Fenman

Each of us is different, but my experience is the same as yours. I’ve just done ~500 EV miles over one weekend, more than half on motorways, and I finished much fresher than in any ICE car I’ve owned: it was ACC that made so much difference, constantly adjusting to changing conditions. I could instead concentrate better on drivers making random lane changes. Every time we came across those chevron markings, my car was exactly the distance it should be from the car in front. The only issue I have with that is moronic drivers undertaking and then deciding that’s enough of a gap to pull into: so my car slows down to get the correct space back, and then another moron undertakes and pulls into the gap… Generally my experience is that ACC is better than many manual drivers. Paul

Although that also seems to be changing: in the ICE Age both Kia and Hyundai were regarded as, well, “value” rather than high-status brands. Yet the EV6, Ioniq 5 (and, if early reviews are to be believed, Ioniq 6, too) are clearly premium cars with waiting lists that are frankly extraordinary. VW doesn’t seem to have succeeded so well in translating its higher quality / higher price image to its iD models — and, of the VW group, it’s previously value-focussed Skoda which now appears to produce the higher quality car. But I have one other thought on this complaint that BEVs are too expensive. A year ago I did my sums and bought an Ioniq 5. It’s been a delightful car and I have no regrets at all. But the fact is it’s way too big for my needs — the interior space is vast, and is at least one, possibly two, classes above what I need. Purpose-designed BEVs turn out to be so space-efficient that we can easily sink down the model hierarchy compared to the equivalent ICE model; where, of course, we also find lower prices. Comparing real like with like, the price gap between ICE and BEV would be very significantly reduced even with today’s cars. Paul

It may not have made any difference — most of the branches that remain seem to have been downgraded / gutted of most banking services. My local HSBC branch (in a very big market town) explained I couldn’t pay Scottish bank notes into my account: I’d have to go to the Post Office to change them for Bank of England notes, then return to my branch. Wow. Paul

West Norfolk has finally joined the Solar Together scheme. My house isn’t huge but it has a vast, unshaded roof facing sue south. I could probably fit 18-20 panels on it. the calculator says this will provide 98-100% independence from importing electricity, and several hundred quid in annual payments for exports. What’s the collective wisdom? Should I go for that, or is that OTT? I do fancy the idea of not needing to import electricity but I’m curious about people’s views especially after you’ve had experience of installing your own PVs. What would you do differently if you had a do-over? Paul

A mixed bag, to be frank. Lots of old-looking ones which were hit and miss; but the fast chargers seemed much more reliable: basically in towns there's at least one pay-as-you-go fast charger (ie, at least 50kW) in the car park of almost every big Tesco's. But ABRP was a god-send there, too, because in, eg, Thurso, there was a cheap fast charger in the Park Hotel and none in the town's big Tesco just opposite. The Charge Scotland network was generally pretty reliable -- I had no problems with using my phone app but it's recommended by most forums that if you're going to go really remote you should get the RFID card from them (I don't actually own any RFID cards) -- which you have to order at least 10 working days before you need it so they can post it to you... The Tesla network has started to open up which also helps: the huge bank of super-fast chargers at Aviemore is open to all, though it's a [swear word beginning with B deleted] to find it in the first place. And Elon's super-charging those of us who haven't bought one of his cars. Gridserve is also getting its act together: Stirling services at the base of the A9 had a range of options including very fast, all of which worked. Generally, I had no bad experiences. I wouldn't hesitate to take the EV again. Paul

On average, I charge once a week. The car has a range of ~250 miles; I drive roughly 12,000 miles a year. So the maths is very simple. Sometimes it’s a bit more than once a week, sometimes a bit less. And more than 95% of my charging is done at home, overnight, while I sleep. It is a very easy thing to live with. Paul

