@lol-lol

Less than having Subscriptions on Streaming etc. 

Less than some pay a year for a Mobile Phone.

 

Less to have a Vehicle you own kept road legal than many spend buying a take way hot drink each day. 

3 hours ago, roottoot said:

@lol-lol

Less than having Subscriptions on Streaming etc. 

Less than some pay a year for a Mobile Phone.

Less to have a Vehicle you own kept road legal than many spend buying a take way hot drink each day. 

 

Oh I know about things that are/seem expensive but have an intrinsic value.

I have the battle with Sky Sports every couple of years, I knock them down to £60 a month and then it creeps up to £90 a month.

 

Having my full fibre fitted today so will be giving Sky a right going over especially as MotoGP and F1 end in a few days time and there will be little to watch except Xmas repeats.

 

Get my subscription for Bike magazine as part of my Lloyds Classic account but then Lloyds give virtually no interest on savings or credit account balances .

 

The car and bike are still one of mankind greatest inventions, separates us from the other animal of Earth.  Just wish we would use them powered by sunshine and wind (and nuclear baseload) rather than the liquified biomass of long dead creatures and plant and the biproduct of combusting it in our boxes on wheel is the polluting of said Earth for the other 7 billion inhabitants.    

 

Worcester now an EV friendly and facilitating city. Just in time for Xmas market time etc...........

St Martins Gate Car Park - Electric car charging points

Twelve new electric car charging points are now available in St Martin's Gate car park - and under a special introductory offer, users will not need to pay for parking while they power up their vehicles.  Six 50kw rapid charging points and a further six 22kw fast charging points are available on the ground floor of the multi-storey car park.  The charging points at St Martin's Gate car parks are designed to accommodate the majority of electric vehicles currently available in the UK. They are listed on Zap Map and other information services for electric vehicle users.  Electric vehicle owners will be charged at a competitive rate of 25p per kWh at all 12 of the charging points.

Charging Bay Type	Length of stay
Fast Charging Bay	Up to 4 hour
Rapid Charging Bay	Up to 1 hour

As an introductory offer, you will not have to pay for parking while you are charging your vehicles. Drivers are asked to stay no longer than one hour in a rapid charge parking spot and no longer than four hours in a fast charger parking space. Permanent parking tariff arrangements may be introduced at a later date.

Users of non-electric vehicles will not be allowed to use the spaces where the charging points have been installed and will be issued with a penalty notice if they break this rule.

 

^^^ Good stuff.

Hopefully the parking attendants are made aware that if a Charger stops working and a car is in the charging bay and the driver is trying to get a charger working or one cuts out then they do not issue a penalty ticket as has happened at other locations including in Edinburgh & Perth. 

It is unbelievable what Car Park Staff will do at times. 

Edited 12 November, 20214 yr by roottoot

12 hours ago, roottoot said:

^^^ Good stuff.

Hopefully the parking attendants are made aware that if a Charger stops working and a car is in the charging bay and the driver is trying to get a charger working or one cuts out then they do not issue a penalty ticket as has happened at other locations including in Edinburgh & Perth. 

It is unbelievable what Car Park Staff will do at times. 

 

It is a council car park and the city's biggest and the parking attendants have an office on the same floor as the EV parking and hopefully they will have Solomon's wisdom.

Grey area is I PHEVs I reckon.

On 13/11/2021 at 09:26, lol-lol said:

 

It is a council car park and the city's biggest and the parking attendants have an office on the same floor as the EV parking and hopefully they will have Solomon's wisdom.

Grey area is I PHEVs I reckon.

 

PHEV should really be confined to 3.5kWh or 7kWh chargers as they just don't need anything faster, plus there should be a 1 hour time cap.
The battery is likely in the region of 10-20kwH and even though it might be empty the car can move without it

I really think anything faster should have a time cap for EV and a very short/more expensive tarrif for PHEV.

 

Whilst I don't have an electric, we see cars in shopping centres plugged in when you arrive and 4 hours later they're still plugged in.
Some poor sod in an electric car is looking for a charging point and actually needs it.

