To think Electric cars just aren’t practical yet?

[Youngatheart00]

Car is due for replacement (4 year PCP cycle) this autumn.

I love the idea of getting an electric vehicle in theory, I’m trying to make clean choices and also worry about the future value / obsolescence of petrol cars as I’m hearing more and more about manufacturers going electric only well within the next decade.

But our home is a Victorian terrace with no parking. More often than not we are not even parked outside our own home. There isn’t charging infrastructure at most petrol stations. I see some at motorway service stations but clearly it’s not practical to go there each time you need a charge (and there is a greater cost I think?)

I’m drawing the conclusion I’m going to have to go for another petrol vehicle and revisit at the end of the next 4 year cycle, when I’m hoping the electric car infrastructure will be much better developed.

I’ve thought about a hybrid but models from my preferred manufacturers seem limited (and v expensive) and I’m concerned about power as I do like a bit of ‘oomph’ for confidence!

What do others think?

@SoupDragon

Electric cars will need more nuclear power stations. Do people really think that is preferable to using diesel?

Yes, of course I do.

Is that because the problems caused by the waste from them probably won't be until you're dead?

No, it is because they don't emit any particulates and I think that there are ways of dealing with the waste properly if governments are prepared to commit to the R and D. If we want to continue with anything like our sophisticated lifestyle over the next generations we will need nuclear power. Of course renewables will be in the mix too but we need something to provide base power when the sun isn't shining or wind not blowing etc. I also think we should be researching ways to store electrical energy on a large scale and efficiently and it may be that we won't be dependent on nuclear power forever but for the next 50 years or so I think we need it if we are to stop burning oil or gas.

I did test-drive a fairly new Nissan Leaf in my search, and really liked it as a car, but as I said, I've gone with a diesel again for this next car, because the price vs. what I need from a car wasn't there yet...

As this thread shows, there's not going to be a one-size solution. In many places in the UK, public transport is laughable: poorly designed, thinly distributed, and expensive. For urban and suburban areas, that's an obvious point of investment. For rural areas, a bus that comes only a few times a week is as useless as a chocolate teapot. In my context (on the edge of a city, fit and able to ride an e-bike, but needing to drive into the country on an irregular but fairly frequent basis, and needing towing and transport capacity), my particular combo of e-bike and diesel 4x4 makes sense for now. Realistically, I can replace about half my car journeys with the bike, and I'm trying to do that now.

Our public transit system is a radiating one: most routes go into the city centre. Trying to get from point A on the edge to point B on the edge means going into the centre first, and then back out. There's a chapter in "Invisible Women" that talks about that sort of transit design, and other options which are much more helpful to the sorts of trips that aren't an in-out commute: it's a fascinating read. For me, trying to switch to public transit would mean that I would need to make a 2-hour bus journey and then walk for an hour, for a daily trip that takes 15 mins by car or 30 mins by bike. So 6 hours round trip, vs. 30 mins to one hour round trip: not gonna happen! Yet when I lived in a big city that has a more grid-like system with high frequency, I felt no need at all for a car, and in such a situation, I can see that an initiative of cheap short-term car hires for occasional trips would be really useful to many people.

My mother, who lives in a suburb of a sprawling medium-sized city, is currently thinking about giving up her car. It's got us thinking about what options exist that are useful to her. The nearest bus stop is 10 minutes away, the frequency isn't great, and the system is radiating, so it would take long and complicated journeys with potentially a lot of walking to get to her usual haunts. This is really impractical in winter, as she lives in a country with long, cold, snowy winters. Taxis aren't cheap, and while it would be fine to take a taxi for her weekly shop, we're worried that she'll become more or less housebound. It's hard right now to think of a workable alternative to the car, without moving house.

@Trivium4all
insightful post.
I'd like to see in the next few years alongside proper investment in EV infrastructure and hopefully the cost of them becoming comparable to ICEs (not far off now) - but also proper investment in green public transport and routes for cycling/walking. I used to live in London and now live in a nothern city and it's mind boggling how much more people have to rely on cars round here than in London where buses are plentiful and super cheap.

Would I like a nice green vehicle? Yes, of course. Can I afford one? No.

Do I have the facility to install an on drive charger? Difficult to say as it would take a hell of a lot of work to dig up any of the driveway and so on.

Could I switch to public transport? No. Not even slightly feasible. None of my local supermarkets are covered and it takes a ridiculous amount of time to get to the local main shopping areas. Clue, I don't live in London where TFL gets another bail out...

