Electric Cars - Am I The Only One Having Reservations?

[MysticMeghan]

The news is full of stories about electric cars, how marvellous they are for the environment and how wonderful it's going to be when we all have them. But as someone of modest means, I can't help wondering if this is going to be something that is embraced by the wealthy and those of us who can't afford to shell out £30,000 for a new car are going to be left behind.

I know there is car leasing, but you have to be able to be loan worthy to qualify for that. If you are on UC or working a part time minimum wage and you NEED a car to get to work because you live in a rural area or work unsocial hours, what are you going to do? There's not going to be much of a market in 2nd hand electric vehicles, so buying an old banger for £500 (or cheaper) to get around isn't going to be an option anymore.

The other thing that occurred to me was charging. I live in a street of terraced houses where we fight to park outside our own house because there are no driveways. We all park on the same side of the street to let fire engines and buses get by. Even with occasional charging, there are still going to be electric cables trailing across pavements. What about people across the road? How do they charge from home? Trail their cable across the road? What about blind people or wheelchair users trying to get along pavements? The estate is just streets and streets of tightly packed houses built in the 1950s. There is simply nowhere to install public charging points even if we wanted to.

At my work, we have 250 spaces for about 500 staff. People who arrive late have to park on the street. We currently have about 8 electric charging points for which there is fierce competition and already loads of problems getting people to move mid morning so that others can get in and charge because there is simply nowhere for people who move their vehicles to actually go. I have no doubt our employer would pay to convert the entire car park, but it needs to be at least double to size to allow everyone to charge. We are on an industrial estate with lots of parking restrictions. I realise that the simple answer to this is public transport, but for me to get to work by public transport in time for a 6am start simply isn't going to happen because the buses and trains for those distances don't exist at that hour of the morning. I work in Edinburgh but live in a different region (county) because I just can't afford Edinburgh house prices.

DH works in a rural area where there is ONE public charging point shared between about 17 villages. He has to commute further than the the range of a current electric vehicle and he uses tools and is an only able to work during daylight hours, so parking miles away and walking a cement mixer up the street just isn't practical. Assuming technology could improve to the extent that the range of vehicles could be increased and he could find on street charging near to where he is working, there's still going to be large sections of the day when he is likely to be hanging around waiting to charge a vehicle where he isn't actually earning.

The government are actually REMOVING the subsidy for purchasing electric vehicles in March so there doesn't seem to be much joined up thinking going on. And whilst I'm sure that electric vehicles are going to be a real boon in cities, I can't help thinking that in rural areas, where people NEED cars and there isn't even a proper mobile phone network or even mains gas in some places, people are really going to struggle. Where DH works the area earns most of its revenue from tourism, with people driving considerable distances but then just mainly staying for the day. Are they REALLY going to put in 40/50 charging points in a remote fishing village? Or will people have to beg the use of someone's private supply so they can drive home?

I recently read an article where an electric car user admitted that driving to visit his in-laws in Norfolk was quite inconvenient because he had to stop and charge about 5 times (and no doubt stay overnight somewhere as well). But he said as he only does that once a year he can live with it. What if you have to drive considerable distances every day or every week to look after sick relatives? There is this assumption that everyone lives identical lives with at most a 15 mile commute. That nobody really drives long distances very often. That's not my reality at all.

I know by the time all this happens, cars will have a better range and need less charging, but whereas you can easily integrate electric cars into a fairly modern country like Norway, this is Britain with our creaking Victorian and post war infrastructure and short of turning the country into one huge car park how is this going to work? Even in Norway they had problems. Affluent city dwellers with great public transport links embraced the changes. The rural poor have had to radically re-think their lifestyles, with less opportunity to travel, work and socialise they are more or less stuck in areas with very few facilities.

Please tell me there is someone else out there who thinks this 2035 ban is just a load of swank and the government are going to have to massively back track as the deadline gets closer?

PS If you are a Hybrid user I bet you are mad already!

We already produce enough electricity to support a nation of electric vehicles. The problem arises if they all want to charge at the same time. However, if car charging can be done intelligently the additional capacity needed is only 20MW - about 7 wind turbines or a fraction of the output from a single power station. If it isn't intelligent the additional capacity would be around 20GW - more significant but still not a huge amount of power.

Batteries are massively outperforming public predictions of their life. Experience to date with electric cars suggests that the battery will last longer than an average petrol or diesel car. Some new cars come with an 8 year warranty for unlimited mileage on the battery. Someone doing a high mileage can probably get 200,000 miles out of a battery.

