To get an Electric car even though my petrol one has years of life?

[Grobagsforever]

Really, really want to go electric. DD is nagging me and she's right. For years I prided myself on being a non driver and using public transport but then I was suddenly a lone parent with two small children and it just wasn't practical so I learnt to drive.

Current car cost 6k in 2015, it was made in 2010. I've put 50k more miles on it but engine wise etc it's totally reliable and likely has years more use. I'd get very little resale value for it due to panel damage and scratches (fight with a wall).

I only spend 100/125 pounds a month on petrol so it would take AGES to recoup the cost of an electric car.

But I want one!!! I could afford the repayments on the various schemes, just seems a waste when I have a perfectly good car.

Anyone feel like this? Gone electric??

I agree, keep the old one. '100% green energy' isn't as straightforward as people might think anyway...

@BarbaraofSeville and @HariboLecter so far battery life is pretty good for cars where you take a little care of the battery. (Not leaving it regularly at 100% or 0% is meant to be better - mine at charges to 80 to help battery health)

It's not one big battery like a giant phone battery, it's made of multiple cells.

There are loads of ev taxis around, some of the Tesla's have done well over 100000 miles.

Battery health can be checked fairly easily.

Depends on how much of a cash cow seeking band of pirates your local council is. As in introducing a huge additional cost for parking permits for residents if they own a non electric car. Or low emissions areas with fines. Or outright banning everything except nice MC electric vehicles and the number 358a Peasant Wagon from the entire town.

If you have one of those councils, you don't want to be in the position of having to buy a replacement vehicle at short notice if you want to be able to get to work in the morning.

This issue arises a lot. Eg I use a glass to drink tap water from so must be one of the lowest users of plastic in the UK and I would argue that damage to the plant by my sons buying those fancy aluminium bottles is higher than if they just used a pint class when at home and did not drink on short journeys.

Sometimes the change to something else or changing your car a lot is worse for the environment as keeping the same one i usually have mine for 15 years or longer if I can manage it. Same with clothes - handing them down from older children is going to be better than buying any new clothing item which is supposedly eco.

We are hybrid and love it. Would go fully electric next time but thought it was a nice interim.

As for your statements Smiley - you need an update

They used to say Mobile phones wouldn't take off back in the eighties, and you should have hear what they said about personal computers back in the day as well....

@Galvantula to be fair given the level of mansplaining in Smiley's post I also assumed them to be male. Happy to be corrected

Wow. So much complete crap being spouted on this one.

If you want an EV go for it. Hydrogen is not the future. It has been overtaken by full electric. It is a complete waste - you have to use electricity to create hydrogen from water and then convert it back to electric so it is massively inefficient.

You do not need 10,000 charging points at a shopping centre. That is nonsense. Most people charge at home. Fuel stations are working on putting electric chargers onto forecourts so you would charge at a fuel station as people now get dinosaur juice.

Electric cars are not worse than diesel cars. People will go on that making an electric car, the electricity needed to charge it etc makes it 'dirtier' than a diesel or petrol car. They are exactly the same people who compare it based on the manufacturing cost of the diesel/petrol car alone and completely ignore the cost of drilling etc for the oil, refining it, transporting it around the country/world etc. It is just nonsense spouted by the anti-EV oil giants and press.

If you buy a new electric car or one through a main dealer (I am not sure how a private purchase would work) you get a grant to have a home charger installed under the OLEV grant. We had a nearly free charger (we only paid a bit as we wanted an extra cable). You do need to make sure that you have off-street parking for the charger to be installed, but otherwise it works.

Look at deals for cheaper electric. Ecotricity is good, but also consider Green Energy UK and Octopus - both are green but we found where we are that their tariffs worked out lower for us (will depend where in the country you are).

As others have said, dealers are not always that great with EVs. If you want one go for it - if you are going to sell on rather than scrap your car then I do not see the issue. Driving an electric car is so much more relaxing and just lovely.

The downsides you have and will hear are range and charging speed. If you are looking for a second hand car, there are really not that many around with the bigger ranges. The cheaper second hand EVs are going to be Renault Zoes or Nissan Leafs.

The downside for a Renault Zoe is the charging speed - they do not charge very fast, which is not an issue at home but will be if you want to go on longer journeys and need to charge en route. On top of that, most of the older Zoes are battery lease. They did that as they were not sure originally how well the batteries would do (answer - much better than expected!). Getting a battery owned Zoe is not too easy and the cheaper second hand and most of them are battery leased. That gives you a monthly rent payment which starts from around £60 a month, so actually will not make your car cheaper to run than your current one.

