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Cars (all fuels and electric)

Graham wrote:

The Police in this country suggest a lot of things and I rarely consider them a source of wisdom. There are plenty of reasons not to ride the brakes.

It’s not about “riding the brakes” but just showing momentarily the brake lights when you’re slowing through engine braking (which in some vehicles can be a reasonable deceleration – my motorcycle decelerates quite quickly on engine braking alone, enough that not showing the brake light could quite easily have an inattentive driver up your rear end, which tends to hurt a bit on a motorbike).

At work we had a “driving review” done by a Police instructor as many here drive for work – I found it very useful and informative (as well as a nice day out :-)) Of course this is the Manx police which will have some different procedures to the UK.

Last Edited by alioth at 05 Feb 11:49
Andreas IOM

My neighbours bought an electric car; Hyundai Kona.

They forgot a small detail: they have no parking. And you can’t run a cable over a pavement (legally), but they have no pavement either. Their plan was to park it at an establishment across the road, which has a charging point.

That worked until the charging cable “melted”. A new one is not available for months. So we let them park in our drive, which is fine.

But the thing which totally amazed me is the cost of the charging points. Apparently it is £30 for a full charge on this car! For that you get a range of at best 30% of my 2 litre diesel VW, which costs £100 to fill up (today’s inflated price; normally £80). So where is the saving? There is none, and you get all the hassles on long journeys with having to stop at service stations and have a cup of coffee And you overpay for the car itself.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Peter wrote:

For that you get a range of at best 30% of my 2 litre diesel VW,

Actually, Kona has a pretty decent nominal range of 484 km, and regenerative braking saves you a lot of energy in case of uphill/downhill or stop-and-go driving – you simply can’t get that with a piston engine. Nevertheless, the charging costs are certainly not insignificant unless you have your own solar charging station. An interesting vehicle in that respect would be a tuk-tuk with a design speed of 25-35 km/h, a small electric motor and solar panels over the entire roof – it may be possible to operate this one entirely on solar energy.

On the other hand, comparing today’s electric cars with the most economical piston-engined ones, I think I identified the best competitor in the latter category and happily acquired one half a year ago. It’s an Audi A2 1.2 TDI. In my daily commute, I am getting a fuel consumption of 3.4-3.5 L/100 km, or 81-83 UK mpg. Same on German autobahns at 130-140 km/h. On a perfectly flat road at 80-90 km/h, it gets as low as 2.8 L/100 km (101 UK mpg). It was made in 2002 (I kid you not), but it fulfils the Euro 4 emission requirements that only came into effect in 2008. In addition to that, I’m getting a kick out of its engineering – it’s the most aircraft-like car I know: body of aluminium, wheels of magnesium, a fully removable engine cowling bonnet on top and another cowling on the bottom to improve aerodynamics, and it weighs less than my aircraft

Last Edited by Ultranomad at 04 Aug 22:20
LKBU (near Prague), Czech Republic

@Peter, here in Tesla Land the ‘solution’ is for state government to provide a financial incentive for employers to provide ‘free’ charging stations at work. That way the Model S driving PhD who reports to me for $180K/year base pay has other people buy the energy for his 60 mile daily round commute. He doesn’t have a charging station at home, and drives the wife’s BMW for long weekend trips. On the other hand, it does motivate him to come to work daily versus ‘working from home’ so I’m all for it

Obviously its not yet a significant fraction of drivers getting the free ride, just a tiny fraction, and if it ever is you can bet the employer tax incentives will dry up, the meters will go on, and people will be spending to buy extra solar panels and batteries for their homes. This is doubtless the end game for a coercive plan.

Re charging on the street, maybe some have seen the hilarious photo circulating from Germany where a cable is hung between a charging station and a car that is for some reason parked a meter or so away from the curb. The car can’t park close to the charging station because that would be parking in the ‘sacred’ bicycle lane, but parking outside the bicycle lane as normal and blocking it completely with an EV charging cable is apparently OK.

Last Edited by Silvaire at 05 Aug 00:28

I’ve been driving electric since 2013 (all electric since 2017), and I’ve had four cars with plugs, with a Fiat 500E on its way to replace my 2015 Nissan Leaf. I leased my first 2013 Leaf for pure economic reasons (federal and state tax incentives in the US at the time). I’m a spreadsheet-driven, point A to point B car person who puts practicality above all else. Yet even with the ~80 mile range I immediately knew I would never buy anything else again. And this at a time when I literally had never seen an EV in person, knew no one else who had one, and could count on one hand the number of charging stations in my city of 6m people. Now every time I have to rent a non-EV I feel like I’ve stepped back in time.

In the last decade I’ve heard all kinds of arguments for and against EVs, but the reality is they are a gigantic step forward in automotive technology. They produce no emissions, meaning they are as clean as the power source to fuel them. I have solar panels, so I create no emissions from my EV. They cost almost nothing to operate. In 7 years I’ve replaced one set of tires on my 2015 Leaf. Go look at the service intervals for any EV; they’re laughably sparse! The drive quality is hardly comparable, with immediate, even power delivery across the speed range. On paper the Leaf doesn’t have great performance, yet somehow it feels like a rocket to drive compared to any other hatch in its class.

Up until 2-3 years ago range and charging were definitely something to consider, and most EVs were great city cars but terrible for road trips. In the last couple years the majority of EVs to hit the market have 350-500km of range, which is certainly sufficient for most people between stops on a road trip. I’ve driven our Model 3 all over Europe, including NL to Tirol in winter with winter tires and a roof box. It’s a non-issue. Really. You put the route into the nav system or one of several EV route planner apps, and it gives you an optimized route for your trip. These systems will take into account the fact that charging the last 20% takes far longer, so you often stop for a quick 10-min charge well before the battery nears depletion. In Europe there are fast charging stations everywhere, and they all have interesting diversions for the 10-20 min you spend there. The fast chargers are far less expensive than the equivalent in fuel. There are also slow chargers on every street corner if you need to top up while doing something else. These are so cheap they are basically free.

