Transition to Electric Car Endeavours

[odysseus2000]

The economics of electric cars consists of several factors with two wild cards & one crazy wild card:

Initial cost - final cost is one consideration.

Replacement cost is another.
If your car depreciates, but if the next one also does then you may not care about the depreciation.

Fuel cost are, especially if home charging, substantial reduced as is the time & inconvenience savings of not having to use a gas station. To fuel are maintenance & repair costs. BEV brakes last for very long times & there are no engine oils to change.

Two wild cards:

How long will your battery last, if it turns out that it is 15 years or more then it can be ignored. Tesla have claimed a million mile battery is possible, but it’s real world that matters & that potentially depends on many factors from driving style to weather.

If the ulez works & the other big conurbations decide to introduce a similar £12.50 a day then ice cars that are not very modern become very cheap, maybe unsellable. I have no idea if this happens but during the first lock down the air had a sweetness that went as soon a# mass car use returned. If London does have much better air quality the politicians in Birmingham, Manchester etc may decide they have to follow Landon’s lead.


A finally very wild card. If world war 3 happens, it is very likely that uk refineries will be destroyed & the military will take most of the available supply, as happened in the second war. In such an ugly world having one’s own solar panels might keep you mobile during the summer, but in the winter if there is no grid or wind you would be like the ice owners who can’t get fuel, although you won’t be trouble by needing oil & brake services & potentially emergency installed, no planning etc, underground power lines could provide some grid connectivity

Regards,

[TUK020]

2 months on.
Car is working out very well for day to day driving. Like it - very easy and relaxing.
Home charger point + cheap rate charging easy to live with. Relaxing about level of charge/range 'in the tank' and only charging once or twice a week now.
Notice range is declining as weather gets worse - see the the demist in wet weather clobbers range (internal heating + aircon).
Still haven't had the need to exercise my "Electroverse" card to get an external rapid charge, but probably coming in the next 100 days with a longer trip planned.
So far so good. Noticing not spending £70 on a diesel tank refill every other week

A comment:

I have friends with 2 electric cars (Tesla and an E-Up) and before that they had plug in hybrids. They always warm up and dehumidify the car with it plugged in to their home charger just before they set off so that it doesn't take any energy from the battery to do that and that increased the range* - is that not possible on the Leaf? They can do it from an app on their phone so they don't even have to go to the car to do it.

* This was particularly important for the plug in as then they could get into town and back entirely on electricity.

Good thought, possible with the Leaf. You can also set a timer to do this automatically. Just not the way I have set up the charging timer, but I may have a fiddle with it.

[TUK020]

But private buyers aren't there which is why evs are hanging around showrooms unsold.

Glad you are enjoying your EV TUK020. Just one query please, does your Air Con remove dampness inside the car/windscreen on rainy days ?

We have an ID3, nice car. At one point we had +£10K equity on it's resale price. It's currently -£2K underwater on resale equity. Our Dacia Duster has +£3K resale equity, its a very cheap ICE.

I think the true measure of EV success, for private purchases, is going to be their depreciation curve. Our ID3, although a very nice car, doesn't look too good in that respect.

Windscreen demister (aircon + heating) works well, but I tend to only have it on for a short while - noticeable impact on range.

[TUK020]

The economics of electric cars consists of several factors with two wild cards & one crazy wild card:

Initial cost - final cost is one consideration.

Replacement cost is another.
If your car depreciates, but if the next one also does then you may not care about the depreciation.

Fuel cost are, especially if home charging, substantial reduced as is the time & inconvenience savings of not having to use a gas station. To fuel are maintenance & repair costs. BEV brakes last for very long times & there are no engine oils to change.

Two wild cards:

How long will your battery last, if it turns out that it is 15 years or more then it can be ignored. Tesla have claimed a million mile battery is possible, but it’s real world that matters & that potentially depends on many factors from driving style to weather.

If the ulez works & the other big conurbations decide to introduce a similar £12.50 a day then ice cars that are not very modern become very cheap, maybe unsellable. I have no idea if this happens but during the first lock down the air had a sweetness that went as soon a# mass car use returned. If London does have much better air quality the politicians in Birmingham, Manchester etc may decide they have to follow Landon’s lead.


