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Author: Subject: So Guy Martin says electric cars are only good for 80 miles...
David Jenkins

posted on 4/10/21 at 12:45 PM Reply With Quote
So Guy Martin says electric cars are only good for 80 miles...

In a recent TV programme, Guy stated that EVs were no good for journeys more than 80 miles or so, and only in cities... well, we've just spent 2 weeks in Scotland.

On the first day we went from our house on the Suffolk/Essex border up to Balloch, which is just north of Glasgow. Next day saw us heading for the middle of the Isle of Skye and, 2 days later, we headed off to Dornoch, which is 40-odd miles north of Inverness. A few days ago we went to Blairgowrie for an overnight stop, then a long haul down to Lincoln yesterday. The last leg was today, Lincoln to home. We only had significant charger problems on the trip down the A1 to Lincoln, where we were third in the queue for the chargers.

I don't think 1800 miles in 2 weeks is bad, do you?



[Edited on 4/10/21 by David Jenkins]






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David Jenkins

posted on 4/10/21 at 12:55 PM Reply With Quote
One bonus during the visit to my brother in Dornoch - I got the chance to help him to change the cam cover gaskets on this little beast.



I must admit that is was a bit scary when he had the engine running and I was checking for leaks! Although I was a good 1.5 metres from the prop, next to the leading edge of the wing, it was still a bit daunting when he went to near full rpm...






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craig1410

posted on 4/10/21 at 01:08 PM Reply With Quote
Good to hear you had a nice trip David, and glad to see you debunking some of the nonsense about EVs at the same time!

As I've probably said before, we've had a BMW i3 since January 2017 and it has now covered over 53k miles without once breaking down due to lack of battery power and with very rare cases of "range anxiety" for whatever reason. My wife is the main driver of the car and she uses it for her daily commute which is around 60 miles round trip. We have a 32A charger at home and with our current tariff with Octopus Energy, it costs just 5p/kwh to charge which is roughly 1p/mile.

Just as importantly, perhaps more so, my wife loves the car and loves driving it. Ours is the 94Ah version with the 120Ah being the latest model. We considered upgrading to the newer one when our 4 year lease expired but we decided against it and just bought out the lease instead. The car still has over 3 years worth of warranty left on the batteries and powertrain so we'll probably keep it until we see something else we like. So far the only EV I like besides the i3 is the Ioniq 5 featured in the Guy Martin program as it's one of the few on the market that truly embraces the EV concept from the ground up like the i3.

Cheers,
Craig.

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russbost

posted on 4/10/21 at 02:33 PM Reply With Quote
I wanted to get an Ioniq, but as yet they don't do it with the larger battery pack (possibly because of the stylimng?) so finished up getting a Kona

Overall really pleased with the car, tho' it does "nanny" you somewhat, it has a genuine 300 mile range, tho' I know that will be less in winter

What I find frustrating is the lack of 50kW charge points on the motorways or main trunk roads, you certainly don't want to be leaving it to 10% battery or lower b4 topping up. I've been frustrated at several indivudual charge points where either they won't accept payment or the actual charger is inop for another reason, I now only really want to go anywhere to charge that has at least 4 separate 50kW or above outlets

There is also the minor detail of people like Ionity absolutely taking the p1ss with charges of 69p/kw & you can only use their app or RFID card - total rip off

Fortunately I do the bulk of my charging at home, tho' still waiting to get onto a dual tariff thanks to EDF being complete numpties, now switched to Octopus, but have to wait 2 weeks to see if they can read our smart meter

Did a longer trip to a wedding over the w/e & went to 4 cahrging points all of which failed to work for 4 completely different reasons! As the car has such a good range it wasn't a problem as knew I could drop into Rugby services on the way back, still had about 30 miles "in the tank" & Gridserve have 12 charge points, 2 not working, but arrived, plugged in, tapped a contactless card & was immediately charging at 30p a unit, saw a max charge of 75kW (these are 350kW power points! ), so 30 mins later we were on our way with over 50% back on board

If we actually want people to convert to electric vehicles this is the sort of charge system we need!





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sdh2903

posted on 4/10/21 at 02:38 PM Reply With Quote
You need to break that down a bit. It's easy to say evs are great we've done 1800 miles in 2 weeks. That's only 130 a day average. How many charge stops? How long to top up? Did you plan to charge at overnight points only? What the max range you can do at normal cruising speed? How much did it cost to charge on the roadside?

I've recently done a few silly round trips in my 14 yo bmw of 900 miles in a day. Unless I had a very expensive EV and access to superchargers there's no way I could have done the journeys as quickly. Or judging by service station charge prices as cheaply either.

