EV general discussion

[Hatake]

Flip side though you get people who see you as anti-EV because they don't understand that people have different usage to them and/or usages which slip through the cracks i.e. the vast majority of my usage is prime EV territory and I have a large parking area which easily facilitates charging BUT occasionally I do have to do those "300 mile" trips on short notice and with time constraints and that becomes a complete showstopper - especially with the still unpredictable nature of the public charging network - you can much more chance it with fuel (though I always try to maintain over half a tank to accommodate contingencies).

EDIT: There is also a bit of an experience hump to get over - not just being stubborn and/or not liking change - especially for people who are getting on - things like having properly invested in a standardised charging network up front would massively help with that and EV adoption - one of those things which is easy when you know how but can be prohibitive to break into.

The average persons daily mileage is apparently <40 miles, which the majority of EVs can do these days. If you need to do long trips on short notice, then EVs aren't the tech for you. Nothing wrong with that but I'd say that's more of an outlier than the norm for most people. Saying all EVs are bad and never going to work because of an outlier isn't a correct or fair assessment in my opinion, which is quite common when people complain about EVs. Although allegedly a Tesla long range will do 380 miles real world, one fast charge (assuming you can find one) and 500+ would technically be possible. Not that I'd ever buy a Tesla though.

I personally don't believe they're ready for long trips yet and the only charging points I would consider acceptable are at home or in the office. Anything else is like a motorway petrol station, best to be avoided where possible. There needs to be a major step up in battery tech for long distance and infrastructure to become realistic. I believe an EV's purpose is your run of the mill city driving. Like how a ferrari is best on a racetrack, a transit van for carrying bulky/heavy loads, one of those nasty crossovers if you got kids, etc.

 

[m4rmite]

The average persons daily mileage is apparently <40 miles, which the majority of EVs can do these days. If you need to do long trips on short notice, then EVs aren't the tech for you. Nothing wrong with that but I'd say that's more of an outlier than the norm for most people. Saying all EVs are bad and never going to work because of an outlier isn't a correct or fair assessment in my opinion, which is quite common when people complain about EVs. Although allegedly a Tesla long range will do 380 miles real world, one fast charge (assuming you can find one) and 500+ would technically be possible. Not that I'd ever buy a Tesla though.

I personally don't believe they're ready for long trips yet and the only charging points I would consider acceptable are at home or in the office. Anything else is like a motorway petrol station, best to be avoided where possible. There needs to be a major step up in battery tech for long distance and infrastructure to become realistic. I believe an EV's purpose is your run of the mill city driving. Like how a ferrari is best on a racetrack, a transit van for carrying bulky/heavy loads, one of those nasty crossovers if you got kids, etc.

What would you class as long trips?

 

[BaZ87]

So, I've placed an order for the i3 neue klasse as I've felt now is the right time, whilst there's also decent value in my Alpina B3 Touring to make the most of the switch, so i am going to be selling that. Since I'm still doing a lot of miles travelling around the country for the sake of my childrens karting, doing that in a 20mpg car doesn't make an awful lot of sense, but i've had my 3 years of fun with it, it's time to move on. Still need to sell the Alpina nearer the time, but current delivery for the i3 is mid-November.

Out of interest did you put a deposit down prior to placing the order recently?

When I test drove the iX3 2-3 months back, my local dealer had just started taking deposits on the i3 with a ballpark delivery date of November/December. Either he was being overly cautious to manage expectations or the take up hasn't been as big as BMW were expecting, which would be a surprise.

I've been leaning towards extending the lease on my ID7 for another year and waiting for the i3 touring but I'll no doubt test drive the i3 when it's out and who knows, if it's as good as I'm expecting it to be and deliveries aren't well into next year by then, maybe I can be convinced.

 

[Demon]

What would you class as long trips?

He's just out of touch with reality.. but you can see his world view seems hung up on click bait nonsense, although I suspect he'll get an EV well before jpaul does..

 

[Journey]

I personally don't believe they're ready for long trips yet and the only charging points I would consider acceptable are at home or in the office. Anything else is like a motorway petrol station, best to be avoided where possible. There needs to be a major step up in battery tech for long distance and infrastructure to become realistic. I believe an EV's purpose is your run of the mill city driving. Like how a ferrari is best on a racetrack, a transit van for carrying bulky/heavy loads, one of those nasty crossovers if you got kids, etc.

Should we not bother going on our holiday then? As we are driving from the UK to France/Switzerland/Italy and back in an EV. I better tell the Mrs quick if we need to cancel and just drive around Wolverhampton for a week instead.

 

[Rob200sx]

Out of interest did you put a deposit down prior to placing the order recently?

When I test drove the iX3 2-3 months back, my local dealer had just started taking deposits on the i3 with a ballpark delivery date of November/December. Either he was being overly cautious to manage expectations or the take up hasn't been as big as BMW were expecting, which would be a surprise.