If a battery does need replacement it currently costs £5000+, although it is cheaper if you go for a refurbished battery. However, a cheaper option may be to recondition the original battery. That costs around £1500.

Interestingly, in the UK around 800,000 drivers per year break down because they run out of fuel when driving cars with petrol or diesel engines.

Obviously it would be great if solar panels could advance enough that a car roof/bonnet of them would contribute in a significant way to charging the battery. I have no idea if that is possible in the next few years though.

I realise that the simple answer to this is public transport, but for me to get to work by public transport in time for a 6am start simply isn't going to happen because the buses and trains for those distances don't exist at that hour of the morning

There will have to be real joined up public transport. Successive governments have purposefully destroyed public transport over the past 60 years or so, creating what is already a two tier society with non drivers pretty much fucked.
Never mind HS2, people want to get from home to work, then from work to shops and visiting elderly relatives etc. Where I live you just can't function properly without a car and it's so wrong.

I think the need for off-street parking is being overstated here. We've had a fully electric car for a year and have never charged it at home.

I think the need for off-street parking is being overstated here. We've had a fully electric car for a year and have never charged it at home

I know a lot of people charge at work or when they go shopping, but what if you are retired or disabled or a SAHM or work from home? Plenty of those in our street. In fact quite a lot of people in our street don't work at all for various reasons.

We don’t produce enough electric. We already have to import electricity from France and Holland

We import electricity for the same reason as we couldn't cope with everyone charging their cars at once. We have more than enough generating capacity in the UK to meet our total power consumption if it was spread evenly over time but we don't have enough to meet peak demands. We are currently able to generate around 85GW if all power stations run at full capacity. Our average demand is around 37GW, although peak demand is much higher.

Coal fired power stations only contribute around 5% of our electricity and that proportion is falling steadily. We are getting more and more days where the mainland grid burns no coal at all.

We currently have 8 nuclear power stations in the UK with a net capacity of 8.7MW. Hinkley Point C will have a net output of 3.2MW, so will replace nearly half the existing nuclear power stations on its own. Construction on Sizewell C is expected to start next year. That will also have a net output of 3.2MW. Bradwell B is also expected to be in operation by 2030 producing a further 2.3MW.

A few years ago there was certainly considerable worry about the prospect of an energy gap in the UK. Falling demand due to more efficient light bulbs and appliances coupled with a fall in industrial demand means that concern about a forthcoming energy gap has largely gone away. Of course, that could change.

Falling demand due to more efficient light bulbs and appliances coupled with a fall in industrial demand

as long as that industrial demand doesn't rise again. Aren't we planning on becoming the worlds workshop or something ?

Alternatively I guess we could completely eliminate industrial demand and then there would be plenty of electricity to go around. I might even see if I can start a Tesla protest group and start picketing steelworks. If we can find any in range that is.

i think this is a very new technology and there are going to be enormous leaps in the next few years see APC for example

Behaviours will change, context changes, as new cars become available.

My car does 20- 30 miles per charge. That does all my usual day to day journeys and I charge at home. I only use petrol when I do a longer trip on the motorway, but it's there as a back up all the time.

Other people have cars that go a lot further on each charge and use the high powered/speed chargers and never charge at home.

People will choose a set up that works for them- some people will use autonomous cars as taxis, some will use hybrids, others fast charging EVs.

It will happen as it needs to.

I agree OP,
but two points you don't raise are

1. where is all this electricity goin to come from? It won't all come from clean air/renewable sources. There aren't enough.
2. the biggest polluters on our roads are trucks. Electric trucks are a whole different ball game in terms of the size of batteries required and the frequecny of charging. There aren't any commercial electric HGV out there at the moment (although there are ones in development stages)

I can't see it. I look at tightly packed cities, with terraces, flats and on street parking, and I just cannot see how all those places are going to manage access to charging points.

Remember when they put in cable tv? Years and years to get around to every house, every single pavement dug up to put the cables in.

I regularly drive to London (suburbs) that is a round trip of 200 miles. I woudl be ok as long as there were no hold ups on the M4 or M25.....

Couldn't go and visit my brother. I regularly drive for work to a place 70 miles away, so 140 round trip.

and for holiday we drive to south of France, 16 hour trip.

Many people do these types pf journeys, so the cars need to be able to comfortably do that distance.

Remember when they put in cable tv? Years and years to get around to every house, every single pavement dug up to put the cables in.

Not just that. New builds (when laying a cable was trivial) having to wait 5 years before being cabled in the 90s. Which mandated digging the road up. BTs profits being more important that the environment. Or so the reply I got from the DoE said.

