Electric cars

[richardfrost]

That looks lovely too Jocko, thanks for sharing. Thing is, it's the same size as my RAV4 and my main reason for considering a change is too a smaller car. Someone near me has an early model RAV4 and it struck me how much smaller it is than the current model. I know generally cars get bigger over the years but the difference really struck me. I think a similar thing has happened with the Civic and is happening with the Jazz.

Back in 2013, when I handed back my final company car, a 3rd generation CRV, for a couple of months I drove the 1st gen Honda Jazz I had bought for my eldest son's 21st birthday. I loved it's whole ethos and the small size so much I bought myself a 2nd generation Jazz. Foolishly, I traded it for new HRV soon after that launched and I was never happy with that vehicle. A family death and the need to inherit a 3rd mid sized dog drove me back up to the RAV4, which was back to the same size as my Honda CRV. Now I find myself with just one small dog and we hanker again for a smaller vehicle. That 1st gen Jazz is still in the family though and serving time as a runabout and small van.

The RAV4 has a second, less powerful, electric motor on the rear axle, which gives it 4WD on demand. It is seamless, modest and very useful. It is constantly kicking in when needed, most noticeably on a particular sharp, heavily chambered and very steep bend on the road leading to my village.

I think if Crosstar had launched with a 4WD option, I would be driving one now.

[Jocko]

I am now one step closer to my MG5 as my wife is now wholeheartedly behind the project. I am thinking of going down the PCP route or whatever the best recommendation is for a private owner. At 73, I am not worried about keeping a car (I am more concerned about not outliving the PCP contract  ). My annual mileage will be minimal.
As of the 5th of April, I will be able to visit my local dealer, whom I have been in contact with today.
I do not know what model to go for, but that will possibly depend more on monthly payments than the nice toys.

[springswood]

A bit of honest envy here Jocko. I'm fancying an estate next (dogs) and with a range around 200 miles it seems perfectly feasible as an only car.

[peteo48]

I am now one step closer to my MG5 as my wife is now wholeheartedly behind the project. I am thinking of going down the PCP route or whatever the best recommendation is for a private owner. At 73, I am not worried about keeping a car (I am more concerned about not outliving the PCP contract  ). My annual mileage will be minimal.
As of the 5th of April, I will be able to visit my local dealer, whom I have been in contact with today.
I do not know what model to go for, but that will possibly depend more on monthly payments than the nice toys.

Looking good and keep us posted. Our MG dealer is, quite literally, just round the corner from where I live so if/when I change (probably 2 years away) the temptation to go MG will be overwhelming.

[sparky Paul]

Seems a bit backwards

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/18/uk-slashes-grants-for-electric-car-buyers-while-increasing-petrol-vehicle-support

[richardfrost]

Looks like it will mostly affect Mr Moneybags buying expensive cars. Unlikely to make much difference to us normal folk.

But yes, it does look like a backward step.

[JimSh]

Seems a bit backwards

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/18/uk-slashes-grants-for-electric-car-buyers-while-increasing-petrol-vehicle-support

Seems weird before COP 26

Looks like it will mostly affect Mr Moneybags buying expensive cars. Unlikely to make much difference to us normal folk.

But yes, it does look like a backward step.

"The maximum grant for electric cars has been reduced to £2,500 with immediate effect on Thursday, from £3,000. The government has also lowered the price cap for cars eligible for the subsidy from £50,000 to £35,000."

[richardfrost]

Well there is the £500 hit for everyone. But subsidising someone buying a £50k car does seem excessive to me. As I understand it, stopping doing this means there is more money in the scheme for the average buyer to get a subsidy on an average type car. I.E. they are looking to eke out a finite amount of money more fairly.

[sparky Paul]

As I understand it, stopping doing this means there is more money in the scheme for the average buyer to get a subsidy on an average type car. I.E. they are looking to eke out a finite amount of money more fairly.

It looks like they are looking to eke out less money to me. Surely your average buyer will be £500 worse off.

That's before you consider reducing fossil fuel costs in real terms by freezing duty, whilst lifting the electricity price caps.

[richardfrost]

Remember though, this is a Tory government. I am not defending them. The timing certainly seems off. Maybe they are going to start subsidising coal powered cars provided the coal comes from the new mine in Cumbria.

[JimSh]

Remember though, this is a Tory government. I am not defending them. The timing certainly seems off. Maybe they are going to start subsidising coal powered cars provided the coal comes from the new mine in Cumbria.

Bring back the Stanley Steamer.
I can just picture JRM in one of these.

[TiJazz]

Looks like it will mostly affect Mr Moneybags buying expensive cars. Unlikely to make much difference to us normal folk.

But yes, it does look like a backward step.

Not really. As I said elsewhere, the Model 3 is a normal affordable car in the US. Over here it’s artificially expensive through taxes and import costs. The grant took the edge off those, yet it was still overpriced vs the US. We need more grants for £40k cars that are actually £30k in their home market, but are £40k over here due to distance and our own regulations.

[culzean]

Interesting article about battery life, as usual it is down to temperature and charge rates, and when will the battery reach the point where degradation rate increases dramatically.

