Which electric car to buy?

[soulstyledevon]

My brother has an EV6 and loves it. Build quality on a level Tesla dream of. No longer going for the Buzz?

The order is still in.
But with no build date and further reflection, looking at alternatives.
The petrolhead in me, wants a newish 911, the practical brain says, family sensible long range EV.
It’s really hard and I’m not trying to be rude. But I really don’t want a Tesla as half the neighbourhood has one. But you can’t fault their range and charging infrastructure… most of the time.

 

[kurienp]

The order is still in.
But with no build date and further reflection, looking at alternatives.
The petrolhead in me, wants a newish 911, the practical brain says, family sensible long range EV.
It’s really hard and I’m not trying to be rude. But I really don’t want a Tesla as half the neighbourhood has one. But you can’t fault their range and charging infrastructure… most of the time.

My vote goes for the 911

 

[WestSussexSpike]

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.

To echo many other comments on this thread, it is all about horses for courses. I wouldn't drive my Cali into London (or any other densely populated city) every day and nor would I use an EV for touring. There is no question that both the availability and price of public chargers is unacceptable, but for those who rarely drive more than 200 miles a day and can charge at home an EV is a compelling proposition.

In addition to our Cali, we have an i3 and a Polestar. I'm surprised that the Polestar hasn't had a mention in this thread so far. It is a remarkably good car. The cost of a full charge at home on an Octopus EV tariff is £6. Even in cold weather that will give me a range of 240 miles. If I drive in and out of Central London (which I do regularly) I avoid congestion charge (£15 per day) and can park on meter bays for 20p for 8 hours, saving around £35 per day. All this in a superbly smooth, comfortable and quiet car, which accelerates from 0-60 in 4.5 seconds!

I realise that the usage example I am describing is fairly EV friendly, but if you can charge at home (as 55% of the population can) and don't need to cover huge distances leaving you at the mercy of the public charging network, an EV is a bit of a no-brainer. Especially on contract hire!

 

[vmaxkiddy]

They are bloody expensive horses, £27,000 being the cheapest new EV available, an MG4
Cheapest ICE is the Dacia Sandero at around £12,500.
Charging EVs is not a level playing field either, public charging attracts 20% VAT, It was either Ionity or InstaVolt that initially charged 5% VAT as per home electricity but the government stopped that and they had to repay the treasury.

 

[ive_california]

To echo many other comments on this thread, it is all about horses for courses. I wouldn't drive my Cali into London (or any other densely populated city) every day and nor would I use an EV for touring. There is no question that both the availability and price of public chargers is unacceptable, but for those who rarely drive more than 200 miles a day and can charge at home an EV is a compelling proposition.

In addition to our Cali, we have an i3 and a Polestar. I'm surprised that the Polestar hasn't had a mention in this thread so far. It is a remarkably good car. The cost of a full charge at home on an Octopus EV tariff is £6. Even in cold weather that will give me a range of 240 miles. If I drive in and out of Central London (which I do regularly) I avoid congestion charge (£15 per day) and can park on meter bays for 20p for 8 hours, saving around £35 per day. All this in a superbly smooth, comfortable and quiet car, which accelerates from 0-60 in 4.5 seconds!

I realise that the usage example I am describing is fairly EV friendly, but if you can charge at home (as 55% of the population can) and don't need to cover huge distances leaving you at the mercy of the public charging network, an EV is a bit of a no-brainer. Especially on contract hire!

Exactly! I bought my Cali to have a long-term 'travel' car. Had an ID.3 for a while, but got rid of it because it didn't work for me. Currently I have a plug-in hybrid (passat gte) and the Cali. Perfect! Will replace the passat with an EV somewhere in the future. Will keep the Cali long-term for traveling around Europe.

I've always been a car-lover but somehow there is no 'connection' with EV'S for me...


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[Hedley Wright]

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…

Nothing wrong with a Kia. My first EV was a Kia e-Niro. Great customer service. 100% reliability. About the only EV that matches up to the official range figures.

