EV with real 300+ mile range?
Discussion
GT9 said:
PinkHouse said:
I'm actually in the market for one myself, having test driven an eletre and taycan turbo ST in the last couple of weeks as I'm looking for something reasonably practical to replace the diesel E class estate and the taycan turbo seems like the best bargain on the used market. If the Merc EQS came in an estate/more practical body style then it would be the perfect solution for me
National Highways have been trialling 60 mph motorway limits in England, with the aim to reduce roadside NOx readings. Whilst these trials have been successful in doing just that, they've taken the view that the ZEV mandate will achieve the same thing longer term without speed reductions, predominantly because new diesel sales have fallen through the floor.
EVs are essentially replacing diesel cars right now and that will probably remain the case until 2035, I don't think petrol car numbers (including hybrid) will actually decrease at all before then.
You, and others, bombing along at 75-85 mph in your diesel estate, are exactly the people who can make an important collective difference to keeping them thinking like that, by switching to EV or even petrol, assuming the diesel goes to a new home where average speeds and mileages might be lower.
blueg33 said:
TheDrownedApe said:
eek, I am planning on moving to Devon soon and this has me worried. I've done the briefest searching without success. can you link to some info on the restrictions please?
This is specifically North Devon. My house is near Hartland, the nearest charger is in Bideford at a petrol station. Charge maps show another nearby, but they have actually just double counted the one at the petrol station.PinkHouse said:
Thanks for the environmental concerns but I've owned my E class estate from new in 2017 and is currently on 130,000 miles with only regular servicing. I suspect I'd have gone through a couple of extra high voltage batteries by now if I had an EV and we all know how environmentally friendly the lithium and cobalt mines are...
At 130,000 miles, your EV battery would almost certainly still be going strong and you would reduced your emissions by a huge amount, even accounting for the battery manufacture. You're doing nearly 20,000 miles per year, that's actually a very strong reason to get an EV.Tesla expects most of their batteries to last at least 500,000 miles barring any sporadic manufacturing faults or accidents.
Why do you think manufacturers warranty their batteries typically for 7-8 years and 100,000 miles and yet you expect to need 3 to get to 130,000 miles. That's just nonsense I'm afraid.
Nomme de Plum said:
Wills2 said:
PinkHouse said:
Every single EV manufacturer knows it, if they didn't believe it was so important then they wouldn't have to lie and overstate the claimed range in many cases by up to 200%
I don't think it's a case of lying about the range they are all subjected to the same tests via WLTP, my car will do 1000+ miles best case or 600 miles worse case, so it doesn't really matter for the practical use of the car that one is much lower than the other as the baseline is so high, but LR EVs have a best case of say 380 max vs a worse case of 190 and then that does play on the mind in terms of any effects on practical usage. If an EV could do 600 miles best case and 300 miles worst case no one would care or think they were being lied to, they'd just accept that driving styles/weather affects mileage.
Now I drive an EV with a similar range ands still have no issue driving where i wish. Had I had a profile with longer journey requirements I would have targeted a 300mile range. I live in a dense traffic area so maintaining a total journey average over 55mph is almost impossible. That's over 5 hours driving so I would always stop at least once.
If a person really wishes to have a potential non stop 600mile plus range then don't buy an EV.
740EVTORQUES said:
PinkHouse said:
Thanks for the environmental concerns but I've owned my E class estate from new in 2017 and is currently on 130,000 miles with only regular servicing. I suspect I'd have gone through a couple of extra high voltage batteries by now if I had an EV and we all know how environmentally friendly the lithium and cobalt mines are...
At 130,000 miles, your EV battery would almost certainly still be going strong and you would reduced your emissions by a huge amount, even accounting for the battery manufacture. You're doing nearly 20,000 miles per year, that's actually a very strong reason to get an EV.Tesla expects most of their batteries to last at least 500,000 miles barring any sporadic manufacturing faults or accidents.
Why do you think manufacturers warranty their batteries typically for 7-8 years and 100,000 miles and yet you expect to need 3 to get to 130,000 miles. That's just nonsense I'm afraid.
