18% of California EV drivers move back to ICE
Discussion
We’re a tiny and relatively well organised country, if we can’t crack the infrastructure thing not much hope for others.
Range anxiety must be an arse ache in rural America for example.
I’d be interested in a similar survey in UK or indeed to hear experience of anyone who was EV here and gone back and why.
Range anxiety must be an arse ache in rural America for example.
I’d be interested in a similar survey in UK or indeed to hear experience of anyone who was EV here and gone back and why.
That's cool. Crucial for motorway network. Rather hope its more of a temporary thing elsewhere since petrol stations are rather soulless places. Given you don't need a dedicated site for charging, unlike when you're storing and dispensing liquid fuels, I'd hope the majority of the kit ends up located at places you'd actually like to be, e.g. the pub car park.
ATG said:
That's cool. Crucial for motorway network. Rather hope its more of a temporary thing elsewhere since petrol stations are rather soulless places. Given you don't need a dedicated site for charging, unlike when you're storing and dispensing liquid fuels, I'd hope the majority of the kit ends up located at places you'd actually like to be, e.g. the pub car park.
Not sure giving me an hours wait or even half an hour in a pub is wise if I wish to continue my journey after! Condi said:
whp1983 said:
Not sure giving me an hours wait or even half an hour in a pub is wise if I wish to continue my journey after!
Can't wait for driverless cars personally. Will take "beer for the road" to a whole new level. whp1983 said:
I’d be interested in a similar survey in UK or indeed to hear experience of anyone who was EV here and gone back and why.
The last 12-18 months have been a strange time and I can see it affecting EV takeup/retention. Those still doing reasonable mileages and getting an EV as a company car will of course stick with it as the BIK saving is huge, but for those with car allowance or buying personally it's an interesting dilemma.A lot of peoples mileages have dropped significantly and will continue at that rate due to working from home, and with the reduction in the grant to only include cars costing <£30k a lot of models have become considerably more expensive to lease especially.
Give my own circumstances we've gone from having 2 cars doing a combined 25-30k in 2019-2020 to 1 car doing <10k miles since March of last year, and if I signed up for the same deal on our EV today as we did in 2019 it would be costing at least 30% more.
I'm a big fan of EV as a daily, can charge at home and rarely need to rely on public charging for longer trips but if i had to lease a new car today I'm not convinced I could make a case for EV financially.
forzaminardi said:
It could be that the 18% who switched back to ICE cars are representative of the people who simply buy whatever they fancy at the time without having any particular affiliation toward electric/hybrid/petrol/whatever power?
That's a really good point, I do that, gone between people carriers, estates, sports cars, big barge, hot hatch etc, partly down to life at the time and partly down to fancying a change.Pixelpeep Z4 said:
what is wrong with the range? - a good percentage of EVs are cracking 250 miles in one charge - how far do you need to drive without taking a rest?
There still is an issue with range. I quite seriously considered an EV recently and found out that at motorway speeds (so most likely the kind of driving where a decent range is important) your range gets absolutely mullered, by as much as 50%. I was looking on the Pugeot website for the 208e and they even have a calculator on there demonstrating it.Shame, as if I could have got the financials to stack up it looked like an exciting prospect. I'm not anti-EV by any stretch but there is still some work to be done.
crofty1984 said:
There still is an issue with range. I quite seriously considered an EV recently and found out that at motorway speeds (so most likely the kind of driving where a decent range is important) your range gets absolutely mullered, by as much as 50%. I was looking on the Pugeot website for the 208e and they even have a calculator on there demonstrating it.
Shame, as if I could have got the financials to stack up it looked like an exciting prospect. I'm not anti-EV by any stretch but there is still some work to be done.
Also temperature. A friend with an i3 finds it gets really poor range in cold weather.Shame, as if I could have got the financials to stack up it looked like an exciting prospect. I'm not anti-EV by any stretch but there is still some work to be done.
Funk said:
They bought them because the Gov't incentivised them - just like the diesel boom years ago - not because they're eco-warriors. Ironically it must be worse for pollution driving a PHEV that never utilises the battery, you're just lugging all the weight around for no good reason...?
Arguably not if it's an RE setup. For a normal ICE car, you have to have an engine that performs well across a number of scenarios, rev ranges, NVH considerations, etc so it will be a compromise. For a PHEV (range extender) arrangement you just need a smaller engine that will produce *just* over what power most people will use and tune it to be very, very efficient at one speed. Edited by Funk on Tuesday 4th May 17:56
Who cares if it sounds a bit rough or has a bit of a flat spot at 1500 RPM? All it will do is chug away at 1750, running as lean as they can get away with, turning your generator to charge the battery. Do you need 200bhp to boot it joining a motorway occasionally? Well your ICE has to be able to produce that and remain reliable. Need to do it in an EV? Just boot it and take that out of the battery charge slightly. Your 60 bhp range extender will top that battery up over the next few miles.
Yes, a heavier car that's identical in all other respects will need more energy to move, but you're ignoring that they AREN'T identical in all respects.
vaud said:
crofty1984 said:
There still is an issue with range. I quite seriously considered an EV recently and found out that at motorway speeds (so most likely the kind of driving where a decent range is important) your range gets absolutely mullered, by as much as 50%. I was looking on the Pugeot website for the 208e and they even have a calculator on there demonstrating it.
Shame, as if I could have got the financials to stack up it looked like an exciting prospect. I'm not anti-EV by any stretch but there is still some work to be done.
Also temperature. A friend with an i3 finds it gets really poor range in cold weather.Shame, as if I could have got the financials to stack up it looked like an exciting prospect. I'm not anti-EV by any stretch but there is still some work to be done.
