the truth about electric cars

[Graham Butcher]

40 minutes ago, Paws4Thot said:

Ah but you can, at least for your recent posts. Click on the ellipsis (...) top right of your post that you want to edit. You'll be presented with a 3 item menu, Report, Share and Edit. Now press the Edit item.

 

The "spoiler" control works the same sort of way as bold, italic, underscore and strikethrough, but...

  Reveal hidden contents

hides your text that you type in the spoiler box.

 

So press on "reveal hidden contents" to see what's in the box.

So if you wanted to post a slightly risky photo for instance, you'd click on the spoiler icon in the menu bar, then you'd post your photo then you'd have to click on the spoiler icon again to close the command and post the reply, is that how you do it?

[@Lee]

Spoiler

Not quite but close. No need to tap the spoiler icon a second time.

And when inserting the pic into the spoiler box make sure the cursor is flashing in the spoiler box otherwise it'll end up in the main post body. 

 

 

 

 

@Graham Butcher 

 

Edited 12 March by @Lee

[Paws4Thot]

6 hours ago, Graham Butcher said:

So if you wanted to post a slightly risky photo for instance, you'd click on the spoiler icon in the menu bar, then you'd post your photo then you'd have to click on the spoiler icon again to close the command and post the reply, is that how you do it?

Not exactly; you post the risqué? (guess that's what you meant) photo in the spoiler box created by using the control.

[EnterName]

17 hours ago, wyx087 said:

Apart from dogmatism, I honestly can't see any reason why people are resisting these mass produced magical devices.

I think your personal wealth is possibly obscuring your view of the reason why people in the cheap seats are "resisting" these magical devices.

[wyx087]

7 minutes ago, EnterName said:

I think your personal wealth is possibly obscuring your view of the reason why people in the cheap seats are "resisting" these magical devices.

Unable to charge overnight is a barrier right now, I get it.

 

But EV's as a vehicle purchase and the running costs if able to home charge are actually extremely cheap. It's even cheaper now with every level of second hand vehicles to choose from. 

 

But many with driveways are still buying brand new £60k+ giant SUV's. Many with capability are not installing roof top solar.

 

Wealth is a limitation. But it's not the reason many are actively resisting.

[Graham Butcher]

42 minutes ago, wyx087 said:

Unable to charge overnight is a barrier right now, I get it.

 

But EV's as a vehicle purchase and the running costs if able to home charge are actually extremely cheap. It's even cheaper now with every level of second hand vehicles to choose from. 

 

But many with driveways are still buying brand new £60k+ giant SUV's. Many with capability are not installing roof top solar.

 

Wealth is a limitation. But it's not the reason many are actively resisting.

There is always going to be a reason for their choice of car, maybe they actually need the internal space of that car, like I do. Maybe the reason why some haven't installed rooftop solar arrays is because of cost, weak roof, think they spoil the look of the house (my wife has that view, happy wife, happy life 😊) there may be many reasons for peoples choices. EVs currently do not fit into the life style of many people so its wrong to think badly of those that have not embraced them like you have. 

[wyx087]

10 minutes ago, Graham Butcher said:

there may be many reasons for peoples choices. EVs currently do not fit into the life style of many people so its wrong to think badly of those that have not embraced them like you have. 

I can only hope ignorance or being a 5 year old adult by resisting whatever government says are not the reasons. 

[Paws4Thot]

17 minutes ago, Graham Butcher said:

the reason why some haven't installed rooftop solar arrays is because of cost, weak roof, think they spoil the look of the house

Also @wyx087 As an example, most of the houses on my side of my street have about as much solar as we can physically fit; very few houses on the other side have any. On my side the South side is the back of the house and on the other side it's the front, so we can fit solar without it affecting the appearance of the house from the street, but they can't.

[J.R.]

I like the fact that you can (presumably easily) create a roadmap showing you where you are going to stop and charge/empty contents of bladder and that is the Satnav route which the vehicle will follow.

 

I can drive 500 miles in between 10 and 12 hours with only one mandatory pee break, possibly 2 but in my country its just done at the side of the road. I dont need to refuel if I start with a full tank unless towing, I stop more frequently because of fatigue and a craving for coffee and something to eat.

 

Now whilst you can do all that on the autoroute the eating is expensive and if I'm towing and need fuel I try to find a shopping centre with supermarket and petrol station, there are many around but it would be nice of the car could plan that. I can search for them at any time but all it shows is a distance as the crow flies and a compass bearing, getting there from the autoroute might be a massive detour involving driving many mile to an exit then many miles back in the same direction.

 

It would be very good to have it planned out.

