I own a Nissan Leaf ev, and considering an electric bike

[flecc]

I'm not sure they make economic sense, given the eye watering depreciation Flecc observes, unless you take advantage of that and buy second hand.

They have to be kept for life or at least a decade. Their intrinsic problem which the trade cannot solve is that, like e-bikes, the battery forms such a large part of the vehicle cost.

So when selling second hand, any buyer considers the possiblity that they may have soon to fork out many thousands for a new battery, so isn't prepared to pay anything remotely connected to the new price including battery.

And the alternative of forking out £70 to £100 a month for ever to rent a battery isn't popular.
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[trex]

perhaps they should charge battery rent per mile, some like 10p/mile.

 

[flecc]

perhaps they should charge battery rent per mile, some like 10p/mile.

In effect they do to a limited extent Trex, since the rental figure is based on the expected mileage. The Leaf monthly rental scale is from 7000 miles to 12000 miles per annum and agreement rental periods are from 12 to 84 months.

For the Nissan Leaf the monthly cost scale is from £70 to £113, depending on agreement period and mileage.
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[Hillbilly]

I'm a bit surprised by some of the negative comments on here about electric cars as I would have thought their main feature of avoiding exhaust emissions would benefit all cyclists.
http://www.fitday.com/fitness-articles/fitness/cardio/how-does-air-pollution-affect-cyclists.html

 

[trex]

they shift emission to another place where fewer people suffer from, which is good but they harm the environment in other ways through manufacturing their batteries and disposal of the latter.

 

[flecc]

I'm a bit surprised by some of the negative comments on here about electric cars as I would have thought their main feature of avoiding exhaust emissions would benefit all cyclists.
http://www.fitday.com/fitness-articles/fitness/cardio/how-does-air-pollution-affect-cyclists.html

I like the ideas of having an electric car so much that I've been tracking the possibiliy for over five years and have again gone deeply into the subject recently.

But that doesn't mean I will pretend the disadvantages don't exist, they do, they are very real and they make ownership completely impossible for the great majority of UK car drivers.
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[odbob]

I'm a bit surprised by some of the negative comments on here about electric cars as I would have thought their main feature of avoiding exhaust emissions would benefit all cyclists.
http://www.fitday.com/fitness-articles/fitness/cardio/how-does-air-pollution-affect-cyclists.html

I fully agree with you, being a cyclist and an EV owner myself, the sooner EV becomes the norm (which it will) the better for all

 

[odbob]

they shift emission to another place where fewer people suffer from, which is good but they harm the environment in other ways through manufacturing their batteries and disposal of the latter.

All manufacturing and disposal harms the environment, difficult to give percentages between internal combustion (IC) versus EV. In terms of shifting the emissions to power plants, yes this is true, but it is far easier to reduce the harmful gases at source rather than suffer the effects of millions of poorly controlled individual polluters.

 

[odbob]

I like the ideas of having an electric car so much that I've been tracking the possibiliy for over five years and have again gone deeply into the subject recently.

But that doesn't mean I wil pretend the disadvantages don't exist, they do, they are very real and they make ownership completely impossible for the great majority of UK car drivers.
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EV's are here to stay, the infrastructure is where the problem lies, when it is easy to 'fill up' at the local charging station, just minutes in most cases from the home, this is when the majority will be able to choose EV's, and this will happen given time. The infrastructure is still in it's infancy at present but they are getting there, some considerable way to go yet, but it will happen.
Another point worth considering is that EV's running on water is at a very advanced stage, ie no batteries but still electric cars

 

[trex]

at present, infrastructure installations are suitable for small scale EV user base but can't really be scaled up to meet future demand when fast charging batteries are on all EVs. When I try to compare the cost of clean diesel technology against the cost of grant for the purchase of an electric car and missing tax revenue on fossile fuel, I think as a country, we can ill afford to scale up the adoption of full electric cars.

 

[flecc]

EV's are here to stay, the infrastructure is where the problem lies, when it is easy to 'fill up' at the local charging station, just minutes in most cases from the home, this is when the majority will be able to choose EV's, and this will happen given time. The infrastructure is still in it's infancy at present but they are getting there, some considerable way to go yet, but it will happen.

