|
I wonder if those ranges are for 'worst case' or average use, e.g. how many passengers, load in the boot, use of the A/C or heater and lights in the most extreme of summer/winter conditions, and of course, taking into account traffic jams - the engine might not use juice, but the headlights, heater and A/C would when stopped.
Even more of a pain if, once you reach the service stop, all the working charging points are being used or only slow chargers are available. On my holiday trip to/from the West Country, I'd have to be lucky to get a free charging point, but would also have to stop for much longer if had an EV, never mind having no fast charging facility (and cannot at home at all - I live in a flat) at either end of the journey.
Still quite a niche market I think.
|
I wonder if those ranges are for 'worst case' or average use, e.g. how many passengers, load in the boot, use of the A/C or heater and lights in the most extreme of summer/winter conditions, and of course, taking into account traffic jams - the engine might not use juice, but the headlights, heater and A/C would when stopped.
I very much doubt that these quoted ranges will be worst case scenario, but as to just how they define the 'average', who knows!.
Even more of a pain if, once you reach the service stop, all the working charging points are being used or only slow chargers are available. On my holiday trip to/from the West Country, I'd have to be lucky to get a free charging point, but would also have to stop for much longer if had an EV, never mind having no fast charging facility (and cannot at home at all - I live in a flat) at either end of the journey.
Or ideed if the charging point is faulty. Not that long ago i read an article where the new Jag i-pace was being driven from Edinburgh to Coventry and when they set off in the morning they found the charger that it had been hooked up to overnight had not been working. So they left with about 17% charge and had to find another charging point fairly soon into the journey.
|
The new Hyundai Kona Electric can apparently go for 250 miles between charges: but even that is pushing it a bit for your Hants-Yorks trips, especially in winter.
Even with a 250 mile range its a non starter simply because it costs double what a similar car would cost with a small petrol engine. And even if you save money over the cost of buying petrol you will never recoup the extra purchase price because electric cars loose huge amounts of their purchase price over a typical 3 year period.
Eventually but not yet.
|
|
|
|
Yep - totally agree.
|
|
In addition - a lot of the charge up points now charge a lot of money (when not at home). Almost cheaper to run a dirty diesel!
|
Even with a 250 mile range its a non starter simply because it costs double what a similar car would cost with a small petrol engine. And even if you save money over the cost of buying petrol you will never recoup the extra purchase price because electric cars loose huge amounts of their purchase price over a typical 3 year period.
Eventually but not yet.
With all respect, have you actually looked into this?, as it does not seem to me that you have done any homework. Firstly, the Hyundai Kona with the bigger battery has the equivalent of 200bhp, not an insignificant amount, which enables it to reach 60mph in 6.7 seconds (according to Autocar magazines test figures, and apparently a second faster than Hyundai claim). After the government grant is factored in, it costs £32k. There really are not many small SUV/crossovers offering that kind of performance, only Audi, BMW, Mercedes and VW and the cheapest of those is the 190bhp VW T-Roc at just under £32k. Bear in mind, the Hyundai also offers a 5 year unlimited mileage warranty as standard, much better than you will get as standard with any of the (supposedly) premium brand German competition.
The only real issue is the one brought up previously by Andy, that is the charging infrastructure
In terms of range, and indeed range anxiety, let me just post what the aforementioned Autocar wrote about the Kona:
And, unlike the recently tested Jaguar, it really will go as far as they say on a full battery’s worth of power. At the steady 70mph motorway cruise represented by our touring test, the Kona Electric’s energy efficiency was enough to put 256 miles between charges. But slowing cruising speed to a still-UK-typical 55mph allowed that figure to grow to 326 miles. At exclusively urban speeds, when you know how best to eke out its power, you might even see more than 350 miles of range.
|
And, unlike the recently tested Jaguar, it really will go as far as they say on a full battery’s worth of power. At the steady 70mph motorway cruise represented by our touring test, the Kona Electric’s energy efficiency was enough to put 256 miles between charges. But slowing cruising speed to a still-UK-typical 55mph allowed that figure to grow to 326 miles. At exclusively urban speeds, when you know how best to eke out its power, you might even see more than 350 miles of range.
That is impressive. The big problem currently is the very disjointed charging infrastructure in the UK. Loads of different companies running them with different pricing structures, and the points themselves don't always work.
