Joining the electric car club

Swedish Paul

Swedish Paul

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I have an Audi A5 45 thingy, mild hybrid. It’s quite a big car, and I average over 40mpg. Drove to Stockholm and back in challenging conditions last weekend, managed 45 mpg. It’s only got a 60 litre fuel tank, so I have to topup on the 1000km round trip. Thank goodness for 4wd.
 
safrane

safrane

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Most Mild hybrids use a beefed up starter motor to get the car to move from rest to a few mph. A self charging hybrid uses recouped energy to charge a onboard battery to drive the car via an electric motor and/or use that power to subsidised the petrol or diesel engine. A plug in can also be charged via a socket.
 
Tallman

Tallman

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lifes2short said:
interesting read

www.thisismoney.co.uk

Petrol cars beat electric on long distance due to public charging cost

Pricing structures at national charging networks mean that fees can be three times more than refuelling with fossil fuels on a mile-for-mile basis, given the greater ranges of petrol and diesel cars.
www.thisismoney.co.uk www.thisismoney.co.uk
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I sometimes wonder if these are sponsored articles. You can always find a comparison that will work for your intended choice. Also note the suggestive language: they use “can” and not “will” in this specific case. It’s a silly comparison IMO. I can think of some more: “A small hatch may not work if you like to go on holidays with the family”. Obviously if you like to travel far with a lot of luggage you will not buy a small hatch. It’s horses for courses. You can’t have your cake and eat it and all that..
 
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Ewan

Ewan

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At least the article admits its shortcomings, accepting that EV drivers charge at home (which is cheaper). Even on longer journeys, they top up at cheap stations such as supermarkets, rather than the more expensive super-fast stations. In exactly the same way that most ICE drivers try not to have to fill up at expensive motorway services. Drivers of ICE and EV cars are the same when it comes to paying for the fuel - they generally try to get it at the cheapest place.

Of course, if you look hard enough you can make a case for virtually any argument. But the current reality for the vast majority of EV users is that it cheaper per mile to fuel their EV than it is to do so with an equivalent ICE car.
 
Felonious Crud

Felonious Crud

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A colleague in Germany just got some kind of Merc small SUV leccy thing. He loves it. He doesn't have a charge-point at home, but the local Aldi has fast chargers that work, aren't horrendously over-priced and can fill up his car to 80% while he gets his groceries. He did say that in Germany, like here, the service station charge-points do tend to massively take the pish with their pricing, but as with liquid fuel at supermarket fuel stations, in Germany the charge-point pricing is subsidised to get people to shop at the supermarket.
 
safrane

safrane

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Ewan said:
At least the article admits its shortcomings, accepting that EV drivers charge at home (which is cheaper). Even on longer journeys, they top up at cheap stations such as supermarkets, rather than the more expensive super-fast stations. In exactly the same way that most ICE drivers try not to have to fill up at expensive motorway services. Drivers of ICE and EV cars are the same when it comes to paying for the fuel - they generally try to get it at the cheapest place.

Of course, if you look hard enough you can make a case for virtually any argument. But the current reality for the vast majority of EV users is that it cheaper per mile to fuel their EV than it is to do so with an equivalent ICE car.
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Supermarkets are mainly 7kwh, so to fill up a real EV you are talking a full 12 hours.


As one who does travel c250 miles to get to our holiday cottage with a car full of luggage and dogs, we have a big car for this...so at this time full electric is out of the question until the ex90 is launched or the MB S class SUV.
 
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Ewan

Ewan

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True enough, and it’s why we use an ICE car (Rangie Hybrid) when going long distance.
But lots of EV’s have a range of circa 300 miles, so people get to their hotel/holiday home (etc) and then charge overnight. Or, if necessary, top up at a fast station on the rare occasion they make that journey. After all, that type of trip is likely to be considerably less than 1 in 10 of all the journeys they make.

I wish our holiday home was only 250 miles away. Last time I drove to ours it took three days, a tunnel and an overnight ferry. I’m unlikely to do that again!
 
lifes2short

lifes2short

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safrane said:
Supermarkets are mainly 7kwh, so to fill up a real EV you are talking a full 12 hours.