My local Tesco,s 4 7kW  chargers are getting busier now that the public chargers cost to use.  The cars that sat for hours on the slow, fast or rapid chargers for hours or overnight are no longer using them.  The guy that parks for up to 14 hours on the Tesco charger over night might need to change their habit as now there is a greater demand from those just wanting a while on them. 

I'm surprised there has been no vandalism of vehicles occupying EV charging points for excessively long periods, especially the free ones.

 

I'd drop the free points and simply charge for the electricity used and then charge double rate for the time parked connected and not charging.

I'm pretty sure that people who abuse the facilities would be less inclined to do so.

There is vandalism in some car parks where people leave vehicles parked at charge points or just parked, but then people are less likely to leave cars there at times when people are not about.

Chargers get vandalised usually when there are not people charging vehicles at a site so no witnesses. 

 

Supermarkets like Tesco are providing free charging in partnership with VW as a promotion of Electric / Hybrid vehicles.

They are not expecting people to be vandalising vehicles in a supermarket car park. 

 

Sometimes it is just people thinking it is a good idea to break a charger or mess about with them.

Sticking Cadbury's cream eggs in the charger head seems to be popular. 

 

Free charging at Park & Ride is to encourage the use of EV's.

It is a pity where lots are installed and they are not getting used and there are only 4 Rapid chargers that will be in demand and not always available as maintenance is so poor. 

No CCTV coverage at the site is inexcusable as is the police allowing people moving into the site with caravans and stopping the public from using the chargers. 

 

 

 

 

No idea why he thinks 4 Rapids are 'So many'. 

Holy smoke that is a pathetic amount.

 

 

 

 

Edited 16 November, 20214 yr by roottoot

Free never works, it's completely open to abuse. I agree those kind of penalty is needed at some placed.....

 

But one has to remember slower chargers (not 40+kW rapid chargers) are meant for car parks. It doesn't make a lot of sense for people to drop what they are doing and move their car a few spaces down the car park, it's an unnecessary added complication for EV ownership.

Our workplace have this problem with 4 charging spaces and about 10 cars needing to charge. The solution is always to get more charger installed (we are getting ~30 soon).

 

So I think:

- Rapid chargers should be time based fee, so people would learn about their vehicle charging curve and hopefully have quick turnarounds. These are the mid-journey petrol pumps, charge and move asap. Idle penalty fees here need to be huge, akin to parking tickets.

- Destination slow chargers can be either time or usage based, as long as it's not free. Time based for higher utilised locations to encourage people to move on (supermarket, gyms), usage based for long periods cars parks (workplace, flats).

Edited 16 November, 20214 yr by wyx087

Tbh… every company should provide a socket on every space even if only 50% can be used at full power at the same time.

 

that solves the issue of charger hogging.

5 hours ago, cheezemonkhai said:

Tbh… every company should provide a socket on every space even if only 50% can be used at full power at the same time.

 

that solves the issue of charger hogging.

 

 

Using one of the ten chargers at my Heathrow work, labelled up as 11 kw so presume it should have been a three phase connection but low and behold it only provide charge at 3.6kw.  I reckon it was only connected to single phase and not 3 phase despite the labelling.  Fortunately the Zoe is proving so economical, consistently running at better than 4 miles per kw hour, even after the 120 run from Worcester to Heathrow, it still had a hundred miles of range left after the run down from Worcester, which was done a near, and sometime over, the nominal National speed limits as displayed on my speedo.

 

So the 3.6 kw charger added about 22 kWhs of charge in the next 7 hours I was back up to 90 % charge and around 200 miles of range so I could, again, zoom home to Worcester without any worry of range and I am just waiting to see that onboard message saying I have hit the 87 mph limit which is so easy to hit when one is not in ECO mode as it just goes from 60 or so to well over 80 mph indicated is a blink of an eye and before one realises.   I might set the speed limiter as it is going to get me in trouble otherwise.

