AIBU to not want an electric car?

[Elevenfourteen]

I know IABU for asking such a dull question, but my Dh wants to buy an electric car and I’m not convinced.
I guess they’re better for the environment so that’s one thing. But are we set up for them properly yet? Do all garages have charging points? Do you have to hang around the garage for ages while they charge? I just can’t imagine how they can be a practical option.
Driving to work and back and charging at night is fine, but what about going on holiday?

Do any of you have electric cars and can you reassure me?

@NightmareSlashDelightful

The highest demand for cobalt is, and continues to be the consumer electronics market, for which we're all guilty. As you say, we should all consider where our products come from but is really just hypocrisy IMHO. Like the oil industry is an ethical business!

Fortunately engineers are working around cobalt as it's not 100% necessary and the whole child slavery thing has pushed manufacturers to use more ethical suppliers.

Still, it won't satisfy the anti EV brigade.

[quote NightmareSlashDelightful]**@BalladOfBarryAndFreda* @FirewomanSam* This Graun article from November has some stuff on it.

Here's a Forbes piece on the same subject albeit from 2020 and another from Nature.

As I mentioned in my post, the whole situation is actually pretty complicated and more nuanced than 'cobalt bad' although there are undeniable abuses within the supply chain, especially regarding mining in DRC, that shouldn't go unacknowledged.[/quote]
Thanks, I’ll have a look.

I absolutely agree re the issue being Li-ion batteries which are much more widely used than in EV’s but it is still a concern to be taken into account by EV owners (such as myself).

I think that’s appalling. Council tax should be for the benefit of the community, not to pay the motoring costs of someone who can afford a Tesla.

In my local area we have some of the worst pollution, if electric cars are being charged for free then thats a benefit to the community as they are not polluting with petrol and diesel fumes and shortening my life span

People always seem to miss the point that a large percentage of our electricity in this country is still a fossil fuel.

Plug in hybrid, we bought one as a little experiment and we love it, give us the security on long trips, short trips are on the battery. No way yet would I buy a fully electric car.

Actually meant to add, really not sure how good for environment it is over petrol, actually don’t think it’s much better. I’m more curious about hydrogen as a safer alternative some time down the ,line.

We have a Tesla which has free supercharging plus no road tax etc. We also have solar panels at home so never pay for home charging. It has been totally free for a few years now and hopefully will last quite a while.

Ours was a return so we didn't pay full price for it.

@WhenPushComesToShove

Not missing the point. 95% of my charging is at home, on totally renewable energy.

Also not missing the point @WhenPushComesToShove. I charge at home, using electricity from a renewables-only supplier.

I just looked up the price of a two year old Tesla.
Just short of £45,000.

Impossible for so many people.

We have just ordered a Hyundai Santa Fe hybrid and it's not going to be delivered until bloody January '23!

Just got an ID3 and love it! It drives really nicely. However I only do short journeys- school run, work run and errands. It needs charging once a week at the moment.
DH has a Volvo and that’s a funny sort of hybrid which takes fuel but has a small battery that charges as it goes. If we go on any longer journeys we will take that due to range anxiety.
We love the ID3 but don’t think the infrastructure is there yet for 2 wholly electric cars.

Oh and I drove a 4 year old VW Golf R before. Total gas guzzler. I got 2k back on the part ex, my monthly payments are £100 cheaper, my insurance is 1/4 cheaper and I pay no road tax. So for me it’s very good value.

We seriously considered it, but regularly drive 150 miles to a place with few charging points and no possibility of charging where we stay. Completely impossible to do this journey, we checked the local supermarket charging points, not many of them, regularly half out of order and usually the rest in use. Hopeless.

@FuzzyPuffling

I just looked up the price of a two year old Tesla. Just short of £45,000.

Impossible for so many people.

My car is 17 years old. I have a zero budget for replacement so electric is going to have to wait. Current car car can tow our 28 year old caravan for an occasional break - although I suppose we could rent a tow car for those occasions. I know we aren't the greenest but at least we are maximising use of the CO2 and raw materials used to construct them by keeping them going.