So yes there's a lot of nonsense in guys summary but also a bit of truth. Until the infrastructure catches up they are more suited to journeys less than 150/200 miles rather than schlepping up and down the country. If your in no rush then no problem.

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russbost

posted on 4/10/21 at 02:53 PM Reply With Quote
quote:
Originally posted by sdh2903
You need to break that down a bit. It's easy to say evs are great we've done 1800 miles in 2 weeks. That's only 130 a day average. How many charge stops? How long to top up? Did you plan to charge at overnight points only? What the max range you can do at normal cruising speed? How much did it cost to charge on the roadside?

I've recently done a few silly round trips in my 14 yo bmw of 900 miles in a day. Unless I had a very expensive EV and access to superchargers there's no way I could have done the journeys as quickly. Or judging by service station charge prices as cheaply either.

So yes there's a lot of nonsense in guys summary but also a bit of truth. Until the infrastructure catches up they are more suited to journeys less than 150/200 miles rather than schlepping up and down the country. If your in no rush then no problem.


I would be the first to agree that 900miles or so in a day is not ideal in most electric vehicles, tho' I think some of the Teslas could do it ok, but they do come with a high price tag. I could do that in my Kona in 4 chunks of 200+ miles each, cruising at or around national speed limits, but the 3 stops would probs need around an hour to get adequate charge in for the next chunk & you'd want a destination charger available at the end

That said, the Guy Martin prog, by all accounts (I didn't see it) was a complete load of tosh & grossly exaggerated, quite deliberately, for effect from what I can gather

There are plenty of fast chargers around at 30 to 35p a kW, which is a heckuva lot cheaper than petrol or diesel (tho' you've not been able to get that without an hour or so Q lately!), but the infrastructure needs a serious upgrade, which I think it's getting, but gonna be a year or 2 yet





I no longer run Furore Products or Furore Cars Ltd, but would still highly recommend them for Acewell dashes, projector headlights, dominator headlights, indicators, mirrors etc, best prices in the UK! Take a look at http://www.furoreproducts.co.uk/ or find more parts on Ebay, user names furoreltd & furoreproducts, discounts available for LCB users.
Don't forget Stainless Steel Braided brake hoses, made to your exact requirements in any of around 16 colours. http://shop.ebay.co.uk/furoreproducts/m.html?_dmd=1&_ipg=50&_sop=12&_rdc=1

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russbost

posted on 4/10/21 at 04:16 PM Reply With Quote
Just thought about this, 900 miles at an average of 60mph, & you'd struggle to average any more than that anything like legally, would be 15 hours driving never mind stops for fuel, loos or eating, not only does that not sound very safe, it also sounds about as representative of a modern car journey as the Guy Martin prog did!





I no longer run Furore Products or Furore Cars Ltd, but would still highly recommend them for Acewell dashes, projector headlights, dominator headlights, indicators, mirrors etc, best prices in the UK! Take a look at http://www.furoreproducts.co.uk/ or find more parts on Ebay, user names furoreltd & furoreproducts, discounts available for LCB users.
Don't forget Stainless Steel Braided brake hoses, made to your exact requirements in any of around 16 colours. http://shop.ebay.co.uk/furoreproducts/m.html?_dmd=1&_ipg=50&_sop=12&_rdc=1

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sdh2903

posted on 4/10/21 at 04:42 PM Reply With Quote
I was talking extremes. But it was doable although not pleasant. But you could even say a 500 mile day and the same principle applies. Your save on fuel soon gets eaten up with a hotel stop. Sadly guys programmes have been getting dumbed down as they go along and agree the eV one was especially crap.

Just to add I'm not anti Ev I just don't think that they are the saviour they are made out to be. And the uptake would be much better if the infrastructure was there. And they are mostly all dull as dishwater until you spend a shed load of cash.

If you can home charge every night for peanuts, don't do any great mileage and dont care about what your driving then agree they are the tool for the job.

Just can't wait for the power shortages to really kick in and then all us neanderthal petrol drinkers can laugh at the leccy cars struggling for juice

[Edited on 4/10/21 by sdh2903]

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David Jenkins

posted on 4/10/21 at 05:36 PM Reply With Quote
quote:
Originally posted by sdh2903
You need to break that down a bit. It's easy to say evs are great we've done 1800 miles in 2 weeks. That's only 130 a day average. How many charge stops? How long to top up? Did you plan to charge at overnight points only? What the max range you can do at normal cruising speed? How much did it cost to charge on the roadside?