Tesla is busy installing loads of its Supercharger stations at m/way services but I believe (please correct me if I'm wrong) they are exclusively for Teslas ...
|
And, unlike the recently tested Jaguar, it really will go as far as they say on a full battery’s worth of power. At the steady 70mph motorway cruise represented by our touring test, the Kona Electric’s energy efficiency was enough to put 256 miles between charges. But slowing cruising speed to a still-UK-typical 55mph allowed that figure to grow to 326 miles. At exclusively urban speeds, when you know how best to eke out its power, you might even see more than 350 miles of range.
That is impressive. The big problem currently is the very disjointed charging infrastructure in the UK. Loads of different companies running them with different pricing structures, and the points themselves don't always work.
Tesla is busy installing loads of its Supercharger stations at m/way services but I believe (please correct me if I'm wrong) they are exclusively for Teslas ...
Yes, you are right about the Tesla Superchargers, they are like the Apple of the electric car world!.
The Kona is pretty impressive, and Hyundai certainly seem to have leaped ahead of the competition in terms of power and range of battery. I'm pretty sure there is nothing available at that sort of price point and size of car with that capabilities. Compare the BMW i3 for example, even the range extender version with its little petrol engine, has a theoretical range of only 205 miles. The cheapest of those is £37k.
Much has been made of the depreciation factor, and i have not really looked into it myself, as i am not in a position to be able to use an electric car (no driveway for a charger). But just out of curiousity, i had a look, and i based this on the Golf. The reason for this is that it is about the only example where you can directly compare two cars, otherwise the same, apart from the power source. The cheapest electric Golf on Autotrader is a 2015 example with 32k miles at £15999. The list price on the HJ reviews section is £31680, and, presumably, the electric car grant (£3.5k i believe) would be taken off that, making it £28180. So the electric Golf has lost £12181 over (at least) 3 years, or just over 44% of it's value. If we compare it to the 120bhp version of the 1.4tsi Golf, the cheapest of that age with similar miles is £9.5k. According to the HJ figures, this would have cost £19320 new, so it has lost £9820. So while it is clear the petrol version has lost less money, it has actually lost a higher percentage of its value, just under 51%. Incidentally, if we remove the electric car grant, and base the electric versions depreciation on the list price, the result is it has lost just over 50%, more or less the same as the petrol version.
Not scientific or anything i understand, and just focussing on the Golf. But i do find that interesting in the face of all the doom and gloom (on the forum) over electric car depreciation.
|
Even with a 250 mile range its a non starter simply because it costs double what a similar car would cost with a small petrol engine. And even if you save money over the cost of buying petrol you will never recoup the extra purchase price because electric cars loose huge amounts of their purchase price over a typical 3 year period.
Eventually but not yet.
With all respect, have you actually looked into this?, as it does not seem to me that you have done any homework.
To be honest not in real detail but using logic and opinions I have read previously I could not see how I would benefit.
But this morning I have looked at a few car sites and it seems I am right, in reality I would be well out of pocket..
I buy my cars either nearly new or pre reg, Focus/Astra size and petrol manual. Looking on Autotrader and Supermarkets £14,000 would but me exactly what I need. Using a broker and pushing the boat out to £14,500 I could get a brand new Astra 1.0 T 125 PS bottom spec (but its got everything I need and want).
An electric leaf is about £30,000 after the grant but I could not find any at supermarkets and even after discounts the best broker deal was £24,500.
Thus I will be finding another £10,000.
No idea what its costs to charge a Leaf so I won't even go there, lets assume its free. To fuel a petrol over 12,000 miles a year @ 40 mpg would cost about £5000 over 3 years so the gaps down to £5000 (providing its really free to charge it).
To avoid upsetting anyone lets assume (making a lot of assumptions here) its 50% for both over 3 years (based on full retail). So the Leaf will loose about £15,000, the Focus/Astra less than £10,000. The difference is now back to £10,000 (which would increase if, as I suspect, I will be paying for electricity).
But the killer for us would be the range. Visit family of the Isle of Wight a couple of time a year and the range would not be enough in any of the current electrics for a round trip. That would mean plugging into the relatives 13 amp socket via an extension or finding a garage/supermarket we could use.
