Electric car owners?

winkyincanada posted:

SamClaus posted:

I would say the biggest issue is that there's little glamour attached to owning an EV - it won't impress the Joneses. It's the same with cycling, which is not the best way of telling the world how wealthy or powerful you are.

Oh, I don't know about that......

Not sure how many people can afford those...

SamClaus posted:

winkyincanada posted:

SamClaus posted:

I would say the biggest issue is that there's little glamour attached to owning an EV - it won't impress the Joneses. It's the same with cycling, which is not the best way of telling the world how wealthy or powerful you are.

Oh, I don't know about that......

Not sure how many people can afford those...

I was addressing the claim that EVs couldn't be status symbols. Each of these are slightly more expensive than the equivalent ICE models, which are also pretty expensive. There are also a lot of relatively affordable EVs also available. 

Drewy posted:

So what’s the deal with the batteries on these things now? How long is the life of them and how are they being disposed of or recycled? Honestly a 1960’s Land Rover has less impact on the environment than these things. How about we all start using out cars less? We’re a country full of lazy ba****ds. Nobody really cares that much about the world, we’re all guilty.

https://cleantechnica.com/2018...st-for-500000-miles/

Nearly every battery ever installed in a Tesla is still under warranty. The recycling industry has not really developed as the batteries are mostly still all in service. When they do lose capacity, they can be recycled. However, possible/likely outcome is that they will be first used for grid energy storage (to complement intermittent renewable generation, and where there lower "energy density" doesn't really matter) for a few decades until they really die.

In other news, Tesla outsold Porsche world-wide last quarter.

winkyincanada posted:

Sell a few more and they might make a profit?

Pcd posted:

winkyincanada posted:

 

Sell a few more and they might make a profit?

Well yeah, there's that. They are getting close, though.

Winky, how committed are you to the EV scenario at the moment ?

.......bearing in mind that you placed, then cancelled an order for a Model 3 Tesla’s not that long ago.

Don Atkinson posted:

Winky, how committed are you to the EV scenario at the moment ?

.......bearing in mind that you placed, then cancelled an order for a Model 3 Tesla’s not that long ago.

Fairly committed, but.....our issue is that while we'd love to have an EV for 75% of the driving we do, we also need our mini-van (dogs and kids) for a fair bit of the time. We don't want to be a 2-car family, so for now, it is on hold. Once the kids leave home (they're 15 and 17 so just in another 20 years-or-so) we'll then seriously be in the market. We'd perhaps get by now with a Model X, but they're just too expensive for us.

I'd also like for us to do a lot less driving generally. I hardly ever drive, but my wife spends hours in the car every day, just running errands. Ironically, she drives to the gym. She'd ride her bike instead, but she is scared by the traffic. Getting a second car is not a step towards reduced automobile dependency.

winkyincanada posted:

Don Atkinson posted:

Winky, how committed are you to the EV scenario at the moment ?

.......bearing in mind that you placed, then cancelled an order for a Model 3 Tesla’s not that long ago.

Fairly committed, but.....our issue is that while we'd love to have an EV for 75% of the driving we do, we also need our mini-van (dogs and kids) for a fair bit of the time. We don't want to be a 2-car family, so for now, it is on hold.Once the kids leave home (they're 15 and 17 so just in another 20 years-or-so) we'll then seriously be in the market. We'd perhaps get by now with a Model X, but they're just too expensive for us.

I'd also like for us to do a lot less driving generally. I hardly ever drive, but my wife spends hours in the car every day, just running errands. Ironically, she drives to the gym. She'd ride her bike instead, but she is scared by the traffic. Getting a second car is not a step towards reduced automobile dependency.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/2...arnings-q3-2018.html

And there we have it. A Tesla profit.

Disclaimer: I hate cars (or at least having to drive everywhere for everything), but electric cars are the least-worst option.

What Car published a table showing the charging costs for electric cars,

see

https://www.whatcar.com/news/e...;utm_source=20181023https://www.whatcar.com/news/e...;utm_source=20181023

Derek Wright posted:

What Car published a table showing the charging costs for electric cars,

see

https://www.whatcar.com/news/e...;utm_source=20181023https://www.whatcar.com/news/e...;utm_source=20181023

I found it a bit hard to follow what they were saying, other than that the public chargers are variable in cost and (perhaps deliberately) confusing in the way that charging is priced. They may be going the way of mobile phone contracts, where consumer choice is undermined by a confusopoly of non-comparable options.

Derek Wright posted:

What Car published a table showing the charging costs for electric cars,

see

https://www.whatcar.com/news/e...;utm_source=20181023https://www.whatcar.com/news/e...;utm_source=20181023

Surely a mess. There a lots of competing companies and clearly lack of transparency re costs too. Too few offer a PAYG and require apps/registration or RFID cards. Imagine having to do that when you needed to fill with fuel? Apps such as PlugShare and Zap-Map appear to be pretty essential if charging away from home. My wife declines to have a smartphone so she's going to be stuck!

Anyway, we intend to charge at home and if anyone is interested we have just had our domestic charge point fitted and it cost £220 for a simple untethered Rolec charger. This could have been even lower if the run from the fusebox had been shorter and easier. It includes a £500 OLEV grant claimed back by the fitter on your behalf that the govt appear not to have reduced.

Just need BMW to build the car now!

Bruce

Just found this thread - I think I saw you in the Facebook i3 group, Bruce (Tim here). I have been running an i3 for nearly three years now - 6 weeks until it goes back. Done just over 37k miles. Bought to cut down mileage on Land Rover discovery which has done around  20k miles over that period. 

