EV are they worth it?

[carmanmemoranda]

I've seen that bloke's videos before. He is an absolute know-nothing (that's the politest word I could come up with), who just hates EVs and goes off trawling for any anti-EV dirt that he can "spin". He has a whole load of similarly minded followers on YouTube, to whom everything he says that sounds even vaguely like it might be anti-EV, is red meat.

However, as someone who works for a company with a crash repair shop, I've been around long enough to remember when that same guy (if YouTube had been a thing, back then), could have made exactly the same video when vehicles started coming with airbags!

"Oooo! A crashed vehicle's undetonated airbag could go off any minute you know! It could kill someone! These things were supposed to make us safer - excuse me laughing, but this is just so funny...." (You get the picture)? Basically, something new comes out, with new hazards associated with it, and all the same arguments get trotted out. In fact, remember when manufacturers used to recommend airbag and seat belt pre-tensioner replacement at 10 years?

"Oooo this is going to write-off perfectly useable cars"! Oooo you won't be able to get insured on a 10 year old car with airbags, unless they've all been replaced"! "Oooo nobody knows how to work on them"! "Ooooo the world's going to end"!

And then they started making high end cars out of aluminium...

"Ooooo nobody will be able to work on them"! "OOooo you'll need special tools and welding gear"! "Ooooo everyone's going to have to re-train"! "Oooooo you can't paint aluminium"!

And then they started using boron steel in some of the higher-stressed parts of a steel bodyshell...

"Oooo you can't weld that"! "Oooo it's going to be impossible to straighten on the body alignment jig"! Ooooo you're going to have to write the car off for anything more than a parking knock"!

And then they started putting cameras and radars on the backs of windscreens....

(I could go on, but I'm sure you see where I'm coming from)?

Pretty much EVERY innovation in vehicle structures and safety has, at some point, sent a mechanic or technician into apoplexy, because it's taken him out of his comfort zone. 100 years ago, these same people would have been putting up YouTube videos about how much easier horses were to look after, and how horseless carriages would never catch on, because nobody had the necessary skills to maintain them.

Fortunately, the engineers who work at the manufacturers, and Thatcham, are made of tougher stuff than that. They will be working on (and I predict, will overcome), every last one of those obstacles (and I don't for one minute deny that they exist, by the way), so that the technicians will just regard it as second nature by the time they've got a few under their belts.

Meanwhile, our resident YouTube, (self-appointed) King of Negativity, will crawl off and make videos of how bad hydrogen cars are, and how dangerous handling them after crashes is...

For anyone who hasn't the time or inclination to watch it through, the summary is as follows:

He's got hold of a Thatcham report, listing a number of problems associated with repairing crashed EVs, that will need to be overcome. He's then made a YouTube video claiming that they're all insurmountable....

summed up by confirmation bias.

 

[DiyNutJob]

Just plug it into the charger in the evening and should be easily topped-up by the morning. What is the problem?

If you forget?

I have a tesla owner across the road from me. He spends a lot of time messing with what looks like a new car. Not sure what he's doing, and not interested. But seems like a lot of hassle.

 

[ericmark]

Surely the same sort of issues occur with almost any new product. Some people just don't like change.

Yes that always happens, the problem is if any company or government is found to have lied, the we lose trust even when they are telling the truth. And if we see cars being sold with scantily dressed girls, mountain ranges, or other items completely unrelated to the car, then we tend to think they have nothing good to say about it. Be it a Freddy Boswell look alike clamping hands to turn on lights with a smart meter which I hope we all know is a load of nonsense, or driving on a secluded road.

If some one advertises a car as doing 90 MPG urban then we buy it and expect maybe stretching it a little, and we will get 75 - 85 MPG in real life, but when the Milkman OK special case, as same mileage every day 64 miles, and most at very low speed, tells how in spite of being advertised as doing 120 miles a charge, he has on a few times needed to call the recovery to get home. That would be like a car claiming 90 MPG doing 50 MPG.

It does not matter how many things are done to extend the range, and to stop telling lies about the range, the damage has been done, the same applies to charging points not working, often good reason, I know our local one had some one plugging in not just once to get 15 minutes charge free, but repeated it through the night, idea was you had 15 minutes to sort out the app to pay for rest, result the service was suspended. It see it's running again now, I suspect the 15 minutes has been removed.

