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

Thank you Mamie, will do.

I think most EV drivers would say that range anxiety is overcome pretty quickly (and I have travel anxiety). If you have a charging point at home you just plug in overnight. For long journeys you use an app in advance, or you head to one of the charging points shown automatically on the navigation screen in your car as you drive.

Everywhere in this part of the country (south/south east) has charging points now.

The other problems with electric cars is that they are very heavy and do more damage to the roads than ordinary cars, they do not have the pulling power to tow a caravan, if you have one, nor are they good load carriers.

The batteries also have a finite life, possible as few as 8 years and certainly under 20 and replacement is expensive. This means that those who buy at the old end of the car market, of which we are classic examples, are going to find that just when electric cars are old enough and cheap enough for us to buy, we will have to crank into our budgets the real danger of needing to fork out an extra £5-10,000 to replace the battery.

More than I have ever paid for a car.

Have you read this MOnica?
www.theguardian.com/business/2024/feb/26/electric-cars-air-pollution-problem-brakes-tyres
Do you know about regenerative braking, because it is important here?
As the article says big SUVs are an increasing problem.
Battery technology is improving all the time, but yes, if you buy an elderly EV you will have to be aware of the implications.

AreWeThereYet

^I wouldn’t feel safe driving round the M25 in an all electric vehicle, all you need is a traffic jam (which are frequent) and you could run out of battery.^

Which battery do you mean? When we're stationary we turn the car off. It uses nothing when we're sitting in traffic whether at lights or in a jam. When the car is moving very slowly the 12v battery is recharging, so car seat heating etc can be used. If you were stuck for hours and hours without moving I suppose it may become a problem, I don't know, but that doesn't happen often.

LOL, don’t worry about the M25 traffic is usually so slow it’s the most economical road in the UK and there are lots of charging points along it.. Yes you could run out of battery but believe, or not some do run out of petrol too

Seriously you do need to plan you journey if you need to charge enroute there are apps that enable you to do that easily. The latest EVs have a range of 250+ miles we do that about 3 times a year the rest we charge at home, just plug in as you need.
On off peak power it cost around £5 for a full charge, there no benefit if you can’t charge at home because public chargers will cost as much as petrol.

EVs are the future get used to it

Sorry should have added this one.
www.theguardian.com/business/2024/mar/25/are-electric-cars-too-heavy-for-british-roads-bridges-and-car-parks

I watched a documentary of EV's vs petrol/diesel powered cars. It was fantastic for short journeys but horrific for long journeys as the people testing the theory could not find enough charging points at service stations etc as people were queueing to use them or they were out of service. It said that the journey took him much longer to get back to where he had started from. They said it was not that it took longer to get back home that was the problem it was the queing, and the stress of hoping they had enough charge left to get to the next service station. I think you have the right idea, an EV for short journeys and a petrol/diesel vehicle for long journeys until they get it right.

I have a small EV and a home charger. We just use it for short journeys and city driving my son had a Kia EV which has a range of some 300 miles. He’s done several journeys to the south of France in it.

The problem is, Mamie, in this house hold we rarely buy cars less than 10 years old. We seem thm as disposables, run into the ground then scrapped.

We could afford more expensive cars if we wanted to, but cannot be bothered, we have other spending priorities. However many people cannot afford to spend huge amounts on cars and they are the ones that can least afford to replace a battery, if needed.

I am not opposed to electric cars, but they are not the answer to our transport prayers.it is a lot more complicated.

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!

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.

Batteries are expensive but all are guaranteed for 100, 000 miles and plenty are lasting much longer, find a petrol car that guarantees its engine for that long. Replacing an engine is far more expensive an ordinary petrol engine costs £10,000 to replace, many diesels double that

Our 18y old little Peugeot has never needed a new engine. 😊

We have a hybrid and find the petrol usage very low especially on long journeys. It is a joy to drive and we are not worried about running out of charge.

Something else to consider.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impacts_of_lithium-ion_batteries#:~:text=the%20lithium%20production.-,Disposal,disposal%20of%20lithium%2Dion%20batteries

Car batteries are recycled and mostly re-purposed Urm. Solar is one use.
MOnika we lease our car for the equivalent of about £250 a month. No service bills, tyres replaced and repairs covered. It costs us about 20€ a month in electricity.
What I find amazing is that there is a long thread without talking about the quality of air our grandchildren breathe. That was the main reason we chose electric.

I personally don’t like them as can’t hear them.. and they always seem to have bright headlights on 🤫

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!

But we have responded. At length and with personal experience and up-to-date information.
It doesn't seem to matter how much we post, people still quote outdated "evidence" from dubious sources, propaganda from the fossil fuel industries and stories from a friend of a friend.
Some of the stuff posted was true a few years ago, but is not now. Battery technology is constantly evolving.
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.

karmalady

If you ran out of charge on a quiet lane, you could not ask a passing motorist to bring a gallon of petrol to get you to the nearest garage

I never ran out of petrol/diesel when I drove one, and will not run out or charge in our ev because we plan our journeys. Have had a lovely little BMW I3S for just over a year, and would never go back to an ice (internal combustion engine) car.
On longer journeys we use the Sat nav, which will always come up with a warning message well in advance if there is not enough range to complete your journey. It will give a list of all the places with fast charging that you could use. In the year that we have owned it, there has been a huge increase in the number of chargers put in around the country and we do a fair bit of travelling. Apart from very remote areas eg Highlands of Scotland, where I assume there aren't too many petrol stations either, there are chargers in supermarket carparks and many other public areas.
We are happy that we are not polluting the environment and hopefully the air will be cleaner in the coming years for our grandchildren and future generations.
By the way, we bought a used car, low mileage and couldn't be happier with it.

That's lovely that you're happy with your electric cars. Of course propaganda goes both ways. Cognitive dissonance has a great effect too. If you've invested a lot of money in an electric car you're bound to have to find that it's terrific. I have met several previous owners who have given up on theirs. They were a bit sheepish.

Interesting Aveline.

I guess that is why people with current experience of EVs are reluctant to post Aveline. No we are not suffering from cognitive dissonance. We have a lease car, which is extremely economic to run and a joy to drive. Our daughter has hers for business and personal use and is also very happy with it.
Even if there were disadvantages (which we have yet to experience) we would still consider it worthwhile for the end result of improving the air our grandchildren breathe.
I fully understand that people are unable to afford new cars and hope that the UK government gets round to providing the support we have here.
But please don't insult people who have made reasoned choices and are prepared to share their experiences.

I'm not insulting EV owners just giving another side to the discussion.

Aveline

I'm not insulting EV owners just giving another side to the discussion.

...That people who have them and like them are suffering from cognitive dissonance?
Hmm...
This is interesting though.
www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/apr/23/electric-and-hybrid-car-sales-to-rise-to-new-global-record-in-2024#:~:text=The%20Paris%2Dbased%20forecaster%20said,by%202030%20as%20prices%20drop