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Battery Electric Vehicles: the practicalities
Posted: 11 Aug 2023, 11:08am
by Jdsk
I'd be very interested in the experiences and thoughts of other people who ride bikes on the practicalities of BEVs. Things they wish they'd known, how they manage charging, carrying HPVs inside, on top, on the back, or on trailers. Taking them on ferries. Sharing or renting rather than owning.
There are multiple other existing threads on marketing of EVs and on energy and transport policy. I hope that those important topics won't be duplicated here.
Thanks
Jonathan
Re: Battery Electric Vehicles: the practicalities
Posted: 11 Aug 2023, 12:15pm
by jimlews
Perhaps this subject would be better moved to the Electric Pedal Cycles section.
Re: Battery Electric Vehicles: the practicalities
Posted: 11 Aug 2023, 12:19pm
by Jdsk
Sorry if I wasn't clear. This is about car-like objects.
Jonathan
Re: Battery Electric Vehicles: the practicalities
Posted: 12 Aug 2023, 11:23am
by cycle tramp
What you've may essentially done, is the equivalent of a first time poster to this forum writing something like 'I want to go car free next year, and go everywhere by bike. What's the practicalities of push bike travel'...
..alot of the responses will be coloured with the usual view points;
The technology which was used,
Whether or not we were comfortable maintaining it ourselves,
Our own life styles,
And the conditions that the vehicle(s) were used in..
By page 5 the whole thread would have descended into a massive handbag fight* about brakes, transmission, multi track vs single track, folding bike vs human powered vehicles..
By page 35 the thread would have had to have been locked and CUK would be in negotiation for selling the rights to the thread to Peter Jackson for his next trilogy...
'brotherhood of the chainring' 'the two tyre levers' and 'The turn of the spoke key'
(*see previous post under inner tubes)
Re: Battery Electric Vehicles: the practicalities
Posted: 12 Aug 2023, 4:38pm
by gaz
Mrs gaz has had a BEV for a little more than two years, it's the only car in the gaz household.
We fit two folded bikes inside for pootling day-trip adventures. For our use the practicalities are no different to an ICEV.
Re: Battery Electric Vehicles: the practicalities
Posted: 12 Aug 2023, 7:38pm
by Grandad
Wot's a BEV? How does it differ from all the other electric cars?
Re: Battery Electric Vehicles: the practicalities
Posted: 12 Aug 2023, 7:49pm
by simonhill
B battery
E electric
V vehicle
In other words what most people know as an electric car or an EV. Presumably to differentiate from hybrids and maybe others.
Re: Battery Electric Vehicles: the practicalities
Posted: 12 Aug 2023, 9:17pm
by ncutler
Our Kia E-Niro is now 3 years old after approx 35,000 miles ( would have been more without covid ).
It's very pleasant to drive. There are no issues; it's just a car.
Re: Battery Electric Vehicles: the practicalities
Posted: 12 Aug 2023, 10:41pm
by Cowsham
My brother has been preaching the Nissan Leaf BEV Gospel to me for the last 9 years -- the other day he had to free up and RR grease the calipers the other day cause the brakes were so seldom used and therefore pads never changed the calipers had rusted to the piston housing. Not a big job -- changed the pads even though not all that much wear on old ones.
Tyres last a longer time than ic cars as he has changed tyres less times than me even though doing many more miles than our old yaris ( we got the cars around the same )
We've had ours now since the end of May and we both love it. It gets charging about once a week or every 10 days or so. It's great not to have to use a filling station just plug it in some night during the week or the night before a long planned journey the next day. The car is set to charge during the economy 7 hours.
The air conditioning starts almost immediately as does any heating, demisting windows etc cos the power to do it is always available ie it doesn't depend on the engine water being hot and this can be programmed to happen before you get into the car from an app on your phone.
Steering wheel and seats are heated which will save on battery use during winter cos it takes much more energy to heat the air in the car ( although I'd have that on before we set off on a cold day so it would use grid energy instead of battery to preheat the car.)
The birds eye view is great for parking in tight spaces.
Re: Battery Electric Vehicles: the practicalities
Posted: 14 Aug 2023, 9:30am
by simonhill
My friend is on his second Nissan Leaf. He bought an older one, was very impressed so bought a much newer one. He loves it and is an annoyingly devoted convert.
Occasional slips in the perfection, mainly due to range and where and how to charge on the few long trips he makes. Going SW appears a problem.
He says that he rarely uses the brakes as he tries to make the most of the regenerative braking which adds greatly to range.
My view. He spent about £1,000 getting his house electrically ev ready. He spent probably twice what he would have previously spent on a newish second-hand car. Certainly in the early days he drove more because it was so cheap (charging overnight at 2p per kWh). Range is a consideration and he has broken journey to stay in hotel, etc to get mid way charge adding to expense. For anything within range it seems to be excellent.
I can see why he bought it, but in pure economic terms it costs more overall. I see it as a (green) life choice that he can afford and is prepared to pay a bit more for.
Turning to more general point, in a recent newsfeed from Auto trader, it said cost of 2nd hand EVs was falling quite sharply due to oversupply. A further update said this would be made worse as big company fleets were dumped on the market.
