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Just had a chat a work and to fit a new battery into our PHEV 4×4 that got damaged, £6500.
dont ever look at the cost of a new engine for an ICE then.
Give it another model cycle and after 6 years of resentfully paying £70 to fill up their panzerwagen with smelly diesel in a freezing November wind whilst the teslarati sip espressos in Costa whilst the car fills itself up for £10 and things will change. It’ll have a few miles more range, it’ll charge a few minutes quicker and they can climb down from their soap box jerry can and tell us they’ve timed it just right.
so you have sold the focus ?
A few reasons: parking places are away from the flats so it would either be cables strewn everywhere or digging up the whole estate to put charging points in, current electricity supply wouldn't cope (new substation, re-wiring the whole estate), not every flat has a parking space (lots of people with multiple cars is a nightmare if you don't have your own designated space), all could be overcome but will cost an awful lot and seeing as the vast majority of the flats and houses are BTL's no-one is willing to pay for it. One of the privately owned houses at the start of the estate has a Leaf and they are stuck with 3-pin plug charging as the cost they were quoted to upgrade the electric supply was massive, well into the £10k's. My guess is the supply to the estate is under-specced for the size of the development. There's a plot at the far end that is good to go for another 2 blocks of flats and a few houses but has never started due to similar infrastructure issues.
Majority of people could easy make their next purchase an electric car right now
No they couldn't, the majority of people that want a Tesla can't buy one as there's a waiting list. 15 years is probably on the tight side for getting everything in place from mining, refining, manufacturing the batteries to refitting production lines for the new cars. Realistically 5 years for the mining side of things, and a further 5 years to bring out enough models and build the production lines?
so you have sold the focus ?
Nope and after 1 careful owner, and then me I don't think anyone would buy it. It's current issue is I poured a broken down dishwasher load of 4 day old drain water into the boot. The smell is out of this world!
It'll be scrapped to prevent it falling into the hands of some polarbear killing petrolhead when I'm done with it. But seeing as it's not moved off the driveway in 3 weeks except to take the dishwasher to the tip it may still be a few years before it makes a one way trip itself!
Was looking at an Nv200e for my old commute but changed jobs and now I don't really need the car at all.
Majority of people could easy make their next purchase an electric car right now
Aside from the logistical issues TINAS describes you assume the majority of people can afford to buy new. Not everyone has the same spending priorities or capabilities especially when the majority aren't rolling about in company cars.
you assume the majority of people can afford to buy new
What percentage of the UK market is lease these days though? And with the Benefit-In-Kind change for electric cars it makes sense if your work has a lease scheme.
All those ex-lease cars will then feed a growing second-hand market of nearly new electric cars.
shame they still dont make a peugeot partner tepee electric.
so it'll still be another 5 years before thats on my radar.
Aside from the logistical issues TINAS describes you assume the majority of people can afford to buy new. Not everyone has the same spending priorities or capabilities especially when the majority aren’t rolling about in company cars.
It's only on the sale of new cars though. I'd expect petrol/diesel to still be available for a good 10+ years after that. And even beyond that there'll be a niche market for it for classic cars etc.
I'd also expect to see alternative ways of financing cars appear. e.g. you might buy a 10 year old Tesla model 3 in the same way you'd buy a 170,000mile diesel estate now, but a finance company might buy the battery and associated risks and lease it back to you to keep the cost of motoring down for those on lower incomes.
My example, couple of weekends back I drove to Shropshire to Coniston for a weekend away. 150 miles each way.
Just about every electric vehicle on sale now would need a recharge to do that journey. I checked the maps and there were no charge points anywhere near where I was staying. So in essence I would have to change my behaviour to compensate for the car (which is doable, but a pain in the arse)
IMO batteries need to become interchangeable l, turn up at a charge station and they literally swap in/out your battery
Just about every electric vehicle on sale now would need a recharge to do that journey. I checked the maps and there were no charge points anywhere near where I was staying. So in essence I would have to change my behaviour to compensate for the car (which is doable, but a pain in the arse)
So it can be done then as there’s also plenty on sale that can. Not on near where you were staying, would it be difficult to pop into Coniston place the on charge and go for a walk while the car charges?
it’s relatively new and still developing but writing one off for a holiday in the countryside mean a small change to your schedule is a bit silly.