A finally very wild card. If world war 3 happens, it is very likely that uk refineries will be destroyed & the military will take most of the available supply, as happened in the second war. In such an ugly world having one’s own solar panels might keep you mobile during the summer, but in the winter if there is no grid or wind you would be like the ice owners who can’t get fuel, although you won’t be trouble by needing oil & brake services & potentially emergency installed, no planning etc, underground power lines could provide some grid connectivity

Regards,

WW3 as the answer to range anxiety!
Thank you for helping me start my day with a smile Ody

[PeterGray]

A comment:

I have friends with 2 electric cars (Tesla and an E-Up) and before that they had plug in hybrids. They always warm up and dehumidify the car with it plugged in to their home charger just before they set off so that it doesn't take any energy from the battery to do that and that increased the range* - is that not possible on the Leaf? They can do it from an app on their phone so they don't even have to go to the car to do it.

* This was particularly important for the plug in as then they could get into town and back entirely on electricity.

Good idea. I have friends who bought a Leaf over the summer, and now it's getting colder are noticing the effect of heating on range. I'll suggest that to them.

[88V8]

They always warm up and dehumidify the car with it plugged in to their home charger just before they set off so that it doesn't take any energy from the battery to do that and that increased the range* -....

Good idea. I have friends who bought a Leaf over the summer, and now it's getting colder are noticing the effect of heating on range. I'll suggest that to them.

Hot water bottles.

Windscreen misting can be prevented by rubbing the inside with a fresh cut potato.

V8

[CliffEdge]

Good idea. I have friends who bought a Leaf over the summer, and now it's getting colder are noticing the effect of heating on range. I'll suggest that to them.

Hot water bottles.

Windscreen misting can be prevented by rubbing the inside with a fresh cut potato.

V8

Have to be a chip surely.

[Watis]

Hot water bottles.

Windscreen misting can be prevented by rubbing the inside with a fresh cut potato.

V8

Have to be a chip surely.

Nooo - chips can result in an MOT fail!

Watis

I'll get me coat...

[TUK020]

Finally taken the plunge and bought a battery electric car.
Sold the 20 year old diesel for scrap.
Bought a 5 yr old Nissan Leaf 110kW, 40kWh with 45k miles for £11k. This is a 2018 model - first year of the Gen 2 Leaf.
11 months MoT, 1 yr warranty, plus 3 years left on the manufacturers guarantee for the battery.
Battery report still showing >97.5% capacity.

Range:
Urban driving, mild weather gives me around 160 miles range fully charged.
Put the aircon on, and the range estimate drops to ~150 miles on fully charged.
According to the specs this drops to around 105 miles in cold weather motorway driving.

Charger:
Currently charging off the 3 pin 2.3kW charger.
Get my 7kW Type 2 charge point installed in a couple of days. (this will cost £1k installed, ordered from Octopus)

Fuel costs:
Switched to Octopus as energy supplier (no hassle), and got the Octopus Go tariff: 30p/kWh standard, and 9p/kWh at cheap rate (00.30-04.30am). The car has a location aware timer. At home, I program it to start charging at 00.30, and run to 07.30. This means that it will charge 70% of the battery at cheap rate, and then top up at higher rate. Assuming that the majority of the time I will not have depleted the battery more than 70%, and will be doing relatively local driving, then my fuel cost will be 83p (4 hrs x 2.3kW x 9p/kWh) to give 112 miles (70% x 160 range) = 1.35p/mile (mild weather, urban driving). Assuming reduced mileage/kWh for bad weather, and higher costs for external charging, and higher costs when I run the battery down below 70%, allow for some increase in teh cheap rate tariff - call it 2p/mile overall?

Other running costs:
Vehicle tax = 0
Nissan service plan for next 3 years = £17/month. This covers 1 service/year (annual or 18k miles), MoT (I think), Aircon regassing, and RAC Euro breakdown recovery to a Nissan main dealer. (Given range limitation, unlikely to take abroad). The service plan gives considerable peace of mind in two respects - it covers a lot, and it does so at a price that would indicate that Nissan believe in the reliability of their cars.
This doesn't cover tyres and consumables. I currently do about 6k miles a year, so guessing a set of tyres every other year plus wipers etc - guess overall maintenance and repair £500/yr
Insurance - no change from the ICE alternative.

