Electric cars

[francovendee]

I hear that VW are launching a Golf sized electric car that will reliably do 300 miles between charges. This sounds very interesting as 300 miles is the figure I feel the minimum for my type of use. Local journeys I go by bike but holidays etc I use the car. The downside is that in the UK it costs around £30000.
When a manufacturer can offer a basic spec car for around £18000 then I'd seriously consider one.

At what price would you think it's work changing to electric?.

[tatanab]

Is that 300 miles at motorway speeds in the depths of winter with lights and heater switched on? Or is it 300 miles on a balmy summers day at a steady 50mph? I only use a car for distance travel, usually as it happens a 300 mile round trip, so the lack of charging opportunities and the time taken to charge make them non starters at the moment. Cost - my market place is about £6k second hand, so I will have a long wait yet.

[iandriver]

Is that 300 miles at motorway speeds in the depths of winter with lights and heater switched on? Or is it 300 miles on a balmy summers day at a steady 50mph?

This really. If there is one thing we know about car manufacturers, it's that their claims are generally grossly exaggerated in real word conditions. Total unknown.

[reohn2]

Is that 300 miles at motorway speeds in the depths of winter with lights and heater switched on? Or is it 300 miles on a balmy summers day at a steady 50mph?

This really. If there is one thing we know about car manufacturers, it's that their claims are generally grossly exaggerated in real word conditions. Total unknown.

And it is a VW,they don't have such a good record on claims about their product

[Bonefishblues]

The official testing regime is simply rubbish. It means that, certainly for electric cars, manufacturers provide estimates of real world range. I know they are guilty of much, but in this respect I have some sympathy.

[yakdiver]

Unless the batteries come down in price electric cars are always going to be expensive

[Bonefishblues]

And they will - advances in fundamental battery technology are on the way.

[NATURAL ANKLING]

Hi,

Unless the batteries come down in price electric cars are always going to be expensive

Let alone the cost of recycling!
https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable ... -recycling

[al_yrpal]

My motoring profile is mostly short local journeys and infrequent long journeys. For the long journeys I want a comfortable quiet and economical car which I have, a SEAT Ateca with a 1.4 litre petrol engine. If I had space in my drive I would also have an electric vehicle for the frequent short journeys, but, I wouldnt pay more than £5k for it. As it is that space is occupied by my gas guzzling VW T25 Camper. I will just sit and wait and when the Camper goes to get a cheapo electric job. Its reported that electric car manufacturers claimed ranges are fantasy, and, recharges arent quick as they say on hot batteries recently discharged
Al

[Cyril Haearn]

Sooner or later (after my time) one shall have no choice, politrickians are talking about banning sales of new ice vehicles in a few years

[Graham]

Some things that I heard on Radio4 ( so it must be true ) :-

From some mish-mash of sources . .. . .

If all the electricity for an electric car is generated from coal, then this would be equivalent to 55-ish m.p.g. (petrol?)
This being from a US academic expert who states that average current fuel consumption of US cars @ 25 m.p.g. approx.
( Me -> Sadly, the mpg of I.C.E. cars could be hugely better if the thrusting toads* had not chosen to go for bigger, heavier & more powerful. )

Recently manufactured I.C.E. engines are "cleaner" by factors, not just percentages.
( Very good, if true, but a huge credibility problem to overcome. )

In the not too distant future, electric cars will be cheaper than I.C.E. cars, as the volumes ramp up. They are simpler machines ( in theory ).
Allegedly, there is some element of manufacturers pricing electric cars high to protect their huge investment in I.C.E.
( I wonder where all the rare-earth metals will come from . . . . hello China . . . have some more super-power ! )


The addiction culture of hyper-mobility is going to cost us mucho.

Finally, now that I am sharing the roads with the cohort of ageing, dirty diesel vehicles I really do notice it. . . by smell & by visible smoke.
The promotion of diesel engines was an unfortunate government policy mistake.

* thanks to Cugel

[kwackers]

If you have solar panels then electric cars are a no brainer particularly if you hook the battery up as storage for your house supply.
A neighbour of mine does that and their overall electric bill has dropped by 90%.

If you don't need the miles (and for a second car most folk dont) then buy a second hand Leaf or similar. You can pick a good one up for £7k or so, batteries are still good for a number of years and combined with solar you'd almost be guaranteed to get your money back on petrol and house energy savings.

Battery prices are mainly being propped up by demand (although they're still falling quite fast), as more and more capacity comes online prices will drop. You'll also start to see rebuilt battery packs for cars (I believe in Japan you can get a reconditioned pack for a Leaf with guarantee for around £2k).

I saw the "heater" keyword further up, later model Leafs (not sure about other cars) use heat exchangers and apparently the real world cost of running the heater is the loss of a couple of miles range per charge (earlier ones with standard heaters could knock tens of miles off).

My next car will be electric without a doubt. If I really need to drive any distance I'll simply hire an ICE car but I wouldn't expect to do that more than 2 or 3 times a year.

For folk who have genuine range concerns then plug in hybrids are a good compromise, do most of your local miles on battery and use the ICE when you need to do the distance.

[661-Pete]

A non-starter for me at the moment - sadly.

A local Green Party campaigner, who's regularly in touch with us (Mrs P being a member) once announced proudly that she'd just taken delivery of her new electric car. Upon my shamefacedly admitting to still running my diesel, she roundly told me off.

I mean - the fact that I usually vote Green in elections, doesn't mean that I have to do everything a Green activist tells me to do...

As pointed out above, the electricity has got to come from somewhere, and in this benighted land of ours it's mostly fossil-fuel generated anyway. So it's really just shifting the 'problem' somewhere else...

For my current motoring regime, which consists of mostly 450-mile runs on motorway, I'd want a single-charge range of 500+ miles (800 Km). That's just not there at present.

And I've looked into hybrids, but all the models currently on the market are either too big/expensive, or are cramped for internal space. And they don't really offer much saving on motorway driving - neither in cost nor in carbon footprint.

For me, the answer is to keep up the cycling for short trips (though I tend to restrict it to reasonably good weather nowadays - a bit of fine drizzle is OK, but not heavy rain or snow). And public transport (train preferably) for when cycling is a no-no.

But I'll sit and await developments. The proposed legislative ban on petrol/diesel, if it comes on present schedule in 2040*, will be after my time. Even if I'm still alive then, chances are I won't be driving anymore.

*Even if it's brought forward to 2032 - I'd be 82 by then...

[peetee]

My brother has a hybrid petrol/electric VW Golf. He is a real tech-head and was telling me how it automatically swaps from one to the other under different driving conditions. He did admit that he has no idea how the thing operates or whether it has any cost savings benefits. I took the conversation further by speculating at what point the vehicle becomes truly un-economic to own. We both came to the conclusion that there is a very real possibility that when the batteries need replacing the car will be at such an age that it's residual value will probably be exceeded by the cost of replacing the batteries and the whole car will just go for scrap. The real point is of course that we as consumers don't really know the cost of this tech, in real terms, either to our pockets or more importantly to the environment.

[Bonefishblues]

Here you go - amongst many sources, across a variety of applications:

https://www.pocket-lint.com/gadgets/new ... er-the-air

Next, or next-but-one generation battery technology is a huge prize. It'll get fixed and we'll look back on Li-ion in the way we look back at horse and cart.