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Electric cars

I'm getting a Nissan Leaf later on today. I'm not a car enthusiast, I just need one and I've never had a new car before.

I virtually never do more than 100 miles in a day but do about 50 on most days so it seems ideal for me.

The fuel savings, free servicing, (virtually) guaranteed lack of mechanics bills, not MOT's and zero road tax brings it by my calculations within £4 a month of covering the monthly PCP payment on it.
And for that I get a brand new car in place of a 10 year old rust bucket. Almost seems too good to be true!


.
 
It's the kind of ordeal that's put me off, I'm hoping by the next time I consider a vehicle which shouldn't hopefully be for another 6-7 years it's greatly improved and at the very least normal petrol stations are in on the game with fast charge solutions where charging takes as long as it would to fuel a full tank, but that might be hoping for too much.
 
cybershot said:
It's the kind of ordeal that's put me off, I'm hoping by the next time I consider a vehicle which shouldn't hopefully be for another 6-7 years it's greatly improved and at the very least normal petrol stations are in on the game with fast charge solutions where charging takes as long as it would to fuel a full tank, but that might be hoping for too much.
Click to expand...

I can't see fast charge being that quick so soon! You'd have to deliver some serious power.
 
UnderAnOpenSky said:
I can't see fast charge being that quick so soon! You'd have to deliver some serious power.
Click to expand...

In which case, by that time, surely no one will actually own a car, and people can start having front gardens again? As the driverless Uber/Google/Apple or whatever car will be here where we just call for a car from an app and be given choices of go straight to destination, or car share with others on route for less £.

Which will surely cost a hell of a lot less PA than owning, maintaining and running your own car.

Downside is it puts a lot of people out of work. Drivers/mechanics etc...
 
cybershot said:
In which case, by that time, surely no one will actually own a car, and people can start having front gardens again? As the driverless Uber/Google/Apple or whatever car will be here where we just call for a car from an app and be given choices of go straight to destination, or car share with others on route for less £.

Which will surely cost a hell of a lot less PA than owning, maintaining and running your own car.
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Maybe if you mostly drive around town. Can't see it working out more cheaply driving to N Wales and in to the Peak District regularly with loads of kit.
 
cybershot said:
In which case, by that time, surely no one will actually own a car, and people can start having front gardens again? As the driverless Uber/Google/Apple or whatever car will be here where we just call for a car from an app and be given choices of go straight to destination, or car share with others on route for less £.

Which will surely cost a hell of a lot less PA than owning, maintaining and running your own car.

Downside is it puts a lot of people out of work. Drivers/mechanics etc...
Click to expand...
I think the transport as a subscription /service will benefit urban users much more. Urban users who are either happy to car share, or travel outside peak times will be served the best.
 
Its been a few years now since the last post on this thread and I'm wondering how much things have changed / developed in the world of electric cars.

For disclosure I get a company car with my job but I do very low mileage and virtually all of it is urban driving. I do some longer journeys but less than 10 a year. I live in London and charging points have sprung up all around me in petrol stations, supermarkets diy places etc etc. There are even some charging points built into lamp posts now but I don't know how many there are.

The big draw for me is the company car tax element. Currently I have a modern diesel that costs me not far off £250 per month in company car tax. Currently i don't think there is any company car tax (edit there is now 1% this year and 2% next year which is still tiny compared to petrol & diesel) on all electric plug ins, so you can see the appeal of switching.

The big problem however is the lack of charging at home. I live in a small block of flats and there are no charging points in the car park. We are likely to move soon but we may well end up with on-street parking. There are a couple of cars round here which run charging cables across the pavement but I'm really not keen on that because I don't think its fair on other pavement users.

So I'm just wondering if anyone has any thoughts on electric cars in 2021 and especially any comments about lack of home charging.
 
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Teaboy said:
Its been a few years now since the last post on this thread and I'm wondering how much things have changed / developed in the world of electric cars.

For disclosure I get a company car with my job but I do very low mileage and virtually all of it is urban driving. I do some longer journeys but less than 10 a year. I live in London and charging points have sprung up all around me in petrol stations, supermarkets diy places etc etc. There are even some charging points built into lamp posts now but I don't know how many there are.

