Electric cars

[Slick]

Saved you a job.

http://www.visitcruachan.co.uk

 

[Pale Rider]

Where exactly does this Green Energy that charges an electric car come from?

The contention is using oil resources to generate lots of electricity via power stations is more efficient and cleaner than using oil resources to generate power via lots of small internal combustion engines.

In other words, if we all had electric cars and did the same mileage, we would use less oil and produce a smaller quantity of harmful emissions.

That works in a narrow sense, but rather falls out of bed when the resources used to produce the electric cars, and particularly the batteries, is taken into account.

 

[slowmotion]

I heard an ugly rumour that a Prius battery doesn't have the legs for more than seven years. They say you may as well scrap your green icon because the cost of battery replacement is ruinous.

 

[Pale Rider]

I heard an ugly rumour that a Prius battery doesn't have the legs for more than seven years. They say you may as well scrap your green icon because the cost of battery replacement is ruinous.

The industry answer to that is leased batteries.

I believe the batteries on the OP's Renault are leased at £45 a month.

It's another monthly expense, but the owner of the car shouldn't have to worry about batteries wearing out.

Someone else posted on here to say a charge at home costs about £3, which could take you up to 200 miles making it cheaper than buying four gallons of fuel.

It appears many of the public charging points are free, so I reckon if you worked at it a little bit you could probably get the majority of your charges for nothing.

 

[slowmotion]

Yeah, but where does the electricity that powers these virtuous icons actually come from?

 

[Bonefish Blues]

I heard an ugly rumour that a Prius battery doesn't have the legs for more than seven years. They say you may as well scrap your green icon because the cost of battery replacement is ruinous.

The rumours are wrong, put simply.

 

[Richard A Thackeray]

I've had a test drive of an i8. I was grinning like a Cheshire Cat. An absolutely fabulous car!

Even Clarkson liked it, & drove one from Whitby, back to Londinium, in preference to a M3

Someone else posted on here to say a charge at home costs about £3, which could take you up to 200 miles making it cheaper than buying four gallons of fuel.

It appears many of the public charging points are free, so I reckon if you worked at it a little bit you could probably get the majority of your charges for nothing.

"Sigh!!", I remember when it cost that little too, & we grumbled about the price as well, back then (I think it was £1.40 a gallon, when I could afford my first car)
The local Lidl has a charging point, in the car park

 

[snorri]

Yeah, but where does the electricity that powers these virtuous icons actually come from?

http://www.energy-uk.org.uk/energy-industry/electricity-generation.html
....but you knew already, didn't you?

 

[galaxy]

Mt friend i found out last night has a Twizzy, is so up for electric cars, but is totally against wind Farms, where apparently a large amount of electric for these cars come from.

 

[Piemaster]

The industry answer to that is leased batteries.

I believe the batteries on the OP's Renault are leased at £45 a month.

It's another monthly expense, but the owner of the car shouldn't have to worry about batteries wearing out.

Someone else posted on here to say a charge at home costs about £3, which could take you up to 200 miles making it cheaper than buying four gallons of fuel.

It appears many of the public charging points are free, so I reckon if you worked at it a little bit you could probably get the majority of your charges for nothing.

The lease is £49/month for 4500 miles/annum. Doubt it will get used quite as much as that. There are other higher leases for more miles too.

Renault have gone for a battery lease model, Nissan a battery buy one. Though the dealer could do either option on both cars. Really depends on how you want to do the finances. Buying the battery on the Zoe adds around £5k to the price - doubling the purchase price. The car is an ex-lease, seem to be a lot being returned and Renault slowly dripping them back as used buys into the market as the first batch of leases finish. On a Zoe forum a guy is complaining Renault have offered him £2500 trade in, webuyanycar £2495 on an 18 month old one . So makes sense to me as a used buy with the lease - no battery worries on a 3 year old 27k miles car. The dealer said he is getting them from Renault and pretty much shipping them straight to the London for people buying them straight off his web site.

I know of charging points in one of the local multi storeys - it's supposed to be free but the parking is £2 for 2 hours, so it should balance out. Maybe give it a try tomorrow and hope some gormless twunk hasn't parked in the bays.