Newish EVs carry the battery warranty on, but as these cars get older there must be a major worry if you are buying a car with little warranty. I could see the secondhand market for older EVs collapsing. They may become very cheap, but with a risk, although hopefully fairly cheap secondhand battery swaps will become part of the motor trade.
Re: Battery Electric Vehicles: the practicalities
Posted: 14 Aug 2023, 10:34am
by Carlton green
simonhill wrote: ↑14 Aug 2023, 9:30am
My friend is on his second Nissan Leaf. He bought an older one, was very impressed so bought a much newer one. He loves it and is an annoyingly devoted convert.
Occasional slips in the perfection, mainly due to range and where and how to charge on the few long trips he makes. Going SW appears a problem.
He says that he rarely uses the brakes as he tries to make the most of the regenerative braking which adds greatly to range.
My view. He spent about £1,000 getting his house electrically ev ready. He spent probably twice what he would have previously spent on a newish second-hand car. Certainly in the early days he drove more because it was so cheap (charging overnight at 2p per kWh). Range is a consideration and he has broken journey to stay in hotel, etc to get mid way charge adding to expense. For anything within range it seems to be excellent.
I can see why he bought it, but in pure economic terms it costs more overall. I see it as a (green) life choice that he can afford and is prepared to pay a bit more for.
Turning to more general point, in a recent newsfeed from Auto trader, it said cost of 2nd hand EVs was falling quite sharply due to oversupply. A further update said this would be made worse as big company fleets were dumped on the market.
Newish EVs carry the battery warranty on, but as these cars get older there must be a major worry if you are buying a car with little warranty. I could see the secondhand market for older EVs collapsing. They may become very cheap, but with a risk, although hopefully fairly cheap secondhand battery swaps will become part of the motor trade.
Though maybe a nice bonus I don’t think that the OP intended his thread to sing the praises of BEV’s but rather just honest ‘what’s it likes?’.
That said I extract from the above:
# They’re enjoyable to drive.
# Converts can be a pain.
# Preparing to use one (home charge installation) is a significant expense.
# Buying one is double what you’d pay for a comparable ICE car, so budget accordingly.
# Fuelling at home can be very cheap.
# Prices of second hand models are dropping but battery life is a liability that might prove to be difficult/impossible to handle.
# Range limits can be constraining and force either plan changes or additional costs … or both.
Sort of stuff we’ve read elsewhere - but good to verify - and otherwise they’re not much different in use to an automatic gear ICE car (steer, accelerate and brake).
It’d be interesting if someone commented on the availability of servicing (my local small garages wouldn’t touch them) and about insurance costs (from what I’ve found the BEV’s tend to be in high insurance groups).
Similarly I’ve a couple of friends with early Leafs, they’re very pleased with them as second cars for local(ish) motoring, but they have found that can’t really be reliably taken anywhere distant - and particularly so when you’ve got passengers to think of too. At some point I’ll probably get a Leaf too, as a local vehicle, and learn to live with the range limitations / challenges.
Re: Battery Electric Vehicles: the practicalities
Posted: 14 Aug 2023, 10:55am
by simonhill
Thanks for making mine into points, I do normally write narrative.
Re servicing, but not from car owners. Another news feed said that many mechanics would lose their jobs and car repair places would go out of business.
Reasons: expensive training; special tools needed (insulated); special equipment eg hoists (insulated and heavy); more space due to fire risk in workshop. It also said that the car companies weren't making technical info available so small garages unable to do the work.
No idea if any of this is true, it was written from the perspective of garage mechanics losing their jobs. The bottom line for the car owner being that only main dealers would be able to service EVs with associated high(er) cost.
Re: Battery Electric Vehicles: the practicalities
Posted: 14 Aug 2023, 11:14am
by Carlton green
simonhill wrote: ↑14 Aug 2023, 10:55am
Thanks for making mine into points, I do normally write narrative.
Re servicing, but not from car owners. Another news feed said that many mechanics would lose their jobs and car repair places would go out of business.
Reasons: expensive training; special tools needed (insulated); special equipment eg hoists (insulated and heavy); more space due to fire risk in workshop. It also said that the car companies weren't making technical info available so small garages unable to do the work.
No idea if any of this is true, it was written from the perspective of garage mechanics losing their jobs. The bottom line for the car owner being that only main dealers would be able to service EVs with associated high(er) cost.
Thanks for your tolerance, I didn’t think that you’d mind and bullet points help me.
Re: Battery Electric Vehicles: the practicalities
Posted: 15 Aug 2023, 11:18pm
by Pete Owens
simonhill wrote: ↑14 Aug 2023, 10:55am
Re servicing, but not from car owners. Another news feed said that many mechanics would lose their jobs and car repair places would go out of business.
Reasons: expensive training; special tools needed (insulated); special equipment eg hoists (insulated and heavy); more space due to fire risk in workshop. It also said that the car companies weren't making technical info available so small garages unable to do the work.
No idea if any of this is true, it was written from the perspective of garage mechanics losing their jobs.
The thing they are worried about is that EVs need less servicing due to being much simpler machines with fewer moving parts.