EVs... no one wants them!

[ACCYSTAN]

MG5 estate is horrible to drive, plus they devalue heavily in the first year like most EVs

Can’t use van for personal use, not insured.

I’ll stick with another petrol Berlingo MPV and hope that in 3 years time Citroen have improved the battery sufficiently to make the change more convenient

[SWoll]

ACCYSTAN said:

MG5 estate is horrible to drive, plus they devalue heavily in the first year like most EVs

The don't buy a new one? And horrible compared to a Berlingo?

[ACCYSTAN]

SWoll said:

The don't buy a new one? And horrible compared to a Berlingo?

Yes

Try both, let me know your thoughts

I like MG but the 5 estate is not there best work

[MightyBadger]

This maybe sensationalist propaganda, some nasty looking things going on in the video though.

https://youtu.be/8HpkDUWAKFM?si=oIrrq_hZ5NO6FsVa

[monkfish1]

GT9 said:

I'm not sure if anyone has mentioned this idea yet, but you could always not buy the EV now and wait until such inconveniences are a thing of the past.
Just an idea, mind.

Indeed you can. Problem is, that what most people are doing.

Which means reality will meet the ZEV mandate, which, correspondingly means an aritificial constriction of supply of new ICE vehicles.

Which will be "interesting" for want of a better expression.

I suspect the outcome will be exactly as above, less new vehicles sold overall, thus reducing the fleet renewal rate. The exact opposite of the intent.

[GT9]

monkfish1 said:

I suspect the outcome will be exactly as above, less new vehicles sold overall, thus reducing the fleet renewal rate. The exact opposite of the intent.

The intent is to increase the % of EVs in the pool.
Putting more new ICE cars into the pool won't achieve it either...
Building pressure on manufacturers to offer the products people want and on buyers to compromise on perceived media-fuelled shortcomings (because that's what quite a bit of the resistance is, if we are being brutally honest) is only going to happen if the mandate targets are tough.
And yes there are also real shortcomings, some of which is nothing to do with the cars and all to do with charging them.
There's going to be elasticity between all of these factors, and hiatus events along the way.
Your post hints that we should be doing something different?

[Evanivitch]

ACCYSTAN said:

Just to be clear,
I drive a diesel Berlingo van for work ,I want a petrol or electric Toyota Proace city verso (a rebadged Berlingo with 10 year warranty) as my personal vehicle.

Unfortunately there are no decent range MPV style electrics, Tesla have no plans to make one.
You can pay over £70k for a luxury MPV electric with over 200 miles range, but that’s way out of my price range

Vivaro-e 75kWh? Not sure how available it was in the UK.

[TheBinarySheep]

ACCYSTAN said:

Exactly this

The idea of having to find a charger and waiting like a lemon for the car to get back to 80% charge is ludicrous

16% of new vehicle sales last year would disagree with you.

[Tindersticks]

MightyBadger said:

This maybe sensationalist propaganda, some nasty looking things going on in the video though.

Looking at his videos I'd say he's found a nice little niche raging about anything and everything in China.

[CivicDuties]

monkfish1 said:

CivicDuties said:

Yes, but more slowly, giving us more time to work out the final answers to stopping it happening.

You seriously believe it can be "stopped" ?

I don't know. But surely trying is better than not? One way it might be possible, the other way it certainly won't be. I always prefer the least worst option when presented with a choice of two imperfect things.

[Wills2]

TheBinarySheep said:

16% of new vehicle sales last year would disagree with you.

I'd say the fact that adoption share has stalled at that low percentage for the last 2+ years does anything but disagree, given the massive incentives to push people towards them, take away those and there wouldn't be a market worth talking about.

That % share is nothing to crow about, Porsche EV share dropped by 50% in Q1 to only 5.6% of sales, they are running out of people with an incentive to rent one, you're not going to drive wider adoption with a closed shop incentive scheme.

[TheBinarySheep]

Wills2 said:

I'd say the fact that adoption share has stalled at that low percentage for the last 2+ years does anything but disagree, given the massive incentives to push people towards them, take away those and there wouldn't be a market worth talking about.

That % share is nothing to crow about, Porsche EV share dropped by 50% in Q1 to only 5.6% of sales, they are running out of people with an incentive to rent one, you're not going to drive wider adoption with a closed shop incentive scheme.

It's difficult to look an individual years and come to a conclusion from that. 2023 was an interesting year what with interest rates increasing etc.

In 2016 EV sales accounted for 0.6% of sales, in 2023 it was 16-18% depending on where you look. If in three years time we're still seeing EVs accounting for 16-18% of sales, then I'd agree with you, but it's too early to tell.

If you wanted to go finer, I could argue that EV sales in January were up 20% on last year, or that February sales were up 14% on last year, although March was 11% down.

It's like my Stocks and Shares ISA, some years its up, some years it's down, but over a longer period there's an upward trajectory.

Personally, and this is just a hunch, I reckon EV's could be 1/5th of sales in 2024.

[Muzzer79]

Ankh87 said:

Muzzer79 said:

Ankh87 said:

Muzzer79 said:

Don't waste your breath

PH is full of people who drive for hours and hours, every day, without a break.

They all need cars that will do 400 or 500 miles because they're doing that regularly.

I'd love to know where all these people are going. They must have a hell of a commute.

I think it's the fact that when you do stop, you can just stop any where for a break. You don't need to stop and take a break at a specific location. So if you are happy to drive 4 hours without stopping, then you can do.

You don't need to think that I must stop off at X location which could be actually off your route. You could just pull over on a B road layby, go for the splash behind the bush. Put rubbish in the bin. Carry on the journey in a matter of minutes. No need to wait another X amount of charge to be sure you can carry on your journey. No need to worry if you might be waiting for a charger or even if they are working.

