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 Norway offers a good example of what possible. They do have a lower per capita rate of car ownership but I believe 95% of new car registrations last year were EVs - they have been aggressively promoted and there is clearly a charging infrastructure to support them. It IS possible to make it happen. To keep saying “it won’t work to have EVs only in the future because the charging network isn’t there” seems to me to be something of a circular argument.

@LupinLou

Adaptive cruise control has been available on automatic ICE cars for some time

That’s totally correct. We had it on the last ICE car we hired, to drive to Belgium, and it was a lovely Audi automatic saloon that I would have been chuffed to bits to have normally.

But what one doesn’t realise until you have an EV is that it works so much better when it is coupled with regenerative braking and single-pedal driving.

In an ICE car, you can only slow down very slightly with engine braking, and if you want to slow down more aggressively without braking you have to down shift.

So adaptive speed control in an ICE car has limitations on how smoothly it can slow down, and how far it can slow down without going through gear changes. However well an ICE car is engineered it lets you know that it hasn’t really been designed to slow and stop very smoothly.

In an EV with ACC and single-pedal driving on, you can be following a car at 70mph and then as it slows down from 70mph to a standstill because of a blockage on the motorway the EV will track that completely, while charging the battery, and right at the end will apply the friction brakes to stop the car completely.

When the car in front moves off, you will follow it. And all the while your feet are on the floor in whatever position is most comfortable.

And an EV motor is far more progressive and controllable that an ICE, so that all of the speed adjustments up and down are imperceptible. So although ACC is available in ICE cars the way it works in an EV is simply much better.

I can imagine that plug-in hybrids can also do a certain amount of regenerative braking, but the small size of their batteries will limit the charging current, and therefore the braking force that is available, meaning that ACC will also be less capable than in a Tesla/Polestar class vehicle.

Norway has chargers everywhere, comparatively with a much more sparse population. I wonder what the charger per capita rate is vs UK.

On a positive note, given we seem to be retreading the same arguments over and over - at least this discussion thread is sustainable and self-charging.

Yes, I'm hoping there will be a relaxation of the deadline to phase out petrol cars. I think the move towards EVs will mean fewer little cars on the road. It's the little cars that make for less congestion and parking problems.

"governments have been known to get things very wrong". Yes, it has been known!

Kind of proves the point. EVs work for low density housing.

Creating electricity from fossil fuels is about 50% efficient in the U.K., so we need to be generating more than 50% of our electricity from genuinely green sources to make electric cars a net efficiency gain.

Currently we are about at 50%.

if you live in a city (as I do) I think electric cars make sense as they are locally non polluting and easy to charge at home.

If you are a high mileage rural user, I think that they make no sense at all and are just virtue signalling. In addition, you need to drive quite high mileage and do the vast majority of your charging at home for them to make economic sense.

On the plus side, they drive very nicely, with great acceleration and the 450V 90kWh battery means you can have your headlights on pretty much all the time and charge any number of devices.

It does, if the infrastructure is there (and presumably subsidised).

And even then I would think home charging is essential. We managed a 4 hr drive to the mountains at Christmas, but it did take a lot of planning in terms of charging stops and in cabin charging. Otherwise it would have been difficult.

@Chersfrozenface

In our case, if the nearest two are inaccessible, you're talking about trying a third or a fourth and then about a mile walk back home, possibly in the rain (this is Wales)

Then I cannot see how an EV could possibly work for you at the moment, unless a supermarket where you would happily shop opens up a bank of modern DC chargers at competitive rates, so the model that many people use can apply (charge while you shop) could work.

More than one poster here makes use of chargers at their gym. Anywhere where you can charge at ok rates while doing something else that you would normally do makes it possible.

But I understand that in many places (including a lot of Wales and other even more remote parts of the UK), things aren’t in place yet. Even if they might be getting better, people won’t change until they are so much better they can see they will never be stranded.

We only got the Polestar once we had tried the lamppost charging with a hire car and seen that there were loads of them about that we could use if needs be.

Just a couple of sad chargers a mile away doesn’t cut it.