[wyx087]

For planning, check out this website. Try it with different cars and weather/road/passenger configurations, see what kind of charging stop you would need to do: 

https://abetterrouteplanner.com/

 

It's brilliant. My wife was saying a stop every 2 hours, so I just looked at the route and clicked on an earlier supercharger -> add stop. It added that as a stop and understood it can be a charging stop. Re-calculated everything to fit around this new stop. 

[Graham Butcher]

40 minutes ago, Paws4Thot said:

Also @wyx087 As an example, most of the houses on my side of my street have about as much solar as we can physically fit; very few houses on the other side have any. On my side the South side is the back of the house and on the other side it's the front, so we can fit solar without it affecting the appearance of the house from the street, but they can't.

Also of course, when @wyx087says they don't fit solar arrays, it might be as you point out, on the other side of the roof because that is were the sun hits most. Also of course not all roofs are in the best direction. Plus there is the shade factor, if as much as a single panel receives shade then it seriously affects the output of the others. The same is also true for roofs that point east and west, pointless as the side not in direct sunlight, detracts from the side in the sunlight. To have a big enough wind generator requires planning permission which in most places is not likely to be granted.

 

Then in addition you need a drive and even then your supply might not be able to support a charger, or even if others have chargers, then the collective loading may exceed the main supply for the street and is effecting their ability to have an EV anyway. 

 

These are all issues that the Government needs to address and must resolve if they want all new EV car sales to increase year on year. 

Edited 12 March by Graham Butcher

[Graham Butcher]

1 hour ago, wyx087 said:

I can only hope ignorance or being a 5 year old adult by resisting whatever government says are not the reasons. 

At the end of the day, whatever the reasons are, they do not have to comply until 2035 if they want a new car, and even ten can elect to purchase second hand or retain their existing car. They may, and I suspect that there are many people like this sitting on the fence and waiting for the range and support infrastructure to increase or to see if there are inherent problems which make the whole scheme be reversed like Dieselgate?

 

You personally choose to get an EV really early on in the process and you must have had your reasons for doing so, which for whatever reason(s) suited you, but the same cannot be said for everyone, its not a one size fits all scenario.

[wyx087]

2 hours ago, Graham Butcher said:

The same is also true for roofs that point east and west, pointless as the side not in direct sunlight, detracts from the side in the sunlight.

My solar is E-W facing, return on investment 11 years with feed-in tariff and energy saving calculation in 2015. Of course we all know there's hugely increased saving in recent years.

 

2 other house in my close recently got solar, no more feed in tariff, they are also E-W facing. The finance must make sense for them to have done the install.

 

2 hours ago, Graham Butcher said:

At the end of the day, whatever the reasons are, they do not have to comply until 2035 if they want a new car, and even ten can elect to purchase second hand or retain their existing car. They may, and I suspect that there are many people like this sitting on the fence and waiting for the range and support infrastructure to increase or to see if there are inherent problems which make the whole scheme be reversed like Dieselgate?

 

You personally choose to get an EV really early on in the process and you must have had your reasons for doing so, which for whatever reason(s) suited you, but the same cannot be said for everyone, its not a one size fits all scenario.

Again, how many times do I have to reiterate, I'm not asking everyone to buy EV today.

 

4 hours ago, wyx087 said:

Unable to charge overnight is a barrier right now, I get it.

 

But many with driveways are still buying brand new £60k+ giant SUV's. Many with capability are not installing roof top solar.

 

I'm saying there's people who is in a position to home charge and buy new-ish vehicles, but are buying/leasing fossil fuel by default or out of spite for ZEV mandate. That is plain ignorance or a 5 year old adult.

 

For those people, ZEV should be the default now. Unless there's good reasons, BEV will drive better, save money and pollute less.

 

Check out all the reasons why people choose BEV: https://www.speakev.com/threads/what-convinced-you-that-ev-are-the-future.183692/

[skomaz]

4 hours ago, wyx087 said:

Wealth is a limitation. But it's not the reason many are actively resisting.

 

I think you'll find it IS the reason for a large swathe of the population, particularly in relation to initial outlay, even second hand (looking at the prices for something comparable in terms of mileage and size to the vehicles we have).

[J.R.]

3 hours ago, Graham Butcher said:

Plus there is the shade factor, if as much as a single panel receives shade then it seriously affects the output of the others

 

Really????????????

 

I understand that a single duff cell in a battery pack will do that but solar panels? Are they not wired in parallel?

 

Do you have anything to back up your claim?

[wyx087]

2 minutes ago, J.R. said:

Really????????????

 

I understand that a single duff cell in a battery pack will do that but solar panels? Are they not wired in parallel?

 

Do you have anything to back up your claim?

This bit is true, your thinking is also true. It all depends on how panels are wired up.

