Would you have an electric car if you had the money for a new car and were in the market for one?

[Horse]

If you charge from a 3 pin socket it takes ages just cause 3 pin sockets can only output 3kW. That sets a fairly hard limit on how many miles you can do, simply because you can't fill your car up at more than 3kW.

3KW * 24 hours * 3.5 miles per KWh is about 250 miles per day's charging.
That will suit most people most of the time,

Although one of the major objections is "But what if there's an emergency and I need a full charge in the middle of the night?"

[Mr. Dazzle]

Didn't think I'd see a "cars charge too quickly" argument for a long time yet.

Maybe that's the price of fast charging...more tax.

[Mussels]

Didn't think I'd see a "cars charge too quickly" argument for a long time yet.

Maybe that's the price of fast charging...more tax.

That's because nobody told me it would cost more, that changes everything.

The same thinking applies to recharging at a service station, if paying £10 extra stops my wife & kids spending £20 in the services then it's worth it, otherwise they can wait.
At the moment charging at the services will cost me £30 before any charging fees are added, Robert Llewellyn never factors costs like that into his videos.

[Horse]

Maybe that's the price of fast charging...more tax.

That's because nobody told me it would cost more, that changes everything.

Funnily enough, there's been research that says exactly that! Despite protestations and demand for fast charging, £bribery changes 'necessary' requirements.

[Couchy]

Didn't think I'd see a "cars charge too quickly" argument for a long time yet.

Maybe that's the price of fast charging...more tax.

That's because nobody told me it would cost more, that changes everything.

The same thinking applies to recharging at a service station, if paying £10 extra stops my wife & kids spending £20 in the services then it's worth it, otherwise they can wait.
At the moment charging at the services will cost me £30 before any charging fees are added, Robert Llewellyn never factors costs like that into his videos.

Seen one of the fast DCchargers at £1.20 a kw, that’s 35p a mile in electric !, or the equivalent of 24mpg in diesel, or more expensive to run than my 3.5V6 Elgrand

[Potter]

It still makes no sense to have an EV and it's probably never going to make financial sense, it's simply that ICE cars will be priced off the road and/or support for them will diminish until they're no longer practical - but I think we're a couple of decades at least from the latter bit.

Dusk is setting in on the golden age of motoring, I expect personal transport to be a thing of the past within a couple of generations.

[Felix]

This lass has rented petrol cars for longer trips. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-63371759

[Couchy]

It still makes no sense to have an EV and it's probably never going to make financial sense, it's simply that ICE cars will be priced off the road and/or support for them will diminish until they're no longer practical - but I think we're a couple of decades at least from the latter bit.

Dusk is setting in on the golden age of motoring, I expect personal transport to be a thing of the past within a couple of generations.

Totally agree, motoring has been the cheapest it’s ever going to be. When you can/could buy a useable car for a couple of grand and buy fuel relatively cheap those days are going. I think if we fast forward 100 years assuming we haven’t killed us off then personal transport will be a hobby for the rich, lots of people will be back in the cities and when personal transport is needed you’ll call an autonomous vehicle up on an app or similar. There’ll be nothing ICE powered outside museums and prob on a synthetic fuel. I think we’ve been lucky to experience the golden age of the engine but it’ll be a tiny blip in human history.

[Cousin Jack]

It still makes no sense to have an EV and it's probably never going to make financial sense, it's simply that ICE cars will be priced off the road and/or support for them will diminish until they're no longer practical - but I think we're a couple of decades at least from the latter bit.

Dusk is setting in on the golden age of motoring, I expect personal transport to be a thing of the past within a couple of generations.

You are probably right, but it will last my lifetime. I feel sorry for future generations, the freedom to just decide "Fuck it, I will go to xxxxxx this evening and see bbbbbbbb for the weekend" is something I have really enjoyed. No planning necessary, except a phone call to bbbbbbbb to make sure they haven't fucked off too.

Road trips will be of course limited to coach tours. Ugh!

[Count Steer]

I think you're being a bit gloomy about personal transport in the UK. It won't be ICE and it may not be fun but it'll be around for a while yet outside cities.

I wouldn't be surprised if you will be able to go on petrol-head holidays to countries that haven't got a robust national electricity network too. A bit like the train spotters go to India to ride on steam trains.

(I can't see the USA ditching petrol completely for a while either).

