Electric cars

tolmie's hairdoo said:
I've got the potential nice option coming up this summer to choose between the following.

Mercedes EQC 400 4Matic

Porsche Macan full electric.

Range Rover Velar Hybrid

Audi Q4 Electron.

It would be my first foray into electric, so only blinded by the badge at present?
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Nice selection! For me the Macan is the right choice and I would avoid the Audi.
 
Kompany Car said:
Its alright having a huge battery but the charging time will go up at least in proportion.

One the other problems with everyone having electric cars in a household, is that you cant all charge the car. You are limited by the incoming cable from the local substation which in many houses is only rated at 80A. A 7kW charger will use around 30A of that, you need another 40A minimum to cover your domestics when running at peak, that leaves bugger all for a second or third car which many households have these days, due to kids not leaving home until later.

Most local substations are also not rated to allow all properties to be drawing full load current.

Bottom line is that underinvestment in infrastructure will hold back adoption of EVs much more than the range.
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Depends on the mileage people are doing though. Most people with two cars aren’t both doing big mileage and so need to recharge every night.

Agree if it was a full adoption though.
 
Bought ours last June - 4 year old Kona, cost about £14k which was similar to anything similar age, size and spec. As a petrol head, it's the best car I've ever owned, but that may be me getting old.
Most journeys are pretty short and can charge at home, but lad is at Newcastle uni so have done there and back in a day a few times.

That's just over 150 miles each way, which the car will easily do, even fully loaded in winter. In reality, I'll always stop part way anyway, even if just to stretch legs and a loo break (getting old again), so will usually plug in whilst doing that. Even though the max charge speed is low compared to more modern EVs it can get enough charge - if we get a coffee, it will be back to 80% before we're ready. Total cost, including recharging at home is similar to what it would cost in petrol/diesel, can be cheaper depending on fuel prices, but as an occasional journey, we're winning overall even if it's more expensive.

If most of your journeys are short, especially around town, and you can charge at home, they're brilliant and extremely cheap to run. If you need to do the occasional long journey, they're fine. Worst case is a bit more planning than you'd do in an ICE car. If you're a rep doing several hundred miles a day, every day, they would probably be a pain and you'd need a Tesla for the charging network.

For our usage, I can't imagine going back to an ICE car, unless we end up in a flat with no home charging option.
 
Kompany Car said:
Its alright having a huge battery but the charging time will go up at least in proportion.

One the other problems with everyone having electric cars in a household, is that you cant all charge the car. You are limited by the incoming cable from the local substation which in many houses is only rated at 80A. A 7kW charger will use around 30A of that, you need another 40A minimum to cover your domestics when running at peak, that leaves bugger all for a second or third car which many households have these days, due to kids not leaving home until later.

Most local substations are also not rated to allow all properties to be drawing full load current.

Bottom line is that underinvestment in infrastructure will hold back adoption of EVs much more than the range.
Click to expand...
I've often thought this.

I remember the days when the national Grid had to prepare for everyone flicking the kettle on at half time during a world cup England game.

Whats it gonna be like when millions of people get home at 5pm and plug their cars in!!!
 
Massive solar project being developed with Morocco to provide green electricity to power 7 million UK homes.

Other similar projects in other Saharan regions underway. . I'm guessing The Saudis etc are also well into this.
 
BlueMonkey79 said:
I've often thought this.

I remember the days when the national Grid had to prepare for everyone flicking the kettle on at half time during a world cup England game.

Whats it gonna be like when millions of people get home at 5pm and plug their cars in!!!
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Shirley a lot of those millions of people will have solar panels on the roof ?
 
Bill Walker said:
Shirley a lot of those millions of people will have solar panels on the roof ?
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Where do you think the spare cash to stump up the extra thousands for electric motors and also another £8 - £12 000 for a 4Kw solar panel roof system is coming from?

Until the electric revolution can take off the government need to make it affordable. No way can the average layman afford to ditch their petrol/diesel motor and go and buy a £40 000 electric vehicle and then stick solar panels on the roof.
 
tolmie's hairdoo said:
I've got the potential nice option coming up this summer to choose between the following.

Mercedes EQC 400 4Matic

Porsche Macan full electric.

Range Rover Velar Hybrid

Audi Q4 Electron.

