Is the end of Battery EVs coming?

crazyDAJT said:
Why 400 miles. Are you driving from Edinburgh to London frequently?

I drive 16-20k miles per year and have looked back at 3 years of driving history in my car and the max trip I take is significantly less than this.
Click to expand...

I live in the countryside and my other cars are a GR86 and Toyota Celica Gt-Four. They are not practical for family duties.

When we go out as a family I need something large estate sized so it is comfortable and able to do that range. If we visit areas in the South. Brands Hatch for example that is a good 150 miles away. I go to a race day and park my car in a field. At 7pm at night I just want to go home not having to stop in some terrible services for 40 minutes. That is why I need that range. I would also want to tow with said vehicle so would need that range to make up the reduced range when towing. I also drive the continent maybe twice a year and 1200 ish miles in one stint swapping drivers as we go so I do not want to be stopping every 200 miles. 400 miles would be perfectly adequate in that scenario.

My needs are quite specific in that case.

There is a case now as shown in the another thread that I could potentially run a commuter car for the same price as my current outgoing fuel costs if I can charge for free at work but then I would be running 4 cars with only 2 adults in the household as I would still need to keep the family car around for those trips. That is hardly environmentally friendly is it.
 
Last edited:
Rroff said:
Something I find is many people have different requirements for transport, but a lot of people seem unable or poorly able to understand it outside their own requirements.
Click to expand...
I doubt either 'side' will ever convince the other tbh. For me a car is transport (and occasionally 'fun') and what works for one person won't work for another.
As I can't charge at home then I've decided to stick with ICE for now, who knows, that may change in the future. All the talk of 'herp derp I don't need to go to a fuel station' doesn't mean much to someone who has to go to a charger instead, go more often, and stay there for considerably longer than the time it takes to full up an ICE vehicle.
 
Last edited:
Jonnycoupe said:
It’s lunatics guessing what they think they need. The time saved not having to go to a petrol station all year is always forgotten.
Click to expand...
People don't have that as part of the equation because it is a quick process that can be fitted in at your convenience. Sometimes I fill up with 20 miles remaining, sometimes it's more convenient to fill up with over 200 miles remaining because the following day I'm driving further than that and it then isn't something I need to think about during an already busy day.

Range is obviously a hot topic with EV but I remember my old boss having some crazy range requirement when looking for his diesel company cars. He seemed happy enough with a 'Glasgow and back' 700 odd miles. Oh and before we bring up every EV drivers favourite topic, yes he did stop more often than that for a wee.

Convenience is such a big factor for people i genuinely think that is the key to attracting people, not necessarily outright range. People who can charge at home already have that as it doesn't get more convenient than your own personal fuel filling station available 24 hours a day.

The rapid chargers to get people where they are going are coming on stream, time will tell if that is quickly enough and in sufficient quantity. That just leaves destination charging which is where the provision, on the whole, is a bit rubbish.
 
Bug One said:
I love how people with an EV are discounted as some kind of fanatics.

I lost interest in trying to convince people years ago.
Click to expand...
This is how I feel.

Like you, we have two EVs, they are brilliant for us. Love how they drive, the tech, the cost of running.

Again, like you, early adopter with the leaf before we switched it to an i3. I have constantly told family and friends how great they are and always met with resistance. However, new salary sacrifice at work has meant the car park is changing demographics to EV now.

I think it’s here to stay, thankfully.
 
Rroff said:
Something I find is many people have different requirements for transport, but a lot of people seem unable or poorly able to understand it outside their own requirements.
Click to expand...
I agree the infrastructure isn't where it needed to be for the 2030 ban on new pure ICE cars and am not sure many people would argue against that.

but we are in 2024 (were in 2023 when the government renagued). at that point there were 7 years remaining (still 6 now) to pull fingers out of collective asses and crack on.
even then hybrid cars would still have been sold for another 5 years and no one was going to ban ICE cars. those here saying they want to run their car for 20 years which is better than buying a new EV ....,... that would have been cool as well. anyone buying a car at end of 2029 with a 20year running time will have been good until 2050.
a good chunk of us here won't even be driving in 2050!
but forgetting all that what really cheeses me off isn't actually people unwilling to get an EV yet

it is the utter utter bunk which is spewed out daily by the main stream press.

not balanced journalism highlighting the evidence advantages but pointing out where things are not good enough yet and pushing what needs to be done but stuff so wide of the mark it isn't really even bias any more it's pretty much lies.
then that gets parroted around as fact.
ie there are no rare earth metals in car batteries.

there is cobalt in *some* car batteries but anyone wanting to not contribute to that there are plenty of options to not have cobalt in your car battery.

and they conveniently forget that cobalt in batteries is recyclable. loads of cobalt is used in running ICE cars that is conveniently not reported on and that ISNT.
I think if the media reported fairly then a lot of these issues on social media may actually resolve themselves (ok who am I kidding when people still believe the COVID vaccine was some government conspiracy..... social media crap won't go anywhere, and that is more of a scourge than the daily telegraph or express)
 
Last edited:
bigmike20vt said:
:cry: I agree the infrastructure isn't where it needed to be for the 2030 ban on new pure ICE cars and am not sure many people would argue against that.

but we are in 2024 (were in 2023 when the government renagued). at that point there were 7 years remaining (still 6 now) to pull fingers out of collective asses and crack on.
even then hybrid cars would still have been sold for another 5 years and no one was going to ban ICE cars. those here saying they want to run their car for 20 years which is better than buying a new EV ....,... that would have been cool as well. anyone buying a car at end of 2029 with a 20year running time will have been good until 2050.
a good chunk of us here won't even be driving in 2050!
but forgetting all that what really cheeses me off isn't actually people unwilling to get an EV yet

it is the utter utter bunk which is spewed out daily by the main stream press.

