

Range is an irrelevant point if you're only driving 10 miles on average.  And only doing 180 miles a week.

Thats the facts of the matter for most.

motorguy

@letom - i'm curious as to why you're so bitter about EVs?

Surely you can see they work for many, and can work for quite a big percentage of people once they get their heads around it.

If you're happiest in an ICE car, then let everyone else crack on do what best suits them.

Noone is stopping you driving an ICE car.

henry24

But isn't that the problem the government are stopping people from driving ICE cars and forcing them into EVs they don't want 

booneruk

No. New sales are to be banned from 2035 as far as I understand it, which is a long way from people being forced away from driving ICE cars.

motorguy

henry24 said:

But isn't that the problem the government are stopping people from driving ICE cars and forcing them into EVs they don't want 

No.

Exactly as booner said - from 2035 (so ten years from now) new ICE cars will be banned.  No one is stopping anyone driving ICE cars after that point, just that you wont be able to buy a brand new one.

It surprises me when some people seem to be getting themselves quite worked up over something that realistically wont impact them for 15+ years, by which time, given the massive advancements we're seeing in EVs and charging the landscape will have changed totally anyway.

WellKnownSid

motorguy said:

henry24 said:

But isn't that the problem the government are stopping people from driving ICE cars and forcing them into EVs they don't want 

No.

Exactly as booner said - from 2035 (so ten years from now) new ICE cars will be banned.  No one is stopping anyone driving ICE cars after that point, just that you wont be able to buy a brand new one.

Indeed.  Given the average life of a car is 16 years, those that want to can still be happily chugging around in a fossil car until at least 2051.  By which time petrol will only be available in cartons from a hardware store at £95 a litre, and you probably won't be allowed to drive one in any town or city due to emissions, noise, etc, but hey-ho.

Mildly_Miffed

HHarry said:

Herzlos said:

HHarry said:

Herzlos said:

It may only take me 5 minutes to refill the car with diesel, but the equivelant charging would take me maybe 30 seconds in total of person time (and maybe 10 hours of car-sat-on-driveway time).

 That is a ridiculous statement.

What's ridiculous about it? 

How long do you reckon you actively spend charging your phone over a week? Do you stare at it for 2 hours every day?

Realistically with a home charger (my example), I'd park, plug it in whilst walking past and forget about it until I use the car next. Assuming that takes as long as 10 seconds to plug in, 3 times, then that's all the time I spent on it. How long the car takes to charge given it'll sit on my driveway without moving for 18 hours is pretty much irrelevant.

Even if it somehow took me a full minute, assuming I need to stow the cable in the boot, configure an app or whaever, that's still going to compare favourably to the time taken going to get diesel even if there's no traffic or queue. It took me 10 minutes earlier and it was raining.

If I was talking about refuelling at a motorway stop it'd be a different matter altogether, where ICE clearly wins, but that's not the case here.

 How long does it take to boil an egg?  Oh, just the 10 seconds it takes to get an egg from the fridge and put it in my pan. 

A better analogy might be putting the slow-cooker on before you go out to work - presto, you've got dinner when you get home.

Yes, it took 8hrs to cook.
No, you didn't need to give it any attention during that 8hrs.