Car buyers should have 'long, hard think' about diesel

[nilagin]

Shock, horror, latest diesels prove to be no where near as dirty as everyone likes to make out.
https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/cars/1041666/Diesel-cars-UK-buy-emissions-lower-expected

 

[neil_g]

A lot of Dams though are for water storage rather than hydro..

Right. But I don't think hydro works too well without a dam (forgive me I don't know all methods for generating hydroelectric, excluding tidal)

Shock, horror, latest diesels prove to be no where near as dirty as everyone likes to make out.
https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/cars/1041666/Diesel-cars-UK-buy-emissions-lower-expected

Get my euro6 a week Friday. Cleaner than my current 2005 oil burner, you'd think that'd please some..

 

[Byker28i]

Right. But I don't think hydro works too well without a dam (forgive me I don't know all methods for generating hydroelectric, excluding tidal)

Use lakes, pump the water up hill when electricity is cheap (overnight), use it downhill to run the turbines when electricity is more expensive (daytime). Dinorwig, Llanberis, near snowdon is the obvious example.

I think most lakes/dams in the UK are used for water storage rather than power generation (in response to the eco damage claim of dams)

 

[wyx087]

Demand for second hand is on the increase, which keeps EV resale price high (opposite of fast depreciating diesels) but it is still a depreciating asset.

So now you talking about depreciation figures on 2nd hand cars not new cars. I call that changing the goal posts to suit your own argument.

When have I said we are exclusively talking about depreciation for new cars? Look again at the bit you've quoted. "Demand for second hand" car applies to cars of all ages. Don't be age-ist

Not sure what that demonstrates but may highlight that the mileage on a vehicle has a big impact on it's value, as 'most' EV's are town runabouts doing little mileage that may help explain the perceived low depreciation. Out of interest, try putting your Leaf into we buy any car with an inflated mileage (around the 25k per year area) and see if it makes a difference to the value, I'm genuinely interested to know if the Leaf is holding value on the back of supply and demand or if the low mileage (per year) is a factor.

I quoted 29000 actual mileage on my car, I've put on just over 10k in one year. For your amusement, I increased it to 50000 miles for this 4 year old car, WBAC returned £7000. That would mean £2100 depreciation for 31k miles in one year.

I personally think mileage isn't the biggest problem with EV powertrain. It is age and how it's left unused. There are very high mileage Tesla's and Leaf's around all showing minimal battery degradation. But age will slowly degrade the battery no matter how well you treat it. Then there's the low fuel dealership cars, battery doesn't like sitting at either extremes for long period of time. It's best to keep at 50% for long periods. But dealership still use the old method of not putting much fuel into the "tank". So personally, I would have no problem buying a newer high mileage EV, but I'd avoid showroom cars and cars sat in dealership for a while.

We're going around in circles. The current infrastructure delivered to houses isn't capable of everyone charging cars, come home at 6pm, plug it in.

Now there's ways around that, smart charging points that only allow charging when the system can cope, but the demand in an area is measured quite granually, it's not precise. Probably OK whilst we only use 7Kw charge points, but what happens when everyone steps up to 22, 50Kw and more and batteries get bigger to add more range. Then Ev's take off and everyone has two

Interesting conclusion from your assumptions. Why does everyone need to step up to faster than 7kW chargers? The car is sitting there for 12+ hours, what's the hurry?

22kW are only offered to houses that already has 3-phase. The supply current doesn't change from 7kW chargers. So your house can either install 22kW or 7kW, all on existing cable and all are limited to 32amps. Normal 1-phase domestic house has 100amp fuse. For comparison, electric showers are up to 11kW, how come substations doesn't trip in the morning?
7kW seems to be the de-facto speed car manufacturers put into EV's. There are a few cars that accepts 22kW using 3-phase, but not many. 32 amps AC charging seems to be the standard. To get higher speeds you'd need to install your own costly inverter, it just doesn't make any sense what so ever.

Consider this: Take 100kWh car for 300+ miles weekend away and Sunday night arrive home with 0kWh. 7kW charge up using E7 for 7 hours to 49kWh. Monday commute of 100 miles uses 28kWh, end of Monday has 21kWh in the battery. Tuesday morning after E7 charging starts with 70kWh, 100 miles commute come back home with 42kWh. Wednesday morning starts with 91kWh and you are pretty much ready for a long weekend away with almost full battery.

I never said it was ( certainly at present) but pointed to the fact that the infrastructure ( see quote above in case you missed it first time) can't handle the amount of EV's on the road,
in basic terms there are not enough charging points across the country as whole,

Infrastructure can be interpreted to all 3 things, now we've come to the last item

I agree.