Obviously we need virgin materials to build an initial battery stock, but one the materials are in the system they stay there, minus small losses in the recycling process.
The E class estate will have done more environmental damage at that mileage than an EV, there's no doubt about it.
PinkHouse said:
Thanks for the environmental concerns but I've owned my E class estate from new in 2017 and is currently on 130,000 miles with only regular servicing. I suspect I'd have gone through a couple of extra high voltage batteries by now if I had an EV and we all know how environmentally friendly the lithium and cobalt mines are...
What's that got to do with roadside NOx readings and speed limits?The diesel is pumping out NOx and CO2, increasing non-linearly with speed.
Being Euro 6 is is very unlikely to be achieving anything near the target NOx emissions, and probably several times higher in the real world.
The more miles you do, and crucially, the faster you travel, its just get worse and worse.
Only way to curb that is to reduce the speed, and the mileage of course.
Policymakers cottoned onto this some time ago.
As for EVs, there is very little relationship between the mileage and both the carbon and the NOx footprint.
The speed you travel at makes little difference either.
For an EV charged entirely from renewable electricity, there is zero relationship to speed and mileage.
These two things should be ear-candy for hyper-milers who hate hanging about.
TheDeuce said:
740EVTORQUES said:
PinkHouse said:
Thanks for the environmental concerns but I've owned my E class estate from new in 2017 and is currently on 130,000 miles with only regular servicing. I suspect I'd have gone through a couple of extra high voltage batteries by now if I had an EV and we all know how environmentally friendly the lithium and cobalt mines are...
At 130,000 miles, your EV battery would almost certainly still be going strong and you would reduced your emissions by a huge amount, even accounting for the battery manufacture. You're doing nearly 20,000 miles per year, that's actually a very strong reason to get an EV.Tesla expects most of their batteries to last at least 500,000 miles barring any sporadic manufacturing faults or accidents.
Why do you think manufacturers warranty their batteries typically for 7-8 years and 100,000 miles and yet you expect to need 3 to get to 130,000 miles. That's just nonsense I'm afraid.
Obviously we need virgin materials to build an initial battery stock, but one the materials are in the system they stay there, minus small losses in the recycling process.
The E class estate will have done more environmental damage at that mileage than an EV, there's no doubt about it.
This is mostly due to how unstable they are to handle (lithium is very reactive with oxygen and spontaneously combusts. In the UK, half of all fires in recycling plants of all kinds were caused by EV batteries). Even given a 100% recycling rate in some hypothetical nirvana, most of the material in the batteries is actually wasted due to a bulk of the weight being ancillary components like cooling, control circuitry and packaging. The actual usable cells are only around 50% of the actual battery by weight, and there are still further losses in separating them to elemental usable metals. In summary you would need a ton of raw materials and energy to create new EV batteries as common sense would suggest.
There is no doubt the E class estate does more environmental damage overall compared to an EV especially at high mileages like mine where the breakeven point has long passed compared to an EV, which is why I'm also interested in a viable alternative that can give a usable non-stop range and can also rack up this type of mileage without replacing major components
GT9 said:
PinkHouse said:
Thanks for the environmental concerns but I've owned my E class estate from new in 2017 and is currently on 130,000 miles with only regular servicing. I suspect I'd have gone through a couple of extra high voltage batteries by now if I had an EV and we all know how environmentally friendly the lithium and cobalt mines are...
What's that got to do with roadside NOx readings and speed limits?The diesel is pumping out NOx and CO2, increasing non-linearly with speed.
Being Euro 6 is is very unlikely to be achieving anything near the target NOx emissions, and probably several times higher in the real world.
The more miles you do, and crucially, the faster you travel, its just get worse and worse.
Only way to curb that is to reduce the speed, and the mileage of course.
Policymakers cottoned onto this some time ago.
As for EVs, there is very little relationship between the mileage and both the carbon and the NOx footprint.
The speed you travel at makes little difference either.
For an EV charged entirely from renewable electricity, there is zero relationship to speed and mileage.
These two things should be ear-candy for hyper-milers who hate hanging about.
