OT EVs (I know it is done to death but coming from another angle).....

Long post... Living in central Italy with our house S. S.E facing roof I de cided to take the plunge and with the prices of PV panels falling, the power OP rising, the decreasing cost of backup storage and the rapidly rising cost of mains supply we reckon we will have break even after about 6 years on the cost.

That bring me to the point of my post. The idea of free electricity to charge an EV made me seriously look at the market. I currently have a 10 year old Yeti 4x4 2.0 TDI Elegance bought new and fully paid for. It only has 55k miles on the clock and that after a handful 3k mile round trips to UK. Most of our journeys are very short less than 10 km 3-5 times a week with the odd 60-100 km ones 3-4 times per month so an EV makes sense.
HOWEVER, as a hobby, me and my better half perform as a duo at a few venues so I need the space to fit the PA keyboards etc in so I need something no smaller than what I already have. Looking at the options, a lease of 3 years at 5000k pa maximum on a suitable vehicle is about 600 euros per month.
OK I'd save around 900 euros in fuel 300 in annual circolazione (tax) and 500 in insurance, and 200 servicing (all covered by the lease but that still leaves me about 4000 euros out of pocket. My current car is hi-spec and runs well. Diesel whilst expensive . is cheaper than petrol here. High speed charging in Europe can also be expensive e.g. Germany up to 40 cents per KW hour so a three quarter charge on a 70Kw battery pack could end up being 20+euros. As the Covid restrictions lift it is our intention to make the long anticipated trips around Italy and the Tyrol so those charge point costs erode any saving we make on home charging vs diesel.

The bottom line is each kilometer driven on the above basis costs in excess of 1 euro which is far in excess of running our diesel.
Conclusion. The figures simply do not add up and I cannot justify the switch to EV. For most non business users and is completely unrealistic if they already own a car outright.

 

I am certainly no expert, but I would personally suggest holding off for a while and let the technology catch up.
I have just got a plug in hybrid Audi and I am far from impressed.
In electric mode, 5 hours of charging gives you an alleged 32 miles, but in reality, I don’t even get half that, certainly doesn’t get me to work which is 15 miles away on relatively flat roads, then it switches to petrol mode where I struggle to hit 30mpg. And, believe me, despite it being a very fast car, I drive like a vicar as it would cost me a fortune to put my clog down.
Also, they are automatic, nice and easy to drive but always sounds like it in the wrong gear.
Surely there is better technology in the pipeline such as built in solar panels on the car roof or wireless charging pads sunk into drives…actually, I am off to patent them two ideas and when it makes me a wealthy man, I shall just travel everywhere by helicopter.

 

I agree with the above really, I don't think they are viable as it stands given the ridiculous initial outlay. From an environmental perspective, unless you are powering it most of the time using renewable energy you are kidding yourself believing it is environmentally friendly, as electricity is still predominantly generated from fossil fuel powered power stations. On top of that, there is the question of battery disposal at end of life.

I've just bought a bi-fuel car and that will see me through to 2030 all being well. Then I reckon we will have something more viable on the market.

 

Stick to the diesel for now

 

Factor in the manufacturing CO2 footprint and it's beneficial to drive any non ev vehicle until the wheels drop off.

 

Not really helpful for you at all but related to the topic we looked at buying an electric van for work this week and they are so far away from being practical.

We have refrigeration units fitted to our fans and extra insulation etc installed which obviously adds to the weight and cost so here's how diesel and electric compares when used as a refrigerated van.

Purchase cost. Diesel: £41,000. Electric £70,000
Range. Diesel: 340miles. Electric 54 miles (unloaded) approx 30 miles loaded
Payload capacity: diesel: 980kg. Electric: 690kg

That's just one make and model but the differences between diesel and electric are pretty much the same throughout the different makes.
How can they justify such a huge difference in price for a vastly inferior product. Even if they were giving them away we wouldn't be able to use them as they can carry sod all and when we calculated the recharging times we would need around 30 hours in a working day to recharge enough times to do a working days work

 

McDonalds are rolling them out, one in my town has 2 chargers, free use and they are the 50kW super fast things.

 

I’ve now got an image of Tekky doing a Peters and Lee tribute act in a pizza restaurant

 

Its alright them being free but hardly worth it if the car costs tens of thousands of quid more than a petrol/diesel to buy in the first place...

 

You will probably find, though, that they are situated pretty close to a car park sign that states ‘maximum stay 1 hour’!!

 

Always been a petrol head but if I could afford it, I'd have a Tesla tomorrow. I think they're awesome - I really like all the gimmicks etc. Hoping in the next few years they bring out a more affordable car.

I think a lot of people would move to electric but it's just a matter of cost.

 

Generally, fully charged in 40 mins on the superfast chargers

 

Precisely. And what happens to the 32 million cars in the UK?

 

I'm going electric next, tbh I'm starting to view cars like a glorified mobile phone contract. Take out a 3 or 4 year pcp, they start contacting u just over half way thru to get another or upgrade.

 

Was talking to an analyst in the motor industry that looks at developments , say that everybody went electric there wouldn’t be enough electric to cope and they have 5he technology to ‘cure’ the diesel emission problem but won’t spend on it because of government aims to get shut whatever.

 

That was my intention (except for the helicopter, which you would never get me up in, as it has all the 'glide properties' of a Grand Piano) . Besides my car was bought in UK (RHD) and re-registered over here and has a small dent in th front wing which I have never bothered repairing (originally intending to run the car into the ground) so would probably be worth a balloon on a stick (not sure what colour though). That said, t Italians who also don't bother repairing small dents and 'dinks' unless it is a lease vehicle.

IMO EVs will have to drop in price by at least a third before they are financially viable for most private user and range increase considerably. Also infrastructure is falling way short of what will be needed if targets for ending ICE cars are to be met.