My guess is that there is no mass-market future for long distance [leisure] motoring. And, of course, such things are already minority interests when the majority of the population drives less than 1,000 miles a month and never takes their car out of the UK. In a world where many (most?) people will already struggle to heat their homes and have enough to eat, and where a third of Pakistan is under flood-water as a result of weather events that seem linked to climate change (the legacy of us all burning fossil fuels without a care in the world), to take just two examples — whether or not someone has to make a couple of extra stops while towing a massive caravan from one part of Europe to another doesn’t seem terribly important. Though I realise individual behaviour change is usually irritating. I’ve just done 1,000 miles of EV motoring around some of the more remote parts of the Scottish Highlands. I’ve reached an age where the demands of my bladder are much more immediate and troubling than the demands of my car to top up the battery. For me it’s just a mindset issue: I need to plan my routes to make sure I can recharge (and discharge). Apps like ABRP meant I didn’t have any problems. Paul

Morgan have just launched their new 3-wheeler, the Super 3. And apparently if you wait a couple of years you'll be able to buy an EV version. Paul

I think it depends. The Ioniq 5 and EV6 from Hyundai/ Kia have been selling at a rate that has staggered them (and is faster than they can manufacture them), against assorted VW/ Audi/ Skoda competitors. Mercedes is mostly offering relatively cramped ICE models which have been converted to EVs, rather than designed from the wheels up to take advantage of EV opportunities. BMW is apparently going down a path of making its models as aggressively ugly as possible. The recently unveiled Ioniq 6 felt to me like evidence of a very different design strategy. Couple all that with the fact that EVs are a new-ish technology for most of us, yet the Germans are still offering 3 year warranties while the Koreans are offering 5 or 7 years. it may not be true everywhere but in these parts the most common premium EV is not German or Korean but American — Teslas seem to be everywhere. I keep thinking back to the transition from film photography to digital: how many of the biggest names in film photography are still in existence, let alone market leaders? And why should it be different in the transition from ICE to EV? Everyone is having to start from scratch, and sometimes that’s hardest for the people who have been the most successful in the old technology. Of the non-Korean legacy manufacturers I’d guess Mercedes might be one of those who thrives, looking ahead to their pipeline. Fascinating times. Paul

That's exactly the point. Or you may be doing a long rural journey which ends in a congested town and, being a nice person, you want to minimise the local pollutants you spew out or the noise you make -- thus reducing the impact on people who live there. It won't be world-changing, but it will be you doing what you can to be nice to other people. Your point about the complexity of hybrid types seems to me to be well-made. My suspicion is that they have been introduced to overcome the terrors of the new (ie, EVs) which terrors, judging by this thread, are experienced by many people*. The experience seems to be that when you live with an EV all those terrors disappear; but if you have never done so, it's comforting to have a car which has the option of burning fossil fuels. It seemed to me that hybrids are adding extraordinary layers of complexity to something -- the ICE car -- which is already wildly complicated. And then those two complicated systems have to be integrated by a third complicated system. That was just too much complexity for me to get my head around, so I went straight from ICE to "pure" EV. Just to be clear, I think some people have use-cases which don't really work with current (sic) EVs; but it seems to me that those people are currently in a minority and, as ranges get higher and recharge times get shorter and fast-charging infrastructure spreads, even the majority of those people will be able to shift fairly easily to EVs. Paul * Someone asked on here whether the brake lights of an EV come on when the car is regeneratively braking, otherwise it could be dangerous. The answer is, of course, that the brake lights do come on. What fascinated me is that I've never read anyone asking whether the brake lights of an ICE car come on when you are doing engine braking. ANd of course, they don't. Yet somehow that wasn't even an issue.

