[Closed] Electric cars talk to me of the reality a long commute

I commute 220 miles in a Model 3 LR, but I can charge at home. If I’m staying overnight I use the hotel charge points, or accept a 30 minute charge on the Superchargers at the airport.

1. Can you charge at work? If you can, this is the solution to your problem.

Don’t rely on Superchargers to fill the battery to the brim. Charging speeds are fastest when the battery is low (ie if you roll up to a charger with 5% battery you’ll add range at 15 miles per minute, but with 80% charge you’ll get less than a quarter of that).

If you’re forced into using non-Tesla charging the rates are astronomical and way more than driving a diesel or petrol car (assume £1/kWh worst case, 70p average). Tesla now down to 29p in some places.

You can charge by running a cable over the pavement but it’s slow and you’ll need a striped cable protector thing so that pedestrians don’t get tangled up.

Over 24,000 miles I’ve averaged just over 4 miles per kWh, mostly motorway. If you’re A roads then you’ll get about 5 from a Tesla. Anything else assume 2-3, especially in the winter.

A few people I know live in apartments and charge at public chargers at Tesco across the road from them.

It's definitely cheaper to charge at home on a night tariff. I try to avoid charging when I'm out as it's got more expensive

Unfortunately there's not one single app you can use. I've got apps Be.ev, polar, podpoint, electric highway, charge your car and voltshare.

There's a good app called zapmap. It has a calculator for working out how much it's going to cost you to charge and can plot a journey for you with charging points.

I have a 2019 egolf and think it's great. Suits 99% of my driving.

The only time I'll take the petrol car is to visit my sister in Edinburgh as I have to charge a few times on the way which adds to the travel time.

What car are you looking at?

You are allowed officially to run a cable across the pavement to charge from your house. That should be enough to do that much mileage but you might not get it all done in the cheap overnight period. And someone might nick your charger.

Hills and road style don't affect range much at all, only speed. So motorways are worse than A roads.

Some manufacturers are pretty accurate with range claims, others aren't. Our real world range is much better than WTLP on my wife's commute because it is largely 40/50mph roads.

Dear all, I travel 70 miles a day to work, 4 days a week and have the option of a lease vehicle but it has to be electric.
A complication is we are in a terrace with no driveway.

You are the nation's guinea pig sir...

It's the big question of can an electric car work despite living in terraced housing and then using random, unreliable and expensive chargers?

Honestly though. They aren't giving you a choice? It has to be electric? Does this include hybrid or not?

I'll add that the range on our egolf was supposed to be 184 miles.
In summer can get around 160 but in winter 110 so factor that in as well.

Think the best cars for long commutes would be Tesla due to their range and charging network.

You'd have to have a charger very near you as you don't want to be sitting in a petrol station for even 25 minutes every night. Then you would subscribe to whatever deal is best for the company that runs that charger. E.g. Ionity is about 75p/kWh, which is a lot, but if I pay Hyundai £11 a month that goes down to 25p!

Official range on my Hyundai Ioniq EV is 183, but the range indicator goes above 200 often. 183 corresponds to 4.77 miles/kWh, we are seeing 5.2 or more currently on the commute and on A roads, about 4.7 or so on motorways.

Ideally mpg or miles per charge cost rather than per unit of electricity… Does that make sense?

Well my diesel currently costs about 17p/mile purely in diesel if it does 50mpg. My current charge at home tariff costs me around 1.4p/mile. If I paid for that Ionity contract, as above, that would be about 4.8p/mile which is pretty cheap. However, my car is exceptionally economical - under 4 miles/kWh is typical and some cars get under 3.

Thanks for the replies.

Survivor....agreed but it is a very good offer.

The practical nature of owning a vehicle I will do around 21k per annum seems off putting as does the cost per mile, given charging at home will be limited

I've commuted with an electric car the last 4 years, but I charge at home. It's been very reliable and very cheap, but 140 per day, relying on public charging.... uff... can you charge at work?

What cars are they offering? Realistically Tesla, Kia and Hyundai would be my start points

Can you actually run a cable across the pavement, realistically? Assuming you can regularly park outside your house obvs.

Terraced house, cables across pavement, necessary for work. That would be an instant no from me especially when you look at some of the pence per mile chat on the main electric car thread and/or look up public fast charging.

And you lot talking in pence per kWh what's that equate to in ppm for (say) a STW Octavia sized car? I know my dirty Dino burner is probably about 15ppm in fuel so if I were the OP I'd be using ppm as a common/transferable unit.

You can charge by running a cable over the pavement but it’s slow and you’ll need a striped cable protector thing so that pedestrians don’t get tangled up.

Individuals running cables across the pavement should be banned asap. It's bloody annoying for pedestrians and a trip hazard.

4p per mile for me approx.

Some people near me run cables across the pavement. One person has a little 'ramp' thing that covers the cable and makes it less of a trip hazard.

