Do I have cruise or not?

[Andy Beats]

It's no huge surprise, I suppose, but you lot are very badly informed about electric cars.
Oh well

[silverhairs]

Can you tell us where we are "badly informed"

Are we to take the word of one person, or multiple publications criticizing them? There was a 2 page spread in the Daily Mail, where this woman wanting to go green, against her husbands wishes. But she went ahead, I believe she's sold it now, that's how happy she was with it

[vc-10]

There was a 2 page spread in the Daily Mail

There's your problem. There's more accuracy in Harry Potter than a copy of the Daily Mail...

[monkeyhanger]

It's no huge surprise, I suppose, but you lot are very badly informed about electric cars.
Oh well

Not badly informed, just very sure what kind of car I want to spend my money on - a reasonably practical hot hatch.

For most, electric cars don't suit, for aforementioned reasons, which does allow the (relatively) few that have them to use the woefully inadequate charging network without having to wait. If 10% of the cars on the road were electric right now, you'd have a long wait to use one and we'd have regular national grid blackouts from all the home charging.

For those that want and have electric cars, they should be pleased that right now the rest of us don't.

[vc-10]

You absolutely have a point with that @monkeyhanger. I'd love to be able to spend my money on a reasonably practical hot hatch!

However I don't buy that it's only a very small percentage who actually need an ICE car on a regular basis. Charging is the problem right now, and as people have said, it's because it's impossible for people who don't have driveways or garages to plug in at home.

It is absolutely not a problem increasing demand at night. Power demand is currently highest between around 5pm and 7pm. Simply setting a timer for charging your car to start at around midnight would merely even out the demand.



Most home chargers don't use much more than an oven, at around 3kw (an oven is more like 2.5kw).

Does there need to be investment in the power grid? Absolutely. But is it an insurmountable problem? Not at all.

[Andy Beats]

Most home chargers don't use much more than an oven, at around 3kw (an oven is more like 2.5kw).

Does there need to be investment in the power grid? Absolutely. But is it an insurmountable problem? Not at all.

Most home chargers are 7KW, most people went for those even if their car could only accept 3.3KW (like my Leaf) at the time.
It was future proofing yourself, it was short-sighted to only go for a 3.3KW charger.
Most/all new EV cars are able to benefit from the 7KW charging at home.

[Andy Beats]

For most, electric cars don't suit, for aforementioned reasons, which does allow the (relatively) few that have them to use the woefully inadequate charging network without having to wait.

It may be "woefully inadequate" where you are, but it's over capacity where I am.
I could drive to at least 6 chargers right now and almost guaranteed they're all available.
You can, of course, check if they're being used before you go using apps.
With regard to those who can't charge at home, it's a fair point....but no more so than fuelling up with petrol/diesel really.
A lot of people would get away with charging once a week or less.
Would it really be a hardship to visit a public rapid charger once a week, especially if the 30-40 minute wait to charge is 1/5 the cost of petrol/diesel?

[monkeyhanger]

There are 6 unused chargers near you because next-to-no-one has an EV. you get 10% of the driving population driving one and you will be hard pushed to find an unused charger away from your home.

How do you compare a lack of access to a home charger to petrol/diesel drivers? There's a huge amount of fuelling stations in this country, and it's instant top up when you find one.

Rapid chargers generally aren't 1/5 the cost of petrol or diesel.

On a domestic charger basis, it works out about £3 to charge a 30kW Leaf based on a real life tariff of 13p per KWh. That Leaf is good for a guaranteed real life 60 miles per charge in Winter, so £3 per 60 miles, about half tge price per mile on a 60mpg diesel (my wife's old A1 1.6TDI managed 60mpg quite easily on my (then) 20 mile commute.

The chargers you see out and about cost a hell of a lot more than that - Ikea charge £12 to use theirs and give you a refund for half of it if you spend more than £30 with them.that day. Most charging stations I have seen in Newcastle put charging costs on a parity with a 50mpg diesel cost per mile.

Depreciation is big on EVs too - that'll eat into any savings you might make on charging from home.

[Andy Beats]

Depreciation is big on EVs too - that'll eat into any savings you might make on charging from home.

This line....
I'm sorry, but it sums up what you know about EVs.
I was able to sell my Leaf in October for the same money as I paid for it a year earlier.
A year's free motoring, imagine that in your VW.
I could have held out for more at the time, and if I were to sell it now I would be able to ask £1500 more than I did in October.
People are looking for affordable ways into an EV and the used market is so strong it's unbelievable.
We might as well end it here, because I've clearly got experience of owning an EV and you haven't, hence my info is more up-to-date and less based on hearsay.

