Which electric car now?

[gzoom]

I must admit, I'm really keen myself to get one but just can't bring myself to do it yet as I still reckon we are in beta max territory with these things.

We've had an EV as our main family car since 2015, infact my daughter has only travled in EVs most of her life, she is 7 this year.

Out current EV is 5.5 years old, 60k miles on the clock, and taken up to Norway last year and this year we are heading to Lake Como.

As far we are concerned EV cars are 'done'. We are very happy owning our current EV till it falls apart as it does everything we want/need in a car.

EVs overall have transformed how I view transport in the last few years. My next EV purchase will be to add something with some proper suspension to the growing EV 'fleet' am collecting.

 

[Cycleops]

Range anxiety is nothing new. I suffer from it when out on the bike now that rural pubs are further apart than they used to be.

Is that from the desire to drink or the effects from that requiring a p***? If you're in the sub 50 age range it's the former but if like me you're in an older age group it's the latter.

 

[Specialeyes]

Underneath aren't the Cupra Born and the VW IDs extremely similar, all being part of the same group?
Cetrainly, stats-wise they seem to be a pretty even matchup, so on that basis I'd go for the Cupra Born, as it has a nicer interior, nicer finishes and is a better-looking (and probably rarer and cooler) car.

I've just recently switched to an electric vehicle, having bought a low-mileage BMW I3s REX - the carbon-fibre bodied electric go-kart with the 2-cyclinder motorbike engine in the boot acting as a backup generator for the electric motor, so it's still an all-electric drivetrain. The charging infrastructure is ok round here, so after 2,000 miles I'm still on my first gallon of petrol (it takes about £12 to fill the tiny tank, which gets 80 miles' range), so, erm, that's around 2,000mpg I'm getting

No regrets at all so far: it does make me plan journeys differently though - you'll find yourself building up a mental map of fast chargers, a bit like the mental map of cafes, pubs and good public toilets!

 

[JhnBssll]

I've had my EV for 13 months now. Absolutely no regrets, its perfect for my needs and then some. My trips are largely all short and close to home so I get away with charging the battery overnight a few times a week during off-peak hours. The limitations of the current charging infrastructure therefore dont really affect me unless I'm doing a longer trip which only really happens once or twice a month. I did do a 3000 mile round trip to Portugal over summer with zero issues which would suggest the problems aren't quite as significant as the media would have you believe, but I definitely would have been annoyed to have been in that queue at a supercharger. I know that for a fact, because I've been in a similar queue for petrol in the past and was pretty annoyed then

For what its worth, my reduced range in cold weather from a full charge is still well over 200 miles so it's not really that much of a limitation, just have to plan it in to your journey.

 

[Deleted member 26715]

It will slowly improve but I’ll be mainly going to work and school run in it so should be ok.

Do you travel between places of work, or at a single site, just wondering why you qualify for a vehicle allowance

 

[wafter]

I must admit, I'm really keen myself to get one but just can't bring myself to do it yet as I still reckon we are in beta max territory with these things.

Indeed - 50/50 in 20yrs time the whole idea will have been massively scaled back / binned all together as the practical limits have hit a hard stop.

 

[JhnBssll]

Indeed - 50/50 in 20yrs time the whole idea will have been massively scaled back / binned all together as the practical limits have hit a hard stop.

They're not the solution, I see this tech as a stepping stone. We need something to break our oil dependency and battery tech was a quick win. I don't doubt that other, greener and more practical technologies will overtake it in time.

Mine is a company car where it makes total sense to go electric due to the significantly lower tax costs; were it my own money I was spending I'd be asking myself the same questions.

 

[wafter]

They're not the solution, I see this tech as a stepping stone. We need something to break our oil dependency and battery tech was a quick win. I don't doubt that other, greener and more practical technologies will overtake it in time.

Mine is a company car where it makes total sense to go electric due to the significantly lower tax costs; were it my own money I was spending I'd be asking myself the same questions.

Thanks - nice to see another rational approach rather than the usual establishment-sponsored whitewashed "saviour of the world" rubbish.

Broadly speaking I agree, however I'd question their validity even further if they're ultimately to be considered a short term fix - given the downsides I wonder if it wouldn't just have been better to have stuck with IC until something with legitimate long-term viability is developed.. but then of course that wouldn't keep people buying ever-more expensive new products, would it?

