the truth about electric cars

[wyx087]

14 hours ago, Lady Elanore said:

I went for a longish walk today and could have left the car to charge at the relatively plentiful charge points at the car park. If I wasn't to casually charge, it would be over 80p/kW!! Or sign up and save a few pence. That explains why most of the chargers are always empty. Dread to think how much it cost to install them all. 

 

The more time goes on, the more I am becoming anti-EVs. It's not any one individual EV, but the whole ethos around them. Overpriced, underserviced, too compromised, falling residuals (in free fall for some marques). Second-hand cars needing battery replacement and that will come one day, will write the cars off. I also hate the minimalist interiors and in many cases horrifically dull styling. At least make an effort, guys. I realise that some EVs are very stylish, the Taycan Cross is stunning, as is the Audi E Tron, but there are a little pricey when new! 

The price of public charging is indeed ridiculous. There really need to be variable (time of day) pricing for public charging to allow anyone to charge cheaply during off peak time.

 

One thing you've got to remember is that your PHEV is a compromised EV experience. It has a tiny battery, pointless to rapid charge and motor is underpowered. AC Destination charging installs are waaay behind compared to number of EV's being sold. There has been remarkable turn around in rapid charging hubs. Examples, Birchanger green services, 33 at Pease Pottage services, 24 at Cobham services, potentially 64 at South Mimms opening soon.

 

As been pointed out many many times, BEV batteries are designed to last lifetime of the vehicle. There is no need to consider battery replacement. Now would be a good time to buy second hand Taycan, £46k for one, they are like 100k new? Depreciation is on-par with other luxury barges?

 

 

Re James May video, the problem points presented in the video, that I can see, is due to the charging infrastructure and charging speed.

 

I totally agree with the former. I've said this since the start of my EV ownership in 2017, there is no range anxiety. I had charging anxiety every time I want to use public chargers, before I bought Tesla. With Tesla supercharger network, I've never ran into any charging anxiety yet. Always worked first time and always has available charging points because I can see how busy they are from my car.

 

Not sure about the latter, would certainly be different for everyone. For vast majority of people with regular mileage, recharging speed is much less of a concern. It's only problematic for someone who cannot charge at home and is always on the road, thus relies on rapid charging for most of their mileage. On timing, 3min to refuel, 5min to toilet => 8min minimum assuming no queues and don't need to move car. After 3+ hours in the car, taking things leisurely for a 15 min recharge is hardly a show stopper.

[J.R.]

11 minutes ago, wyx087 said:

On timing, 3min to refuel, 5min to toilet => 8min minimum assuming no queues and don't need to move car.

 

That seems a reasonable asessment and on that basis the petrol station with 12 pumps that Graham spoke of would be capable of 240 fill ups per hour, rather than 144, I suspect the average for a busy service station that has judged the right ratio of pumps to footfall would average 144 across all opening hours, the 24 hour Tescos that I used when in the UK never ever had a pause between customers on any pumps day or night.

 

The supermarkets have got it wrong in my country, instead of having a forecourt large enough to park up after to pay at the till if that is your desire and/or to buy expensive junk food and coffee they have 2 pumps on 24 hour card only payment, the ones I use, they have their own exit lane, the other usually 8 pumps all filter into a clogged lane leading to a payment kiosk open from say 9am to 18.00 with a harried cashier not selling anything value added except bottled gas which I buy, that is on the card only side, it means I have to walk into the queue of motorists waiting to pay, pay for my gas after she has taken the payment from the first car then desert her post to walk over and unlock the gas cage.

 

The fuel station does 4 times the amount of business outside of kiosk hours because all the pumps are on card only payment, many times the revenue and zero staff costs!!!!!

 

The stupidity is as much the fault of the unions as it is the majority of motorists who crazily will not use a credit card payment pump but will then join a long queue of cars in a single lane to pay by card at the kiosk - go figure!

 

The services at the autoroute are laid out like a Tescos, all pumps filling  cars non stop, parking adjacent, no-one leaving vehicles for 10 minutes, fuel at 15-20% more than off the autoroute and a restaurant and shops selling good quality meals for a resonable price.