[silverhairs]

Facts and figures of the Kia e-Niro which will be available form April and was awarded car of the year. Shows how far the PC brigade have taken over.

PRICE from £32,995 this is after the plug-in grant (which the government are talking about stopping)
Real world range: 253 miles per charge. But can drop to 170 miles in cold weather, but up to 355 in the city in mild weather.
Charge time: 45 minutes with a fast charge port (that's if you can find one, or even if they are working or not all being used)
How big is the Kia e-Nero, is it much bigger than a VW Polo?

Seeing that a lot of people have either a loan or a PCP, how much more would that add to the loan from a £21,000 Polo for example to a £32,995 (including the Plug in grant) for the basic Kia e-Nero. How much is the plug in grant, is it £5,000 ?

If your electric car was that marvellous why did you only have it for a year Why didn't you hold on to it till today and get another £1,500

Sorry Andy, your statements just don't hold water, you say "a years free motoring" did you plug it into next door electric supply If it was that marvellous why sell it and get a VW Polo You could still be getting free motoring

[Andy Beats]

Facts and figures of the Kia e-Niro which will be available form April and was awarded car of the year. Shows how far the PC brigade have taken over.

PRICE from £32,995 this is after the plug-in grant (which the government are talking about stopping)
Real world range: 253 miles per charge. But can drop to 170 miles in cold weather, but up to 355 in the city in mild weather.
Charge time: 45 minutes with a fast charge port (that's if you can find one, or even if they are working or not all being used)
How big is the Kia e-Nero, is it much bigger than a VW Polo?

Seeing that a lot of people have either a loan or a PCP, how much more would that add to the loan from a £21,000 Polo for example to a £32,995 (including the Plug in grant) for the basic Kia e-Nero. How much is the plug in grant, is it £5,000 ?

If your electric car was that marvellous why did you only have it for a year Why didn't you hold on to it till today and get another £1,500

Sorry Andy, your statements just don't hold water, you say "a years free motoring" did you plug it into next door electric supply If it was that marvellous why sell it and get a VW Polo You could still be getting free motoring

Your so full of misconceptions and obvious fear about electric cars.
Have you even driven one to see what they're like?
I'm not 'PC' or particularly bothered about emissions, I just love the way they drive!
The reason I sold mine was very simple, that my wife hated the way it looked and refused to drive it, which made our motoring life more difficult than it needed to be.
Yes, she's a car snob.
Ironically, she loves the way my Polo looks but hates the way it drives! (she describes it as 'very slow to take off', which is the low power/high gearing thing)
But at least she is willing to drive it at all.
I also have a very set monthly limit for my car, seeing as it only does 6 miles per day, and my budget would only cover the Kia Soul EV again.
Now, if she hated the way the Leaf looked she's definitely going to hate the Soul (as do I)
As soon as good looking EVs come back into my budget, I'm back in one and will never have an ICE again.
Oh, with regard to their greater cost, bear in mind fuel savings.
Many, many people are saving so much in fuel every month that the car pays for itself.
Comparing a polo with a Niro is pointless, probably better to compare it with an Audi Q1?

[monkeyhanger]

Andy:

If I were doing 6 miles a day in my car, I wouldn't give a toss what my mpg (or equivalent in electric cost) was. In fact, i'd be biking it to work if the weather wasn't abysmal - far better for the environment.

I'll buy an EV when it's as good as the petroleum propelled variant and costs no more to run/own.

EVs are expensive for what they offer, expensive to buy, expensive to PCP (due to poor residuals - buying new and p/xing or selling 3 years down the line, you can see the GFV of these Eva is under 45% retained if it's not a Tesla), limited range (even if it is getting better all the time) which takes a real kicking in the Winter, and limited useable life of the horrendously expensive batteries. Over 6 years, those batteries are expected to lose 30% of their capacity, making their range worse. When you get to 6 years old, you may be faced with having to buy a replacement battery system that costs more than whatthe car is worth. You need to take the cost of battery replacement or rental if keeping an EV long term.

How old was your car (a leaf?) when you bought it? Finding it had to believe you had a new or nearly new one and sold it for more than you bought it for unless you bought a minor write off and fixed it up yourself. Or perhaps you bought a 3 or 4 year old one from an auction on a slow day?

Of course i'm speculating here. I only ever see car value appreciation when you have a ultra exclusive super car that some rich sheikh wants at any price, or a doer-upperer.

People usually care more about costs of running ownership the being green. Right now electric cars are dearer all in to own/run for the new car buyer than the equivalent petrol/diesel model.