PinkHouse said:
More batteries doesn't mean more mining? I've never heard anything more ridiculous and you shouldn't confidently shout out facts that are so clearly false. The reality shows that at present only a measly 5% of EV batteries are recycled and in many jurisdictions that number falls to practically zero - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-5657477
This is mostly due to how unstable they are to handle (lithium is very reactive with oxygen and spontaneously combusts. In the UK, half of all fires in recycling plants of all kinds were caused by EV batteries). Even given a 100% recycling rate in some hypothetical nirvana, most of the material in the batteries is actually wasted due to a bulk of the weight being ancillary components like cooling, control circuitry and packaging. The actual usable cells are only around 50% of the actual battery by weight, and there are still further losses in separating them to elemental usable metals. In summary you would need a ton of raw materials and energy to create new EV batteries as common sense would suggest.
There is no doubt the E class estate does more environmental damage overall compared to an EV especially at high mileages like mine where the breakeven point has long passed compared to an EV, which is why I'm also interested in a viable alternative that can give a usable non-stop range and can also rack up this type of mileage without replacing major components
You're on a steep learning curve in this sub-forum.This is mostly due to how unstable they are to handle (lithium is very reactive with oxygen and spontaneously combusts. In the UK, half of all fires in recycling plants of all kinds were caused by EV batteries). Even given a 100% recycling rate in some hypothetical nirvana, most of the material in the batteries is actually wasted due to a bulk of the weight being ancillary components like cooling, control circuitry and packaging. The actual usable cells are only around 50% of the actual battery by weight, and there are still further losses in separating them to elemental usable metals. In summary you would need a ton of raw materials and energy to create new EV batteries as common sense would suggest.
There is no doubt the E class estate does more environmental damage overall compared to an EV especially at high mileages like mine where the breakeven point has long passed compared to an EV, which is why I'm also interested in a viable alternative that can give a usable non-stop range and can also rack up this type of mileage without replacing major components
EV battery recycling has been discussed over hundreds of ages.
Your own manufacturer of choice is saying 96+% recyclability.
https://group.mercedes-benz.com/company/news/recyc...
Sure, might not be happening today, but it's just a matter of time.
Also, go and look at the UK ad EU legislation (both current and impending) regarding this topic if you really want to be properly informed.
GT9 said:
PinkHouse said:
More batteries doesn't mean more mining? I've never heard anything more ridiculous and you shouldn't confidently shout out facts that are so clearly false. The reality shows that at present only a measly 5% of EV batteries are recycled and in many jurisdictions that number falls to practically zero - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-5657477
This is mostly due to how unstable they are to handle (lithium is very reactive with oxygen and spontaneously combusts. In the UK, half of all fires in recycling plants of all kinds were caused by EV batteries). Even given a 100% recycling rate in some hypothetical nirvana, most of the material in the batteries is actually wasted due to a bulk of the weight being ancillary components like cooling, control circuitry and packaging. The actual usable cells are only around 50% of the actual battery by weight, and there are still further losses in separating them to elemental usable metals. In summary you would need a ton of raw materials and energy to create new EV batteries as common sense would suggest.
There is no doubt the E class estate does more environmental damage overall compared to an EV especially at high mileages like mine where the breakeven point has long passed compared to an EV, which is why I'm also interested in a viable alternative that can give a usable non-stop range and can also rack up this type of mileage without replacing major components
You're on a steep learning curve in this sub-forum.This is mostly due to how unstable they are to handle (lithium is very reactive with oxygen and spontaneously combusts. In the UK, half of all fires in recycling plants of all kinds were caused by EV batteries). Even given a 100% recycling rate in some hypothetical nirvana, most of the material in the batteries is actually wasted due to a bulk of the weight being ancillary components like cooling, control circuitry and packaging. The actual usable cells are only around 50% of the actual battery by weight, and there are still further losses in separating them to elemental usable metals. In summary you would need a ton of raw materials and energy to create new EV batteries as common sense would suggest.
There is no doubt the E class estate does more environmental damage overall compared to an EV especially at high mileages like mine where the breakeven point has long passed compared to an EV, which is why I'm also interested in a viable alternative that can give a usable non-stop range and can also rack up this type of mileage without replacing major components
EV battery recycling has been discussed over hundreds of ages.
