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?

Obviously none of the above will last. But whilst those perks are there, I’ll use them!

I live in an area with a lot of Teslas (not UK) & charging infrastructure seems really good. Only annoying thing I discovered with a friend was the battery doesn’t last as long in the cold (obviously, I just hadn’t considered). So the almost 300 mile range when skiing wasn’t as good and we had to charge, but the charge only took 15 mins at a super charge station. And frankly the environmental benefits mean we all need to suck it up and be inconvenienced to help the chicken come before the egg with infrastructure.

That said, best thing is to run your existing car down and only replace with a new EV when you really need to. We got an e-assist bike to drastically reduce our car usage in the mean time without the massive environmental cost of building a whole new car.

@Happyhappyday, ICE cars have reduced range in colder weather too.

As Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrr (perfect username!) has reminded me - the preconditioning is worth it on its own! At 8:15 I press a button on my phone and at 8:30 I get into my warm, ice free car - I will never scrape ice again

[quote BalladOfBarryAndFreda]@Happyhappyday, ICE cars have reduced range in colder weather too.[/quote]
Yeah, but petrol stations are everywhere. Until the general infrastructure improves, with an EV you need to know this - you can’t afford to be complacent. But once you do, its fine - also adjusting the way you drive makes a massive difference. I drive the Model S like the veritable grandparent sometimes and can eek out the range quite extraordinarily.

@SwanBuster.

Yes absolutely. Make the most of it while we can.

@BurscoughBooths

Free charging is the least of your worries. The taxpayer has already contributed to the £4500 EV grant, subsidised home chargers, BIK breaks, company car purchases, parking, congestion charges etc.

In some ways it can be seen as unfair but we've all likely benefitted from buying diesel when the government thought it was greener. Except this time there's more urgency to eliminate tailpipe emissions, hence the larger incentives. The trouble is, there are so many anti EV people around that change isn't happening quickly enough. Fine AFAIC as EV motoring will stay cheaper for longer.

@Lunar27

Not everyone wanted or needed a mobile phone when they were first introduced but we barely think about it now. It'll be the same with EV's so if it doesn't work for you now then no worries. Just wait till one does.

Ridiculous comparison. People can live without a mobile phone, and shockingly, some people still don't have one. MANY people cannot live without a car for too many reasons to list.

Also, a mobile phone doesn't cost £30,000! Like an electric car does. Your comparison is batshit.

@BalladOfBarryAndFreda but my petrol car has a starting range of 400 miles, versus 300 with a brand spanking new battery, which then rapidly loses range in the cold (we were experiencing -30%, most of our long distance driving is in the high mountains). Not a reason not to buy but important to be aware of, especially as charging stations are thinner on the ground in the literal wilderness.

YANBU. We have one. We had the electrics done before it arrived and as soon as we plugged it in we had no power in the house for three days, not an easy repair. You need off street parking. The range is not what it boasts, as soon as you put on heating/air conditioning it reduces considerably.

The stress of wondering if you can drive long distance, get stuck in traffic etc and still find a charging point when you're desperate to get home and wait that additional 15 minutes isn't worth it for the eco-smugness, I feel.

All those heavy metals in that battery have to be mined from somewhere, and that electricity still has to be generated somehow. Clean and fast yes, but expensive. We had a hybrid before this and that was fine. This car is a bridge too far for me!

We love ours.
Easy to drive, charges at night. We have had it 6 months and only needed to charge away from home once as it has over 300 mile range.

I have an electric car (Leaf e+) and I absolutely adore it. I got it in October and wish I’d gotten one sooner!

Notice those in this thread who’ve got one and wouldn’t change it for the world… the ones who are negative about electric cars appear, crucially, to not actually own one, so I’d take their opinions with a pinch of the proverbial.

No home charging as terraced house, no charging available at workplaces, have one car that's rarely used for shopping and other errands so would have to factor in extra time to go elsewhere to charge it, mainly used for long journeys where range and dearth of working, unoccupied chargers become problems. Not really suitable for us.

I don't have one. My first question was whether you actually could manage without a car at all.

[quote MurmuratingStarling]@Lunar27

Not everyone wanted or needed a mobile phone when they were first introduced but we barely think about it now. It'll be the same with EV's so if it doesn't work for you now then no worries. Just wait till one does.

Ridiculous comparison. People can live without a mobile phone, and shockingly, some people still don't have one. MANY people cannot live without a car for too many reasons to list.

Also, a mobile phone doesn't cost £30,000! Like an electric car does. Your comparison is batshit.[/quote]
Not at all. It's a comparison of relative technologies where one infrastructure wasn't 100% for a long time and people were reluctant to transition due to the maturity of an existing network. Yet nowadays people rarely think about a landline in the same way that people will eventually forgot about petrol stations.

