Electric everything.

[al_yrpal]

.......... As an ex V8 Stag owner ......

Saw a red Rover SD1 yesterday. V8 3.5L excellent condition.

Might be tempted to get another Stag at some point.....if we are allowed to that is?

Al

[Jdsk]

Thanks, Ian.

Jonathan

[[XAP]Bob]

No single solution is sufficient, hence the need to actively pursue many of them.

Some people will increase their transportation needs, others will reduce them. I no longer travel thirty miles a day to get to and from work - though that reduces the number of miles cycled rather than anything else.
I also now drive more short journeys than I used to, because carrying wheelchair by bike is difficult (to say the least).

[Jdsk]

No single solution is sufficient, hence the need to actively pursue many of them.

Yes.

And it's not a useful criticism of BEVs to say that they can't solve the other problems.

Jonathan

[Ben@Forest]

Go into the rural hills of the country, and mileage and average speed drop considerably ....... as does the power consumption.

I live not far off the North Pennines fringe and work in the North Pennines. The nearest chargers are 10 miles from my home (though l can easily charge at home as l have a drive but half the houses here don't).

In the area l work chargers they are few and far between in a very hilly landscape. Over around 800 sq miles it's four or five locations Today I'll be driving at least 112 miles, l really wouldn't trust doing that in an EV.

On the other hand was passed by a run of mainly MG Spitfires yesterday whilst out on the bike. Difficult to believe all cars once smelled like that!

[Jdsk]

I live not far off the North Pennines fringe and work in the North Pennines. The nearest chargers are 10 miles from my home (though l can easily charge at home as l have a drive but half the houses here don't).

In the area l work chargers they are few and far between in a very hilly landscape. Over around 800 sq miles it's four or five locations Today I'll be driving at least 112 miles, l really wouldn't trust doing that in an EV.

If you were responsible for unlocking that chicken and egg problem in that area what would you do, please?

Thanks

Jonathan

On the other hand was passed by a run of mainly MG Spitfires...

Ahem...

[francovendee]

From a purely monetary view, would buying and running an EV make a long term cost saving?

[[XAP]Bob]

Yes, takes quite a few thousand miles to recover the initial capital cost… but not nearly as many as some might claim.

For me - it costs the same to run and finance a new BEV than it has over the last 15 years running petrol cars at or about 100k miles.


I.e even in year 1 I am breaking even, but I have switched from owning to leasing a vehicle.
That’s based on ~12k miles annually.

[Jdsk]

From a purely monetary view, would buying and running an EV make a long term cost saving?

If you add how far you drive we can do some estimates...

Jonathan

[Oldjohnw]

Yes, takes quite a few thousand miles to recover the initial capital cost… but not nearly as many as some might claim.

For me - it costs the same to run and finance a new BEV than it has over the last 15 years running petrol cars at or about 100k miles.

Thanks for this. Without wishing to pry into your personal affairs, could you you give some figures, please?

Some of us are looking ahead with this.

My own situation is I have a 5 year old VW Gold TDi Blue motion. I do about 7k miles pa of mixed distances. I currently get about 55-60mpg locally and about 72mpg on longer (50miles+) trips. I am hoping to move next week. This will I imagine reduce my local trips to a couple of thousand miles pa then a couple of holidays/visits to my son which will involve a 500mile round trip.

I am not interested in anyone telling me how to reduce mileage or do without a car. I know my own circumstances and I have already halved my mileage and am seeking a further 50% reduction.

Thanks.

[mjr]

And is provision of charging points an area where central government should intervene, and spend?

Definitely government should intervene to ensure sufficient and well-positioned charging points. They intervene in petrol and diesel, maintaining a network of strategic filling stations: many are the motorway service areas but there are more, which were usually the ones which got fuel first during various disruption.

Would this mean spending? I don't know. I think it would be worth spending on, but ebike chargers should also be provided.

[NUKe]

the best environmental impact is for us all to drive less, A car creates almost as much pollution being made as it does in ten years of use EV's are still a drain on valuable resources, the best solution for the world is for personal ownership to be dropped in favour of pooled ownership. the average journey of the Chelsea tractor is still around 3 to 5 miles. Even if its electric, its still a drain on the earths resources. Our small town is constant stream of people driving around to go the 1 or 2 miles to the shop. the local School I cycle past has a long of cars quite often SUVs some of whom I know have driven less than a couple of miles and worst still there is a cycling/walking bridge which would have made it less than 1/2 a mile

[biketips666]

Yes, takes quite a few thousand miles to recover the initial capital cost… but not nearly as many as some might claim.

For me - it costs the same to run and finance a new BEV than it has over the last 15 years running petrol cars at or about 100k miles.

Thanks for this. Without wishing to pry into your personal affairs, could you you give some figures, please?

Some of us are looking ahead with this.

