Hallucigenia wrote:
I think you're letting perfection be the enemy of the good. We're already pretty much there for many people.
[...]
Not that it's not getting better with every month that goes by, but exactly how good does the charging network need to be, if most people can charge from home and most people don't do more than their car's range in one day?
For many people, especially the slow adopters, the answer is "Good enough to cope with my very occasional unusually long journeys. I agree, it is getting better all the time, but it is not as ideal as the converts claim, nor as bad as the naysayers claim. I'm off to Cadwell Park for the weekend, 150 miles each way so don't usually stop en route, plus a bit of running about whilst there. I would need to recharge. A quick look online says there are points at the Morissons next door to the B&B, so providing they work and I have an account with the relevant supplier and am prepared to pay their tariff and I'm happy to leave the car in a supermarket car park overnight assuming they don't lock it then I should be fine. It is doable, just slightly inconvient.
If you have a car with a range of 250 miles and can charge 80% in 30 minutes as is becoming the standard for that kind of level - you can (just!) do Southampton to Stirling with one charging stop of 30 minutes.
Theoretically yes, practically, probably not. You would need a guarantee that the charger required will be available in the location you desire and working at the output you need. The neighbour of a friend bought a rather expensive long range BEV and says that a good 50% of the time the high output chargers are delivering 50% or less of the speed advertised, even when he has been the only vehicle there. And this is someone who doesn't object to paying 80p/kWh at a services top up. Again, at the moment down to the acceptable level of expense/inconvenience, but for them it was defninitely the wrong choice. At least they leased rather than bought, unlike my old school friend who often bemoans how little his VW ID5 is worth, although he was very happy with how much he'd made on it 3 years ago
So in what way, exactly, do you think there is a problem with journey range?
Personally speaking 400 miles would be my comfort zone, as I'm in the Midlands. Were I still in Devon then 600 miles would be enough to get me to my sister's and back at Xmas. And yes, I know I would need to refuel an ICE for that distance, but I also know there are 3 filling stations including a large Tesco between her place and the M60. I'd also be travelling with MrsF so any stops were 5 min for a wee and driver swap.
And while there's been a lot of talk of high depreciation lately, that's mostly been driven by Tesla and seems to be overdone - what I'm hearing is that decent secondhand cars are selling quickly, those £13k offers for scotview's ID.3 sound like they're taking the mick in the current market unless there's something badly wrong with it.
Typical offers are under 50% after 2 years compared with 3 years for an ICE. However that's been skewed by the Boom a few years ago, when I looked a while back thy BEV equivalents of ICE 2019/20 cars were cheaper, compared to a 10-20% premium when new. Range at that age was typically 150-200 miles, or less as it was more basic tech. Will the newer generation suffer as badly?
And running costs have come down whilst fossil fuels get ever more expensive.
Again, only when you have access to cheap charging. MrsF's niece paid more to top up their Cupra on the motorway than the diesel cost for the round trip when they came from Chorleywood the other weekend, mainly as the charger they used in town when we went for a meal was charging at about 200W (yup, 200W) although they didn't realise this until they got back to it.
Just to give an example,
here's a 70-plate Hyundai Kona for £15k with 29,800 miles on the clock, 150kW charging (ie 32 minutes for 80%), 64kWh for 279 official range, [...]
It's not sexy but I'd say that looks a pretty good package for £15k, it's hard to say it looks expensive against similar ICE cars - and then you save money on running costs.
So
exactly how much more do prices need to come down?
Another £5k at the bottom of the market.
Prices are getting there - on autotrader at the moment there are 7280 cars under £10k and 2019 or newer, only 44 of which are electric with a 200+ mile range, although 258 available with a 150+ mile range. £10k is more than we've ever spent on our 'runaround' car, £6-8k was more normal. I'll ignore the fact MrsF would rather drive a hearse than an SUV which always limits our options
That's not to say the current state of the art works for everyone, it doesn't - but I'd suggest the technology is already at the stage where it is good enough for a majority of people, affordability is getting better, and the comparison with the internet of 2000 - quite expensive and not quite there technology-wise, but getting there on both counts - is not a bad one. At the very least, the onus falls on sceptics to state their case more specifically than "I don't believe this".
I agree - I think we are a couple of years away from there being enough cars with enough range at the correct prices for mass market runabouts, but I think the issue will be the higher depreciation we've seen on early models compared to ICEs and the rapid evolution of tech until circa 2020 has skewed perceptions. The early cars with short range are undesirable, hence they're cheap. Tax benefits and grants are disappearing so new ones become less cost effective, and lease deals seem to be increasing slightly. I do think a lot of people bought in Covid and thought the massive residuals were going to be the norm, not realising that the 50% over 3 years WAS going to happen, just condensed into the last 2 years. And that is another issue - if BEVs are dropping at 25% pa (which lies, damn lies, and statistics shows to be true) then that puts people off them and is self supporting until the new market dries up.
Paul