I've recently done a few silly round trips in my 14 yo bmw of 900 miles in a day. Unless I had a very expensive EV and access to superchargers there's no way I could have done the journeys as quickly. Or judging by service station charge prices as cheaply either.

So yes there's a lot of nonsense in guys summary but also a bit of truth. Until the infrastructure catches up they are more suited to journeys less than 150/200 miles rather than schlepping up and down the country. If your in no rush then no problem.


You are sort-of right, as far as long journeys are concerned - there is a certain amount of inconvenience. But my mileage wasn't averaged across the 2 weeks - the very first day was 430 miles. I broke this up into 3 sections (2 breaks) that I would have done if I'd been driving my old diesel car... my bladder won't allow me to go much further without a stop! I plugged the car in, went for a pee, then coffee and a bite to eat, at which point the car was well towards being charged.

The final long spell was Blairgowrie to Lincoln, at 338 miles. I had planned 1 stop, but had some difficulty with faulty chargers so ended up with one extra stop. It was a bit of a PITA as there was tremendous traffic on the A1, and I had to queue for a charger at the last stop. The good part was when I used the B&B's own charger to top up overnight, so I could do the final leg without a further charge.

All the rest of the mileage was mostly made up of stages of 150 - 190 miles, with charge stops where necessary (no issues, as they were usually where we wanted to visit anyway).

The main problem at the moment is that electric cars are becoming much more popular, but the charging infrastructure is way behind the EV sales. There's a lot of work to be done there.

The main point to take away is that I make long journeys once or twice a year - the rest of the time I just drive around East Anglia, so range/inconvenience is not a concern.






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craig1410

posted on 4/10/21 at 07:13 PM Reply With Quote
Yeah I was thinking the same about the 900 mile trip - not something anyone should be doing in a day unless their daily driver is a Boeing 737! Even 500 miles a day is probably reserved for sales reps and the like and I'm guessing a lot of that is done via video call these days.

I once drove from just south of Glasgow to near Peterborough and back in the same day (~690m total) when picking up one of our dogs, and even though my wife did about 1/3rd of the driving, it was not a pleasant trip. And that was in a BMW 535d which is made for long motorway journeys. Statistics show that average car journeys are well within the range of electric cars and even the typical 10k/year figure (used to be 12k/year not so long ago) indicates that the average daily mileage is just 27 miles a day, or 38 miles a day if you assume it's all done during weekdays. I think the most I've ever done in a year was about 23k and that was very exceptional - my 535d is insured for 7k miles a year now and that's about right. My wife does about 12k/year in the i3.

Generally speaking, I'm the type of guy who likes to start a journey fuelled up, and with drinks & snacks at the ready and an empty bladder so that I can drive for around 3 hours (200 miles or so) before the first stop for a stretch of the legs and some coffee and the loo. Of course, that's assuming my passengers are okay with that which varies. However, it wouldn't bother me in the slightest if I had to stop every 150 miles instead in order to charge my car and in fact it's probably better all round. Whilst I've never had any issues with infrastructure, that's largely because things are a bit better in Scotland than elsewhere. But that's a problem that will be resolved over time without a doubt.

I know you were being a bit tongue in cheek @sdk2903 but your suggestion that EV drivers don't care about what they drive and that EVs are dull as dishwater is naive at best. If my wife can drive 12k miles a year in a car that she genuinely loves to drive and finds to be fun and comfortable at the same time, then what's the problem? She literally will never go back to a non-EV and that is her choice, not as some sort of EV or climate change evangelist, but as a normal everyday commuter.

As for power shortages, well that won't just be a problem for folks with EVs and actually, folks with EVs will be in a good position if there are power shortages because the EV can also be used as battery storage system. So even if we can't drive to work, we'll at least be able to heat up some chicken soup in the microwave and keep our heating system running.

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sdh2903

posted on 4/10/21 at 08:19 PM Reply With Quote
Like I said the 900 mile was an outlier. But at weekends with quiet roads it really wasn’t a big deal, bmw 630i, comfy heated seats and a brilliant stereo, 450 miles each way, quick pee and coffee stop half way, lunch and refuel at destination and then same on way home, I’ve done similar a couple of times. During the lockdown I was commuting between Glasgow and Luton every 4 days due to little other transport option, again in an EV the journey would have been considerably more arduous.

The comment on EV’s being dull stands, but it’s only my opinion. I’ve been in/driven a Tesla model 3 dual motor (hugely fast in a straight line plenty of gadgetry, but no character and the weight is noticeable when trying to Chuck it round a bend) a corsa electric, competent, dull as dishwater. And lastly was a Nissan van which was actually very good.