Equally, as the poet had it, "good fences make good neighbours". There is some academic urban theorising about home zones. The road is obviously public space; the front garden is a semi-private transitional zone; while the house and rear garden are private space. I hadn't thought about that particularly, but my own home mirrors it -- the rear garden is surrounded by a 2m hedge, and assorted trees block most overlooking even from upper storeys. Despite that I've never had friendlier neighbours -- putting my wheely bin out if I'm away; and only yesterday while they are away on a mini-break I let myself into their house to close an upper window that had blown open in the recent strong winds (we each have keys for the other's house), that a neighbour on the other side texted me to say was banging open. And once a month or so I'll have dinner in my neighbours' house, or they in mine, so it's not as if we don't also have concentrated together time. Another big factor is dogs: those of us who dog walk in our neighbourhood are constantly meeting at least those of our neighbours who also have a dog or who like gardening. Lots of accidental casual social interaction there. While most of us no longer queue every morning at the local bakery, or in the butcher's shop, chatting to our neighbours, there are other forms of interaction which are possibly even more meaningful? There was a big shift in 18th century Britain when the rich -- who until then had regarded their houses as a form of public display of their status and wealth -- retreated into remote private parkland, often moving any villagers away from the vicinity, so that their home was completely isolated from the world. The only status display left on public view would be a lodge house or two and some massive gates, the Big House nestled out of sight at the end of a long drive. Maybe some of us poorer people are finally catching up with the rich? Paul

Why can’t the electricity company provide a supply (and meter)? They would if the garage was knocked down and replaced with a house. Paul

My elderly disabled mother began slipping into dementia: it was a core part of her care plan that her carers (who visited four times a day) ensured she took the right medications at the right time. I am mystified that anyone can offer a "care" package that doesn't include the option of supervision of administration of medications -- and especially when dementia is an aspect of the problem (of course I'm not suggesting that's the case for your family -- just using it as an example). Although one of the (utterly perverse) keys to ensuring that social care is more effective is to refuse to take responsibility for your loved one when they are discharged from hospital to home; it sounds vile and callous, but if you accept responsibility then you need to provide cover when too many carers are off sick, or ensure medication is properly administered, etc. Whereas if no-one else has responsibility, you are prioritised by the council when so many carers are off sick that they can't visit everyone. In our crap system where social care has been completely neglected, unless you are rich enough to pay for everything yourself it is likely that your local council will seek to place as much of the burden as possible on you (it's not really their fault; they have nowhere near enough money to meet the need: central government has cut local government budgets by 60% to reduce the "burden" of taxation. So that burden has to be carried somewhere else...). Refusing to accept responsibility yourself means they have to retain it. Although that's much trickier if you are married or living in the same property, of course... Apart from ensuring dignity (I hated the idea that I would need to be engaged in my own mother's intimate care -- and she would have been appalled even at the idea), it means you have energy for the other really important things: having time for a loving relationship with a family member, one which is not dominated by the practicalities of care needs (which are also usually physically exhausting). Paul

"Efficiency" is a strange concept. When I was doing management training, centuries ago, "just in time" processes were a huge thing. And the cost savings in terms of reduced stock holdings and therefore reduced working capital were often huge. But of course it turned out that the more effective such systems are, the more fragile they are; more subject to disruption when the supply of even a single element becomes difficult (as the car industry has recently discovered over supplies of chips). World War 2 demonstrated the advantages of an inefficient railway network: as the Germans disrupted one element, towns served by multiple lines simply moved the flow of goods and people to one of the alternative lines: there was only relatively short-term impact from aerial raids on railway lines. By the time Beeching came along, all that flexibility had been re-categorised as wasteful and inefficient duplication. And an academic economics study has estimated that those competing 19th century capitalists wasted about 50% more share-holders' money on building the British railway network than would have been needed for the most economical such system offering the same overall network benefits. Back on topic, I think the OP question is a bit simplistic in that it assumes that "we" have similar wants and needs. Those of us with avoidant personalities are immeasurably thrilled when we can minimise the amount of contact we have to have with other humans. Especially if they want to engage us in what we consider to be inane and irritating chit-chat. While other people crave that same contact and value it highly. As someone else has posted, it's nice to have the option of either, to cater for different people's preferences. Paul