I watched a great review /Road test on You tube from some guy (Polish I think) and whilst he is an expert on all motoring things, he reviews and test as if he was a standard motorist. .e.g. he drove from his home to Krakow to test the actual range vs the manufacturers claimed one. He should have been able to complete the journey one way before recharge but found that he needed a boost to get there. and had to deviate from his route find a fast charger. He ensured a full charge before returning but encountered headwinds and in spite of adjusting his cruise speed 2okm lower he had to stop again this time waiting in a queue for half an hour until the car infron had finished charging. He ended up taking 11 hours to do a 9 hour trip. Around town /urban he was impressed with the range and efficiency Km/Kws but on teh motorway at the legal speed 130kmph the range dropped far below the claimed one even when the wetaher was not sub zero. Obviously on motorway cruises the lack of ERS opportunities impact on the range. He even dropped his speed to well below the 130Kmph on the return but still came up short on range needed.

He has done a number of reviews Skoda/VW/ Hyundai/ etc. and the general view is that, the tech is not yet developed enough for the mass market. Most cars also experienced electronic glitches of various types, albeit mainly in instrumentation and gimmicky things they seem to add nowadays things like auto boot opening (or not!!)

Incidentally, burying coils or cables in the driveway or road is a non-starter for the simple reason is that it is incredibly 'lossy' There is a scienific study I saw on the web relating to Apple iPhones and other phones and devices that use induction charging and the amount of power used compared to a plug in charger was much much higher. Amplify that by the amount needed to charge hundreds/thousands of 40-80Kw car batteries and you are putting an unmanageable load on the Grid. One thing overlooked is that power generated to drive a car using ICE, Hybrid or Hydrogen comes 'locally' i.e . from the vehicle (notwithstanding the obvious need to use tankers to get fuel to petrol sations in the first place.) . A Plug in EV charged anywhere other than a solar powered source e.g.. home PV system during daylight hours, relies on the National grid. Power is lost through cable resistance/breaker/AC DC conversion travelling from Generator, Substation to outlet. If that then goes to induction chargers the loss is even greater. Highly inefficient. Batteries themselves take 10-15% more electricity to fully charge than their rated capacity. Hybrids, as you have found to your cost are not efficient. In fact Switzerland after extensive studies have recently scrapped subsidies for hybrids as it turns out they are no more Environmentally friendly than ICE and ins some conditions actually worse.

My final gripe is how is it environmentally acceptable to scrap a perfectly good, useable vehicles with expensive, EVs that are currently very inefficient, incredibly difficult,expensive and even dangerous to recycle (Most of the battery components cannot be recycled) The technology may improve to the point where EVs are viable and make sense, but for now, they are not even close to that. the Money spent on infrastructure would have been better put to a huge upgrade of public transport...frequent and comprehensive bus routes for rutral areas , reopen those rail statins and lines hat t have not been built over . UK has a history of scrapping things for the latets and greatest. Trilleybuses and trams-remember them? closed down /tracks dug up (many cities in Europe still have them! ) Now wer are having to build them at phenomenal cost from scratch. Canals for moving bulk non urgent items (many European countries still have them.) Filled in or used solely for pleasure craft.

 

Oi!! Not far off with the Pizza restaurant (most of the venues are bars and plcaes that serve food In summer most of them are outside (great if you know anything about PA and sound engineering/mixing as you have no acoustic environment issues e.g. standing waves to cope with). The only thing is behind the system the sound goes out into the blue yonder, so especially outdoors with pro keyboards that do not have speakers you cant hear anything so you either have to lug bulky stage monitors around, or do what we do and have wireless Inner ear monitors.

You are a bit off with the ageist comment though matey. Peters and Lee!!??? Arrggghhh!!

We have a 2.5kw rig, lighting / harmonisers/looper (albeit hardly use that) and generate basic drum patterns from the looper pedal/ (although I would prefer a live drummer but no one would want to play for nowt as a hobby like we do ). We turn money down for a) dont want to get involved with Italian taxes and b) less pressure when not being paid. I worked pro for quite a few years so now it is fun. Play the stuff I like and hopefully the audience likes. I did study classical piano for many years and got into electronic music in the era of Wakeman, Emerson etc . and still take sound production mixing and generating authentic full sounds seriously. That said I only take one keyboard out - Yamaha CP88 Stage Piano which does everything I ask of it.

I loathe watching people using pre recorded backing tracks as i might as well listen to an MP3 and lmuch prefer the challenge of doing everything in' real time' and still making it sound 'full'.

Material ranges from Elton John, Billy Joel, Bowie, Adele, Blondie, Pretenders, Bonnie Raitt, Abba, Zucchero, blues, some Italian stuff and a couple of songs I wrote and performed in a band many years ago from our Jazz Rock days. If we have a large number of holidaymakers I usually throw in a 30 minute accordian set where I play a mix of Barzilian, Irish, French Italian and Klezmar material which goes down a bomb with Belgians, French, Germans and Italians. Admittedly we don't do hip-hop , Grime, rap or any of the stuff most under 30s like, but in summer we have a lot of holiday makers , Dutch German, Italian and Brits who like the older more tuneful stuff. The younger end can (or at least could pre Covid) go to other venues for the clubbing scene. Best left to pro-DJs IMO like JP. In any case, Most younger holidaymakers tend not to come to rural Ital as places like Ibiza and some of t he Greek islands are more of a draw.

 

I have no doubt they are good to drive but they are not viable regarding capital costs unless you can write off to tax as a business. I don't think anyone has a clear idea of depreciation over the longer term either. Time will tell,but my own personal view is that the whole EV experiment is a terrible mistake and Governments are driving up a blind alley (pun intended)