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UK switching to electric vehicles discussion
- Thread starter MattA7
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R
RailUK Forums
I was going to suggest the clanking of bottles, but assume they're plastic these days?
I wonder if milk floats should have the sound of a mooing cow when they're going under 12mph?
Demand would suggest otherwise.
EV sales are increasing all the time. It will eventually take over, just as the combustion engine once took over from electric cars (yes, they existed before the combustion engine on cars over 100 years ago).
Sure, it isn't going to happen tomorrow or the day after, but in the coming years you're going to see more and more of them on the road.
Whatever your opinion, it doesn't overrule facts.
My wife likes getting milk delivered. It comes in reusable milk bottles twice a week by a diesel van. At least I can pay with a BACS transfer rather than having to write a cheque.I was going to suggest the clanking of bottles, but assume they're plastic these days?
I wonder if milk floats should have the sound of a mooing cow when they're going under 12mph?
Once when I was about 10, I was walking up a hill on a snowy morning. It was a 1 in 7 gradient, and there were several inches of fresh snow, so there were no cars about and it was really quiet. In the distance, I heard a clanking sound coming from behind me. It got louder and louder. I had never heard anything like it, and I was scared to look around. My imagination was racing. I was then passed by an electric milk float with snow chains on its wheels.
Yes I Know but plastic wasn't so there wasn't much demand for then at supermarkets.
Not all manufacturers share your enthusiasm.
Indeed, I’ve just seen 4 Mitie vans that are EVs outside Tesco.
The milk in our area gets delivered in glass bottles on a battery ‘float’.
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Peter Sarf
Established Member
Lead acid batteries where no where as good as the current EV batteries. But also see below.
I carried on supporting my local milky until deliveries arrived after I left for work in the morning. Every evening there it was on the doorstep to greet me - but before the end of the first summer it was sour already before I even touched it.
Yes. Milk is a "lost leader" in other words supermarkets sell milk as cheap as possible or even at a loss just to get customers into the store. Milk is usually at the back of the store.
Sadly the one noise I get woken up by every night is an EV reversing outside - that blasted chime !.
Not disputing the facts but the pace at which those facts lead to EV sales outstripping ICE sales is slower than some hope for.
It may well take longer for everyone to transition (wait, when I put it like that, is that the reason some people are so anti EV?!) but it's going to happen.
There won't be a time when everyone decides to return to ICE vehicles.
Yeah, I know there are some YouTubers who make a living making videos saying everyone is buying an EV and hating them so much they're selling them to go back to petrol or diesel but that's likely not happening at all, or certainly not in significant numbers.
There won't be a time when everyone decides to return to ICE vehicles.
Yeah, I know there are some YouTubers who make a living making videos saying everyone is buying an EV and hating them so much they're selling them to go back to petrol or diesel but that's likely not happening at all, or certainly not in significant numbers.
Milk bottles are needed in greater quantities and frequencies that alcohol in all but the heaviest drink-consuming households. They also had flimsy aluminium foil caps that could easily leak
And funnily enough those are the manufacturers that are struggling.
Peter Sarf
Established Member
Question is.
Are the manufacturers that are struggling because they were not enthusiastic in the past;
OR
Are the manufacturers that are struggling now becoming unenthusiastic as a result of struggling'
?.
As I've said a number of upstarts are doing very well selling nothing but EVs, and in very large numbers. The legacy manufacturers largely buried their head in the sand, or have made not very good EVs.
I do think VW are starting to get it right with the iD range (iD7 is a good car) but too late really and I suspect their battery supply is relatively expensive.
I do think VW are starting to get it right with the iD range (iD7 is a good car) but too late really and I suspect their battery supply is relatively expensive.
Chuffing Heck
Member
The market needs to decide, being forced into buying evs won’t make people buy them, if they are cheaper more reliable, and easy use that would naturally happen, but that isn’t the case at the present moment.
The main sales at the moment are from fleets with tax exemptions, if evs become the norm and the treasury realises the amount of money it is losing to evs they will end those exemptions and tax them to death as well.
People buying EVs are quite pleased with the reduced cost of servicing and maintenance, and being able to charge for peanuts, including the ability to charge for free or even get paid to charge.
Suffice to say, people are quickly converted.
Many will be hesitant, just as people used to think you'd look silly walking down the street talking hands free on a phone, and people were wandering why anyone would want a camera on a phone.
Prices and choice still isn't where we need to be, but it's only 2024 and there are already a load of affordable cars just on sale or coming in a matter of months. By 2026 expect even more, including significant price cuts on bigger cars now batteries are way cheaper.
How much development is being done on ICE? Most car makers are just using and reusing a very small choice of low emission engines which are cheap to build (economy of scale) but still come with the need for expensive fuel, regular servicing and the high cost of fixing things in future years.
Suffice to say, people are quickly converted.
Many will be hesitant, just as people used to think you'd look silly walking down the street talking hands free on a phone, and people were wandering why anyone would want a camera on a phone.
Prices and choice still isn't where we need to be, but it's only 2024 and there are already a load of affordable cars just on sale or coming in a matter of months. By 2026 expect even more, including significant price cuts on bigger cars now batteries are way cheaper.
How much development is being done on ICE? Most car makers are just using and reusing a very small choice of low emission engines which are cheap to build (economy of scale) but still come with the need for expensive fuel, regular servicing and the high cost of fixing things in future years.
Don't fall into the trap believing that only carrots will sway some to go EV, - IC vehicle ownership costs (as @jon0844 says) will get very expensive in later years compared with their current long-term costs, - let alone comparisons against EVs purchased in the next 2-5 years. Every EV sceptic seems to assume that the only 'sticks' will be artificially raised costs through government action, keepin an IC engined vehicle in use on the road will become increasingly uncomfortable.
They absolutely are more reliable and cheaper to run than ICE. They are way easier and more pleasant to drive too. And purchase price is now at parity with ICE for some models.
This requires the market to be fully informed of their choices, which this thread (and various more formal publications) demonstrates is not the case.
Chuffing Heck
Member
Vauxhall laying off 1100 and closing the Luton plant not to say the suppliers jobs lost because of evs.
Honda shut its uk plants because of evs
Nissan on the verge of going bankrupt.
VW and Audi to close factories because of evs.
Porsche to put engines in their ev models.
Future doesn’t look so bright but then we will probably be relying on a windmill with no wind, made in china with coal power using natural resources and slave labour of the 3rd world shipped half way around the world on diesel ship built in china!
Honda shut its uk plants because of evs
Nissan on the verge of going bankrupt.
VW and Audi to close factories because of evs.
Porsche to put engines in their ev models.
Future doesn’t look so bright but then we will probably be relying on a windmill with no wind, made in china with coal power using natural resources and slave labour of the 3rd world shipped half way around the world on diesel ship built in china!
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
None of these are "because of EVs". They are because the incompetent, super-conservative European car companies have failed to embrace EVs. Their own fault.
gabrielhj07
Established Member
Regardless, importing EVs, which we will now have to do more of, is a decidedly higher carbon thing to do than build them in this country. Even more so, if, as is increasingly common, those cars come from the far east.
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Chuffing Heck
Member
It’s not they have failed to embrace evs, it because they are being forced to build evs that no one wants!
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
The reason EV buyers don't want them is that they're overpriced and not very good compared to the Chinese and Korean models.
gabrielhj07
Established Member
I think the problem in this respect is not buyers, but rather manufacturers being pressured to build cars in excess of demand.
Wow, so many inaccuracies in that I don't even know where to begin.
Did make me laugh though. It was like a bingo card in long form.
Indeed. I particularly look forward to seeing all those Porsche Taycans with petrol engines…