There's also a hell of a lot of houses near me that are terraced.

Here's an idea. Make any government/shadow minister responsible for transport spend six months up North without a car or allowances equivalent to more than bus fares...

@Mylittlesandwich
Agree with your points except for the digging up the driveway bit. Not ever necessary for an EV chargepoint as far as I am aware. They take about an hour to install on the side of your house.

[quote Frazzled2207]@Mylittlesandwich
Agree with your points except for the digging up the driveway bit. Not ever necessary for an EV chargepoint as far as I am aware. They take about an hour to install on the side of your house.[/quote]
We had to create a driveway as prior to this we had sole use of a layby that no one officially owns but in order to get the grant for the electric charger we had to prove with land registry documents that we had off road parking. So down came a section of Drystone walling (glad DH did this and not me) and then we lay membrane and slate chippings. But definitely no digging up required for the cable to go in.

@shakingstevensfan

Bloody hell I do not want to plan ahead when we will use our car. That is the joy of having a car. That we can all pile in and drive somewhere for a lovely evening walk, or decide at the last minute to drive to the seaside on a Saturday morning.

You can still use an EV when you want - you don't expect to drive a petrol or diesel car without any fuel in it so you still have to plan to fill it up before you run out - that's planning ahead and it's no different to that with an EV only you don't need to go to a petrol station to fill up as you can do it at home (obviously at the moment it's not practical for people without access to off street parking but I still have friends with EVs who find it ok without a charge point at home).

I have an iPhone which requires daily charging. I charge it overnight so I can use it as I want through the day.

A car with a 250 mile range only needs charging every ten days or so for 10k a year mileage. It's hardly difficult to make sure the battery is topped up and the only time to have to make sure of being able to charge away from home is much longer trips which most families don't do very regularly anyway. I personally only do a 400 mile daily drive a few times a year.

@merryMuppet no I do not plan with petrol. My car dashboard has an indicator that flashes when my petrol gets to 60 miles. Then I go in the next petrol station to fill up.
It is not comparable to phones. I do not have to run a cable outside my letterbox and along the pavement to charge my phone overnight. And I often do not do that anyway. I can charge it in my car when I drive anywhere, which I do every day. I have a charger plugged into a USB permanently in the car.
What I would have to do with an electric car is when the dashboard light indicates I need to refuel, search on the satnav for the nearest charge point, drive to it, and then leave the car there for 20 minutes charging. There are not that many charge points around. There is one in a grotty pub car park about 5 minutes drive from me though. So yaay I can sit in a grotty pub car park for 20 minutes.
I know it is not the end of the world and if I had no choice I would adjust. But do not pretend it is not far less convenient than what we have.
I would also be worried about being stuck in traffic jams and running out of charge. On long journeys I have occasionally been stuck on the motorway for hours in a very slow moving queue. Worrying enough when every junction has a petrol station nearby. Much more worrying when you have to hunt for an electric charge point.

This thread is crazy. Its like listening to people argue about the smoke while ignoring the fact the house is on fire.

'Petrol is running out' is not the core problem, 'switch to electric' is not the answer.

You can still use an EV when you want - you don't expect to drive a petrol or diesel car without any fuel in it so you still have to plan to fill it up before you run out - that's planning ahead and it's no different to that with an EV

Of course it's different.

There are loads of petrol stations compared to charging points. It takes five minutes to fill my tank with fuel - whereas most electric cars (according to this thread) take 15-30 minutes - and that's only if the charging points are free when you arrive.

I can drive to five petrol stations within ten minutes of my house, with maybe a total of 20 pumps to choose from. In comparison, there is one public charging point in the same area.

@merryMuppet and yes you only do 400 miles about twice a year. Before the pandemic, we were doing a 400-mile round journey every fortnight. And as we were driving to a rural area, we would have had to take a detour to the nearest large town 6 miles away to charge up for 20 minutes. Doable, but a pain.
I know electric cars are great for people who really only do short journeys. They would be fine for my parents. Drive to the supermarket, for lunch out, to see the grandparents. Charging up would not be an issue for them.

