Adventures in an all electric vehicle.

[DAPPH]

They're not difficult to work on, it's very similar to a mains inverter setup to control a motor. The batteries have a charge controller that can accept an AC or DC input, there is a contactor on the battery output with a safety loop to immediately open the contactor(s), the battery power goes to an inverter which in turn powers the motor(s). yes, there is the regen charging, PTC heaters, coolant circuits etc. along with the control inputs, but the basics are pretty simple.

Opened the bonnet of my E Berlingo for the first time ever yesterday at the handover from the dealership .. Ye gods & graces you could smuggle two or three illegals in the unused space that is filled in a carbon burner . Yet there is loads of space inside the cabin front end for all sorts of things that you'd normally need a 16 bottle beer crate sized box to hold them in a normal car .

 

[DAPPH]

I am level 4 trained as well - I just slower than you mate!

But from a business point of view - thats reality and making the job pay. I am so close to dropping any involvement with BEV's PHEV's at the moment. I don't see a future with them for me and my business as things stand now.

Things may change into the future - but the owners of these vehicles I deal with - demonstate a complete lack of reality to what they have bought and what is involved to repair them money and time wise. They think they are gonna run/repair an EV on fresh air...

If you don't adapt and change you end up like a dinosaur .
I asked my dealership EV supplier Citroën ( Gareth ) about servicing and costs from the EV experience they have already gained .

Interestingly Gareth said they are far more reliable and appear to be costing less in servicing and repairs ( not accident involvement ones .)

He introduced me to the concept of one pedal driving as the car can be set to full time regenerative braking and can be used by thinking & acting ahead in the vast majority of cases to lose speed to almost a stop when the electric parking brake takes over .

 

[DAPPH]

But there is a "social conscience" boundry here that may have to crossed sooner or later.

The cost of motoring maybe driven up by this new developing tech and transport poverty could become a real reality.

The next lot of tech could be cheaper - but also it could be dearer - it is not hear yet...

So what is your solution to finding transport that has a lower long term pollution output ?
At the end of the day whatever a car will cost will still be moaned at & people will eventually buy them .
Getting hydro carbon fuel for them might end up an insurmountable problem as the refining companies diversify into low carbon enterprises and close the refineries due to lower sales that barely cover the production costs .

 

[MetalMonkey]

If you don't adapt and change you end up like a dinosaur .
I asked my dealership EV supplier Citroën ( Gareth ) about servicing and costs from the EV experience they have already gained .

Interestingly Gareth said they are far more reliable and appear to be costing less in servicing and repairs ( not accident involvement ones .)

He introduced me to the concept of one pedal driving as the car can be set to full time regenerative braking and can be used by thinking & acting ahead in the vast majority of cases to lose speed to almost a stop when the electric parking brake takes over .

I would think that the difference is the complexity of diagnosing and resolving an issue.
An EV may well be more reliable, certainly as far as the drive components. However I can imagine that when something does fail it would require a lot of diagnostic time and expensive parts to fix.
From a commercial perspective, it isn't worth pursuing a market if the repair costs start to exceed the customers perceived value of the vehicle.

So what is your solution to finding transport that has a lower long term pollution output ?
At the end of the day whatever a car will cost will still be moaned at & people will eventually buy them .
Getting hydro carbon fuel for them might end up an insurmountable problem as the refining companies diversify into low carbon enterprises and close the refineries due to lower sales that barely cover the production costs .

I'd imagine there will be quite a lot of hydrocarbons and refineries around for a very long time, we need them for a lot more than just burning!

I believe a "real" solution to transport pollution is going to require a significant step change in how we view and use transport in society, and a lot of joined up thinking between industry, government and the pubic at a global level.
Taking 40 million fossil fuel cars of UK roads and replacing them with 40 million electric cars is just a bonkers strategy and not going to do much for the environment. It's just a bit of lip service.

Especially when you consider how many of those vehicles are used to ferry one person about, often on journeys they don't really need to make, before ultimately being replaced years before their useful service life is over.

The future is not electric, the future has to be difficult decisions and fundamental changes to the way we live and travel and consume, otherwise there probably won't be one at all.
That's not to saying BEVs won't have a place, but just switching the entire population over to them is not going to solve the problem.
Unless of course the problem was how to sell a lot of new cars...

 

[MetalMonkey]

"The future is not electric" is me being facetious, it seems to be the favourite mantra used for marketing and policy making.
I don't believe simply switching over to electric vehicles is an automatic panacea. I think the future is going to be a lot more complicated.
It certainly won't save the future of the planet, I think that is trite. Transportation is only one of many things that need to be addressed.

I don't think electric vehicles will be going away either, but we might see them blended with or supplemented by a range of other options.
Hydrogen also looks promising, none of these fossil fuel alternatives are particularly "green" at the moment - but perhaps in time.

I wouldn't like to try and predict where we will be in 30 years time, but I think it is likely that private personal transport as we know it today will have become the preserve of the wealthy few - a bit like owning a plane.
For the masses, perhaps you just hire what you need on an ad-hoc basis, much like getting a minicab - and in the same way I don't suppose many people will know or care what powers it.

