To think a 100 mile range is not a lot?

[jennymanara]

Where I live we are being encouraged to buy electric cars through billboard adverts. These say things like electric cars can travel 100 miles before needing to be charged and that the average charging time is half an hour.

That sounds fine if all you want is a run around for a city or town to go to the supermarket and work, but pretty impractical for a lot if people. Especially given how few charging places there are. It would in reality mean that I could never drive more than 100 miles before going nack home to charge up the car.

...and yet Doncaster Council have just put £50 million into a city wide initiative for Sheffield etc with public transport at the heart of it; Hertfordshire County Council have just today announced their public transport initiative due to concern around climate emergency..

Meanwhile, my cash-strapped county council have reduced the subsidy for our bus route, which means our first bus is at 8.30 am and our last bus is at 5.40, making it utterly useless for commuters who need to get to/from the station.

Similar cuts have been made to all the non-profit making bus services. Between 6.30 and 8.30, and again between 6 & 7.30 pm, the station drop-off point is packed with people dropping off and picking up family members. Some of these are doing a 12-mile round trip, 10 times a week.

Until the government are prepared to stump up money to subsidise rural public transport, people will still use cars.

My Leaf has an 80 Mike range, but it works out lower than that in practice. I travel a lot for work, but normally only a 30-40 mile round trip. It's fine forvthat. We need 2 cars as both of us travel for work. Our other car is hybrid and we use that for long distances. We have a prius which is amazing, 12 years old and has needed hardly any repairs, just usual maintenance.Our petrol cost has halved. The electric car technology will improve, but people need to buy them for investment to speed up. It's a vicious cycle.

I really don't understand the vitriol against electric cars. Nobody is being forced to buy one. If it doesn't suit you don't get one! We currently have one electric car that DH uses to commute to work. Our other car is a big diesel car that I would love to replace with an electric car but we need a big car and big electric cars are £££ and we would use the bigger car for holidays etc so the range becomes an issue. However, given that we rarely travel far enough for the range to be an issue we're thinking that we may just use a hire car for the once or twice a year that we need to travel further. Or we may get a plug in hybrid.

AS for fossil fuels being used to generate electricity that should become ever less of an issue now: www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/renewable-energy-generates-more-electricity-20573303

and it is possible to choose to be supplied by only renewable sources:
www.eonenergy.com/renewable.html

Of course, even electric cars have an environmental impact but I think they are inarguably better for the environment and I personally believe a little inconvenience is a small price to pay. I keep saying to my youngest that by the time he grows up he won't believe that we ever used to drive around in the dirty, smelly, fume producing cars we have now.

I've been looking into why they don't have swapping batteries thing - turns out its a right faff to do and too expensive to build swapping stations big enough to store enough batteries to keep up with demand. Plus manufacturers don't want to fit in with a standardisation n all that. So I can see why they aren't going down that route.

DP and I have often said that they should standardise batteries, so you could do battery swaps, a bit like you do with Calor gas bottles. It would be much more convenient and no costly infrastructure would be required.

100-mile range would be no good for me. My job covers 2 counties and the city in between, it's not uncommon (but not frequent, either) that I do work trips of close on 100 miles. That's too close for comfort imo. Plus it's very hilly in places, they use more leccy when they go up hills!

Also it seems that they only come in automatic (for reasons that do make sense with a bit of reading). Sod that with a steep hill start to a main road whenever I go anywhere.

I have one and drive in very hilly Bristol lots. It’s fine. They don’t roll back like petrol cars.

I don't think theres a lot of vitriol against Electric cars. Its just that at present they're expensive and there is this worry about range and charging. Once they're cheaper and easier to charge with a decent range I would buy one. As someone has previously said someone has to take the lead, be at the front of this change, I agree but can't afford for it to be me. Perhaps if I won the lottery I would.

Re. cost, they are indeed expensive at the moment, even second hand. Ours was approx. £6K. But on the other hand, if you spent £50 a month in fuel, you would make back a fair amount of that over five years, considering the cost of charging at home is more like £3.

Heavy hard how we calculated it. Ours was second hand on a pcp. We were paying £50 about every 2 weeks on fuel, and now don't pay anything. I charge at home or the free charge points.

