Have electric vehicles been "oversold" to the detriment of public transport, walking and cycling?

[birchesgreen]

Does anyone here charge their electric car exclusively at charging stations? That is, never at home or work?

Yes my sister in law who lives in East Laaaaaahdan, pretty much always uses a charging station at her local Lidl.

 

[DustyBin]

Haha. She thinks her 1.6 petrol scenic (a dinosaur even when it was made, we couldn't work out why the 1.6 was cheaper than 1.4) is "powerful" and likes having to change gears.
I think she thinks an electric car is like driving an automatic. I much prefer manual over automatic too, but EV is nothing like an automatic, IMV.
I'm sure she will be converted the first time she floors it and feels her eyelids being peeled back!
TBH I'd happily have 2 EVs. I think if I was buying I'd go for the MG5, decent range, decent spec and cheap. Only reason I'm leaning towards the ID3 now is because they cost the same to lease - I guess due to much higher residual value on the ID3.

As a performance enthusiast I certainly find EVs interesting. What’s also interesting is how they seem to create an impression of speed, presumably due to the lack of gear changes and torque delivery. Looking at the ID3 specs it’s pretty pedestrian on paper but I’ve no doubt it feels quick. Ironically this the exact opposite to my Focus which can get to 62mph in 4.4 seconds (and that’s with manual gear changes) so is by any definition fast, but doesn’t always feel it. You really do need to check the speedo when driving “enthusiastically”. I think the overall capabilities of the car mask it’s straight line speed (that seems to be the general consensus on the owners forum too). Anyway I digress, what I was going to say is there’s talk of an R version of the ID3 which will hopefully be the first of many hot hatch EVs. I’m not sure how manufacturers are going to make them truly engaging but I expect they will somehow!

 

[trebor79]

As a performance enthusiast I certainly find EVs interesting. What’s also interesting is how they seem to create an impression of speed, presumably due to the lack of gear changes and torque delivery.

The thing is it's just so effortless to get the maximum acceleration rates that's quoted in the book. It's quite difficult to do in a performance ICE car, but in the EV you just push the pedal to the floor and it happens. Another big factor is that you don't get any torque steer whatsoever. I had a 155hp turbo petrol Alfa Romeo MiTo for a while. It was an absolute hoot to drive, but even in third gear if you floored it you could feel the steering wheel moving about and it was quite hard to keep in a straight line.

Looking at the ID3 specs it’s pretty pedestrian on paper but I’ve no doubt it feels quick.

It does, particularly up to about 40mph. Again I think it's because you just squeeze the pedal and whoosh, off you. There's no thrashing engine, clutch to balance, tyres squealing, just effortless, instant speed.

Ironically this the exact opposite to my Focus which can get to 62mph in 4.4 seconds (and that’s with manual gear changes) so is by any definition fast, but doesn’t always feel it. You really do need to check the speedo when driving “enthusiastically”. I think the overall capabilities of the car mask it’s straight line speed (that seems to be the general consensus on the owners forum too). Anyway I digress, what I was going to say is there’s talk of an R version of the ID3 which will hopefully be the first of many hot hatch EVs. I’m not sure how manufacturers are going to make them truly engaging but I expect they will somehow!

Unfortunately I've had to postpone the purchase as the there were some significant tax disadvantages on the scheme I was being offered through work. Still very affordable but her indoors is very small c conservative, especially when it comes to money. I might sabotage one of our existing cars (but then she'd probably just push me to buy another second hand heap of junk to replace it!).
Anyway the silver lining to this cloud is that there is more and more choice coming onto the market every month, some of the stuff launching in 2022 looks very interesting, particularly from the hitherto unknown Chinese brands.

 

[The Ham]

The numbers on this report highlight that the impact of switching to EV's (whilst noticeable) are still not as favourable as some think:

If all cars were electric, UK carbon emissions would drop by 12%

George Milev and Amin Al-Habaibeh from Nottingham Trent University discuss what the future would be like if all cars on the roads became electric. The COVID-19 lockdown has led to reduced pollution and emissions in the UK and around the world,…

airqualitynews.com

We recently published a peer-reviewed conference paper looking at the emissions impact for such a switch in Scotland alone, and have now extended our analysis to the whole of the UK for a forthcoming publication. We found that if the UK’s cars went entirely electric its total carbon emissions would be cut by almost 12%.


