EV general discussion

b0rn2sk8 said:
It’s only cheap in other developed countries because it’s subsidised with the money the government takes off its citizens in the form of taxes.
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it does come down to this... however i dont see a solution here.... whilst for any publicly owned company i am more than happy for my taxes to cover part of the running costs, with any profits going back into the public coffers.

i must admit i complain as loud as the next person when public money is ploughed into privately owned services...... when you see share holders taking big dividends, higher ups huge pay rises but we still get an expensive, crap service

other than re nationalisation i can not see a way to sort that.... which means back to the topic, for the forseeable privately owned transport is likely to be what we are stuck with for the forseeable........ and the least damaging form of that (other than pedal power or feet of course) is an EV of some kind.
 
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Southy_ said:
Be interested to hear your take on what you think the future is?

The only current alternative to BEVs is FCEVs, for which the infrastructure is currently non-existant.
Synthetic eco-fuels are barely an improvement, as you are still producing Nitrogen oxides and Carbon monoxide (even if the CO2 is theoretically offset) - so like PHEVs is just a bridging solution to BEVs.
Ideally the alternative would be the mass improvement of public transport, to the point where very small numbers of people need cars, but that is not happening in most of our lifetimes.
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I've no idea tbh. But batteries are crap generally.

Without trying to bang on the same old drum, but EVs are hardly environmentally friendly to make, or recycle. But I this may be in fact better than what I have read.

Also, the biggest elephant in the room - the infrastructure. Yes EVs are brilliant if you have a drive, or somewhere to plug your own charger into the car. But what about people living in flats, on street parking.......etc etc etc.

Oh and lastly, the cost. My mum would be a perfect candidate for an EV. They have a drive, somewhere to install a charger and she only drives a maximum of about 30 miles ever. So even a crappy low range EV would do the job. But they are $$$$$! Of course I assume the costs will come down. But at the moment, there isn't a chance in hell they would entertain the notion of getting one.

They seem to work now, but I really struggle to see how it will continue when EVs overtake ICE cars in numbers on the road.
 
Shadowness said:
They seem to work now, but I really struggle to see how it will continue when EVs overtake ICE cars in numbers on the road.
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Imagine how difficult it was to own a car when there were barely any petrol stations on the road and think about how easy it is now

It's only going to get easier to own an EV as they increase their share of the market as infrastructure will be everywhere
 
Shadowness said:
Oh and lastly, the cost. My mum would be a perfect candidate for an EV. They have a drive, somewhere to install a charger and she only drives a maximum of about 30 miles ever. So even a crappy low range EV would do the job. But they are $$$$$! Of course I assume the costs will come down. But at the moment, there isn't a chance in hell they would entertain the notion of getting one.
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I'm not sure what YouTube'r you are mindlessly regurgitating nonsense - but just an FYI on this specific point; my mum's Fiesta was stolen about 6 weeks ago. I am filtering on low mileage, under £10k cars, that aren't too old - the absolute favourites at the moment for dirt cheap parental motoring is the Smart car, followed by the Renault Zoe. I can't find a single petrol car in the same range.
 
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Shadowness said:
Oh and lastly, the cost. My mum would be a perfect candidate for an EV. They have a drive, somewhere to install a charger and she only drives a maximum of about 30 miles ever. So even a crappy low range EV would do the job. But they are $$$$$! Of course I assume the costs will come down. But at the moment, there isn't a chance in hell they would entertain the notion of getting one.

They seem to work now, but I really struggle to see how it will continue when EVs overtake ICE cars in numbers on the road.
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i mean... how much is too much? if you mean a £300 run around banger then you have a point, however a £5000 30kwh gen 1 nissan leaf would do what they need easily..... and the cheap electricity and likely cheaper running costs would soon pull some of the cost back.

also even tho EVs are getting hit with the tax stick next year, such a nissan leaf should just about dodge it.

it is possible EVs will never get to the under £500 mark simply because their scrap value may be more than that of an ICE vehicle.... but then in theory when you come to scrap it you may get more for it in the end.

imo EV batteries whilst not green in any way, are only getting cleaner as we move forward...... it is unlikely the petroleum industry will clean up much more given they have had over a century to improve their processes already and stuff like cobalt is used in ICE vehicles as well but isnt recyclable.. (where as EV users can choose to buy a cobalt free battery if they choose)
 
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Shadowness said:
I've no idea tbh. But batteries are crap generally.