 

[soulstyledevon]

To echo many other comments on this thread, it is all about horses for courses. I wouldn't drive my Cali into London (or any other densely populated city) every day and nor would I use an EV for touring. There is no question that both the availability and price of public chargers is unacceptable, but for those who rarely drive more than 200 miles a day and can charge at home an EV is a compelling proposition.

In addition to our Cali, we have an i3 and a Polestar. I'm surprised that the Polestar hasn't had a mention in this thread so far. It is a remarkably good car. The cost of a full charge at home on an Octopus EV tariff is £6. Even in cold weather that will give me a range of 240 miles. If I drive in and out of Central London (which I do regularly) I avoid congestion charge (£15 per day) and can park on meter bays for 20p for 8 hours, saving around £35 per day. All this in a superbly smooth, comfortable and quiet car, which accelerates from 0-60 in 4.5 seconds!

I realise that the usage example I am describing is fairly EV friendly, but if you can charge at home (as 55% of the population can) and don't need to cover huge distances leaving you at the mercy of the public charging network, an EV is a bit of a no-brainer. Especially on contract hire!

Are Polestar Volvo…?
I thought there was a connection, but not sure.

 

[Ch1pbutty]

Are Polestar Volvo…?
I thought there was a connection, but not sure.

Yes, 48% owned by Volvo

Polestar – Zhejiang Geely Holding Group

Zhejiang Geely Holding Group (ZGH), is a global mobility technology group headquartered in the city of Hangzhou in south-east China’s Zhejiang Province.

zgh.com

EV maker Polestar gets $1.6 bln from major shareholders

Electric vehicle maker Polestar said on Thursday it had secured $1.6 billion in financing from its two main shareholders to help it deliver its growth plans amid volatile markets.

www.reuters.com

 

[Hedley Wright]

Are Polestar Volvo…?
I thought there was a connection, but not sure.

A separate company but part owned by Volvo and part by Geely, the parent company of both.

 

[Lambeth Cali]

Are Polestar Volvo…?
I thought there was a connection, but not sure.

Both owned by Chinese Geely and so share some parts. It’s a spin off from Volvo.
They are lovely but more of a luxury car price wise.

 

[Lambeth Cali]

To echo many other comments on this thread, it is all about horses for courses. I wouldn't drive my Cali into London (or any other densely populated city) every day and nor would I use an EV for touring. There is no question that both the availability and price of public chargers is unacceptable, but for those who rarely drive more than 200 miles a day and can charge at home an EV is a compelling proposition.

In addition to our Cali, we have an i3 and a Polestar. I'm surprised that the Polestar hasn't had a mention in this thread so far. It is a remarkably good car. The cost of a full charge at home on an Octopus EV tariff is £6. Even in cold weather that will give me a range of 240 miles. If I drive in and out of Central London (which I do regularly) I avoid congestion charge (£15 per day) and can park on meter bays for 20p for 8 hours, saving around £35 per day. All this in a superbly smooth, comfortable and quiet car, which accelerates from 0-60 in 4.5 seconds!

I realise that the usage example I am describing is fairly EV friendly, but if you can charge at home (as 55% of the population can) and don't need to cover huge distances leaving you at the mercy of the public charging network, an EV is a bit of a no-brainer. Especially on contract hire!

I’d love a Polestar 2 but doubt I could afford. I’m tempted by a 2019 i3 range extender as this would allow us to never use away from home charging which looks terrible. To me this seems a great idea. Only Mazda seem to be considering the idea and BMW stopped building it.

 

[soulstyledevon]

When I broke down in France last year. We hired a brand new XC40 to get us back from Geneva to Calais.
I was super impressed with this car. Nice build quality and drive, ate up the miles with ease back to Port.

 

[soulstyledevon]

I’d love a Polestar 2 but doubt I could afford. I’m tempted by a 2019 i3 range extender as this would allow us to never use away from home charging which looks terrible. To me this seems a great idea. Only Mazda seem to be considering the idea and BMW stopped building it.

My lads nursery used to run 3 of these. They loved them.

 

[flying banana]

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.)

trouble is we aren't being given the choice are we. it is being FORCED upon us wether we like it or not and wether we live in a nice big house or a flat, the government are blindly charging ahead (no pun intended) with this bollocks and it will cost the average person 10s of thousands of pounds they can't afford. horses for courses ? i think not

 

[chockswahay]

This thread has been going on for so long I can’t really remember if I have posted on it before….. also I have not read all the comments so I may be out of line here….

