Lons
Established Member
Thanks for posting the videos NikNak. Ours friends car is in the video near the end.
Electric vehicles - again
- Thread starter Ozi
- Start date
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Brilliant. Presumably the chargers will now be uprooted and sent to the Gulag for fifteen years, or have their leads tied behind their backs and shot !
I’ve been driving 100% Ev for 5 years now and following the industry closely for 10. It’s sooo refreshing to see a thread that’s not polarised and an actual discussion! This is some bits to hopefully draw together the worries and give info on them, fully researched evidence base for all available if anyone would like it. I’ll put my personal experience in another reply in case anyone is interested as this is already going to be long.
TL/DR: EVs are way cheaper to run, can now be bought cheaply, are much more durable than was first thought. Gas Manufacturers joined fossil fuel companies and are desperately using the Tobacco industry playbook to delay EV uptake. The reason is obvious as soon as you start driving an EV, the gas car manufacturers make their money from maintenance. They know they are losing their cash cow as EV maintenance is next to 0. That’s a lot of lobbying money and PR influence.
Worries:
Battery life: everyone thought they’d have short life and Nissan Leafs supported it as they had no battery management eg no active heating cooling so they degrade really quickly. Tech has changed massively and even little city cars like the Fiat 500e have actively cooled /managed batteries now. Real world battery life now is far in excess of average engine life, replacement costs are down and the old batteries are 100% recyclable and being recycled with all the rare elements recaptured.
Range: OP is right the small city vehicles are niche but they have a growing place as fuel costs rise. It becomes viable to hire a petrol car for more long trips per year and still save money overall. Many households have one petrol one EV and the person doing the long trip takes the petrol making the hire days even less, only when 2 long trips are happening.
Fire: previous poster is right, EV fire is far rarer than Petrol per mile driven. This is pure myth put about by the gas car industry.
Extra CO2 to build: the “it takes 80k miles for an EV to offset the additional CO2 of manufacture” is another gas manufacturer myth. Yes it is higher, Fully researched evidenced actual is that after 13k miles petrol/diesel has overtaken EV for total emissions. A considerable chunk of that is the battery which is 100% recyclable.
Infrastructure: This one is true, bad and getting worse. Other than Tesla, there are far far too few rapid chargers in the places people need them. With 1 in 6 new cars being electric, this is a crisis that will be in the news in about a year. Most motorways only have 2 non Tesla chargers, the one I know that has 12 (Rugby M6) is regularly full, which gives an idea of real demand now, let alone next year. Delay has been part of the active lobbying of the car manufacturers/fossil fuel industry, it’s not an accident.
There’s some other common concerns that have not come up but you will often hear:
“generating electric uses fossil fuel anyway”
Yes but less than 50% last year (I couldn’t quite believe my eyes that we are over 50% average renewable generation annually but we are) and even then, a power station is on average 60% efficient, a good car 30%. Quite literally it’s better for the environment to use electric generated by coal than petrol/ diesel.
“insurance is more expensive” it can be, but Direct line in particular and a few others have changed that. My quotes this year were almost 3k with LV vs £450 Direct Line.
“battery materials are scarce and use child labour” again a real problem but one that is being addressed. Low Cobalt batteries are now normal in modern battery design (Cobalt pretty much only found in DRC and exploited labour/child labour a real issue). Nickel and Lithium are the bottleneck minerals and it’s a work in progress to sort it. Long term it’s fine as 15 years on from most people having EVs the old batteries will be being recycled into new ones, so there’s more than enough to go round in perpetuity, the issue is getting enough of it out of the ground quickly enough for the need as we transition.
“Why don’t we use Hydrogen” the manufacturers would love you to, see above for why. For cars, EV is 100% shown to be better than hydrogen. But, where it does come in, is for heavy goods vehicles, air travel etc. My wish/ prediction is that hydrogen generation from solar in remote impoverished dry places is the route out of poverty. It’s not practical to transport electricity very long distances which is the main reason we’ve not covered the Sahara in solar panels,not the sand etc. but, transporting Hydrogen is another matter, very doable. If someone would invest philanthropically in setting it up, many countries would become self sufficient and move towards parity in years. In reality I suspect the fossil fuel cos will transfer to hydrogen and will keep the profits as now :-(
TL/DR: EVs are way cheaper to run, can now be bought cheaply, are much more durable than was first thought. Gas Manufacturers joined fossil fuel companies and are desperately using the Tobacco industry playbook to delay EV uptake. The reason is obvious as soon as you start driving an EV, the gas car manufacturers make their money from maintenance. They know they are losing their cash cow as EV maintenance is next to 0. That’s a lot of lobbying money and PR influence.
Worries:
Battery life: everyone thought they’d have short life and Nissan Leafs supported it as they had no battery management eg no active heating cooling so they degrade really quickly. Tech has changed massively and even little city cars like the Fiat 500e have actively cooled /managed batteries now. Real world battery life now is far in excess of average engine life, replacement costs are down and the old batteries are 100% recyclable and being recycled with all the rare elements recaptured.