 

Simplest and most common is wire up in series. Using what's called string inverter. A string of panels in series. Single panel get shaded, whole string generation drops.

Middle is solar panel optimisers, panels are wired up in series through those. Any shading would not increase whole resistance in the whole string.

Most expensive install use micro-inverters on the panels. They output AC and are wired up in parallel directly to the grid.

 

Some explanation:

https://www.freshelectricalsolar.co.uk/solar-panel-optimisers/

[Graham Butcher]

9 minutes ago, wyx087 said:

My solar is E-W facing, return on investment 11 years with feed-in tariff and energy saving calculation in 2015. Of course we all know there's hugely increased saving in recent years.

 

2 other house in my close recently got solar, no more feed in tariff, they are also E-W facing. The finance must make sense for them to have done the install.

 

Yours is E-W so how many inverters do you have? It would make more sense to have 1 for each array so that you can extract the absolute maximum from your solar.

 

As to the other 2 people in your close that have similar looking aspects, I sincerely hope that they have been correctly advised, as there are indeed many cowboy companies out there who aren't strictly cowboys in the sense that they do dangerous installations, but can be very economical with the truth when it comes to pay back calculations etc.

16 minutes ago, wyx087 said:

Again, how many times do I have to reiterate, I'm not asking everyone to buy EV today.

Well it certainly comes across in that fashion.

 

17 minutes ago, wyx087 said:

I'm saying there's people who is in a position to home charge and buy new-ish vehicles, but are buying/leasing fossil fuel by default or out of spite for ZEV mandate. That is plain ignorance or a 5 year old adult.

 

For those people, ZEV should be the default now. Unless there's good reasons, BEV will drive better, save money and pollute less.

 

Check out all the reasons why people choose BEV: https://www.speakev.com/threads/what-convinced-you-that-ev-are-the-future.183692/

The above is yet another example of the impression you give that everybody should be buying EVs today if they are in a position to home charge, otherwise you are actually insulting them by saying that is plain ignorance or a 5-year-old adult. Now, I'm pretty dammed sure that if anyone were to use phrases like about you, you would take exception to their arrogance and superior attitude. 

[xman]

3 hours ago, J.R. said:

I like the fact that you can (presumably easily) create a roadmap showing you where you are going to stop and charge/empty contents of bladder and that is the Satnav route which the vehicle will follow.

 

 

With the increasing ranges of EVs and judging by comments often made by those who buy or own these EVs,  options should be offered to make their lives even easier and more comfortable.

 

[wyx087]

21 minutes ago, Graham Butcher said:

Yours is E-W so how many inverters do you have? It would make more sense to have 1 for each array so that you can extract the absolute maximum from your solar.

 

As to the other 2 people in your close that have similar looking aspects, I sincerely hope that they have been correctly advised, as there are indeed many cowboy companies out there who aren't strictly cowboys in the sense that they do dangerous installations, but can be very economical with the truth when it comes to pay back calculations etc.

Dual-string inverter. By my calculation I've already made back my investment, about 2 years earlier than projection. Due to sharp rise in energy prices and crypto mining using the free excess electricity. Of course, having ability to store also vastly improve saving.

 

One is a civil engineer, the other is a consultant also in engineering. The finances works for most installs, they've had me look over the numbers. Especially when they are paying 15p/kWh for exports and possible to not import 25p/kWh. Installation is also very cheap nowadays, in comparison to my install.

 

Only need to seek out advice and evaluate the market. Not many people actually do this because the old view that solar panels are expensive stuck.

 

21 minutes ago, Graham Butcher said:

Well it certainly comes across in that fashion.

 

The above is yet another example of the impression you give that everybody should be buying EVs today if they are in a position to home charge, otherwise you are actually insulting them by saying that is plain ignorance or a 5-year-old adult. Now, I'm pretty dammed sure that if anyone were to use phrases like about you, you would take exception to their arrogance and superior attitude. 

You have stated a logical paradox:

- "it comes across that fashion" that I'm asking everyone to buy EV today.

- "everybody should....... if they are in a position".

So am I really asking everybody to buy EV, or everyone who is in certain position to buy?

 

In what way was I insulting people? As you said, everyone has their reasons, and I agreed, I said "unless there's good reasons".

 

Just like solar panels, thinking they are expensive to install because they were 15 years ago is ignorant. Thinking EV are not suitable without doing research is ignorant. That is a fact, not insult.

Playing games and sole reason is being "government said" is a 5 year old adult. It is not a valid reason and it is not an insult, it is a description.

[wyx087]

1 minute ago, xman said:

 

With the increasing ranges of EVs and judging by comments often made by those who buy or own these EVs,  options should be offered to make their lives even easier and more comfortable.