Hoping to order a jag iPace very shortly - am fortunate in being able to put through my company and have worked out that over three years (benefit in kind falls dramatically in April 2020) it will cost about the same as, say, a 2.0 diesel of petrol jag xf estate over about 50k miles. The iPace will replace the disco and i3 (sort of - my wife May have the disco in place of her freelander). We will need another car still for when we have a holiday week in Cornwall (360 miles each way and two teenage daughters’ luggage and body boards and wet suits fill the discovery so iPace a bit small for that). 

I am not the biggest fan of the i3, it’s a bit small and the ride is bouncy (newer versions ride better apparently), the rear doors are a bit irritating. My daughters dislike it and the range isn’t quite enough for me - to get to Manchester and back this week I had to don scarf and gloves. I hate using the range extender (total use under 1% of miles). Range in winter is seriously down - you lose maybe 10 miles of range (and you only started with a max of 70 or so) leaving outside work at zero degrees and then setting off again - the battery pack needs to warm up. My average miles per kWh is around 4.0 but manage around 4.5 when trying. 

I managed 81 miles this week on one charge, the most I have managed is 98 miles - that’s with the earlier battery that is half the size of the latest one and just under two thirds of the intermediate one. In winter though it’s more difficult

The electric power and single pedal driving is fun / rewarding - a good challenge to drive smoothly. Becomes a challenge not to use the brake pedal at all. I charge at home mostly but I have braved the dodgy ecotricity network on motorways formlonger journeys. Mostly worked ok but on occasion had to move to another charger as first one not working. Ecotricity are a bit notorious at the moment in leccy car groups - sometimes work, sometimes dreadful, no customer service out of normal hours which is useless. 

The ipace - had a brief test drive in the summer and didn’t like - though I wanted to see what the merc and Audi etc equivalents were going to be like. But they look dull and make the jag look a lot better, in my view.  Last week I went to a jaguar driving event at Oulton Park- huge fun round the circuit, round cones, etc (won the slalom competition in my group) and on a 30 minute road trip. Smooth, comfortable, rapid (very), quiet. The range is open to debate (200-240 miles if you drive vaguely sensibly) - and jaguar have been holding quite a lot of cars back for software updates, to the extent that the Bolton dealer hasn’t delivered any yet!

i think jaguar have missed a trick with the interior design - black leather with wood. Yawn - the i3 interior is more modern and I greatly prefer it - but I want something bigger and am not a Tesla fan (they change prices every few weeks, try to hide the list price on their website and their interiors aren’t the best. Plus they have some of the most annoying fans who live to boast about their Tesla superiority over anything else - imagine what it would be like if linn fans came in here just to slag off naim). Am thinking of going for the kvadrat interior - posh fabric - instead of leather but not actually seen one. Plus it’s grey and I think the tan leather really lifts the interior, visually. 

With respect to green-ness, I understand that batteries are generally lasting a lot better than any of the manufacturers expected. Also, the critics point to non fossil fuel generation being less than 100% of the total - what a silly criticism. So wel less than 100% is no better than actually 100%? And have you stopped to consider the amount of electricity used to refine the petrol or diesel fuel? Or that many ev owners have solar or wind generation at home? It’s not perfect, I am sure, but doing nothing because there isn’t a perfect solution is pretty ridiculous. 

Thanks Tim

I guess your car use is a bit different to ours, not least it is very rare of either of us to carry passengers. What I saw of the back seat, boot space etc struck me as pretty marginal for family transport.

Hope you find what you want. The iPace is about twice the price new of the i3 so it should be a pretty different proposition.

Agree re Tesla incidentally. Seems like a religion as much as a car company! For a high tech company I thought the website was useless when I wanted to look up some details of the Model 3.

Bruce

Bruce Woodhouse posted:

Thanks Tim

I guess your car use is a bit different to ours, not least it is very rare of either of us to carry passengers. What I saw of the back seat, boot space etc struck me as pretty marginal for family transport.

Hope you find what you want. The iPace is about twice the price new of the i3 so it should be a pretty different proposition.

Agree re Tesla incidentally. Seems like a religion as much as a car company! For a high tech company I thought the website was useless when I wanted to look up some details of the Model 3.

Bruce

Yes, useless site for info. I looked recently, out of interest in the new cheap one -  that I’d ever spend that much on a car, but because that secondhand in a decade’s time might come on the radar in price, though the issue/cost of replacement batteries is an unknown factor. What was misleading and sufficient detail was info about true range, including time of intermediate charges on. Longer journey. Once I found the info that was there the first impression of range was great, but once the top-up gives significantly less range for the second leg, which they glossed over. 

The Tesla 7-seater caught my imagination when it came out, an electric people carrier/MPV with a reasonably decent range and capable of high performance, that also looks good, seemed fantastic - unfortunately so is the price, so it is big lottery win fodder only!

As a day-to-day car the range of probably all e-vehicles is perfectly adequate for my own, and all of my family’s, purposes, but unsuitable for long journeys. Once they can do, say, 150+ miles on a charge and 150+ on each of two successive on-the-road recharges, with less than an hour for that recharge, then they would be serious for any usage I would ever consider. Otherwise if I had an e-vehicle I’d need a fossil fuel one as well.

Once they solve the fast recharge (or battery swap) issue, capable of being provided as widely and readily as fuel from petrol stations, and with prices down another couple of notches, then they will become serious for routine personal transport.

My query or concern with having an electric vehicle in the next five years is how well is one going to be served if one wants to take the car to mainland Europe (Brexit permiitting) how accessible will charging facilities be, will the payment process be compatible with UK payment charging systems.

The ferry companys could encourage the use of electric vehicles by providing charging points in the car decks.