No more Zero vehicle band tax on electric cars

We do not have decades.

As a middle aged bloke then as long as we are ok for the next 4 or 5 decades then that ok with me. As we chose not to have kids in 50 years time we will probably be dead and beyond caring

There’s actually a fairly significant amount of time now when wind farms are paid not to generate so the marginal electricity is renewable. This expected to become more of an issue for next decade or so. So if you charge an EV overnight and at lowest cost times if you have a suitable tariff it will most likely be renewable electricity. More tariffs will appear for this. Apps showing live grid generation mix are available too so easy enough to see what is happening.

That’s interesting. Just read that it is caused by the infrastructure not being good enough to get the energy to where it is needed (out of the north sea and into southern England). So excess renewables in Scotland, but they still have to fire up a gas station in England to meet demand.

Yup, grid upgrade essential. As is storage across the grid. Some of which can be in car batteries.

It’s nigh on impossible to persuade people instead of buying a new vehicle, to buy novehicle.

In Holland it happened. Most people don’t actually want to own cars if there is a viable alternative.

I read the gas power stations that can be spun up quickly are les efficient and it costs a lot to start them up. This means they leave the efficient ones running for longer, which can create the renewable surplus. There may also be contractual obligations to use a certain amount of power from a certain source. Then when the wind picks up there is more power than we need. That’s why Octopus can pay you to use it. And what better way to use the surplus than put it in a battery such as the one in an EV?

Most people don’t actually want to own cars if there is a viable alternative.

Most people don’t want the expense nor do they want to spend hours a day in traffic. They don’t feel they have a choice without giving up something else important. Honestly, better PT is the main way to solve the car problem without seriously limiting people’s lives, as it stands today. And better PT is easy to do, it’s a proven technology, it just needs some **** money spent on it.

Car addiction is like a disease. In the Netherlands they caught it early and were able to control it better. We actually encouraged the disease instead of trying to manage it back then, now it’s taken over and will be far harder to cure.

Most people don’t actually want to own cars if there is a viable alternative.

“Most” is quite a claim. There are definitely plenty of people reliant on their car that wish they were not.

A quarter of homes in the UK have no car. Aiming for half having no car is a realistic short term aim. Not enough is being done to move us in that direction.

But we still need new cars to be EV not ICE.

Surely the green thing to do is carry on driving your 10 year old Ice engined vehicle rather than buy a new one. I wonder how many miles it takes to offer the energy and materials of a new car v trundling around in an existing car

Carbon brief did a good article on this.  It is very hard to compare like for like.  Some of the studies that made out that it was a huge difference, and got a load of traction in mainstream coverage, deliberately misrepresented figures.  I can’t remember the exact carbon brief article, I think that it was written by Hoekstra.

But isn’t the tax band supposed to be representative of emissions?

Well, there’s all the environmental issues with battery production, the extra materials going into such big, heavy vehicles, the incremental damage to infrastructure, and the huge amount of wear on the tyres of EV’s, causing particulates that people on urban environments are inhaling.
Someone mentioned buying second hand ev’s – there’s no way I’d buy one; buy a second hand IC car, the engine dies, it’s possible to replace it for £1000 or so with a second hand one. The battery dies on an EV, you’re out £14k.

buy an EV if you want, but don’t bother pretending it’s because of the environment. that requires significant commitment to a different quality of life.

use a car less, ride to work, car pool, don’t fly long haul etc.

the huge amount of wear on the tyres of EV’s, causing particulates that people on urban environments are inhaling.

Myth

The battery dies on an EV, you’re out £14k.

Incorrect

buy an EV if you want, but don’t bother pretending it’s because of the environment

If you need a new car anyway it is better to get an EV, because they are overall better for the environment.

The answer is not EVs – that answer is to stop moving people around individually in two tonne boxes.  yes that means lifestyle changes.  EVs allow people to pretend those lifestyle changes are not needed

That’s the kind of pie in the sky thinking that leads to no change and a worse net result. It’s been proven time and again society will not make rapid wholesale changes (without some catalyst like war, the impact of climate change is still nowhere near that though as far too many people still ignore it). EVs maybe a very small step on the way to change but at least they’re still a step in the right direction, going on about ending car use is just more hot air contributing towards global warming.

I have an EV, I don’t think I’ve single-handedly saved the planet, nor do I think it means I don’t need to make any more change to reduce my carbon footprint/impact on the planet. But it’s a step I could make so I did. I was going to invest in solar panels and battery storage but right now it’s cost prohibitive and there are more cost effective changes I can make in the short-term. Why not advocate for heavily subsidised home solar generation and battery storage so more EVs can move off-grid and use 100% renewable energy? It could be part funded by the EV VED change. But no it’s just simpler to spout grandiose notions of ending car use…

Who spends hours a day in traffic? My commute is 15-25 minutes. Doing it by car saves me 2 or 3 hours a day compared to public transport.  It is a cycleable distance but long enough to build up a good sweat and without having either lockers or showers at work. In any case when a shift finishes at 2am I just want to get home fast. No public transport at 2am either. Aside for work cars are great. Day trips to the Highlands. Carrying large weights and volumes of stuff. Public transport will never be as good. My free bus pass has been used about 4 times.

