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

[Cousin Jack]

I’ve still not heard a solution for the 1000’s of people driving £2k cars who can’t get finance and need their cars to get to work.

That is what will kill the "Ban IC cars by 20xx". All those 1000s are voters, and when reality kicks in they will not vote for Xmas. In some parts of the UK old bangers are the norm, just not in Westminster & Islington where the politicians live.

[Pirahna]

It's starting to look like it only makes sense if you have home charging, solar panels and a power wall!

Bearing in mind I live in Alicante, winter days are and hour and a half longer than south east England and we get lots more sunshine. There have been two cloudy spells recently and I've struggled to keep my house batteries charged, I really wouldn't want to try and charge an electric car here using solar, I think you'd have no hope in the UK without mains input.

For comparisson, my house battery pack is 9.4kwh, a Renault Capture plug in hybrid has 9.8kwh and a range of 30 miles, a Renault Zoe with a 52kwh battery has a quoted range of 240 miles. I'm on the side of a mountain and lose sun behind the hill at 4pm ish at the moment, sunrise is 8.20am. If I fully discharge my battery (I can only discharge to 20% before protection cuts in), at this time of year it could take two days to fully recover. I've got 8x450w panels on the roof and could do with a couple more. To even think about something like a Zoe I'd need enough panels to power five houses.

[Kneerly Down]

It's starting to look like it only makes sense if you have home charging, solar panels and a power wall!

I'm hoping to run the car almost solely on solar PV during the summer.
Being in NW Scotland doesn't help (other than the long days in summer) but I've currently got 8kW of panels and might be adding another 4kW later on but probably just connecting those to directly provide DHW.

[dern]

I won't be buying an ev car as I don't use a car enough to justify the expense but I drove a friends Fiat 500e yesterday for a few miles round town and it was excellent. It was the first ev I've driven and was really impressed. It felt very intuitive, really easy to drive and was an excellent experience. If I needed such a car I would definitely consider it.

[Count Steer]

I won't be buying an ev car as I don't use a car enough to justify the expense but I drove a friends Fiat 500e yesterday for a few miles round town and it was excellent. It was the first ev I've driven and was really impressed. It felt very intuitive, really easy to drive and was an excellent experience. If I needed such a car I would definitely consider it.

I've no problem with the cars (although when we did look more closely some of the litlle ones, like the BMW, seemed a bit cheap n' cheesy). It's that I object to paying a hefty premium if any hope of clawing even part of it back is rapidly disappearing over the horizon.

I assume the Fiat is finished and equipped to the same standard as the rest of the 500 range, which isn't bad at all.

[dern]

I assume the Fiat is finished and equipped to the same standard as the rest of the 500 range, which isn't bad at all.

It's a really nice, high quality place to be.

[MrLongbeard]

The latest craze, extreme regen braking

https://news.sky.com/video/four-people- ... f-12778864

[Yorick]

The latest craze, extreme regen braking

https://news.sky.com/video/four-people- ... f-12778864

HTF did they survive?

[Pirahna]

The latest craze, extreme regen braking

https://news.sky.com/video/four-people- ... f-12778864

HTF did they survive?

I'm guessing it wasn't straight down, a very steep incline but not vertical.

[ace llani]

My latest input - sorry, I've not kept up with the thread, but..

As time goes on, the less practical the Leaf is.

During the cold weather, battery range dropped significantly, and not from using the heater too much (works off the traction battery - I try to keep warm off the heated seats and steering wheel).

I should be able to drive to my Mom's house in the midlands to visit without charging on the way (need a full charge to get back) - forget it. My 120 mile range Leaf is getting about 80 miles if I drive like a Chelsea Pensioner.

I use the heater so little the seats and carpet are getting mouldy.

Charging away from home is getting rapidly worse.

We went Christmas shopping from llani to Shrewsbury (50 miles) - should be able to get there and back without a charge (forget it). We needed a rapid charger in Shrewsbury to get home, as next nearest rapid charger going home is 10 miles from home, so wouldn't make it.

There are rapid charge points (rarely more than one) at Asda, Costa and Morrisons in Shrewsbury - all of which were broken on the day. Only working ones were at Bannatine's gym - 2 Instavolt chargers. They cost 0.75p per kilowatt, so no cheaper than diesel per mile. We had to wait in a make shift queue for an hour to charge up (30 minutes).
It's now very rare to drop on a rapid charger (50 kilowatt DC) without a long wait.
22 kilowatt AC charge takes 4 hours.

To visit Mom I now either go on the train (£25 per head) or hire a little car (£37 for 24 hours).

