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For a lot of people where range is not an issue for an electric car, the ability to charge it is the BIG problem.
Unless you have off road parking, with a suitable power socket nearby, how will you charge it?
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Thanks for the replies so far guys.
We have off road parking, and we will be installling a charging point at home. The electric car will be only be used for a short daily commute, visiting local friends and occasional shopping trips to York and/or Leeds.
For all other journeys we have our RS.
We still don't want a hybrid, so it's looking like we may have to reconsider the Leaf.
Edited by Finguz on 07/01/2018 at 14:34
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The big issues with purely electric cars at the moment are range, battery life, the cost of replacement and the resulting crippling depreciation which is to me the biggest problem of all. Take a look at the UK’s current highest depreciating cars and the list is full of electric cars including the Leaf with two year old examples available at dealers for less than £10k and the previous owner will have received at least £1,500 - £2,000 less than this as dealers demand strong margins to offset the risk of battery issues.
The Leaf is something of a unique case because of the weird way the battery is "sold" (or rather not sold).
On the flip side the Tesla S holds it's price spectacularly well against other similarly priced barges (e.g. BMW 7-Series, S-Class, Audi A8 etc.).
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“The Leaf is something of a unique case because of the weird way the battery is "sold" (or rather not sold).
On the flip side the Tesla S holds it's price spectacularly well against other similarly priced barges (e.g. BMW 7-Series, S-Class, Audi A8 etc.).”
It’s early days for the Tesla in the UK market with few used examples available. The firm will also attempt to control used values by underwriting end of lease values but as cars begin to reach the open market and supply increases prices will start to tumble. Who wants a 5yr old car with a potential £10k battery timebomb waiting? Yes battery leasing can offset this but the rates are currently too high, pretty much killing the fuel saving for most buyers and as the cars value drops the battery lease becomes an ever higher percentage of ownership costs. If electric cars are to go mainstream without pricing half of us off the road battery power packs have got to dramatically drop in price.
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If electric cars are to go mainstream without pricing half of us off the road battery power packs have got to dramatically drop in price.
...and fast (under 15 mins, preferably in under 5) charging points have to be available everywhere for them to be viable for the masses, other than being competitively priced, including (as you say) the batteries.
Some berk (IMO) in yesterday's DT Letters Page thought that the Tesla car batteries could be easily 'hot swapped' in just a few minutes - a) I'd like to see that done by one person, and b) would anyone swap their battery for another, not knowing its quality? Its not as though there's a BS EN standard to say what the expected life (mileage) was left in each one, as that depends on the original quality of the build and its usage beforehand. At least with petrol and diesel you can, for the most part, almost guarantee quality. I certainly wouldn't swap a depleted new rechargeable battery for a heavily used one that might only give half the range, if that.
Battery price (assuming they 'could be hot swapped') would have to vary, dependent upon its age, usage type and mileage covered, which means they would have to all come with (hardy and secure) in-built electronic recording devices to measure these parameters. As far as I can tell, the ONLY way the capacity/life left in a battery can be determined is by depleting it, which is rather wasteful of energy, and using the car itself as a measuring tool could be open to fraud.
I think there is a LONG way to go before fully electric cars are worthwhile alternatives (its not as though hybrids are for anything except urban taxis and runabouts if taken on a purely financial basis - its only localised emissions that are better [not taking into account environmental concerns over battery components and electricity production for plug-in hybrids and full elec cars]) to fossil fuelled cars - at least 15-20 years, possibly a lot more if battery tech isn't improved significantly.
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If electric cars are to go mainstream without pricing half of us off the road battery power packs have got to dramatically drop in price.
...and fast (under 15 mins, preferably in under 5) charging points have to be available everywhere for them to be viable for the masses, other than being competitively priced, including (as you say) the batteries.
I'm not sure that is true for many people. Reality is people are conditioned these days to having to plug in a miriad of electrical devices every evening leaving them to charge overnight ready for the next day. I can't see why adding a car to the list would be much of a conceptional challenge for many of them.
The issue is whether there is somewhere to park it and get electricity to it but for people lucky enough to have driveways is it really that much of an issue?
