E cars and the change to the urban landscape

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kwackers
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Re: E cars and the change to the urban landscape

Post by kwackers »

tatanab wrote:Home charging is an open door for vandals. All those lovely cables to cut on your way home in the wee hours, or can they not be simply unplugged. I am certain that is inevitable and might become another reason for people not to go electric.

If they're strung across pavements then they're asking for it. But then I have little sympathy for folk whose cars get scratched when they're parked on pavements too.

AFAIK the cables aren't your typical mains cable, they're probably armoured.
I suspect anyone really trying to cut the cable might be a candidate for the Darwin awards - particularly the superchargers, iirc they're at least 400v.
kwackers
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Re: E cars and the change to the urban landscape

Post by kwackers »

Oldjohnw wrote:So what happens when today you but an eRenault for the price of a Jaguar, only for the next lot of cars to have a massively greater range for less money? Does your little Renault become worthless?

The economics are complicated.

Most people rent cars these days through PCP etc. They don't really care about the future value, they simply want another car in 3 years time.

If you're buying second hand then it's good for you. If you don't need a 400 mile range and are quite happy with 260 then it's all good.
Plus as battery reconditioning becomes a thing you may well simply be able to squeeze a bigger battery into the space - although the truth is most people don't need much range at all, they simply think they do.
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661-Pete
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Re: E cars and the change to the urban landscape

Post by 661-Pete »

tatanab wrote:Home charging is an open door for vandals. All those lovely cables to cut on your way home in the wee hours, or can they not be simply unplugged. I am certain that is inevitable and might become another reason for people not to go electric.
Way around that. :twisted:
1. Use MICC cable with the outer copper sheath exposed.
2. Connect sheath to farmer's electric fence energiser..... :twisted: :shock: :lol:

P.S. only kidding! MICC couldn't be used anyway, it's meant for fixed wiring and if it is bent too often it will eventually break or short-circuit. More practically, SWA cable is virtually impossible to cut without special tools. Could it be made flexible enough for this purpose?
Suppose that this room is a lift. The support breaks and down we go with ever-increasing velocity.
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Oldjohnw
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Re: E cars and the change to the urban landscape

Post by Oldjohnw »

kwackers wrote:
Oldjohnw wrote:So what happens when today you but an eRenault for the price of a Jaguar, only for the next lot of cars to have a massively greater range for less money? Does your little Renault become worthless?

The economics are complicated.

Most people rent cars these days through PCP etc. They don't really care about the future value, they simply want another car in 3 years time.

If you're buying second hand then it's good for you. If you don't need a 400 mile range and are quite happy with 260 then it's all good.
Plus as battery reconditioning becomes a thing you may well simply be able to squeeze a bigger battery into the space - although the truth is most people don't need much range at all, they simply think they do.



PCP costs are based,among other things, on the difference between new and 3 years old, so future value matters. I personally never use finance nowadays. The only long trip I do is to visit my daughter 310 miles away.

I drive a relative handful of miles a year - perhaps 5k - so will wait and see.
John
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Mick F
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Re: E cars and the change to the urban landscape

Post by Mick F »

reohn2 wrote:
Mick F wrote:
Si wrote: ............the eCar revolution .........
There isn't one.

Not yet maybe,but it's coming :wink:

Who says?

Not that I doubt it, but it's the motoring lobby that's saying it. It's an excuse to build more cars.
Mick F. Cornwall
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al_yrpal
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Re: E cars and the change to the urban landscape

Post by al_yrpal »

kwackers wrote:
al_yrpal wrote:EV acceptance and distribution will progress even slower because the technology, cost and infrastructure aint nowhere near there yet.

Al

Hate to tell you this but EV infrastructure isn't even remotely the same as internet infrastructure.
The internet requires special cables to be laid, EV's on the other hand just need a socket fitting to a lampost. You can even simply make a charging station that is a large battery powered by solar and a few such examples exist.
In short infrastructure can be fitted as fast as is needed.


Hate to tell you this, but I am well aware of that. There will be an awful lot of digging to do and upgrading of supply too unless everyone can live with snails pace charging. Who will pay, thats a massive unknown? How much will charging cost - already there is controversy and scandal about that. The industry is making tiny numbers of EVs thats why there is a waiting list. 30,000 expensive Jags is a fleabite.

Nice to see you are actually enthused about something. Remember, the infrastructure will ultimately be in the hands of politicians, hows about that!

Time will tell..

Al
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pwa
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Re: E cars and the change to the urban landscape

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The last car we bought cost us something like £6k, a second hand low mileage C1 from 2016. For what we use it for an electric alternative would be fine. We could charge it on our drive overnight. BUT it would need to be at a low enough price. Given savings on fuel we might pay a bit more than £6k, but not a huge amount more. Not more than £10k certainly. How long before that becomes reality?
kwackers
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Re: E cars and the change to the urban landscape

Post by kwackers »

pwa wrote:The last car we bought cost us something like £6k, a second hand low mileage C1 from 2016. For what we use it for an electric alternative would be fine. We could charge it on our drive overnight. BUT it would need to be at a low enough price. Given savings on fuel we might pay a bit more than £6k, but not a huge amount more. Not more than £10k certainly. How long before that becomes reality?

You can pick up a second hand Leaf for £6k. Battery is still good enough for a number of years worth of mileage - some of them are coming up on 200k miles.

Like everything, new ones appear on the top, old ones get pushed down the tube. Eventually you'll be able to buy a decent second hand electric car for the sort of money you want to spend.
It'll be interesting to see how battery reconditioning goes in the long term. Given the simplicity of the rest of the cars mechanics, provided with new batteries they could just keep on going...
Oldjohnw
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Re: E cars and the change to the urban landscape

Post by Oldjohnw »

kwackers wrote:
pwa wrote:The last car we bought cost us something like £6k, a second hand low mileage C1 from 2016. For what we use it for an electric alternative would be fine. We could charge it on our drive overnight. BUT it would need to be at a low enough price. Given savings on fuel we might pay a bit more than £6k, but not a huge amount more. Not more than £10k certainly. How long before that becomes reality?

