Electric cars - so worried

[Northernlurker]

I keep worrying about being forced to buy an electric car when I change my car in a few years.
Reason being the long journeys and (mostly) self catering we love. In Scotland.
We need a range around 50% higher than the current max. It's no good saying charge it on the way if there are no fast chargers. Been looking at details today, even the fastest chargers need just over 30 minutes. Thousands of people drive UJ the Highlands and Islands annually. There won't be anything like enough chargers to cover that. We can charge overnight using an ordinary plug but it's not going to hit the max. Feel like we will spend the whole time worrying about finding a free charger in the middle of nowhere.
How is this ever going to work? It takes two Minutes to fill up a tank with petrol, electric is going to take hours!

@Lunar27 don’t knock it! Somewhere on my way to my Tesla I once had a nova with shortened springs and a cherry bomb exhaust! It’s a rite of passage.

[quote Lunar27]@HesterShaw1

What will the boy/girl racers do with near silent EV's when their bean can exhaust tips won't fit [/quote]
Audi's diesel S5 already has loudspeakers in the exhaust to make it "sound sporty" so no doubt there will be loads of extra noisy equipment available, like there is now for people who want to show everyone what a bellend they are.

Audi's diesel S5 already has loudspeakers in the exhaust to make it "sound sporty" so no doubt there will be loads of extra noisy equipment available, like there is now for people who want to show everyone what a bellend they are.

I genuinely feel murderous when I hear this racket.

@lameasahorse

I understand the argument that only a small proportion of cars need to be charged at any one time, so you only need a small number of chargers say in lamposts. But in reality, in most places parking is becoming harder so no one is going to give up a parking space just because it is next to an EV charger they do not need. It isn't an issue at the moment as everywhere I have seen EVs are in car parks where there are lots of spaces e.g. expensive paid car parks with lots of spaces, or supermarkets with large car parks. But as they spread this will become an issue.

Easy solution is to charge for the space, not the electric, i.e. an overnight parking fee for the "charging space" with the car being charged at some stage overnight (with the charger being automatically turned on/off in accordance with demand load etc throughout the night).

Someone who doesn't need charging won't want to park in a space they have to pay for, leaving it free for someone who does.

Maybe have "charging spaces" (paid for) on one side of the road and non charging spaces (free or lower prices) on the other side.

@HesterShaw1

Audi's diesel S5 already has loudspeakers in the exhaust to make it "sound sporty" so no doubt there will be loads of extra noisy equipment available, like there is now for people who want to show everyone what a bellend they are.

I genuinely feel murderous when I hear this racket.

Me too - and also for the fact that a place local to me has become a regular haunt for these bellends and their re-enactments of the various "Fast and the Furious" films, and that the Police couldn't care less.

@lameasahorse

Mumsnet will in the future be full of - non-charging cars are parked in the only spaces with access to a charger, what do I do?

This already happens at our local ASDA - the two charging points are in spaces nearer the door so lazy cunts with ICE cars already park there rather than walk another 20 metres.

Where I live you get a ticket for parking in an EV space. The increase in revenue is quite high so there's motivation from the council to police it

I guess at some stage, all places will have some sort of penalty for blocking charge points and quite rightly.

well diesel won't be somethign to worry about - they'll probably start phasing them out in a couple of years as their market share is cratering. Likely a combination of the prices going up and dieselgate. Petrol still going ok alongside rapid increase in EV sales.

Lots of people that are concerned will start with an EV alongside a petrol car. And they'll find they enjoy driving the EV - waking up with a full 'tank', not having to scrape the windscreen, getting into a nice prewarmed car. So they'll start trying it out for longer trips too. Then they'll get annoyed at the garage bills for the old petrol car on the driveway and eventually it'll go.

Hydrogen has its place but it takes energy to make it - less efficient than just using that electric directly. So far cars I don't see it getting much traction, but for buses/lorries that might be able to have hydrogen produced at their hubs? And lighter than batteries so more load capacity, and faster to turnaround.

Heat pumps are fine - already price competitive with gas since gas went up in price. You may need your house to handle lower temperature radiators to get the most efficiency (and possibly need a hot water tank again after we've all just pulled them out for combi boilers) but by the time your boiler is end of life they'll hopefully be more affordable.

You'll probably be able to download exhaust noises like ringtones in the future. Not sure which is worse, the sound of a boy racer or the sound of my DH sitting in reverse and oblivious to the weird spaceship noise his EV is making.

@lameasahorse

Mumsnet will in the future be full of - non-charging cars are parked in the only spaces with access to a charger, what do I do?

