RE: The best electric cars to buy in 2021
Discussion
DonkeyApple said:
I think that is rather the point the poster was making? As compromise cars, so long as the user currently fits a particular set of relatively narrow but actually quite common criteria the typical EV works well enough and in cases much better than an ICE.
Probably the best example being the middle income suburban household. 2 cars, a driveway, high income. One of those cars just does 10k a year making the same basic trips around the local environment. The EV is genuinely superior for this role. It's flaws that make it inconvenient to unusable in other roles aren't relevant. The extra cost doesn't matter and nor do the heavy restrictions caused by inefficient batteries.
The next best example would be the worker with an extremely predictable and stable work outlook. That worker drives the same route every day for years on end, Never deviating from a routine that is easily quantifiable and predictable. That sort of mod level clerical worker role. Above average income and easily difinable usage. The EV fits perfectly. Especially if that worker can utilise the massive State benefits granted to EV users.
But then as you highlight, at the other end of this usage spectrum come the fun and leisure use. Just take the concept of the sports car. It's supposed to portray the image of freedom, go anywhere, whenever. EVs don't represent freedom. They represent routine, narrow, predictable, drone like mundane routine. Not because they are electric but because the tech to power them is not as advantages as we are as a society and can't even compete against fossil fuels.
With an EV you have to plot your journey in advance, plan it, stick to the confines of the remote charging system, plan what you are going to do while you wait. And then while you are moving between charging points you have to keep your foot off the loud pedal as much as possible. Now that is an absolute wet dream for actuaries and the adenoidal but it is the antithesis of what a sports car represents to PHers.
As such, it is very fair to lay down a view that EVs are not fun. They aren't fun because they aren't free. The motorcar for all our lives has been the poster boy of personal freedom and here is a product that strips that away and shackles the user and does so overtly.
This isn't because the EV doesn't smell, isn't noisy or because the electric motor isn't capable of amazing performance and assisting better handling. It is because you have to fill the EV with massive, heavy, life and joy sucking, useless batteries like attaching a ball and chain to Usain Bolt and then trying to make out that he's the best when the world can all see that a toddler in a walker has been made the superior performer as a result of that crippling restraint.
You've got a very narrow interpretation of what constitutes fun. If it's solely freedom then not being tied to having to regularly visit a petrol station forecourt and pay £1.20 a litre is a lot of 'fun' IME.Probably the best example being the middle income suburban household. 2 cars, a driveway, high income. One of those cars just does 10k a year making the same basic trips around the local environment. The EV is genuinely superior for this role. It's flaws that make it inconvenient to unusable in other roles aren't relevant. The extra cost doesn't matter and nor do the heavy restrictions caused by inefficient batteries.
The next best example would be the worker with an extremely predictable and stable work outlook. That worker drives the same route every day for years on end, Never deviating from a routine that is easily quantifiable and predictable. That sort of mod level clerical worker role. Above average income and easily difinable usage. The EV fits perfectly. Especially if that worker can utilise the massive State benefits granted to EV users.
But then as you highlight, at the other end of this usage spectrum come the fun and leisure use. Just take the concept of the sports car. It's supposed to portray the image of freedom, go anywhere, whenever. EVs don't represent freedom. They represent routine, narrow, predictable, drone like mundane routine. Not because they are electric but because the tech to power them is not as advantages as we are as a society and can't even compete against fossil fuels.
With an EV you have to plot your journey in advance, plan it, stick to the confines of the remote charging system, plan what you are going to do while you wait. And then while you are moving between charging points you have to keep your foot off the loud pedal as much as possible. Now that is an absolute wet dream for actuaries and the adenoidal but it is the antithesis of what a sports car represents to PHers.
As such, it is very fair to lay down a view that EVs are not fun. They aren't fun because they aren't free. The motorcar for all our lives has been the poster boy of personal freedom and here is a product that strips that away and shackles the user and does so overtly.
This isn't because the EV doesn't smell, isn't noisy or because the electric motor isn't capable of amazing performance and assisting better handling. It is because you have to fill the EV with massive, heavy, life and joy sucking, useless batteries like attaching a ball and chain to Usain Bolt and then trying to make out that he's the best when the world can all see that a toddler in a walker has been made the superior performer as a result of that crippling restraint.
