Are we being forced to go electric?

[CXRAndy]

I'm even more confused now, apparently EV's don't have brakes and tyres!!

You need to drive one.

I very much doubt that would happen. The Neo Luddite is strong in this one😁

 

[CXRAndy]

Even my neighbour who was a sceptic re EVs until I took him out. He was blown away by the performance, regen and quietness.

He even accepts our Nissan Leaf will pretty much out accelerate most Ice vehicles of 2.5litre or less.

 

[midlife]

There wasn't one. There was a post which you misunderstood.

Allow me to explain. When @crxandy said his £26k leaf effectively cost £9k what he mean was that the other £17k was what he would have spent on running costs such as petrol / diesel / tyres / brakes / servicing / ULEZ / congestion charges etc if he had purchased an ICE car.

Perhaps an analogy would help. You can buy an inkjet printer for £50 but the ink costs £100 a set. There was a time when you could buy a printer for £400 but the ink was £10 a set. So the cost is up front rather than ongoing. The inkjet seems cheap but you have spent more than it would have cost to buy the more expensive printer after you have used up 5 sets of ink. You then start to make substantial savings over the cheap printer if you purchased the more expensive printer.

Didn't misunderstand the post. There was a post that said EVs are expensive to buy and the reply was that they are not expensive to buy and that the effective cost was £9k.

It still means that the cost to take it off the forecourt was £25k so not cheap as chips to buy....

 

[cougie uk]

Even my neighbour who was a sceptic re EVs until I took him out. He was blown away by the performance, regen and quietness.

He even accepts our Nissan Leaf will pretty much out accelerate most Ice vehicles of 2.5litre or less.

I never take mine out of eco.
The acceleration is too fast for my liking ! I'm definitely no boy racer.

 

[CXRAndy]

I never take mine out of eco.
The acceleration is too fast for my liking ! I'm definitely no boy racer.

I generally use eco, but it's useful to have instant extra punch.

 

[icowden]

I'm even more confused now, apparently EV's don't have brakes and tyres!!

They have them but they last much longer. As others have pointed out - regenerative braking means you hardly use the brake pads, and because EV tyres are engineered for the weight of EVs they tend to be much more durable and EVs have much better traction control.

 

[Jenkins]

I've already explained how I made our Nissan Leaf effectively cost only £9K to buy with the running cost savings. The original forecourt price was mid twenties £26k

Your original comment was "no emissions and significant cheaper to run", nothing about offsetting that against the original purchase price - I will agree that once purchased they are cheaper to run, it's that original purchase price that is the barrier to most private buyers.

To put your figures into perspective, I've owned my current car (a Mazda 6 Estate 2.2litre diesel) for just over 6 years. In that time it's done around 45,000 miles at around 50mpg so using around 900 gallons of diesel. I don't know the exact average price per gallon over the 6 years but, as it was well below £1.40 per litre up to September last year (info) I'll use the £1.40 mark = £6.36 per gallon which means that I've used approximately £5725 of diesel in 6 years. Add in aroud £3000 for 6 x £500 MOT/services and 6 x £130 VED payments to give a total of £9500 of in use costs. Add that to the £18,000 purchase cost of the car and it's set me back a total of £27,500 - just £1500 more that the £26,000 of your car alone without the installation costs of the charger and electric costs (another £5000?).

 

[Jenkins]

There wasn't one. There was a post which you misunderstood.

Allow me to explain. When @crxandy said his £26k leaf effectively cost £9k what he mean was that the other £17k was what he would have spent on running costs such as petrol / diesel / tyres / brakes / servicing / ULEZ / congestion charges etc if he had purchased an ICE car.

Perhaps an analogy would help. You can buy an inkjet printer for £50 but the ink costs £100 a set. There was a time when you could buy a printer for £400 but the ink was £10 a set. So the cost is up front rather than ongoing. The inkjet seems cheap but you have spent more than it would have cost to buy the more expensive printer after you have used up 5 sets of ink. You then start to make substantial savings over the cheap printer if you purchased the more expensive printer.

