the truth about electric cars

[Graham Butcher]

7 minutes ago, lol-lol said:

UK governed could,do much by aligning vat at public chargers to home charging vat rate ie 5 %.

 

They could, but this party would never do that as they worship money far too much to even give it a single seconds consideration.

[lol-lol]

20 minutes ago, Graham Butcher said:

They could, but this party would never do that as they worship money far too much to even give it a single seconds consideration.

 

Sunak was even asked by one of his own MPs about reducing the VAT percentage for public chargers and Sunak did not even answer the question.

 

It is typical Tory divide, hit the poor, look after the already well off, and I hope Labour will reduce the VAT for the lecky even if they have to split the charging cost ie connection and per minute use charge at Standard rating and electricity component at 5% E rate, not that difficult and would bring public charger prices down.

 

Edited 28 April by lol-lol

[Winston_Woof]

38 minutes ago, Graham Butcher said:

Yes, I think they would still be here, people have always loved to have the very latest thing on the block and always will. We had loads of Toyota Prius's around yours ago when there was no government legislation, slowly ramping up the pressure on us to switch.

 

Governments would have done better, I think, to have sat back and watched, facilitated the installation of the national support system for them and let the flow gather pace, just as they have done with rise of mobile phones and then onto smartphones, they have achieved world domination, and it was all done by making them desirable and what has now largely become peer pressure.

Good point however I question whether BEVs would have become more than a plaything. 
 

with “natural” evolution I suspect there would have been more hybrids and range extenders not requiring a dedicated charging infrastructure. I also suspect things like hydrogen may have become more popular. 

[lol-lol]

6 minutes ago, Winston_Woof said:

Good point however I question whether BEVs would have become more than a plaything. 
 

with “natural” evolution I suspect there would have been more hybrids and range extenders not requiring a dedicated charging infrastructure. I also suspect things like hydrogen may have become more popular. 

 

Yo me it is the steady significant year on year improvements with battery energy density per kilogram, seems like more than 10% each year paired with cost drops of over 10% per year meaning big drops in production costs.

 

ICE engines are improving year on year at a much slower pace. Hydrogen will only become economically viable if the renewable and nuclear base load equipment have so much spare lecky and not enough battery capacity that the best economic thing to do is produced Hydrogen, or maybe ammonia and get enough filling stations up and running.  

 

The Hydrogen filling station near my Heathrow office is closing I heard.

 

[Graham Butcher]

1 hour ago, Winston_Woof said:

Good point however I question whether BEVs would have become more than a plaything. 
 

with “natural” evolution I suspect there would have been more hybrids and range extenders not requiring a dedicated charging infrastructure. I also suspect things like hydrogen may have become more popular. 

People used to say much the same thing I think about MP3 players, they were perfectly happy with the Sony Walkmans, then the Mini disc players, then the MP3's then that all could incorporated in the smartphone.

 

EV's would also I think would have followed a similar path, as long as they were cheap enough to buy and very cheap to run. They would have started out more likely as just small city cars with very limited range but would have grown rapidly as the refinement was built-in, battery tech improved etc, capability and size also improved, but still coupled to the 2 important metrics of cost of ownership and cost of running, then they could well have been well on their way by now to becoming that smartphone equivalent. 

 

Sometimes I think that when a government decides to try and enforce something, that it can actually work against their aims and to a certain extent that might well be happening now with EV's, especially here in the UK when you go on about air quality and then when you discover that we have good air here, but many other places don't, yet are still pushing forwards on a almost total worldwide ban on new ICE ant yet, their air quality is not improving. It makes people question if there is another motive at play. 

Edited 28 April by Graham Butcher

[Stonekeeper]

7 minutes ago, Graham Butcher said:

People used to say much the same thing I think about MP3 players, they were perfectly happy with the Sony Walkmans, then the Mini disc players, then the MP3's then that all could incorporated in the smartphone.

 

 

 

Vinyl is making a comeback though

[skomaz]

7 minutes ago, Stonekeeper said:

 

Vinyl is making a comeback though

 

For some of us it never went away...

[Stonekeeper]

1 minute ago, skomaz said:

 

For some of us it never went away...

 

 

Unfortunately due to potholes a usb turntable in the car is impractical

[Ootohere]

The BEV,s are being built around the world and it is getting to be less and less in  the UK not more.

 

They work very well for many Couriers, Private Hire / Taxis, and town / city cars and cars going further afield.

 

What a song and dance there is from many that might never have even tried one and has no intention in the next 11 years of getting one. 

 

'Just say no'.   

See your driving years out in whatever you damn well want.   

  It might never happen, you might step out in front of a silent vehicle tomorrow.  

Or a V8 if you are a bit Mutt & Jeff and maybe the eyesight is going and your reactions.  

 

 

 

Edited 28 April by Ootohere

[Graham Butcher]

10 minutes ago, Ootohere said:

They work very well for many Couriers, Private Hire / Taxis, and town / city cars and cars going further afield.

 

True, there are now many Tesla taxis here now, and indeed even some Ford Focus's that before would not have been acceptable on size grounds, but these days large cars are becoming less common unless of course we're talking the mega expensive or large SUV's.

