Are we still convinced that electric vehicles are the best way forward?

phild

CCCUK Member
Our new Prime Minister Truss's first parliamentary question time today - she noted that to help the people relating to the collosal energy 'hikes' we have seen this year (and more to follow) the government will 'cap' energy prices......and look at ways of extracting more gas from the North Sea oil fields......plus investing in new Nuclear power stations. Our current government, previous governments from probably the last 20 years at least have been deliberating about replacing end of life power stations, commissioning new ones (and even cancelling new builds) - I'm guessing the general public haven't a clue actually how long it takes to build and commission a nuclear power station........7 years minimum 10/12 years more feasible. How's that going to help our current energy crisis. Politicians are without doubt the biggest group of *ankers ever!

Apparently fracking is back on the agenda.
 

Yellowshark

Well-known user
an issue so no probleDoes she know of your plans? I'm amused at the thought of the look on her face when her car goes missing and in its spot is a random newer car :ROFLMAO:
Lol guys I know where you coming from but the other way around. We have a skip at the moment and are having a clear out, The other day I saw my Corvette drinks tray in the skip!!!!! I am glad to say the BMW has been discussed, her high mileage required the BMW seats which she really loved but mileage is no longer a problem. Hell she even said she would be happy to drive my incoming MINI Cooper S Works
 

craigyboy

CCCUK Member
Interesting subject. With 2030 in mind I had a look last year, at the new Fiat 500e and the MINIe, both vastly inflated prices over the petrol versions. Why would anyone want/indeed afford to spend such a large premium apart from the top 10%, I have no idea if TODAY it is cheaper to fuel a car with electricity rather than petrol. I have no idea when us mortals will be able to buy an E car that has a mileage range that means you can actually drive somewhere without worrying all the time. With my C5 I can.

I see little in the press about how much a new battery would cost. I doubt there is anything in my C5 that would cost anything near an E battery cost. Lots of E chargers in my local town centre car park, i.e. 4. What happens when we are all driving electric – no need to worry about poor mileage range if you cannot get any electricity into your battery.

Do I contribute to the planet? Yes, before I retired I paid higher tax rate for many years and top whack of NI, I never claimed a benefit and so the Government coffers have done well from my contribution. Am I going to continue to contribute? Yes I just bought a 2nd hand MINI Cooper S Works as my daily driver which has a better mpg than the C5. My strategy is based on the assumption that before they stop selling petrol I will have departed the planet
2030 you will still get petrol and diesel cars made.. They will be hybrid cars
 

Chuffer

CCCUK Member
According to the RAC the cost of charging the average family EV has risen 42% in recent times . Just watch that cost go up and up as demand increases and then see how far a tank full of sparks gets you compared to a tank of gas in your ICE vehicle.
 

Roscobbc

Moderator
Given the recent energy hikes and the still questionable serviceabilty of road-side charging points (if they even exist) I'm surprised to see the significant numbers of recent registered electric vehicles locally.......having said that - given the worldwide shortage of electronic components (used in both ICE and Electric cars) leading to significant vehicle price rises and extended lead times for supply (up to a year in some cases). The ongoing and not insignificant rises in costs of on-street electric charging makes me wonder how many of the recent adopters of electric propulsion are wondering whether they should have 'jumped on the bandwagon' so early. Logic tells me personally that 'moving over' to electric power for your daily driver shouldn't logically be for quite a few years yet to enable us to understand the choices we need to make (both new and used vehicles) and how HMG are going to be taxing us for the use of electric cars.
 

Nassau65

CCCUK Member
A couple of friends run Tesla’s as their daily drivers, wizzing all over the place. They seem quite happy with them. Both have home chargers, so no problems there. I assume they charge on route if they need to.
 

teamzr1

Supporting vendor
Electric vehicles have caught on fire in Florida after becoming waterlogged during Hurricane Ian, giving firefighters “a new challenge” they “haven’t faced before,” according to one Florida official.

“There’s a ton of EVs disabled from Ian. As those batteries corrode very quickly, fires start.
That’s a new challenge that our firefighters haven’t faced before.
At least on this kind of scale,” Jimmy Patronis, Florida’s chief financial officer and state fire marshal, tweeted this week.

In his tweet, Patronis included a video of firefighters putting out a fire involving a Tesla. Meanwhile, someone can be heard saying that they had already used “1,500 gallons of water on this, and it’s still going.”

“Oh, and this will burn for days,”
another individual can be heard saying in the video, before the first individual explains that the firefighters “have a good water supply,” and “they’re just going to do what they can to drown this vehicle.”

