Anyone giving up EV?

[cerb4.5lee]

Nomme de Plum said:

cerb4.5lee said:

Obviously I have a general bias towards ICE, however I don't really give a rats ass about efficiency this, brake regen that, and "efficiency" seems to be a word that fans of electric always seem to bang on about for some reason.

Efficiency isn't exactly exciting is it? The diesel SUV we have is efficient for a diesel, but I wouldn't be rushing to throw it around a racetrack for example.

The cars the vast majority of people drive on our roads are a tool and not designed to be chucked around a track

It is a very odd attitude where a person chooses a less efficient product for a particular job. That includes cars for the track. It wouldn't really work for motorsport would it?

Exactly, and that makes them as boring as hell in my mind.

I was just underpinning that "efficiency" isn't exciting that is all. But "efficiency" and "brake regen" does seem to get folk on this thread going though, and it gets their juices flowing from what I read.

I personally don't find Formula E exciting, but I bet you lot on this thread absolutely love it though.

[cerb4.5lee]

AlfaManc said:

cerb4.5lee said:

I haven't lived with an EV granted, but what I'm seeing when I read between the lines, is that EVs are great for nipping about/short journeys. But for doing long journeys/high miles, ICE is still head and shoulders above an EV. However I guess that as time goes on, EVs will get better at doing the distance stuff though(with better batteries/better infrastructure etc).

I don't have an EV either but what I get from this thread is that EVs are perfectly good for long journeys. In the same way you generally wouldn't run your ICE tank down to zero, EVs need you to be aware of what range you have left.
Also, how many people regularly drive 200+ miles regularly? A big fuss is made of the need to top up but how much does this actually apply to most people? I guess a range of 150 miles would adequately cover the school run and grocery shop for the week. The problem of range is a niche one. I see chargers popping up everywhere so I guess it will disappear over time.

Yes and you only have to look at what the UK average mileage a year of only 7k miles is to see that. So for many folk electric will definitely work for them I think, on the proviso that they can afford the entry price, and they have the facility to charge at home as well.

[Ken_Code]

Nomme de Plum said:

The cars the vast majority of people drive on our roads are a tool and not designed to be chucked around a track

It is a very odd attitude where a person chooses a less efficient product for a particular job. That includes cars for the track. It wouldn't really work for motorsport would it?

It’s not odd at all. Did you choose your wife based on efficiency, or attraction? Do you base your choice of shoes on efficiency, what you eat, or where you go on holiday?

I’d say that putting efficiency at the top of the list is vanishingly rare.

EV owners of course are massive hypocrites on this front, buying inefficient large cars with massive battery packs and then using them round town, when a much smaller, more efficient car such as a Twizzy is available.

[Electronicpants]

Considering going back to hybrid.

Okay with an EV, but.

1. Going on holiday is a pain, does the place have charging? will it work? do I have to download another bloody app? if it has only one will it be taken? if I take it and go for a drink will I be an arse for hogging it all night on the wine and most of the morning till I'm up and had my breakfast? If not, where's the nearest charger and how long will we need to take to charge? All these questions means that unless I'm going somewhere with nailed on, large quantity charging, then its my wife's car.

2. Driving to the airport, will I have enough charge to get me back? Sometimes I'll work during the day of departure and use the car, then be trying to squeeze a few watts in while loading the car up, because there is no way I'm stopping on the way back from the airport.

3. My wife parks where the charger is, because she need the easy access, so I have to move her car when plugging in at home (most charging done at work) not the end of the world but a faff nevertheless that causes "wife roll eyes" as I mumble about tax savings while trying to find her car keys

4. It just bothers me when I'm not able to access the full range, so when I'm down to 30-40% I want to be back up asap, for emergencies for work/home etc. But I admit that's my problem.

