What's the problem with electric cars?

[GMcL]

Some things in that video not ringing true. He's obviously financed the car, if it's a PCP he will have a guaranteed future value. Just hand it back at the end and if it is worth less than that number expect the manufacturer to go over it with a fine toothed comb and bill him for every defect they can find. That is not unique to one brand.

He wants a 911, they are not that rare a car, he will find one he wants when the time comes. If he wants to jump now and cannot wait then he will have to take the hit just like anyone. This is not unique to EVs. Taking another car on a 100%+ finance package is a mugs game. It's a depreciating asset. The cheapest car you can run is the one you own outright.

Edit: ...and do not change them every five minutes. As I've written before PCP gets you into a car you may not otherwise be able to afford and it locks you in to the steepest part of the depreciation curve.

[The Thong]

That’s still a serious amount of depreciation though. A Polestar Fast Back with 33k on it was fetching £26k at three years old. That’s a craxy amount to lose on a motor. But…. I reckon EV’s are being hammered by all the bad press and the insufficient infrastructure that’s available currently. On the other side if the stick though, it’s a good time to buy a well kitted out EV if you have a place to charge it. Grab em while they’re cheap.

TT

[Whippy]

Figures I've seen are 26% depreciation in year one with 60% in three years. But I've also seen reports that the motor trade simply isn't interested in buying in s/h EVs. Anyway his journey down sounded lots of fun.

[The Thong]

The government haven’t so much encouraged us to go electric as rammed it down our throats. They’ve used it as a way to wave their green credentials without really appreciating the bigger picture. We want you to drive electric cars but not the affordable Chinese ones…. They’ll steal your data. These cars are expensive and now in a time of struggling households, where do they think people are going to find the money for these expensive cars. A rethink is required and a more linear approach that’s going to see not only charging infrastructure but repair infrastructure too. We’re trying to be “green and kind to the planet” by building disposable cars that nobody wants. The issue in my mind is we’re rushing tech out to market that’s not ready yet by sprinkling it with glitter and blue sky promises. This approach has a shelf life of less than five minutes before people realise they’ve caught an expensive cold. Electric cars have a future, just not yet.

TT

[GMcL]

I can understand where you're coming from. I think EVs have a place. If you don't venture more than 150 miles from home on a regular basis and can charge at home they work.
If you buy a car and keep it for 7+ years they work.

Buying a new car every three years will not save the planet regardless of what is propelling it.

People will say yes, but you'll need a new battery every 8 years. I'm four years into that experiment so we'll see. If I don't then I have a fiver figure self insurance pot in reserve if I'm wrong and need a new battery at least I'll know and be able to share the details. There are Tesla model S cars with over 500,000kms for sale so they can't all be bad.

Petrol and diesel cars initially came with a twelve month warranty that was extended to 3 years. It didn't mean the gearbox and engine would explode after four years rendering the car worthless.

For some people EVs work, for some it's diesel, for some it's petrol. You buy what you can afford and that includes running costs. If you lease or PCP a car and want to give it back before you're half way through the contract you will get burned regardless. The early adopters are coming to the end of their finance contracts and the second wave aren't ready which is why we now have a backlog of used cars. Rather than take another car at a higher loan rate we just bought our car with the aim of running it until it's done. I bought my S60 at two years old with the same aim.

[The Thong]

It’s getting those battery packs repaired for a decent price that man on the street can afford. The trick is making EV’s as accessible as an ICE motor. Again, infrastructure that gunna need developing so there will be an EV repairer near you do to speak. How anyone in the government ever thought this was just going to happen over night is beyond me. I think postponement of the EV only deadline was a good move no matter what the environmentalists say was a good sensible move. I hate this bee in the bonnet approach the government takes every time they have a new fangled idea it’s all enthusiastic hands to the pump without much thought the finer details that could make of break it.
This means retraining costs for current vehicle mechanics and techs. Then there’s the diagnostic equipment and so on. It’s a big step that not just going to happen overnight.
The manufacturers have gotta rush product to market with a certain element of fingers crossed and hope for the best with this new tech, it’s madness really.

TT

[Kev0607]

Originally Posted by The Thong

The government haven’t so much encouraged us to go electric as rammed it down our throats. They’ve used it as a way to wave their green credentials without really appreciating the bigger picture. We want you to drive electric cars but not the affordable Chinese ones…. They’ll steal your data. These cars are expensive and now in a time of struggling households, where do they think people are going to find the money for these expensive cars. A rethink is required and a more linear approach that’s going to see not only charging infrastructure but repair infrastructure too. We’re trying to be “green and kind to the planet” by building disposable cars that nobody wants. The issue in my mind is we’re rushing tech out to market that’s not ready yet by sprinkling it with glitter and blue sky promises. This approach has a shelf life of less than five minutes before people realise they’ve caught an expensive cold. Electric cars have a future, just not yet.