It would be my first foray into electric, so only blinded by the badge at present?
Click to expand...
My mate has the Merc - says its a really nice car. I like the look of the Velar and Macan. They're on my choices list.
 
I'm looking at getting an EV and wondered if anyone owns any of the Chinese brands that are popping into the uk and if so what are they like customer service wise as they don't seem to have has many sales and service outlets as the traditional brands. watched a review on the zeekr 7x which is being launched in the uk later this year, and looks great for what need as I've also been thinking of renault scenic or skoda

Also as usual the internet throws up so many different answers about having a heat pump fitted as an optional extra. Is it worth it spending an extra grand for doing about 10000 miles a year mostly commuting and a dozen or so big journeys
 
uweuweuwe said:
I'm looking at getting an EV and wondered if anyone owns any of the Chinese brands that are popping into the uk and if so what are they like customer service wise as they don't seem to have has many sales and service outlets as the traditional brands. watched a review on the zeekr 7x which is being launched in the uk later this year, and looks great for what need as I've also been thinking of renault scenic or skoda

Also as usual the internet throws up so many different answers about having a heat pump fitted as an optional extra. Is it worth it spending an extra grand for doing about 10000 miles a year mostly commuting and a dozen or so big journeys
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We have a BYD, but to be honest, have not had to deal with aftersales at all as have had no problems with the car. We do have to arrange a service soon, so hopefully that will be without any problems.

We do know someone else with a BYD though, and they had an accident and had an absolute nightmare getting the car back as it took ages for parts to come into the country. I think it took 3-4 months however after a fair bit of complaining managed to get a couple of finance payments covered by BYD for the inconvenience.
 
tolmie's hairdoo said:
I've got the potential nice option coming up this summer to choose between the following.

Mercedes EQC 400 4Matic

Porsche Macan full electric.

Range Rover Velar Hybrid

Audi Q4 Electron.

It would be my first foray into electric, so only blinded by the badge at present?
Click to expand...
If you like them all do some research and go for the one with the best 'real world' mileage. I got a BMW iX1 18 months ago, lovely car and a brilliant drive but the mileage isn't the best. It was my first EV so went in blind but when the lease is up next year I'll make sure my next EV has over 300 miles real world in the batteries. The technology has improved since I got mine and I've noticed most new EV's of a certain size have increased mileage now anyway so thats good.

It's not a problem if all you're doing is local driving but my in-laws live in London so being able to make the trip without a 40 minute stop at Corely services would be nice. Although I think I'd miss the best KFC I've ever had so would probably stop there anyway ;-)
 
City Hobgoblin said:
Massive solar project being developed with Morocco to provide green electricity to power 7 million UK homes.

Other similar projects in other Saharan regions underway. . I'm guessing The Saudis etc are also well into this.
Click to expand...
Being developed is the magic words. They arent even in the feasibility stage never mind design and build. 10yrs or more before it generates anything we can use in the UK would be an optimistic guess.

With how our buddy Putin likes cutting cables and knowing that the Moroccan government could use it for leverage, it hardly helps with energy security.
 
Bill Walker said:
Shirley a lot of those millions of people will have solar panels on the roof ?
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How much energy do you think the solar will generate ? In the UK a typical house solar system will generate around 3MW annually, the battery on my Audi Etron GT is 97kWh so accounting for losses lets say 100kWh. 3MW/100kW is... 30 full charges.

I have a solar system as well and from the figures last summer based upon my average usage I probably had 1 months of free driving, the rest being used by the house.
 
Gremlin said:
Don't need a 3-phase supply. A single phase 7kW charger is fine for overnight charging.
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You do for houses with multiple cars and when you start to get bigger batteries.

Without getting technical it also helps with balancing loads across the phases feeding the houses. Phase imbalances cause instability of the supply at a distribution and ultimately transmission level.
 
crooky said:
In an ordinary petrol station (doesn't have to be a motorway). I could comfortably refuel my car from empty to full in less than 5 minutes. Including messing around getting the sat nav ready and switching off the unwanted driver 'aids'.

In 10 minutes I could refuel my car from empty, buy a newspaper, pint of milk etc and blow up all four tyres.

In 15 minutes I reckon you could get it washed as well.
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Ok...
 
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