Soldato
- Joined
- 19 Oct 2002
- Posts
- 18,725
- Location
- Shakespeare’s County
Road wear is based on HGV traffic, local roads more LGV and buses and nothing else really effects it.
EV general discussion
- Thread starter Ricochet J
- Start date
I agree, you'd think the double axled, numerous wheeled vehicles would give it away, plus the tramlines such vehicles imprint on busier roads. Frost and neglect play a large part in the deterioration too I'd think.
It's just another excuse box on the bingo card of those that don't like EVs.
Soldato
- Joined
- 1 May 2013
- Posts
- 10,156
- Location
- M28
My EDF rate is 5.48p from 23:00-06:00.
Presumably because your not a new customer?
Electric Cars (EVs) - Deals, Leasing, Tariffs and Charging Points
One place for all your electric car (EV) needs. Lease an electric car, get an EV home charging point or power your car and home with our low-carbon EV tariff.
Soldato
- Joined
- 14 Aug 2008
- Posts
- 4,294
- Location
- Liverpool
If it’s any consolation I have this exact problem with my wife, only she’s a stay at home carer for our disabled daughter, so she only uses the car to do the school run and to run errands while our daughter’s at school, in our current family car which is an ICE Renault Megane estate.
I’ll be starting a new job in June, and after years of working away, I’m finally going to have a job with a commute, so we’ll be needing a 2nd car. The company I’m going to be working for offers a salary sacrifice EV scheme and completely free charging at work, and as part of the scheme they also offer either a free home charger with 4000 miles of charging credit or 4000 miles of free public charging, so I’ve floated the idea of me getting myself a new EV on the salary sacrifice scheme to commute in, which I’ll charge at work, and trading our current ICE car in against a 2nd hand EV for her, which we’ll use the free charging credit for, as the 4000 miles would cover the vast bulk of her mileage, if not completely. Yet she’s worrying about mythical 300+ mile drives we never do, and shopping that we get delivered anyway. Hell, she’s even brought up the occasional tip runs we do as justification to keep the estate, but the place I’ll be working at also has a site pickup and a van you can borrow to do such things, so this isn’t an issue either.
I honestly can’t understand why she’s so set against the prospect of not having to pay out for fuel. I think she gets this resistance to EV’s from her boomer parents who’ve had it battered into them by the likes of the Daily Mail and the Express over the years, she takes her mum’s opinion especially as gospel. They’ve just recently bought a 2019 Jaguar E-Pace with the 2.0L Ingenium diesel engine, which they only ever use for daily short trips to and from church, to the shops and about town. I’m going to laugh so hard when they get the inevitable clogged DPF fault I tried to warn them about.
Last edited:
Big factor these days is utility companies, BT and altnets who somehow get away with doing a rubbish job on roadworks with the council/highways eventually ending up having to do a proper reinstatement.
Man of Honour
- Joined
- 29 Mar 2003
- Posts
- 58,138
- Location
- Blurton
Do you get cheap rate during the evening?
Our electricity bill has come down from £120 a month to £80 (and that includes the EV now) because my wife puts the washing machine and tumble dryer on from 8:30pm.
Get the home charger, not the public charging credit if you have a drive.
The home charger is a £1k - £1.2k value on its own.
4000 miles of public charging credit is a ~£900 value assuming an average cost of 80p/kwh and 3.5 miles per kWh consumption plus the obvious inconvenience of not charging at home. I’d assume it’s only at public chargers they have a deal with and it may not cover your local charger.
P.S. sometimes it’s easier to ask for forgiveness rather than permission
Last edited:
Was quite an interesting watch, and reflects back the BMW isn't some sort of Harry Potter magical revolution, pretty average for everything other than a huge battery, and charging speed - I was honestly surprised they found it least exciting to drive, but not surprised that it is the quieter for motorway driving. I think people disregard the Juniper Model Y as they judge on the previous model, any it isn't super new and exciting, and feelings rather than ability or quality.
Had the same discussion with the wife too. She's been driving a 2015 Renault Clio 1.5dci since new, she does ~3,000 miles a year with only 1 trip that's over 200 miles, the rest is all school runs and shopping. It had to be diesel as she "always stalls" a petrol, but the fact the only time she's ever driven a petrol was her driving lessons and test back in the early 2000's doesn't count...... Finally convinced her that EV was the way to go and was helped by the £1k+ per year she's had to pay just keeping her car on the road. Now i can't get her out of her Renault 5, she loves it, loves the "automatic" style of driving, not having to go to the petrol station, the ease of charging and of course, it's my fault that she's been in her old car for so long when she could have been driving something as easy as the R5.......