 

I also noticed on the display of power output, despite it nominally being a 100 kW, 135 hp car, that the output from the battery pack shows almost 110 kWs which is almost 150 hp. I do enjoy the same meter showing the braking regen showing minus 30 kWs as the regen system floods power back in to traction battery.  The onboard stat data shows that over 10% of all power used is put back as the cars kinetic energy, from downhill and junction retardation so is available to use to increase range by that amount.

 

Will be watching over the next few days and weeks how the cooler weather due here in the Midlands over the next weeks effects that range but good experience so far.

     

Edited 17 November, 20214 yr by lol-lol

after reading through  posts, dont think i could be bothered with the hassle of owning an ev,  i'd rather just pay the extra costs of diesel for the sake of an easier life  😀

the days of free charging will soon be a thing of the past unless you connect to a lamp post over night   😄    no good during the day though  😂

but i suppose at this time of year with more dark hours, there's plenty free charge hours  😁  which i suppose is one good thing about an ev

The difference is private owners drivers and Business / Commercial drivers.

Private drivers might just save money using electric over petrol or diesel depending how they can charge the car, but it is if public charging cost etc that matters, & at quick speeds to charge and paying they might save very little cash money.

Charging free or offpeak or just cheaply might be no hassle or more of an issue depending on location location location.

 

Business users can be saving much more in the way of taxation and this is why there are many now using EV's as company cars over an ICE,

When you have charging available to you ay home, work or places you visit and just pay to charge quickly where and when needed it can be a considerable saving over running a Petrol or Diesel. 

 

Hybrids can be what suits some. 

Horses for courses.

 

 

Edited 17 November, 20214 yr by roottoot

8 hours ago, 310golfr said:

after reading through  posts, dont think i could be bothered with the hassle of owning an ev,  i'd rather just pay the extra costs of diesel for the sake of an easier life  😀

the days of free charging will soon be a thing of the past unless you connect to a lamp post over night   😄    no good during the day though  😂

but i suppose at this time of year with more dark hours, there's plenty free charge hours  😁  which i suppose is one good thing about an ev

 

I think the issue is it's not just the cost of the petrol/diesel, otherwise I might not bother either.

 

You have the fuel, which is 30-50% more vs public charging and massively more vs home charging.

You have the road tax, and a painful first year tax, plus another tax for anything over 40k.

Then you have congestion charges, which don't always apply to EV.

Then you have pollution taxes (ULEZ), which don't apply to EV

Then you have some cities which ban diesels from the city centre all together.

 

Yes EV charging away from home isn't simple... but neither is going into a lot of towns our way any more either.

The low emission zones introduction in cities in Scotland are getting dragged out now before being fully  introduced to affect car drivers and the areas they will cover are being reduced from what they were originally to be.  The increase in businesses using EV vehicles including  commercials is increasing quite quickly now in preparation for their introduction.  

 

another thing that people dont realise with ev and you dont hear mentioned, is the batteries degrading

all batteries degrade, my laptop battery, my golf trolley battery , my power tool batteries all dont last as long as they did when new.

so if a new ev battery gives 200 mile range when new, after a few years that's going to drop and along with the drop in cold weather, you might be getting less than half the range of new

 

when  ev's  get to an age where expensive batteries are neeeding replaced, there valve will drop like a stone

 

True, but as there are now many Tesla and Nissan Leafs running around with 200K+ miles on them with still a useful range I don't think its a major issue. These real world examples show degradation is not steep nor renders the car an uneconomically short life. I believe the issue of batteries wearing out are no different to an engine (and gearbox) wearing out in a fossil car. After hundreds of thousands of miles, most cars are worthless and in need of expensive major component replacement.

Edited 17 November, 20214 yr by Luckypants
spelling

34 minutes ago, 310golfr said:

when  ev's  get to an age where expensive batteries are neeeding replaced, there valve will drop like a stone

Do you think 7 years old is an age where batteries need replacing for first generation Nissan Leaf?  It's about half the expected lifespan of a regular car, 15 years. 

I have a 2014 first-gen Leaf, it's still giving me more than 80% of its charging capacity. As long as the range is more than my wife's daily needs, I don't see any reason why it need to be replaced. Value of first generation EV will always be higher than similar age comparable cars for they rarer whilst tax and regulations close in on the more polluting ones. 

