Electric Vehicles EVs

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  • PHEVs are popular mainly because the EU predicted owners would be using them on electric 80% of the time so they have ludicrously low rated emissions and tax bands etc.

    Telemetry says it’s more like 20%. So owners get most of the the tax benefits of owning an EV, manufacturers get better looking emissions stats, but no one changes any habits or emits any less.

  • Company car tax fiddle. Pay less, but never plug it in, like you say.

  • My Yaris hybrid gets about 65mpg regardless of the type of journey (in town or motorway).

    I don't do enough miles for that really to make a difference though, but I guess it would make sense for someone who commutes in traffic everyday.

    For me it was more that they are reliable, I was looking for an automatic and electric cars were way more expensive that sold it.

    Plug in hybrids seem to be mainly sought after as company cars due to the generous tax treatment.

  • I fail to understand PHEVs except as a range anxiety sticking plaster.

    Well in our case considering 5 year old 2nd hand cars- most affordable EV's from 5+ years ago don't have a practical range (less than 150 miles), even if their batteries are still in good condition which is a gamble.

  • Buying an efficient ~60mpg ICE vehicle makes more sense than buying a PHEV in my opinion.

    EV plus solar at home is the ideal as it has the cheapest maintenance/service costs, less environmental impact and the free 'fuel' offsets the cost of ownership.

    How about an ex-lease EV (~30,000 miles) with a plan to sell it on again at 60,000 miles? Battery capacity would be ~99%. What's your budget?

  • We have one. Charge it for like £2.50 over night from a standard socket then do ~30 miles barely touching the petrol engine or leave it in hybrid and have better efficiency. It means the majority of journeys are covered by the electric and we only ever have to put petrol in it if we're doing long journeys and then we're not limited by where and how available charging points are.

  • Precisely my point. If you remove the anxiety implicit in your final clause, you could have exactly the same usage profile with a full EV.

  • Range anxiety is a crappy framing of it, I think.

    Really, it's choice. It's choice that you think you being robbed of if you go full EV, because going full EV means (presently) being really intentional and structured in your plans. Some folks are OK with this. Most folks are not. Like it or not some form of ICE means being able to change and adapt your plans, and a lot of folks value this.

  • How about an ex-lease EV (~30,000 miles) with a plan to sell it on again at 60,000 miles? Battery capacity would be ~99%. What's your budget?

    Ok so, budget, £15-20k, big enough for a small family with an ability to carry bikes obvs, hatchbacks or SUVish shape I guess. I can't say that I'm super into the spaceship styling on some electric brands. What is there?

    Considering fuel costs, I get that charging at home is best, but we're in a terrace so thats not really going to happen without being a pavement pirate - but I assume even using standard public chargers (not the fast expensive ones at petrol stations) is going to still be cheaper than equivalent buying petrol?

  • My workplace is considering implementing some form of EV company car scheme, but are on the fence as interest is low.

    I'm struggling to find concrete info online about how such schemes could work, and where the benefits might lie to companies.

    Does anyone know how this shit works, and ideally have experience of it that they could share?

  • It is and it isn't.

    For so many people, almost all their driving would be covered by EV and the outliers are incredibly occasional. Tbh it very much falls in to the "need" 4x4 because camp.

    However, Jameo has correctly identified a number of flaws in people's general assumptions. They assume no budget. They assume no range degradation.

    What I'm hearing is different people have different use cases.

  • I assume even using standard public chargers (not the fast expensive ones at petrol stations) is going to still be cheaper than equivalent buying petrol

    I did a brief calculation on this last year (when electricity was a bit more expensive) compared to my current car getting 60-65mpg.

    Home charging with a specialist tariff was cheaper. Home charging with a standard tariff was about the same as petrol costs. Public chargers were more expensive than petrol.

  • Yes. My employers are doing a salary sacrifice scheme with Octopus. It's treated as a company car, so I pay a little bit each month for that, but it still means I get a good deal as the lease includes insurance, servicing, new tyres and a free charger, including installation. My monthly deduction is taken before tax, so obviously you get similar tax free benefits that you get for something like the cycle 2 work scheme.

    Obviously the tax savings depend on what rate of income tax you pay, but for me it felt like a good deal.

  • Tl;dr you don’t get a medal for choosing the thing that restricts you.

    Even if the restriction is largely on paper.

  • Benefit to the company is the the salary sacrifice is taken out before they have to calculate their employers NI and pension contributions on the remaining balance of your salary every month.

    As you now have a benefit of a company car you would also have an adjustment made to your personal tax code based (I think) on CO2 emissions of the vehicle so currently benefit on EVs is very low but will be changing.

    When you get a quote the company will usually model the net cost based on whether you are a lower or higher rate tax payer and impact on take home pay after the tax code change too.

    The 'all inclusive' bit is also worth putting on a spreadsheet to compare; just had a £180 Nissan mini-service after the first year of ownership paid by Arnold Clarke who my car is leased through.

  • By the same logic, "you could have exactly the same usage profile with a full EV", so why bother having one that has a downside that will sometimes be relevant?

  • Toyota made a reasonable argument that in a battery production constrained world in the short to medium term, you were better producing 6x as many phev's as EV's or 90x as many hybrids with the same amount of material as 1 ev, as it would lead to more journeys getting completed by battery given average journey length. Turns out most people don't bother plugging in their PHEV and they land up being far dirtier than claimed as a result which is unfortunate as they are company cars doing longer than average journeys

  • PHEV works fine for us. Home charging from solar for in and around the city. So no emmisions there, which is nice. Hybrid for longer trips. Our Passat is more fuel efficient on hybrid than our small engined Cactus was, mind.

    That against a background of costs as well. Pure EV family cars are out of our budget.

    Seems fashionable to frame PHEVs unfortunately.

    Edit. Most PHEVs I come across that are privately owned are being charged. The image has been skewed by company car riders who have little financial incentive to do so.

  • By the same logic, "you could have exactly the same usage profile with a full EV", so why bother having one that has a downside that will sometimes be relevant?

    Simplicity.

    No engine, gearbox, oil, fuel system, fuel tank, exhaust system etc etc

  • Instead you have to bin and replace the lot if some wiring goes. Argument goes both ways.

  • Edit. Most PHEVs I come across that are privately owned are being charged.

    There must be a massive sampling bias here though.

    Pretty sure every plugin round me is charged, because I see them being charged on their drives all the time.

  • I can see you don’t work in product development or marketing.

    Consumers don’t really care about implementation details like that.

    It’s cost and convenience you want to address.

  • @dubtap @andyp Thanks for the info, the Octopus website is pretty comprehensive.

    I'm trying to convince my employer to sign up, and also install a few charging points in the car park as a 'perk'...

  • It’s costman-maths and a tenuous perception of convenience you want to address.

    FTFY.

    Based on the average car I see I think consumers have a very poor grasp of their actual requirements, but love a story.

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Electric Vehicles EVs

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