Electric cars - to buy or not to buy?

Currently, my priorities and those of my children and grandchildren are based on finance. E.g. DG1 who can’t buy a house near her work (second home owners) needs a car to get to work to cut down her travel time (nearly 2hrs each way on public transport or 25minutes in a car). She simply can’t afford an electric car.
DC and spouses, supporting children at school and Uni who need cars to get to work can’t afford to replace their current cars with electric.
I need a car to get to work, and we would look at a hybrid if we were replacing. EV are still out of our reach.
I’m not sure if the demographic embracing electric cars and solar panels is based on age as Wwm2 describes, as much as on finance. Across the road from me, the great-granddad has solar panels and two cars; both big and one electric. The young people next door have a van and a car, both FF.
Parents dropping children off where I teach have a mixture of FF, EV and HV or none. Working on the basis that they’re between twenties to forties, is it fair to say some of them are just uncaring about the environment?

I think a lot of people lease, as we do Mollygo. Here in France the government is encouraging the leasing of smaller electric cars with a grant of 8,000k euros and 95€ a month lease.
As I said up thread ours is a medium sized Peugeot at 320€ a month including tyres and servicing.
I don't think that people who drive petrol cars are uncaring about the environment; it is not for everyone at this stage.
What I do object to is the constant churning out of myths and falsehoods about EVs originating from vested interests and passed on by the lazy thinking and lack of research of some of the media.

I changed my car last year and after much searching decided an electric car is not for me. The cost was not a deciding factor as I can easily afford one but the fact that several have caught fire when charging or just parked up. Also that these fires are very ferocious and extremely difficult to extinguish. Add that to the fact that one car couldn't be stopped for several miles when it malfunctioned and although going slowly could have easily crashed into another vehicle when going straight through red lights. Also some don't make any noise so pose a danger to pedestrians. Lack of charging points and the rising price of electricity was also a factor.
I chose another second hand Kia as my last car made 12 years old with only £1,500 spent on repairs in all those years (not counting tyres, and servicing) It's reliable, warm and comfortable and run on petrol so I can re-fuel at many places. Yes it could catch fire but hopefully won't burn the house down when parked on a driveway like another electric car I've read about in the press.
I'm convinced these electric cars are unsafe atm and need to be re-assessed and updated a lot before I will consider getting one.

Lithium is now being harvested by trawling the Pacific creating massive damage to the seabed. Suppose if it's out of sight its okay! Lego has analysed the process of using recycled lego items to make new bricks. Surprise, they found more CO2 was created than when producing bricks from new. Don't think we know the half of it when it comes to electric vehicles.

I’m driving one at the minute feels lighter driving this than my normal vw. But so easy to drive son sorted it for me and they do say it’s the future?

Unfortunately Mamie it's not quite as simple as that. For example lithium mining in Salar de Atacama consumes 65% of the regions water. Wherever there are mining operations there is always a trade off on the environmental impact on the region and, consequently, the earth in general. We all pay for our actions in the end. If you're interested there is a very interesting paper from the journal Nature - see here

www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1682-5

Regardless of what we do there is always an environmental impact. I'm not advocating we do nothing but we sometimes don't know the consequences of our actions until much further down the line.

stewaris

Unfortunately Mamie it's not quite as simple as that. For example lithium mining in Salar de Atacama consumes 65% of the regions water. Wherever there are mining operations there is always a trade off on the environmental impact on the region and, consequently, the earth in general. We all pay for our actions in the end. If you're interested there is a very interesting paper from the journal Nature - see here

www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1682-5

Regardless of what we do there is always an environmental impact. I'm not advocating we do nothing but we sometimes don't know the consequences of our actions until much further down the line.

What we do know is that there is development ongoing into solid state batteries. We know that EU countries have signed up to ethical production standards. We know that the production of oil consumes minerals throughout the lifetime of a car rather than just in production. Above all, we know that emissions from petrol and diesel cars damage the health of our children and grandchildren.
As I said before, it depends on your priorities.