As one who does travel c250 miles to get to our holiday cottage with a car full of luggage and dogs, we have a big car for this...so at this time full electric is out of the question until the ex90 is launched or the MB S class SUV.
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:thumb3: ice still rules in my book, so in effect ev's are more expensive to run on long journeys, it's a head feck to plan a journey and you have to wait for charge points to come free, not only that ev's are more expensive and you'll get shafted when batteries need replacing, i rest my case and get my coat
 
montravia

montravia

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Tallman said:
I sometimes wonder if these are sponsored articles. You can always find a comparison that will work for your intended choice. Also note the suggestive language: they use “can” and not “will” in this specific case. It’s a silly comparison IMO. I can think of some more: “A small hatch may not work if you like to go on holidays with the family”. Obviously if you like to travel far with a lot of luggage you will not buy a small hatch. It’s horses for courses. You can’t have your cake and eat it and all that..
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I don't believe anything without a whole life cycle 'cost' non - recurring capital cost, and recurring 'cost'. 'Cost' being whatever metric used.

My FIAT spider was cheap to buy and manufacture. It doesn't haul around great lumps of toxic rare earths. On Sunday it returned 52.3mpg normal driving. It's cheap as chips to insure, tax and maintain.
Quiet now that the Continental tyres replaced with top Michelins.
Light, agile and can still stick her tail out when needed.
Give me a crappie little Italian any day
 
Oneball

Oneball

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lifes2short said:
think a few brown envelopes were involved on this farce

www.express.co.uk

Council buys electric bin lorries but can’t charge them

Council chiefs have been accused of hiding a fleet of 25 new multi-million-pound electric-powered bin wagons - after they failed to build facilities to charge them in time.
www.express.co.uk www.express.co.uk
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Nothing to do with corruption. They are using some but not all already. Two separate contacts, infrastructure has a later/delayed delivery date.

The council even explain why they went ahead with the purchase “It is also important to note that the cost and demand for electric vehicles is rising so quickly that should we have waited for the infrastructure, the inflation would have driven the cost significantly higher, indeed the vehicles in storage are already more valuable now than when we purchased them.”
 
lifes2short

lifes2short

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Oneball said:
Nothing to do with corruption. They are using some but not all already. Two separate contacts, infrastructure has a later/delayed delivery date.

The council even explain why they went ahead with the purchase “It is also important to note that the cost and demand for electric vehicles is rising so quickly that should we have waited for the infrastructure, the inflation would have driven the cost significantly higher, indeed the vehicles in storage are already more valuable now than when we purchased them.”
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nah, dont swallow that, either complete incompetence by someone at LA or someone has made a tidy sum there
 
Felonious Crud

Felonious Crud

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Yikes! -> https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/...put-the-brakes-on-costly-revolution-gkxbqs9nw

In its report, the centre said: “An uncertain economy is expected to drive buyers towards cheaper models and reduced BEV [battery electric vehicle] production is planned on that expectation. Buyers are expected to stick with cheaper options for longer. Although BEV production is reduced, overall production is increased, with more plug-in hybrids and hybrid vehicles [both of which include petrol engines].
 
lifes2short

lifes2short

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5,838
Felonious Crud said:
Yikes! -> https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/...put-the-brakes-on-costly-revolution-gkxbqs9nw

In its report, the centre said: “An uncertain economy is expected to drive buyers towards cheaper models and reduced BEV [battery electric vehicle] production is planned on that expectation. Buyers are expected to stick with cheaper options for longer. Although BEV production is reduced, overall production is increased, with more plug-in hybrids and hybrid vehicles [both of which include petrol engines].
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pennies finally dropped i see, this EV thing at the moment is just a load of virtue signalling by folks that are well off and can afford to buy new cars every couple of years or tax reasons, no offence intended to current ev owners but that's how i see it presently, clearly ev's are the future but have a long long way to go before taking the mantle from ice cars
 
B

bigbob

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Ewan said:
I wish our holiday home was only 250 miles away. Last time I drove to ours it took three days, a tunnel and an overnight ferry. I’m unlikely to do that again!
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Mine is only about 70 miles away so I think we have topped and tailed it unless someone has a villa in Koh Samui they are keeping quiet.
 
B

bigbob

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lifes2short said:
pennies finally dropped i see, this EV thing at the moment is just a load of virtue signalling by folks that are well off and can afford to buy new cars every couple of years or tax reasons, no offence intended to current ev owners but that's how i see it presently, clearly ev's are the future but have a long long way to go before taking the mantle from ice cars
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That is precisely how the government is pump priming the demand. Get them out there by making it practically impossible for anyone with a company car to want to take anything different. Works fine if you keep another car for the long journeys as most couples/families who rank somewhere for a company car will be able to do. I guess it is then a success as emissions are reduced where they should be, in urban areas. For those of us without company cars the logic is not compelling yet largely as the range/purchase price algorithm does not yet work. I will not be chopping any of my five petrol cars for a BEV anytime soon but I hope to be around to do so in 5-10 years time if only for the shopping car once they sort out pricing for these.
 
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