I can continue with a vehicle that cost me £7k six years ago and owes me nothing
We returned from the US two years ago, so that wasn’t an option. What WAS an option was to spend €21K on a Dacia Duster (diesel) as a temporary thing until we figured out what we really wanted. Which, two years on, turns out to be a Dacia Duster (nicknamed Plumeau). It’s perfect. It barely depreciates, it sips diesel. You can shove mountains of stuff into it – bags and cats for when we cross the country, or garden refuse for when we go to the dump. Living in Nice (narrow, twisty roads, crazy drivers) it has got its fair share of minor dings – and it doesn’t matter.
One of the “serious” cars we considered was a Toyota Rav4 rechargeable hybrid. It would have been north of €70K, would have lost €10K (half the price of Plumeau!) the instant we drove off the forecourt, and we’d have been scared to stuff it with old branches and leaves, or to drive it round Nice. There simply wasn’t (still isn’t) an EV that does what we want.
So, starting from a different point, but still a no-brainer.
Graham wrote:
EVs are for all practical purposes limited to those who can charge at home overnight
I disagree. As LeSving observed, most cars are used only for short trips every day. If you use the car to commute to work, say 20-30 km each way, you can do with recharging the car at most twice a week and this can be done at a public charging station while you are shopping or at work.
Clearly this won’t do if you drive 100’s of km every day, but it not usual. Just because such an arrangement doesn’t work for all doesn’t mean it can’t work for the majority.
Airborne_Again wrote:
Clearly this won’t do if you drive 100’s of km every day, but it not usual. Just because such an arrangement doesn’t work for all doesn’t mean it can’t work for the majority.
That assumes that the majority have chargers available at work. They don’t, and nor are they likely to.
Perhaps they do in Norway and Sweden. For the umpteenth time, unrepresentative.
Graham wrote:
It probably doesn’t matter in Norway or Sweden, where energy is so close to free that it makes no difference.
I wish that was true and to some extent it has been, but it is true no longer. Sweden and Norway are connected to the continental network and the mismanagement of energy production in mainly Germany means that demand for electricity has increased much more than the production. Electricity prices in most of Sweden are now to a large extent determined by demand in Germany which means that average prices doubled from 2021 to 2022.
Sweden is depending on electricity for heating in much the same way that Germany is (or was) depending on gas. Price increases have been high enough that the government was forced to make a subsidy scheme last year. (The subsidies were not taken from the government budget but from the government-owned company that owns the backbone electricity grid so it was ok with the EU.)
Graham wrote:
That assumes that the majority have chargers available at work. They don’t, and nor are they likely to.Perhaps they do in Norway and Sweden. For the umpteenth time, unrepresentative.
You are reading very selectively. I also mentioned “shopping”. There are also other places.
I wonder which side has the believers…
Time will tell which way this will go.
There is no doubt that electric cars are selling well, but there are doubts creeping in from various directions. Maybe not in some unusual countries, but certainly in the UK the writing is on the wall in some form, although nobody can tell how fast it will arrive i.e. how fast some sort of saturation may come.
Or whether we may see a sudden change of sentiment. That sort of thing is really unpredictable and if it occurs it may occur very fast – like an avalanche. There are plenty of examples over the decades of where something was all the rage and then suddenly died. Sentiment can change fast. You see it in clothing or any aspect of fashion. Massive stick-on eyelashes. Bum implants. A funny example but one which many will remember is the sudden disappearance of hitchhiking in the 1980s; it took a few media reports of stuff happening and … bang, and that was many years before social media. Sentiment is powerful. And now we have the internet. Existing owners will stay put (not only because used EV values are poor) but potential buyers have options. If I was making EVs I would be watching this carefully, because a mfg which bet the whole shop on EVs will go bust as fast as Polly Peck. The junk quality of some (Tesla and Jaguar mentioned before) doesn’t help.
In the motor trade they are watching it carefully.
And I would expect the main countries in Europe will be seeing the same as the UK (especially those with the energy issues courtesy of Pootin) although I am not expecting anyone from there to be posting about it on EuroGA 
@Graham some of your arguments against are valid points, although country dependent.
Eg the installation of a 7Kw home charger is €300 here not £1000.
The control technique here (your MOT) has become tighter on emissions over the years.
One way ( without fiddling figures) manufacturers have got round this is to fit both catalytic converters and FAPs (I don’t know the English) but it is a filter for air particles. These are expensive and do need changing from time to time and the precious metal in the catalytic converter has also made them ripe for theft.
In France a by law a car in France must have its couronne de distribution (timing chains and ancilliaries) renewed IIRC every 80,000km.
