What does this say about the whole enterprise? I know that, with my present car use, neither a hybrid nor an all-electric would work for me. The former would save little or nothing on my long motorway runs, and the latter wouldn't have the range - besides there being a lack of recharge points.
It appears that others have got it wrong too.
I'm still waiting. We need a solution, somehow.
It says that the tax system's up the shoot and poorly thought through. BIK is the motivator and mpg often incidental, if the driver has a fuel card.
I saw that and thought it confirmed my frequent arguments about how diesels are still the best option for minimising CO2 for "open road" driving. However the subsidy of fleet purchases will put a lot of these vehicles out on the secondhand market at a more affordable price, where they will be used for the sort of driving that they are good for. My diesel cars started their lives in that way and in ten years time I may get to buy one of the hybrids introduced through this scheme instead of a diesel and I will plug it in if the prices remain at a similar or better ratio to present.
661-Pete wrote:What does this say about the whole enterprise?
I'm still waiting. We need a solution, somehow.
It says that the tax system's up the shoot and poorly thought through. BIK is the motivator and mpg often incidental, if the driver has a fuel card.
Yep. Nothing to do with hybrid cars and everything to do with the tax system.
In a few years the market will be flooded with hybrids with hardly used batteries. Bargain for the sort of folk who do a fair amount of local miles with the odd long trip thrown in.
The solution is that you are responsible for you. What that means is when the tipping point occurs and electric cars are everywhere you need to hope there are enough IC car owners out there to support the infra structure you'll need to use your IC car. If not then you'll need to change your lifestyle. IC cars were only ever going to be temporary.
Just for balance/completeness, let's not just confine their utility to that profile, especially if the driver thinks a bit (OK, obsesses a bit in someone's case* )
Because one can typically use the stored battery power when one chooses, it's easy enough to make sure that it is used where it has most benefit. In my Prius Plug-In I was posting headline mpgs across a tank of 80+, even with the tiny battery capacity from the conventional cell because I used it at start and end of a 55 mile commute into London down the M40.
*Keeping the AC switched off on cold mornings until I wanted to use the ICE, for instance, because otherwise it would force the engine to run.
A long story but my experiences: In my last job with a company car, I chose the only plug in hybrid on my list purely for the low benefit in kind. It was a Mitsubishi Outlander 4x4, it has a 2 litre petrol engine and batteries, the battery range was 23 miles, the car came with a free of charge charging point installed at home but I couldn't charge it at home for 3 months as my employer hadn't worked out how to reimburse me for charging the car. I am a rep doing hundreds of miles per day, the Outlander returned 30 miles per gallon, when charged at home, this went up to about 40 miles per gallon. In conclusion, the wrong car for the job but I was happy paying low benefits in kind.
Earlier this year, I changed job and got a Hyundai ioniq plug in hybrid, again personal choice purely driven by low benefits in kind. The home charger for the Outlander will not fit the Ioniq, great! My employer pays all my fuel, business and private, I have a fuel card. They have not mentioned how I would be reimbursed for charging the car at home and I will not pay £200 of my own money to change mt home charger to fit the Ioniq. I do charge the Ioniq when I visit the office once a month, a full charge gives me a 35 mile range but takes 2.1/2 hours, even on a rapid charger. I do charge the car weekly when we go shopping on the podpoint free of charge network of chargers but the 45 minutes we are shopping only gives me about 15 miles range. The good thing is the Ioniq gives 60 miles per gallon even when I don't plug it in. The way I see it, the government has introduced tax advantages for company car drivers to drive plug in hybrids that are not the best car for the job. There is no joined up thinking as different car makes have different charging plugs. My Ioniq is incapable of taking a rapid charge so to charge it at a motorway service area would take 2.1/2 hours and give an electric range of 35 miles, not realistic. Having said that, more companies are now installing electric car charge points where I can plug my car in but my average meetings are less than an hour so it doesn't give me a huge electric range. I could be cynical and question the competence of government ministers, 25 years ago, everybody was encouraged to drive diesels with low benefits in kind for diesel cars. Now, they have changed the rules and electric / hybrid cars attract low benefits in kind. What will they be encouraging us to drive next?
wrangler_rover wrote:What will they be encouraging us to drive next?
In an ideal world, nothing That is, discouraging all private motoring due to the costs to the public purse. However, in the real world, we're told that pure electric and hydrogen are the 2 preferred options... We do live in interesting times
wrangler_rover wrote:...a full charge gives me a 35 mile range but takes 2.1/2 hours, even on a rapid charger.
Oh the irony! Many people could cycle 35 miles in 2½ hours.
Suppose that this room is a lift. The support breaks and down we go with ever-increasing velocity. Let us pass the time by performing physical experiments... --- Arthur Eddington (creator of the Eddington Number).
wrangler_rover wrote:full charge gives me a 35 mile range but takes 2.1/2 hours, even on a rapid charger.
If it takes 2.5 hours to get 35 miles then you're not rapid charging. Might be a rapid charger but the car simply isn't supporting it.
A true rapid charger can put anything up to 200 miles on a car in around 40 minutes and the next generation even quicker than that.
But that's 'true' electric cars with proper batteries and charging systems. I suspect (but don't know) that a lot of hybrids the battery is an occasional use thing probably designed to charge in a couple of hours over pretty much any charger. In fact if you think about it there's no real need to put an expensive charger plus all the battery protection gear into something that only does 35 miles and has an IC engine it can use anyway.