I've been leaning towards extending the lease on my ID7 for another year and waiting for the i3 touring but I'll no doubt test drive the i3 when it's out and who knows, if it's as good as I'm expecting it to be and deliveries aren't well into next year by then, maybe I can be convinced.

Yep, £1000 to secure a build slot for November, Sytner had two allocations left (this was as of two weeks ago) but I'm not sure how many of the 1st Editions they had been given though. Should be getting test/showroom versions late Sept/early Oct. This will be my first saloon as well, so I need to come around to the idea of a different level of boot space. I believe the i3 touring isn't due till around early '27 and I'd expect the orders for that to be really strong.

 

[tom_e]

Should we not bother going on our holiday then? As we are driving from the UK to France/Switzerland/Italy and back in an EV. I better tell the Mrs quick if we need to cancel and just drive around Wolverhampton for a week instead.

Should get a good few goes around the ring road now it's 30mph at least.

 

[China Man]

We're moving toward an electric car market.

Overall, the number of electric vehicles on UK roads is still a tiny proportion of the total number of registered cars. Out of 26 million cars, around 37,500 are EV. So still a way to go.

The original post was from 2018, and EV technology has moved on enormously since then.

I've owned a Vauxhall Ampera for the past few years. It's a plug-in hybrid with a range extender, and in real-world driving I get around 28 miles of electric range in winter and up to 40 miles in summer. Because we mostly do short trips around London and only cover about 8,000 miles a year, we charge almost exclusively at home. Since buying the car four years ago for £9,500, I've only been to a petrol station once or twice a year, usually just to put in about £10 of fuel.

I'm now looking at moving to a used Tesla Model S, with a budget of around £10,000.

My family in Hong Kong drive a Tesla Model 3 and a Model Y. Personally, I'm not a huge fan of either—they feel a bit too "plastic fantastic" for my taste. My dad, however, now drives a Xiaomi SU7 in China, and that thing is a beast. When you experience how it integrates with China's Cellular Vehicle-to-Everything (C-V2X) infrastructure and AI-assisted driving features, it's unlike anything I've seen on UK roads.

The second hand EV market has changed a lot over the past few years. Prices have dropped significantly, making them much more affordable. That said, just like with petrol cars, there are bargains and there are lemons.

I used to enjoy tinkering with my Toyota Supra Twin Turbo, fixing mechanical issues myself and keeping it on the road. That's much harder with modern EVs. While routine servicing is simpler, major battery or high voltage system faults can quickly become uneconomical to repair, and they're certainly not the sort of jobs you can tackle on your driveway. That's one reason there are so many Category N EVs on the used market.

Back to researching for my cheap Model S

 

[chanjy]

Yep, £1000 to secure a build slot for November, Sytner had two allocations left (this was as of two weeks ago) but I'm not sure how many of the 1st Editions they had been given though. Should be getting test/showroom versions late Sept/early Oct. This will be my first saloon as well, so I need to come around to the idea of a different level of boot space. I believe the i3 touring isn't due till around early '27 and I'd expect the orders for that to be really strong.

Unless you're desperate I wouldn't. They'll be £10k off in a year same as every other BMW.

 

[Penfold101]

The average persons daily mileage is apparently <40 miles, which the majority of EVs can do these days. If you need to do long trips on short notice, then EVs aren't the tech for you. Nothing wrong with that but I'd say that's more of an outlier than the norm for most people. Saying all EVs are bad and never going to work because of an outlier isn't a correct or fair assessment in my opinion, which is quite common when people complain about EVs. Although allegedly a Tesla long range will do 380 miles real world, one fast charge (assuming you can find one) and 500+ would technically be possible. Not that I'd ever buy a Tesla though.

I personally don't believe they're ready for long trips yet and the only charging points I would consider acceptable are at home or in the office. Anything else is like a motorway petrol station, best to be avoided where possible. There needs to be a major step up in battery tech for long distance and infrastructure to become realistic. I believe an EV's purpose is your run of the mill city driving. Like how a ferrari is best on a racetrack, a transit van for carrying bulky/heavy loads, one of those nasty crossovers if you got kids, etc.

Weird - I did a 700 mile holiday to The Lakes last week with a 250 mile journey on each end purely on AC charging as I discovered (on the way up) that the DC charging wasn’t working.

Did it need a bit more thinking, planning and time spent at public chargers than I’d like? Yes.

Did it work out fine? Yes.

EV’s are fine for long journeys.

Should we not bother going on our holiday then? As we are driving from the UK to France/Switzerland/Italy and back in an EV. I better tell the Mrs quick if we need to cancel and just drive around Wolverhampton for a week instead.

Can you stretch to Telford? I hear it’s lovely!