I love the idea of an electric car. But I don't have a driveway. There aren't enough parking space on our estate so I foresee problems when more people own electric cars.

I'm aiming to be long gone from here and safely in a house with a driveway and charging point in 15yrs.

I hate them neither my horse or I can hear them when I’m riding . Really dangerous we’ve had a couple of near misses

I really don't understand the vitriol against electric cars.

There's no vitriol.

But people do keep saying that everyone should get an electric car and that there's no excuse not to, totally ignoring the fact that they're highly impractical for huge parts of the country at the present time.

I agree they are too quiet. They are making some of the new ones noisier now, apparently. I can’t remember the specifics.

Purely out of interest...

If you have a home charging point and change vehicles do you need a different point?
If you move house do you have to disconnect your charging point and take it with you or do you buy a new one at your new house?

Meanwhile, my cash-strapped county council have reduced the subsidy for our bus route, which means our first bus is at 8.30 am and our last bus is at 5.40, making it utterly useless for commuters who need to get to/from the station.

My council is reducing school places, yet allowing tons of houses to be built. Chances of them thinking about improving public transport with that level of stupidity isn't good.

as a society we might achieve a hell of a lot more if we looked to non-technical solutions first. Starting with wtf are people commuting 100+ miles a day?
Because we have to. I would love a shorter commute but find me the job! Perhaps if we stopped the convergence of everything towards London & the SE then it wouldn't be such a problem.
As has been said, it's all tinkering at the edges. We need a bigger debate.

I've seen reports that electric cars are a pain because they have different charging systems, so even if you find a charging point it may not fit your car. Also that you may have to wait a couple of hours whilst your car recharges. What mostly puts me off, however, is the fantastic cost of replacing the batteries.

I am however looking very seriously at hybrids, which seem to me to be the best solution till electric cars are much better developed.

@yogadrone are you sure a Tesla is too expensive? Model 3 starts at £38k, which is similar to the BMW i3.

I loved my b class electric and miss it. However I do not miss the nerves if whether it's get me home. It was a range of 120miles and it only managed around 90 on a good day, 60-70 during winter. I had to charge it nightly for this and kept it on eco plus mode. It was a great car but it became a pain to keep charging it. I couldn't go like to my sister's after work as it wouldn't have made it back.

I would definitely get another if they put in 400 mile ranges. The charging points for your house can be costly too. They told us that ours was free on a grant they get. Then they tried to charge us! This was mercedes.

@Abraid2, I hope I’m never on a motorway near you then. Government advice says that you should take a proper break every 2 hours. In 15-20 minutes you can add a lot of range to an EV on a rapid charger. Meanwhile visit the loo and grab a coffee, have a few minutes respite so that when you’re back on the road you can concentrate and stay alert.

@SlothMama some electric cars can do over 300 miles on a charge now, so your commute should be easily doable.

I would love to see some kind of carbon footprint tracker, every year you get either a bill for going over X amount of carbon or a rebate for being under.

Until recently I worked five miles away. There is a bus but (a) the timings don't work so I'd be at work for over an hour extra (sod that!) and (b) it would have cost £120 per month as opposed to £25 on petrol. I would have been the perfect candidate for an electric car but they are well over my budget and I have no off-road parking and I've never seen a charging point round here. So what would you suggest?

(I now have a job just a mile away so I walk)

Also, I find it hard to believe all of the electricity supply for charging points is sustainable.

I don't understand why we're not being encouraged to use electric scooters/mopeds for all the short single person journeys we all do.

Yes weather is one disadvantage but we don't generally need a big boxy metal thing that seats 5 people for (what I imagine makes up a bulk of all journeys) single person commutes/supermarket/gym visits.

(Have not RTFT so apologies if someone's raised this already)

Ive been looking into this but both my jobs involve a lot of driving in mostly large rural counties with really limited charging points.

If the mileage was good (i frequently do anywhere between 50 and 150 miles a day for work) and the charge points were available id go for it although the car prices make my eyes water.

I might even get a regular lunch break if i had to stop to recharge throughout the day.

@sockwomble electric cars are available now that will do 300 miles and have plenty of luggage space. However they are still fairly expensive. That will change in the next couple of years.

Bring back the Sinclair C5!