Electric Cars: Are they Really Worth it? (Ch5)

born_again

Hoenir said:

born_again said:

Are they worth it..

My math
Kia Niro Hybrid 16,400 miles, cost in Petrol £2,108,83
Kia E-Niro 11,183 miles, cost in electric £209.15

OK so just over 5K less in E-Niro. So that's just another £100.
Got to love home 7p charging.

As to these programs. Load a rubbish & paid for by whoever wants to get their point across.

EV is just the same as a ICE, weather, driving style all effect range. 

My math
Kia Niro Hybrid  base cost new OTR - £29,865
Kia E-Niro base cost new OTR - £37,270

OK so just over 7.5K less for the ICE

 Load a rubbish & paid for by whoever wants to get their point across.

In the real world EV prices are beyond the budget of the average person. 

I bought Hev at 1 year old, sold at 3 years old.
E-niro was 3 years old. 

E-Niro cost less than HEV.

Cost of running is a the main thing to me. depreciation is something all cars suffer from. 

Define average person?

Alanp

I’d quite like an EV, my problem is I’d have to rely on public charging, I do have a garage, but as I live on a corner we access it from the road, ( it sits at the bottom of our garden) it does have power so I could charge from a 3 pin plug, but this would be for emergency use as it would be expensive and potentially dangerous, it would mean me running another cable down to the garage to be able to fit a wallbox, I also would need a smart meter as I don’t have one, as my house was built in the late sixties , I’m not even sure if one could be fitted, so, atm I’ll stick with my hybrid that gives 60+ mpg..

sheenas

MattMattMattUK said:

Hoenir said:

born_again said:

Are they worth it..

My math
Kia Niro Hybrid 16,400 miles, cost in Petrol £2,108,83
Kia E-Niro 11,183 miles, cost in electric £209.15

OK so just over 5K less in E-Niro. So that's just another £100.
Got to love home 7p charging.

As to these programs. Load a rubbish & paid for by whoever wants to get their point across.

EV is just the same as a ICE, weather, driving style all effect range. 

My math
Kia Niro Hybrid  base cost new OTR - £29,865
Kia E-Niro base cost new OTR - £37,270

Or look a the three year TCO, based on 12k miles and 50% depreciation (likely the petrol will be higher and the EV lower). Current petrol prices, current EV charging tariff. 
Petrol £29,865 + 36k miles £7,200 + 50% depreciation £14,932 = 3 Year Cost £22,132
EV £37,270 + 36k miles £720* + 50% depreciation £18,635** = 3 Year Cost £19,355

*Underestimating the efficiency of the EV for a margin of error.
**Likely less for the EV based on current prices in Cinch 

Hoenir said:

OK so just over 7.5K less for the ICE

So £2,777 cheaper for the EV even when pushing the figures in favour of the petrol.

Hoenir said:

 Load a rubbish & paid for by whoever wants to get their point across.

There does seem to be a lot of anti-EV people around, the claims that EVs are or will be "near worthless after three years", when the reality is that they retain more value than ICE, that they catch fire, that they cost more to run etc. All rubbish. EVs are not perfect, but if people do not think that they will work for them (And the will not for people who do not have home or work charging) then they should make that argument on merit, rather than making things up.

Hoenir said:

In the real world EV prices are beyond the budget of the average person. 

In the real world EV prices are no more beyond the budget of the average person than any other equivalent car. The difference is new versus used, not EV vs ICE. Want to lose a load of money the moment you take ownership, buy a new car operating on any fuel type. Want the most cost efficient vehicle to run, provided you can charge at home, buy an EV. If you can only public charge then your costs will be roughly break even with ICE over time.

The average uk driver does around 8k a year, personally I spend £30 pounds a month on petrol. So over 3 years, thats about £1000 ( basically the price of an ev charger installed). In terms of the current value of a petrol version of my car , around £20k while the ev version would be £13 when I purchased the car they would have been more or less the same price.   So basically unless I did a huge mileage petrol is cheaper. Working from home has me greener rather than technology. 

The best option is second either for ev or petrol, you have to really consider your use case also and remember technology will always be redundant quickly as manufacturers refine things. I wonder how long lithium batteries will be around for example. 

