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??

Toyota do a hydrogen hybrid and there are hydrogen filling stations in the south east that produce the hydrogen on site. This is the future - water out the exhaust instead of harmful gases, easily taxable, hydrogen is an infinite resource and fuel stations can be adapted. That is the future.

Sorry to burst your bubble but hydrogen as a vehicle fuel is only ever likely to be viable for trains and heavy road transport. It might also have a future as a natural gas alternative for home heating.

As has been pointed out already, extracting it from water is inefficient and needs a lot of electricity, which is why most hydrogen is produced using steam methane reformation. Methane is a fossil fuel and the process creates massive amounts of CO2.

I think you would be better off waiting 3 or 4 years until electric cars are more established, they are only just about viable now.

Incidentally using an electric car also has an environmental impact, as it takes a large amount of energy to actually make the car.

I know @tttigress - hence I am wanting a used model. So someone else gets my perfectly good petrol car and I get someone else's used electric. I guess further up the chain someone buys new, but presumably electric if they've already sold one.

By not range limited now, as others have said, I meant on the newer cars there is not the same issue over range, not that they are completely unlimited, in the same way that no fossil fuel car is unlimited in range on one tank.

There has been massive improvement when, for example, you can get Teslas that can comfortably get in the 300+ miles range (Kona can apparently get closer to the 250 mile range at motorway speeds) compared to my older Leaf which could make 50-60 miles on a motorway and that was not even the first generation of electric Leaf.

As far as renewables are concerned, we can generate an awful lot more power than we do from renewables, especially wind. There are experts in Europe who are surprised by how little we do generate from wind as there is a higher uptake in parts of Europe and, being an island, we have much more capability to generate it.

It will be interesting to see what the battery performance is like once these cars get to about 10 years old. Currently there is a healthy market for petrol and diesel cars of this age, and for many people that is all their motoring budget allows. But if a 10 year old electric car is unusable (without an expensive new battery), what will happen then?

I don’t think the infrastructure is quite there for electric - think of how many cars park on the road for a start, where they can’t be charged overnight.

I currently have a Toyota self charging hybrid which seems to me the best of all worlds - it uses electric a lot around town so emissions are far lower than normal petrol/diesel and I have no range anxiety on holiday. Plus Toyota / Lexus always win reliability surveys and have been developing this tech for over 20 years

It was mentioned up thread by a previous poster, but most of us won’t own cars in a few years anyway.

Calling a self driving car from an app to take you where you need to go will be the norm. They will self clean when you get out, and drive themselves to the next person who needs one.

The whole car industry will change as suddenly the number of vehicles needed (most of which currently sit doing nothing most of the time) will reduce massively.

We don’t need on or off street parking at home anymore, we don’t need car parks anymore, car dealers and garages will disappear as all vehicles will be owned by corporates (probably google, Apple and amazon)

It’s going to be a massive shift away from car ownership, and having a depreciating asset sat outside your house doing nothing for most of the time

Ps. This thread and the power consumed by all the phones/tablets/computers to read it combined with the power needed to run the servers/routers/switches/phone masts and air condition the server rooms has probably consumed more of the worlds resources than OPs car ever will.

For all the people worried about range, you just need to look at what happened with smartphones. It just needs a change of mindset.

In 1999 my smartphone battery lasted for a week, these days it lasts for about 18 hours, I don't complain because instead of charging whenever it's low, I charge routinely overnight, it just needs a similar change in behaviour to adjust to electric cars.

I'm undecided whether or not to go for an e-Niro, or a tesla model 3 when the BIK/Company car tax drops to 0% in april for zero-emission vehicles.

I foresee the same thing Hurdy-gurdy , an app based system where you summon or pre-book a car whenever you need one.
However the driverless technology seems a long way off, as it will surely require human drivers to be banned for it to be safe .
The interim solution would be the Uber type model, (with human driven electric cars), yet there doesn't seem to be an appetite for car owners to switch to getting a cab everywhere.

We have had a Renault Zoe for over 4 years as our only car. It was a demonstrator model from a garage so lots cheaper than new with minimal miles on the clock.

We have driven all over including 2 trips abroad. Charging network much better now and most cars have much bigger ranges than our car. Most of our charging is at home overnight. We have Octopus Go which allows cheap charging during certain hours - we set the charging timer on the car. This is better for the grid than daytime charging.