Your own manufacturer of choice is saying 96+% recyclability.
https://group.mercedes-benz.com/company/news/recyc...
Sure, might not be happening today, but it's just a matter of time.
Also, go and look at the UK ad EU legislation (both current and impending) regarding this topic if you really want to be properly informed.
But the efficiency of recycling is actually very high and it's completely true that replacement batteries aren't going to demand more than a fractional quantity of the materials in question to be virgin. Most of them will be recycled - I can't believe anyone would doubt that, this stuffs valuable and we don't want to be endlessly importing it from other countries and then throwing them away and buying more
Of course so far we don't actually need many replacement batteries and there also aren't very many to recycle because... They're mostly still happily powering the EV's they were created for.
And lest we forget this little debate started because pinkhouse made a really odd statement about an EV probably needing 2 replacement batteries to cover just 130k miles. That's plainly and easily proved to be total cobblers!
PinkHouse said:
Your logic is sound with the diesel emissions increasing non linearly with speed, but that also applies to the emissions from the EV by the same magnitude. Air resistance increases exponentially with speed hence an EV would consume drastically more energy for the same distance the faster it travels. I noticed you specified renewable energy for a reason, but it's not the get out of jail card you think it is because every KWh of renewable energy still has a carbon footprint in the generation, transmission and distribution etc.
Again, steep learning curve.Another topic already discussed over hundreds of pages.
UK electricity is currently at 35 g/km CO2 (162 g/kWh) for an average EV, including all transmission, distribution and charging losses.
Changing the speed of the car doesn't make much difference to that, partly because EVs are far better aerodynamically, but mainly because the number is already very low.
Real-world Euro 6 diesel NOx emissions are averaging about 5 times higher than the 80 mg/km target, i.e. 400 mg/km.
Real-world Euro 6 petrol NOx emissions are averaging at or below the 60 mg/km target.
EVs charged from UK electricity are averaging about 30 mg/km right now.
That's today, when the grid is near 100% renewable, both the EV's NOx emissions and CO2 emissions for the usage phase trend to zero.
All of the sources for this information have been linked numerous times already, mostly by me.
blueg33 said:
The bulk of my miles are:
Daily - about 140 miles motorway and fast country B roads
twice a month the trip i mentioned earlier. 320 miles roundtrip with no destination charging, so its 165 miles non stop mostly at 77mph on the motorway and dual carraigeway, 2 hours at the destination to do some work and 165 miles back. I do not usually stop en route
twice a month (varies with little warning) about 300 mile round trip to attend emergency meetings at HQ, normally I find out when I have got to the office which is 60 miles from home. No charging available at HQ (trying to sort that)
The other obstacles are real for me, I am not going to spend £70k plus on a car that is uncomfortable or that I don't enjoy driving.
I want electric to work for me, I don't want to make a large financial commitment and find it doesn't work
Unfortunately in Devon I cannot install a charger (its to do with the capacity of the infrastructure), and its 25-35 mins to the nearest public charger and there is just one charger there, so that is also a limitation. This is why range is important.
Not being able to have a charger at home would be the killer for me.Daily - about 140 miles motorway and fast country B roads
twice a month the trip i mentioned earlier. 320 miles roundtrip with no destination charging, so its 165 miles non stop mostly at 77mph on the motorway and dual carraigeway, 2 hours at the destination to do some work and 165 miles back. I do not usually stop en route
twice a month (varies with little warning) about 300 mile round trip to attend emergency meetings at HQ, normally I find out when I have got to the office which is 60 miles from home. No charging available at HQ (trying to sort that)
The other obstacles are real for me, I am not going to spend £70k plus on a car that is uncomfortable or that I don't enjoy driving.
I want electric to work for me, I don't want to make a large financial commitment and find it doesn't work
Unfortunately in Devon I cannot install a charger (its to do with the capacity of the infrastructure), and its 25-35 mins to the nearest public charger and there is just one charger there, so that is also a limitation. This is why range is important.
I didn't have mine for the first 6wks of ownership and whilst manageable (25min drive to a 350kw charger for me too), it is sooooooo sooooooooooo much better with one, to the point I would not entertain ownership without. (Just as I'll never buy a house without a garage etc).