[@Lee]

One thing I don't miss is people pulling up at a pump, putting in 20 quids worth of fuel, then going inside to do what seems like a weeks shop whilst they leave their car at the pump.

Edited 9 March by @Lee

[xman]

33 minutes ago, wyx087 said:

On timing, 3min to refuel, 5min to toilet => 8min minimum assuming no queues and don't need to move

I don't think I've ever witnessed anyone at a petrol/diesel pump leave their car at the pump while rhey go to the toilet never mind 5 mins. I certainly have never done that. If I needed to go to the toilet then I would park in a designated parking space nearby and then do my business. Having to stop for a pee or a coffee seems to be something EV owners need

 

I am 70 have BEP but can still manage a 350 mile round trip to London, stopping only to drop off my son at LHR.

[Graham Butcher]

26 minutes ago, J.R. said:

 

That seems a reasonable asessment and on that basis the petrol station with 12 pumps that Graham spoke of would be capable of 240 fill ups per hour, rather than 144, I suspect the average for a busy service station that has judged the right ratio of pumps to footfall would average 144 across all opening hours, the 24 hour Tescos that I used when in the UK never ever had a pause between customers on any pumps day or night.

 

The supermarkets have got it wrong in my country, instead of having a forecourt large enough to park up after to pay at the till if that is your desire and/or to buy expensive junk food and coffee they have 2 pumps on 24 hour card only payment, the ones I use, they have their own exit lane, the other usually 8 pumps all filter into a clogged lane leading to a payment kiosk open from say 9am to 18.00 with a harried cashier not selling anything value added except bottled gas which I buy, that is on the card only side, it means I have to walk into the queue of motorists waiting to pay, pay for my gas after she has taken the payment from the first car then desert her post to walk over and unlock the gas cage.

 

The fuel station does 4 times the amount of business outside of kiosk hours because all the pumps are on card only payment, many times the revenue and zero staff costs!!!!!

 

The stupidity is as much the fault of the unions as it is the majority of motorists who crazily will not use a credit card payment pump but will then join a long queue of cars in a single lane to pay by card at the kiosk - go figure!

 

The services at the autoroute are laid out like a Tescos, all pumps filling  cars non stop, parking adjacent, no-one leaving vehicles for 10 minutes, fuel at 15-20% more than off the autoroute and a restaurant and shops selling good quality meals for a resonable price.

Yeah, I was being what I thought was generous by allowing 5 minutes per fill up and paying, but in reality, maybe 3 minutes is more likely. Having said that, it is not that often that you see a filling station constantly that busy, but they could be, which was the point I was making and so to be able to charge the same number of EV cars, which is going to be a need as more ICE cars are replaced with BEVs, then those chargers are a must, but then also comes another problem, the real estate required to park those cars during the charge cycle is many more times the real estate need for ICE refilling 

 

I suspect, part of the problem you notice with the lengthy queues at the payment kiosk over the payment at the pump with a credit card is maybe, partly due to people like me, who are not happy with the way that supermarkets etc are reducing people with machines. Those people have families and bills to pay just the same as you and I have, and I'd rather help keep them employed to help them in that respect. The other reason is that there are zero savings to be had for serving yourself either, other than time maybe, but is not a given on the time saving front either. For example, I went shopping earlier than normal today and the only tills open were indeed self-service ones and if you're buying multiples of something and they then come in a tray, such as yogurts and your buying say a tray full of 12, then each tub of yogurt has to be scanned on its own and placed on the receiving bench which then checks the weight is correct and if you then place the tray on the bench alarms all go off and the till goes into lock down as it sees the extra weight of the tray as unscanned items being stolen and a member of staff has to come and override the till.

 

At a staffed checkout, the operator scans 1 yogurt and multiples that by the number and job is done, no time lost in removing, scanning and then replacing back in the tray.

 

Call me old fashioned if you like, but having been out of work a few times, I can understand just how hard life can be in that situation so I try and avoid using all forms of self-service so that bosses cannot just cut people out of their money making schemes, god knows they pay as little as they can get away with and low or zero contract hours, this I know because one of my sons works in that market sector.