I don't object to electric cars but for most people they will need to be cheaper to buy before adoption is widespread.

I do see that for our use our car is sort of overkill - just because we could do a 400 mile plus trip in it doesn't mean we do and it is true it mainly does shorter trips for which an electric one would be ideal.

@daimbarsatemydogsbone

In fairness the greenest thing you can do is to not buy another car. It's the continuous cycle of buying that's ruining the planet so keeping your 17 year old car is a good thing.

I own an EV but am under no illusions that it's helping anything but the big corporations.

@MurmuratingStarling

YANBU. Hell will freeze over before I get an electric car. And no WAY will everyone in the UK have one by 2030. Stupid, unrealistic goal that is.

Do the Government not realise that the VAST majority of UK citizens do NOT have £30,000 to buy a bloody electric car?!

Also, having an electric car as your main/only car is untenable long-term. And the infrastructure is not even 10% of the way to being ready for it.

We have two electric cars, so it is totally doable to live with just electric cars.

We've used the bigger car to do several long journeys, including Yorkshire to Cornwall and back on a holiday. If using motorways and large roads with services then the charging isn't an issue tbh. We also have home charging so no issues day to day either.

It becomes more challenging if off the beaten track or in more remote areas. Though we have discovered lots of hotels now have charging stations and many pubs/restaurants too.

The infrastructure does still need improving a lot, but depending on the types of journeys you undertake in your life then it can be easy to have only ECVs.

@Beercrispsandnuts

It’s not misinformation. It’s one hundred percent accurate. 100 percent.

And yet there are many ecvs that are older than 5 years which are still running happily in the same battery.

And I've yet to see the tons of news reports of people perishing inside burnt out ECVs.

The problem with batteries is not just cobalt. It's lithium:

www.theguardian.com/news/2020/dec/08/the-curse-of-white-oil-electric-vehicles-dirty-secret-lithium

Lithium ion batteries degrade over time. Whilst they still have uses after they are no longer suitable for cars, and it is technically possible to recycle the lithium within batteries (see Graun article) we are going to be digging an awful lot of ground up to obtain enough lithium.

Hydrogen fuel cells, by the way, do not degrade over time like batteries, and they do not 'lose' their energy when sitting still like batteries do.

@Fizbosshoes

Completely dumb question - what will happen with vehicle excise duty if a majority of people start driving hybrid or electric cars? If I understand properly it's a tax to maintain roads (which is obviously beneficial to all road users) but currently you pay it - at various levels - if you drive a ICE vehicle. What would happen if those vehicle owners didn't generate the required amount?

It's only the cheaper ECVs you don't pay it on. You pay it on ECVs above £40k. Even if you lease it's still paid, just as part of the lease payments.

@NeedAHoliday2021

My boss had one as his commute is huge and the amount they had to pay in charging it on their electric bill was much higher than they’d calculated. He replaced it with an Audi TT.

Very very unlikely an Audi TT was cheaper to run, re fuel/power, than any EV. He just wanted the TT.

Instead of paying £60 a week on petrol we’re spending less than £20 on charging our car. We’re on quite a low electric rate that’s fixed until 2024. It will interesting to see what happens then.

I have one. Not a Tesla. Fantastic for my 50 mile a day commute. However trying to get from London to Devon with both kids and a dog in the back in winter not ideal!

Most places have a charge point. There is often a queue. It takes an hour. They are out of service a lot.

I’d like to think it will get better quickly but I suspect more cars are being produced than new charge points….

We now use our second car which is a 12 year old banger for long journeys.

Friends in London have an EV, but hire an ICE vehicle if they are uncertain about long journeys to the wildernesses of the UK, like Exmoor.

My DH has a Tesla and I love it. I find it so much easier to drive than a normal car. We both live 14 miles from work. I get to/from work using 8% battery. He's more heavy footed and does it using 14%. Either way we don't worry about running out of charge. We don't do long distances often (and not at all for work) so don't mind if we need to stop and charge. That being said, we comfortably get to and from his parents house which is 2 hours away (roughly 70 miles) on a single charge.