[Technology] Owning an EV without a personal charger...

Me and my Monkey · Oct 12, 2021

We're on the waiting list for a new VW id3 (so excited). We don't have off-street parking so will have to rely on public charging points. We have one in our street which more often than not is available. I don't envisage any problems with general about town driving. Longer trips oop north, etc, will take some forward planning and patience. Frankly, in my opinion, it's a small price to pay. Just requires a different way of thinking and managing our lives which I think we should all try to do if we can.

m@goo · Oct 12, 2021

Me and my Monkey said:
We're on the waiting list for a new VW id3 (so excited). We don't have off-street parking so will have to rely on public charging points. We have one in our street which more often than not is available. I don't envisage any problems with general about town driving. Longer trips oop north, etc, will take some forward planning and patience. Frankly, in my opinion, it's a small price to pay. Just requires a different way of thinking and managing our lives which I think we should all try to do if we can.

This is my attitude too. Look for reasons and ways TO go EV, not to NOT go EV.

nickbrighton · Oct 12, 2021

Me and my Monkey said:
We're on the waiting list for a new VW id3 (so excited). We don't have off-street parking so will have to rely on public charging points. We have one in our street which more often than not is available. I don't envisage any problems with general about town driving. Longer trips oop north, etc, will take some forward planning and patience. Frankly, in my opinion, it's a small price to pay. Just requires a different way of thinking and managing our lives which I think we should all try to do if we can.

m@goo said:
This is my attitude too. Look for reasons and ways TO go EV, not to NOT go EV.

can i ask how much one of these costs? Its all verity well encouraging us to all go EV, but most can not even consider buying a new car, if our current car were to expire in the next few months (its 12years old or so) we would realistically have say £3000 to spend- and lets face it thats the budget for i would say most people. (3-6K)
What kind of electric vehicle can I expect to get? Very few people can afford new cars, thats just simply not an option
Over the past 10 years an average of about 2 000 000 new cars were registered each year, quite a few would be fleet vehicles.

This compares with 6 752 959 second hand cars last year and 7 935 105 in 2019

This simply telling people to buy EV is stuff and nonsense for most of us

EDIT- Just googled it, average cost of an new EV is around £44 000, and a quick search for second hand shows starting price around £16 000

Me and my Monkey · Oct 12, 2021

nickbrighton said:
can i ask how much one of these costs? Its all verity well encouraging us to all go EV, but most can not even consider buying a new car, if our current car were to expire in the next few months (its 12years old or so) we would realistically have say £3000 to spend- and lets face it thats the budget for i would say most people. (3-6K)
What kind of electric vehicle can I expect to get? Very few people can afford new cars, thats just simply not an option
Over the past 10 years an average of about 2 000 000 new cars were registered each year, quite a few would be fleet vehicles.

This compares with 6 752 959 second hand cars last year and 7 935 105 in 2019

This simply telling people to buy EV is stuff and nonsense for most of us

EDIT- Just googled it, average cost of an new EV is around £44 000, and a quick search for second hand shows starting price around £16 000

I totally appreciate buying a brand new car isn't within the means of most people (it's around 29,000). It's the first time we've done so, simply because at this particular moment in our lives we luckily are in a position to do so (we're not super wealthy, if we were we'd have our own drive and home charger!). Also buying a decent used EV isn't really a thing at the moment. Having said that, we're buying it on finance, and after we've part exchanged our current car and got our government grant, etc, our monthly outlay will be not much more than we were paying for our current car. And I believe that the more people who CAN invest in an EV, the quicker it will drive EV development which will be of benefit to everyone.

Bodian · Oct 12, 2021

Haven't read all the thread, so may have been mentioned. One thing to bear in mind is that the fast chargers that you'd be looking to use when out and about use vastly more energy than your usual home trickle-charger. We've gone all electric at work, and plugging them in and charging them overnight uses very little electricity - and we also have two super-chargers which charge up to 80% from flat in about half-an-hour. As our electricity is closely monitored and tested, it's been shown that charging one car on the fast super charge for 30 minutes uses as much electricity as the whole office of 100 staff does in a day. Charging it overnight has no appreciable impact.

