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?

@TokenGinger
Agree 100%
When my dh proposed us getting an EV, 4-5 years ago, I had exactly the same concerns that many on this thread had. But my DH, and now I, are both of the opinion that in order to save the planet each and every one of us needs to be prepared to be inconvenienced and/or pay more money to make the right choices. yes there are disadvantages of running an EV. A far bigger inconvenience for us has been going down to 1 car rather than 2. If the vast majority of people just aren't prepared to even contemplate alternative choices, then frankly our children's futures are almost certainly f*cked.

We have an EV and an ICE car (EV is the bigger family car).
EV has a tow bar (we go on holiday in it).
It is cheaper to run than the smaller ICE.
It is fast and comfortable and charging is easy (at home, in car parks, on-street chargers). The EV is always ready to go in the morning. It is fun to drive.
The ICE is a soft top, so fun to drive, but I so resent having to make a special journey just to buy petrol!!!!
We’ve had both cars for 5 years and won’t be changing either until they’re ‘done’ (as with our previous diesel car) but the next one will be an EV.

The environmental argument in favour of electric cars is half-baked.

The reason electricity prices shot up 50% last week and seem likely to do so again in October is because we burn hydrocarbons in the form of gas to generate it. In climate change terms all an EV does is transfer the emission of greenhouse gases from your car's arse to a chimney stack some distance away. Now, if we can time it so that everyone charges EVs at a time when the wind blows and the sun shines generously it might be better, but make no mistake: EVs are not the friend of climate change they are made out to be with our current base load energy mix for electricity generation.

And that's before you factor in battery production. Because they have a finite life-span which can be allocated out on a per-kilometre basis the whole life carbon footprint of an EV battery can be calculated quite accurately. It's typically about 85g/km - and that's before you've charged up and driven the thing anywhere or considered the wider environmental impact of lithium mining. My wife's estate car produces 91g/km burning diesel.

There may be a point in the future when better, as yet univented, battery technology and a fusion reactor in every town makes EVs sensible, but we're a long way from it. Ultimately, no serious scientist things they're the answer.

The best current technology we have for private cars to replace the internal combustion engine is the hydrogen fuel cell, by a long, long way. Quite why there has been so little progress rolling this out is thoroughly baffling, although I have a number of theories, none of which cover governments or oil companies in much by way of glory.

I've run through lots of calculations. I think the kindest thing I can do to the environment is to keep my own 17 year old diesel running until it dies, using it when my wife's much newer, cleaner diesel isn't available. I'll look at current technology then.

@Moonchild18

This is probably a stupid question but say if you don't have a drive way and you park your car on the road overnight, how would you charge your car? I understand that some places have a charge point but how long do they take to charge? What if you don't have the time to sit around waiting near a shop etc for hours at a time charging your car up? This is what puts me off them 🤔

agree if you don't have a driveway is a lot trickier. Increasingly they are popping up in workplace car parks which is the no 2 option - slow chargers but that's fine if you're parked in the same place all day. Similarly you have then in shopping centre car parks, designed to be left for a few hours. After that you'd be looking at finding a fast or rapid charger. That could take between 10 and 40 minutes. Not 'hours and hours'.

When quoting used prices, I think people are neglecting that ICE has been around a hundred years and so have had time to become disposable. Hence why it's easy to find £500 bargains (except for the lottery of repair bills).

Relatively, EV's have only been around for a fraction, are be tech and not exactly widespread (they account for only a few % of cars on the road). Hence why used prices are high.

So in the same way that all new tech goes, whether it's TV's, phones etc, it's always going to be expensive until a tipping point is reached. So it's a bit disingenuous to think people are referring to the same context of 'cheap' as it's all relative.

The technology isn't ready yet, the infrastructure isn't ready yet. Electric-only cars are a dead end until someone creates an affordable version of one of the following:

• a fast charging, long lasting, biodegradable battery
• a small, easily changeable battery

The problems with EVs are slow charging, cost and limited range. To become viable EVs need to take no longer to charge than it would take to fill up with petrol, have the same range as a petrol car on a single recharge/refill, and cost about the same.

Alternatively if batteries could be made small enough people would be able to carry spares and swap them to increase range (bigger than AA batteries but not the size of a briefcase).

My view is that the technology will be tested in the motor racing sphere. When an electric car can win the 24 Heures du Mans, at a speed comparable with vehicles in the past 20 years or so, and completing a similar distance, then maybe the technology will be ready. Until then, no way.

There's also the infrastructure to consider, there are nowhere near enough public charging points. I live in a flat, there is no parking outside. I'd have to use public charging points - but where? There are ten within a five mile radius, but what if more than ten of the tens of thousands of people who live here get an electric car? It's madness. The strategy seems to be, "when people buy EVs, companies will build charging points" - it really should be the other way round.

You won't get the range out of a second hand EV either. The battery life declines with age. Just like your mobile phone battery doesn't last along once its a few years old. And the batteries are difficult and expensive to recycle if you're thinking of replacing it.