We have seen no battery degradation in that time. In the longer term batteries from cars may be used in homes to store electricity from eg solar panels.

We are going to need to get a second car next year as my job is changing. I honestly wouldn’t go back to petrol.

I'm in a similar situation - I have an elderly car which will need replacing at some point in the next couple of years, and would like to go electric. I am keeping an eye on the price of 2nd hand electric cars, but they are still about three thousand more than I would want to pay. There's currently a local offer on solar panels, so am dithering about whether to spend £3,000-ish on those or keep it for an electric car upgrade. I would love some form of calculator which could help me work out which is best for the environment....

Electric cars will never take off. Get a hydrogen one.

Electric cars will never take off. Get a hydrogen one.

It's the other way round.

For all the people who keep saying "electric cars are just as bad for the environment because of battery disposal, electricity power stations etc"

...

Does anyone take into consideration why councisl and government are so keen on them?

It's because we are killing our lungs with particulates, in the main from diesel cars which emit horrible particulates that particularly hurt children's lungs.

A South London school measured the air quality recently outside their school and it was toxic! To the point where they were keeping their pupils indoors as a result.

Something has to be done. Yes psychologically it's theoretically nice to have a 650 mile range in your 1.6 diesel fuel tank, but convenience and psychology is what's killing our lungs.

The number of people also who have diesel "because it's cheaper isn't it" and then end up doing short runs (school drop off, shopping, friends, playdates) - polluting urban areas with their inappropriate choice of fuel, yet happy because they're paying £20 tax a year and get "more MPG you know" (enjoy your DPF filter problems when they happen).

My point was, it's not about the battery disposal etc..

It's about the fact that our lungs are being harmed NOW.

I don't want my family to die of some horrible lung problem just because someone down the road thinks it's their human right to drive a Discovery Sport around the urban city.

We will be switching to electric when our current vehicles wear out. There is one proviso though. They need to be able to tow.

At the moment the only electric car on the UK market that can tow is the Tesla Model X but at "From £86,200" that one isn't an option for mere mortals.

instead of charging whenever it's low, I charge routinely overnight, it just needs a similar change in behaviour to adjust to electric cars

But the range is only 100 to 150 miles. Yesterday I drove over 300 miles and was out of the house over 14 hours - this is something I do typically once a week.

I would have been lucky to make it to my first client, 130 miles away and it would have felt a bit cheeky if I had asked to plug my car in when I got there.

But even if I had fully charged my car, it would have needed charging for a second time some time on the way home, making a long day even longer. And the range in an electric car yesterday would probably have been significantly reduced, given the terrible weather and needing to use the lights, windscreen wipers and fan etc for all of the day.

So still not practical for me and many others I'm afraid.

confusion - still very expensive but Tesla 3 now has a tow option. Hopefully some more cars in next few years to give you options.

confusion - still very expensive but Tesla 3 now has a tow option. Hopefully some more cars in next few years to give you options.

I didn't know that. Thanks.

Gindaddy - not just lung issues, localised traffic pollution may be implicated in some other problems including dementia. I get very irritated in winter walking to school past parents sat with their engines on for ages waiting for kids to come out.

Now perusing Tesla website

the Tesla website

Tesla’s are way too expensive for most. My hybrid was half the price of an equivalent Tesla; I will run it for another decade at least, by which time hopefully the electric / hydrogen/ ownership issues will be resolved

Cornishmaid1 I'm trying to convince DH that we change one car to fully electric. I have a huge diesel 4x4 at the moment as does DH but I only now use mine to pop to the gym, the shops and youngest to school (only if I'm working straight after or going to the gym as otherwise we walk).

We needed a 7 seater as have 3 kids (they always seem to have at least one friend with them), eldest is now at Uni and my job needed me to drag lots of equipment around but I've also started to just work from home too so don't need it for that anymore.

Was thinking of an electric Mini when they come out in March as I believe they do a 4x4 version. We live semi rurally but at the top of a hill and when we've have normal cars in the past it's been a nightmare and when the weather is icy we can only use one of the cars and DH needs his every day.

Do you think this is viable? To learn that we'd get a grant for the charging point is another stick to beat him with (metaphorically of course). A grant from the government towards the cost of the car and no petrol costs, plus the reduction in insurance would mean quite a big saving for us.