Electric vehicle.

[Johnny4428]

We have all I’m sure like myself had plenty to comment about ev’s, so I thought in order to qualify for a proper appraisal I would have to be an ev owner. I have until very short ago myself said that I wouldn’t have an ev because of the price, but since I got the offer of one for the same price as a petrol/diesel I thought why not! These have certainly come down in price significantly. So ferry booked away with vehicle to trade in and did the deal. I must admit this didn’t seem right that I was going to drive the 130 mls home just relying on a charged battery! Set off anyway after killing a couple of hours in Inverness with 212mls on the range indicator. I was a bit stressed watching the range indicator heading up the road but my fears were allayed when I arrived at ferry check in with 80 miles still “in the tank” or whatever us ev owners say. Very pleased to arrive home and hadn’t really given much thought into how I was going to charge this thing up when I got home. A trip to Lidl the next day and I was charged up again. I’m probably just going to slow charge from home as we will be doing somewhere in the region of 3000mls an year. Nearly all short runs around town. Forgot to mention it’s a Peugeot e2008. GT, and had 673mls on the clock at purchase, so not brand new. Time will tell, but very happy so far. 😁

[royhall]

That's what they are best at Johnny, short trips around town. Sounds like an EV is perfect for you. If you do the odd long road trip you can always borrow/hire a car.

[SteveW]

My company is trying to push us towards ev’s at the moment. As I do around 200 miles a day I will point blank refuse and if it means seeking alternative employment then so be it. I’m not doing a full days work then having to stop to charge up before I can get home.
If I worked at a fixed location within a reasonable distance from home then it would be ideal.

[Athame57]

I think my biggest gripe with EV's is that the powers that be are trying to force them upon us.

[AshimotoK0]

My wife has a 2023 Jazz Hybrid ..  complicated yea but does 67 mpg even around town and lovely car to drive without any nasty laggy CVT gearbox to contend with and she can go to Leeds and back each week with journeys whilst she's there, without worrying about charging. So don't think we will ever go EV. A guy at work try to tempt us into buying a Renault Zoe but even the 55kW version of that would be borderline doing that weekly journey without charging. Probably OK for you though Johnnie if you just do short local journeys.

[McCabe-Thiele (Ted)]

My Son-in-Law runs a firms Ford Mach-E he has had it for about 18 months or so - it does have a decent range 260 or so miles.
If you have to use a public charging point it's as expensive as a Petrol vehicle to run. Home charging with a special EV tariff seems to be the  way forwards.

The difficulty as I see it with a fully  EV is when the battery fails most all electric cars will be worthless, I do know some Merc hybrids are failing in under 10 years with replacement battery units costing close to £10k for a hybrid.

I do like the idea of the optional range extenders on the early small BMW i3 that had the abilty to charge the battery as you were driving. I ended up replacing our 19 year old Jeep G.C .3.0 CRD with a Volvo XC40 MHPV as a compromise for the cheaper VED.

I suspect there is a lot of development work still to come not just in battery construction materials but also in terms of electric motor types e.g. Axial Flux or Radial Flux plus some sort of commonality on what voltage electric motor is used.

IMHO buying an all EV is presently on a par with the original Ford Model T in terms of the development curve.

[Moorey]

    More and more vehicle manufacturers are dropping or scaling back EV production and going down the Hydrogen route. Even
   Tesla are making a Hydrogen fuel car, or as Elon used to call them not long ago Hydrogen fool cells. Battery only EVs will end up
   the Betamax of the car world. IMHO.

[Seabeowner]

My wife has a 2023 Jazz Hybrid ..  complicated yea but does 67 mpg even around town

These days if your family car doesn't do at least 50mpg (if you stick to the speed limits) then you either have the wrong car or want to waste money. So actually petrol cost in miles per £ is cheaper than ever.
A pity the cheap electric cars look like they will not be available so as to protect western manufacturing which is lagging behind. T introduced a 25% tax and now B has upped it to 100% in the US on Chinese imports. Expect protection here also.
Renault Zoe is very old technology.

[Johnny4428]

Interesting comments guys and agree with all said. A tv programme came on the night before I went away to pick up vehicle and it was a feature regarding cost comparisons from a survey/tests carried out by the RAC. Results were an EV charged from home on average was around 7p per mile, a petrol/diesel was 17p per mile and an EV charged with fast/rapid public chargers 22p per mile. I agree it’s early days still with alternative fuel options and not convinced it’s going to be electric but we may not be around when the new fuel becomes the norm, so for the moment I’m happy to give the electric a go. We’ve got the diesel burner as well in the form of a Trafic crew van and that is what we take on the long runs off the island because we need the carrying capacity. For instance today we have done about 6 miles in the car and that will be similar tomorrow. Alas don’t panick guys I haven’t lost enough marbles to go out and buy an e motorcycle! 😂😂😂

[McCabe-Thiele (Ted)]

My wife has a 2023 Jazz Hybrid ..  complicated yea but does 67 mpg even around town

These days if your family car doesn't do at least 50mpg (if you stick to the speed limits) then you either have the wrong car or want to waste money. So actually petrol cost in miles per £ is cheaper than ever.
A pity the cheap electric cars look like they will not be available so as to protect western manufacturing which is lagging behind. T introduced a 25% tax and now B has upped it to 100% in the US on Chinese imports. Expect protection here also.
Renault Zoe is very old technology.

IMHO  mpg be it 25 mpg or 50 mpg is not the main cost of car ownership so it has never been a factor for me - we feel it is as its a weekly or monthly cost to fill up with fuel.  Doubling your mpg does not halve your true cost per mile of motoring even more so if you drive less than 5k miles in a year (I drive closer to 3k p.a. now).

The largest single costs for most private motorists is depreciation, plus other overheads such as Insurance, maintainence , Mot plus where applicable VED. Then there is the cost of buying a replacement vehicle that has gone up due to inflation. I buy used, I tend to keep a car for at least five years - my record for ownership is 12 years. Increasing maintainence costs tend to be the decider when it comes to change. My current XC40 is the most expensive car I have ever bought in my life by  a consderable multiplier (4) - I splashed out as it will be my last one so treated myself after 59 years of motoring.