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/long-electric-car-battery-last-173833772.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cDovL2ZvcnVtcy5zdjY1MC5vcmcvc2hvd3RocmVhZC5waHA_dD0yMzc5NTYmcGFnZT0yNQ&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAGs7CaJo4SlJgoypduJRGn2ngNKHDuP1XNu8aCyZqcnnn4rOWueXerJ9WPmrpAPnTeQCar5f8NIFY9t7CUzXsw6IWDCZ_p9URJt5Vhe7JKtC84DXYn3M-lBYXFKY3LSz6hZSF4h0iJGMo_rP3kzaw7zE2GqyCUzLkA7mIJoCx8Sl

[ColinB]

Interesting commentary from Tortoise (https://www.tortoisemedia.com/) today about one car-maker’s ambitions:

“Batteries included. Within five years normal people may actually be able to afford electric cars. Within ten there won’t be many non-electric ones for sale, and the riddle of who’ll be the next Tesla is now solved. It won’t be another start-up. It’ll be the company that brought you dieselgate.

These are the outlines of a revolution in personal transport that came into focus this week as VW reinvented itself as the world’s biggest electric car maker. It took some smoke and mirrors because most of the million battery-powered cars it plans to sell this year haven’t been built yet. But the markets lapped it up.

In two momentous days for human mobility, VW opened its Wolfsburg HQ to media and investors and:

- bet the farm on producing all the batteries it needs in its own factories;
- tried to end any residual argument about whether the future of cars lies in batteries, hybrids or hydrogen, by promising that economies of scale will bring battery pack costs below the key threshold of $100 per kilowatt-hour;
- put the scandal of under-measuring diesel emissions behind it at last, with a 48-hour share price rally that added more than $50 billion to its value.
Joining VW in a formidable vote for lithium ion that looks set to reconfigure the world’s energy maps are Tesla (of course) but also Daimler, GM, Renault-Nissan, BMW and Ford. Between them they’ve pledged more than $200 billion in investment in EVs.

Still on the fence – besotted with hybrids and unable to shake its fascination with fuel cells – is Toyota, the biggest car brand of them all. But if VW is right, government mandates for phasing out internal combustion altogether could mean it overtakes Toyota soon in sales volume and Tesla in market cap.

Four factors drove VW up the EV on-ramp:

- Dieselgate was existential. The 2015 scandal prompted by US findings that the firm was massaging its emissions data cost it €27 billion in fines and forced new management to rethink the whole brand.
- The cost of EU emissions targets was getting out of hand. The company faced another €1.5 billion in fines for missing them in 2019 alone.
- Timetables for banning internal combustion engines from 2030 were set by at least 17 governments across Europe and the Americas.
- Tesla showed the way. Elon Musk chose the simplicity of batteries over the complexity of hybrids and reimagined the car as a connected device with over-the-air software updates; a smartphone on wheels. The markets rewarded him with a roughly 16-fold share price increase in three years.

By the numbers:

80 – VW’s planned investment in EVs, in billion euros
42, 30, 30, 10, 8 – equivalent numbers for Daimler, BMW, Ford, Renault-Nissan and GM respectively
50 – number of battery-powered models VW plans to bring to market by 2030
4 – number of models Tesla currently sells
0.5 – factor by which VW says it will reduce the cost of its electric powertrains by 2030
6 – number of battery gigafactories it plans to build in Europe
18,000 – number of fast-charging stations it says it will build with partners by 2023
10,000 – number of software engineers it’s hiring
11,500 – number of current staff being offered early or partial retirement

Is this only about VW? No, even though it’s done a grand job of hogging the spotlight this week. See rivals’ EV investments above. Note also i) BMW is competing on purity as well as volume: it wants to produce the greenest car ever when recycling is taken into account, and projects a 20-fold increase in EV sales by 2030; and ii) VW owns Audi, Skoda, Porsche, Bentley and Lamborghini, and they’re all going electric too.

What about the UK? Nissan, BMW, Jaguar and Ford are all gradually converting UK production lines to building mainly or only battery-powered cars. But if one country has picked up Tesla’s gauntlet, it’s Germany. “We don’t have the credentials of a start-up,” says Herbert Diess, the slimline technocrat who runs VW. “We have to prove ourselves.”

If the idea of start-ups having all the credentials suggests the world’s been turned upside down, maybe it has.”

[ColinB]

And just to balance VW's unbounded optimism, anyone looking to use the public charging infrastructure for a shiny new EV should take a look at Which?'s conclusions about whether it's fit-for-purpose at present:
https://www.which.co.uk/news/2021/03/5-problems-with-electric-car-charging-and-how-to-fix-them/

The article concentrates on the usability of the existing infrastructure, so doesn't consider issues such as the paucity of charge points and the reliability of the ones that do exist. They conclude "Today’s electric car charging infrastructure is disjointed, complicated and far from user friendly ...". There are more than 30 charging networks across the UK, each with their own variety of pricing structures, payment methods, apps, and smart cards which are not interchangeable. That's a bit like Shell, BP, Sainsburys, etc having specific filler nozzles that only fit certain types of car, and will only allow you to pay with their own bespoke payment cards.

What's more, if you have to rely on the public infrastructure (ie if you can't have home charging) it'll cost you about the same to run an EV as it will an ICE. But that's before HMG has worked out how it's going to implement road pricing to replace the revenue it loses from fuel sales.

So why bother? Oh yes, it's because there won't be new ICE cars in a few years so we'll have to. On balance I suspect that's probably a good thing, but it's just not practical for anyone wanting to make that change early. Hopefully we'll get the eureka moment "And then a miracle happened" that'll fix it all, but at present the omens aren't good.