Mildly_Miffed

Alanp said:

I’d quite like an EV, my problem is I’d have to rely on public charging, I do have a garage, but as I live on a corner we access it from the road, ( it sits at the bottom of our garden) it does have power so I could charge from a 3 pin plug, but this would be for emergency use as it would be expensive and potentially dangerous, it would mean me running another cable down to the garage to be able to fit a wallbox, I also would need a smart meter as I don’t have one, as my house was built in the late sixties , I’m not even sure if one could be fitted, so, atm I’ll stick with my hybrid that gives 60+ mpg..

Electricity is priced per kWh, so you pay the same amount for the same amount, no matter how quickly it's dispensed. It's only going to be dangerous if your wiring is dangerous.

You don't NEED a smart meter, but it does open up preferable tariffs. And, yes, of course a smart meter can be retrofitted to any property. The rest of your wiring isn't unchanged from the '60s, is it...?

diveunderthebonnet

sheramber said:

Stipid qyestion

If you had an electric car what would you do if you broke down in the middle of no where?

Well if you had a petrol or diesel car and broke down in the middle of no where what would you do?  

Would it make any difference whether it  was electric?

I saw the advert for the program and they showed the part where the woman said that ,i turned to my wife and said something similar , i said what would that woman do if any car broke down in the middle of no where ,cry into her mobile phone 

facade

sheramber said:

Stipid qyestion

If you had an electric car what would you do if you broke down in the middle of no where?

Well if you had a petrol or diesel car and broke down in the middle of no where what would you do?  

Would it make any difference whether it  was electric?

The suggestion was that it is more likely to happen with an electric car (but not supported by any of that boring "data" or "facts").

I tend to agree tbh, as mine has another recall to try and prevent exactly that!  Although EVs have fewer moving parts, they are bristling with sensors all connected with cheap dodgy connectors and flaky wiring, any one of which giving a spurious reading will cause the car to shut itself down rather than risk bursting into flames.

To be fair, most savvy owners know to simply snatch the quick disconnect (fitted for a reason.....) off the 12V battery wait a while and reconnect to perform technical maintenance, which usually gets them going until the next time the connector gets loose.

I think they were actually suggesting that they break down because people run them out of electricity, and do it in the middle of nowhere too!

QrizB

sheenas said:.

The average uk driver does around 8k a year, personally I spend £30 pounds a month on petrol. So over 3 years, thats about £1000

Are you saying that you personally drive 8k miles on £360 of fuel?

With petrol at £1.30 a litre, £360 will buy 277 litres. If you get 10 miles per litre (about 45mpg) that would take you 2770 miles.

For it to take you 8k miles, you'd need a car that gets 29 miles to the litre, 131mpg.

My motorcycle can just about manage that, but I doubt many cars can.

Alternatively, if you're driving less than 3k miles a year, I can understand why you're not bothered by fuel costs. All the other costs of ownership will dwarf them.

I track my fuel use on Fuelly. It's a useful source of real world fuel consumption data.

https://www.fuelly.com/

lordmountararat

Alanp said:

I’d quite like an EV, my problem is I’d have to rely on public charging, I do have a garage, but as I live on a corner we access it from the road, ( it sits at the bottom of our garden) it does have power so I could charge from a 3 pin plug, but this would be for emergency use as it would be expensive and potentially dangerous, it would mean me running another cable down to the garage to be able to fit a wallbox, I also would need a smart meter as I don’t have one, as my house was built in the late sixties , I’m not even sure if one could be fitted, so, atm I’ll stick with my hybrid that gives 60+ mpg..

It is perfectly safe, though very slow, to charge an EV from a 13 amp domestic socket providing the plug and socket are in good condition and up to the job. I restrict the charge to 8 amps to be on the safe side, which is not much more than half the 13 amp maximum load. I only charge during day time and regularly check the plug which never gets remotely hot. I had it all examined by a qualified electrician. In the early days of EVs they were often sold with a domestic cable and plug, which would surely be illegal if it was dangerous.

QrizB

There are EV-rated 13A sockets available which are designed to better handle prolonged operation at high currents. If I had to regularly charge an EV from a 13A socket I'd look to fitting one of those.

Mildly_Miffed

QrizB said:

There are EV-rated 13A sockets available which are designed to better handle prolonged operation at high currents. If I had to regularly charge an EV from a 13A socket I'd look to fitting one of those.

Or just a 16A Commando.