Whilst 95% of the population would be perfectly happy with a dull ‘appliance-like’ vehicle there are still luddites like me who prefer the character of a car with ice rather than its gadgetry. Although I must say I do like the i3 and it hasn’t aged at all. I also like the little Honda ev, but again betrayed by low range and high price.

Like I said I’m not anti ev, they just aren’t for me (yet), when you can show me something genuinely fun, interesting, chuckable, can do genuine 300 miles at any time of the year, equivalent price to a ‘normal’ car and can match the time taken to fill up and grab a coffee I’ll be more than interested.

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craig1410

posted on 4/10/21 at 09:48 PM Reply With Quote
Speaking as someone with a Rover V8 powered Locost, I totally understand your thoughts on the somewhat “sterile” character of an EV drivetrain, and the suspension response is certainly affected by the battery mass. There is a certain sense of satisfaction in keeping an ICE engine in the power band and anticipating the non-linear power delivery.

I’ve only ever driven the i3 from the EV world and it’s certainly not perfect in terms of the chassis as it can be a bit skittish on rough road surfaces. But I have to say I LOVE the way the powertrain responds to the accelerator pedal. At least up until about 80MPH when it starts to lose urgency a bit due to the relatively low top speed of 98MPH or whatever it is. 170BHP in a 1200Kg car is fairly lively and is only possible due to the carbon fibre and aluminium construction of the i3. I know that Tesla’s are considerably faster but I have zero desire to own a Tesla…

Part of what repels me from the Tesla cars is the fact that they are mostly just conventional cars with an electric drivetrain and terrible dashboard user interface due to the boneheaded insistence of using touch screens for pretty much everything! That and the self-driving fallacy stoked by Elon Musk’s ego is the icing on the cake!

What caught my eye about the Ioniq 5 is that it really seems to have embraced the EV concept in a similar way to how BMW did it with the i3 back in 2013/14. I love the pixelated “8-bit” styling cues and the interior design is very innovative. It’s good to see manufacturers rethinking what a car can be without the constraints of ICE. Add to that the super-fast charging and vehicle-to-grid and it becomes really interesting. The only slight concern I have are the reports of the ride being a bit soft and wallowy. Maybe the sporty version will fix this though.

What I’d love to see next is a roll-on, roll-off high speed train right down the middle of the UK which EVs could board and charge on while travelling at 200MPH+ to one of only a handful of stops, perhaps 100-150 miles apart.

I’d be very happy with an EV that can do 200 miles in any weather, at motorway speeds provided the high speed charge network is fully fit for purpose. If I can add 150+ miles of range in the time it takes to visit the toilet and grab a coffee/sandwich then happy days. It would also have to be sensibly priced of course.

We’re not quite there yet for every type of driver but the last 5 years of i3 ownership has been 100% without regret for us.

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JC

posted on 5/10/21 at 06:43 AM Reply With Quote
Jodel? Very brave standing between the wing and the prop - hope it was well chocked!!!

I’m very tempted by an EV, just not quite sure how it would fit for me.

I tend to drive 100 miles to work, disappear for a while, sometimes just a few hours but often 2 weeks or more. When I get back to my car, I just want to get home and not stop on the way to charge. I’m concerned about the ‘vampire drain’ whilst I am away. I’ve heard Tesla state 2% per day? What are the experiences out there?

I also am anti touch screen! The aircraft I fly is almost all touchscreen which is great for a lot of things, but simple things like adjusting intercom or radio volume, or dimming cockpit lights takes multiple swipes.

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HowardB

posted on 5/10/21 at 07:33 AM Reply With Quote
so I drive quite a bit - not as much as I used to, but still 30,000 miles a year.
I drive a 63 plate Merc 220d and regularly get 70mpg loaded and over 1000miles of range for a full tank.
Before that I had a V40D4 and used to get 65mpg.

Sooo - based on £6/gallon and an estimated 60mpg then that is 10p per mile so 9p more costly than an equiv EV.
Covering 30,000 miles per annum I will save £2,700 per year. Perhaps a little more if I consider road tax and ULEZ costs.

My Merc cost £12k and an EV (no one makes an Estate EV either) is more than £30,000 - 10 year pay back.
Further I believe that the costing model will have to change - when the tax revenue from forecourt sales stops it will be replaced with an alternate mechanism to tax per mile or replaced with road pricing. So an EV eventually yes, but not quite yet.

