“Go stand on the corner of a junction with traffic lights in any town at rush hour; it’s noisy, it stinks, and breathing it all in is bad for your health.”

Stand beside a nuclear power fuel rod. Thats not good for your health either, but if thats whats powering your electric car is it any better really?

lots of families have 2 cars, i’d wager in most cases 1 of which only does short distance urban stuff, pretty big market there I’d say. But yeah too expensive at the moment, when you can get one 2nd hand for less than the price of a decent bike we’ll get one

Fairly large nail hit there. To be fair, I think with the BMW you can take it into a BMW garage and swap for something else if you need to do a long distance journey on the odd occasion, which seems emminently sensible but if you’re paying £30k for a little hatchback I’d expect something like that.

All down to costs for me I’m afraid. No-one doing sensible mileage is going to spend double the price on a car that they are not going to get the benefits back on. Plus the worry of selling on in the future.

too expensive at the moment, when you can get one 2nd hand for less than the price of a decent bike we’ll get one

Equally, you’re not the market for a new internal combustion powered car either. The people to buy them are the ones that would have bought a Focus, but instead bought a Leaf, not those that would be buying 5+ year old cars.

Nissan leaf starts at £17k, focus at £16k, nothing in it really.

Leaf? Zoe? What happened to when cars had proper names, like Fiesta, Escort, Razzle, Readers’ Wives, etc?

Yes, No, Maybe.

As everyone knows EV shift the pollution from small scale to large scale – a power station is more efficient than any vehicle and there are also renewable solutions that reduce the environmental impact all great, but none of this is ‘guilt free’.

EVs require lots of rare metals like lithium for their batteries, these are one of those things that you can’t really be sure of their environmental impact because they’re mined in China – Chinese Manufacturing Companies generally couldn’t give 2 shits about the Environment – Lithium mining usually involves taking millions of tonnes of soil and rock, removing the >1% which is lithium, and returning the rest so toxic it cannot be used for anything else, but because it doesn’t happen in the west it’s not widely reported – I read recently that China has finally signed up to the world treaty on Environment, I doubt they’ll actually do anything meaningful about it.

It doesn’t matter if your Car is an EV, Hybrid, Petrol or Diesel, a HUGE amount of energy, water and resources goes into it’s production – that really is where the waste is – despite improved processes and quality control meaning cars don’t just rust to bits anymore the average lift-cycle of cars is going down, they’re more complex and expensive than ever to maintain and easier to buy – there’s also a degree of in-built redundancy – car makers really built cars to last 100k miles or 10 years, whichever comes first – then they’re scraped and whilst they’re recycled (one positive of the automotive industry as it has always recycled it’s products) you can’t get the energy back.

IMHO if your major driver is the environment buy a car, any car really, but one that suits your needs, properly maintain it and keep it as long as is possible, even if that means uneconomic repairs and I think that’s where EVs fall down – the batteries have a short life-cycle, even the fancy Tesla ones – I don’t think people are going to get 20-30 years out of any EV car, which you can if you want with a ICE car.

Stand beside a nuclear power fuel rod. Thats not good for your health either, but if thats whats powering your electric car is it any better really?

That is BS on two fronts. The biggest proportion of electricity production is from gas and renewables produces more electricity than nuclear currently.

How many people stand beside a fuel rod? Oxford Street is at times the one of the most polluted if not the most polluted places in the World due to air quality failings. FACT.

The people to buy them are the ones that would have bought a Focus,

Don’t think so. Due to range issues, the people most suited to a Leaf would be those who buy a small second car for town use. That’s usually not a Focus, at least not around here, it seems to be an Aygo or similar. They cost £9k new so almost half the price of a Leaf – and second hand are at least half that again. How much are used Leafs? I want one – cannot afford one.

Stand beside a nuclear power fuel rod.

That’s not likely to happen though for obvious reasons. However people spend a lot of time on busy streets, in fact some people live on them. Clear difference.

“Chinese Manufacturing Companies generally couldn’t give 2 shits about the Environment”

China needs outside assistance to exploit it’s natural resources. Plenty of nasty Western corporations with their fingers in that pie.

“I read recently that China has finally signed up to the world treaty on Environment, I doubt they’ll actually do anything meaningful about it.”

Western imperialism has **** up much of the Middle East. It’s ok to instigate massive environmental catastrophes, as long as their not on your own doorstep.

Having just sold a Discovery 4 and signed a lease for a Golf GTE, I shall feel slightly better about myself when using a vehicle.

