To ask if you'd buy an electric or petrol car in these circumstances?

[minniecoop]

I'm looking to buy a 2 to 5-year-old old car. I work from home, and the car will mainly be used for short local journeys on the weekend. Maybe once or twice a year I will travel 100 miles to see family, but I'm more than happy to stop off to charge the car and have some lunch, etc. I have a driveway and so I can charge the car at home.

I'm really not sure whether to go for electric or petrol. Petrol is obviously more familiar as it's all I've known, and as I drive so little I've never really noticed or been bothered by fuel costs. I would fill my car up with a tank of petrol and it would last me weeks. I'm looking at MINI Coopers specifically.

Would you go with an electric car or buy a petrol car for (probably) the last time before they're no longer made?

It's worse than that. It stems from deliberate misinformation campaigns funded by the fossil fuel industry.

I have had two EVs so far. A Peugeot 208 and a Hyundai Kona. The Hyundai is so much better as an EV, with the Peugeot I would get a lot of range anxiety. I do a 200 mile return trip every week and struggled with the Peugeot. With the Hyundai it's absolutely fine though.

I can't charge on my drive but live very close to a public charger. Mostly it gets charged at my or DHs work.

In your situation I would definitely go for it.

There are some spots where its a pita...

Inexplicably, the only chargers within 20 miles of the popular tourist spot of whitby are slow 7kw podpoints apart from one newish 50kw at Lidl.

You have to go to pickering or scarborough for a rapid charger.

There are lots of problems with electric which they don't tell you about.

One of them is that if you get stuck in a traffic jam in winter, you would drain the battery by heating the car. In petrol, you don't have this problem.

Perhaps I'll consider electric when politicians start replacing their own Jaguars and Rolls Royces with smaller electric cars.

"In petrol, you don't have this problem."

What do you think ultimately powers the heater in a petrol car, exactly?

Petrol/diesel car regardless of circs.

This is nonsense, and had been tested in the middle of a Norwegian winter.

Most modern EVs have a heat pump. In the test they did, they kept the interior at 22degs for 59 hours at - 30oC.... If you're stuck on the motorway for that long, youve got bigger problems.

Generally an ev will outlast an diesel engine by 1.5-2x in those conditions.

They do even better idling in traffic, on a day when the heater isnt being used, battery usage is basically zero unless the car is moving.

One of them is that if you get stuck in a traffic jam in winter, you would drain the battery by heating the car. In petrol, you don't have this problem.

You realise its possible to run out of petrol don't you?

This is absolute nonsense. It’s just yet another example of someone who doesn’t have an EV posting misinformation.

EVs use very little of their battery on heating. For example, when I preheat ours in the winter, in 30mins it uses less than 1% of the battery, and that’s to warm it up after being out in sub-zero temperatures overnight.

Reuters actually fact checked this a couple of years ago:

https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-environment-ev-idUSL1N2RW0QD/

I don’t remember the last time I was stuck in a traffic jam long enough to drain an entire battery….

We have an electric car, we:
live in rural Scotland … no problem
Have just driven to Devon… no problem
Are currently in Wales visiting family on our way home.. in a premier inn with no charger but one within walking distance 🤷‍♀️

Hmm my.partner has a hybrid. Electric range is 31 bloody miles. That wouldn't be a bargain for anyone to buy. Works out quite expensive to charge also at hone

I agree with this. We tend to keep our cars until they are uneconomical to repair. Typically 16 years. I'm not convinced that EVs will have a battery that lasts that long and thry cost something like £8k to replace. I'm sure some will last, but what proportion and will yours be one that does, who knows.

Hybrids are pretty pointless IMO and were originally designed to ease people into EV.
Now that ranges are 300 miles+ there is no need for Hybrids, if you want EV then go EV

Petrol only for me.

Well there's no point him going fully electric and spending thousands on a car to sit on drive. The car he currently has cost nigh on 40 k 9 years ago and has done 38k on the clock. Think I did at least half those miles borrowing it as it's larger than mine

This. I have had an electric car for 3 years and never had a problem charging it. My range is over 300 miles and I do this regularly without ever worrying about needing to charge. I also live in a fairly small, fairly rural village, no issue. The talk of ‘just not the infrastructure’ is nonsense. I would never go back to spending £300+ a month on diesel, it’s pence to charge at home each night.

I don’t understand. He spent £40000 on a car he barely uses anyway ..

I didn't suggest he sell it, I was talking about Hybrids in general not urging people to stick them on Autotrader immediately

Yeah bought the thing then changed jobs and worked from home Total waste tbh. No point upgrading it to get another to sit on drive lol

You can laugh all you like.

The important difference is that in a petrol car, you can keep the engine running to keep the heating. The heat to heat the car comes from the excess engine heat, in most cars. It would last until the petrol runs out, which is a long time when the car is not moving. Heat in a petrol car does not need extra electricity to run, unlike air con, which does use up the petrol quickly.

To heat an electric car, all the energy has to come from the battery, and would drain it quite quickly. So I unashamedly stand by my remark that heating an electric car would drain the fuel much more quickly than would happen in a petrol car, especially if we have more activists blocking motorways, with the police bringing them cups of tea, instead of banging them up.

And somebody, please tell me which politicians drive electric cars with pride.

Once again, using the heating on an EV does NOT drain the battery quickly. Please stop posting misinformation.

According to the Reuters article above an electric car could safely heat the interior for 10 hours on half a battery
How long would a petrol car be able to keep the interior warm on half a tank I wonder?

I secretly hope the EV haters continue as I dont want the charging costs get higher.
I went from spending £60/month on petrol on a little car with only 67hp to spend £20 (home charging) with a car with 200hp 🤣
And that is with my partner now driving this car every other week, (my commute is 10miles and hers 60miles) so much more mileage than before.

LOL

You might wanna brush up on FACTS:

https://www.perrys.co.uk/blog/what-reduces-the-range-on-your-electric-vehicle/117078

"Heating and Air Conditioning are two of the biggest features that drain the battery of your electric car. Heating will reduce the range by around 17% when you have it on full blast. Air conditioning drains the battery about 11% faster than when it’s not being used."

Is that misinformation?

Google is awash with it.....