When are you going fully electric?

[Journey]

As soon as you introduce a limited amount of charging points for multiple cars in communal overnight parking areas people will start plugging in when they have 90% range remaining just to reserve "their" charger.

Given even now, how cheap it is to install a charging post that supports two cars at (e.g. one charger per two spaces, 7kW per car) there will be energy suppliers and developers climbing all over themselves to install them, since the cost/profit ratio will be massive. There is a community car park with a set of apartments around it near me, and that has spaces that are numbered for each resident, so that is another way that stops them being used, and since those rules were around a long time before the BEV became popular I can't see it changing now.

I'd still love to go electric but my employer isn't going to pony up the cash for an EV with the sort of range I need and sometimes I do silly miles in a day and don't really fancy becoming more acquainted with service stations than I already am.

From that sentence it seems there is a car that would do the range you need, but then you say you'd need to charge often. How many times do you do 'silly' miles per day, and what do you call 'silly'?

 

[sunshinewelly]

when hell freezes over - call me selfish but driving for me is a visceral and fun experience. Part of that is the noise of a decent engine. So for me whilst i can still afford to maintain a car with big engine then its the liquid of the gods for me.

 

[Desmo]

I used to love the sound of a decent engine and exhaust....now I prefer the near silence and just see a loud exhaust as a nuisance.

 

[McPhee]

As soon as you introduce a limited amount of charging points for multiple cars in communal overnight parking areas people will start plugging in when they have 90% range remaining just to reserve "their" charger. You know, 'just in case I might need it'. It will be the same mentality as people owning the parking spot outside their own house. They have no more right over it than anyone,, else but in their mind it is theirs and not for anyone else to use.

Apply a minimum spend for overnight charging. Problem solved. Nobody wants to plug in at 90% when the last 10% is going to cost them a fiver (or whatever amount seems appropriate based on the economic profile of the residents).

Polar already do something similar, but with a fairly trivial minimum spend amount (which makes sense for chargers in shopping centres and supermarket car parks).

 

[jpaul]

There is a community car park with a set of apartments around it near me, and that has spaces that are numbered for each resident, so that is another way that stops them being used, and since those rules were around a long time before the BEV became popular I can't see it changing now.

california have dealt with this problem - legislation that says the man in his condo can make a reasonable demand for a charger install, uk may need to follow suit, so it has become like a utility service.

 

[Nasher]

when hell freezes over - call me selfish but driving for me is a visceral and fun experience. Part of that is the noise of a decent engine. So for me whilst i can still afford to maintain a car with big engine then its the liquid of the gods for me.

Same here tbh. I just can't put up with boring cars. If I'm driving it every day it needs to be fun to drive and somewhat interesting. I tried the Audi rep mobile thing and joined the sheep herd, but after 6 months I felt the need to go and buy an MX-5 and do the commute in that instead

 

[PCM2]

High performance electric cars are brilliantly fun to drive. Enough petrolheads on YouTube etc. saying as much and I can absolutely attest to that. The instant torque is wonderful. If you get turned on by the sound of an engine or like cycling through gears then fair enough, but to claim electric cars aren't fun to drive is ludicrous (pun intended).

 

[lordrobs]

From that sentence it seems there is a car that would do the range you need, but then you say you'd need to charge often. How many times do you do 'silly' miles per day, and what do you call 'silly'?

I could make top end Tesla range work... but I need an estate and my last car was £15.6k as a pre-reg and even that was over the budget I was given.

As for my mileage, it varies quite a bit but more often than I like I'll do 350+ miles in a day. I think 560 or so is my record but keep in mind that mileage is done on top of whatever work I was travelling to do. I'm also not convinced that I'd want the hassle of sorting my hotels on a multi-day tour of customers based on where I can plug in overnight. I'm sure in a few years time it won't be an issue but right now it would be an additional factor I can do without.

 

[Journey]

I could make top end Tesla range work... but I need an estate and my last car was £15.6k as a pre-reg and even that was over the budget I was given.

Who ever you work for sounds like they are cheap, especially given got much you need your car to do your job. Don't think I'd want to be in that position.