Your article is from 2019 stewaris. Did you read the recent Guardian article on page 1 of the thread?

The verdict:
The data we have leaves little doubt that resource extraction will be significantly lower for electric cars compared with their petrol or diesel equivalents as recycling increases.

Whatever the opposition half truths say governments around the world are mandating EVs within a few years, whatever vehicle we use we produce pollution, EVs produce less and as we generate more renewable power, a lot less.

EVs break down so do petrol and diesel cars, they run out of fuel and components fail, they sometimes catch fire too but the rate of EVs catching fire is only 10% of others. The Luton fire was immediately blamed on an EV by the media, it was in reality a diesel Range Rover.

So get used to EVs they are here to stay, as for Hydrogen that’s decades away and probably only for heavy transport and shipping. We have the technology but not the Green Hydrogen fuel, generating enough green electricity to provide hydrogen fuel is a long way off.

I did read the Guardian data from the front page Mamie. However, if you google the satellite pictures from space the destruction you can see the lithium settling ponds. They also mention the mining that is/will be going on in Africa. That includes the destruction of rain forest. There has been much written about the destruction of the Amazon rain forest and the loss of it as a carbon sink. The same is likely to happen in Africa. Short term gain isn't always the best way forward although we do have to be less wasteful in all aspects of our lives.

See below from rainforest rescue.

www.rainforest-rescue.org/petitions/1182/electric-vehicles-are-stealth-rainforest-killers

So do you disagree with the conclusion of the Guardian article stewaris? Or are you saying that it is better to carry on polluting the planet with the mineral consumption and emissions of ICE vehicles until a perfect solution is found?

I think the bottom line for most people would be the cost, it would make me wonder how small a well heeled demographic one mixes with to not factor that in. It's not just here but across Europe many are finding green iniatives are simply unable affordable. My neighbour has a top of the range Mercedes (EV) he told us right from the start this is a company car, I couldn't afford to buy it and when they go up north to visit one of their children at university it's a onerous mission due to charging. The house we bought has an electric charging point on our drive, previous owner, again from what I gather had an ev company car.

I think we should try to do our best within our individual financial restraints.

sazz1

I changed my car last year and after much searching decided an electric car is not for me. The cost was not a deciding factor as I can easily afford one but the fact that several have caught fire when charging or just parked up. Also that these fires are very ferocious and extremely difficult to extinguish. Add that to the fact that one car couldn't be stopped for several miles when it malfunctioned and although going slowly could have easily crashed into another vehicle when going straight through red lights. Also some don't make any noise so pose a danger to pedestrians. Lack of charging points and the rising price of electricity was also a factor.
I chose another second hand Kia as my last car made 12 years old with only £1,500 spent on repairs in all those years (not counting tyres, and servicing) It's reliable, warm and comfortable and run on petrol so I can re-fuel at many places. Yes it could catch fire but hopefully won't burn the house down when parked on a driveway like another electric car I've read about in the press.
I'm convinced these electric cars are unsafe atm and need to be re-assessed and updated a lot before I will consider getting one.

Sazz1: have you any evidence that evs catch fire when they are charging or parked? I have heard of electric scooters catching fire when charging but never cars. It's false claims like these that make people worry. Please don't make scaremongering claims.
Also, should have mentioned that we charge ours mainly at home using solar energy. It's free from our solar panels.

TerriBull

I think the bottom line for most people would be the cost, it would make me wonder how small a well heeled demographic one mixes with to not factor that in. It's not just here but across Europe many are finding green iniatives are simply unable affordable. My neighbour has a top of the range Mercedes (EV) he told us right from the start this is a company car, I couldn't afford to buy it and when they go up north to visit one of their children at university it's a onerous mission due to charging. The house we bought has an electric charging point on our drive, previous owner, again from what I gather had an ev company car.

I realise that we are lucky in France, but did you see my information about people being able to receive an 8000€ grant and a leasing cost of 95€ a month? Surely this is what all countries should be doing.