To be clear, we haven't bought it because of its green credentials. We've bought it because it's a good fit with my wifes use and will be cheaper to run the the outgoing Skoda. And importantly she really likes it.

It is a little strange at first to drive, and we've had several autos. Keyless entry, foot on brake, press 'start'....and pretty much nothing happens. Select 'D' and press accelerator. It is ridiculously quiet, the audible clues you get for the engine to change gear, or an autobox changing just don't happen - seems really odd at first. Gives a relaxed feel to driving, something I think Renault have tried quite hard to achieve with the cabin too. Clarkson/May/Hammond recently commented on how nice Volvo interiors were as they use a lot of light colours - the Zoe similarly is all light greys and white. Much more airy feel than the Leaf.

Only real pain is we will need a proper charging point installing for faster charging, but even they are subsidised up to £500. However once it's done the car can be programmed to heat up/demist while its plugged in. This seems better than an ice-scraper in a morning to me

 

[Slick]

http://www.energy-uk.org.uk/energy-industry/electricity-generation.html
....but you knew already, didn't you?

Its not all bad newc though.

http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Business-Industry/Energy/Energy-sources

 

[Piemaster]

Few weeks into owning it now and though my wife loved it from the off and I thought it was a bit weird, it's grown on me.
Take it out of 'ECO' mode and it can more than hold its own in the traffic light grand prix. Instant torque is very addictive.
You know when your petrol car says you have 10 miles range left? Do you really believe it? I can in the Zoe. 6 mile round trip into town, 10 miles range left - plenty. 4 miles range left when it gets parked again at home. Admittedly it's taken a little getting used to pushing it that closely.
We now have a charging point. Park on the drive and plug in, or set a charging time. Walk off and forget about it. Open another tab in the browser (or app) and check its status. Only reason to visit petrol stations now is to buy Valentines Day cards and flowers.
(Well, ok, still have to put diesel in the L200 )

 

[slowmotion]

[QUOTE 4687825, member: 9609"]same place as all the rest of the leccy - the push towards electric cars is to move all of the pollution into the countryside for country bumkins to filter through their lungs.


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How good are the heaters in eletric cars and how does being nice and cosy on a cold winters day affect how far you can go? - one of the joys of driving is being lovely and warm[/QUOTE]
One cynic suggested that feeling virtuous about owning an electric car was rather like feeling smug about training your dog to crap on your neighbour's lawn.

 

[Piemaster]

[QUOTE 4687825, member: 9609"]
How good are the heaters in eletric cars and how does being nice and cosy on a cold winters day affect how far you can go? - one of the joys of driving is being lovely and warm[/QUOTE]
....except when you first get in the car. Range would be a bigger issue than temperature for me as to how far I'd go. I'd just put on the winter weight T-shirt and to hell with fashion, wear socks with the sandals. But that could be my Northern Stock showing through.

Heater is...ok. A press on the fob, or via the app, or even programme a regular schedule to warm/demist before you stick your nose out of the door. For short journeys its more practical than the one in the pickup.
The pickup can take 15-20 minutes before the engine is warm enough to blow anything recognisable as warm air out on my regular mornings and demisting needs to use the aircon. Think this is probably as much to do with it being a new diesel, efficient enough that most of the fuel burn goes towards propulsion and not 'wasted' as heat to keep the cabin warm. Even at its normal indicated temperature turning the heater on will see the gauge drop a bit. Turn the heater on at traffic lights and the engine revs rise by circa 500rpm - I'm suspicious this is being used to make official and real-world fuel consumption figures quite different.
For my wifes normal use a petrol/diesel car would have zero chance of ever getting to full temperature anyway. Short journeys aren't good for any car, diesels even more so, something thats always grated with the professional engineer in me. Electric motors don't care.

 

[Flying Dodo]

One cynic suggested that feeling virtuous about owning an electric car was rather like feeling smug about training your dog to crap on your neighbour's lawn.

You might think that, but I doubt anyone else does.

The simple fact is that pollution from cars is killing 40,000 people in the UK every year. Unless you stop everyone driving any sort of vehicle, then electric cars are the only way to improve conditions.