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

I get fully that the numbers don't work for you. To be honest, they probably won't work for anyone who drives around in a 10 year old car doing small annual mileages. Such people are not in the market for new cars and the existing EVs aren't old enough yet to have come down in price to the level that they are looking at. For people who buy 10 year old cars and keep them 5 years, defintely their next 1 car and probably their next 2 cars will be ICE feeding down the chain. But they will be in the price bracket of an EV eventually.

And no one is suggesting people go out and scrap their current 10 year old car and buy an EV. It's not realistic. Besides, from a carbon footprint perspective, the most environmentally friendly car is the one that already exists. My hope is just that, when the person at the end of the chain is scrapping their 15 year old car and replacing it with a 10 year old car, someone else, further up the chain is feeding their ICE down the chain and replacing it with an EV, not another ICE. That's how they will eventually flood through the market feeding to everyone.

The motoring journalist who is an avid proponent of EVs said basically the same as me above. That it doesn't make sense to go out and scrap your car, but when people are buying new cars, she would advocate EV.

The issue I have with the article is that it purports to offer a scientific analysis of whether the average Joe should buy an EV but uses non realistic criteria to come out with a ludicrous outcome to make a headline. I particularly liked the bit where his assessment of how much electricity the EV had used after 10 laps of the track was 'about 1.6 bars' on the dash display. Hmmm.

If the figures don't work for you then that is absolutely fine. No pressure. But posting links to crap like that and stating that it shows that your analysis is correct that they dont work for 'the majority of people' is really not helpful. You.may as well post links to the comments page of EV articles on the Daily Mail, where know nowts spread FUD about such crap that the battery will need replacing after 5 years, cost a million quid, and god forbid that there is a queue on the motorway in winter because we'll all freeze to death, and it must be true because Dave down the pub said so and he knows someone who works in "the industry"

Price and availavility would be an issue if everyone wanted one now. But they don't. Availability is actually an issue, but a short term one that affects both EV and ICE due to the shortage of semiconductors. That will resolve itself within 2 years. We could talk about your other concerns all day (infrastructure, range etc) and that's fine. We won't agree, but no matter. But the main stream media's propensity to distribute fear and untruths about EVs because it is a better sell than an article in favour of them is starting to grate with me. It puts people off swapping to an EV when such a swap would be perfect for them because people believe this stuff.

 

By the way, if you respond and I don't come back to you straight away, its because I am on holiday in Devon and will be doing stuff soon. Remarkably, we made it all the way down in my EV. And it didn't take me 3 days either. Honest!

 

Actually to avoid confusion I bought my car new in2 012 with the intention of running it until it became a liability which it hasn't yet.. and then get a new one.

 

Smashing. It's got years in it yet. Why were you even thinking of swapping?

 

Living near both sea and mountains in a rural area with restaurants etc all around we want to visit mainly city breaks in and around Italy.. becoming harder with a CAT5 Diesel with many places banning them. Train travel looking better by the day especially as Italy they are both cheap and reliable and many stations still have free parking.

 

I have just ordered an MG ZS ev for delivery August/September. Having just missed out on the £350 grant I was wondering if anyone can advise on a reliable economic local (South/West Yorkshire) ev charger installation company/electrician. Also seeing as these units can be purchased has anyone actually installed their own units? If so what are/could be the restrictions/problems if you are reasonably competent and have a decent trade background. Not saying I would do this. I'm just wondering if it's an option as a fallback, seeing as some prices I have seen for installation seem pretty extortionate. PS I haven't read all of the thread so apologies if this has been discussed earlier.

 

You can buy 13amp plug ones that are basically an extension lead, seem to start around £180 (Screwfix have them in).
I have no clue about practicality, reliability, costs etc though in comparison to having one fitted.

 

I am no expert on this, but I think, being a designated outdoor installation, you would need an electrical installation certificate issued by a suitably qualified individual and would be required to prove that it was certified if you ever flog the house.

I believe that the local DNO, Northern Powergrid, needs to be informed as well.

Mine is an Ohme which was installed by home zap. https://homezap.co.uk/

There was a bit of messing around to start with in terms of them assigning me someone in the area to do the job and in the end sent a chap up from Milton Keynes to do it. But he was excellent and did a really sound job.

Nice car by the way. Really good value for money compared to the competition.

 

It's not a good idea to use a 13 amp socket with a 'granny cable' on a long term basis. Fine for emergencies but you've got to be damned sure your plug socket is quality and up to the job. Domestic sockets are not designed to pull that kind of load over long periods of time and if there is any issue with the socket you could end up with it getting very hot and burning out. Shorting your circuit if you are lucky. Causing a fire if you are unlucky. I am not sure I would leave one overnight and sleep soundly. It's perfectly fine. Until it's not.

The granny cable that was supplied with my car is still in it's original packaging. I have never used it.

If you don't want to get a 'proper' wallbox fitted, a decent half way solution is to get a competent sparky to fit an external commando socket, making sure the sparky is aware that you are using it to charge a car and needs to meet the appropriate regs (eg. Pen fault protection) and then buy a commando socket cable from such as Ohme. It comes with the same smart features as a fully fledged Ohme wallbox. If your electricity supplier is Octopus, you can get them at a healthy discount through Octopus.