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

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MatBin said:
320d, no paddles. Tried a Mondeo with paddles, felt gimmicky and I want an easy life. Recalls have all been done.
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F30? Those 190bhp 2 litre engines are an excellent combination of power, fuel economy and low emissions. I had the 330d XDrive and I could hit 60mpg on a 50/60mph motorway yet still had bags of power on standby.
 
gman said:
F30? Those 190bhp 2 litre engines are an excellent combination of power, fuel economy and low emissions. I had the 330d XDrive and I could hit 60mpg on a 50/60mph motorway yet still had bags of power on standby.
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That's the one.
 
nilagin said:
107 Councils have no plans to expand on their charging points due to budget cuts.
https://www.theguardian.com/environ...-adding-charging-points-for-electric-vehicles
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Go on, quote the actual figures rather than the biased headline:
Of the 301 councils that responded to the FoI requests, 107 said they had no plan to increase the number of charging points, 122 had a plan in place to increase the number, and 62 said they were taking steps to increase the number without having a formal plan to do so.
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The honest headline should be: A third of the councils responded to Freedom of Information request have said they are unable to increase number of charging points due to budget cuts.
Or: Over 40% of councils responded to Freedom of Information request have said they already have plans in place to increase number of charging points.

Swings and roundabouts, it's all about how the editor spins it to generate news.
 
wuyanxu said:
Go on, quote the actual figures rather than the biased headline:


The honest headline should be: A third of the councils responded to Freedom of Information request have said they are unable to increase number of charging points due to budget cuts.
Or: Over 40% of councils responded to Freedom of Information request have said they already have plans in place to increase number of charging points.

Swings and roundabouts, it's all about how the editor spins it to generate news.
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Or perhaps for those people actually thinking of buying an EV, they can base that decision on how much of a charging infrastructure will be available to them if they don't have their own charger. We all know you have your own but some don't and can't.
 
nilagin said:
Or perhaps for those people actually thinking of buying an EV, they can base that decision on how much of a charging infrastructure will be available to them if they don't have their own charger. We all know you have your own but some don't and can't.
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Exactly. That's why we need informative, unbiased headlines like my second headline. Where inside the article, it goes on to say how many public overnight chargers are available to those who cannot have driveway chargers.
Not an useless article that just says "107 Councils have no plans to expand on their charging points due to budget cuts". For all we know, many of those 107 councils could have done a study and found charging points has low utilisation rate, thus currently not a priority for them to expand.

But could also be possible council just don't understand EV's. This one using public fund to install (very expensive) rapid chargers in the council car park. Park in those bays and close the gates to public during out of office hours. The utilisation rate of those chargers are sure very low, because the council are using it as parking spaces! They are likely to have ran out of budget for any public chargers, you can put up 5-10 destination chargers for cost of every rapid charger.
https://www.speakev.com/threads/biggest-waste-of-governmet-funding.135768/


In other news, Tesla have unveiled Model Y. A 7 seat SUV with 330+ miles of range and 1800 litre seats down boot space. 160 miles recharged in 15min.
https://www.tesla.com/en_GB/modely
Finally, a car with bigger boot than my Octavia. More range than similar sized IPace achieved with smaller battery and faster charging. Bigger internally than IPace but externally length/width similar to Model 3. High efficiency, big interior space, Tesla is still way ahead of others just on EV basics.
 
I see that the Pious is the most likely car to be crashed these days.
 
wuyanxu said:
In other news, Tesla have unveiled Model Y. A 7 seat SUV with 330+ miles of range and 1800 litre seats down boot space. 160 miles recharged in 15min.
https://www.tesla.com/en_GB/modely
Finally, a car with bigger boot than my Octavia. More range than similar sized IPace achieved with smaller battery and faster charging. Bigger internally than IPace but externally length/width similar to Model 3. High efficiency, big interior space, Tesla is still way ahead of others just on EV basics.
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230 mile range on the basic. Odd that you omitted that little fact. ;)
 
Nod said:
I see that the Pious is the most likely car to be crashed these days.
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Dependent on year, most likely to be jacked up in broad daylight and have It's cat nicked too.
 