You seem to be getting cross that I've not recognised your specific circumstances, but I deliberately wrote "for most of us, most of the time". You then slammed back with "several long journeys (well over 150 miles)": there are numerous EVs already on the market with ranges of double that, some with ranges of over 400 miles, and a couple (either here now or coming shortly) with even higher ultra-long ranges (and a high purchase price) of around four times that. Chances are you aren't going to need to charge away from home most of the time. As to whether or not ownership will be more or less tiresome, that's a matter for each of our use cases. In my case -- as someone who drives about 50% more than the annual average, and has had a BEV since last Autumn -- I've charged away from home on +/- three occasions. In each case I used an Instavolt fast charger (in one place they were "only" 50kW, compared to the more usual 150kW); no App, no special card. Just a wave of my credit card and off it went. No queues. No broken chargers. And with a nice cafe attached. I'm pretty sure the total amount of time that away-from-home charging has taken is less than the cumulative amount of time I would have spent in fuel stations for my previous ICE car over the same number of months; and the rest of the time the EV has been charged at home while I've been sleeping. Will EVs make some people's lives more difficult, or need adjustment? Absolutely. No question. There was someone on here claiming he needs to drive 500 miles every single day on an incredibly tight schedule, and it's difficult to see how most of today's EVs would work for his fantastically extreme use case. Will EVs make no difference or be easier for the majority of people? From what we've seen so far, it looks like they will. And, as you wrote, the improvements we've been seeing recently suggest that by the time the last "pure" ICE car is sold in 2030, converting to a BEV will be unlikely to create difficulties for most people (most of the time). Paul

But those are -- for most of us, most of the time -- simply red herrings. The average UK annual mileage is under 8,000 miles. So half of us are driving less than that. That's just 150 miles a week or less. Other than a few city cars (which are specifically designed for low range), pretty much every EV on sale today has a longer range than that. So for most of us, most of the time, we need to find a charger once or at most twice a week. The new standard from mainstream companies like Hyundai and Kia (so no, I'm not basing this assertion on high-end Porsches or £100,000 Teslas) which have ranges of ~300 miles is an 80% charge from a fast charger in less than 20 minutes. That's pretty extraordinary performance; and while, truth be told, you need optimal conditions for that, including the fastest chargers (then again, look at what was considered a "fast charger" ten years ago), my guess is within +/- five years pretty much every family EV will at least match that while the better ones will have improved on it. I suspect that many people are simply mapping over their ICE car experience to EVs, looking at differences, and then demanding that battery technology should match the performance of dinosaur juice. They are utterly different technologies so it may be worth thinking about that a bit, rather than trying to dismiss an entire technological, social and political shift on the basis of lack of wiring to one person's garage, or problems that another might have today in accessing a charger from a block of flats. There will be real and signficant problems for the more marginal cases: that's to be expected. But it's not as if we don't have some time to sort them out. ICE cars will still be on sale for the next eight years (which I'd wager is actually longer than the likely lifespan of a not insignificant number of us -- incuding me -- here on RMweb), and hybrids for the next 13. Again, why not have a look at how Norway has already started tackling these problems? Is there nothing in their experience which gives you hope that we, too, could master them? Paul PS: I've just read an article that Polestar is aiming by 2026 to offer 100 miles charging in 5 minutes (the underlying technology to do that should be ready by 2024).

Then why not have a look at how Norway is getting on? Completely different geography, culture and economy of course but, as Churchill said, “dim illumination is better than none at all”. Maybe there are some pointers for us from a country where >80% of new car sales are pure EVs? Incidentally, I was surprised to learn that the majority of people in England (sic) have off-road parking. That’s actually a bigger proportion than I was expecting. Elsewhere, some of the more progressive councils are experimenting with lamp-post chargers, up-and-down bollards on the pavement edge, etc. Or maybe my glass is half-full? Paul

I've never been brave enough to do that: I think they'll assume I'm doing a runner. Paul