The big draw for me is the company car tax element. Currently I have a modern diesel that costs me not far off £250 per month in company car tax. Currently i don't think there is any company car tax (edit there is now 1% this year and 2% next year which is still tiny compared to petrol & diesel) on all electric plug ins, so you can see the appeal of switching.

The big problem however is the lack of charging at home. I live in a small block of flats and there are no charging points in the car park. We are likely to move soon but we may well end up with on-street parking. There are a couple of cars round here which run charging cables across the pavement but I'm really not keen on that because I don't think its fair on other pavement users.

So I'm just wondering if anyone has any thoughts on electric cars in 2021 and especially any comments about lack of home charging.
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I wouldn't touch one if I couldn't charge at home. Last thing I'd want to be doing after work was having to find a place to charge it, especially with the potential for it being offline.
 
Why are people obsessed with the idea of charging at home?

You don’t fill up with fuel at home. You fill up when out and about. EV’s can be the same. Plug it in at the supermarket, at work, when you stop at the motorway services for a coffee, at the retail park etc…
 
beesonthewhatnow said:
Why are people obsessed with the idea of charging at home?

You don’t fill up with fuel at home. You fill up when out and about. EV’s can be the same. Plug it in at the supermarket, at work, when you stop at the motorway services for a coffee, at the retail park etc…
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I suppose if charging took 5 minutes, that would be the case. But I think it takes quite a while for a full charge doesn't it?
 
Idaho said:
I suppose if charging took 5 minutes, that would be the case. But I think it takes quite a while for a full charge doesn't it?
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Tesla says with V3 superchargers (and the newer cars that can manage it) they can hit 75 miles of range in 5 minutes: Introducing V3 Supercharging

At this rate, a Model 3 Long Range operating at peak efficiency can recover up to 75 miles of charge in 5 minutes and charge at rates of up to 1,000 miles per hour.
...
With these significant technical improvements, we anticipate the typical charging time at a V3 Supercharger will drop to around 15 minutes.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure how they got from 75 miles in 5 minutes to up to 1,000 miles in an hour as that's about double the rate. I've seen people talking about getting a range of around 150-200 miles in 20 minutes in the real world.
When you think about these things, forget about full charge. Batteries charge quickly up to 80% and then slow down the charging rate, what you are interested in is how quickly it gets to 80% and what range that gives you.

I've no idea how other manufacturers compare to tesla though - not as good I'm sure because Tesla really push this aspect of things as they know how important it is. But wherever Tesla can go, so can other manufacturers.
 
Idaho said:
I suppose if charging took 5 minutes, that would be the case. But I think it takes quite a while for a full charge doesn't it?
Click to expand...
Yes, but for the majority of driving you don’t need full charge. Driving an EV needs a bit of a shift in mindset compared to a combustion engine.
 
Electronics go wrong and get glitchy. I wouldnt buy an electric car because im sceptical it will be working in 20 years. even more plastic and wires and electronic shoddiness than normal. They are a semi disposable item because repairing some things will be too tricky or expensive. Even the expensive teslas had some shitty eMMC SSDs that failed and then the car is dead.... fuck that!

So yeah give me another Honda petrol banger any day! EVs arent going anywhere quite yet.
 
beesonthewhatnow said:
Why are people obsessed with the idea of charging at home?

You don’t fill up with fuel at home. You fill up when out and about. EV’s can be the same. Plug it in at the supermarket, at work, when you stop at the motorway services for a coffee, at the retail park etc…
Click to expand...

as above really, people think you need to have it say somewhere for 8 hours to recharge every day.

For most people that's just not the case, and you can probably charge up once or twice per week. Longer journeys aren't an issue because most (all?) motorway service stations have chargers and you should be taking regular breaks anyway.
I'm assuming Teaboy can't charge up at work or they would have mentioned it but there's an increasing amount of workplace parking that have chargers as well now.
But 20 minutes in a supermarket whilst you do your weekly shop, or go to the gym or whatever is likely to be enough for a substantial proportion of people.
 
