SWT_USER
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Not as far as I'm aware. I'm also not really comparing like with like as rural South West France is always likely to have fewer EV's than inside the M25. The infrastructure compared to rural England though is light years ahead.
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Do you think that the UK switching to electric vehicles is realistic?
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cactustwirly
Established Member
In what way are classic cars restricted?
They are ULEZ, Tax and MOT exempt, and are often cheaper to insure
Most supermarkets don't have chargers, or a very limited amount.
I don't think that's a valid argument, I spend about 15 minutes in the supermarket, is that long enough to fully charge the battery?
Plus the energy demand is about a fifth of a fuelled vehicle. A fully charged Tesla model 3 (circa 300 mile tall world range) has the same amount of energy on board as just 7 litres of petrol!
Unsurprisingly, there's a lot of bikers who would rather die than ride an electric bike though. I know a few people who ride motorcycles and they're certainly of that opinion and don't know anyone else in their groups/clubs that want them.
I saw one at a shop in Battersea power station and they look really smart, but I guess people want the authentic sound from a bike engine and the roar/vibration that it gives. I bet the electric bikes are quicker to pull away though.
For sure. But they will pay a price, as people do already for bringing out their classic cars for shows or track days, for this.
What we won't likely see is someone clinging on to their battered old Mondeo diesel when everyone else has moved on. I'd wager 95% of people who say they won't switch and will keep their ICE car aren't driving anything one would regard as a classic or worthy of keeping (besides in a museum or something).
Peter Sarf
Established Member
Worse still when I go to the supermarket I don't even have my car with me. I have got these legs. So for me its a specific trip to charge - not too bothered but until the council put a charger on the pavement outside where I live my depreciated old banger suffices and is more convenient.
I will be looking again when I can get something usable for about £2,000.
GusB
Established Member
Have you seen the performance that some EVs deliver? If you want outright acceleration, your "economy" EV will out-perform many
It depends on the battery. Either way you can plug your car in, go off and do some other stuff - have a cuppa and a bacon butty and when you come back it's charged. It's a minor behavioural change. I don't think your excuse is very valid, either.
There will be people who want to keep their elderly diesels on the road, but we should eventually be able to meet that need with bio-diesel once enough people have switched to EVs. Of course, the extension of zero- or low-emission zones will further restrict where they can be driven and the availability of said fuel will also diminish over time. While I love old cars, diesel or otherwise, we're going to reach a point where petrol these fuels are going to be difficult and expensive to obtain.
There is always the option to use someone else's charger if there are no street chargers available. There is at least one service available that allows people to rent out their driveways and provide charging at the same time. The names escape me at the moment, but I'm fairly sure I posted something about it earlier in this thread.
If you use your legs to go to the supermarket, do you actually need a car at all? Do you make a specific trip to refuel your old banger?
There are now a few different apps offering EV chargers to be rented out. I know a lot of people don't know their neighbours very well these days, but if you saw some EV chargers in nearby properties you could always knock on the door and ask them if they might be interested in setting up an account and letting you charge on their driveway.
I can't see why they wouldn't be open to the idea as they can make a bit of money and almost certainly charge less than most public chargers.
I can't see why they wouldn't be open to the idea as they can make a bit of money and almost certainly charge less than most public chargers.
I think that EV's would be a tough sell if ICE's could do 200+ miles on 7 litres of petrol, but then there wouldn't be quite so much of an issue with pollution if they could
Using the link to the calculator, for a car of category "hatchback", the break point to choose ZEV over IC is 8 years of driving 20,000 miles per annum.
I'll be keeping my wonderful and economical Honda Jazz!
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/net-zero/electric-car-calculator/
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That calculator is a load of old nonsense. It assumes that the EV premium is £12500 but I can buy Dacia Spring for £15000 or a Renault 5 for £22000. Can I buy a new petrol Dacia for £2000 or a new petrol Renault for £9500? It assumes average efficiency of 3.2kw per mile which is very low for a typical car (my Cupra Born 5 door family hatchback gets that in the depths of winter, over it’s lifetime it’s averaging 4.3kw per mile). If you have driveway selected it’s also assuming that you are paying the standard electricity fee, but if you park your EV on your driveway you’d be crazy not to sign up for one of the many EV tariffs available…
Peter Sarf
Established Member
Indeed, if electric cars are anything like the Electric buses in London then you will be glad to be sitting down in an EV !. Not sure what it does to the tyres but someone who enjoys performance cars is not going to worry about using up rubber !.
