Electric Vehicles EVs

Further to the finance/lease discussion, looks like some lease finance companies got a bit excited over the price drop and offered some pretty good value deals on the Model Y RWD on Friday afternoon, and have subsequently adjusted their rates up again today.

Are there any grants available for charging points? I know one was withdrawn last year. I wouldn’t be adverse to switching energy suppliers to get a free charging point either.

I think some new EVs have a charge point freebie as a sweetener? Mini do I think.

There is a £350 OZEV charge point grant if you meet certain criteria.

Eligibility

You can apply for this grant if:

you own and live in a flat, or you rent any residential property
your home has its own private off-street parking space
you own an eligible vehicle
You cannot apply if you:

have already claimed for the grant (or its predecessors, the Electric Vehicle Homecharge Scheme (EVHS) and the Domestic Recharge Scheme)
are moving house or planning on moving
want a new chargepoint, even if a new car is not compatible with the current one
want to move an existing chargepoint to a new property
live in a house that you own (not a flat that’s part of a house)
Your property
Your property must be in the UK. You cannot apply for this grant if you live in the Channel Islands or Isle of Man.

You can only apply for an existing residential property that you live in. You cannot apply for a property that’s unoccupied or is still being built.

You may need to provide supporting evidence when you apply, such as a rental agreement if you rent the property.

Also you can qualify if you have a limited company, and your home is your place of work with a parking space. You’re providing EV charging for your company employee (ie yourself)

This made me laugh.

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This made me laugh.

No Di2 brakes for a while then

Internet packets can’t travel uphill if the gradient is over 1:20 any fule no that. The fix is to install a new steering column for £2790, currently on back order expected Q4 2023.

My work have just ordered me a Y as well AWD in white because I don’t like any other colour enough to pay £1k for it( but I have ordered a tow bar for my bike carrier).

Be interesting to see how this unfolds: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/feb/08/major-plug-in-hybrid-cars-pollute-more-than-official-measures-suggest

Could there be any come back on these manufacturers similar to VW’s dieselgate years ago?

I had no idea that the black LEVC cabs are hybrids, not fully electric until I saw the exhaust coming out of them in the recent cold weather. So lame

They make very little to no mention of this on the LEVC website

Yeah. Around 70 miles of EV range and then it's topped up by a petrol generator like Toyota non-plug in hybrids.

Hybrids can fuck right off.

36.7mpg when the battery is flat
Sick

A PHEV is good for lots of folks.

It would suit me. When we use the car it’s a short bop to the tip or to parents 15 miles away, for which electric is great, or it’s a holiday to Europe or Scotland or The Lakes for which electric would be tricky.

ETA: I don’t have one, I’m too tight.

But when they're in EV mode, the battery is too small and the ICE engine shortens the range, meaning more electricity is required per mile (that electricity is still partly generated by fossil fuels). When you're doing a long trip, the petrol engine has to work harder as it's carrying a heavy battery so pollutes more than a conventional ICE.

They're also more complicated than either a conventional ICE or an EV and so servicing is more expensive.

It's literally the worst of both worlds and a total con job.

Ima disagree.

Weight is a marginal efficiency factor on long trips at steady speeds, it matters most when accelerating. Wind resistance is most critical, so a slippery hybrid is going to give better motorway MPG than a fat non-hybrid.

And the weight isn’t as different as you might think. As an example a Skoda Octavia PHEV weighs 1600kg which is about 150kg more than a petrol version (9% or so) and is less than a Tesla 3.

More complicated and expensive to run yes, that’s another reason I don’t want one.

I've always wondered about PHEV vs ICE engines -using a Skoda Octavia as an example, and their own site as source about MPG (big pinch of salt here), the diesel wins over the Hybrid model for mpg ( and CO2 emissions comparable).

So if you're doing long journeys, then the diesel is 'better', but if only short round-trips, the PHEV might be pip the diesel (if you've got access to a charger).

