Zero-emission vehicles, their batteries & subsidies/rebates for them.- No politics regarding the subsidies!

[Chromatischism]

Now I seem to recall the Volt having 40 mile electric range was based on the data that 40 miles per day covered 80% of the driving done or something like that. A 40 or even 100 mile range electric would be a different story. I might not need more than 100 miles very often not even once each week. It would be a rather regular occurance which would happen often enough to be a bother. 250 to 300 mile ranges allow you to use the EV with almost no impact on my normal use.

My drive to work is 1.8 miles. I can get to my furthest destination within the city in 10 miles traveled. 40 miles of range is more than enough.

If you make a lot of longer road trips or commute, that's when you want the 300-500 miles of range that a Tesla or Lucid offer.

I've thought about getting rid of the car, but I really do need it for the stuff I haul around on a regular basis, trips to various stores, etc.

 

[DudleyDuoflush]

I have a a Tesla and use it for a daily commute of 50 miles each way. I have a 7kw charger at home so charge each night during the cheap period. I take the ferry twice a year to Spain and drive across it using the excellent supercharger network. My Tesla is a company car in the UK and I save about £5k each year on tax and an ever increasing amount in fuel. For me it makes complete sense at the moment. If it wasn't a company car and I was doing less mileage, probably not.

 

[JJB70]

Before we left England I was thinking about replacing our car and I test drove a couple of MG EVs, a ZS and a 5. People might dismiss them because they're Chinese and because the interiors are slightly low rent (although I honestly thought they felt nicer than current VW models) but they're excellent cars with a useful range, drive well enough and undercut rivals on price.

 

[DudleyDuoflush]

Seems sensible providing they keep their promise to spend the money expanding the charging network.

Forget everything else, the thing that has driven EV adoption in the UK is company car tax and salary sacrifice leasing. A company driver can save £15-20k over the lease period. That's why there are so many EVs and why the model 3 is in the top 3 selling cars in the UK. This is a wise policy as it makes many of these cars available on the 2nd hand market in years to come.

 

[samsa]

Doubtless this will bring a joyful sense of vindication to some in this thread. Me, I'm glad I bought mine when I did. The price has gone up by $16k in the 15 months since then.

 

[j_j]

Doubtless this will bring a joyful sense of vindication to some in this thread. Me, I'm glad I bought mine when I did. The price has gone up by $16k in the 15 months since then.

He needs more money to buy twitter, eh?

 

[DudleyDuoflush]

Doubtless this will bring a joyful sense of vindication to some in this thread. Me, I'm glad I bought mine when I did. The price has gone up by $16k in the 15 months since then.

Would you still buy yours at the current prices?

 

[samsa]

Would you still buy yours at the current prices?

Then? Or now?

• I was absolutely committed that my next vehicle would be an EV.
• $50k seemed a reasonable price for the amount of car I was buying.
• At the time, there was really nothing, available in the US, that competed.

So the Model Y LR seemed a no-brainer.

Now:

• $66k seems a bit steep for what I'm getting
• There's some decent-looking competition available:
  • Ford Mach-E
  • Hyundai Ioniq-5/Kia EV-6
  • Volkswagen ID4

I'm not sure what I'd ultimately decide, but it would take some thought. (Of course, given that current delivery dates are all listed as 6-12 months — I got mine in 4 weeks — I could put in an order for a Tesla and see whether something better comes up over the next year .)

 

[DudleyDuoflush]

Then? Or now?

• I was absolutely committed that my next vehicle would be an EV.
• $50k seemed a reasonable price for the amount of car I was buying.
• At the time, there was really nothing, available in the US, that competed.

So the Model Y LR seemed a no-brainer.

Now:

• $66k seems a bit steep for what I'm getting
• There's some decent-looking competition available:
  • Ford Mach-E
  • Hyundai Ioniq-5/Kia EV-6
  • Volkswagen ID4

I'm not sure what I'd ultimately decide, but it would take some thought. (Of course, given that current delivery dates are all listed as 6-12 months — I got mine in 4 weeks — I could put in an order for a Tesla and see whether something better comes up over the next year .)

I think whoever cracks the 300 mile range £30k EV will clean up.

 

[samsa]

I think whoever cracks the 300 mile range £30k EV will clean up.

I don't know why people keep obsessing about range.

To me, the biggest point of anxiety was battery longevity. Early EVs (e.g. the Nissan Leaf) had lousy battery life because they had essentially no thermal management. I would not invest £30k on an EV whose battery was going to wimp out after 3 or 4 years.

Teslas come with an 8 year/100k mile warranty on the battery; so do the ID4 and the Mach-E. The Ioniq 5's is 8/125k. The EV6's is 7/100k. Anything less is not even worth considering buying.

And, yeah, 1,000,000 km on a battery pack is attainable.

 

[Suffolkhifinut]

I don't know why people keep obsessing about range.

To me, the biggest point of anxiety was battery longevity. Early EVs (e.g. the Nissan Leaf) had lousy battery life because they had essentially no thermal management. I would not invest £30k on an EV whose battery was going to wimp out after 3 or 4 years.

Teslas come with an 8 year/100,000 mile warranty on the battery; so do the ID4 and the Mach-E. The Ioniq 5's is 8/125k. The EV6's is 7/100k. Anything less is not even worth considering buying.

And, yeah, 1,000,000 km on a battery pack is attainable.