Not much to say to be honest. I have successfully avoided using the dire public charging infrastructure completely after first few months to try it out. For driveway car commuters I don't see infrastructure to be a problem in adoption. Vast majority of charging should be done at 7kW destination (aka home) charging, public charging should only be used when driving away from home.

 

[cambsno]

Reading the last few pages, I am staggered how people even think we can stop sales of 'normal' cars in 12 years time!

Ok, tech will increase in that time and maybe batteries and charging will improve considerably but how will electric cars work for the following:

• People who live in flats or the many that are in a house with no driveway (or that cant park next to or in front of the house) - How can they charge at night?
• Fuel stations - if I am low on fuel, I can simply stop and one of the thousands of garages and fill up a whole tank in 5 minutes. What about long journeys?
• Similar to above but in my sales rep days, I would often do 50/60k pa, so some days could see 300+ miles done, would often go to Manchester and back in a day (350 miles?)
• What about homes with 2 or even 3 cars?
• People who tow... tbh, less caravans on the road is a good thing but what about people that tow, can electric cars cope with this?

We would need a huge infrastructure change with loads of parking bays/spaces/car parks all having ability to charge. So I drive to an away match, park up near the ground and plug in, but not just for me, for the other x hundred/thousand doing the same. Remember that for much of the country parking is not always easy!

Electric cars are still well over priced! Renault Zoe is not great and costs £25k.... The whole model is flawed and IF we aim to go down that route, the infrastructure must be there, and we all know it wont be!

 

[FujiLove]

Reading the last few pages, I am staggered how people even think we can stop sales of 'normal' cars in 12 years time!

Ok, tech will increase in that time and maybe batteries and charging will improve considerably but how will electric cars work for the following:

• People who live in flats or the many that are in a house with no driveway (or that cant park next to or in front of the house) - How can they charge at night?
• Fuel stations - if I am low on fuel, I can simply stop and one of the thousands of garages and fill up a whole tank in 5 minutes. What about long journeys?
• Similar to above but in my sales rep days, I would often do 50/60k pa, so some days could see 300+ miles done, would often go to Manchester and back in a day (350 miles?)
• What about homes with 2 or even 3 cars?
• People who tow... tbh, less caravans on the road is a good thing but what about people that tow, can electric cars cope with this?

We would need a huge infrastructure change with loads of parking bays/spaces/car parks all having ability to charge. So I drive to an away match, park up near the ground and plug in, but not just for me, for the other x hundred/thousand doing the same. Remember that for much of the country parking is not always easy!

Electric cars are still well over priced! Renault Zoe is not great and costs £25k.... The whole model is flawed and IF we aim to go down that route, the infrastructure must be there, and we all know it wont be!

I'm staggered how little imagination some people have these days. We are the country that brought the Industrial Revolution to the world for gods sake. You're telling me we don't have the intellect or motivation to install some EV infrastucture? FFS.

 

[Byker28i]

Interesting conclusion from your assumptions. Why does everyone need to step up to faster than 7kW chargers? The car is sitting there for 12+ hours, what's the hurry?

22kW are only offered to houses that already has 3-phase. The supply current doesn't change from 7kW chargers. So your house can either install 22kW or 7kW, all on existing cable and all are limited to 32amps. Normal 1-phase domestic house has 100amp fuse. For comparison, electric showers are up to 11kW, how come substations doesn't trip in the morning?
7kW seems to be the de-facto speed car manufacturers put into EV's. There are a few cars that accepts 22kW using 3-phase, but not many. 32 amps AC charging seems to be the standard. To get higher speeds you'd need to install your own costly inverter, it just doesn't make any sense what so ever.

Consider this: Take 100kWh car for 300+ miles weekend away and Sunday night arrive home with 0kWh. 7kW charge up using E7 for 7 hours to 49kWh. Monday commute of 100 miles uses 28kWh, end of Monday has 21kWh in the battery. Tuesday morning after E7 charging starts with 70kWh, 100 miles commute come back home with 42kWh. Wednesday morning starts with 91kWh and you are pretty much ready for a long weekend away with almost full battery.

Sorry I thought I'd qualified this with the suggestion that a newer breed of EV cars would have a higher capacity battery for longer range hence would need more charging for the time scale and we were talking about future requirements. You can't based planning for 20 years time on just todays limit of 7Kw. Lets not forget the average household power usage that doesn't heat using electricity is 2500Kw a year (or upto 3500Kw in some studies). We're talking doubling that usage to add an EV car, then everyone has two cars....

You're assuming a 7 hour charge is available, yet also talk about smart meters restricting charging to periods of non loading.