 

What ever happened to the minibus taxis that were all the rage a few years ago, now they mostly seemed to died out, they were even producing special variants specifically as taxi cabs? 

[Ootohere]

@Graham Butcher  The Minibus Taxis are all around, maybe not that you see though.

The issue being Accessability for Wheel Chairs, but there are plenty choices now and EV,s. 

 

A plan is to maybe have all those that have held a driving licence and never been re-tested in 50 years to have to take a driving course and then a test and have them done in town traffic and in an EV so that it is about their road craft and observation. 

 

 

Edited 28 April by Ootohere

[Graham Butcher]

@Ootohere Yes we still do have a few of them around, but the ones I'm talking about were specially designed as taxis with wheelchair access as part of the design and were designed, and I seem to recall once proposed as the replacement for London black cab. There were all decked out with a special low access floor on the left and just a few seats with a large spot in the centre for the wheelchair with a couple of dropdown seats like the black cabs have. Inside they were nothing like a traditional minibus, which are still used a lot for party bookings.

 

I see on the other page about these that BJ approved them and I think, helped a bit with the concept etc, maybe that is the reason they don't seem to around much these days.

 

THE NISSAN NV200 LONDON TAXI (nissannews.com)

Edited 28 April by Graham Butcher

[Ootohere]

@Graham Butcher  I know what you mean.

& there are Hybrid TAXI,s / Black cab style that are wheel chair accessable.  & Mini Bus style, and ones used by Care Homes / Disabled Centres & by Car Clubs etc Ambulance Transport. 

Location location location when it comes to rules.

There are luxury ones used commonly. VIP transport, Airport Transport. 

 

 

These look like a great concept for wheel chair user / drivers for their use or family / passenger use.

With EV,s the world is your oyster once the Platform is there to build the vehicles on.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited 28 April by Ootohere

[Stonekeeper]

Lots of Mercedes Vitos used as Taxis where i live

[Ootohere]

Lots of Mercedes e-Vito People Carriers and Vans used by Golf Resorts / Clubs, Hotels and Taxi Businesses in Scotland and for VIP / Public Transport at Events. 

& Vauxhall Vivaro Mini Buses , WAV,s. 

 

http://briskoda.net/forums/topic/505480-open-golf-standrews-mercedes-ev-people-carriers

 

 

 

 

 

Edited 28 April by Ootohere

[Paws4Thot]

Some minibuses but mostly hatchbacks and estates around here. Local laws require that N% of licenced taxis must be capable of accommodating wheelchair passengers.

[Ootohere]

Scottish Government Recommendations to Local Authorities are that at least 20% of Licensed Taxis are wheel chair Accessible. 

 

It was said that the LEZ in Glasgow would mean 400 less Disabled Access Taxis would be available as they did not comply and the owners could not afford to convert them to comply.

 

Anyway, there are plenty Taxis in Cities in Scotland that are Wheel Chair use suitable, and that includes in Glasgow.

Maybe more will be EV,s like in Dundee eventually.

Edited 28 April by Ootohere

[wyx087]

22 hours ago, Graham Butcher said:

That would be perhaps be the biggest worry with EV's when after market items are fitted later, and if they don't play nicely with the latest OTA updates to the OS, will they cause problems full stop with the other parts of the car like, the gear selector mode on the screen (swipe D-N-R) etc or the Autonomous driving / cruising etc?

 

The update worry is the reason I haven't fitted "nice to have" things like auto opening and closing frunk.

 

I do have "S3XY" buttons (https://enhauto.com/) because some things still need a quick button press (also enables more features, like OBD11 I had with VAG). That gets just as often firmware upgrades as the car itself, it keeps pace with OEM changes.

 

22 hours ago, Graham Butcher said:

Hang about, I thought the optimum was to try and keep the battery within the 20 to 80% range but also that the battery had a optimum charge cycle life, so if thats true, surely then you wouldn't want to automatically plug in and charge it each day if you had sufficient charge for your next journey left over at the end of each day?

Charge limiter. See "Charge Settings" here:  https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/modely/en_us/GUID-BEE08D47-0CE0-4BDD-83F2-9854FB3D578F.html

 

I always automatically plug in, takes less than 1s. Home Assistant automatically sets it to 50%. If I need the car next day, I would tweak limiter to try to arrive home at 40-45%, lots of spare range for unplanned errants. So in the morning, the car always have at least 100 miles of range in any weather. Never stress the battery far from the ~50% range and perfectly stores the battery for some days I don't use the car.

 

For example, I charged to 70% last night for visit Hampton Court Palace gardens (free weekend). It was either 20 odd miles N Circular or 40+ miles via M25. Arrived home with 54% because drove via shorter route, plugged it in as habit, nothing will happen tonight but I can tweak charge limiter later in bed if needed.

 

For simplicity, you can set car to always charge to 75%. Every day you know you have ~200 miles in the morning. Then up the limit if plan to travel more than 100 miles. Really simple, zero range anxiety, zero brain power required.

 

With Leaf. It doesn't have as good charge limiter. So instead of charging 80% to 100%, I had to do some forward planning and as you pointed out, not good to automatically plug in every day.

