Can't get on with new Jazz, thinking of returning it

[orcadian]

Here in Orkney an EV makes some sense and as we live up in the northwest corner of the Mainland, the furthest journey I would make would be down to the southern tip - just about 50 miles or a round trip of 100.  Just a return trip into Kirkwall is a shade over 40.  Up until this coming May, the Council provided free charging but that is set to change to £2 minimum for rapid and £1 minimum for normal.  Seems very well today but when the revenue from VED drops significantly central government will all start jacking up prices somewhere.
Orkney, I believe has the highest take up EV’s per capita in U.K. but unless I had a spare £30k it makes little sense for us and would be real pita when travelling South to deepest Englandshire. 
Ian

[culzean]

As far as costing buttons to run the leaf, that is fine for now but as we get more BEV on the roads the government has already come up with schemes to replace fuel duty revenue. The most talked about one is road pricing, so cost of running BEV will not depend on cost of fuel but when and where you use the roads. The government will not lose its pound of flesh from its favourite milch cow...the private motorist.

Another thing, does your mate own or lease the battery ? The lease costs seem to be more than most people spend on fuel anyway, and if you own the battery I guess you would either have to take out insurance or prepare for cost of £££££'s if it fails.

[Downsizer]

Yes, I think it's a mistake to regard electric cars as cheaper to run.  It's all about shifting energy use away from fossil fuels, for which there is a cost, to be paid ultimately by energy consumers.

[guest2982]

Its fair to include future road tax while calculating electric car running cost, yeah, still overall cost would greatly depend on usage pattern/area
maintenance cost should be down as well, no gearbox/oil changes, low number of moving parts
charging at night(majority of usage) should be cheap and welcomed by the grid,
as there is no point shutting down wind turbines or reactors overnight
battery packs could ultimately be nationwide distributed storage of electricity supplementing grid
as many cars are back home parked before evening surge of use, only minority would fully drain their car battery on average commute, i.e. batteries would be fully discharged only on holiday trips, in commercial use, otherwise proper 60+ capacity would be plenty

real cost of fossil fuels is much higher that what you pay at the pump, considering social/health/env implications

[culzean]

Its fair to include future road tax while calculating electric car running cost, yeah, still overall cost would greatly depend on usage pattern/area
maintenance cost should be down as well, no gearbox/oil changes, low number of moving parts
charging at night(majority of usage) should be cheap and welcomed by the grid,

The reason that electricity was cheaper at night ( tariff 7 ) was that conventional power stations could not be shut down and restarted quickly, so they ran all night and because demand was low power companies sold it for what they could get.  Due to the fact that solar power does not work at night ( otherwise it would be lunar power ) and wind normally drops at night then there will be absolutely no reason for electricity to be cheaper at night,  in fact when large scale storage is needed to ensure power when the wind don't blow and the sun don't shine it could well increase in cost.

I have never had to fit a new engine to a car at up to £5000 - but that is the scenario  BEV owner face if battery goes pop, so we are into - lease the battery at £80 a month upwards, pay insurance, or cross your fingers while you drive.

BEV posed a quandary for government bean counters, they cannot increase tax or cost of electricity because unlike petrol and diesel it is used by every business and household - so they will find other ways, maybe each BEV will have a chip and with smart meters it will be possible to increase the price per unit when a vehicle is plugged in to charge.

The government will make sure their revenue is protected and this period when ICE vehicles outnumber BEV and although fuel duty revenue is dropping it has not reached a low point yet may well be a honeymoon period for BEV, before the cost of ownership and running rises to same levels as present ICE vehicles. The government may even introduce a 'window tax' on cars so BEV driver may just have a slit to look through and passengers sit in the dark LOL (don't laugh too much - it's been done before with buildings ).

[guest2982]

yeah re variability, hence billions are still dumped into new nuclear which is not easy to slow down, so it still applies
wind on average does not just stop though
Wind capacity factor by season
Season    Daytime    Overnight    Overall
Winter        44%               36%             38%
Summer    31%               13%             20%
re storage, car battery themselves can contribute to that storage, but yeah it would not be enough and dedicated storage is expensive

[culzean]

yeah re variability, hence billions are still dumped into new nuclear which is not easy to slow down, so it still applies
wind on average does not just stop though
Wind capacity factor by season
Season    Daytime    Overnight    Overall
Winter        44%               36%             38%
Summer    31%               13%             20%
re storage, car battery themselves can contribute to that storage, but yeah it would not be enough and dedicated storage is expensive

The idea of using car batteries for storage would need a lot of faith and planning,  it would be equivalent to letting the government come around and syphon most of the fuel out of my car and if I needed it in a hurry telling them to put it back in quick smart because I needed to drive the car.  The other thing is that depth of discharge and frequency of charge and discharge are the killers for any battery,  so the power company / government would be shortening the life of your battery for their own purposes - does that sound fair ?

