Yeah, but you'd charge it on your off peak rate!
My peak rate is 40p but I only pay 7.5p to charge in the off peak.
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UK switching to electric vehicles discussion
- Thread starter MattA7
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My peak rate is 40p but I only pay 7.5p to charge in the off peak.
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R
RailUK Forums
That's great if you're only doing a run to the shops but taking the standard battery on the MG4 the charging time on a 7Kw charger is 10 hours, I haven't seen the time for the extended range battery yet.
My off peak rate (but for the Government cap) would be over 25p /kwh now. I get 7 hours for some heating and water heating this is split and ends at 7.30am.
Unfortunately living in the sticks typical car usage would be a journey to home of 70 to 100 miles so Id generally get home with a low % remaining so your looking at up to 2 days to charge at the off peak rate.
If I were to adopt an EV tariff Id be looking at moving from off peak to peak rates for a lot of my domestic use. Theres no mains gas within 5 miles of my house.
Because you start every journey with a full (or rather, 80%) charged battery, you rarely arrive home with just a few miles remaining. I get 4 hours off peak which is enough to add 80 miles of range. If I;ve been on a long journey and had to charge away from home, I will deliberately aim to arrive with just a few % left, as (IMO) there's no point arriving home with a battery full of power that's cost 8 times what I pay at home. It takes a couple of days to get back to 80%, but I'll still have about 100 miles range by next morning.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Overnight won't be off peak any more when everyone is charging EVs, demand will be more even.
The problem is that the 100 miles range if you live away from Urban areas is actually nearer 70 miles assuming that you drive at 60/70 mph on motorways and dual carriageways. The first services I would pass from home on the M25 in either direction Clackett Lane or Thurrock are both over 50 miles and I wouldn't dream of stopping at either in my ICE vehicle.
There will be more off peak power in future as there are massive amounts of wind coming online. It just won't be at fixed times any more.
Off peak rates were historically about shifting load into the night when there was less demand, to avoid having to cycle coal fired power stations.
Off peak in the future will be about shifting load to make best use of intermittent generation.
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Fair enough, but it's a bit of an edge case TBH.
If you have 3 phase power at home you could always install an 11kW EVSE or even a 20kW DC charger.
All I'll say is that charging has been far less of an issue than I thought it might have been. I live in a rural area. Even if I charge at my 40p peak rate, it still works out significantly cheaper than petrol or diesel.
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If you are doing back to back long distance journeys (which is fairly rare, given that the average is that there like 7 trips which are over 50 miles a year) how often is this?
As if it's not that common (even 10 times a year) then the cost of paying for peak rate electricity at home to boost your range a little (say an extra 30 miles) from only using of peak power isn't going to be all that big compared to the cost of car ownership.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
True. This is where home batteries come in, I guess, plus storage in the network on a smaller, more widespread scale than Dinorwic (useful and an engineering marvel though it is!)
Plus if you know you're only going to do 20 miles a day midweek but expect a long trip away on the Friday an advanced charging system will be able to be told that and charge accordingly when electricity is at its cheapest.
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I'd say I travel a lot, and I only do long distance journeys probably every other weekend (and lots are rail except when Avanti is in a mess like now!)
People who do daily long distance journeys are few in number and for now should probably buy a petrol or even diesel car. Such people change cars frequently anyway (they're usually lease cars through the employer) so this doesn't matter too much.
Ive had Nissan Leaf company cars (yuk!) so Im quite au fait with charging.
I won't deny that electric at 40p per kwh is cheaper than Petrol or Diesel at current prices. My argument is that the narrowing of the price differential primarily caused by the increase in electricity costs is such that I can no longer justify £400 a month on a new expensive Ev (yes £30k is an expensive car to me). So I will continue to run my fully paid for ICE for another couple of years kicking the changeover down the road. Im sure I won't be alone in this which is why I think it will have an effect on next years EV sales.
Expensive car for me too. In fact f I hadn't ordered it when I did in May on a very cheap finance deal I wouldn't have it. I certainly couldn't afford to buy the same car today.