But we also need to consider why and how we are moving people and goods around in the first place, and how to do it more efficiently.
It also needs to happen globally - cutting a few fractions off a percent of the worldwide emissions is not going to have any meaningful effect on the outcome.

Public transport could well be an option - but we have to hope not in its current disjointed form.
All these things can be done well, and be effective - but whether they will or not is an entirely different matter.

I suppose what I'm trying to say is if an E.V. suits your personal circumstances, and makes financial sense I’d say go for it.
But don’t buy one just to save the world, because in their current form, it absolutely won’t.

 

[My Old Landy]

I love this thread! I think that there will always be two camps and they will not readily agree. @MetalMonkey has one of the most balanced views of the situation.
Our government along with most of the west are making R&D funding available to research existing and new avenues.
Changes are coming but will be slow because no one wants to make harsh changes and upset the voters. It is how the world works.
Still, it is a nice day so I am going out to enjoy the sunshine

 

[Nomad]

A few years ago I saw photos of graveyards full of obsolete EVs in China.
They had been scrapped as technology had moved on and it was not financially worth upgrading them or recycling them.

A new video shows it's worse than I thought, EV manufacturers are now making and registering new EVs (so they hit targets and qualify for funding) then sending them direct to an outside storage area to rot.

There's an intro then an advert - skip to 3 minutes to see for the main article.

The world has gone mad.

 

[daleyd]

Thing is, no one buys an ev thinking it’s going to save the planet. That just seems to be a snide comment tagged on by others - “you won’t save the planet in one of those mate”. No I bought one because I was looking for a new car…

Most people I know who have bought or run one do so on the basis that it makes financial sense to do so, they like the driving experience (they genuinely are eerily quiet and smooth to drive), space etc and they are, by some estimates, better” in terms of whole lifetime emissions than a petrol car. There’s no doubt some issues over the charging infrastructure but that’s not going to change overnight.

 

[brewdexta]

Looking forward to after the Ford Ranger and probably retirement, given I'm out in the sticks and I have a few post retirement ventures I want to get involved in, I'm looking at pick-up options. I did look at the price of series and defenders with a view to either get a good one, or buy a donor vehicle and replace the chassis. Given I've had a Dexta tractor in bits for 15 years, I realise that I'm not really cut of for months of sodding around with bits of old rusty/leaky Land Rover, and it will never end. Looking at the over-inflated prices of decent models or complete basket cases, I think I'm back at where I was last year when I showed and interest in an EV Ibex or Munro, probably the latter. I've emailed Munro to see where they are exhibiting so I can take a closer look.

The cost of converting a Defender to EV, after finding a donor vehicle, is higher than a comparable Munro and not as practical IMHO. Still a lot of cash though, if nothing else, it will be a nice day out.

I'll probably end up with 2CV and a trailer

 

[Nomad]

@daleyd - good point about why people buy EVs.

A good friend has a pattern of buying an immaculate 2 year old car and keeping it for 10+ year, she replaces it while it it still running well but before it starts to need any expensive work done to keep it roadworthy.
Last year she bought a very nice limited edition folding hard-top Mr2 and was planning to keep the car until she had to give up her licence.
2 months ago she bought a new Tessla and sold the Mr2, in her words buying an EV from her company funds was a fantastic way to extract money from her business account without having to pay tax.

The only reason she swapped from the Mr2 to the Tessla was because the tax system in the UK made it financially crazy not to, otherwise she would have kept her Mr2 for at least another 10 years.

 

[daleyd]

@daleyd - good point about why people buy EVs.

A good friend has a pattern of buying an immaculate 2 year old car and keeping it for 10+ year, she replaces it while it it still running well but before it starts to need any expensive work done to keep it roadworthy.
Last year she bought a very nice limited edition folding hard-top Mr2 and was planning to keep the car until she had to give up her licence.
2 months ago she bought a new Tessla and sold the Mr2, in her words buying an EV from her company funds was a fantastic way to extract money from her business account without having to pay tax.

The only reason she swapped from the Mr2 to the Tessla was because the tax system in the UK made it financially crazy not to, otherwise she would have kept her Mr2 for at least another 10 years.

So it’s financially beneficial, but the MR2 doesn’t suddenly get scrapped? That will go on the secondhand market and someone else will use it.

I’ll admit I’m a bit lost as to why she would get tax benefits from her business account, and mr2 haven’t been sold new for years to my knowledge but anyway let’s not let trivial details get in the way.

The point is that your specific case isn’t really the norm. Most people don’t suddenly go out and splurge on a new car to get tax breaks, though admittedly company car tax brackets do currently favour ev drivers. But they will be replaced on a time basis eg every 4/5 years - not simply because people want an ev.

 

[MetalMonkey]

The point is that your specific case isn’t really the norm. Most people don’t suddenly go out and splurge on a new car to get tax breaks, though admittedly company car tax brackets do currently favour ev drivers. But they will be replaced on a time basis eg every 4/5 years - not simply because people want an ev.