Having lived with one for 2 years now the compromises really aren't anywhere near as bad as people seem to think. As an example on a trip down to Devon in September we stopped at exactly the same services on the M5 as we always do (Gordano) and were there for approx 15 additional minutes to charge the car for our needs. Hardy the end of the world.
FYI the Model 3 P is only 5% heavier than the BMW M440i X-Drive despite all those batteries, and lighter than the similarly practical 540i X-Drive. The heavier EV's are almost always the models having to cart around a platform that is shared with ICE variants.
JD said:
DonkeyApple said:
Very few of those are pure EV. To date about 100,000.
1 in 6 cars registered in December was pure EV.In 2020 110k EV were sold in the UK
This “it will happen in 5 or 10 years” is already happening.
This year it’s more likely people will buy an electric car than a diesel one.
It'll be a few years yet. 40m cars in Britain and we buy 2m new ones each year. Very few of those are pure EV. To date about 100,000. The market is growing rapidly but even if all new cars going forward we're pure EVs that's still going to take multiple decades. As crushing, all changing social bohemoths go it's basically a half dead slug being pushed along by a recalcitrant taxman.
Change is here and it will continue but it is unbelievably slow and just the basic rate of car purchase in the UK means it will take decades.
It rather highlights though that private car usage in the UK is a bit of a total irrelevance re end of the world human pollution. Hence why in reality, very little is being done in terms of immediate action and a thirty to forty year programnof change has been settled up. Slowly and steadily replace private ICE with electric.
The trick is to not be fooled by the way the promoters and spin doctors use percentages. You'll always get big numbers that impress and fool the masses when you cite the percentage growth of something from scratch. When you put a new product up for sale and sell the second one that's 100%. That's amazing. That's mind blowing. That's utterly irrelevant and of no value. What you want to know is the percentage against total competitor sales.
EV growth is obviously going to growing at a percentage rate that delivers big numbers to impress idiots and it is this that fools people into thinking the rate of change is massive and that this enormous, fast moving revolution is upon us and that within a very short period of time the whole country will be driving EVs.
Conversely, when you look at the data sensibly it is rather clear that this process of change will take decades not years. It's not even down to the sales rate of EVs. At 2m new sales a year it takes two decades just to cycle through and replace all the cars on the road. But how many years will it be before all 2m new sales are pure EV? Well, without a seismic breakthrough in battery tech then the best we can hope for is probably for pure EVs to comprise 50% of new sales within 5-10 years.
The reality is that the logical estimate for replacing ICE with pure EV is about thirty years. Most people on PH won't even be driving in thirty years time. Few will ever have to drive an EV if they don't want to.
The actual rate of change is massively longer than many people on both sides have tricked themselves or been tricked into thinking. Just like the relevance of private vehicles on urban pollution. In somewhere like London, the largest city in the UK by at least 5 times but in reality on average ten to twenty times larger than other cities, private car pollution is measured at 12% of air pollution. The best that will be achieved over the next two decades is a halving of that to 6% according to general research and reports. It's not the silver bullet.
As a local environmental issue it isn't the main driver but what it is is a powerful visual poster boy of the movement. It's the object that everyone can see all around them all the time and also smell. It's the equivalent of blaming the Jewish money lenders for a population borrowing too much. It's a scape goat and also in many ways a placebo.
I think most people will agree that changing away from ICE to EV is a good thing. We will miss key aspects of ICE that are only favoured by car enthusiasts but cleaning up the place is a good thing, however small. And I think most people recognise that while the current market for EVs is wholly false and exists only because of State benefits that thisnis an important and necessary stepping stone to force the technological advanacementnin energy storage so that the superior potential of the electric motor can be brought to bear.
But it's not a change that can happen quickly and nor is it all that relevant in the UK in terms of pollution.
nicfaz said:
I like the alliteration "actuaries and the adenoidal", but I think you're being a bit hysterical. Pre-lockdown I did a 280m round trip in my BEV, with no charging available at the destination. It took 25 minutes longer than it would have done in an ICE car, but was perfectly doable and I did not moderate my acceleration or speed at all. And when I'm not doing long trips, the EV is far more free than the ICE car - free from being forced to detour to a petrol station when we don't live near one, free from defrosting windows in a morning now that the weather has turned icy, free from local pollution (especially when compared to diesel), and yet still free to drive to Scotland so long as I don't mind taking longer breaks on the journey.
