6 months with an EV

[brillomaster]

just had a similar long term EV review on another forum i go on, and i'll put my thoughts on here too...

I'd happily run an EV as long as it was alongside another conventional ICE car. my daily commute is 20 miles on the motorway, i have a driveway so could happily charge at home, and 150 miles of range would be plenty, likely do me for a week of commuting and local driving. i'd never want to use a public charger, the cost they are and the wait would negate the benefit.

however, i would definitely want to have an ICE car in the garage for the weekends - no way i'd ever drive an EV for fun, and for the occasions i needed to drive somewhere further than 150miles, i'd definitely want an ICE car i could easily do the whole thing in without worrying.

i'm thinking, if i had the funds (which i don't - the cheapest EV i could realistically see myself running is a 200bhp nissan leaf, which is about £18k) i'd have a humdrum EV for commuting and around town, and then a sports GT car for the weekend - something like a Nissan 370Z would be lovely.

[Ole gits rule]

just had a similar long term EV review on another forum i go on, and i'll put my thoughts on here too...

I'd happily run an EV as long as it was alongside another conventional ICE car. my daily commute is 20 miles on the motorway, i have a driveway so could happily charge at home, and 150 miles of range would be plenty, likely do me for a week of commuting and local driving. i'd never want to use a public charger, the cost they are and the wait would negate the benefit.

however, i would definitely want to have an ICE car in the garage for the weekends - no way i'd ever drive an EV for fun, and for the occasions i needed to drive somewhere further than 150miles, i'd definitely want an ICE car i could easily do the whole thing in without worrying.

i'm thinking, if i had the funds (which i don't - the cheapest EV i could realistically see myself running is a 200bhp nissan leaf, which is about £18k) i'd have a humdrum EV for commuting and around town, and then a sports GT car for the weekend - something like a Nissan 370Z would be lovely.

I bought SWMBO a DS3 crossback Ultra Prestige at 30 months old for 17k, was a grand cheaper than a poverty spec ICE DS3 crossback, car does 150 miles on a charge - has LED adaptive lights, leather, HUD, lane departure warning etc.

Bought a charger for £1k and its £3 to charge the car with cheap night time electric so use all the home appliances at night.

[Nanu]

DS3 crossback Ultra Prestige at 30 months old for 17k,

How much depreciation does that represent on a new one?

When will the batteries need replacing and at what cost?

[pvr]

On the ID the battery warranty is 10 years, no idea about other makes

[axelleveau]

When will the batteries need replacing and at what cost?

On the ID the battery warranty is 10 years, no idea about other makes

Everyone is giving 8-10 years warranty on batteries, ageing is a non-issue.

[Mr Tidy]

Everyone is giving 8-10 years warranty on batteries, ageing is a non-issue.

Well only after 8 or 10 years!

Does that mean outside of the warranty period new batteries would make the car uneconomic to repair?

[Dave1971]

My wife and I have both converted over to EV’s for our daily drivers and I did quite a lot of research before making the jump a while ago with our first one, a BMW i3.

Are EV’s perfect? No. Are they going to be the answer for everyone in their present form? No. But the more I researched the more I realised just how much Daily Fail click bait bullshit was being peddled about electric cars. Things like they all catch fire, batteries are scrap after 5 years, they can’t recycle batteries etc, all completely untrue.

To answer the question about life expectancy of batteries I’ll ask you consider this. With the exception of a couple of manufacturers the engine in a a brand new car comes with a 3 year warranty. Millions of people buy ICE cars every year without ever thinking “ this thing only has a 3 year warranty I guess I’ll need a new engine when the warranty runs out” but people believe that in 8 years time an EV battery will just suddenly die. Why is that? I can absolutely guarantee nobody has ever thought that about anything they have ever purchased, tv’s, Phones, computers, mp3 players the list is almost endless.

But lets for a moment say that you’re one of the unlucky ones and your battery does die just outside the 8 year warranty period. Would you head back to the main dealer and buy a brand new battery and then pay extortionate main dealer rates to have it installed? No of course you wouldn’t, just the same way you wouldn’t head back to the main dealer for a brand new engine for your ICE car. What you would do and what everybody does is get it repaired buy a trusted independent for a fraction of the cost.

Yes batteries can be repaired by have the dead cells replaced.

[buzyg]

On the ID the battery warranty is 10 years, no idea about other makes

Most people drive cars that are more than 8 years old.

[pvr]

Those original Prius cars still drive around, not heard about batteries on those (hybrid of course but surely if they had all died we would have heard)

[Worcester_spoon]

I don’t like milk floats.

