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)

@5MinuteArgument

“They work best for people with plenty of resources and worst for the less well off.”

That’s true of everything, not just “green initiatives”. To imagine that EVs might be any different is to live in an alternative reality.

You might as well say, “big fast cars work best for rich people and not so well for those that cannot afford them.” Or: “£1,000 espresso machines work best for the rich, but not so well for people who can barely afford Tesco instant.”

I think it was Mae West who said: “I’ve tried rich and I’ve tried poor; rich is better.”

And she died many years before the Tesla Roadster appeared, so she wasn’t having a pop at EVs 😉

@OooPourUsACupLove

The one thing I have learned in life is that change creates change. Assuming people will charge EVs in the future in the same ways they do today, or like they fill petrol, is the wrong way to think about it.

This 👏

As someone who has watched things develop ever since Robert Llewellyn launched the Fully Charged channel on YouTube 15 years ago (Now Everything Electric Cars), and bought a Nissan Leaf in 2018, the progress has been utterly stunning.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YfTiRNzbSko

One - yes, that is a possible solution. Think "part of the street infrastructure" not "my charger my channel"

Three - no. No idea where you got that from. I'm suggesting that someone outside your house today does not mean they will be there tomorrow, and also does not stop you nipping to a nearby public charger if you really are down to almost nothing and have to charge tonight. Which typically you won't be if you have a home charger because you'll be topping up every night, if your problem is "someone parked outside my house so I can't use my charger", you do have a home charger. As I said, an annoyance but not a permanent blockers.

But again, what I'm actually asking you to do is to recognise that over time, problems get solved. Looking at each change in isolation and assuming everything else has to stay the same is not the way the world works.

There were no petrol stations once either.

Millions of £ is being pumped into this
(taxpayers money) to sort this out

@5MinuteArgument the rich - by virtue of being rich - always have access to the better things first.

who had electricity in their homes first?

who had cars first?

So it is with EVs.

It was Henry Ford’s desire to sell lots of cars that made him pay his employees better, so they could afford to buy the car they were making.

EV manufacturers are similarly motivated to make them more affordable, and to support the growth of the charge network.

Yes. Its almost as if...change happens. Especially if its funded
Which it is...

@glowfrog

EV manufacturers are similarly motivated to make them more affordable, and to support the growth of the charge network.

This.

Aside from Tesla’s, Ionity is also a car company backed charging network. They’re great chargers and the only ones that currently support our Polestar’s “plug-and-charge”. It’s a shame that their network isn’t quite as convenient for us as the Tesla one.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IONITY

Agree with this. This thread has actually made EVs sound even worse to me than I thought they were. They also sound far more expensive to charge than was being peddled out when they were first being pushed. Made it sound like pence per charge which is clearly not the case. I’m not seeing much reason to swap at all. Especially when they’re becoming liable for tax as well now.

We have 25 Ionity chargers on 3 sites in Wales, all along the southernmost strip. Shame about the rest of the country.

Change will probably happen, yes.

But I think some people will be surprised by how slowly it happens

One thing I know for sure - a certain number of the people complaining today that EVs don't make sense because there are not enough chargers will be the same people complaining in 10 years' time that there are not enough petrol stations any more for their ICEs 😂

@Sunsetseascape

“Made it sound like pence per charge”

What on Earth are you smoking?

I’m really sorry that EVs can’t give you virtually free motoring, in contrast to what you imagine you heard (or is it because you believe that EVs can only travel a couple of miles per charge?

EVs also don’t:

• cure cancer
• make their owners £millions
• poop rainbows

Guess you’d best stick to burning toxic liquid and polluting the planet, and paying oil companies a small fortune to do so, eh?

In my case, mine is very cheap to run. To the point that the lease pays for itself vs ICE

Out of interest, how much does it cost you for a full charge? And how far does that get you?

Your comment is more aligned to the sort of thing I’ve heard said before, though clearly some people will accuse you of “smoking something” or expecting “free motoring” for saying so. Peak MN obnoxiousness.

Depends on when I start the charge as the rate drops at midnight.

Let's say £7 for 250 miles (car indicates more).

The saving vs ICE is due to above average annual mileage and charging mostly at home. I'd suggest home charging is the only way to make it work.