However attractive Tesla vehicles may appear to be, the biggest issue I have with Tesla is lack of dealerships where I can go and see the vehicles and more importantly the complete absence of any service centres within 100 miles of where I live.
 
broc said:
However attractive Tesla vehicles may appear to be, the biggest issue I have with Tesla is lack of dealerships where I can go and see the vehicles and more importantly the complete absence of any service centres within 100 miles of where I live.
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Just 11 service centres in the UK, most of which are in or around London and one of which is closed at the moment due to the recent fire. As you say, not exactly a very convenient service infrastructure.
At least with ice powered cars any VAT registered garage can service your car, I wonder how many garages have mechanics trained to work on EV's.
 
nilagin said:
Just 11 service centres in the UK, most of which are in or around London and one of which is closed at the moment due to the recent fire. As you say, not exactly a very convenient service infrastructure.
At least with ice powered cars any VAT registered garage can service your car, I wonder how many garages have mechanics trained to work on EV's.
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I doubt many independent garages have trained EV technicians; I wonder what the situation is with breakdown services such as the AA and RAC?
 
broc said:
I wonder what the situation is with breakdown services such as the AA and RAC?
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Probably worse than the standard practice of sending just a van out when you have told them the car requires putting on a flatbed.
I can just imagine it, you phone up, they send out a mechanic, an hour later he turns up, says he's not qualified to touch it, he rings control and requests a qualified electrician/technician, he turns up an hour later, takes a quick look, says he can't fix it and phones control for a flatbed to transport you to a dealer. Flatbed, if you are really lucky turns up an hour later and takes your car off to a Tesla service centre which could be over 100 miles away.
 
I do recall seeing something about the AA introducing some new towing system which allows any of their vans to tow AWD/4X4 cars. I think it was some sort of dolly which could go under each wheel.
 
nilagin said:
230 mile range on the basic. Odd that you omitted that little fact. ;)
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On release, the "Long Range" will be the base model, with the "Standard Range" coming along in 2021.

The AA/RAC situation is similar to how it's always been - send technician to have a look and fix if very simple but call a flatbed if necessary. They don't have many flatbeds available so there's bound to be a wait. Then the driver's hours will be up... Don't Teslas have a self diagnosis feature?
 
Nod said:
On release, the "Long Range" will be the base model, with the "Standard Range" coming along in 2021.
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By the time they start building rhd versions it probably will be 2021.
 
There's quite a few Tesla stores near where I am (North London), I feel like every other shopping centre I visit (get dragged to) have one. Not sure how many will remain though, as they are closing half of them.
https://www.tesla.com/en_GB/findus#...01,-1.2864812000000256,d?search=store,service,

The first Sunday of this month in Brent Cross, I was pleasantly surprised to see they have a Model 3 on display. I've already gone to Park Royal store (next door to the Nissan dealership I bought my Leaf) to see Model 3 the first week Tesla officially showed it off in UK.


I believe you can specifically ask for flatbed in case of running out of charge.

Nissan EV servicing includes breakdown cover, which I've seen UK Leaf drivers use on youtube. They send a flatbed directly, and I believe they will take you to the nearest rapid charger or your destination if closer.


Leaf manual does say you can tow it with front wheel on their tow thingy and rear wheel on the ground. So doesn't really need a flat bed.

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Just think how many EVs Ford could have sold had they not been stuck in the 20th century!
 