The Nissan Leafs are lovely (that was our first EV). The older ones have two batteries - 24kwh and 30kwh. We had the 24. The 30 can obviously go further but I do not want to quote range as I don't know real world. The 24kwh would say 80-90 miles on a charge, but that would be in good summer weather and in the cold winter would do much less. You will also get much less on the motorway - we would get about 50-60 on the motorway. Most of our journeys are short so it was not an issue and we charged at home, but if you will be doing a lot of long journeys the older Leaf may not be ideal.

If you go for a Leaf, there are two types of home charger - a tethered cable and a separate one. Go for the separate one (you do have to pay a little extra). The reason is that the older Leafs use a type 1 connector and the newer ones and all other EVs use a type 2, so if you have a tethered cable type 1 and change cars, you will have to replace the charger. If you have a separate cable to plug in you can change cars (or charge different cars) without having an issue.

If range is an issue, then a plug in hybrid may be an option, but there are so many new EVs coming onto the market next year that if you want a much higher range you may be best keeping your current car for a couple of years and then swapping once the new ones hit the second hand market.

Any queries just ask.

Electric cars are excellent. We would never go back to a fossil.

They have improved vastly in the past few years and are no longer range limited.

Do your research, there are likely to be lots of second hand electrics soon as the newer models being released are encouraging early adopters to move on, trading the older ones.

It will obviously depend what your use is like. We have driven European holidays for the past few years with no charging/range issues.

The batteries are thought to last something like 1 million charges, we certainly haven't seen a dramatic change in our battery which has covered over 100k miles.

There is a lot of misinformation out there. Maybe look for a local group, energy saving trust, local ev group who can advise or recommend.

I have a Tesla long range. we have been from London to Edinburgh with two charges and could have done just the one but stopped for the kids a bit more often

we charge mostly at home but sometimes have a quick top up at a supercharger somewhere.

it's great to drive, we use clean electricity, could be self suficient in case of apocalypse with solar panels and wind turbines :-D

HariboLector The manufacturing cost of refining petrol and diesel isn't that great either.

Batteries have not degraded as much as anyone thought and are being massively improved as time goes on. Tesla have developed a battery that can do a million miles. Someone has now created a 'battery' (technically a fuel cell) that is fully and cheaply recyclable and non-toxic.

There is often an option on the EV to limit the charging to 80%, which is optimal to preserve the battery. There is a taxi company in Cornwall that runs purely on electric cars and rapid charges them (which is thought to be worse). I would have to double check but believe they got over 100,000 miles without losing any bars on the battery.

Tesla are good over the batteries as well, so that for their old cars once the battery has dropped below a certain point, they take the batteries out and rather than get rid of them they actually use them as battery storage for solar panels so they get more use out of them.

but it's interesting as there is a kid at work (ok he is 21 not so much a kid) who was also raving about hydrogen - but to be honest, yes Hydrogen can be the future, but for now electric is much better than fossil fuels!

I think you should keep your current car as it works perfectly well for now. I think electric cars are not quite there yet in terms of performance etc. If you want to use it less what about an electric bike? I have a car and an ebike and my car mileage has dropped dramatically as I now try to do all 5 miles or less journeys on the bike.

Nissan Leafs

Shouldn't that be Nissan Leaves?

Electric cars are excellent. We would never go back to a fossil. They have improved vastly in the past few years and are no longer range limited.

Really, they make an electric car with unlimited range? What's it called? I want one. I often driver from Inverness to Malaga. This would be ideal for me.

@Lifecraft What they mean is the range is much bigger now, as i said I went from London to Edinburgh on 2 charges and could have done 1...

and you wouldn't want to drive that long wihtout stopping.

We stopped at a supercharger, and actually had to go and move the car before finishing eating to free up the charger as they are so quick

I recently replaced my 2007 petrol car with a hybrid. It was pretty ropey (the older car that is) and was only fit for short journeys locally. So we would have replaced it anyway.

If you existing car is in good condition it is better to keep it another couple of years until it isn't. By which time there will be more charging points etc. Our other car is 5 years old. I hope that by the time we come to replace it, we can do so with an all-electric car.

Not keen on having a hydrogen car, I think a lot of persuasion would need to be done to get people driving a Hindenburg on wheels!

As for batteries, Toyota renew the guarantee every time they service the car so effectively it's a lifetime guarantee as long as they service it.

Also - walk and cycle more, and drive less!