[coldel]

From what I read the batteries on EVs, like any battery device take your mobile phone for example, degrade over time. Something like 2-3% a year by all accounts depending on use and brand etc. So after ten years yes your battery wont 'fail' but the range on your EV if it were 200 miles will now be around 140-160 miles for example.

I would definitely consider an EV for the boring driving, the about town driving picking up my son from football etc. the only problems I have are that I live in zone 3 London we have no driveway and often cannot park outside our own house - charging will be a complete hit and miss. There are charging bays in roads about 10 mins drive away but they are often full - I noticed EV cars often parked there for over 24 hours they use it as free parking which is annoying. To own an EV where I live I would have to take into account that I am going to have to drive past a petrol station and out to find charge points and sit there for however long waiting for it to charge.

Its ironic really that the best place to own an EV is more suburban areas, where driveways are more accessible but also less densely populated and probably not as prone to pollution issues. In the city where they are needed most, is the hardest place to own them unless you are very wealthy and lucky enough to own a big house.

[pvr]

The Tesla model of charging would probably work there, i.e. if your car is full and it is still attached, then it starts charging you for parking there.

If you are not attached, then the EV would risk a parking fine like any other car parked there.

[TitanTim]

I'm still not convinced on their environmental credentials to be honest and to me they pollute in different ways and just as environmentally unfriendly, having said that it will always be the case with cars. I would agree their ideal role is popping down to the shops and being able to charge at home. With no decent charging infrastructure I can't see how they will ever become mainstream unless you can charge in less than 5 minutes. There is no way I would wait hours at a charger if you can find one that isnt already taken or actually works. It's just the cost of the things if buying new which is a joke and looks like retained value is poor.

As James May said, anything with batteries is rubbish

Tim.

[coldel]

There has been quite a few investigations in terms of the life time environmental impact, I think the general consensus is once you have done 30-40k miles in a typical EV you are then being much 'greener' than an ICE car in terms of pollutants etc. EV batteries can be repurposed at the end of their useful lifecycle, and infrastructure will come with the uptake of EV cars as they become cheaper to own. It just takes time. Appreciate as I cited that at the moment practically owning an EV is not an option for me but that doesn't mean it wont be in the future. Charge times will come down, innovation around them will be constantly moving, batteries smaller, more efficient, quicker to charge etc. will all come.

The key really is to switch from burning stuff to generate electricity and building wind farms/solar etc. more renewable energy resources.

[Dave1971]

From what I read the batteries on EVs, like any battery device take your mobile phone for example, degrade over time. Something like 2-3% a year by all accounts depending on use and brand etc. So after ten years yes your battery wont 'fail' but the range on your EV if it were 200 miles will now be around 140-160 miles for example.

I would definitely consider an EV for the boring driving, the about town driving picking up my son from football etc. the only problems I have are that I live in zone 3 London we have no driveway and often cannot park outside our own house - charging will be a complete hit and miss. There are charging bays in roads about 10 mins drive away but they are often full - I noticed EV cars often parked there for over 24 hours they use it as free parking which is annoying. To own an EV where I live I would have to take into account that I am going to have to drive past a petrol station and out to find charge points and sit there for however long waiting for it to charge.

Its ironic really that the best place to own an EV is more suburban areas, where driveways are more accessible but also less densely populated and probably not as prone to pollution issues. In the city where they are needed most, is the hardest place to own them unless you are very wealthy and lucky enough to own a big house.

You see this is a classic example of one of the myths about batteries that perpetuate on the Internet. The battery in your phone is completely unmanaged so does degrade by around 2-3% per year. In battery terms things like phones get abused, almost always being charged to 100% (ofter daily), almost always rapid charged, no thermal management system to stop them getting too hot or cold.

Not of these things are true with regards to EV batteries, with the exception of no thermal management on the early Nissan Leaf. EV batteries also have a built in buffer, our Skoda has an 82 kwh battery, only 77 kwh can be used. This stops the battery being stressed by being charged/depleted to its maximum.

Tesla batteries have been around the longest and their average drop off is 1-1.5% per year but then levels off to almost 0 when it gets to 90% of its original capacity. There are Tesla taxi's out there with 500,000 miles on the original battery.

I do agree that the infrastructure in urban areas is not good enough, but that's not an EV issue that's a government/local council not getting their s**t together issue. If they want us all to get on board then they need to provide infrastructure for people who can't charge at home.

Some councils are better than others. Quite a few are trialing a type of cable channel that will allow a cable to be run across a footpath if for example you live in a terraced house. I know I doesn't stop someone else parking in front of your house but it all helps.

Don't forget we've had around 140 years of refinement gone into building ICE car infrastructure, we've only had around 10 years for EV's.