Tesla exposed

I can only just make it to teesside on a full tank of fuel about 85 quid worth.
The cost thing is interesting. Last time I paid nothing for fuel to Teesside. That included free charging at home and about £4 worth of free supercharging.

Now it will cost me about £20. The charger in the flat is permanently broken so have topped up at work with £14 worth of juice and will again have to spend about £4 on a splash and dash on the way. That's as pricey as it will ever be and frankly crazy compared to what I used to pay but it's still not bad
 
Lot of research done on improving these batteries, yes like everything the lifespan is limited, but they are good and improving. The next gen batteries, use far less cobalt, and are designed to be easily recyclable. Remember the combustion engine was way dirtier for the first 70-80 years of motoring. EVs as a viable consumer product has only really been going for about 8 years and already they're well down the line in making them far cleaner lifecycles, and far easier to recycle. Still challenges to overcome, but there is a will, a market, government support, and the prices will be plummeting over the next 5 years. Tesla for example expect to have a sub 20k car on the market within the next 2 years.


"As we previously stated, these miles are not all on the original motor and battery. In fact, by November 2019, Gemmingen had gone through four motors and three battery packs."

😆🤣
 
An EV needs a range of 360 miles for me, my petrol car has a 490 mile range. I sometimes drive 250 miles in a journey, without stopping, I can usually go 4.5 hours without a pee. 100% charging needs to be 15 minutes or less to be fine for me.

I gather the long range Tesla car can do this. I believe its price starts at £48k. I could probably save £1k a year running this car. My new car petrol car was £9k maybe £13k brand new now. If we assumed a 12 year life of 120k miles for both cars that still leaves a £25k gap. I usually fill up when I go for a shop, its not inconvenient in any way for me to fill up at present.

I do realise I am adding carbon (which I don't want to do ideally) and do sometimes travel by train if it is convenient, but I often need taxis to connect. Trains can also be surprisingly expensive if you don't book well ahead and don't have a discount card. Its also difficult on a train taking a lot of luggage and for two people more expensive.
 
An EV needs a range of 360 miles for me, my petrol car has a 490 mile range. I sometimes drive 250 miles in a journey, without stopping, I can usually go 4.5 hours without a pee. 100% charging needs to be 15 minutes or less to be fine for me.

I gather the long range Tesla car can do this. I believe its price starts at £48k. I could probably save £1k a year running this car. My new car petrol car was £9k maybe £13k brand new now. If we assumed a 12 year life of 120k miles for both cars that still leaves a £25k gap. I usually fill up when I go for a shop, its not inconvenient in any way for me to fill up at present.

I do realise I am adding carbon (which I don't want to do ideally) and do sometimes travel by train if it is convenient, but I often need taxis to connect. Trains can also be surprisingly expensive if you don't book well ahead and don't have a discount card. Its also difficult on a train taking a lot of luggage and for two people more expensive.
I'm amazed when people have these really specific range requests and they are always really high. Basically means "I'm going to argue against an EV so I'll pick a number that only the expensive EV can reach and then argue against it." I'm pretty sure not one person buys an ICE vehicle based solely on a combination of its MPH against the size of its fuel tank.

Oh and it may only be a mild inconvenience filling up after you go shopping but it is an inconvenience. Soany supermarkets now have chargers I'm the car park. So I fill up whilst I'm shopping!
 
These vehicles are an absolute scam 😎

This bloke is talking rubbish. His key point is that in the US 60 per cent of electricity he says is made by burning coal. Well what you do is generate more renewables energy like in the UK. If you have solar panels on your house your car runs on sunshine. Not by burning petrol or diesel. So he’s intrinsically wrong.

The other points he makes are diversionary and nugatory IMHO. They need to get off coal and oil. And get on top of the carbon industries’ promotion of disinformation.
 
I think the charging speed thing is the one myth the EV community need to bust. It's always used by people supporting ICE as a positive of an ice car. Thing is the average driver can charge from home and does less than 100 miles per day. That flips the refuelling arguement right on its head. I used to be able to do that and it seemed archaic to ever have to stop to fuel up. Your car always had enough full for a day's driving.
Totally agree, it's like in my example above the range argument is debunked by charging speed, the fact you nearly always leave on a full battery. The latter is the main factor and is the main point I also massively underestimated before buying an EV. I've used public charging for maybe 5-10 hours total, in 8 months/ 8,000 miles.

The main arguments seem to come from those that drive 500 miles a day, every day and don't ever stop for a break, although I've yet to meet one of these people in real life. It would make no sense to try and cater for this range/ driving habit anyway, just leave them with their ICE's, and they can fill up with fuel every day. Then once 350kW charging is "the norm", they also have zero argument.