TT

Originally Posted by GMcL

I can understand where you're coming from. I think EVs have a place. If you don't venture more than 150 miles from home on a regular basis and can charge at home they work.
If you buy a car and keep it for 7+ years they work.

Buying a new car every three years will not save the planet regardless of what is propelling it.

People will say yes, but you'll need a new battery every 8 years. I'm four years into that experiment so we'll see. If I don't then I have a fiver figure self insurance pot in reserve if I'm wrong and need a new battery at least I'll know and be able to share the details. There are Tesla model S cars with over 500,000kms for sale so they can't all be bad.

Petrol and diesel cars initially came with a twelve month warranty that was extended to 3 years. It didn't mean the gearbox and engine would explode after four years rendering the car worthless.

For some people EVs work, for some it's diesel, for some it's petrol. You buy what you can afford and that includes running costs. If you lease or PCP a car and want to give it back before you're half way through the contract you will get burned regardless. The early adopters are coming to the end of their finance contracts and the second wave aren't ready which is why we now have a backlog of used cars. Rather than take another car at a higher loan rate we just bought our car with the aim of running it until it's done. I bought my S60 at two years old with the same aim.

Originally Posted by The Thong

It’s getting those battery packs repaired for a decent price that man on the street can afford. The trick is making EV’s as accessible as an ICE motor. Again, infrastructure that gunna need developing so there will be an EV repairer near you do to speak. How anyone in the government ever thought this was just going to happen over night is beyond me. I think postponement of the EV only deadline was a good move no matter what the environmentalists say was a good sensible move. I hate this bee in the bonnet approach the government takes every time they have a new fangled idea it’s all enthusiastic hands to the pump without much thought the finer details that could make of break it.
This means retraining costs for current vehicle mechanics and techs. Then there’s the diagnostic equipment and so on. It’s a big step that not just going to happen overnight.
The manufacturers have gotta rush product to market with a certain element of fingers crossed and hope for the best with this new tech, it’s madness really.

TT

They want it both ways I think. They want cleaner cars on the road, but are keeping it on a back burner. I strongly suspect the push hasn't been made because they've just figured (after over 10 years) that the fuel duty collected is going to plummet, hence why EV's pay road tax as of next year. The gravy train has emptied and its reaching the station. However, the road tax from EV's isn't going to fill the void lost in fuel duty, which leads me to my next point...

I think the push to EV's will come, not yet, but it will. Manufacturer's are already stopping the production (and therefore sales) of new ICE cars, well before the 2035 deadline set by the Government (which we know was originally 2030). I don't think that's through choice, there's talks behind the scenes. The manufacturer's haven't decided to stop selling their bread and butter vehicles just for the sake of it... the "push" is happening already in a sense, just not in a huge way.

My prediction is ICE cars will be taxed heavily in the future, to the point where it makes little sense to own an ICE car or fuel will go up vastly, to cover the shortfall in lost revenue from fuel duty because EV's will be much more popular. By the time that comes around, EV tech will have improved and so will range. I don't see the day when ICE cars will be completely off the roads, but I think EV's are getting a lot more popular than people may think.

With regards to battery repairs or swaps... there's companies that do it, but its very expensive at the moment. I think in time as EV's begin to become more of a norm on the roads, we may see more companies doing these kind of repairs. There's going to have to be somewhere to go, apart from the dealership!

Batteries do degrade over time, but a lot of early battery degradation is caused by poor charging and poor battery cooling (the latter being a manufacturing issue/tech at the time those cars were made). The worst thing you can do is keep charging an EV just for the sake of it, even when you don't need it to have full range. Yes there's cases where there's technical faults and a battery needs replacing under warranty, but a battery that's properly charged should last well past the warranty. Newer EV's are overcoming the cooling issues that early EV's had. Range is also improving now, nevermind years down the line.

Infrastructure is a huge problem as we all know. I can't understand why those in power didn't realise this either. Its the same as pushing people to drive petrol or diesel cars with no fuel stations to fill them up! Totally bizarre.

[GMcL]

Originally Posted by Kev0607

My prediction is ICE cars will be taxed heavily in the future, to the point where it makes little sense to own an ICE car. by the time that comes around, EV tech will have improved and so will range. I don't see the day when ICE cars will be completely off the roads, but I think EV's are getting a lot more popular than people may think.

