Electric Vehicles

[SV650rules]

when is the deadline for no more fuel cars?


2030, but the average ICE car lasts at least 20 years so fuel will be available long after last ICE vehicle sold - and have you seen the vast amount of stuff we need every day that is made from crude oil, material for making clothes we wear, and even medicines.. So petrol and diesel will become waste products to get the stuff we still need. I am very excited about the mach 3 electric jet fighters and electric tanks the military will be using..

[redtrummy]

May be of interest
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/battery-swapping-tech-gives-electric-motorcycles-an-edge

[Luckypants]

This may be of interest too, try not to be too critical of the riding.:D


-s6SBggcGCs

[redtrummy]

Screen showing not available any more!

[Luckypants]

Screen showing not available any more!

Fixed

[garynortheast]

That was very interesting. Good to see someone demonstrating that it could be done.

[redtrummy]

Thanks for that - would do every thing I would require

[Seeker]

I like the concept and would have liked to try an electric bike but at 250+kg/ 550+ lbs I wouldn't be able to handle the weight even assuming I could afford £27k (ish). The future looks expensive and heavy.

[Luckypants]

As an electric car driver I know a little bit about charging on the go and I feel these guys played it very safe with their charging strategy. They could have gone deeper into the battery and charge with 10% or less remaining but in the main seemed to charge at 20% or more. They also ignored quite a few handy chargers on their route. I do get that as a group they wanted to charge at places that could handle them all at once, but I think they made that harder than it needs to be. Kudos to them for travelling through Wales though, a place known for the lack of chargers.

This bike has the range similar to an SV650 but needs a little more time to refuel, but as most bikers tend to have a break for the toilet / fag / brew / chat at fuel stops I think it might have minimal effect.

[Luckypants]

Sorry that "As an electric car driver...." bit sounds dead pretentious and wasn't meant to be. I was just trying to say I have experience.

[Sir Trev]

Sorry that "As an electric car driver...." bit sounds dead pretentious and wasn't meant to be. I was just trying to say I have experience.

I'm sure no-one was thinking you meant it that way. It's interesting to watch the developments from the side for now and to see EVs move into the mainstream over the last couple of years. Lady Poppy's new car is a mild hybrid (Ford are a bit behind the curve) and when I replace my car in another three years of so things will have moved forward a heck of a lot more but it will be helped by the experiences of early adopters like yourself.

Same with bikes. They're way too heavy for me right now so I'm not considering them yet, but another one or two bikes down the line? We'll see.

[Luckypants]

If anyone is interested in electric bikes in the real world, I discovered this guy on YouTube. He's been travelling around Britain on his EV bike and makes interesting watching. Only seen a couple of episodes, but its good IMO.

https://www.youtube.com/c/marctravels/videos

[garynortheast]

If anyone is interested in electric bikes in the real world, I discovered this guy on YouTube. He's been travelling around Britain on his EV bike and makes interesting watching. Only seen a couple of episodes, but its good IMO.

Mike, I think you forgot the link!

[Luckypants]

Mike, I think you forgot the link!
Ooops!!:smt017:smt017

Fixed

[Sir Trev]

If its the German guy I think Mike means, look up a channel called Marc Travels (http://https://youtube.com/c/MarcTravels)

[Sir Trev]

Ah, you beat me to it.

I've seen a couple of his videos and they're quite good.

[Luckypants]

I'm resurrecting this thread as I find this subject crops up a lot these days and would like the maturity of debate on here that isn't an EV fan echo chamber.

I'd like to say that we are both still thrilled with our ID.4 after two years. VW have worked to resolve a lot of the software short-comings since we bought and most are resolved. None of these software problems has affected us. One of the software updates even gave us a 10% improvement in efficiency AND faster charging which makes long distances even easier. We've never had a problem with any long trips we do.

[daktulos]

I'll bite! It's been (almost) three years since this thread started. That's 30% of the time left before petrol cars will be banned. The council has made absolutely no progress in rolling out charging points, nothing has changed. I still can't see how they're going to make it work.

They are apparently, looking at on-street charging for "residents who don't have their own off-street parking and aren't within reasonable walking distance of a current or planned public chargepoint", but that will probably mean they'll put one charge point in for 100 homes and be done with it. I think they're hoping everyone will take up cycling instead.

I'd have no problem with an electric car, but I live on a terraced street where my front door opens right out onto a narrow pavement. The street lights are mostly converted gas lamps and apparently aren't suitable for chargers.

For me, it's not a problem with the cars, it's a problem with the infrastructure and the councils which need to provide it. I'm still hoping for someone making hydrogen practical.

