The all things EV chat thread

[PJ87]

https://www.cleevelyev.co.uk/electric-vehicle-servicing/

I think these guys are brilliant..I will be choosing them next over vauxhall for My service

They come out in a mg 5 EV all over the country and service your EV on your driveway (or other places) think it's a great idea

They can even offer money off your bill if you charge their car up off your home charger whilst they service so they don't have to top up

Think it's a cracking idea

 

[PJ87]

Nope, not for me, reallly do not want to stop if I can avoid it but, as I said, only one of a few factors plus I would need to be damned certain that car would make the journey and that the purported mileage was not in lab conditions. Just looking at the cost of an electric car that can fit 4 people comfortably plus luggage that has the range needed. My very comfortable, low mileage Skoda Octavia was £8000 when I bought it. Just had a very quick look online (and it was very quick) and a Nissan Leaf (which may be too small) but is of a similar age and mileage to when I bough my car £21450.00. Sorry, if I am spending over 21 grand on a second hand car, I am looking for something much more exotic than a Nissan Leaf.

Just for a point on leafs they are massive inside and really nice to drive because they are designed as EV from the floor up rather than a normal car ripped out with EV shoved in

 

[hovis]

Nope, not for me, reallly do not want to stop if I can avoid it but, as I said, only one of a few factors plus I would need to be damned certain that car would make the journey and that the purported mileage was not in lab conditions. Just looking at the cost of an electric car that can fit 4 people comfortably plus luggage that has the range needed. My very comfortable, low mileage Skoda Octavia was £8000 when I bought it. Just had a very quick look online (and it was very quick) and a Nissan Leaf (which may be too small) but is of a similar age and mileage to when I bough my car £21450.00. Sorry, if I am spending over 21 grand on a second hand car, I am looking for something much more exotic than a Nissan Leaf.

No no I get it. I was just talking about the range issues that many people use as an excuse when it's easily fixed.
The car size vs price is probably the best argument with eV owners. My mate as a big eV and it cost a blood fortune for what is standard as a ice car. Two of us travelling to gleneagles was a struggle and the kona isn't considered small on eV standards. My fiesta is on its last legs so probably gonna buy a passat for the same reasons you've stated.

 

[GB72]

Just for a point on leafs they are massive inside and really nice to drive because they are designed as EV from the floor up rather than a normal car ripped out with EV shoved in

A very valid point but it is still £21500 which is nearly double what I look to spend on a car that, for the most part, commutes me to work and back and does the ugly jobs at the weekend like tip runs etc. If there were a similar sized car to the Octabia on the market that did the 250 mile range and cost £10000 with about 30k on the clock then I would have to conisder it. Sadly, nothing is even close.

 

[Imurg]

Something I've noticed recently is that some of these bigger EVs are extraordinarily wide compared to similar ICE cars...
Is this to fit the battery in? Keeping it low to aid stability thereby needing the increased width..

 

[road2ruin]

Something I've noticed recently is that some of these bigger EVs are extraordinarily wide compared to similar ICE cars...
Is this to fit the battery in? Keeping it low to aid stability thereby needing the increased width..

I must admit that the width is the main thing I've found since I got the Hyundai after the Audi Estate I had beforehand. It'd definitely tighter in car park spaces!!!

 

[GB72]

No no I get it. I was just talking about the range issues that many people use as an excuse when it's easily fixed.
The car size vs price is probably the best argument with eV owners. My mate as a big eV and it cost a blood fortune for what is standard as a ice car. Two of us travelling to gleneagles was a struggle and the kona isn't considered small on eV standards. My fiesta is on its last legs so probably gonna buy a passat for the same reasons you've stated.

On the range issue, bearing in mind I would be looking at the second hand market, how can you tell if the batteries are still up to standard and have been treated correctly. I assume that 250 mile range can drop off quite dramatically as the batteries get older or if they are not subject to a decent charging regime.

 

[Imurg]

I must admit that the width is the main thing I've found since I got the Hyundai after the Audi Estate I had beforehand. It'd definitely tighter in car park spaces!!!

I was going down a narrowish road the other day and this hulking great EV was coming the other way...
Normally it's, maybe, an ease off the gas but this was a full blown brake and crawl job....

 

[Mandofred]

So you wouldn't have to stop. If you're there for Xmas you could charge with the power cable through normal electrics and wouldn't need to stop on the way home either.
You'd still arrive with 50 miles in the tank so if charging was an issue at your dad's house then you need to find 200 miles of juice from somewhere. That route is littered with rapid chargers. So, if you can't charge at the house using a normal plug then how does a 30 minute wait sound at a Morrisons? or Mcdonalds?. Is it worth the £40+ you'll save on petrol/diesel?
That's what your journey would look like
Or two 15 minute stops of course whilst you take a piss on each leg?‍.
(leg of the journey not your actual leg)

I've no idea what I'm talking about, but wasn't there a YouTube I saw that showed that if you stop at quick charge places you don't save money by using electric? Might have saw it on this thread come to think of it....