[guest2982]

absolutely, it's not something we are ready for yet, in mid/long term future with bev proliferation and more knowledge on impact of cycles on longevity and capacity loss it should be not that difficult to measure draw from the battery and bill grid or discount electricity cost accordingly

does fuel duty have specific designation in uk? i.e. is it positioned as direct tax for road mainteneance or ecological penalty?

[Jocko]

I have never had to fit a new engine to a car at up to £5000 - but that is the scenario  BEV owner face if battery goes pop, so we are into - lease the battery at £80 a month upwards, pay insurance, or cross your fingers while you drive.

After visiting many EV sites I have not come across people having to fork out for new batteries in any more numbers than the few that have had to replace expensive engines. Battery degradation is a fact, but spread over the lifetime of the vehicle, it is manageable. Regarding battery lease, I think Renault are the only company going down that route.

[Downsizer]

does fuel duty have specific designation in uk? i.e. is it positioned as direct tax for road mainteneance or ecological penalty?

I think fuel duty just goes into the general taxation spot.  I suspect that the future of transport taxation will be via an electronic tolling system, which would vary from road to road and according to time of day, to try to manage congestion.

[MartinJG]

Its fair to include future road tax while calculating electric car running cost, yeah, still overall cost would greatly depend on usage pattern/area
maintenance cost should be down as well, no gearbox/oil changes, low number of moving parts
charging at night(majority of usage) should be cheap and welcomed by the grid,

The reason that electricity was cheaper at night ( tariff 7 ) was that conventional power stations could not be shut down and restarted quickly, so they ran all night and because demand was low power companies sold it for what they could get.  Due to the fact that solar power does not work at night ( otherwise it would be lunar power ) and wind normally drops at night then there will be absolutely no reason for electricity to be cheaper at night,  in fact when large scale storage is needed to ensure power when the wind don't blow and the sun don't shine it could well increase in cost.

I have never had to fit a new engine to a car at up to £5000 - but that is the scenario  BEV owner face if battery goes pop, so we are into - lease the battery at £80 a month upwards, pay insurance, or cross your fingers while you drive.

BEV posed a quandary for government bean counters, they cannot increase tax or cost of electricity because unlike petrol and diesel it is used by every business and household - so they will find other ways, maybe each BEV will have a chip and with smart meters it will be possible to increase the price per unit when a vehicle is plugged in to charge.

The government will make sure their revenue is protected and this period when ICE vehicles outnumber BEV and although fuel duty revenue is dropping it has not reached a low point yet may well be a honeymoon period for BEV, before the cost of ownership and running rises to same levels as present ICE vehicles. The government may even introduce a 'window tax' on cars so BEV driver may just have a slit to look through and passengers sit in the dark LOL (don't laugh too much - it's been done before with buildings ).

I know of a (smallish) power station in North Wales where they have two reservoirs and overnight they pump the water into the top reservoir at 'cheap rate' and then run the water back down through the turbines for daily consumption at 'expensive rate'. There may be more around the country for all I know. Simple opportunity cost though not an ideal model for obvious reasons.

On electric cars, given the existing technology, it seems to me the fad is to try and remove polution from higher population densities and distribute it elsewhere. Logic of sorts, but flawed nevertheless.

[Jocko]

Pump storage is quite common.

[andruec]

I have to say that having now switched to a Toyota Corolla hybrid (engine permanently runs in Atkinson mode) it's a joy to be back to an engine/gearbox combination that smoothly delivers the power you need whenever you need it. Want faster - press down. Want slower - lift up.

No need to jab the accelerator to tell the engine what you want. Just press and go.

[peteo48]

Sounds good. Also stop/start much smoother with hybrids.

[John Ratsey]

I know of a (smallish) power station in North Wales where they have two reservoirs and overnight they pump the water into the top reservoir at 'cheap rate' and then run the water back down through the turbines for daily consumption at 'expensive rate'. There may be more around the country for all I know. Simple opportunity cost though not an ideal model for obvious reasons.

There are two in North Wales: Dinorwig and Ffestiniog. The former, with 1.7GW capacity, isn't small. While having the ability to store cheap off-peak power for use during peaks (eg everyone turning their kettles on during an advert break in a TV program) there was also the objective of emergency power for the grid should a power station have a problem and go off-line. However, current operation tends to hold less in reserve for emergencies as the owners buy and sell power to make a profit. I've done the tour of Dinorwig, also Cruachan in Scotland. Highly recommended.

Anyway, getting back on-topic. If one can't get on with the Atkinson cycle mode then the Jazz Sport is worth a close look. That option wasn't around when I had a Mk 3 Jazz so I had to up-size and get an HR-V (same engine as the Jazz Sport).