I'm a dinosaur - educate/change my mind

[S600BSB]

I have had an ipace for 15 months and consider myself an EV convert. I've still got a 997 and some other ICE weekend toys but for a daily I wouldn't go back. I do about 1,000 miles a month and it is fast, comfortable and cheap to run on the right tariff. I have a charger in the garage and have only used a public fast charger on 2 occasions. Most of the EV negativity comes from people who have never driven or lived with them.

[off_again]

NMNeil said:

I'm hoping the EV's will fix a lot of the problems that are plaguing once respected car brands.
Look at Mercedes, BMW, Cadillac and many others, and their reliability, or rather lack of, is letting them down. But the vast majority of the reliability issues are with the engine and transmission.
On average an ICE engine has over 200 individual parts, an EV motor has about 20, and only a few of those actually move. And as for transmission problems, EV's don't have a transmission as such.
My point is, an ICE car engine wears at a fairly high rate, and with this wear the emissions rise making the MOT test a nerve racking time, and if it fails on emissions there's a good chance it will be consigned to the junkyard because it's uneconomic to repair, even thought the rest of the car is perfectly good and has plenty of life left.
I know someone will say "Battery life" and that's true, but if only one item, albeit, an expensive item, might need replacing every 150,000 miles, it's still far better than the constant engine and transmission maintenance an ICE engine requires.
Just some thoughts that EV's may have more advantages that you might think.

To be honest, I havent had any issues with almost any of my recent German purchases (Cayenne excepted!). Mercedes, BMW and other Porsches have been perfect. We even had a 198k mile supercharged Mini Cooper S!!! I guess I am lucky, and dont assume that others have the same experience.

Yes, in general, less moving parts "should" improve reliability, but I think a lot of this comes down to the cost and build quality. Swoll raised some interesting points on this in the past. If you are dropping 65k on a luxury SUV, running costs arent really that important. They are important, but if you can afford the finance / loan / lease, having the most efficient one on the market doesnt really make a massive dent in the overall costs - and thats the problem. EV's are, and will remain for the short term, more expensive. In order to manage the costs, many OEM's are cutting corners. Thats wrong.

Personally, I think that the VW ID3/4 is a good example. They clearly cut some corners on the interior and materials to make it more affordable. Did they cut corners on the components? I dont know and time will tell. I hope that they didnt and are focusing on the long term reliability factors, but I can see how an OEM could end up in the wrong place.

An EV sold as very high quality with extremely high reliability components and proven reliability has to be a very compelling argument for a lot of buyers. A lot of buyers have to be interested in a managed total cost in a high quality product, and if thats the Germans, great.

[TheDeuce]

S600BSB said:

I have had an ipace for 15 months and consider myself an EV convert. I've still got a 997 and some other ICE weekend toys but for a daily I wouldn't go back. I do about 1,000 miles a month and it is fast, comfortable and cheap to run on the right tariff. I have a charger in the garage and have only used a public fast charger on 2 occasions. Most of the EV negativity comes from people who have never driven or lived with them.

It's true. Even on this forum, literally 'piston'heads, virtually every member that tries EV becomes a happy convert - irrespective of if they keep ICE too or not.

And virtually every detractor on here ends up pursuing criticisms of EV's that those who actually drive them know to be non issues.

[JonnyVTEC]

Volvolover said:

Havent i? And yet you and they seem to know everybodys lifestyle

Immense arrogance

Frankly I don’t want to

A) you’re trolling
B) you are not special
c) sounds more like it’s a work style you are championing rather than lifestyle.

Get this… I’ve got 3 cars. I’m at where you were talking of being.

[Volvolover]

JonnyVTEC said:

Volvolover said:

Havent i? And yet you and they seem to know everybodys lifestyle

Immense arrogance

Frankly I don’t want to

A) you’re trolling
B) you are not special
c) sounds more like it’s a work style you are championing rather than lifestyle.

Get this… I’ve got 3 cars. I’m at where you were talking of being.

As i said immense arrogance

im championing nothing except saying that for me a BEV as my car in a two car family does not work without major inconvenience

I'd say 50% of my friends at least would be in the same boat as we work mainly at home and make 2-3 long journeys a month either for work and or second holiday homes of a nature where we'd have to charge en route but i'm frequently told that it wouldn't be an inconvenience for me. It most certainly would as I spend about 10 minutes a month to get 1000 miles of range and i cant destination charge ( and wont ever be able to)

Hopefully we get high performance chargers freely available on demand at many locations so it wont bother me then at all. If i could stop and add 100 miles in ten minutes id be happy. However i'm not holding my breath

I o

[JD]

Volvolover said:

I am aware of all of it, i was merely critiquing the scenario presented to me by the poster i quoted........why the fk he'd want to pop out in his pajamas every night at bed time is beyond me and way more of a pain in the ass than my one visit a fortnight to a pump (to me)

You do less than 200 miles a week and you don’t see how an EV is more convenient?