 

[Robster59]

My missus has just changed her car, and we have gone for a second hand ICE as electric was outside our budget. For her, an electric would probably have been adequate but at the moment it was just not possible. We even looked at a full hybrid, but if you don't do enough mileage on them, they don't charge up the batteries and you finish up just running on petrol anyway (as has happened to a friend of mine).
For me, as I have put on here before, I have a PHEV (Skoda Superb IV). I am getting a home charger put in at the end of the month, and that I am happy to say, is funded by my company. For tax reasons, more of our sales team are going to full electric (it wasn't available when I got my car 18 months ago). As their error is regional, they can get around on that. My area is national, so I do drive long distances and adding half an hour into a journey time does eat into my day.
Still, at least with full electric vehicles, you have fast charging. My car takes 4 hours to fully charge for 30 miles, so stopping en route is definitely not a luxury I can afford. So my option is to charge the car when stop overnight. The only issue with that is that the last four times I have been away, none of the chargers at any of the hotels were working, and nobody nearby I could go to. So from when I set off, to when I got back home, I couldn't charge the car. Thankfully, there are still lots of petrol stations I can use.
The fact is that whilst the charging system is getting better, there are still gaps in the system, and especially when away from mainstream routes. It will get better I am sure, but there is still a lot of work to do.

 

[hovis]

On the range issue, bearing in mind I would be looking at the second hand market, how can you tell if the batteries are still up to standard and have been treated correctly. I assume that 250 mile range can drop off quite dramatically as the batteries get older or if they are not subject to a decent charging regime.

It's hard to abuse the battery as the computer won't let anything happen outside the norm. As they get older they have been said to reduce but that was based on old tech. My dad's enero still holds 300 miles after 80,000 miles of charging. I'm not a battery expert so I don't know if its the amount of charging or the age of the battery that makes it deteriorate. As for the second hand market. When looking recently it appears that manufacturers sell you the car and you can rent or sell you the battery. Some classified ads tell you the monthly rental charge in the small print. Probably isn't cheap

 

[hovis]

I've no idea what I'm talking about, but wasn't there a YouTube I saw that showed that if you stop at quick charge places you don't save money by using electric? Might have saw it on this thread come to think of it....

That's correct. Rapid charging isn't cheap and just under the price of fuel. But most people wouldn't charge to full
When I drove to gleneagles i was coming up 50 miles short. That ended up being 80 as my mates in the car in front where driving a little faster than the posted speed limit. I chucked 100 miles charge in and charged for free (from empty to full) at gleneagles. So I only paid fuel prices for just over a 100 miles worth of a 630 mile round trip. I can live with that.
Charging on the go is very rare when you have a 300 mile range. If you have to rely on charge points away from home then owning an eV would be a nightmare. Especially when there's no financial gain

 

[PJ87]

It's hard to abuse the battery as the computer won't let anything happen outside the norm. As they get older they have been said to reduce but that was based on old tech. My dad's enero still holds 300 miles after 80,000 miles of charging. I'm not a battery expert so I don't know if its the amount of charging or the age of the battery that makes it deteriorate. As for the second hand market. When looking recently it appears that manufacturers sell you the car and you can rent or sell you the battery. Some classified ads tell you the monthly rental charge in the small print. Probably isn't cheap

The rent battery was only the old leaf and Zoe wasn't it? However it was a great idea tbh because any issues you could get the battery replaced or whatever no big fee

 

[hovis]

The rent battery was only the old leaf and Zoe wasn't it? However it was a great idea tbh because any issues you could get the battery replaced or whatever no big fee

Yeh. I was looking as t the zoe but I just had visons of my mates at work seeing me pull up in it. ?

 

[Smiffy]

So you wouldn't have to stop. If you're there for Xmas you could charge with the power cable through normal electrics and wouldn't need to stop on the way home either.
You'd still arrive with 50 miles in the tank so if charging was an issue at your dad's house then you need to find 200 miles of juice from somewhere. That route is littered with rapid chargers. So, if you can't charge at the house using a normal plug then how does a 30 minute wait sound at a Morrisons? or Mcdonalds?. Is it worth the £40+ you'll save on petrol/diesel?
That's what your journey would look like
Or two 15 minute stops of course whilst you take a piss on each leg?‍.
(leg of the journey not your actual leg)

If we lived in a perfect world I'd agree with you, but of course we don't. You are assuming exactly 300 miles is achievable, but at motorway speeds or close to it, they're not.
My e208 has a quoted range of 220 miles. Would I take on a 200 mile trip and expect 20 miles left in the car??? Not a chance. I can guarantee that I'd conk out before I got there if I travelled at anything near 70mph. I might make it if I kept to 30 without using the heater and avoided overtaking anyone. But that's not a "journey"... it would be a right pain in the arse

 

[hovis]