I'm also free (if I've got the money and the inclination) to buy some solar panels and not to be tied to a supply chain of oil that starts (often) in a country with a poor human rights record at venting oil wells, free from oil tankers burning massive amounts of heavy fuel oil and damaging marine life to get the oil to Stanlow, where I'm also free from the massive amounts of energy that refining the oil needs. And if any of that fragile supply chain breaks down, as we've seen in the recent past, I'm free from giving a s
t about it.
Like everything, it depends on which freedoms you value. I'll put up with long journeys taking a bit longer still.
To charge an EV with Solar panels is laughable unless you have a) a large field of them b) a large battery to store them in. I have had PV and have the max size for a normal domestic install of 4kW.hr which with efficiencies only produce around 3.6kW/hr and then only when the sun is at it's best point (for no hours per day at this time of year and for 3~4 hours in summer), output is less at other times and winter generation is about 10% of summer generation giving about 20W.hr per day in the peak of summer and about 2 in the depth of winter (obvious varies with how sunny it is). A modern EV with a decent range has a 50~100 kW battery, so in the summer it will take 2 to 5 days to full 40~100 days in winter (clearly not true as spring will arrive to save you!!) The cost of 4kW system is £3 to £4k these days. So if you want the "freedom" to go off grid then you will need an acre or so of land and £50~£100k of capital (plus the cost of the land) if you want to be able to "off grid" in less than a day all year round. Honestly, better to build a big windmill and an enormous storage battery I'm also free (if I've got the money and the inclination) to buy some solar panels and not to be tied to a supply chain of oil that starts (often) in a country with a poor human rights record at venting oil wells, free from oil tankers burning massive amounts of heavy fuel oil and damaging marine life to get the oil to Stanlow, where I'm also free from the massive amounts of energy that refining the oil needs. And if any of that fragile supply chain breaks down, as we've seen in the recent past, I'm free from giving a s
t about it.Like everything, it depends on which freedoms you value. I'll put up with long journeys taking a bit longer still.
Currently the government forecasts it needs to double electric power generation in the UK to support the future needs for EV's and hydrogen manufacture - and they want this all to be renewable or nucleur. There are so many questions about the capability of the country to move to "Zero Carbon" and indeed the costs of doing so. Most of this is going to have to be offshore wind and there remains the question of where our electricity comes from on the days when it's not very windy - probably natural gas with carbon capture. whatever the facts remain that "going electric" is going to be a challenging and complicated path given the power needed for EV's. Also in the government plans is the assumption that there will be a 15~20% decrease in personal journeys with either less travel or more use of public transport. Such a lovely future to look forward to !!
martin12345 said:
To charge an EV with Solar panels is laughable unless you have a) a large field of them b) a large battery to store them in.
er, i think you forgot the rather important c) you don't drive many miles a dayThe average UK daily driving mileage is 11 miles per day. At 4 miles / kWh, you need about 3 kWh per day. That is very do-able indeed for a typical UK solar install.
Now of course, those photocopier salesmen who drive 4,000 miles a day each and every day, no, they can't use domestic solar, sorry, but an absolutely massive number of people right now today, could get an EV and do the vast majority of their driving with it, and if necessary, use domestic solar to power it.
DonkeyApple said:
But that's just taking a line out of context to subsequently make the same point
It'll be a few years yet. 40m cars in Britain and we buy 2m new ones each year. Very few of those are pure EV. To date about 100,000.
Yes but I was just suggesting your numbers are way out, so things are going to happen much more quickly.It'll be a few years yet. 40m cars in Britain and we buy 2m new ones each year. Very few of those are pure EV. To date about 100,000.
There are under 32m licensed cars in the UK, not 40m, so already there is 8m that don't need replacing.
A good chunk of these will be cars that won't get churned (classics, sports cars etc.)
DonkeyApple said:
But it's not a change that can happen quickly and nor is it all that relevant in the UK in terms of pollution.
I'm not a betting man, but i suspect this change is going to happen far quicker than many are suggestingSaying it's "not relevant" to UK pollution is, at best, rather inappropriate. Yes, passenger cars in the UK are not the biggest single source of pollution or climate impact, but they are significant, and just because something is not the individual largest pollutor does not in any way negate the advantages brought by removing that source!