Ref motorway speeds the drop isn't that necessarily that bad. In the same i3 we did a round trip to Manchester Airport of 160 miles in Sep 2019, most of it on the M6, 2 up and with luggage. Car was left in the long stay for a week and we still got home with 5% charge.
Edited by SWoll on Wednesday 5th May 10:11
SWoll said:
Very cold winter days you can see a drop of 30% IME, our i3 would do 180 miles in summer and around 120-30 when the temperatures dropped to below freezing. Pre-conditioning your battery can really help with this though, and the heat pumps fitted to many recent EV's also improve cold weather efficiency.
Ref motorway speeds the drop isn't that necessarily that bad. In the same i3 we did a round trip to Manchester Airport of 160 miles in Sep 2019, most of it on the M6, 2 up and with luggage. Car was left in the long stay for a week and we still got home with 5% charge.
I'll advise my friend to get his checked as he's only getting 75miles in <0c weather...Ref motorway speeds the drop isn't that necessarily that bad. In the same i3 we did a round trip to Manchester Airport of 160 miles in Sep 2019, most of it on the M6, 2 up and with luggage. Car was left in the long stay for a week and we still got home with 5% charge.
Edited by SWoll on Wednesday 5th May 10:11
vaud said:
SWoll said:
Very cold winter days you can see a drop of 30% IME, our i3 would do 180 miles in summer and around 120-30 when the temperatures dropped to below freezing. Pre-conditioning your battery can really help with this though, and the heat pumps fitted to many recent EV's also improve cold weather efficiency.
Ref motorway speeds the drop isn't that necessarily that bad. In the same i3 we did a round trip to Manchester Airport of 160 miles in Sep 2019, most of it on the M6, 2 up and with luggage. Car was left in the long stay for a week and we still got home with 5% charge.
I'll advise my friend to get his checked as he's only getting 75miles in <0c weather...Ref motorway speeds the drop isn't that necessarily that bad. In the same i3 we did a round trip to Manchester Airport of 160 miles in Sep 2019, most of it on the M6, 2 up and with luggage. Car was left in the long stay for a week and we still got home with 5% charge.
Edited by SWoll on Wednesday 5th May 10:11
crofty1984 said:
Pixelpeep Z4 said:
what is wrong with the range? - a good percentage of EVs are cracking 250 miles in one charge - how far do you need to drive without taking a rest?
There still is an issue with range. I quite seriously considered an EV recently and found out that at motorway speeds (so most likely the kind of driving where a decent range is important) your range gets absolutely mullered, by as much as 50%. I was looking on the Pugeot website for the 208e and they even have a calculator on there demonstrating it.Shame, as if I could have got the financials to stack up it looked like an exciting prospect. I'm not anti-EV by any stretch but there is still some work to be done.
it's why i mentioned 250 miles - my e-niro is quoted as having a max range of 282 miles. Doing a 100 mile daily commute, 98% of it at around 0.85mph it returns 250ish miles.
that's a real world example, not a rumour, or read somewhere. I've done 70,000miles so far across 2 EVs so know what i'm talking about.
I've also (for research reasons only..) tried a full stress tests - when we had the cold weather (0 degrees) i drove the thing flat out wherever possible, with the heater, heated seats and heated steering wheel on - it never dipped below 200miles. This was consistent, over a 7 day period.
Some of the early cars (2017 i3, i'm looking at you!) - suffered badly when you drove them flat out, but my Audi S3 was the same - i could easily empty a tank covering just 120miles if i drove it like i stole it.
Pixelpeep Z4 said:
Doing a 100 mile daily commute, 98% of it at around 0.85mph it returns 250ish miles.
There are, quite literally, not enough hours in the day... 
EDIT - Surely the new cars should be better anyway thanks to the new method of calculating mpg/range which is designed to reflect more of a "real world" driving experience rather than the previous lab tests.
Condi said:
Pixelpeep Z4 said:
Doing a 100 mile daily commute, 98% of it at around 0.85mph it returns 250ish miles.
There are, quite literally, not enough hours in the day... EDIT - Surely the new cars should be better anyway thanks to the new method of calculating mpg/range which is designed to reflect more of a "real world" driving experience rather than the previous lab tests.
Regarding 'a better way' - there's nothing wrong with how the e-niro is now. it tells you you are going to get 250 miles, and that's what you get. If you drive it REALLY hard, that will change, and it readjusts so you know by how much.
Same as ANY car - try selecting miles till empty on your ICE - it's exactly the same.
Condi said:
Pixelpeep Z4 said:
Doing a 100 mile daily commute, 98% of it at around 0.85mph it returns 250ish miles.
There are, quite literally, not enough hours in the day... 
Pixelpeep Z4 said:
I don't understand your first comment.
0.85mph. Would take you 5 days to complete your commute.Edited by SWoll on Thursday 6th May 10:56
SWoll said:
Condi said:
Pixelpeep Z4 said:
Doing a 100 mile daily commute, 98% of it at around 0.85mph it returns 250ish miles.
There are, quite literally, not enough hours in the day... Pixelpeep Z4 said:
I don't understand your first comment.
0.85mph. Would take you 5 days to complete your commute.I presume you mean 85mph, not 0.85mph!
SWoll said:
Condi said:
Pixelpeep Z4 said:
Doing a 100 mile daily commute, 98% of it at around 0.85mph it returns 250ish miles.
There are, quite literally, not enough hours in the day... Pixelpeep Z4 said:
I don't understand your first comment.
0.85mph. Would take you 5 days to complete your commute.Edited by SWoll on Thursday 6th May 10:56
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