I don’t know how useful this comparison is currently- since I have stated that Norway very much put the charging infrastructure in place to support its push for EV use. This article suggests it’s 400 chargers per 100k people in Norway vs 89 in the UK currently, which has over 70,000 chargers.

https://www.gridserve.com/why-norway-leads-the-world-in-ev-adoption/

And I understand that the UK government is aiming to increase the number of chargers to 300,000 by 2030 - although admittedly having a target does not mean it will be met.

Norway is one of the richest countries in the world. For one thing it used receipts from its significant oil and gas reserves to create a sovereign wealth fund of more than £1.3 trillion. That meant it could make large investments in big infrastructure projects like EV charging and offer big financial incentives for EV purchases without worrying about lost revenue.

None of that applies to the UK

@Ayebrow - yes, I had a hire car with adaptive cruise control for the first time about 8/9 years ago. It was a Volkswagen Tiguan I think. I don't remember what it was like, I was more concerned about trying to stop it shaking the steering wheel as it thought I was falling asleep when overtaking!

Current car (Toyota hybrid - 7 years old) has it too, and has continual variable transmission so you don't feel the gear changes at all. I've never felt the need to test how much it would slow you down but it will easily drop speed.

We only had normal cruise control on our old Volvos, which was wonderful. You could do a kind of manual “adaptive” thing just by pressing the speed adjust buttons up and down, which was still great.

But the game changer in EVs is powerful and progressive regenerative brakes, coupled with radar etc. which means that if someone pulls in front of you too close the car responds instantly and can slow down (with brake lights on if needed) to maintain whatever distance you’ve preset. As @glowfrog has pointed out, it makes long distance driving so much more relaxing.

BMW have finally discovered how good true single-pedal driving can be after years of them mucking around with “regen paddles” to adjust the regen strength rather than just lifting your right foot a little higher or lower. Their Neue Klasse EVs coming out this year were launched with the idea of “The Joy of Stopping”, which sounds a bit silly until you’ve experienced how good it can be.

We were in this exact situation and got one last year - love it. House had a charger and solar panels, and we mainly only use the car for short trips, so range isn’t an issue. On that basis for us it’s massively cheaper to run than petrol.

we have done one very long journey in it so far (ie pretty much the length of England and Scotland), over a few days each way. Charging was a bit of a pain in that a lot of charging stations are actually quite slow / you pull up to your planned charging point and only one is working etc and we definitely found that they charged waaaay slower than they were supposed to (ie you paid extra for extra fast charging but it wasn’t) - the infrastructure definitely still has a way to go. There was no issue in terms of range anxiety, it just took a bit of planning, but it did add quite a significant amount of time on to an already long journey - longer than we would have otherwise needed from a break from driving perspective. It was also more expensive than petrol.

however for us on balance it is cheaper and super convenient, as we very very rarely make journeys which are anywhere near longer than the car’s range, so the vast amount of time we’re just charging it at home on a cheap EV tarif / from the solar.

@Chersfrozenface

That meant it could make large investments in big infrastructure projects like EV charging

It’s very true that Norway is rich, but the UK is not poor. And we use that wealth to help import a huge amount of fossil fuels (including from Norway) to run our lives, since the easily obtained oil & gas in the North Sea is long gone, and we are spending £billions eking out what’s left, with zero chance of being self-sufficient.

Since we will be able to generate all our own electricity in that very same place in future, it makes economic sense for us to use EVs (in the long term) to reduce our balance of payments, and give the Norwegians less of our money.

The idea that we are somehow not rich enough to follow Norway’s adoption of EVs is just silly. It will just take a bit longer.

Of course they’re not. A petrol MINI. Perfect city car.

If i had the money, i'd have a small EV, like a Leaf or similar, range around 150 miles for local journeys and then keep the Octavia tdi for things like driving to Nottingham next weekend or the twice yearly trip to SW France.

The other thing people need to take on board is that for many people, even if a fast charger was fitted into every home and street, many people cannot afford any sort of EV, they struggle to run cheap run abouts costing around £1000 to 1500, kept running with a network of family/friends and mechanics working for cash in hand, i see it in my village regularly, one is a carer, she can only just make ends meet but eventually, we will run out of Citroen C1's that your dad can maintain.