DonkeyApple said:
But that's just taking a line out of context to subsequently make the same point
It'll be a few years yet. 40m cars in Britain and we buy 2m new ones each year. Very few of those are pure EV. To date about 100,000. The market is growing rapidly but even if all new cars going forward we're pure EVs that's still going to take multiple decades. As crushing, all changing social bohemoths go it's basically a half dead slug being pushed along by a recalcitrant taxman.
Change is here and it will continue but it is unbelievably slow and just the basic rate of car purchase in the UK means it will take decades.
It rather highlights though that private car usage in the UK is a bit of a total irrelevance re end of the world human pollution. Hence why in reality, very little is being done in terms of immediate action and a thirty to forty year programnof change has been settled up. Slowly and steadily replace private ICE with electric.
The trick is to not be fooled by the way the promoters and spin doctors use percentages. You'll always get big numbers that impress and fool the masses when you cite the percentage growth of something from scratch. When you put a new product up for sale and sell the second one that's 100%. That's amazing. That's mind blowing. That's utterly irrelevant and of no value. What you want to know is the percentage against total competitor sales.
EV growth is obviously going to growing at a percentage rate that delivers big numbers to impress idiots and it is this that fools people into thinking the rate of change is massive and that this enormous, fast moving revolution is upon us and that within a very short period of time the whole country will be driving EVs.
Conversely, when you look at the data sensibly it is rather clear that this process of change will take decades not years. It's not even down to the sales rate of EVs. At 2m new sales a year it takes two decades just to cycle through and replace all the cars on the road. But how many years will it be before all 2m new sales are pure EV? Well, without a seismic breakthrough in battery tech then the best we can hope for is probably for pure EVs to comprise 50% of new sales within 5-10 years.
The reality is that the logical estimate for replacing ICE with pure EV is about thirty years. Most people on PH won't even be driving in thirty years time. Few will ever have to drive an EV if they don't want to.
The actual rate of change is massively longer than many people on both sides have tricked themselves or been tricked into thinking. Just like the relevance of private vehicles on urban pollution. In somewhere like London, the largest city in the UK by at least 5 times but in reality on average ten to twenty times larger than other cities, private car pollution is measured at 12% of air pollution. The best that will be achieved over the next two decades is a halving of that to 6% according to general research and reports. It's not the silver bullet.
As a local environmental issue it isn't the main driver but what it is is a powerful visual poster boy of the movement. It's the object that everyone can see all around them all the time and also smell. It's the equivalent of blaming the Jewish money lenders for a population borrowing too much. It's a scape goat and also in many ways a placebo.
I think most people will agree that changing away from ICE to EV is a good thing. We will miss key aspects of ICE that are only favoured by car enthusiasts but cleaning up the place is a good thing, however small. And I think most people recognise that while the current market for EVs is wholly false and exists only because of State benefits that thisnis an important and necessary stepping stone to force the technological advanacementnin energy storage so that the superior potential of the electric motor can be brought to bear.
But it's not a change that can happen quickly and nor is it all that relevant in the UK in terms of pollution.
Some well made points but I do think the switch over to EV will accelerate quicker than you think. A company car driver with a 2.0 litre diesel and free fuel currently gets hit with a £7 - £9K tax bill dependent upon income. An EV will reduce to this to practically zero (Caveat - Rishi could change this next budget!). Many big companies will be moving across to EVs this year as a result (this is not speculation - I'm waiting to find out which model I'm going to get!)It'll be a few years yet. 40m cars in Britain and we buy 2m new ones each year. Very few of those are pure EV. To date about 100,000. The market is growing rapidly but even if all new cars going forward we're pure EVs that's still going to take multiple decades. As crushing, all changing social bohemoths go it's basically a half dead slug being pushed along by a recalcitrant taxman.
Change is here and it will continue but it is unbelievably slow and just the basic rate of car purchase in the UK means it will take decades.
It rather highlights though that private car usage in the UK is a bit of a total irrelevance re end of the world human pollution. Hence why in reality, very little is being done in terms of immediate action and a thirty to forty year programnof change has been settled up. Slowly and steadily replace private ICE with electric.
The trick is to not be fooled by the way the promoters and spin doctors use percentages. You'll always get big numbers that impress and fool the masses when you cite the percentage growth of something from scratch. When you put a new product up for sale and sell the second one that's 100%. That's amazing. That's mind blowing. That's utterly irrelevant and of no value. What you want to know is the percentage against total competitor sales.
