When are you going fully electric?

[Journey]

I see the Nissan / Fisker rescue deal fell through.

Gotta feel bad for anyone that bought a car from them.

Going to feel worse for the first actual big company to fail when they keep putting off changing fast enough, hard to say who it is going to be, Ford maybe at least in Europe? Possibly even one of the Japanese brands, again in the EU markets, Chinese brands will end up going big volume small margins (due to imposed tariff's) but they'll saturate the market and destroy any chance of the local makers catching up, and the EU will end up like the UK with very few local brands anymore.

 

[b0rn2sk8]

What does the EU have left?

There are lots of brands but they pretty much all fall into 4 key groups:

VW group
Stellantis (if you can even call that European)
BMW Mini
Daimler

Edit: Renault of course!

Still, there has been a hell of a lot of consolidation over the years.

 

[lordrobs]

2) yes public charging is too expensive on fast chargepoints. We all know this and admit it (i think!) but the point is you charge at home or at work or somewjhere cheap... and if you cant do that then maybe an EV isnt for you.......... yet!.

Where will the shift come from though do you think? We all have to go EV if we want to buy a new vehicle from 2035 (at the moment, let's wait and see on that one...) so what will be the change that makes them suitable for high mileage drivers?

As far as I can see it the options are;

1) Range. While the current crop of EVs give a perfectly adequate range for most will there have to be options that can do greater mileage than that to avoid daily rapid charging costs? Seems a very wasteful solution though to constantly be driving that costly battery around.

2) Destination charging. As long as you can charge (pretty much) everywhere you park then all you need to worry about is actually getting to your destination, not the onward travel.

3) Drop in charging costs. Obviously if rapid charging was at a smaller premium to charging at home then it makes it less of a concern, and also a solution for those without the ability to charge at home. Where will the money come from though to cover the infrastructure costs? Also home energy is not on price parity to commercial so another consideration.

Personally I hope that the second option becomes the solution but that seems a MASSIVE number of 3/7kW points to install across the UK.

 

[bigmike20vt]

my view is generally 2) and 3) but there will absolutely be a market for cars with a massive battery which will do a genuine 350 worst.case.scenario range (So a WLTP of 450+ miles).
hopefully tho these will be niche vehicles and not used as Chelsea chariots.
the battery tech is still improving all the time. the new Audi Etron battery has 30% more energy density than the existing fat etron for instance..

with good destination charging i struggle to see how anyone even high milers can't make a worst case scenario 70mph winter motorway 300 mile+ range car work with home and destination charging work. At that point it becomes stubbornness imo.
(and then with fast charging for those edge cases when needed)

 

[Jonnycoupe]

Just been to Cornwall in mine, no issue. Even Port Isaac has destination chargers now. Exeter very impressive. Had to share 24 chargers with about 6 cars…

 

[bigmike20vt]

I would also add in 4) and this may be a pipe dream and am sure many won't like it anyway.

but if you are daily driving from London to Scotland or back then I would say perhaps driving isn't the best way anyway. we should have a better rail network which is cost effective and you can guarantee a seat with table if you choose and travel that way for regular long distance. then once you get to the major station near your destination you just hire a car then if needed.

chances of that happening in the next decade tho? slim to nill I think, but that doesn't mean it isn't the sensible way

 

[adwol48]

Currently looking at our first EV, its going to be the wifes car as my diesel mondeo is a great family car for the longer ranges, we have looked a wide range of cars from the MG4 to a merc EQA and plenty more. Currently waiting a ford dealer to get back to us about the new Explorer as it seems to have good range and enough space for when the kids are with the wife. Her daily commute is only roughly 30 miles add in a few stops and it maybe goes to 40 miles a day.

 

[Haggisman]

Just been to Cornwall in mine, no issue. Even Port Isaac has destination chargers now. Exeter very impressive. Had to share 24 chargers with about 6 cars…

Yeah, Cornwall is fantastic for charging. Wales on the other hand is still absolutely ****. Been looking at an Airbnb for next week, and while there are quite a few destination chargers, there are barely any rapids en-route. Certainly no sites with more than 2-3 chargers!

 

[Jonnycoupe]

Quite a few instavolts popping up in Wales. Site manager grassed me up to our airbnbhost for granny charging car. They wanted £20 a night extra. No thanks!

 

[bigmike20vt]

Yeah, Cornwall is fantastic for charging. Wales on the other hand is still absolutely ****. Been looking at an Airbnb for next week, and while there are quite a few destination chargers, there are barely any rapids en-route. Certainly no sites with more than 2-3 chargers!

i have been looking around wales, I love North wales (South is nice too but I am from the backdoor to North Wales so i am biased as that is around where i grew up). Charging really does need to improve a bit in Wales, no doubt.

 

[jpaul]

Probably need to ask their new first minister what he's going to fund (is that 20mph staying) , Starmer doesn't seem to have prognosticated on protecting EV manufacture yet,
along the the lines of ursula/biden.

working-plan of waiting for bidirectional charger availibility, and using a granny initially, perhaps not worthwhile - they seem to be limiting outgoing charge, to protect battery life V
The VW ID.5, for instance, is technically equipped for vehicle-to-home charging with a capacity of 77 kilowatt hours, but there are currently no suitable, affordable AC wallboxes and VW is currently still limiting bidirectional charging to 4000 hours or 10,000 kWh. This means that if you use your car as a storage unit and draw electricity for your household appliances for 11 hours a day, e.g. when you are not producing PV electricity, bidirectional charging will be switched off after a year. Such a scenario is not profitable.

