EVs (electric cars)

[niggle]

Just bought a second hand Nissan Leaf and I have to say it is really good and for any journeys not possible by bike I believe it's eco credentials are far better than any ICE (Internal Combustion Engine), discuss.....

[Oldjohnw]

You might be right. Surely true of running Eco costs but is the manufacture any better?

On a practical note, how far will it take you?

[[XAP]Bob]

Eco costs of manufacture are 'repaid' within a couple of years (varies between 18 months and a few years depending on your electricity supply).

[niggle]

You might be right. Surely true of running Eco costs but is the manufacture any better?

On a practical note, how far will it take you?

At this time of year it has a maximum range of about 80 miles, 65 reliable, but there are rapid chargers around that will give another 50 miles charge in 30 minutes. So far I have not needed this contingency.

[niggle]

Eco costs of manufacture are 'repaid' within a couple of years (varies between 18 months and a few years depending on your electricity supply).

Moving to Ecotricity for carbon neutral electricity and gas, allegedly

[francovendee]

Do you have to pay a rental fee for the batteries?

[Canuk]

We're thinking of buying small EV to do an our heavy shopping and stuff that's not practical by bike (which I prefer to use as much as possible). One possible scenario is to power it with solar. We have about 300 days of sunshine here and even when it's dull you're still getting a good charge from the panels.

A 6kw system would I suppose cover the running of the house and maybe 50% of the heating and charge the car. We don't run many fancy appliances.

I've priced the total build to about 5,500 euros, so even terms of money saved in petrol it would only take two years to pay for itself (plus the cost of the car).

Solar uptake is very low in France, compared to Spain. To that end the state is offering absolutely free solar panel installation to anyone on a fixed income I think below 25k a year. Doesn't apply to us but is certainly an excellent incentive. I don't think many people would need much encouragement to ditch the gas guzzlers

[[XAP]Bob]

Do you have to pay a rental fee for the batteries?

Depends on the EV - Nissan, No. Renault, Yes.
Tesla, No... Others, don't know.

[niggle]

We're thinking of buying small EV to do an our heavy shopping and stuff that's not practical by bike (which I prefer to use as much as possible). One possible scenario is to power it with solar. We have about 300 days of sunshine here and even when it's dull you're still getting a good charge from the panels.

A 6kw system would I suppose cover the running of the house and maybe 50% of the heating and charge the car. We don't run many fancy appliances.

I've priced the total build to about 5,500 euros, so even terms of money saved in petrol it would only take two years to pay for itself (plus the cost of the car).

Solar uptake is very low in France, compared to Spain. To that end the state is offering absolutely free solar panel installation to anyone on a fixed income I think below 25k a year. Doesn't apply to us but is certainly an excellent incentive. I don't think many people would need much encouragement to ditch the gas guzzlers

The Mitsubishi i-Miev or one of it's clones (Peugeot iOn, Citroen C-Zero) might suit your needs if you don't need anything very large. It can be bought for reasonable money second hand and has no battery rental, unlike the Renault Zoe.

[niggle]

Do you have to pay a rental fee for the batteries?

Depends on the EV - Nissan, No. Renault, Yes.
Tesla, No... Others, don't know.

Actually some Nissan Leafs are subject to a battery rental, but not ours. Also you can now buy Renault EVs with battery included.

No other manufacturers rent the battery, and more models are coming out all the time, with bigger ranges etc. Kia/Hyundai are selling some really good EV models well worth checking out, first came the Kia Soul EV, then Hyundai Ioniq Electric, now the new mega range Hyundai Kona Electric, next the Kia Niro EV and an updated Soul EV with more range are in the pipeline for next year.

One issue with EV ownership is needing off street parking to charge at home, as the public chargers are not that dependable and are relatively expensive to use now (except in Scotland where many are still free).

[Lance Dopestrong]

Just bought a second hand Nissan Leaf and I have to say it is really good and for any journeys not possible by bike I believe it's eco credentials are far better than any ICE (Internal Combustion Engine), discuss.....

Cradle to grave, including manufacture, extraction of the raw materials (nothing, but nothing is as polluting and energy intensive as extracting and refining rare earth metals), and end of life recycling and disposal, it consumes more energy and creates more pollution than a Ford focus.