I agree that unless you can do the majority of your charging at cheap prices it's hard for it to make financial sense. But it's a better drive too, and electricity is going to get really cheap again over the next 3 to 5 years, possibly sooner than that.
How does one recognise an EV? They seem to look very much like ICE cars
the experts would seem to disagree with you :https://www.cornwall-insight.com/pr...ficantly-above-average-up-to-2030-and-beyond/
Indeed. There is enough wind (at peak) coming on line in the next 5 years to power every single car if it was an EV. Of course offshore wind works at about 40% capacity, but it is certainly the case that by 2030 there will be a very significant surplus of electricity on a windy (but not cold) night, more than enough to power every car charging with much more to spare.
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2 ways - most (but not all) EVs have number plates with a green flash on the left hand side.
The other way is to know which models are EVs or not
reddragon
Established Member
You clearly do not live in the countryside!
How do you suppose anyone gets around without any kind of public transport and long distances to travel with no street lighting? Often on 60mph flooded roads full of potholes & mud?
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There will always be peaks & troughs in demand & costs.
We will simply move to smart tariffs.
ReeceD1993
Member
No it certainly isn't what so ever. Our electric systems certainly won't cope with lots of electric cars. This is a massive disaster waiting to happen.
reddragon
Established Member
I am an EV fan / spotter and yes it is very difficult when the same model can be ICE/PHEV or EV
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This has clearly been debunked by the National Grid and I think as the experts they know!
I have previously described this as a saturation point. Not everyone will be able to afford the lease or purchase cost of an EV, and when only those that can afford it have one, there will be a saturation point when the split of new cars between EV and ICE will plateau.
The second hand market will be interesting. For some, this will be a cheaper way of getting an EV, but the prices for cars up to say 4 or 5 years old will still be high to recover the higher initial purchase price, and older cars will be cheaper because the battery life and performance wil be lower. But if you buy an older EV car, you will not be able to keep it as long as an ICE car, because at some stage the batteries will fail and it will be expensive to replace, so you will end up replacing your second hand car more frequently than ICE cars, and again not everyone wil be able to afford this.
For me, the equation will be Purchase Cost (at an annualised rate over the time I expect to keep the car) plus annual fuel costs plus annual maintenance costs. I will ignore road tax because that will change at some stage to make up for the loss of road tax as the total tax take reduces, and insurance, because these should equalise at some stage. Once the equation tips in favour of an EV, I will consider buying one, but not until then.
There was also an article in the Telegraph the other day where the President of Toyota is questioning whether EVs are the solution for everyone. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/busines...ef-right-stand-silent-majority-electric-cars/ The article is quite long, but some of the points made are:
- Most of the knowledge of refining lithium is in China, and we have seen the impact of seeing a country monopolise fuel supplies
- Demand for lithium is forecast to grow fortyfold by 2040, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). Miners will struggle to keep up, with not enough projects currently under development to dig enough lithium out of the ground to meet demand.
- As supply struggles to keep up with demand, lithium prices have surged. The metal is a staggering 13 times higher than it was in summer 2020, which feeds into the ticket price of vehicles.
This again. This theory - which is contrary to all the evidence by the electricity networks and those who have an understanding of the subject- comes up about once a month. It’s like whack a mole.
That is also not supported by evidence, principally because we haven’t got that many older EVs (although the first Tesla S, Zoes, i3s and Leafs are getting there). If anything it is more likely that EVs are kept going longer than ICE cars, simply because there is much less to go wrong.
reddragon
Established Member
Err Nope!
EVs are already cheaper than ICEs to own, the only change left is for them to be cheaper capital cost wise. EVs enable a huge growth in rental by the hour, EV plugged in at the end of the street. New policies will drive this in cities as elsewhere as car spaces are removed, London is doing so as are most Dutch cities. Other countries are following. Genuine poor people cannot afford the parking costs let alone car ownership so this model will benefit the majority of city dwellers.