Home charging for people that don’t have a driveway or parking spot is definitely a major stumbling point at the moment. It’ll be interesting to see if the government have any plans to address that!
like this?
Infrastructure investment for all of this is going to have to be huge, epicly huge, charging stations, standardisation, swapping batteries, national grid & importantly power supply, future proofing
Its going to have to be a huge overhaul of how we travel around the country and Im frankly sceptical it can be done considering that HS2 is hugely over budget & late, Universal Credit roll out is hugely over budget & delpayed, NHS IT upgrade hugely overbudget & abandoned
And lets be honest its going to involve Huawei or that guy that hates paedo cave divers, setting all this up, which will be massively contraversial
personally I put this down as more Johnson hot air buffooning, rather than something that will happen
What also worried me with the rush to battery cars is that they probably are not the long term solution.
The rush is a snail's pace. When sales get to 10% of the car market I'll call it a gentle flow, more than 50% a "rush".
Just about every electric vehicle on sale now would need a recharge to do that journey. I checked the maps and there were no charge points anywhere near where I was staying.
Most cars will do 150 miles (Tesla Long Range have 390 mile range, but on a more affordable level the Kia e-Niro and Kia Soul EV quote 280 miles).
https://www.nextgreencar.com/electric-cars/available-models/ (sort by range)
If there are genuinely no rapid chargers anywhere on your route or destination then you could still charge overnight off a normal 13 amp plug when you get there.
The use case is definitely better for second-cars that are mostly used for commutes. No argument there. But your example is not exactly insurmountable.
IMO batteries need to become interchangeable l, turn up at a charge station and they literally swap in/out your battery
I think that would limit the battery tech and electrical design way too much at this stage. When you can supercharge a modern battery in 30-40 minutes is it really that much hassle?
The rush is a snail’s pace. When sales get to 10% of the car market I’ll call it a gentle flow, more than 50% a “rush”.
Quite. I read something a few weeks ago that said that the biggest growing segment of the car market is diesel SUVs. And that the extra weight and un-aerodynamic-ness of those SUVs led to extra fuel use that wiped out the savings from electric cars by a factor of ten.
Mind you, it's like the post-Olympic 'bike boom'. The reality was a few middle aged men joined cycling clubs, but there was no transformation of the way that we travelled.
It strikes me that many are missing the point of the move away from ICE cars.
Lots of complaints that BEV range not sufficient, entry cost prohibitive, shorter lifecycles etc. This all appears to assume that we are meant to straight swap our cars over.
The reality is that our current 2 car household, drive anywhere on a whim lifestyles are completely unsustainable.
In the future we will be significantly more restricted in our movement. Be that by car or aeroplane. Journeys will simply need to be better planned and more rigourously justified.
It will be interesting to witness the impact of this sea-change on society and the economy. Don't count on the Government to integrate their planning. We should all be acting to insulate ourselves from this impact.
My example, couple of weekends back I drove to Shropshire to Coniston for a weekend
I'm really struggling to get my head round this example. There are loads of charge points on the way (you will need to stop which is something you should do anyway on a journey that distance) as well as charge points in Coniston. And you can still overnight charge off a plug as someone else mentioned.
It's like complaining that a petrol engine requires you to fill with petrol which would take you out of your way and you couldn't possibly do that.
you will need to stop which is something you should do anyway on a journey that distance
Hmmm! I’m not sure on a 150 mile journey you should stop, call a 2.5 hour 3 hour drive it’s not too bad. Much more than 3 hours then yes a rest stop would be sensible. However, stopping to charge is not really inconvenient and I bet there’s a few points on that route.