Volvo - V40D4
V40D4


and Merc - 220D
220D






Howard

Fisher Fury was 2000 Zetec - now a 1600 (it Lives again and goes zoom)

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russbost

posted on 5/10/21 at 08:38 AM Reply With Quote
Some interesting comments - dull as dishwater,- Hmmm, I'd disagree in that some of the designs are quite clever & there's a LOT of electronic kit (lane following, blind spot sensors, radar cruise, electric seats & steering wheel, parking camera & sensors, traffic/pedestrian/accident avoidance etc etc). What I do find dull is that they are nearly all SUV shaped, the only car I found attractive apart from Ioniq/Ioniq5 was the MG estate, which actually looks like a sporty estate not a monstrous jelly mould. I'd have gone for the MG but it doesn't hae the range of the Kona & that was particularly important to me
I also have a problem with the stupid width we now seem to build into everything, but I don't think you could call the Kona, or the ID3 dull - just somewhat plebeian! But, other than something like a 7, a very quick, impractical sports car or a motorbike, what can you actually drive that you can get any significant pleasure from driving? Country lanes are full of cyclists, horses & things the size of a small house like the Q7,Range Rover, X5,6 etc & everywhere else is either chocka block with traffic, has roadworks, or speed cameras! There's very little pleasure in driving anymore except perhaps in the far north of the country, Scotland & a few bits of Wales. I'm pretty sure there's some significance to the fact that of the remaining 6 Furores registered in the UK 2 are in Scotland & another being built up there at the moment

If you think the i3 hasn't aged, then you should take a look at some of what's now out there now! Both battery storage & fast charging has moved on dramatically as has all the other clever electronic stuff

As for doing a 500 mile drive, with the Kona it would probably take me around45 minutes to an hour more than if I was driving petrol/diesel, (& for that to work I'd need to know there was a destination charger where I was going) but then I'm someone that used to drive to the Alps with one loo stop halfway down France, you only have to look at how busy most motorway services are to know that many people want to stop for a coffee or snack/meal every 2 -3 hours & whilst they are doing that the car is charged, they won't lose the time on a long journey that someone like myself would

I would agree that the infrastructure currently is crap, but that is changing & fortunately that does look as though it will improve quite quickly (couple of years or so). One thing that would be a huge improvement & I think will almost certainly come are more destination chargers - a no. of 7kW charge points at hotels, restaurants, for an overnight stop a simple granny plug point would do, sticking 24kW in overnight would more than help with the following days journey

The other thing which is going to need to change dramatically is charging points for flats - I don't think running a 150ft extension cable from a top floor window is going to cut it really!

I agree that EV's are certainly not the answer for everyone, but they are certainly massively more practical than they were just 2 or 3 years ago.

What I can't see ever being realistic unless we find a multiple of 10 for battery capacity vs weight is 40 tonne trucks lugging stuff for 100's of miles, maybe we could actually start using the railways & just use trucks locally at each end of journey

Any gripes with my own electric car? - yes, the heater really isn't very good & yet makes a significant (10% maybe more in cold weather) impact on the range - I really can't understand this - surely shoving best part of 2 tonnes up the road must generate a fair bit of heat!? Why are we not using that to heat the car instead of what I assume is very low resistance stuck across the battery? Strangely the air con makes very little difference to range, I would have expected it to be the other way around?





I no longer run Furore Products or Furore Cars Ltd, but would still highly recommend them for Acewell dashes, projector headlights, dominator headlights, indicators, mirrors etc, best prices in the UK! Take a look at http://www.furoreproducts.co.uk/ or find more parts on Ebay, user names furoreltd & furoreproducts, discounts available for LCB users.
Don't forget Stainless Steel Braided brake hoses, made to your exact requirements in any of around 16 colours. http://shop.ebay.co.uk/furoreproducts/m.html?_dmd=1&_ipg=50&_sop=12&_rdc=1

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sdh2903

posted on 5/10/21 at 09:25 AM Reply With Quote
In terms of the i3 I was talking more on design rather than drive train as other than a nosy round I've no experience of them. All of those electronic devices! How on earth have we coped without all of the nannying that cars do these days and driving standards are generally decreasing, correlation or coincidence?

The other issue that's not really been raised yet is longevity. How many electric cars will live beyond 10 years? Isn't that a huge environmental waste in itself?

