Why are people buying electric cars?

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srichards said:
Cars take people door to door exactly when and where they want to go. No public transport does this. It's inferior as an option. Always has been. So far all governments have done is to make all transport worse. You could make all buses free but I'd still use the car as it's much better. My local area has no electric buses as far as I can tell. Just ancient Plaxton diesels spewing out fumes. A couple have been so bad I've reported them. Air quality is far more important to improve. A lot of the main bus routes have poor air quality. Local council was on about banning diesels in peak time off some roads but didn't think all the dirty old buses chugging up and down the hill might be contributing.
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and we've been sold modern conveniences such as more cars per driveway just to speed up our lives. But agree on the public transport especially here in the UK when trains cost more to travel the length of the country than to fly from on airport at one end, to a different country and then back to an airport at the other end of the country

gman said:
Certainly in my local areas the buses are not good at all. They do seem to be rolling out electric ones which is good to see, but there is still the problem of them either being too full or completely empty, often late, several all bunched up together then none for ages and of course often there are very unsavoury passengers on them.

Buses here also don't pull into the stops properly and leave their arse sticking out, preventing everyone else from getting past and ultimately causing a lot of congestion. Most people I know cite safety as the main concern with using buses. Trains aren't so bad, but the network (especially the underground) is poor.

I do wonder for city and suburbs if we would be better to have a much wider network of smaller mini bus type vehicles (EV of course) rather than a small restrictive network of large buses? I suppose additional driver costs could make it more expensive, but a wider variety of routes creating a closer door to door service might be enough to encourage more people out of cars.
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that seems to come down to lack of planning ability to match demand with supply. Lack of planning ability isn't just restricted to transport, but roadworks, housing. Its all very short-termism
 
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jamesev said:
Its all very short-termism
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Minimal attention span is the curse that goes along with our chaotic political system.

One cause is that politicians hold a completely unfounded belief that they know better than civil servants what needs to be done and how it needs to be done. This has even resulted in foisting "experts" on both local and national services. Too many of these experts are good in their restricted fields but lack the depth and reach of the civil servants, who have dealt with the issues at different levels for many years.

The result is that stupid ideas go forward, sensible ideas are sidelined and too much of what does get done is so confused that it would often have been better not to do it at all. :headbang:
 
jamesev said:
it would be interesting to know, of all those that say that EVs don't suit them, have ever actually tried one for any reasonable amount of time. Most of those that say they are better than ICE have driven both so can give actual individual comparisons rather than generalisations from the anti-EV crew
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Working last few years in the motor trade I drove a great many hybrid and full electric cars, first in 2008, I prefer manual gearboxes and have said many times no marque produces a replacement for my Honda S2000, and finally they just leave cold. Oh and I hate all the bings and bongs they emit, to help the driver but loud enough that I hear my next door neighbours car reversing down his drive whilst in my house.
 
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mj4456 said:
Working last few years in the motor trade I drove a great many hybrid and full electric cars, first in 2008, I prefer manual gearboxes and have said many times no marque produces a replacement for my Honda S2000, and finally they just leave cold. Oh and I hate all the bings and bongs they emit, to help the driver but loud enough that I hear my next door neighbours car reversing down his drive whilst in my house.
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Blame the gubmint for that, all cars will be nannies soon.
 
Unfortunately, manufacturers (don't forget that AC caused the 70 limit on motorways when they road tested a Cobra at 185 on the M1...) and road users themselves (how many here have speeding tickets?) have shown that a certain amount of nannying is needed!
 
Almost too true to be funny!!!
 
An MG5 has driven 212000 miles in 4 years and has just had it's original brake discs replaced, the pads still had 4-5 mm left on them.
Battery state of health is 82%
-from the MG forum.

212,000 ÷ 4 years is seven times greater than the annual average mileage (7,400) so equivalent to 28 years driving EV for average Joe.
This is why driving EV makes sense.
 
Steep said:
An MG5 has driven 212000 miles in 4 years and has just had it's original brake discs replaced, the pads still had 4-5 mm left on them.
Battery state of health is 82%
-from the MG forum.