On the rest...fast charging is the answer, and a slight tweak to habits formed over decades.
A charger at HQ covers that one. Rooting out a 350kw charger near your other destination would sort that or just nip and tuck near home.
If you had a home charger I would bet you would get used to an EV seriously quickly and forget the anxiety.
"Fun to drive"? Taycan is your best bet. They're great to drive... And recent depreciation just means you can get into one cheaply now. (I love fast estates, so an ST looks fab to my eyes).
GT9 said:
PinkHouse said:
Your logic is sound with the diesel emissions increasing non linearly with speed, but that also applies to the emissions from the EV by the same magnitude. Air resistance increases exponentially with speed hence an EV would consume drastically more energy for the same distance the faster it travels. I noticed you specified renewable energy for a reason, but it's not the get out of jail card you think it is because every KWh of renewable energy still has a carbon footprint in the generation, transmission and distribution etc.
Again, steep learning curve.Another topic already discussed over hundreds of pages.
UK electricity is currently at 35 g/km CO2 (162 g/kWh) for an average EV, including all transmission, distribution and charging losses.
Changing the speed of the car doesn't make much difference to that, partly because EVs are far better aerodynamically, but mainly because the number is already very low.
Real-world Euro 6 diesel NOx emissions are averaging about 5 times higher than the 80 mg/km target, i.e. 400 mg/km.
Real-world Euro 6 petrol NOx emissions are averaging at or below the 60 mg/km target.
EVs charged from UK electricity are averaging about 30 mg/km right now.
That's today, when the grid is near 100% renewable, both the EV's NOx emissions and CO2 emissions for the usage phase trend to zero.
All of the sources for this information have been linked numerous times already, mostly by me.
PinkHouse said:
Again I'm not disagreeing with your figures, but an exponential increase on a "small number" is still an exponential increase. You might say it's small compared to diesel emissions so it doesn't matter, but it's infinitely large compared to zero emissions so it actually matters too
Here are the energy per mile curves (from tank/battery to wheel) for a Tesla Model 3 LR vs 1 litre petrol Golf that I produced for the same discussion last year.Exponential is not actually the correct term, non-linear is more accurate.
I appreciate that it is used colloquially to describe non-linear.
All of the solid lines are read off the LH vertical axis.
The shapes are similar, but the difference in magnitude is clearly exacerbated by the higher drag and lower efficiency of the ICE car.
The science says that low drag, higher mass, extremely high efficiency cars are the game-changer for emissions and CO2 for motorway cruise.
The Tesla weighs in at nearly 600 kg more than the Golf.
Ignore the dashed lines as they don't really apply for cruising, but are there to show the effects of regenerative braking.
Given the vast consumption difference apply at all speeds, you could say the game is up.
I used the Model 3 because it has one of the most well-tested and documented datasets available, but also because it clearly demonstrates the value of low drag.
PinkHouse said:
GT9 said:
PinkHouse said:
Your logic is sound with the diesel emissions increasing non linearly with speed, but that also applies to the emissions from the EV by the same magnitude. Air resistance increases exponentially with speed hence an EV would consume drastically more energy for the same distance the faster it travels. I noticed you specified renewable energy for a reason, but it's not the get out of jail card you think it is because every KWh of renewable energy still has a carbon footprint in the generation, transmission and distribution etc.
Again, steep learning curve.Another topic already discussed over hundreds of pages.
UK electricity is currently at 35 g/km CO2 (162 g/kWh) for an average EV, including all transmission, distribution and charging losses.
Changing the speed of the car doesn't make much difference to that, partly because EVs are far better aerodynamically, but mainly because the number is already very low.
Real-world Euro 6 diesel NOx emissions are averaging about 5 times higher than the 80 mg/km target, i.e. 400 mg/km.
Real-world Euro 6 petrol NOx emissions are averaging at or below the 60 mg/km target.
EVs charged from UK electricity are averaging about 30 mg/km right now.
That's today, when the grid is near 100% renewable, both the EV's NOx emissions and CO2 emissions for the usage phase trend to zero.