If we lived in a perfect world I'd agree with you, but of course we don't. You are assuming exactly 300 miles is achievable, but at motorway speeds or close to it, they're not.
My e208 has a quoted range of 220 miles. Would I take on a 200 mile trip and expect 20 miles left in the car??? Not a chance. I can guarantee that I'd conk out before I got there if I travelled at anything near 70mph. I might make it if I kept to 30 without using the heater and avoided overtaking anyone. But that's not a "journey"... it would be a right pain in the arse

But you have a lowish range car. It obviously still has many benefits so why wouldn't you take the car and simply stop for 10 minutes for a piss and a 20/25 mile top up for redundancy and piece of mind?
What I don't understand is the reluctance to stop for 10 minutes on a 3 hour trip. I personally need piss in that time anyway. I see it as a very small inconvenience for such good gain.
If you take your petrol car you are literally paying £25 in additional fuel to save 10 minutes, 5 of which you needed to stop for anyway.
If you was stopping for a piss and a stranger said "stand there for 5 minutes and I'll give you £25" would you? I would ???

 

[ColchesterFC]

So you wouldn't have to stop. If you're there for Xmas you could charge with the power cable through normal electrics and wouldn't need to stop on the way home either.
You'd still arrive with 50 miles in the tank so if charging was an issue at your dad's house then you need to find 200 miles of juice from somewhere. That route is littered with rapid chargers. So, if you can't charge at the house using a normal plug then how does a 30 minute wait sound at a Morrisons? or Mcdonalds?. Is it worth the £40+ you'll save on petrol/diesel?
That's what your journey would look like
Or two 15 minute stops of course whilst you take a piss on each leg?‍.
(leg of the journey not your actual leg)

Did you say earlier that you have 300 mile range on your EV? If as stated previously on this thread the range can drop by 20% in winter then he might have a problem with a 300 mile range EV making that 250 mile drive at Xmas. A 20% drop in range leaves 240 mile range which almost certainly isn't going to get him there without stopping, especially if there are motorway/dual carriageway stretches involved in the journey.

 

[hovis]

Did you say earlier that you have 300 mile range on your EV? If as stated previously on this thread the range can drop by 20% in winter then he might have a problem with a 300 mile range EV making that 250 mile drive at Xmas. A 20% drop in range leaves 240 mile range which almost certainly isn't going to get him there without stopping, especially if there are motorway/dual carriageway stretches involved in the journey.

Two scenarios :
260 range at a constant 70 will get me about 240 Maybe. It does leave me dangerously close to the limit so a 10 minute stop is what I would do to put some redundancy in the system.

Or, knowing I have this journey I'd use the battery heater thingy (technical term) to get the maximum (300) into the battery. Or just charge it in my garage as I usually do. There's also a couple of eco features I need to understand that can apparently make a big difference but stopping for me isn't an issue

The point that leaves me so baffled is this journey is a once a year journey. Are you putting a block on the advantage of driving an eV for the other 364 days of the year because of a ten minute stop over a 4 hour trip? To me its like saying I don't want ten bars of gold because I'll have to carry them to the bank. They're too heavy

It's a ten minute stop!!!!

 

[ColchesterFC]

Two scenarios :
260 range at a constant 70 will get me about 240 Maybe. It does leave me dangerously close to the limit so a 10 minute stop is what I would do to put some redundancy in the system.

Or, knowing I have this journey I'd use the battery heater to get the maximum (300) into the battery. Or just charge it in my garage.

The point that leaves me so baffled is tgis journey is a once a year journey. Are you putting a block on the advantage of driving an eV for the other 364 days of the year because of a ten minute stop over a 4 hour trip? Me me its like saying I don't want ten bars of golf because I'll have to carry them to the bank. They're too heavy

I'm not, I was just asking the question.

The things that are putting a block on me buying an EV right now are that the two cars in our household, one petrol and one diesel, have both got around 70k miles on them and will probably last another 10 years so no need to replace them. On top of that is the cost of buying an EV and the fact that we tow a caravan at least a dozen times a year and sometimes double that, and Mrs Colch tows a trailer to her work events which is an additional dozen occasions each year minimum. The range of an EV while towing wouldn't be anywhere near to the range that we would require for us to get one.

 

[hovis]

I'm not, I was just asking the question.

The things that are putting a block on me buying an EV right now are that the two cars in our household, one petrol and one diesel, have both got around 70k miles on them and will probably last another 10 years so no need to replace them. On top of that is the cost of buying an EV and the fact that we tow a caravan at least a dozen times a year and sometimes double that, and Mrs Colch tows a trailer to her work events which is an additional dozen occasions each year minimum. The range of an EV while towing wouldn't be anywhere near to the range that we would require for us to get one.

I have no experience towing so I have no input there. I hear its not very good at all.
I am in the same boat as you. My house has one ev and one ice. The ev is my wife's company car (even though shes based from home). I want the second car to be ev too but I'm priced out the market. If I had 30k to spend on a car or if I could afford the finance I would absolutely go ev. But 10k is my limit at best. At the moment that budget can't get me a decent ev. I'm currently looking at a vw passat but I may buy a used plug in hybrid. 30 mile range would still be very beneficial for our second car