The other person is on my road which is a one way street, and they can't park with the plug socket on the pavement side, so the plug and cable stick out into the road a bit. Doesn't look ideal. There's also the issue that it's a busy street and it's difficult to park outside your own house!

This stuff is one of my big obstacles as far as getting an EV is concerned.

Car wise no option of hybrid....choice Audi Merc Tesla polestar Volvo Kia....
Given the current overcrowded parking no chance of parking outside the door.

Diesel it is...forgive me greta.

You are allowed officially to run a cable across the pavement to charge from your house

That depends if you look at official guidance or pro electric car websites.

Either way sticking a cable protected cable over a pedestrian footpath on a regular basis is a dick move. -nightmare obstructions for reduced mobility and sight impaired users.

OP is that 70 miles there and back or 140 miles there and back? If the latter I'd move house, if the former unless you are prepared to put the car on a rapid charger every 2-3 days for 40 mins or so or can leave it on a public fast charger overnight then stick with ICE. I've been driving electric for two and a half years now but I have home charging which is the game changer. However, if I couldn't charge at home then with the miles I do I'd only generally need to charge on a public rapid about once a week which I'd be prepared to do as EVs are just so much better to drive even if they aren't so cheap to run as they used to be. If I had to public charge more often than once a week then I think it would get real old real fast.

Individuals running cables across the pavement should be banned asap.

You do need a protector strip, I read.

Either way sticking a cable protected cable over a pedestrian footpath on a regular basis is a dick move. -nightmare obstructions for reduced mobility and sight impaired users.

This.

Who will be paying for your “fuel” ?

70 miles total.
Fuel me

Have you checked the apps to see how close your nearest slower chargers are that you could leave it over night? Go on zap map and filter by AC type 2 socket and look around your area. We have both vehicles electric, no off street parking (but can run a covered cable in an emergency) - rely on slow chargers. Some are 200 metres away, some are more like a 15 min walk. But walking is nice. We do it all the time anyway.

I assume the OP has their own private parking space on the road outside their house.

No?

Then why are we talking about cables?

Individuals running cables across the pavement should be banned asap. It’s bloody annoying for pedestrians and a trip hazard.

+1

OP, if your company are willing to fund an electric lease car wouldn't it make sense for them to provide charging facilities at work?

There are alternatives to the cable protector, I've seen cable slots installed across footpaths but I guess you would need a council approved contractor. I've also seen overhead swing arms but I'm not sure what you need in terms of permission.

Both options rely on you being able to park outside your house though. You could see if the council have any plans to put sockets on lamp posts, I've seen this done in some areas.

TLDR. EVs are much more fun to drive than ICE even without the convenience of home charging.

This question of ‘how do I run an EV as I have no driveway’ is going to be a test for EV adoption. In the thread I think there are a few mentions of it. The solutions are in the recent replies.

A loss without home charging is the convenience of getting up and hopping in to a pre-conditioned and adequately charged car.

Running a cable over the pavement I’d suggest is an emergency option or a stopgap. though charging at ~3kW overnight for ~8-10 hours should add >70miles of range. Handy.

The other available options reduce convenience.
1. Go to a high speed charger. This would be needed about twice a week as you’d get maybe 4 days of commute out of the working range of the battery. Less in the early days as your foot will be heavier. Inconvenient and expensive compared with home charging. Gives you time to read/listen to stuff/watch Netflix. Going more frequently and not ‘filling up’ might be more efficient overall but might get tired fast.

2. Find a local street charger. Good luck. Mixed up as an option vs a high speed charger maybe it’s OK. On the evenings the street charger is already busy you can factor in a fast charge. Otherwise park up and charge overnight?

3. Adjust your route to include a high speed charger as part of it rather than a detour? Only a variation on #1 but might feel easier.

4. Work charging. That sounds ideal as folks have said.

70 miles seems quite a commute. Maybe moving house would help?

IRL, all these options seem OK to me when balanced with zero local emissions and how driving an EV feels compared with ICE. Sure, having to go to some special place to put energy into the car is more inconvenient than plugging in when you get home some days but folks have been doing it for a while.

Any other options? Car sharing, public transport, some days wfh, etc. 70 miles a day, every day sounds rubbish, anything to reduce that would be where I'd start

70 miles a day 4 days a week with no home charging option is on the borderline for me. There's a few EV options that could do that mileage without needing to charge between but for most you'll need to charge at least once. Is there no destination charging option at your office? If not then it's viable if you have a rapid charger enroute or close to your house (preferably a short walk but that's probably unlikely)

Kia eNiro here with a 450km summer and 370km winter range. We have a 100km one way commute to Stockholm and the car does it like a champ, but we charge overnight at the house and get dat cheapness. We only really considered the change to an EV when we moved out to the house as it would not have been possible to charge on the street from the apartment we rented. The shared garage did get chargers fitted (which made things easier), but that was not exactly cheap charging.