So, unless all the electricity is provably from renewables - you should think twice about relying on non home charge, otherwise you could find that the overall energy savings made by having an EV are cancelled out.

drew · Oct 12, 2021

thedonkeycentrehalf said:
Given the changes in battery technology etc, a lot of people are looking at leasing, especially with the tax break available.

This article is a useful introduction: https://www.theguardian.com/money/2021/oct/09/electric-cars-cut-cost-best-used-deals-tax-break

I might be wrong but I think the big problem with salary sacrifice schemes is they can have a detrimental effect on calculating your pensionable pay.

Happy Exile · Oct 12, 2021

nickbrighton said:
can i ask how much one of these costs? Its all verity well encouraging us to all go EV, but most can not even consider buying a new car, if our current car were to expire in the next few months (its 12years old or so) we would realistically have say £3000 to spend- and lets face it thats the budget for i would say most people. (3-6K)
What kind of electric vehicle can I expect to get? Very few people can afford new cars, thats just simply not an option
Over the past 10 years an average of about 2 000 000 new cars were registered each year, quite a few would be fleet vehicles.

This compares with 6 752 959 second hand cars last year and 7 935 105 in 2019

This simply telling people to buy EV is stuff and nonsense for most of us

EDIT- Just googled it, average cost of an new EV is around £44 000, and a quick search for second hand shows starting price around £16 000

For what it's worth before buying it we worked out the annual PCP cost of the used Nissan Leaf we got (£13500 two years ago, prices have gone up at the moment as demand outstrips supply), charging at home on a cheap overnight tariff or free at supermarkets, worked out basically the same as our annual existing diesel car running costs were factoring in annual servicing fees, road tax, work after MOT etc too.

Everyone will be different, but some months fuel alone on our diesel would be alarmingly close to what we pay in a month total for the electric car. Divide MOT and other costs over 12 month period too and parity can come quickly. EVs don't have road tax, garage threw in free RAC etc. I know we're priveleged and it's not for everyone, but thought it worth explaining some of the logic for cost.

BlockDpete · Oct 12, 2021

This is a very interesting thread.

I could lease an EV through my work as a job needs car, at a very good rate. I would pay for the lease out of my gross salary.

What puts me off is that I live in a 1 bed flat with no facility to charge the car at home. I have an allocated parking space, but it is some distance from my front door.

I guess the improvement to infrastructure could persuade me even more to get an electric car.

Weststander · Oct 12, 2021

Happy Exile said:
I think it depends on what model you get and what capacity. We have an EV (Nissan Leaf) which round here, with the hills etc we can realistically get 100 miles on a full charge. We've got a home charger, and because we use the car probably 4 or 5 times a week for short journeys charge maybe 2 times a week. We do long trips from time to time, to see family in the midlands, and can do that charging twice (could do it with just one charge, but we're extra cautious). It only takes us an hour longer than it took us in our petrol car and costs us 1p a mile max. We've only once ever had to queue for a charging point.

We're looking at upgrading next year to one with more capacity, and also looking to move house in the next couple of years. We reckon if we can get a car with 200 miles+ capacity then we won't need a home charger anymore because the infrastructure is already good enough for the amount of mileage we do to charge once a week at a public charger (30 - 60 minutes stopped in a car park while we do the shopping) and we'd be fine.

There's loads of chargers around Brighton. The new buildings around Lewes Road Aldi have over 50 public charging points, Aldi itself has half a dozen, there's loads on the streets, increasing moves to get lamposts converted. A surprising amount of the country is the same. A lot of the stories about EV are just scare stories, but to answer your question if you've got one with enough mileage there's nothing to worry about not having a home charger.

For the long drives beyond range, do you recharge at motorway service stations, are there always available chargers and how long does it take (any having to hang around)?

Ta.

Happy Exile · Oct 12, 2021

Weststander said:
For the long drives beyond range, do you recharge at motorway service stations, are there always available chargers and how long does it take (any having to hang around)?