At home we can charge at up to 7 kW, some are down to 2.3 kW (10 amp) and yes for me getting into a fully charged car before going out, already pre heated during the winter months, seems good, but we do want it to recharge in 10 hours or less if going to be ready for next day, so between 23 and 70 kWh is all we can reasonably expect to get into a battery over night. Google "EV battery size kWh" and I get

The average capacity is around 40kWh, but some cars now have up to a 100 kWh capacity.

so yes the smaller EV's can work, but increasing battery size does not help if you can't recharge it over night. It is simple maths.
So for myself I have three types of journey in a car, one to shops, I could use bus, so not important, two to hospital so need a range of at least 80 miles, as often hospitals are in England, and to go on holiday, we like Cornwall, so around 250 miles, we normally do it over night as less traffic, and we share the driving, looked at an EV with the range to do return trip, as only 2 charging points at the hotel and we noted last visit always in use, and since a Craft Hotel we don't leave it once we have arrived, so an EV would mean end to our holiday trips.

Also as far as using the Bus or Train, they are diesel and steam, so that hardly helps, once the Cambrian railway line has been electrified, then I will look again at an electric car.

 

[robinbanks]

If you forget?

Why would you forget? Do you forget to put petrol in your ICE vehicle and end up calli the AA? Do you forget to charge your phone? Do you forget to get dressed in a morning, the day of an interview?

Seems like nonsense to me, just inventing problems for some reason?

Not to me. I don't have time for charging batteries.

You have time to stand around for 5 minutes (assuming the filling station is on your way) refuelling your car, paying for it, etc once a week..

.. but you don't have time to take a few seconds to plug your car into the charger mounted right next to it on your house, in between uses (so.. 15 seconds twice a day?)

Assuming you do know you don't have to stand around watching the charge go into the battery, like you do with a hydrocarbon vehicle, I guess you're just trolling..

 

[robinbanks]

100 years ago

Funny thing that.. An appreciable proportion of cars were electric back then

 

[ericmark]

Assuming you do know you don't have to stand around watching the charge go into the battery, like you do with a hydrocarbon vehicle,

Where I live in a Mid Wales village, I am one of the few with off road parking, so for most yes they will need to stand around watching the charge go into the battery, or at least charge it away from the home, one hopes there is some thing they can do while it is charging.

This is one of the reasons the local heritage railway was keen to have an EV charging point, people use the cafe, or go for a train ride while waiting for the car to charge, even with a 22 kW charge point the 2 hour trip often is not enough to fully recharge their car, but the real problem now is often both charge points in use, I have said many times when wanting petrol or diesel it may be worth noting where there is cheap fuel, but not worth going out of ones way to get it, so yes as we pass filling stations we do note prices. As yet not seen any prices posted at EV charging points. There is non posted on ours, you need to down load some app before you find out the price.

 

[Avocet]

If you forget?

Then, (like forgetting to put petrol or diesel in an ICE car), you deserve all you get!

I have a tesla owner across the road from me. He spends a lot of time messing with what looks like a new car. Not sure what he's doing, and not interested. But seems like a lot of hassle.

Cleaning it? More likely, Teslas are like mobile iPhones. He's probably just playing with the various apps and getting it to make farting noises. (I kid you not)...

 

[Avocet]

Yes that always happens, the problem is if any company or government is found to have lied, the we lose trust even when they are telling the truth. And if we see cars being sold with scantily dressed girls, mountain ranges, or other items completely unrelated to the car, then we tend to think they have nothing good to say about it. Be it a Freddy Boswell look alike clamping hands to turn on lights with a smart meter which I hope we all know is a load of nonsense, or driving on a secluded road.

If some one advertises a car as doing 90 MPG urban then we buy it and expect maybe stretching it a little, and we will get 75 - 85 MPG in real life, but when the Milkman OK special case, as same mileage every day 64 miles, and most at very low speed, tells how in spite of being advertised as doing 120 miles a charge, he has on a few times needed to call the recovery to get home. That would be like a car claiming 90 MPG doing 50 MPG.

It does not matter how many things are done to extend the range, and to stop telling lies about the range, the damage has been done,

Interesting that when ICE cars fall short of their claimed range in real life, you just shrug your shoulders and accept it, but when the same thing happens with an EV, "the damage has been done"? As for your milkman, don't believe everything anyone tells you! You didn't say what kind of EV it was, but with most of them, the power consumption gone up a lot with repeated harsh acceleration. I suspect (like Jeremy Clarkson), people who have an agenda, will do all they can to make it come true. Mine is claimed to do about 350 miles on a charge, I've never had better than 300 out of it in summer and 250 in winter, but I can live with that.

the same applies to charging points not working, often good reason, I know our local one had some one plugging in not just once to get 15 minutes charge free, but repeated it through the night, idea was you had 15 minutes to sort out the app to pay for rest, result the service was suspended. It see it's running again now, I suspect the 15 minutes has been removed.