Soldato
- Joined
- 18 Oct 2002
- Posts
- 16,549
- Location
- The land of milk & beans
Adding to the 'range anxiety' examples, my mother in law is the same. Father in law was looking for a new EV, but she nixed the idea as she didn't like the idea of the limited range. For context on that, they have a home charger (which came with the house they bought), solar panels, and live on the Isle of Wight, which is 25 miles across...
I did manage to talk my wife round after a couple of months of her saying it wouldn't be good for her.
Now she won't go back, her car has to go in for a couple of things to be sorted (minor, but were waiting for parts) and they have offered her an ICE courtesy car, she went back and asked for an EV.
She only does on average about 130 miles per week and running her EV is as cheap as chips.
Now she won't go back, her car has to go in for a couple of things to be sorted (minor, but were waiting for parts) and they have offered her an ICE courtesy car, she went back and asked for an EV.
She only does on average about 130 miles per week and running her EV is as cheap as chips.
Range anxiety is ridiculous. I got my first EV in 2012 and at that point my leaf used to get me something like 70 miles on a full charge I think. Yet it was absolutely fine for my daily commute. We had ICE for 2nd car then, but we’ve been a 2 EV family now for about 5 years now. I once borrowed my m-i-l car for a long trip in that 5 years. It really isn’t the issue for most people that they think it is
Though I guess it isn't entirely a stupid question, I witnessed someone asking whether there was any manual [transmission] EVs which made me double-take for a moment but I guess for someone with little interest in the subject it isn't exactly a stupid question.
The frustrating thing is we haven't invested early as a nation in really nailing down the charging infrastructure which would massively drive adoption. Even if someone's usage is 90% ideal EV territory that last few percent can be a real sticking point as things stand where you have range as a non-factor on one side and a non-trivial factor on the other side.
The frustrating thing is we haven't invested early as a nation in really nailing down the charging infrastructure which would massively drive adoption. Even if someone's usage is 90% ideal EV territory that last few percent can be a real sticking point as things stand where you have range as a non-factor on one side and a non-trivial factor on the other side.
I challenge the notion the charging network isn’t good enough. It’s actually decent.
I even tow a caravan behind our Tesla and I’ve never had any material issues charging. For context, the caravan turns a long range and quick charging EV into a car with slightly better the range and charging speed of a 40kwh Nissan leaf.
It’s expensive but that’s because of the U.K. electricity market.
My only real criticism is that other countries focus more on pull through style bays for rapid chargers on the strategic road network. These are much better for long term usability but take up more space.
Rows of chargers at the back of spaces in rows create unnecessary accessibility issues for disabled people. They also make it more difficult or impossible to use them if you have a bike rack or trailer on the back of the car.
I even tow a caravan behind our Tesla and I’ve never had any material issues charging. For context, the caravan turns a long range and quick charging EV into a car with slightly better the range and charging speed of a 40kwh Nissan leaf.
It’s expensive but that’s because of the U.K. electricity market.
My only real criticism is that other countries focus more on pull through style bays for rapid chargers on the strategic road network. These are much better for long term usability but take up more space.
Rows of chargers at the back of spaces in rows create unnecessary accessibility issues for disabled people. They also make it more difficult or impossible to use them if you have a bike rack or trailer on the back of the car.
I've my EV for 2+ yrs. I don't think it's ridiculous. For anything inside the range of my home charger sure which is 98% of my journeys. No issues.
But I did a long trip at the weekend, to Rural Town and there was only one useful DC charger in the town. All the rest were outside of the town. It means queuing and faffing about to get on a charger. Did a splash and dash outside of town. . Luckily later in the day got on the DC charger in town while we had lunch. Which all worked out. But it requires a bit of preplanning and fore thought.
That said last week I did a trip with low battery to a local sports event and home and forgot all about the battery till I got home. First time since having the EV I've just completely forgot about range. Usually I'm a bit OCD about it.
Drive through is definitely needed. Many chargers have short cables and a drive through solves that. Then theres queuing.