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

[Mr. Dazzle]

Odds on the next person to turn up would park right next to you

[Pirahna]

Personally- I wouldn’t listen to the negative-Neds. If you’re thinking of getting an EV- chose one that suits your needs and then there is no looking back

As soon as VW stick a row of seats in the back of the ID Buzz commercial to make a Kombi and replace all the soft controls with proper buttons, I'll have a jolly good look at one.

[Taipan]

The scene across a lot of the Ionity network. Loads of 350kw chargers everywhere in Europe. 20% to 95% charge in about 15 minutes

That's such a marked difference in what I saw in France in 2022. The queues for charging points were horrendous on the motorway services. I wonder, does that mean the infrastructure has improved greatly, as that looks very new, or have EVs lost their following?

I'm a reluctant EV fan. I certainly disagree with their green credentials claim, but if we had one, I think it'd work well for us as most of our journeys are sub 10 miles.

[Taipan]

Progress or sacrilege!

[Docca]

Re: few EVs on the road? No- LOADS in Europe. Looked like quite a bit more than UK, but that’s my subjective opinion.


Anyway- now on Ferry.

For anyone remotely interested;

Dunkirk -> Luxemburg -> Geneva -> Lourmarin and Ventebren (Provence ) -> back and forth to a tonne of places -> Troyes -> Dunkirk


EV charging across Europe (we went through Belgium to get to Luxemburg) is an absolute piece of piss. I admit I was slightly anxious beforehand, but it’s so easy.

IONITY app - just route plan and it does the rest on 350 KW charges. Also used the Fastned network once (300kw)

The only snag with navigating by app ( it pushes it to apple/google on your CarPlay) is that you might have to slightly detour to use their charger. This happened only once on my journey and it was a 5 minute detour, so not a massive inconvenience.


Fully charged, the beemer could hit 530km range travelling all day at 75mph.

[demographic]

Even round Cumbria I reckon there's quite a few EV's on the road, I honestly can't make a few miles journey without seeing several.
Maybe 10%?

Easy enought to spot by the green bit on the numberplate, if people can't see em round here they maybe shouldn't be driving as they must have bad eyes.
Also theres a mass of chargers sprung up over the last year, mostly in supermarket arparks which seems a logical spot in my eyes.
It looks to be going in the right direction.

[Mr. Dazzle]

Fully charged, the beemer could hit 530km range travelling all day at 75mph.

I make that about 4m/kWh, based on the Beemer having an 80something kWh battery. Pretty good for a big ol saloon and a neat demo of why SUVs are shit .

[ZRX61]

The only snag with navigating by app ( it pushes it to apple/google on your CarPlay) is that you might have to slightly detour to use their charger. This happened only once on my journey and it was a 5 minute detour, so not a massive inconvenience.

That's far better than the US. Bloke just did a run from Az to Wa.. which should have been Arizona, Nevada, Idaho, Washington. Instead he had to go Arizona, California, Oregon, Washington... so had to *detour* two entire States. & the California part took him into LA.

[demographic]

Is that a "Lecky cats ate shte" comment or an "America couldn't organise a pissup in a brewery" comment though?

[Taipan]

I’m pleased, but it does kind of sound like we’re applauding what we already had!

[Mussels]

I’m pleased, but it does kind of sound like we’re applauding what we already had!

It's a bit like stepping back 40 years of motoring where you could do long journeys fairly quickly but only if you chose the right route that had service stations in the righ places.
It's getting there but not for me yet.

[ZRX61]

Is that a "Lecky cats ate shte" comment or an "America couldn't organise a pissup in a brewery" comment though?

Both, but mostly down to the fact that Biden *invested* $7Billion to build 50,000 charging stations... & in 3 years has built...

Eight.

[Count Steer]

Dissing e-vehicles is all a bit King Canute-ish. The tide is coming in.

However, Gipsy Rose Steer predicts, all of those that wish to drive ICE vehicles for the rest of their lives will be able to*. In the UK you won't have as much choice of vehicle for a while, then have to buy older ones, petrol supply will get sparse and it'll be more expensive and youngsters will either point and laugh or take pics/selfies with your car. Oh...and some will scratch it/spike the tyres like they do with Chelsea tractors now.

Real die-hards will be finally buried in an ICE car and have a petrol pump for a headstone.

* particularly if they're prepared to move to the USA.

[Mr. Dazzle]

Spotted while out and about in Central MK.

Leccy van carrying EV charger repair stuff. Good motivation to get the charger working, otherwise you might not make it home after your shift

20240813_113633.jpg (426.87 KiB) Viewed 902 times

[MrLongbeard]

He might struggle servicing the newest trend in charging



https://www.thecooldown.com/green-tech/ ... um-create/

[gremlin]

If you’re thinking of getting an EV- chose one that suits your needs and then there is no looking back

Well, I think the lack of a rear-view mirror would seriously put me off buying one.

[Mr. Dazzle]

Mercedes' record breaking EQXX doesn't have a rear window or mirror.

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/elec ... xx-concept

They did >700 miles on a single charge in that thing ^, the battery is a 'normal sized' one too not some comedy large thing for the sake of record breaking.

The really impressive thing about that Merc is that a 'normal driver' can also get the mega milage figures, you don't need to drive it specially.

Stuttgart to Goodwood, a distance of 747 miles, without the need for recharging. However, this was achieved by a team of highly trained test drivers with real-time access to all the information thrown up by a boot full of data loggers and in constant radio contact with engineers back at Mercedes’ base in Germany.

Nevertheless, so confident is Mercedes in the Vision EQXX’s ability to hit lofty efficiency targets with any driver at the wheel that it has just thrown me the key and told me to go for a drive to find out for myself just what is possible....

...When we reach the end of our test drive, we receive a readout from the data logger...It is the economy figure we’re after, though. To our surprise, it actually betters Mercedes’ claim, at 8.0 miles per kWh, despite the operation of the air-con and the inclusion of a passenger throughout.

London to John o’ Groats on a single battery charge? No problem at all. In fact, by our reckoning, you’d achieve it with range to spare.

[Pirahna]

Mercedes' record breaking EQXX doesn't have a rear window or mirror.

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/elec ... xx-concept

That's 2 years old. Harry Metcalf did a video on it a or two ago.

[ZRX61]

One of Tesla's EV big rig trucks caught fire, road is still closed, truck is still burning & they're using helicopter water drops to stop the fire spreading to the forest..

[ZRX61]

Correction, road opened after 16 hours...