not balanced journalism highlighting the evidence advantages but pointing out where things are not good enough yet and pushing what needs to be done but stuff so wide of the mark it isn't really even bias any more it's pretty much lies.
then that gets parroted around as fact.
ie there are no rare earth metals in car batteries.

there is cobalt in *some* car batteries but anyone wanting to not contribute to that there are plenty of options to not have cobalt in your car battery.

and they conveniently forget that cobalt in batteries is recyclable. loads of cobalt is used in running ICE cars that is conveniently not reported on and that ISNT.
I think if the media reported fairly then a lot of these issues on social media may actually resolve themselves (ok who am I kidding when people still believe the COVID vaccine was some government conspiracy..... social media crap won't go anywhere, and that is more of a scourge than the daily telegraph or express)
Click to expand...
Yesterday the Daily Mail was running a story about ‘so many charging spaces empty’. Showing photos of empty charge bays around the country :cry:
They literally just report any BS they can to generate views.
 
Nathan said:
However, new salary sacrifice at work has meant the car park is changing demographics to EV now.
Click to expand...

Was chatting to someone who I work with after they bought a new car, asked them how come they didn't use SS as some of the deals were really good -answer- I couldn't ever have an electric car as they are death traps, always 'going' on fire and if they breakdown you need to wait months for the to be repaired. I just shuffled away rather than laughing, or saying anything else in return. Sad thing is they can have free charging on a couple of premises, with no limit, and they even have a couple of DC rapids now, only 50kw however. I'll never understand some peoples ability to not bother fact finding.
 
Jonnycoupe said:
It’s lunatics guessing what they think they need. The time saved not having to go to a petrol station all year is always forgotten.
Click to expand...

I can't see anything more practical than plugging it in at home. Driving the short journey the vast majority do for work, plugging it in there (if available), driving the short journey home and plugging it back in. Pretty much no time lost at all.
 
All the charging infrastructure then becomes obsolete and has to get torn down? Seems more polluting. No real reason to develop decent BEV recycling, the batteries end up binned?
 
uber soldat said:
Electric will be a passing phase,once they perfect Bio-Ethanol or similar those big heavy overpriced battery powered toy cars will be obsolete and ironically scrapped in a very un-environmentally way.
Click to expand...
why would someone scrap a perfectly functional car that can be charged at home even if there was a carbon zero bioethanol capable of running millions of cars (there won't be anyway)
 
uber soldat said:
Electric will be a passing phase,once they perfect Bio-Ethanol or similar those big heavy overpriced battery powered toy cars will be obsolete and ironically scrapped in a very un-environmentally way.
Click to expand...
Synthetic fuel

Porsche says it could "produce 100 million litres a year from 2028". Cool. Except that the US alone uses about 9x that much PER DAY
….and that's before we get to the £12/l price….before tax :eek:

No way could this ever be mainstream.
Yes to keeping motorsport, weekend use cars and other small stuff going.

EV weight
-> A Tesla Model 3 weighs less than a BMW 3 Series
-> My BMW iX weighs less than a Range Rover
 
Interesting thread. My opinions have changed slightly over the last few years on this EV’s. I started off 5-10 years ago thinking they wouldn’t take on and I would list my point that are the common points that people would use as an excuse.

Today my view is that, it is just an another choice of fuel source for the consumer to choose from. I also think that the government need stay out and not force it upon people with banning of ICE.

With my lifestyle, commute to work etc having a EV is attractive and I did seriously consider it when I was buying a car last year. But as I can not charge at home and the public network is not reliable or cheap. Even if I could charge at home, we are on a looped supply meaning getting disconnected from the neighbours and getting the network provided involved. Just to many negatives.

I am looking forward to seeing what Toyota and BMW are doing with hydrogen engines. What will be an excellent fuel source for HGV. What Toyota and other will do with their hybrid systems. Tesla and some a lot of the Chinese manufacturers are making some interesting EV’s.

The market will dictate what fuel source will become the dominant seller or will there be a even split? It will just take a bit more time, than the government wanting.

If the government really want to push people to cleaner fuels, they should change how we tax cars. Instead of taxing the vehicle, put all the tax on the fuel and that would encourage people to buy cleaner more fuel efficient cars. Admittedly this would be very hard to control with those who charge at home.

It’s exciting times to see what going to happen, at the moment EV’s are a stepping stone toward a cleaner form of transportation.
 
My ideal set up is a short range EV for local very short journeys which is 95% of my journeys. Then a second large ice for the other 5% family holidays, events or moving things around.

Had a lot of reliability problems with my ice cars from low mileage.
 
My mate drives all around the Country with his job in a Tesla however they are well catered for charging wise and he has no problems.
It was funny the other night though, he said he'd be 30 minutes late for band practice because he's got to charge.
 
SDK^ said:
Yesterday the Daily Mail was running a story about ‘so many charging spaces empty’. Showing photos of empty charge bays around the country :cry:
They literally just report any BS they can to generate views.
Click to expand...
That popped up on my feed yesterday. It did make me chuckle, proper work experience boy journalism. Also the spin of taking up 'precious' parking spaces. A parking space is a necessity at best and a really poor use of land at worst. Precious isn't a word to describe them.

The comments section on that article had me entertained for ages. One that I found particularly amusing was someone saying that the reason they had to have hatched markings around them was because they were dangerous and catch fire while charging. Even if you did believe that what difference is 2 feet of space going to make?!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom