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New would be completely insane, but 2nd hand you are at least not contributing to new cars being built which is better for the environment.
main thing is to drive a car as little as possible.
I'm moving to either mild hybrid (48V) petrol or PHEV for next company car. Depending on whats available.
Can't get reliable enough charging at home, and i'd need a full charge for a typical BEV every other night. The 4 or 5 kW I'll be able to get at home won't hack it. Especially with powercuts etc.
Brings my almost unbroken 25 years of diesel estates to an end.
New would be completely insane, but 2nd hand you are at least not contributing to new cars being built which is better for the environment.
You do know that a 2nd hand car was new, once...
You do know that a 2nd hand car was new, once…
It's not quite that simple*. By buying a used car (or being prepared to) you are boosting the prices of used cars, which will trickle all the way down to the bottom of the market where someone is trying to decide wether or not to scrap a car or pay the repair bill. If you buy new that's one more new car in the market and one less old car.
* It's not quite this simple either but broadly.
Can’t get reliable enough charging at home, and i’d need a full charge for a typical BEV every other night. The 4 or 5 kW I’ll be able to get at home won’t hack it.
No? My EV only takes about 6h to charge on 7kw. Call it ten hours at 4kW (not exactly accurate since even my 7kw is less than 4 for some of the charge cycle) then you shoudl have time overnight and you'd certainly have time over two nights.
Yup, but I've got foreign plates on and don't have to worry about low emissions.
🤣
No?
No, i've done all the calculations.
It'd need to be on all night every night, especially allowing for the normal household loads Vs the size of supply we have. It's not the best supply, and will cost a lot to uprate (i have to pay if i want it uprating/modernising outside of their normal cycle)
Especially with powercuts etc.
I've had 3 this winter, fortunately only 6-8 hours, but all over night. Last winter i had two that were 18-24 hours (and a couple of shorter ones). So a small risk of having an immobile car, exactly when i most need it to be mobile. (no water or heat when the power is out.) I also only have one car, so need it to cover almost all my use cases. If i was still married, we'd have a small BEV and a big estate.
The PHEV i'm looking at has a full electric range of around 70-80 km (i've tested it a few times) so with that i can convert all my local driving to electric, even just by plugging it into a domestic socket overnight. And can do a good chunk of my daily commute. Just a matter of them being available to order.
The 48V mild hybrid almost has the torque, fuel consumption and driveability of an equivalent diesel, and the power of the petrol it actually runs on.
Diesel just doesn't seem to offer much anymore.
I bought an E class diesel in November, nothing comparable in EV land
+ I’m not convinced EV is the way forward
Diesel golf estate here all good 🙂
The PHEV i’m looking at has a full electric range of around 70-80 km (i’ve tested it a few times) so with that i can convert all my local driving to electric, even just by plugging it into a domestic socket overnight. And can do a good chunk of my daily commute. Just a matter of them being available to order.
A lot of people seem to think PHEVs are the worst of both worlds but I see them as pretty useful.
When the Ioniq EV goes back, we would be left with a diesel estate. In an ideal world we'd get an EV tow car but we might end up with a Passat GTE.
molgrips
Full Member
sitting in the car for a couple of hours waiting for itWhilst we are myth-busting: the rest of your post is fine but no car needs 2 hours to charge on a rapid charger. The above mentioned Ioniq 5 takes 18 mins from 10-80% given a suitably quick charger.
Reasonably frequent trips involve driving 150 miles
With a 300 mile range you would barely need to top up for 5 mins to ensure you got home. You don’t always have to charge to 100%.
That assumes that I can afford to buy a car with a 300 mile range. I can't. An Ioniq 5 is Forty Four thousand pounds! That's my entire take home salary for nearly 3 years. For the sort of money I have I'm looking at a second hand car with a max range of maybe 150 miles assuming the batteries haven't degraded too much. When I bought my car in December I looked at pretty much every EV car in my price range for sale in Scotland and that was the best range I could find.
