Well, it appears our ‘big car’ is fucked, and even if I want to spend the £3-4k I'm being quoted to fix it, I can't find anyone to do the work for months (timing chains = big job).
A lot of new & used cars are so bloody expensive and ugly/unexciting at the moment, and wondering if this is the time to finally make the leap to an EV. We do a lot of miles from Oxfordshire to Glasgow and back, and wonder if the infrastructure is there yet in the UK.
@jonhicks I’ve not changed my overall opinion you’ve already had from me 😀Yes, possible, but you do need to embrace allowing more time and as said here “charge roulette” because some experiences are too on the edge and “how is this one going to work?” If just running from home, EV the only sensible purchase.
@jonhicks you must have a home charger. Nothing to do with infrastructure. The EV paradigm is having your car charged and ready to go hence a more limited range isn’t a factor because you can access all the range you have every day. That’s another reason not to buy a Tesla. Their battery management is appalling and keeping them fully charged kills them.
@jonhicks@rachelandrew for me one of the biggest "that's amazing" things is the "fuel" cost - right now the EV is just 10% of the cost per mile compared to our old mild hybrid petrol car. This is with a home charger and OVO Charge Anytime at 6.7p per kWh - to get these better rates you need a compatible charger - which is different per energy supplier, but there is some cross-over - OVO and Octopus both support Ohme chargers for example.
@jonhicks I made the jump last year to an EV (Audi Q4). I’m in Manchester at the moment and it does alter how you plan for long journeys (Zapmap is your friend!). But I’ve not had any real issues. The M6 has some good - on the motorway or just off it - high power options now. So just takes some planning and not being tempted to run the battery down and play charge-roulette.
We had a Tesla hire car back in January, and while I would never buy one (obvious reasons + I don't like how they look), I was impressed with the ride. Relaxing and smooth, barely ever needed to use the brakes.
@jonhicks the brakes thing might be a thing with all electric cars. They all do that fancy brake regeneration which helps with coming to a halt. Fossil fuel cars can’t do any of that so the best they can do is let you coast to a stop to get the most miles for your fuel
@DavidDarnes Indeed! Once I got used to how quickly it slowed down when taking my foot off the pedal (it's instant!) it made driving feel smooth - one pedal does all (I still drive a manual)
@jonhicks get a 1991 GTi and spend 10k outfitting it with hoverboard, fusion, holograms, …and CarPlay, and yer good. Of course you can’t. But what if! What car would you have?
@Luke there’s a place near us that converted Ewan Mcgregors VW Bug into Electric! That would be awesome, but the cost is about £55k PLUS a decent donor car 😬
@jonhicks I do have a Model Y. Very much dislike the idea of lining Musk’s pockets but really wanted a family sized EV that would get to Devon from Brighton without fuss. It was easily the best option for us, not just because of the range. I like it and have got used to ‘filling up’ a bit more on long journeys. No anxiety about that though.
Add comment