 

[Haggisman]

i have been looking around wales, I love North wales (South is nice too but I am from the backdoor to North Wales so i am biased as that is around where i grew up). Charging really does need to improve a bit in Wales, no doubt.

We just booked one, there's a bank of 22kw ac chargers a few mins walk away - fine, my car can only charge at 7kw AC, but I'll just leave it overnight...No, wait, there is a 4hr limit on the chargers, that's not even quite enough to get home

I get that they don't want people hogging the chargers all day, but for a town on the coast which people are likely to drive quite a significant distance to get to, that seems a bit short sighted.

Luckily there's another bank of chargers in a car park around the same distance, but £4.60 to park as well.

On top of that it's 65p/kWh... for 7kw charging?!

Luckily I don't think we'll need to charge that much, if we leave home on 100% then we should be able to just about do there and back, so would just need to charge to cover what we use in the area.

 

[danlightbulb]

Having had some issues with my cars over the years, and recent issues with my current car, I think the biggest appeal of an EV to me is the lack of a combustion engine from a maintenance and reliability point of view.

An electric motor is simple and should be immensely more reliable in comparison.

 

[Mr Jack]

Having had some issues with my cars over the years, and recent issues with my current car, I think the biggest appeal of an EV to me is the lack of a combustion engine from a maintenance and reliability point of view.

I fear it may simply be a case of swapping mechanical faults for software errors with the ever growing complexity of the systems running cars, array of driver aids, and the rise of continual updates.

 

[bigmike20vt]

I fear it may simply be a case of swapping mechanical faults for software errors with the ever growing complexity of the systems running cars, array of driver aids, and the rise of continual updates.

perhaps... but you still get those in modern ICE vehicles as well.

We have inherited all the risks in my wifes car. I wanted an EV, she wanted a petrol backup after some initial teething issues with our EV meant she still has no trust in them.......... so we ended up with an I3 with range extender........ A car where apparently most of the problems ultimately come from the range extender, but with the bonus of the EV things to go wrong as well.

hey ho.............. its been fine so far (touches wood) but even if we went for the i3 (and tbh as much as i like the car you can get more for your money with other cars) we would have been so much better off just going for the i3 with the biggest battery and no REX imo

 

[Mr Jack]

perhaps... but you still get those in modern ICE vehicles as well.

I was thinking more as we all change to EV, as seems inevitable.

 

[bigmike20vt]

I was thinking more as we all change to EV, as seems inevitable.

all cars can go wrong and I realise i am tempting fate here...... but the general consensus from what i have read seems that EVs are far more reliable over all tho.
the issue is a lot of the time finding an independent garage to work on them, and so having to pay often insane main dealer labour prices,............. but surely as ICE cars reduce and EVs increase, more and more HEVRA garages will open.

I know a lot of manufacturers are making that difficult, withholding information about their cars etc. That may need governmental pressure to stop that. IMO the right to repair your car yourself (or more realistically take to an independent garage) needs to be encouraged, including making sure car manufacturers do not make it unnecessarily difficult for people to work on their cars.

 

[lordrobs]

I don't really get the whole EV is more reliable than ICE argument but maybe I've just been lucky with the last cars I've had.

Only mechanical fault I've had in the last 10 years in a car was on an 8 year old 168k Passat that I had temporarily as my company car which had a James Bond DPF that used to deploy a smoke screen when it did a regen. Still drove fine and passed an MOT with that issue.

Going back further than that we had an alternator replacement on our Punto, I guess that wouldn't have been a fault on an EV.

That said my boss just ditched his F-Pace due to a stretched timing chain. 110k on the clock and just turned 6 years old. Ridiculous!

I'm not sure what Euro 7 will mean for cars, maybe that will throw in a load of extra complications.

 

[bigmike20vt]

Well for one you just have a lot more "sundries" which need wear and tear replacement......... Have you never needed to replace an exhaust, radiator, cambelt, clutch, oil/filters, ...... ok brake disks and pads can go on an EV, but not as much (i drive entire journeys without touching the brakes and indeed have to force myself to use them properly once a week just to make sure they do not seize - one of the many anti EV complaints which triggers me about their increased brake dust )

a lot of this depends on how lucky you are or how long you keep your car but i have had all the above fail / have to be replaced as part of good maintenance on my cars, along with DPF (that was a pig), blown turbo (that actually was what made me get shut of my 2nd fiat coupe) and a new gear box in 1 car, tho part of me thinks the garage swindled me there!!!)

to be balanced, an EV can have a range of charging faults that you wont get on an ice.... the battery could fail but that is under long term warranty so not something i need to think about for a good few years yet.

Now i have said all that you can be certain i am going to have an electrical fault in one of our cars...... probably the I3 as that is the one not under warranty

 

[Tinders]

Ive had company cars since 2006, and ive pretty much covered 90k in each of them, very very little has gone wrong with the 5 cars. That said, when i look back at the mot histories, 2 of them are no longer on the road

Even when i was in older cars, i never really had any drastic problems to deal, well apart from the MX5 which rusted for fun. Even my old 306 DT never ever let me down. I expect my 3 series to self destruct overnight after saying all that!