As for my mileage, it varies quite a bit but more often than I like I'll do 350+ miles in a day. I think 560 or so is my record but keep in mind that mileage is done on top of whatever work I was travelling to do. I'm also not convinced that I'd want the hassle of sorting my hotels on a multi-day tour of customers based on where I can plug in overnight. I'm sure in a few years time it won't be an issue but right now it would be an additional factor I can do without.

Seems sensible, there are indeed limits to how much hassle one should have to put up with to earn a living and driving for 5-6 hours a day then having to plan around charging sounds like a pain. How many hours a week do you spend driving vs working? Just out of curiosity.

 

[Pottsey]

Same here tbh. I just can't put up with boring cars. If I'm driving it every day it needs to be fun to drive and somewhat interesting. I tried the Audi rep mobile thing and joined the sheep herd, but after 6 months I felt the need to go and buy an MX-5 and do the commute in that instead

One of the fun things about Electric cars is maximum torque pretty much happens instantly which can be a lot of fun. Once you experience that patrol cars can feeling boring.

The way I see it Electric cars are cheaper to run, more fun to drive, along with at times being faster and less stressful to run and fuel up.

 

[Nasher]

High performance electric cars are brilliantly fun to drive. Enough petrolheads on YouTube etc. saying as much and I can absolutely attest to that. The instant torque is wonderful. If you get turned on by the sound of an engine or like cycling through gears then fair enough, but to claim electric cars aren't fun to drive is ludicrous (pun intended).

But the quick ones are silly expensive for what they are. For the miliage I do I wouldnt see any savings in the long run.

Most run of the mill EVs get to 30 quick due to having no gears, not the torque. But then they run out of puff. They are also really heavy which ruins cornering.

 

[lordrobs]

Who ever you work for sounds like they are cheap, especially given got much you need your car to do your job. Don't think I'd want to be in that position.



Seems sensible, there are indeed limits to how much hassle one should have to put up with to earn a living and driving for 5-6 hours a day then having to plan around charging sounds like a pain. How many hours a week do you spend driving vs working? Just out of curiosity.

I'm not sure you can really come to that conclusion based on one forum post. I drive a C segment estate with all the essential gadgets plus a few nice to have options... like most people in my line of work

As for your question- 0 to 100% of my working day is spent driving when I'm not in the office.

Out of curiosity, what would my employer provide me with if they weren't "cheap"?

Anyway, the point I was making was that there isn't a suitable EV for me at this point in time. Kia Niro would work from a space point of view but not on range. Anything else big enough is silly money.

 

[Journey]

I'm not sure you can really come to that conclusion based on one forum post. I drive a C segment estate with all the essential gadgets plus a few nice to have options... like most people in my line of work

It just seems a bit odd, for a company that expects you to drive all day long would put you in something priced at £15.6k and call that over budget. For that price even pre-reg you'd be lucky to get a Skoda Octavia Estate 1.0L Petrol/1.6TDI, and I am not saying it is a bad car, but not one I'd fancy spending all day long in doing many thousands of miles for per month.

Out of curiosity, what would my employer provide me with if they weren't "cheap"?

I guess that depends on attitude of the company, one of the companies I contract gives the sales staff a budget up to £40k to source the vehicle of their choice, which they then buy out right, and believe it or not they don't drive anywhere near as much as you do. One of them has just moved from a 16 plate BMW 330D to a new Tesla Model 3 SR+, but again they are unlucky if they do 1000 miles per week. I guess for some it is a company perk, others see it as a necessity but with the new BIK rules for BEV's from April '20 the perk becomes even bigger as you end up with an increase in take home pay, and a nice car too.

Anyway, the point I was making was that there isn't a suitable EV for me at this point in time. Kia Niro would work from a space point of view but not on range. Anything else big enough is silly money.

E-Niro is one of those vehicles that if it was just a bit more efficient with the 64kWh battery pack it would pass that crucial 300-mile per charge in all conditions, but the charging curve is OK with them, 10-60% is only 30 mins on an HPC, which is ~140 miles. So easily useable on a day with <400 miles of driving, as you'd only need to ensure you were starting the day on 100%, and even a 10 min stop for a toilet break would get you ~15% battery charge, so if you did that two or three time during the day then you are sitting at 30-45% of the total range added or ~ 90-150 miles. Obviously you could be one of these people that never stops at all, and just motors on until you get to where you are going, so then you can ignore the last thing I said completely.