The EV does change the way I think about driving, but it's an alternate way of thinking which makes me more time-efficient overall than I could ever be with a ICE. That's without factoring in that it miles cheaper, especially for a company car, I can basically drive a car twice as expensive (and twice the performance/ comfort/ capability), for less.

We do need a better motorwork high speed charging network though. Then on long journeys the same "are we actually refuelling?" Question would be asked. As you'd just charge up when you stopped for a bit to eat. That's the liberating thing about EVs: not visiting petrol stations
They're doing it, Gridserve/ Ecotricity are upgrading to 350kW, they just opened the 12 x 350kW services at Rugby (near M6/M1).

Even charging at 100kW is a different world to 25kW, give it 5 years and we will be at 1000kW, just need the long/ mid-range cars to future proof.
 
My new car petrol car was £9k maybe £13k brand new now
13k for a new petrol car? What are you driving, doesn't sound a like for like comparison. Tesla 3 is a mid size, fairly luxury model, not a kia Picanto.

If you compare say a Ford Mach e and say a Peugeot 3008, they're about the same size and spec and quality. difference is about 8-10k not 25. That difference will come down as more electric cars are manufactured and improvements are made.

Tesla are expected to release a compact electric in the next 2 years for under 20k, that's a game changer.
 
I'm amazed when people have these really specific range requests and they are always really high. Basically means "I'm going to argue against an EV so I'll pick a number that only the expensive EV can reach and then argue against it." I'm pretty sure not one person buys an ICE vehicle based solely on a combination of its MPH against the size of its fuel tank.

Oh and it may only be a mild inconvenience filling up after you go shopping but it is an inconvenience. Soany supermarkets now have chargers I'm the car park. So I fill up whilst I'm shopping!
I'm expecting to need to use a supercharger maybe 10-20 times a year. That's maybe 5-10 hours sat charging in a year, the rest is home charging. I must spend way more than that diverting to get petrol, queuing, paying right now.

Unless you regularly travel 300+ miles in a day then charging isn't an issue and will save a lot of time and money at petrol stations.
 
13k for a new petrol car? What are you driving, doesn't sound a like for like comparison. Tesla 3 is a mid size, fairly luxury model, not a kia Picanto.

If you compare say a Ford Mach e and say a Peugeot 3008, they're about the same size and spec and quality. difference is about 8-10k not 25. That difference will come down as more electric cars are manufactured and improvements are made.

Tesla are expected to release a compact electric in the next 2 years for under 20k, that's a game changer.
If the build quality is there yes, I agree.

Right now? Electric is isn't affordable to many.
 
An EV needs a range of 360 miles for me, my petrol car has a 490 mile range. I sometimes drive 250 miles in a journey, without stopping, I can usually go 4.5 hours without a pee. 100% charging needs to be 15 minutes or less to be fine for me.

Why? How often do you do this journey? Even if it's every other day there's still very little difference in wasted time charging/ filling up.

To get your 360 miles in, you need to have filled up the night before or at some point, the fuel hasn't gone in your car by magic, so you've already used up 15 minutes or whatever. That's 15 minutes you "owe" the EV if going to do a "like for like". Then also, you're likely going to need to fill up again in the next day or so, to cover the other days miles (the EV could do the before and after part for no time loss, when you're asleep). Your 500 miles of range is two fill-ups effectively, one for the 500 and one for the next 500. Basically, that's 30 minutes over the days before/ after/ week.

You/ most don't "need" 360 though, it's the charging and what you start the day with, and what you start the next day with, and the next day, which is the broader comparison. You could target one specific journey, but car ownership doesn't work like that, look at the year.

For that journey, my 250 mile range EV, that has a 100kW battery, that charges at 100kW will basically only need a 30 minute charge for that trip, and no stops on the days before or after, so that's 30 minutes total for me, including food and a slash. This is only 15 minutes more than your previous night's fuel stop at the supermarket (which I don't need to do), combine that with a quick slash and some grub or you having to fill up the next day, or the day after and it's dead even. Whether you count your pi$$ stop or food during your journey, or when you arrive it's irrelevant, you still have that time allocation to the "trip" or day, except the EV does that included in the 30 mins. You're either adding on a purpose stop with ICE too, or adding that time on at the start/end.

I gather the long range Tesla car can do this. I believe its price starts at £48k. I could probably save £1k a year running this car. My new car petrol car was £9k maybe £13k brand new now. If we assumed a 12 year life of 120k miles for both cars that still leaves a £25k gap. I usually fill up when I go for a shop, its not inconvenient in any way for me to fill up at present.

