I don’t think it would be such an issue if we were talking about a 2/3k electric vehicle but if I’m to spend 20k on an ev it has look nice otherwise I wouldn’t be happy with my purchase
1 Like
My car costs approximately £250 a month to own and run, and is only used to get me to work. We use public transport for all our other travel needs.
Unfortunately, we aren’t lucky enough to have Uber in our area, so it’s regular taxis only.
A one way trip to work is around £25 give or take a pound or two, and without a car, I would have to get a taxi a minimum of 12 times a month, and depending on my shifts, possibly a few more.
If there really was a viable alternative I would happily give up my car, but when you are starting work at 4am, or finishing around midnight, then a car is really the only choice.
2 Likes
I’m saying I wouldn’t use the roads to cycle to work and if there was cycle paths or lanes I would.
1 Like
I think that you should try and talk to EV owners and discover just how often a City owner actually needs to charge.
Often cars in cities are not used on a daily basis.
Since the UK government is currently planning to ban the sale of new petrol and diesel cars in 2040 this shouldn’t come as a surprise…
2 Likes
It’s not a case of Petrol/Diesel or EV. There are other technologies that could dominate.
The National Grid expects EV to become the dominant technology, which I’d agree with.
So while it’s not surprising, it’s also reassuring that the Grid aren’t in denial and are preparing.
We will have gone electric long before then.
100 EVs today are available, by the end of this year there will be 170 !
Business users may well head the charge.
2 Likes
I’m well aware. That doesn’t affect my point.
Even if people get 20 journeys out of a full charge, they aren’t close to getting a space with a charger often enough to make the car useful.
How far is your commute?
You fall in to the trap of starting a charge from empty, I wouldn’t ever do that, nor indeed would anybody else with an EV. A twenty mile commute and back in my car with a range of 300+ miles is easily achieved with one charge per week.
If a lamppost charger was available when arriving home I would top up just like everyone else.
11 miles each way
My current car averages about 55mpg (petrol)
No I don’t. That’s precisely not what I’m doing.
Bike or ebike?
An option yes, but I really don’t fancy an 11 mile bike ride at midnight after completing a 12 hour shift at work.
2 Likes
For those that have considered buying an EV and found a reason not to 
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.hotcars.com/reasons-people-wont-buy-electric-cars/amp/
that would be impressive 
I just checked how many hydrogen fuel stations and its seven for the UK, with an eighth planned for Birmingham in 2020. Five of which circle London, the other two if you’re lucky (unlucky? 
) enough to live near Swindon/Rotherham.
So you need to be near those for starters, I’d go for the Nexo but I don’t have budget for an £80k car. Whilst you can drive over 400 miles on a five minute refuel you’d probably need to half that distance to guarantee you can get back.
https://www.toyota.co.uk/new-cars/new-mirai/meet-mirai
https://www.honda.co.uk/cars/new/coming-soon/clarity-fuel-cell/overview.html
2030 and we realise hydrogen fuel cell was probably the better path.
Keep in mind that hydrogen cars are still just electric cars, with a different (more complex) way of storing the energy (in addition to a battery). Personally I think hydrogen maybe makes sense for large public transport like buses and ferries where the infrastructure can be put in place, but doesn’t seem very practical at the scale of privately own cars.
1 Like
So looking at my MOT I did bang on 22,000 last year, so about 60 miles on average a day.
I spend ~£400 on petrol each month so say £13 a day in fuel.
With charging how much would it cost to do the same? Are we talking a tenth like £40 a month in electricity?
At the moment my car costs £0 a month as I own it. It looks like I could go on a 4yr PCP lease to get a nearly new 2019 i3 (the 42kw ~150 range one) for £400 a month. So I wouldn’t be saving money but I would be driving a nice car. 
Let’s assume you charge at home every night on overnight tariff (my overnight rate is 8.6p per kWh). Let’s also assume you do 2,000 miles per month to make the math easier.
A typical EV might get say 4 miles per kWh. So you would need 500kWh per month (2,000/4).
At 8.6p per kWh, that would cost you £43.
By comparison, I do around 400 miles per month. Currently costing me around £100 in fuel.
With an EV (using the math above) I would use £10 of electricity per month. I also have solar, so I can potentially offset this further.
1 Like
I saw a video recently made by a taxi firm owner [Dundee I think} who said his drivers were exchanging their weekly diesel running costs of £200 - £300 for £30 or £40 per week in electrickery. R-
1 Like