To not get an electric car?

[Jamesblema]

I was keen to get one as our second car (small-ish run around mainly for DH to do his 25 min commute every week day - we have a larger family car).

My main reasons were the savings on running costs and the benefit to the environment. I figured we could spend 6-8k on the car and then we would save massively on petrol costs. However, taking to the men at our local garage has put me off- they said that electricity costs are almost as much as petrol and repairs on electric cars require specialist mechanics and can be massively more expensive especially when something goes wrong with the battery. They also said that the estimated remaining mileage is often more than you actually have left and you can easily run out of charge and need to stop for over an hour to charge up. The cost of buying a hybrid is putting me off that option too.

So aibu to keep my petrol car at the cost of the environment? Any positive electric car experiences?

LOL - where does the ‘juice’ you fill your car up with come from? Oh yes the finite resources that can’t be renewed. Good one!

So you think someone will buy your second hand car when it's due a replacement battery?
You don't believe a heavier car produces more rubber and carbon on breaking although they do need more frequent replacement tyres?
You don't think lithium batteries that when scrapped cause pollution in the countries they are shipped to, let alone the kids who mining it?
A Tesler battery costs around £8800 and would need replacing from 10 to 20 years ...would you buy a second hand 8 year old one knowing it may have 2 years of battery left?
Read up on early Nissan leaf car apps that run on 2g that can't be upgraded making many functions useless.
I guess you're so rich you don't need to buy second hand but many of us haven't even got £8000 for a car.

I love mine. I drive 50 miles round trip to work several times a week and every other weekend drive 150 miles. I trickle charge at home from a three point plug and at my long range destination also on a normal home plug. On my long 150 mile journey I usually stop for a 15 min top up or so on a super fast charger if I haven’t set off with a full charge which is about the time to takes to walk into the services and have a wee and buy a coffee so it doesn’t bother me at all. I know where the nearest fast chargers on the journey and have several options and would never let myself be in an unfamiliar place with barely any charge - best to top up earlier although only occasionally do I have issues with out of service chargers. One bug bear is on a busy day queuing system for electric chargers is not clear who is first in line (you just guess park opposite someone randomly and hope they haven’t just started their charge) which I think is deeply upsetting for English people although I rarely do have to queue. Electricity is cheaper than petrol overall but not hugely so however you can get cheap rates at certain times and if you trickle charge like me not use public (expensive) chargers you will save money. I’m on a forum for people with my electric car and the servicing seems super cheap but I do have a brand new car on lease.

I have an official range of 230 miles but that is significantly reduced in cold weather or if mainly motorway driving but I allow for it. I change my route to be more dual carriageway as that allows regenerative charging and also I prefer it to three hours of motorway! It’s just a different way of thinking. I love not having to go to the petrol station!

Actually the figures I've seen from Prof. Mike Berners-Lee still put the BEV lifecycle emissions lower than those of ICVs. If I find that book I'll post the figures.

In the meantime, I've found some from the International Energy Agency: https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/comparative-life-cycle-greenhouse-gas-emissions-of-a-mid-size-bev-and-ice-vehicle

Again though, while BEVs are greener than ICVs, in absolute terms they are not "green", the only way to achieve that is to rely primarily on active travel for almost all journeys, with public transport for the occasional longer trip.

Though you are happy to consume oil derived products from countries with some of the worst human rights records in the world for their workers…?

In 2022:
14.7% of crude oil came from the US, where almost 1 in 100 of the population are in jail
13.2% came from Saudi Arabia, which is consistently ranked among the "worst of the worst" in Freedom House's annual survey of political and civil rights
12.7% came from Russia, know for its peaceful action in Eastern Europe
5.5% came from Iraq, which still has the death penalty

fortunately in between those is Canada, with 5.5% of world production.

Was it a new car? They take a while to “learn” the true range, my range went up significantly after I’d had it a couple of weeks with no change in weather or driving habits

Only read page 1, you have to love a typical mechanic mansplaining electric cars.
Yes, new ones are expensive, but they are cheap to run and service in general. Our family car has been electric for 5 years, and now I have switched my 10-year-old diesel for another ev.
We love them and have driven as far as London to Edinburgh and regularly do 200-mile round trip days.
We have on-the-drive charging and have been known to push down to the last 5% but only when we are heading home.
There is a good Facebook group Women Drive Electric UK

Perhaps you could reference them, given that a couple of us have found lifecycle analyses that contradict your statement.

I'm not an EV supporter. As far as I'm concerned, they are there to fill in the edge cases that public transport (proper public transport, not the underfunded mess we have in the UK) and active travel (ditto) can't manage. Mass private car (of any type of propulsion) ownership and a sustainable future are mutually exclusive aims.

I love my electric car! It’s fantastic for school runs and driving within around an hour or so from home. I don’t use it for longer trips. It’s so much easier charging it at home. It’s quiet and doesn’t pollute the air.

I have also heard anti EV stories and I think there a lot of misinformation about them.

I'm in no hurry to change my car because the more environmentally responsible choice is to keep the existing vehicle rather than have a new one made.