All of the sources for this information have been linked numerous times already, mostly by me.
plfrench said:
Our net fleet of Diesel cars in the UK reduced by over 1400 per day, every day in 2023. There were over 500k fewer by the end of the year than at the beginning. That’s nearly 5% of the Diesel fleet gone in one year! The rate of disappearance of Diesels will only increase from here onwards, so perhaps we can avoid those pesky speed limit reductions by the skin of our teeth!
I hope so! I'm sure some of our lords and masters will still want lower speed limits 'just because', but the disappearance of diesels certainly undermines the environmental angle that justifies it, and potentially would have made it a relatively easy sell to some voters.Speaking of the fall from grace of diesel cars in general, anyone that has one should probably consider switching out into EV or petrol/hybrid sooner rather than later - because although ICE is going nowhere anytime particularly soon, diesel specifically is both unfashionable and set to become increasingly expensive if even euro 6 compliant cars start to pay to enter ulez zones, which themselves are set to increase in size and number. I'm not suggesting it's wrong to have a diesel - but it seems very likely to me that increasingly people will look change to petrol (or EV) sooner rather than later rather than be 'stuck' with a diesel in a few years time. These things are often self fulfilling prophecies, IE if enough people worry their car will lose value, that in itself pushes the value down.
My own plan, finances allowing.. is to buy a fun petrol car that I think will be a good example of the 'best of' ICE and keep it as a weekend toy and cherished car as a future investment. I can imagine the right petrol car could eventually become quite valuable if looked after and minimal miles, but I really don't see that happening with a diesel.
TheDeuce said:
My own plan, finances allowing.. is to buy a fun petrol car that I think will be a good example of the 'best of' ICE and keep it as a weekend toy and cherished car as a future investment. I can imagine the right petrol car could eventually become quite valuable if looked after and minimal miles, but I really don't see that happening with a diesel.
I’ve gone fully electric for cars since 2020, won’t be buying another ICE car ever again. I’ve had a procession of M BMWs, SEC Mercs, Audi Bahnstormers and went through the ‘male menoporsche’ for 5 years in my early 50s with a Cayman S. But for cars I thinks it’s all over for petrol/diesel.That said, I am still greatly enjoying my recent Triumph Tiger 1200 (early morning ride around Burgundian hills west of Mâcon just yesterday) and my 2002 Ducati 748R will be probably be inherited by my children
Michael_B said:
I’ve gone fully electric for cars since 2020, won’t be buying another ICE car ever again. But for cars I thinks it’s all over for petrol/diesel.
Yeah, you guys are born and bred with a custodian mindset.Here in the UK we are more the pillage and plunder types, been in our blood for thousands of years.
Problem is, when the shoe's on the other foot, the toys get thrown.
Some of your neighbours tried to pillage and plunder us a while back and we took great exception to that.
We don't do rational thinking very well if there is any hint of someone trying to take something away from us.
Give us a bit more time though, we'll come round.
blueg33 said:
I am still on the fence, not sure this thread has helped.
I do regular 3hrs journeys without stopping (I never break a 3 hour journey) sometimes at short notice, with no charger at destination. I then often spend a couple of hours at the destination and turn round and do the 3 hour journey back.
I tend to cruise at 77mph on the motorway.
I like to use heated seats, steering wheel and heating etc in the winter and aircon in the summer.
I don't like SUV's and prefer sporty cars. I have no charger at work.
I have test driven the following:
Ioniq5 - nearly bought one as I like the styling but range isn't enough I think, and I worry that it will date quickly
Polestar2 - too uncomfortable
Kia EV6 - same range issue as Ioniq5
Tesla 3 - very poor build quality, awful styling, annoying controls
Tesla S - very poor build quality and expensive
Audi e-tron GT - I liked it, but range is dire
Porsche Taycan AWD - range poor, exterior styling a bit meh, depreciates fasted than a half chewed donner kebab
Of the list the etron GT was the closest to my requirement but range is not great as far as I can tell
I am trying to find a EV that works for me. I am equally fussy about petrol cars.
