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Should I buy an EV - real world advice needed.

Interesting, I wonder if that will lead to further price cuts for all the non-US manufacturers as the demand for them potentially drops in the US?

On another note, I only realised yesterday all the nonsense around VED/road tax changes in 2025 with EV's - I get they shouldn't be exempt, but the changes are nonsensical.

Also not loving the sound of where this might be heading https://www.gbnews.com/lifestyle/cars/car-tax-changes-urgent-tony-blair-institute-electric-car
 
Richard Lines said:
It would be extremely naive of any current or potential EV owner to assume they would evade VED for ever. I'm only paying £20 a year for our diesel Škoda........., as for our 2008 110 Land Rover Defender at £695 a year...........

Regards

Richard
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Completely agree that EV's shouldn't be exempt, but the 2020 Kia E-Niro I'm looking at will cost £180 to tax, and our 2015 diesel Yeti will cost £20 - how does that make sense?
 
jagdesign said:
Completely agree that EV's shouldn't be exempt, but the 2020 Kia E-Niro I'm looking at will cost £180 to tax, and our 2015 diesel Yeti will cost £20 - how does that make sense?
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It doesn't make sense. I'm surprised that they haven't yet started taxing diesels out of existence the way they did petrol cars 10 years ago. It's easy enough to do and it makes people vote with their feet. It has the benefit of generating a long tail of owners late to the party so the introduction is naturally phased. It will give us chance to catch up with charger infrastructure etc.
 
stevec67 said:
It doesn't make sense. I'm surprised that they haven't yet started taxing diesels out of existence the way they did petrol cars 10 years ago. It's easy enough to do and it makes people vote with their feet. It has the benefit of generating a long tail of owners late to the party so the introduction is naturally phased. It will give us chance to catch up with charger infrastructure etc.
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Retrospectively changing taxation regimes is unethical. It would also lead to a lot of otherwise viable and economical vehicles being scrapped, which isn’t green. The government already taxes diesel fuel higher than petrol. I’d expect that to continue.
 
Sue Pertwee-Tyr said:
Retrospectively changing taxation regimes is unethical. It would also lead to a lot of otherwise viable and economical vehicles being scrapped, which isn’t green. The government already taxes diesel fuel higher than petrol. I’d expect that to continue.
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Changes to tax rules may be unethical, but it's what they did to petrol cars. They just introduced taxing by emissions, and my reasonably economical petrol Mondy was nearly £300 pa to tax. A similar diesel was <£50, was it emitting only 1/6 as much? You know the answer. It hastened the demise of a number of otherwise viable petrol cars.
 
The Chrysler Pacifica is made in Windsor, Ontario, in Canada (but literally across the river from Detroit) .

Interestingly, there's some kind of energy efficiency factor in there too, as that Chrysler Pacifica PHEV gets the full credit despite having a petrol engine, but the fully-electric Rivian R1 trucks get only half.
 
KrisW said:
The Chrysler Pacifica is made in Windsor, Ontario, in Canada (but literally across the river from Detroit) .

Interestingly, there's some kind of energy efficiency factor in there too, as that Chrysler Pacifica PHEV gets the full credit despite having a petrol engine, but the fully-electric Rivian R1 trucks get only half.
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Ahh Windsor. When working with Ford at Dearborn I was taken to experience the “Windsor Ballet”…
 
Sue Pertwee-Tyr said:
This is a possibly encouraging development:

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/tec...E&cvid=fa62a3e0f22a4ce0891317a5b6f8e312&ei=66

BT repurposing those green street cabinets as EV charging points. Makes sense, if the cabinets are either not required or have capacity which can be put to use. Presumably, they are already tied into infrastructure like comms and power so as to work already.
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I'm not sure if the ones that are just used as copper pair distribution nodes have any power (or comms) - I've not personally ever opened one - The power for the copper infrastructure comes from the exchange. The wires have a 50V potential on them that is (was) used to cause the old analogue phones to ring.

That said, making them in to EV charging points (or distribution for such) makes sense as they have under street conduit already in place back to the BT exchanges. So the major cost of such a power distribution system, digging up the road, is avoided.
 
Rodrat said:
I wouldn't be surprised if BT didn’t install three pin plug sockets given the shambles that is Open reach.
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This kind of comment always makes me laugh. Because of course running an engineering organisation responsible for connecting up and maintaining the infrastructure for millions of homes is a really simple task that anyone can do and never make a mistake right?
 
read this from someone about their VW Buzz , not very encouraging

Remember me!, So my ID Buzz went poorly on me in 25th September last year. It has celebrated its first birthday away from home.
It has now been moved to a more specify battery garage. So the main issue is high voltage battery cell modules has become defective and requires replacement. So my parts are on order but some are out of stock no ETA on those. I have forgotten what my Buzz looks like!!
I have a had a hire car since my car went poorly which I can’t complain about but it’s diesel. So at home our electric tariff is higher in the day time to compensate for charging the buzz.. so it’s costing more..
Anyone else has had big problems with there Buzz..
Hoping for my return soon…

and another reply

Yep, we’re having big issues. We purchased ours as we do work almost daily in Central London. It went back to VW at the beginning of December as it won’t charge, therefore making it useless. It’s still sat in the dealer waiting on parts. Approx estimate is we’ll get it back at the end of February I do believe, but that’s assuming the parts actually fix the problem.
The dealer did arrange for another van which was a diesel Renault. They have now given us another ID Buzz of theirs to use but doesn’t give us much confidence. Great van when it’s working, but seems to be a lack of technical knowledge when they go wrong.
 
gez said:
I'm not sure if the ones that are just used as copper pair distribution nodes have any power (or comms) - I've not personally ever opened one - The power for the copper infrastructure comes from the exchange. The wires have a 50V potential on them that is (was) used to cause the old analogue phones to ring.