But generally it's the cost that's the biggest issue. A standard corsa has a starting list of 16k will easily do 300 miles on a tank whether it's winter or summer and potentially could last 15 years+. An electric corsa starts at 27k has a quoted range of 200 miles (so 150 maybe on a good day in summer?) and could well be at the end of its useful life before its 10th birthday! It will also be hugely heavier and not handle aswell as the cheaper car. So worse to drive, not as capable and hugely more expensive, and that's progress?

Can you honestly ever see the gap between the 2 getting close? Yes I know there are far far more capable EVs but not without a huge cost that normal people can afford.

Bring on synthetic fuels or hydrogen, but that's another debate entirely

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myke pocock

posted on 5/10/21 at 09:56 AM Reply With Quote
Entirely agree about synthetic and hydrogen. Why put all our eggs in one electric basket? Because the hype says so. Are batteries as easy to recycle as ICEs? And what about the issues that exist if one catches fire. We dont have the infrastructure to cope with that either.
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russbost

posted on 5/10/21 at 10:17 AM Reply With Quote
"The other issue that's not really been raised yet is longevity. How many electric cars will live beyond 10 years? Isn't that a huge environmental waste in itself?" - I think pretty much everything comes with 8 years warranty on batteries now, so I'd be surprised if they didn't go past 10 years, I would expect range to drop rather than just to give up & drop dead, As regards 10 years plus, look around you on the roads, particularly motorways, how much do you see that's more than 10 years old, I'd say it's below 20% on motorways, a bit higher round town
I assume the manufacturers/recyclers will have a scheme for doing something with the end of life batteries - perhaps I'm being naive as apparently we can't even manage to wrap stuff in recyclable cardboard & paper rather than plastic!

"Can you honestly ever see the gap between the 2 getting close? Yes I know there are far far more capable EVs but not without a huge cost that normal people can afford"

I think the true costs are a LOT closer than you might think, my previous car was a Mazda 6 Sportnav, I bought it new, retail was around £24k, but I actually paid £20,500 on a very good deal (Carwow's best offer was £23k!), I sold it 3 & 1/2 years later with just 17,500 on the clock for £13k, so cost over 3.5 years was £7,5k so around £2150 a year, add to that 3 main dealer services to maintain warranty, around £200 a year plus a largely wasted day of getting the car there & back each time, then add in £140 a year road tax, & around £750 a year fuel, so total £3240 a year, would obviously have been higher if not for Covid basically shutting my mileage down for a 18 month period!

My Kona is on a lease, it's a £35.5k retail car compared with the £24k of the Mazda. I had absolutely no intention of buying one as I have no idea where the market will be in 3 years time, but I suspect range will be better & real prices will have dropped. hence being simply able to give it back was a very appealing option. £2300 up front & £250 a month for 3 years (35 payments), no road tax or congestion charge (not that I use the congestion zone!), just 1 service at 2 years, probably around £150 cos there's really very little to service & fuel costs (taking the same mileage of 17500 to give a fair comparison) probably around £300 allowing for charging away from home 10% of the time at 35p/kW & 5p kW at home comes out at £11,500 or £3833 a year so costing me around £600 a year more for a higher spec car, that's £50 a month & I'd be prepared to bet there are plenty of folks on here paying more than that for their TV package or their mobile phone. As a matter of interest you can have the same spec Kona but with the less powerful motor & smaller battery pack for around £70 a month less, which would actually make it cheaper annual costs than the Mazda

There's an overall time saving, rather than cost as I never have to visit a garage (smug feeling driving past the recent petrol queues!) & it takes around 10 seconds to plug in at home & the same to disconnect b4 driving off

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a particular advocate for electric cars, in fact I think we should have gone for atomic power back in the 70's when we had the original fuel crisis & hydrogen should be the fuel of the future, & we may well still have to go down that road for large transport, however, the gap between fossil fuelled & electric is narrowing & will get narrower during the next few years. There is of course the minor detail that Governments are going to force this on us whether we want it or not

I do regard the new "car" as a domestic appliance used for transport, I don't really see it as a car!





I no longer run Furore Products or Furore Cars Ltd, but would still highly recommend them for Acewell dashes, projector headlights, dominator headlights, indicators, mirrors etc, best prices in the UK! Take a look at http://www.furoreproducts.co.uk/ or find more parts on Ebay, user names furoreltd & furoreproducts, discounts available for LCB users.
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HowardB

posted on 5/10/21 at 10:21 AM Reply With Quote
oh yes charging infrastructure - here is a thought - apologies for numbers again - most houses around here have 3 cars, some have a drive, others park on the road.

Ignoring the issue of roadside parking and just looking at a 2 car household with a need to charge two EV - what is the current drain? Is three phase required?