One of my EVs is a business lease, and I can charge it for free using public charging. I always charge it at one of the slow chargers in my area or at my office deck rather than at my house, and this is also not a problem. From rural France to the mountains in Austria, I’ve never had a problem finding a charging station when I needed it. Not once.

Part of the problem with EV adoption is psychological. If you haven’t lived with one already, it feels like a big leap. I know, because it felt that way to me in 2013; and back then it WAS a big leap. But today it’s more like a small step than a leap, and you’ll be hard-pressed to find anyone who will go back once they’ve done it. But this is kind of like the argument about whether you should invest in an IR. The only people arguing against it are those who haven’t done it, because those who have experience the benefits daily.

Last Edited by dutch_flyer at 05 Aug 07:42
EHRD, Netherlands

Peter wrote:

That worked until the charging cable “melted”. A new one is not available for months.

That sounds incredible. Like most electric cars (except for Tesla) the Hyundai Kona uses a type 2 charging port. That’s bog standard and cables are available everywhere. Do they need some kind of special cable? Or do they want to buy a branded cable from the dealer?

But the thing which totally amazed me is the cost of the charging points. Apparently it is £30 for a full charge on this car! For that you get a range of at best 30% of my 2 litre diesel VW, which costs £100 to fill up (today’s inflated price; normally £80). So where is the saving? There is none, and you get all the hassles on long journeys with having to stop at service stations and have a cup of coffee And you overpay for the car itself.

Of course that depends entirely on the local market – both as regards availability of charging points and of electricity prices. Not to mention the relative taxation of electricity compared to petrol/diesel. Where I live AC charging (up to 22 kW) typically costs £0.28/kWh at current exchange rates, even with today’s high electricity prices. For my car that means £18 for a full charge of 64 kWh with actual range 400-450 km depending on the average speed. DC charging – which is much faster – is typically £0.40/kWh.

I have my own charging station at home so it is even cheaper for me when I don’t make longer trips and have to use a commercial station.

(Btw, the car is a 2021 E-Niro and I’m very happy with it.)

Last Edited by Airborne_Again at 05 Aug 07:51
ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

We charge our cars on our own solar power, but should we need a top-off, we’d charge at night at .25 euro/kWh. In the theoretical case of doing a full charge, our larger car would take 77 kWh, so that’s less than 20 euros for 450 km, or less than 5 cents/km.

Agree with A_A, that Kona charging cable story does not make much sense.

We’ve been driving electric for 8 years now, never regretted it and will of course never go back to anything else. Although I have to admit that the main reason that it was doable to own our first gen 150 km range cars because we live on a small island. Our current gen cars enable us to avoid to charge other than by solar, so to top up during the day, if needed. It looks like (other than in rural France for instance) the charging infrastructure is really getting there throughout the EU and range anxiety is a thing of the past. Yes, I have heard of occasional bottlenecks when all EV owners go on holiday and charging stations may get clogged-up. Incidents that will be solved..

Governments will lose ‘revenue’ on fuel taxation and will of course find new ways to charge us. But many of us you can make the investment and drive on solar alone.

Private field, Mallorca, Spain

Electric since 2013. Recently moved an older Tesla from Poznań to Faro, a 3200km trip. Charging stops force a 45 minute rest every 220km or so. Speed 130kmh for efficiency. No white knuckles. Really relaxed driving. Car plans charging stops for you. It has free lifetime supercharging, so cost was 0.

LPFR, Poland

In the last couple years the majority of EVs to hit the market have 350-500km of range, which is certainly sufficient for most people between stops on a road trip.

That’s roughly half to a third of my daily driving on a road trip.

Charging stops force a 45 minute rest every 220km or so.

That speaks for itself in terms of practicality outside of urban use, on a daily commute. Do you own the car, or does the car own you?

Last Edited by Silvaire at 05 Aug 14:10

Silvaire wrote:

That’s roughly half to a third of my daily driving on a road trip.

Is that a statement for or against the range? I’ve done countless road trips in my days, including many trips across the United States coast-to-coast with 12-14-hour driving days, and I can’t think of any time when I would drive more than a few hours without stopping to pee/get a snack/get gas. In the vast majority of the US and Europe, you can easily take as long a road trip as you like in an EV with that kind of range without adding more than a few minutes overhead. Yes I am aware there are exceptions in extreme cases, but for the vast majority it’s a non-issue.

Let’s try an example, traveling through the French countryside, which is often derided for its relative lack of charging infrastructure. Using a common EV planning app (A Better Route Planner), I planned this route from Provence to Copenhagen with my 2019 Model 3:

Driving time 16:49, with 2:30 spent charging. No one can convince me that they’ll drive nearly 17 hours in an ICE car without at least 2:30 in overhead for fuel, food, toilet stops, etc. If you’re in such a hurry that you won’t stop for lunch then you’ll fly instead of drive.

Or how about something even crazier? Let’s go from Porto to Bucharest! That’s at least a 4-day drive for any reasonable person, yet you can see it’s less than 6 hours of charging overhead for that entire period:

Keep in mind you don’t have to stop as often as it recommends, and you can tune the route planner for fewer longer stops if you like. Or you can just stop for longer and the app or car will replan accordingly. Also realize that if you stop for the night, 99% of the time the hotel has a charger, so you’ll leave at 100% in the morning and eliminate a number of the stops.

Last Edited by dutch_flyer at 05 Aug 14:27
EHRD, Netherlands
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