We'd like to hear your thoughts on cars - vouchers to be won

[JustineBMumsnet]

We’d like to hear your thoughts and purchase behaviour surrounding cars.

This survey is open to all UK Mumnset users who have a car in their household or would consider getting a car in the future.

Click here to complete the survey.

All who complete the survey will receive an entry into our monthly prize draw where 3 Mumsnet users will win a £150 voucher for the store of their choice (from a list).

Thanks and good luck!
MNHQ

Standard Insight Terms and Conditions apply

Done. My last car cost three grand and we holiday 200+ miles away, so no danger of us buying an electric car any time soon.

We’ve just got a 1.2 engine petrol so a small one, we change our cars every 3 years or so and I still can’t see electric being cheap enough to afford a decent one by that point. Also I live rurally, need my car for my job in community nursing and I have no drive way. Charging infrastructure would need to come on leaps and bounds, I actually enquired with my HA to see if there were shy grants available for help towards to cost of a driveway to help with charging an electric car since that’s the way things are going and was told no they don’t offer anything for drivers or chargers so it’s obviously not a priority

Done.

Done.

No retired people on mumsnet it appears! Thanks mumsnet.

@JustineBMumsnet

We’d like to hear your thoughts and purchase behaviour surrounding cars.

This survey is open to all UK Mumnset users who have a car in their household or would consider getting a car in the future.

Click here to complete the survey.

All who complete the survey will receive an entry into our monthly prize draw where 3 Mumsnet users will win a £150 voucher for the store of their choice (from a list).

Thanks and good luck!
MNHQ

Standard Insight Terms and Conditions apply

Done

Find out as much as possible.

@minimecantrollerskate

I bought a 4 year old car last year after 9 years of my old one. This car will hopefully last me a similar length of time.

I will only buy electric when forced into it and when charging stations are the norm in every single parking space and street. We live in a rural area so its a 40 mile round trip to get anywhere.

Do you have off street parking? If you're rural I would imagine it's very likely.

Any electric car can easily handle a 40 mile round trip. So you could install a charging point at home and rarely need to charge anywhere else. All your day to day driving could be covered by charging overnight, and you can get special EV electricity tariffs to give you cheap rates overnight so you'll save a fortune on fuel.

It's more convenient too, you can be fully charged every morning, instead of having to detour and queue at a petrol station.

Done.

I was surprised it didn't ask about brand of current car but I guess that wasn't really the point.

Also the research/decision-making question was interesting, all the answer options seemed to be based on the assumption that the person doing the research is usually the person making the decision - there was no option for "i do all the research and then it's a joint decision" or - worse - "I do the research and my partner decides" (or vice versa)

Also "daily commute" is not actually daily for many people who work part-time and/or do some or all of their work from home. I drive to work sometimes but not every day.

When were Saabs last for sale?

Done

Done! I have no interest at all in electric cars, and think all the focus on them is premature given how bad the range and charging infrastructure is. But the survey definitely feels weighted towards them and questions worded to promote them?

Done ✅

Done, but this survey seemed designed to confirm a hypothesis rather than find out what makes Mumsnet carbuyers tick. No reference to hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.

We used to have a fairly lively Car Forum here as well, where people could discuss matters like this and it attracted a few from the industry. It got moved into Shopping a few months ago and that killed it dead.

The survey is poorly designed because it assumes that people automatically look to have cars and upgrade them. We need vastly better public transport for the majority of us. If all the current petrol and diesel cars were replaced with electric, we would still be fucked due to the carbon footprint of manufacturing them and mining the rare elements needed for the batteries.

" If all the current petrol and diesel cars were replaced with electric, we would still be fucked due to the carbon footprint of manufacturing them and mining the rare elements needed for the batteries."

Yep. This wasn't mentioned or included in the list of possible reasons not to buy an electric or hybrid car.

No questions about how much we use our car compared to other modes of transport, whether we own or would consider buying a bike or electric bike, for example.

If all the current petrol and diesel cars were replaced with electric ones, we'd be fucked by the uselessness of the National Grid and in particular local distribution networks. I couldn't install one linear accelerator in a cancer treatment centre because the local grid couldn't handle it. I read a year or so ago that one of the delivery companies trialled a fleet of electric vans and plunged their district in East London into darkness every evening when they all came back to base for a recharge.

We'd also need dozens of extra nuclear reactors (of the type we've spent 40 years NOT building) to have any chance of the carbon-free baseload generation capacity needed. Otherwise, we'd just move the pollution from 30 million tailpipes to a couple of dozen fossil fuel plants and in climate change terms be no better off.