My son in-law uses our Nissan Leaf to commute 60 miles to the office. He goes out on site surveys all over the south of England. Apart from the first few weeks getting to know to range of the car and locating convenient rapid chargers, he has had little problems using a £15k 62kW Leaf for his work. Winter range 200 miles
EV Owners Thread
- Thread starter icowden
- Start date
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No I'm retired, but I drive 70-100 miles per day. We use around 3-5% of charging from rapid chargers, the rest is home charging
I don't think I said everyone- I said most folk.
My group of friends, family and associates are slowly moving over to EVs. I hear very little complaint of how terrible it is to live with an EV.
Just read some of the new owners on here, there is a period of adjustment, then everything is pretty much tickety boo
chris-suffolk
Über Member
For a lot of people it's not just range anxiety that puts them off, it's the sheer physical cost of buying one in the first place. You can buy a cheap run-around ICE, and keep it going for not a lot of money. EVs on the other hand cost a fortune, and old (and presumably cheaper) ones may well have old tech and maybe not very healthy batteries. If you need new batteries, it's game over.
When, if, EVs are on a par with ICEs pricewise (like for like in terms of size, not a tiny EV vs a high end ICE), then they stand more chance. Right now they are way over most private buyers budget. Case in point, my ICE when new was £25000. The hybrid (not EV) version was £49000. That's not even funny.
They still don't make an EV version, only hybrid, and it will do less than 30 miles in electric mode. Various sites suggest a real life average of about 52mpg, taking into account a mix of petrol and EV usage. My diesel version of the same car returns a long term average of 59mpg, so how is that helping the environment?
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Electric_Andy
Heavy Metal Fan
- Location
- Plymouth
Just out of interest, have any EV owners ever run out of juice mid-journey? Does normal vehicle recovery apply (i.e. take you home or to the nearest charging station)? Does this affect the price you pay for recovery or do they not care? I have no idea how common or widespread this issue would be, but I would think that if it's very common there might be a clause in the recovery contract? A friends daughter once had an old Fiesta which was always breaking down; the AA basically said after the 4th or 5th callout that they were not going to cover the car anymore because it's costing them too much
cougie uk
Guru
No never run out - my wife ran out of diesel in her car once before though.
Every Mway service area has charging - so you'd have to try pretty hard to run out.
I believe rescue services have a generator onboard to charge the car enough to reach the nearest charging. Why would they take you home ?
With ICE cars - there's so much more to go wrong. EVs are far simpler.
Legs
usually riding on Zwift...
- Location
- Staffordshire
The actual economy that you can get a PHEV to achieve relies massively on your own personal use-case and behaviour. We're looking to get a PHEV to replace my wife's diesel Kia Cee'd. Her commute is typically a 15-mile round-trip, so she could theoretically go for weeks without touching the petrol in the tank of a PHEV, while always having the safety-net of knowing that there's an ICE on the rare occasions that she'd exceed the battery range.
But if you're an idiot and don't bother recharging your PHEV every night or every other night, and/or if you're routinely doing longer daily mileage, of course a PHEV is going to have poorer economy than the WLTP figures might suggest...
https://www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/ma...und-to-be-61-less-efficient-in-real-world-use
cougie uk
Guru
What car is that ? EVs are far more comparable to ICE than they were - all tech comes down with volume and development.
By the time ICE cars are banned the second hand market will have plenty of years of EVs to choose from.
You can buy right now a 62kW Nissan Leaf 2020 less than 30k miles for £12,600
It has a winter range of 200 miles
See Autotrader
chris-suffolk
Über Member
Perhaps I can, but with a boot capacity (with seats down) of approx 1/2 mine, what use is it to me?
Find me something with a boot capacity - seats down - in excess of 1800 litres, and under £15k with a range of 300 miles and I might be interested.
Quick search on Autotrader finds nothing under £27k, and only 15 below £35k. Perhaps you can do better.
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Legs
usually riding on Zwift...
- Location
- Staffordshire
https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-de...ake=&postcode=ST10 4SW&price-to=12000&fromsra
Spend your left-over £8k on rapid charging at the times when you really do need 300 mile range and you're sorted!
That's a valid point but it *is* getting better, and more lower priced EVs are coming out.
It isn't. Mild hybrids are there to meet targets, not to work well. My daughter's Fiat 500 is a "hybrid". They bunged a small battery under the driver seat which means the engine switches off at traffic lights if there is enough energy.
New or second hand?
What is the ICE car you currently drive?
chris-suffolk
Über Member
Hardly a car - more like a van I'd say. Won't seat 5 very well I fear.
No
Yes and no. I think both the RAC and AA now carry emergency chargers / generators that will allow them to power you up enough to get to a charger of some sort. The biggest problem is if you cannot start the car and need recovery as EVs tend to lock the brakes and need power to release them. This can make it very tricky to transport them.
The good news is that EVs are far more reliable than ICE cars. No oil to replace, no gaskets to blow, no radiators to leak etc.