1 in 5 UK adults have less than £100 in savings.

@Sunloungerhogger

we have done one very long journey in it so far (ie pretty much the length of England and Scotland), over a few days each way

Can I ask whether you did that before Tesla opened up much more of their network to the public? I think they were only testing some trial sites up until the end of summer last year, but that has made all the difference to us - not just because we use them a lot, but also that other networks have responded by cutting their prices (although most only when you pay a subscription). We have found Tesla chargers to be superbly reliable.

Having said that Scotland and Wales are still not well supplied with enough big charging hubs, even from Tesla, so I can imagine a trip like yours might be a challenge even now.

I agree with you in principle but the problem is the UK government isn't leading the way. It's ridiculous to put the onus of the change on the consumer which is what they seem to be doing (on the basis that if enough people drive them private business will supply the chargers). It doesn't work, if you want move people to have EVs, put in place the infrastructure that makes it feasible first. Not the other way around.

FWIW I do think they are the future and we will get there eventually, but I currently think it won't be a workable solution for many people for a very long time.

The UK Govt hasn't the money to spend on this sort of project, they cannot even fund a properly maintained road network... a better use of public money would be to reduce our reliance on cars, regardless of how they are powered.

Lower carbon footprint, less pollution, less road mtce, healthier lifestyles.

many people cannot afford any sort of EV

Yes, it often seems to be glossed over in these discussions that an ICE car costing sub 10k can reliably do these long distance journeys in relative comfort. The fact that an electric car that costs £45,000 plus can do the same journey with only a small amount of planning isn't going to be of much use to most.

Why not try a self charging hybrid? Toyota, Nissan etc have lots of choices. No need for a home charging point but you still save £ on petrol/diesel.

@Alexandra2001

they struggle to run cheap run abouts costing around £1000 to 1500

Believe me, as a person whose first car was an ancient £50 mini, and next was a 10 year old Ford Fiesta (which nevertheless made many Edinburgh-London trips), I have thought about exactly that.

EVs are only going to work for people if they are dramatically cheaper and those that can only buy secondhand are well served. So it’s at least a little encouraging to me several of my family and friends have bought secondhand ones, and the availability of better and better cars is improving as ex-company leased ones appear, and post 2000 generation ones become more affordable.

By 2030, I think there will be a good supply of 5-10 year old cars that will have ranges around 150-250 miles, and I’m positive that market will be improved with mandatory battery condition testing or something, to help ensure confidence.

And secondhand pure petrol/diesel vehicles will remain available until 2040 at least, since the 2030 mandate relates only to brand-new ones. So the availability of truly “old-banger” class EVs doesn’t need to be in place until around then. I suspect you’ll be able to pick up a 30 year old Mark 1 Leaf for the equivalent of a 1985 £50 note in 2040, and it’ll have a range waaay further than my first mini could manage (roughly 10 miles, at max 40mph, with oil and water both coming out the exhaust - green it was not)

That's the same argument though. Use your car less, but there's no decent public transport out of big cities, so how can people get places? The places with less car use tend to have far better public transport (and cycling) infrastructure. Again, requires investment.

I am not saying the UK gov has to spend the money for EVs, but I do think it's unfair to put the onus of the change on the consumer before the infrastructure is there.

@Automagical

an ICE car costing sub 10k can reliably do these long distance journeys in relative comfort

See my reply to @Alexandra2001 above. I don’t think it’s being glossed over, more that the whole process of adopting EVs is like the adoption of cars in the first place, which took decades. By the time the last £1,000 20 year-old ICE car is scrapped it will be almost 2050 by my calculation, assuming one can still find fuel for it.

My original Fiesta didn’t even have a radio, but I used to drive it long distances with no trouble, if not relative comfort.

The nearest thing I can compare your example to right now is DS and his girlfriend driving up to Aberdeen and back over a weekend in her secondhand EV that cost around £18,000 about a year ago (I think). But I can see you can pick up a 2023 Hyundai Kona like hers for £13,000 now (up to £23,000 for a low mileage one), so we’re really not that far away from sub-£10k in relative comfort territory.