"Nobody in their right mind would buy a used EV..."

[Andy_W]

Is that opinion, or have you researched those figures you’ve quoted

I've been using EV's for 3.5 years and have probably researched all of that > 10x more than most ICE users. Had two EV's, have another hybrid and have had ~20 ICE cars and loved most of them.

Currently run a vehicle and plant fleet for work too, and none of the work vehicles or plant are EV, as they just don't suit the vans we use, HGV's/ Low Loaders, diggers, dumpers etc, not yet anyway.

Loads of it is from memory, but is a fair estimation.

More than happy to look at the specifics of any of it, and have probably been over each point many times.

I've no bias, just trying to help people make decisions based on reality.

Despite writing all that, my next car might not even be an EV as I think my next car will be a small 2 seater sports car, and there isn't really any of those that are a reasonable price at the minute. I expect the first ones which come out are going to be a lot more range than I need, and I might want something with less range/ lighter etc.

 

[ForssAwakens]

I've been using EV's for 3.5 years and have probably researched all of that > 10x more than most ICE users. Had two EV's, have another hybrid and have had ~20 ICE cars and loved most of them.

Currently run a vehicle and plant fleet for work too, and none of the work vehicles or plant are EV, as they just don't suit the vans we use, HGV's/ Low Loaders, diggers, dumpers etc, not yet anyway.

Loads of it is from memory, but is a fair estimation.

More than happy to look at the specifics of any of it, and have probably been over each point many times.

I've no bias, just trying to help people make decisions based on reality.

Despite writing all that, my next car might not even be an EV as I think my next car will be a small 2 seater sports car, and there isn't really any of those that are a reasonable price at the minute. I expect the first ones which come out are going to be a lot more range than I need, and I might want something with less range/ lighter etc.

Ah so it’s opinion then

You may think you don’t have a bias, but it’s clear you have

 

[Andy_W]

Con 11 was one that always got me. My old EV the Tesla model 3 performance actually had better range than the car it was directly rivalling: the BMW M3

Also the "people over estimate the amount of range they need" Yes, they do completely but I think some of this is due to ignorance of how you refuel EV and the constant bombardment of the right wing press telling them they need more range. So they can be forgiven to some extent. It's just frustrating when you expin this to them and they still keep repeating the mistrutth.

FWIW I have driven an EV for 4 years now and have actually changed cars to one with less range then my previous. Because I realised how little a thing it was. I'd rather get the car I want then go "oh that one can do 300 miles so I must get that"

Haha I know, I think most would see the M3 as probably more of a "sports car" mind, but yeah, I bet they're similar round a track.

My current car has ~270 mile range, and the comparable car to it does 20mpg, and has only 70 miles more range. The thing is the latter costs £120 to fill up, and mine costs about £5.

The range thing is laughable, most would see no time loss with a range less than 100 miles, but they will never understand it.

Similar to me, I want a small 2 seater sports car EV with ~100 mile range, but it's likely never going to exist. Going to end up driving around a battery 2-3x more heavy than I need it to be.

 

[Andy_W]

Ah so it’s opinion then

You may think you don’t have a bias, but it’s clear you have

Opinion of experts or opinion based on loads of actual research and experience yes.

Comparing that to peoples opinion with little to no research or experience is false equivalence.

If I had an disproportionate bias I wouldn't have mentioned all the cons (there are plenty).

I do have a bias towards EV, for people who can charge at home and who want a car< 3 years old though, which is because it makes most sense in most instances. This is pretty much clarified in the post though.

I'm actually biased against EV's for those who can't charge at home, or who want cars over 5 years old, as the choice is poor for those, and they're first gen tech typically, which is often not the best.

Like I say, happy to debate or explain any of it, fire away

 

[Centralscrutinizer]

Too much of a turnover in cars is one of the biggest problems wether EV or ICE. The carbon footprint of building a new car is roughly the same as the one it'll produce over its lifetime on the road. We ought to be buying cars like pieces of capital machinery, should be built to last and kept for a long time.