[admin]

We often go away for weekends and stay at hotels. I've noticed that there's never a charging point at the places we stay, usually Premium Inn or Holiday Inn. So I'd have to drop my wife at the hotel then drive to the nearest charger and then walk back to the hotel.

Sent from my moto g(50) using Tapatalk

[Seeker]

I'd like to say that we are both still thrilled with our ID.4 after two years.


It's great that you're pleased with it. As someone who drives a 13 year old Yaris about 2000 miles a year an electric car would make sense. However, if I was to replace the Yaris I would be looking at an Aygo size car and therein lies the problem. A new Aygo is about £15k, a Nissan Leaf is £28k.


I do see a lot of Teslas about even in our impoverished part of the country.

[Luckypants]

They are apparently, looking at on-street charging for "residents who don't have their own off-street parking and aren't within reasonable walking distance of a current or planned public chargepoint", but that will probably mean they'll put one charge point in for 100 homes and be done with it. I think they're hoping everyone will take up cycling instead.
You are right. Councils or a licensed operator need to install many hundreds of slow speed (cheap to install) chargers for residents unable to charge at home. these also need to have a competitive price for leccy. The problem is councils have competing needs and so charging provision is not a priority. There is funding available from central government but they need to access it.

You are right about cycling, in Wales at least there is a drive to reduce car use alongside the EV cut-over.

For me, it's not a problem with the cars, it's a problem with the infrastructure and the councils which need to provide it.
Infrastructure roll out has accelerated hugely this year, albeit mainly high speed on route chargers. Yesterday Fastned announced their new St. Albans charging station is now opened - so local to you. I would say Fastned is expensive and not the solution for everyday charging but is an example of how things are improving.

EDIT: Article on increase in charging points last year that just came up via Twitter

https://transportandenergy.com/2023/07/03/uk-charge-points-rise-70-in-a-year/

[Luckypants]

We often go away for weekends and stay at hotels. I've noticed that there's never a charging point at the places we stay, usually Premium Inn or Holiday Inn. So I'd have to drop my wife at the hotel then drive to the nearest charger and then walk back to the hotel.

Sent from my moto g(50) using Tapatalk

A very valid point John. When we go away, we book a hotel with a charger but it is surprising that large chains have not cottoned on to this yet. It is a case of filtering the hotel search for EV charge points rather than it being a default that hotels have chargers. It is mainly private hotels that are taking up the baton here.

[Luckypants]

It's great that you're pleased with it. As someone who drives a 13 year old Yaris about 2000 miles a year an electric car would make sense. However, if I was to replace the Yaris I would be looking at an Aygo size car and therein lies the problem. A new Aygo is about £15k, a Nissan Leaf is £28k.If you buy new then I agree, EVs are still expensive versus an ICE equivalent. However, there is a lot of pressure on price from both Tesla and the Chinese manufacturers. As a result second hand values have reduced. As an example, a 2/3 year old VW e-Up/Seat Mii electric/Skoda Citigo-e with around 15k miles can be had for £12k now. More expensive than a similar aged petrol for sure, but getting affordable.

[Bibio]

You are right. Councils or a licensed operator need to install many hundreds of slow speed (cheap to install) chargers for residents unable to charge at home. these also need to have a competitive price for leccy. The problem is councils have competing needs and so charging provision is not a priority. There is funding available from central government but they need to access it.

You are right about cycling, in Wales at least there is a drive to reduce car use alongside the EV cut-over.


Infrastructure roll out has accelerated hugely this year, albeit mainly high speed on route chargers. Yesterday Fastned announced their new St. Albans charging station is now opened - so local to you. I would say Fastned is expensive and not the solution for everyday charging but is an example of how things are improving.

EDIT: Article on increase in charging points last year that just came up via Twitter

https://transportandenergy.com/2023/07/03/uk-charge-points-rise-70-in-a-year/

Scotland has had a massive boost to charging places but i have still to see any onstreet residential charging points.

[Sir Trev]

Scotland has had a massive boost to charging places but i have still to see any onstreet residential charging points.

Same here in South Bucks, and bizarrely the two chargers installed at my local Morrisons were ripped out after just a few months... I've not noticed any chargers in our public carparks either, so lots to do around here too.

[daktulos]

Yesterday Fastned announced their new St. Albans charging station is now opened - so local to you. I would say Fastned is expensive and not the solution for everyday charging but is an example of how things are improving.

Funnily enough, I walked past that on Sunday, it's in the Aldi car park. I guess if you can top up when you do your weekly shopping, it makes sense. It looks very well designed, unlike some of the chargers I've seen at service stations.