We have a PHEV and I'm happy with it although I'll admit I'm not doing emission tests when driving around. For standard trips around town it's in electric mode, it's only on longer trips like driving to Birmingham or Wales we swap to hybrid mode. A full tank does nearly 400 miles at about £50-60 to fill. EV mode is about 40 miles so easily enough for most trips that aren't driving to a different city and a small enough battery that we can granny charge it over night from a standard 3 pin.

Hybrids can fuck right off.

In your opinion.

My hybrid works pretty fucking well for me.
1) It's absolutely tiny
2) It only seats 2 because that's all I need to carry
3) It does a minimum of around 60mpg around town and well in excess of 80mpg on a run
4) Until recently it was officially the most fuel-efficient production car (and it probably still is because the article above is correct). Mine actually does mpg way in excess of what the manufacturer claimed it would
5) It doesn't rust
6) Lifetime emissions (on a cradle to grave LCA) are SIGNIFICANTLY lower than current EVs are. On paper, the only EVs that come out better are the older small EVs like the Leaf and Zoe

You’ve got a VW XL1?!?

Or possibly an Insight.

They're probably ideal for people like me who spend most of their time with 10 mile round journeys interspersed with the odd 250+ miles non-stop. (I don't have one, I've got an older style Toyota hybrid which seems to get better MPG than an equivalent ICE).

Ultimately though they're all pretty polluting and arguably the whole EV thing is a bit of a con job.

5) It doesn't rust

Plastic or fibreglass or something? What's the end of life plan for those? When my car gets scrapped the rusty bits will presumably be melted down into something new but the plastic bits might be landfilled?

(Not judging, just wondering. I didn't know my car had some plastic body panels until I tried to attach a magnetic GB plate.)

There was a study years back that put the Jeep Wrangler as the least polluting car over its lifetime because the R&D pollution was 80 years ago, they’re made of steel and iron which can be recycled easily and they go on for hundreds of thousands of miles because they’re so simple and robust.

Obviously this doesn’t help the people who breathe in the fumes from the 4.0 litre six.

PHEVs with 40-50 mile range seem like a good middle ground, but very few of those around, and their prices are pretty similar to full EVs of similar size.

A Ford Kuga PHEV is £38k, and as electric range of 39 miles. The Hyundai & KIA PHEV suvs are 44k+ and the Toyota RAV4 PHEV is 50k.

Not too different from similar size EVs now.

I think PHEVs are very popular in the US, just a lot more long driving trips that might have to rely on 'gasoline'

Yeah. Around 70 miles of EV range and then it's topped up by a petrol generator like Toyota non-plug in hybrids.

Hybrids can fuck right off.

Toyota non plug in hybrids are self charging hybrids.They also have Otto cycle engines which because of the cv gearbox always runs at the most efficient rpm, sometimes it powered the wheels and charges the battery, and lots of other tricks with air con etc.

My RAV4 petrol hybrid will do 55-60 mpg across London compared my Skoda Superb diesel which did under 40mpg.

The Toyota was the best solution when I got it 4 years ago.

You’ve got a VW XL1?!?

Or possibly an Insight.

Yep, it's an Insight.

Plastic or fibreglass or something?

It's aluminium. Random fact, the 60% aluminium content of the Audi E-Tron chassis weighs more than my entire car.

There was a study years back that put the Jeep Wrangler as the least polluting car over its lifetime because the R&D pollution was 80 years ago, they’re made of steel and iron which can be recycled easily and they go on for hundreds of thousands of miles because they’re so simple and robust.

All of this was completely flawed. I worked in professional Lifecycle Assessment at the time and everything in this 'study' was completely laughable.

Obviously this doesn’t help the people who breathe in the fumes from the 4.0 litre six.

Exactly. And the fact that it completely overlooked all the other environmental impacts resulting from the use phase of the vehicle (CO2 emissions from fuel usage to name just ONE). Just a load of complete bollocks.