We are not set up for electric vehicles in this country

[Pollyannaatemyjelly]

We have an electric vehicle. We tend not to do too many long journeys but today it was inevitable. We have visit a very popular destination via major motorways but there is not one fast charger available on our route. I've just stopped on the M5 on what is supposed to be a dual charger (so more than one vehicle can charge) but it's not working. I've had to wait 20 minutes for the vehicle next to me to charge before I can even begin to charge mine. There is no chance this county can become all electric when the infrastructure is so poor.

Yes that is also a big issue for me. I am far too impatient to hang around for 30 minutes and that's once you actually get onto a charger. I don't even like queueing for petrol.

@RedToothBrush

vw id3 has been out a few years. It’s vw golf equivalent

vw id2 is due out next year. Estimated €22,000 (£20,000), it’s a vw polo equivalent. The vw polo petrol is £20-26,000 new, so exactly the same price as electric version.

Yes and I wouldn't buy an id be because it's too expensive! Is that difficult to understand? People have this mental block over cars and think nothing of spending over £20k on a car. That's not my thing thanks.

@enchantedsquirrelwood - it’s not at all a problem. On a long drive when you need to top up you should be stopping for 20-30 mins min anyway. Our 550km range gets us easily a 4-5hr drive. So after 4hrs most people happily stop for toilet, eating (even if that’s flask in car), and leg stretch.

I got an electeic car earlier this year and have done a couple of length-of-the-UK trips since then and a loop through Ireland. In that time I've encountered 2 faulty chargers. In one case (rural Wales) I had to drive a mile to the next working one; in the other I had to drive 2 bays along in the carpark. I've had to wait for a charger once. Service stations that a few years ago had 2 or 3 EV chargers have now added an extra bank of 10 or 15 - most of which will charge 2 cars each. Scotland is particularly well supplied, with an extensive ScotGov network that only costs 16p/kW (although a slightly glitchy app) as well as the private ones. The petrol station in my very small hometown added 10 chargers a couple of years ago, all fast ones - ranging from 50 to 300 kW.

I believe that there a lots of concerns including for example older muti story carparks which are not designed for each car to be such a huge weight

Noticed there are lamppost charging points now along DD's road in London. All flats along the road.

@RedToothBrush - ok. But that’s against all cars then? Your argument is electric new cars cost lots. No, all new cars cost lots. You can buy an identical car basically in petrol or electric new, id2 or vw golf, and it will still cost you £22k. It’s a new car thing not an electric thing.

You can of course then get cheaper electric versions second hand, same as petrol.

It’s like me arguing I can get a 3 year old car cheaper than a brand new one:. Of course you can

Agreed. Mcdonald's car parks are often a good bet for fast chargers too.

That'll be a problem for a lot of people, though.

As it is, if you need petrol you just pop via the petrol station on your way to work and it adds a couple of minutes to your journey.

If you need to factor in half an hour (or more) every time you fill up your car, it's not exactly very practical when you need to get to work or school.

Our council doesn't pay to have the lampposts switched on. I can't imagine they'll pay to install chargers in them!

Not all electric cars are really heavy though. Some are, but some are a similar weight to the equivalent petrol car and some are lighter.

We went in U.K. holiday in ours .

Never ever again. They either don’t work for weeks or have people waiting to use the one functioning charger.

Last year Dh and l nearly divorced over finding a charger in Luton airport.

@llamadrama16

That's excellent. What part of the UK are you in?

I think that the long term plan should be that public transport/walking/cycling should be the default and the option of renting a car for when they aren't practical. Obviously there will have to be genuine exceptions for those who live very rurally and a public transport system cannot practically be provided, those who genuinely need a vehicle whilst at work and for those who need a car due to disabilities.

Obviously that won't happen, as I'm not convinced that they are trying to do anything for the good of the country, compared to what's good for lining their pockets.