It’s a hypothetical scenario, but not total fantasy. The UK government plans to ban the sale of new petrol and diesel cars by 2035 and aims to bring all greenhouse gases to net-zero by 2050.


We are still some way off: though there were 39 million vehicles on UK roads last year, just 27,000 new electric vehicles were registered. But the switch will happen, eventually.


Electric cars are not even a particularly new technology – at the end of the 19th century, 90% of the taxis in New York were electric. But Henry Ford and others soon figured out how to mass-produce internal combustion engine cars at affordable costs, and changed our sense of ‘normal’ car technology.


This is a shame for many reasons, not least because electric cars are much simpler in design: they simply consist of electric motors, a battery and a controller.


This removes the complexity of moving mechanical parts in the internal combustion engine and associated technology, and the manufacturing energy needed to produce each part.


Hence, the carbon footprint of manufacturing both cars are not significantly different, although electric cars require slightly more carbon to produce due to the battery.


How we got the 12% figure


But the biggest difference in carbon footprint between petrol and electric cars comes from driving itself.


To reach the 12% figure we first gathered data on the distance an average car covers in the UK each year, the combination of car models and technologies (diesel, petrol and electric) with their respective market share and carbon emission per mileage.


This gave us the current scenario. We then compared this to the situation if all cars were to become electric, and emissions per mile reduced. We considered all the fully-electric cars currently used in the UK (including the Tesla Model 3, Nissan Leaf, Jaguar iPace, and more) and assumed the same market segment for each model.


But what of all the extra electricity needed to power those cars, wouldn’t that add some extra emissions?


Technically, we found that the switch to electric cars would save 14% from the total carbon emissions.


However, it would also cause an increase in carbon emissions from electric power stations equivalent to about 2% of total national emissions (assuming current mix of fossil and renewable energy sources).


Adding the reduction in driving emissions, and subtracting the extra electricity generation emissions means that, in all, the UK would emit 42 million tonnes less of CO? into the atmosphere each year – a 12% reduction on the 351.5 million tonnes emitted in total last year.

12% of the total (current grid mix) is about 37% of personal transport whilst 14% (assuming that all additional power required was by renewables) would be about 42%.

As such it broadly correlates with of you replace 2 cars with EV's the emissions will still be higher than reducing your miles traveled by half and running a single ICE.

 

[Bald Rick]

The numbers on this report highlight that the impact of switching to EV's (whilst noticeable) are still not as favourable as some think:

If all cars were electric, UK carbon emissions would drop by 12%

George Milev and Amin Al-Habaibeh from Nottingham Trent University discuss what the future would be like if all cars on the roads became electric. The COVID-19 lockdown has led to reduced pollution and emissions in the UK and around the world,…

airqualitynews.com

12% of the total (current grid mix) is about 37% of personal transport whilst 14% (assuming that all additional power required was by renewables) would be about 42%.

As such it broadly correlates with of you replace 2 cars with EV's the emissions will still be higher than reducing your miles traveled by half and running a single ICE.

Whilst that report is technically correct, it has some assumptions that don’t stand the test of time in the 2 years since it was written. Using the 2019 grid mix is one of them, given that even if every new car on the road was an EV from today, it would be nearly 2030 before a majority were EVs. The grid mix then is going to be very different.

 

[The Ham]

Whilst that report is technically correct, it has some assumptions that don’t stand the test of time in the 2 years since it was written. Using the 2019 grid mix is one of them, given that even if every new car on the road was an EV from today, it would be nearly 2030 before a majority were EVs. The grid mix then is going to be very different.

Indeed, and EV's are very much needed. However we also need to look at reducing our car usage, especially given that we're not going to get to majority of cars being EV's until about 2030 and we've still got a fair amount of decarbonation to go to meet our targets.