Range: OP is right the small city vehicles are niche but they have a growing place as fuel costs rise. It becomes viable to hire a petrol car for more long trips per year and still save money overall. Many households have one petrol one EV and the person doing the long trip takes the petrol making the hire days even less, only when 2 long trips are happening.
Fire: previous poster is right, EV fire is far rarer than Petrol per mile driven. This is pure myth put about by the gas car industry.
Extra CO2 to build: the “it takes 80k miles for an EV to offset the additional CO2 of manufacture” is another gas manufacturer myth. Yes it is higher, Fully researched evidenced actual is that after 13k miles petrol/diesel has overtaken EV for total emissions. A considerable chunk of that is the battery which is 100% recyclable.
Infrastructure: This one is true, bad and getting worse. Other than Tesla, there are far far too few rapid chargers in the places people need them. With 1 in 6 new cars being electric, this is a crisis that will be in the news in about a year. Most motorways only have 2 non Tesla chargers, the one I know that has 12 (Rugby M6) is regularly full, which gives an idea of real demand now, let alone next year. Delay has been part of the active lobbying of the car manufacturers/fossil fuel industry, it’s not an accident.
There’s some other common concerns that have not come up but you will often hear:
“generating electric uses fossil fuel anyway”
Yes but less than 50% last year (I couldn’t quite believe my eyes that we are over 50% average renewable generation annually but we are) and even then, a power station is on average 60% efficient, a good car 30%. Quite literally it’s better for the environment to use electric generated by coal than petrol/ diesel.
“insurance is more expensive” it can be, but Direct line in particular and a few others have changed that. My quotes this year were almost 3k with LV vs £450 Direct Line.
“battery materials are scarce and use child labour” again a real problem but one that is being addressed. Low Cobalt batteries are now normal in modern battery design (Cobalt pretty much only found in DRC and exploited labour/child labour a real issue). Nickel and Lithium are the bottleneck minerals and it’s a work in progress to sort it. Long term it’s fine as 15 years on from most people having EVs the old batteries will be being recycled into new ones, so there’s more than enough to go round in perpetuity, the issue is getting enough of it out of the ground quickly enough for the need as we transition.
“Why don’t we use Hydrogen” the manufacturers would love you to, see above for why. For cars, EV is 100% shown to be better than hydrogen. But, where it does come in, is for heavy goods vehicles, air travel etc. My wish/ prediction is that hydrogen generation from solar in remote impoverished dry places is the route out of poverty. It’s not practical to transport electricity very long distances which is the main reason we’ve not covered the Sahara in solar panels,not the sand etc. but, transporting Hydrogen is another matter, very doable. If someone would invest philanthropically in setting it up, many countries would become self sufficient and move towards parity in years. In reality I suspect the fossil fuel cos will transfer to hydrogen and will keep the profits as now :-(
My EV experience:
I’ve been driving 100% electric only cars since 2017 and we are now a 2 EV household.
I’ve had the lowest depreciation of any car I’ve ever owned with my Nissan Leaf which I got to help my saving towards my Tesla and on the “why wait” principle.
Bought 2017 for £8k Leafs do have a battery life issue see my other post for why so with 60k on the clock the battery and its price had dropped. My cost of ownership:
service /maintenance £275 (suspension bar in car Vs pothole challenge) no service needed. Insurance mot tyres etc = petrol car. Sold 2021 £5.5k. So 4.5 yrs total variable cost pa £600. With all depreciation and repairs added, I’ve never owned a car old or newish that’s been less than that and I’m the old git that has my data going back to 1990.
Over the time I used it (60k to 90k on the clock) it’s range dropped from 75m to 50). If i’d kept it, I’d have shelled out for the battery replacement equivalent to a new engine which was 8k and would have put it up to 185m range. Fuel savings would have gone towards that. I’ve not counted fuel savings as reduction in costs as they were towards my Tesla savings fund.
I sold the Nissan to a chap in London. He said it’s massively cheaper for him to hire a petrol car for odd out of London trip and 50m range is perfect for everything else (a classic case of the OP’s point). low range was a ball ache for me as I do quite a bit of long distance but I’m super motivated and for me it was worth it. But I 100% get that range like that is useless unless you are mostly city driving at which point the fuel savings more than pay for a few car hires for long trips.
2021, I bought a Tesla for 32k. (9 yrs of saving). 220m range, just over 100k on the clock and one of the old ones with free charging for the life of the car so my variable cost of ownership so far has been £75 for a minor repair and I’ve paid about £20 total for the odd top up at home. I’ve travelled 11k miles for under £100. The old Teslas are aluminium bodies, and I checked with 2 local body shops that they would do body repairs on Aly, so I’ve effectively got a car for life barring me wrapping it round a tree. I’ll save for a battery replacement which will be 22k but will put it up to 350m+range. There’s no sign of problems with the battery yet, it’s guaranteed for another 50k miles so free replacement if it fails soon and I’m saving about 2kpa in no fuel cost towards it. There’s a few 1million mile Tesla’s out there now and I’d like mine to be one of them in time. It’s not a cheap car, so for me the total cost of ownership will be higher than I’m used to, but its way cheaper than cars in its field. It’s a dream to drive with the “self driving” that’s no where near that yet obviously but gets better every month. I just “drove” to Hungary and back 3k miles travelled, of which I actually drove about 250 and just acted as driving instructor/babysitter for the car for the rest.