5. A couple of weeks ago I decided to "splash out" and use a fast charger close to home rather that mess around with the aforementioned moving wife's car etc because I had got home late from a long journey and hadn't bothered to charge at home that evening (had a beer with my curry, and thought, Fk it!). Off I went after downloading an app to tell me where was fast charger locally and was told a BP station would do it, all 4 not working!(I cant be bothered to go into the 10 min faff that it took to find this out), only 50kw max everywhere else unless I drove for 25 mins.

Anyway, 99% of the time, charge at the office, all's good, and not a thing to worry about, but when life gets a bit more unstable/chaotic/interesting then just when you don't need it, it becomes another thing to think about.

I'm sure in 2-5 years time all of this won't be a problem as contactless fast charging will be as easy and prevalent as a petrol stations, but at the moment it's like trying to use a mobile phone in the early noughties with loads of dead zones, particularly in the hilly bits of Scotland!

[DodgyGeezer]

Nomme de Plum said:

App wise, what exactly is the issue?

the issue is I don't want 20 separate Apps just so I can re-fuel my car. I want it to be like a petrol station, go in chuck my fuel in and in 5 minutes be back on the road without worrying about if the app will work; if there's enough signal; etc etc.

Now I'll freely admit that the landscape seems to be changing WRT needing an App so things are, slowly, moving in the right direction

[740EVTORQUES]

Actually I’m with a lot of that, after all I chose a manual 911 rather than PDK for more involvement on track even though it’s certainly slower.

I guess the difference is that I rarely see opportunities to drive a near its limits on the road, and even where there might be this is less and less acceptable in society as a whole, the risk of accidents or legal ramifications are such that it’s not really of interest to me.

Some may still get pleasure from driving less efficient machines on road, I get that, I just don’t. I would never go on a vintage car rally for example but I know lots of people enjoy them.

For me the smooth efficiency of an EV is actually in many ways more engaging than driving a flawed ICE vehicle, while of course being much less polluting which adds to the appeal (for me).

[James6112]

cerb4.5lee said:

Exactly, and that makes them as boring as hell in my mind.

I was just underpinning that "efficiency" isn't exciting that is all. But "efficiency" and "brake regen" does seem to get folk on this thread going though, and it gets their juices flowing from what I read.

I personally don't find Formula E exciting, but I bet you lot on this thread absolutely love it though.

‘you lot’
An obvious troll, with a fascination of threads you have no interest in…

PS, Formula E is boring

[GT9]

Ken_Code said:

Because what I love is the thrill of driving. I place enjoyment right at the top of the list of what I want from a car, and put efficiency nowhere.

Does this also apply on a trip to the garden centre or Waitrose?
Or the school run?
Or driving to work?
Or Sunday over to the grandparents with the dog and kids in the back?
Seems odd that every single journey would be about the 'thrill of driving'.

[wc98]

tr3a said:

I'll never go back to ICE. It's last century's tech: noisy, dirty, wasteful, unsustainable, antisocial, stupidly inefficient and - for me - way too expensive to run. My wife just bought her own EV and she's never going back to ICE either. I have one ICE car left (a classic that I've owned for almost 30 years) which will be sold this year.

Edited by tr3a on Thursday 11th April 17:25

Bloody hell, i'm surprised you have lived long enough to own a car for 30 years, the mental trauma of being made to use something so bad for so long until a practical EV was available must have been terribly debilitating.

[maz8062]

I’ve got an EV, V8 and a flat 6. The EV is comfortable, has apple car play, yada yada. But I always head for the V8 keys first. The EV is just too boring.

[Ken_Code]

GT9 said:

Does this also apply on a trip to the garden centre or Waitrose?
Or the school run?
Or driving to work?
Or Sunday over to the grandparents with the dog and kids in the back?
Seems odd that every single journey would be about the 'thrill of driving'.

It’s always about the car that will make the journey as nice as possible.

That means the Range Rover for the 300 miles between homes, the Yaris on the track or grimy B-roads or one of the sports cars if heading across the Alps.

What seems odd is that someone who chooses a car the same way they choose a dishwasher is trolling driving enthusiasts on a driving enthusiast’s site.