In a follow-up tweet, Patronis explained, “It takes special training and understanding of EVs [electric vehicles] to ensure these fires are put out quickly and safely.”
“Right now, they’re going to try to get in there and cool it down as best they can,” a woman can be heard explaining in the third video.
“Electric vehicles will continue to burn in the water.”

North Collier Fire Rescue District in Naples, Florida, posted additional footage to Facebook, showing firefighters drenching the Tesla’s top and underbelly with water to eliminate sparks.
“This is an issue many fire departments across [southwest] Florida are experiencing right now,” North Collier Fire Rescue District said in the Facebook post. “These vehicles have been submerged in salt water; they have extensive damage and can potentially be serious fire hazards.”

Having an electric vehicle during hurricane season in Florida is not the only potential disaster EV owners face.

This week, a man who bought a brand new $115,000 Hummer electric truck showcased how he was left stranded in the middle of the road and the vehicle had less than 250 miles on it.
Similarly, a YouTuber recently demonstrated that buyers of GMC’s new electric Hummer better clear their calendars if the truck is running low on battery charge. The video he produced demonstrated that when the $80,000+ electric vehicle (EV) is plugged in to a regular house outlet, it will take over four days to fully charge.
A special 240-volt charger still takes a full day to charge the vehicle.


A third, similar situation regarding EVs, involved another YouTuber with 1.4 million followers conducting an experiment with his brand new 2023 Ford F-150 Lightning electric pickup.
The man tried to tow a 1930 Ford Model A truck with the electric vehicle, but it ended in “a complete and total disaster.
 

Chuffer

CCCUK Member
Best thing to do with EV`s and Hybrids that are so pug ugly is set fire to them . Just look at this VW XL1 that was at the Bicester Scramble yesterday , with the doors open it looks like a failed attempt at Origami and when closed it looks like an upturned bidet . :LOL: DSC_1673.JPGDSC_1674.JPG
 

teamzr1

Supporting vendor
An electric vehicle (EV) owner who takes road trips between Cheyenne and Casper in Wyoming has revealed that his first trip of 178 miles took a staggering 15 hours to complete in his electric Nissan Leaf.

“It was very difficult. For example, [it took] 15 hours to get from Cheyenne to Casper,” Alan O’Hashi told Cowboy State Daily, adding that this particular trip wasn’t taken in the beginning of the EV era. It was in May 2022.

One month later, O’Hashi was able to complete the road trip in about 11 hours, he said. To put it into perspective, the trip of 178 miles should take less than two and a half hours traveling the speed limit in a gasoline-powered vehicle.

O’Hashi’s experience driving across Wyoming has been such an adventure that the EV owner even wrote a book about the subject, titled, On The Trail: Electric Vehicle Advice and Anxiety.

Charging an EV involves three different levels of chargers that power up different types of EVs at different rates, Cowboy State Daily noted. But none of these charging levels are as fast as filling up a gas-powered car at the pump.

O’Hashi said that on his first trip to Cody, Wyoming, from Colorado in his Nissan Leaf, he used a Level 3 charger at a public charging station in Wellington, Colorado, which can take his small vehicle between 10 and 30 minutes to charge.

But the charge wasn’t enough to get him to Casper, Wyoming. So he had to drive 30 miles to Cheyenne, where he could use a Level 2 charger at a Nissan dealership. At that level, O’Hashi would get roughly 10 miles worth of power for every hour he was hooked up.

Moreover, O’Hashi had to charge for three hours in order to get his battery back to where it was when he left Wellington.
“What I’ve learned from driving this thing is patience,” O’Hashi said.

Another problem with EVs in a place like Wyoming is that the hilly terrain and winds need to be factored in, as it can degrade an EV’s range by up to half, the report added.
Additionally, an EV owner cannot just call AAA to bring them more electricity. An electric vehicle that has run out of power needs to be towed to a charging station.

O’Hashi also told the outlet that he tries to stop at old motels, where he can stay on the first floor and run an extension cord out a window, while he’s on one of his road trips in his EV.

In some cases, the motels have plug-ins for block heaters, he added. Those reportedly charge a vehicle about 5 miles of range per hour.
So O’Hashi is able to get enough charge for another 40 miles as long as he stays at the motel overnight.

Unfortunately, those extra 40 miles O’Hashi obtained by charging overnight were only enough to get him to Riverton, he said. So from there, he drove his EV to a Nissan dealership to charge for a few more hours, just to make sure he wouldn’t get stranded.

After that, O’Hashi was able to make it to Riverton, where he pulled off into a Hampton Inn that offers EV charging.
A few hours after charging there, he headed up into the Wind River Canyon.

“So I barely made it to Cody,” O’Hashi said.
 

