Which electric car to buy?

kurienp said:
Agree.

Also remember that in countries such as China and India, the safety threshold is low (it does not need to be high, when you have to just potter around town, or drive on crowded highways rather than hurtling down towards London at 80 miles an hour in a high end car with 22 inch wheels) ... and so that puts a different spin on vehicle ownership and therefore also on EV adaptation in developing countries.

Based on western Standards, the safety rating may be low, but more than sufficient for the person buying it.

See the Range Rover Evoque knockoff below in China -

View attachment 103670
Did the person buy the above for safety or for show or for efficiency or ... something else?

If you measure against some of the safest cars, the cars in China and India are "unsafe" ... but that does not matter as the "unsafe" yardstick is as per the western media, based on western standards.

While the western countries deal with tackling climate change and spending money on mental masturbation, the China's and the India's of the world will continue to make money by providing services and continuing to increase pollution by building vehicles ...

I am not saying that climate change is wrong - we need global action than wishful thinking.

I think we need a new measurement for growth itself ... GDP etc are now outdated.

Someone give me a hybrid with a decent 150 mile range and without being overly heavy (the current hybrids top off at about 45 miles), I may consider one. Currently as @willwander says, they are the worst of both worlds (but maybe classify as best considering that there are no other options).

It is a complex conundrum, but the world still rotates on its axis and shall continue to do so without us as well. :D
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I love the Land Wind. If I had an Evoque that would be the first mod I would do,
re-badging.:cool:
How much is a Land Wind? Is there a Land Storm ?
 
California_Ocean said:
One of my favourites .... had loads of fun with this as a kid.

View attachment 103702
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Excellent. I had a Scalextric set that had the Bentley 4.5 blower and Alfa 8C. Not sure how I got them, I must have had a rich uncle somewhere along the line as they were a top of the range set. But they were both very heavy and hard to keep on the track at the bends.
 
Velma's Dad said:
Excellent. I had a Scalextric set that had the Bentley 4.5 blower and Alfa 8C. Not sure how I got them, I must have had a rich uncle somewhere along the line as they were a top of the range set. But they were both very heavy and hard to keep on the track at the bends.
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We had a Triang Minic Motorway setup. Even had level crossings which linked to Hornby trainsets, towable caravan, car transporter that you could drive onto, helipad that would launch a helicopter (powered by an elastic band) when you drove under it...you could have some fantastic crashes!

minicmotorways.weebly.com

Sets

Alternative set names and / or numbers are shown below the respective buttons
minicmotorways.weebly.com

1672852029545.png
 
Ch1pbutty said:
We had a Triang Minic Motorway setup. Even had level crossings which linked to Hornby trainsets, towable caravan, car transporter that you could drive onto, helipad that would launch a helicopter (powered by an elastic band) when you drove under it...you could have some fantastic crashes!

minicmotorways.weebly.com

Sets

Alternative set names and / or numbers are shown below the respective buttons
minicmotorways.weebly.com

View attachment 103710
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...and a great example of a turn-of-the-century website. You can almost hear that dial-up modem pinging away.

Minic was for girls though.
 
I think that is a little optimistic. I have PV 4x the area of that car in a optimal direction and I average about 3kwh a day at this time. My PVs are high and not subject to overshadowing. The car will shadow itself and unless parked in the middle of a field will typically be overshadowed by infrastructure / buildings.....
 
The question: "Which electric car to buy?" The answer - don't! The RAC now reckon they are more expensive, whilst charging away from home, than ICE vehicles. Electric offers a fantastic drive but that is about all. Inner city use at least makes some sense, air quality, but beyond that they make no sense at all. I have maintained for 30 years + that wholescale transport electrification is a nonsense. Unfortunately all Governments are too short term to take this onboard, even though privately many politicians realise electrification is a poor choice. It seems highly likely we are going to be saddled with a transport infrastructure that is not fit for purpose.
 
also. 2025 they are to pay £165 road tax plus the over 40k premium. they are now being fined for over staying on chargers too. the reasons NOT to buy one just keep getting bigger. imagine how much these things will cost to charge in 7 years ? if you can actually charge it then. they are already costing more than a tank of gas and production of EV's i just read is being slowed down. 2nd hand market EV's especially teslas have crashed through the floor
 
Wildcamper said:
The question: "Which electric car to buy?" The answer - don't! The RAC now reckon they are more expensive, whilst charging away from home, than ICE vehicles. Electric offers a fantastic drive but that is about all. Inner city use at least makes some sense, air quality, but beyond that they make no sense at all. I have maintained for 30 years + that wholescale transport electrification is a nonsense. Unfortunately all Governments are too short term to take this onboard, even though privately many politicians realise electrification is a poor choice. It seems highly likely we are going to be saddled with a transport infrastructure that is not fit for purpose.
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It's a bit weird to declare EVs a bad choice just on the basis of one use-case - presumably, the one in which most/all of the 'fuelling' is by using public charging point.

In the real world most EV owners do most, or in some cases virtually all, their charging at home, on electricity tariffs a fraction of the public charge station rates.

Yes I know, some people don't live in places where they can charge at home, or do a lot of long journeys. For them, an EV may well not make sense but for others it will. We haven't got any EVs in our household yet but I'm sure we will at the next car change, as we could easily use EV for all our transport on nine days out of ten, and when we need to do longer distances we have the Cali.