Driving around a 1600kg 5 seat car with mostly 4 empty seats is an utterly riduculous means by which to claim environmental credentials.

One recent authoritative study concluded that using a typical western world mix of renewables and fossil fuel generation methods, small capacity, lightweight petrol cars of 800kg or less are typically less polluting across their life cycle than electric alternatives, and a greater proportion of their mass is recyclable at the end of their life.

[Ray]

One recent authoritative study concluded that using a typical western world mix of renewables and fossil fuel generation methods, small capacity, lightweight petrol cars of 800kg or less are typically less polluting across their life cycle than electric alternatives, and a greater proportion of their mass is recyclable at the end of their life.

Do you have a link to that, please?

[niggle]

One recent authoritative study concluded that using a typical western world mix of renewables and fossil fuel generation methods, small capacity, lightweight petrol cars of 800kg or less are typically less polluting across their life cycle than electric alternatives, and a greater proportion of their mass is recyclable at the end of their life.

Do you have a link to that, please?

I second that request, I have a notion the report is no longer as accurate as believed for several reasons, e.g. assumptions about the lifespan of EV batteries has been shown to be greatly pessimistic, they have been lasting much better than predicted and this is improving as active battery thermal management systems and improved battery chemistry comes to the fore, then you have the concept that at end of EV life the battery has to be disposed of/recycled but in fact they are sought after for home storage systems. Then I would like to see their figures re efficiency: are they using true well-to-wheels figures for energy consumption? As I understand it even for energy purely generated by fossil fuels an EV produces about a quarter of the CO2 per mile that an ICE does. Of course electricity is only partially generated by fossil fuels and that proportion is falling, thus improving the carbon footprint of EVs over time compared to ICEs. Finally there is the case for EVs improving air quality, where the emissions from ICE vehicles claim the lives of millions world wide every year.

[Canuk]

The big movement here in the South of France is to power small, efficient electric cars entirely by solar. I'm interested in this zero emissions tech myself, not only because we currently use a gas guzzling monster of a car when a small 700w electric vehicle would suffice 95% of our needs.

I've priced a 6.5kw solar power system i at about 5.5k euro. Which would pay for itself in less than two years via a vis gasoline savings. We would also use this solar power to fuel most of our winter heating costs, saving us another 1500 euro a year. Its a win win situation as far as I'm concerned

[wrangler_rover]

Maybe slightly off topic.
Yesterday, Saturday 22nd December, I visited my local Tesco around noon to do the weekly food shop, the car park was busy but not full.
I have a Hyundai Ioniq plug in hybrid, I went to plug it in to charge it to discover 3 of the 4 charging point parking spaces were occupied by normal petrol or diesel cars, not plug ins. I would not attribute this to laziness as the charging points are quite a way fron the store entrance. As I was plugging my car in, an elderly gent took an interest in what I was doing, the range on a charge, cost of a charge and time taken to charge. I asked him which car was his and he said one of the non plug is cars in the charger spaces. I mentioned jokingly that he shouldn't be parking in these spaces as they were for charging electric cars which he said he didn't realise, I then pointed to the large electric charging point sign and the electric charging point which he thought was an old redundant pay and display parking machine. He did say that he would avoid parking in these spaces in future. As I know of 3 other plug in car drivers who regularly charge their cars here, I took a note of the now 2 offending car registration numbers and reported them to customer services who promptly made an announcement for their drivers to come to customer services.
On leaving the car park, the earlier 2 offending cars had left only to be replaced by 2 other non plug in cars.
My charging cable is only 5 metres long, if it was 2 metres longer and all the charging spaces were occupied with non plug in cars, I would simply park across the back of the cars boxing them in, plug my car in and go to do my shopping, there would be no danger of my cable being stolen because when plugged into the car, it is locked in place and cannot be removed without unlocking the car.
There is another supermarket Lidl nearby with an electric charge point but this point has already been in use the last 2 occasions I have visited that store.
One thing that comes from this is that plug in cars are still not mainstream and the charging infrastructure is already insufficient to cope.