what the heck is going on??

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kwackers
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Re: what the heck is going on??

Post by kwackers »

al_yrpal wrote: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

Depends how old the leaf is.
The older Leaf is only 24Kw so the realistic range is only around 60 miles minus any degradation.
The newer 30Kw battery is a much better bet, I think the tech is better and obvs being bigger can handle more degradation before there's an issue.
(And being newer will generally have less).

On the plus side it's fairly easy to check the state of the health of a Leaf battery and often it's just a single module which is dodgy so not to expensive to fix.
Lots of bumf on the web about how to do this, but be worth your while having someone with some knowledge of them to check it out with you.
(Google 'Leaf Spy')

Ultimately though if the battery has good health and the range is well within what you'd like then you should have no problems.
(Most of the one's I've seen that needed work have all been taxi's)
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Re: what the heck is going on??

Post by Vorpal »

The Leaf is really popular in Norway. A friend has one, and a couple of car share companies, here, use them in their fleets, so I would expect them to be pretty reliable. Car share companies base such decisions on relatively short term (under 5 years) costs, but keep them longer than the international car hire companies.
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Mick F
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Re: what the heck is going on??

Post by Mick F »

The Leaf is a big car.
Too big for our needs.
Renault Zoe is a better size.

We have a Yaris Hybrid, and that's on the big side for us.
Mick F. Cornwall
kwackers
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Re: what the heck is going on??

Post by kwackers »

Mick F wrote:The Leaf is a big car.
Too big for our needs.
Renault Zoe is a better size.

We have a Yaris Hybrid, and that's on the big side for us.

Leaf is a little over a foot longer, there's really not much in it.
(Zoe is taller)
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Mick F
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Re: what the heck is going on??

Post by Mick F »

Zoe vs Leaf vs our Yaris.
Overall dimensions.

4067mm x 1787mm
4490mm x 1788mm
3950mm x 1695mm

Whatever happened to small cars?
Mick F. Cornwall
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al_yrpal
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Re: what the heck is going on??

Post by al_yrpal »

Mick F wrote:Zoe vs Leaf vs our Yaris.
Overall dimensions.

4067mm x 1787mm
4490mm x 1788mm
3950mm x 1695mm

Whatever happened to small cars?


Important to me because the new house has a brick wall entrance thats very tight for my current Seat Ateca. Rebuild would be seriously expensive. . At 1605 my VW Camper is narrower than all of those, fits in a standard parking space too.

Al
Last edited by al_yrpal on 19 Mar 2021, 8:06pm, edited 1 time in total.
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RickH
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Re: what the heck is going on??

Post by RickH »

Mick F wrote:Zoe vs Leaf vs our Yaris.
Overall dimensions.

4067mm x 1787mm
4490mm x 1788mm
3950mm x 1695mm

Whatever happened to small cars?

Citroën Ami - electric, small & around €6k (but, before you ask, it doesn't have 300 miles range :wink:)

[youtube]w9QdRGT3Vvs[/youtube]

:D
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Mick F
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Re: what the heck is going on??

Post by Mick F »

There's small and there's tiny! :lol:

We had a Fiat500 up to a few years ago, and that was too small. Looked at small cars generally, but they're too small like the 500 was.
We want something half-way between maybe.

Not that we're not happy with the 2014 Yaris, but the views out of the windows to see the extremities of the vehicle when parking is terrible, and that combined with the dreadful wheel-lock makes it an absolute pain.

If we could get the Yaris Hybrid in a smaller package, we'd grab it like a shot.
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al_yrpal
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Re: what the heck is going on??

Post by al_yrpal »

That Citroen looks like a milk float in disguise :lol:

Al

I once had a Light 15 and always lusted after a DS 19 so I am quite a fan of Citroen quirkyness
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Stevek76
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Re: what the heck is going on??

Post by Stevek76 »

The dutch 'culture' argument is common but ultimately rubbish. Take a look at them in the 70s, going the same way we were and there's even footage around of angry entitled motorists kicking over barriers of closed roads. Also utrecht is over 50% on more recent stats. The nationwide modeshare has been largely static as a result of cycling decreases in rural areas/suburbs offsetting the increases in cities, though as I said this is starting to reverse now with the combination of ebikes and rural infrastructure.

Regarding idealism/realism, at no point have I suggested that cars (in the form of EVs) won't remain a significant modeshare, indeed the average dutch resident travels slightly further by car on average than someone in GB does. There's also a difference between what is realistic and what this particular government will realistically do. I can argue for the former without expecting the latter :)

Presently we're roughly in this situation:

Car (ICE): very heavily subsidised (expect possibly on quiet rural roads)
Car (EV): ditto - somewhat lower externalities but offset by tax breaks/direct subsidies
Rail & Bus: moderately subsidised
Cycle (in all its variants): negative (largely due to health benefits reducing long term costs)

I really don't see any reason to be subsidising EVs when the same price differential effect can be achieved by charging & restricting the top one greater. Meanwhile investment should be aimed heavily in the bottom two. Road user charging would also be a significant help as this can better target where cars do the most damage (cities, over £1/km). This is something that has resurfaced as a concept again and I suspect it might actually gain some traction this time, not least because technology is in a far better place (few cars don't have GPS built in) and the treasury is acutely aware of the hole that fuel duty will leave.