Weekend away brigade: we use our leaf with a bike rack on top for weekends away fairly often. Takes a wee bit of planning ahead, but it's totally fine. We basically get 100 miles per charge, so anything over 200 miles becomes a chore. Every place we've stayed has been happy to let us plug into a 3 pin socket, and only once have we had to find a public charger instead of overnight charging.
It is *marginally* more hassle than when we used a diesel focus for the same trips, but that is by far offset by the lack of hassle in every day use.
I do sympathise with those of you for whom home charging would be impractical. Hopefully as ICE is phased out some decent solutions will be found.
In the future we will be significantly more restricted in our movement. Be that by car or aeroplane. Journeys will simply need to be better planned and more rigourously justified.
I think in the next 15-20 years, there will be a lot more car-club EV around (despite the recent failure of one of the London firms).
In a similar timeframe, cars will be able to drive themselves to your front door, you get in it and it drops you off where you need to be.
I do sympathise with those of you for whom home charging would be impractical. Hopefully as ICE is phased out some decent solutions will be found.
They've started putting chargers in lamp-posts round our way (1930s suburban housing, not everybody has a driveway).
I suspect some uprating of the street lighting will be required eventually...
You can hire EV for insane prices and without worrying about having to refuel before returning.
There's rapid chargers in Booths @ Windermere. Booths @ Ulverston, Car Park in Ambleside. Using Booths doesn't require you to shop to use the chargers, but if you did both also have good cafes. Obviously you could easily spend 40mins walking round Windermere or Ambleside. You just need a can do attitude FunkyDunc 🙂
IMO batteries need to become interchangeable l, turn up at a charge station and they literally swap in/out your battery
My opinion is this will never happen for domestic vehicles, it's just seems unnecessarily over complicated. My bet would be simply on improved battery tech and faster charging backed up by on site battery storage. Where there might be a case is with commercial vehicles, planes, trains etc but there are other possibilities in the commercial sector like Hydrogen or Sodium-Ion batteries or half a dozen other new battery tech in the wings.
Hmmm, how will the national grid cope with the increase in capacity needed? Answer, it won't, as we all know its massively under funded and way behind on new power plant builds. Also imagine turning up at an average service station on the M1 at any given time of the day, how many cars are there? a hundred? two hundred? Do you think there will be a couple of hundred charging points? or even a couple of dozen? No. I know not everyone at a service station is there for fuel, but in the future 80% and more will be. Get in line sir.
As an aside, I have a 4 yr old VW transporter Kombi ( crew van) and I need the 5 seats, and the luggage capacity, and the space etc etc. It's good for another few years at least, but what then? No manufacturer is anyway near producing a vehicle to suit, so do I buy another dirty diesel and accept it will be almost unsaleable or what?
Do you think there will be a couple of hundred charging points?
No as there’s not a need are there 200 pumps?
andy8442
Member
Hmmm, how will the national grid cope with the increase in capacity needed? Answer, it won’t,
Answer from Graeme Cooper, Project Director, National Grid, IT WILL
Answer from Marcus Stewart, Head of Energy Insight, National Grid, IT WILL.
This is a prime example of the problem unfortunately.
Car sharing (in cities at least) will surely answer some of the practical questions?
The opportunity is enormous, one of the big players (my money is on Uber) will launch a system that makes car sharing more widely available, at a cost that makes owning a private vehicle no longer the norm
Combine that infrastructure with driverless technology...
Seems a lot more feasible than every terraced house on our street digging up the road for their own personal charge point
No as there’s not a need are there 200 pumps?
Ever noticed how petrol stations with mini marts attached always become chaos as folk go in to pay for their fuel and browse for something for tea.
Yeah that'll be electric car charging points while folk are in ordering and drinking their coffees. .
Charging point use patterns will not be comparible to fuel pumps in any way.if they were then people wouldn't be worried about electric cars.