212,000 ÷ 4 years is seven times greater than the annual average mileage (7,400) so equivalent to 28 years driving EV for average Joe.
This is why driving EV makes sense.
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Taxi or Cleevely Mobile?! I know Cleevely's MG5 got to about 140k then they sold it. I wonder if it's that one? Brakes are so little used they just rot rather than wear.
 
srichards said:
Taxi or Cleevely Mobile?! I know Cleevely's MG5 got to about 140k then they sold it. I wonder if it's that one? Brakes are so little used they just rot rather than wear.
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Not Cleevely afaik. The poster on MG forum bought the car new in 2022 and drives anywhere between London and Manchester area, average 1000 miles a week.
 
AndrewFlannigan said:
But that still doesn't address the key point: why should 94% of drivers pay the government far more to use the roads than the 6% who can avoid that payment?
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Why should cyclists not have to pay to use roads or cycle paths?

Why should those with a 1l low tax car pay far more than someone driving a 5l 20 year old car
 
jamesev said:
Going to be even cheaper with Burnhams 0% VAT electricity change
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Quick fix: put the road tax on electric cars and small vans up to £1,200 a year to recover the lost fuel duty.
 
  • Haha
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fantastic move from burnham suddenly leccy is going to be 5% cheaper
not much but its pushing ICE into the ditch at the roadside.
 
Mr Perceptive said:
The way its charged will also affect the battery state of health - lots of fast charging will degrade the battery more. Its also been found that battery health degradation slows down over time, ie it potentially uses more battery health in the first few years.
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i think this is still in older cars though as well to be far new tech is even better now and newer tech that CATL are coming out with in China has pretty much now killed the myth off.
 
As Martin Lewis says, Burnham removes vat on Electricity (4.8%), in a few months the price cap changes, prices will go up by ~3.5% followed 6 months later by another rise of possibly 2%

So while it sounds great, it's not very much and will not reduce your bills for long.
 
Steep said:
As Martin Lewis says, Burnham removes vat on Electricity (4.8%), in a few months the price cap changes, prices will go up by ~3.5% followed 6 months later by another rise of possibly 2%

So while it sounds great, it's not very much and will not reduce your bills for long.
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But the price cap was still going to happen so you still don’t pay the 5% on the new cap level. The whole down 5% up 3.5% is a bit of a red herring.
 
jamesev said:
But the vehicle duty is based on emissions so EV will alway be lower. That’s the whole point, to incentivise the change
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I think it's all about trying to get people to buy electric cars by appealing to their greed, which may come down to the same thing in the end.

Interestingly, it's not succeeding anything like as well as the interested parties thought it would. in 2023, David Icke pointed out that things weren't going well with the electric car project...
davidicke.com

Carmageddon: the Electric Car Fiasco

If the Conservatives are hoping to get re-elected next year they may have to rethink their policy of banning the sale of new petrol- or diesel-powered cars by 2030. Electric cars are proving to be an unmitigated disaster. Indeed, scarcely a day passes without a story appearing in the Telegraph...
davidicke.com davidicke.com
...then in 2024, Michael Barone echoed Icke's analysis in America...
www.creators.com

The Electric Car Fiasco, by Michael Barone

Donald Trump's anodyne if overexcited comment that the U. S.
www.creators.com
...to be followed by a number of the very publications you might expect to be well on board with the "the great experiment" asking why it was circling the drain. As for example, that bastion of the market, The Telegraph...

So, in my opinion, all it's succeeded in doing is annoying all the owner/drivers of petrol or diesel cars and wasted tax payers money on a typical tory vanity project.
 
jamesev said:
But the price cap was still going to happen so you still don’t pay the 5% on the new cap level. The whole down 5% up 3.5% is a bit of a red herring.
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Ok I'll explain it the way Lewis did, average Joe will save about £25 in the six months before the price goes back up over the 5% tax reduction. Yes you'll still be paying 5% less but you won't notice it.

For Burnham it's an easy win, he takes money that was going to be spent on ID cards and uses it to defray the cost to the treasury of the tax cut. No extra loss to the government with a little pleaser for the public. Public hears the words 'tax cut' and thinks yay! But few bother to work out just how little actual money stays in their pockets.
 
Steep said:
Ok I'll explain it the way Lewis did, average Joe will save about £25 in the six months before the price goes back up over the 5% tax reduction. Yes you'll still be paying 5% less but you won't notice it.
.
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so without the loss of 5% VAT they wouldn’t notice the 3.5% increase. A sort of hypnotism…?
 
