Electric cars

AnotherJoe wrote: »

The proposed ban is only for "pure" petrol/diesels.

A ban on anything new being sold other than plug in hybrids could be brought in by say 2025 without any major effect other than perhaps on sportscars (not sure how many of those are hybrids)

That makes more sense.

I know JLR have said that all their new models will be hybrid or fully electric from 2020, Volvo a similar target.

The only question then is cost.

It's fine for the larger, more expensive cars adding a "small" percentage to the cost of the car but what about the smaller cheaper cars where the extra cost is a much larger percentage?

Hopefully, as the tech improves and the demand increses the price difference will shrink.

RichardD1970 wrote: »

Well, they would, wouldn't they?

Personally, as someone who would buy an EV tomorrow if I was in the market for a new car in that price range, I still think 2040 is wildly optomistic.

I dunno, it's making less and less sense to by pure combustion. If production can keep up I doubt there will be many people buying pure combustion cars by 2030 purely on market forces alone.

AdrianC wrote: »

Like I said, comparing like-for-like, except at the very bottom of the range where you can't compare like-for-like so easily - the choice in "Active" entry spec is only 1.0/manual or 1.5/auto/hybrid.

Go one step up the trim levels, from "Active" to "Icon", to where the engine choices start to open out, and 1.0/manual is £14,800, 1.5/manual is £15,600, 1.5/auto is £16,600, while 1.5/auto/hybrid is £17,900. £1,300 price difference between hybrid and like-for-like non-hybrid. Those price differences are fairly consistent up and down trim levels, when you look at the mechanical choices.

I was just using the base level car as an example, in both normal engine and hybrid. If you just want the cheapest traditionally fueled car it is £12,995. If you want the cheapest hybrid it is £15,995, same spec, just different engine option.

So all the extra hardware costs nothing to manufacture?

No, but the economics of supply and demand will take over. As more people buy hybrids then the car manufacturers will be able to buy the components in larger quantities and with greater buying power which should help take out some of the price differential out.

Herzlos wrote: »

But once you factor in tax, congestion charge and fuel costs, the premium for hybrid might pay for itself really quickly.

Well, that willl depend on miles done and where they are done, conjestion charge is not an issue for most drivers at the moment and £3,000 buys an awful lot of fuel.

Herzlos wrote: »

But once you factor in tax, congestion charge and fuel costs, the premium for hybrid might pay for itself really quickly.

My diesel is £0.00 tax - I don't live in London so no congestion charge so the only real change would be fuel and I already average well over 40 mpg (60 mpg average on motorway runs) so not going to be much of a saving.
Then knock off the cost of charging point installed at house (x2) as two cars from that saving and looks like a loss to me


Then when we are all on electric watch the price to charge soar (no more 1/2 price diesel when they became popular)