There's always one...

At home we can charge at up to 7 kW, some are down to 2.3 kW (10 amp) and yes for me getting into a fully charged car before going out, already pre heated during the winter months, seems good, but we do want it to recharge in 10 hours or less if going to be ready for next day, so between 23 and 70 kWh is all we can reasonably expect to get into a battery over night. Google "EV battery size kWh" and I get so yes the smaller EV's can work, but increasing battery size does not help if you can't recharge it over night. It is simple maths.
So for myself I have three types of journey in a car, one to shops, I could use bus, so not important, two to hospital so need a range of at least 80 miles, as often hospitals are in England, and to go on holiday, we like Cornwall, so around 250 miles, we normally do it over night as less traffic, and we share the driving, looked at an EV with the range to do return trip, as only 2 charging points at the hotel and we noted last visit always in use, and since a Craft Hotel we don't leave it once we have arrived, so an EV would mean end to our holiday trips.

Also as far as using the Bus or Train, they are diesel and steam, so that hardly helps, once the Cambrian railway line has been electrified, then I will look again at an electric car.

In reality, you won't ever be charging from empty, though. In fact, I'd be surprised if you ended up running it down to 10% most days. My battery is 80 kWh. Overnight on a 7kW charger, I can get just under 50kWh during my 7 "economy tariff" hours each night. As I try not to fill to full capacity each night (better for the battery), It's not really an issue.

 

[robinbanks]

Where I live in a Mid Wales village

If you feel the supporting infrastructure you need isn't there, it may not be the right time for an EV, for you. That's not really any different to a hydrocarbon car; they've got a hundred year head start on EVs in terms of pervasiveness of filling stations and I don't doubt there was once a time when there was no filling station near your house..

..however, you do have off-road parking and you have a house with an electricity supply so you have the potential to close that gap

You could fit a charger and become a filling station; you can even make your own charger available for other people to pay to use (at a profit to you, and you could put up a sign showing the prices if you want). Your car use requirements might even be so low that a 13amp charger, plugged into a 3 pin socket will suffice

ps; the "off road parking" thing really grinds my gears; electricity is typically in the street, so there's typically a wire carrying what is needed under the pavement. We need to get organised into digging down a metre and splicing into it, not have this utter lunacy where the electricity has to go into a house and is brought back out after passing through a meter. Chargers have their own meters, and the technology exists to bill one for one's use of a charger (any charger, not just the one nearest one's dwelling) onto the domestic electricity bill (not that it's mandatory that the electricity has to be paid for that way)

 

[IT Minion]

So for myself I have three types of journey in a car, one to shops, I could use bus, so not important, two to hospital so need a range of at least 80 miles, as often hospitals are in England, and to go on holiday, we like Cornwall, so around 250 miles, we normally do it over night as less traffic, and we share the driving, looked at an EV with the range to do return trip, as only 2 charging points at the hotel and we noted last visit always in use, and since a Craft Hotel we don't leave it once we have arrived, so an EV would mean end to our holiday trips.

Only if you refuse to stop during your drive or are too stubborn to ask the staff to help you get a charge. They'll have had that conversation before.

If you had a 200 mile real range then a quick (sub 30 mins) charge on the way and the way back would cover you

 

[ericmark]

The Milkman had a Renault kangoo electric long wheel base, and in general he liked it, main plus was in Merseyside they did not hear him and pinch the milk as he left it on the door steps, or wake his clients, and he had 4 free tow backs per year and he did not normally exceed them, but he had to retain his old vehicle to take over if not charged enough, the kangoo only charged at 3 kW so if he did not have it on charge most of the afternoon and night it did not get enough charge.

At 350 miles and actual range of 250 - 300 that's within acceptable limits, it is like with a liquid fuel when claimed 80 MPG it doing 57 - 68 MPG but his was like the liquid fuel doing around 47 MPG that was getting silly.

The larger the battery of course the longer it takes to charge, and also many EV's will not use all three phases so even when using a 22 kW charge point, only charging at 7 kW, with a 22 kWh battery as fitted to Kangoo a 50 mile top up even at the claimed 125 mile range = 8.8 kWh so even with a 7 kW charger it would take 75 minutes. Simple maths. That is if there is a charge point free.

OK there are cars which can take 22 kW but these tend to have larger batteries, so not much difference in time to top up.

