Sounds like we are almost there, just need EV’s to be roughly the same price as Petrol/diesel and there’s no reason not to. Sounds like the new purchase tipping point might be closer than we think, Norway are already almost there at 42% of new car purchases.
How long before Jeremy Clarkson buys an EV?
How long before buying a petrol/diesel becomes socially frowned upon?
What’s the STW hive view?

I didn’t hear it, but i’ve had an electric car for the past couple of years and will never return to a petrol / dielsel car.

I know the argument is that you’re kicking the can down the line, but with the advent of vastly improved batteries for home solar systems (we have the Powerwall) we run the car on nothing other than the initial outlay. That said, we no longer receive an electricity bill because we run purely off the batteries.

I think it’s incredible that this is now a thing to be honest.

I’m tempted by a s/h leaf.

Trouble is my OH is completely against the idea and it could only ever work if at least one of us had a long range vehicle. So she insists on a fiesta sized petrol car because once every few months she drives to Manchester for the day (her normal commute is well within leaf range).

A fiesta sized car is useless as a car for me as I want to tow. So I’d have to buy a leaf and a cheap van, which would then mean I would have 3x cars in my name (classic mg in the shed) which is ludicrous.

Didn’t hear it but interesting given the slating it was getting on speakev.

Have a PHEV now (Golf GTE) but when it goes back in 11 months we’ll be getting a pure battery EV that will do most of our miles alongside a family MPV for when we need to take lots of people or things at the same time. Just so pleasant to drive, preheating in winter is a godsend too.

“Trouble is my OH is completely against the idea”

Just tell her she will never have to defrost her car again as it has preheat on a timer or from an app and it has heated seats and a heated steering wheel which also come on when preheating. That normally does it for the ladeez….

Just tell her she will never have to defrost her car again as it has preheat on a timer or from an app and it has heated seats and a heated steering wheel which also come on when preheating. That normally does it for the ladeez….

Trouble is, as a gentleman I tend to be the one who gets up and defrosts get car for her. So unless I went on strike (and suffered the withdrawal of pudding as a result) that argument wouldn’t work!

It seemed to be that in only a couple of years you will be able to buy a s/h car that will get you to Manchester on one charge or with one stop for recharge in the time it takes coffee/cake/pee.

It seemed to be that in only a couple of years you will be able to buy a s/h car that will get you to Manchester on one charge or with one stop for recharge in the time it takes coffee/cake/pee.

From where though?

My wife’s next car will be electric if we can afford it. The big family car too once the prices are down and the charging pints are in, but can you imagine how many they would need to cater for all of the M5 holiday traffic around Bristol until they can get the range up to 600 miles?

As a recent convert having bought a Soul EV last year, they absolutely are the future. As the charging network infrastructure catches up, electricity continues to get cleaner, and more cars come on the market with 250+ mile ranges and also at lower price points, a lot of the reasons to not buy one will disappear. A lot of the problem currently is lack of battery manufacturing capacity, and brands taking a while to ramp up BEV production and at the same time reduce reliance on ICE cars. To a big extent the demand is ready to switch ahead of the supply.

Right now they absolutely make sense for anyone making a regular journey within the available range, or as one of the cars in a two car family with a suitable house for a home charger. In a few years even people living in flats will manage fine, they’ll just stop at a public charger for 15 minutes when they would have filled with fuel before.

It is easy to get lost in looking at range though. The lack of supply/choice at the moment (especially second hand) means they are still a big initial investment, but as supply grows the lack of running costs will really start to make them economic sense for many.
The other key thing is just the feel-good factor of wafting along in near silence whilst not burning fossil fuels and not having to visit (and spend £60 a time) in fuel stations, and they are a much more calming experience to drive.

If things were the other way round, and we had been driving around in electric cars for years and someone came along with a petrol/diesel engine alternative, we would look at the complexity/emissions/noise and the supply chain needed to refine/supply the fuel and think it was a massive step backwards.

From where though?

Someone said 300miles or just under is standard range in new 2019 cars (Hyundai and Kia where mentioned). So Southampton would require a recharge whilst you where in Manchester maybe, Birmingham could be done in one (bearing in mind most people would have home chargers so starting on a full charge). The range is only going to get greater from 2020 onwards.

EV’s to be roughly the same price as Petrol/diesel and there’s no reason not to.

Unless of course you don’t want to buy one, obvz. Or your journeys and lifestyle limit charging time/availability and such, obvz..

🤷‍♂️

What is ownership like if you don’t have off-street parking or charging point at work?

If things were the other way round, and we had been driving around in electric cars for years and someone came along with a petrol/diesel engine alternative, we would look at the complexity/emissions/noise and the supply chain needed to refine/supply the fuel and think it was a massive step backwards.