[wheelnut]

It still makes no sense to have an EV and it's probably never going to make financial sense, it's simply that ICE cars will be priced off the road and/or support for them will diminish until they're no longer practical - but I think we're a couple of decades at least from the latter bit.

Dusk is setting in on the golden age of motoring, I expect personal transport to be a thing of the past within a couple of generations.

You are probably right, but it will last my lifetime. I feel sorry for future generations, the freedom to just decide "Fuck it, I will go to xxxxxx this evening and see bbbbbbbb for the weekend" is something I have really enjoyed. No planning necessary, except a phone call to bbbbbbbb to make sure they haven't fucked off too.

Road trips will be of course limited to coach tours. Ugh!

I think it will be a long long time before we can be prised out of our personal transport, be it EVs or ICE. It’s just too much of a paradigm shift for us to cope with at the moment.

[Potter]

I think you're being a bit gloomy about personal transport in the UK. It won't be ICE and it may not be fun but it'll be around for a while yet outside cities.

In many rural areas you don't have a lot of choice, it's personal transport or Shank's Pony.
There is only one bus that comes through our village and a journey to the nearest local large town would involve at least two different buses. To get to a nearest decent city it's three buses and a train. All with long wait times in between and if you need to be somewhere at a certain time then you have very limited choices, it's often a choice of arriving very early or very late.

I usually arrange to collect visitors from the nearest decent train station, which is a 30 minute drive (usually 45 minutes at least in traffic).

The decision makers (who don't seem to be able to expand their minds outside of London) clearly don't realise that trying to price motorists into making less journeys is effectively cutting a lot of people off, especially older people and the more vulnerable, but also lower paid workers just trying to get to work and back without having to wait an hour each end for a bus.

[Taipan]

So what about PHEVs and MHEVs,whats the thinking on them?

[Taipan]

Just been told a 2.0 Diesel Velar is £585 a year VED/road tax?! If that's true and that's how things are going I think we'll get directed into EV/PHEVs as that buys a fair bit of leccy!

[Mr. Dazzle]

I think it ramps up really feckin quickly after about 200g/km of CO2. My car 2 litre diesel is only ~£180 but its also not a bloody great parachute SUV.

[Count Steer]

So what about PHEVs and MHEVs,whats the thinking on them?

I bought a hybrid. Not a PHEV and I don't think strictly speaking it's a MHEV (it will run on just electric, just engine - 1500cc - or both) it's OK. Averaging 70 mpg, tax and insurance isn't horrendous. £50 to fill it giving an indicated range >500 miles. Pretty boring but it does a job as second car. Happy to do decent distances in it but mainly it's a runabout so the other one doesn't get used for the 'pop to the shops' journeys.

Probably go all electric in 3 or 4 years (but possibly not on the main car, dunno yet).

[Taipan]

I think it ramps up really feckin quickly after about 200g/km of CO2. My car 2 litre diesel is only ~£180 but its also not a bloody great parachute SUV.

Apparently its any car with a purchase price of over £40k that you pay that amount for the first 5 years, then ti drops down to a lot lesser amount.

[Mr. Dazzle]

Oh right...yeah. Not quite 585, it 300 something and then the difference will be the "normal" road tax.

[ace llani]

OK - just my reply to the subject (not read anything else as it's beer o'clock.)

We have a 2016 Nissan Leaf. Range is supposed to be 100 miles.

The car is brilliant for short runs - charge at home and back.

It's the charging stations that are the problem. The 50kw quick chargers are too much in demand, you get to one on a planned route and cars will be queuing to get on.
They also are regularly out of order.

More chademo 50 kw charging points are being installed on our patch, but they are mainly Instavolt - about £0.66 a kilowatt, so no cheaper than diesel.

Car is great for school runs and shopping. Total nightmare if you need to charge on route.

We have had to be taken home with a flat battery twice because of chargers on route being out of service.

I regret buying it, and thinking of selling it for a petrol runaround.

[Taipan]

We saw big queues for the chargers on the A75 in France. It looked like the Tesla dealers forecourt!

I'm on the cusp of changing my car and had been thinking about an EV, but I think it'd have to be a PHEV if I do go leccy in some way or another. Given my journeys, that's a pretty ridiculous thing to say, but I hate limitations, even if they are unrealistic!