Ta.

Yep. There's a few different connectors now and ours is an old one but still plenty of chargers, though the more recent ones that are the standard are more common. As in, there might be 12 charging points and 9 will be the standard new one and 3 will be for us. Or you just use your own cable in loads of them so you don't have to worry. We've never really had to wait for a charging point, maybe a couple of minutes once or twice but new ones are keeping pace with car ownership for now. They are in more places than we realised too. Supermarkets have been mentioned, railway stations, car parks especially shopping centres, some Shell and BP petrol stations have a few points now, most out of town shopping areas have them, quite a few hotels, cafés, we were told we can pop into any Nissan garage or service centre and they'll let us charge for free too.

A full charge takes 30 minutes from zero or close to it for our car with a rapid charger at a service station. About 4 hours with the one on the house, give or take a few minutes. At a service station we park at maybe 20% battery, go to the loo, get a coffee, and it's pretty much done.

This is charging points in Brighton and Hove. Many of these will have multiple connection options and more than one point:

This is a fairly random example of density on a longer journey - this is Luton to Leicester. Same thing with multiple charging types on most locations:

For anyone driving to Liverpool there's somewhere to charge more than just at service stations looking at this route plan, so it'll be retail parks etc as well shown:

In other words, it's not something we really worry about. We plan for it, but it's never stressful.

m@goo · Oct 13, 2021

BlockDpete said:
What puts me off is that I live in a 1 bed flat with no facility to charge the car at home. I have an allocated parking space, but it is some distance from my front door.

I guess the improvement to infrastructure could persuade me even more to get an electric car.

This is pretty much my situation and the only way the government can enable people in blocks of flats to go EV is to provide much, much more in the way of charging points. They literally need to be as common as lamp posts.

Elbow750 · Oct 13, 2021

Brok said:
Some supermarkets up here (Cheshire) have charging points in the car parks.
Don't often see anyone using them.

Tesco in Lewes has a load of free EV charging points. My daughter uses them all the time, always gets a space.

She has an older Renault Zoe and commutes 10 miles a day, suits her perfectly. Her husband has a petrol car so they use that for longer journeys. I can see a lot of two car families moving this way very soon.

Elbow750 · Oct 13, 2021

Me and my Monkey said:
We're on the waiting list for a new VW id3 (so excited). We don't have off-street parking so will have to rely on public charging points. We have one in our street which more often than not is available. I don't envisage any problems with general about town driving. Longer trips oop north, etc, will take some forward planning and patience. Frankly, in my opinion, it's a small price to pay. Just requires a different way of thinking and managing our lives which I think we should all try to do if we can.

Apparently Cobham services on M25 have loads of EV charging points and never a que, so I'm reliably informed. Others not so good so as you say its a matter of planning, which we will all need to get used to as all new cars will be electric from 2030.

Elbow750 · Oct 13, 2021

m@goo said:
This is pretty much my situation and the only way the government can enable people in blocks of flats to go EV is to provide much, much more in the way of charging points. They literally need to be as common as lamp posts.

Funnily enough lamp post have power cable running right through them. Now if only someone could invent a way to get that power to a car, via cable that plugs in and an app on a phone that allows you to connect and pay a reasonable price for the electricity......

But I suppose that's just science fiction and we should really be spending our time and money flying 90 year old TV and films stars into space.... :bigwave:

(good luck by the way William Shatner, hope your heart holds out!).

Westdene Seagull · Oct 13, 2021

Found this article interesting as someone looking into buying an EV :

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/electric-cars-uk-buying-guide

Dick Head · Oct 13, 2021

The cheap solar-powered car you might NEVER need to charge | SONO SION

Audax · Oct 13, 2021

nickbrighton said:
can i ask how much one of these costs? Its all verity well encouraging us to all go EV, but most can not even consider buying a new car, if our current car were to expire in the next few months (its 12years old or so) we would realistically have say £3000 to spend- and lets face it thats the budget for i would say most people. (3-6K)
What kind of electric vehicle can I expect to get? Very few people can afford new cars, thats just simply not an option
Over the past 10 years an average of about 2 000 000 new cars were registered each year, quite a few would be fleet vehicles.