CaptainK

Administrator
Well, that chap's first fail was not charging up at home before he left. If he regularly has to do this trip in an EV, he'd get an at home faster charger for overnight charging as well. The article doesn't state whether its an older Nissan Leaf first gen which does genuinely bugger all miles, or the latest model which still does bugger all miles, but a bit more than the first gen. If it was the first gen model, then yeah, he'd have to recharge at least twice to get to his destination. Newest gen, then recharge once to get there. (All assuming they actually engaged brain and charged the thing up overnight before they left home).

But the question is, if they are regularly driving long distance journeys, why did they buy a Nissan Leaf? The stats all say they don't have good range at all. If they really wanted an EV they should have thought about it and got an EV with a better range.

Disclaimer: I'm not "for" or "against" EVs. They have their place, like all vehicles, and again like all vehicles they are not suitable to all vehicle roles - e.g. you wouldn't use a tractor for a dash across Europe to the Riviera, and likewise you wouldn't use a Rolls Royce for ploughing the fields.
 

Chuffer

CCCUK Member
It will be interesting to see if EV sales drop off a cliff now that the `Comedy of Errors` that is poses as th UK`s Government has realised that it`s misguided and spurious claims that EV`s will save the planet is less imortant than tax revenue . Finally EV owners will have to pay to drive on our roads like the rest of us . The governent dangled the carrot of zero road tax to coax Joe Public into ditching their ICE vehicles in favour of EV just to boost the governments alledged `green ` credentials on the world stage , but as always the case money talks eventually !!
 

Roscobbc

Moderator
Totally agree with Chuffers comment re. `Comedy of Errors` that poses as the UK`s Government' - 'thing is' that the same 'moniker' can be applied to every single goverment that has ever been appointed this century - why?. It's the ridiculous scenario of any government coming in to power (following a general election) and being able to reverse/ignore/cancel any worthwhile policies the previous government implemented. Proportional representation is perhaps the logical answer, although we would run the risk of having an Italianate political system and a new government ever other week!.........mind you the 'performances' we have seen over the couple years with our traditional system make things virtually 'Italinate' anyway.
Would Starmers mob make a difference?........seriously doubt it.........tbh I think all the political parties are 100% useless.......the individual party members who become ministers are all totally inexperienced and almost to a person unfit for governmental duties........what has happened to all the Tory, Labour, Liberal and SDP 'heavyweights' whose words and actions meant something?............they are all hiding away I guess uhappy at the thought of putting their respective names to lame governments.
 

antijam

CCCUK Member
We're currently experiencing the disadvantages of democracy with few of the advantages. Politicians of necessity have a short term view, their prime effort while in power is not to solve long term problems but to ensure they stay in power at the next election. For a longer term view on solving world problems - global warming for example - perhaps it's time for a dictatorship?
 

Roscobbc

Moderator
We're currently experiencing the disadvantages of democracy with few of the advantages. Politicians of necessity have a short term view, their prime effort while in power is not to solve long term problems but to ensure they stay in power at the next election. For a longer term view on solving world problems - global warming for example - perhaps it's time for a dictatorship?
Exactly..........we wouldn't have the situation where virtually nothing in the UK is actually owned by UK based or owned individuals........finacial, energy and utilities suppliers are mainly owned by overseas companies........some (like France and Spain who themselves are only a step away from insolvency.........and kept going perhaps illegally by being 'propped-up' by thier own governments). We wouldn't have an energy crisis if successive previous governments hadn't continually deliberated on building new nuclear power stations..........and all this cobblers last week to the effect "65% of our electric power this week came from wind power" - great, commendable etc ....... how many weeks when we had 'still' weather was the output effectively zero? - and who owns and profits from the wind farm?.....UK companies and individuals?......I think not!
 

Chuffer

CCCUK Member
Exactly..........we wouldn't have the situation where virtually nothing in the UK is actually owned by UK based or owned individuals........finacial, energy and utilities suppliers are mainly owned by overseas companies........some (like France and Spain who themselves are only a step away from insolvency.........and kept going perhaps illegally by being 'propped-up' by thier own governments). We wouldn't have an energy crisis if successive previous governments hadn't continually deliberated on building new nuclear power stations..........and all this cobblers last week to the effect "65% of our electric power this week came from wind power" - great, commendable etc ....... how many weeks when we had 'still' weather was the output effectively zero? - and who owns and profits from the wind farm?.....UK companies and individuals?......I think not!
Totally agree with you Roscobbc and Antijam , there is a lot to be said for dictatorships . Amongst the many failings of politicians is not learing from history and just thrive on their own egos and agendas .
 
Top