[xman]

1 hour ago, wyx087 said:

The price of public charging is indeed ridiculous. There really need to be variable (time of day) pricing for public charging to allow anyone to charge cheaply during off peak time.

 

What did anyone expect?

 

Generating electricity costs money, Distribution costs money, Installing a charger plus required infrastructure costs lots of money, maintaining and running chargers costs money, parking spaces, roads etc on privately owned land are not for free, companies running the whole show have overheads and exist to make a profit. The government needs to claw subsidies and loss of fuel duty back  through standard rates of VAT, corporation tax etc.

 

 

 

 

Edited 9 March by xman

[Graham Butcher]

6 minutes ago, xman said:

 

What did anyone expect?

 

Generating electricity costs money, Distribution costs money, Installing a charger plus required infrastructure costs lots of money, maintaining and running chargers costs money, parking spaces, roads etc on privately owned land are not for free, companies running the whole show have overheads and exist to make a profit. The government needs to claw subsidies back through standard rates of VAT, corporation tax etc.

 

 

 

 

Quite, but that was not the dream that they sold us was it, one of the points they make is BEV's are cheaper to run, which is only true for the fortunate ones who can charge at home or have access to destination chargers at a fair price when at work, which is not even remotely possible or true for the majority of us.

Edited 9 March by Graham Butcher

[xman]

https://www.energylivenews.com/2024/01/22/plan-to-cut-ev-charging-times-to-five-minutes-revealed/

 

Gridserve is set to invest £1 billion to install nearly 1,000 ultra rapid chargers by year-end, aiming to alleviate the long queues at service station

 

By my reckoning, each charger will cost a million pounds. I wonder what return on investment they're looking at?

 

 

 

[Lady Elanore]

1 hour ago, wyx087 said:

The price of public charging is indeed ridiculous. There really need to be variable (time of day) pricing for public charging to allow anyone to charge cheaply during off peak time.

 

One thing you've got to remember is that your PHEV is a compromised EV experience. It has a tiny battery, pointless to rapid charge and motor is underpowered. AC Destination charging installs are waaay behind compared to number of EV's being sold. There has been remarkable turn around in rapid charging hubs. Examples, Birchanger green services, 33 at Pease Pottage services, 24 at Cobham services, potentially 64 at South Mimms opening soon.

 

As been pointed out many many times, BEV batteries are designed to last lifetime of the vehicle. There is no need to consider battery replacement. Now would be a good time to buy second hand Taycan, £46k for one, they are like 100k new? Depreciation is on-par with other luxury barges?

 

 

Re James May video, the problem points presented in the video, that I can see, is due to the charging infrastructure and charging speed.

 

I totally agree with the former. I've said this since the start of my EV ownership in 2017, there is no range anxiety. I had charging anxiety every time I want to use public chargers, before I bought Tesla. With Tesla supercharger network, I've never ran into any charging anxiety yet. Always worked first time and always has available charging points because I can see how busy they are from my car.

 

Not sure about the latter, would certainly be different for everyone. For vast majority of people with regular mileage, recharging speed is much less of a concern. It's only problematic for someone who cannot charge at home and is always on the road, thus relies on rapid charging for most of their mileage. On timing, 3min to refuel, 5min to toilet => 8min minimum assuming no queues and don't need to move car. After 3+ hours in the car, taking things leisurely for a 15 min recharge is hardly a show stopper.

I have a car that can easily get me to my destination for the walk without using dinosaur juice and with a couple of hours charge can easily get back again. Not using the evil petrol even once. Just because it has a 12kW battery doesn't make it none-EV if I choose that as its mode of drive. The infrastructure is pants and the prices are atrocious. Why have charge points if it is going to cost nearly 3 times the average cost of electricity in your house, and that's just the standard consumer rate, not the eco rates available through the night. I'll probably take my 575PS V8 to the water park as it has a huge tank and doesn't need a top-up to get there and back. It is also more fun to drive. I tried embracing partial electric travel, but the industry doesn't want me. Suits me, I'll stick to ICE more than happily. 