You said you thought people had claimed to you that EVs cost pence per charge, which is frankly ridiculous. Don’t expect to post arrant nonsense and not be teased a little 😘

That sounds more reasonable than some of the figures appeared to be above. Though of course it will depend on the battery and car themselves so wont directly compare.

Having never been in the market for an EV (as I’m not in the market for a new car at all) I didn’t know how varied the prices are, or about the need to join “plans” etc. sounds like something that would just overwhelm me! I’d definitely want to rely on home charging as much as possible.

Don’t try to pass it off as teasing, you were outright rude.

That is exactly what I have heard said in the past, that the charge costs were basically a pittance and that that was the bonus to having one. I’ve never looked into them because, once again, I’m not in the market for a car of any kind, so I had no need to go investigating how much they cost to charge. But even people earlier in this thread suggested that the £10k needed to replace a battery after ten years would be offset by the fuel savings (for me it absolutely wouldn’t because I don’t spend that much on fuel!) but to me that’s also insinuating very low running costs. If these are the sorts of things people say, then why wouldn’t I think they were cheap to run? I wasn’t here quoting costs, I commented that the figures laid out in this thread were surprisingly high to me based on the anecdotes of others.

I love my fully electric Renault 5. It is small, relatively cheap to buy and brilliant.

Its uncannily easy to drive, smooth, quiet, cheap to run. I cannot get over the pre heat function that means I never have to scrape ice or get into a cold car. Everyone who has driven it, loves it.

I NEVER thought I could move away from petrol and I absolutely did not want to. Now I can't imaging going back.

I would recommend an electric car to anyone, except im afraid OP people who cannot easily charge at home or work. Charging takes time and ideally you do need to do it overnight.

I just saw the response to this question. So by “pennies” you actually mean 700 pennies is aligned with what you’ve heard before. Most people would say £7, but no matter.

That being the case, our Polestar 2 did 250 miles on a charge that cost 1,239 pennies over the weekend.

My old Volvo would do 250 miles with about 3,981 pennies. Maybe a small hybrid would do a bit better, but doubt that it would match the pennies per mile of Tesla public charging.

You go ahead and decide that EVs aren’t any good unless they cost 1/5 or less of an ICEV - I’m free to think you’re being very silly.

I have a Fiat 500 petrol hybrid and it's the perfect city car with city parking I love driving it !! So nippy and fits in small spaces x

@Sunsetseascape

the figures laid out in this thread were surprisingly high to me based on the anecdotes of others

That’s very very different from pennies per charge though. I’m sorry that I was rude - I was a bit shocked, and shouldn’t have said things the way I did.

Of course people who can charge at home (and particularly those that can get by on 4 hours each night of pennies per kWh, so around 120 miles per day) can make a lot of noise about saving huge amounts of money.

Sadly, we cannot say that. But that’s partly because we have chosen to live in part of London where a house with a drive is for people with either a lot more money than us, or inherited wealth.

But as I and many others have pointed out, that doesn’t make owning an EV less attractive, at least to us. It may not be a no-brainer financially (though it is still working out a bit cheaper), but it is a no-brainer for us from a joy of driving it perspective.

And any chance the car needs a new battery is exactly the same as the risk that an ICE car will need a new engine and gear box. Except with ICE cars you don’t get 8-10 year warranties - you’re lucky if you get 3-5. And speaking as someone who had to scrap an otherwise lovely diesel Volvo because of the engine/gearbox failing I know of which I speak.

@Sunsetseascape

cost me vastly more money at this point in time to have to swap to one

But no one is making you swap, or trying to get you to swap, or anything!

You can run your car for as long as you like. When you need to replace it, you can choose to buy a brand-new pure petrol/diesel car if you want (up to 2030), or a secondhand petrol/diesel car for as long as they are available (which may be until 2050, depending on how well looked after they are), a hybrid or a plug-in hybrid (up to 2035). Or an EV. It’s possible the 2030/35 deadlines may shift a little, although that will just give the Chinese even more chance to dominate the future car industry.

No one at any point has said you must get an EV right now. At all. All that people are saying (again and again) is that having an EV suits them, and that they have overcome nearly all the problems that people imagine they present and use as an excuse not to even test drive one.

At the same time, I have repeatedly posted that I know there are some people for whom having an EV is not possible right now, but I am confident will be better served in the future.