I tend to buy cars near the end of their lives / at maybe 15-20yrs old, so I fully expect to never have the practical ability to buy an EV and suspect that they'll never plumb the price depths at which I'm used to buying. It'll be interesting to see how the rocketing price of debt affects the financial viability of these expensive, new vehicles - potentially another nail in their coffin IMO.

 

[JhnBssll]

Broadly speaking I agree, however I'd question their validity even further if they're ultimately to be considered a short term fix - given the downsides I wonder if it wouldn't just have been better to have stuck with IC until something with legitimate long-term viability is developed.. but then of course that wouldn't keep people buying ever-more expensive new products, would it?

I think the issue is that (weapons aside) tech development is largely funded by the private sector these days and for that to happen it simply has to be profitable. If governments allowed the motor industry to continue building and selling ICE vehicles and there was no push to battery tech they wouldn't be spending anywhere near what they're spending now developing next generation powertrains. They would have no reason to. Their shareholders don't give a rats about the environment, only their stock value. It's my belief that the current battery tech came at the right time to kickstart this but I don't think ultimately there will be a one-size fits all solution. I can see a future with small super-capacitor powered city cars, medium range battery cars and hydrogen powered tourers all having their place. I also think the whole carbon capture synthetic fuel technology will be a key player but costs need to come down significantly before that's really an option and last I heard that is a decade away.

 

[midlife]

Do you travel between places of work, or at a single site, just wondering why you qualify for a vehicle allowance

NHS salary sacrifice schemes to lease a car are available to many NHS staff. It’s nothing to do with just using it for work.

 

[fossyant]

NHS salary sacrifice schemes to lease a car are available to many NHS staff. It’s nothing to do with just using it for work.

They have started this at our work too, but a £500 a month off your pensionable salary is another impact as well as the chunky lease payments. There isn't many cheap electric cars. I can't justify spending that on any vehicle as I just don't drive enough - use leg power to get to work.

 

[Deleted member 26715]

Broadly speaking I agree, however I'd question their validity even further if they're ultimately to be considered a short term fix - given the downsides I wonder if it wouldn't just have been better to have stuck with IC until something with legitimate long-term viability is developed.

Something HAD to be done, like @JhnBssll said unless you force the car manufacturers into doing it they never would, bit like the tobacco industry welcoming with open arms removal of all sports advertising & the Smoking kills on the packaging. I don't think EV's in the current form are viable long term, if we all jumped the generating system would grind to a halt.

I too rely on older cars, although I consider myself a petrol head I cannot comprehend spending the amount of money that people are currently spending on an average car let alone EV's, I cannot see me owning one as by the time they have depreciated enough to be able to afford one I would have huge concerns about the battery life, if an engine wears out it's quite a simple (for me) to either replace or repair the engine, if the battery no longer holds it's charge for the range then what is the alternative?

 

[midlife]

They have started this at our work too, but a £500 a month off your pensionable salary is another impact as well as the chunky lease payments. There isn't many cheap electric cars. I can't justify spending that on any vehicle as I just don't drive enough - use leg power to get to work.

Salary sacrifice can suit some people, the VW Up was a popular model but each NHS Trust has its own scheme with different cars available.

There are ways of keeping up the pension payments but that reduces the benefits of salary sacrifice.

I don't trust the NHS enough to get things right so have never trusted them to protect my pension. Planning my retirement at the moment and despite having unbroken service since 1982 they say I have had almost a year off.....

 

[Joey Shabadoo]

I'd love to get an EV car for work - especially as I head up sustainability at my company - but I just can't see it working at the moment. I do around 30-35,000 miles pa and while the regular run from Glasgow to Bristol is theoretically do-able, I'd be quite concerned going around the north of Scotland in rural areas. It's not uncommon for me to do 300 miles and more a day. For now I don't think I can make EV cars work for me and I'll just stick to my hybrid.

 

[Joey Shabadoo]

Incidentally, I saw a very good cartoon that went along the lines of two guys talking about ev cars. Says the sceptic "Oh there are flaws and limitations to implementing this technology now, I'm just going to wait for that technology even though it's 15, 20 years away".

The problem with that is the climate crisis is now and no matter what technological solutions we come up with, there's always a seemingly better one on the horizon but we can't afford to do nothing.