 

Shame they wasted a huge amount of money fitting all the unused charge points really 

[Lady Elanore]

34 minutes ago, xman said:

 

What did anyone expect?

 

Generating electricity costs money, Distribution costs money, Installing a charger plus required infrastructure costs lots of money, maintaining and running chargers costs money, parking spaces, roads etc on privately owned land are not for free, companies running the whole show have overheads and exist to make a profit. The government needs to claw subsidies and loss of fuel duty back  through standard rates of VAT, corporation tax etc.

 

 

 

 

The facilities that I described, have seemingly t'd off from the incoming feed to the water park. I certainly didn't see any tree trunk cables being laid during installation, so the cost of the installation wouldn't be that great, all things considered. The chargers themselves may be expensive, but apart from safety checks, they have virtually no moving parts and should be built to last a reasonable while, certainly I expect them to last longer than a petrol pump before needing maintenance. The 'fuel' itself has no transportation cost, is totally on demand (no storage fees) and the car parking at the water park has always been free. My take is a lot of people are seeing the whole EV thing as an opportunity to make easy money and as we are being asked to go electric to save the planet, being screwed financially by big companies to do so, appears to be extraordinarily cynical. 

 

Hopefully the next government will do something about it (Disclaimer: regardless who that government is)

 

 

[xman]

Some people think "free" means at no cost to anyone. It very rarely does. Use of the word "free" should come with a trigger warning.

[Graham Butcher]

41 minutes ago, xman said:

https://www.energylivenews.com/2024/01/22/plan-to-cut-ev-charging-times-to-five-minutes-revealed/

 

Gridserve is set to invest £1 billion to install nearly 1,000 ultra rapid chargers by year-end, aiming to alleviate the long queues at service station

 

By my reckoning, each charger will cost a million pounds. I wonder what return on investment they're looking at?

 

 

 

The problem with the above plan, if it is even achievable that is, that it also the cars and the batteries need to be capable of accepting a charge at those speeds and there will many that are not anywhere nearly capable. But I do hope and pray that one day they will be able to get to the sort of level without the cars etc suffering in any way whatsoever.

[Graham Butcher]

2 hours ago, wyx087 said:

As been pointed out many many times, BEV batteries are designed to last lifetime of the vehicle. There is no need to consider battery replacement. Now would be a good time to buy second hand Taycan, £46k for one, they are like 100k new? Depreciation is on-par with other luxury barges?

 

Now the problem here is, what is the planned lifetime of the car, 10 years, 15 years or what. One thing is going to be pretty certain, however, and that is that they will never last as long as ICE cars can and do last and still be perfectly useable as a daily driver. How about a 55 years old Renault 10 which is still on its original engine which had 46BHP new and still has today 40BHP. There is no way on earth that a BEV is ever going to be capable of claiming the same thing.

[wyx087]

5 hours ago, xman said:

I don't think I've ever witnessed anyone at a petrol/diesel pump leave their car at the pump while rhey go to the toilet never mind 5 mins. I certainly have never done that. If I needed to go to the toilet then I would park in a designated parking space nearby and then do my business. Having to stop for a pee or a coffee seems to be something EV owners need

 

I am 70 have BEP but can still manage a 350 mile round trip to London, stopping only to drop off my son at LHR.

3min refuel time came from Mr May in the video.

5min is very quick toilet visit from my experience, where the toilet is rarely next to the service building entrance.

I assumed no time moving the vehicle to be favourable for ICE cars. +3min for moving the car between service area car park and petrol station if you like.

 

350 miles including drop off at LHR is going to be a long time. It takes about 50min for me to get to Heathrow, just 20 odd miles drive away. I could never imagine sitting anywhere for more than 2 hours, not desk job nor in the car. Longest single leg I've ever driven was 150 miles that took 3 hours, it was tortious. It was a route I used to regularly do, I typically break up that 150 miles with a break at Membury services.

