It's the thought of paying £10 / litre for diesel a few days later that might make you reconsider. It's easy to say that couldn't happen but you'd need to be confident.
Yep will be more expensive for sure so will have to raid the piggy bank!
The government could just jack up the duty until we go EV, at some point diesel will just be unviable.
Mileage tax, inevitable IMO.
We are literally changing my wife's Mini Cooper S in the next few weeks and have a road test booked today, but not in our originally planed Cooper S Electric.
My wife was adamant she wanted Electric as her next car, and I'm all for them, but they just don't work for us, unless it's only used for her commute to work and back, which isn't a realistic option for a vehicle that is so much more money to buy than it's petrol equivalent. She works at a hospital, and you'd think they'd have charging points with decent parking as in incentive for NHS staff to buy EV's, but no charging points at all. A missed opportunity IMO.
Take our holiday recently to Padstow. We take the Motorhome, and a car in this country. Padstow was a 300 mile trip in a car that has a realistic range of around 100 miles. That's 2 stops to charge, with the worry the charging points either don't work or have a line of cars waiting to use them, turning a 6hr drive, into god knows how much longer. Too many variables, when her petrol Mini will do the whole drive on half a tank of fuel, with no hassle.
This country is several years behind the realistic infrastructure for mass purchased electric vehicles, and I hate to say that because I loathe smoke belching diesels. I want the UK to be a leader in the Green future, but like most things that spews out of this government's gobs, it's all talk and very little action.
Even my Mini dealer agreed, we are no where near ready for EV's, and they say that most people in the market for an EV, have decided to buy the petrol equivalent for now, and wait to see if the infrastructure improves, and the prices of the actual cars become more attractive.
My wife was adamant she wanted Electric as her next car, and I'm all for them, but they just don't work for us, unless it's only used for her commute to work and back, which isn't a realistic option for a vehicle that is so much more money to buy than it's petrol equivalent. She works at a hospital, and you'd think they'd have charging points with decent parking as in incentive for NHS staff to buy EV's, but no charging points at all. A missed opportunity IMO.
Take our holiday recently to Padstow. We take the Motorhome, and a car in this country. Padstow was a 300 mile trip in a car that has a realistic range of around 100 miles. That's 2 stops to charge, with the worry the charging points either don't work or have a line of cars waiting to use them, turning a 6hr drive, into god knows how much longer. Too many variables, when her petrol Mini will do the whole drive on half a tank of fuel, with no hassle.
This country is several years behind the realistic infrastructure for mass purchased electric vehicles, and I hate to say that because I loathe smoke belching diesels. I want the UK to be a leader in the Green future, but like most things that spews out of this government's gobs, it's all talk and very little action.
Even my Mini dealer agreed, we are no where near ready for EV's, and they say that most people in the market for an EV, have decided to buy the petrol equivalent for now, and wait to see if the infrastructure improves, and the prices of the actual cars become more attractive.
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Yes have to agree the infrastructure is key but also current range. We travel from London to Omagh on one tank of fuel via Cairnryan only stopping for driver change. Until EV can achieve this I will continue with diesel.
Absolutely!
I'll probably keep one ICE vehicle on for a while but increasingly reluctantly and we'll never be going back to one for the local runabout that does most of our yearly miles. Eyeing up the new Renault 5 EV when we decide to get rid of the Leaf.
I mean I do enjoy driving the van but its sort of in the same way that I suppose someone might enjoy sitting up there driving a steam traction engine. It's newer than the Leaf but in comparison it feels like some clattering relic from a bygone era with all of its quaint valves, tanks and pistons. But I hate pouring fuel into it and I hated spending £700 for a service and cambelt change just so I'd be a bit less on edge waiting for one of those bazillion moving parts to decide that today is its day to die.
I mean I do enjoy driving the van but its sort of in the same way that I suppose someone might enjoy sitting up there driving a steam traction engine. It's newer than the Leaf but in comparison it feels like some clattering relic from a bygone era with all of its quaint valves, tanks and pistons. But I hate pouring fuel into it and I hated spending £700 for a service and cambelt change just so I'd be a bit less on edge waiting for one of those bazillion moving parts to decide that today is its day to die.
As I said earlier, we did a long trip in the van yesterday without the need to refuel. With massive congestion on the M6, the sat nav quite rightly diverted us well away from the motorway through very remote areas. Not a chance in hell of finding chargers out there. So whilst we could have planned the trip to take in motorway services, being divirted off that route could have left us panicking.
To many variables for anything other than short commutes for my liking. I suppose the answer is to have an electric car for day to day, then hire one if you have the odd long journey to do.
To many variables for anything other than short commutes for my liking. I suppose the answer is to have an electric car for day to day, then hire one if you have the odd long journey to do.
Check our the NHS salary sacrifice scheme, it's very very competitive on EVs
Yes, until you can do 5-600 miles on a charge and then fully recharge in the same time that it takes to fill the tank with diesel, and there are as many charging stations as there are petrol stations I’ll be sticking with IC engines.
I might consider the hybrid xc40 as a replacement to our old xc60. definite attraction to have dual power format.
I drive from Cheshire to south of Alicante several times a year (well I did prior to this pandemic thing and before I bought the van). Unless I'm making it into a holiday we do it with just a couple of overnighters. Each time I pull off at motorway service areas I made it my mission to find EV charge points. They are very few and far between in France and Spain. I looked on an app and many are actually off the doorway network, so having paid your toll, you'd have to leave to find the point (and hope it is working/have the app for it, then return to the motorway). To use the EV chargers, there are different apps to download in relation to the country. All seems to be too difficult and I really couldn't imagine doing that in an EV.
Not that I'm a Tesla salesman but just to put it into perspective...
London to Edinburgh, bottom of the A1, M25 junction to Edinburgh, 367 miles.
Assuming you set off with a full charge, like you would a full tank of diesel, you need to stop once for 16 minutes to charge at scotch corner.
I know in the van you wouldn't have to stop but that's a walk to the loo and a coffee...I used to driving 700+ miles in a day across Europe so I'm not one for stopping but I'd consider 16 mins reasonable for that journey.
Detail based on Model 3 long range.
Edit to add, I wasn't convinced either till we got one!
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So my above comment was totally irrelevant really, because we made the mistake of actually driving it and it was absolutely fantastic.
So sod the drawbacks, I'm hooked and one Mini Cooper E ordered.
So sod the drawbacks, I'm hooked and one Mini Cooper E ordered.
Yeah, I imagine an electric Mini Cooper really is quite a lot of fun!
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