As it stands with liquid fuel I can draw into a petrol station be third in the queue and still fill up in 15 minutes, same situation with an EV and looking at a day, it is not the idea of an EV it is the way it has been done, the old Bedford CF van electric you could swap batteries in around 5 minutes, the same with my e-bike, I can swap the battery in a minute or two and be on my way again, can't do that with a car.

 

[IT Minion]

OK there are cars which can take 22 kW but these tend to have larger batteries, so not much difference in time to top up.

There are cars that can take 350kW. All Tesla's can manage a peak of somewhere around 250-300kW.

Fast charging is very different to home charging. In practice battery size doesn't make much difference to charge time when you're using DC.

And NIO have hundreds of car battery swap stations in active use, they manage it in something like 3 and a half minutes I believe.

 

[JP_]

I was sceptical, but a friend said they've used about £190 electricity for their car in the last 6 months. Seems pretty cheap!

 

[DiyNutJob]

I was sceptical, but a friend said they've used about £190 electricity for their car in the last 6 months. Seems pretty cheap!

Will it be cheap after a minor bump or crash? Write off's always pay less than the cost of buying an equivalent.

Incidentally, it cost me £120 for petrol in the last 6 months.

 

[Avocet]

The Milkman had a Renault kangoo electric long wheel base, and in general he liked it, main plus was in Merseyside they did not hear him and pinch the milk as he left it on the door steps, or wake his clients, and he had 4 free tow backs per year and he did not normally exceed them, but he had to retain his old vehicle to take over if not charged enough, the kangoo only charged at 3 kW so if he did not have it on charge most of the afternoon and night it did not get enough charge.

I'm struggling to believe that! What year was the Kangoo?

At 350 miles and actual range of 250 - 300 that's within acceptable limits, it is like with a liquid fuel when claimed 80 MPG it doing 57 - 68 MPG but his was like the liquid fuel doing around 47 MPG that was getting silly.

I can't think of ANY EVs that can only charge at 3kW! Also, he is doing a pretty bad run for an EV. Stop, open door, get out deliver milk, get back in, accelerate to next house, stop, open door, get out, etc. Each time he gets out, the cabin cools down, so his heater will be flat-out in winter, and accelerating then stopping repeatedly, doesn't do the range any good. If we're being fair about this, and he was doing the same in a petrol or diesel one, he wouldn't DREAM of getting anywhere near the official fuel consumption figures for that kind of running!

The larger the battery of course the longer it takes to charge, and also many EV's will not use all three phases so even when using a 22 kW charge point, only charging at 7 kW, with a 22 kWh battery as fitted to Kangoo a 50 mile top up even at the claimed 125 mile range = 8.8 kWh so even with a 7 kW charger it would take 75 minutes. Simple maths. That is if there is a charge point free.

OK there are cars which can take 22 kW but these tend to have larger batteries, so not much difference in time to top up.

Why the obsession with AC charging? If you want to charge quickly on the go, use a DC charger! As IT Minion says, DC chargers up to 350kW are available (if your car can take it). Mine can't take much more than about 200kW. 50kW chargers are very common, and there are now increasing numbers of 150kW ones. Personally, on a long journey, I try to avoid chargers less than 100kW.

As it stands with liquid fuel I can draw into a petrol station be third in the queue and still fill up in 15 minutes, same situation with an EV and looking at a day, it is not the idea of an EV it is the way it has been done, the old Bedford CF van electric you could swap batteries in around 5 minutes, the same with my e-bike, I can swap the battery in a minute or two and be on my way again, can't do that with a car.

Last week, I went to collect our middle sprog from uni at the end of term. I decided to drop in on my parents in Liverpool on the way. That was 520 miles as a round-trip. Workington - Liverpool - Leicester - Workington.

I left home with a "full tank", and drove to Liverpool - about 140 miles. Although I easily had the range to get to Liverpool, as I had some time, I decided to grab a quick charge while I went to get myself a drink, to save myself doing it for as long, the following morning. Stopped or 15 minutes in total.

Next day, I stopped again for 6 minutes, near Stoke, while I went for a wee, and got another drink.

Got to Leicester, picked up sprog and loaded all his stuff, then set off up the M1 towards Scotch Corner. Stopped for lunch just before Sheffield and charged for 28 minutes while we grabbed some lunch.

All of those were DC chargers.

Yes, I know a good diesel would have done 520 miles without refuelling, but those charging times (with the exception of about 10 minutes of the 15 taken for the first one), were stops I would have made anyway.

As IT Minion says, Nio (as Chinese Tesla equivalent) have gone down the battery swap route. Personally, I don't see it taking off, but they do exist.