Maybe if Alfa could do my Giulia with the same handling and 300+ miles real range and capability for very fast charging then things are looking up
But generally, what I really need is to try an EV for a month to see if it works for me.
Have you looked at the i4, I debated between the ev6 and it for a while, but the driving position in the EV6 felt a bit on the high side for me. And I only wanted the GT line S but despite not being that tall the sunroof meant I had very little head room. I do regular 3hrs journeys without stopping (I never break a 3 hour journey) sometimes at short notice, with no charger at destination. I then often spend a couple of hours at the destination and turn round and do the 3 hour journey back.
I tend to cruise at 77mph on the motorway.
I like to use heated seats, steering wheel and heating etc in the winter and aircon in the summer.
I don't like SUV's and prefer sporty cars. I have no charger at work.
I have test driven the following:
Ioniq5 - nearly bought one as I like the styling but range isn't enough I think, and I worry that it will date quickly
Polestar2 - too uncomfortable
Kia EV6 - same range issue as Ioniq5
Tesla 3 - very poor build quality, awful styling, annoying controls
Tesla S - very poor build quality and expensive
Audi e-tron GT - I liked it, but range is dire
Porsche Taycan AWD - range poor, exterior styling a bit meh, depreciates fasted than a half chewed donner kebab
Of the list the etron GT was the closest to my requirement but range is not great as far as I can tell
I am trying to find a EV that works for me. I am equally fussy about petrol cars.
Maybe if Alfa could do my Giulia with the same handling and 300+ miles real range and capability for very fast charging then things are looking up
But generally, what I really need is to try an EV for a month to see if it works for me.
If I could get a GT Line S without the Sunroof I would have had that,
I ended up with an i4, coming from a 5 series it's a bit smaller, but the rear wheel drive and I drive set up. it was like getting into an old pair of shoes.
Edited by Themintimperial on Monday 20th May 19:26
TheDeuce said:
plfrench said:
Our net fleet of Diesel cars in the UK reduced by over 1400 per day, every day in 2023. There were over 500k fewer by the end of the year than at the beginning. That’s nearly 5% of the Diesel fleet gone in one year! The rate of disappearance of Diesels will only increase from here onwards, so perhaps we can avoid those pesky speed limit reductions by the skin of our teeth!
I hope so! I'm sure some of our lords and masters will still want lower speed limits 'just because', but the disappearance of diesels certainly undermines the environmental angle that justifies it, and potentially would have made it a relatively easy sell to some voters.Speaking of the fall from grace of diesel cars in general, anyone that has one should probably consider switching out into EV or petrol/hybrid sooner rather than later - because although ICE is going nowhere anytime particularly soon, diesel specifically is both unfashionable and set to become increasingly expensive if even euro 6 compliant cars start to pay to enter ulez zones, which themselves are set to increase in size and number. I'm not suggesting it's wrong to have a diesel - but it seems very likely to me that increasingly people will look change to petrol (or EV) sooner rather than later rather than be 'stuck' with a diesel in a few years time. These things are often self fulfilling prophecies, IE if enough people worry their car will lose value, that in itself pushes the value down.
My own plan, finances allowing.. is to buy a fun petrol car that I think will be a good example of the 'best of' ICE and keep it as a weekend toy and cherished car as a future investment. I can imagine the right petrol car could eventually become quite valuable if looked after and minimal miles, but I really don't see that happening with a diesel.
I made a comment earlier about the EQXX concept and
MB producing a production version but they have just scrapped that platform due to poor sales on their EQ line so looks like no 600 mile range EVs on the horizon anytime soon - https://www.topgear.com/car-news/electric/mercedes...
Regarding diesels becoming unfashionable, I couldn't give a toss as fashion isn't high on my criteria for a utility vehicle. There are also NK Ulez zones that charge for Euro 6 diesels and none are planned soon as far as I'm aware. Even if they did they're unlikely to cover the local building merchants, windsurfing spots, or alpine resorts, mountain bike trails etc so they'll have absolutely no effect as urban centres are the last places you'll find me driving any type of car.
It's also a great idea to buy a halo petrol car, hop over to the McLaren forum and you'll get lots of good advice as they offer the best bang for buck in terms of the special feeling.
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