While we're burning fossil fuels to generate electricity, electricity is dirty too. While we're mining for the constituents of the batteries in Canada, shipping them over to China for processing/refinement and then shipping them back over to North America/Europe for battery manufacture, they're on a fossil fuelled ride on a ship. Not to mention how environmentally damaging those processes are to create the battery.

EVs aren't that clean, it's just that the exhaust is putting out elsewhere.

If we did all decide that EVs ate great, the government whole slap a huge tariff on electricity to claw back lost fuel duty and VAT. Just look at what happened with car tax - too many vehicles slipping under 100g CO2 per km and now everyone pays a flat £140 after showroom tax (excepting those over £40k RRP who are now hammered).

[Andy Beats]

Andy:

If I were doing 6 miles a day in my car, I wouldn't give a toss what my mpg (or equivalent in electric cost) was. In fact, i'd be biking it to work if the weather wasn't abysmal - far better for the environment.

I'll buy an EV when it's as good as the petroleum propelled variant and costs no more to run/own.

EVs are expensive for what they offer, expensive to buy, expensive to PCP (due to poor residuals - buying new and p/xing or selling 3 years down the line, you can see the GFV of these Eva is under 45% retained if it's not a Tesla), limited range (even if it is getting better all the time) which takes a real kicking in the Winter, and limited useable life of the horrendously expensive batteries. Over 6 years, those batteries are expected to lose 30% of their capacity, making their range worse. When you get to 6 years old, you may be faced with having to buy a replacement battery system that costs more than whatthe car is worth. You need to take the cost of battery replacement or rental if keeping an EV long term.

How old was your car (a leaf?) when you bought it? Finding it had to believe you had a new or nearly new one and sold it for more than you bought it for unless you bought a minor write off and fixed it up yourself. Or perhaps you bought a 3 or 4 year old one from an auction on a slow day?

Of course i'm speculating here. I only ever see car value appreciation when you have a ultra exclusive super car that some rich sheikh wants at any price, or a doer-upperer.

People usually care more about costs of running ownership the being green. Right now electric cars are dearer all in to own/run for the new car buyer than the equivalent petrol/diesel model.

While we're burning fossil fuels to generate electricity, electricity is dirty too. While we're mining for the constituents of the batteries in Canada, shipping them over to China for processing/refinement and then shipping them back over to North America/Europe for battery manufacture, they're on a fossil fuelled ride on a ship. Not to mention how environmentally damaging those processes are to create the battery.

EVs aren't that clean, it's just that the exhaust is putting out elsewhere.

If we did all decide that EVs ate great, the government whole slap a huge tariff on electricity to claw back lost fuel duty and VAT. Just look at what happened with car tax - too many vehicles slipping under 100g CO2 per km and now everyone pays a flat £140 after showroom tax (excepting those over £40k RRP who are now hammered).

Answering some of your questions:

I bought it at two years old, sold it at three years old for the same amount.
As I said, that was in October and prices have risen since then to the point I could have asked £1500 more.
But I was happy with what I was offered at that time and it was freshly serviced and MOT'd, so a good time to sell.

With regard to battery life, batteries are actually lasting a lot better than anticipated.
This is one of the reasons Nissan decided to stop the 'flex' lease option on the batteries and just let owners own them.
The flex option was to cover against battery degradation that just isn't happening, people are reporting well over 100K miles and still full health.

I don't know what you mean by "as good as the petroleum equivalent and costs no more to buy/run"
As good in what respect?
I mean, if you're going to boil it down to something as petty as exhaust noise (some people do) then you're a lost case.
They always accelerate faster than their ICE equivalents - is that not better?
They're quieter, they're smoother, they have far less to go wrong - is that not better?
They produce far less street level Co2 and make cities a nicer place to be in terms of air and noise - is that not better?
Yes they cost more to buy, but many find the greatly reduced running costs makes that a moot point - is that not better?

It's honestly very very rare for people who make the switch to go back, doesn't that tell you all you need to know?
I only switched back because of circumstances and will get an EV again ASAP.
I'm not hating being back in an ICE, but it is a definite step back, 100%

[vc-10]

A friend of my parents worked out that it cost him the same to run his Leaf per mile as it did to run his wife's 307 diesel. That's all in. PCP, fuel, insurance, the works.

The Leaf is his commuter car- he charges at work (free) and at home (on an economy 7 plan, overnight). They have the Pug for long-distance journeys if needed I guess, so not much expensive motorway charging needed. The Leaf was leased brand-new, while the 307 is an older used car with virtually no cost of ownership (although increased cost of maintenance).