Edited by pd on 07/01/2018 at 15:34
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“The Leaf is something of a unique case because of the weird way the battery is "sold" (or rather not sold). On the flip side the Tesla S holds it's price spectacularly well against other similarly priced barges (e.g. BMW 7-Series, S-Class, Audi A8 etc.).” It’s early days for the Tesla in the UK market with few used examples available. The firm will also attempt to control used values by underwriting end of lease values but as cars begin to reach the open market and supply increases prices will start to tumble.
True to an extent although quite a few Model S are now in the independent sector. I suppose the test will come when they start hitting 8 years old which is when the warranty expires.
For comparision, an eight year old 730d with about 80k is worth £9-9.5k as a trade-in on a good day (somewhere about 16% of original new price). A 2014 80k mile base Model S 60 is about £30k in the trade so it'll need to lose at least £20k in the next 3-4 years before doing as badly as a 7-Series.
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Worth checking out reviews of battery Hyundai Ioniq. More than 100 mile range and reviewers like the way it drives. Battery Niro out in the Autumn. Look at NextGreenCar website.
Don’t believe that anti-battery brigade. They are probably the same people who derided diesel cars twenty years ago. There is a Nissan Leaf that has done 100k miles in Cornwall and has not lost a single bar of battery capacity.
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Worth checking out reviews of battery Hyundai Ioniq. More than 100 mile range and reviewers like the way it drives. Battery Niro out in the Autumn. Look at NextGreenCar website. Don’t believe that anti-battery brigade. They are probably the same people who derided diesel cars twenty years ago. There is a Nissan Leaf that has done 100k miles in Cornwall and has not lost a single bar of battery capacity.
Reference and/or some form of proof regarding the Leaf you speak of ?
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Worth checking out reviews of battery Hyundai Ioniq. More than 100 mile range and reviewers like the way it drives. Battery Niro out in the Autumn. Look at NextGreenCar website. Don’t believe that anti-battery brigade. They are probably the same people who derided diesel cars twenty years ago. There is a Nissan Leaf that has done 100k miles in Cornwall and has not lost a single bar of battery capacity.
Reference and/or some form of proof regarding the Leaf you speak of ?
www.zap-map.com/electric-taxi-company-clocks-10000.../
Wasn't hard to find. I suppose you could give them a ring and ask if it's true, if you think it's not.
Edited by Finguz on 07/01/2018 at 17:47
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No, I agree, it's entirely true.
But it's also only half of the story.
The car was 'de-fleeted' with 174,000 miles on the clock, at which point it retained 70% of it's battery capacity.
www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/environment/2017/05/19/no...s
Now, the really interesting point comes when you look at the detail of the article.
In 174,000 miles the car was charged 10,800 times, which works out as charging it up every 16 miles. (3,800 'fast' charges, 7,000 'trickle' charges)
Even if you throw out the 'trickle' chargups, the 3,800 chargups work out as once every 46 miles.
That's a lot of time charging up. Great if you've got a huge fleet of them, subsidised heavily by Nissan so that you'll plug (excuse the pun) them on your twitter feed every few days.
Probably not so brilliant if you've got one. And if it's your sole form of transport.
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No, I agree, it's entirely true.
But it's also only half of the story.
The car was 'de-fleeted' with 174,000 miles on the clock, at which point it retained 70% of it's battery capacity.
www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/environment/2017/05/19/no...s
Now, the really interesting point comes when you look at the detail of the article.
In 174,000 miles the car was charged 10,800 times, which works out as charging it up every 16 miles. (3,800 'fast' charges, 7,000 'trickle' charges)
Even if you throw out the 'trickle' chargups, the 3,800 chargups work out as once every 46 miles.
That's a lot of time charging up. Great if you've got a huge fleet of them, subsidised heavily by Nissan so that you'll plug (excuse the pun) them on your twitter feed every few days.
Probably not so brilliant if you've got one. And if it's your sole form of transport.
I totally appreciate what you're saying. However an electric car won't be our sole form of transport, and we will charge it every time we arrive home or at a place with charging facilities. We will be charging roughly as often as the guy in the article, maybe more often.