I am really too frugal to weave in some snacking and drinking. More likely to drive to the supermarket, stick the chariot on charge, walk home, do the washing up etc and walk back to do the shopping and collect the car. Not sure there are any chargers yet but I have noticed a time limit on using various car parks.It depends on the battery. Either way you can plug your car in, go off and do some other stuff - have a cuppa and a bacon butty and when you come back it's charged. It's a minor behavioural change. I don't think your excuse is very valid, either.
I got rid of my second Vauxhall Carlton because of the London ULEZ. Wish I had not as its maintenance costs were so low (reliable and solid model). I really did not do the mileage and number of uses. The replacement car cost me more in a year in repairs than I possibly spent in decades before. Point is I could reduce my usage to the point where it would take five years for me to have run up so many ULEZ charges. But for short journeys it was an eye watering waste paying the ULEZ - if it had been mileage based it would have been fairer.
Would be difficult round here as driveways are at a premium (terraced with very small gardens). Otherwise I would have one despite preferring a garden. Would get tricky even where someone has a driveway as the road is residents parking. A £300 per year parking permit just to let someone use your driveway is not going to help.
Usually I am out already and I usually fill up once I am down to 1/4 tank petrol (well below 1/2). I tend to fill up earlier or resort to a specific visit if I am expecting a long trip. Unless I am in the middle of a big trip. Part of the long journey prep unless I am getting low anyway. I try to keep the car for longer trips or where I am shifting stuff.
I am probably a long way off getting a ZEV then. My annual mileage is kept much lower than that and I buy very old.
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If you are interested in finding out more look up the primary energy fallacy. Lots of info on why we don't need to replace primary fossil fuel energy directly but only the useful work.I've just read the previous posts and am thinking!
61653 HTAFC
Veteran Member
Doesn't that suggest that it isn't purely about speed and power then, for many of those who are true car enthusiasts? If it was really just about the raw performance figures then all those petrol heads would be queuing up at airports or at St Pancras security.
People who enjoy driving tend to like the "feel" of controlling the machine they're operating. I've been a passenger in a high-end performance EV and it was a weird experience- it was simultaneously frightening and boring, which is not a good combination, and I expect being in the adjacent seat wouldn't make much of a difference.
When my diesel was in for it's MOT & Service at the end of Nov last year, my Toyota dealer provided me with a bZ4x as my courtesy car and I was very surprised at how nippy it was - certainly got me going much quicker than my usual car at the traffic lights. Personally I found it more enjoyable once I got used to the fact that I had less things to do with my left limbs than normal.
RailWonderer
Established Member
EVs are faster than most (if not all) petrol cars but for enthusiasts it's about how you get to a speed - the sound and power of the engine and the handling characteristics.
I like manual gears and feeling the rev of the engine and its sound. As I'm young, I will certainly own an EV at some point but I won't let go of the ICE for occasional driving either if I can afford to run one. I think at this rate the UK switching to EVs is realistic for day to day driving but there will still be a niche to maintain and keep older performance vehicles going - some V6s, V8s, V10s and V12s.
Some car makers are doing things to emulate a petrol performance car with EVs, from virtual gears and limiters to simulated engine noises.
Some will see all of that as a gimmick, which it probably is because eventually people will accept EVs as is. If you own a special car, keep it but just accept it's going to be expensive to use regularly.
Some will see all of that as a gimmick, which it probably is because eventually people will accept EVs as is. If you own a special car, keep it but just accept it's going to be expensive to use regularly.
The calculator is little more than clickbait, not for the serious and expensive task of a car purchasing decision
An EV doesn't need to warm up, so efficiency for short drives is likely better than a petrol car - and especially a diesel car - doing a short run (school, shops etc).
Even cold weather impacts an ICE vehicle too, before anyone points out the loss of range with a cold battery.
If you are always doing 70mph on motorways then ICE cars may have the edge, but then you're likely doing lots of miles and suddenly the cost of fuel is beginning to make a real impact on your spending.
I am not sure a simple online tool can really test all this out without the characteristics of every single vehicle (from engine or motor rating, to battery size, fuel tank etc) are entered into a huge database and you then factor in things like weather, average trip distance and loads of parameters.
If someone developed something like that, I think it would be genuinely useful but also a service I'd expect to be paying for because it isn't a 10 minute job.
Even cold weather impacts an ICE vehicle too, before anyone points out the loss of range with a cold battery.
If you are always doing 70mph on motorways then ICE cars may have the edge, but then you're likely doing lots of miles and suddenly the cost of fuel is beginning to make a real impact on your spending.