Nod said:
Just think how many EVs Ford could have sold had they not been stuck in the 20th century!
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Probably a lot less than it did sell. There is currently little infrastructure to cope with "millions" of EV's and this is where we have the "chicken and egg" situation. I am sure more people would buy EV's if they could charge them readily and easily. Just looking round my own village, it would be difficult to charge a EV car outside a terraced house. The railway station doesn't have an EV charging point. The General Hospital has about 6 EV points and the last time I was there all were in use.
 
munch said:
Probably a lot less than it did sell. There is currently little infrastructure to cope with "millions" of EV's and this is where we have the "chicken and egg" situation. I am sure more people would buy EV's if they could charge them readily and easily. Just looking round my own village, it would be difficult to charge a EV car outside a terraced house. The railway station doesn't have an EV charging point. The General Hospital has about 6 EV points and the last time I was there all were in use.
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I could charge at home but not anywhere else round here, and many people I know would not be able to charge at home.
 
Nod said:
Just think how many EVs Ford could have sold had they not been stuck in the 20th century!
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Not many, hence why they removed them from sale. Not much point in offering cars for sale that make a loss.
Tesla sold around 300 Model X and Model S combined in Europe last month. Ford sold 600 Mustangs, so obviously doing well with supplying vehicles that people want to buy.
 
nilagin said:
Not many, hence why they removed them from sale. Not much point in offering cars for sale that make a loss.
Tesla sold around 300 Model X and Model S combined in Europe last month. Ford sold 600 Mustangs, so obviously doing well with supplying vehicles that people want to buy.
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Totally comparable? Mustang starts from £36,325. Model S starts £75k. Using your logic, you could say there's no demand for McLaren when compared against Ford Focus.

Meanwhile. just in Norway alone, 1700+ Model 3 was sold in one month. Pretty much all of which are £45k+ high performance or long range versions.
https://cleantechnica.com/2019/03/1...wegian-record-for-most-ev-sales-in-one-month/

On the other hand, the best non-Tesla EV manufacturer has seen a drop in EV production. Despite order books bursting with people willing to wait 1 year for their cars, Kona production numbers have dropped. So it's not just Tesla who have production issues.
https://insideevs.com/hyundai-reduce-kona-electric-production/
 
munch said:
Probably a lot less than it did sell. There is currently little infrastructure to cope with "millions" of EV's and this is where we have the "chicken and egg" situation. I am sure more people would buy EV's if they could charge them readily and easily. Just looking round my own village, it would be difficult to charge a EV car outside a terraced house. The railway station doesn't have an EV charging point. The General Hospital has about 6 EV points and the last time I was there all were in use.
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But had Ford (and the other major manufacturers) been fully behind EVs rather than dipping their toes in to test the waters, they would have helped expand the infrastructure needed for charging EVs.

As I've said before, they're not suitable for everyone - they do take longer to "fill" than ICE vehicles and many have relatively limited range but if more is done to promote their use, infrastructure will improve (it already is but slowly), battery and charger technology will improve (it is and quite rapidly) and city air quality will improve.
 
Nod said:
But had Ford (and the other major manufacturers) been fully behind EVs rather than dipping their toes in to test the waters, they would have helped expand the infrastructure needed for charging EVs.

As I've said before, they're not suitable for everyone - they do take longer to "fill" than ICE vehicles and many have relatively limited range but if more is done to promote their use, infrastructure will improve (it already is but slowly), battery and charger technology will improve (it is and quite rapidly) and city air quality will improve.
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It needs infrastructure first though. No point in buying a camera that takes a new type of card if that card is not or barely available.
 
Like the XQD or whatever it's called?

Vicious circle - not good infrastructure, poor take up of EVs so little incentive to buy/produce. The infrastructure is improving and will continue to do so so hopefully more manufacturers will extract their digits from their fundaments and build more affordable city EVs as well as investing in improving the infrastructure.
 
wuyanxu said:
Totally comparable? Mustang starts from £36,325. Model S starts £75k. Using your logic, you could say there's no demand for McLaren when compared against Ford Focus.
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Hang on a minute, earlier in the thread you kept telling us that the higher price of EV's is offset by not having to pay for the cost of petrol or diesel.
Majority of Mustang sales will be for the V8 GT model which starts at over £42k. That is going to be very costly on fuel. Use the Mustang regularly and you would surpass the cost of a base Model S within 2yrs. So using your logic, it is perfectly comparable.

