Electric Cars

Lincsaddick said:

saw my first Tesla on the road yesterday, very slick and very expensive

Stuart_the_Red said:

ShootersHillGuru said:

Stig said:

Chizz said:

eaststandmike said:

PragueAddick said:

Can't recall who, but someone connected to the U.K. climate targets was arguing yesterday that -by 2050 - the U.K. will need 25million charging points!!!

Another reason why I hope we are on the right lines, and would like to see the evidence. This comes in the same week that the U.K. shale experiment was effectively ditched, 4 years after politicians were gleefully claiming that it would free us from the shackles of imported energy. 

I listened to a debate on the radio earlier this year and the simple fact is the National Grid in the UK would not stand up to the demands of 5 million extra charging points based on today's consumption let alone 25 million.

I was in a car park in East London last week and a guy was kicking off big time on his phone, there was one charging bay and that was in use, I heard him shout to whoever he was talking too the "fucking thing was flat and would not move" 

We are nowhere near geared up for the electric car in the UK if, and a big if, a lot more people bought one. 




 

"Most electric cars can be charged at home using a standard three-pin domestic plug socket" (RAC).  There are 27.6m households in the UK (ONS).  An average, two bedroom house has forty, standard three-pin domestic plug sockets (Electrical safety first). That's a total of more than one point one billion sockets that can be used to charge cars.  

The claim that we need 25 million charging points over and above the sockets in homes is absurd.  For it to be true, we would have to have changed virtually every single car in the UK to electric-only; and for everyone to need to charge them up at the same time.  

It's a Luddite argument to suggest that there will be insufficient charging points in future for the total number of privately-owned cars.  

Your anecdote about the stroppy man on the phone in East London is interesting, @eaststandmike - but it also illustrates the point quite well.  Because he was on one of 37 million smartphones in the UK.  And he had enough charge. 

That's very good news; I hadn't realised that. I think a bigger problem will be not that there aren't sockets per se but how close people can park to them.  I know people who are lucky to get a space in their own street, let alone outside their own house. A quarter of the population live in terraced houses. It's a fair bet that the majority of these don't have off road parking, what about the wires trailing over the pavement?

It’s why at present the whole idea is a nonsense. One that we must make work but god only knows how. Have the government done anything about having charging points in every new home that allows adjacent parking ? Don’t think they have. Doesn’t fill me with much confidence. They have known this is coming or should have for several years. 

I regularly see an owner of a Renault Zoe charging his car with an extension lead from his flat! He lives on the second floor and the lead hangs over his balcony and is plugged straight into the car. He seems to be lucky in that he always gets that space outside his flats.

kigelia said:

We picked up our EV yesterday. nice to drive and a good fit for the sort of driving we do, and we got the home charger installed for a great price as well. look forward to giving it a few longer trips this week. 

bobmunro said:

hoof_it_up_to_benty said:

The UK seems unlikely to build the necessary infrastructure in the near future and the range of these vehicles remains an issue.

I don't think the benefits will be as great as they're made out to be and I'm still not clear what happens to all the scrapped batteries.

It doesn't make sense to me scrapping so many existing diesels/petrol cars if the vehicles are still usable- doesn't seem very green. Some of the vehicles in question may only do a low mileage so their emissions over a year may be negligible.

I think it entirely depends on your lifestyle. If you have off road parking allowing home charging and you rarely do long trips then they are a great solution.

Mine has a range of 250 miles (real life 200-220) and that covers 99% of my driving needs without ever having to use a public charge point. I have a home charger that recharges in full overnight, and I’m also lucky to have chargers at work. A full charge costs about £10 so the equivalent in comparison to petrol is about 110 mpg.

My missus’ car is due to be replaced this year and she will be having an EV - but she doesn’t know that yet!

Rob7Lee said:

Has anyone ever run out of juice?

Last February I was coming back from Portsmouth and a lorry had overturned on the A3 just before the M25 junction. We sat there for around 2.5 hours and despite only being a mile from the junction it took around another 40 minutes once it did start moving.

I did wonder what would happen if I'd have had an electric car, either switch everything off and freeze (it was late and I think only just above freezing) or run out of juice.

bobmunro said:

Rothko said:

bobmunro said:

hoof_it_up_to_benty said:

The UK seems unlikely to build the necessary infrastructure in the near future and the range of these vehicles remains an issue.

I don't think the benefits will be as great as they're made out to be and I'm still not clear what happens to all the scrapped batteries.

It doesn't make sense to me scrapping so many existing diesels/petrol cars if the vehicles are still usable- doesn't seem very green. Some of the vehicles in question may only do a low mileage so their emissions over a year may be negligible.

I think it entirely depends on your lifestyle. If you have off road parking allowing home charging and you rarely do long trips then they are a great solution.

Mine has a range of 250 miles (real life 200-220) and that covers 99% of my driving needs without ever having to use a public charge point. I have a home charger that recharges in full overnight, and I’m also lucky to have chargers at work. A full charge costs about £10 so the equivalent in comparison to petrol is about 110 mpg.

My missus’ car is due to be replaced this year and she will be having an EV - but she doesn’t know that yet!

What’s she getting?

I’m tempted by a ID3 or ID4, always wanted a Golf, so seems the best option. E-Golf isn’t an option before anyone says, I want an EV built to be an EV

Not sure yet. She tends to prefer smaller cars so something like an ID3 or Mini E but the latter has poor reviews.

I might get her to consider a bigger car, just for safety more than anything - maybe an iX3

Hex said:

verycoolguy said:

I got an ID.4 last month and absolutely loving it. 

It has a 77kwh battery, 310 miles range, (220-250 real world range). Plenty for our general usage (and I'd suspect most people) but we also regularly do a c.250/300 mile round trip to visit parents. Have done this already and the public charging experience was surprisingly good, we got 200 mile added in 30min, (granted it was a 150kw fast charger). And even just a 10min top up would have been enough to get us home. 

Haven't got my home charger installed yet, will do but surviving surprisingly okay on the slow 3pin plug charger. That only gives under 7miles/hr but I think it's so good to have.

We have a rural weeks holiday coming up and if I can use that at our holiday rental it'll hugely reduce the need to use public chargers. It'll top it up over 80miles for a 12 hour overnight charge. Is this too cheeky to do though or fair game?

The ID4 has caught my eye.  We are looking to replace our bigger car with an EV that was designed to be electric-only but until recently there were few medium SUVs on the market.  Before we got my current car we were considering a Tiguan so I'm hoping the ID4 is an equivalent, particularly in terms of the driving position.  We'll have to put dealer visits on our to do list.