Not everyone have electric showers (which are generally 8.5Kw)

The car doesn't sit there for 12 hours - it might be back and forth. it will sit there for 7-8 hours of sleep. Unplug/replug is so boring, we need an invention of drive on/ auto charge

The Ev assumption is we all switch to EV. How does that work where there are 4 adults in my household, all with cars, all making daily journeys, all will want/need to come home and plug in. Do I share 7Kw, have 4 x 7Kw?

The local infrastructure isn't there for everyone to switch to EV, so this has to be thought out, planned with additional infrastructure added

 

[Byker28i]

I'm staggered how little imagination some people have these days. We are the country that brought the Industrial Revolution to the world for gods sake. You're telling me we don't have the intellect or motivation to install some EV infrastucture? FFS.

Cost - it'll be very expensive.
Who pays for it?

 

[nilagin]

When have I said we are exclusively talking about depreciation for new cars? Look again at the bit you've quoted. "Demand for second hand" car applies to cars of all ages. Don't be age-ist

It doesn't matter, Ev's are among the heaviest depreciating cars from day one. Depreciation on all cars slows as they get older.
Growing demand in 2nd hand Ev's will be because they are so cheap having lost so much money initially.

 

[wyx087]

Reading the last few pages, I am staggered how people even think we can stop sales of 'normal' cars in 12 years time!

Ok, tech will increase in that time and maybe batteries and charging will improve considerably but how will electric cars work for the following:

1. People who live in flats or the many that are in a house with no driveway (or that cant park next to or in front of the house) - How can they charge at night?
2. Fuel stations - if I am low on fuel, I can simply stop and one of the thousands of garages and fill up a whole tank in 5 minutes. What about long journeys?
3. Similar to above but in my sales rep days, I would often do 50/60k pa, so some days could see 300+ miles done, would often go to Manchester and back in a day (350 miles?)
4. What about homes with 2 or even 3 cars?
5. People who tow... tbh, less caravans on the road is a good thing but what about people that tow, can electric cars cope with this?

We would need a huge infrastructure change with loads of parking bays/spaces/car parks all having ability to charge. So I drive to an away match, park up near the ground and plug in, but not just for me, for the other x hundred/thousand doing the same. Remember that for much of the country parking is not always easy!

Electric cars are still well over priced! Renault Zoe is not great and costs £25k.... The whole model is flawed and IF we aim to go down that route, the infrastructure must be there, and we all know it wont be!

1. https://www.zap-map.com/london-borough-switches-on-lamp-post-chargers/
2. Rapid charging.
3. One rapid charging stop, or destination charging during the day while you are there
4. 2 cables and 2 chargers? 2 cables and 1 EV charger and 1 domestic plug? Or alternate charging nights
5. Tesla Model X and many PHEV's can tow.

I agree for non-driveway owners, we do need a huge infrastructure change to enable EV adoption. For enabling long distance driving for non-Tesla's, we also need expansion of rapid charging network.

Sorry I thought I'd qualified this with the suggestion that a newer breed of EV cars would have a higher capacity battery for longer range hence would need more charging for the time scale and we were talking about future requirements. You can't based planning for 20 years time on just todays limit of 7Kw. Lets not forget the average household power usage that doesn't heat using electricity is 2500Kw a year (or upto 3500Kw in some studies). We're talking doubling that usage to add an EV car, then everyone has two cars....

You're assuming a 7 hour charge is available, yet also talk about smart meters restricting charging to periods of non loading.

Yes, newer EV are likely to have higher energy capacity. But does that change energy need to do the same commute? I drive 60 miles using 17kWh today, if I buy a 100kWh car, does it mean I'll suddenly need to charge 40kWh to do the same commute? Increasing battery capacity does not equal to increasing in actual usage.

E7 is a simple metric to use. I think in the future, you can choose how much energy you want to put into your car paying how much using smart chargers. You choose to charge for few hours using cheapest rate, or charge all the hours plugged in but slower and paying slightly more, or charge all the hours plugged in at maximum rate ignoring the cost. Future smart chargers will give you more choices than currently fixed hours of E7.

It doesn't matter, Ev's are among the heaviest depreciating cars from day one. Depreciation on all cars slows as they get older.
Growing demand in 2nd hand Ev's will be because they are so cheap having lost so much money initially.

"it doesn't matter" *bury head in the sand and goes back to working on ICE while ignoring marching progress of technology*

Depreciation
noun
a reduction in the value of an asset over time, due in particular to wear and tear.

I buy asset A for X, I sell asset A for Y. Therefore, depreciation cost to me is X-Y. Simple
I buy my Leaf for £9100, I can sell it now for £8000-8500 one year later. Depreciation is £600-1100. You still haven't showed me a similar second hand ICE car costing ~£9000 that depreciates less over 1 year 10k.