Incidentally, Tesla have been told to stop advertising fake prices on their cars. Seems they have been using your logic and quoting prices much lower than the actual list price by taking off the "amount of money " saved by not having to buy petrol or diesel.
 
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Nod said:
But had Ford (and the other major manufacturers) been fully behind EVs rather than dipping their toes in to test the waters, they would have helped expand the infrastructure needed for charging EVs.
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But they have been doing far more than dipping their toes in the water, they have been selling EV's for years in markets that actually make it worthwhile because customer interest is big enough.
Ford along with other car manufacturers have been investing into the charging infrastructure throughout Europe for the last couple of years or so. As that infrastructure grows and becomes more reliable, interest in EV's will grow to a point that will make it worthwhile selling the cars, in the meantime, Ford will be continuing to invest in the recharging infrastructure and developing their EV's to sell in other markets to the ones they already sell in.
 
And screw the UK?
 
broc said:
If you look at this link you will see why Norway is a hotbed of EV ownership. EV purchase avoids initial purchase taxes & VAT. Electric cars don't incur road tolls, get free car parking and can use bus lanes in cities too.

According to the article as a result, an E-Golf is £2500 cheaper than a 1.2L Golf.

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2018/jul/02/norway-electric-cars-subsidies-fossil-fuel
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If we had the same approach EV use would be much higher here. Make EV cars a realistic alternative for the consumer and we will buy
 
What's the EV market/demand like in America? I'm wondering how this may influence certain manufactures who are bigger over there compared to those who are not big over there but big here such as the Bavarian hordes?
 
At this point in time I can do 500 miles on a tank of fuel. I can refuel and pay in about 10 minutes. Until we can do that with electric cars then we haven’t reached the point that they can replace what we have. Maybe electric isn’t the answer.
 
gman said:
What's the EV market/demand like in America? I'm wondering how this may influence certain manufactures who are bigger over there compared to those who are not big over there but big here such as the Bavarian hordes?
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Large enough that Ford have been selling electric cars, cabs and vans there for years.
 
wave01 said:
At this point in time I can do 500 miles on a tank of fuel. I can refuel and pay in about 10 minutes. Until we can do that with electric cars then we haven’t reached the point that they can replace what we have. Maybe electric isn’t the answer.
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How often do you need to do 500 miles in one hit? "Refuelling" the EV takes about a minute and a half - get lead out of boot, plug in both ends, leave to do its stuff, unplug and replace cable in boot. No dirty fuel hose/nozzle to deal with. Can do the recharge for free at Sainsbury's while shopping - makes the "fuel" cost to get there and back a discount on the shopping.

I agree that for some users, EVs aren't the answer but for a lot of users, they are, especially as town vehicles. (As I've said before, we have 2 ICE cars as well as the EV and I have a few motorcycles as well - one of which has a tank range of about 100 miles [if ridden gently].)
 
nilagin said:
Hang on a minute, earlier in the thread you kept telling us that the higher price of EV's is offset by not having to pay for the cost of petrol or diesel.
Majority of Mustang sales will be for the V8 GT model which starts at over £42k. That is going to be very costly on fuel. Use the Mustang regularly and you would surpass the cost of a base Model S within 2yrs. So using your logic, it is perfectly comparable.

Incidentally, Tesla have been told to stop advertising fake prices on their cars. Seems they have been using your logic and quoting prices much lower than the actual list price by taking off the "amount of money " saved by not having to buy petrol or diesel.
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So in your mind, comparable means gas-guzzler Vs expensive car?
By that logic, I guess BMW 7 series PHEV is also comparable to a Mustang, if you only drive the PHEV in electric mode.
Let's get back to your original illogical assertion: therefore, BMW 7 series PHEV sold a lot less than Mustang, so BMW isn't "obviously doing well with supplying vehicles that people want to buy". What's the point of selling 7 series PHEV then? The sales number is the only important thing, according to you.