The position is far worse that I thought at one time, so I can't see battery EVs becoming a majority of cars within any foreseeable future.

Only some 70% of car owners have offstreet parking and a large proportion of that parking is detached from their home with no acceptable cost electricity supply possible. Those with the offstreet parking next to their homes are more likely to be outside of cities and large towns and more likely to do longer journeys in consequence. That means a higher proportion of them would not be able to accept battery EV limitations.

Public charging units are mostly far too slow, taking 4 to 15 hours, so only one on the doorstep is acceptable. No-one is going to install anything approaching a street charger per household and in any case, spaces cannot be reserved for individuals on roads which are a public facility

The fast chargers take half an hour, or more for the latest larger batteries and these only to an 80% charge. Even that is too slow, I for one would not be prepared to kick my heels for 30 or more minutes every day or every other day to recharge away from home. Many today are already time short and an 80% charge narrows still further the range of people who could cope with a battery EV's range limitations.

And as Trex infers, the national infrastructure is hardly likely to be in place at a time when we are in danger of falling short on present requirements for generation.

I wish none of this were true, but at present the only hope of escaping ic cars lies in some completely new as yet unavailable technology.

The fact is the ic car is just far too convenient and highly developed. With the constant new finds already ensuring ample oil for well over a half century into the future, things are heavily stacked against change in a foreseeable time frame.
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[Hillbilly]

....they make ownership completely impossible for the great majority of UK car drivers.
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Unduly pessimistic in my view. Most car journeys in UK are within 80 miles so within range of electric cars, but anyway EU legislation steadily restricting emissions is forcing every car manufacturer to introduce them and Local Authorities (now responsible for Public Health) will have to prevent toxic air pollution.
Those car owners without access to home charging can get the PHEV type of electric car which provides 20-60 mile EV range so I guess your " completely impossible" is down to perceived cost of EV purchase prices which are now dropping.
I was originally writing though from a cyclist's perspective - is there any need for us to accept toxic fumes as inevitable, when alternatives are now available.

 

[anotherkiwi]

BMW i8 134 mpg, BMW i3 127 mpg (range extender version) etc. I chose the most visible cars but many other manufacturers are going down this road. Then we have Tesla which offers real world driving distances in an all electric. OK for a price but you all have computers, you know that early adopters pay the premium.

You are being overly pessimistic about the current generation finding original solutions to the charging/range problem. Trust them they will. It is becoming increasingly obvious that we have no other choice now anyway, they have to find a solution.

 

[flecc]

Unduly pessimistic in my view. Most car journeys in UK are within 80 miles so within range of electric cars, but anyway EU legislation steadily restricting emissions is forcing every car manufacturer to introduce them and Local Authorities (now responsible for Public Health) will have to prevent toxic air pollution.
Those car owners without access to home charging can get the PHEV type of electric car which provides 20-60 mile EV range so I guess your " completely impossible" is down to perceived cost of EV purchase prices which are now dropping.
I was originally writing though from a cyclist's perspective - is there any need for us to accept toxic fumes as inevitable, when alternatives are now available.

While it's true that most journeys are shorter that 80 miles, true of me too, many of us have longer ones to undertake. In my case an intermittent 140 miles each way not well covered with suitable charging points and worst of all, none at all near the other end, leaving me arriving with no miles to spare for use while there.

And I repeatedly said battery EVs, I wasn't including part time EVs. MY mention of completely impossible referred to was not on price and I made no mention of that. It was entirely based on practicality for a majority, albeit only just a majority.

I'm not being unduly pessimistic and have based my judgement on the facts I quoted. I wish it wasn't so, but wishful thinking won't make it happen.

I fully understand the enthusiasm for pure EV cars that are very attractive in so many ways,. but I see this as very much an argument like the peak oil one. Back in the 1950s and '60s the protagonists argued that we were already at peak oil and wouldn't be able to burn any by year 2000. They were carried away by their enthusiasm in their belief and have been shown to be comprehensively wrong as I forecast at the time.