 

[nilagin]

"it doesn't matter" *bury head in the sand and goes back to working on ICE while ignoring marching progress of technology*

Depreciation
noun
a reduction in the value of an asset over time, due in particular to wear and tear.

I buy asset A for X, I sell asset A for Y. Therefore, depreciation cost to me is X-Y. Simple
I buy my Leaf for £9100, I can sell it now for £8000-8500 one year later. Depreciation is £600-1100. You still haven't showed me a similar second hand ICE car costing ~£9000 that depreciates less over 1 year 10k.

How old was your car when you bought it and what was it's original price new?

How can I provide you with proof of a car only losing £1k in a year without knowing how old the car is in the first place?
I could give you the example of a 4yr old high mileage car I bought for £2.5k and had for 8yrs and sold for £200.
I had a Focus ST that I bought at 1yr old for £17k I traded it in at 4.5yrs old for £12.5k, had I sold it privately I could have got £13.5k-£14k.
There are 2010 Focus RS's selling for £25k which is more than the trade in value for a 2016 Focus RS.
A 2018 Focus RS Heritage bought new for £39k recently sold 2nd hand for £65k.

 

[FujiLove]

Cost - it'll be very expensive.
Who pays for it?

Like most national infrastructure, we all do through our taxes and via the goods and services we buy from companies.

BUT the cost depends how you measure it. The benefits in terms of better health, technology we can export to the rest of the world, jobs created in the industry etc. may very well outweigh the initial costs. So the net cost may be very little or nothing at all.

 

[bass_junkie83]

I don't see why we cant have a suspended electrified mesh above every road and mount a conducting pylon to the top of each car. That would completely eliminate the need for batteries and charging!

You could even make driving much more fun by adding thick rubber bumpers to the cars extremities and and fit a bats*** mental steering system which suddenly sends the car into revers when put on full lock.

 

[cambsno]

I'm staggered how little imagination some people have these days. We are the country that brought the Industrial Revolution to the world for gods sake. You're telling me we don't have the intellect or motivation to install some EV infrastucture? FFS.

Based on this and previous governments handling of large projects on time and within budget... no!

Its more than just putting more points in.

 

[cambsno]

1. https://www.zap-map.com/london-borough-switches-on-lamp-post-chargers/
2. Rapid charging.
3. One rapid charging stop, or destination charging during the day while you are there
4. 2 cables and 2 chargers? 2 cables and 1 EV charger and 1 domestic plug? Or alternate charging nights
5. Tesla Model X and many PHEV's can tow.

I agree for non-driveway owners, we do need a huge infrastructure change to enable EV adoption. For enabling long distance driving for non-Tesla's, we also need expansion of rapid charging network.

1. That would only work if there was one lamp post per parking space. I cant remember how regular posts are but its not that frequent. So in a row of 20 spaces there may only be 2 or 3 posts!
2. If they can do rapid charging in 5/10 mins then great
3. So that means that large amounts of car parks will need a charging point per space (or 1 between 2 etc...) Lots of places don't have areas you can park.
4. Its more around where the cars will be - we have 1 space on our drive, we park on the road outside which means we couldn't do that without either tripping people up or having a post installed outside on the pavement, which knowing the amount of rules and laws we have could well not be allowed as an obstruction! That also assumes that people don't park in that space, tbh that is not often a problem but for many it can be. Then multiply that by the millions of homes!
5. And how much is a Tesla X???

Not saying it cant work, but it would need a huge change in thinking around parking etc.. and often we do not have the space to be able to do this. It needs to be thought out and designed properly and I doubt that will happen.

 

[wyx087]

How old was your car when you bought it and what was it's original price new?

How can I provide you with proof of a car only losing £1k in a year without knowing how old the car is in the first place.
I could give you the example of a 4yr old high mileage car I bought for £2.5k and had for 8yrs and sold for £200.

3 years old when I bought it. Run of the mill bog standard top trim level (but no add-on) Nissan Leaf Tekna. Not special edition of any kind. Now it is 4 years old.

You'd have to have REALLY special cars to not depreciate or even appreciate in value. I can't see a normal Ford Focus Titanium costing £9000 to be worth more than £8000 one year, 10k later.

In comparison, looking on autotrader, my top spec with loads of add-ons Skoda Octavia 2.0 diesel DSG bought at 3.5 years old for £8800. 1.5 years in my ownership (~5.1 yr old now), 12k added to its odometer, changed timing belt and DSG oil, it's only worth about £6700 from a dealer now (less from private seller like me). That's about £1400 per year depreciation, ignoring recommended maintenance work costs.
(I bought the car knowing I'd need to spend that £670 to do those two work. With the cost of work, it is still the cheapest ACC equipped car with a big boot at the time.)