There are enough Tesla chargers everywhere this side of Turkey for almost all demand and they are building new ones at a massive rate. The same can’t be said for others!
My other half has just got a small ev and literally couldn’t find an empty fast charger on a recent trip. Other than that, there has been no problem with 2 EVs in the house; it’s cheap, relaxing to drive and 99.9% of the time takes 2 seconds to charge, get home, plug in, walk away. It’s preset on a timer and starts charging on cheap overnight electricity…
That’s the other worry I forgot to address in my essay of a post before, the “what happens when everyone gets home and plugs in” in reality, they use the electric that needs using at night, in fact the trial of EVs selling power back to the grid to support the 5.30-7.30pm demand, reducing the need for peaker plant generation went so well, it’s being rolled out now so the opposite will be the case.
Overall I’d not change back ever, my old car went to a friend who does very low milage and keeps it under a porch, the best case scenario of keeping on using an already built vehicle while minimising the pollution. I hope my Tesla will see me out and
I hope many more people look into a used EV as the risk with older cars of buying a lemon is far less of an issue as there’s so much less wear and tear of expensive bits!
I’ve been driving 100% electric only cars since 2017 and we are now a 2 EV household.
I’ve had the lowest depreciation of any car I’ve ever owned with my Nissan Leaf which I got to help my saving towards my Tesla and on the “why wait” principle.
Bought 2017 for £8k Leafs do have a battery life issue see my other post for why so with 60k on the clock the battery and its price had dropped. My cost of ownership:
service /maintenance £275 (suspension bar in car Vs pothole challenge) no service needed. Insurance mot tyres etc = petrol car. Sold 2021 £5.5k. So 4.5 yrs total variable cost pa £600. With all depreciation and repairs added, I’ve never owned a car old or newish that’s been less than that and I’m the old git that has my data going back to 1990.
Over the time I used it (60k to 90k on the clock) it’s range dropped from 75m to 50). If i’d kept it, I’d have shelled out for the battery replacement equivalent to a new engine which was 8k and would have put it up to 185m range. Fuel savings would have gone towards that. I’ve not counted fuel savings as reduction in costs as they were towards my Tesla savings fund.
I sold the Nissan to a chap in London. He said it’s massively cheaper for him to hire a petrol car for odd out of London trip and 50m range is perfect for everything else (a classic case of the OP’s point). low range was a ball ache for me as I do quite a bit of long distance but I’m super motivated and for me it was worth it. But I 100% get that range like that is useless unless you are mostly city driving at which point the fuel savings more than pay for a few car hires for long trips.
2021, I bought a Tesla for 32k. (9 yrs of saving). 220m range, just over 100k on the clock and one of the old ones with free charging for the life of the car so my variable cost of ownership so far has been £75 for a minor repair and I’ve paid about £20 total for the odd top up at home. I’ve travelled 11k miles for under £100. The old Teslas are aluminium bodies, and I checked with 2 local body shops that they would do body repairs on Aly, so I’ve effectively got a car for life barring me wrapping it round a tree. I’ll save for a battery replacement which will be 22k but will put it up to 350m+range. There’s no sign of problems with the battery yet, it’s guaranteed for another 50k miles so free replacement if it fails soon and I’m saving about 2kpa in no fuel cost towards it. There’s a few 1million mile Tesla’s out there now and I’d like mine to be one of them in time. It’s not a cheap car, so for me the total cost of ownership will be higher than I’m used to, but its way cheaper than cars in its field. It’s a dream to drive with the “self driving” that’s no where near that yet obviously but gets better every month. I just “drove” to Hungary and back 3k miles travelled, of which I actually drove about 250 and just acted as driving instructor/babysitter for the car for the rest.
There are enough Tesla chargers everywhere this side of Turkey for almost all demand and they are building new ones at a massive rate. The same can’t be said for others!
My other half has just got a small ev and literally couldn’t find an empty fast charger on a recent trip. Other than that, there has been no problem with 2 EVs in the house; it’s cheap, relaxing to drive and 99.9% of the time takes 2 seconds to charge, get home, plug in, walk away. It’s preset on a timer and starts charging on cheap overnight electricity…
That’s the other worry I forgot to address in my essay of a post before, the “what happens when everyone gets home and plugs in” in reality, they use the electric that needs using at night, in fact the trial of EVs selling power back to the grid to support the 5.30-7.30pm demand, reducing the need for peaker plant generation went so well, it’s being rolled out now so the opposite will be the case.
Overall I’d not change back ever, my old car went to a friend who does very low milage and keeps it under a porch, the best case scenario of keeping on using an already built vehicle while minimising the pollution. I hope my Tesla will see me out and
I hope many more people look into a used EV as the risk with older cars of buying a lemon is far less of an issue as there’s so much less wear and tear of expensive bits!
Jameshow
Established Member
Is that typical for battery range decline??
Are some models worse than others?
Does the charging history have an effect??
Are some models worse than others?
Does the charging history have an effect??
