Would you have an electric car if you had the money for a new car and were in the market for one?

[Mr. Dazzle]

Two people on my street park EVs outside their houses not plugged in and have done for a few years. So clearly they're not just for people who can charge at home.

Freely admit MK is further down the infrastructure path than nearly anywhere else, but it's demonstrably possible cause my neighbours have done it for years, like I say.

[Dodgy69]

They may charge at work if their lucky, on the free.

Just to add... was talking to a Tesla rep the other day, he had 165000 miles on it, just pads and tyres. Still got a terrible interior though. I asked him about cold weather, he said ye, it kills the range.

[Mr. Dazzle]

Absolutely.

But they're still people who don't charge their cars at home and yet survive. Something which is supposedly impossible according to some.

At the end of the day even if you do 25,000 miles a year your car is stationary ~90% of the time. If you're an average mileage driver it's >95%. So there must surely be some time in their somewhere when you can charge it.

[Count Steer]

Absolutely.

But they're still people who don't charge their cars at home and yet survive. Something which is supposedly impossible according to some.

At the end of the day even if you do 25,000 miles a year your car is stationary ~90% of the time. If you're an average mileage driver it's >95%. So there must surely be some time in their somewhere when you can charge it.

At a price? If you have to use commercial chargers all the time don't the economics look a bit

[Mr. Dazzle]

As with all things there is nuance to every situation. The economics are complicated and people seldom compare apples with apples.

For example my dad commented that it costs 30p/kWh to charge in part of MK, so parking in the 7kW space would cost you just over 2 quid an hour. He thought that was unreasonable.

Parking in a conventional space in the same part of town costs £2.50 an hour and you don't get any fuel thrown in.

[Couchy]

As with all things there is nuance to every situation. The economics are complicated and people seldom compare apples with apples.

For example my dad commented that it costs 30p/kWh to charge in part of MK, so parking in the 7kW space would cost you just over 2 quid an hour. He thought that was unreasonable.

Parking in a conventional space in the same part of town costs £2.50 an hour and you don't get any fuel thrown in.

Charging away from home is an expensive lottery, anywhere from 40p to £1 a kw. With an average of 3 miles travelled per kw it’s expensive even compared to diesel.

But people seem obsessed an EV should cost less. If money is the issue you buy a few year old diesel car. EV are great for moving pollution to one more easily controlled area and out of the cities.

I’ve still not heard a solution for the 1000’s of people driving £2k cars who can’t get finance and need their cars to get to work.

[Mr. Dazzle]

Out of my four grandparents only one had a driving licence. None of them were old enough to fight in WW2 either. My MiL can't drive.

I.e. everyone having a car is a relatively recent thing. Society will change. I don't think fewer cars on the road is a bad thing.

[Kneerly Down]

For example my dad commented that it costs 30p/kWh to charge in part of MK, so parking in the 7kW space would cost you just over 2 quid an hour. He thought that was unreasonable.

Fairly sure if I charge with my new Shell card it's 79p/kWh. Quite a few of the other networks are now over 70p/kWh and some have breached the £1 mark.

I could charge for free at the main office, apart from those who come in from nearer are plugged in when I arrive and all are generally occupied until I leave.

I've got plenty of space at home for chargers so no problem there, but I when I went down to my son in Edinburgh all the chargers on the way down were either busy or out of order and then when I arrived he's in one of the old tenement blocks with no chance of getting a cable down to the car, even if I strike lucky and can park within 50yds of the door.
Thankfully my old EV is a RE-EV so I just go over to using petrol.

[Couchy]

For example my dad commented that it costs 30p/kWh to charge in part of MK, so parking in the 7kW space would cost you just over 2 quid an hour. He thought that was unreasonable.

Fairly sure if I charge with my new Shell card it's 79p/kWh. Quite a few of the other networks are now over 70p/kWh and some have breached the £1 mark.

I could charge for free at the main office, apart from those who come in from nearer are plugged in when I arrive and all are generally occupied until I leave.

I've got plenty of space at home for chargers so no problem there, but I when I went down to my son in Edinburgh all the chargers on the way down were either busy or out of order and then when I arrived he's in one of the old tenement blocks with no chance of getting a cable down to the car, even if I strike lucky and can park within 50yds of the door.
Thankfully my old EV is a RE-EV so I just go over to using petrol.

The latest energy cost increase will hit the EV market, paying 30p a mile is double what a diesel car costs without the extra lease or purchase cost. It’s gonna be interesting to see if it affects sales

[Count Steer]

Interesting comment on the radio this morning. Roughly 15% of the energy use of a typical household is electricity - but it's now half the cost. As long as that remains anything like true and battery cars stay at a hefty premium it surely puts a crimp on demand for them. (Or until they penalise/tax petrol even more).

(They did a similar thing to subsidise nuclear power years ago - put a levy on gas to make electricity look cheaper).