Before anyone comments that we only produce less than 1% of global emissions, in the 1990 it was circa 2.5%, so we've already made some good progress (and few would say or quality of life has deteriorated in that time) and there's still plenty that can be done without significantly impacting our "quality of life".

In fact there's many who suggest that is we used or cars a little less then quality of life for many would significantly improve, not least due to air quality improvements, improved fitness levels, less conversion, less space needed to store cars (with the potential for some of that to be green space) and so on.

 

[DustyBin]

The thing is it's just so effortless to get the maximum acceleration rates that's quoted in the book. It's quite difficult to do in a performance ICE car, but in the EV you just push the pedal to the floor and it happens. Another big factor is that you don't get any torque steer whatsoever. I had a 155hp turbo petrol Alfa Romeo MiTo for a while. It was an absolute hoot to drive, but even in third gear if you floored it you could feel the steering wheel moving about and it was quite hard to keep in a straight line.

To be fair the ID3 is RWD (presumably you hadn’t realised)! I certainly know what you mean regarding torque steer although it can be controlled with an LSD and clever suspension. Back in 2011 my friend bought a MK2 Focus RS with 345bhp all going to the front wheels and it was remarkably civilised (in terms of torque steer anyway!). Our two Fiestas with over 200bhp each don’t suffer from it, although mine in particular is prone to losing traction instead….

It does, particularly up to about 40mph. Again I think it's because you just squeeze the pedal and whoosh, off you. There's no thrashing engine, clutch to balance, tyres squealing, just effortless, instant speed.

True and I can see the appeal and potential of performance EVs.

Unfortunately I've had to postpone the purchase as the there were some significant tax disadvantages on the scheme I was being offered through work. Still very affordable but her indoors is very small c conservative, especially when it comes to money. I might sabotage one of our existing cars (but then she'd probably just push me to buy another second hand heap of junk to replace it!).
Anyway the silver lining to this cloud is that there is more and more choice coming onto the market every month, some of the stuff launching in 2022 looks very interesting, particularly from the hitherto unknown Chinese brands.

That’s a shame but at least you realised now. I presume the issue stems from it being a salary sacrifice as opposed to a company car?

 

[trebor79]

To be fair the ID3 is RWD (presumably you hadn’t realised)! I certainly know what you mean regarding torque steer although it can be controlled with an LSD and clever suspension. Back in 2011 my friend bought a MK2 Focus RS with 345bhp all going to the front wheels and it was remarkably civilised (in terms of torque steer anyway!). Our two Fiestas with over 200bhp each don’t suffer from it, although mine in particular is prone to losing traction instead….



True and I can see the appeal and potential of performance EVs.



That’s a shame but at least you realised now. I presume the issue stems from it being a salary sacrifice as opposed to a company car?

Ah yes, I did know it was RWD but kind of forgot that would eliminate torque steer!

Yes, if you do mainly business miles, salary sacrifice isn't such a brilliant deal, as it's treated as a company car for tax purposes. HMRC only allow 4p per mile for fuel payments on an electric company car, which is basically impossible to achieve at the moment.
That would be OK if it was an actual company car, but you're already paying for the lease (albeit with a tax saving), 10% vat, maintenance and insurance.

 

[Bletchleyite]

RWD of course has downsides, such as being extremely difficult to handle in slippy conditions. Though obviously EVs don't have the issue with needing a transmission tunnel.

 

[DustyBin]

Ah yes, I did know it was RWD but kind of forgot that would eliminate torque steer!

Yes, if you do mainly business miles, salary sacrifice isn't such a brilliant deal, as it's treated as a company car for tax purposes. HMRC only allow 4p per mile for fuel payments on an electric company car, which is basically impossible to achieve at the moment.
That would be OK if it was an actual company car, but you're already paying for the lease (albeit with a tax saving), 10% vat, maintenance and insurance.

I thought that would be the case. I really muddied the waters myself by taking a car allowance, if I’d gone from my company 520d which was heavily taxed to say a Tesla with 0% BIK it would have been a no-brainer, financially anyway. Trying to work out the benefit (or otherwise) vs the car allowance though is tricky!