The range is also less in cold weather - cars are sold on the maximum range, for a new battery in optimum conditions (the same way that manufacturers publish petrol consumption rates you won't get IRL)

Yes you can and is exactly what I did. I was anti EV but went into it with an open mind and ended up buying one. I won't ever look back. That's good and if they work for some people then fair play. I don't drive a great deal anyway, so if electric cars become 'compulsory' in the future I'll probably just go back to using public transport. For me, the main appeal of driving over getting the train is that it's quicker for long journeys. If I have to wait half an hour on a long journey for my car to charge anyway, then I may as well get the train!

@ItsLisaLou

I don’t think people realize the resources that go into building a brand new electric car. Tyres, engine parts, batteries, you name it all have shocking consequences for the environment! Ironically it’s better for the planet to buy a second hand petrol car instead.

Why is the comparison between brand new electric and second hand petrol lol? Surely it makes sense to compare like for like. People are bending over backwards to find reasons not to like EVs 🙄

We've just had a brand new school built for 120 staff. We asked the LA to install electric charging points, but...

There's another one being built for opening in Sep 2023 and they're not putting them there either.

@Silverclocks

I'm the same OP. For most of the driving I do, an electric car would be perfect, but a few times a year I do a longer journey where I think it would be a pain.

They seem good for a second car but not for the main car IMO, although a friend has a £££ Tesla, which does seem to work for them so maybe the time is coming.

I see this a lot and am not having a go but it's preferable to buy a car based on your majority driving profile.

For instance I visit the tip 6 times a year and a truck would be great but doesn't limit what I've bought for my majority use case. I just work around it as the benefits of EV ownership far outweigh the small inconvenience.

If an EV would work for you 99% of the time then just get one and think about the 2-3 long trips as they arise. You may well find that en route charging really isn't an issue or the savings made during the year would easily cover a hire car for 2 days. I think I've saved over £15k over 3 years (amongst other soft benefits) so an occasional wait at a public charger is really the least of my worries.

@Silverclocks

We've just had a brand new school built for 120 staff. We asked the LA to install electric charging points, but...

There's another one being built for opening in Sep 2023 and they're not putting them there either.

My wife's school has just gone to PodPoint to have theirs installed. Alternatively your school could get them installed themselves. I'm sure grants are available to help fund it and you can recoup the cost from staff wanting to use them.

@Otherpeoplesteens

The environmental argument in favour of electric cars is half-baked.

The reason electricity prices shot up 50% last week and seem likely to do so again in October is because we burn hydrocarbons in the form of gas to generate it. In climate change terms all an EV does is transfer the emission of greenhouse gases from your car's arse to a chimney stack some distance away. Now, if we can time it so that everyone charges EVs at a time when the wind blows and the sun shines generously it might be better, but make no mistake: EVs are not the friend of climate change they are made out to be with our current base load energy mix for electricity generation.

And that's before you factor in battery production. Because they have a finite life-span which can be allocated out on a per-kilometre basis the whole life carbon footprint of an EV battery can be calculated quite accurately. It's typically about 85g/km - and that's before you've charged up and driven the thing anywhere or considered the wider environmental impact of lithium mining. My wife's estate car produces 91g/km burning diesel.

There may be a point in the future when better, as yet univented, battery technology and a fusion reactor in every town makes EVs sensible, but we're a long way from it. Ultimately, no serious scientist things they're the answer.

The best current technology we have for private cars to replace the internal combustion engine is the hydrogen fuel cell, by a long, long way. Quite why there has been so little progress rolling this out is thoroughly baffling, although I have a number of theories, none of which cover governments or oil companies in much by way of glory.

I've run through lots of calculations. I think the kindest thing I can do to the environment is to keep my own 17 year old diesel running until it dies, using it when my wife's much newer, cleaner diesel isn't available. I'll look at current technology then.

I agree with this.

Hydrogen is interesting. As I understand it the hurdle with hydrogen at the moment is that it takes a long time to 'warm up' and reach operational efficiency, making it (relative to oil-based fuels) unideal for cars.

It's potentially brilliant for trucks, buses and vans, though. Especially the latter two -- they start up in the mornings, and are on all day, so reach temp and peak efficiency comparatively early in their usage cycle.

I am also not convinced.

I'm not in the south east or in an urban area, and if this type of journey is anything to suggest, the infrastructure just isn't there yet:

www.theguardian.com/money/2020/nov/28/electric-cars-porsche-charging-network

(hint: first paragraph "A couple from Kent have described how it took them more than nine hours to drive 130 miles home from Bournemouth as they struggled to find a working charger capable of producing enough power to their electric car.")

imagine doing that in the north in rural driving areas where it's miles to the nearest shop, never mind near somewhere like a workplace or supermarket that has a working charge point.

@Glockerspaniel

Unfortunately you just can't legislate against stupidity or ignorance. The screenshot I've attached is from zapmap where I've plotted a route from Kent to Bournemouth. All those location markers show charge points en route so you simply cannot say that the infrastructure isn't good enough. All the purple markers are at least 50kW so easily capable of charging a Porsche Taycan.

If this couple couldn't find a charger then they really shouldn't be on the road

@NightmareSlashDelightful

I didn't know that about reaching peak efficiency - thanks.