I am not sure a simple online tool can really test all this out without the characteristics of every single vehicle (from engine or motor rating, to battery size, fuel tank etc) are entered into a huge database and you then factor in things like weather, average trip distance and loads of parameters.
If someone developed something like that, I think it would be genuinely useful but also a service I'd expect to be paying for because it isn't a 10 minute job.
Driving near my local exam centre this week, 2 of 3 learner cars were EVs. How long before the big companies refresh their fleets with EVs? I presume passing in an EV is the same as passing in an automatic. How will this affect the demand for EVs?
I haven’t seen any stats for this (so very happy to be corrected) but I imagine learning to drive in an EV is easier (even easier than an automatic ICE?), therefore fewer lessons are needed, therefore cheaper.
I see ZapMap has a basic calculator to allow fuelling comparisons between vehicles - could be electric/electric or electric/fossil fuel. The cars in the database are not the most up to date - doesn't have the new Renault 5 for example, but does give a good idea of comparative costs.
Based solely on fuelling costs, my Yaris hybrid would cost just £30 less per year than an MG4, based on £0.50 per kWh and 100 miles a month. Or to put another way, insignificant.
If I change the charging price to the usual price around me of £0.79, then the price difference is still only £130 a year more in fuelling costs to go electric.
Such calculators fall down due to the many unknown numbers, the unknown numbers are the ones to fear when planning ahead.
The depreciation is an unknown until the vehicle is disposed of in the future being a major cost of running a new vehicle, a friend in the car retail industry had told me, do not buy a ZEV outright. only consider a PCP for a ZEV ,their depreciation is horrendous, far more than depreciation of an IC car, let the PCP finance company bear the depreciation hit of a ZEV.
Those who drive high mileages and quote the low "fuel bill" of a ZEV should also factor in excess mileage charges of a PCP , 10p /mile after 6000 .miles per annum is typical.
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I have no doubt depreciation won't be such an issue in due course. It's mostly because the expensive part - the battery - keeps getting cheaper and so newer cars become cheaper and old ones can't resell for huge sums of money, unless some sort of well sought after classic.
But I do think almost all purchases these days are PCP or lease anyway.
Buying second hand to save money has been good advice for ICE cars too, many models of which depreciated at crazy levels too. It isn't a recent thing.
But I do think almost all purchases these days are PCP or lease anyway.
Buying second hand to save money has been good advice for ICE cars too, many models of which depreciated at crazy levels too. It isn't a recent thing.
I would suggest it depends on how long you want to own the car 2-4 years PCP is a good idea, 5+ years (and given warranties on batteries are typically 8 years, it's not unreasonable to own a car for that long) especially if you do high milage it could be worth owning (although there's lots of factors which will alter that).
Isn’t the Yaris a supermini/B segment car. The MG4 is a family hatchback (C segment) and definitely quite a bit bigger. So in terms of efficiency comparisons a bit of apples and oranges…Try comparing it to a corsa-e or e208 which are more comparable sized cars (although neither are known for their efficiency).
And if you have access to home charging you’ll not be paying anything like 50p kWh, the standard electricity rate is half that. If you don’t have a driveway or access to home charging I wouldn’t currently recommend getting an electric car. But if someone was to get an EV without home charging I would encourage them to sign up for a subscription service such as Ionity which is £10.50 per month but brings the price down to .42p kWh. There are a whole plethora available. No one should be paying 79p kWh for all their charging.
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Good point, although I didn't think their respective efficiencies were that different?
I don't.
Do you mean without charging? Dave Takes It On recently did a good video on the merits (or otherwise) of the various subscription schemes.
Yep! Fixed.
And as I say I wouldn’t currently recommend getting an electric car then! Over the next few years the infrastructure will change so cheaper AC charging becomes ubiquitous (currently it’s not), and on top of this I think electricity prices are likely to fall somewhat so pricing for someone relying on public charging is likely to become more closely aligned with petrol/diesel costs.
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PCP finance companies still make profits. If they offer you a car with high deprecation and don't charge you loads for the deal, then they got a big discount.
Though apparently some are claiming they’re not making profits: https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/news/...ce-firms-hundreds-millions-and-theyd-bail-out
GLC
Member
- Joined
- 21 Nov 2018
- Messages
- 350
Not strictly true. The battery will be heated/cooled to its ideal temperature range if required. This uses more energy, and whilst the battery is not at it’s ideal temperature, the internal resistance of the battery is higher, so electrical output is lower (i.e. less range).
You can of course work around this by preheating, but atleast in the case of my relatively old EV, battery preheating only occurs when there is atleast 3 hours before departure time, otherwise it will only heat the cabin