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

[Count Steer]

It seems nuts to me that public transport is so expensive.

How can it possibly be cheaper for me to buy a car, insure that car, maintain that car, fuel that car and then make my journey as a single occupant? But it is. It still never adds up for me.

Even more so with trains! I'm a big supporter of trains as a transport solution. But they're shit. I can't ever work out why they're unable to wipe their own face compared to personal cars and doubly so compared to air travel.

I think you need to add 'in this country' at various points in that ^^^^.

[McNab]

That's pretty much what I've got: 450 miles range and 165 bhp. Added advantages: I can "recharge" in 5 minutes and the range doesn't drop to 250 miles when the temperature drops below 0°C.

Pros and cons though. Added advantages of our EV is 300bhp, endless torque, whisper quiet, can always leave the house on a full tank, and compared to a petrol car averaging 45mpg, we've spent exactly 1/6th the amount on 'fuel' so far.

Neither is 'best', they both excel at different things.

Shouldn't that be an 80% full tank?

[Slenver]

Shouldn't that be an 80% full tank?

Fair point, but it's your choice. You can decide to leave each time with whatever charge you want, would be more accurate.

Either way, needing to go to a filling station stops being a thing most of the time.

[Noggin]

It seems nuts to me that public transport is so expensive.

How can it possibly be cheaper for me to buy a car, insure that car, maintain that car, fuel that car and then make my journey as a single occupant? But it is. It still never adds up for me.

Even more so with trains! I'm a big supporter of trains as a transport solution. But they're shit. I can't ever work out why they're unable to wipe their own face compared to personal cars and doubly so compared to air travel.

Yup. That has always p'd me off big style. I lived in Bristol for a few years so it should be easier/cheaper to grab a train to go see people in other cities, right? Nope, every time it was cheaper for me to drive or ride

I think you need to add 'in this country' at various points in that ^^^^.

Not necessarily. The last two times I have gone to the uk I've wanted to do at least one direction by train (the first trip I wanted to return by train and the last one I wanted to go to the uk and back by train)

I'm pretty sure it would have been a similar price if I'd had a car and driven, and I'd also have had transport once in the UK. The comparison to the price of getting to an airport and flying was no comparison at all. It was around 3 times the price to go by train WTAF???

Equally, I chose to fly from Lyon last time as I mistakenly thought that the train would be easy. Nope - 5.5 hours to get to the airport (two changes) and the price was more than driving there. Ok, if I'd had a car and driven, I'd have had to pay for parking for the week/10 days, but you know what? A 2.5 hour drive maximum plus long stay parking versus 6.5 hour journey from home to the airport for the price of fuel and tolls?? No argument from me, car every time!!

But, as soon as I have a car I'll be driving back simply because public transport between the place I land and the places I then visit just sucks big time


I do have a friend here that regularly goes to the UK in a Tesla and he really rates that - but then, they plan to stop halfway for a night anyway. I reckon I could manage to plan in an electric charging stop en route to Calais. I'd just be a bit wary of how well I could charge it in the UK!!

[Cousin Jack]

Mrs CJ actually likes trains, fondly remembers the days (long ago) when we caught the Riv from Paddington, and had a good lunch on the way to Cornwall.
Last time we went from Conwall to London on the train (about 3 years ago)
It cost a fortune.
No restaurant car.
On the return journey the booked 1st class seats were missing and it was a free for all.

[Rockburner]

Mrs CJ actually likes trains, fondly remembers the days (long ago) when we caught the Riv from Paddington, and had a good lunch on the way to Cornwall.
Last time we went from Conwall to London on the train (about 3 years ago)
It cost a fortune.
No restaurant car.
On the return journey the booked 1st class seats were missing and it was a free for all.

I like travelling by train in Europe. In the UK it's just a permanent shitshow.

[Mr. Dazzle]

On the return journey the booked 1st class seats were missing and it was a free for all.

Surprised someone managed to unbolt them and get them off the carriage without anybody noticing TBH.

[Taipan]

When i was in Naples you could get an all day ticket for the Metro for 1 euro. I think the minimum discounted price on the tube is £3.40 for one journey and almost double that if paying by cash. My season ticket inc zone 1 travel is over £5500 a year. So yes, I consider public transport a very expensive option, at least for commuting.