You can pick up a second hand Leaf for £6k. Battery is still good enough for a number of years worth of mileage - some of them are coming up on 200k miles.

Like everything, new ones appear on the top, old ones get pushed down the tube. Eventually you'll be able to buy a decent second hand electric car for the sort of money you want to spend.
It'll be interesting to see how battery reconditioning goes in the long term. Given the simplicity of the rest of the cars mechanics, provided with new batteries they could just keep on going...


Thanks for this. Food for thought.
John
kwackers
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Re: E cars and the change to the urban landscape

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al_yrpal wrote:Hate to tell you this, but I am well aware of that. There will be an awful lot of digging to do and upgrading of supply too unless everyone can live with snails pace charging. Who will pay, thats a massive unknown? How much will charging cost - already there is controversy and scandal about that. The industry is making tiny numbers of EVs thats why there is a waiting list. 30,000 expensive Jags is a fleabite.

There doesn't need to be lots of digging. An average mileage car adds a typical load of around 200w hours, that's a small percentage increase in total load and ignores growing numbers of people charging from their own renewables and using their car batteries to spread load across the grid.

Then where fast chargers are fitted they're increasingly having their own batteries fitted that charge during off peak times and dump the power to the cars when needed. Removes any need for big fat wires and allows the providers to buy cheap power off the grid.

Forget Jags, most of the cars will be Korean, Chinese etc - you can already pick up a Chinese made Qashqui sized MG for £21k (if you get in quick), that's only around £2k more than a Qashqui and is better specced (and well reviewed). If the battery was just a tad bigger I'd have a deposit on one.

Those countries are making the move towards EV's whilst we are just arguing about them on forums.
As an aside that's why us Brits are "has been's", we've simply got no imagination. We're old fools stuck in some imperialistic past.
When we're driving our Chinese EV's and wondering where our car industry went we can look on threads like this for some ideas.

As for who'll pay, I suspect if BoJo hasn't yet promised several billion for the adoption of EV's it can only be a matter of time - there can't be many things he hasn't promised money for left.
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Mick F
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Re: E cars and the change to the urban landscape

Post by Mick F »

kwackers wrote:You can pick up a second hand Leaf for £6k.
Not from Nissan you can't.
https://usedcars.nissan.co.uk/en/nissan ... sult-tools

No doubt there's loads around somewhere, but buying from the main dealers, you get a decent one with a service history.
Mick F. Cornwall
pwa
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Re: E cars and the change to the urban landscape

Post by pwa »

kwackers wrote:
pwa wrote:The last car we bought cost us something like £6k, a second hand low mileage C1 from 2016. For what we use it for an electric alternative would be fine. We could charge it on our drive overnight. BUT it would need to be at a low enough price. Given savings on fuel we might pay a bit more than £6k, but not a huge amount more. Not more than £10k certainly. How long before that becomes reality?

You can pick up a second hand Leaf for £6k. Battery is still good enough for a number of years worth of mileage - some of them are coming up on 200k miles.

Like everything, new ones appear on the top, old ones get pushed down the tube. Eventually you'll be able to buy a decent second hand electric car for the sort of money you want to spend.
It'll be interesting to see how battery reconditioning goes in the long term. Given the simplicity of the rest of the cars mechanics, provided with new batteries they could just keep on going...

I think this is the crucial thing for people like me. I don't buy new cars, I wait for the car I need to become available cheaply but still with few miles on the clock. And sub £10k is where I am. As are many people. So we wait for sensible electric cars to come down in price to a point where we can say "You know what, that second smaller car of ours is really only for a shortish commute and local errands like taking granny to the surgery. It could just as well be a battery electric car, and it is within budget".
kwackers
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Re: E cars and the change to the urban landscape

Post by kwackers »

Mick F wrote:
kwackers wrote:You can pick up a second hand Leaf for £6k.
Not from Nissan you can't.
https://usedcars.nissan.co.uk/en/nissan ... sult-tools

No doubt there's loads around somewhere, but buying from the main dealers, you get a decent one with a service history.

Most private ones have a service history - not that I'd be that interested in regular oil changes on an EV...

I can't help you if you're not happy buying private - but looking at the dealers cars they're marking them up £3-£4k - that's a lot just for peace of mind. You'd be far better off buying insurance against it going bang.

Because EV's have a lot of tech in them you can do things like check the state of the batteries using an app.
Anyone in the market is well advised to spend a bit of time on YouTube looking at how-to's for stuff like that.
kwackers
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Re: E cars and the change to the urban landscape

Post by kwackers »

pwa wrote:I think this is the crucial thing for people like me. I don't buy new cars, I wait for the car I need to become available cheaply but still with few miles on the clock. And sub £10k is where I am. As are many people. So we wait for sensible electric cars to come down in price to a point where we can say "You know what, that second smaller car of ours is really only for a shortish commute and local errands like taking granny to the surgery. It could just as well be a battery electric car, and it is within budget".

Here's just the thing for you.
30,000 miles so at least 70,000 left in it (2013 so battery is still under warranty - 96 months / 100,000 miles)
https://www.autotrader.co.uk/classified/advert/201904076725805
softlips
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Re: E cars and the change to the urban landscape

Post by softlips »

al_yrpal wrote:EV will not be a realistic choice because of its range and the difficulty charging.


Tesla quote a range 510 miles for the Model S. My friend gets around 450 miles from one charge with his. He charges it while having lunch and a coffee. How many miles do you want them to do?
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