I think that this may be less of an issue than you think. EVs already have a far wider range of options than the ICE. At the moment I can charge my car at home, on street, petrol stations, restaurants, multi storey car parks, a multitude of other car parks (shopping centres, supermarkets, gyms, cinemas, hotels, recreational etc.) charging hubs, work. The list is endless. However you can only get petrol in one place.

in a few years prices will come down. In the meantime, incentives like salary sacrifice or company car tax can make the transitoin more affordable for some - more cost effective than an equivalent petrol car sometimes.

And thats before you add on total cost of ownership. If you have a time of use tariff, and do eg 15k miles a year, that be about £2500 in an average 40-45mpg car. Or £300-350 in an EV filled up at home. No, not everyone can, but some can.

If you can do salary sacrifice/company car as well as charge from home, the cost savings can be significant. For others, the cost to change will improve in the coming years.

Would anyone else be glad of the silence? Noisy cars seem to be in fashion atm. Over the Easter break, I went for a long hike in the countryside. But every time I stopped to listen to the birds, all I could hear was the screeching and popping of cars. Apparently, boy racers drill holes in their exhaust pipes to make that horrible backfiring sound. It's illegal. It's also illegal to have an engine over a certain noise level. The police just seem to ignore them, however. This weekend has been a nightmare. All you hear all day and night is the mmmm...pop,pop,pop sound. Ugghh, bring on the electric cars!

@Kris02

Would anyone else be glad of the silence? Noisy cars seem to be in fashion atm. Over the Easter break, I went for a long hike in the countryside. But every time I stopped to listen to the birds, all I could hear was the screeching and popping of cars. Apparently, boy racers drill holes in their exhaust pipes to make that horrible backfiring sound. It's illegal. It's also illegal to have an engine over a certain noise level. The police just seem to ignore them, however. This weekend has been a nightmare. All you hear all day and night is the mmmm...pop,pop,pop sound. Ugghh, bring on the electric cars!

Totally agree - it’s the same around here and Police clearly couldn’t care less.

I have a friend in the Met but I still say the police are friggin useless. My daughter was involved in a hit and run (rear ended) and the police wouldn't come out. She was in shock so drive to the nearest car park, where miraculously, she found that the offending car had been abandoned (front end smashed in). So she phoned the police again, who still couldn't be bothered to come out. They had no idea if the offending car had been stolen or anything and weren't even interested in taking the reg number. Instead they advised her to log it on the police website.

• drove

Just hopping on this one a bit late in the day. To those MNers who say that the only car owners with range anxiety are not the ones who own an electric car, I beg to differ.

We have an all electric, but for long journeys we use our ancient diesel guzzling old MPV.

EVs are great if you don't need to go too far or don't mind frequent breaks to drink crap coffee, stressing out when the app that told you that the nearest charger was available and working only to get there and find the app was 'lying', finding that when you get there at 2115, the chap in the shop has turned the chargers off as he goes home at 2100, etc etc

I really hope the infrastructure catches up but it'd better get a move on.

@lameasahorse

The network as it stands is hugely variable but it will improve so best not to worry about it too much, although I admit it doesn't sound great where you are. From discussion here, it sounds like you're a year or two from taking the plunge so expect things to change by the time you do.

The thing I always bear in mind is that there are around 33 million cars in the UK, 450,000 of which are electric. As the network is a mixture of private and government owned, I find it amazing that it's as well developed as it is. The way I see it, if someone came to me and asked if I wanted to invest millions on a network that only 2% of the public would use, I'd tell them to bugger off. Yet here we are.

However, in order for the network to improve further, I think the number of EV's needs to increase as the revenue will need to be sufficient to repay investment.

It'll come but it will need some people to be brave and be prepared to come out of their comfort zone.

@MiddleOfThePack

Most MN'ers do say that as it's mostly true. From experience, people like yourself are outliers.

As the network is a mixture of private and government owned

Government owned - where are these chargers?

@Ifailed the Scottish government owns “chargeplace Scotland”. Zap-Map shows a fair proportion of Scottish charges to be those ones.

You can find them on zapmap. There are lots but again, vary from region to region.

Zapmap is not very clear on how many chargers are Government owned, the top 10 companies all look to be private.
The Government is making £20 million available for 2022/23 to local authorities to fund new chargers, but only 60% of capital costs. Presumably the other 40%, and the on-going maintenance, will be picked up by council tax payers. I wonder how many people, including the vast majority who don't own an EV, are aware of this?