 

[Centralscrutinizer]

PS. I can't believe I've just posted on an EV thread. Somebody shoot me please

 

[ForssAwakens]

Too much of a turnover in cars is one of the biggest problems whether EV or ICE. The carbon footprint of building a new car is roughly the same as the one it'll produce over its lifetime on the road. We ought to be buying cars like pieces of capital machinery, should be built to last and kept for a long time.

This is the most sensible post I’ve seen for a while

Capitalism has everyone fooled chasing the latest model of everything

 

[Markburke]

I don't have an EV. When the second hand market can do me a car with 150 range for a 2-3 k then I'll get one. The market has alnost reached that point but not quite due as the cheaper end is early battery tech as per the info above.

I did have a Nissan Leaf on PCP some years ago and it was brilliant for what I needed but I had to sell it to make ends meet. Ive had a dozen or so ICE cars and have had love / hate with most. I'd have absolutely no hesitation getting an EV again and I think the list of pros and cons above is a very good one and reflects my experience. Though I'd say my average time fuelling an ICE is probably a bit closer to 5 mins than 10.

I lived in 3 places when I had the leaf, which had a small range. Two houses had driveways and I could home charge and that was incredibly easy and convenient and cheap as chips. The other house didn't and at the time that was a lot more difficult as there was a very limited public charging network back then. It was still doable but not great in the rural area i lived in.

The other pro to add is that whilst driving an ICE you are not actively burning fossil fuel. If you live in Middlesbrough have a look at maps of how much of the town will be under water per degree temperature rise with climate change. Its terrifying. If I can eventually get an EV again and could get an interest free solar deal with monthly payback I'd definitely do that as running a house and car on free sunshine is the way forward. Hopefully this government can help find ways for skint people like me to afford to do it. The market's almost done it, but a nudge would help.

 

[Jonny Ingbar]

Opinion of experts or opinion based on loads of actual research and experience yes.

Comparing that to peoples opinion with little to no research or experience is false equivalence.

If I had an disproportionate bias I wouldn't have mentioned all the cons (there are plenty).

I do have a bias towards EV, for people who can charge at home and who want a car< 3 years old though, which is because it makes most sense in most instances. This is pretty much clarified in the post though.

I'm actually biased against EV's for those who can't charge at home, or who want cars over 5 years old, as the choice is poor for those, and they're first gen tech typically, which is often not the best.

Like I say, happy to debate or explain any of it, fire away

The thing that strikes me about these (seemingly frequent) EV threads, is that we never see anyone arguing the merits of ICE.

I do feel like there is little bit of confirmation bias here, not you specifically, but generally speaking.

 

[Andy_W]

The thing that strikes me about these (seemingly frequent) EV threads, is that we never see anyone arguing the merits of ICE.

I do feel like there is little bit of confirmation bias here, not you specifically, but generally speaking.

I think it's because the benefits of ICE are becoming less and less, and more and more people are coming round to the idea and merits of EV, but that's to be expected, it takes time.

EV still has zero chance against someone doing a 400-500 mile round trip, or single journey without stopping, but it's such a small number of people actually doing this, it probably explains why there are not many arguing about this pro that ICE has over EV. No EV users are going to argue much about this, other than saying most would stop once or twice on that journey, regardless of fuel type.

EV's still have little chance against most who can't charge at home or who have regular charger access at work or whatever, but no EV user is arguing against this.

EV's have little choice/ chance for cars over 5 years old, not many are saying otherwise.

Basically the valid points don't get much argument from EV users, and they shouldn't.

The arguments of there being "no chargers", "expensive purchase price compared to ice", "expensive used compared to ICE", "electric is expensive", no longer really apply, or certainly applies far, far less than it did say 3 years ago. Albeit there are still people arguing the same invalid thing they were three years ago, which seems a bit daft as it was invalid then, and loads has changed since then.

Sure, there will be some confirmation bias, but I bet it's a small amount compared to how much people realise and learn once they have a bit of experience. There's probably more realised reality, than confirmation bias I think.