So over last year, I've driven more miles in EV, yet it costed less in almost every aspect (fuel, depreciation, servicing, insurance was the same). The EV is 1 year newer, drives smoother and more refined. I really don't know what more to say, my experience have told me financially EV makes perfect sense. You can show headlines like "EV depreciate the most", but you got to look in the real world for these new technologies, outside of traditional car industry predictions.

Not saying it cant work, but it would need a huge change in thinking around parking etc.. and often we do not have the space to be able to do this. It needs to be thought out and designed properly and I doubt that will happen.

All valid points being raised, and my reply shows they already have answers for a subset of people. I agree EV is not viable for all people, but the first step is not dismissing EV without thinking about your own situation. It may work very well for you if you are willing to sacrifice a few hours during the once in a year long drive, for example.

It's a changing world, people can't just sticking to old habits.

 

[bass_junkie83]

The cost of charging units surprised me. I was looking through the cost report of a project I am currently involved in which will provide a number of EV charging points, there were options for regular charging points and rapid chargers.

The regular chargers were priced at £2500, which sounded very cheap to me considering this is a public project, not domestic.
However a rapid charger is £45000!

I have actually asked if someone has put a decimal point in the wrong place, but I am yet to hear back.

 

[Gaz J]

I have neither an EV or solar panels. I can't afford a new car, so no chance of buying an EV or diesel until my petrol car drops to pieces. Ditto solar panels. I love the idea of generating my own renewable electricity, but I don't have the money for the capital outlay, and the government no longer provides decent subsidies.

Come and talk to me when you practise what you preach.

 

[FujiLove]

it would need a huge change in thinking

As a country, it seems we are incapable of that. We need a new generation of politicians to inspire and drive radical change.

I doubt that will happen

We would need millions of people voting for a completely different kind of politician and party.

I doubt that will happen

In that case, maybe people will realise the damage they're doing to the environment before it's too late?

I doubt that will happen

 

[FujiLove]

Come and talk to me when you practise what you preach.

Eh? You're suggesting that I have to go into debt and buy a car I can't afford before I'm allowed to opine that it would be good for the environment if other people who are in the market for a new car bought an EV rather than a conventional car?

What an illogical comment!

 

[Nod]

We're still waiting for the invoice for the charger that was installed in June. Chased it twice (and have an e-mail trail to prove it) and have the money waiting.

 

[Byker28i]

Yes, newer EV are likely to have higher energy capacity. But does that change energy need to do the same commute? I drive 60 miles using 17kWh today, if I buy a 100kWh car, does it mean I'll suddenly need to charge 40kWh to do the same commute? Increasing battery capacity does not equal to increasing in actual usage.

so 3.5miles per Kw based on your usage, which is slightly less that the 4 miles per Kw I was working it out on.
The obstacles at the moment to mass takeup of EV to replace our death spewing ICE are range and cost of current models and charging points/infrastructure. No you won't need to change and neither will the charge, in fact I'd hope with battery advances we'd get more miles per Kw, so less charging/cost. You just happen to fit the current capabilities of EV cars.

BUT, when the masses are supposed to take up EV, there's a whole different ballgame of people needing range hence longer charging, more power required, plus lets be honest, noone want to wait 7 hours to recharge a car before it can be used again. Rapid charging takes away that argument. 80% charge in 30 mins?

I'd like it to work. Can see advantages, but there's a lot of obstacles int he way before they become mainstream sucessful atrenatives to ICE.

 

[cambsno]

As a country, it seems we are incapable of that. We need a new generation of politicians to inspire and drive radical change.



We would need millions of people voting for a completely different kind of politician and party.



In that case, maybe people will realise the damage they're doing to the environment before it's too late?

The biggest damage to the environment is people and the massively increasing population. Every person born needs food and many other things, overpopulation will be what kills us.

 

[cambsno]

All valid points being raised, and my reply shows they already have answers for a subset of people. I agree EV is not viable for all people, but the first step is not dismissing EV without thinking about your own situation. It may work very well for you if you are willing to sacrifice a few hours during the once in a year long drive, for example.

It's a changing world, people can't just sticking to old habits.

So if EV is not viable for all, why the goal to stop selling fossil fuel cars in the next 12-20 years? You cant say we want to do that without a viable alternative and for many EV is not viable. EV can work but needs massive infrastructure and policy changes.