For the EV market, technically it is the norm - as something like 60% of all new EV sales are to businesses, who buy specifically because of the incentives available.
Company and fleet sales have always accounted for a significant part of the market and manufacturers have always catered to this to make attractive options which fit around the tax breaks available - so nothing new really.

It also saves them on congestion charging etc and makes them looks "greener".
Although, somewhat ironically, I think it takes about 3 or 4 years of running before the environmental impact of making them is actually offset. Which of course is about the time most fleets get refreshed.
Primarily it is all about the financials though.

 

[My Old Landy]

For the EV market, technically it is the norm - as something like 60% of all new EV sales are to businesses, who buy specifically because of the incentives available.
Company and fleet sales have always accounted for a significant part of the market and manufacturers have always catered to this to make attractive options which fit around the tax breaks available - so nothing new really.

It also saves them on congestion charging etc and makes them looks "greener".
Although, somewhat ironically, I think it takes about 3 or 4 years of running before the environmental impact of making them is actually offset. Which of course is about the time most fleets get refreshed.
Primarily it is all about the financials though.

I agree, it is usually about money. You don't think companies would bother with the aggressive R&D if it were not for the grants available? Although I was surprised to learn that of the £20m on offer from this last round for SME's only £11.3m was taken up.
I believe the next round is £25m from yesterdays event so I am writing a proposal for some of that.

 

[daleyd]

For the EV market, technically it is the norm - as something like 60% of all new EV sales are to businesses, who buy specifically because of the incentives available.
Company and fleet sales have always accounted for a significant part of the market and manufacturers have always catered to this to make attractive options which fit around the tax breaks available - so nothing new really.

It also saves them on congestion charging etc and makes them looks "greener".
Although, somewhat ironically, I think it takes about 3 or 4 years of running before the environmental impact of making them is actually offset. Which of course is about the time most fleets get refreshed.
Primarily it is all about the financials though.

Yes agreed - that’s the reason they buy ev, but it’s not the reason they get new cars.

They aren’t swapping to a new ev simply because of tax incentives. They will get new cars when the lease expires on their existing cars - Ev’s aren’t suddenly fuelling some sort of boom in new cars, they are just replaced when the old ones are changed.

 

[premmington]

I love this thread! I think that there will always be two camps and they will not readily agree. @MetalMonkey has one of the most balanced views of the situation.
Our government along with most of the west are making R&D funding available to research existing and new avenues.
Changes are coming but will be slow because no one wants to make harsh changes and upset the voters. It is how the world works.
Still, it is a nice day so I am going out to enjoy the sunshine

I like @MetalMonkey 's input as well.

I come accross as "a bit anti" I would think - I am not really.

 

[willie.macleod]

The cost of converting a Defender to EV, after finding a donor vehicle, is higher than a comparable Munro and not as practical IMHO.

I cannot see how the Munro pricing is viable, I suspect it will rapidly increase :-(

 

[Nomad]

For the EV market, technically it is the norm - as something like 60% of all new EV sales are to businesses, who buy specifically because of the incentives available.
Company and fleet sales have always accounted for a significant part of the market and manufacturers have always catered to this to make attractive options which fit around the tax breaks available - so nothing new really.

It also saves them on congestion charging etc and makes them looks "greener".
Although, somewhat ironically, I think it takes about 3 or 4 years of running before the environmental impact of making them is actually offset. Which of course is about the time most fleets get refreshed.
Primarily it is all about the financials though.

The pollution generated when a car is made always outweighs any potential benefit from the new car being more economical.
For info, I was getting very similar mpg from my 2007 BMW 352i and the classics I usually drive from the 1970s. The newer car was a lot more refined but was no more economical.

The chart below is a few years old (before EVs became so common - so the stats don't include all the toxic components that go into an EV battery).
Note the scale, pollution when driving in measured in cubic metres of pollution, everything else (mining the raw materials, shipping them around the world to be processed, and everything else) is measured in millions of cubic meters of pollution.


The environmental cost of mining all the raw materials is mind blowing and is getting worse as the volume of EVs increases.
A 2017 report showing supply of raw materials was becoming a problem, the situation has got a lot wosrse since then as demand has increased a lot!

Critical Minerals For EV Batteries Are Declining In America - TechStory

The country is set to initial its progress towards zero-carbon emissions, but this shortage of minerals is a concern.

techstory.in

I'm doing my bit for the environment by driving 50+ year old classics so need need to generate millions of cubic meters of new pollution to create a replacement for them.

 

[bricol]

So we're saying my 1979 Dutton kit car is helping to save the world?

Being old, and already a recycled Ford Escort and Triumph Spitfire

 

[minimutly]

So we're saying my 1979 Dutton kit car is helping to save the world?

Being old, and already a recycled Ford Escort and Triumph Spitfire

As well as being a thing of beauty...

 

[dobbslc]

So we're saying my 1979 Dutton kit car is helping to save the world?

Being old, and already a recycled Ford Escort and Triumph Spitfire

It should be all the new cars getting taxed to hell and back and leave us old car owners alone!