EVs have already demonstrated to have a substantially longer life than ICE cars, to the point high miler taxis fall to pieces well after 500k miles and the batteries are sold on! A typical petrol engine lasts 100k miles & costs £3500 to rebuild, a diesel lasts 150k miles & costs £5k to rebuild. Old LEAF batteries are lasting around 200k miles, early Tesla batteries about 450k miles. Asia MG5 Taxis used 24h a day are racking up 350k kms a year without any issues, no ICE car can do this. The new LFP batteries have demonstrated a 1 million miles life. Also, a battery cell replacement is a 4 hour job with spare parts! I would buy a 10 year old EV after a battery health & mileage check, but never an old ICE.
As EVs take over, the supply of fuel costs will become uneconomical. Rural petrol stations will close, then bigger ones with few remaining in 10 years time. The cost balance will shift very fast as each tipping point passes.
Toyota is still pushing it's dead end Hydrogen fuel cell agenda & self charging lies. This has caused sales to drop dramatically as has the company value. They need to change or go bust!
Material resources are evenly spread across the world. Cornwall for example has the world easiest to access supply of materials & Australia dominates Lithium supplies. Apparently only graphene is currently dominated by China. Prices have only surged due to production ramp up amidst many world crisis, that's it! Copper is going to be the most in demand commodity!
Not as big of a deal, batteries in EVs are designed to last a lot longer now. MG offer a 7 year warranty and estimate the battery life at 10-20 years, while the battery is the main value of the car there is an emerging business of switching them on existing cars should the battery need it.
Think of it like the engine needing replaced on ICE cars, if the car gets hammered then it will need happening earlier but there are many cars which will go their entire life without needing it.
If you do the maths then it probably has already tipped for an MG4.
Agreed, its misread the industry with hydrogen. With its "self charging hybrid" advertising is misleading.
As for the silent majority, most of the other automakers have gone in heavy to EVs now and have realised that hydrogen is dead for cars and really only useful for large vehicles. Now if we can stop looking at hydrogen heating as well...
No it isn't, especially some tyres on some surfaces at low speeds (but still moving and able to cause injury).
The artificial noise is not that loud at all, especially compared to an accelerating engine. Plus at higher speeds, the noise stops because by then the car can be heard.
I changed A 2012 Toyota Landcruiser 3.0 diesel engine last spring. It had done around 220K miles was still a runner but down on power.
The remanufactured engine plus consumable parts came in at around £2600 as an exchange rebuilt by a specialist company in Yorkshire including delivery to Romney Marsh. The owner got quotes of around £800 to fit the owner supplied engine. Id suggest smaller car engines would come in at less than £3k if your happy to use non manufacturers overhauls. Complicated stuff like a Euro 6 BMW Diesel might reach £5k.
ashkeba
Established Member
- Joined
- 13 May 2019
- Messages
- 2,171
That is a surprise. It looks like the countryside.
What do those questions have to do with making electric vehicles noisy?
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Some here seem to want it at all speeds, including fast enough to be said to "careen".
Can you give a reference to where these "some" have expressed their want? Also what does "fast enough to be said to careen" mean. Please explain.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
I think this will depend on the user. A good many older used cars are bought as "runarounds", a second vehicle that would do well under 50 miles a day and would rarely if ever be used for a long journey. With battery lives as new heading towards 200-250 miles fully charged, that means you've got a long way to go before the EV is useless as a runaround. Most likely they'll fall to bits from rust etc before that happens.
The people it does cause an issue for, potentially, are those who engage in "bangernomics", typically people who buy old used cars and run them into the ground, often with their own maintenance skills making even major maintenance affordable. That model becomes a bit broken, potentially. But that's not anywhere near the majority of buyers of used cars. I get the feeling from this thread that there are a disproportionately large number of such car users on this Forum? But even so, the main people this affects are young people, and it's also the case that high insurance is putting young people off car ownership altogether in favour of urban living where one isn't needed.
Thus to me it's likely to be an issue to a very small number of people.
I also think we should be careful with talk of "batteries failing". They don't just fail (well, odd ones do, but odd internal combustion engines go bang and require total replacement too, at a similar cost), their capacity just degrades.
Tell me you just joined a forum to post an answer on a thread without reading any of the posts beforehand without telling me you just joined a forum to post an answer on a thread without reading any of the posts beforehand (914 posts to be precise).