Should we not be considering how we can save the planet and not just thinking of ourselves? I agree with most of the sentiments regarding range, cost and inconvenience but surely someone has to start somewhere. Maybe it’s not just about how much EV’s affect US….perhaps more about how ICE’s affect the planet and the future of our children and grandchildren?

I‘ll be the first to agree, there is not a ready alternative to the California but there are alternatives to most cars for most journeys. We are looking to replace our little runaround (now rapidly becoming a 16 yr old banger) with a small EV which we also hope to use for our trips from Fife to Truro (a few times a year) and we will have to plan and be strategic but it will only be on those occasions, the rest of the time an EV would do all the local trips we ever need to make. Compromise? Yes! Sometimes inconvenient ? Yes!

As soon as a viable (even self build) van comes along we will replace the California AND the runaround with just one non planet affecting vehicle.

How ever you approach the subject it is a ticking clock…..ICE’s (especially Diesel) are soon to be Dinosaurs. I also believe that at some (trigger) point the bottom will fall out of the diesel market, maybe when the cost of diesel goes over (say) £3/litre or when the government push road tax for diesels sky high or when diesels are completely banned in too many places.

 

[Lambeth Cali]

The government was elected by us. They are proposing no new ICE powered cars for sale from 2030. There will be another election before then and we can vote for someone else if we want to.

Both rightists and leftists don’t like being told what to do by democratically elected governments. I’ll accept the democratic outcome even when I lose. The papers will spend the next ten years pumping out anti-climate dross in order to capitalise on this discontent. Which I believe was how this dozing thread was reawakened a week ago.

The Stern Review in 2006 argued that the effects of climate change would cost us more than the cost of combatting climate change.

 

[RodCouncil]

Go plant based and transform the Food industry and you can roll around in your ICE vehicles until the cows don't come home.

 

[flying banana]

This thread has been going on for so long I can’t really remember if I have posted on it before….. also I have not read all the comments so I may be out of line here….

Should we not be considering how we can save the planet and not just thinking of ourselves? I agree with most of the sentiments regarding range, cost and inconvenience but surely someone has to start somewhere. Maybe it’s not just about how much EV’s affect US….perhaps more about how ICE’s affect the planet and the future of our children and grandchildren?

I‘ll be the first to agree, there is not a ready alternative to the California but there are alternatives to most cars for most journeys. We are looking to replace our little runaround (now rapidly becoming a 16 yr old banger) with a small EV which we also hope to use for our trips from Fife to Truro (a few times a year) and we will have to plan and be strategic but it will only be on those occasions, the rest of the time an EV would do all the local trips we ever need to make. Compromise? Yes! Sometimes inconvenient ? Yes!

As soon as a viable (even self build) van comes along we will replace the California AND the runaround with just one non planet affecting vehicle.

How ever you approach the subject it is a ticking clock…..ICE’s (especially Diesel) are soon to be Dinosaurs. I also believe that at some (trigger) point the bottom will fall out of the diesel market, maybe when the cost of diesel goes over (say) £3/litre or when the government push road tax for diesels sky high or when diesels are completely banned in too many places.

theres no such thing as a 'non planet affecting vehicle' . and causing immense financial suffering now for people that are to be born 200 years from now is ridiculous

 

[chockswahay]

theres no such thing as a 'non planet affecting vehicle' . and causing immense financial suffering now for people that are to be born 200 years from now is ridiculous

Well I used a term in the generic sense. Perhaps I should be more specific….. we should all stop whining on about the cost and get on with doing something positive about climate change, and EV’s are part of that. If we all take the NIMBY view then nothing will get done.

 

[soulstyledevon]

theres no such thing as a 'non planet affecting vehicle' . and causing immense financial suffering now for people that are to be born 200 years from now is ridiculous

Potentially our children’s children.

Catastrophic climate change and a Mad Max future isn’t something I wish or want for them…

 

[ive_california]

This thread has been going on for so long I can’t really remember if I have posted on it before….. also I have not read all the comments so I may be out of line here….