We did a lot of research into the batteries, warranties, residuals e.t.c before deciding to take the plunge.
I don't think it is a perfect solution for everyone, or that my opinions are correct and everybody else's are wrong either.
I simply asked which model people recommended, and I'm very grateful to those of you who made recommendations.
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Worth checking out reviews of battery Hyundai Ioniq. More than 100 mile range and reviewers like the way it drives. Battery Niro out in the Autumn. Look at NextGreenCar website. Don’t believe that anti-battery brigade. They are probably the same people who derided diesel cars twenty years ago. There is a Nissan Leaf that has done 100k miles in Cornwall and has not lost a single bar of battery capacity.
Thanks but we had a go in an Ioniq and, while it drove ok otherwise, it was very sluggish from our point of view.
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It hasn't happened yet and probably won't happen for a little while but one day electric will very suddently become mainstream and when it does ICE cars will become the CRT television over night.
Anyone relying on making ICE cars or engines, gearboxes or clutches for a living will join the wealthy throng of fax machine, CRT TV and monitors, non-smart phones, landline telephones, VHS recorder manufacturers & DVD rental shops.....
It will happen and it will happen in a blink of an eye just when no one is looking and no one really expects it.....these things usually do.
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If it does happen like that pd our lives will have changed forever, or a large majority of the population will have vanished in one of several possible scenarios, we simply do not have the generating capacity nor charging infrastructure to keep a transport system based on electricity alone powered.
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It hasn't happened yet and probably won't happen for a little while but one day electric will very suddently become mainstream and when it does ICE cars will become the CRT television over night.
Anyone relying on making ICE cars or engines, gearboxes or clutches for a living will join the wealthy throng of fax machine, CRT TV and monitors, non-smart phones, landline telephones, VHS recorder manufacturers & DVD rental shops.....
It will happen and it will happen in a blink of an eye just when no one is looking and no one really expects it.....these things usually do.
Assuming it can be technically done and there's sufficient quantities of the components (e.g. lithium or 'new' alternative that's better - by no means assured at this point) that make them up, then battery-prodcuing firms are probably the next 'big thing' as regards people investing shed loads of money, not Tesla - all that is (IMO) is a glorified remote controlled toy - its the fuel (batteries) that is the important bit, not autonomous tech or anything like that, at least at the moment.
IMHO, batteries have to go a LONG way to achieve the same energy density of hydrocarbon fuels, hence why I'm (and many others, including Aussie car epert [and engineer] John Cadogan) very skeptical about certain claims about ordinary people (on their own) being able to 'hot swap' batteries in fully electric cars in 5 mins (given the amount of batteries needed in hybrid cars that last about 20 miles on battery power alone), ranges for well over 10 years of 400+ miles between charges etc.
As long as the car manufacturers have sufficient electric motor and control systems tech in their R&D back pocket, then they can just wait (updating if and when necessary) until the battery tech catches up, just modifying (hopefully reducing) the allocated space for said batteries to suit once the 'threshold' of energy density is reached that reasonably gives the range for the number/weight of batteries near to that of petrol/diesel.
Don't forget, Philips (N1500 & V2000) and Sony (Betamax) designed superior video cassette systems to JVC's VHS, but VHS won the day due to cost and length of recording ability, so those who get there first in terms of 'new' battery tech may not end up the winners. As per your anecdote about firms producing 'old' tech, I think no-one wants to be the 'Kodak' of the motoring world when electric cars finally become fully mainstream.
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If electric cars do become popular then the government will lose a huge amount of taxation on petrol and diesel. I cannot see them doing nothing about that. I would expect some sort of tax to be put onto electrics to make up for not paying tax on fuel.
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If electric cars do become popular then the government will lose a huge amount of taxation on petrol and diesel. I cannot see them doing nothing about that. I would expect some sort of tax to be put onto electrics to make up for not paying tax on fuel.
UK duty and taxes just go into a general pool which funds all government expenditure - a switch from petrol/diesel; to electric will reduce fuel duty and taxes so something will go up to compensate, of that we can be sure, but what is increased is anyone's guess.
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