[Misc] Electric Cars

[dsr-burnley]

I’ve not heard any legislation about banning ICE cars, only the production of new ones from 2035 or of the 8 week consultation goes well with the car industry, 2030. The classic car world should be unaffected with luck.

However, there does appear to be discussions around hybrid cars.

Step 1 of the consultation needs to be about the charging infrastructure. More than one-third of the population can't in practice charge at home, because of no driveway or living in flats. If they can't find an easily accessible charging infrastructure for everyone, the whole thing falls flat.

 

[chickens]

Step 1 of the consultation needs to be about the charging infrastructure. More than one-third of the population can't in practice charge at home, because of no driveway or living in flats. If they can't find an easily accessible charging infrastructure for everyone, the whole thing falls flat.

Agree to a point but there’s already chargers covering the country. I’m in Wales and spend large chunks of my life split between Wales and Devon, and even when I had the Leaf I didn’t struggle. If I could get comfortably between charging points in a car that probably did 60-70 miles at motorway speeds, any modern EV is spoilt for choice.

We just need more of them as the EV to combustion engine ratio increases. I’ve noticed both Shell and BP putting chargers in on their forecourts, perhaps the Wild Bean Cafe isn’t quite dead after all.

Merry Christmas (early, I know) btw, I know we see eye to eye on very little, but all the best to you and yours regardless.

 

[Hugo Rune]

Step 1 of the consultation needs to be about the charging infrastructure. More than one-third of the population can't in practice charge at home, because of no driveway or living in flats. If they can't find an easily accessible charging infrastructure for everyone, the whole thing falls flat.

There are around 70,000 public chargers in the UK with another 100,000 coming online soon.

However, you are right to point to ‘at home’ chargers as being an area that needs to be looked at urgently. There used to be a big Government subsidy but it was removed for private non commercial use.

A lot of blocks of flats have private car parks where chargers already live in some cases but a lot more could go in. Those with no driveway have to park somewhere. If it’s outside their property, it might be worth energy companies (such as Octopus) being allowed to install chargers that they own but can be linked to the residence closet to the charger. I can see lots of issues with this but none are impossible to solve.

 

[dsr-burnley]

Agree to a point but there’s already chargers covering the country. I’m in Wales and spend large chunks of my life split between Wales and Devon, and even when I had the Leaf I didn’t struggle. If I could get comfortably between charging points in a car that probably did 60-70 miles at motorway speeds, any modern EV is spoilt for choice.

We just need more of them as the EV to combustion engine ratio increases. I’ve noticed both Shell and BP putting chargers in on their forecourts, perhaps the Wild Bean Cafe isn’t quite dead after all.

Merry Christmas (early, I know) btw, I know we see eye to eye on very little, but all the best to you and yours regardless.

The difference between charging at home, at home rates, sitting with your feet up in front of the fire; and charging at a public point at public rates half a mile away; is vast.

The other little difficulty is that they could spend vast wodges on upgrading the public charging points for 2030 and then discovering that technology has moved on. Maybe batteries can be recharged in 5 minutes, or maybe batteries will have got lighter and can be swapped like torch batteries. Who knows. How economic is it to start spending (right now, because time is short) on a vast infrastructure that may be obselete before it is ready for use?

Merry Christmas to you as well! Thank you.

 

[nicko31]

Wondered if anyone has any comment which charging network is best, seem to be so many

I have a Shell card, but my frustration is there seem to be chargers on their network I can use but they don't appear on the app.

 

[Triggaaar]

with a bit of planning and patience, it's not that bad.

So you need to plan and have patience, and even then, it's a bit bad. And we're to pay extra for this?

That's not really selling it.

 

[Greg Bobkin]

So you need to plan and have patience, and even then, it's a bit bad. And we're to pay extra for this?

That's not really selling it.

That's me using an extreme example of a car with 140 miles from the battery. With the vast majority of EVs, life is generally a piece of piss.

 

[BadFish]

I ordered a MG4 excite yesterday. With their sale and incentives through the novated lease scheme it is bloody cheap.

Good reviews though and certainly better than the Mazda 6 it is replacing.

 

[Greg Bobkin]

Does anybody have any experience with a Skoda Enyaq?

Looking at getting one on Motability, had a quick look around one yesterday and it seems really nice, but it would be our first EV so have no idea what the ownership experience is like. A shame the ID7 isn't available on the scheme as the best range of the Enyaq doesn't quite beat the worst bladder in the family.

We ran one for six months this year, read from the bottom up here (I know it's a bit clunky...). Not a pure ownership experience, but it comes close. I've been running an ID.7 recently and it's quite possibly the best all-round EV to live with. IMO, like.

 

[Greg Bobkin]

Wondered if anyone has any comment which charging network is best, seem to be so many

I have a Shell card, but my frustration is there seem to be chargers on their network I can use but they don't appear on the app.

Gridserve and Instavolt are decent. Ionity is hit and miss. Shell is awful (in my experience).

 

[Madafwo]

We ran one for six months this year, read from the bottom up here (I know it's a bit clunky...). Not a pure ownership experience, but it comes close. I've been running an ID.7 recently and it's quite possibly the best all-round EV to live with. IMO, like.

A really good read, thank you for that.

Knowing our luck we'll commit to the Enyaq and then the ID7 will be added to the scheme in January.

 

[GOM]

Think Tesla's starting to feel the bite of increased competition as well. ..

I think this has a lot to do with it as overall EV sales are level or up on last year depending on where you are.

 

[GOM]

It's already turning, then. Which is good. Haven't watched the vid yet - does it go into the various layers of second hand? There's a difference between "educated second hand" vs others. Locally, I'm still mostly seeing new EV's appearing. The one stand-out example of second-hand buying I'm aware of (another parent at my son's school) is someone who knows his stuff when it comes to green tech and does his research before buying.

This is trade data for second hand cars from Autotrader and shows second hand EV demand way up.

 

[GOM]

Does anybody have any experience with a Skoda Enyaq?

Looking at getting one on Motability, had a quick look around one yesterday and it seems really nice, but it would be our first EV so have no idea what the ownership experience is like. A shame the ID7 isn't available on the scheme as the best range of the Enyaq doesn't quite beat the worst bladder in the family.

Very highly rated.

 

[GOM]

Wondered if anyone has any comment which charging network is best, seem to be so many

I have a Shell card, but my frustration is there seem to be chargers on their network I can use but they don't appear on the app.

Get an Electroverse app and card, all free. It's operated by Octopus but you don't need to get your home electricity from them but if you do you will get a small discount on charging. It covers all the main charge operators including Ionity, Shell, Instavolt, Osprey Mer etc etc and also covers Europe. It is as close to 'one card for all' as there is at the moment. Failing that most are contactless anyway.

 

[Audax]

Get an Electroverse app and card, all free. It's operated by Octopus but you don't need to get your home electricity from them but if you do you will get a small discount on charging. It covers all the main charge operators including Ionity, Shell, Instavolt, Osprey Mer etc etc and also covers Europe. It is as close to 'one card for all' as there is at the moment. Failing that most are contactless anyway.

Used Electroverse on my holiday. App and card worked seamlessly. And as I'm on Octopus it goes onto my electric bill, so paying for it is deferred a bit.