Despite the gloom and doom about battery life experience is showing that it is unjustified, many cars are 7 yrs old with 100,000 miles with very little loss in capacity. All batteries including Tesla are removable and can be repaired if individual cells fail, but the failure rate is very low.

EVs are currently more expensive the equivalent petrol is about £10k less, £5k less if it’s a hybrid but hybrids are only about 10% more efficient than petrol. I have a Yaris hybrid it just goes, no worries about breakdowns in 2 yrs, other brands may have reliability issues but Toyota is rock solid they have been making hybrids for 15yrs.

Yes I agree Mamie that seems a good deal. Maybe where France leads others will follow. There is too much complacency as to the affordability of green iniatives, cars, heat pumps. As usual an out of touch elite who appear to think the already struggling public can magic up a money tree when the time comes to replace.

EVs are too expensive and I don't have a private drive so can't plug one in. My petrol Volvo is going fine and only has 80,000 miles on the clock. A friend ran his up to 200,000 and he met someone at a filling station whose Volvo was pushing 300,000.

TerriBull

Yes I agree Mamie that seems a good deal. Maybe where France leads others will follow. There is too much complacency as to the affordability of green iniatives, cars, heat pumps. As usual an out of touch elite who appear to think the already struggling public can magic up a money tree when the time comes to replace.

It also helps the French car industry, of course. There are a lot of intiatives here to support charging as well. We had a grant towards our car and towards the home charger. All big new charging stations have to have shelter with solar panels on top. When my daughter came they had no problem finding superfast chargers en route. There is still work to do on destination chargers, but the road network is excellent.

We always seem to be told one thing, then little by little the extra truth comes out. What can you do but accept you are trying your best and not deliberately trying to make matters worse. We bought a diesel because we believed the early facts that were given out. Now very cross but drive less as we have time to use public transport but don’t get me started down that route, 30 minutes waiting in the freezing cold last night then missed my connection and not possible to travel on another train so had to purchase another ticket and yes I did allow plenty of time for transfers. It was the earlier train being held up that caused the extra delay. As I said don’t get me started on public transport!

Mamie I think there needs to be an impact study on the extraction of natural resources, whatever they may be, and a decision made on the best way forward. The rain forests across the world have been severely cut back to allow for non sustainable palm oil plantations and the loss of these forests will increase with the need for lithium for batteries. The planet needs to be looked at holistically. Banning the extraction of fossil fuels will not magically eradicate the problems we currently have. Instead we will end up making one fix at the expense of another future problem. Whether we like it or not we need the rain forests across the world to help capture the atmospheric pollutants. If we destroy the rain forests they will take a very long time to regenerate and reach the maturity of what we are cutting down.

stewaris

Mamie I think there needs to be an impact study on the extraction of natural resources, whatever they may be, and a decision made on the best way forward. The rain forests across the world have been severely cut back to allow for non sustainable palm oil plantations and the loss of these forests will increase with the need for lithium for batteries. The planet needs to be looked at holistically. Banning the extraction of fossil fuels will not magically eradicate the problems we currently have. Instead we will end up making one fix at the expense of another future problem. Whether we like it or not we need the rain forests across the world to help capture the atmospheric pollutants. If we destroy the rain forests they will take a very long time to regenerate and reach the maturity of what we are cutting down.

Palm oil plantations are no different to growing Maize for Bio Gas, Rapeseed for Biodiesel or Wheat for Ethanol, it’s all using land that could be used for environmental gain.

We really are no better than the countries we criticize.

Mamie which is exactly my point and the solution is much more complex than simply moving from fossil fuel to EV. The wider context and impact needs to be considered and, so far, from what I've read there is not a lot of joined up thinking.

One of the biggest take ups for EV in the UK is by company car fleets. DH said the company he worked for is considering investing in EV.
The company used to sell on the 3-4 year old cars when they replaced them with new ones.
His last car had 138,000 miles on the clock. What impact would that have on the battery life of an EV. The replacement cost is so much higher.