Look at the Zoe... basic model good for 70-80 miles!!! The better version costs more but will do up to 249, which in the real world is probably more like 200. Even then you need to cough up 5k for batteries or pay 50 a month. Also, when decent numbers switch from petrol to ev you can bet there will be a huge tax on that.

At the moment the cars (cost) and infrastructure means that EV is not suited to most. Where are the plans to make EV viable (i.e. address the issues I raised above)?

 

[Nod]

Look at the Zoe... basic model good for 70-80 miles!!! The better version costs more but will do up to 249, which in the real world is probably more like 200. Even then you need to cough up 5k for batteries or pay 50 a month.

Similar to the Leaf. For many (including us), 70-80 miles between charges is plenty - most of its use is to and from town and Sainsbury's trips with the occasional 30-40 mile round trip to visit Mrs Nod's Mum. A 200 mile range would be handy but we have other vehicles for longer trips, albeit at a higher cost per mile. The Zoe's battery lease charge is why we have a Leaf instead - we own the battery outright.

 

[wyx087]

The cost of charging units surprised me. I was looking through the cost report of a project I am currently involved in which will provide a number of EV charging points, there were options for regular charging points and rapid chargers.

The regular chargers were priced at £2500, which sounded very cheap to me considering this is a public project, not domestic.
However a rapid charger is £45000!

I have actually asked if someone has put a decimal point in the wrong place, but I am yet to hear back.

Sounds about right. Rapid charger have a LOT more hardware in there, it needs to convert 50kW 3 phase AC to DC. The regular chargers are just relay switches and a simple coms device.

so 3.5miles per Kw based on your usage, which is slightly less that the 4 miles per Kw I was working it out on.

For your information, my average over last 10k miles was 3.94 miles/kWh. You are not far off with 4mi/kWh as average. 3.2mi/kWh would be more like worst case scenario in the Leaf (sub zero, driving on motorway). I'm estimating efficient cars like Model 3 and Ioniq worst case would be 3.5mi/kWh, hence I like to use this figure as worst case figure in my calculations.

So if EV is not viable for all, why the goal to stop selling fossil fuel cars in the next 12-20 years? You cant say we want to do that without a viable alternative and for many EV is not viable. EV can work but needs massive infrastructure and policy changes.

At the moment the cars (cost) and infrastructure means that EV is not suited to most. Where are the plans to make EV viable (i.e. address the issues I raised above)?

Fossil fuel cars won't stop selling in the next 20 years. 2040 will stop selling traditional ICE cars sold today. But hybrids setup like Ampera or I3 REx can still be sold.

The plans to make EV viable is in the works, there had already been the Automated and Electric Vehicles Act 2018. I've previously posted Ofgem's recommendations on mass EV adoption. Whole industries are springing up to install chargers. Exciting times.

 

[FujiLove]

The VW ID range coming out next year looks tasty. VW are claiming 280 miles for the mid-spec, Golf -size version. That should be 200 miles real-world. If it's light enough, it should have Golf GTI performance 0–60mph. That will be a game-changer if it's sold at a mid-spec Golf price.

 

[nilagin]

3 years old when I bought it. Run of the mill bog standard top trim level (but no add-on) Nissan Leaf Tekna. Not special edition of any kind. Now it is 4 years old.

You'd have to have REALLY special cars to not depreciate or even appreciate in value. I can't see a normal Ford Focus Titanium costing £9000 to be worth more than £8000 one year, 10k later.

So in 4yrs your Leaf has lost around £17k. With the then £5k government subsidy, the initial cost would bring the price of your car new down to £20k, just under the cost of a diesel Focus Titanium new in 2014. After negotiating a discount as well as offers at dealerships, that Focus could be had for anywhere from £18k-£19k.
Depending on engine, mileage and number of owners a 2014 Focus Titanium averages at between £8500 and £11500 to buy now (There are some available that are cheaper but likely to be high mileage and not so well kept). So as the cost now of a 2014 Focus and Leaf are near enough the same but the Ford started out cheaper in the first place, the Focus has depreciated less than the Leaf so there is every chance that a 3yr old example sold a year later will only lose £1k.

 

[bass_junkie83]

Sounds about right. Rapid charger have a LOT more hardware in there, it needs to convert 50kW 3 phase AC to DC. The regular chargers are just relay switches and a simple coms device.

Interesting, thanks.

I guess that is why you see such large numbers of tesla chargers pop up at service stations almost over night, I imagine the hard bit only need be done once for a cluster of chargers.

 

[PaulF]

The Hyundai Kona is an interesting vehicle to use to compare costs on EV v ICE as it is available with both types of power train.