Should we not be considering how we can save the planet and not just thinking of ourselves? I agree with most of the sentiments regarding range, cost and inconvenience but surely someone has to start somewhere. Maybe it’s not just about how much EV’s affect US….perhaps more about how ICE’s affect the planet and the future of our children and grandchildren?

I‘ll be the first to agree, there is not a ready alternative to the California but there are alternatives to most cars for most journeys. We are looking to replace our little runaround (now rapidly becoming a 16 yr old banger) with a small EV which we also hope to use for our trips from Fife to Truro (a few times a year) and we will have to plan and be strategic but it will only be on those occasions, the rest of the time an EV would do all the local trips we ever need to make. Compromise? Yes! Sometimes inconvenient ? Yes!

As soon as a viable (even self build) van comes along we will replace the California AND the runaround with just one non planet affecting vehicle.

How ever you approach the subject it is a ticking clock…..ICE’s (especially Diesel) are soon to be Dinosaurs. I also believe that at some (trigger) point the bottom will fall out of the diesel market, maybe when the cost of diesel goes over (say) £3/litre or when the government push road tax for diesels sky high or when diesels are completely banned in too many places.

I think we need to get some facts straight. Vehicles are the source of co2 emissions during all the phases of their life cycle : production, usage and recycling.

1. During production, the co2 cost of an ice and ev are similar.
2. It is true that an EV doesn't have tailgate emissions. However, production of electricity does produce co2. Recently, because of the fact that nuclear power generation has been reduced, the emissions per kwh has gone up. In Germany, there is currently 237g co2 per kwh produced. An EV consumes 18 kwh/100k which means it emits 43 g co2/km. A modern diesel car emits approximately 100g Co2 / km.

While the EV does indeed emit less co2, it certainly isn't 0.

Source for co2 emissions for electricity production : https://app.electricitymaps.com/map


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[flying banana]

Well I used a term in the generic sense. Perhaps I should be more specific….. we should all stop whining on about the cost and get on with doing something positive about climate change, and EV’s are part of that. If we all take the NIMBY view then nothing will get done.

i agree. theres more immediate things we could do. clamp down on the bell ends throwing their rubbish and crap all over the place that end up in the sea and chopping down forests would be better starts than industrial lithium and cobalt mining

 

[chockswahay]

There are many valid opinions on this thread and it takes a brave person to say that any particular way is the ONLY way. As a thought, how about this one?

Whether we like it or not diesels will not get cheaper to run or own, and BEV’s will become mandatory and will always be less harmful to the environment. Maybe we just need to alter (lower?) our expectations of what EV’s can do for us as individuals and globally. Sooner the better?

 

[willwander]

Go plant based and transform the Food industry and you can roll around in your ICE vehicles until the cows don't come home.

Read something the other day about how plant based farming kills more animals than meat farming due to land clearance and insecticides etc. don’t know how true it is.

 

[The Tall Luthier]

I think we need to get some facts straight. Vehicles are the source of co2 emissions during all the phases of their life cycle : production, usage and recycling.

1. During production, the co2 cost of an ice and ev are similar.
2. It is true that an EV doesn't have tailgate emissions. However, production of electricity does produce co2. Recently, because of the fact that nuclear power generation has been reduced, the emissions per kwh has gone up. In Germany, there is currently 237g co2 per kwh produced. An EV consumes 18 kwh/100k which means it emits 43 g co2/km. A modern diesel car emits approximately 100g Co2 / km.

While the EV does indeed emit less co2, it certainly isn't 0.

Source for co2 emissions for electricity production : https://app.electricitymaps.com/map


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I think the jury is out on co2 emissions from production. The Times announced last year that an ev has to travel for 50,000 miles before they have done equal damage to an ice. I think the stat is largely dependent on who you ask, EV people or Oil people.

@chockswahay it’s worth noting that government policy over cars in the U.K. has never been about saving the planet it’s been almost entirely about boating consumerism. The diesel scrappage scheme where we destroyed perfectly good vehicles in favour of new ones was exactly this, most of a cars CF is spent in production.