Capital cost:
Should get 5 years motoring before it starts needing major expenditure, and even then it should have some resale. Call it £1k5 depreciation/yr?

Overall motoring costs of £2k5/year (depreciation, + fuel + service, maintenance,breakdown recovery) plus insurance on top? = £200/month plus insurance.

Driving impressions:
Very relaxing to drive, quiet, minimal fuss. Easy to drive in traffic as instant torque available for pulling out etc.

I had been intending to buy a bigger hybrid (Toyota Rav4), but the money being asked for a 5 yr old car seemed silly (>£25k). Didn't realise I could pick up a Nissan Leaf for this sort of money. Took it for a test drive and decided to take the plunge. We have several cars in the family. In the 2 weeks since I have had this, I needed to do a round trip of 100 miles one day, and swapped cars with my wife for that day. Think this works very well as a second car.

Other:
Experience so far of the local Nissan dealer has been very favourable.

Not tried yet - rapid charging at a external charging point.

Conclusion: So far, like it, and think it a success - nice to drive, think it will be very cost effective to run.

2 months on.
Car is working out very well for day to day driving. Like it - very easy and relaxing.
Home charger point + cheap rate charging easy to live with. Relaxing about level of charge/range 'in the tank' and only charging once or twice a week now.
Notice range is declining as weather gets worse - see the the demist in wet weather clobbers range (internal heating + aircon).
Still haven't had the need to exercise my "Electroverse" card to get an external rapid charge, but probably coming in the next 100 days with a longer trip planned.
So far so good. Noticing not spending £70 on a diesel tank refill every other week

More than 8 months on, 4500 miles. Running like a dream. Very pleased with it. Did a round trip of 110 miles the other day. Got home with plenty to spare. Very rarely need to go further than this, and can switch cars in the family to do so (I think I have only done this once since I got this).

[odysseus2000]

2 months on.
Car is working out very well for day to day driving. Like it - very easy and relaxing.
Home charger point + cheap rate charging easy to live with. Relaxing about level of charge/range 'in the tank' and only charging once or twice a week now.
Notice range is declining as weather gets worse - see the the demist in wet weather clobbers range (internal heating + aircon).
Still haven't had the need to exercise my "Electroverse" card to get an external rapid charge, but probably coming in the next 100 days with a longer trip planned.
So far so good. Noticing not spending £70 on a diesel tank refill every other week

More than 8 months on, 4500 miles. Running like a dream. Very pleased with it. Did a round trip of 110 miles the other day. Got home with plenty to spare. Very rarely need to go further than this, and can switch cars in the family to do so (I think I have only done this once since I got this).

The media are full of folk dissing battery cars, but I have only found one person in personal interactions, via a mechanic, who wants to go back to petrol & this because he can’t handle the screen on a Tesla. Of course there are many on YouTube etc, but they seem more motivated by getting clicks rather than a sensible presentation.

All the others I have personally met have similar experience to yours & don’t want to go back to ice platforms.

Regards,

[TUK020]

More than 8 months on, 4500 miles. Running like a dream. Very pleased with it. Did a round trip of 110 miles the other day. Got home with plenty to spare. Very rarely need to go further than this, and can switch cars in the family to do so (I think I have only done this once since I got this).

The media are full of folk dissing battery cars, but I have only found one person in personal interactions, via a mechanic, who wants to go back to petrol & this because he can’t handle the screen on a Tesla. Of course there are many on YouTube etc, but they seem more motivated by getting clicks rather than a sensible presentation.

All the others I have personally met have similar experience to yours & don’t want to go back to ice platforms.

Regards,

i am still planning my next car to be a plug in hybrid. We don't have a car suitable for going on holiday - one of the family cars is a hybrid Yaris - excellent but too small. However, waiting for hybrid 2nd hand prices to come down to more sensible levels

[Bubblesofearth]

Hybrids and plug-in hybrids have been marketed well but I'm struggling to consider them. They cost more than standard petrol/diesel alternatives, mpg not much better than straight diesel and you have both ICE and electric motor to service/go wrong. Plug-in seems an extra faff as well if not an all electric. Searching around it appears they are not plugged in as much as they should be to optimise mpg.

