EV general discussion

[shroomz]

This is the point of the recent push for 'smart' chargers. Reality in the first instance is to allow the stagger start of chargers to avoid all starting at once, the grid supply dropping and literally slowing such that the base frequency (50Hz) reduces and stuff starts to derate, stop and/or trip. Im planning if my wire gets annoying being 5m on mine to change to 8m. Remaining Type 2 of course but for power supply just a cable change or adapter would be sufficient. There is no real benefit to change anyway, limitation is the existing grid that goes to the house.

Mobile Phones are a great example how the market has changed, moved and learned from it. Certainly not a mistake to make again in the pursuit of reduced WEEE

I'm wondering what kind of larger scale changes we'll see coming in when EV penetration starts really making a dent in the overall GWh numbers passing through the grid during the off peak hours. At some point there won't be enough GWh left for everyone to get the cheapest rate so they'll need to have multiple tiers; or I guess suppliers will just slowly make the off peak rate less attractive in line with uptake so they can still keep a tolerable margin

 

[Jonnycoupe]

If we can avoid the large spike for power generation demand and the resulting huge prices for that requested infill energy it might bode well for better managed energy to flatten UK power production and hence give rise to flat rate but controlled tarriffs at lower rates than today's consumer products.

 

[Scougar]

Makes less sense now than in 2018.

Resources stretched, which pushed up prices. Government subsidies not as strong. Electric prices rising..Charging stations often broken (minor).

Hybrid was and still is the better solution. Diversity of power sources is better .

We also have countries like China mass building electric vehicles that are never sold or used sitting in fields waiting resources and pushing up prices.

 

[b0rn2sk8]

While peak energy demands has been dropping slowly over the last 2 decades, it will start creeping up again due to the wind down of gas. Space heating can be time shifted to an extent but not fully. Cooking is more difficult and there is a lot of gas hobs out there still.

That will help maintain the peak/offpeak pricing. There is only so much home battery storage you can install while still being cost effective. In those really cold dark days, heat pump will rinse a 10kwh battery in a few hours when it’s -5 outside but it’s not worth installing tons of extra batteries that you only need 15 days a year.

Makes less sense now than in 2018.

Resources stretched, which pushed up prices. Government subsidies not as strong. Electric prices rising..Charging stations often broken (minor).

Hybrid was and still is the better solution. Diversity of power sources is better IMO.

The cars are considerably cheaper than in 2018 and there is also a huge variety available now with much better ranges. If you can charge at home, the economic case is about the same.

Charging stations are not regularly broken, broken chargers are a thing but there are so many now, it actually being a problem isn’t really a thing anymore and the major networks are generally on top of their maintenance.

Hybrid doesn’t solve the emissions problem. Most people don’t charge their plug in hybrids and only have them because they are cheaper than diesel on a company car scheme. They are more complex, plug ins are as expensive as an EV to buy and according to the data, more likely to catch fire than any other propulsion type (with an EV being the least likely).

 

[Mr Jack]

Hybrid doesn’t solve the emissions problem.

Agreed. They're an inherently flawed solution which doesn't give the benefits of full electric, and adds weight and complexity to ICE.

Most people don’t charge their plug in hybrids and only have them because they are cheaper than diesel on a company car scheme.

This isn't supported by real world data. Although it varies considerably between private and company car usage, most drivers are plugging their cars in and getting a decent amount of electric-only usage, private more than company but even company cars are plugged in on half of driving days. What is clear is that the assumptions on charging and usage used in calculating emissions are a country mile from what actually happens, leading to wildly inaccurate MPG claims for PHEV vehicles.

 

[Tinders]

I only started plugging in the 330e daily since i got octopus intelligent, the economy was good enough on a run that extra expense wasnt worth it. Since september ive been doing a hefty school run, and the fuel economy locally was shocking, so in went the plug to soften the blow on my wallet Ever since electricity prices shot up, most of fellow company car colleagues stopped charging their PHEV's.

 

[lordrobs]

Hybrid doesn’t solve the emissions problem. Most people don’t charge their plug in hybrids and only have them because they are cheaper than diesel on a company car scheme.

That is thanks to the glacial pace at which HMRC keeps up with things though and you can't blame people for not plugging them in when there is a financial disincentive for doing so.

In my petrol company car private mileage costs me 13ppm. If it was a PHEV with same cc and I didn't plug it in it would cost me... 13ppm. If I plugged it in it would cost me 13ppm PLUS the cost of the electricity. Why would anyone do that?!

I don't know what proportion of people pay back private miles (vs being paid back business) but anyone clocking up serious mileage for work would be silly to choose to bank roll their business mileage unless they were sure they could do well on the rate.

Some of the PHEVs coming through look like a cracking compromise. Smaller battery than EV but still 60+ mile EV only range and the convenience of a tank full of juice to take you further when required. Shame they are only ever going to be a stopgap product now as the full potential won't really be seen.