Where do you get the £17,000 from - see my figures above which exclude tyres & brakes which are consumables on ALL cars, but includes servicing as I don't know how much/often electric vehicles need doing. They'll still need to be MOT'd.

 

[CXRAndy]

I was comparing the savings compared to running an petrol car of similar size with around 35 mpg.

We are doing hell of a lot of miles. Easily in excess 100k over 3-4 years.

The savings in fuel costs compared to petrol alone were calculated. Others costs apart from 4 tyres are zero, no Mot(<3yr), no VED, servicing costs zero, free for 3 years. No mechanical issues at all

The charger was free too including installation. Electric costs were £2k
Compared to fuelling a petrol car at over £20k. I've rounded because I'm not working it out again

Obviously fuel prices have gone up, so has electric. We are now going solar to run our property and vehicles. Again costs are all up front, but huge savings ongoing

 

[gbb]

I make no bones about my reservations re EVs for the masses (based on my personal location, access to electric etc) but i was prompted to look at second hand EV prices.
TBF, you can buy a 2012/2013 Leaf for instance with say 40k miles on it, for around £6 or £7k Thats actually not bad and affordable for many....but, i still am nowhere near being able to charge one from my house...or even anywhere to leave it overnight charging locally (tell a lie, there's a Costa nearby with chargepoints, just one or two though)
It states 30 amp DC charging, i assume it can still use 240v 13 amp power if people wanted to just charge it slow overnight. Were i to buy one, i'd want to make the most of cheap overnight charging.
Some are contract batteries, £48 per month but replaced once the capacity drops below 70% iirc. Or you take your chance and accept lower achievable mileage with whatever battery condition happens to be on the particular one you buy secondhand.

I'd almost certainly buy one for commuting, what could be better but then i'd almost certainly have to compromise when carrying three kids and two adults, which i often do. No easy answers for many many people

 

[fossyant]

I'd almost certainly buy one for commuting, what could be better but then i'd almost certainly have to compromise

That's when you use a bike !

I can't justify an electric car, we just don't do enough miles to make any economic sense ! Wife commutes one day a week, me 2-3 days, but via bike.

 

[icowden]

I'd almost certainly buy one for commuting, what could be better but then i'd almost certainly have to compromise when carrying three kids and two adults, which i often do. No easy answers for many many people

I think all of your points are good ones. You can charge from a normal 240v socket, but it is slow, and the larger family cars are still very expensive up front. There are definitely improvements to be made. Thinks like lamp-post chargers will help, as will the growing second hand car market as time goes on. The easiest way of improving take up would still be to get someone vaguely competent in the job of Prime Minister. You boost take up by making EVs cheaper (subsidy) and ICE more expensive (to pay for the subsidy).

Those of us with EVs (or about to get EVs) on this post I think recognise that they are in a somewhat lucky position to be able to afford one at this stage. I'd really like the £29,000 Tesla to make it over to the UK as I think that starts to make them affordable for a lot of people. That said, you can get a Mazda MX-30 for 3 grand down and then £244 a month on a lease. SImilar price for the Nissan Leaf. Even the Vauxhall Corsa-e is 4k down £300 a month on a lease. ALl of those would be within the reach of my retired in laws who have just changed their car for a Toyota Corolla.

 

[gbb]

That's when you use a bike !

I can't justify an electric car, we just don't do enough miles to make any economic sense ! Wife commutes one day a week, me 2-3 days, but via bike.

Been there done that, sadly health issues make 15 miles each way commuting out of the question. Hips and knees just wouldnt take it.

 

[vickster]

Those of us with EVs (or about to get EVs) on this post I think recognise that they are in a somewhat lucky position to be able to afford one at this stage. I

It doesn't come across that way on this thread at all to me...mostly it seems like bragging and belittling of those who do not have an EV...

 

[Electric_Andy]

I'm not sure it comes across as bragging, to me anyway. It is a fact though that you can't really save money and help save the planet unless you can afford the intitial outlay for an EV. That is, if you believe they are greener than ICE vehicles, which is still up for debate