My own situation is I have a 5 year old VW Gold TDi Blue motion. I do about 7k miles pa of mixed distances. I currently get about 55-60mpg locally and about 72mpg on longer (50miles+) trips. I am hoping to move next week. This will I imagine reduce my local trips to a couple of thousand miles pa then a couple of holidays/visits to my son which will involve a 500mile round trip.

I am not interested in anyone telling me how to reduce mileage or do without a car. I know my own circumstances and I have already halved my mileage and am seeking a further 50% reduction.

Thanks.

I don't own an electric car, yet.

What I have done, for years, is kept detailed figures for car running expenses, incorporated into spreadsheets, which allow me to monitor costs and make comparisons. I originally started doing it just for tax purposes.

I don't monitor every single fuel fill, but generally do an average over 20 or so fill-ups, ignoring any on-board computer. Your situation is probably slightly different to mine, as I tended to buy big heavy cars at high mileage, on the basis that I was "getting a lot for my money". But that also equated to heavy repair costs.

My basic approach was to divide purchase cost by mileage. So if I paid £4,000 for a car, after 1 mile it had cost me £4,000 a mile, after a thousand miles it had cost me £4 a mile. After 10,000 miles it had cost me 40p a mile. So I had a column with an every decreasing "purchase cost per mile" figure in it.

I'd have another column for "service" which included every single service cost. Again done on a per mile basis. I remember a friend (who actually trained as an accountant) saying that the only "marginal cost" is fuel. I disagreed, tyres, brake linings and many other components only wear with use.

This allowed me to run figures of ICE car vs BEV. I'm looking at it now. It compares running a 15 year old 3 litre petrol car against a 5 year old Nissan Leaf. I would be £2,330 better off with the Leaf, including capital (purchase) cost, but ignoring any finance cost. Though it's worth pointing out that money is extremely cheap to borrow, at the moment.

Of course that was based on a few assumptions. I already had complete service costs for my petrol car (and knew I had some hefty bills in the offing), whereas I had to make a guess at service costs on the Leaf. Various forums led me to a figure of £200.

But even if my estimates of the Leaf are a bit on the low side, it's clear that I'd be better off, and so would the planet, with the Leaf. Obviously the change of car took me to something a lot more modest, power wise. One advantage of the electric car is that it would allow me to take work I wouldn't normally. I don't get paid for travelling, so often I turn down work that would be uneconomic due to fuel costs. But at about 4 pence (or maybe even less) a mile in the BEV, some of that work would become viable.

Your situation isn't probably anywhere near as clear cut, numbers wise. You've got a newer ICE, with lowish mileage. But I would still recommend doing the exercise. You can't really take other people's figures, you have to do the sums as they apply to you. The cost difference is probably nowhere near what you think it is. I suspect you may be getting put off by the ticket price of new electric cars.

I noticed your rather odd comparison of the price of a Golf vs and electric car. You appeared to be comparing the price of a new electric car with a second hand golf. There are now plenty of used electric cars available...
https://drive-green.co.uk/
...have a good stock. You can get used Leafs (er, "Leaves"?) for about £12,000. They are extremely helpful on the phone, if you want advice. One thing to bear in mind is that if you can cope with a low range, there are a lot of fairly cheap small electric cars, as people move up to the larger battery versions. For somebody that does lots of short journeys they are ideal. Particularly as lots of short journeys is what really does petrol cars in.

So did I buy an electric, you ask, after all that spreadsheet stuff? No, because we're a two car family, but my wife barely uses hers. So Covid happened, I didn't need a big car, so I ditched mine and use hers, a fairly modest Honda Jazz. I hire big cars for long journeys when I need to. When the Jazz dies* I'm pretty certain we'll get an electric car. The death of the Honda will probably coincide with my retirement, we've got a drive we can park on for charging, I live in a city with decent public transport and a rapidly expanding cycling infrastructure.

*"Jazz isn't dead, it just smells funny" - Frank Zappa.

[Jdsk]

Thanks for the worked example.

I suspect you may be getting put off by the ticket price of new electric cars.

This seems to be a major issue in switching (!).

Jonathan

PS:

Leafs (er, "Leaves"?)

You were right the first time. : - )

PPS:

*"Jazz isn't dead, it just smells funny" - Frank Zappa.

"Think of a note, don't play it."

[Jdsk]

the best environmental impact is for us all to drive less, A car creates almost as much pollution being made as it does in ten years of use EV's are still a drain on valuable resources, the best solution for the world is for personal ownership to be dropped in favour of pooled ownership. the average journey of the Chelsea tractor is still around 3 to 5 miles. Even if its electric, its still a drain on the earths resources. Our small town is constant stream of people driving around to go the 1 or 2 miles to the shop. the local School I cycle past has a long of cars quite often SUVs some of whom I know have driven less than a couple of miles and worst still there is a cycling/walking bridge which would have made it less than 1/2 a mile

I agree with most of that. It would be great if all of those were addressed in national and local policy.

But there will still be cars around for the foreseeable future, and it's better for the planet that they are BEVs rather than ICEs.

Jonathan