Car (or bike) Chat!

[Alex_UK]

I think you just hope you get flung out clear of the car...

VIEWER DISCRETION ADVISED (but not a bad tune, actually!)

[Barry]

BRM - Brumm brumm!

[dave2010]

Thanks everyone, lots of info here about how much cheaper running an ev can be than ice when home charging, but I knew that already. My original question was about the 65p per kW/h cost at my local motorway services, as I was wondering how much of a rip-off it was.

Until everyone is able to get their shit together regarding home-charging, and evs' range becomes more practical, away-from-home charging costs will remain a concern to me, and no doubt most folk.

Just spotted this conversation re costs of EV charging. Even home charging can be variable, depending on electricity tariffs. We have in the past had a different tariff - with some very low costs per kWh. Typically they were between 5-7p IIRC, with a couple of different providers. Now we moved on to Octopus and currently I think there is a tariff with Octopus which is around 7p per kWh. However we are not currently on that tariff, but rather on one which varies from day to day. In the last few months that has been as low as 12p per kWh, but currently is around 20p per kWh. You might ask why we have moved to what seems like a more expensive tariff. The reason is because EV charging isn't the major factor, but rather domestic heating. We replaced our oil boiler last year with an air source heat pump [ASHP]. In the winter this figures significantly in our consumption. The ASHP hasn't been a perfect replacement for the oil based heating, though that wasn't without its own sometimes considerable problems either. What has changed though is that we haven't had to spend over £4-6k this year on heating oil. We also burned hardly any wood. So now that we are more familiar with the intricacies of running the ASHP, overall our costs are lower. Also sometimes companies like Octopus effectively "give away" free electricity - but you can't rely on that always happening.

We might be able to get the effective cost per kWh lower if we install a battery pack at home - and I know others have done this and arguably push the costs back down. However the cost of the battery pack, and the installation also has to be taken into consideration. I know it works for some people, but with battery and installation costs of perhaps £10k, maybe more depending on configuration [some do provide resilience against power cuts, but are more expensive and require approval from the electricity grid DNOs], our current situation makes it questionable whether it is worth the bother.

Returning back to EVs - we have two - a Tesla M3 and a Renault Zoe. The Zoe does between 4 to 4.5 miles per kWh. The M3 does maybe 3.5 to 4 miles per kWh - perhaps slightly less. Certainly can do 3 miles per kWh. So a couple of years ago with the low electricity tariffs we were often getting an effective rate of around 1-2p per mile. Compared with running a petrol car - the last one we used a lot did about 50 mpg, but petrol is now running about £6-£7 per gallon, so that's at least 10p per mile.

With the current tariff, the M3 may be working out at 7p per mile - the Zoe at 5p per mile.

Public charging rates for EVs have also changed over the years. For a while they were very low, and we even had free public charging. Slow charging has sometimes been quite cheap - maybe 16p per kWh, but fast charging is typically more - currerntly probably between 35p and 70p per kWh, depending on the supplier. Also some hotels have had chargers, and didn't charge any extra for using them. Some hotels don't have chargers, but allow users to plug in their own very slow "granny" charger. Usually you have to ask nicely in advance, in order to get a parking spot close to a 13 amp socket. Overnight charging at a hotel with a 13 amp socket can barely keep one's car charged up [i.e. back to the original full or nearly full level] - but that works if days aren't spent driving a lot of extra miles.

The fastest charging we have had has undoubtedly been with the Tesla superchargers - though these aren't always in convenient locations. Some of the Tesla superchargers are now available for other EV users to use, though it may not be so easy to connect the cables, Some careful manoeuvring may be needed to get a non Tesla car into a position where the cable will attach to the car. We have only recently found out how to do that with Zoe.

We have thought of trying to go further with Zoe, a round trip of between 600-800 miles to the Newcastle area, but the logistics of doing that are doing my head in. Getting to Perth [we are north of Inverness] where there are fast chargers for Tesla and other cars is easy. The Charge Place Scotland chargers work sometimes - but we haven't always had good results with those.

The problem with going further south is that although there are Tesla chargers en route [for example at Abington], the chargers there will not service Zoe. I recently met someone with a Zoe who had driven up from Newcastle, so clearly it is feasible, but having to search around for suitable chargers and download, install, register for different suppliers is just too much faff. Some charges just work with regular credit cards - though we had one experience recently where the charger may have been working, but the credit card reader wasn't! Fortunately there was another similar charger at the same location and someone was able to come and get things working - that was a Drax charger at the power station at Ben Cruachan.

So I'm still trying to decide whether I can really face driving to Newcastle with Zoe with the almost complete unkown territory of public chargers in that area, plus unfamiliar apps and other factors.