RWD of course has downsides, such as being extremely difficult to handle in slippy conditions. Though obviously EVs don't have the issue with needing a transmission tunnel.

It certainly can be although I think a lot of it’s down to skill. I grew up driving Capris, Sierras and Granadas and never had a problem, although I probably looked like an Ari Vatanen impersonator at times! It’s easy to get stuck in a modern FWD car with big wide tyres and the traction control interfering. Part of the problem is our inconsistent winters; people are easily caught out when we do get snow and ice.

 

[trebor79]

I thought that would be the case. I really muddied the waters myself by taking a car allowance, if I’d gone from my company 520d which was heavily taxed to say a Tesla with 0% BIK it would have been a no-brainer, financially anyway. Trying to work out the benefit (or otherwise) vs the car allowance though is tricky!

I ended up crunching all the numbers and discovered that if I did 1,000 business miles a month (not uncommon at all), it was actually cheaper for me to just lease the ID4 privately, claim 28p a mile from my employer and then get tax relief on another 17p for the first 10,000 miles (and pay tax on 3p for every mile over that).
And then I thought "Hmm. But I could pay less per month for something cheaper like an MG5 or the new long range MG ZS on a PCP or motor finance loan and actually own the car at the end of 4 years". Now I just ned to work on Mrs Trebor who is very small c conservative and goes into a blind panic every time I suggest spending a bit of money to not be relying on 2 old bangers for our mobility.

 

[reddragon]

I ended up crunching all the numbers and discovered that if I did 1,000 business miles a month (not uncommon at all), it was actually cheaper for me to just lease the ID4 privately, claim 28p a mile from my employer and then get tax relief on another 17p for the first 10,000 miles (and pay tax on 3p for every mile over that).
And then I thought "Hmm. But I could pay less per month for something cheaper like an MG5 or the new long range MG ZS on a PCP or motor finance loan and actually own the car at the end of 4 years". Now I just ned to work on Mrs Trebor who is very small c conservative and goes into a blind panic every time I suggest spending a bit of money to not be relying on 2 old bangers for our mobility.

Oh no, you can't go driving an EV that far . . . . or can you?

https://twitter.com/InsJimJones

Funny though how they managed to drive an MG5 1800 miles to Gibraltar in one go then isn't it! A charity run with only charging breaks but it shows where EVs are today

Their fundraiser

3400 Mile Gibraltar EV Challenge

Help James Jones raise money to support Walking With The Wounded

www.justgiving.com

 

[jon0844]

There are now loads of videos on YouTube where people are driving huge distances in an EV, proving battery anxiety is getting less and less of a concern as time goes on. Obviously the car makers are asking YouTubers and journalists to do these tests and possibly planning the routes to make it interesting, but also doable (perhaps with some risky elements to add suspense), but I think most real world driving would be just as doable.

 

[DustyBin]

There are now loads of videos on YouTube where people are driving huge distances in an EV, proving battery anxiety is getting less and less of a concern as time goes on. Obviously the car makers are asking YouTubers and journalists to do these tests and possibly planning the routes to make it interesting, but also doable (perhaps with some risky elements to add suspense), but I think most real world driving would be just as doable.

In reality it's very unlikely you're going to be left stranded. The issue is that you may be delayed waiting for a charging point to become available which is no good if you're on business for example (I know people who this has happened to recently). As the charging infrastructure improves this will become less of an issue (plus EV range is improving all the time).

 

[The Ham]

In reality it's very unlikely you're going to be left stranded. The issue is that you may be delayed waiting for a charging point to become available which is no good if you're on business for example (I know people who this has happened to recently). As the charging infrastructure improves this will become less of an issue (plus EV range is improving all the time).

You already have to have some buffer built in for traffic congestion, so unless you're unlucky and you get a charging delay and traffic congestion delays which eat up all your buffer then it's likely to be a fairly low risk.