 

[b0rn2sk8]

That is thanks to the glacial pace at which HMRC keeps up with things though and you can't blame people for not plugging them in when there is a financial disincentive for doing so.

In my petrol company car private mileage costs me 13ppm. If it was a PHEV with same cc and I didn't plug it in it would cost me... 13ppm. If I plugged it in it would cost me 13ppm PLUS the cost of the electricity. Why would anyone do that?!

I don't know what proportion of people pay back private miles (vs being paid back business) but anyone clocking up serious mileage for work would be silly to choose to bank roll their business mileage unless they were sure they could do well on the rate.

That’s an issue with your employer and not HMRC. If you are paying for private milage, they should be refunding you the actual cost to charge the car at home.

Allstar have a system where they can connect directly to a charge point to monitor energy usage and pay your energy supplier for electricity used by the company car automatically. They also supply an RFID card for public chargers.

 

[[TW]Fox]

Agreed. They're an inherently flawed solution which doesn't give the benefits of full electric, and adds weight and complexity to ICE.

I can never make up my mind whether I like them or not. I mostly agree with you, but however it's worth considering that they also give the flexibility of petrol or diesel with the zero emissions urban ability that would make a real difference to local emissions.

The problem with them is that they always seem to be flawed in other ways - the BMW 5 Series with the incredibly small fuel tank making range a problem on petrol, for example. Or the X5 which gives you an electric motor for local usage and... a large 3 litre petrol turbo engine for moving your huge 4x4 along on the Motorway at 25mpg.

They'd make most sense with a diesel engine - low CO2 emissions and significant range on long journeys, zero local emissions.

 

[bigmike20vt]

While peak energy demands has been dropping slowly over the last 2 decades, it will start creeping up again due to the wind down of gas. Space heating can be time shifted to an extent but not fully. Cooking is more difficult and there is a lot of gas hobs out there still.

That will help maintain the peak/offpeak pricing. There is only so much home battery storage you can install while still being cost effective. In those really cold dark days, heat pump will rinse a 10kwh battery in a few hours when it’s -5 outside but it’s not worth installing tons of extra batteries that you only need 15 days a year.


The cars are considerably cheaper than in 2018 and there is also a huge variety available now with much better ranges. If you can charge at home, the economic case is about the same.

Charging stations are not regularly broken, broken chargers are a thing but there are so many now, it actually being a problem isn’t really a thing anymore and the major networks are generally on top of their maintenance.

Hybrid doesn’t solve the emissions problem. Most people don’t charge their plug in hybrids and only have them because they are cheaper than diesel on a company car scheme. They are more complex, plug ins are as expensive as an EV to buy and according to the data, more likely to catch fire than any other propulsion type (with an EV being the least likely).

imo there are hybrids and there are hybrids.
dont get me wrong, the reliability is a concern, in that sense they have a lot of the issues of an ice combined with those of a battery EV.

some hybrids as well only do really short ranges on electric and then have been shown to be really inefficient when running on petrol....... but others, when used properly are not so bad.

i really wanted to be a 2 pure ev household but thanks to the utter FUD in the media combined with some teething issues with our ipace (not the cars fault) my wife flatly refused to go full EV. it was her car so i pushed as far as i could without risking a major domestic incident ( ) and we compromised on a plug in hybrid.... but it does 85 mixed style driving winter miles on pure electric / probably 110 summer miles

I remain unconvinced by them, but we have owned it since middle of November and currently i have bought a grand total of 6litres of petrol for it (it was full on delivery and i filled it once and its 9 litre tank is a 1/4 full now)... so its used maybe 13l of petrol max in 4.5 months and the car has covered over 3000 miles in that time

so in terms of emissions it is not so bad. the petrol engine has only been "needed" once, the rest of the time we just fire it up for 10 mins to keep the engine running properly. its only a small 2 stroke motorbike engine but it is the major failure point of the car.

but plug in hybrids with under 30 miles pure ev range? their time has passed imo. if you can never charge at home anyway they make even less sense, may as well get an efficient ICE car 2nd hand or maybe a "mild" hybrid with a tiny battery just big enough to allow regen braking but not much else.

the use case of "i only do 40 miles 95% of the time but go on country wide road trips twice a year and dont want to public charge.......... I actually wonder if a pure EV city car may make sense and then just hire a petrol or long range EV for the holidays? not for everyone but i think i would consider than in those circumstances.

 

[Tinders]

That is thanks to the glacial pace at which HMRC keeps up with things though and you can't blame people for not plugging them in when there is a financial disincentive for doing so.

In my petrol company car private mileage costs me 13ppm. If it was a PHEV with same cc and I didn't plug it in it would cost me... 13ppm. If I plugged it in it would cost me 13ppm PLUS the cost of the electricity. Why would anyone do that?!