EVs require lots of rare metals like lithium for their batteries, these are one of those things that you can’t really be sure of their environmental impact because they’re mined in China

I didn’t think China was the biggest producer of litium. A quick google says:

The three largest lithium producers are the Chile-based Sociedad Quimica y Minera (SQM), American FMC Lithium (FMC), which controls the ominously-named Hombre Muerte mine in Argentina, and Albermarle (ALB), which recently acquired competitor Rockwood.

Oxford Street? Most polluted place in the world.

Might fail the highest number of local regulations. But that’s about it.

Pjay If your main think is the environment then DON’T buy a car. Structure your life so you don’t need one. Thats the greenest.

Car use is inherently energy inefficient. Electric cars only benefit is to move the pollution out of crowded cities

Levels of nitrogen dioxide pollution on Oxford Street are the “highest in the world”, according to an air quality scientist at King’s College London (KCL).

Researchers from the university set up a monitoring station on Oxford Street in the capital, which found a peak level of nitrogen dioxide at 463mg3 (microgrammes per cubic metre).

Boris Johnson has been forced to accept that London’s Oxford Street has some of the worst air pollution in the world.

In an exchange of letters with the Environment Audit Committee (EAC) of MPs, the mayor said he now accepts scientific evidence from Britain’s leading air research group that the street has some of the world’s highest recorded levels of nitrogen dioxide.

The mayor of London had said in a Twitter exchange in July that it was a “ludicrous urban myth” that Britain’s premier shopping street was one of the world’s most polluted thoroughfares, saying that the capital’s air quality was “better than Paris and other European cities”.

I was quite serious about buying a Leaf, we also have solar panels which makes the recharging cost even more attractive when the sun does eventually shine.

However, the high initial cost of the car is off putting. The battery will lose its efficiency over time and shorten the already low maximum mileage on a full charge.

I wanted it to be a long term ownership, but the range and battery efficiency just keeps reducing over the ownership of the vehicle.

You end up with a car that cost £20K, and starts off with limited mileage usage and just gets worse as the years go by.

In the end it just makes it a very expensive method of travelling just locally.

Maybe the next five years will see cost and battery performance improvements.

You end up with a car that cost £20K, and starts off with limited mileage usage and just gets worse as the years go by.

True, but the average commute in the UK is <10miles (source), and even the leaf will do 120-150miles so you’re good upto about 40-50 miles each way even as the battery degrades (and isn’t the battery leased anyway so it’s replaced when it drops by a certain percentage?).

Yes but as we’ve discussed over and over again people don’t want to have a car that can ONLY do those short commutes. Unless it’s a second commuter car, in which case it has to be cheap.

Leaf range is more like 80 miles with a brand new battery in real time driving.

This gets worse with age, temperature dropping and any extended motorway driving greater than 60 miles per hour.

I’d love to buy one, just doesn’t make sense at the moment.

This gets worse with age, temperature dropping and any extended motorway driving greater than 60 miles per hour.

Think how much second hand value is going to be on a car in a few years that’ll do 40 miles real world?

The battery will be replaced. Aren’t the batteries themselves on lease even if you buy the car?

I had a drive in an i8. It was weird, felt like a normal car, (did it back to back with an Audi R8 and McLaren 12C, they didn’t) but it was **** quick when you put your foot down. It lacked a bit of ceremony though. I really want to want one. But I’m just not sure.

I3…. Nah! Be interested to try a Tesla.

Re: the OP, no room for smugness for anyone driving a car I don’t think!

Projected lifespan of the battery is ten years, but it’s going to cost four grand to replace (unless they do some kind of scheme to help). In ten years you could have done let’s say 80k miles, because this car isn’t going to be chewing up motorway miles. Wiki suggests cost per mile of fuel in the UK is 1p as opposed to 10p in petrol terms, which makes a saving of just over £7k. So you’re still ahead even with those figures. Also – I’d bet servicing is much cheaper, if you need it at all. At dealer rates you’d be looking at what, £150 per year at least on a comparable car.

Anyway, to answer the OP, found this on Wiki (my bold):

In February 2014, the Automotive Science Group (ASG) published the result of a study conducted to assess the life-cycle of over 1,300 automobiles across nine categories sold in North America. The study found that among advanced automotive technologies, the Nissan Leaf holds the smallest life-cycle environmental footprint of any model year 2014 automobile available in the North American market with minimum four-person occupancy. The study concluded that the increased environmental impacts of manufacturing the battery electric technology is more than offset with increased environmental performance during operational life. For the assessment, the study used the average electricity mix of the U.S. grid in 2014

Which answers the question nicely.

