Have any of you got all electric cars? Pros and cons please.

*woods not words

What I am noticing, (from the map that Mamie suggested), is that in my neck of the words the EV charging points are situated at holiday parks and hotels. So can I use them or do I have to be staying as a guest? I've seen several holiday properties with them, even saw a car plugged in yesterday probably after its Saturday journey down here, so I assume their fee is included in the rental? I'm not really asking, just thinking aloud!

Maybe where you live in Scotland has lots of charging points Grammaretto but they certainly don't have them near us.

I'm sorry that I can't afford an electric car and like others, my petrol car costs me very little now that I have paid off the loan.

I would prefer to drive a nice clean non polluting car and several of my friends have gone electric and love their purchases. No complaints.

Maybe Scotland is a bit ahead of the rest of the UK in having lots of charging points.

I only wish there were as many public toilets as there are charging points.
Sorry, wrong thread! 🤣

My husband had one until September of last year. He had it on PCP(?) on a three year contract. This ran out just at the same time as his work contract ended, thankfully, as it's taken until now for him to find a new job.

He had a Kia e-Niro, and it was a lovely car. We have a home charger, and we have solar panels and batteries, so it was very cheap to run.

We only once had a battery near-death experience, when I think we got down to 3%. We had to stop at a motorway service station and charge there.

That was the only downside for me - the waiting time to get the car charged to a reasonable amount. Unless you can find a fast charger, it's a slow process.

Now that he's got a new job, he's looking into another contract EV. He glares at me when I say "what have you got to show for the £40,000 you spent on the EV over those years?". He can only cite that it was cheaper than petrol and servicing costs.

I'll stick to my 10 year old petrol car, that I will own outright when the finance is paid off in two years' time.

NotSpaghetti

Robun - you say Toyota has refused to make them...
If so, why and how are they selling them? www.toyota.co.uk/electrification

Toyota foresaw hydrogen infrastructure expanding, it hasn’t and won’t quickly, everyone else has backed EV and the infrastructure for charging is expanding fast. Probably it won’t prove to be a disadvantage because the cars built in China are undercutting other brands.

Green Hydrogen is produced from non fossil electricity and needs a large infrastructure to cool and compress the gas to liquify it for transport use. You can imagine how much electricity needs to be generated to power a container ship or an aircraft using hydrogen.

The other way hydrogen was going to be used was in the gas grid, there are a lot of problems to be overcome to do that, there is currently a trial town using hydrogen to determine if it is practical, or wether all electric would be more economic for domestic use.

There needs to be a quantum leap in electricity generation to produce green hydrogen on the scale needed, part renewable, part nuclear, it could be done in 25 yrs, more likely it will be 50plus so we are going to need oil and gas for a long time.

Robun - you say Toyota has refused to make them...
If so, why and how are they selling them? www.toyota.co.uk/electrification

Visgir1

Robin202.. You posted..I wouldn’t choose to have one and some car manufacturers are rolling back on investment and development. Toyota has refused to make EVs due to complications and being unpopular with consumers.
Car manufacturers are looking at developing Hydrogen fuelled vehicles.

My son visited as part of his job visited the Toyota factory in the Midlands.. They took him on a test drive of a Hydrogen car.. It can do 1000 miles on it's full Hydrogen tanks.
They have converted a car that's already on the market, now working on smaller versions.
1000 miles impressive, the guy he spoke to at Toyota said EV will hang around for town use and low mileage runs, but they are investing resources into Hydrogen.
Personally I'm still sticking to petrol for a while.

Toyota got wrong footed on hydrogen they have had a car available for 5 yrs but it doesn’t sell, this year they relented and introduced the first of a range of 6 EVs, the BY4Z. They have however been at the forefront of Hybrid cars and I have a Yaris lovely little car.

Robin202.. You posted..I wouldn’t choose to have one and some car manufacturers are rolling back on investment and development. Toyota has refused to make EVs due to complications and being unpopular with consumers.
Car manufacturers are looking at developing Hydrogen fuelled vehicles.

My son visited as part of his job visited the Toyota factory in the Midlands.. They took him on a test drive of a Hydrogen car.. It can do 1000 miles on it's full Hydrogen tanks.
They have converted a car that's already on the market, now working on smaller versions.
1000 miles impressive, the guy he spoke to at Toyota said EV will hang around for town use and low mileage runs, but they are investing resources into Hydrogen.
Personally I'm still sticking to petrol for a while.

granfromafar

Of course, they might be driving hydrogen-powered cars by then!

In 50 yrs maybe, maybe next century, heavy vehicles will change to hydrogen first, Ships, Trains, Aircraft and Trucks where a limited number of refueling stations will be needed. We have the technology now, the real challenge is to make enough “green” hydrogen, that’s a long way off.

We live far away from services, drive long distances, and prefer petrol cars for the safety and security of knowing we can buy petrol.

I also like my car, it was costly 17 years ago, really has not been driven far, and it's fun to drive (let horses run). It will see me out.

Of course, they might be driving hydrogen-powered cars by then!

Farzanah

Thanks granfromafar. I looked up the stats and you are absolutely right. It appears to be something of an urban myth.

You're welcome.
If you look back to when petrol cars were first introduced, 100 or so years ago, people were naturally sceptical because they didn't know enough about them. The same with any new technology, it takes a while to be accepted. In 50 years or so, when, I assume the majority of vehicles on the roads will be all electric, our grandchildren/great-grandchildren will look back in amazement and say 'people actually drove those things, causing all that pollution'.

Katie59

Urmstongran

Trying to keep this near the top in the hope of some responses.
I’m amazed there are no EV owners on this group.