That is already starting where I live. EVs will be road funding free until the end of 2030. Over the Easter weekend the Super+ petrol my car uses has gone from 1.849€/l to 2.039 this morning, at one point over the weekend it was nudging 2.20€/l. I don't see that coming down again.

Originally Posted by Kev0607

Batteries do degrade over time, but a lot of early battery degradation is caused by poor charging. The worst thing you can do is keep charging an EV just for the sake of it, even when you don't need it to have full range. Yes there's cases where there's technical faults and a battery needs replacing under warranty, but a battery that's properly charged should last well past the warranty.

Charging every day is excessive, you charge your mobile phone when it needs it rather than plugging in because there is a plug, same with the car. Charge it when it needs it.

Originally Posted by Kev0607

Infrastructure is a huge problem as we all know. I can't understand why those in power didn't realise this either. Its the same as pushing people to drive petrol or diesel cars with no fuel stations to fill them up! Totally bizarre.

How many politicians drive EVs ? Alegra Stratton said, in 2021, "I don't fancy it just yet" - that was the more blunt reply from the prime minister's climate spokesperson Allegra Stratton, when asked if she owned an electric vehicle.

Speaking to Times Radio, she explained that her parents lived more than 200 miles away and she worried "having to stop the vehicle to charge it would slow the journey down".

That storm blew over – until the BBC asked Alok Sharma, the minister in charge of leading the COP26 climate change conference in Glasgow, what he drove. Yep, you guessed it: a diesel, a decision he reassured was acceptable because “I don’t drive it very much”, rather undermining why you’d buy one (pricier up front, cheaper to run).

Source: https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/b...eading-example

Trying to find updated numbers is not easy...Hmm

[Kev0607]

Originally Posted by GMcL

That is already starting where I live. EVs will be road funding free until the end of 2030. Over the Easter weekend the Super+ petrol my car uses has gone from 1.849€/l to 2.039 this morning, at one point over the weekend it was nudging 2.20€/l. I don't see that coming down again.



Charging every day is excessive, you charge your mobile phone when it needs it rather than plugging in because there is a plug, same with the car. Charge it when it needs it.

Exactly, but people don't do that and then complain why the battery has degraded so much in their EV.

How many politicians drive EVs ? Alegra Stratton said, in 2021, "I don't fancy it just yet" - that was the more blunt reply from the prime minister's climate spokesperson Allegra Stratton, when asked if she owned an electric vehicle.

Speaking to Times Radio, she explained that her parents lived more than 200 miles away and she worried "having to stop the vehicle to charge it would slow the journey down".

That storm blew over – until the BBC asked Alok Sharma, the minister in charge of leading the COP26 climate change conference in Glasgow, what he drove. Yep, you guessed it: a diesel, a decision he reassured was acceptable because “I don’t drive it very much”, rather undermining why you’d buy one (pricier up front, cheaper to run).

Source: https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/b...eading-example

Trying to find updated numbers is not easy...Hmm

There's no doubt that a longer journey may take more time in an EV, naturally due to having to charge it (if it doesn't have a 200 mile range). Considering most people would stop for a toilet break or a beverage of some sort on a 200 mile journey, its not that much of an inconvenience then (combine the stop with a charge), but you have to charge it to get back. If there's no rapid chargers available and working at your destination, you're in trouble. It does seem a bit of a faff to me, but rapid chargers can get you back to 80% in around 30 minutes. Finding one that works is the problem.

I don't think EV's work for long journeys being honest... Certainly not the ones with low range. If you need a longer range EV, then its a Tesla or something like that. If you can't afford a Tesla, then its an ICE car or alternative transport like a train.

EV's don't suit everyone... It depends on the mileage you do. That's why many EV owners have second cars. If they need to do a longer journey, then the EV stays at home. When they do shorter journeys, the ICE car stays parked up.

[The Thong]

I think there’s been a lot of keeping the proverbial turds under the waterline to keep the agenda going. We don’t like negativity, just keep smiling and hopefully it’ll go away. Not the greatest method by far but it’s the way our government roll. It just proves how much they don’t understand the electorate and the way to get everyone on side. Buzz words and phrases are not cutting the mustard anymore as everyone is sick to the teeth of hollow promises.
I’ll be sticking with hybrid for now until this lot is sorted. I like the EV idea and they’re a nice drive from what I’ve tried so far but I don’t want to get lumbered yet with some thing that could potentially drain the Bank of Thong. The battery pack on my Crosstrek is warranted for 8yrs or 80k but I’m not planning on putting it to the test either so I’ll be changing my motor in circa 3yrs while its repairs are still the dealers problem.

I still like that EX30 though

TT