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

[Couchy]

I dunno why you'd assume EVs are always gonna be more expensive than ICE cars. They're more expensive right now for sure, but the price has already dropped massively inside one or two model cycles.

Ditto on the charging availability thing. How many farriers or knackers yards are there around you way?

In 100 years time? Seems like a bit it an extrapolation!

Can you really see a time an EV costs £3k second hand and is good for 3-400 miles same as a cheap diesel hatchback is now ?

[Couchy]

The advent of cheap transport enabled people to move to the countryside. As cheap transport goes people will move back to the city if they can’t afford to live in the countryside. It’ll be crap for those as this transition takes place but it’ll happen. The days of cheap personal transport are on the way out. 100 years from now the majority will live in big cities with most of what’s needed not needing a vehicle. If you do it’ll be an automated vehicle you don’t own. We’re at the beginning of all this so will feel the pain

How silly of me. All those fishermen and farmers and the like should move back to the big cities. Are they going to build lots of new houses in that London? They could pack them in back to back, or build tenements.
Oops, where is the food coming from?

I’m just wondering what will happen when the 1000’s of people on the breadline and below are priced off the road. Tbh the local Amazon already buses in the mainly Eastern European’s locally who don’t have a car, the locals who don’t have a car don’t want the jobs as they’ll lose a chunk of benefits whereas the poles don’t get benefits so have to work. I guess looking at this there isn’t really going to be an issue in cities as they have the option of public transport. As for country folk they’ll have to start charging more for their goods and services so they can afford an electric car or to pay the price hike on an ICE car.

[Taipan]

[Mr. Dazzle]

Can you really see a time an EV costs £3k second hand and is good for 3-400 miles same as a cheap diesel hatchback is now ?

Yes I can. How long were ICE cars around before said hatchback became available commonly?

Batteries are still in their infancy. EVs have fewer moving parts than iCEs, as I'm sure you know from personal experience electric motors can last for decades. The batteries are the bit everyone worries about, but even today there are EVs with >100k on the clock.

[Mussels]

Can you really see a time an EV costs £3k second hand and is good for 3-400 miles same as a cheap diesel hatchback is now ?

Yes I can. How long were ICE cars around before said hatchback became available commonly?

Batteries are still in their infancy. EVs have fewer moving parts than iCEs, as I'm sure you know from personal experience electric motors can last for decades. The batteries are the bit everyone worries about, but even today there are EVs with >100k on the clock.

As a low mileage driver in I'm more worried about time decay as lithium batteries deteriorate over time. I don't know how much they have improved but my experience has been a half life of two years.

[Val]

1. Image - the current lot are dull looking and do nothing for me (yes, I'm shallow)
2. Range - while 300 miles a day is mostly fine, I have an occasional need for 500 miles in a day, but if it could charge enough for 200 miles in an hour this would get round this minor problem.
3. I also need to tow a trailer and need a range of 250 miles towing a trailer with a motorcycle on the trailer - yes I could hire a van for trackdays, but this is a pain in the arse and I like the convenience of using my trailer.

So my reasons for not buying an electric car are image and battery life

I just bought VW Tiguan for the reasons you have listed. It is a eHybrid petrol plugin charge electric.

I usually use electric when go shopping or to work. It has electric range of 40 miles. Exactly enough for my commute to work I charge it there and get back home on electric only.

If needed it has a GT mode, means both the electric and the petrol engines are on.

Electric engine has Power/torque: 242bhp/400Nm

Petrol engine has Power/torque: 150bhp/250Nm

In GT mode both electric and petrol are working together and I have combined Power/torque: 392bhp/650Nm

I have to say when I have tried it I experienced the equivalent of a tank slapper almost lost control of the car this so much power you would not beleive it

I can trail anything if I need and have unlimited range by using old fashioned petrol station if I need.

Do get one

[Cousin Jack]

Can you really see a time an EV costs £3k second hand and is good for 3-400 miles same as a cheap diesel hatchback is now ?

The batteries are the bit everyone worries about, but even today there are EVs with >100k on the clock.