There's also the very significant aspect that EVs are new technology, and new technology is always expensive for early adopters. Remember how expensive the iPhone was when it first came out? And now you can buy a perfectly serviceable smartphone for £150. We're now moving towards that. A few years ago a Leaf could reliably only do 70 miles and the only EV with decent range was the Tesla Model S, which is not exactly affordable. Now, in 2019, you can buy a long-range Hyundai Kona EV for £33k. VW are predicting the ID to cost the same as a Golf TDI.

[monkeyhanger]

^ EV ownership is still expensive compared to the alternatives, all in cost. A mate of mine got a Leaf a few years ago as a company car and was amazed at the service cost, considering the service consists of checks and nothing really to replace unless the brakes need doing (which are extra) - £158 for the service. That's about the same as a minor service on a Golf, where they actually do things like change the oil and filter as well as checks.


Given the Polo is the almost the same size as the Golf inside (and only a foot shorter outside, and the Leaf is a little smaller inside than the Golf, even if it's big back end make it seem bigger, compare a Polo GTI+ against a new Leaf Tekna, both at the cheapest available broker prices vs GFV (both cars should get more than that at p/x time, but they are absolute minimums), based on 36 months PCP (no deposit down on either) and cash price lost money. Both have a similar level of equipment, not exactly the same, but substitutions add up to about same net worth.


Leaf 40kW Tekna = £25383 inclusive of incentives and discount taken into account, GFV is £11705 . That's £13678 lost as a cash buy, or PCPing a balance of £25383 over 36 months, it'll cost you about £437 per month.

Polo GTI+ = £20395 >11500 inclusive of discount taken into account, GFV is £11500 . That's £8895 lost as a cash buy, or PCPing a balance of £20395 over 36 months, it'll cost you about £276 per month.

£161pm buys a lot of unleaded petrol.


the 40kW Tekna will cost about £5.60 to charge, based on 14p per kWh domestic tariff, and does a reported 168 miles per charge on the WLTP cycle. Realistically it'll do 100 miles average over the seasons. That's 5.6p a mile.


Charging non-domestically usually costs significantly more (1.5 times to 2 times).

A Gallon of Unleaded is £5.17 (@113p/L).The GTI seems to be averaging 35mpg for the people here, around the doors. That's 14.7p a mile for the GTI+


10000 miles costs the Leaf £560 per year on domestic electricity on an average domestic tariff.
10000 miles costs the Polo £1470 per year at the pumps.

£910 fuel saving to the Leaf per year, £2730 saving over the 36 month term, offset by:-

£4783 depreciation saving to the Polo GTI+ over the 36 month term as a cash buyer
£5796 PCP saving (monthly saving x 36 months) over the 36 month term.


Andybeats says that acceleration is good on EVs, and it is over 0-62, but most of that is in the lower end 0-30, in gear acceleration 30-70 is usually marginally better on the equivalent output petrol or turbo diesel, then the EV really drops off (which is only really a problem if you like driving on unrestricted autobahns.


So the GTI+ is quicker, convenient to fill, equivalently equipped, and will cost the PCPer £85 a month less to stick one on their drive for (or anywhere else - they don't need to be parked on their own property to get refuelled)and provide 30000 miles worth of fuel. Insurance is very reasonable of the GTI+ thanks to standard ACC, Nissan seem to charge almost as much for service "checks" as VW does to get an oil change service done.

Run those same numbers against the Golf GTI PP 245 or GTD and you still end up in the black vs the Tekna.

EV does not add up...yet. They need to get a lot cheaper (i'm sure they will in time).

I don't know what you mean by "as good as the petroleum equivalent and costs no more to buy/run"
As good in what respect?
I mean, if you're going to boil it down to something as petty as exhaust noise (some people do) then you're a lost case.
They always accelerate faster than their ICE equivalents - is that not better?
They're quieter, they're smoother, they have far less to go wrong - is that not better?
They produce far less street level Co2 and make cities a nicer place to be in terms of air and noise - is that not better?
Yes they cost more to buy, but many find the greatly reduced running costs makes that a moot point - is that not better?

Definitely not talking about exhaust noise - Soundaktors can add some internal fakery if that's your thing.
I was meaning EVs having the same level of convenience as a petrol/diesel car in terms of range and ease of charging - and being no more expensive in overall costs.
Are they really quicker overall? Nope. Quicker off the line to 30mph (just) than their same PS/kWh equivalents, then they do tail off. most people find in gear acceleration a more practical measure of performance.
Less to go wrong? Less mechanical components, yes. It's usually not mechanicals that let down modern cars if they're well maintained, it's the electric/electronics, and EVs are full of all that stuff.
Still chucking out CO2, but leave it at the coal fired power station instead.
Cost more in depreciation than the fuel savings.