Likewise . Can we get an answer on the national grid from an independent without. A vested interest --its their job to say it will even when it won't because if they didn't they would be sacked.
Prologium announced a solid state battery for EVs that's potentially not relying on lithium.
Also not entirely sold on the argument about factoring in lithium mining to the emissions of EVs when tar sands devastation, fugative methane, crude spills etc are largely ignored from ice vehicles.
I’m really struggling to get my head round this example. There are loads of charge points on the way (you will need to stop which is something you should do anyway on a journey that distance) as well as charge points in Coniston. And you can still overnight charge off a plug as someone else mentioned.
I’m not saying it’s not possible, just it’s going to take a huge shift in culture.
I left at 8am on a Friday. Got there, straight out on my bike for a nice long ride, back just before the daylight went. Stopping to charge on route would have meant no decent bike ride on the Friday and a shorter weekend overall with time spent in some random service station, or off my required route to charge. Then that would be if I was lucky enough to find a charger that worked or, a space (talking hypothetically when more people are driving EV’s)
I did actually take my charging cable for my hybrid. However 1. It wouldn’t reach from the static caravan window to my car, and people are currently genuinely offend when you ask to plug your car in (wasn’t my caravan)
We looked at an eGolf as a 2nd car, and very quickly dismissed it. Woeful power and real range. Maybe ok if you do town driving, but countryside, longer higher speed commutes, no chance
I’ve been in an electric / hybrid car for nearly 4 years now, and I haven’t seen anything change in that time that has really made me think the technology has changed.
I’ve been in an electric / hybrid car for nearly 4 years now, and I haven’t seen anything change in that time that has really made me think the technology has changed.
Longer range, more selection, prices are falling and more high speed chargers which would give you additional charge in about 30 mins.
Stopping to charge on route would have meant no decent bike ride on the Friday and a shorter weekend overall with time spent in some random service station, or off my required route to charge.
It can be as little as 30 minutes now but even at an hour it’s not a considerable amount of time. You could even go for a bike ride while it’s charging or when you get back and having a pint.
I did actually take my charging cable for my hybrid. However 1. It wouldn’t reach from the static caravan window to my car, and people are currently genuinely offend when you ask to plug your car in (wasn’t my caravan)
When I was in the Peaks I asked a random group of lads if I could charge from their lodge as ours was set back. They replied of course you can, genuinely didn’t seem offended.
Ever noticed how petrol stations with mini marts attached always become chaos as folk go in to pay for their fuel and browse for something for tea.
Yeah that’ll be electric car charging points while folk are in ordering and drinking their coffees.
Nope, majority of people will charge overnight at home. If I had a petrol pump at home I wouldn't EVER go to a petrol station. Making sure your car is charged every few days overnight is not complicated is it. Only people getting caught out or going on a long trip need to use the charge points.
Ever noticed how petrol stations with mini marts attached always become chaos as folk go in to pay for their fuel and browse for something for tea.
Yeah that’ll be electric car charging points while folk are in ordering and drinking their coffees.
No not really as they’re parking spaces with a charging point not a fuel and go spot.
just it’s going to take a huge shift in culture.
Yep ... when your driverless Uber/Tesla car runs out of charge half way up the M1, you'll pull over into the Uberlastation, walk in one entrance, have a wee, pick up your coffee (that you pre-ordered when 5 mins away) walk out the other side and into a different fully charged TesUbe to continue your journey.
Maybe that will be a first class journey (you in the car on your own) or second class with someone else (yes a random, but the higher YOUR rating for being a good customer the cheaper it is for you)
I'm looking forward to the future !!
And I'll be bring treats to get my rating up ! .... That will be Werther's originals for you lot
so your anallogy is shit then ? - which was more my point than anything plus/minus for electric cars.
Nope, majority of people will charge overnight at home.
That's assuming your able to plug your car in when you get home. I haven't got off road parking nor do many people. Solutions could be found, but it'll take massive investment in "public" charging points.
That’s assuming your able to plug your car in when you get home.