On public charging... Yes, you can do it. We did it, but it is not cheap and can be almost as expensive as buying petrol. Also, charging fast/super-fast all the time could impact the battery. we _try_ to save that for when we need to do lonbger journies where we can't make it in one hit and/or need some range to get back out. A good example is Uppsala -> Stockholm -> Östersund. That's a long way and we needed to stop at Sundsvall for a fast charge to make sure we could make it to Optand, then we slow charged it overnight for a week while I was working locally.

If you find free charging places near you (like Ikea or a supermarket), they are likely going to be slow, so will give you a boost, but not fill you up. A weekly shopping trip for us gets us a charge that is slightly more than the range we use to get into town and back. The supermarkets may have restrictions on the time you can charge.

Diesel it is…forgive me greta

I was watching a short documentary on ocean floor mining the other day. Something industry is trying to push in order to obtain the minerals needed to service our growing need for batteries etc.
Electric cars are pure greenwash.
Trying to convince everyone they can consume their way out of environmental destruction.
Nah. 😐

Quite interesting but mostly just horrifying.

We have 2 charge points where I work.
A couple of the head office team have large BMW E series and they seem to spend a lot of the time on the chargers designated for customers.
We also have a regular who leaves her Nissan Leaf on charge for at least half the day when she's here...
And yesterday a guy visiting charged his ID3 and it got totally bricked after charging.

Electric cars are pure greenwash.

No. Not as a concept. There are undoubtedly some poor environmental practices involved in making their batteries, but that can change. And it must.

We need to cut down the amount of travel we do, especially 70-mile commutes, and we need to do all the other things, but for the remaining travel we can't avoid we need EVs.

If you can charge at work, then you'd be fine - can you charge at work?

Nope - pure greenwash.

How much energy / co2 is saved over the lifetime?  Also as the additional cost per mile compared to the capital cost of buying is low and they are exempt from LEZs there is actually a perverse disincentive to drive less

they still cause congestion

They are far from CO2 free

EVs allow folk to believe they are doing something significant to help when actually they are not.

To have any significant effect of climate change we need massive reductions in energy usage in the developed noations  as we cannot tell developing nations that they cannot have fridges cars and phones.

Thats why they are greenwash

Pure greenwash would mean something that has no environmental benefit being dressed up as something that does.

There clearly is SOME greenwash involved, because that's how things are marketed, but there is clearly a benefit in terms of emissions both local and lifetime. And there are still issues to be solved in the production of batteries but they are soluble and let's not forget diesel doesn't fall from the sky for free either.

I agree that we need massive societal reform led by strong governments across the world, but the OP can't do that can they? They can however choose a less polluting car.

We've done this a million times, there's really no need to re-hash it yet again. You and I both want a transformed society, but saying how much we want it doesn't actually make it happen sadly.

Pure greenwash would mean something that has no environmental benefit being dressed up as something that does.

Correct - thats why EVs are greenwash 🙂

OK maybe not 100% but they still remain greenwash

If the EVs where cyclecars weighing <500kgs then they would be much better as they would require much less energy to move around

EVs are to save the car industry not save the planet

At 70 miles I'd move house or job before bothering to think about the car.

Or do a lot more from home. Can you cut it down to twice a week?

This...

Electric cars are pure greenwash

...is absolutely true.

HOWEVER: they have made a lot of people accept that thier personal transport is polluting the planet. That is a big step forwards.

If folk think that EV's are "pure greenwash", look at the alternatives - have you any idea what it takes to get petrol & diesel into the pumps?

At 70 miles I’d move house or job before bothering to think about the car.

This. What's that work out as, a four hour round trip? I'd balk at doing that once, let alone four times a week. Is there a train?

HOWEVER: they have made a lot of people [s]accept that thier personal transport is polluting the planet[/s] realise that they can have the latest must have, willy-waving s****y, I am considerably richer than yow, lifestyle accessory under the lie they're being sold that it somehow benefits the world. That is a big step [s]forwards[/s] nowhere.

Ftfy 😊👍

Exactly as TJ says

EVs are to save the car industry not save the planet

I've more or less said that I would move jobs if I was forced into the main office. Luckily I _can_ work remotely and, if I need to, can use a local office if I need to be on-site.

My GF is not so lucky. When she starts her new job, she's going to have to commute and the Niro will help a lot with that.

Car industry didn't really need saving did it? So I don't think that's the case.

EVs are greenER than ICEs, but not green.

Lol I didn't lease an ev to save the planet or 'willy wave'.

It was the same price as the Volvo V40 4 year lease that we were giving back and add in free charging at work and cheaper charge tariff at home then we've saved quite a bit of money.

Some of you have strange ideas about the reasons people purchase stuff.

1. Can you charge at work? If you can, this is the solution to your problem.

I'm looking to have a couple of charger installed and there's a grant to help with it trying to register on the .gov grant scheme and due to IT failures, can't even do that, It takes the govt IT team two-three days to answer emails and the last one was "have you tried turning your computer off and on again?"