 

[HolgateCorner]

I don't have an EV. When the second hand market can do me a car with 150 range for a 2-3 k then I'll get one. The market has alnost reached that point but not quite due as the cheaper end is early battery tech as per the info above.

I did have a Nissan Leaf on PCP some years ago and it was brilliant for what I needed but I had to sell it to make ends meet. Ive had a dozen or so ICE cars and have had love / hate with most. I'd have absolutely no hesitation getting an EV again and I think the list of pros and cons above is a very good one and reflects my experience. Though I'd say my average time fuelling an ICE is probably a bit closer to 5 mins than 10.

I lived in 3 places when I had the leaf, which had a small range. Two houses had driveways and I could home charge and that was incredibly easy and convenient and cheap as chips. The other house didn't and at the time that was a lot more difficult as there was a very limited public charging network back then. It was still doable but not great in the rural area i lived in.

The other pro to add is that whilst driving an ICE you are not actively burning fossil fuel. If you live in Middlesbrough have a look at maps of how much of the town will be under water per degree temperature rise with climate change. Its terrifying. If I can eventually get an EV again and could get an interest free solar deal with monthly payback I'd definitely do that as running a house and car on free sunshine is the way forward. Hopefully this government can help find ways for skint people like me to afford to do it. The market's almost done it, but a nudge would help.

I know this is not a climate change thread but you are right in that most people do not realise that just a couple of degrees average temperature shift makes a massive difference. They just think it’s hardly noticeable.

The average global temperature during the last ice age was 8 degrees C, the current is about 15 degrees C. The difference of just 7 degrees putting places like Teesside under metres of ice.

 

[Centralscrutinizer]

Another thing is that there's no point in everyone rushing out and buying electric cars when the UK energy mix is like it is, we're still burning **** loads of fossil fuels to generate the power. It makes sense in somewhere like Norway where they're 88% hydro/10% wind. We'll never get anywhere near that level of renewable energy our only hope of getting close to the fantasy of net zero is by building more nuclear power stations and living with the associated risks, the way this country (mis)functions this will be a generation away same as building the power distribution networks we'd need for 100% electric cars.

 

[m3t4tr0n]

Another thing is that there's no point in everyone rushing out and buying electric cars when the UK energy mix is like it is, we're still burning **** loads of fossil fuels to generate the power. It makes sense in somewhere like Norway where they're 88% hydro/10% wind. We'll never get anywhere near that level of renewable energy our only hope of getting close to the fantasy of net zero is by building more nuclear power stations and living with the associated risks, the way this country (mis)functions this will be a generation away same as building the power distribution networks we'd need for 100% electric cars.

Even if, which we aren't, but even if we were generating all our power from fossil fuels it would still be cleaner and more efficient for all cars to be EV. It's significantly easier and better to deal with a small number of large fossil fuel burners in a few power stations than manage millions of little ones in ICE engines.

 

[Andy_W]

Too much of a turnover in cars is one of the biggest problems wether EV or ICE. The carbon footprint of building a new car is roughly the same as the one it'll produce over its lifetime on the road. We ought to be buying cars like pieces of capital machinery, should be built to last and kept for a long time.

This is a very good point.

The motors in an EV are like any other electric motor, generally excellent, have very little wear parts (brushless) and should require little maintenance. This should last a hell of a lot longer than an average ICE car engine does, before it needs some major overhaul or maintenance, or just becomes a write off

Same for batteries, the new Teslas have a 8 year 150,000 mile warranty, to 70%, but Tesla themselves say they expect this to actually be 300k-500k before it actually happens.

We will see how many last that long, but the good thing about batteries is it's fairly easy to do a capacity test, to see how much it's degraded. It won't tell you if it's going to fall apart mind, but there's not many moving parts in a battery, so it's probably not as likely as an ICE which has loads of wear parts.