Horses for courses. No-one is saying EVs are ideal for everyone at this point. But that doesn't mean there aren't millions of happy EV uses already, just plugging them in at home a couple of times a week.

(BTW, aside from the above, the RAC's so-called "news" releases are quite often complete bollox. Like their latest this week saying you could get a £1,000 fine for not clearing the snow off your number plate. Clickbait cr@p.)
 
"Horses for courses" would make sense. But that is not the case, is it! If one said only electric in big towns or a big city that would make sense on the basis of air quality, as I said. However, we have been told if one wants a new car after 2030 it can only be electric. So no matter what "course" one wishes to take you can only have one "horse".
 
Wildcamper said:
"Horses for courses" would make sense. But that is not the case, is it! If one said only electric in big towns or a big city that would make sense on the basis of air quality, as I said. However, we have been told if one wants a new car after 2030 it can only be electric. So no matter what "course" one wishes to take you can only have one "horse".
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In 7 years who know who will be in power and if the hydrogen or the electric or the gas lobby will make the most noise, the government will gravitate towards that.
 
Wildcamper said:
The question: "Which electric car to buy?" The answer - don't! The RAC now reckon they are more expensive, whilst charging away from home, than ICE vehicles. Electric offers a fantastic drive but that is about all. Inner city use at least makes some sense, air quality, but beyond that they make no sense at all. I have maintained for 30 years + that wholescale transport electrification is a nonsense. Unfortunately all Governments are too short term to take this onboard, even though privately many politicians realise electrification is a poor choice. It seems highly likely we are going to be saddled with a transport infrastructure that is not fit for purpose.
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A bit of a sweeping statement .... "Don't"....

I suspect that for a lot of EV owners the worst cased illustration of the RAC is irrelevant for they charge up at home.

I own an EV, I recognise they have limitations, range and charging facilities being one of them, but if the RAC can draw a worst case scenario then like many I can draw a best case. So far, after 1,500 miles of motoring I have hardly paid a single penny for the fuel that powers my car. Most of that energy comes from my solar panels which even in these miserable days of low sunshine and dense cloud cover still produce enough energy to keep me going, but on the couple of occasions I have had to use public charging, once it cost me £10 quid to drive 165 miles from Exeter to home, the other cost me nothing.

If cost effectiveness is the only parameter by which EV ownership should be judged then that clearly depends on the personal circumstance of the person considering and not a blanket "Don't", if other considerations also come into play, such as the availability of transport should diesel dry up, as it has done in recent times, or perhaps even a conscience twinge when sat at traffic lights emitting noxious fumes into the local atmosphere, then sometimes it's also a judgement call of "cost effectiveness at what cost?"
 
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Wildcamper said:
"Horses for courses" would make sense. But that is not the case, is it! If one said only electric in big towns or a big city that would make sense on the basis of air quality, as I said. However, we have been told if one wants a new car after 2030 it can only be electric. So no matter what "course" one wishes to take you can only have one "horse".
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Charging away from home infrastructure is currently terrible. That’s correct.

Everything else you’ve said is you sounding off. There are clearly millions of happy electric car owners. I doubt Elon is counting on your custom.
 
Wildcamper said:
The question: "Which electric car to buy?" The answer - don't! The RAC now reckon they are more expensive, whilst charging away from home, than ICE vehicles. Electric offers a fantastic drive but that is about all. Inner city use at least makes some sense, air quality, but beyond that they make no sense at all. I have maintained for 30 years + that wholescale transport electrification is a nonsense. Unfortunately all Governments are too short term to take this onboard, even though privately many politicians realise electrification is a poor choice. It seems highly likely we are going to be saddled with a transport infrastructure that is not fit for purpose.
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I don't think you'll get much support from the demographic here, many of who had plenty of land to install free chargers, and the cash to power them from expensive solar installations at an over subsidised feed in tariff, topped off with a government subsidy on the expensive car, free passage into cities and free road tax. All very 'progressive' policy (not).

It perhaps had to be this way, to get things started, but a bit of sympathy / help for the remaining demographic is now overdue.
 
Back on topic…
I’m going to have a look at a *cough*Kia EV6 this weekend. I know a Kia…!!!
But 300+ miles to a charge and 7 years warranty.

Thoughts…
 
soulstyledevon said:
Back on topic…
I’m going to have a look at a *cough*Kia EV6 this weekend. I know a Kia…!!!
But 300+ miles to a charge and 7 years warranty.

Thoughts…
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Nothing wrong with a Kia! They seem to make very good cars now, with very good reliability ratings.
The EV6 has had some top reviews. What's not to like? (Okay, other than paying £45k+ for a family car).
 
My brother has an EV6 and loves it. Build quality on a level Tesla dream of. No longer going for the Buzz?
 
66tim99 said:
Ok for Teslas though?
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Well unless you like being at the back of a queue of 5 waiting for one of the Tesla charges to free up at Fosse Park. Woe betide any poor ICE or hybrid stuck in the same line patiently waiting to exit from the car park. They were SOL and in it for the long haul as there was no space to pass. Worse bit of parking design I've seen. Looks fine on a Sunday morning but is transformed into a nightmare when all the parking spaces and chargers are occupied on a busy Sat afternoon. Ask me how I knowTesla.jpg
 
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