Electric cars

[Jazzik]

Never heard of them, must be Chinese

Now you HAVE heard of them ... and what do you think?

Yes... Chinese.
Like my German Braun shaver and Japanese Panasonic beard trimmer: Made in China... Our Japanese Sony TV: guess what...
By the way: "American" Tesla has started to purchase Chinese BYD's blade batteries which should be a vote of confidence...
Go through your home, check all kinds of devices (including your Swedish CTEK charger, yes, that one too, like Swedish Volvos...). Read the fine print and where you read Made in China or Assembled in China: Throw it out!
I'm afraid there won't be much left at home...

[ColinS]

Never heard of them, must be Chinese

Now you HAVE heard of them ... and what do you think?

Yes... Chinese.
Like my German Braun shaver and Japanese Panasonic beard trimmer: Made in China... Our Japanese Sony TV: guess what...
Go through your home, check all kinds of devices (including your Swedish CTEK charger, yes, that one too, like Swedish Volvos...). Read the fine print and where you read Made in China or Assembled in China: Throw it out!
I'm afraid there won't be much left at home...

Yes, what a sad and sorry state our greed has led the world to become.  My next car will likely be a Renault Austral, but even that is built in Spain.

[Jazzik]

I think the word is "globalization", although... in the case of the Renault Austral it is better to use "neighbourhood help".
By the way, that Renault is much more expensive and larger than a fully electric Dolphin. More space in the boot but (much) less space for rear seat passengers. And then you have a 3-cylinder turbo hybrid...
I think in about 3 or 4 years I won't even think about an ICE anymore...

[peteo48]

I think the word is "globalization", although... in the case of the Renault Austral it is better to use "neighbourhood help".
By the way, that Renault is much more expensive and larger than a fully electric Dolphin. More space in the boot but (much) less space for rear seat passengers. And then you have a 3-cylinder turbo hybrid...
I think in about 3 or 4 years I won't even think about an ICE anymore...

I think that is definitely the way things are going. I have been astonished at the increase in EVs in our neighbourhood and a significant numbers of other vehicles are hybrids. Teslas are so so common where I live which is not a particularly affluent area. I was chatting to a chap near to where we live the other day who had a new Hyundai Ionic EV in his drive. He loves it even though he told me he didn't believe in all "the net zero crap" as he called it. He just felt it was the way things were going - he needed a new car so went EV. Does about 120 miles a week so only charges up every 10 days or so. Not only that, we had our first courier delivery in an Electric van yesterday.

Yes problems remain and, in the UK, the public charging network is worse now than ever because new EV take up is outpacing the roll out of public chargers.

For me, anyway, the game is up. Yes you'll technically be able to buy a new ICE until 2035 but you might find them pretty hard to come by. The car industry has woken up, smelled the coffee and moved on. They didn't want the delay until 2035 - they are heavily invested in EVs.

[madasafish]

Great buying a new EV if you have spare money.
If living in a house rewired with modern electrics but before roughly 1985-90, then a home charging point probably means a new control box with a a main fuse upgrade  to 100Amps and some/lots of wiring.

So no change form £1,000 plus. Before you buy /lease the car.

Buying any new car to do less than 5k miles per year is unbelievable extravagance /planet despoiling to a mean Scot like me. Buying an EV - with its extra costs is even worse.

[peteo48]

Buying any new car to do less than 5k miles per year is unbelievable extravagance /planet despoiling to a mean Scot like me. Buying an EV - with its extra costs is even worse.

I did buy a new car and I do less than 5,000 miles a year. I can, however, see where you are coming from on this in that I could buy a lot of taxi fares with the money I have laid out to by my current car. If I had a rational head on when making these purchase decisions, then a 5 year old Jazz (or similar) is all I really need and such a car would do me for 5 years or more.

[Kremmen]

For decades I've bought a new car every 3 years

Then when I retired and not doing the mileage I hung onto my 2013 9G Civic. The main reason was because the 2016 Civic was being posted as having a disaster of a headunit that kept crashing and resetting all to factory when it randomly rebooted. Honda eventually fixed it but by that time the 10G Civic was out and it was too big for my needs

I looked at the MK3 Jazz but the 1.3 CVT did nothing for me so I hung onto the Civic

Then the MK4 Jazz came along and with my Civic approaching 10 years it was time to p/x

This will be my last car and I expect to sell it before the 5 years is up

[Jazzik]

Buying any new car to do less than 5k miles per year is unbelievable extravagance /planet despoiling to a mean Scot like me. Buying an EV - with its extra costs is even worse.