(Just in case people wonder where I get my deep cynicism from ...)

a pp said 20-30 miles per charge!!!

That is rubbish and would be totally unworkable for my daily life.
But I know that the new cars can do 250 miles. And that the super fats chargers can take the car from nearly 0 to 80% in 20 minutes, so if all service stations had them, then you could charge in the time it takes to stop for a coffee.

Sorry, but the idea that we will spread our charging out over the day is a bit ridiculous. The vast majority will plug in to charge over night for convenience.

Steppemum, that's a hybrid, and it does my regular commute so most weeks I use no petrol. Suits me brilliantly, a tank last about 4 months.

A friend has a Tesla and drives across the continent regularly.

Two different lifestyles, two different cars,

@Steppemum I may be mistaken but I think the PP you refer to has a PHEV- so both electric and ICE. So her car runs 30 miles electric and then swaps to liquid fuel. The theory being that you can do all your local journeys electric but have a back up for long journeys.

I don’t have a phev but a pure electric so can’t comment personally. I think the concern with phev is it requires the user to remember to top up on electric, the ‘risk’ is that they forget etc and therefore all the journeys are done on the ICE and so no better than traditional cars. However, obviously not a concern if the user charges regularly.

The city I live in, in Canada, has a population of roughly 80,000. The closest city is 430km away. There is nothing inbetween except forest and farmland apart from a couple of small hamlets. The next gas station after leaving town is 250km.

Everything comes by road or air. There are communities north of us that can only the accessed by air in summer as the ground is too wet to build roads. There is an ice road in winter.

There might be a few hybrids here but no totally electric vehicles.

The Teslas already have a huge mileage. I drive a lot, but still stop every 2.5-3hrs anyway as need toilet/coffee/walk before continuing journey. With 15 mins charge currently 80% of battery its plenty and not inconvenient.

Soon all-electric cars will take 10-15 mins to fully charge. Regardless of who you are thats not an inconvenient time to wait. It takes that long to quickly pop into tescos, or pick up a prescription when the car can charge if not convenient at home.

Soon all-electric cars will take 10-15 mins to fully charge.

Not on our grid they won't. That's a stupid amount of energy to be drawn in a ridiculously short space of time.

The new Tesla model Y for example has a 505km range. That is surely plenty for everyone. Nobody is driving more than 300km without need to stop for a break for safety reasons for at least 20 mins.

The new Tesla model Y for example has a 505km range

with heater(s) and headlights ?

This just isn’t realistic in the U.K. even in cities public transport is often unsuitable for daily reliance and being able to park both cars on your own property is still not a given. Unless they really invest in ensuring that the vast majority of parking spots have charging points and decongesting roads/increasing speed limits etc to reduce journey times it will never work. Offering generous tax breaks to companies that have >50% telecommuting rate would be way more effective in regards to reducing emissions.

Shell is opening the first electronic car station and I can see fast chargers happening across the entire network by 2035.

Seriously though, I think we will see car ownership as a niche attraction in the cities in the next 30 years. Car rental clubs, better bus services and more walking and cycling will suffice for urban areas. I can see petrol or hybrid technology taking over in the countryside.

To give you one example: video streaming. Physical DVDs are no longer the de facto choice for most people due to convenience. The same will happen with cars. Why the hell would you own something that costs thousands upfront and you only use for 15% of your day? I did not bother with a car in London as the transport was good enough not to need it. We must do the same for the rest of the UK.

Offering generous tax breaks to companies that have >50% telecommuting rate would be way more effective in regards to reducing emissions.

Only if you are serious about it.

Why the hell would you own something that costs thousands upfront and you only use for 15% of your day?

Especially if for that 85% you aren't using it, you can "do an Uber" and let it roam the streets as an autonomous taxi, earning you money. After all there are people who have bought properties specifically to let out via AirBnB.

Incidentally 15% of 24 is 3.6 hours. Which is a long time to spend in a car. It gets a bit better if we assume an 8 hour sleep, making 15% of 16 2.4 hours. But still a long time to be doing nothing but driving. Although it does neatly underscore the lunacy of the UKs commuter culture.

We have a fully electric car. We charge at home overnight. Our tariff is cheaper at night so charge between 12 and 5. Really don’t want or need to charge at work. I have a 40 min commute. It’s fine. If dh has to go to London occasionally he just has to plan his route. It’s has already improved since we bought it. You just need charge points off motorway junctions and where petrol stations are. Charging is getting faster. It’s fine. It really is the future.