If you charge at home you can set the system to only take on juice when leccy is at its cheapest in the dead of night.

Right now if you lease one through a business you are not charged benefit in kind taxes and you can claim the VAT back, which can take an £800 lease down to a real world £450 a month, which isn't too shabby.
 
Riklet said:
Electronics go wrong. I wouldnt buy an electric car because im sceptical it will be working in 20 years. They are a semi disposable item because repairing some things will be too tricky or expensive. Even the expensive teslas had some shitty eMMC SSDs that failed and then the car is dead.... fuck that!

So yeah give me another Honda petrol banger any day! EVs arent going anywhere quite yet.
Click to expand...

How many modern ICE vehicles can you maintain without plugging a computer in? I'm not really into this stuff but I was under the impression that all modern engines used fly-by-wire controls and engine management software.

You won't be able to buy a new ICE vehicle in the UK beyond 2030, EU beyond 2040 and a few other places. Major manufacturers, one after another recently, have committed to full EV lines. Ford have just released an EV F150 - that's huge even if the vehicle is (thankfully) nothing over here.
EVs are progressing at a rate of knots and are not about to slow down.
 
Maybe things are different elsewhere, but the majority of places I go don't have electric charging points. So far I've been to the gym, supermarket and I'm now at work. I couldn't have charged at any of these places.
 
Riklet said:
Electronics go wrong and get glitchy. I wouldnt buy an electric car because im sceptical it will be working in 20 years. even more plastic and wires and electronic shoddiness than normal. They are a semi disposable item because repairing some things will be too tricky or expensive. Even the expensive teslas had some shitty eMMC SSDs that failed and then the car is dead.... fuck that!

So yeah give me another Honda petrol banger any day! EVs arent going anywhere quite yet.
Click to expand...

Yet in theory there should be less to wrong then an internal combustion engine, other then the battery that will need replacing at some point.
 
I now work with a colleague who has an electric smart car (which is nearing the end of its life). Something she made me aware of is the issue regarding weight. The average weight of an electric car is Approx. 1800KG. This exceeds the weight limit on some roads
and many bridges.
 
hash tag said:
I now work with a colleague who has an electric smart car (which is nearing the end of its life). Something she made me aware of is the issue regarding weight. The average weight of an electric car is Approx. 1800KG. This exceeds the weight limit on some roads
and many bridges.
Click to expand...

Similar weight to SUVs. Batteries are heavy.
I'm surprised there's that many bridges with a weight load so low though, I don't remember having issues in years of driving 3.5t lorries around (usually around 2t unladen)
 
UnderAnOpenSky said:
Maybe things are different elsewhere, but the majority of places I go don't have electric charging points. So far I've been to the gym, supermarket and I'm now at work. I couldn't have charged at any of these places.
Click to expand...

Tesco, Sainsbury's, Lidl and Asda all have rollout programs for their stores, others probably do as well so this stuff is ongoing. I haven't got a car, let alone an EV so I don't pay much attention and couldn't tell you if my local ones had charging points yet but the numbers are increasing steadily - still have a chicken & egg problem with it and that's localised as well so whilst one area might be fine whilst another area is totally dead.
 
Near me, Albert Bridge and Hammersmith both immediately spring to mind. I am sure that most car drivimg folk would not give weight limits a second thought when driving over the Albert Bridge.
1624365099246.png
 
BigTom said:
Tesco, Sainsbury's, Lidl and Asda all have rollout programs for their stores, others probably do as well so this stuff is ongoing. I haven't got a car, let alone an EV so I don't pay much attention and couldn't tell you if my local ones had charging points yet but the numbers are increasing steadily - still have a chicken & egg problem with it and that's localised as well so whilst one area might be fine whilst another area is totally dead.
Click to expand...

Oh totally. I do hope we'll get there. Of course if we get mass adoption, we'll need a lot more then the token few I do see.

I was responding more to posters who didn't see why not having a drive to charge it on was an issue.
 
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