I've owned a Vauxhall Ampera for the past few years. It's a plug-in hybrid with a range extender, and in real-world driving I get around 28 miles of electric range in winter and up to 40 miles in summer. Because we mostly do short trips around London and only cover about 8,000 miles a year, we charge almost exclusively at home. Since buying the car four years ago for £9,500, I've only been to a petrol station once or twice a year, usually just to put in about £10 of fuel.

I forgot these existed till yesterday - randomly found myself behind a 62 plate one. When Vauxhall got in on the EV act before it was cool!

 

[Penfold101]

Should get a good few goes around the ring road now it's 30mph at least.

Remember to stick behind a lorry to get an extra go round!

 

[Haggisman]

Weird - I did a 700 mile holiday to The Lakes last week with a 250 mile journey on each end purely on AC charging as I discovered (on the way up) that the DC charging wasn’t working.

Did it need a bit more thinking, planning and time spent at public chargers than I’d like? Yes.

Did it work out fine? Yes.

EV’s are fine for long journeys.

Quite, I suspect that post was written 5-6 years ago and the poster only just remembered to click the submit button! When we got our first EV back in early 2019, then yes, it was certainly a bit more inconvenient and longer journeys required some planning, but these days there are so many chargers around I don't even bother. Maybe if I was doing a long trip on Christmas Eve or a bank holiday Friday or something when every other person in the country is on the road then I'd prepare some alternatives, but for general trips I just jump in the car and let the automatic routing do its thing.

 

[BaZ87]

Yep, £1000 to secure a build slot for November, Sytner had two allocations left (this was as of two weeks ago) but I'm not sure how many of the 1st Editions they had been given though. Should be getting test/showroom versions late Sept/early Oct. This will be my first saloon as well, so I need to come around to the idea of a different level of boot space. I believe the i3 touring isn't due till around early '27 and I'd expect the orders for that to be really strong.

Interesting. I was being advised November/December delivery if I put the £1000 down back in April so I was expecting well into 2027 for recent orders.

Early 2027 would be nice re the touring. I could extend my ID7 lease until February 2028 and then pick up a touring after the hype has died and there are a few offers to be had. Sadly most places are reporting late 2027.

 

[Rob200sx]

Interesting, because I thought they'd only opened up the i3 order books in June, early due to the demand being seen for the ix3, I didn't get the notification about orders being taken for the 1st edition until recently, by BMW themselves, so yeah, maybe your 1k the dealer wanted in April, could have been earning them a nice bit of interest knowing BMW would eventually open up the books and get you an early slot. Fair judgement in that case given the actual delivery dates range from late Oct onwards.

Really couldn't say if extending the ID7 lease is worth it, you might save some money on a low miles i3 by '28 and save a pretty penny.

 

[kefkef]

EV’s are fine for long journeys.

Totally agree. Living in Leeds i've been to North Wales, Cornwall, Aberdeen, Falkirk using DC chargers and then just bigger days out to the NE coast and home on a single charge. Had absolutely no issues with charging away from home. I've queued for a charger once and that was on Boxing Day and only then because my home charger was broken (and to be honest i just wanted a break from all the family.... )

 

[BaZ87]

Interesting, because I thought they'd only opened up the i3 order books in June, early due to the demand being seen for the ix3, I didn't get the notification about orders being taken for the 1st edition until recently, by BMW themselves, so yeah, maybe your 1k the dealer wanted in April, could have been earning them a nice bit of interest knowing BMW would eventually open up the books and get you an early slot. Fair judgement in that case given the actual delivery dates range from late Oct onwards.

Really couldn't say if extending the ID7 lease is worth it, you might save some money on a low miles i3 by '28 and save a pretty penny.

Yea this was just a deposit to secure the earliest build slot available once orders were being taken. They were essentially creating their own waiting list to allocate whatever build slots they were given.

That's why I asked whether you'd put down a deposit prior to placing your order as a November delivery must be one of the earlier build slots.

 

[jpaul]

so I need to come around to the idea of a different level of boot space. I believe the i3 touring isn't due till around early '27 and I'd expect the orders for that to be really strong.

until the touring arrives, i3 hasn't got the practicality of an a6-etron and they'll be on 2nd hand market at £30K by then,
current i4 is a practical hatch, and with smaller batteries lighter possibly more fun, than either - none resolvde rear seating foot space

reminded myself at w/e why an A4 estate works, succeeding a 3touring.

Spoiler: spoiler

 

[Rob200sx]

hmm, that rear footspace is something I'm beginning to hear a bit more about, but with such a new car, there's nothing really concrete about it.

 

[kefkef]

until the touring arrives, i3 hasn't got the practicality of an a6-etron and they'll be on 2nd hand market at £30K by then,

Curious as to why a comparison between i3 Vs A6? Surely the i5 Touring would be compared to A6 etron in Avant guise?

 

[Jonnycoupe]

radio pope is only a transmit station.