[dave2010]

A quick update on EV charging. I have had a Charge Place Scotland card for years. Over the years CPS has changed its method of charging and payment several times - the most recent being a month or so back.
This never seems to work out well. However this time I did update my payment method, and today I went into the local town and put some charge in to my Tesla M3. The good news is that it worked, and was not too bad regarding speed, though nothing like as fast as a Tesla supercharger I think.
The payment/charging now seems to work too, as when I got back I looked at my email to find an invoice - for over £9! I checked the details and it seems correct, but the charge was 70p per kWh. Even the Tesla superchargers don't normally charge that much, in my experience.

I shall keep the card as a backup - better than getting caught out without any means of charging - but that really does seem too high a price to pay.

[AJSki2fly]

As we all now there are a lot of myths, misinformation and actually blatant lies about EVs out there in the press and on social media. This MISINFO is not only unhelpful to the general public it is confusing and probably leading people to make bad decisions which will impact them in the short and long term.*

Whatever your current views and thoughts are on the EVs I would urge you to read the 'The Little Book of EV Myths', supported and published by the RAC, which tackles 21 examples of electric vehicle misinformation."*https://media.rac.co.uk/documents/fa...v-myths-439716

It tackles the MISINFO clearly, concisely and adjectively and information was to produce it was obtained from those listed below. If you are nearing a car change and are not sure what to do whether buying new or used I would recommend you read this first before deciding one way or the other.

"Auto Trader, The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, Zap Map, Tesla, Transport & Environment, Carbon Brief, International Council on Clean Transportation, Statista, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, AA, Association of British Insurers, Auto Express, National Grid, House of Lords Environment and Climate Change Committee, RAC, Dr Euan McTurk, Energy Transition Commission, Bedfordshire Fire and Rescue Service, Norwegian Automobile Association, Consumer Reports, Recurrent Motors, Forbes Magazine, AutoinsuranceEZ, Sustainability by Numbers, Gartner Research, Tusker Direct, Bookmygarage.com, Edmund King OBE, Prohire, Gridserve, CAP hpi, Thatcham Research, National Transportation and Safety Board."

https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/news/ele...k-of-ev-myths/

[Pigmy Pony]

Quite an interesting read, and going some way towards dispelling a fair few myths. Although I feel one or two such "myths" were skirted around or simply not addressed, for example one that may not actually be a myth, but rather a view held by me, ie. that if you live in a terraced house or an apartment block you're screwed.

One other thing that concerned me: Much was made of the affordability of choosing an ev over an ice car, that ev prices (in my book that means values) are falling, like that's a good thing. What I take from that is that the ev you buy today will be worth significantly less in a year or so, devaluing at a much faster rate than an equivalent ice car.

But then I had a look on Ebay and was surprised, nay shocked at the prices of decent late model Teslas and Polestar 2s That is really tempting, shame that I'd have to persuade Mrs. P who wouldn't have an ev given to her even if it came with free garden furniture. Still, never say never...

[AJSki2fly]

Quite an interesting read, and going some way towards dispelling a fair few myths. Although I feel one or two such "myths" were skirted around or simply not addressed, for example one that may not actually be a myth, but rather a view held by me, ie. that if you live in a terraced house or an apartment block you're screwed.

One other thing that concerned me: Much was made of the affordability of choosing an ev over an ice car, that ev prices (in my book that means values) are falling, like that's a good thing. What I take from that is that the ev you buy today will be worth significantly less in a year or so, devaluing at a much faster rate than an equivalent ice car.

But then I had a look on Ebay and was surprised, nay shocked at the prices of decent late model Teslas and Polestar 2s That is really tempting, shame that I'd have to persuade Mrs. P who wouldn't have an ev given to her even if it came with free garden furniture. Still, never say never...

EVs are not for everyone, certainly for 10 to 20 years until they are accepted by more. If you can charge at home overnight then it really is pretty simple, and acetals makes longer distance when needing chargers plan easy. Sue has a Nissan EV and even that is not hard on longer journeys, last weekend we did a 400 mile round trip and just topped up a couple of times. One took 15 minutes and the other we left it on a 7kwh charger while we spent 3.5 hours at RHS Wisley, we still had 109 miles range when we got home.

The terraced house issue is starting to be addressed here allowing owners to to have cable gutters installed in pavements or dedicated secure pop up pillar chargers. Some councils are installing lamp post chargers offering cheap charging. There are lots of solutions. In Norway a lot of apartments had chargers installed by parking bays.

Public charging rates need to be controlled through legislation, it’s too variable, with profiteering. Also at present there is VAT on VAT being charged. 5% on electricity, and the 20% when sold to EV owner, this wrong and a disparity with other Fuels within the tax legislation. Charger site owners/suppliers should have to offer rates based on the time of charging reflecting the actual electricity rates they purchase at with a profit on top. Eg if they pay £0.10/kwh then they should be able to recover a fixed amount for site costs and then a fixed amount per kWh for profit. Tesla already do this, charging can be as low as £0.30/kwh at cheap rates and in my experience peaks at around £0.55/kwh.


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