The same is happening now with pure EVs, the protagonists' enthusiasm leading to them being overly optimistic and refusing to face some obvious facts.

The position for PHEVs is very different of course and some are entirely realistic for everyone, but we need to stop governments discriminating aganst them. For example the changes that have removed half of the purchase subsidy and made them liable to the London Congestion charge now.
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[Hillbilly]

?..
Only some 70% of car owners have offstreet parking
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Do you have a source for this figure - this RAC data (p36) suggests it is closer to 25%
http://www.racfoundation.org/assets/rac_foundation/content/downloadables/spaced_out-bates_leibling-jul12.pdf

 

[flecc]

You are being overly pessimistic about the current generation finding original solutions to the charging/range problem. Trust them they will. It is becoming increasingly obvious that we have no other choice now anyway, they have to find a solution.

Even if they were able to, and I don't share your optimism on both factors, what sort of a solution is it? Not a complete one for some reasons:

It still leaves all the dieel engines used for transport, the filthiest of them all and most not conceivably replaceable by EVs or for many by PHEVs.

It still leaves all the PHEV cars using petrol, and for the foreseeable future they will greatly outnumber the pure EVs.

And as Trex and I have mentioned, no-one is addressing the little matter of where the electricity is going to come from and how it can be distributed. We aren't too clever at making enough for ourselves at present, without the vast quantities that 30 million EVs would need.
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[flecc]

Do you have a source for this figure - this RAC data (p36) suggests it is closer to 25%
http://www.racfoundation.org/assets/rac_foundation/content/downloadables/spaced_out-bates_leibling-jul12.pdf

I struggled to find data on this but found some sources suggesting the 70% gross figure, but I didn't retain any links. I didn't come across that RAC figure, but it seems low.

Looking at pages 36 to 38 I can't see the 25% you refer to and the figures in the graphs don't seem to support that. Unfortunately the expression private property is rather vague and gives no idea of charging practicality. My garage is on private property, but it isn't next to my home and cannot be supplied with current from it, and the same is true for most of the over 3000 properties on this estate and the many more homes in several other estates in the area.

That aside though, the RAC figure don't support the 70% I found, but do support my contention that a very high proportion of car owners/users can have no charging facility at and supplied from their home.
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[derf]

I struggled to find data on this but found some sources suggesting the 70% gross figure, but I didn't retain any links. I didn't come across that RAC figure, but it seems low.

Looking at pages 36 to 38 I can't see the 25% you refer to and the figures in the graphs don't seem to support that. Unfortunately the expression private property is rather vague and gives no idea of charging practicality. My garage is on private property, but it isn't next to my home and cannot be supplied with current from it, and the same is true for most of the over 3000 properties on this estate and the many more homes in several other estates in the area.

That aside though, the RAC figure don't support the 70% I found, but do support my contention that a very high proportion of car owners/users can have no charging facility at and supplied from their home.
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i don't have off street parking, but seriously considered the twizy for quite a while - but the specs (range 31 to 62 mile, top speed 50mph, no doors) is at present just not good enough (one can pick up hardly used pones for circa £3k). I need something that can do London Stansted/Gatwick/south coast and back without anxiety. I figure it needs to have double its current performance and an unlimited mileage contract (and lockable doors) - which I believe it will have in another five years.

 

[flecc]

i don't have off street parking, but seriously considered the twizy for quite a while - but the specs (range 31 to 62 mile, top speed 50mph, no doors) is at present just not good enough (one can pick up hardly used pones for circa £3k). I need something that can do London Stansted/Gatwick/south coast and back without anxiety. I figure it needs to have double its current performance and an unlimited mileage contract (and lockable doors) - which I believe it will have in another five years.

I also found the Twizy attractive and could easily make good use of one for much of my driving, though still needing my ic car. I'd still have the problem of no charging facility though, but the real killer for me is that at my age I suffer the cold so badly. It made me give up on motorbikes eventually and the Twizy is little better with it's part open sides and no heating.

I would really enjoy a Twizy in the better Spring and Summer months though.
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[Croxden]

When I try to compare the cost of clean diesel technology

Is this the Volkswagen clean diesel?