Top of the range ICE RRP is £25,445 for the Premium GT, top of the range EV RRP is £36,295 (£32,795 including current customer saving, not sure how long that is applicable for) so at best the EV is £7,350 more to buy and £10,820 without the customer discount. Charger is not included.

That's quite a difference for similar spec cars. The EV is slightly quicker to 60 by half a second but has a top speed of 104 mph.

 

[Nod]

Sounds about right. Rapid charger have a LOT more hardware in there, it needs to convert 50kW 3 phase AC to DC. The regular chargers are just relay switches and a simple coms device.

In theory, a 3 phase AC to DC converter is simply 3 single phase converters wired in parallel so shouldn't be as much more expensive as they appear to be. Even if it's a bit more complicated than the simplest solution, I can't see it being 18 times as expensive as a single phase converter. As demand increases, the costs should drop accordingly.

 

[Byker28i]

For your information, my average over last 10k miles was 3.94 miles/kWh. You are not far off with 4mi/kWh as average. 3.2mi/kWh would be more like worst case scenario in the Leaf (sub zero, driving on motorway). I'm estimating efficient cars like Model 3 and Ioniq worst case would be 3.5mi/kWh, hence I like to use this figure as worst case figure in my calculations..

Cool Good stuff - I've been using 4 miles based on my usage - lights, motorway commute etc that I got when I tried a leaf for a week. Nice to get real world long term figures to plug into the calcs.

 

[Byker28i]

The VW ID range coming out next year looks tasty. VW are claiming 280 miles for the mid-spec, Golf -size version. That should be 200 miles real-world. If it's light enough, it should have Golf GTI performance 0–60mph. That will be a game-changer if it's sold at a mid-spec Golf price.

I think generally it works out about the price of the battery pack extra so add about £6k onto the price of the ICE equivilant? But thats the right sort of car to start appealing to the masses. Start with the second car users with a car that can also be sued as a primary?

 

[wyx087]

In theory, a 3 phase AC to DC converter is simply 3 single phase converters wired in parallel so shouldn't be as much more expensive as they appear to be. Even if it's a bit more complicated than the simplest solution, I can't see it being 18 times as expensive as a single phase converter. As demand increases, the costs should drop accordingly.

The regular 7kW AC "chargers" don't have any inverter in there. Just a few relay switches and a comms to the car to tell it how fast to charge. The inverter itself is in the car, 7kW normally. (or 6.6kW in Leaf as an optional upgrade). Hence the massive price difference, you are going from a few switches on a simple PCB to fully fledged charger that does all the hard work, DC power fed directly into the battery.

So in 4yrs your Leaf has lost around £17k. With the then £5k government subsidy, the initial cost would bring the price of your car new down to £20k, just under the cost of a diesel Focus Titanium new in 2014. After negotiating a discount as well as offers at dealerships, that Focus could be had for anywhere from £18k-£19k.
Depending on engine, mileage and number of owners a 2014 Focus Titanium averages at between £8500 and £11500 to buy now (There are some available that are cheaper but likely to be high mileage and not so well kept). So as the cost now of a 2014 Focus and Leaf are near enough the same but the Ford started out cheaper in the first place, the Focus has depreciated less than the Leaf so there is every chance that a 3yr old example sold a year later will only lose £1k.

In your direct comparison, you have negotiate price on the Focus but forgot to use negotiate price on the Leaf.

The Hyundai Kona is an interesting vehicle to use to compare costs on EV v ICE as it is available with both types of power train.

Top of the range ICE RRP is £25,445 for the Premium GT, top of the range EV RRP is £36,295 (£32,795 including current customer saving, not sure how long that is applicable for) so at best the EV is £7,350 more to buy and £10,820 without the customer discount. Charger is not included.

That's quite a difference for similar spec cars. The EV is slightly quicker to 60 by half a second but has a top speed of 104 mph.

Good research. Not a lot more expensive in the grand scheme of things. If you consider savings on not having to buy fossil fuel and savings from cheaper servicing costs, it's not too expensive at all.

I was actually considering a single brand new i3 REx instead of Leaf + Octavia. But wife vetoed this idea due to i3's complicated rear door and only 2 rear seats. The only reason I can afford to go from a 10 year old high mileage car to brand new or running two cars is by putting a lot of my commute miles on electric. Thanks to my purchase of Leaf, I can also afford to have 2 cars in the family, wife can drive wherever she likes.
Average cost of owning and running 56reg Mercedes C220 coupe ~18k annual miles: £470 per month
Average cost over last year of owning and running 8k miles on Skoda Octavia and 10k on Leaf: £580 per month (including £670 to do timing belt, DSG oil and 6 new tyres for the 2 cars, I expect this average to decrease over next 2 years as timing belt cost averages out)

 

[nilagin]

In your direct comparison, you have negotiate price on the Focus but forgot to use negotiate price on the Leaf.