So after a tiny bit of research its still like I said before, "Eventually but not yet".
Unless someone can convince we I am missing something.
|
|
Leaf is about 4 miles / kWh. 1 kWh of electric costs about 13p at the moment. So 36k miles = 9000 kWh = £1170.
The 40kWh Leaf has a big problem too - it has not battery temperature management. This means that you can't fast charge it after a run as the battery overheats and it cuts the rate right back. So you'd be at the charging post for a long longer the 45 mins to top it up....
Electric cars have a place, I have no doubt, for city users / folk who never drive long distances. However, the price and the range puts them currently in the impractical zone for most. Don't forget they're only 'cheap' to run as HMG is not taxing the fuel - if they were at the same rate as Dino Juice, it would cost about the same as running a 50mpg diesel.
The Kona mentioned above is a good step in the right direction with its battery capacity and apparent range. However, you can't (practically) buy one, as they are only building 5000 this year or something, and probably not very many in RHD. I suspect most will go to China anyway, who are very soon going to corner the market in raw materials for the batteries and control the supply and price!!
|
|
Good summary, Thunderbird: I don't see that you're missing anything.
I agree that vwe'll get there eventually, but whether that's 5 or 10 years off i don't know. What we'll need for EVs finally to take over will be:
- some form of remote private charging, which will make EVs practicable for those who would benefit most from them, i.e. people living in towns and cities who have to park on the street
- a proper public charging infrastructure, and advcances in techniology which shorten the time taken to charge batteries
- 300-mile ranges becoming universal
If the above are in place, hopefully increased demand will reduce the purchase price of EVs. An Up-sized EV would be great, but at present the electric Up is twice the price of the (very economical) petrol version.
|
|
Much has been made of the depreciation factor
I wonder if the residual value of EV includes factoring in replacement of the batteries - the older the car (assuming the batteries hadn't been replaced yet), the greater the likelihood needing all the batteries changed, potentially costing several thousands, likely more than the value of the car in working condition.
What I'm also unsure about is how standardised EV battery packs are - many items these days can quickly become obsolete or uneconomic to repair, whether they are using batteries or not. The availability of parts and at a reasonable cost is crucial in determining the economic life expectancy of products.
I know of many battery-powered devices, such as digital cameras, or other home equipment, e.g. my boiler, that have unique parts that eventually, the OEM refuses to make any more. Camera batteries or a boiler part that can't be replaced or at a reasonable cost because it's not generic mean that the whole device is now worthless.
I've seen parts for my boiler that are now 3x the price of more standard models (the disparity getting larger as time goes on) that use generic components, luckily for me, the unit has given reasonable service for 16 years and is technically near the end of it's useful life anyway. With a camera, that wouldn't be the case, nor with an EV that was, say, 10 years old and fine in all other respects.
With EV batteries, if tech moves on (as it does), will battery manufacturers also reduce their stocks and production of older ones that makes replacements still expensive (rather like computer memory, where it becomes incompatible very quickly), and so someone buying a 10yo EV for a few Grand would suddenly be foisted with a huge bill to keep it going, perhaps even after less than a year of ownership, or at the very least have to put up with a greatly reduced range/charging capacity.
Not so bad for the city user, not good for those buying one further out who may need to use it for longer trips, e.g. annual holiday, visiting friends and family, etc.
|
|
Engineer Andy makes a lot of sense with his comments. With the production numbers of these cars being so small and technology changing so quick it stands to reason that manufactures will not be caught with obsolete stocks of spare batteries etc. Anyone having a breakdown risks long delays in spares or no spares in the near future for some models. Meanwhile the charging network for EVs remains a joke
|
|
Most car batteries are built up from individual cells - the Prius being a classic where individual cells can be replaced at a fraction of the cost of a new battery.
But there appears to be zero commonality of size/weight/shape of the total battery due to competition...and differing technologies used to charge /cool and control; the current.
|
Leaf is about 4 miles / kWh. 1 kWh of electric costs about 13p at the moment. So 36k miles = 9000 kWh = £1170
Thanks for that. We are currently paying about 14.8 p / kwh at present (new dual fuel deal) which would mean a cost of £1332 over 36,000 miles. But if we had a dual rate meter (economy 7?) like we had at the old house and charged overnight it would no doubt be cheaper.