In Holland it happened. Most people don’t actually want to own cars if there is a viable alternative.

Holland has more cars per population than the UK 😁

don’t fly long haul etc.

It’s actually short haul that should be avoided the most, as most fuel is used on take off & landing, plus short haul is more easily substituted for train travel etc

Who spends hours a day in traffic?

Lots of folk – I know several in the south whos commute is / was over an hour each way

Not sure why everyone’s equating commuting to car ownership, do you see people counting on public transport to do the school drop off, get them to work, go get the weekly shop, visit family, go and do stuff, etc, etc, public transport doesn’t help when you’ve got to get around town and do stuff, we live in a country that did a huge change with the introduction of commuting towns, allowing people to move more freely than they ever did, that wasn’t due to public transport, that was down to road infrastructure and cars.

<quote>The battery dies on an EV, you’re out £14k.</quote>

You know that most electric cars have at least an 8 year/100000 mile warranty on the battery? and even if you’re out of the warranty period a lot of EV’s have a modular battery, so you dont have to buy the whole thing, you just replace the individual module with the faulty cell(s).

Why not advocate for heavily subsidised home solar generation and battery storage so more EVs can move off-grid and use 100% renewable energy?

Because not every home has a roof, not all roofs point in the right direction, some are shaded, etc.

Oh and they don’t produce much power over a chunk of the year.

Pretty sure all batteries are modular. You can already get older car batteries refurbished, or replaced with ones from scrapped cars. These are pretty much the same options you have with ICEs if you have a major engine mechanical problem.

It’s not even that hard to refurbish batteries. I did it on my Prius battery. Of course an EV one would be a lot harder to DIY because you’d need a proper ramp and lifting gear but we will find refurbishment places in every city eventually. I reckon it’s easier than fixing an engine. Just follow the procedure to remove it, unbolt the offending cell and replace. The OBD already gives you a breakdown of every cell performance so you know which ones are bad.

Oh and they don’t produce much power over a chunk of the year.

Seems like a non fact checked afterthought comment to me.

November December and January are the only months I don’t cover my net usage with a bog standard 3.6kw inverter system.  – but even on the worst month I cover 1/3rd of the day-day use use.

Granted you’ll need more meat for an ev. But removing  your day to day helps leave headroom on the grid for EVs and heat pumps.

Hell knows if the SSE presentations we went to for the new superpylons to draw the Scottish renewables down to England  are right then the national grid are feeding the public crap about the grid being ready to cope with evs and heatpump demand…….

You know that most electric cars have at least an 8 year/100000 mile warranty on the battery?

That is the point at which I can afford to buy a vehicle.

Surely the green thing to do is carry on driving your 10 year old Ice engined vehicle rather than buy a new one. I wonder how many miles it takes to offer the energy and materials of a new car v trundling around in an existing car

I tried working out the numbers on this a few months back and it’s very hard to get a clear answer. My car is 6.5 years old and has done 130,000 miles, which is the point where I have traded in my last two cars for new (ICE) ones. I’m convinced that it’s better environmentally for me to keep my existing car for, say, another 5 years  than it is to trade it in for a new ICE car. I also assumed that it would be better to keep it than trade it in a for a new EV, but that turns out to be much less clear.

I do around 20,000 miles a year, which is a lot of tailpipe emissions. I had a look on the MOT database at the last two cars I traded in (both at around 140,000 miles). One is still running and the other managed another 11 years, but both were averaging less than 5,000 miles a year since I sold them. Makes sense I guess. A relatively new but high mileage car is probably most attractive to somebody who doesn’t do many miles.

So, if I keep the car for 5 years I’d expect to drive another 100,000 miles. If I sell it that car will probably only do 25,000 miles over those five years. The difference in emissions seems to be more than the production and 100,000 miles emissions of an EV. So, actually buying a new EV looks like the environmentally friendly option. Although it’s based on things like assuming the average renewables rate for electricity production, which we’ve seen can lead to pages of heated debate 🙂

It probably is the case that me getting rid of my ICE car and buying a second hand EV (where the production emissions have already happened) is a better option though. But can I actually ignore the production emissions for a second hand EV or does me buying that enable somebody else to buy a new one?

Just read that it is caused by the infrastructure not being good enough to get the energy to where it is needed (out of the north sea and into southern England). So excess renewables in Scotland, but they still have to fire up a gas station in England to meet demand.

