EV cars, would you, wouldn't you?
Poll: EV cars, would you, wouldn't you?
Total Members Polled: 427
Discussion
Cmoose is right though- our Leaf is quick off the line but it’s ability to pass slower traffic is about the same as our old CVT equipped MINI. The leaf has many advantages over an average ICE car but extra overtaking ability isn’t one of them.
I don’t have a problem with that by the way, it’s similar in power to the MINI after all. I just don’t go for the gaps I would in my other, more powerful daily.
I don’t have a problem with that by the way, it’s similar in power to the MINI after all. I just don’t go for the gaps I would in my other, more powerful daily.
There's a lot of focus on Leafs in this discussion. A friend of mine has one and I have driven it and it is definitely not slow. It is as quick as any 'normal' car and noticeably brisk off the line.
However my i3 is definitely quick! 0-60 in around 6.5s (according to various reviews) is hot hatch territory. It also keeps going to its 93mph limiter (on private roads of course) at a reasonable rate of acceleration. Overtaking 50-70 is really good especially with the instant throttle(?) response.
However my i3 is definitely quick! 0-60 in around 6.5s (according to various reviews) is hot hatch territory. It also keeps going to its 93mph limiter (on private roads of course) at a reasonable rate of acceleration. Overtaking 50-70 is really good especially with the instant throttle(?) response.
qube_TA said:
And as an ICE will provide lots of heat to keep the car warm, if I've got to run heaters to stay warm and the windows clear how will that affect the range?
Some modern ICE vehicles are so efficient that they don't even need radiators if the temps are moderateI hired a mercedes van that wouldn't get the cab warm at idle or slow speeds which was a real pain when I was camping in it in February in a welsh forest and was hoping to get warmed up in the morning :S
Devil2575 said:
anonymous said:
[redacted]
But by your definition a Nissan GTR is also sub-optimal as it is not the fastest car on the road.If your only criteria is to optimise overtaking i.e. shorten the length of time taken to overtake, then any car other than the absolute fastest is sub-optimal.
12 secs to 60 is too slow nowadays.
Says the i3 owner whose car does it in C.7
There aren't many marginal overtakes in my car unless you are going over 70 mph, at which point the acceleration is merely adequate as opposed to nippy (it's favoured point and squirt speed is 30-70)
anonymous said:
[redacted]
So it's subjective then seeing as how the concept of overall driving pleasure is not an objective measure. You are also not talking about optimal overtaking, you are talking about a compromise between overtaking ability and driving pleasure. You are reaching a compromise.Ultimately what you're saying is that you like a car that goes at least a certain speed and that is able to accellerate and so overtake reasonably rapidly. Whether a certain car is optimal or not is very much dependent on the individual. Does a 911 C2 have sub-optimal overtaking ability? Optimal is defined as the best or most favourable, so does a 911 have the best or most favourable overtaking ability? Of course it doesn't because it's a compromise between a number of factors such as price, comfort, durability, running costs, practicality etc. Any car is. In which case the concept of sub-optimal accelleration in terms of road cars is fairly meaningless. Whether it is optimal or not depends entirely on what the cars main purpose is.
For the majority of cars on the road the accelleration is more than adequate to enable safe overtaking of slower moving vehicles.
Greg_D said:
Stop being a cretin, you know full well what he is saying.
12 secs to 60 is too slow nowadays.
I know what he is saying I just happen to disagree. 12 secs to 60 is too slow nowadays.
He is entitled to his opinion but he is not entitled to try and claim it is some sort of fact.
12 seconds to 60 is too slow? For what?
Getting the thread more on topic, I would have one, IF there were more than one charging point near me (and I mean within 5miles from my house) Useless for when I would need to charge it to get to or from work. When charging points are as common, or more than filling stations (and why aren't they already being put in there?) I'll look at getting one.
ORD said:
People are still arguing with the proposition that the Leaf is slow?
The PH stock answer "It's all relative" is getting absurd now. The Leaf is slow. A GTR is fast. A 320d is neither fast nor slow. I would have thought that there would be a good measure agreement about these things, but people are obsessed with being contrary and picking fights.
I completely agree about people not being able to make progress in cars that are not slow (e.g. a 320d will make very good progress indeed if driven sympathetically to its power delivery), but the Leaf is slow. It really is that simple!