I do more miles than that weekly with a plug-in hybrid on electric!

[Evanivitch]

Volvolover said:

I'd say 50% of my friends at least would be in the same boat as we work mainly at home and make 2-3 long journeys a month either for work and or second holiday homes of a nature where we'd have to charge en route but i'm frequently told that it wouldn't be an inconvenience for me. It most certainly would as I spend about 10 minutes a month to get 1000 miles of range and i cant destination charge ( and wont ever be able to)

Is your holiday home a wilderness cabin?

Volvolover said:

Hopefully we get high performance chargers freely available on demand at many locations so it wont bother me then at all. If i could stop and add 100 miles in ten minutes id be happy. However i'm not holding my breath

Breath easy, 100 miles is say 40kWh, which is 240kW charging.

Oh look...

https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/news/356647/ionity-h...

[Evanivitch]

JD said:

You do less than 200 miles a week and you don’t see how an EV is more convenient?

I do more miles than that weekly with a plug-in hybrid on electric!

I was doing 350 miles a week with a 10.5kWh battery

[SWoll]

Volvolover said:

Hopefully we get high performance chargers freely available on demand at many locations so it wont bother me then at all. If i could stop and add 100 miles in ten minutes id be happy. However i'm not holding my breath

I o

Cheer up then as you already can.

The Kia EV6 can charge fast enough to add 120 miles in 10 minutes on a high speed rapid charger. My very inefficient and 150kW charging limited etron takes about 13 minutes to do the same. How long did you think it takes out of interest?

[Volvolover]

SWoll said:

Volvolover said:

Hopefully we get high performance chargers freely available on demand at many locations so it wont bother me then at all. If i could stop and add 100 miles in ten minutes id be happy. However i'm not holding my breath

I o

Cheer up then as you already can.

The Kia EV6 can charge fast enough to add 120 miles in 10 minutes on a high speed rapid charger. My very inefficient and 150kW charging limited etron takes about 13 minutes to do the same. How long did you think it takes out of interest?

The KIA is high on my list

The difficulty is finding such a charger at the right point in my regular journey without significant detouring. As I said already I live in hope

[Volvolover]

Evanivitch said:

Volvolover said:

I'd say 50% of my friends at least would be in the same boat as we work mainly at home and make 2-3 long journeys a month either for work and or second holiday homes of a nature where we'd have to charge en route but i'm frequently told that it wouldn't be an inconvenience for me. It most certainly would as I spend about 10 minutes a month to get 1000 miles of range and i cant destination charge ( and wont ever be able to)

Is your holiday home a wilderness cabin?

Volvolover said:

Hopefully we get high performance chargers freely available on demand at many locations so it wont bother me then at all. If i could stop and add 100 miles in ten minutes id be happy. However i'm not holding my breath

Breath easy, 100 miles is say 40kWh, which is 240kW charging.

Oh look...

https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/news/356647/ionity-h...

One of them pretty much is yes and the other (like many others) has no parking near the property. Most of the village park at the top of the hill as it’s hard to get a car down let alone park.

By the way, the (likely inflated) promise of fast chargers everywhere by 2025 stops a BEV being inconvenient to me now how? Do I just tell the battery to hang on for another 3 years and drive on hope?
I already said I hope the requisite infrastructure comes on stream and I won’t have a problem.

Well untill I try driving to the west coast of Brittany , another semi regular journey.

[boombang]

Terminator X said:

Cover your eyes and ears then as come 01 Apr we will all be facing much higher bills.

You don't have to buy EV either just by ICE until 2030 then switch to older cars after that. Imho synthetic fuel will save ICE anyway and the various Govts will do a U Turn.

TX.

I would love if a synthetic fuel was available (diesel and petrol replacement suitable for performance vehicles) but I would still chose an EV as our daily drive car. The reasons have been done to death but for me they are just nicer/easier/smoother to drive.

If my work was over 130ish miles away I would need to charge whilst there to avoid any range anxiety but at 50 miles I can drive there and back twice and still have 50-100 miles of range left.

In 5k miles we have never had to charge mod journey nor at any end point bar my work, and that was choice not necessity

[gangzoom]

Europa Jon said:

Delboy: we can discuss your predicament to eternity.The point is, if you're seriously interested in getting an EV next, get your bum in the ones you'd shortlist for a test drive. It's like sex: if you don't enjoy it, you're in the minority, but no harm done. On the other hand...

Did someone just compare driving a car (of any kind) to sex.......Is this a common 'feeling' on inhere interms of how 'close' people feel to their cars, just trying to work out if am in minority interms not finding any connections between these two things we all do .

[page3]

Delboy_trotter said:

EV's however are unfamiliar - instantly you start to think how much the household electric bill is going to go up by - even though you won't be spending £60/70/80 on fuel, the thought of the household electric bill going up by even £10 however is morally outrageous

Have I misunderstood what you’re saying here? You seem to be implying the electricity to power the car should be free?