In any case, noone has to buy an EV and won't do for another 15-20 years. By which time the UK will be fully equipped to deal with all the charging issues etc etc. and there'll be plenty of 2nd hand cars. Even now you can buy a used EV for less than £10k and we're still in their infancy. People often talk about the cost of new cars but many people never buy new and have to wait for the used market. It'll come.

So how does this alter the fact that many people need to drive? It doesn't.

I would like one day to day but the idea of taking one down to France or whatever and frequently having to stop for a hour to charge back up sounds like a nightmare. We regularly do 600 plus mile journeys and it would add hours. Currently we swap drivers and stop once for fuel midway.

[quote Happyhappyday]@BalladOfBarryAndFreda but my petrol car has a starting range of 400 miles, versus 300 with a brand spanking new battery, which then rapidly loses range in the cold (we were experiencing -30%, most of our long distance driving is in the high mountains). Not a reason not to buy but important to be aware of, especially as charging stations are thinner on the ground in the literal wilderness.[/quote]
Definitely. Also people need to be aware that EV's generally use more battery on the motorway than around town, where they use barely any batter at all.

However, people just need to learn that EV's just have different range profiles to ICE, where your 400 mile starting range is also subject to equally large variations in mpg, depending on whether you drive round town or on a motorway.

DH bought a brand new one in Jan

It broke down after 1 month and is unfixable so far

So I'm not impressed!

Like you say, you can't go on holiday with it etc

It's only good as a commuting/day trip car

A second car. If you will

I’m with you, nothing appeals about them. I don’t even like driving automatic cars! I live in a flat so can’t install a charger and there’s no way I’m spending half my life hanging out at the local petrol station waiting for it to charge. None would get me to my parents without stopping to charge on the way whereas my current car gets there in half a tank of petrol. The infrastructure just isn’t good enough for me at the moment, let alone the cost of them.

I'd actually like to be convinced into an electric car, but I want a bog standard premium estate not modelled around the starship enterprise, with a 600+ mile range and a decent loading and towing capacity, and be able to buy it second hand for sub £15k and not have to factor in replacing a battery at a cost that could to be honest buy another second hand ICE car. I know any car can fail and need a new engine but it's not expected in the same way that batteries are known to degrade.

The idea of the fast charger is OK if you turn up and the charger is free, but as more people have electric then what are the chances. You almost always have to wait for a car to move off from the petrol pump, only now the petrol pump is occupied for 25 minutes rather than 3, so could easily make a 10 minute stop into over an hour, and you have to repeat it every 200 miles.

I think they are great as city cars, where the home charge gets you to and from the local school and tescos for a week, but the long distance drive isn't there yet for the mass market for me.

Hmmm, reading this thread it seems that electric cars are ‘super great’ if you have a driveway and can afford a Tesla. Maybe not so great if you live in a tower block…….

I wonder if this will be how they eventually cut down the traffic, by making it just too difficult and inconvenient for many people.

My next car will be EV. DH has an audi e tron through work and I love it, it is heavier than a normal car due to the weight of the batteries but otherwise so easy to drive. We can do a trip from Midlands to other end of Kent without needing to charge. How far do people drive without stopping anyway? We plan the stops in advance, usually somewhere with a super fast charger and it's topped up enough while having a wee to get home.

@Lunar27 - I dunno that saying the use barely any battery around town is a good idea. I dunno about your car, but mine definitely acts a bit like an ice on short start/stop journeys - especially when starting cold. It can use a lot of power - and I’m extremely careful with driving.

The optimum journey for range is driving on long clear roads at 30-58 mph. I can beat the official range doing that. I match the cars range figure if I’m cruising on a long road without too many hills at around 62 mph. Long journeys are what it feels my car was designed for - definitely not short ones with start/stops.

But yeah - different EVs have different optimisations. I’ve no doubt something more akin to a conventional city car might act differently.

@AnybodyAnywhere

Hmmm, reading this thread it seems that electric cars are ‘super great’ if you have a driveway and can afford a Tesla. Maybe not so great if you live in a tower block…….

I wonder if this will be how they eventually cut down the traffic, by making it just too difficult and inconvenient for many people.

This absolutely sums up the current state of affairs imho - honest opinion of an EV owner. If you haven’t got a Tesla which you don’t mind supercharging, and crucially you don’t have a way to charge at home - it’s not quite there yet.

@lampygirl - I get where you’re coming from with most of your post - but a 600 mile range is a strange thing to require imho. Doing 600 miles without stopping at all sounds torturous!

I know you might mean you don’t want to fill up too often, but it’s not really a big chore. I think any real range of over 200, provided there’s charging infrastructure is pretty acceptable. I dropped from a 500 mile range to 240, and it’s a bit annoying sometimes but 🤷🏻‍♀️