I guess that’s what was meant by a majority.
I’d also expect to see alternative ways of financing cars appear. e.g. you might buy a 10 year old Tesla model 3 in the same way you’d buy a 170,000mile diesel estate now, but a finance company might buy the battery and associated risks and lease it back to you to keep the cost of motoring down for those on lower incomes.
Excellent, a new way to fleece folk on lower incomes.
Nope, majority of people will charge overnight at home. If I had a petrol pump at home I wouldn’t EVER go to a petrol station. Making sure your car is charged every few days overnight is not complicated is it. Only people getting caught out or going on a long trip need to use the charge points.
You mean like the folk using service stations, the exact thing that's being talked about?
As for grid coping, lol. We have 7 of our nuclear stations due to close within the next decade with only one realistically ready to replace them by then and possibly another 2 behind that. Coal is gone, gas is expensive and doesn't provide energy security (too easy to just deny the supply from Russia or China) and the only thing we seem to be building are low power incinerators with gas turbines attached. The only way we will cope is with imports from Europe, another foreign power to rely on. This is based on the facts of what we have to work with now, not futurist predictions or science fiction.
How quickly do we think the cost of EVs will fall as take-up increases? Mrs ODs car is ten years old and we would normally be looking to replace Would happily buy an EV but don't do the mileage to even come close to justifying the extra cost over petrol equivalent
The current car will prob do another couple of years so, crystal ball time, will increasing competition push down EV cost?
The current car will prob do another couple of years so, crystal ball time, will increasing competition push down EV cost?
They’ve come right done but still more expensive than ICE they may drop some more but it also means they’ll be a growing amount of secondhand.
Yeah I was thinking that maybe in 3 years or so there will be start to be 2nd hand coming from lease deals which could be an option
Second hand market is artificially high because demand and wait times.
If there was a car id want to buy new or at least with warranty at the moment it would be an electric car.
Curiously - has any one had a good poke about under one ?
As one of the DIY brigade i have yet to scrap a car for a mechanical problem its always when i get fed up fighting the tinworm
folk (and common sense) tells me that these vehicles have less moving parts.
have the companies done their bit by properly galvanising the chassis - or alternative materials - what about plastic panels where possible - i know the tesla uses carbon where it can.
When you look at the costs vs ICE you also need to take in to account depreciation. Demand for second hand EVs is only going to grow, my four year old EV is worth about the same as it was when I bought it a year ago. So I've had a year of driving for the cost of a slightly increased electric bill. Yes technology will continue to develop, but second hand demand will remain strong against the number of older cars out there for a while, until mass volume of EVs start getting to 5+ years old.
Buying an ICE car now comes with a big risk, I wouldn't want to buy a new ICE car now with my own money and then try to sell it in 5+ years time.
folk (and common sense) tells me that these vehicles have less moving parts.
Time will tell, but in theory there should be less to go wrong.
Much less in the way of fluids (fuel, oil, coolant) to be carried, pumped and filtered. Even brake discs take less wear since the car will be doing regenerative braking most of the time.
Off the top of my head I think the long term issues will be battery fade, electric motor failure (bearings), electronic failure (blown caps, vibration damage) and software issues.
Buying an ICE car now comes with a big risk, I wouldn’t want to buy a new ICE car now with my own money
Agreed, market & technology is moving too fast That's why we are looking to lease for now.
A possible concern regarding secondhand EVs is range loss due to battery deterioration. We all know that the batteries in phones lose capacity as they age, EVs are the same but the manufacturers limit the original apparent capacity to hide that. New EVs are programmed to charge the battery only sufficiently to get the nominal range, as the battery ages this becomes an increasing percentage of the maximum charge. Doing this allows the maker to guarantee the battery performance for 8 years, partly because it's not working it so hard but mainly because their software is chopping the curve flat. Once you get past 8 years and the remaining capacity falls below that required for nominal range, the range reduces unless you replace the battery.