<edit> A quick look on Hyundai's site says the Ioniq has a 8.9kw battery - which if it charges up in 2.5 hours means it's actually only charging at standard three pin mains plug level. It also says it has no rapid charge capability (which does sortof suggest you may as well just use a standard extension cable to charge it at home).
Practical question - this is only hypothetical because I have no present plans to switch to plug-in - but if ever....
Seems that with many of these fully-electrics and hybrids you get a home charger point installed - which is presumably different from a standard 13A socket. Fine and good - if practicable. Now: my garage and driveway are detached from my house, with about 10 yards of garden in between.
There is mains power in the garage, supplied by a single SWA cable buried under the lawn, and serving one 13A socket plus lighting in the garage. This cable was put in - amateurishly - by the previous owner of my house: spurred off a 13A socket in the house. Unfused and possibly illegal - but I still use it because I have no alternative for powering the garage - and remedying it would involve digging up the garden.
Almost certainly this would be unsuitable for wiring to a car charge-point. For one thing, it would be drawing off a ring-main in the house, also it would be even more illegal since it would be a spur-on-a-spur. Anyway I doubt if there would be enough current. I presume these home charger points have to be wired to a separate circuit off the consumer unit (which in our case, is on the opposite side of the house).
So if I ever want to charge a car at home, what do I do? Just run an extension lead across the garden, whatever the weather, and charge at low current? Have a large part of my garden (including a patio) excavated at enormous expense?
Parking the car in front of the house would shorten the distance to the CU, but that would mean running a cable across the public pavement.
What are others' experiences?
Suppose that this room is a lift. The support breaks and down we go with ever-increasing velocity. Let us pass the time by performing physical experiments... --- Arthur Eddington (creator of the Eddington Number).
661-Pete wrote:Practical question - this is only hypothetical because I have no present plans to switch to plug-in - but if ever....
I haven't had an electric car charger put in but in the past I had power run to a 12kw kiln which ran under the floor in 25mm(?) armoured cable.
A 40kw car will charge from empty to full in 12 hours or so with a 13A plug, so in theory they'd all charge up overnight. If you didn't flatten the battery completely or need the full distance the next day then its likely you'd never have an issue and if you did there are always public fast chargers. I suspect for most people a slow charger would work fine, it's not likely you'd often run a car completely flat and a few hours later need the full distance available.
The chargers most folk have fitted I think are only 7-10kw anyway so you'd be halving the charge time but as above if you don't need it to charge that fast then why bother.
<edit> Apparently most slow chargers run at 11A so you'd be looking at 2.5Kw per hour, so a modern 40kw car eg a Leaf would need 16 hours to fully charge from empty. So if you flatten the battery, park the car up on the drive at 6pm it'll be full charged by 10am the next morning.
The limiting thing on the Ioniq is the fact that the car has not been designed to take a rapid charge so I an stuck with a 2.1/2 hour charge on a 16 amp or higher charging point or 4 hours on a 13 amp supply from a 3 pin plug. Plug in hybrids are intended for many short journeys, such as charge at home, drive 10 miles to work, charge at work, drive 10 miles home etc. Unfortunately, the take up of plug in hybrids is mainly from company car drivers such as me to minimise their company car tax liability and tend to do high mileage which defeats the object of having a plug in hybrid car. When I test drove the Ioniq in February, I tested the plug in hybrid, another person test drove a hybrid at the same time, as his requirement was for his own car not a company car, he told me the sums just didn't add up for paying the extra for a plug in hybrid.
My parking space is on the opposite side of the street from my house so no possible way of getting a battery charged at home. There must be many others in the same situation where recharging is not practicable. Range at present is another problem. For local use a couple of hundred miles is ok but for mainland use I would need at least 100 miles in reserve at all times.Roads are frequently closed for long periods of time and diversion routes can be in some cases over 100 miles. I use diesel and never let my tank get below half full for this very reason.
wrangler_rover wrote:..... and I will not pay £200 of my own money to change mt home charger to fit the Ioniq.
Less than £100 for a new cable with type 2 connector, sell old cable for >£50 and 30 minutes of your time to swap the cable.
I did just this when I moved from a Vauxhall Ampera (type 1) to Ioniq Electric (type 2). Of course when I asked the company that installed my charge point originally they told me I needed a new charge point costing hundreds of pounds even after the grant.
661-Pete wrote:Practical question - this is only hypothetical because I have no present plans to switch to plug-in - but if ever....
If you wanted a dedicated charge point then it sounds like you'd need to dig a trench and run a cable to your garage. It'd be expensive and disruptive, but you could reduce costs a bit by doing the trench yourself if possible.
Or you make use of public charge points if there are some locally. Not everyone will be able to charge at home, but then using a public rapid charge point a couple of times a week for around 30 minutes isn't such a big deal. For our mostly sedentary nation (this isn't aimed at you), that 30 minutes could be used to get some much needed exercise.
ambodach wrote:My parking space is on the opposite side of the street from my house so no possible way of getting a battery charged at home. There must be many others in the same situation where recharging is not practicable. Range at present is another problem. For local use a couple of hundred miles is ok but for mainland use I would need at least 100 miles in reserve at all times.Roads are frequently closed for long periods of time and diversion routes can be in some cases over 100 miles. I use diesel and never let my tank get below half full for this very reason.
It's interesting that you say the latter. IIRC you are on Mull? A cursory look at one of the charging maps shows there are many more charging stations than fuel stations on both Mull and the mainland.
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That is, discouraging all private motoring due to the costs to the public purse. However, in the real world, we're told that pure electric and hydrogen are the 2 preferred options... We do live in interesting times 