And there are people blowing up their Tesla because it needs a new battery at £20k

[Couchy]

1. Image - the current lot are dull looking and do nothing for me (yes, I'm shallow)
2. Range - while 300 miles a day is mostly fine, I have an occasional need for 500 miles in a day, but if it could charge enough for 200 miles in an hour this would get round this minor problem.
3. I also need to tow a trailer and need a range of 250 miles towing a trailer with a motorcycle on the trailer - yes I could hire a van for trackdays, but this is a pain in the arse and I like the convenience of using my trailer.

So my reasons for not buying an electric car are image and battery life

I just bought VW Tiguan for the reasons you have listed. It is a eHybrid petrol plugin charge electric.

I usually use electric when go shopping or to work. It has electric range of 40 miles. Exactly enough for my commute to work I charge it there and get back home on electric only.

If needed it has a GT mode, means both the electric and the petrol engines are on.

Electric engine has Power/torque: 242bhp/400Nm

Petrol engine has Power/torque: 150bhp/250Nm

In GT mode both electric and petrol are working together and I have combined Power/torque: 392bhp/650Nm

I have to say when I have tried it I experienced the equivalent of a tank slapper almost lost control of the car this so much power you would not beleive it

I can trail anything if I need and have unlimited range by using old fashioned petrol station if I need.

Do get one

I can only see the one plug in Tiguan and that has 245hp and 30 mile range, is there a bigger one ?

[Docca]

Still enjoying my Volvo. Used just about daily, definitely the first set of keys ( well, rectangle fob thing) I go for.

I’ve had one snag with it; lost all Google functions, but this was fixed with a 10 second software restart.

It’s bloody brilliant.

[Tricky]

I dunno why you'd assume EVs are always gonna be more expensive than ICE cars. They're more expensive right now for sure, but the price has already dropped massively inside one or two model cycles.

Ditto on the charging availability thing. How many farriers or knackers yards are there around you way?

In 100 years time? Seems like a bit it an extrapolation!

Oh I dunno- €20,000 would buy a lot of EGR valves...

https://carbuzz.com/news/fed-up-tesla-o ... is-model-s

Tesla owner Tuomas Katainen decided to record himself blowing up his Tesla Model S, and while the internet always loves an entertaining explosion, Katainen's goal was to protest his disgust with the quality of his car and the poor service provided by Tesla. According to the video, Katainen started experiencing a lot of issues with the car, and in the end, he was forced to tow the car to his nearest Tesla dealership, with the car flashing a number of error codes on the dashboard. After waiting a month for feedback, Tesla told Katainen that it would have to replace the battery pack at a cost of €20,000 ($22,480). Katainen's eight-year-old Model S was long since out of warranty, which means the cost would fall squarely on him.

[Mr. Dazzle]

Yeah Tesla aren't very good at making cars...I don't think that should be a surprise to anyone, they've tried to jump straight from getting Lotus to build them 2000 sports cars to making a million cars a year in their own factory. All while using a whole new underlying tech which doesn't have a well established supply base.

That doesn't mean EVs are bad, just that Tesla sometimes are.

[Demannu]

So it might seem that the economics of owning a Tesla are
Buy it for £65k
Drive it for 8 years
Throw £18k at it for a new battery

Let's put that into perspective
Our Saab was bought in 2010 for £6k, it has had @ £700 of repairs in 11 years. It is now 18 years old so apart from its emissions, it is in the realms of carbon neutral re construction materials, and when the time comes for it to go, It will probably be recycled into something else.
Remind me what they do with a 500kg battery........every 8 years

[Yorick]

So it might seem that the economics of owning a Tesla are
Buy it for £65k
Drive it for 8 years
Throw £18k at it for a new battery

Let's put that into perspective
Our Saab was bought in 2010 for £6k, it has had @ £700 of repairs in 11 years. It is now 18 years old so apart from its emissions, it is in the realms of carbon neutral re construction materials, and when the time comes for it to go, It will probably be recycled into something else.
Remind me what they do with a 500kg battery........every 8 years

The smart money is on leasing a leccy car. Or is that too obvious?