That said, making them in to EV charging points (or distribution for such) makes sense as they have under street conduit already in place back to the BT exchanges. So the major cost of such a power distribution system, digging up the road, is avoided.
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The cabinets in question are the ones that provide xDSL broadband to surrounding premises, so they definitely are connected to the electricity network, and will have fibre back to the exchange.

I think it's a good idea. The relatively short range of DSL means that those cabinets are nicely distributed around residential areas. It's not going to solve the problem of access to on-street charging, but it'll help quite a bit.
 
Talking earlier about a BEV - what do you think of the Mild Hybrids and Plug-in Hybrids?

I would never trust a BEV for the main car (I would have range anxiety) - but a Plug-in hybrid seems a nice compromise. For example I test drove a Skoda Superb 1.4 TSI iV and it was so smooth - yet apparently does 30 miles on battery alone.

Quite impressed also by the Tucson 1.6 CRDi MHEV - again very smooth with a smidgen of battery to put in that little bit of boost now and then.
 
We've got a plug-in hybrid Outlander as one of our cars as it ticked a lot of boxes for our slightly unusual use case.
  1. It's quite a large SUV so has plenty of space for our two largish dogs
  2. It's 4x4 and has decent ground clearance so is good in the snow (important as we have a cottage in the highest village in the Cairngorms and visit that most weeks), especially with all-seasons tyres fitted
  3. Town driving here in Edinburgh (including my wife's commute) is mostly done on electric - the range is very dependent on temperature and on the type of driving but realistically is around 20 miles or so
  4. The trip from Edinburgh to our cottage is a hilly and sometimes very cold/dark 160 miles each way which is towards the upper range of many EV's in winter. We don't need to stop in a petrol car or the hybrid so I wouldn't want to have to stop to charge an EV, especially as there are no chargers directly on the route and no motorway type services with chargers (other than one that's too near the start of the journey to be useful) - you'd need to go off route and then hang around in your car (or walk the dogs) while the car was being charged
  5. It's reasonably spritely as it's got a 130hp petrol engine and the 2 electric motors are something like 80hp each.
  6. It charges fine from a domestic socket so we've not had to buy electric car charging points for either of our homes
Even on the longer runs it's no more expensive for fuel than the diesel equivalent would have been (we're averaging around 40mpg on our longer runs), and when charged at home (which is really the only place I charge it) then it's pretty cheap to run around town.

The change between drive modes is very smooth and from inside the car it can be difficult to tell it it's using the petrol engine or electric motors much of the time.
 
beammeup said:
Talking earlier about a BEV - what do you think of the Mild Hybrids and Plug-in Hybrids?

I would never trust a BEV for the main car (I would have range anxiety) - but a Plug-in hybrid seems a nice compromise. For example I test drove a Skoda Superb 1.4 TSI iV and it was so smooth - yet apparently does 30 miles on battery alone.

Quite impressed also by the Tucson 1.6 CRDi MHEV - again very smooth with a smidgen of battery to put in that little bit of boost now and then.
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Got a Mercedes C200 Mild Hybrid a few months ago. Absolutely love it! Uncannily silent start up. Amazing performance for such a small engine with battery boost.
 
beammeup said:
Talking earlier about a BEV - what do you think of the Mild Hybrids and Plug-in Hybrids?

I would never trust a BEV for the main car (I would have range anxiety) - but a Plug-in hybrid seems a nice compromise. For example I test drove a Skoda Superb 1.4 TSI iV and it was so smooth - yet apparently does 30 miles on battery alone.

Quite impressed also by the Tucson 1.6 CRDi MHEV - again very smooth with a smidgen of battery to put in that little bit of boost now and then.
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Mild Hybrids are not exaclty battery operated (as far as I can tell) as in they cannot just run on a battery, but they certainly can be a very helpful boost to power when needed.
For true 'hybrid' even those that do modest mileage in fully electric, the 'use case scenario' really needs to be fully checked out.
~ For me, just about perfect, as I have circa 15 - 20 mile range depending on outside temp, and that very easily covers my daily commute, even with aircon, heated seats and steering wheel all full on It is 'pre conditioned' before I drive off.
Home or close by charging will be essential to make the most of it.
For distances, especially when I want to make the most of its efficiency, pre programming the sat nav with destination and way points, then setting off in hybrid, the car knows when to deploy electric and or engine, usually running out of stored electrons on arrival at destination (they do re gen as well, which is a boon).

The biggest fun - at least for me, hitting sport and booting it. That just then gives full power from both power units. (The battery is never allowed to go 'fully flat' and keeps an amount for just such occasions)
Somewhat startling the first time you try it, and not something I do with any regularity.
Driving to work in silence, on a frosty moring like today, in a fully up to temp car when you clamber in, is quite something I have come to enjoy.
 
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