Steep said:
As Martin Lewis says, Burnham removes vat on Electricity (4.8%), in a few months the price cap changes, prices will go up by ~3.5% followed 6 months later by another rise of possibly 2%

So while it sounds great, it's not very much and will not reduce your bills for long.
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But it has made the little blue man feel smug again. ;)
 
Something I noticed about the ID.7 is that the charging port is on the driver's side, which seems like a poor design choice when catering for those who have to charge on the street. There seems to be quite a few EV's that are similar.
 
gman said:
Something I noticed about the ID.7 is that the charging port is on the driver's side, which seems like a poor design choice when catering for those who have to charge on the street. There seems to be quite a few EV's that are similar.
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My guess ; either laziness or cost avoidance. The charging port is kerbside on a left hand drive ID.7, the cost & effort of retooling to move it for RHD is probably not worth it?
 
gman said:
...which seems like a poor design choice when catering for those who have to charge on the street.
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It seems, according to a report I heard on the radio, that local authorities and companies are removing on street charging systems or refusing to allow them, for a variety of reasons.

This comes a year or so after an announcement, that there were going to be many more such charging points made available. Sounds like yet another example of that well known syndrome of SNAFU (look it up - the moderators might not appreciate my using the full name).
 
Sorry, I should have been more clear and said those who charge on the street from their own homes, as in cables across the pavement (either on or above).
 
gman said:
Sorry, I should have been more clear and said those who charge on the street from their own homes, as in cables across the pavement (either on or above).
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If you are dragging a cable across the pavement it is a trip hazard whichever side of the car the charging port is.
 
gman said:
Something I noticed about the ID.7 is that the charging port is on the driver's side, which seems like a poor design choice when catering for those who have to charge on the street. There seems to be quite a few EV's that are similar.
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This is pain on Tesla chargers as they have short tethered cables, so the only way to charge a car with the port on the RHS (at the back) is to park in the adjacent bay. This means that often someone charging car like this takes out two charger positions making it impossible to use the other charger.
 
Mr Perceptive said:
This is pain on Tesla chargers as they have short tethered cables, so the only way to charge a car with the port on the RHS (at the back) is to park in the adjacent bay. This means that often someone charging car like this takes out two charger positions making it impossible to use the other charger.
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True but then Tesla chargers were designed specifically for Tesla cars, all of them have the socket in the same place. One of the few things they got right I think.
 
Steep said:
True but then Tesla chargers were designed specifically for Tesla cars, all of them have the socket in the same place. One of the few things they got right I think.
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Yes but now they have opened up quite a lot of the network (all the non-motorway chargers), it can be really annoying not being able to access a available charger (its not happened to me, but did the the car arriving after me)
 
Eucris said:
If you are dragging a cable across the pavement it is a trip hazard whichever side of the car the charging port is.
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Indeed, so avoiding fuel duty by charging your car from your household supply becomes impossible for those without a drive or equivalent off road parking.

Just another example of...

The rain it raineth every day
Upon the just and unjust fella
But more upon the just
Because the unjust has the just's umbrella​
 
Clive K said:
Filling caps are generally on the same side whether lhd or rhd.
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Cars are generally designed for LHD only and the conversion to RHS bodged badly by the factory. My BMW X1 has the compartment in the central console opening for the passenger, not the driver. :rolleyes:
 
Eucris said:
If you are dragging a cable across the pavement it is a trip hazard whichever side of the car the charging port is.
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I know, but people are still doing it. However, have a closer read of my post you quoted.
 
Mr Perceptive said:
Yes but now they have opened up quite a lot of the network
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One of the stupidest things Tesla did. I believe it's caused chaos withing their servicing side, loads of damaged cables because people are lazy and would rather yank on a cable than park properly.
 
Steep said:
One of the stupidest things Tesla did. I believe it's caused chaos withing their servicing side, loads of damaged cables because people are lazy and would rather yank on a cable than park properly.
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They are surprisingly tight, once I parked in the end space, let plenty of room to the adjacent car, and then found the cable didn't reach, I then had to re-park closer to the adjacent car, making it harder for him to enter/exit his vehicle!!!
 
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