[Demannu]

So it might seem that the economics of owning a Tesla are
Buy it for £65k
Drive it for 8 years
Throw £18k at it for a new battery

Let's put that into perspective
Our Saab was bought in 2010 for £6k, it has had @ £700 of repairs in 11 years. It is now 18 years old so apart from its emissions, it is in the realms of carbon neutral re construction materials, and when the time comes for it to go, It will probably be recycled into something else.
Remind me what they do with a 500kg battery........every 8 years

The smart money is on leasing a leccy car. Or is that too obvious?

And there's the rub, it isn't!
Iirc you can lease a base model 3 for £500pcm, but you have a 8000mile limit and realistically sub 200 mile range.
If you want a decent spec model the money starts spinning.
You'll be looking at £12k + a year lease over 4 years, for a car you won't own.
Can only see that being an option for businesses in reality.

[Felix]

I see mass unemployment when this all happens. Car mechanics, big and small garages, back street ones all gone. Less showrooms. Fuel garages, parts shops, tourist industry, small town that have a great passing tourist trade will be ghost towns, Tourist attractions that out out and beyond . Small businesses what need a van like couriers who do high miles per day. Campervan holidays will be limited to how far you travel per day if you can afford the camper. Ferry company's will all suffer from lack of customers. Out of town shopping/retail parks will suffer but local shops may start to be better off again. We have a shit over priced network of trains and busses or should i say shit run so all that needs looked at also. Open up the old closed down stations may be an option as most old rail lines are still there and allegedly used by part time cyclists and junkies so fuck them off for rail freight what can be decanted at destination town to smaller vans for delivery but its all going to cost multi millions.

All just to keep the greens and hippies happy Thank god when all this happens my driving days will probably be over anyway

[Kneerly Down]

I can only see the one plug in Tiguan and that has 245hp and 30 mile range, is there a bigger one ?

Don't think so.

[Count Steer]

So it might seem that the economics of owning a Tesla are
Buy it for £65k
Drive it for 8 years
Throw £18k at it for a new battery

Let's put that into perspective
Our Saab was bought in 2010 for £6k, it has had @ £700 of repairs in 11 years. It is now 18 years old so apart from its emissions, it is in the realms of carbon neutral re construction materials, and when the time comes for it to go, It will probably be recycled into something else.
Remind me what they do with a 500kg battery........every 8 years

The smart money is on leasing a leccy car. Or is that too obvious?

And there's the rub, it isn't!
Iirc you can lease a base model 3 for £500pcm, but you have a 8000mile limit and realistically sub 200 mile range.
If you want a decent spec model the money starts spinning.
You'll be looking at £12k + a year lease over 4 years, for a car you won't own.
Can only see that being an option for businesses in reality.

Isn't there a half way house model where you buy the car but lease/insure the batteries? You pay a certain amount per 1k miles for example - which probably works out as £x/y charging cycles, then they replace the batteries when they hit 70/80% of capacity. I'm pretty sure a manufacturer was offering something like that last time I looked. Don't know how that would carry over into the second hand market but it doesn't have to be the manufacturer that offers the cover on the batteries.

[Couchy]

Electric cars aren’t there for us to save money. They are there to get us all buying new cars to keep the western economy going. As a bonus pollution is kept in one easier to control place. But ultimately new cars need to be sold to keep the economy going, after EV there will be something else.
People need to realise you don’t buy or lease an EV to save money especially now electricity is going up in price. You can pay 80p+ per kw at public charge points. Most EV do 3-4 miles so that’s upto 20p a mile with some charging costs, won’t be long before pay per mile comes in too to replace the loss in road fund licence, that’ll be on top of the electric cost. A diesel car can be run for less than 10p a mile in fuel and the majority of that is tax. Take the tax portion of fuel out and electric as a fuel is massively more expensive than diesel per mile.

[Horse]

Electric cars aren’t there for us to save money.

As a bonus pollution is kept in one easier to control place.

Although some might describe it as NIMBYism, moving air pollution is a major benefit. Air quality in some cities is appalling now.

[MingtheMerciless]

Electric cars aren’t there for us to save money.

As a bonus pollution is kept in one easier to control place.

Although some might describe it as NIMBYism, moving air pollution is a major benefit. Air quality in some cities is appalling now.

Has it got any worse though ? Smoke free zones, no leaded petrol and cars with much better fuelling. If air quality has got worse is it that there are more of them and more diesels in proportion to petrol engines cars in the urban environment?