I don't know what proportion of people pay back private miles (vs being paid back business) but anyone clocking up serious mileage for work would be silly to choose to bank roll their business mileage unless they were sure they could do well on the rate.

Some of the PHEVs coming through look like a cracking compromise. Smaller battery than EV but still 60+ mile EV only range and the convenience of a tank full of juice to take you further when required. Shame they are only ever going to be a stopgap product now as the full potential won't really be seen.

We were having the same issues, quite a few companies operate in the same way, many folk dont have fuel for private use due to tax implication.

It actually held back EV adoption at our place, as with the HMRC reimbursement, you were out of pocket if you did a decent amount of miles. Its all changed, the bandings have been ammended, so EV's are cost effective again, and you can claim back public charging if you cover more than 200 miles in a trip. As of 2025 all company car drivers at our place will only be able order EV's. And to further complicate matters, low mileage users, who can opt out, will no longer be able to have company provided insurance.

 

[Tinders]

I can never make up my mind whether I like them or not. I mostly agree with you, but however it's worth considering that they also give the flexibility of petrol or diesel with the zero emissions urban ability that would make a real difference to local emissions.

The problem with them is that they always seem to be flawed in other ways - the BMW 5 Series with the incredibly small fuel tank making range a problem on petrol, for example. Or the X5 which gives you an electric motor for local usage and... a large 3 litre petrol turbo engine for moving your huge 4x4 along on the Motorway at 25mpg.

They'd make most sense with a diesel engine - low CO2 emissions and significant range on long journeys, zero local emissions.

330e has been good for me, 45mpg on a run very easily, shockingly bad locally 25mpg. I agree on the range, tank is a tiny 40l, and elec only range is 17 in winter and 30 in summer. Its preparing me well for EV ownership

 

[lordrobs]

That’s an issue with your employer and not HMRC. If you are paying for private milage, they should be refunding you the actual cost to charge the car at home.

Allstar have a system where they can connect directly to a charge point to monitor energy usage and pay your energy supplier for electricity used by the company car automatically. They also supply an RFID card for public chargers.

Unfortunately HMRC set the rules, and in this specific case "Hybrid cars are treated as either petrol or diesel cars for advisory fuel rates." https://www.gov.uk/guidance/advisory-fuel-rates.

Employers can pay their company car users what they like, this is true, but it then introduces the added complication of ensuring that all costs are recorded / proven and it also introduces a potential tax / NIC implication. In reality no employer is going to bother with that which is why they almost entirely stick to the HMRC advisory fuel rates and do away with all that hassle and pay a flat tax free amount.

We were having the same issues, quite a few companies operate in the same way, many folk dont have fuel for private use due to tax implication.

It actually held back EV adoption at our place, as with the HMRC reimbursement, you were out of pocket if you did a decent amount of miles. Its all changed, the bandings have been ammended, so EV's are cost effective again, and you can claim back public charging if you cover more than 200 miles in a trip. As of 2025 all company car drivers at our place will only be able order EV's. And to further complicate matters, low mileage users, who can opt out, will no longer be able to have company provided insurance.

That is interesting. Is the 200 mile threshold due to the hassle of recording the mileage and charging costs and effectively proving that the 9ppm rate isn't sufficient?

 

[Mr Jack]

I can never make up my mind whether I like them or not. I mostly agree with you, but however it's worth considering that they also give the flexibility of petrol or diesel with the zero emissions urban ability that would make a real difference to local emissions.

I overstated that. I think there are probably some situations in which a hybrid is the right solution. I just don't think they're the right solution for the majority; something that is more of a stopgap.

They'd make most sense with a diesel engine - low CO2 emissions and significant range on long journeys, zero local emissions.

I don't really understand why there are so few diesel hybrids. To me, they seem to be a obviously good idea. Probably down to Volkswagen wrecking the reputation of diesel so comprehensively, I guess.

 

[jpaul]

phev's would seem to have the best of both worlds for long term ownership maintenance costs - nonetheless, at the moment, depreciation between ICE&bev.

330e has been good for me, 45mpg on a run very easily

not sure why they aren't releasing them with a bigger battery now - versus merc / new-passat. - bm just betting on bev (before dates got pushed back - sic)

 

[sandys]

I'd imagine the issue is the extra weight of diesel over a petrol engine when combined with the EV drive train makes so it only suitable for monsters like the GLE.

PHEV is bossing it in our use case, XC60 T8 FTW , it's range is plenty, though you always want more, averaging 36 miles to its 14.9kw usable, +- 6 miles because EV , I have had the car force me to use the petrol engine due to aged fuel warning, seems a few months to a tank is a long time unfortunately only does about 37mpg on petrol still over 500 mile range with it's 70 litre tank so it's not a useless tank when you want to burn some hydrocarbons pulling a couple of tonnes.