Without trying to bang on the same old drum, but EVs are hardly environmentally friendly to make, or recycle. But I this may be in fact better than what I have read.

Also, the biggest elephant in the room - the infrastructure. Yes EVs are brilliant if you have a drive, or somewhere to plug your own charger into the car. But what about people living in flats, on street parking.......etc etc etc.

Oh and lastly, the cost. My mum would be a perfect candidate for an EV. They have a drive, somewhere to install a charger and she only drives a maximum of about 30 miles ever. So even a crappy low range EV would do the job. But they are $$$$$! Of course I assume the costs will come down. But at the moment, there isn't a chance in hell they would entertain the notion of getting one.

They seem to work now, but I really struggle to see how it will continue when EVs overtake ICE cars in numbers on the road.
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I see the "batteries are crap" argument a lot, but I am not sure why it gets so much traction, batteries are amazing, the technology and research going into them is insane, they will already last 100,000 miles+ with plenty of life left in them if treated well (not constantly charged to 100% etc.)

The difference in manufacturing emissions between an EV and an ICE car are now offset after 15,000 miles, so yes, this is better than what the anti-EV crowd claims.

Infrastructure is a fair point, and will be for a while. I always tell people that ask, if you don't have home charging facilities then you need to do more research and look into what charging is like where you live etc.

Cost has been mentioned before on this page, but it's not such a big deal now and will only get better, EV depreciation is massive right now so 2-3 year old EVs can be had pretty cheap, especially the super-minis (VW Up! EV, Renault Zoe, Fiat 500e etc).
 
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I think a lot of the issue when people talk about infrastructure is a fear of change and a fear of the future. I know that I catch myself doing it all the time. i.e. Walking into a motorway services and spot a half empty bank of EV chargers my mind jumps straight to "ooh, but when there are twice as many EVs on the road that won't be enough." So what am I expecting? Two thirds of them to be sat empty? Who is going to pay for that?!

It has been made clear to me that my next company car can't be electric so I'll be going the PHEV route to stick it to Mr Tax Man but because I'm a sad individual I've been thinking about my work trips and if/how they could work in an EV. Mostly the answer seems to be with very little change to what I already do. Expenses become more complicated than business miles x HMRC advisory rate but it isn't insurmountable.

As an aside I pulled into Rugby services last night for a wee, coffee and sausage roll combo and... well... on the plus side you certainly can't miss the Gridserve chargers there! On the negative side... what a flipping eye sore! It's like a **** Las Vegas strip in retina melting blue, white and green LEDs!
 
lordrobs said:
As an aside I pulled into Rugby services last night for a wee, coffee and sausage roll combo and... well... on the plus side you certainly can't miss the Gridserve chargers there! On the negative side... what a flipping eye sore! It's like a **** Las Vegas strip in retina melting blue, white and green LEDs!
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I see your point but it's actually much safer that way lol

Charging in the dark is absolutely no fun at all
 
I’m not sure I see the issue, I mean it’s a a huge tarmac expanse largely filled with diesel trucks, it’s not a tourist attraction. It’s a massive upgrade on your typical services that hasn’t seen a toilet cleaner in 30 years let alone a lick of paint.

For those that haven’t been there recently, as well as all the new Tera 360 dual bay units are live, the original unreliable Tritium units (at least one was always broken) have also been ripped out and are being replaced with something else, presumably more ABB chargers.
 
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Shadowness said:
I've no idea tbh. But batteries are crap generally.

Without trying to bang on the same old drum, but EVs are hardly environmentally friendly to make, or recycle. But I this may be in fact better than what I have read.

Also, the biggest elephant in the room - the infrastructure. Yes EVs are brilliant if you have a drive, or somewhere to plug your own charger into the car. But what about people living in flats, on street parking.......etc etc etc.

Oh and lastly, the cost. My mum would be a perfect candidate for an EV. They have a drive, somewhere to install a charger and she only drives a maximum of about 30 miles ever. So even a crappy low range EV would do the job. But they are $$$$$! Of course I assume the costs will come down. But at the moment, there isn't a chance in hell they would entertain the notion of getting one.

They seem to work now, but I really struggle to see how it will continue when EVs overtake ICE cars in numbers on the road.
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It’s all relative. I hate the term “green” as people take that as an absolute. As has been pointed out, batteries break even after a few thousand miles. After that, they’re not adding to pollution.