We drive just over 5k miles per year, about 10k km, 6250 miles on average.
At first glance I would say you are right, but: we sold our previous car, a Yaris Hybrid, after 4 years. That does not mean that it has ended up on the scrap heap, but that car will continue its life with a new owner and perhaps make a few more owners happy. Until it is the end of its life.
It is entirely possible that things will be more or less the same with the Jazz.
We are very aware that we normally have a higher depreciation per year than if we continued to drive the same car for a longer period of time.
Although... when I see how much we got for our 4 year old Yaris...

[Marco1979]

I also think EV’s are not that great because of this:
You can put an 80 kWh battery in an SUV type car. That would save maybe 10 liters of fuel per 100 km, but it would need additional electric energy. You could instead divide it into 100 Jazz type 0.8 kWh batteries and save about 1 to 1,5 liters of fuel every 100 km per car without additional electric power involved. So would you prefer to spare 10 or 150 liters, considering that earth’s rare metals are only available in a limited way?
By buying a hybrid, more resources are there to use by others 

[Jazzik]

...considering that earth’s rare metals are only available in a limited way?
By buying a hybrid, more resources are there to use by others 

The example I used, the BYD Dolphin (and other BYD models) use(s) LFP (lithium-iron-phosphate) batteries, scrapping NCM (nickel, cobalt, manganese) technology from its model line-up entirely.
Tesla is now starting to use the same BYD batteries....

[madasafish]

Just watch EV insurance costs .. rocket trajectory.

[Lincolnshire Rambler]

Before we can look at millions of EVs in the UK we need enough generating capacity to deliver that power requirement . The new nuclear builds are going to be a decade away from producing . Wind growth has stalled at the moment with a postponed new offshore  development costing more to operate and build than the revenue income provides . Siemens making European wind turbines has lost €5 billion + in doing so and lots of developing failures in service .National grid needs expanding to be able to transmit efficiently. So building the actual chargers is a minor detail in tbe scheme of things . Our base load generation is from gas and it will take a few decades to replace by wind never mind how you store electricity when the wind doesn’t or at night when solar doesn’t . Drax power emits more CO2 per MW of power  burning wood pellets than does ratcliffe power station using coal .. already some energy networks are telling councils not to insist on putting an EV charger in every new build as they can’t provide the power to new estates of several hundreds of homes . Oh yes and that’s not considering millions of electric heat pumps instead of fuel boilers in current and new build homes .

[John Ratsey]

Before we can look at millions of EVs in the UK we need enough generating capacity to deliver that power requirement . The new nuclear builds are going to be a decade away from producing . Wind growth has stalled at the moment with a postponed new offshore  development costing more to operate and build than the revenue income provides.

A fleet of small modular reactors near demand centres would make a big difference by producing power close to the consumers and there's potential to use waste heat for district heating schemes. The NIMBYs, however, will fight such proposals.

[Westy36]

A fleet of small modular reactors near demand centres would make a big difference

Nuclear is without question the wrong solution to the issue. The costs involved at the end of a plants life are astronomical. Factor in the waste issue? Not an option at all. And this is where EV's struggle with their environmental credentials. 

The future should be we all drive very small 1.0 ice vehicles at 80mpg. No 2 ton SUV, no stupid performance cars. Just small cars at minimal eco impact and max MPG. EV are just smoke and mirrors to sell huge motors under the pretence of being eco. Utter tosh. Meet needs not wants.

Now, an EV that weighs 1000 kg, seats 4, 500 mile range and costs £20k. That's what both the people and planet actualy needs. The rest is just consumerism and stupid vanity, not serious environmental concern.

In the current Auto Express, they are reviewing an EV Mini at £35k!! Come on, smell the coffee. What utter goon is going to buy one of those. PCP over 3 yrs they quote as north of £20k. EV's are just a way to squeeze the very last out of the cash cow that is the cash strapped motorist.

Yeah, I'll stick to my mk2 Jazz thanks. 40k and 3 yrs later and I can sell it for more than I paid for it. Never missed a beat, 50+mpg etc etc. Not flash, not impressing my neighbours. But must be 1000% better for the planet than a brand new 2 ton EV.

 

[John Ratsey]

There's an easy way to reduce the energy consumption by vehicles: Lower the speed limits. It's been done before http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/december/15/newsid_2559000/2559807.stm. Both ICE and EV will benefit.