Last week did a 220 mile trip on the face of it well within most EVs range. Unless you are stuck in a traffic jam for several hours due to an accident. Looking at getting a new car and believe a PHEV is the best way forward. With an electric range of between 40 and 55 miles more than enough for 48 weeks in a year.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Last week did a 220 mile trip on the face of it well within most EVs range. Unless you are stuck in a traffic jam for several hours due to an accident. Looking at getting a new car and believe a PHEV is the best way forward. With an electric range of between 40 and 55 miles more than enough for 48 weeks in a year.

Progress I suppose, but you are still making excuses not based in reality. Your trip was within EV range even with an accident caused traffic jam.

 

[samsa]

Progress I suppose, but you are still making excuses not based in reality. Your trip was within EV range even with an accident caused traffic jam.

The traffic jam is irrelevant.

Not too much power (i.e., nearly zero) being consumed, if you are literally stuck in a traffic jam. It's not like you have an IC engine to keep running. So, no, that won't affect your range at all. (Though it does have a deleterious effect on your instantaneous "Whr/mi" — funny things happen when the denominator of any fraction goes to zero.)

Maybe this needs to be explained to ICE drivers: they think of inching along in snarled traffic as the least fuel efficient (and most frustrating) way to go a certain distance, whereas tooling along at highway speeds is the most fuel-efficient. In an EV, the opposite is the case: inching along in snarled traffic is the most efficient (though still frustrating), while driving at highway speeds is the least efficient.

 

[Suffolkhifinut]

The traffic jam is irrelevant.

Not too much power (i.e., nearly zero) being consumed, if you are literally stuck in a traffic jam. It's not like you have an IC engine to keep running. So, no, that won't affect your range at all. (Though it does have a deleterious effect on your instantaneous "Whr/mi" — funny things happen when the denominator of any fraction goes to zero.)

Maybe this needs to be explained to ICE drivers: they think of inching along in snarled traffic as the least fuel efficient (and most frustrating) way to go a certain distance, whereas tooling along at highway speeds is the most fuel-efficient. In an EV, the opposite is the case: inching along in snarled traffic is the most efficient (though still frustrating), while driving at highway speeds is the least efficient.

If I was stuck for 4 hours in a traffic jam in hot weather how much would using the AC take from the battery?

 

[Blumlein 88]

If I was stuck for 4 hours in a traffic jam in hot weather how much would using the AC take from the battery?

If you were stuck in traffic with a car which has 300 mile range on a tank of gas, the AC would consume a larger percentage of the range than in the EV. An idling IC is operating at its worst possible efficiency while an EV just running AC is operating at high efficiency. Plus, if you are creeping along, an EV is most efficient at low speeds while IC efficiency drops dramatically at speeds below 40 mph. In fact in a traffic jam where you creep along several miles going 10-25 mph, you might gain range from the lower speed. If you were dead stopped and low on battery, you can turn off the AC and use zero percent of the battery.

 

[samsa]

"Hot weather" in the UK and "hot weather" in Texas mean very different things. So hard to say. But there was a Winter storm back in January that closed down part of I-95 in Virginia. Tesla Model 3 owners reportedly fared as well or better than their ICE driving compatriots.

(TL;DR: if you want to run the climate control in an ICE car, you pretty much have to keep the engine running. In an EV, you don't. In other words: the EV wins.)

 

[Blumlein 88]

If I was stuck for 4 hours in a traffic jam in hot weather how much would using the AC take from the battery?

A more specific answer. Tesla model 3's in Texas, in the sun on days above 95 degrees were found to use about 2kw-hrs per hour for AC. I use the Tesla because that is the EV for which there is the most real world data. That car will go roughly 4 miles per kw-hr at highway speeds. So sitting still for 4 hrs in Texas you could lose 32 miles of range at highway speed. Or about 16 miles if you were going at speeds lower than 30 mph. As you are in the UK, you'll use less than this because it isn't so hot in the UK as in Texas.

IC fuel use varies a lot idling because the size of the engine is rather variable. A compact car will use about 1/4 gallon per hr with AC on, and a large car or pickup truck will use around 1/2 gallon per hour. So somewhere between 1 to 2 gallons of fuel. You won't use much less than this even in the cooler UK as the amount used by the AC above idling without AC is around 10% difference. So again the EV will be at least as good and probably better in such a situation.

 

[Inner Space]

In fact in a traffic jam where you creep along several miles going 10-25 mph, you might gain range from the lower speed.

Yes, absolutely. My EV is rated for about 230 miles of range, but in town traffic, driving slowly and smoothly (very easy in an EV) the computer often shows more than 400 miles available under current conditions. The fast/slow difference is much bigger than with an ICE. I would get vastly more range anxiety driving fast on the highway than creeping along in a jam.

 

[Doodski]

Yes, absolutely. My EV is rated for about 230 miles of range, but in town traffic, driving slowly and smoothly (very easy in an EV) the computer often shows more than 400 miles available under current conditions. The fast/slow difference is much bigger than with an ICE. I would get vastly more range anxiety driving fast on the highway than creeping along in a jam.

What is the noise like in your EV? Is there a hum and whir from the motors or any clicking noises etc?

 

[Inner Space]

What is the noise like in your EV? Is there a hum and whir from the motors or any clicking noises etc?

There's a weird little whine when I switch it on - quiet, but very "electronic" - but that's inaudible once rolling, underneath muted air rush and a little tire noise. Overall it's about as quiet as my Bentley, which has 300lb of sound deadening in it.