The reason Tesla had to advertise price taking off fuel savings as well as list price is because people are short sighted. They've always got the list price on their car builder, just the fuel saving price is in larger font. People are short sighted because people don't take into account of running costs. If you have done the sums on ACTUAL running cost, a slightly more expensive EV such as Kona EV vs Kona petrol, will be cheaper to run.

Notice I've never said £75k Tesla Model S is comparable to a £40k car. EV are currently only slightly more expensive than their ICE counterparts, and the finance figures already make sense if people do running cost sums, combining car depreciation, fuel cost, servicing costs and road tax.

nilagin said:
Ford along with other car manufacturers have been investing into the charging infrastructure throughout Europe for the last couple of years or so. .
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Where are Ford invested chargers? I only see Tesla and Nissan/Renault logo on chargers at motorway service stations. Nissan/Renault initially funded the Ecotricity Electric Highway network across Britain, back in 2011-2013.

nilagin said:
The UK is still in Europe at the moment so investment in charging infrastructure includes the UK.
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IONITY has Ford logo on it, but there are currently zero working chargers in UK.
https://ionity.eu/en/about.html

Any other form of investment in infrastructure from Ford, that you keep going on about? Put some credible source into your words.
 
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wave01 said:
At this point in time I can do 500 miles on a tank of fuel. I can refuel and pay in about 10 minutes. Until we can do that with electric cars then we haven’t reached the point that they can replace what we have. Maybe electric isn’t the answer.
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Are you sure you can do 500 miles in vast majority of cars? My Skoda can only do comfortably do 450 miles, considering I need to keep ~30 miles in case I can't buy diesel at my usual petrol station. Similarly, my parent's Volvo S40 petrol can only do 300 miles and a bit on a tank, having to refuel here everytime they visit me 150 miles from their home. My Mercedes C220 diesel I had previously had a larger tank, can do over 500 miles, but that costs over £65 to refuel.

Whereas refuelling a Tesla Model 3 long-range which has over 300 miles range, recharging while the car is parked costs less than £6 (8p/kWh). In a pinch, you can also use Tesla superchargers to gain 160 miles in 15min (this quicker method is more expensive)

My point is, EV gives you choices. You can either refuel your daily commute very cheaply while car is parked, never needing to visit any refuel stations. Or you can refuel very quickly while you use service station facilities during your long distance drive. Best part with EV is that you don't have to stand there holding the nozzle smelling the fumes.

You've got to take a break every 2-3 hours of driving anyway. Driving 500 miles non-stop in one sitting is a very hard task........... not good for your wellbeing and every other road-user's safety.
 
wuyanxu said:
Notice I've never said £75k Tesla Model S is comparable to a £40k car. EV are currently only slightly more expensive than their ICE counterparts, and the finance figures already make sense if people do running cost sums, combining car depreciation, fuel cost, servicing costs and road tax.
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They don't! When I looked for a new car in Dec we quickly discounted EV due to cost of cars (as well as lack of infrastructure). At the moment having one ICE and one EV would be fine as we both work within 9 miles of home and go on occasional long trips. However, because mileage is low (for me 8k pa) its crazy. My Stonic is around £230 pm on PCP, on the same terms the e-Niro is £710. Even allowing for fuel at £70pm, its £400 more, a month!!!!! Even a bigger car like a Sportage would be significantly cheaper.
 
wuyanxu said:
Are you sure you can do 500 miles in vast majority of cars? My Skoda can only do comfortably do 450 miles, considering I need to keep ~30 miles in case I can't buy diesel at my usual petrol station. Similarly, my parent's Volvo S40 petrol can only do 300 miles and a bit on a tank, having to refuel here everytime they visit me 150 miles from their home. My Mercedes C220 diesel I had previously had a larger tank, can do over 500 miles, but that costs over £65 to refuel.
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Last diesel I had was 6 yrs ago a Mondeo ST TDCi. It never did less than 600 miles to a tank always refuelling before 50 miles left and refuel light came on. With mainly motorway and dual carriageway it could achieve over 700 miles on a tank.
 
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