EV general discussion

[b0rn2sk8]

Your real issue is not the cost of the car, its range or charging speed, it’s the lack of a home charger.

I’m nearing 25k fully electric miles (don’t own an ICE car) and I wouldn’t buy one regardless of cost if I didn’t have anywhere reliable and relatively close to where I’d normally park to charge it.

Most public charging, particularly rapid chargers are relatively expensive compared to home charging and degrades the only other incentive to go EV (running costs).

Chicken and egg issue.

 

[bigmike20vt]

I'll go electric when I can afford it

Anything good for less than £10K with good range and fast charging (I wouldn't be able to install a home charger)? I checked 2-3 years ago, there wasn't much.

i love having EVs and hope to never go back, but right now unless you live near a tesla super charger an EV without either home or cheap work charging is a tough sell imo. depending on what you consider "good" range the £10k may not be such a blocker now....... There are not loads of options but you can get some of the longer range and battery owned zoes for around that price now, and stuff like the mk2 leaf as well (albeit not the longest range one).

the original ionic must surely be around that price now too....... not sure what magic sauce hyundai put in their ionic but (doubly so considering its not even a dedicated EV platform) they are incredibly efficient EVs and give more range than their battery capacity would hint at. Also a car with proper usable size too.

only a little over budget you could maybe haggle a bit (note i havent researched that car at all, it was just a very quick and dirty example - and the cheapest with the larger battery i could see)

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[lordrobs]

The problem is that not having home charging really is the main (only?) justifiable reason for demanding an EV with massive range and super fast charging. Anything else is going to be a big compromise to your weekly routine just to get charge in your car.

That advert above makes me laugh. On the one hand they bother to swap out the background for some virtual showroom, on the other they bother to post interior pics that look like they've been taken by a blind man in thick fog with a disposable 35mm

 

[Journey]

The problem is that not having home charging really is the main (only?) justifiable reason for demanding an EV with massive range and super fast charging. Anything else is going to be a big compromise to your weekly routine just to get charge in your car.

I guess it depends on how clued up you are on things like ZapHome, and similar. I now have a regular user of my charge point, she lives about a 5 minute walk away but has no front drive way, and no charging at work but bought a nearly new Fiat 500e anyway. There's got to be a great deal of chargers out there that people could share if they wanted, especially now that we hit the 1 million EV's on the road recently.

 

[lordrobs]

I guess it depends on how clued up you are on things like ZapHome, and similar. I now have a regular user of my charge point, she lives about a 5 minute walk away but has no front drive way, and no charging at work but bought a nearly new Fiat 500e anyway. There's got to be a great deal of chargers out there that people could share if they wanted, especially now that we hit the 1 million EV's on the road recently.

If they wanted being the key part of that statement. I like my own space and my own convenience so I wouldn't be renting my charger out to randoms. Likewise I wouldn't base a car purchase off of Dave at number 10 letting me use his charger in case he decides one day that he doesn't want to do that anymore. Fair play to you though for helping out.

I saw the news article about the 1 millionth EV being sold in the UK. SMMT boss Mike Hawes says that the next could come "in just another two" which seems a little... optimistic?

 

[Journey]

Fair play to you though for helping out.

I am helping, but her charging covers the cost of my charging for the car in full, so it is a win-win and in a pinch she can use the Instavolt less than 1/2 a mile away, should I die or decide I hate her using my drive way.

I saw the news article about the 1 millionth EV being sold in the UK. SMMT boss Mike Hawes says that the next could come "in just another two" which seems a little... optimistic?

315,000 last year with a predicted 15-20% growth this year, and the same again in '25 means a further 1 million(ish) in 2 years.

 

[lordrobs]

I am helping, but her charging covers the cost of my charging for the car in full, so it is a win-win and in a pinch she can use the Instavolt less than 1/2 a mile away, should I die or decide I hate her using my drive way.

Don't get me wrong, it sounds like a very sensible thing to be doing from all perspectives if it works for you. I'm just saying that I wouldn't make a car purchase relying on the fact, which was the original context.