[S600BSB]

boombang said:

Terminator X said:

Cover your eyes and ears then as come 01 Apr we will all be facing much higher bills.

You don't have to buy EV either just by ICE until 2030 then switch to older cars after that. Imho synthetic fuel will save ICE anyway and the various Govts will do a U Turn.

TX.

I would love if a synthetic fuel was available (diesel and petrol replacement suitable for performance vehicles) but I would still chose an EV as our daily drive car. The reasons have been done to death but for me they are just nicer/easier/smoother to drive.

If my work was over 130ish miles away I would need to charge whilst there to avoid any range anxiety but at 50 miles I can drive there and back twice and still have 50-100 miles of range left.

In 5k miles we have never had to charge mod journey nor at any end point bar my work, and that was choice not necessity

I do a 210 mile round trip in my ipace once or twice a week. Usually have 20 odd miles left. Get home plug it in o/n and good to go. It's just better than what it replaced as a work daily. It's also faster than my 911 which makes it fun!

[Delboy_trotter]

page3 said:

Have I misunderstood what you’re saying here? You seem to be implying the electricity to power the car should be free?

No not implying electric should be free at all, what I'm highlighting is a mindset and the familiarity, when the Electric message you to say your Bill is going up £15 a month, folks get upset, but are comfortable with the concept of going to a fuel pump and filling a car up, and as a dyed in the wool petrolhead, this is where my head is, I moan about a tank of fuel going up, but accept it as its a process and concept I'm very familiar and comfortable with, however to charge a car at home and have the electric bill go up by an arbitrary £60 a month makes me wince

[Murph7355]

Delboy_trotter said:

So im at the point of not being completely sold, but intrigued enough to look into it and begin to understand the ins and outs

If you have the facility at home to charge it up (incremental costs of electricity should be tiny compared to the cost of running an ICE vehicle - you simply need to get your head around that - go back over your credit card bills and add up everything you spend on that. Might help), aren't doing 300 miles a day driving and don't need to tow with it, outside of purchase price there is precious little an up to date EV won't do better than an ICE vehicle for daily use.

If your profile is up to date, and without wishing to be dismissive, snobbish or anything similar, I doubt you bought a diesel Golf for its drivetrain And most certainly not its sound (which is possibly the biggest other negative with an EV).

Decide what your budget is likely to be, and then go and look at some candidates. Have a test drive and be sensible about what your comparing with what.

As you note, technology moves on. There will be no choice soon if you buy new cars, so bite the bullet.

I also like things like a manual gearbox, but for daily use they're another thing I see little value in any more. Maybe I'm getting old. For daily use, demonstrating skill and prowess with a clutch pedal and gear lever is hardly top priority. It's not as if one is heal and toeing all the way to Tesco in a diesel Golf. And with instant torque in an EV, the argument of being able to be in the right gear better than an auto is moot (even if it held water anyway, which in at least the last decade, it didn't).

Sounds like you might not be being straight with yourself about what the key priorities are for you, for a daily driver....

[RazerSauber]

OP, is it worth spending a few quid looking into a week long rental of an EV? Something like a Leaf similar. You can try it, see if you like it and get on with it and test to see if it fits your needs. Alright, you'd be charging on a 13A plug but otherwise it would be a good test. I don't know if any local dealers are doing week long test drivers or such either. Worth a look though.

[sociopath]

I have a 5.7L V8 cobra replica

My wife has a Mustang Mach-e

If I want fun I take the V8.
If I want fast I'll take the EV.

Phenomenal performance.
Souless as Rees-Mogg.

[Delboy_trotter]

plfrench said:

All I'd question Delboy, is why have one more ICE as a daily? I'd go EV next if I were you with your described usage - with such low daily use, the only reason not to assuming you can afford a new car is if you can't charge at home off road.

We got my wife an e-golf as a bit of an experiment as I was intrigued and her usage fitted it perfectly (about 40 miles per day school run).

For a daily drive, electric is a much more elegant solution - no gearchanges to interrupt power, instant pick up - the only limiting factor being the lump in the driving seat's reactions to a situation.

I found the regenerative braking aspect great fun to learn, it adds an extra dimension to driving - being able to meter out exactly how much acceleration / deceleration you require at any given moment brings a new, but admittedly different challenge compared to ICE.

I still have my trusty old 5.0 V8 Chimaera for the weekends, but am ditching my daily (E350d Estate) as soon as possible. The only thing stopping this is the lead time on getting a new car - I ordered a Q4 Etron 50 in Jan, but it's not due to turn up till Oct (if I'm lucky)... my E-Class will be terminated when the Q4 arrives, even though it's not due to go back to Oct 2024 - that's how much I prefer electric

I think the one last ICE is if you like the last hurrah - there is an itch to be scratched as it were and currently i think partly because of the more niche nature of EV's the monthly on them is eye wateringly uncomfortable - so maybe a PHEV maybe the step stone to full EV