As above. plus I thought the Electric Elephant in the survey was that it was essentially about consumer reasons for the electric choice, and pretty soon there will be no choice in the UK

One I forgot to add is the seemingly not-so-good manufacturer backup after the 10year 'window' ends. Apparently Tesla (at least in the US -from reports I've read) don't want to maintain such vehicles and refuse to do so - including provision/fitting of parts. Be nice if that could be verified. Perhaps indie outfits selling pattern partrs will spring up to fill the void.

Do all cars not have that as an issue? So more a general car ownership issue rather than an electric only cars issue.

Not as far as I know. According to the reports I read (a while ago now), Tesla dealerships were flatly refusing to maintain cars once they reached 10yo. Whilst there is (at least in Europe) a legal requirement to make spares for 10 years after a car goes out of production, I don't think there's a similar law saying they have any obligation to maintain the cars.

Most 'traditional' car firms will still provide OEM parts for well past that 10 year mark and many are either reasonably generic or have sufficient demand to allow pattern parts manufacturers to enter the market and make a profit. That's certainly the case for my car, which is now 3 years past the legal cut-off point.

As more Teslas are manufactured / sold, hopefully the latter (and indie EV maintenance / repair specialists) will take over if Tesla doesn't want the business.

I think I wrote 'not many can tow'. I'd feel a bit weird saying any of the above whilst an EV is sat on my drive.

There's an Electric and Hybrid Vehicle Supplement in July's Car Mechanics magazine. Interesting read if, like me, you can read for free via your library membership.

It seems that battery packs don't just contain batteries but also electronics that can cause issues. Perhaps just a dry joint or failure of a component costing a couple of quid. Manufacturers will happily sell you a complete pack costing £££, but not the cheap component to fix the one you've got. The expertise is building and in time aftermarket manufacturers will start producing pattern parts, but we're not there yet.

There's a piece about running a Mk1 Leaf with 100k on the clock. Owner teaches an EV course and therefore has the ability to fix his car DIY, but it looks highly unlikely many will be able to. Some specialist safety gear and tools are required, at least to work on the high voltage side. Brake and suspension repairs on the Leaf look perfectly possible for a competent DIYer.

I watched a YT video a while ago on replacing the hybrid battery on a Toyota Prius, something most would probably assume needed to be done by an expert. But it also looked perfectly possible for a reasonably competent DIY-er.

I wouldnt be surprised if it was made law that only qualified electricians worked on the HT side of EVs. Regardless of how easy it looks one slip up would kill

There's an Electric and Hybrid Vehicle Supplement in July's Car Mechanics magazine. Interesting read if, like me, you can read for free via your library membership.

It seems that battery packs don't just contain batteries but also electronics that can cause issues. Perhaps just a dry joint or failure of a component costing a couple of quid. Manufacturers will happily sell you a complete pack costing £££, but not the cheap component to fix the one you've got. The expertise is building and in time aftermarket manufacturers will start producing pattern parts, but we're not there yet.

There's a piece about running a Mk1 Leaf with 100k on the clock. Owner teaches an EV course and therefore has the ability to fix his car DIY, but it looks highly unlikely many will be able to. Some specialist safety gear and tools are required, at least to work on the high voltage side. Brake and suspension repairs on the Leaf look perfectly possible for a competent DIYer.

I watched a YT video a while ago on replacing the hybrid battery on a Toyota Prius, something most would probably assume needed to be done by an expert. But it also looked perfectly possible for a reasonably competent DIY-er.

I wouldnt be surprised if it was made law that only qualified electricians worked on the HT side of EVs. Regardless of how easy it looks one slip up would kill

Given that's now the case for working on a lot of home electrics, I wouldn't be surprised if it was the case, or probably even more stringent for electric cars, given the safety implications for the person carrying out the work and any future occupants.

I must admit it would be nice if it were as easy as changing a couple of Duracells! Better still, if only we had the Mr Fusion device from BTTF2 (should've been in production by 2015 - man, that film dates badly!)...

I think the solid state battery which Toyota are trialing on the new hybrids is going to be the best for the time being.

Other types are in r&d at the moment which are looking good but remains to be seen whether Tesla can beat any of them apart from using solid state themselves