Why do you need a 360 mile range, if you only do 120k miles in 12 years? That's only doing 200 miles a week (no public charging at all).
You're either not driving as far, as often as you think you are, so you are overestimating the charging issue (effectively you would never need a public charger), or you're massively underestimating miles (and the fuel/ wear/ cost savings).

What 490 mile range car, in the same class/ size as any Tesla costs 13k new? You're not really comparing eggs with eggs here, to be honest.
Also, a 13k car after 12 years will likely not be worth anything, after that time, a tesla battery would still have at least half of its expected life and would still no doubt hold at least 10k of that value.

You need to decide what mileage you're doing, how you're doing it, when and where, then compare relatively similar car types based on that, as you're comparison isn't consistent. It's what loads do though, they think they need 400 mile range as they drive 400 miles in one day, once per year. In reality, 99% of their driving isn't like this, and the time they do need to charge at a motorway 200 miles away, then they're stopping for food or comfort anyway, the time "lost" is effectively halved. It's like someone thinking they should buy a 4 x 4, as they had to mount a curb once in 2017.
 
13k for a new petrol car? What are you driving, doesn't sound a like for like comparison. Tesla 3 is a mid size, fairly luxury model, not a kia Picanto.

If you compare say a Ford Mach e and say a Peugeot 3008, they're about the same size and spec and quality. difference is about 8-10k not 25. That difference will come down as more electric cars are manufactured and improvements are made.

Tesla are expected to release a compact electric in the next 2 years for under 20k, that's a game changer.
The electric will also hold value better, have less wear, battery lasts longer than an engine, better performance, better tech, nicer drive etc.

Then that's before you get to the extra fuel, tax, parking, congestion charges for ICE etc.

The initial outlay is more for EV's, but the total cost over time is less, and will become cheaper and cheaper, which can't be said for ICE.
 
What 490 mile range car, in the same class/ size as any Tesla costs 13k new?
I'm assuming he means a Kia Rio. Which really is an apple vs orange comparison.

Without wanting to sound like a car snob, I'm not, comparing a base model Kia Rio with a Tesla model 3 is ludicrous. It's a compact car vs a mid size family car for starters. Beyond that it's a base model Kia, with a 3.8 inch screen, no sunroof, a 1.2ltr 83 bhp engine, no heated seats or wheel, and a basic 4 speaker stereo etc. vs one of the best infotainment systems with a 15 inch screen, a full length sunroof, a 434 bhp engine, 5 heated seats and steering wheel, one of the best sound systems (14 speaker) in a car under 100k.

You can compare the two cars on range, fine, but spec is on a different planet. You need to compare Tesla 3 to a BMW 3 series or Audi A4 and not the base models, for similar cars.

If you simply want the cheapest option available, and are not bothered about spec, then fair enough, the Tesla is an expensive car, as are most EVs and are not an option. But the TCO will reduce that gap over it's life time the long term price difference is exaggerated.
 
Last edited:
I don't get the "build quality" argument against Tesla either to be honest, yes it's not perfect but what is? I've had issues with almost every Audi, BMW, VW and Merc and seen some shockers much worse on the missus cars. The thing is, the missus cars have about 0.1% of the tech, style, fun and comfort, and are absolutely horrendous to drive, so can't really compare those, it's not like for like.

Most of the Audi, BMW and Mercs are all in the price/ class vicinity of Telsa EV's, albeit their EV's cost more than Telsas for similar levels of class/ performance. The build may not be as good for Tesla, but they don't cost as much and have better tech. The build quality of cheaper Audi's and BMW's isn't as good as their pricier models also.

"Build quality" is a box to tick, but it's not in the top 5 things I look for to be honest, which are normally tech, style, looks, performance, practicality and all of that compared to the 3-5 year cost forecast. Build quality is yay or nay, if something breaks, it's under warranty. If the panel gap is 3mm bigger, I don't care, not when the other factors outweigh it. I think the Tesla's received a 5-star safety rating too, not really important to me, but will be for lots.
 
I don't get the "build quality" argument against Tesla either to be honest, yes it's not perfect but what is? I've had issues with almost every Audi, BMW, VW and Merc and seen some shockers much worse on the missus cars. The thing is, the missus cars have about 0.1% of the tech, style, fun and comfort, and are absolutely horrendous to drive, so can't really compare those, it's not like for like.

