1 The technology will not get out of Beta mode in the remaining years of my life - I don't intend to be someone's guinea pig in my sunset decades.

2 Microsoft have never written a finished version of Windows. If they built aircraft, they would still be riveting bits of the wing today at 35,000 feet. That is the electric car business as it stands now.

3 The eco-loons and climate extremists are a minor distraction, in net terms.

4 Hydrocarbon fuel is going nowhere.

5 The misguided dash for battery power means some great petrol and diesel bargain vehicles are going to come on stream.

6 No-one will ever say on their deathbed, preparing to face an eternity of non-existence, "I wish I had driven a battery powered car with all the hassle and uncertainty involved."

Now over to you wise folks of Planet Skoda...

 

Edited 26 June, 20241 yr by Happy_owner
Making sense!!!

@Happy_owner  what is your life expectancy?    Are you getting buried or cremated and might your last road trip be in an Electric Hearse?

Life expectancy is a matter of hope versus circumstances, I suppose. Gas powered cremation - electric is just as unreliable in the crem. 4-litre diesel hearse.

The electric hearse might just suffer thermal runaway and job done. 

I really have never witnessed a hearse that has broken down or a hearse being recovered.

I would never say never. 

I don't know about the UK but prices for some (mostly Chinese) EV have suddenly plummeted here in Aus recently. An ORA Good Cat can be had for A$35k (18,400 pounds) drive away with a '7 year warranty'

That's good in one way as it means I am looking again at EV options for our mostly urban driving, but it means that early adopters, even recent purchasers, suffered some major unexpected depreciation.

 

What I don't like is the Chinese throw-away design mentality, lack of local spare sparts, financially supporting the CCP (or pairing my phone with their system, which is also why I don't have tiktok).

 

I'm still better off running our existing old, still economical, ICE cars into the ground than getting a current new EV, but I will be keeping a close eye on battery tech and/or 2nd hand prices.

 

 

 

3 hours ago, Ootohere said:

The electric hearse might just suffer thermal runaway and job done. 

The single-use hearse - you could be on to something… 

 

G

Imagine if the electric hearse conveying one to the cemetery ground to a halt because the battery ran out of juice. One would die of embarrassment.

2 minutes ago, Happy_owner said:

One would die of embarrassment.

 

Bit late for that. 

People do get some weird ideas about EV Batteries and the size and range they go.

A pretty certain range when you know the vehicle.

 

The big engine hearses were because they suited the slow journeys, much like a BEV would be.

Light weight bodies (the vehicle) 

The Queen's coffin with her in it  could have traveled in one of their Branded Hearse but an EV one from Balmoral to Holyrood with a charging session where they had the stopover in Brechin. 

Plenty of other old buggers around will agree with your reasoning @Happy_owner.

Relatively few younger people will care what you think, write or do, I expect.

There are drivers and owners of EV,s that have had decades of driving all kinds and still do drive all kinds.  Not just people with a zip up the back of their heads.  Old and not so old that might try and find they like a EV so drive them and not just because an employer says they have to. 

As someone working in IT I'm genuinely upset about the amount of waste computer equipment and peripherals getting junked as they are 'no longer supported' after seemingly minimal updates. Pallets of IT get taken away at a cost to be recycled - and it's been exposed what an environmental disaster that is. I get the impression that they are mostly just piling up these days.

 

Even my own PC (around 10 years old) is not being supported beyond Windows 10.

 

18650 cells in the packs noticeably lose capacity over time.

 

So for me EV's have no appeal. It's like they took all the things I don't like and put them in one place. Add to that the issue of finding charge in deepest rural Devon where regularly visit and it pretty much leaves me with nothing. 

 

To top it off they are often to be seen at the front of a line of slow moving cars as they are likely trying to conserve power. While overtaking a Tesla in my Skoda Estelle I found it almost laughable.

The usual is Tesla drivers not wanting to be behind and getting in front and then being Road Captains.

 

It looks like the Dark Ages down in Darkest Devon, the UK,s Charger Desert.  Not!

 

Just as well there are properties with mains electricity or renewables at them and 3 pin plugs so that a charger cable can be used if a car can get near to a property, preferably off the road.

 

 

Edited 24 July, 20241 yr by Ootohere