Absolutely. We’d take one look at the complexity and think “far too much to go wrong”.

can you imagine how many they would need to cater for all of the M5 holiday traffic around Bristol until they can get the range up to 600 miles?

Just have more chargers in the big hubs – Tesla already have a 40-bay supercharger site, and a 50-bay one in progress. It’s not an insurmountable problem to have a lot of power capacity in places where lots of people will want to change. However as the car ranges get bigger, it gives people a lot more flexibility on when and where to charge.

I’m hoping it creates a market for more nice places to stop just off the motorway where you can have a nice break mid-journey – a decent lunch or let the kids play outside on a long journey while your car tops up, rather than the (mostly rubbish) motorway services.

Would love one in principle. There’s usually a large STW cohort who claim to drive from Aberdeen to Rome every other week, but for most people I’d reckon they’re pretty practical. I reckon I do a journey of over 150 miles maybe once every 2 years. So totally doable for us.

However…

What is ownership like if you don’t have off-street parking or charging point at work?

this is the killer for me. I can’t always park outside my house or even on the same street. And MrsDoris (who actually uses the car) doesn’t have any charging points at work. the same would be true for most people in our area. So charging infrastructure would have to be significantly improved before it’s realistic for us.

Whilst thinking about it all, the charging infrastructure question seemed a complete none issue to me, in the long run at least. 1) pretty much everyone will have access to home charging, so you start the day on a full tank everyday. 2) because you are not dealing with large amounts of highly volatile liquid, charging stations will cost peanuts and can be installed pretty much everywhere with little regulation other than an electrical cert. Just need the demand to happen. it’s obvious not there yet for many, but it seems to me that in a very short time all the main arguments against will be dealt with.

If you don’t have a home charger or charging at work, then ownership will depend on how much you drive and what your local charging network is like.

If you drive a fair amount, and don’t have chargers in places you go to regularly, then in all honesty it could probably be a pain in the butt for you currently.

If you drive fewer miles, and your local shops/supermarket/pub/gym has a charger then you may be able to build in a weekly top-up to your normal routine and make it perfectly workable. Tesco have recently announced a big roll-out of chargers in their car parks in conjunction with VW which will be free to use while shopping, BP recently bought Chargemaster and are rolling out more chargers at fuel stations.
It will come, but a lot of places aren’t great currently.

For a lot of people they’re not there yet and people will need to modify their lifestyles to suit. I’d have one and trying to get my wife to get one as how she uses a car an EV would be perfectly adequate. For me maybe 80% of my journeys an RV would be fine so I could fill that final 20% by doing something differently or just renting an oil burner when needed.

Problems as I see them currently are still charge time and battery performance deterioration over time and lack of charging points, especially fast chargers.

I’m jot a fan of government tax incentives, the change has to be driven by the consumer and as soon as the consumer starts buying them the prices will drop like a stone and they’ll be more affordable than any government tax incentive can make them. Providing tax incentives just reduces the money the government has to fix the bloody roads and improve the infrastructure.

I really want one.

I can get sent all over the UK for work, so I might like to keep a long range car, but if I make the effort and travel by train I should be able to keep that to an absolute minimum.

Would like one as an everyday car but unless I can fit 4 people, two dogs, plus a load of luggage while pulling a 2.5 ton boat 110 miles in one go I’ll still need my diesel SUV as well.

They’re coming, that much is inevitable. Right now they are feasible for some people. Within a few years the infrastructure will develop. And more people will find the feasible and buy them.

Probably not for you if you enjoy adventure trekking across the wilds of wherever, in your landy, with kayaks and tents. But so what. Most everyone else will end up in electrics.

I still see hybrids dominating for a good while, first, during the period between now, when we have an infrastructure that works for a few people who move between London and Birmingham and never leave the motorway network, to then, when there are actually charge points everywhere.

I imagine I’ll own a hybrid or EV within ten years time when they start forming the majority of the second hand market.

Norway are already almost there at 42% of new car purchases.

I wonder what it is here in Denmark, certainly a huge amount of electric cars here, and ebikes, etrikes, electric fast food delivery vehicles and all sorts of weird and wonderful evs you don’t get in the UK. There’s even electric wheelchair mobility type things that crack along at a right good rate. Uk just seems twenty years behind in comparison.

while pulling a 2.5 ton boat 110 miles in one go I’ll still need my diesel SUV as well.

Hmm.. I might have an idea that solves this, and it involves water… 😉

Im getting a hybrid (PHEV) in month or so. It’ll be interesting to see how it compares to my current Volvo diesel. The Volvo will happily return 50+mpg with an approaching 800 mile range. The PHEV should be great backwards and forwards to work (hopefully just running full electric) but long journeys will be an trade off between it becoming simply a heavy petrol engined car…

An often overlooked point (or it was by me…) is that you need to have a private drive to install a dedicated charger. Not a problem in my case although the long cable run might be yet but definitely a barrier if you live in town.

