Electric cars

I'm about to spend £20k on a new'ish Diesel.

Why - because I have a flat and wile i have a dedicated parking spot in a private car park there is no electric near. The car park infrastructure is managed through a management company who have been asked several times to sort out EV charging. Their response is a flat no. They claim it would be a significant development and out of the scope of their contract (this is true to some extent as the electrical meter room is some distance to the car park so its very unclear how you get power to the parking and how it gets charged). That leaves the residents / owners of the flats to do it themselves and some are landlords, some dont have cars etc so many with no interest it taking this on and of course it would come down to money and many wont want to or be able to.

I have no idea how the above gets sorted.
No one does, look at the amount of terrace houses in the country, unless you want wires crossing pavements it’s a no go. It’s all very well these well off politicians etc spouting bollocks to do this and that when they all have driveways etc. I’ve seen in other countries they are developing wireless charging by placing things in the road, christ they can’t even sort the potholes in this country nevermind that. The only alternative is very cheap public charging at supermarkets etc, otherwise the majority of people it’s just nit practical, I know if I didn’t have a drive there is no way I’d be even contemplating one.
 
How can i be stubborn the other way? I have 1 EV and 2 ICE (and a large history sports ICE). I just have real world experience, and not just something read on the internet. I have said i understand they don't suit everybody yet. I was a sceptic, but took a chance.

Public charging is getting better, and charging deals can be found. EV's are also getting cheaper by the day. There is a new movement of tightwads picking up really cheap used EV's on Youtube!
They are finding the batteries last way longer than thought. They are also signing up for the cheap public charging deals or old "free to charge" Tesla's, so it can be done even if you don't live in a house with a home charger.

New EV's with large ranges are starting to appear. They will be used bargains in 5 years. Once the market is flooded with cheap but decent EV's, peoples opinions will change.
So why are people worried? as they can keep their old ICE cars as long as they want. It's only new ICE cars that are stopping in 5 years. Hybrids in 10 years. So assuming a hybrid is good for at least 15 years, that's 25 years away!

Sorry, it's still stubbornness and propaganda scaring some people.
Old EV's might be the way...but be careful with the charging connectors. Some have the old sort...
 
Sat in a Tesla the other day, bloody hell it’s sparse but like but everything thing going through the screen is very impressive, our car is now 13 years old still a great drive but a diesel on short journeys is just very uneconomical now, all we do is school run and round town. I do fancy one as we can charge at home so it’s pennys, the only thing is the insurance is double what we pay now which surprised me. The wife is not convinced by it and fancy a different kind, a hybrid, which defeats the object of cutting down on service costs etc, I’ll just have to keep plugging away.
Bought a Tesla last week and I absolutely love it :-) pretty much all service stations have Tesla superchargers luckily I'm rite next to Birch services. I charged mine from 16% to the recommended 80% in 25 minutes for £8.11 that's 180 miles worth.

Energy companies do an EV tariff where your electricity is just 7p P/H rather than 27p every night from 11pm till 6/7am.

Spot on with the insurance I went from £58 to £121 a month :-(
 
I'm about to spend £20k on a new'ish Diesel.

Why - because I have a flat and wile i have a dedicated parking spot in a private car park there is no electric near. The car park infrastructure is managed through a management company who have been asked several times to sort out EV charging. Their response is a flat no. They claim it would be a significant development and out of the scope of their contract (this is true to some extent as the electrical meter room is some distance to the car park so its very unclear how you get power to the parking and how it gets charged). That leaves the residents / owners of the flats to do it themselves and some are landlords, some dont have cars etc so many with no interest it taking this on and of course it would come down to money and many wont want to or be able to.

I have no idea how the above gets sorted.
It will be sorted when public charge points become plentiful and cheap. There is a good chance Bury will win the Champions League before that happens.
 
Bought a Tesla last week and I absolutely love it :-) pretty much all service stations have Tesla superchargers luckily I'm rite next to Birch services. I charged mine from 16% to the recommended 80% in 25 minutes for £8.11 that's 180 miles worth.

Energy companies do an EV tariff where your electricity is just 7p P/H rather than 27p every night from 11pm till 6/7am.

Spot on with the insurance I went from £58 to £121 a month :-(
New or secondhand pal? There’s quite a few out there now just don’t want a lemon if I get one
 
Bought a Tesla last week and I absolutely love it :-) pretty much all service stations have Tesla superchargers luckily I'm rite next to Birch services. I charged mine from 16% to the recommended 80% in 25 minutes for £8.11 that's 180 miles worth.

Energy companies do an EV tariff where your electricity is just 7p P/H rather than 27p every night from 11pm till 6/7am.

Spot on with the insurance I went from £58 to £121 a month :-(
That insurance cost is linked to the cost of a new battery and that is the hidden cost in EVs.

If a battery only lasts 10-15 years then you have to depreciate the value over that time.

Battery replacement is far to expensive right now. It can be 50% of the list price. So any damage to the battery and the insurance company will write off the car.
 
The EV car ads annoy me with their spurious mileage claims when they say shit like "mileage may differ" from their claimed mileage range. Mileage WILL differ and you'll be lucky to get 75% of the mileage they tell you however careful you drive!