How about the carpark at work or the fast chargers at a service station? Suddenly the largest consumer of electricity in a region is not the aluminium smelting factory (or bakery) but a carpark

Some of the new chargers are 350kw

let's take 26million cars, 13million on the road and 10% charging at anyone time?
30kw x 1.3million - nearly 4GW so an average sized nuclear power station - if I have got some of the maths right.

The infrastructure roll out for for MW level distribution is not trivial and so the way I see it - arrival at driving an EV will be either Tax or Infrastructure





Howard

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David Jenkins

posted on 5/10/21 at 11:31 AM Reply With Quote
quote:
Originally posted by russbost
Any gripes with my own electric car? - yes, the heater really isn't very good & yet makes a significant (10% maybe more in cold weather) impact on the range - I really can't understand this - surely shoving best part of 2 tonnes up the road must generate a fair bit of heat!? Why are we not using that to heat the car instead of what I assume is very low resistance stuck across the battery? Strangely the air con makes very little difference to range, I would have expected it to be the other way around?


My Kia eNiro has a heat pump that uses excess heat in the coolant for the battery and control gear to heat the cabin.

[Edited on 5/10/21 by David Jenkins]






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sdh2903

posted on 5/10/21 at 12:34 PM Reply With Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Mr Whippy
I find many people who don't regularly use an EV come out with the most outrageous and ill informed statements. I just laugh at how wrong they are and one day they will think, God I really was talking through my arse...

[Edited on 5/10/21 by Mr Whippy]


Care to elaborate?

Can I also ask if not charging at home/destination what sort of prices are you looking at to charge up? Say at a in town charge point and a a motorway services (I assume they're a rip off like petrol?)

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russbost

posted on 5/10/21 at 12:53 PM Reply With Quote
"what is the current drain? Is three phase required?" - max current draw is 7kW, so it's a simple large dia. armoured cable to the charge point outside - it's something I did miss out of my costing above, but then it's there for life (as long as you live in that house) costs around £5-600 after the £350 Government grant

"Some of the new chargers are 350kw" - yes, but they won't be charging batteries at anything like that capacity, at least not yet, I had the Kona hooked up to one at the w/e, max draw I saw was 75kW

"let's take 26million cars, 13million on the road and 10% charging at anyone time?
30kw x 1.3million - nearly 4GW so an average sized nuclear power station - if I have got some of the maths right" it's not so much your maths that's wrong, more the assumption of the amount of power, how & when. Most EV's will be charging overnight when there is huge spare grid capacity, hence why you can buy electricity for 5p a unit,, they'll be hooked up to home chargers & will only be drawing around 6kW (they rarely charge at full capacity depending on how full the battery is). Not everyone is going to be charging every night, so a more realistic figure might be around 7 million (most people will charge only once or twice a week) at 6kw which, oddly also comes out at just over 4gW - however this is ONLY going to be that sort of draw overnight &, for most people, for only a few hours when that spare capacity would be available, (10,000 miles at 4 miles to the kW is around 48kW a week, so 2 x 4 hour charges) daytime draw would be waaay less

The above figures are also based on ALL cars being electric which we are currently at around 1.5% of that figure, or around 4% if you include all PHEV's as well

I don't know what MrWhippy is basing 120mpg on?

"remote or timed heating the car in the morning" - yeah I can do that with the Kona too, but even if connected to the grid, it's still using power, a bit like going & starting your car up for 10 minutes b4 leaving to get it nice & warm, it's still using fuel, just nowhere near as much as when driving. Bit surprised the Leaf has a heat pump, the old ones could be pretty basic. I'm not saying the heater on the Kona doesn't work, it does, I'm just surprised at how much power it guzzles, doesn't seem to add up, you can have a heat pump, but it wasn't on the spec for the ordinary Premium model which all the leasing companies want to supply

"what sort of prices are you looking at to charge up? Say at a in town charge point and a a motorway services (I assume they're a rip off like petrol?" Oddly it's not expensive at motorway services, it's just particular suppliers that take the p1ss like Ionity at 65p/kW, but typical prices, motorway or elsewhere are usually 30 - 35p/kW. To compare with fuel, a car doing say 45mpg costs about £40 for 300 miles, a mid size EV charging at between 30 & 35p/kW would be around £24, but you are very rarely going to be doing a journey where none of your charging has been done at home, which, even if you're on a crap tariff isn't going to be more than around 20p/kW