We're fortunate to have cheap/free charge both at home and work, and really only use the petrol for long range and towing, probably why it works for us.

For our use case the only benefit to an EV is cheaper tax and perhaps slightly more efficient when we do have to pay for it, too much other baggage that comes with EV for it to be our main car, but using a PHEV has helped to confirm the general suitability for both me and the missus for a big chunk of the day to day stuff, it's like EV training wheels

I am torn between getting an EV as a spare car or buying something more fun with a noisy engine and manual box as unfortunately the truly interesting EVs are still strong money and that can get you a lot of fun sports car. (I get no incentives as a private purchaser to enjoy cheap EVs like many here.)

 

[Greebo]

I'd imagine the issue is the extra weight of diesel over a petrol engine when combined with the EV drive train makes so it only suitable for monsters like the GLE.

PHEV is bossing it in our use case, XC60 T8 FTW , it's range is plenty, though you always want more, averaging 36 miles to its 14.9kw usable, +- 6 miles because EV , I have had the car force me to use the petrol engine due to aged fuel warning, seems a few months to a tank is a long time unfortunately only does about 37mpg on petrol still over 500 mile range with it's 70 litre tank so it's not a useless tank when you want to burn some hydrocarbons pulling a couple of tonnes.

We're fortunate to have cheap/free charge both at home and work, and really only use the petrol for long range and towing, probably why it works for us.

For our use case the only benefit to an EV is cheaper tax and perhaps slightly more efficient when we do have to pay for it, too much other baggage that comes with EV for it to be our main car, but using a PHEV has helped to confirm the general suitability for both me and the missus, it's like EV training wheels

I am torn between getting one as a spare car or buy something more fun with a noisy engine and manual box as unfortunately the truly interesting EVs are still strong money and it can get you a lot of fun sports car. (I get no incentives as a private purchaser to enjoy cheap EVs like many here.)

Similar here but even better. BMW X5 45e with a 50 mile range (+- 12 miles) and still does 35mpg when using just the ICE. New model does 63 miles on EV. Still tows over 3 tonnes.

And the straight 6 engine still sounds nice

 

[Tinders]

Unfortunately HMRC set the rules, and in this specific case "Hybrid cars are treated as either petrol or diesel cars for advisory fuel rates." https://www.gov.uk/guidance/advisory-fuel-rates.

Employers can pay their company car users what they like, this is true, but it then introduces the added complication of ensuring that all costs are recorded / proven and it also introduces a potential tax / NIC implication. In reality no employer is going to bother with that which is why they almost entirely stick to the HMRC advisory fuel rates and do away with all that hassle and pay a flat tax free amount.

That is interesting. Is the 200 mile threshold due to the hassle of recording the mileage and charging costs and effectively proving that the 9ppm rate isn't sufficient?

There is a mechanism where a company can pay you extra to cover your costs without having a burden of proof. For eg we got additional payments when the fuel was sky high in 21/22, the HMRC rate was a joke at the time. The company did make us suffer for 6 months before they did something though, fortunately it was back dated.

The 200 miles is based upon the fact that many cars can do this is one charge, and it should be covered by the cheaper overnight electricity. You use the HMRC rate for the whole trip, and anything over 200 miles where you have used public charging, you can claim that back as well, you don't even need a receipt, just a screenshot of the charger screen is enough.

 

[Jonnycoupe]

I overstated that. I think there are probably some situations in which a hybrid is the right solution. I just don't think they're the right solution for the majority; something that is more of a stopgap.



I don't really understand why there are so few diesel hybrids. To me, they seem to be a obviously good idea. Probably down to Volkswagen wrecking the reputation of diesel so comprehensively, I guess.

Same as my usual reply to this one, its heavier more expensive powertrain so totally at odds to the scope of increasing PHEV range with expensive heavy batteries aswell as a tank for urea to manage the NOx, EU7 even more aftertreatment horrors too.

 

[Mr Jack]

Same as my usual reply to this one, its heavier more expensive powertrain so totally at odds to the scope of increasing PHEV range with expensive heavy batteries

I tend to think the need for PHEV range is midguided. What you want is enough electric power to do your daily pootle to the supermarket, school, and work; and enough for the car to switch to electric power through the city after a long motorway run where it can recharge a bit. Go beyond about 30 miles of pure electric range and you're getting diminishing returns. It doesn't help much for the areas where PHEV's help but it's also not doing much on the really long runs. Instead it's just increasing cost and weight.

There are a few diesel PHEVs out there; I wonder whether there's real world data on their MPGs compared to petrol PHEVs? Obviously, usage patterns are a huge influence.

aswell as a tank for urea to manage the NOx, EU7 even more aftertreatment horrors too.

How big an issue is this? Presumably, less than for diesels in general.