Lots of conjecture about the relative merits of electric and petrol vehicles in this thread.

If anyone wants to find some well documented numbers, read this
sustainable energy without the hot air

£4K replacement battery on a 10 year old car isn’t my idea of fun.

During those 10 years the range keeps decreasing also.

In 10 years time the battery technology will have moved on a long way.

The car would be obsolete really with no value the anyone.

£4K replacement battery on a 10 year old car isn’t my idea of fun.

Just put the money you save on fuel in a bank account.

40 mile range will be very useful for someone with a 10 mile commute, so it’ll still have value.

Wiki suggests cost per mile of fuel in the UK is 1p as opposed to 10p in petrol terms, which makes a saving of just over £7k.

1p per mile sounds low to me. I see figures quoted around 3 miles per Kwh. My house leccy costs 10p per Kwh. So 3 miles for 10p or around 3.33p per mile.

Or 1.75p if you have an off peak meter according to Nissan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Leaf#Fuel_economy

If we want the roads in the near-ish future to be carrying nice quiet, clean electric vehicles then a step on that journey is people driving around now in early versions using the electricity generation options we have now.

We’re not going to get there in a single step, and if we let perfect be the enemy of good (or whatever the saying is) then we won’t take any steps.

The point about the best thing to do being to get a 2nd hand car and run it till it dies is well made but doesn’t help with where the next generation is going to come from.

I’m always glad to see one because I reckon it’s a sign of things moving in the right direction 🙂

We’ve got a leaf as our one and only car, it works well. We rarely do journeys more than 50miles a day and when we do it’s usually to family and friends, we either charge at theirs or on route.

The cost of the car via a PCP worked out the same as keeping our 10year old multipla on the road so it was no brainer.

Throw in the fact that we now pay £20 a month on fuel instead of £100+ is ideal.

I am smug, but because we’re saving money rather than the environment. It’s the wife that’s smug due to the eco side..

Some people are smug. Some people unknowingly employ psychological projection.

The ‘righteous’ part is a little more tricky.

‘Smug’ because ‘car’ (for whatever reason) is always hilarious IMO

The main problem again is the set up, it’s really easy to dismiss things for any reasons but it still leaves the problem of millions of people needing a huge amount of energy to transport around a large metal box containing 1 person. As much as people want to deny it the internal combustion engine must die. Apart from the pollution it relies on a finite resource to make it go. that finite resource can also be used to make thousands of other much more useful things.

Of course buying a new car is not the lowest environmental impact but it’s a start. Buying a 3l petrol car certainly isn’t environmentally responsible.

The entire concept of car ownership has issues to be dealt with

Yes but as we’ve discussed over and over again people don’t want to have a car that can ONLY do those short commutes. Unless it’s a second commuter car, in which case it has to be cheap.

A little outside the box thinking here if 90% of your journeys were the short commute – I know of plenty of people who that would be the case for. Then why not own the practical car for that hire what you need for the occasional long trip. The savings probably work out. Again it might not be the solution for everyone but it could be. In the Tesla threads people were adamant it wouldn’t work as they drove to the Alps once a year.

As a generation or era we are the first to be liberated by the car, it’s done so much to change the world we all live in that it’s hard to let go of that. the freedom comes at a price though.

The other problem is image

We aspire to this

Because you don’t sell cars based on the reality

The cost of the car via a PCP worked out the same as keeping our 10year old multipla on the road so it was no brainer.

Throw in the fact that we now pay £20 a month on fuel instead of £100+ is ideal.

This is where you need to do the sums.

The PCP (+deposit) on a petrol car half the price plus the petrol takes a long car to add up to the Leaf cost. This is still discounting the fact that a car that can do 80 miles in one go is next to useless for a lot of people. Over the last 2 weeks I have made 3 trips over 80 miles so they are not for me.
To have one as a second car is worse than just having one petrol car as you gave brought another car into the world….

As I said above, make an electric car for very near the price of same petrol equivalent and also have a range of around 200 miles and I think we would start to see more new electric cars than petrol.

This is still discounting the fact that a car that can do 80 miles in one go is next to useless for a lot of people.

Average commuting distances:

The average distance2 commuted to work in England and Wales increased from 13.4 km in 2001 to 15.0 km in 2011. This is estimated using only workers making a regular commute3 between their enumeration address and their workplace address.

On average workers resident in the East of England (17 km) had the longest commutes while working residents in London had the shortest commutes (11 km).
http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160105160709/http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/census/2011-census-analysis/distance-travelled-to-work/2011-census-analysis—distance-travelled-to-work.html