It would help if more renewable generating capacity was built closer to the demand. It might not be as windy nearer our southern urban centres but the that just means more turbines, solar farms etc are required. Ringing every leafy village with some 175 metre turbines might make some folk a bit more careful with their energy usage.

I can get 600 miles on a tank with my 1.2l engine and achieve over 50mpg. The car is shaped like a box too. When EV’s can achieve the same I’ll consider switching. The tax is not a factor for me. Still cheaper to keep my current car.

Grid capacity/compatibility is one of the biggest barriers in the switch to renewables.

It doesn’t help that the grid is privately owned, seperately to any energy company.

If you were granted one wave of a magic wand to improve the drivetrain in your ICE car, what would you wish for?

More speed? More power? More efficiency? Much cheaper to run? More mechanically reliable? Quieter? Smoother? Less emissions? Needs virtually no servicing?

That’s an EV, that is.

I’ll happily pay the additional tax to own an EV.  I’ve found the experience to be superior to any ICE car I’ve ever owned and any environmental benefit is just gravy on top.

If you’ve tried it for yourself and hated it then that’s fine but I’ve found that almost all the people who constantly tell me how shite EVs are have never driven one, much less owned one. They just seem to parrot myths that they’ve heard.

More speed? More power? More efficiency? Much cheaper to run? More mechanically reliable? Quieter? Smoother? Less emissions? Needs virtually no servicing?

And impossible for us to insure for an 18, 20 and 22 year old. We were *this* close to buying an Ionic – but the insurance was black box, £900 excess and cheapest quote was north of £7.5k annually, nearly the value of the car.
So we have a Fabia of similar value and performance – and it is £1k to insure

Kramer
It’s nigh on impossible to persuade people instead of buying a new vehicle, to buy novehicle.
In Holland it happened. Most people don’t actually want to own cars if there is a viable alternative.

In the Netherlands, 74% of households own at least one car.

More speed? More power? More efficiency? Much cheaper to run? More mechanically reliable? Quieter? Smoother? Less emissions? Needs virtually no servicing?

…you forgot sound and visceral experience. 🙂

I’m surprised (gob smacked even) that a decent spec Fabia is so much cheaper to insure than a single motor Ioniq.

…you forgot sound and visceral experience.

You mean noise?

Ours is highest power, SEL estate, 2017 – 110bhp.
We were comparing with a slightly more expensive Ionic.
The performance is very similar.

I would like an electric car, and I had hoped we would have one.
But there are still complex barriers to ownership for many.

big, heavy vehicles, the incremental damage to infrastructure,

the huge amount of wear on the tyres of EV’s, causing particulates that people on urban environments are inhaling.

buy a second hand IC car, the engine dies, it’s possible to replace it for £1000 or so with a second hand one. The battery dies on an EV, you’re out £14k.

EV buIIshit bingo card almost completed

You mean noise?

There’s noise and nice noise.

Well, I suppose that at least insurance costs might push people to smaller EVs then, even if the tax bands don’t do that yet.

…you forgot sound and visceral experience.

I didn’t. My car will provide me with a suite of fake engine sounds (just like a petrol BMW M3 does) to suit every mood including a Starship Enterprise warp drive effect which makes me giggle every single time. Mostly I turn them off though because the silence is better.  I’ve lost count of the times I’ve wished I could make a diesel engine silent with the push of a button

As for visceral experience, most EV’s are pant-shittingly, organ rearrangingly quick.  It’s plenty visceral if you want it to be and instantly at that. Crucially though you also have the default option of serenity which I much prefer.

The technology gives you a suite of choices that ICE cars just don’t.

I hate those fake noises. Not as much as the din of my diesel on motorway runs though.

As for visceral experience, most EV’s are pant-shittingly, organ rearrangingly quick.

It’s not all about speed though. Speed is easy nowadays in any modern ICE car, you can easily sit at 90 cocooned in smooth efficiency. Not what I want in a car.

And fake is just that – you switch it off because you know it’s fake.

And I don’t want choices – I know I’m a luddite on this but banks of screens with every option under the sun does nothing for me.

But it’s personal and I can see why people like them.

I’m surprised (gob smacked even) that a decent spec Fabia is so much cheaper to insure than a single motor Ioniq

Why’s that ? Head in the sand. It’s very very widely reported that EVs are being scrapped for notional damage regularly due to fear of damage to batteries or battery replacement is part of the repair and it’s written off.

Even for me a driver of 20 years with full NCB in a quiet area ev insurance is ludicrous even considering ice car costs have nearly doubled in the last 18 months – if I bought the same vehicle in EV mode which I’ve come close to but the sums didn’t add up – I was going to be doubling my insurance costs again.

The kids have no chance.

Its the switching off that’s the good part. I’d much rather listen to music or talk to my passengers than listen to any engine noise,real or imagined.