[Potter]

This stuff ^ needs to be widely reported, so the dickheads in London making decisions see what it's really like outside their goldfish bowl.

[Pirahna]

Apparently EV's were 80% of new car sales in Norway last year, a place not known for its warm climate.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/23/01/0 ... rand-again

[Count Steer]

Apparently EV's were 80% of new car sales in Norway last year, a place not known for its warm climate.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/23/01/0 ... rand-again

Norway are a bit of a special case. They aim to be carbon neutral by 2030. (They also have lots of luvverly cheap hydroelectric power and appear to ignore all that carbon that they export. At least they kept control of their resources and didn't spaff it all away like some places did...)

Speaking of batteries and cold weather....went to start t'hybrid yesterday...1300 miles on it....battery is flat.

[Mr. Dazzle]

Speaking of batteries and cold weather....went to start t'hybrid yesterday...1300 miles on it....battery is flat.

It may amuse people to know that Teslas - and indeed all other EVs/Hybrids pretty much - are not immune to good old fashioned flat batteries, just like an ICE car. They usually still have a 'conventional' 12V lead acid battery to run all the other stuff which isn't the drivetrain.

[ChrisW]

Speaking of batteries and cold weather....went to start t'hybrid yesterday...1300 miles on it....battery is flat.

I sympathise - my car got a new battery as a slightly early Christmas present.

[Count Steer]

Speaking of batteries and cold weather....went to start t'hybrid yesterday...1300 miles on it....battery is flat.

It may amuse people to know that Teslas - and indeed all other EVs/Hybrids pretty much - are not immune to good old fashioned flat batteries, just like an ICE car. They usually still have a 'conventional' 12V lead acid battery to run all the other stuff which isn't the drivetrain.

Yep. If I can find it (haven't ever opened the bonnet) I'll stick the charger on it and see what happens. Wasn't enough juice in it to start the engine...it struggled to fold out the mirrors. I did use it during the v cold weather so wasn't expecting problems now it has warmed up. May be a 'bathtub curve' battery failure.

[Cousin Jack]

Apparently EV's were 80% of new car sales in Norway last year, a place not known for its warm climate.

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/23/01/0 ... rand-again

Lots of Tesas in Norway. Also massive hydro schemes, and probably cheap leccy. Lots of charge points too, compared to the population. Norwegian government is spending billions on road infrastructure, I suspect the charging infrastructure will be matched.

[Mr. Dazzle]

I would guess there are pretty tasty tax incentives for EV's in Norway. I've not looked, but it seems like the kinda thing they'd do.

Norway can/wants to afford it of course. They've got one of the largest sovereign wealth funds in the world despite being nowhere even close to the largest economy.

[Mussels]

I would guess there are pretty tasty tax incentives for EV's in Norway. I've not looked, but it seems like the kinda thing they'd do.

Norway can/wants to afford it of course. They've got one of the largest sovereign wealth funds in the world despite being nowhere even close to the largest economy.

I think they have recently ditched most of the financial incentives, also recently the main charger provider has switched from a flat monthly fee to charging per kwh. They may not be quite so popular anymore.

[Count Steer]

Speaking of batteries and cold weather....went to start t'hybrid yesterday...1300 miles on it....battery is flat.

It may amuse people to know that Teslas - and indeed all other EVs/Hybrids pretty much - are not immune to good old fashioned flat batteries, just like an ICE car. They usually still have a 'conventional' 12V lead acid battery to run all the other stuff which isn't the drivetrain.

Yep. If I can find it (haven't ever opened the bonnet) I'll stick the charger on it and see what happens. Wasn't enough juice in it to start the engine...it struggled to fold out the mirrors. I did use it during the v cold weather so wasn't expecting problems now it has warmed up. May be a 'bathtub curve' battery failure.

Well, that was a little 'technical adventure'. I thought I'd stick the battery charger on it. Ha! The 12v battery is under the rear seat and although I could unlock the drivers door with the physical key, I couldn't open the rear door. In the end I manoeuvred the other car close enough to the front end to get jump leads connected. (There's a jump lead connection point in the fuse box under the bonnet). Taadaaa! Let it charge a few minutes, then went out for an anti-eco drive trying to keep the engine running as much as possible, so went quite heavy on the throttle. Seems fine and will see what happens tomorrow.

I suspect that, although it's quite good at looking after the lithium pack, lots of short journeys mainly on electric and the 12V lead acid jobby gradually gets run down.

Just glad it didn't happen somewhere, off the drive, in a monsoon.