Electric cars are NOT the future, are they?

[Isometimeswonder]

I am genuinely torn. I need want a new car but really don't want electric.
But so few smaller petrol cars are made now.
I haven't got a place to charge a car at home.
AIBU I should accept electric is the future.
AINBU I should get petrol. (Please recommend a small city car)

Interestingly I have 2 friends who have got rid of EV recently, tells me all I need to know for now.

People do realise the 2030 deadline is only for new cars right? Not secondhand?

OP what kind of charger set up do you have around you? Do you live in a flat? Pod point at tesco do slow charging and its fairly cheap (although there are cheaper ones)

We have an EV and we now spend about £20 max on charging per month unless we need to use a fast charge compared to around £80 per month in our old ICE car. But we do have a home charger and the Octopus tariff is really cheap and my DH can get a free charge at work if there's a charger free.

Public charging wise. On a 5 hour journey , at some point you are going to need to pee or have a rest stop. That's generally when you charge while you're off doing what you need to do. It hasn't really added much extra time to our journeys. On a 4 -5 hour trip a few months ago we had numerous stops and only 2 of those were for charging XD our bladders needed us to stop more often than the car did.

I've got an EV purely because we had the opportunity to have a charger installed for free, I'm lazy, and I love not having to stop at a petrol station anymore. It's easy to drive, quiet and heats itself up every morning before I set off to work. I don't think I'll go back now.

I wouldn't buy one unless I can charge at home. What is the long term plan for those who don't have a driveway to charge on?

I went on holiday to Cornwall. The M5 was closed in a certain area for 18 hours, queues lasted for nearly 5 hours. The side of the motorway was littered with EVs that had run out of charge.
When I managed to pull off at a service station all the charging points were full and there were queues for hours for EVs trying to charge up.
Until the infrastructure of the U.K. gears itself up for them, including those living in rural areas, then I’ll consider it. Until then, not a chance.

Love our EV but no way should someone without the capacity for a home charger get one. It’s hard to imagine in a fully electric system how public charging will be navigated for the many people who won’t have access to a home charger.

The infrastructure isn’t there. Battery technology will be much further on in 10 years and maybe we should be having the discussion then.
Problem is everyone is buying big cars with big heavy batteries that are destroying the roads instead.

Probably no more than petrol SUVs or vans/trucks do.

Yes EVs are the future, but you can still buy petrol cars perfectly easily.

The ranges are getting ever-longer in newer EVs as the tech improves. Something like a 2022 Tesla Long Range will do over 300 miles fairly easily - it will go further than you can physically manage without stopping on a road trip. When you do stop for a pee break, etc, plug it in and go and have a coffee. 30 minutes on a modern fast charger will have it ready with more range than you can manage again.

Regarding solar panels and batteries, I have free charging as a perk at my place of work. I can charge the car at work for free, take it home and connect the car to the house battery and charge the house if needed... so it means free home electricity too! 🤐

I'm not sure if it's a confirmed plan, but streetlights can be altered to provide charging points near the base. In my mind this is the glaringly obvious answer to public charging

ive got a Toyota auris hybrid (not plug in) and will stick with it or very similar until the public network is better as we don’t have off street parking and often have to park a couple of streets away (we have bus lane parking restrictions outside our home morning and afternoon). I live out hybrid and electric isn’t currently doable for us

Well they can be.

But original street lamps are set up to deliver the sort of power associated with lighting. That means maybe a few hundred W per lamp max, and probably more likely in the range 100W or so.

There would be no need to put kw charging infrastructure in originally, it would be a waste of money to put in all that copper.

So to "upgrade" street lamps to have the ability to be able to charge cars you would almost certainly have to dig up all the cabling and replace it with a much heavier type. Which is probably almost as much hassle as installing dedicated charging points from scratch.

What you might be able to use street lamp power for is something like localised 5G antennas. You could probably get a decent range out of 100W or so, and a lot of streetlamps these days are drawing far less than their original power because they are using leds rather than sodium lighting.

Of course EVs are the future, as is renewable energy. The price of solar is plummeting, and the development China is doing in these areas is insane. At the rate things are changing, the market will take care of decarbonisation.

It's kind of weird that right-wingers are so invested in talking renewables down (well, invested is probably the operative word, because they're representing fossil fuel lobbyists). Having your own solar panels, home battery storage and EV is the ultimate individualist, anti-government flex.

Really interesting article here about "solarpunk" in Africa:

climatedrift.substack.com/p/why-solarpunk-is-already-happening

Not for me - I don't have anywhere to charge one. Plus, they are so heavy - they are wrecking the roads.

I charge mine at home, overnight. On the rare occasions I do long distance, it charges while I eat lunch. Just requires a bit of forward planning

It is a shame that EVs will be taxed, but it's inevitable, and a good sign of the rate of change. EV take up is so high that tax revenue will be reducing, and the roads still need to be paid for.

They aren't cheaper. If you have to charge on a public charger.

Well, the weight of cars on the roads is wrecking the roads. And cars are bigger and there are far more of them. So yes, electric is a factor but the sheer volume of cars on the roads is a much bigger factor.

So we all need to reduce our car dependency but the people who are telling us EVs are not the answer generally aren't interested in that as a strategy.

They are definitely the future but it's just a question of how long it takes to get there. At some point petrol stations will start to become fewer so the "convenience" of going to charge vs going to fill up will start to equalise. Plus adjacent benefits are high in terms of air quality etc.

Because the impact on environment takes in the complete cycle. You dint just pick out bits like ‘lithium’. And people far brighter than you or me have determined that on balance things tip towards electric being better

I just don’t see how it’s gonna work with charging.

Don't get me started on the size of cars these days..... bloody Chelsea Tractors.

Am I the only one still in a little hatchback?

Petrol stations and electricity pylons were unimaginable when everyone was using horses.

I think there needs to be better infrastructure to support public charging points. As it is, I live in a flat, with no charging points & there are none at work. So I’ll stick with petrol meantime.

I would have one if:
I could afford one.
I could have one that was small and looked sporty, like my current petrol one.
I could charge it quickly.

My car is 12 years old. I love it. I reckon I'll have 10000 for a new one if this dies. That's not going to get me an ev.