 

[reddragon]

You already have to have some buffer built in for traffic congestion, so unless you're unlucky and you get a charging delay and traffic congestion delays which eat up all your buffer then it's likely to be a fairly low risk.

To be clear, congestion adds time but also extends range as you are driving slower.

 

[DustyBin]

You already have to have some buffer built in for traffic congestion, so unless you're unlucky and you get a charging delay and traffic congestion delays which eat up all your buffer then it's likely to be a fairly low risk.

True, although in reality a lot of people operate on a “just in time” basis!

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Does anyone else remember back when Hybrid vehicles first became mainstream with the launch of the Toyota Prius?

The show "South Park" had a take on that involving new Prius owners becoming so smug that they began to get high on the smell of their own farts, leading to a "Smug Alert" in cities like San Francisco.

The same sort of irritating smugness seems to have afflicted a number of recent EV adoptees.

 

[jon0844]

I know a fair few people who have a Tesla (UK and abroad) and I think you do see some element of 'one upmanship' that is a bit like people who bought an iPhone early on - and then wanted everyone to know that they didn't just have a phone, but an iPhone. They do certainly attract fanboys, no doubt.

However, outside of the fanboy arena, I don't see other EV cars having any sort of following you could attribute to that South Park episode. It's just a car, and they get on with driving as normal. We fill up with petrol or diesel, they plug in.

The people with range anxiety are those who aren't buying an EV, so almost all EV owners know the score and are happy.. but they don't have to show off to others. Many may still have an ICE car also.

 

[reddragon]

Some Tesla owners do have some degree of smugness due to the Tesla being well ahead of any other tech and them having their own charging network which is also better than anyone else's. No different to Audi / Sports car drivers smugness!

Only non EV owners think about range anxiety, EV owners don't! You do have will the damn charger work anxiety sometimes if there's no back up!

 

[The Ham]

It appears that Tesla have been treating some new feature to get more cars to fit within a car park:

 

[Bletchleyite]

Driver leaves handbrake off, car ends up somewhere silly. Hardly news and been happening for years.

 

[The Ham]

Driver leaves handbrake off, car ends up somewhere silly. Hardly news and been happening for years.

Other than the car came from the left of the picture (where the Audi is parked), having gone up over a 100/125mm kerb and gone up the hill to the right.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Other than the car came from the left of the picture (where the Audi is parked), having gone up over a 100/125mm kerb and gone up the hill to the right.

I have seen far worse. Depends where it was originally as to how much momentum it had.

 

[reddragon]

It appears that Tesla have been treating some new feature to get more cars to fit within a car park:

Idiots drive Tesla's too!

 

[The Ham]

Idiots drive Tesla's too!

Indeed, and this was likely to be an expensive mistake, as it required a tow truck to recover the car (interestingly from the uphill side of the bank), also is likely to have included quite a bit more in parking charges than originally planned.

 

[ashkeba]

Is it true that an e bike for everyone on Earth would use less lithium in batteries than all 23 million cars in the UK if they were all EVs? Heard it on the radio earlier but I don't know who made the claim.

 

[Bald Rick]

Is it true that an e bike for everyone on Earth would use less lithium in batteries than all 23 million cars in the UK if they were all EVs? Heard it on the radio earlier but I don't know who made the claim.

Well that depends on the size of the batteries on the respective bike / car.

One of the more common e bike battery sizes is 500Wh, car batteries are typically in the range 50kWh - 100kWh. The higher figure is 200 x the capacity of the bike battery, and 200x 23million is less than the population of the world.

 

[DerekC]

Idiots drive Tesla's too!

Yes, but Teslas can add a bit of idiocy of their own. A friend of mine had an early one which would read the number on the front of a passing bus as a speed limit. It was quite entertaining! (I would add that the car was under manual control at the time!).

 

[reddragon]

Yes, but Teslas can add a bit of idiocy of their own. A friend of mine had an early one which would read the number on the front of a passing bus as a speed limit. It was quite entertaining! (I would add that the car was under manual control at the time!).

All new cars require that by law now as a prelude to enforcing speed limits!