That said, husband's EV is brilliant and we use it for most of our social / family life stuff as it is cheaper and greener. Servicing is simpler; less often and considerably fewer moving parts to worry about. No timing belts, spark plugs, oil filters, etc etc.

The batteries do experience some degradation. Ours is averaging about 1% loss a year.

If you can charge at home and are in the market to change your car, I would definitely consider electric.

We have a plug-in hybrid so it uses electricity for short trips (which are 90% of our car usage) but for longer journeys when we don’t want to stop for hours to recharge, we can use the petrol engine. We charge it from our solar panels so no electricity cost (though of course there is the upfront cost of the panels). We love it and the first few years of servicing were included in the purchase price.

Umm, three quarters of the co2 of a conventional car cradle to grave. When the battery is no longer efficient enough to run a car it can be taken out and used as part of a domestic solar set up and when it’s no longer efficient enough to be used in a house it is 97% recyclable. The lithium can be extracted and used to make more batteries. So what issues are you talking about?

I was thinking if getting one to save in petrol commute.

Until I read that Nissan Leaf electric car app is no longer supported. The app controls the heating?!
That put me off.

1. Most of them haven't used up their batteries yet with normal use - no sign they will be anything other than longer lasting than petrol. yes I've sold 2 second hand now.
2. You may want to check the weight of a range rover, Land rover discovery, X 5, x3, ford smax, ford galaxy *(spoiler they all weigh more than the tesla.). They don't need more frequent tyre replacement - I run one and it's pretty much the same as petrol.
3. The batteries won't be scrapped - they are already using them as electric storage. Also the lithium problem is more to do with laptops, phones, and other rechargeable products than cars.
4. Tesla's are currently running with 250k miles plus on them, and look like they will have longer lives than petrol (they are simpler to repair and maintain)
5. Nissan Leaf - I've owned two. Yes they are old tech, not least as they have the older Chademo connectors. I would still buy one.
6. No, not rich, there are some great deals around if you look. I'm currently leasing on salary sacrifice, but my next one will be a second hand, older car. I would happily buy an older Leaf as a second car or a Zoe.

Not true at all.

EV cars have a higher initial environmental cost to produce but over their lifespan they are significantly greener than ICE cars.

Every credible study you care to look at says the same.

Love our EV. Dh understands the costs better but we have an octopus EV tarriff (intelligent I think) which charges it for very little at night. I think about £5 for 250 miles range? So very little indeed. Servicing is v minimal as fewer bits need servicing. Insurance is higher than our last petrol car. You do need more range than you think you need. Ours is 64kwh and has been all over the UK with no problems. Obviously costs quite a bit more to charge at a service station but still less than the equivalent in petrol

Every time you put petrol in your car you are supporting the extraction of oil which has terrible impacts on the direct environment https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/shell-niger-delta-oil-spills-sabotage-equipment-failure/ What comes out of your exhaust pipe causes deaths through small particulate emissions and finally the carbon emitted is causing climate change. Electricity for electric cars does create carbon emissions because the UKs energy mix contains Gas - 38.5% but it also comes from Wind - 26.8% Nuclear - 15.5% (figures from 2022 so should be getting lower carbon each year.)

I use my brakes once per week tops. On ICE many times on every journey 🤷🏻

I love my EV! In the winter I charge it at night and we have a deal where the electric is much cheaper at night. In the summer I charge it from our solar panels. It'such cheaper to run than petrol.

There is much less to go wrong on an EV - no engine, no exhaust ... That makes it generally cheaper.

Yes the range is lower below zero degrees, that's just a fact, as the process in the battery slows down at low temperatures.

Please show me because the ones I have seen have a beak even around 100,000 miles depending on the energy mix.

Electric cars are not in fact particularly environmentally friendly. Production creates a lot of bad effects that take several years to "pay off" Don't be misled by hype.

Why do you think exploitation is any more severe with ICE propulsion compared to EV?

Fossil fuel production does unimaginable damage to the environment, to societies across the planet.

I've had a hybrid for 3 years then a fully EV for 3 years (work does a good salary sacrifice scheme). Gave the EV back and am now driving a diesel.

Long journeys were horrible with chargers not available or not working. 45 mins to fully charge is just not acceptable on an already long trip. Driving in winter is ridiculous as the range dropped like a stone, just when you want the heating on. We had several stressful trips where we were virtually out of battery by the time we found a charger we could actually use. Even then you had to download yet another app to use it.

They were both joyous to drive, but with the 2nd hand market being virtually nonexistent, we didnt take up the option to keep the EV for longer. We will wait until the infrastructure improves and maybe try again in a few years time.

They're less unfriendly than ICE cars. Again, if you are determined to minimise your footprint you'll need to look for ways to not use cars of any description.

With an EV octopus tariff you can charge for 2p a mile.There is absolutely no way petrol/diesel will cost that. Yes charging in public chargers can end up costing roughly the same as petrol/diesel prices but assuming you charge at home the bulk of the time it is significantly cheaper. That said, I'm not sure how much of an EV you can buy for 6k