Regardless, its still a non starter for a user like myself.
Mate at work commented that EV's have no VED so that saves £245 a year and he also thought servicing might be less than a petrol. A quick Goggle suggests £149 minor and £199 major so only a small saving if any.
Mate also thought a Hybrid like an Auris would make more sense than a petrol or an EV, he is considering one. A quick number crunching exercise and look at HJ Real mpg suggests its cheaper than an EV but still more than the Astra. The best Auris price I could find at a broker or pre-reg was £18500, £4000 more than the Astra. Using HJ's figure of 55.5 mpg it would only save about £1400 on petrol over 36,000 miles thus it would not be worth spending that £4000 (unless you really, really wanted a Toyota or a Hybrid).
Looks like its good old petrol for us still.
|
|
Recently when my Hyundai Ioniq plug in hybrid was in for service, I enquired about the kona with the 64kWh battery giving a range of 300 miles. I asked about the charging times to be told that a full charge on the electric vehicle is 2 hours. To me, this makes it a non starter as stopping mid journey to charge the car for 2 hours at a motorway service area is even less appealing than visiting the dentist. Until the manufacturers get the battery capacity up to 500 miles electric cars are not a realistic proposition, especially as repmobiles for high mileage drivers.
|
Recently when my Hyundai Ioniq plug in hybrid was in for service, I enquired about the kona with the 64kWh battery giving a range of 300 miles. I asked about the charging times to be told that a full charge on the electric vehicle is 2 hours. To me, this makes it a non starter as stopping mid journey to charge the car for 2 hours at a motorway service area is even less appealing than visiting the dentist. Until the manufacturers get the battery capacity up to 500 miles electric cars are not a realistic proposition, especially as repmobiles for high mileage drivers.
A 2hr charge at a motorway service stop. Also worth noting that many such operators will charge a fee (likely quite a bit) for parking over two hours, which is monitored by ANPR cameras.
That means (assuming you can get a free charging point) that you won't get a full charge if you want to leave in under 2hrs. Also - just make sure you visited the loo well before the 2hr point comes up - the last thing you need is to have incurred a £25 parking charge because of having to pee at the last minute!
|
Recently when my Hyundai Ioniq plug in hybrid was in for service, I enquired about the kona with the 64kWh battery giving a range of 300 miles. I asked about the charging times to be told that a full charge on the electric vehicle is 2 hours. To me, this makes it a non starter as stopping mid journey to charge the car for 2 hours at a motorway service area is even less appealing than visiting the dentist. Until the manufacturers get the battery capacity up to 500 miles electric cars are not a realistic proposition, especially as repmobiles for high mileage drivers.
But electric car batteries do not recharge in a uniform manner, most will take on 80% pretty quickly, it is that last 20% that takes the longest. So unless you happen to be aiming for 250+ miles before stopping on a 500 mile journey, there would be no reason why you'd need to stop for the full 2 hours.
For example, i live in North East Scotland. The furthest i'd be likely to drive these days would be to visit relatives in Wigan, some 370 miles away. On that Hyundai with the 300 mile range, i'm fairly sure i could do it with a single 1 hour stop, or about the time it would take to have lunch.
Incidentally, Thunderbird, there are 22 charging points on the Isle of Wight, so i doubt you'd have much problem recharging for the journey home.
|
Incidentally, Thunderbird, there are 22 charging points on the Isle of Wight, so i doubt you'd have much problem recharging for the journey home.
So I would be able to charge it but regardless of that it would still cost me over £10000 more over 3 years to buy and run it.
But if I was saving the money business users are supposed to save that £10000 might not be such an issue. As a private buyer it makes no sense.
Edited by thunderbird on 30/11/2018 at 09:51
|
|
I dont get the appeal of the Volvo brand
The cars are expensive to purchase brand new in comparison to rivals with or without the usual discounts
Most of the volvo range has cramped interiors
They are not reliable
Rival brands make vehicles equally as safe if not safer in some instances
There engine range is not spectacular or class leading
The dealership network is limited in terms of numbers/geographic coverage compared to rivals
Be grateful uu a Volvo fan can show me the error of my ways, but I dont get the appeal?
|
|
|
|
|
|