 

5 hours ago, xman said:

Generating electricity costs money, Distribution costs money, Installing a charger plus required infrastructure costs lots of money, maintaining and running chargers costs money, parking spaces, roads etc on privately owned land are not for free, companies running the whole show have overheads and exist to make a profit. The government needs to claw subsidies and loss of fuel duty back  through standard rates of VAT, corporation tax etc.

I expect wholesale price variation passed on to consumers.

 

For example, instead of flat 50p/kWh, variable, charge 4-7pm is £1/kwh and charge overnight is 30p/kWh. Still more than home EV tariffs, but much cheaper than running fossil fuel and there is more than enough profit margin to support the charge point operators.

 

 

Centre Parcs charger only dispense overnight, it costs acceptable 39p/kWh. There's 73 charge points available. This is how to do destination charging.

https://app.vendelectric.com/location/12989

 

4 hours ago, xman said:

https://www.energylivenews.com/2024/01/22/plan-to-cut-ev-charging-times-to-five-minutes-revealed/

 

Gridserve is set to invest £1 billion to install nearly 1,000 ultra rapid chargers by year-end, aiming to alleviate the long queues at service station

 

By my reckoning, each charger will cost a million pounds. I wonder what return on investment they're looking at?

The cost is split up into different areas: charging units (as you say, charger), ground works, grid connection and/or battery support.

 

Single unit, 175 to 350 kW costs 24.5k euro: https://chargingshop.eu/product/abb-terra-hpc-fast-charging-station-output-from-175kw-to-350kw/

 

 

[J.R.]

Given that with government encouragement you (the UK) now have a plethora of energy suppliers none of whom seemingly actually supply any energy, they just buy and resell and create a smokescreen of green claims, they are selling you grid electricity that they did not supply or create, so why can you not simply charge your vehicle at any charge point and the sum be added to your electricity bill from your energy supplier at your agreed rate?

 

Better still, charge at your destination whether it be a public place, fuel station, business or even a friends house and be billed in exactly the same way?

 

They could make it so that if you go over your monthly direct debit any further charging would be taken from your debit card.

 

Too simple? It's far less daft than encouraging random unrelated businesses to be energy (not) suppliers.

[wyx087]

4 hours ago, Lady Elanore said:

I have a car that can easily get me to my destination for the walk without using dinosaur juice and with a couple of hours charge can easily get back again. Not using the evil petrol even once. Just because it has a 12kW battery doesn't make it none-EV if I choose that as its mode of drive. The infrastructure is pants and the prices are atrocious. Why have charge points if it is going to cost nearly 3 times the average cost of electricity in your house, and that's just the standard consumer rate, not the eco rates available through the night. I'll probably take my 575PS V8 to the water park as it has a huge tank and doesn't need a top-up to get there and back. It is also more fun to drive. I tried embracing partial electric travel, but the industry doesn't want me. Suits me, I'll stick to ICE more than happily. 

 

Shame they wasted a huge amount of money fitting all the unused charge points really 

PHEV have battery that's smaller than my Nissan Leaf, most PHEV cannot rapid charge and it is less efficient due to added weight of the engine.

Do you think it is right for me to declare BEV a disaster based on my experience trying to only find and rely on AC charging points with Nissan Leaf?

 

In your example, a regular BEV would not need plugging in at expensive locations. We still need those to give options, but they should be variable (time of use) pricing as per my post above.

 

4 hours ago, Graham Butcher said:

The problem with the above plan, if it is even achievable that is, that it also the cars and the batteries need to be capable of accepting a charge at those speeds and there will many that are not anywhere nearly capable. But I do hope and pray that one day they will be able to get to the sort of level without the cars etc suffering in any way whatsoever.

A couple cars today can already take 300 kW charging. There's a Kia EV6 owner on this Skoda forum. My MY can take 250 kW. Both of those can do 10-80% in around 20min. The key is having the number of chargers there so that there would be no queues. Even if there's people waiting, the chance of someone finishing increases as number of charger increases.

