Carlton green wrote: ↑4 Dec 2024, 9:41am
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).
It’s an interesting reflection on the state of the transition to electric powered vehicles; and yet another reason to put off an electric vehicle purchase because whatever technology you buy into today will be clearly superseded - and cheaper too - within just a few years. I
I've too many other commitments to do more than dip into this forum occasionally, hence the delay in responding.
A few points.
The Octopus tariff gives overnight electricity (at least 6 hours, often 8 or more) at £0.18/kWh less than we paid previously. The uplift for daytime use is +£0.02. We also save by using the washing machine and anything else overnight too. Overall a v good deal for us.
We had a Zappi charger installed for noticeably less than the amount you mention. It will obviously vary depending on the existing incoming supply among other things, and of course the competitiveness of suppliers. I am bemused by the idea that 'sticking to a granny charger to start with' is a good move. The charging rate isn't enough to achieve 80% from 20% overnight. And I'm pretty sure that Octopus only offer the BEV tariff if you have a charging point. I don't know about other suppliers. Also it's worth bearing in mind that ICEs are being phased out. A car charging point will become another service houses are expected to have. Much like TV aerials once were, or more recently, fast broadband.
Any car can be a lemon, ICE or BEV. I bought a Golf estate from a reputable dealer. After a few weeks they picked it up to sort out a v minor issue. The whole tiptronic gearbox and flywheel assembly dismantled itself on their forecourt. (I got a full refund).
I'd like to see more investment in public transport, active travel and cheap public charging too. But if using BIK encourages people who aren't going to use those things and will, otherwise, get their next company ICE Range Rover or similar to get a big BEV instead it's still reducing emissions.
There's certainly a lot of cherry picking in many of the posts on this subject, and indeed home energy. I know people vary in their willingness to adapt to change. But in my view what's often absent is a recognition of the benefits, and need, to do so. We know ICEs and combustible fuels generally cause air pollution. We know air pollution causes ill health, increased NHS costs and many premature deaths. It's often reported that the poorest communities with low levels of car ownership are worst affected.
BEV technology is very likely to improve. Most technologies do. We don't know when solid state batteries or some other improvements will hit the showrooms, or what the price will be. We don't know when an adequate network of ultra rapid chargers will be available for them. We don't know how much network operators will need to spend to create it, or how much they will charge to recoup those costs. Our current car will still meet our requirements in terms of range and charging rate regardless of what comes next.
But we do know that air pollution and climate change are major problems now. Making the current 'good' the enemy of a possible future 'perfect' is, in my view irresponsible. It's the next generations who will have to live with our legacy.