EV growth is obviously going to growing at a percentage rate that delivers big numbers to impress idiots and it is this that fools people into thinking the rate of change is massive and that this enormous, fast moving revolution is upon us and that within a very short period of time the whole country will be driving EVs.
Conversely, when you look at the data sensibly it is rather clear that this process of change will take decades not years. It's not even down to the sales rate of EVs. At 2m new sales a year it takes two decades just to cycle through and replace all the cars on the road. But how many years will it be before all 2m new sales are pure EV? Well, without a seismic breakthrough in battery tech then the best we can hope for is probably for pure EVs to comprise 50% of new sales within 5-10 years.
The reality is that the logical estimate for replacing ICE with pure EV is about thirty years. Most people on PH won't even be driving in thirty years time. Few will ever have to drive an EV if they don't want to.
The actual rate of change is massively longer than many people on both sides have tricked themselves or been tricked into thinking. Just like the relevance of private vehicles on urban pollution. In somewhere like London, the largest city in the UK by at least 5 times but in reality on average ten to twenty times larger than other cities, private car pollution is measured at 12% of air pollution. The best that will be achieved over the next two decades is a halving of that to 6% according to general research and reports. It's not the silver bullet.
As a local environmental issue it isn't the main driver but what it is is a powerful visual poster boy of the movement. It's the object that everyone can see all around them all the time and also smell. It's the equivalent of blaming the Jewish money lenders for a population borrowing too much. It's a scape goat and also in many ways a placebo.
I think most people will agree that changing away from ICE to EV is a good thing. We will miss key aspects of ICE that are only favoured by car enthusiasts but cleaning up the place is a good thing, however small. And I think most people recognise that while the current market for EVs is wholly false and exists only because of State benefits that thisnis an important and necessary stepping stone to force the technological advanacementnin energy storage so that the superior potential of the electric motor can be brought to bear.
But it's not a change that can happen quickly and nor is it all that relevant in the UK in terms of pollution.
SWoll said:
You've got a very narrow interpretation of what constitutes fun. If it's solely freedom then not being tied to having to regularly visit a petrol station forecourt and pay £1.20 a litre is a lot of 'fun' IME.
Having lived with one for 2 years now the compromises really aren't anywhere near as bad as people seem to think. As an example on a trip down to Devon in September we stopped at exactly the same services on the M5 as we always do (Gordano) and were there for approx 15 additional minutes to charge the car for our needs. Hardy the end of the world.
FYI the Model 3 P is only 5% heavier than the BMW M440i X-Drive despite all those batteries, and lighter than the similarly practical 540i X-Drive. The heavier EV's are almost always the models having to cart around a platform that is shared with ICE variants.
If 'everyone' adopted them, the infrastructure would fall apart. Your 15 min wait would be somewhat more stressful then a trip to the pumps? Having lived with one for 2 years now the compromises really aren't anywhere near as bad as people seem to think. As an example on a trip down to Devon in September we stopped at exactly the same services on the M5 as we always do (Gordano) and were there for approx 15 additional minutes to charge the car for our needs. Hardy the end of the world.
FYI the Model 3 P is only 5% heavier than the BMW M440i X-Drive despite all those batteries, and lighter than the similarly practical 540i X-Drive. The heavier EV's are almost always the models having to cart around a platform that is shared with ICE variants.
IMO, the big change, is when you can walk into any car showroom, and actually right there in front of you are pure EVs to buy. Until recently, and really still today, the car manufacturers and their dealers are not, generally, in any way interested in selling actual customers EVs. They would far rather sell them the existing stock of their ICE models.
Once the average punter walks into the showroom and the car sat their is an EV, then they WILL buy that one. Take the VW ID3. If this car replaces say the Golf in show rooms, it will sell, and sell in volume!
Once the average punter walks into the showroom and the car sat their is an EV, then they WILL buy that one. Take the VW ID3. If this car replaces say the Golf in show rooms, it will sell, and sell in volume!
ddom said:
SWoll said:
You've got a very narrow interpretation of what constitutes fun. If it's solely freedom then not being tied to having to regularly visit a petrol station forecourt and pay £1.20 a litre is a lot of 'fun' IME.
Having lived with one for 2 years now the compromises really aren't anywhere near as bad as people seem to think. As an example on a trip down to Devon in September we stopped at exactly the same services on the M5 as we always do (Gordano) and were there for approx 15 additional minutes to charge the car for our needs. Hardy the end of the world.