[Ken_Code]

maz8062 said:

I’ve got an EV, V8 and a flat 6. The EV is comfortable, has apple car play, yada yada. But I always head for the V8 keys first. The EV is just too boring.

For me the choice for fun is one of the V8s, the V6, or the inline 3.

I use the electric car on the school run or sitting in a traffic jam to and from the shops.

[off_again]

Had an i3 and sold it at the peak of the values - effectively sold for the same amount I paid for it 2 years later. Pleased with that. So no EV in this household for the moment.

Considering going back to an EV, but cant help thinking that a plug-in hybrid is the way forward. Wife has a 4 mile commute and its not a fast drive. So PHEV would be ideal. And for the days we want to go further, we have the ICE part.

Of course, there is another side to this - just get a snotter for the commute and not worry about it. Seems stupid to spend a lot of money on a car that doesnt get used, but the wife is a snob, a complete and unadulterated snob.... so there is that.

[NDA]

maz8062 said:

I’ve got an EV, V8 and a flat 6. The EV is comfortable, has apple car play, yada yada. But I always head for the V8 keys first. The EV is just too boring.

Funnily enough, I'm the other way around... I've had some interesting stuff in the garage over the years, but I always head for the Tesla first - it's as fast (if not faster) but, more importantly, it's just easier as it never needs fuelling (it's full every morning).

Not every drive has to be like the Mille Miglia for me - but I accept that for others it must be. I certainly like speed and have owned a few cars capable of speeds north of 200. But 99.9% of my driving is fairly vanilla.

[lizardbrain]

My 3P has depreciated so much it's barely worth giving up

[Evanivitch]

Electronicpants said:

3. My wife parks where the charger is, because she need the easy access, so I have to move her car when plugging in at home (most charging done at work) not the end of the world but a faff nevertheless that causes "wife roll eyes" as I mumble about tax savings while trying to find her car keys

Tried an untethered and longer cable? You could even retrofit a longer cable to existing charger.

[KingGary]

CheesecakeRunner said:

KingGary said:

Does anyone, beyond some of the people on this thread care about how silent their car is or how little heat it generates? It reminds me of those people who measure how thick their paintwork is just so they can share it with people who couldn’t care less.

Not particularly, but a lot of people seem to have a hard-on for the opposite.

Well yes, that because V8s sound lovely to some of us.

[KingGary]

GT9 said:

KingGary said:

Does anyone, beyond some of the people on this thread care about how silent their car is or how little heat it generates? It reminds me of those people who measure how thick their paintwork is just so they can share it with people who couldn’t care less.

A significant majority of an ICE car’s carbon footprint is due entirely to waste heat in either the production and burning of fuel.

The relationship between carbon footprint and cost of ownership is become more interdependent with time.

If more and more people started to make this connection between waste heat and cost, environmental and monetary, then I think we would see less resistance to the idea of electrification.

Granted, but then there would be no sites like this one, because cars would cease to be interesting

Edited by KingGary on Wednesday 17th April 18:48

[Nomme de Plum]

cerb4.5lee said:

Exactly, and that makes them as boring as hell in my mind.

I was just underpinning that "efficiency" isn't exciting that is all. But "efficiency" and "brake regen" does seem to get folk on this thread going though, and it gets their juices flowing from what I read.

I personally don't find Formula E exciting, but I bet you lot on this thread absolutely love it though.

I think the next generation will be better. I really do not like the silly little tracks thy put them on although Monaco was great. There is at least a good deal of overtaking which sadly is rare now in F1. I hate to think how many times I''ve seen the British Grand Prix but one of the best weekends I've ever had was staying in the Fairmont Monaco when they had the Vintage Grandprix in 2006. I've some pc pictures of the old Ferrari F1 cars all piling up taken from the roof pool.

[romft123]

I'm giving up driving an EV coz I like a bit of noise......Did I read that right from earlier posts??