Still running our 9-year old petrol car whilst dithering over next option. We do less and less long trips so almost certainly will be an all electric. Just waiting for infrastructure improvements and cost to come down a bit.

BoE

[odysseus2000]

Hybrids and plug-in hybrids have been marketed well but I'm struggling to consider them. They cost more than standard petrol/diesel alternatives, mpg not much better than straight diesel and you have both ICE and electric motor to service/go wrong. Plug-in seems an extra faff as well if not an all electric. Searching around it appears they are not plugged in as much as they should be to optimise mpg.

Still running our 9-year old petrol car whilst dithering over next option. We do less and less long trips so almost certainly will be an all electric. Just waiting for infrastructure improvements and cost to come down a bit.

BoE

Many hybrid owners seem to use their cars as a trojan horse to get into cities with out paying pollution charges, rarely if ever bothering to charge them up.

All the other point you make about the extra trouble, costs and opportunities for failure are very valid. Hybrids seem very much a stop gap solution, although Prius are still regularly used by taxi drivers the reign of the advertised lead hybrid bonanza looks to be reaching its limits. BEV based on feedback of many users are the future and are relevant now for many, especially for anyone who can home charge and only does relatively small distances. If the Chinese are allowed to export their battery offering here, prices, especially for second hand BEV should continue to trend downwards and if batteries become cheaper this will also weigh on new battery car prices.

The great uncertainty is still whether robo taxi will ever become common. If they do the economics of owning a car verses riding in a robo are likely to weigh against owning a car for many.

Regards,

[odysseus2000]

This YouTube short is about as good a reason to go electric as I can imagine. Whether it’s true all over the US I doubt, but nice & fear provoking if you are a female with children & need gas:

https://youtube.com/shorts/7DoIp-BJfxs? ... ixhXEdDJpA

Regards,

[88V8]

This YouTube short is about as good a reason to go electric as I can imagine. Whether it’s true all over the US I doubt, but nice & fear provoking if you are a female with children & need gas:

I dare say the same thing, if it is a thing, will happen at charging stations. Can one charge a stun gun at a charging station?

V8

[DrFfybes]

This YouTube short is about as good a reason to go electric as I can imagine. Whether it’s true all over the US I doubt, but nice & fear provoking if you are a female with children & need gas:

I dare say the same thing, if it is a thing, will happen at charging stations. Can one charge a stun gun at a charging station?

V8

I'm pretty sure you're still allowed to use convenience stores at night in a BEV though, although the US does have some odd rules.

Given the longer range of an ICE then you're probably less likely to be stopping to 'refuel' at night as well. Although if they are after the vehicle they might need to wait 5 hours until the car was charged.

[odysseus2000]

Charging stations might be better watering holes for the bad guys as likely less traffic, so less chance of being compromised, but charging times are now such that a reasonable get away range can be had in well under an hour, but you would also need time to disable the tracking technology of Tesla cars once you have stolen it.

All of these issues go away for home self charge, not possible for home gasoline or diesel vehicles.

Regards,

[88V8]

All of these issues go away for home self charge, not possible for home gasoline ...

Oh, I don't know...
Although gathering 56lb of vegetables to make 2.5 gal of fuel might deter some.

V8

[odysseus2000]

All of these issues go away for home self charge, not possible for home gasoline ...

Oh, I don't know...
Although gathering 56lb of vegetables to make 2.5 gal of fuel might deter some.

V8

It is relatively easy to make alcohol at home from sugar, water & yeast.

Distilling the alcohol could be done easily by freeze distillation, although this may be illegal. Once I had some bottles of wine in my boot during very cold weather, the water froze & existed in a liquid of presumably alcohol, but I just left it & when the weather warmed it remixed.

If the technology of precision fermentation works it would, as I understand it, be possible to make e-fuels at home, just as big e-fuel makers do on commercial scales, using renewable electricity to make a fuel that is far less useful than the renewable electricity.

From what I have read King Charles (III), runs his Aston Martin on fermented cheese. He also has or had a Tesla model X.

Regards,

[Hallucigenia]

Many hybrid owners seem to use their cars as a trojan horse to get into cities with out paying pollution charges, rarely if ever bothering to charge them up.

Citation needed.

The two plug-in hybrid owners I know are fairly obsessive about plugging in as it's so much cheaper than petrol.