FYI the Model 3 P is only 5% heavier than the BMW M440i X-Drive despite all those batteries, and lighter than the similarly practical 540i X-Drive. The heavier EV's are almost always the models having to cart around a platform that is shared with ICE variants.
If 'everyone' adopted them, the infrastructure would fall apart. Your 15 min wait would be somewhat more stressful then a trip to the pumps? Having lived with one for 2 years now the compromises really aren't anywhere near as bad as people seem to think. As an example on a trip down to Devon in September we stopped at exactly the same services on the M5 as we always do (Gordano) and were there for approx 15 additional minutes to charge the car for our needs. Hardy the end of the world.
FYI the Model 3 P is only 5% heavier than the BMW M440i X-Drive despite all those batteries, and lighter than the similarly practical 540i X-Drive. The heavier EV's are almost always the models having to cart around a platform that is shared with ICE variants.
I'm loving my IPACE and various other discussion here will have been repeated time and time again, really positive to see Max Torque input too.
For all the closet lifecycle (only on EVs i must add) please work out how sulphur is taken out of modern fuel before dropping into threads like this...
The huge other benefit of EV is just how delightful it is driving when you have super linear response between accelerator demand of power and the car providing it. Linear, instant, predictable etc. No guessing of what gear, presetting the gear so you get the car ready, no turbo surge etc. It great, best example is like driving around in a large engine NA always on cam, just with non of the noise and drama. Its always 'ready'.
I get the V8 character and other high output engines, i get those, the noise and drama ; at still has desire, just 98% of everything else EV will do perfectly to replace and improve, both the environment inside and outside of the car.
For all the closet lifecycle (only on EVs i must add) please work out how sulphur is taken out of modern fuel before dropping into threads like this...
The huge other benefit of EV is just how delightful it is driving when you have super linear response between accelerator demand of power and the car providing it. Linear, instant, predictable etc. No guessing of what gear, presetting the gear so you get the car ready, no turbo surge etc. It great, best example is like driving around in a large engine NA always on cam, just with non of the noise and drama. Its always 'ready'.
I get the V8 character and other high output engines, i get those, the noise and drama ; at still has desire, just 98% of everything else EV will do perfectly to replace and improve, both the environment inside and outside of the car.
Edited by JonnyVTEC on Monday 11th January 12:00
JonnyVTEC said:
I'm loving my IPACE and various other discussion here will have been repeated time and time again, really positive to see Max Torque input too.
For all the closest lifecycle (only on EVs i must add) please work out how sulphur is taken out of modern fuel before dropping into threads like this...
The huge other benefit of EV is just how delightful it is driving when you have super linear response between accelerator demand of power and the car providing it. Linear, instant, predictable etc. No guessing of what gear, presetting the gear so you get the car ready, no turbo surge etc. It great, best example is like driving around in a large engine NA always on cam, just with non of the noise and drama. Its always 'ready'.
I get the V8 character and other high output engines, i get those, the noise and drama ; at still has desire, just 98% of everything else EV will do perfectly to replace and improve, both the environment inside and outside of the car.
Hard to disagree. Love my TVR for the weekend but actually looking forward to an EV as a daily driver - was a sceptic until my Dad bought a BMW i3 - very impressive bit of kit and perfectly capable of meeting most peoples requirements (providing you can charge overnight). For all the closest lifecycle (only on EVs i must add) please work out how sulphur is taken out of modern fuel before dropping into threads like this...
The huge other benefit of EV is just how delightful it is driving when you have super linear response between accelerator demand of power and the car providing it. Linear, instant, predictable etc. No guessing of what gear, presetting the gear so you get the car ready, no turbo surge etc. It great, best example is like driving around in a large engine NA always on cam, just with non of the noise and drama. Its always 'ready'.
I get the V8 character and other high output engines, i get those, the noise and drama ; at still has desire, just 98% of everything else EV will do perfectly to replace and improve, both the environment inside and outside of the car.
Max_Torque said:
Do you know what the average "in use" proportion is for the current, very sparse, charging network? Have a guess!
Because of the relatively low amounts on the road. The savings aren't huge if you are only doing short journeys. Whilst we may have another i3 coming in 6 months to replace an outgoing SUV it really doesn't make sense financially to spend 20-50K on an EV, against the vast selection of ICE vehicles. If there weren't other cars in the garage I wouldn't even consider it.