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When it comes to an ICE vehicle, how many cases are there where mechanical parts begin to degrade/fail and it doesn't cause issues with driving, perhaps failing MOTs and being considered dangerous?
A battery that ends up at just 80% of its capacity after 5 or 10 years isn't comparable because you just get less range and that's it. There are relatively few moving parts, hoses and other bits and pieces that can cost a lot of money to get fixed if you aren't capable or willing to attempt yourself. I do think that sensors and expensive computers for all the advanced features are more likely to be an issue, but most of those are present on ICE and EVs.
I have no doubt many people in the car industry are getting very worried about the loss of income in car maintenance, and if they're not investing in how they can adapt to working with EVs then they're going to go out of business. It's naturally to be expected that these people have every reason to knock EVs from every angle, because they know they're going to have to move with the times.
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In theory, there's very little need to have an EV serviced every year. There's very few liquids to check/top up/replace and there's not lots of parts which degrade.
Screen wash (easy enough to do yourself), brakes, tyres and AC appear to be the main things which need checking. Other than the first and last would be checked as part of the MOT.
I suspect that a subscription model (like everything) will be pushed hard. You want heated seats the car has them, but to use them you've got to pay. It's something which Tesla is already discussing doing. However it won't just be one thing you'll have to buy them as packs of stuff.
The problem with such a policy is that you'll end up with a market for hacking cars (much as there was with Xboxes when they first came out as it was a very powerful PC for less money than you could buy the same spec PC for at the time) to get access to those features for a single fixed cost.
Even if that was a business offering to replace your broken computer system in the car with a new one with a generic OS rather than a company specific one (think like replacing the radio, only more expensive).
At £5/month over three years (£180) the cost probably doesn't make it worth doing, however if you are expecting to run a car into the ground and own it for 15+ years (very viable at least for some) and you don't want bloat-ware making it almost unusable (like as what happens with mobile phones when after about 6 years the new OS is so large and the old ones had so many updates that you almost can't have any apps installed).
Also people would like features (like using the cars cameras as a dash cam) which the cars could do but don't (some of which would have a cost saving, whilst others would have a value just because you can).
I am not a fan of these car subscriptions that big car makers are experimenting with, but can accept they'll likely become the norm because many people are too apathetic to protest. No doubt the subs won't carry over if you sell the car, and car makers will use these subs as a way of 'discounting' rather than discounting the cars themselves.
And you're right, people will seek to hack them, and then you'll have warranty issues - and possibly even insurance issues if the car detects any sort of hacking. No doubt that unofficial heated steering wheel activation will be used as an excuse as to why a safety system failed.
And for software updates, assuming the updates may stop after 10 years even if the car can go on for many more, perhaps there will be a market for third-party ROM updates, although - again - the car industry tries to lock down such software and may well sue anyone that attempts to offer unofficial upgrades.
Again, this isn't specific to EVs, but EVs do seem to be packed full of tech as a lot of features are included (or were pre-subscription models) to justify the higher outlay.
There are some EVs on the market, and more likely to come, which are devoid of a lot of features - with the display running Android Auto and Apple Car Play and little else. For a lot of people that's absolutely fine and they don't want or need all the extra tech. If you're mostly using a car for school runs, taking kids to sport practice, shopping and to/from work then do you need all the toys?
And you're right, people will seek to hack them, and then you'll have warranty issues - and possibly even insurance issues if the car detects any sort of hacking. No doubt that unofficial heated steering wheel activation will be used as an excuse as to why a safety system failed.
And for software updates, assuming the updates may stop after 10 years even if the car can go on for many more, perhaps there will be a market for third-party ROM updates, although - again - the car industry tries to lock down such software and may well sue anyone that attempts to offer unofficial upgrades.
Again, this isn't specific to EVs, but EVs do seem to be packed full of tech as a lot of features are included (or were pre-subscription models) to justify the higher outlay.
There are some EVs on the market, and more likely to come, which are devoid of a lot of features - with the display running Android Auto and Apple Car Play and little else. For a lot of people that's absolutely fine and they don't want or need all the extra tech. If you're mostly using a car for school runs, taking kids to sport practice, shopping and to/from work then do you need all the toys?