We've had an EV for just over a year now and whilst I completely agree that there will need to be significant investment in infrastructure to support an increase in EV use and that things are patchy at present, it seems to be improving all the time and we haven't had any major issues. Our EV is DH's company car and he puts in some serious business miles, but we also use it in preference to my ICE car for family use too. In that time we have had 2 incidents when we have really struggled to find somewhere to charge. One was early on when we hadn't really got the hang of things and just left it too late and the other was on the way home from holidays and was also at least partly our own fault for underestimating how busy places would be on a Bank Holiday and not planning accordingly.
But otherwise we have had no major issues. The sat nav in the car shows chargers and makes recommendations but DH also has Zapp Map and another app whose name escapes me at present on his phone, as with new chargers being installed all over the place at the moment it's good to have more than one source of info. They don't all update simultaneously and sometimes new chargers show on some apps but not others. Generally we on long journeys we time feeding the car to coincide with feeding ourselves but some of the newest chargers only need you to stop for about 10 mins which is barely any longer than it takes to fill my car with diesel and go in to pay. With time I'm sure that will become commoner.
The thing that irritates me most is the lack of transparency around costs for the different networks and the number of different systems. It's annoying to keep having to register and download different apps to use some types of charger and you sometimes can't easily tell how much it is costing you to charge. I was pleased to see a charging station that showed the price on a petrol station style board the other day - that should be mandatory I think. Some of the systems also seem unnecessarily complicated which I can see would be off putting to some people.
There are of course pros and cons, EVs are not perfect and you do have to change your driving mindset somewhat but I think a lot of the difficulties are overstated. Technology is coming on quickly and I think it will get easier and cheaper to use EVs. I'll definitely be getting one for myself when my current car needs replacing in a year or two.

My argument is that a huge number of people are currently priced out of the electric market for various reasons and don't have a budget of £21k.

That's a big deal. That means the demand might be there but supply isn't matching the requirements of the demand.

When DH and I both bought cars for less than the electric you are making a point about you will have a problem. Until the market can hit that tipping point it's going to be a slow uptake.

More than that you are saying there's one car available. Great. So what happens when I get in it and the visibility is shocking and I don't like it? Or DH gets in it and finds that when he sits up straight he is looking at the ceiling above the window not out the window (hello Astras)? If I'm going to spend all that money on a car I want it to work for me on a very basis level and I certainly don't want to be paying more than I can afford.

Two years ago there was no a car in my budget and to my size requirements. It's still the case now. I know it is changing. Is this hard for your comprehension skills or are you just going to argue the toss that I should have bought a car I didn't want and couldn't afford?

HTH.

The cheapest electric car on Autotrader is just under 3k but it only does 124 miles per charge, which is a bit pointless for anyone who commutes a significant distance or who doesn't have access to their own charger.

I mean, DH's commute to work is about 40 miles each way. So he'd pretty much need to charge it once a day. We don't have street charging or any off-road parking so he'd be reliant on one of the two public chargers in the area, neither of which are close to our house.

He just bought a second hand diesel car a few weeks ago for 4k. He only fills it up once a week, it takes seconds to put fuel in and he can do it on his way to work without having to worry about finding a charger.

The cheapest car on Autotrader with the equivalent range (400 miles per charge) is nearly 65k!

We share the driving on long drives, though - largely because we want to shorten the time it takes to get there. We very rarely stop for longer than it takes to go for a wee.

I also agree.
I wouldn't generally buy diesel from a motorway services and I tend not to buy electricity from them either. There are often charging points that are faster, cheaper and less busy a few minutes drive from motorway exits and we usually find somewhere fairly easily. I've noticed that Instavolt seem to have a deal with Costa as well as McDonald's. I've seen quite a lot of their charges popping up in Costa carparks. They're usually 150kW so you get a decent charge in the time it takes to drink a coffee.

They are only really for fairly well off people and company car drivers not the wider public.

@VickyEadieofThigh - ok but it’s 15mins for a wee realistically in many motorway stations by the time you walk from parking and often there’s a que ( in women’s toilets especially). You don’t stop car on 0%, it’s like at 20-40% when you stop as there’s a convenient toilet and stop, and you just top up.
Our car is 77kw (550km). Some chargers at motorway do 350kw an hour, so 0-100% in 15 ish mins. 25% to 100 would be even quicker.

They are only going to get faster

@RedToothBrush - if you look theres a small car version of almost every car. I was
just showing you the id2 v polo comparison. Electric corsa we looked at in 2020, fiat do a tiny electric also, Dacia spring is due out next year as a small electric around £17k

Battery technology isn’t there yet and there isn’t the capacity in the National Grid for everybody to have an electric car.

The weight issue is just as pertinent with range rovers as it is with the heavier EVs

people buy bigger and heavier cars than they did when they built early multi storeys.

Until we can get an electric car that allows us to drive from south west England and out to the Hebrides to visit family in one hit we will be staying with our petrol and diesel cars. We don't want to be making a 12 hour drive (we share driving) and 1 hour ferry (no airport on the island) crossing any longer than that. The island only has 5 public charging points.