Mr Bean gets blame for fall in electric car sales 😂

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TonyCarter

VALUED CONTRIBUTOR
EVs are fine for a lot of people and a lot of uses.

I'd happily have one if I could buy one for the same price as the cars I tend to buy (i.e. £15-£25k for a 3-5 year old sports car for fun, or estate car for normal duties)...but the comparable EV versions of these are still way too expensive...for example:
  • Equivalent to my £25k (in 2008) Z4MC would be a £50k Porsche Taycan (n)
  • Equivalent to my £15k (in 2021) 320D Touring (650 mile range) would be a £16k MG5 Touring (250 mile range) (y)
So, I could replace the daily driver with an EV as long as that 250 mile range is real...as my commute is 220 miles and the hotel doesn't have a charger, so I'd have to find an on-road one in a permit-only parking residential area of London, or sit for 30 minutes at a nearby supermarket or something.

Whilst the odd stop to fast-charge is perfectly acceptable on a long trip, most manufacturers warn against doing it more than once a day...so my annual drives from Liverpool to Cornwall to Germany would probably require one or 2 overnight stops to avoid breaking this 'guideline' rather than the one 5m fuel stop every 250 miles in the Z4MC or every 600 miles in the 320D...then there's the gamble on whether the charger is 1) available; 2) working; 3) working at full power; 4) working with the EV charging app you've signed up for.

I'm sure there'll be enough new models to accommodate everyone's needs in the future, but we also need the specialist (i.e. non-dealer) network up and running so we're not ripped off by main dealer £200/hour labour charges and 200% parts mark-up (although there should be less spend on servicing).

Of course, the cynic in me will claim that as soon as there are enough EVs on the road, the councils/government will add another 'charge' to make them almost as expensive as the ICE cars they are replacing...as we know they've got to 'balance the books' somehow (just as Paris is doing with their tripling of parking charges for 'SUVs' - aka all ICE vehicles over 1600kg, and EVs over 2200kg)...
www.standard.co.uk

London campaigners hail tripled parking charges for SUVs in Paris

Residents in the French capital voted in favour of increasing SUV parking fees to £15.40 an hour
www.standard.co.uk www.standard.co.uk
 
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TonyCarter

VALUED CONTRIBUTOR
BTW, my father's next car was going to be an EV when his Motability car was due for renewal...and the only things that stopped him was 1) the higher deposits required for equivalent vehicle (when he renewed last year it was £199 for a Skoda Kamiq or £1999 for the Skoda Enyaq); 2) most of the other EV options just didn't have the right door opening or seat height for his disabilities (too low, too high, too narrow, etc.).

However, this year the Kamiq is still £199, but the Enyaq has gone to £0 (for some configs) - so he's now got 2 years to wait before he can consider swapping to EV again 😵‍💫

EV will suit him fine, as his trips are all less than 60 miles, and he's got off-road parking where he could have a wall charger installed. If he goes further, then that's fine too, as he's at that age (almost 80) that he has to stop about every hour to visit the loo anyway ;)
 
Martinr36

Martinr36

MOST VALUED CONTRIBUTOR
@TonyCarter , I think your 2 posts above sum the real situation up nicely especially with range, and charger availability.

Myself I drive a Toyota C-HR which of course is a petrol/electric self charging hybrid and gives great fuel consumption
 
HomerJ

HomerJ

Prolific Poster
im afraid you need to watch that mr bean,

Welshman Activates James Bond-Like Smoke Screen to Evade Cops - The ...
 
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