But now with V2H, evening  uses up 30-40% of the battery. With day time use, can simply charge to 100% every day.

[wyx087]

https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/news/daily-mail-admits-making-up-story-about-electric-vehicles-causing-potholes/

 

Quote

Daily Mail admits making up story about electric vehicles causing potholes

The article misrepresented a report by the Asphalt Industry Alliance (AIA) by suggesting it singled out electric vehicles as being responsible for the current pothole ‘crisis’ in Britain.

 

However, the AIA’s ‘Annual Local Authority Road Maintenance Survey Report 2024’ makes no such claims. In fact, it does not discuss or refer to electric vehicles in any way. Instead, the report points out: “A sizeable number of respondents [who came from local authority highway departments in England and Wales] have reported having to cope with unforeseen highway maintenance costs over the year. The reasons identified for this include dealing with the effects of extreme weather events, rising traffic volumes and increased average vehicle weights on a deteriorating network, as well as the impact of inflation which has had a noticeable impact on costs.”

 

After I and others had submitted complaints to both the Daily Mail and the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSOS), the newspaper on 19 April published a small correction on page 2 of its print edition, stating:

“An article on March 19 said that a report by the Asphalt Industry Alliance had blamed electric cars for the rise in potholes. In fact, while the report did refer to the impact of heavier vehicles, it did not specify electric cars.”

In addition, the newspaper has since edited
the website version of the article, removing any reference to electric vehicles in the headline or body text. 

 

Surprise, surprise, public opinion is being manipulated.

 

Quote

According to a study conducted in 2022 by Climate Action Against Disinformation (CAAD), in the UK, frequent readers of the Daily Mail were found to have the strongest belief in prominent climate change misinformation narratives.

 

Edited 29 April by wyx087

[Graham Butcher]

@Ootohere The other day, we were discussing why I was saying that Orkney was an ideal place for EV adoption and a small low power car was the ideal car for the local conditions etc, well it seems I was not too not far away from the truth after all.

 

 

And this may help to explain perhaps why the McMaster seems to have the uncanny knack of finding all the duff chargers on his trips / challenges?

 

 

WTF is going on here, this video was just suggested to me, again, the same dealer, same location (Orkney) and no, I have not subscribed to his channel, nor have I done a YT search for anything thing to with Orkney or the Nissan NV200...

 

 

Edited 29 April by Graham Butcher

[Ootohere]

@Graham Butcher  Do you mean Smaller Battery capacity rather than Low Power? 

I discussed EV,s on Orkney and not the battery size or power, it was you that talked about the short journeys. 

 

 They have rather good PS/BHP/kW / Nm torque.

 

PS. 

This morning with 100% i was 1.5 miles going to Tesco & was getting 6.7 miles to the kWh.

Came back the 2 mile route and got 4.5 miles a kWh. 

Back home with 100% showing.  I will plug in and see if really i defied science.  

 

EDIT.

PPS.

No i never, car was showing 100%. 

Plugged in to charge and it is at 99%. 

 

30 mins on 3 pin cable, 1.3 kWh so 25 pence. 

Edited 29 April by Ootohere

[wyx087]

25 minutes ago, Graham Butcher said:

WTF is going on here, this video was just suggested to me, again, the same dealer, same location (Orkney) and no, I have not subscribed to his channel, nor have I done a YT search for anything thing to with Orkney or the Nissan NV200...

Keep watching channels like Mr Porterfield or Kate and James. 

 

The Youtube algorithm works in not so mysteries ways, not too different to Daily Fail. 

[Graham Butcher]

31 minutes ago, Ootohere said:

@Graham Butcher  

I discussed EV,s on Orkney and not the battery size or power, it was you that talked about the short journeys. 

 

Correct, I was not implying anything than that.

 

To my mind, a small car equates to low power as it does not have to lug around a large heavy body and I also said a full charge was enough to cross the island 4 times without needing to charge.

 

Meaning that a person can live on one coast, and work on the other coast and the car has enough power to do 2 days commuting without charging and that with home charging the economics really make a compelling argument.

 

27 minutes ago, wyx087 said:

Keep watching channels like Mr Porterfield or Kate and James. 

 

The Youtube algorithm works in not so mysteries ways, not too different to Daily Fail. 

Well the next video YouTube next offered me this as a recommendation to watch, and I don't normally watch tool videos 

 

 

Edited 29 April by Graham Butcher

[Ootohere]

I watch tool videos.  Ones filmed by Lee & Geoff. 

[Graham Butcher]

@wyx087 Geez there sure are a load of numpties about if they fell for such an obvious piece of BS as https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/news/daily-mail-admits-making-up-story-about-electric-vehicles-causing-potholes/ is the real cause of potholes.

 

There are increasing numbers of private cars on the roads these days that weigh more than EV's do, and simply oodles of larger, far heavier vehicles as well.  These are kind of people that politicians love as they can themselves get away with almost anything and tell those folk what they like because they know that they will simply believe them as it less work to believe everything that the authorities tell them, then it is to work things out and do research for themselves.

Edited 29 April by Graham Butcher