I no longer run Furore Products or Furore Cars Ltd, but would still highly recommend them for Acewell dashes, projector headlights, dominator headlights, indicators, mirrors etc, best prices in the UK! Take a look at http://www.furoreproducts.co.uk/ or find more parts on Ebay, user names furoreltd & furoreproducts, discounts available for LCB users.
Don't forget Stainless Steel Braided brake hoses, made to your exact requirements in any of around 16 colours. http://shop.ebay.co.uk/furoreproducts/m.html?_dmd=1&_ipg=50&_sop=12&_rdc=1

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BenB

posted on 5/10/21 at 01:04 PM Reply With Quote
quote:
Originally posted by sdh2903
quote:
Originally posted by Mr Whippy
I find many people who don't regularly use an EV come out with the most outrageous and ill informed statements. I just laugh at how wrong they are and one day they will think, God I really was talking through my arse...

[Edited on 5/10/21 by Mr Whippy]


Care to elaborate?

Can I also ask if not charging at home/destination what sort of prices are you looking at to charge up? Say at a in town charge point and a a motorway services (I assume they're a rip off like petrol?)


That's the problem round my neck of the woods with eVs. At home I charge for 16p/kWh. At work the local council organised chargers are 26p/kwH and there are dedicated "EV only" bays. Near my home they've got three random lampposts with charging points, 99% of the time they've got ICE vehicles parked in front of them and the local council think 37p/kwH is "reasonable value"!!! It just varies a lot. Outside the local supermarket is another charger and that's a definite "no go". 7p per minute (£4.20 per hour)- would be fine if it was a fast charger but it's not.

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David Jenkins

posted on 5/10/21 at 01:30 PM Reply With Quote
Charging at rapids is expensive - but I don't do it very often. 99% of the time I use my home charger, and quite often it's using power solely from my solar panels (not much in winter, obviously). When using solar I get paid for using the car, as I get money for everything that comes off the solar panels, and my charger is intelligent enough to divert exactly the right amount to the car without taking anything from the grid.

When travelling I looked at the petrol/diesel prices at the motorway services - they're always expensive, but now they're plain ridiculous (£1.50+ per litre). So paying extra at rapid chargers follows the trend... but I know that most sensible ICE drivers always try to avoid filling up at those places!

[Edited on 5/10/21 by David Jenkins]






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coyoteboy

posted on 5/10/21 at 01:52 PM Reply With Quote
I've been actively considering an EV, as I like the idea of it and the reduced cost of ownership.

Right now, I have 3 old used tin tops, because no one vehicle does everything I want properly, and it's totally cost effective to run 3 old vehicles instead of 1 new one.

I run an old 4x4 @ 20mpg for the odd weekend jaunt into the hills, carrying lots of equipment and in rough locations, sometimes towing.
I run a sports car for fun, 20mpg, it's very impractical but is nice to drive in a way that a fast estate or similar just isn't.
I run a slow small estate @ 60mpg diesel for long runs and carrying a smaller amount of stuff, because fuel is expensive.
I use my car for very little in terms of local runs, two trips a week within 10 miles, two within 60 miles, and occasionally (weekend) I do 250-300 mile round trips into the wilds where there are no EV infrastructure and often no IC infrastructure, and I carry spare fuel just in case.


I priced up a new decent sized EV (EV6 2-300 mile range) and the depreciation alone costs more than buying and scrapping all the above each year, according to the finance calculators.
I priced up a used (2018) i-pace, and the purchase cost is still 40k, it can do 80% of everything I need but not quite 100%, and the monthly repayments are more than my fixed costs and fuel usage on 3 used cars.
I priced up a used Audi RS6 estate - this is by far the closest to the ideal, but it's not perfect and it's still about the same cost as having my current cars.

So unfortunately I re-learned two things:
1) If you don't get out into the wilds much, an EV probably works a treat.
1.5) The reduction in fuel costs is significant, but not significant enough to offset the other costs in my case. The fact that the bulk of my charging would be done at rapid chargers would make the fuel quite expensive.
2) EV infrastructure is probably fine if you don't generally push long distances into random locations, and if you normally plan your drives like a retiree.
3) New cars are abominably expensive.
4) No point getting an expensive compromise, if you already have a perfectly usable set of older cars and can fix them yourself.
5) This is the same position I was in 5 years ago.
6) The only thing that will change that is to actively penalise old car owners, which will make folk poorer and reduce their quality of life at the benefit of businesses and (potentially) the environment.

OF course most folk don't have a set of cars to use and are probably just looking at whether to flush cash down the drain on a new IC car or new EV car, and in which case I'd say the choice was more obvious.

[Edited on 5/10/21 by coyoteboy]






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