In early January of 2022 I bought Skoda Enyaq 80 kw with a claimed mileage range of 330 miles. Closest I managed to get to that was in the summer of that year when I estimated I got between 250 to 260 miles. This was in economy mode with no air con. Had I drove in turbo mode with air con I would have maybe got around 200 miles. I sold the car last March having only drove just shy of 12000 miles in 3 years because I wasn't driving it enough and wanted to get decent money back before further depreciation, plus I had range anxiety. Just before I sold it I charged to 100% and the range had dropped to 246 miles which I suspect was due to battery degradation.

Insurance was expensive costing me about £1400 but running costs were low when I charged it overnight from home on a 3.5kw plug in charger. Fortunately I didn't need to charge it much when out otherwise the running costs would have been considerably higher.

I have since bought an e bike which I really enjoy riding and it costs about 50p to charge up. I also bought a cheap 1. 2 runaround that does about 60 to the gallon with cheap insurance which I'm happy about. Not sure whether I'll buy another EV in the future, maybe, maybe not.
 
The EV car ads annoy me with their spurious mileage claims when they say shit like "mileage may differ" from their claimed mileage range. Mileage WILL differ and you'll be lucky to get 75% of the mileage they tell you however careful you drive!

In early January of 2022 I bought Skoda Enyaq 80 kw with a claimed mileage range of 330 miles. Closest I managed to get to that was in the summer of that year when I estimated I got between 250 to 260 miles. This was in economy mode with no air con. Had I drove in turbo mode with air con I would have maybe got around 200 miles. I sold the car last March having only drove just shy of 12000 miles in 3 years because I wasn't driving it enough and wanted to get decent money back before further depreciation, plus I had range anxiety. Just before I sold it I charged to 100% and the range had dropped to 246 miles which I suspect was due to battery degradation.

Insurance was expensive costing me about £1400 but running costs were low when I charged it overnight from home on a 3.5kw plug in charger. Fortunately I didn't need to charge it much when out otherwise the running costs would have been considerably higher.

I have since bought an e bike which I really enjoy riding and it costs about 50p to charge up. I also bought a cheap 1. 2 runaround that does about 60 to the gallon with cheap insurance which I'm happy about. Not sure whether I'll buy another EV in the future, maybe, maybe not.
I think of them as town cars, school run etc, with our weather etc these mileages are exaggerated a lot. If you do 30 miles a day with a normal plug you can recharge overnight very cheap.
 
I think of them as town cars, school run etc, with our weather etc these mileages are exaggerated a lot. If you do 30 miles a day with a normal plug you can recharge overnight very cheap.
EV's are much better mileage running round town with regen braking, it's motorway miles that drain the battery most.
 
Sat in a Tesla the other day, bloody hell it’s sparse but like but everything thing going through the screen is very impressive, our car is now 13 years old still a great drive but a diesel on short journeys is just very uneconomical now, all we do is school run and round town. I do fancy one as we can charge at home so it’s pennys, the only thing is the insurance is double what we pay now which surprised me. The wife is not convinced by it and fancy a different kind, a hybrid, which defeats the object of cutting down on service costs etc, I’ll just have to keep plugging away.
The EV was almost the exact same insurance wise last year at £600. That was swapping a Renault Grand Scenic 1.6 DCi for a Renault Megane Iconic E-Tech EV. The renewal with Admiral is £100 less this year.
Maybe going for a newer/dearer car is also playing a part in the increase?

As for the wife, she wasn't sure at all.
I would have to claw it from her dead hands now!
 
EV's are much better mileage running round town with regen braking, it's motorway miles that drain the battery most.
We found little difference in the EV. Where as the diesel just loves a motorway run and gets far better MPG.

What does drain the battery faster for us is going over 60MPH in the EV. The smooth/efficient running is offset with wind resistance. Sticking to 60 MPH actually increases the normal range slightly.

In the diesel, the 20 MPG extra on the motorway overcomes the loss through wind resistance etc. Love starting a journey and watch the range go up for the first hour. It's like free motoring!
 
Energy companies do an EV tariff where your electricity is just 7p P/H rather than 27p every night from 11pm till 6/7am.
That's to what what we are on, EDF 12.59 kWh off peak and 22.59 kWh peak. We chose that over the cheaper Octopus dedicated 7.9 kWh EV/28.9 kWh peak, because is the same rate for the whole house between 00.00 and 05.00 not just the car. And we actually save more money because of the cheaper peak hours as well. You have to have an EV to get that.

The washing/dishwasher and car all go on charge at night etc.
 
Saw quite a few electric cars walking around town yesterday. Including Chinese manufacturers I'd never heard of before.

In typical Chinese fashion though I would say they are trying to copy the Tesla with it's minimalistic/plain styling rather than trying to have their own identity. The ones I saw including the Tesla itself aren't all that exciting.

The electric car that looked by far the best to me was the Renault 5 Electric. Such a bold design but one that suits the character of the car.
 
Chinese styling you say?

View attachment 162038

It's a pretty generic sportscar to me.

I've seen a couple in person and they stand out but possibly more to to their rarity and trying to work out what they are.

The Renault 5 is actually bold and new. Not a copy of existing cars. Think of the new Jaguar as well. Love it or hate it that's something totally different.
 

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