It's hard to gauge how long a car will last, especially an EV, as it's largely not going to come down to the parts which people have most concern with. Most EV's will get retired as they're just outdated I think. There will always be a market for cheap run-arounds, but I think what will happen is supply of these will exceed demand, as the motors and batteries are going to out last an ICE car. Might end up with cars being recycled earlier than they could last without issue, or they might get transferred off abroad to less developed markets.

The average ICE car in the UK is scrapped after 150k miles, some due to age, as they're 10-15 years old, but some due to all the wear parts basically being wore out more than they're economically viable to fix, or there's less demand for old tech.

The good thing is, if a car is powered by electric, then the grid should only be getting greener, so the car can get greener over time, this can't really happen with ICE. EV battery recycling should get better, and batteries repurposed into something which is very useful, like powering homes etc. This grid balancing should make the grid even greener still. Manufacturing will move to electric and greener electric more and more, so things should be come greener and greener with EV's, where as this won't be anywhere near the same way with ICE unless the emissions are "caught" using green energy, like with carbon capture etc.

 

[Andy_W]

Another thing is that there's no point in everyone rushing out and buying electric cars when the UK energy mix is like it is, we're still burning **** loads of fossil fuels to generate the power. It makes sense in somewhere like Norway where they're 88% hydro/10% wind. We'll never get anywhere near that level of renewable energy our only hope of getting close to the fantasy of net zero is by building more nuclear power stations and living with the associated risks, the way this country (mis)functions this will be a generation away same as building the power distribution networks we'd need for 100% electric cars.

No rush, but good steady transition as end of life ICE cars are replaced with EV's, as the renewable grid scales up.

Of course we will get to Norway's level, there's already 1.5 x more wind being planned/ constructed by 2030 than we currently have active, and there's even more than that in feasibility stage, and that's only offshore. We have like 20KW currently and have 50GW planned/ in construction for 2030.

They've just lifted the onshore ban, this is much easier and cheaper still, it will open the door further.

There's 70GW of solar planned by 2035, we currently have 10GW.

We currently have like 20GW wind and 10GW solar, and last year that supplied 37% of our demand, if we have that upped to 4x then it's ~150% on todays demand, by 2035. Add in 20% for nuclear and biomass then it's better still. We only used 30% fossil fuels last year, in 2012 it was 75%.

As wind is so cheap, and simple to construct in the UK then even relatively inefficient storage methods will make sense, and become more and more viable. You don't need perfect storage if you have a lot of excess a lot of the time.

We don't need much more nuclear, the less we can get by with the better, as it's extremely expensive, about 4 x the cost of wind and solar per unit. It's not like it's not windy or sunny for 3/4 of the year. When it's not windy, it's typically sunny/ high pressure and vice versa, they offset each other well.

If you store wind power at 25% efficiency, it's the same price as Nuclear. Nuclears getting more expensive, wind and solar are getting cheaper.

Then there's interconnectors, when we have tons of wind, we can ship it off to Ireland, France, Belgium, Denmark, Norway etc, this is all possible already, we already do it and vice versa. Norway can basically use our wind, instead of opening the valves on their hydro, they can work together very well, same with France's nuclear etc.

There's loads more interconnectors planned and in construction, think of it more like a balanced grid between us and the EU, as that's what's happening, as that's what will work best.

The good thing about EV's is they can be charged at night mostly, when other demand is low, but the wind is still blowing at night etc.

 

[Centralscrutinizer]

No rush, but good steady transition as end of life ICE cars are replaced with EV's, as the renewable grid scales up.

Of course we will get to Norway's level, there's already 1.5 x more wind being planned/ constructed by 2030 than we currently have active, and there's even more than that in feasibility stage, and that's only offshore. We have like 20KW currently and have 50GW planned/ in construction for 2030.

They've just lifted the onshore ban, this is much easier and cheaper still, it will open the door further.

There's 70GW of solar planned by 2035.

We currently have like 20GW wind and 10GW solar, and last year that supplied 37% of our demand, if we have that upped to 4x then it's ~150% on todays demand, by 2035. Add in 20% for nuclear and biomass then it's better still. We only used 30% fossil fuels last year, in 2012 it was 75%.