It also assumes that there is a fast charger near where I park and I have a car capable of being charged quickly.
You have to bear in mind that £10k gets you a ten year old Nissan Leaf which when it was new had a range of around 125 miles. I bought an immaculate 7 year old Kia Estate with 43k miles for £7.5k. A full tank of diesel gets me over 650 miles.
Much as I would really like to go electric, unless you are buying new/nearly new or don't need much in the way of range, there really is no alternative to ICE at the moment.
Just doing so. Replacing a diesel SUV with a diesel estate. Fits our needs for moving family and dogs up around the country.
Do also have an electric car and it’s recently been used to go down to London from cheshire then all the way up to North East Scotland. It took a bit longer than the diesel car did but that’s mainly because being away from home meant it couldn’t start the day fully charged.
Once it becomes more common for hotels and family to have electric charge points the electric thing will become easier. We would use it for those kind of journeys much more if we could charge where we stay.
As an aside the network in Scotland is pretty good. Multiple chargers in a wee place like Huntly.
That assumes that I can afford to buy a car with a 300 mile range
Not assuming anything, I did say at first that the cost was a major factor against EVs including myself. I can't afford a forty grand car either.
It also assumes that there is a fast charger near where I park and I have a car capable of being charged quickly.
Well no, you can park up all day in the wilds and then charge up on the way home.
I was addressing (for the record) the complaint that EVs aren't practical for that kind of use. Some EVs are, just not the kind of EV you or I can afford - yet. They will get much cheaper, and good used ones will be around in a few years.
I've been in the exact same position. Previous Octavia estate had a terminal engine failure a few months back. I've a stop-gap fiesta run around but need something bigger as a family car + bikes + dawg etc.
2nd hand cars are pricey at present. And only getting worse for the rest of the year (impact of war not considered).
Really really wanted a V70 or XC70. But would have to pay another £4-5k for something with 50k miles vs what I could get a 3-4 YO 180bhp Kuga with >20k miles. (Nothing newer as the stopped producing v70 a few years ago. Same with Toyota Avensis, etc. Estates not fashionable.
I'm hoping / gambling that I get 10 years + from it, until battery or H2 cars are realistic. Or the Gov pay me some £££ to trade into electric/ H2.
Diesels are fundamentally more efficient = less co2 than petrol.
As IC engined cars are available new until 2030 in Britain, then fuel will still be available for 5 years after at least. Motorists carry enough voting power to limit the Gov's behaviour.
(Not even mentioned the huge level of pollution making batteries, or the utter political stupidity of making ourselves even more dependent on Russia or China for raw materials for the batteries in the 1st place. The real answer is probably bio diesel).
Not even mentioned the huge level of pollution making batteries, or the utter political stupidity of making ourselves even more dependent on Russia or China for raw materials for the batteries in the 1st place. The real answer is probably bio diesel
Batteries won't continue to be made the way they are now. No-one wants to be dependent on dodgy foreign sources of unethcially mined stuff. There are large numbers of scientists and engineers working on this and every day there are research breakthroughs. Given the market demand, they'll get tons of investment and we'll soon be inundated with better, cleaner and more recyclable battery tech.
Biodiesel in its current form isn't the answer as it takes agricultural production away from food which we need. There are people working on stuff like algal biodiesel and ethanol from cellulose, but I have a feeling that will get less interest in the coming years.
I just thought I'd check and it turns out that the average cost of a second hand car is £14k (up 8% in the past year). When second hand electric vehicles are available for that cost and still have range, space and a decent life ahead of them, maybe I'll consider one. I suspect I'll have lost my license by then due to the age/infirmity bar.
I have taken a new job which will have me driving 20k+ miles a year with a car full of product and I will get a Passat or C class etc with a 2L diesel.
Small petrol engines are good in light cars but as soon as you put lots of weight in them they struggle. Low miles / short journeys will also clog up the filters, EGR, injectors etc in a modern diesel quickly.