That report seems to spend most of its time telling us how hard these things are to measure and uses words like "uncertain" quite a lot.


You are welcome to find an alternative, however this report is not out of line with other research in this area and the conclusions take into account the uncertainties. Should be noted that defra's emission factors reflect this also and as far as AQ models in the UK go, PM emissions of EVs are little better than E6 petrols.

ncutler wrote: It turns out that one really does use the brakes less.


I'm guessing you're not really a MGIF driver though! I think there's a risk here that EV early adopters are invested in it as more than just a car, a not indicative of the wider public. You're far more likely to explore and fully utilise the all the features rather than just treat it as something that gets you from a to b.

We can see this with increasingly widespread PHEVs, people have picked them up, partly tempted by the initial tax saving, and then can't be bothered to plug them in very much.
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kwackers
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Re: what the heck is going on??

Post by kwackers »

Stevek76 wrote:I really don't see any reason to be subsidising EVs when the same price differential effect can be achieved by charging & restricting the top one greater. Meanwhile investment should be aimed heavily in the bottom two. Road user charging would also be a significant help as this can better target where cars do the most damage (cities, over £1/km). This is something that has resurfaced as a concept again and I suspect it might actually gain some traction this time, not least because technology is in a far better place (few cars don't have GPS built in) and the treasury is acutely aware of the hole that fuel duty will leave.

So you want to add an extra tax specifically to IC cars?
Right...
And you consider that to be realistic? Anyone who tries that stands no chance of being re-elected.
It's simple really, we won't give up our cars. If that's what you're holding out for then good luck and let us know how you get on.

FWIW if road pricing becomes a thing, it'll be because of EV's.
Without them the treasury would keep poking at vehicle tax and fuel duty. With no fuel duty road pricing becomes a cert.

Another point worth mentioning, new IC engines are (relatively) clean, but they don't remain that way. Wear and tear means emissions start rising from day one and that assumes they haven't been tampered with. In simple terms a 6 year old IC car will never be as clean as a new one.

And then "chipping" is still a thing and if the dieselgate saga tells you anything it's that performance isn't a comfortable bed fellow with clean and I'm pretty sure chipped cars aren't chipped to make them cleaner.
Then there's the emissions whilst you're waiting for your cat to warm up (better these days, but still not great) and the folk who have their soot filters removed (they should in theory fail the MOT but a lot of these places are fairly incestuous and 'matey').
Finally there's "dubious" fuel use - are emissions tested on the fairly wide range of stuff folk fill their cars with?
The latter two in my experience are fairly wide spread.
francovendee
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Re: what the heck is going on??

Post by francovendee »

It may be tax advantages rather than increasing taxes on IC cars may be the way to go.
It's certainly worked with my SIL, a real car enthusiast, who has just ordered an EV. He tells me tax for the benefit of a company car has shot up for IC cars.
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Re: what the heck is going on??

Post by sjs »

francovendee wrote:It may be tax advantages rather than increasing taxes on IC cars may be the way to go.
It's certainly worked with my SIL, a real car enthusiast, who has just ordered an EV. He tells me tax for the benefit of a company car has shot up for IC cars.


The tax advantage of EVs for company car drivers is huge, especially for higher rate tax payers. Paying for the lease of an EV out of gross income (no BIK tax to pay) makes Teslas very affordable.
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squeaker
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Re: what the heck is going on??

Post by squeaker »

sjs wrote:The tax advantage of EVs for company car drivers is huge, especially for higher rate tax payers. Paying for the lease of an EV out of gross income (no BIK tax to pay) makes Teslas very affordable.
That would explain why my nephew has just got a Model 3 (as a company car)...
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Re: what the heck is going on??

Post by Jdsk »

Stevek76 wrote:Car (ICE): very heavily subsidised (expect possibly on quiet rural roads)
Car (EV): ditto - somewhat lower externalities but offset by tax breaks/direct subsidies
Rail & Bus: moderately subsidised
Cycle (in all its variants): negative (largely due to health benefits reducing long term costs)

I really don't see any reason to be subsidising EVs when the same price differential effect can be achieved by charging & restricting the top one greater. Meanwhile investment should be aimed heavily in the bottom two.

Apart from the difficult politics of increasing charge for using ICEs (see next post) I'm in favour of subsidies for purchase of EVs at this phase of the migration because it will accelerate the availability of charging infrastructure and encourage the next purchaser to migrate.

But it would also be possible to do that by subsidising the charging infrastructure...

Jonathan
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