 

I think some people here claiming able to drive 4+ hours might need one of those.  😛 

 

40 minutes ago, skomaz said:

I think you'll find it IS the reason for a large swathe of the population, particularly in relation to initial outlay, even second hand (looking at the prices for something comparable in terms of mileage and size to the vehicles we have).

It's no denying choices are non existence for under £10k because of lagging manufacturers, too slow to put EV into mass production.

 

Under £10k get you a great local EV. (Leaf, Zoe 22/40) Can be your main vehicle most of the time. Still need to keep the old ICE for longer trips. But still saves a lot of fuel and reduce local air pollution.

£10k to £20k gives a lot of options for an acceptable EV to replace a single ICE car.  (Zoe 50, Ioniq 38, Kona, eNiro, ID3)

£20k or more buys a full featured ICE replacement without any compromise. (Model 3)

 

Key, as always, is home charging.

 

Cheaper EV is coming. This 100 miles range city car only costs £15k brand new: https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/dacia-spring-uks-cheapest-electric-car

 

Although it isn't impossible without home charging in a city, as demonstrated by this video:  (S London, 5 miles commute, 1 trip to Manchester and a few hiking trips, all in a 100 miles EV)

 

[Graham Butcher]

@J.R. this video explains the problem, and also wxy087 has also given a similar explanation.

 

[xman]

30 minutes ago, wyx087 said:

I think some people here claiming able to drive 4+ hours might need one of those.  😛

 

I not only "claim to be able to" drive 6+ hours without a toilet/food/coffee break, I actually do a few times every year. So there.....

 

 

[Ootohere]

My last 6 Rapid and Fast charging sessions for the MINI electric have been under 40 minutes on 50 kWh chargers to get 20-22 kWh charges to 96 & 100 %.

46 minutes or 37 minutes.

2 hours 16 minutes 41% to 100% on the AC, and this afternoon 16 minutes for 2 kWh to get to 99% for tomorrow morning.

The AC needed because the nearby Rapid  is out of service.

Around about 7*oC temp and the car shows 107 miles or so range and will do that and a bit more.    

I have paid nothing for the charges since 400 miles ago when it was £13.00

 

I might have another similar trip like this at this cost & then from next month it will cost as much as using a Petrol or Diesel if not actually more.

 

Re 6 hours driving, maybe 300 miles in any vehicle in the UK.    That is fine, maybe people do not need a pee a poo of grub in 6 hours.

Or even 7. 

 

Edited 12 March by Rooted

[Graham Butcher]

54 minutes ago, wyx087 said:

It's no denying choices are non existence for under £10k because of lagging manufacturers, too slow to put EV into mass production.

 

Under £10k get you a great local EV. (Leaf, Zoe 22/40) Can be your main vehicle most of the time. Still need to keep the old ICE for longer trips. But still saves a lot of fuel and reduce local air pollution.

£10k to £20k gives a lot of options for an acceptable EV to replace a single ICE car.  (Zoe 50, Ioniq 38, Kona, eNiro, ID3)

£20k or more buys a full featured ICE replacement without any compromise. (Model 3)

 

Key, as always, is home charging.

 

Cheaper EV is coming. This 100 miles range city car only costs £15k brand new: https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/dacia-spring-uks-cheapest-electric-car

 

Although it isn't impossible without home charging in a city, as demonstrated by this video:  (S London, 5 miles commute, 1 trip to Manchester and a few hiking trips, all in a 100 miles EV)

 

The point is, that not everyone wants or can use a limited range small city car, I would struggle to fit into anything smaller than the car I already have. I'm built like the proverbial **** house, I'm 6ft 4" tall as are all of my sons and we often all go out together, we all have extra large feet, mine especially as they are sized UK 15 extra wide and most cars do not have sufficient space in the pedal box to accommodate them.

 

Yes Zoe and Leaf are going to be fairly cheap now as 2nd hand cars and EV cars that might be useable for me (as an example only) are going to in the way more expensive category, which I would need even if it was just me in the car all time. Shopping wise and doing the work run for the family it would need to be the same sort of size as my current car in order to offer the space for the family and shopping trips, I already have to do at least 2 trips a week and almost fill the 485 litre boot each time, so a smaller car also would mean more shopping trips in order to get it all home, or do online shopping and then you have to accept the fresh fruit and vegetables etc that the picker thinks is OK, and often as not, their idea is not correct.

 

So there are many reasons why people choose SUV, and other larger cars for example. When I had the Qashqui for 2 months, I had to go shopping many times a week which is less than ideal.

Edited 12 March by Graham Butcher

[Ootohere]

^^^ Not for you then.    Long story short.