[quote shakingstevensfan]@merryMuppet no I do not plan with petrol. My car dashboard has an indicator that flashes when my petrol gets to 60 miles. Then I go in the next petrol station to fill up.
It is not comparable to phones. I do not have to run a cable outside my letterbox and along the pavement to charge my phone overnight. And I often do not do that anyway. I can charge it in my car when I drive anywhere, which I do every day. I have a charger plugged into a USB permanently in the car.
What I would have to do with an electric car is when the dashboard light indicates I need to refuel, search on the satnav for the nearest charge point, drive to it, and then leave the car there for 20 minutes charging. There are not that many charge points around. There is one in a grotty pub car park about 5 minutes drive from me though. So yaay I can sit in a grotty pub car park for 20 minutes.
I know it is not the end of the world and if I had no choice I would adjust. But do not pretend it is not far less convenient than what we have.
I would also be worried about being stuck in traffic jams and running out of charge. On long journeys I have occasionally been stuck on the motorway for hours in a very slow moving queue. Worrying enough when every junction has a petrol station nearby. Much more worrying when you have to hunt for an electric charge point.[/quote]
if you're actually stuck on a motorway there is no discharge from the battery other than for air-con/heating.
If you were actually going very slowly you would run out of petrol far more readily than you would run out of charge.

A battery gives you so many miles. It doesn't use up more power if it takes you longer to get there! Plus while you are crawling along it emits zero fumes. Fumes from slow traffic are the worst possible kind.

Good to know that if you are stuck in the motorway it would be okay.
But first, the price of the car has to come way down and there has to be way more charging stations.
Most or at least a lot of people do not have a drive-in their house. A lot of people park in the street and can often not park outside of their house or they live in a flat. So a large part of the population would need to use public charging points.
There are 35,000 electric car charging points in 13,000 locations. And reading about it the charging time to be fully charged is not 20 minutes. It is anything from 8 hours to an hour at a rapid charge point. There are not many rapid charge points. The infrastructure does not exist for more than a small number of people to drive electric cars.

Sorry the Prsche Taycan which costs £70k up can fully charge in 20 minutes at a rapid charger.
So all the talk about how long these cars take to charge is based on the top of the range models. I do not know anyone who would pay that amount for a car. You could buy a house here for that cost.

Sorry not rtt but is it worth talking to your council ? If they want to encourage ev they may just give you dedicated parking ?

if you're actually stuck on a motorway there is no discharge from the battery other than for air-con/heating.

What's the typical discharge rate for air con or heating? It was when DH factored those in that he realised the sorts of round trips he does (in normal times) couldn't safely be done with typical batteries.

Need for can Heating is a known problem

@shakingstevensfan

Good to know that if you are stuck in the motorway it would be okay. But first, the price of the car has to come way down and there has to be way more charging stations. Most or at least a lot of people do not have a drive-in their house. A lot of people park in the street and can often not park outside of their house or they live in a flat. So a large part of the population would need to use public charging points. There are 35,000 electric car charging points in 13,000 locations. And reading about it the charging time to be fully charged is not 20 minutes. It is anything from 8 hours to an hour at a rapid charge point. There are not many rapid charge points. The infrastructure does not exist for more than a small number of people to drive electric cars.

I totally agree the infrastructure is not good enough...yet. 20-40 minutes is common at a rapid charging point but the trick is only to use rapids when you are doing long journeys. There are more popping up all the time, am hoping that perhaps in 2-3 years it will have caught up with demand.

@shakingstevensfan

Sorry the Prsche Taycan which costs £70k up can fully charge in 20 minutes at a rapid charger. So all the talk about how long these cars take to charge is based on the top of the range models. I do not know anyone who would pay that amount for a car. You could buy a house here for that cost.

our car fully charges in 20-40 minutes at a rapid charger and was a quarter of the price of a Taycan. Second hand.

@ErrolTheDragon

if you're actually stuck on a motorway there is no discharge from the battery other than for air-con/heating.

What's the typical discharge rate for air con or heating? It was when DH factored those in that he realised the sorts of round trips he does (in normal times) couldn't safely be done with typical batteries.

it's a good question and I don't know the exact answer but we find that using heating or air con when either very hot or very cold uses about 10% more power than the car itself.

@Frazzled2207 40 minutes is very different to 20 minutes.

Just checked and in the City, I live in we have 19 rapid charge points. Some of those are only available to specific people e.g. in car parks for a hotel. The one in the pub car park near me is not a rapid charger.
I really do not think that is many rapid charge points, especially as not all are accessible to most people.
I suspect a lot of the early installed chargers will become obsolete.
The information I am reading also advises signing up to the different providers networks. There are a lot of different ones. That itself looks confusing and puts me off. If I want petrol I do not need to sign up to lots of providers of petrol stations to buy petrol. Just fill up and swipe a bank card.