 

"The batteries will out last the car." is the general coconscious from those with more knowledge than me. 

https://www.nationalgrid.com/stories/journey-to-net-zero-stories/what-happens-old-electric-car-batteries

49 minutes ago, 310golfr said:

when  ev's  get to an age where expensive batteries are neeeding replaced, there valve will drop like a stone

 

Depends on your perspective whether that's a good or a bad thing.  For a lot of people today, purchase price is a significant barrier to EV ownership, and in some of those cases (like mine) range is almost irrelevant; my daily commute is only 5 miles each way.  I can/will slow charge at home without any cost other than the leccy.

 

I'll never spend tens of thousands on a new car of any type, but I will buy 'end of life' cars that I know I can maintain cheaply myself. Just depends where your financial priorities lie.  Horses for courses.

 

Edited 17 November, 20214 yr by Wino

@310golfr

Lots of people do not realise lots of things and lots of things are misunderstood by people that do not bother to look into them. 

People buying an EV or Leasing might well look at the Warranty / Guarantee and what the Battery Life / Percentage is after however many miles / km or period of time.

It might not be of any importance to them.

Many are not buying a keeper, but many have a keeper and knows about their cars batteries. 

 

People with a Nissan, Kia / Hyundai, Tesla  might have more to go on than those getting a VW/Skoda/Audi/Seat. JLR, PSA etc  who's history of full electrics are not very long.

Cars with many years on the road and charging and rapid charging tell a story.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Used prices are not what they were... They are higher.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited 17 November, 20214 yr by roottoot

18 hours ago, 310golfr said:

after reading through  posts, dont think i could be bothered with the hassle of owning an ev,  i'd rather just pay the extra costs of diesel for the sake of an easier life  😀

the days of free charging will soon be a thing of the past unless you connect to a lamp post over night   😄    no good during the day though  😂

but i suppose at this time of year with more dark hours, there's plenty free charge hours  😁  which i suppose is one good thing about an ev

 

It is not really much if a hassle plugging in, either somewhere between plugging in a garden strimmer for the 3 pin so called Granny charging cable to dealing with some pretty heavy duty cable when I am plugging in using my meaty 22 kw 3 phase cable.  The really high charge cables are always tethered to the charge ie the 50 to 350 kw DC charging cable so one only has to plug one end ie the one in to the car.  All this will change to induction charging in the next few years.

 

I think electricity will be the cheap and increasingly widely available with offshore wind, nuclear here and in France and more worldwide sharing of electrical power.  On the other hand, whilst electrical charging add over 1,000 new chargers a month petroleum selling garages will naturally decline as the drivers migrate to EV from ICE and petroleum garages have to raise their margins as sales decrease.

 

Still do not think I have spent more than about £15 as I approach 1500 miles driven by charging at night on the 5p a kwh nuclear base load lecky or charging at work, today with 3 pin charge cable at one of my more remote warehouses, only about 15 kWhs but added about 60 miles of range so I was back up to 180 mile range so I could zoom back to Worcester at the National Speed limits virtual for free.  Will add my 180 miles today to my HMRC mileage claim for the 45p a mile tax relief so £32 made for the cost of about £2 charging last night.   

 

EV is a money generator not a cost burden pleased to say and the company car allowance way more than covers the PCP and all other expenses with probably quite a bit extra to pocket.   Shame company does not supply the car as it would attract zero company car tax as an EV compared to well over £100 a month for the same RRP of an ICE car ! 

Hence why we are seeing thousands of additional Teslas and other EVs being added to the road users every month as the economics are just overwhelming.    

 

Edited 17 November, 20214 yr by lol-lol

39 minutes ago, lol-lol said:

 

It is not really much if a hassle plugging in, either somewhere between plugging in a garden strimmer for the 3 pin so called Granny charging cable to dealing with some pretty heavy duty cable when I am plugging in using my meaty 22 kw 3 phase cable.  The really high charge cables are always tethered to the charge ie the 50 to 350 kw DC charging cable so one only has to plug one end ie the one in to the car.  All this will change to induction charging in the next few years.