 

 

4 hours ago, Graham Butcher said:

Now the problem here is, what is the planned lifetime of the car, 10 years, 15 years or what. One thing is going to be pretty certain, however, and that is that they will never last as long as ICE cars can and do last and still be perfectly useable as a daily driver. How about a 55 years old Renault 10 which is still on its original engine which had 46BHP new and still has today 40BHP. There is no way on earth that a BEV is ever going to be capable of claiming the same thing.

55 years is extraordinarily long for a car. In order for that car to be used every day AND survive that long, how much would have been spent on servicing the ICE over that 55 years? How many miles has that 55 years old example done?

 

In similar extreme example, how much would it cost to service ICE to cover 310,000 miles?

https://www.autoevolution.com/news/2016-tesla-model-s-used-as-a-taxi-has-only-12-battery-degradation-after-310k-miles-221769.html

Quote

The 2016 Model S 90D owned by Current Taxi has hit 500,000 km (310,000 miles) without major repairs. Most notably, the battery and drive units are still original

 

In the real world, 15 years is typical for most cars. There's not many 09 or earlier reg cars on the road today. Vast majority are 10 or later cars. So 15 years is taunted as typical vehicle lifetime, and I fully believe BEV batteries will last more than that number of years.

 

Of course, if you want to say reduced range beyond a magical number means end of life, then BEV will never be good enough. Luckily the vehicle will always find a home elsewhere, with less strict range requirement.

[Graham Butcher]

12 hours ago, wyx087 said:

A couple cars today can already take 300 kW charging. There's a Kia EV6 owner on this Skoda forum. My MY can take 250 kW. Both of those can do 10-80% in around 20min. The key is having the number of chargers there so that there would be no queues. Even if there's people waiting, the chance of someone finishing increases as number of charger increases.

 

Agreed, but that is still only 2 models out of how many on the road? Equally it is still a long way off being the same as an ICE car which was used as the target to get to in order to enable the same throughput of cars in the same time period.

 

12 hours ago, wyx087 said:

55 years is extraordinarily long for a car. In order for that car to be used every day AND survive that long, how much would have been spent on servicing the ICE over that 55 years? How many miles has that 55 years old example done?

 

There are plenty of really old cars, some even older in use as daily drivers, the cost of servicing during its life time is not the point, the car is still going strong on the original engine, you will not find a 55-year-old battery still capable of driving any EV car. And I certainly don't expect the cost of the servicing during that time to have cost half the cost of the car.

 

12 hours ago, wyx087 said:

In the real world, 15 years is typical for most cars. There's not many 09 or earlier reg cars on the road today. Vast majority are 10 or later cars. So 15 years is taunted as typical vehicle lifetime, and I fully believe BEV batteries will last more than that number of years.

 

Of course, if you want to say reduced range beyond a magical number means end of life, then BEV will never be good enough. Luckily the vehicle will always find a home elsewhere, with less strict range requirement.

At this point in time there will not be any 15 year old BEV cars around to discover if the battery will last that long or not. But last year 2023, there were a number of cars that were 120 years old taking part and one of these 1903 MMC cars was the very first car to arrive at the finishing line in Brighton last year.

 

Edited 10 March by Graham Butcher

[xman]

3 hours ago, wyx087 said:

I expect wholesale price variation passed on to consumer

 

Prepare to be disappointed.

 

3 hours ago, wyx087 said:

The cost is split up into different areas: charging units (as you say, charger), ground works, grid connection and/or battery support.

 

Single unit, 175 to 350 kW costs 24.5k euro: https://chargingshop.eu/product/abb-terra-hpc-fast-charging-station-output-from-175kw-to-350kw/

 

£1,000,000,000 to install nearly 1000 chargers said Gridserve. Thats a million pound per charger by my reckoning.

 

 

Edited 10 March by xman

[Stonekeeper]

Which research including Cost savings EV versus ice across different models based on efficiency and charging costs

 

https://www.which.co.uk/reviews/new-and-used-cars/article/electric-car-charging-guide/how-much-does-it-cost-to-charge-an-electric-car-a8f4g1o7JzXj

[Ootohere]

@J.R. look at SSE Energy Solutions.  Look at other electric generation companies and renewables / wind farm and solar is Scotland that are in the business of selling electricity and now in partnerships with EV Charging providers.  Scotland is not England and the real issue in Scotland is not enough storage for the electricity that can be produced or the customers taking it since not all is connected to the national grid.   Electricity is not free but it can be damn cheap in some communities producing it with turbines they own and that the initial investments are paid back on.  

