what the heck is going on??

[ncutler]

The cheapest battery car with a 300mile range is £50k! Who's going to pay that?

Our car has a range of approx 280 miles and cost hugely less than £50k

[Stradageek]

How about a slight change of tack. Rather than looking at how we can find substitute modes of transport why not look about how we can remove both the need and desire for all this travel?

50 years ago there were far fewer cars and we all survived?

Maybe we need a touch of the Schumacher 'Small is beautiful' and re-organise ourselves into local communities with local facilities and local jobs. Families can then stay together, we can all walk to the shops etc. Maybe the homeworking shift is a way of starting this?

[Stradageek]

An 80k Tesla never got the subsidy anyway - it was capped at 50k.

Now it's down to 35k.
But yeah, Tesla sales are largely driven by company car folk and their tax free status but no Tesla costs less than £35k so they're all out.

With that in mind I'd argue that it's 'normal' folk trying to buy a family car that have been hit, not the rich folk buying £80k Teslas, Jags and Porches.

How silly of me to expect a government policy to penalise the wealthy

I can't decide whether I ought to do more research before posting on this forum or just let the wealth of knowledge that seems to exist amongst you folks to correct my errors.

The latter is perhaps easier and it does keep the discussion going, but then again....

[Jdsk]

Since I have now been driving an electric car for 9 months and have some practical experience I thought I might add to this discussion.

Thanks, Nick. This does seem to be a topic where personal experience makes a big difference.

Jonathan

[Jdsk]

Narrow terraced streets with space for parking on one side only? Are we going to see extension leads trailing across all these roads?
What about lorries? Are they going to tow a trailer with the battery pack on board?
Battery cars are okay for use around towns but in the real world they're not the answer.

Access to charging is well understood. It involves a range of locations: including home, work, off-street, on-street, supermarkets, things like petrol stations and things like motorway and similar service stations. No showstoppers, no single magic solution.

But on the subject of this thread all of this requires change in both purchase of vehicles and infrastructure, and consistency of policy can help dramatically in accelerating those changes especially where capital investment is needed.

Lorries are a different niche from cars and may need different solutions.

Towns are in the real world, and there isn't a single answer.

But when there is an infrastructure problem I find it hard to see where hydrogen powered vehicles come out better than battery powered. None of those locations have hydrogen now and it's easier to install electrical connections than hydrogen connections. Speed of refilling can be faster with hydrogen, but owners of battery vehicles don't identify this as a major problem.

Jonathan

[ncutler]

Maybe we need a touch of the Schumacher 'Small is beautiful' and re-organise ourselves into local communities with local facilities and local jobs. Families can then stay together, we can all walk to the shops etc. Maybe the homeworking shift is a way of starting this?

Agree. Look at the Paris proposals for the 15 minute city.

I also think that the self driving vehicle is a large part of the solution. This is much easier with electric vehicles ( vastly simpler and safer to arrange computer control of an electric mechanism ) and some of the opportunities are:

Vastly less overall cost: we don't have all the expensive kit sitting about doing nothing.
Less journey cost: don't have to pay a driver so taxi operations are far cheaper.
No drivers, so available 24/7 and can 'park' anywhere waiting for hire.
Vastly less urban clutter.
Very intelligent traffic management: vehiclea are all networked and can be directed round obstacles.
Fewer accidents: vehicles know where they are, know where conflicting traffic is, don't lose their tempers.
No more 'boy ( or girl ) racers'.
No more worrying about charging point locations.
Using trains & buses becomes easier: The problem with trains is that you need to get to the station somehow ....
Getting rid of the expensive-car-status-symbol-crappola might, just might, encourage everyone to be a bit more sensible about journeys and use feet and bicycles more ???

[kwackers]

Get real krackers!
The cheapest battery car with a 300mile range is £50k! Who's going to pay that?
Narrow terraced streets with space for parking on one side only? Are we going to see extension leads trailing across all these roads?
What about lorries? Are they going to tow a trailer with the battery pack on board?
Battery cars are okay for use around towns but in the real world they're not the answer.
You obviously don't know very much about making batterys!

I wish I had my EV bingo card, full house right there!

First they don't cost £50k. Second EV's are getting cheaper almost daily and for most folk a 300 mile range is nice to have but a long way from being essential.
(FWIW you can buy an MG5 with a 200 mile plus range for not much over £20k and that's a decent sized estate car - how much is the cheapest IC estate car? Throw in the low cost of ownership and running and it's pretty much a no brainer if your journeys are usually less than 200 miles).

There are solutions for narrow terraces streets, all that's missing is the roll out. But then destination charging will probably work for most. I mean they do drive somewhere surely?
Train stations, local parking, pubs, restaurants, shopping malls, supermarkets, even lampposts have chargers these days and this is only going to accelerate as demand grows.
Ultimately the slight inconvenience some folk will have (compared to the inconvenience of finding increasingly remote petrol stations) will be offset by the low cost of ownership not to mention the improvement in air quality in their narrow street.

Battery cars are already around in "the real world", for a majority the current crop work more than well enough. In a few years you'd really need a special use case to not find one that would work for you.

I know a lot about making batteries. Which aspect do you want to discuss?
Lithium "mines"? (Most lithium comes from Australia and apparently shortly from Cornwall).
Cobalt mines? (Cobalt's main use is in refining fuel for IC engines and the amount used in lithium car batteries is falling fast and will shortly be zero).
Recycling? (Current recycling systems are recovering 90-95% of the raw materials in the battery)
Perhaps there's some other aspect of "making batteries" you want to discuss over and beyond the nonsense that's perpetuated on social media.