As far as government is concerned if people charge the battery cars at home the electricity cost is capped/subsidised so they don't just lose the tax on fuel and the car tax, they actually use taxes to keep the cost down. Enthusiasm might dwindle a bit there too until they can claw more back and/or start kicking petrol/diesel cars off the road.

It's starting to look like it only makes sense if you have home charging, solar panels and a power wall!

[Cousin Jack]

I’ve still not heard a solution for the 1000’s of people driving £2k cars who can’t get finance and need their cars to get to work.

That is what will kill the "Ban IC cars by 20xx". All those 1000s are voters, and when reality kicks in they will not vote for Xmas. In some parts of the UK old bangers are the norm, just not in Westminster & Islington where the politicians live.

[Pirahna]

It's starting to look like it only makes sense if you have home charging, solar panels and a power wall!

Bearing in mind I live in Alicante, winter days are and hour and a half longer than south east England and we get lots more sunshine. There have been two cloudy spells recently and I've struggled to keep my house batteries charged, I really wouldn't want to try and charge an electric car here using solar, I think you'd have no hope in the UK without mains input.

For comparisson, my house battery pack is 9.4kwh, a Renault Capture plug in hybrid has 9.8kwh and a range of 30 miles, a Renault Zoe with a 52kwh battery has a quoted range of 240 miles. I'm on the side of a mountain and lose sun behind the hill at 4pm ish at the moment, sunrise is 8.20am. If I fully discharge my battery (I can only discharge to 20% before protection cuts in), at this time of year it could take two days to fully recover. I've got 8x450w panels on the roof and could do with a couple more. To even think about something like a Zoe I'd need enough panels to power five houses.

[Kneerly Down]

It's starting to look like it only makes sense if you have home charging, solar panels and a power wall!

I'm hoping to run the car almost solely on solar PV during the summer.
Being in NW Scotland doesn't help (other than the long days in summer) but I've currently got 8kW of panels and might be adding another 4kW later on but probably just connecting those to directly provide DHW.

[dern]

I won't be buying an ev car as I don't use a car enough to justify the expense but I drove a friends Fiat 500e yesterday for a few miles round town and it was excellent. It was the first ev I've driven and was really impressed. It felt very intuitive, really easy to drive and was an excellent experience. If I needed such a car I would definitely consider it.

[Count Steer]

I won't be buying an ev car as I don't use a car enough to justify the expense but I drove a friends Fiat 500e yesterday for a few miles round town and it was excellent. It was the first ev I've driven and was really impressed. It felt very intuitive, really easy to drive and was an excellent experience. If I needed such a car I would definitely consider it.

I've no problem with the cars (although when we did look more closely some of the litlle ones, like the BMW, seemed a bit cheap n' cheesy). It's that I object to paying a hefty premium if any hope of clawing even part of it back is rapidly disappearing over the horizon.

I assume the Fiat is finished and equipped to the same standard as the rest of the 500 range, which isn't bad at all.

[dern]

I assume the Fiat is finished and equipped to the same standard as the rest of the 500 range, which isn't bad at all.

It's a really nice, high quality place to be.

[MrLongbeard]

The latest craze, extreme regen braking

https://news.sky.com/video/four-people- ... f-12778864

[Yorick]

The latest craze, extreme regen braking

https://news.sky.com/video/four-people- ... f-12778864

HTF did they survive?

[Pirahna]

The latest craze, extreme regen braking

https://news.sky.com/video/four-people- ... f-12778864

HTF did they survive?

I'm guessing it wasn't straight down, a very steep incline but not vertical.

[ace llani]

My latest input - sorry, I've not kept up with the thread, but..

As time goes on, the less practical the Leaf is.

During the cold weather, battery range dropped significantly, and not from using the heater too much (works off the traction battery - I try to keep warm off the heated seats and steering wheel).

I should be able to drive to my Mom's house in the midlands to visit without charging on the way (need a full charge to get back) - forget it. My 120 mile range Leaf is getting about 80 miles if I drive like a Chelsea Pensioner.

I use the heater so little the seats and carpet are getting mouldy.

Charging away from home is getting rapidly worse.

We went Christmas shopping from llani to Shrewsbury (50 miles) - should be able to get there and back without a charge (forget it). We needed a rapid charger in Shrewsbury to get home, as next nearest rapid charger going home is 10 miles from home, so wouldn't make it.

There are rapid charge points (rarely more than one) at Asda, Costa and Morrisons in Shrewsbury - all of which were broken on the day. Only working ones were at Bannatine's gym - 2 Instavolt chargers. They cost 0.75p per kilowatt, so no cheaper than diesel per mile. We had to wait in a make shift queue for an hour to charge up (30 minutes).
It's now very rare to drop on a rapid charger (50 kilowatt DC) without a long wait.
22 kilowatt AC charge takes 4 hours.

To visit Mom I now either go on the train (£25 per head) or hire a little car (£37 for 24 hours).