Perhaps the real question is (and I'm assuming you have a charger at home) if you didn't, and didn't commute to a workplace with a charger, would you be happy to only top up when you are out and find a free charger?

Perhaps it would work, but I feel like I'd always be nervous if the car wasn't charged. Maybe there are cultural changes needed as well.

[Luckypants]

Funnily enough, I walked past that on Sunday, it's in the Aldi car park. I guess if you can top up when you do your weekly shopping, it makes sense. It looks very well designed, unlike some of the chargers I've seen at service stations.

Perhaps the real question is (and I'm assuming you have a charger at home) if you didn't, and didn't commute to a workplace with a charger, would you be happy to only top up when you are out and find a free charger?

Perhaps it would work, but I feel like I'd always be nervous if the car wasn't charged. Maybe there are cultural changes needed as well.

Fastned are well regarded for being well designed, fast and reliable. You are right, charging at the shops makes a lot of sense and supermarkets are cottoning on that the 7kW destination chargers do not cut it and are starting to install rapid chargers in their car parks. My car can charge 10%-->80% (210 miles approx) in 30 minutes, so enough to last most people a week.

Would I have an EV without home charging? Hard to say as I live in a poorly served rural area, no rapid chargers within 15 miles so I'd have to rely on slower AC chargers. My best option would be the local Aldi chargers which charge my car at 50mph (11kW AC charger) as they are the fastest and cheapest. This would be quite inconvenient as an Aldi shop generally takes 20 minutes, so not much gained. As I say to everyone, the car should be charging while I get on with something else - so perhaps I'd have to start using Morrisons 12 miles away that has a very unreliable rapid charger. I'd like to say I'd have the EV without a way to charge at home but practicalities might outweigh my desire to reduce my emissions. Cost wise, I'd be paying slightly more to run and own the EV than a diesel equivalent if relying on public charging but it would be close so its a cost I'd be willing to pay.

There are solutions to not having a drive, my personal favourite is the cable channel in the pavement to allow the resident to safely run a cable across the pavement. Someone in our village has this solution as he has no drive. His charger is on the wall of his shed in the front yard and he passes his cable through the fence and lays it in the cable channel - hey presto, charge-o!

[Luckypants]

Scotland has had a massive boost to charging places but i have still to see any onstreet residential charging points.

Same here in South Bucks, and bizarrely the two chargers installed at my local Morrisons were ripped out after just a few months... I've not noticed any chargers in our public carparks either, so lots to do around here too.

Councils seem to go for chargers in their car parks in response to the need for chargers for those without a drive. I think they see that as a good thing as it puts cars off the street and into car parks, improving road space. My council has installed chargers in 10 car parks now, with some being specifically for residents, others a more mixed use. Part of one large car park in the middle of an area of terraced houses has become a 'charging hub' with 16 chargers (32 plugs) for slow (e.g overnight) charging and two rapid chargers for a quick top-up) All within 5 minutes walk of 200+ houses. Its a start and no doubt lessons will be learned about how effective this model is.

[Seeker]

I know (now) that you can drive an electric car on the accelerator pedal alone - the regenerative braking is set to engage when you take your foot off and... ok, it can be adjusted in many ways which isn't the issue.
This youtuber (Technology Connections) points out a flaw on his new Hyundai Ionic 5 - when one pedal driving mode is used the brake lights don't come on until the car comes to a complete stop which is perfectly legal under US regulations (he cites the regs).

He's in North America so I don't know whether this affects all electric cars or just the NA market. He points out in his video that GM solved the problem a while back by using an accelerometer but he considers that too complicated.
Here's a link (30 mins long vid):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0YW7x9U5TQ


Do EU cars do the same?

[Grant66]

Saw that video.

It's no different from engine braking albeit a bit more severe.

If you're the correct distance behind and paying attention. It isn't an issue.
Green number plate, expect vehicle to slow quickly without brake lights showing.

Sent from an S20 using Tapatalk with that kin cr4p blocked

[Luckypants]

This comes up regularly on EV forums (Google 'Do brake lights come on when regen braking') The European regs are that brake lights must come on above a certain deceleration rate, this applies to all cars. I cannot remember the exact figure, but brake lights do come on with regen. There is a second much higher limit where the brake lights flash 4 times to indicate emergency braking.

[daktulos]

There are solutions to not having a drive, my personal favourite is the cable channel in the pavement to allow the resident to safely run a cable across the pavement. Someone in our village has this solution as he has no drive. His charger is on the wall of his shed in the front yard and he passes his cable through the fence and lays it in the cable channel - hey presto, charge-o!