The point isn't the practicalities of stopping

The point is that where are all these people going on these 400 mile journeys that they're doing so regularly as to necessitate a car that has that range?

I drive to locations as part of my job - 15-20k miles a year. My longest journey that I can recall - business or personal - is something like 125 miles each way, taking 2 - 2.5 hours each way.

I take the EV, which has the range for it but I give it a small (safety) top up when I get to the office, then I do my business and drive home.

I 100% understand that there isn't many people who are doing that sort of mileage. How I see it is if there's a range of 400 miles that's more than enough to go Birmingham to London a couple of times which isn't unreasonable as many people do that by train.
So if you do need to do that trip, you're not having to stress about having to either find a charger before you go home or charge up on the way home.
The 400 miles range is more than enough to that trip at a moments notice, knowing you'll be home that evening.


I would like to add that a lot of people are doing Staycations these days. Lots of people from the middle of England go to Cornwall or even go to Norfolk. There's also no guarantee that there's a charger you can use when you get there. So if you can get to your holiday destination without charging, then take your time on the way home. Most would be happy with that. Yes it's a pain having to charge up on the way home but it's a lesser cost than having to use a public charger 2-4 times which is another thing to factor in.

I'm going to have to flag this up again

Firstly - the Birmingham to London example.

A trip from central Birmingham to Central London is 240 miles round trip. Easily do-able in a reasonable-spec EV range-wise

Under what circumstances would you need to do it twice in a day?

As for Staycations, I still can't get my head around writing off the proposition of a type of car based on the fact that you need to take it on holiday once or twice a year.
It's like buying a minibus because you give your family a lift to the airport for their annual holidays. Or buying a pick-up truck because you're going to the tip.

Even then, from Birmingham, Cornwall is about 250 miles, Norfolk is about 160 miles - again, easily do-able in a reasonable-range EV.
Using your criteria of charging on the way home being fine as long as you can get there in one go - an EV works?

[survivalist]

TheBinarySheep said:

Wills2 said:

I'd say the fact that adoption share has stalled at that low percentage for the last 2+ years does anything but disagree, given the massive incentives to push people towards them, take away those and there wouldn't be a market worth talking about.

That % share is nothing to crow about, Porsche EV share dropped by 50% in Q1 to only 5.6% of sales, they are running out of people with an incentive to rent one, you're not going to drive wider adoption with a closed shop incentive scheme.

It's difficult to look an individual years and come to a conclusion from that. 2023 was an interesting year what with interest rates increasing etc.

In 2016 EV sales accounted for 0.6% of sales, in 2023 it was 16-18% depending on where you look. If in three years time we're still seeing EVs accounting for 16-18% of sales, then I'd agree with you, but it's too early to tell.

If you wanted to go finer, I could argue that EV sales in January were up 20% on last year, or that February sales were up 14% on last year, although March was 11% down.

It's like my Stocks and Shares ISA, some years its up, some years it's down, but over a longer period there's an upward trajectory.

Personally, and this is just a hunch, I reckon EV's could be 1/5th of sales in 2024.

There will have to be some absolutely amazing deals for private buyers, or a massive fleet refresh for that to happen.

In the first 3 months of this year all car sales were up, EV share of that market was up by less than 1%. A lot of pre-registered stuff around as well, presumably because the dealers wanted to hit rebate targets set by the manufacturers.

[FiF]

@Muzzer

Just out of interest what would you call a reasonable spec EV wise.

Regular trip Home -Heathrow T5 240 miles round trip.
Outward setting off 4am Monday 7am dep ish
Return flight landing Friday late say 22:00 ish.
Every second week.

Estate car, departing Monday with full charge.
Or is expecting to do that 2 hr each way with little fuss unreasonable?

Go. Suggestions.

[otolith]

Muzzer79 said:

I'm going to have to flag this up again

Firstly - the Birmingham to London example.

A trip from central Birmingham to Central London is 240 miles round trip. Easily do-able in a reasonable-spec EV range-wise

In terms of EVs and transport policy, I'm not sure that the ease of long car journeys between city centres (or to Romania) will ever be a strong policy priority anyway - they really don't want you to make journeys like central Brum to central London by car. It's a bit like the problem of mass car ownership in dense urban areas being harder to do with electric - the thing which is difficult to do is considered problematic in itself.

[T_S_M]

FiF said:

@Muzzer

Just out of interest what would you call a reasonable spec EV wise.

Regular trip Home -Heathrow T5 240 miles round trip.
Outward setting off 4am Monday 7am dep ish
Return flight landing Friday late say 22:00 ish.
Every second week.

Estate car, departing Monday with full charge.
Or is expecting to do that 2 hr each way with little fuss unreasonable?

Go. Suggestions.

KIA EV6

https://www.whatcar.com/news/kia-ev6-long-term-tes...

"Although it didn’t manage to average the 300 miles plus that I’d been hoping for, the EV6’s range of around 280 miles was still more than enough for all of my everyday use, with each full charge seeming to last for an incredibly long time."

Edited by T_S_M on Thursday 2nd May 11:24

[FiF]

T_S_M said:

KIA EV6

Fail. Read the question, estate car.

[SWoll]

FiF said:

T_S_M said:

KIA EV6

Fail. Read the question, estate car.

Seats 5 and has the same boot capacity as a 3 series touring.

[T_S_M]

FiF said:

T_S_M said:

KIA EV6

Fail. Read the question, estate car.

Skoda Enyaq.

Same size boot as a Passat Estate or 5-Series Touring with the seats folded down. If you need bigger get a Transit.

Combined range of 250-300 miles.