0n a more modern old car this is a pig without the proper tools and on a classic it usually means lifting out the engine. Can cost a lot.
EVs are much simpler in that regard.
Then if you remove the cost of batteries from an EV their cost comes down below the equivalent ICE models. This is what companies like Renault are doing. Sell the car, lease the batteries.
Finally, even though there are political problems, in many cases there are quite a few cities which are trying to introduce low emission zones.
I am not trying to change anyone’s mind, just pointing out a few differences perhaps between countries.
Airborne_Again wrote:
You are reading very selectively. I also mentioned “shopping”. There are also other places.I wonder which side has the believers…
Not at all selectively. Work, shopping, whatever. Makes no difference to the argument. I believe that when you put out these scenarios, you are looking through the lens of a single person adopting this ‘solution’ with everyone and everything else remaining as is. To be realistic solution, it needs to be scalable. So it’s not just you grabbing a 60 minute charge twice a week while you do your shopping or are at work, it’s a large number of people – perhaps the majority. So the supermarket (or office) needs most of its car park converted to EV charging bays, which is clearly impractical.
Regardless, we’re talking about a scenario where you now need to leave your car in a specific place (which may or may not be available when you need it, and may or may not be somewhere convenient) for say 60 minutes twice a week. If you miss one, your car stops working soon afterwards. I’m sure for one forum participant this would be much less unpleasant than visiting a gas station for five minutes once per week/month, but I’m willing to bet 99% of the population would feel differently.
Believers….. not interested. What matters to me is reality. That and the fact that what’s workable in the mass markets, not the edge cases of Norway and Sweden, will dictate the future European direction.
Graham wrote:
What matters to me is reality.
Well, that’s what everyone says, isn’t it…?
gallois wrote:
Eg the installation of a 7Kw home charger is €300 here not £1000.
That’s because it’s being heavily subsidised. It is thousands, not a thousand, in the UK and anywhere else you’re actually paying the full cost. There are grants available, but they become insignificant compared to the outlay (on an EV) you are required to be making in order to qualify for them. The electrician will charge 300 just to make the final connection and sign the paperwork.
gallois wrote:
The control technique here (your MOT) has become tighter on emissions over the years.
Not for the same car. No car is ever held to a higher standard at the MOT than it was held to when it was new, and to do so would be crazy. As long as your engine isn’t totally shot, no-one worries about passing the emissions test.
gallois wrote:
One way ( without fiddling figures) manufacturers have got round this is to fit both catalytic converters and FAPs (I don’t know the English) but it is a filter for air particles. These are expensive and do need changing from time to time and the precious metal in the catalytic converter has also made them ripe for theft.
One hears ‘stories’. However I have never had to replace a catalytic converter nor a DPF/FAP, nor had one stolen, and all my cars have been high mileage. Nor has anyone I’ve ever known. My assessment is that cat failure, DPF failure (you mitigate against both by giving the engine a good thrashing once in while – the ‘Italian tune-up’) and cat theft are so rare as to be insignificant as regards consumer choice.
gallois wrote:
In France a by law a car in France must have its couronne de distribution (timing chains and ancilliaries) renewed IIRC every 80,000km.
0n a more modern old car this is a pig without the proper tools and on a classic it usually means lifting out the engine. Can cost a lot.
Bonkers. Never heard of that being by law anywhere else, why on earth would it be the law – what’s the purpose? Timing belts tend to be a lifed item, and yes non-trivial to replace. If you don’t and they snap/slip, you tend to trash the engine but that’s your problem and I fail to see what interest the law has in that. Timing chains…. will outlast the car and never need touching.
gallois wrote:
Then if you remove the cost of batteries from an EV their cost comes down below the equivalent ICE models.
Well, if you remove the engine and fuel tank from an ICE car it too gets cheaper!
gallois wrote:
This is what companies like Renault are doing. Sell the car, lease the batteries.
I don’t lease cars nor any part of them. A significant proportion of the population takes the same view. An arrangement like that is just ripe for Renault deciding to stop providing batteries for your particular model after X years, because it is no longer supported and it’s time for you to ‘upgrade’. So your expensive EV is now worthless because the manufacturer won’t lease you a battery…. that’s just where they’d love to have you, the printer and cartridges model.
gallois wrote:
Finally, even though there are political problems, in many cases there are quite a few cities which are trying to introduce low emission zones.
Indeed, from later on this summer I can no longer go much inside the M25 without paying £12.50 a day. Given I have cause to drive inside the M25 no more than a handful of times a year, and most of those (Heathrow) will be on business and so chargeable to my employer, it’s hardly going to influence my choice of vehicle. I have never really understood driving cars in cities anyway.