I’d be interested in how many households would have the ability to charge a car at home, I bet it’s not as high as some might think. I for one wouldn’t be able to install a charging point at home and come to think of it , most people in my family would struggle.

Did they get the stw 600 mile a day lot on to put them right?

Once there’s enough electric vehicles on the road you’ll get charged for using a charging point, there will be a huge amount missing from Treasury funds otherwise. If the charging points remain free then it’ll be some sort of GPS based road pricing based on mileage, or VED will go through the roof EV’s, anything to keep the cash flowing in.

I’d be interested in how many households would have the ability to charge a car at home, I bet it’s not as high as some might think.

Enough to make a huge dent in vehicle emissions. Take a bike ride around the suburbs, see how many houses with driveways there are.

Did they get the stw 600 mile a day lot on to put them right?

I think they spoke to Australian who lives too far from a fuel station which means no one can have an electric car.

Just tell her she will never have to defrost her car again as it has preheat on a timer or from an app

This is really the day to day clincher… at this time of year the wife and I fight over who gets to scrape away in the cold for ten minutes and who gets to just step into a warm, defrosted car and be away…

Its not really a solution – all it does is move the pollution from the tailpipe to the power generators – and the batteries themselves are very polluting to create.

In cities like Edinburgh most people would not be able to have a home charging system easily

I think there could be a big market for small one or two person EVs which could be used as second vehicles by commuters who travel solo. A smaller footprint would make parking a lot easier.

I guess the problem would be making them safe when sharing the roads with HGVs, SUVs etc.

There are loads of people with drives who insist on parking on road so they won’t be interested. However it’s a matter of time, maybe 20 years before owning a petrol / diesel will be prohibitively expensive and difficult to run as fuel becomes more difficult to get hold of as filling stations shut it convert to charging stations.

Personally I’m very seriously considering a full EV in the autumn when my current car lease expires. 15 miles each way to work, much of bit urban stop start traffic, electric is ideal on a range of levels, that sort of driving kills combustion engines and is massively polluting in populated areas.

I’d also ban hybrids immediately, in many ways they are more polluting than combustion only.

I think there could be a big market for small one or two person EVs which could be used as second vehicles by commuters who travel solo. A smaller footprint would make parking a lot easier.

The solution for solo commuters is mostly public transport.
The solution to safety is safer roads and safer cars all round. Size does not equal protection.

Or put simply the biggest change needed is in thinking and perception.

Uk just seems twenty years behind in comparison.

In in more ways than just EV.

Its not really a solution – all it does is move the pollution from the tailpipe to the power generators

It’s part of the solution because centrally generated power can mitigate the pollution footprint far more easily. Once carbon scrubbers are invented it’ll be much easier to install one industrial scale plant at a power station than millions of tiny ones in everyone’s car.

Plus giant wind turbines go easily on top of big hills whereas they aren’t that practical on everyone’s roof.

I’d also ban hybrids immediately, in many ways they are more polluting than combustion only.

How so?

Had a Zoé for coming up to two years. It’s a delighfull wizzy thing. Madame loves it.

Used locally in SW France with charges at home or with the Mobiv charge points then range isn’t an issue.

Used internationally it becomes more stressful. Will the charge point work with our card? (it might not even if it’s supposed to), will it really be a 22kW charger or will it turn out to be stangled to 7 or even 3? Will a dick have left his fully charged hybrid Merc on the charge point for the day to get free parking? (a real problem in Germany). Will my phone work? (because in Spain you need a phone app to initiate the charge).

Locally we have reliable 22kW chargers in places with loads of free parking (no risk of squatting) at less than 50km intervals pertty much everywhere. Untill that is the case everywhere and with a no contact credit card payment make sure you can charge for the journeys you want to do before you buy.

Because you’ve got all the energy requirements to manufacture 2 different drive trains, you’re carrying additional weight of 2 engines, and many people don’t charge them up from charging points. Even the government has twigged to this and is reducing tax breaks and subsidies. The non plug in hybrids are even worse, the marginal recovery of energy from breaking is not going to outweigh the environmental costs of manufacture.

Pure EV is the way to go. Even coal fired electrical generation is cleaner, more efficient and better regulated than combustion engines.

As soon as EVs get to the same price as ICE we will get one as Mrs ODs car. In the car we do low mileage, almost exclusively short (under 10 mile) trips – but given low annual mileage the savings on fuel don’t cover the extra upfront cost as things stand.

We use my van for all holidays etc and have a drive so can easily charge.