[wyx087]

9 hours ago, xman said:

 

Prepare to be disappointed.

What do you call this?

 

10 hours ago, Graham Butcher said:

Agreed, but that is still only 2 models out of how many on the road? Equally it is still a long way off being the same as an ICE car which was used as the target to get to in order to enable the same throughput of cars in the same time period.

Considering EV can and should be charged at destination with AC charging. Why do we need the same throughput of cars as petrol stations?

 

For trunk road services, to enable BEV long distance driving, throughput will eventually exceed petrol stations. For example the new installs at South Mimms services can match its petrol station throughput:

16 petrol pump stalls.

64 rapid charging spots.

 

10 hours ago, Graham Butcher said:

There are plenty of really old cars, some even older in use as daily drivers, the cost of servicing during its life time is not the point, the car is still going strong on the original engine, you will not find a 55-year-old battery still capable of driving any EV car. And I certainly don't expect the cost of the servicing during that time to have cost half the cost of the car.

Why does it matter that BEV must behave exactly the same as ICE vehicles? For that 55 years old example, just bang in a new battery during restoration.

 

In the real world, let's compare 20 years old costs.

Cost of servicing over 20 years: £2000.

Cost of newer upgraded Leaf battery part: £1900 https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/204668355687

If the vehicle is beyond economical repair due to other parts, EV ownership has saved £2000. If want to continue driving after 20 years, servicing cost is roughly equal.

 

10 hours ago, Graham Butcher said:

At this point in time there will not be any 15 year old BEV cars around to discover if the battery will last that long or not.

Indeed. Currently there are only examples of BEV with very high mileage to show the battery can take that many cycles and the drivetrain doesn't need servicing.

 

Anecdotally, my Leaf at 9.5 years old has 79% state of health. Hasn't changed much over last year. I'm confident it will last 5 more years. I'm tempted to keep it as an example that BEV batteries really do last that long, even with added V2H cycles 😛

[lol-lol]

20 hours ago, Graham Butcher said:

That, if you don't mind me saying so, is BS unless you're a super quick typer, the time it took to type up your reply to me, you could have gone onto the compare the market site and got about 60 plus quotes for a MG4

 

Got round to running quotes for a MG4 Long Range, plenty under £500 year for me.

Most buyers go fo the standard range which would be a bit cheap.  Even putting in no voluntary excess only added about £30 a year.

I think insurance is usually much cheaper in the Shires than the highly populated parts of SE England. 

Should get my renewal quote from LV for the Zoe and the Arkana which I am expected to be broadly in line with the 5% RPI inflation there is at the moment.

Thank God for the rise in pensions and cut in National Insurance to pay fo it and all the other rising costs and thankfully big fall in cost to charge the EV at least on the home tariff.

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   £464.13

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5. 

   £472.99

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   6 months free subscription with bp pulse, includes £27 charging credit. Ends 3/9/24 Read More

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7. 

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   £489.74

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    £497.71

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[Winston_Woof]

20 hours ago, wyx087 said:

The price of public charging is indeed ridiculous. There really need to be variable (time of day) pricing for public charging to allow anyone to charge cheaply during off peak time.

 

 

 would you refer to a petrol station as "public refuelling" ??

probably not ;o)

Whilst it is undoubtedly true that the  cost per unit may be higher than on your home tariff at charging points away from home whats the difference ? Aren't these (most of the time) privately owned chargers selling a service/product at a profit? 

 

[Stonekeeper]

 

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/electriccars/article-12671771/True-false-EVs-cheaper-service-maintain-repair.html

[Winston_Woof]

8 minutes ago, Stonekeeper said:

 

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/electriccars/article-12671771/True-false-EVs-cheaper-service-maintain-repair.html

Hmmm £0 spent on brakes? Maybe that's why they've had problems stopping them on motorways lol