 

I think electricity will be the cheap and increasingly widely available with offshore wind, nuclear here and in France and more worldwide sharing of electrical power.  On the other hand, whilst electrical charging add over 1,000 new chargers a month petroleum selling garages will naturally decline as the drivers migrate to EV from ICE and petroleum garages have to raise their margins as sales decrease.

 

Still do not think I have spent more than about £15 as I approach 1500 miles driven by charging at night on the 5p a kwh nuclear base load lecky or charging at work, today with 3 pin charge cable at one of my more remote warehouses, only about 15 kWhs but added about 60 miles of range so I was back up to 180 mile range so I could zoom back to Worcester at the National Speed limits virtual for free.  Will add my 180 miles today to my HMRC mileage claim for the 45p a mile tax relief so £32 made for the cost of about £2 charging last night.   

 

EV is a money generator not a cost burden pleased to say and the company car allowance way more than covers the PCP and all other expenses with probably quite a bit extra to pocket.   Shame company does not supply the car as it would attract zero company car tax as an EV compared to well over £100 a month for the same RRP of an ICE car ! 

Hence why we are seeing thousands of additional Teslas and other EVs being added to the road users every month as the economics are just overwhelming.    

 

ev cars are still too expensive to buy /lease  for most households though, even with the so called incentives , and what about the small matter of government fuel duty loses.

the official figure is 58% plus vat, personally i think they will already have plans in place to re-coup this loss

one things for sure, you aint getting away with it   😂

8 minutes ago, 310golfr said:

ev cars are still too expensive to buy /lease  for most households though, even with the so called incentives

 

Tying in with this. My mother's Dacia Duster was in the region 11 grand (pre-reg 1.0 turbo Comfort) in September 2020 and was the upper limit of what she could afford, even on hire purchase as our Toyota Auris had too many things wrong with it for us to want to pour money into it. My car was £1,400 in March of this year (56 plate Ambiente 1200), being as much as I could afford. I'm in a single parent household and I have one sibling. These are the best we could get for whatever money we had. Now, I don't know if I'm "most households", but I'm still a statistic somewhere, no doubt about that.

 

Now anyway, it's just my experience. You (the reader, not the person I'm replying to) may have a different experience, and that's alright. I just thought I'd share my two pence etc.

 

Side note: if you can read that, then good, I've had a busy day so stringing sentences together is involving a lot of effort.

Edited 17 November, 20214 yr by AnnoyingPentium
Grammaring (new word, that)

On 10/11/2021 at 14:03, Chorlton said:

The problem with people replacing ICE vehicles with EVs is that they think they're saving the planet when they aren't.  Everything that's made has some CO2 or other environmental costs associated.

 

I don't think anyone that owns a newish, fairly fuel efficient, normal car should be getting rid of it for an EV.  Simply look at using your normal car less - if Covid has taught us anything it's that we don't need to be driving around as much as we think we do.

Our mileage on both cars has plummeted significantly since March 2020.

 

Kodiaq down 40% on annual basis.

 

Polo down almost 50%.

 

Changes in family circumstances. Lockdown preventing travel.  Various reasons.

 

I’ve read most of the above with interest and agree that an EV car could replace car No.2 as I know it rarely travels more than 100 in a day. Actually it’s only exceeded 100 miles on 2 days. Doesn’t mean it’s back tucked up at home. But home charging could work for a second car.

 

But car No.1 has to be able to go anywhere anytime. It’s not Range Anxiety. It’s “refuelling anxiety” as mentioned above.

 

And I think the “free charging”. Free this. Free that is all smoke and mirrors.

 

As for “all so green in the garden”. Are we remembering how batteries are made? And disposed of.

 

Hybrid will be a no-no for me. Lugging 1/4 ton (ish) of extra baggage with a puny little pony engine ain’t happening.
 

 

Edited 18 November, 20214 yr by BoxerBoy