As wind is so cheap, and simple to construct in the UK then even relatively inefficient storage methods will make sense, and become more and more viable. You don't need perfect storage if you have a lot of excess a lot of the time.

We don't need much more nuclear, the less we can get by with the better, as it's extremely expensive, about 4 x the cost of wind and solar per unit. It's not like it's not windy or sunny for 3/4 of the year. When it's not windy, it's typically sunny/ high pressure and vice versa, they offset each other well.

If you store wind power at 25% efficiency, it's the same price as Nuclear. Nuclears getting more expensive, wind and solar are getting cheaper.

Then there's interconnectors, when we have tons of wind, we can ship it off to Ireland, France, Belgium, Denmark, Norway etc, this is all possible already, we already do it and vice versa. Norway can basically use our wind, instead of opening the valves on their hydro, they can work together very well, same with France's nuclear etc.

There's loads more interconnectors planned and in construction, think of it more like a balanced grid between us and the EU, as that's what's happening, as that's what will work best.

The good thing about EV's is they can be charged at night mostly, when other demand is low, but the wind is still blowing at night etc.

Lets touch base again in 2035 and see where we are on this

 

[Andy_W]

Lets touch base again in 2035 and see where we are on this

Net Zero's 2050, by 2035 I would be surprised if we were not 95% green (or 5% fossil fuels) for electric, I think we might even get there or near there by 2030.

Then we'll need to tackle gas use for heating more aggressively, but gas use has dropped ~30% in 13 years, I don't see why that can't/ won't accelerate, especially when cheaper renewables and better heating options come about.

We will probably still have some gas use in 2050, but this will get far offset by what green electric we shift abroad, it's not flat zero, it's net zero etc.

12 years ago people were saying the similar things you're saying now about coal, and since then coal went from 50% to effectively 0%.

Carbon intensity went from 500g per kWh in 2012 to ~100g now, that's an 80% reduction in 12 years, it's good going.

What we won't be doing is using nuclear generated electric to heat homes, your heating bill would end up 10x what it is now.

 

[SmallTown]

We'll never get anywhere near that level of renewable energy

Why not? We have loads of wind and plenty of waves

 

[SmallTown]

When I say people need to learn how to refuel an EV that goes for EV drivers too. Guy next to me has just "filled the tank" of his i4 to 100%. I can't think of a bigger waste of time than to spend an extra 20 minutes you don't need at a motorway services.

Incidentally it is my best trip yet: left the north east with 86% and needed a 12 minute charge. Don't think I even had that quick a journey in the Tesla

 

[HolgateCorner]

When I say people need to learn how to refuel an EV that goes for EV drivers too. Guy next to me has just "filled the tank" of his i4 to 100%. I can't think of a bigger waste of time than to spend an extra 20 minutes you don't need at a motorway services.

Incidentally it is my best trip yet: left the north east with 86% and needed a 12 minute charge. Don't think I even had that quick a journey in the Tesla

This is an interesting point.

As somebody new to my EV I have a bit of a thing at the moment to top it up to 80% (manufacturer recommends keeping in the 20% to 80% charge range) whenever I can.

I went to Silverstone recently staying at a hotel for three nights 30 miles north of the circuit, so a bit of daily driving, and when I did my journey planning I noticed the car app was telling me to charge back up to 80% when down to 14% and then a small top up on the way home with something like 20% left as I got back to Middlesbrough.

I didn’t follow it, I did my own thing and never got below 35% charge because of a bit of worry that chargers would not be working etc when I most needed one. In the event I charged 3 times and drove up to empty charge stations and each one was working perfectly.

Mind you I had no worries driving home down to finish on about 25% simply because I knew I could just plug in overnight when I got back.

I think my anxiety will diminish over time, it already has to a large extent, but you are right that there is no point hogging busy charge stations topping up unnecessarily and definitely not into the ‘slower charge zone’ above 80%.