I drove a car with similar acceleration stats to the Leaf for several years (my wife's old car), and I have also driven a 2CV and various other even slower cars. It is nonsense to pretend that they don't make overtaking a lot harder. You need a massive gap to overtake the typical NSL dawdler if your car takes ages to get from 40 to 60 even with the throttle pinned and the engine right in the power band.
But doubtless this makes me a s
t driver 
Looking back you wrote:The PH stock answer "It's all relative" is getting absurd now. The Leaf is slow. A GTR is fast. A 320d is neither fast nor slow. I would have thought that there would be a good measure agreement about these things, but people are obsessed with being contrary and picking fights.
I completely agree about people not being able to make progress in cars that are not slow (e.g. a 320d will make very good progress indeed if driven sympathetically to its power delivery), but the Leaf is slow. It really is that simple!
I drove a car with similar acceleration stats to the Leaf for several years (my wife's old car), and I have also driven a 2CV and various other even slower cars. It is nonsense to pretend that they don't make overtaking a lot harder. You need a massive gap to overtake the typical NSL dawdler if your car takes ages to get from 40 to 60 even with the throttle pinned and the engine right in the power band.
But doubtless this makes me a s
t driver ORD said:
12 seconds is very slow. I have driven cars with that kind of performance a lot in recent years, and it is a genuine impediment to making normal progress. In my experience, 10 seconds is tolerable, but much slower than that means foot to the floor and no noticeable change in speed.
Not arguing that more power makes an overtake physically easier in terms of distance required, it's just the physics of things. In the real world I find it makes drivers lazy and deficient in planning and more likely to rely on illegal overtakes, or ones where they haven't fully considered the escape route if they meet themselves coming the other way, let alone what they should be doing which is thinking about if they met someone coming the other way ss fast as it is physically possible to cover that road, not legally but three figures and above.What is being said is that I cannot think of a single occasion where have had to hold back from an overtake where it would have been legally possible and safe if only the vehicle had been just a little bit quicker. Because the difference between a 10 and 12 second vehicle, with appropriate gear selected and throttle nailed isn't as great as being made out. Sorry but that's my opinion, and find the assertion of 12 seconds glacially slow but 10 seconds tolerable is simply ludicrous.
While I do find some of this conversation interesting, in terms of what various people see as "fast" and "slow" it's not really relevant to the question.
The question wasn't "Would you never buy another ICE car because EV is now makes it redundant?"
The question was "EV, would you, wouldn't you?"
Sure, the answer for many will be "I only have a car for fun, so right now EV doesn't tick that box for me", but we seem to have mostly reached a consensus here that for 90% of people, 99% of the time, yes EV would make sense.
What's interesting to me is that there are still quite a few people who, while EV actually would probably serve their needs quite well, seem unwilling to consider it, either because of range anxiety or due to seemingly just a conservative viewpoint of being anti anything eco-friendly (though I may be wrong here).
The question wasn't "Would you never buy another ICE car because EV is now makes it redundant?"
The question was "EV, would you, wouldn't you?"
Sure, the answer for many will be "I only have a car for fun, so right now EV doesn't tick that box for me", but we seem to have mostly reached a consensus here that for 90% of people, 99% of the time, yes EV would make sense.
What's interesting to me is that there are still quite a few people who, while EV actually would probably serve their needs quite well, seem unwilling to consider it, either because of range anxiety or due to seemingly just a conservative viewpoint of being anti anything eco-friendly (though I may be wrong here).
I agree that lots of people for whom EVs make great sense don't buy them.
Living where I do, if I had a garage, I would buy an EV town car in a heartbeat. When I cannot (or don't want to) use the tube, I drive into work, which is an 8 mile drive. It takes 25 minutes, and I never exceed 40mph. Perfect for an EV, I would have thought.
But an EV makes bugger all sense if you cannot charge it at home. I expect this is true for quite a lot of Londoners (which is a bummer given that we otherwise are the perfect target market - generally quite "Eco", often early adopters, lots of disposable income, crappy city roads that suit EVs down to the ground, etc).
Living where I do, if I had a garage, I would buy an EV town car in a heartbeat. When I cannot (or don't want to) use the tube, I drive into work, which is an 8 mile drive. It takes 25 minutes, and I never exceed 40mph. Perfect for an EV, I would have thought.
