So it’s going to work out cheaper to run petrol/diesel cars than it is electric

[RudsyFarmer]

My engineer DP predicted this exact scenario when he replaced our old petrol/diesel cars with newer petrol/diesel cars. Plus there is now a supply issue with batteries which is going to cause a huge issue down the line.

Honestly it’s a scandal that these new cars are hugely expensive. People have locked into lease/hire agreements that are costing a fortune per month and now running the bloody things are going to be exorbitant.

Our 2018 leaf is fully paid off, and we are selling it in 2 weeks as soon as we have had a fault on it fixed. We have replaced it with a much cheaper Dacia diesel (no emissions tax, good mpg, cheap to maintain).

I think if you have solar panels and are home enough during the day to charge for free, then an EV is still going to be a great car, but otherwise not the car to buy right now.

We will reassess the situation in a year or two, and might get a Kia Ceed EV.

I agree with a PP if there is so much energy available at night everyone should be able to make use of cheaper energy, not just those with electric cars.

Absolutely!

This could make a real difference for people who cannot afford to heat their homes during the day. The ability to have a few hours cheap heating overnight (for those whose heat is electrical) could boost the day temps in the home.

Plus washing and drying could happen during those times.

Ovens could be put in timers to cook meals that can be popped in the fridge in the morning and reheated later.

Everyone gets a discount on the 24/7 appliances during those hours.

This needs to be opened up to all. I hope it is.

@Treacletoots how many batteries are you going for? We've ordered two so just over 6kwh I know we can have 5 in the stack. We might go with Tesla for the next car so interested in how many to get. We will likely be selling energy in the day once the battery has charged.

😂😂 definitely.

@RudsyFarmer . How embarrassing. I'm an engineer too but know 100% that your DH is completely wrong. Maybe ask him to show his workings?

I've owned a BMW i3s for the last 4 years. It's a 33kWh model and I'm still on £0.05 between 00:30 and 04:30. It costs £1.65 to charge and has a range of about 120 miles. That works out at 1.38 pence/mile.

It's soon going up to £0.075 so more expensive but still only 2 pence/mile. A BMW 320d is very economical and does about 60mpg. That's about 14 pence/mile so 7 times more expensive to run (assuming £1.80/litre). It'd have to be doing 420mpg to be similar. Or electricity would need to be £0.53/kWh.

Octopus stopped offering their EV tariff some time ago

The EV tariff that BG are offering looked quite expensive, we are on an economy 7 tariff so would probably just use that. Public fast chargers are expensive.

Public fast chargers are expensive. Apart from the free ones.

@mafsfan sorry but you are wrong :

It has always been the same with electricity. The grid makes the same amount day and night, the amount it needs to mainly power peak times. It cannot regulate the amount made to only produce exactly what is needed at the time.

Power stations ARE switched in and out of the grid based on demand. There are no power stations just randomly generating power nobody wants.

EV charging is cheap now but wait till we are all forced to have EV, prices for charging will rise. We don't have enough power generation capacity if everyone in the uk switched over to electric cars. We would have to import more like we already do but would be subject to whatever the supplier wanted to charge the UK.

We looked at an electric car to tow our caravan, we were put off by the price and ability to charge on route to our destinations, with a caravan on the back we can't just nip off to any charger easily it has to be on route and easy to access, Caravan site is £9 a charge. A small EV for me is OK as I don't travel many miles and wouldn't have to use public charger.

Our local council announced this week they will start adding fees to the EV units which were free until now.

We don't have an EV car yet but I do foresee costs rising as more of them are on the road

It will end up just being something that people that drive fairly low mileage and can charge at home can use, we will probably get one for our second car it's not really affordable for larger families, the larger cars are very expensive, or those that travel long distances with no provision for home charger.

Our local council announced this week they will start adding fees to the EV units which were free until now.

The ones we use are nothing to do with the council.

I appreciate that. It was just an example of a provider of publicly available EV units.

The cost was previously being absorbed but usage (and cost?) has jumped so much they can't justify absorbing any more.

Who provides the ones you use? Someone has to be paying for it.

I use the one the supermarket, it's a pod point. Dh has free chargers at work.

Many electricity suppliers have closed their ev tariffs currently. I would love an ev but this spoils it

We have economy 7 and an economy 7 SMETS1 smart now dumb meter, do you need a special meter for an EV tariff like it seems you do for economy 7 as they are essentially the same thing.

Based on op user name I think maybe her dp is not technically an engineer, he just fixes the tractor when it stops by whacking it with a spanner and spraying wd40 on it.

Stop spouting nonsense

yes it will go up a bit but still we’ll be massively quids in

and We are getting our own solar system installed, once done the energy to power the car will cost us NOTHING

Have you looked into the environmental impact of making EV and batteries?

OP-Buying an EV. has been the best move economically for us, and even with the electricity price increase it’s still cost a fraction of what a petrol/diesel car would cost.
Someone unthread said that their current calculations for an EV would take 8 years to pay for itself so they have binned the idea, guess what ? That’s actually amazing as an ICE car will never pay for itself compared to an EV. so their reasoning is incorrect. Since when did anyone dream of their car paying for itself until now?! And if you have solar panels you would be charging for free on a sunny day like this summer.An EV is renewable energy ready as opposed to an ICE car which relies on one source of energy : fossil fuels.
Oil companies are getting more and more desperate, they are coming up with loads of rubbish to discredit EVs and renewable energy and your husband has fallen for the bait.
I appreciate EVs are still very expensive as they are cutting edge new technology so in time their price will eventually decrease.

But as the price of energy rises these will become chargeable. They are not free, nothing is, someone is paying for it.

We are getting our own solar system installed, once done the energy to power the car will cost us NOTHING

Again this is just not true. The outlay for solar system and batteries is significant so generating solar electricity has a cost to you which will take years to recoup.

Not to existing customers. I literally just switched to it.

EV is renewable energy the EV itself isn't renewable energy, the UK makes electricity by burning fossil fuels (43% in 2019) so plenty of the energy in EVs is from fossil fuels.

batteries require large amounts of raw materials, including lithium, nickel and cobalt – mining for which has climate, environmental and human rights impacts -they also threaten to leave a mountain of electronic waste as they reach the end of their lives. plus EVs are energy intensive to make.

We do need to move away from ICE, but EVs are not the magic bullet that solves all.

Have you looked into the environmental impact of what ICE Cars have been spouting from their tail ends? Then we breath it all in? And you’re happy with this?
unless you suggest we all walk or cycle, some of us need cars, EVs have a significantly less environmental impact on the planet than an internal combustion car.
Stop repeating the rubbish fossil fuel companies want you to believe.
They are spreading what is called FUD: “fear, uncertainty and doubt” around EVs to stop you buying EVs.

Vaccine I will take that as a no then.

EVs are not the answer, at least not until battery technology changes.