I understood the issue is the classic chicken-and-egg: nobody will build the refuelling infrastructure without the demand, and nobody will buy the cars without the infrastructure. That's why it's so attractive for buses, vans, and lorries: as well as being economically and technically viable for heavy vehicles (unlike batteries) you get the critical mass of a large depot-based fleet coming back to the same place regularly, so you simply build your own hydrogen bunker.

The other issue is that most hydrogen is currently produced from natural gas so the environmental benefits are a bit of a red herring. The lifecycle CO2 emissions of a car running on such hydrogen is about 120g/km (roughly equivalent to that of a small petrol hatchback), but it can be halved by sourcing hydrogen from biomass. At 60g/km, that's comfortably below the battery production emissions of an EV, before you've actually driven one anywhere.

More excitingly, the technology exists to electrolyse it from seawater (this is Prep school science from 30 years ago) but it just hasn't been done at scale yet because there's so little demand. If it can be electrolysed using renewable energy, you'd have genuine zero carbon fuel. It could be produced locally, even in your own garage, and it can be produced when renewable energy is abundant and then stored until needed.

It takes about 5 minutes to fully refuel a Toyota Mirai hydrogen FCV with the same range as an equivalent petrol car.

@DameCelia

Can I just ask whether all the EV owners bought them to replace a vehicle that had done over 250,000 miles? Because if not you can forget any green credentials you thought you were gaining. Throwing away a perfectly good vehicle because you wanted something new and shiny doesn't make you eco friendly. The actual eco friendly solution is to convert the existing ICE vehicles to electric. Strangely non of the car manufacturers are interested in doing that

My 4x4 died at 15 years old when we got our electric car but the main reason was to save money, not for the environment. Whilst my friends are having to think twice before driving to the beach, we hop in and go. I've saved thousands of pounds in fuel because I do a lot of miles.

Lunar27 did you actually read the article?

the point was that in theory the journey should be fine. in reality, not.

incompatible charging points, vandalised points, points "coming soon", slow charging points, the reality just doesn't seem to match the theory.

has anyone in aberdeen commented on how viable owning an EV is?
In short urban areas near London you're probably sorted.

not everyone is in london/urban.

Another article about it here, published last night:

www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-10685757/IAIN-DALE-11-hour-journey-hell-proves-Britain-hopelessly-unprepared-electric-cars.html

Iain Dale is a serious political commentator/broadcaster, not one of those hairy-arsed Daily Fail interns who steals things from MN to pass off as news.

I have no objection to EVs.

However, nobody is going to be paying £2.50 to travel 300 miles when they are the predominant form of transport/the only ones that can be sold. The prices will rise to be on a par with petrol and diesel, whatever government in in charge at the time will want to receive the equivalent in duty and VAT that they would have lost with fewer fossil fuel vehicles on the road, just as the fuel companies will want to make the equivalent, ever increasing profits from this that they once did with petrochemicals.

It's being run as a loss leader at the moment to get the wealthier people to buy them. Once almost everybody has one, that's when there's a captive market and the costs go up exponentially.

@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.

I really despair. Why can't people inform themselves before starting spewing out this stuff? Did anyone not hear about the latest IPCC report yesterday or are they still bothered about a man slapping someone? Our planet is burning. We cannot keep burning fossil fuels.

@Aeroflopper

Lunar27 did you actually read the article?

the point was that in theory the journey should be fine. in reality, not.

incompatible charging points, vandalised points, points "coming soon", slow charging points, the reality just doesn't seem to match the theory.

has anyone in aberdeen commented on how viable owning an EV is?
In short urban areas near London you're probably sorted.

not everyone is in london/urban.

Of course I did and I stand by my comments, having owned an EV for 3 years and travelled from Newcastle to Wales to Cornwall and Dover (all from Buckinghamshire with an EV range of 120 miles)

You have to be monumentally unresourceful to take 9 hours to travel 130 miles as my screen shot clearly shows.

But it's unsurprising given just how anti EV the press generally are and how gullible the public are too.

I take it you don't own an EV so aren't talking from experience.

@Aeroflopper.

Just to add, zapmap is a real-time app. Therefore, if you tap on any one of those location markers it'll tell you everything about the charger i.e. who runs it, the cost, capacity, whether it's in use by someone and also if it's working or not.

Quite simply, if there are two people in the car, it's easily possible to navigate to one of the numerous chargers.

That couple were doing a 260 mile round trip in a car that has a 250 mile range. If they left the house fully charged then they'd only need to stop once for 20 minutes. It's one of the most ludicrous and unbelievable stories I've read to date. And I've read many

@Fizbosshoes, when vehicle excise duty comes to an end, road use will be priced per mile. Plans are already in hand. City driving will cost more per mile than rural and motorways will have their own toll rates..

EVs are heavier than their ICE equivalents, and consequently put more wear and tear on the roads.

I have a self-charge hybrid which is a good halfway house. I use about 1/3 less petrol so it does have an impact. No doubt I could drive it even more efficiently. When I bought it, it was a year old and cost half what a new electric car would have cost of a similar size. I really like it. If you don't want go to full-on electric, consider a hybrid.