But an EV makes bugger all sense if you cannot charge it at home. I expect this is true for quite a lot of Londoners (which is a bummer given that we otherwise are the perfect target market - generally quite "Eco", often early adopters, lots of disposable income, crappy city roads that suit EVs down to the ground, etc).
I wish people would actually give EV'S a chance and actually drive one for a few days before keyboard bashing and thinking they know everything.
Speaking as a LEAF owner for nearly 2 years/30k miles and being a previous owner of some fairly fast ST's and VW'S the performance of the LEAF is plenty for the real world.
This means I can sprint off from the lights with minimal effort.
It gets to 60mph from a standing start in 10 seconds.
There is plenty of poke left in the car to effortlessly overtake cars at speed.
I had the misfortune of driving a six month old 1.6 Focus which on the whole was a solid car and the handling was great. But the drive was shocking and made me realise how much I prefer an EV drive train over an ICE.
I know it's not the best looking car in the world and yes the realistic range in the winter is 65 miles and summer 80 (mainly motorway commute). But for a car to carry out my 50 mile daily commute it's perfect and don't regret my decision one single bit. The reliability is excellent even though it's still fairly early days there are leafs out there with 100,000+ miles on the clocks with no issues, original brake pads and still 85% remaining of the original battery capacity.
I'm averaging around 3.8miles/4.2miles per kWh. So my weekly fuel bill for 300 miles is roughly £7.50ish!
As a 2nd car in a household you really have to consider one. Just get out there and test drive any EV.
I'll make a bold statement and say I will never own an ICE car again. I'm currently saving the pennies ready for the anticipated Tesla Model 3.
Speaking as a LEAF owner for nearly 2 years/30k miles and being a previous owner of some fairly fast ST's and VW'S the performance of the LEAF is plenty for the real world.
This means I can sprint off from the lights with minimal effort.
It gets to 60mph from a standing start in 10 seconds.
There is plenty of poke left in the car to effortlessly overtake cars at speed.
I had the misfortune of driving a six month old 1.6 Focus which on the whole was a solid car and the handling was great. But the drive was shocking and made me realise how much I prefer an EV drive train over an ICE.
I know it's not the best looking car in the world and yes the realistic range in the winter is 65 miles and summer 80 (mainly motorway commute). But for a car to carry out my 50 mile daily commute it's perfect and don't regret my decision one single bit. The reliability is excellent even though it's still fairly early days there are leafs out there with 100,000+ miles on the clocks with no issues, original brake pads and still 85% remaining of the original battery capacity.
I'm averaging around 3.8miles/4.2miles per kWh. So my weekly fuel bill for 300 miles is roughly £7.50ish!
As a 2nd car in a household you really have to consider one. Just get out there and test drive any EV.
I'll make a bold statement and say I will never own an ICE car again. I'm currently saving the pennies ready for the anticipated Tesla Model 3.
The Leaf was fine in town and 0-60 is an irrelevant figure anyway for many cars, not just a commuter like the Leaf. 0-35 i find to be the most important thing in a town car and at that the Leaf is ace, comfortably leaving behind the lower powered diesel Golfs and 1.0/1.1 Fiestas, etc.
You really have to drive one, the paper figures do not give you the full picture.
Just as i was simply not ready for the stunning 0-80 of the Tesla electric 2 seater i drove.
My SL55AMG isn't great 0-20, as it overwhelms the tyres so easily pulling almost 2,000 kgs away, hence the 4.6 seconds 0-60 doesn't tell you what a monster and a peach this engine is.
You really have to drive one, the paper figures do not give you the full picture.
Just as i was simply not ready for the stunning 0-80 of the Tesla electric 2 seater i drove.
My SL55AMG isn't great 0-20, as it overwhelms the tyres so easily pulling almost 2,000 kgs away, hence the 4.6 seconds 0-60 doesn't tell you what a monster and a peach this engine is.
feef said:
I hired a mercedes van that wouldn't get the cab warm at idle or slow speeds which was a real pain when I was camping in it in February in a welsh forest and was hoping to get warmed up in the morning :S
Vito?- crappy heater on mine just doesn't get warm. Real pain in the A in London traffic.
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