Incidentally, saw a dark blue Honda E drive past a while back, and my wife immediately noticed and thought it was cute and started talking about if we could get one ;-) So they've definitely done something right with it.
Max_Torque said:
IMO, the big change, is when you can walk into any car showroom, and actually right there in front of you are pure EVs to buy. Until recently, and really still today, the car manufacturers and their dealers are not, generally, in any way interested in selling actual customers EVs. They would far rather sell them the existing stock of their ICE models.
It's perhaps surprising that this is still the case, since many manufacturers are facing fines for exceeding EU fleet average CO2 limits, and selling EVs is a powerful way to reduce their average. I imagine that the bottleneck remains (battery) production, and thus that manufacturers can currently sell all the EVs they can build, hence not parking them in showroom windows. I guess once supply exceeds demand for EVs then they'll start wanting to promote them more visibly. ddom said:
Because of the relatively low amounts on the road.
The savings aren't huge if you are only doing short journeys. Whilst we may have another i3 coming in 6 months to replace an outgoing SUV it really doesn't make sense financially to spend 20-50K on an EV, against the vast selection of ICE vehicles. If there weren't other cars in the garage I wouldn't even consider it.
if you are only using an EV for local journeys and the occasional longer trip and you can charge overnight then chances are you never need to use a charge point elsewhere - that's my Dad's experience. He also maintains that by charging overnight the cost is minimal. You are right about the initial cost but bear in mind that many don't actually buy their vehicles anyway...The savings aren't huge if you are only doing short journeys. Whilst we may have another i3 coming in 6 months to replace an outgoing SUV it really doesn't make sense financially to spend 20-50K on an EV, against the vast selection of ICE vehicles. If there weren't other cars in the garage I wouldn't even consider it.
Wiltshire Lad said:
Hard to disagree. Love my TVR for the weekend but actually looking forward to an EV as a daily driver - was a sceptic until my Dad bought a BMW i3 - very impressive bit of kit and perfectly capable of meeting most peoples requirements (providing you can charge overnight).
I took that step a couple of years ago.Still love my Tuscan but until lock down was doing a 100 mile daily commute in my i3 followed by an i3S.
Great fun and saves about 400 a month (against previous petrol costs) when commuting.
so called said:
I took that step a couple of years ago.
Still love my Tuscan but until lock down was doing a 100 mile daily commute in my i3 followed by an i3S.
Great fun and saves about 400 a month (against previous petrol costs) when commuting.
Are you still saving when you take into account cost to change? Higher depreciation for a higher value car? Installing a charge point? Still love my Tuscan but until lock down was doing a 100 mile daily commute in my i3 followed by an i3S.
Great fun and saves about 400 a month (against previous petrol costs) when commuting.
JonnyVTEC said:
I'm loving my IPACE and various other discussion here will have been repeated time and time again, really positive to see Max Torque input too.
For all the closet lifecycle (only on EVs i must add) please work out how sulphur is taken out of modern fuel before dropping into threads like this...
The huge other benefit of EV is just how delightful it is driving when you have super linear response between accelerator demand of power and the car providing it. Linear, instant, predictable etc. No guessing of what gear, presetting the gear so you get the car ready, no turbo surge etc. It great, best example is like driving around in a large engine NA always on cam, just with non of the noise and drama. Its always 'ready'.
I get the V8 character and other high output engines, i get those, the noise and drama ; at still has desire, just 98% of everything else EV will do perfectly to replace and improve, both the environment inside and outside of the car.
I love driving my M3LR - for the reasons you outline above. For all the closet lifecycle (only on EVs i must add) please work out how sulphur is taken out of modern fuel before dropping into threads like this...
The huge other benefit of EV is just how delightful it is driving when you have super linear response between accelerator demand of power and the car providing it. Linear, instant, predictable etc. No guessing of what gear, presetting the gear so you get the car ready, no turbo surge etc. It great, best example is like driving around in a large engine NA always on cam, just with non of the noise and drama. Its always 'ready'.
I get the V8 character and other high output engines, i get those, the noise and drama ; at still has desire, just 98% of everything else EV will do perfectly to replace and improve, both the environment inside and outside of the car.
Edited by JonnyVTEC on Monday 11th January 12:00
For what it costs me a month, including charging, I was spending on fuel alone for my S7. The on cost makes/ will make a huge difference.
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