[Jdsk]

Maybe we need a touch of the Schumacher 'Small is beautiful' and re-organise ourselves into local communities with local facilities and local jobs. Families can then stay together, we can all walk to the shops etc. Maybe the homeworking shift is a way of starting this?

Agree. Look at the Paris proposals for the 15 minute city.

I also think that the self driving vehicle is a large part of the solution. This is much easier with electric vehicles ( vastly simpler and safer to arrange computer control of an electric mechanism )...

Agree x 4 (I think).

And the last interacts with decreased personal ownership, summoning, and the cars not living on residential streets.

Jonathan

[kwackers]

Maybe we need a touch of the Schumacher 'Small is beautiful' and re-organise ourselves into local communities with local facilities and local jobs. Families can then stay together, we can all walk to the shops etc. Maybe the homeworking shift is a way of starting this?

Agree. Look at the Paris proposals for the 15 minute city.

I also think that the self driving vehicle is a large part of the solution. This is much easier with electric vehicles ( vastly simpler and safer to arrange computer control of an electric mechanism )...

Agree x 4 (I think).

And the last interacts with decreased personal ownership, summoning, and the cars not living on residential streets.

Jonathan

I did originally pin my hopes on EV's requiring smaller lighter cars thus breaking the trend towards bigger and bigger vehicles.
I obviously underestimated just how much people like big cars...

But self driving I think is most likely the real disruptive tech. If I could use an app on my phone to call a car that appears within minutes outside my door and is mine for the duration of my requirements then I doubt I'd bother ever buying a car again.
In one foul swoop it fixes a lot of issues. Removes the need to have expensive vehicles lining streets particularly on the aforementioned narrow terraces who's occupants often daren't use their car anyway for fear of losing their parking.
Removes vast car parking space, is safer, cleaner, uses less resources - in fact it's difficult to find a negative.

[Jdsk]

Agree. Look at the Paris proposals for the 15 minute city.

I also think that the self driving vehicle is a large part of the solution. This is much easier with electric vehicles ( vastly simpler and safer to arrange computer control of an electric mechanism )...

Agree x 4 (I think).

And the last interacts with decreased personal ownership, summoning, and the cars not living on residential streets.

But self driving I think is most likely the real disruptive tech. If I could use an app on my phone to call a car that appears within minutes outside my door and is mine for the duration of my requirements then I doubt I'd bother ever buying a car again.
In one foul swoop it fixes a lot of issues. Removes the need to have expensive vehicles lining streets particularly on the aforementioned narrow terraces who's occupants often daren't use their car anyway for fear of losing their parking.
Removes vast car parking space, is safer, cleaner, uses less resources - in fact it's difficult to find a negative.

Yes. I'd add the ability to summon an appropriate vehicle for the immediate need rather than buying one that attempts to cover all foreseeable needs. You can get a glimpse of that from car clubs that offer a panel van as well as hatchbacks.

Jonathan

[mjr]

The cheapest battery car with a 300mile range is £50k! Who's going to pay that?

Our car has a range of approx 280 miles and cost hugely less than £50k

And you can only use even that safely without a recharging-length stop if double-crewed.

And as I understand it, rapid charge is typically 20% to 80%, so effectively you get only 60% of quoted range between stops for a long distance journey. Rail and ICE are currently simpler for distance, if dearer per trip.

I doubt I am unusual in that I would only need a long distance vehicle for occasional journeys. Is anyone hiring long range EVs out yet?

[thirdcrank]

I appreciate you are using 'cleaner' in the environmental sense but I fear one negative with the type of system you describe is that many users will treat them badly.. There's an obvious limit to how they can be driven like dodgems imposed by the system itself, but the insides may end up being middens.

[Jdsk]

Is anyone hiring long range EVs out yet?

I looked into this in 2019 and early in 2020, and the answer was effectively "No" or "Not at anywhere near an acceptable price".

But of course you can switch to a small EV or no personal car and hire a long range/ larger/ better at bike carrying ICE vehicle when needed. I've rented cars for one-way trips to enable bike tours.

Jonathan

[kwackers]

I appreciate you are using 'cleaner' in the environmental sense but I fear one negative with the type of system you describe is that many users will treat them badly.. There's an obvious limit to how they can be driven like dodgems imposed by the system itself, but the insides may end up being middens.

Have you seen the insides of most peoples cars now? I doubt most will notice...

I'd imagine you'd end up with competing companies, some which look after their vehicles and some cheaper ones that don't.
You pays your money and you take your chances.

There are already such hire schemes (but without the auto summon/self driving), I guess we could look at them for a hint of the future.

[al_yrpal]

We are moving. The reason is to head somewhere where we dont have to get in a car to get a pint of milk and which has buses to the town centre. We have found a lovely old Georgian place in a village like suburb of the County town. We will keep some vehicles, our old VW camper, a petrol vehicle of sime sort for long journeys and we will consider an inexpensive EV for local journeys. My partner had a condition which affected her legs and for the moment at least cant cycle.

I heard that the Nissan Leaf might be a good choice but am nervous about the condition of a battery on a SH vehicle. Any recommendations?

Al