The width of our houses are less than a length of a car, and I rarely get a parking space outside, sometimes having to park a fair way away. It'd work for some places, but not all.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against electric, but I just worry about the practical side of it.

[Luckypants]

I understand, those without a guaranteed parking spot such as a drive or private car park need somewhere convenient to charge. It needs intervention or guidance by governments (its a devolved matter hence Scotland shot ahead on charging infrastructure and NI is waaaaay behind) to mandate chargers in workplace car parks / banks of chargers in every retail park / rapid charging hubs in every supermarket etc. But for some areas, modifications to local infrastructure will also work such as lamp post chargers. Most folks will only need an overnight charge once a week, so shared infrastructure should work - but you do have the *******s who think they 'own' a charger and plug in all the time whether needed or not. (Scotland had this problem a lot when everything was free).

[Sir Trev]

I found out today that my office/works car park has two free chargers us plebs can use, as well as the two chargers I already knew were in the exec parking area. One of my colleagues has an EV and says most of the regular office attendees are in a WhatsApp group and let each other know when they've topped up enough and they're going down to move to a regular space so others can use it, which is nice. But, as it's close to the warehouse some of the ICE drivers that work on that side of the site block it for their entire shift as it is so close to the security entrance they have to use and people are inevitably lazy/unobservant/belligerent... Don't know how long the freebie will last and perhaps the Facilities guys should move the charge points to the another part of the car park. Having more than two would be nice too as more people might be encouraged to transition.

[Luckypants]

That kind of thing is the way forward, but needs access to be formalised and ICEing prevented. I expect the free use will be curtailed as that is now a taxable benefit I believe. My client gets around this by charging 50p/hour, which is about 7p per kWh so bally cheap. If I visit the office I go with an empty battery! I didn't know coin-op charging was a thing but it is, buy tokens in the security lodge then 'load' the charger.

Imagine if half or more of work car parks were EV charger spots too, takes away the problem of no charger at home. Not token machines but charged via RFID card / security pass.

[Sir Trev]

We can already use our ID badges to pay for food/drink in the canteen so it's not much of a leap forward if the company thinks ahead.

[rowdy]

There are solutions to not having a drive, my personal favourite is the cable channel in the pavement to allow the resident to safely run a cable across the pavement. Someone in our village has this solution as he has no drive. His charger is on the wall of his shed in the front yard and he passes his cable through the fence and lays it in the cable channel - hey presto, charge-o!Problem with that is, you aren’t actually allowed to have a shed in your front garden, unless you go through planning.

[Luckypants]

The shed is incidental to the fact that he can have a charger and safely run the cable across the pavement in the channel. He had his mounted on the shed, but could have it on a wall or a post by the gate or in fact any suitable location.

[rowdy]

Yeh I know, just flagging it up incase anyone thinks they can put anything up in front garden. Bloke three doors away put a big shed up in his front garden, someone complained, had to get retrospective planning permission!

[Luckypants]

I know I'm coming over as a lone voice espousing the virtues of EVs, so this might read like a 'look at me' post, but I'm trying to give a real world example of running costs here. The reason I'm making this post now is because I've just had solar panels and house battery fitted, so costs are about to change. (thats the look at me bit)

I've done 28K in my VW ID.4 now and I've tracked every cost, mainly fuel. Over that time I have averaged 5.94p / mile. That is cheap running costs. My electric tariff was initially Octopus Tracker, then a 2-year fix @21p/kWh to ride out the high prices of past two winters and now I've moved back to Tracker which is averaging 17p/kWh so far (since 1st July). None of these are a special off peak EV tariff since my smart meter does not connect. The low pence per mile figure has been helped by free supermarket charging in the first 9 months, but that free charging honeymoon period is over now. The average for the second year of ownership (March 22-March23) was still only 6.03p over 13259 miles, without free charging. My point is, even running on standard price tariffs, EV running costs are low compared with a comparable diesel.

Servicing has been £200 at main dealer to maintain the warranty, so quite pricey but probably the same as dealer servicing for a diesel. Certainly expensive for what actually gets done. When the next service is due in 21 months, my local mechanic will do it for about half the price (he is EV qualified).

Insurance is £230 a year, exactly what I paid for my previous car. (Skoda Karoq)

All in all, the EV is cheap to run for me. This has improved recently due to a software update from VW that improved the efficiency of the motor and climate control, moving my average from 3.8 m/kWh to 4.2 m/kWh. 10% improvement without me paying anything. This is unique to EVs, Tesla and Kia have done this for a number of years.