[KungFooBob]

What, pay for public transport in Foreign?

I never bother, I'm British. I just play the no understand card when an inspector gets on.

[Cousin Jack]

On the return journey the booked 1st class seats were missing and it was a free for all.

Surprised someone managed to unbolt them and get them off the carriage without anybody noticing TBH.

Train company lost the entire carriage!

[Saga Lout]

That's pretty much what I've got: 450 miles range and 165 bhp. Added advantages: I can "recharge" in 5 minutes and the range doesn't drop to 250 miles when the temperature drops below 0°C.

Pros and cons though. Added advantages of our EV is 300bhp, endless torque, whisper quiet, can always leave the house on a full tank, and compared to a petrol car averaging 45mpg, we've spent exactly 1/6th the amount on 'fuel' so far.

Neither is 'best', they both excel at different things.

Shouldn't that be an 80% full tank?

And the "tank" gets smaller as the car gets older.

[ZRX61]

More lay-offs...

https://dailycaller.com/2024/04/17/rivi ... and-slows/

[ZRX61]

Tesla recalling 3000 Cyber Turds owing to unplanned acceleration issues causing them to crash into things.

[MrLongbeard]

Tesla recalling 3000 Cyber Turds owing to unplanned acceleration issues causing them to crash into things.

The go faster pedal might fall off, there's a metric shit ton of regular cars that get recalled every month

[roadster]

Accumulated experience is revealing another financial drawback with electric vehicles. I recently wanted to replace my 3 year old Silence S01 electric scooter with a new slightly improved latest version of the same. But no agent I could find was willing to accept the old S01 even in part exchange for a new S01 ! I eventually found a scooter dealer willing to accept the old scooter in exchange for a conventional 125 but the depreciation was a killing 70% and it had covered less than 2000 miles.

While trading in my hybrid car for a new hybrid car I discussed the situation at the dealership and there is definitely a major issue in the second hand car market when it comes to full electric cars too. Private buyers are unwilling to pay a premium for a car which depreciates massively and dealers are not finding it easy to shift second hand cars in a sluggish market. It could be argued that conventional technologies sometimes break down and cost massive amounts of money to fix but the difference with batteries that it can be almost guaranteed that after a specific number of charge cycles or years it is certain that they will deteriorate and this completely undermines confidence in second hand vehicles.

There is a relatively simple solution to this which is for a new specialist trade able to refurbish batteries to an as-new condition at reasonable cost. But unless manufacturers and dealers are willing to promote or subsidise this we could be waiting another ten years to get a stable market.

[Dodgy]

Volvo have already gone SUV Only in the UK.

Ford stopped making the Fiesta because the Puma SUV was outselling it.

I hate SUV's, it seems I'm the only one.

Nah, I hate them too, that's what started all this off. Looking around I fancied a Jag XE, went to see the dealer and they couldn't order. See previous page on them stopping production

No interest whatsoever in SUV so my next port of call was Alfa, but wife not keen

Then I saw the EV incentives and it makes it much more of a prospect........it's worth about $6-10K a year in incentive to me, makes a big difference

[Dodgy]

Test drove a Bimmer i4 yesterday

Really nice. Feels like a top-endish 3 series inside (not a bad thing obvs), loads of very smooth power, can feel the weight in the corners but not horrendously so. Just feels like a really sorted, 'normal' car but electric. I'm almost sold

There are about 4 or 5 EVs on sale here that aren't SUVs, so it's not like there's much choice. But then, most ICE cars are also SUVs now. It's basically this or an ICE Alfa Giulia, and this feels more solid and will be way cheaper, so it almost seems like a no brainer

Colours aren't great though. Gotta get the wife over the line with the orange

Screenshot 2024-04-22 at 16.24.48.png (1.76 MiB) Viewed 1187 times

[KungFooBob]

Test drove a Bimmer i4 yesterday

Really nice. Feels like a top-endish 3 series inside (not a bad thing obvs), loads of very smooth power, can feel the weight in the corners but not horrendously so. Just feels like a really sorted, 'normal' car but electric. I'm almost sold

There are about 4 or 5 EVs on sale here that aren't SUVs, so it's not like there's much choice. But then, most ICE cars are also SUVs now. It's basically this or an ICE Alfa Giulia, and this feels more solid and will be way cheaper, so it almost seems like a no brainer

Colours aren't great though. Gotta get the wife over the line with the orange

Screenshot 2024-04-22 at 16.24.48.png

Our exMD just got rid of his i4 (m something). He couldn't get anywhere near close to BMWs published range figures, it was so poor the dealer couldn't figure it out that and all the lights stopped working. They gave him a M135 for it back.