@smiley that's hilarious. If you knew your stuff about the car industry then you'd know hydrogen is not a viable option. The trend will be away from personal ownership and into ride hailing and car shares, especially given progress in self driving. As for environmental impact, yes you need to consider impact of lithium mining against drilling and refining of oil. Hopefully lithium will be replaced in the future with a more sustainable option. They've recently managed to produce an alternative that is sustainable in terms of manufacturing but unfortunately can't be recharged (yet). My next car will be electric (tesla model 3) but I won't be saving money on it, I'm doing it because I don't want another ICE car and electric are sooooooo fun to drive at that level. Plus charging is really quick now at super chargers ~5 minutes per 20 miles up to 80% charge and only going to get faster. My long commute to customers means I can get to them and half way back on 1 charge, just top up for 10 minutes at a super charger to get home comfortably. I don't mind this as I can just have a loo break/watch some Netflix and be on my way. Plus I'm super excited to have the self drive capability. I have pilot assist at the moment and that makes travelling for work more bearable.

We recently swapped a 1 litre petrol car, 4 seater, for an electric kona- much bigger car, range is incredible. Barely ever charge away from home, only if necessary on very long journeys or at places that offer free charging (which is always slow so it's only a nice little bonus, never functional) and in 4 months we've saved around £750 on fuel already! Yes that is factoring in the electricity bills before anyone argues that.

Honestly, I wouldn't be without it if I had a choice.

Much as I thought, I should hang on to my car til for 1/2 more years until electrics get cheaper and even better. So tempting though, would be amazing to never have to buy horrible petrol again. Mainly as all the manufacturers have such poor ethics.

There must be a website somewhere that calculates the environmental cost of keeping an old car against a newly manufactured electric one.

Batteries are expected to last for at least 10 years. A quick Google tells me that each battery contains about 12kg lithium.

The electricity to charge your car will have come from somewhere, and in the UK, neither solar nor wind is reliable. Once electricity is produced it starts to dissipate immediately, some will be lost in transmission from the source, and your battery will slowly discharge while not in use, whereas practically all the energy from petrol you put in your car will be available to power the car after several days. So, in terms of use of fossil fuels to power a car, petrol makes better use of them than converting them to electricity.

Bear in mind that all electricity goes into the National Grid (except when it is used at the point of production, such as using solar from your own panels). The 'Green' companies have got themselves certification of green-ness, Renewable Energy Guarantees of Origin (REGO), by showing that the amount of energy they supply matches the amount generated by renewables. Eg if, say 25% of Britain's electricity per year comes from renewables, then if they supply 25% of the country's electricity, they can be certified green. (Figures entirely made up for illustration). They keep their supply down by limiting the number of customers they have. All the 'green' companies use the same electricity-from-renewables, so if there are 8 companies each supplying 12.5% of the country's electricity (to stick with my numbers), you can see that there is a certain amount of smoke-and-mirrors going on and you can't be confident that your car is powered by renewable energy alone.

We just bought an electric car (eGolf) and love it. But if you can wait a bit I would - VW (and others I think) have major e ranges coming out next year that will really widen the market.

We needed a new car so we went for it now. I love driving it and the battery life is decent (about 150 miles I think). The brands/models with longer battery life currently have a huge waiting list (18 months, by which time newer models will be out anyway)

@Lifecraft sure you quite often drive 1500 miles in one go.. how big is your fuel tank?

let me be clear, range isn't a viable excuse to not get an electric as most people stop for comfort breaks along the way and charging infrastructure allows the car to charge easily.

The AA says
"Don't drive for more than 8 hours in a day
Take regular fifteen minute breaks in journeys over three hours
Aim to stop every two hours or so, especially if you're not used to driving long distances
Plan journeys so that you can take breaks, allowing for an overnight stay if necessary
Don't start a long journey if you’re tired"

Another question about mass switching to electric cars is do we have the generation capacity to support it, especially in winter?

I believe that we're quite close to capacity, especially as there's old coal fired power stations that are closing down and you need a lot of wind, tidal or solar power to replace them.

@Lifecraft sure you quite often drive 1500 miles in one go.. how big is your fuel tank?

No, I can't drive for 1500 miles, because my petrol car has a limited range before needing to be refilled. But you said electric cars no longer have a limited range. That's clearly utter rubbish, as you now admit. Of course they have a limited range.

You can by a diesel car that'll do 700 miles on a single tank. The best electric cars struggle to achieve half that.

Limited as in seriously limited, not that ev have unlimited range as you very well know @Lifecraft 🙄

There are more models available now which are comparable to petrol car range.

We've also done Scotland to London/Wales/France quite comfortably for holidays the last couple of years. It's more achievable in a Tesla with the supercharger network, although the public charging network is improving all the time (in most places).

Realistically, even if you are on a green tariff a part of you electricity will be coming from fossil fuels. So you won’t actually be doing a service for climate change. You would however be improving air quality (or rather not making it worse) in your area (assuming that you don’t have any coal plants/whatever near you). So that is a good reason to go electric, in my eyes anyway. Whether you want to be out of pocket for doing it though is your choice. I don’t drive electric (nowhere to charge and also unsuitable for our needs) but would consider it if my lifestyle permitted.