Most of the Audi, BMW and Mercs are all in the price/ class vicinity of Telsa EV's, albeit their EV's cost more than Telsas for similar levels of class/ performance. The build may not be as good for Tesla, but they don't cost as much and have better tech. The build quality of cheaper Audi's and BMW's isn't as good as their pricier models also.

"Build quality" is a box to tick, but it's not in the top 5 things I look for to be honest, which are normally tech, style, looks, performance, practicality and all of that compared to the 3-5 year cost forecast. Build quality is yay or nay, if something breaks, it's under warranty. If the panel gap is 3mm bigger, I don't care, not when the other factors outweigh it. I think the Tesla's received a 5-star safety rating too, not really important to me, but will be for lots.
Build quality is important to me. Having had well built cars I have noticed a down tick with the Tesla. It sort of sours your feelings about the car, knowing it's not built well. Don't get me wrong I still like it. But the difference between that and the merc is noticeable
 
I'm assuming he means a Kia Rio. Which really is an apple vs orange comparison.

Without wanting to sound like a car snob, I'm not, comparing a base model Kia Rio with a Tesla model 3 is ludicrous. It's a compact car vs a mid size family car for starters. Beyond that it's a base model Kia, with a 3.8 inch screen, no sunroof, a 1.2ltr 83 bhp engine, no heated seats or wheel, and a basic 4 speaker stereo etc. vs one of the best infotainment systems with a 13 inch screen, a full length sunroof, a 434 bhp engine, 5 heated seats and steering wheel, one of the best sound systems (14 speaker) in a car under 100k.

You can compare the two cars on range, fine, but spec is on a different planet. You need to compare Tesla 3 to a BMW 3 series or Audi A4 and not the base models, for similar cars.

If you simply want the cheapest option available, and are not bothered about spec, then fair enough, the Tesla is an expensive car, as are most EVs and are not an option. But the TCO will reduce that gap over it's life time the long term price difference is exaggerated.
Yeah, that's not "like for like", it's not even anywhere near close.

Like you say though, it's not the ticket price, it's TCO. l bet for someone driving 15k miles per year, the 5 year total cost would be very close. A 5 years and 75k miles that Kia will have lost about 12k depreciation, which is probably similar to that of what base Model 3 would lose. Then obviously the model 3 saves on fuel, tax and is a much better car. Getting finance on a 15k Kia or a 35k Tesla may be different, but if a finance company factored in TCO then it should be the same affordability calc (although it won't be, wrongly).

I totally get that for someone wanting to spend 5k on a 10 year old car then there are limited EV options, but there will be seeing as EV's were not widely out 10 years ago. The thing is there are no cheap new EV's for them, but they also don't have any "new" ICE options either, the ICE market does not cater for them, they get what used cars trickle down, and used kia's, Renaults EV's etc will trickle down.

What was a 5k used ICE car now, will end up being an 8k used EV in 5 years, yes the ticket price will be more but the TCO will be less, so it won't be costing them more than their 5k ICE was. Or they (and others) won't need a car as can rely on self-driving EV taxi's, which may end up even cheaper for them.

The "Model 2" and others will no doubt help lower this down too, we're still at early days with EV's but like for like the 20k + cars are already even for TCO, and over 30k massively favour EV already.
 
Build quality is important to me. Having had well built cars I have noticed a down tick with the Tesla. It sort of sours your feelings about the car, knowing it's not built well. Don't get me wrong I still like it. But the difference between that and the merc is noticeable
I'll swap you some of my build quality for some of your tech. :ROFLMAO: It might not be built as well, but it's probably more likely to keep you alive if things went t*ts up. Also, you probably have better performance per £.

I'm not mad on the Teslas looks mind, it's the one thing that put me off, they really need to do a different body shape for the European market, they would sell miles more cars.
 
battery lasts longer than an engine,

absolutely not true in any way shape or form.

Petrol or diesel engines often last at least 20 years. (cars sometimes a little shorter being designed to a fixed life, but bus and truck engines are used 20 years plus in lots of cases) example, how many 15+ year old busses do you see around town? loads. (yes I am a bit of a bus spotter)

I am sure battery technology will improve significantly, but 20 years is not on the horizon any time soon. Its more likely that batteries will become a replaceable service item every 7-10 year depending on use and tech etc. Hence why I think the model will shift to a leasing one rather than a car ownership one.

Batteries and fuel cell vehicles will be more and more visible on the roads, but petrol and diesel internal combustion engines will be around in some form or another for at least another 20 to 30 years. They too will get more efficient and greener, look at the emissions levels of the upcoming Euro 7 legislation for trucks and busses, its a near zero approach.
 
Back
Top