[Supermofo]

Accumulated experience is revealing another financial drawback with electric vehicles. I recently wanted to replace my 3 year old Silence S01 electric scooter with a new slightly improved latest version of the same. But no agent I could find was willing to accept the old S01 even in part exchange for a new S01 ! I eventually found a scooter dealer willing to accept the old scooter in exchange for a conventional 125 but the depreciation was a killing 70% and it had covered less than 2000 miles.

While trading in my hybrid car for a new hybrid car I discussed the situation at the dealership and there is definitely a major issue in the second hand car market when it comes to full electric cars too. Private buyers are unwilling to pay a premium for a car which depreciates massively and dealers are not finding it easy to shift second hand cars in a sluggish market. It could be argued that conventional technologies sometimes break down and cost massive amounts of money to fix but the difference with batteries that it can be almost guaranteed that after a specific number of charge cycles or years it is certain that they will deteriorate and this completely undermines confidence in second hand vehicles.

There is a relatively simple solution to this which is for a new specialist trade able to refurbish batteries to an as-new condition at reasonable cost. But unless manufacturers and dealers are willing to promote or subsidise this we could be waiting another ten years to get a stable market.

Anecdotally from youtube and some car magazines a lot of this seems to be buyers believing that a) with a leccy car you are buying something with an ever decreasing fuel tank and b) future models will be improved and therefore worth waiting for over getting this gen of car. So not even dealers want this gen second hand EV now.

I guess something similar might have been the case with early ICE but back then there was no viable alternative if you wanted transport other than a horse. Now there are loads of ICE alternatives still about.

[Taipan]

Accumulated experience is revealing another financial drawback with electric vehicles. I recently wanted to replace my 3 year old Silence S01 electric scooter with a new slightly improved latest version of the same. But no agent I could find was willing to accept the old S01 even in part exchange for a new S01 ! I eventually found a scooter dealer willing to accept the old scooter in exchange for a conventional 125 but the depreciation was a killing 70% and it had covered less than 2000 miles.

While trading in my hybrid car for a new hybrid car I discussed the situation at the dealership and there is definitely a major issue in the second hand car market when it comes to full electric cars too. Private buyers are unwilling to pay a premium for a car which depreciates massively and dealers are not finding it easy to shift second hand cars in a sluggish market. It could be argued that conventional technologies sometimes break down and cost massive amounts of money to fix but the difference with batteries that it can be almost guaranteed that after a specific number of charge cycles or years it is certain that they will deteriorate and this completely undermines confidence in second hand vehicles.

There is a relatively simple solution to this which is for a new specialist trade able to refurbish batteries to an as-new condition at reasonable cost. But unless manufacturers and dealers are willing to promote or subsidise this we could be waiting another ten years to get a stable market.

Anecdotally from youtube and some car magazines a lot of this seems to be buyers believing that a) with a leccy car you are buying something with an ever decreasing fuel tank and b) future models will be improved and therefore worth waiting for over getting this gen of car. So not even dealers want this gen second hand EV now.

I guess something similar might have been the case with early ICE but back then there was no viable alternative if you wanted transport other than a horse. Now there are loads of ICE alternatives still about.

As said earlier, in the same way ICE never achieved Govt figures, EVs certainly don't either, but coupled with a further range reduction in winter, EVs have lost, or are losing the hype. With plummeting residuals due to the battery life concerns, the 2nd hand market has pretty much collapsed, and an increasing number of 2nd hand dealers wont even stock them, so its only going to be PCP and fleet/company car sales that keep them alive for now. For people like me who buy outright, they are a total no no. As much as I'd love to have a EV, the technology (and residuals) is a long way off of where it needs to be before I'd commit to one. TBH at the moment, for the private market, I see them as nothing more than a 240v white elephant!