@cupsofcoffee

You can still use an EV when you want - you don't expect to drive a petrol or diesel car without any fuel in it so you still have to plan to fill it up before you run out - that's planning ahead and it's no different to that with an EV

Of course it's different.

There are loads of petrol stations compared to charging points. It takes five minutes to fill my tank with fuel - whereas most electric cars (according to this thread) take 15-30 minutes - and that's only if the charging points are free when you arrive.

I can drive to five petrol stations within ten minutes of my house, with maybe a total of 20 pumps to choose from. In comparison, there is one public charging point in the same area.

You totally took that quote out of context - you need the rest of what I said as part of the sentence you quoted in bold: "only you don't need to go to a petrol station to fill up as you can do it at home (obviously at the moment it's not practical for people without access to off street parking but I still have friends with EVs who find it ok without a charge point at home)."

So if you don't have off street parking then it's not applicable to you and if you do then you don't have to find a charging point - a car such as the Kia eNiro has enough range that it's not an issue for most journeys - if you regularly drive more than 250 miles a day then obviously an EV is not the answer right now but most people don't do this.

Every person obviously can make their own personal decisions - was just pointing out that the car not being ready to jump in and go anywhere spontaneously isn't something to worry about.

It's true about it being confusing about being on different networks. They all work differently. You can sign up and pay eg to BP, to have slightly cheaper access to their network. But I don't think you have to 'sign up' to any networks - we haven't. You do usually have to pay via an app. For some reason contactless payment is rare. I hope hope these issues get ironed out. However, for those of us who charge at home and have a decent range car, using public charge points are rare. In 2 years we've had to I think 5 times. Most of the time we just plug in when we get home and just leave it to come on overnight.

I do wonder how much time I will have saved not visiting petrol pumps in 2 years. An awful lot more than I will have spent faffing around looking for/fiddling with rapid chargers.

Depends where your based - there are dozens of street side parking points near me. (Central London)
They installed most of them the week after I bought my current petrol car .

And if you live in a block of flats and have access to a garage, you can hook up to the communal supply and get everyone else to pay for your car. Next time the service charge bill arrives I'll just send a pile of petrol receipts in, If the bastards can afford fucking Teslas they can pay to power them.
Off to ring and follow up my complaint with the managing agent again,..

@littlepattilou

Expecting everyone in the UK to have all electric cars by 2030 is laughable. It will be another 25-30 years (minimum,) before they have the infrastructure, and enough charging points etc. Not everyone has got the space for their own charging point, the charge doesn't give enough miles for what many people are going to want, it takes too long to charge, and the price of electric cars is too high. Most people simply cannot afford it.

I can count on the fingers of one hand, the amount of people I know who have had a brand new 'off the forecourt' car in the last decade. Most people I know spend £3,000 to £7,500 on a car. And the average price is £4,500 to £5000. Even the few people I know who have bought a new car (or one less than 2 years old) in the last few years, have spent £12 to £16K. Not the £27K- 30K plus that an electric car will cost.

And as for those 3 or 4 people who spent £12K to £16K on a nearly new - or new car - it costs them a FORTUNE. They never seem to have any bloody money, as the car drains them. The car payments are around £250 a month, the insurance is around £60 to £80 a month, (and that's on top of the petrol that costs some £200 a month, and the car tax, of £20-30 a month.)

And even at the end of the 4 or 5 years of finance, they have to pay fat lump sum of £4K to 5K, if they want to keep the car. And at that point it's worth around a third of what they paid for it 4 or 5 years before!

So the very idea that the British public - many who are quite poor/have limited funds/are only just above the poverty line - will go into debt for £25K to £30K for an electric car - is farcical. Moreover, many of them would simply not get the finance for one. Leaving car ownership, for privileged and wealthy people only...

There are SOOOO many things going against the UK being all-electric with cars. It won't happen in the next 30 years, let alone the next 9!

First page of autotrader shows 4 second hand nissan leafs and 2 renault zoes for the lower price bracket you give.

If you include the £7500 top end, there are 40 used cars with 100+ mile electric range and less than 20k miles. There are options if you look for them.

The advantage is that those petrol and RFL figures you give will be much, much lower, and the service costs are generally much lower as well....