315,000 last year with a predicted 15-20% growth this year, and the same again in '25 means a further 1 million(ish) in 2 years.

Even taking the best case scenario of those numbers it falls quite a bit short of 1 million!

Salary sacrifice and company cars are going to saturate at some point, some fleet buyers are rowing back on EV purchases and the government haven't announced anything for private buyers so I can't see where the continued growth is going to come from in the short term.

 

[b0rn2sk8]

Their continued grow will come from the ZEV mandate. Manufacturers have to produce and sell more EVs every year, buy credits from others exceeding the target or be fined. The latter two options make their ICE offerings more expensive and therefore less attractive and less competitive. We are not that far off price parity these days anyway thanks to challengers like Tesla, MG and BYD pushing down prices.

You can already buy a MG4 for a few £k less than say an ICE Peugeot 308 and about the same price as a Mazda 3.

 

[lordrobs]

So... How long until they back track on that like they did with boilers?

As for price parity the numbers never seem to stack up when comparing apples for apples. Take an MG ZS. Petrol from £18k, EV from £30k. VW Golf from £25k, ID3 from £34k... Unless I'm missing something?

As you say though, ZEV fine passed on to the consumer will level that up although I'm not sure I really see that as progress

 

[Haggisman]

So... How long until they back track on that like they did with boilers?

As for price parity the numbers never seem to stack up when comparing apples for apples. Take an MG ZS. Petrol from £18k, EV from £30k. VW Golf from £25k, ID3 from £34k... Unless I'm missing something?

As you say though, ZEV fine passed on to the consumer will level that up although I'm not sure I really see that as progress

You can't really compare the base spec ICE with the same model EV, as they tend to be quite well equipped, usually towards the top end of the ICE range, but yes, they are still quite a bit more expensive.

If you can charge at home on a cheap tariff then that can make it worthwhile, but if you're relying on expensive public charging then obviously not

 

[b0rn2sk8]

Likewise the EV version is usually considerably faster as well as being better equipped than the poverty spec ICE version.

Your bogo basic Golf has 110PS and a manual gear box, the base ID.3 has almost twice the power at 205PS isn't a clunky manual.

Lets face it only the most stubborn of 1L 110PS manual gold buyer would scoff at the prospect of a nice and smooth 'automatic'.

 

[crazyDAJT]

As for price parity the numbers never seem to stack up when comparing apples for apples. Take an MG ZS. Petrol from £18k, EV from £30k. VW Golf from £25k, ID3 from £34k... Unless I'm missing something?

Compare classes of car not the direct equivalent in a specific range.

Family hatch:
VW Golf £25k - MG4 long range £26k

family / business saloon
BMW 3 from £40k - model 3 from £40k

Premium Cross over

Volvo XC 40 from £35k - model y from £40

The problem is there isn’t a that many true EV cars out there, most are plonked onto a ICE platform and have stupid small ranges.

This will start to rapidly change in the next few year.

 

[lordrobs]

Likewise the EV version is usually considerably faster as well as being better equipped than the poverty spec ICE version.

Your bogo basic Golf has 110PS and a manual gear box, the base ID.3 has almost twice the power at 205PS isn't a clunky manual.

Lets face it only the most stubborn of 1L 110PS manual gold buyer would scoff at the prospect of a nice and smooth 'automatic'.

The thing is many others would have the exact opposite argument.

Only the most dedicated EV convert would pay over 9 grand more for an extra 30bhp/ton and some unnecessary bells and whistles.

This isn't about telling people what to buy anyway, it's about removing choice through mandated fines. All stick and no carrot.

What I'm struggling to understand is what stops car brand X merging with car brand Y who sells 12 million G Wiz equivalents in China / Wherever each year to offset the numbers within the 'group'?

 

[b0rn2sk8]

Because the vehicles need to be sold in the UK.

As for all stick and no carrot, the government has spent millions on grants and other incentives over the last decade and continues to provide favourable tax treatment for company car drivers and fleet operators who like it or not drive 50% of the car market in the UK.