Recycling them obviously takes energy but those materials are out the ground now and don’t have to be mined for and can be re-used. Unlike oil.
 
b0rn2sk8 said:
I’m not sure I see the issue, I mean it’s a a huge tarmac expanse largely filled with diesel trucks, it’s not a tourist attraction. It’s a massive upgrade on your typical services that hasn’t seen a toilet cleaner in 30 years let alone a lick of paint.
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Unnecessary garish lights, screens etc. are just a bug bear of mine. The Tesla units are instantly visible by the illuminated sign above them and there is proper lighting above the chargers so it isn't for the purpose of helping with seeing what you are doing. If anything it hinders that. If it was dimmed 60% at night it would be so much better.

Gridserve Postwick is another beacon of unnecessary LED lights and max brightness screens. I won't go proper old man and say "I remember when all of this was fields" (even though I can) and it isn't exactly a site of natural beauty now the farmland has been turned into a business park and A road but there's still no need for the pointless visual noise. Especially as the building itself has had some thought given to the aesthetic.

The facilities are great at Rugby no matter what you are driving.
 
I do love it when non ev drivers complain about the infrastructure.
How do they know?
Do they read the daily fail articles or ask an actual ev driver?
People in flats can't charge their ev at home! Neither can they fill up with petrol at home.
 
m4rmite said:
I do love it when non ev drivers complain about the infrastructure.
How do they know?
Do they read the daily fail articles or ask an actual ev driver?
People in flats can't charge their ev at home! Neither can they fill up with petrol at home.
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i am a total EV convert... some would say fanboy however i dont think you can discount concerns about those who cant charge at home..... yes no one can fill their ICEV at home either but at the same time, ridiculously cheap home charging is the carrot that convinces many to jump to an EV, and reduces the pain of the massive costs of public charging.

affordable public destination charging (lack of) IS a real concern imo. The press as well as non EV owners like to focus on rapid charging availablity and its high costs, but imo that isnt the right thing to solve... long term cheap public destination charging should be the every day charging for everyone and then rapid charging at insane prices would be the rare in a rush charging which if only a small percentage of the yearly charging the high price would not be a worry...... BUT as it stands now relying on 60p+ a kwh charging for a huge percentage of their charging IS a massive concern and something which currently many people would be stuck with), esp now (if the media is to be believed, and am not sure it should be) the government are considering bringing in per mile driving for EVs to pull back some more tax.

again i love having an EV, but if neither home charging or incredibly cheap work charging were available to me, there is no way i could justify one, and that IS a concern worth discussing imo (as opposed to the nonsense FUD which is actually banged on about like charging safety, EV fires, artisinal mining and throwing dead car batteries into landfil after 5 years)
 
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I do agree that everyone focuses on rapid charging where as the real workhorse is slow 3.6/7kw AC charging for both private and public charging.

They should be supply the bulk of public charging, the more of them there are, the less rapids you need and they are cheap to deploy in comparison.

Unfortunately the contactless payment regs adds so much fixed cost to running an 11/22kw charging post which realistically is going to be used for 2-3 transactions per day.

Each terminal will have a standing charge which needs to be paid every month. It’s fine when you are splitting that across 10’s or even 100’s of transactions a day but when it’s only a few transactions, you are really going to notice that.

It’s madness they applied the regs to them.
 
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m4rmite said:
I do love it when non ev drivers complain about the infrastructure.
How do they know?
Do they read the daily fail articles or ask an actual ev driver?
People in flats can't charge their ev at home! Neither can they fill up with petrol at home.
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Well it wasn't a great experience from the very first time I had first hand account of it. So that's how I know. Yes we might have been unlucky, but that's the point. I wouldn't have had an issue filling up at a petrol station. And if it was full, I wait a few minutes and a pump is free.

2 out of 2 slots were taken at the place we stopped, and we had no idea how long we would have needed to wait for our turn. And even then, you don't really know what rate you'll charge at, and how long you'll need to wait there to get the range required to get home.

Essentially, there were way too many 'what ifs' and unknowns on that one return trip. Just my 2c. But I can see how for many people, EVs work really well.

Also, not sure what point you're trying to make with the last sentence.
 
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Was in London yesterday and parked near Maida Vale Station, great to see the 5kW lampost integrated units but 0.49p /kWh. Ouch - I didnt use them anyway.

Got home on 6%, plugged in and at 8am today back to 80% ready for the wife to use - no petrol station stops is the reality of life now.
 
Oh yeh that was the other shock.....the price. Many around 80-90p/kwh. Again, really favours being able to charge at home, and using the stations as a last resort.
 
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