wheelyhappy99 wrote: ↑3 Dec 2024, 11:49pm
Yes, the people who face a really big disincentive to BEVs are those who can't charge at home. Which is why I've been pressing our useless county council to implement on street charging provision at or near domestic tariffs. Lighting columns are almost always on unmetered supplies, with a fixed payment to the utility company based on cheap night time pricing. Just what's needed for BEVs. Reading has lots of older back streets with charging points on street light columns. As I have posted before, 10,000 miles charged at home costs me under £200. So for fortunate people like me who can charge at home the fact that service areas and McDonalds prices are higher per mile than petrol is pretty insignificant. I only need to charge up enough to complete a long journey and get home.
An interesting response above, thank you. (Edit. A bit of a search through your earlier posts gives good data too). It would have been good though to reference the originator of the text that you responded to.
Whether intentional or not what I’ve seen is smoke and mirrors; in all types of commerce companies try to confuse the customer but what’s really frustrating to me is that BEV ‘converts’ too often seem to glaze over any down sides (of BEV’s) and praise the good stuff. In nearly any decision making process one needs to know (virtually) all of the facts and not just (seemingly) cherry picked ones.
10,000 miles for £200 seems like incredible value to me, certainly a better ratio than the (roughly) 300 miles of additional range that I get for £40 of petrol - but it’s nice to have a range of nearly 400 miles. I wonder though what 10,000 miles at 50p per KWh would cost? My estimate for that mileage in a BEV is £1250 (and the 50p rate is around what’s typical for local in street charging), interestingly - though I must check my maths again - that’s about what the petrol would cost me for a similar mileage ((40/300)x10,000 = 1333). These days my annual mileage is relatively low, maybe 5000 miles per year, so there’s not that much to save on my fuel bills - and don’t forget that the (home sourced) electricity still has to be paid for too. (To my estimate, with standard domestic rate electricity and 5000 miles per year, I’d save circa £330 a year on fuel charges - nice, but see below.)
Doing a bit more quick maths a car that does 4 miles per KWh and is charged at the standard domestic rate (not off-peak) of 25p per KWh would cost (circa) £625 for those 10,000 miles. That’s more than the £200 headline price, the reduction is due to you using an off-peak tariff (Octopus, I think), but it’s still a nice saving - it’s effectively ‘half price petrol’, but see the next paragraph
. If you have an off-peak tariff then electricity used in other parts of the day is charged at a higher tariff than, would be the case, if you only used the standard tariff for the whole of the day (ie. The cost of other usage rises).
https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/energy-price-cap
Just talking money; I’d say that even the best savings on fuel costs (eg. above, about £1000 per 10,000 miles) were relatively unimportant compared to: the depreciation, the risks (of getting either a lemon or something that’s otherwise a poor buy), and the costs of changing a vehicle. That (those) and that the fuel cost savings - if any - are very much dependant on personal circumstances and usage.
Whilst talking about money, don’t forget that external (fitted to your house) BEV charging points cost money too; maybe budget £1500 and hope for some change. Perhaps sticking to a granny charger (13 amp plug and existing socket), at least to start with, makes sense; granny chargers put range on your car at the rate of circa 12 mph and that could be all the home charging rate needed. I’m also concerned about higher insurance premiums too, ‘cause nearly all the electric cars that I’ve found have been in high insurance groups.
IMHO If the Government is serious about BEV’s then it should be focusing its resources on lowering the cost of public charging and not wasting funds on benefit in kind tax relief as applied to luxurious BEV’s (cap such relief and limit relief to BEV’s that are both plain and small).
Don’t fret, it’s OK to: ride a simple old bike; ride slowly, walk, rest and admire the view; ride off-road; ride in your raincoat; ride by yourself; ride in the dark; and ride one hundred yards or one hundred miles. Your bike and your choices to suit you.