Has EV stopped you from buying a new car
- Thread starter chaparral
- Start date
Tesla Model S boot is gargantuan, over 800L with seats up. Class leading large estates like Mercedes E class are blown out of the water, although admittedly perhaps a bit more practical.
Soldato
- Joined
- 19 Oct 2002
- Posts
- 18,078
- Location
- Shakespeare’s County
The 800+ includes frunk and none have the 150L frunk since AWD options and massive HEPA filter.
An estate is versatility is beyond how many bottles of water you can carry.
An estate is versatility is beyond how many bottles of water you can carry.
I know this is a waste of time because all of your posts about EVs/new cars/new technology/anything that doesn't fit your narrow world view are the same but I can't let this go uncorrected - that's absolutely false. I'd love to see your source.
I have a similar situation and will only consider it when Charging infrastructure is significantly better!I'm not fortunate enough to have a driveway and live in a very busy street - being able to park outside my house is less likely than winning the lottery so I would never consider an EV...ever!
You could rent a car for the longer trips?
I know some Americans who only have interesting, older cars, who would rent a regular sedan or similar to take a longer trip.
How many times a year do you do a long road trip holiday?
Would you really want to drive to the south of France in a small EV when a larger car might be more comfortable, more room for luggage etc?
Last edited:
Lease short term and buy an EV as the battery tech improves enough for your circumstances. Rent for the odd journey rather than pay for 1 car to sit idle for weeks at a time. You get to try different cars too 
Short journeys are not kind to ICE cars. 10 min warm up in winter for a 10 min journey for example means the engine operates in the worst wear conditions for a significant part of it's life cycle. An EV can be fully charged and pre-conditioned all year round. EVs batteries can sit in a medium SOC for months and suffer little degradation. Though all batteries do suffer calendar ageing over their lifetimes it's very proving to be very small.
Some current EVs manufacturers have bad 12V battery management and that's where some EVs have suffered in the recent lock down.
I highly recommend Plug Life on YT for some properly researched videos on the impact of EVs. Plus other well informed videos.
Short journeys are not kind to ICE cars. 10 min warm up in winter for a 10 min journey for example means the engine operates in the worst wear conditions for a significant part of it's life cycle. An EV can be fully charged and pre-conditioned all year round. EVs batteries can sit in a medium SOC for months and suffer little degradation. Though all batteries do suffer calendar ageing over their lifetimes it's very proving to be very small.
Some current EVs manufacturers have bad 12V battery management and that's where some EVs have suffered in the recent lock down.
I highly recommend Plug Life on YT for some properly researched videos on the impact of EVs. Plus other well informed videos.
Associate
- Joined
- 11 Sep 2008
- Posts
- 778
- Location
- Stratford-Upon-Avon
Agree with the OP, in a similar position really.. My 530 is 5 years old in November. Historically do about 15-17k miles per year
Would like a change but think I need to wait and see if wfh becomes a more frequent occurrence. For the foreseeable it's 1 week in the office then 2 from home.
EV purchase prices still too expensive but don't want to sink 25-30k into another ice..
I guess I'll just keep current car another 18 months and see how things are
Would like a change but think I need to wait and see if wfh becomes a more frequent occurrence. For the foreseeable it's 1 week in the office then 2 from home.
EV purchase prices still too expensive but don't want to sink 25-30k into another ice..
I guess I'll just keep current car another 18 months and see how things are
Soldato
- Joined
- 19 Oct 2002
- Posts
- 18,078
- Location
- Shakespeare’s County
was gonna do same but realised my efforts would be better spent boiling my head.
Not only that but how many hours do people drive without stopping? I was watching a video the other day which suggested that something like 87% of drivers surveyed would only be prepared to drive for a maximum of 4 hours without stopping for a break. Even if you achieved an average speed of 70mph (unlikely) that’s not even close to 500 miles for the vast majority of driving situations.
I was reading about the Osborne effect the other day. Interesting situation the likes of Ford etc find themselves in, if true.
This is pretty well known. You need to do close to 100k miles in a petrol car before it breaks even with the carbon footprint of a brand new EV. The mining of materials (by slaves in Africa), shipping them and manufacturing of batteries isn't exactly clean. We're trading local pollution for global pollution.
Last edited:
Soldato
- Joined
- 19 Oct 2002
- Posts
- 18,078
- Location
- Shakespeare’s County
mare you referring to colbalt which a lot of chemistry’s are now avoiding (google China CATL Tesla batteries) where global demand is actually the refinement of crude oil products? Or have you got your Cs mixed up earlier cos your earlier post was referring to the “carbon footprint” what ever marketing term that really means as engineers don’t actually use it. Particular when vast gigafactorys have huge solar arrays for energy.
now go away and have a lentil soup whilst you zoom with other lifecycle evaluation engineers.. oh wait you aren’t actually one of those are you.
You should go and look up images of the Chinese owned lithium mines in Africa. They are no better.
Soldato
- Joined
- 19 Oct 2002
- Posts
- 18,078
- Location
- Shakespeare’s County
I don’t need to though cos I’m not a moron? . They are Bolivia salt flats? The easiest way it to extract it from water solution. You just dry the water in the heat... similar to that boiling my head. Ethical sourcing is top of the list for corporations and large companies.
The irony is that there are more than enough charging locations, but the biggest issue is the myriad of charging “networks”. I don’t want to have eleventy hundred apps, I just want to rock up with my payment card... like with a petrol station, and fill up. The other issue with so many small players in the infrastructure is lack of speedy maintenance.
If the existing infrastructure was taken on by a single (or handful) of bigger companies, and payment simplified, then it wouldn’t be so bad.
Can’t really comment on the issue with installing your own charging point a distance from your own property, but for me the main annoyance is the lack of 3-phase availability in residential properties. I’d love a proper fast charger at home, but I doubt that will be possible for a while at least.