 

[Pottsey]

But the quick ones are silly expensive for what they are. For the miliage I do I wouldnt see any savings in the long run.

Most run of the mill EVs get to 30 quick due to having no gears, not the torque. But then they run out of puff. They are also really heavy which ruins cornering.

It’s no gears combined with maximum torque from standstill which is vastly more fun then patrol cars. For you average persons daily drive the range EV's are best at is the range for most people where the bulk of the fun and speed changes are done. Every time you stop at a traffic light the EV is more fun to pull off with.

As for cornering the centred battery weight + instant torque make EV’s great if not superior at cornering to many patrol cars. Patrol cars tend to be front or back heavy depending on engine location. EV's have the weight right in the middle of the car centred so you can go around the corners faster and better.

 

[sovietspybob]

It’s no gears combined with maximum torque from standstill which is vastly more fun then patrol cars. For you average persons daily drive the range EV's are best at is the range for most people where the bulk of the fun and speed changes are done. Every time you stop at a traffic light the EV is more fun to pull off with.

As for cornering the centred battery weight + instant torque make EV’s great if not superior at cornering to many patrol cars. Patrol cars tend to be front or back heavy depending on engine location. EV's have the weight right in the middle of the car centred so you can go around the corners faster and better.

Yeah i agree about the weight distribution and location, some people make such a big deal about 50/50 weight distribution (looking at you BMW) but that's no good if a big percent of the weight is hanging out at the far end of the front and back (looking at you Audi). That makes the car very resistant to turning, you want the mass in the middle. There's a reason that a Lotus Elise turns amazingly well and doesn't have 'perfect' weight distribution, i think it sits around 39/61 but most of the mass is in the middle so it handles brilliantly. Using the same idea EV's can hide their mass well and still handle pleasingly.

 

[bimbleuk]

As for cornering the centred battery weight + instant torque make EV’s great if not superior at cornering to many patrol cars. Patrol cars tend to be front or back heavy depending on engine location. EV's have the weight right in the middle of the car centred so you can go around the corners faster and better.

I have an RX7 + LS1 V8 conversion as a second car but I've been realising that my Tesla SR+ even with only ~300/300 BHP/Torque is much faster in most normal driving conditions other than maybe track and out right speed. On a couple of occasions I've literally had to take deep breath after I've taken a familiar corner at a speed I initially thought would not be possible or would upset the car but it just grips and goes. Maybe it's just the no fuss speed that's deceptive like when I take out passengers for a demo and they end feeling a bit queasy due to the motion disconnect.

The brakes are also very confidence inspiring which you can't say for every performance car. There's a lot to do with the suspension setup and low center of mass. I'm having serious thoughts about keeping the RX7 now as I could put the money towards a performance model in ~18 months.

 

[b0rn2sk8]

The main issues with EVs and cornering is just the weight itself not where it’s located.

The Model 3 performance is faster than the BMW M3 round a track but only because of its acceleration/straight line speed. Round the corners it is much slower.

 

[jpaul]

For you average persons daily drive the range EV's are best at is the range for most people where the bulk of the fun and speed changes are done.

the funnest parts on my daily drive are the roundabouts, so mr-omega^2 counts, although, just looking, it would appear that a new golf id 3 will be >=1700kg, which is not so much heavier than its petrol version ... so maybe it is myth that an EV is like having an addition 3people aboard ?
[ wheras the teslas are designed as fast cars ~ 160Wh/km, if the golf is optmised to be closer to 120, like others, this will start offsetting the charging availibility issues too eg. https://agronomy.emu.ee/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Vol15SP1_Berjoza.pdf ]

 

[Jonnycoupe]

But the quick ones are silly expensive for what they are. For the miliage I do I wouldnt see any savings in the long run.

Most run of the mill EVs get to 30 quick due to having no gears, not the torque. But then they run out of puff. They are also really heavy which ruins cornering.

What car do you have that’s need to change gear before 30. The torque delivery and response time is what also makes them “nippy”

 

[Jonnycoupe]

The main issues with EVs and cornering is just the weight itself not where it’s located.

The Model 3 performance is faster than the BMW M3 round a track but only because of its acceleration/straight line speed. Round the corners it is much slower.

you may be surprised if you compare the weight of those two cars.