This compares with 6 752 959 second hand cars last year and 7 935 105 in 2019

This simply telling people to buy EV is stuff and nonsense for most of us

EDIT- Just googled it, average cost of an new EV is around £44 000, and a quick search for second hand shows starting price around £16 000

That £44k figure will be rather distorted by the fact that the market is dominated by Tesla and upper-market brands/models currently. On the other hand, you can get a Zoe for under £30k, and the VW ID3 is just a touch over £30k. Those prices are starting to come down as well - partly with increased competition, and partly due to the rapid pace of R&D that's bringing down the costs of batteries (that's the cost per mile of range, so at the moment while range still needs to be increased it's not fully flowing through into RRP - but it will).

More to the point, while the upfront cost can be eye-watering, the "total cost of ownership" for an EV is already lower than that for an ICE. EVs are cheaper to maintain once you have them, and charging an EV is cheaper than filling up an ICE. So as long as you can afford the initial outlay (and I know, that's not the case for many) the EV is the better option. Or, if you can afford the monthly cost of a lease, then leasing is definitely a good starting point. You might pay more to the leasing company, but that is counterbalanced by the reduced running costs.

Absolutely the costs need to come down. And they will - some are predicting they'll reach RRP price parity with ICE by around 2027. They'll have become a clear "best option" choice before then, though.

Elbow750 said:
Funnily enough lamp post have power cable running right through them. Now if only someone could invent a way to get that power to a car, via cable that plugs in and an app on a phone that allows you to connect and pay a reasonable price for the electricity......

But I suppose that's just science fiction and we should really be spending our time and money flying 90 year old TV and films stars into space....
(good luck by the way William Shatner, hope your heart holds out!).

I know that post is laced with sarcasm (or at least I hope so) - but this is already reality in some areas. Seen plenty of EVs being charged from lamp posts in London, for example.

nickbrighton · Oct 13, 2021

Happy Exile said:
For what it's worth before buying it we worked out the annual PCP cost of the used Nissan Leaf we got (£13500 two years ago, prices have gone up at the moment as demand outstrips supply), charging at home on a cheap overnight tariff or free at supermarkets, worked out basically the same as our annual existing diesel car running costs were factoring in annual servicing fees, road tax, work after MOT etc too.

Everyone will be different, but some months fuel alone on our diesel would be alarmingly close to what we pay in a month total for the electric car. Divide MOT and other costs over 12 month period too and parity can come quickly. EVs don't have road tax, garage threw in free RAC etc. I know we're priveleged and it's not for everyone, but thought it worth explaining some of the logic for cost.

.It seems that like a lot of this "green revolution" the overriding thing is that its prohibitively expensive for a large % of the population at the start, and only after several years will it become affordable for the majority of people.

With EVs for example most will need to wait for the second hand market and before that becomes a meaningful % it will take a long long time,( a decade ?) on the plus side it does mean that there is time to get the infrastrucure right

A danger is of course that technology is moving so fast that the first generations of widely available cars could well be obsolete before they become affordable enough in plentiful supply

Its a hard and costly decision to say convert lampposts into charging ports, only to find that a new way of charging is just around the corner!

zefarelly · Oct 13, 2021

Elbow750 said:
Tesco in Lewes has a load of free EV charging points. My daughter uses them all the time, always gets a space.

She has an older Renault Zoe and commutes 10 miles a day, suits her perfectly. Her husband has a petrol car so they use that for longer journeys. I can see a lot of two car families moving this way very soon.

Ferzackly this. Petrol for big jobs, lecky for pottering and local stuff, beyond walking . . . and ban diesel except for long haul commercial.

Thunder Bolt · Oct 13, 2021

beorhthelm said:
thats a clever way to deal with variable supply. it doesnt solve the core problem of producing the energy in the first place.

That’s my concern too. We still have power stations fuelled by gas, oil, and coal, although renewables are slowing growing.
There’s also a concern over production and later disposing of lithium batteries.

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