Yes and? It was also the price for the most expensive engine / gearbox combination. If I had made it the cheapest, it would have been another £1k or more cheaper. That would only have made the depreciation on a Leaf, look even worse.
I was being lenient and cutting you some slack.

 

[nilagin]

The regular 7kW AC "chargers" don't have any inverter in there. Just a few relay switches and a comms to the car to tell it how fast to charge. The inverter itself is in the car, 7kW normally. (or 6.6kW in Leaf as an optional upgrade). Hence the massive price difference, you are going from a few switches on a simple PCB to fully fledged charger that does all the hard work, DC power fed directly into the battery.


In your direct comparison, you have negotiate price on the Focus but forgot to use negotiate price on the Leaf.


Good research. Not a lot more expensive in the grand scheme of things. If you consider savings on not having to buy fossil fuel and savings from cheaper servicing costs, it's not too expensive at all.

It is going to take a few years of ownership to get to the break even point.

 

[PaulF]

It is going to take a few years of ownership to get to the break even point.

This were the annual mileage comes in, if you only do sub 10k then the current affordable EV's will be capable but will take a long time to negate the additional original cost of the vehicle.
In theory, the higher mileage drivers 20k plus should see a quicker break even point provided the affordable EV can handle the range required.
The Kona claims 300 miles for the more expensive version, so would take around 4-5 years to break even if the charging was absolutely free, which obviously it won't be.

For real world cost example, I know how much my fuel has cost for any given year as it is provided to me by the tax man as I have a fuel card through work. So i put an average of about £3k in my car per year for fuel to do an average of 26k miles, you'd need to factor in that my fuel card is only valid for one of the more expensive garages, no supermarket prices here!

Whether the Kona would be suitable for me and my work is another matter. But a Tesla would be well out of my car allowance price range

 

[cambsno]

The VW ID range coming out next year looks tasty. VW are claiming 280 miles for the mid-spec, Golf -size version. That should be 200 miles real-world. If it's light enough, it should have Golf GTI performance 0–60mph. That will be a game-changer if it's sold at a mid-spec Golf price.

Based on previous, it will probably be a petrol golf with a plug on the side and an eco badge

 

[cambsno]

Like most national infrastructure, we all do through our taxes and via the goods and services we buy from companies.

BUT the cost depends how you measure it. The benefits in terms of better health, technology we can export to the rest of the world, jobs created in the industry etc. may very well outweigh the initial costs. So the net cost may be very little or nothing at all.

You see, based on that why are we not giving more subsidies now? If it accelerates use of EV and will create the skills, knowledge, jobs etc... as well as health then go the whole hog - use subsidy to ensure that the EV model is no more than say 5%-10% of the normal model, or even the same cost. Sometimes I think we tend to faff about in the middle of things when we should take the bull by the horns and go for it!

 

[wyx087]

You see, based on that why are we not giving more subsidies now? If it accelerates use of EV and will create the skills, knowledge, jobs etc... as well as health then go the whole hog - use subsidy to ensure that the EV model is no more than say 5%-10% of the normal model, or even the same cost. Sometimes I think we tend to faff about in the middle of things when we should take the bull by the horns and go for it!

Indeed, look at the success Norway have managed with their EV adoption. All they did was knock off the VAT for EV's. We could do similar by reducing VAT down to 5%, the lower rate for solar panels. Faffing about with grants can only give incentive to charge more (case in point: OLEV grant for home chargers)

This were the annual mileage comes in, if you only do sub 10k then the current affordable EV's will be capable but will take a long time to negate the additional original cost of the vehicle.

I think this is why EV works for me. My commute is on the comfortable limit of the Leaf 24kWh, so I am able to reduce my daily fuel cost from £6 down to £2 every commute while the car depreciation cost is minimal.

If I have bought a more expensive bigger battery EV (eg Kona at RRP), I wouldn't have been able to save as much. I need to be driving over 200 miles every day to offset the more expensive vehicle. This is why I think rapid charging infrastructure improvement is more important to EV adoption than EV itself. First generation EV like the 24kWh Leaf is already good enough for most commutes, 40kWh in all affordable EV's today is enough for most people daily use plus occasional leisure long trips. People don't need to buy bigger and bigger battery on the off chance they may want to drive long distances, just rapid charge when you take a break.

Only the few percentage of people who do drive long distance on a regular basis would need bigger battery, or a Range Extended EV. REx EV is the perfect solution going forward, to ease people into EV powertrain while not so reliant on currently dire infrastructure for long distance driving.