 

[SDK^]

So... How long until they back track on that like they did with boilers?

As for price parity the numbers never seem to stack up when comparing apples for apples. Take an MG ZS. Petrol from £18k, EV from £30k. VW Golf from £25k, ID3 from £34k... Unless I'm missing something?

As you say though, ZEV fine passed on to the consumer will level that up although I'm not sure I really see that as progress

With the discounts on new models the cost difference between ICE and EV is much less .
Also, at the bottom end, an entry level EV will be such a better car than a base spec, low powered, manual petrol. [Your comparison isn’t ‘apples for apples’]
Then if you’re charging at home you have the running cost savings which are quite significant. [e.g. fuel - 2p mile vs 12p+ mile]

Only the most dedicated EV convert would pay over 9 grand more for an extra 30bhp/ton and some unnecessary bells and whistles.

Fuel cars need to be rev’d up the power band to achieve the quoted power/torque figures. EV’s get this from standstill, with no gear changes and a smooth/quiet drive.
People used to pay many thousands more for S-Class Merc’s / 7 Series BMW’s / Rolls Royces’s for similar effortless smooth driving, now you can get that experience in a low end EV.

For me, defrosting the car from the comfort of the breakfast table isn’t ‘unnecessary bells and whistles’

 

[Jonnycoupe]

Imagine having a breakfast table. House bells and whistles

 

[lordrobs]

It was just an example hypothetical counter argument to "yeah but it's better and faster".

It's amazing they sold so many manual VW Golf TSIs in 'Life' trim when all it would have taken is another 10 grand to buy something better.

Anyway, I've got how price parity works now. My mistake was comparing two five door hatches from the same brand.

 

[SuperElectric]

I just checked my local rapid charger (Shell), the price is 81p per KW! I don't know if they have a membership option.
The nearest Supercharger is 20 mins away, but it's 77p for non members and 55p for members.

To match my current car's 31 MPG at 81p per KW, I would need an electric car at 4.15 Miles/KW which is not likely in my price range.

Tesla member price would take the break even point to 2.82 Miles/KW which is much more reasonable.

At home charging (with an EV specific tariff) obviously obliterates most petrol cars MPG, but it's not an option.

Once the public charging network has more normal prices, I'll be more enthusiastic.

 

[OldKitMan]

It was just an example hypothetical counter argument to "yeah but it's better and faster".

It's amazing they sold so many manual VW Golf TSIs in 'Life' trim when all it would have taken is another 10 grand to buy something better.

Anyway, I've got how price parity works now. My mistake was comparing two five door hatches from the same brand.

I think the smart money is to buy at about 1 year old. The price difference between EV and Petrol/Diesel model at 1 year old is a lot closer.

I got my EV a couple of weeks ago, less that 5k miles and only 46% of list price from a main dealer.

 

[Haggisman]

Compare classes of car not the direct equivalent in a specific range.

Family hatch:
VW Golf £25k - MG4 long range £26k

Dacia Sandero £14k, ICE is still cheaper

Not really a fair comparison there. Much as I like the MG4, you're comparing a budget Chinese brand to a mid-range German brand. Of course it's going to be more expensive.

The thing is many others would have the exact opposite argument.

Only the most dedicated EV convert would pay over 9 grand more for an extra 30bhp/ton and some unnecessary bells and whistles.

That argument isn't unique to EVs though, given the Golf R 20 year edition exists; ”why would anyone pay £23k more just for a slightly faster Golf with some unnecessary stick on tat?"

There is a definitely a gap in the market for cheap and cheerful, basic, (relatively) low powered and long range EV, but comparing an EV with loads of kit to a base model equivalent ICE and claiming how much more expensive it is purely because it's an EV is disingenuous.

Yes, they are more expensive, and yes, a good chunk of that is due to the drivetrain, but you do also (usually) get more for your money.

For me, defrosting the car from the comfort of the breakfast table isn’t ‘unnecessary bells and whistles’

Especially when you walk out to your nice warm defrosted car, get in, and drive off straight away, whilst saying good morning to your neighbour frantically scraping away