I’m not. They are prohibitively expensive and a replacement battery costs upwards of £4k I believe. We certainly couldn’t afford one and not one of our family, friends or neighbours has one.

Perhaps we are all just in a different financial bracket to many on here!

There are lots with EVs posting including myself, currently Teslas are very competitively priced as are some Chinese brands -BYD and MG, EVs probably are heavier on average but don’t believe scare stories, passenger cars don’t damage roads it’s the heavy trucks that do that, roads have to be built for the trucks not cars.

Depends on your definition of 'competitively priced' . I have never spent more than £6,000 on a car and I expect to get 10 years use from a car and for the engine to do at least 150,000 miles with out any major problem.

How do 'competitively priced' Teslas, or any other electric cars compare with that?

Sorry, Norway not in EU. Oops.
What I mean is, if every country in Europe could come to an agreement over this one very important issue we could take great leaps forward. in terms of preventing air pollution for our grandchildren.

That's the thing that irritates me about the EU. France does it this way, Norway that way, Germany another way.

Thanks granfromafar. I looked up the stats and you are absolutely right. It appears to be something of an urban myth.

Sago

Trying to keep this near the top in the hope of some responses.
I’m amazed there are no EV owners on this group.

We visited our son in Oslo late last year and the EV’s are everywhere, they don’t pay any VAT on the purchase of an EV and the infrastructure is fantastic, chargers are in abundance.

Even though we live in a City there are few charging points.

We have 4 in our Booths car park near our holiday let in Ripon, they are hardly ever occupied!

We have only ever had 1 guest with an EV, they drove up from Bristol and needed confirmation that there were definitely charging points nearby.

Norway has the highest number of EV's on the planet as well as the highest number of charging points! They have bought into the EV big time and promote and subsidise them heavily. They also have access to very cheap electricity. I would like an EV, but price and living in rural Wales really does not encourage me, I would be too nervous about running out of power. :-/

Farzanah, yes you are worrying unnecessarily. A recent report from an American insurance company, stated that in a recent survey, 25 out of 100,000 evs caught fire, as compared with 1530 petrol or diesel cars out of 100,000 caught fire. Other studies around the world have shown similar statistics. I will try and post a link.

I have an elderly diesel Volvo which will need to be changed soon, and have considered an EV, but I have read recently (Guardian consumer) about problems with repairs of EV at dealerships as they do not have the expertise or equipment to deal with them. I wouldn’t be able to buy from new so am concerned about this, also the fact that the battery will have lost some power when bought second hand. There is also the safety aspect of the battery vulnerable to catching fire. Am I worrying unnecessarily?

Like Mamie, I did not appreciate being labelled as having cognitive dissonance, but thanks for making me look it up. I have learnt a new term, but doubt that I'll ever use it!

My neighbour has one and lack of charging points is a big issue plus the low range on a long journey and recharging at motorway service stations can take 30mins or more. Should you need to replace the battery, the cost would be anything from £3k - £15k - average cost is around £7k.
Everything drains the battery, reducing the mileage scope - so heating, heated seats, aircon. Heaven forbid you get stuck in a snowdrift!
The mining of Cobalt, used for EV lithium batteries is often mined using child labour.

There have been incidents of both EV cars and buses catching fire and difficulty extinguishing them - you’ve probably seen these on the news - I’ve certainly seen a few videos on social media of EVs catching fire.

Another neighbour had one and got rid of it. Personally, I wouldn’t choose to have one and some car manufacturers are rolling back on investment and development. Toyota has refused to make EVs due to complications and being unpopular with consumers.
Car manufacturers are looking at developing Hydrogen fuelled vehicles.

Hope that helps!

Joseann

^Prices are coming down all the time and certainly here in France there is a lot of financial and practical support for people making the change^. Is that because in France you have all the necessary infrastructure in place due to your investment in nuclear Mamie?

Partly, I guess but Macron has been very keen to develop the network and encourage change to electric with grants. Motorway aires are getting large covered charging areas with solar panels. The initial rural infrastructure was built around cars like the Renault Zoë, but has been updated to faster chargers. Debit cards are replacing the need for separate charging cards. It is all pretty easy these days.
In answer to the second question you need to look at ZapMap or ABRP (A Better Route Planner) and check what is available. DD does the Cornwall run from Kent and charges on the A303 and to maximum at Exeter services. Cornwall has needed a bit more research but no major problems.
For France Chargemap is the best. She drives from Kent to Normandy via the tunnel with one stop of 20 minutes.

This is from the same article Petra.

The timing of the adoption of electric cars in Europe is heavily influenced by the regulations, as carmakers try to eke out profits from their petrol and diesel models while avoiding fines for failing to sell enough electric cars.

Schmidt said he expected UK electric sales in 2024 to remain equal to or slightly higher than Germany, which has a bigger population. Schmidt said German sales were suffering due to subsidy cuts, and because manufacturers are deliberately holding back sales until 2025, when tougher rules on average CO2 emissions come in.

“That delay will give Chinese manufacturers a small window to manipulate, because from 2025 the traditional manufacturers will really begin their electric vehicle push in earnest,” Schmidt said.

We have had ours for 2 1/2 years. We initially leased it from the maker we have now bought it off them. We like it so much. It has a 340 mile range in summer and about 280 miles in winter when it is cold.
We have travelled to Shetland and southern Ireland with it and not had problems with public chargers. Having a home charger means we rarely have to use public chargers. The cars are much cheaper to run and to service.
For some reason there seems to be a lot of scare stories around electric vehicles at the moment and I don’t really understand why.