I hope in the future to be able to get a cheap overnight tariff when they solve meter connections in areas without O2 coverage and lower my costs still further. Trying to get this issue resolved has been hard work and quite frustrating. I know far more than the average joe should need to know about how the electricity system works. This is a 'benefit' of EV ownership, it makes you focus on the price of leccy in the same way as we focus on petrol/diesel prices, so always looking for the cheapest rate and best deal. It makes running the house cheaper as a consequence ;)

Hope this is informative and gives real world information on how this works out.

[admin]

Thanks LP, that was a useful read.

Sent from my SM-T510 using Tapatalk

[Luckypants]

/Smug mode on

Thanks to the solar panels, my car cost 2.8p/mile last month for 834 miles. It hasn't even been a good month for solar generation, yet can make big dents in the cost. The headline figure is also helped by my new Tracker electricity tariff, which has averaged 16.5p/kWh in July.

[Luckypants]

Dredging this up from the past for a quick update.

In September last year we went to France in our EV. We were going to a wedding near Nice. We could have flown down and back for similar money and just gone for the wedding, but neither of us is comfortable with the carbon footprint of flying and won't fly again unless absolutely necessary. Taking the EV made us feel better about the CO2 situation as France's grid is very low carbon due to lots of hydro and nuclear. We made it into a 20 day tour of France in the end to make the most of having our wheels. Suffice to say we had a great time and our VW ID.4 was flawless. The whole trip of about 2500 miles was an absolute breeze.

The finance plan on the ID.4 came to an end in May and we decided to keep it as we like it so much. We might have downsized into an ID.3 or similar (Golf sort of size) as due to their construction, pure EVs are more roomy. We think the ID.4 is too big really despite it having practically the same external dimensions as our previous car. We didn't change it as there weren't any good deals around at the time. Depending how things pan out, we might end up running this until retirement in 5 years or so.

We'd hate to go back to an ICE car now as our main vehicle.

[Luckypants]

A quick update on this for anyone interested. My car is now 4 years old and has 51k miles on the clock. I've had no problems with the car that are EV related but one or two items have gone wrong. The biggie was the doors locking / unlocking while driving and actually opening one time! This was a problem with the electronic door handles and seems to be quite a common issue with all VAG group cars. These were replaced under the extended warranty I took out when the manufacturer warranty expired. Running costs remain low with a lifetime average of 5.43p/mile for fuel.

Servicing has been £200 at main dealer to maintain the warranty, so quite pricey but probably the same as dealer servicing for a diesel. Certainly expensive for what actually gets done. When the next service is due in 21 months, my local mechanic will do it for about half the price (he is EV qualified).

Second service was done at 4 years old by my local man. Cost for the service, brake fluid change, front caliper strip / clean and MOT was £163. I have the front brake calipers cleaned/lubed annually as they get so little use it ensures they won't seize. The regenerative braking takes care of 90% of all braking so they get gunked up. Upside is my brake pads still have 80% pad material at 50K miles. Servicing every two years is also a saving.

I hope in the future to be able to get a cheap overnight tariff when they solve meter connections in areas without O2 coverage and lower my costs still further. This happened out of the blue when an O2 signal turned up in our village without any announcement in October 2024. My smart meter sprang into life and started reporting data. I'm now on an EV tariff with cheap leccy @7p/kWh for 6 hours overnight. Lucky for me I have a house battery so I fill that up on the cheap rate too, as the day rate is 30p/kWh. The working smart meter means my fuel cost per mile is now around 2.8p.

I probably won't be making another update like this until we change the car, as driving electric has been so easy that it doesn't warrant further comment really.

[BoltonSte]

I changed to electric last September year, I'm not a full eco warrior but at the price the MG5 was vs. what I was paying to run and fuel the Tucson it was a no brainer. We have mates with an MG ZS and have been camping for a week the last couple of years which opened our eyes with regards to practicality.

I've just ticked over 4000 miles, there's been an issue with the charging ECU, it happens with these on occasion. Besides waiting for the diagnostic...there's no free thinking mechanics at MG apparently, even after I'd given them the diagnosis and tests its been fault free if a little funky internal layout.

'Fuel cost' so far has been £25 total, one quick charge, the rest from the PV on the roof at work. so ~ 0.63p/mile.

[Luckypants]

'Fuel cost' so far has been £25 total, one quick charge, the rest from the PV on the roof at work. so ~ 0.63p/mile.

Must be a decent array to provide sufficient power in winter.