The difference is that more than 80% of EV charging is done at home, whereas the equivalent home-fuelling for ICE cars is ... near-zero? So you're not comparing like with like. Paul

So was mine… Paul

Doesn't that suppose that everyone in Britain (or do we mean Great Britain?) speaks the same form of English? I lived in Scotland for some years and their forms of English have all sorts of interesting differences, not just uniquely Scottish words (boke, haver, nippy-sweetie...). One of the world's leading linguists*, and a pioneer of the study of dialects, argues that the Norfolk dialect (fast disappearing) is the purest form of English. After all, it's one of the first places in the world that spoke English, as a result of the early arrival of incoming Angles. You may be assuming that "the Queen's English" and Received Pronunciation is the Standard. But it isn't. And even if it was, that's changed dramatically over the years -- just listen to a recording of the queen speaking in the 1950s, for that strangled accent which sounds like she's being tortured, let alone the complex sentence patterns she uses that today we'd consider archaic. * For an easy introduction to the field, Professor Peter Trudgill wrote a delightful book called Dialect Matters (for some years he wrote a weekly newspaper column on language issues: this is a collection of those pieces). Great fun but also often eye-opening.

Some companies are different: Bulb (now bankrupt but still operating…), for example, sends an automated email 3 days before every billing to request a reading. If you don’t send one then they estimate. But the amount of the direct debit is totally within your control: you can change it as often as you like on their website, so it’s impossible for them to build up a crazy credit balance at your expense. My very elderly, disabled mother died last year so I’ve been dealing with her utility suppliers. Some are better than others (after I’d informed them of her death, one sent a wildly inappropriate jokey email thanking me for contacting them and asking me to assess how well they’d done. The tone was extraordinarily disrespectful. Clearly their marketeers had decided on the company’s brand tone and applied it everywhere, irrespective of the circumstances. Even death). British Gas, it turns out, had been estimating her bills for more than two years (she was bed-bound and couldn’t read the meter, but had always paid her bills the second they arrived). They knew she was a vulnerable customer. They had never sent a meter reader. Her account was over £1.5k in credit because they’d over-estimated her bills. The first bill I received for the 3 months after her death was for over £600 on top of that credit. That looks like theft to me. At the least, getting a dying disabled woman to subsidise your corporate cash-flow strikes me as pretty despicable. Still, at least the dividends are paid to the owners… Paul

Actually, I would suggest that far from averages being a red herring, it is your pattern of use which is unusual and, hence, a red herring. It’s simply a fact that most British drivers do not undertake long journeys across Northern Europe. Just as most drivers don’t drive hundreds of miles every day. But it seems to be the extremes where most attention is paid, and it is those extremes which do not suit EVs very well. The point I was trying to make is that for the majority of people, on average, an EV is simply a better option than an ICE car: simpler to use, almost never having to visit a filling station, no need for complex apps, no difficulty with different standards at most charging points, plus dramatically reduced mechanical complexity meaning long service intervals (mine is once every two years) and reduced in-use costs. I’d suggest range anxiety mostly seems to exist in people who don’t have an EV. When you get an EV, for most people range anxiety ceases to exist. Oh — and most EVs are delightfully fast. As I wrote before, YMMV. Paul

Whatever their mechanical problems, the arrival of these coaches was for me an aesthetic revolution. Out went the quirky-looking old-fashioned designs, and in came modernity. I was in the western part of Eastern Counties country, so the dominant appearance was plain poppy red. But there was also a regular sprinkling of leaf green invaders from the Lincolnshire Road Car company. The local bus station was an impressive display of public service corporate identity. I’m a bit surprised no-one else has already tackled the National, but I’m delighted Rapido is now doing it. I imagine there might be demand at O scale… Paul

It’s a new technology for most of us so it’s unsurprising that people are thinking about the ICE technology they know and then trying to map that onto an EV. But they are totally different animals. The first thing to say is that much depends on your own use case. RMweb seems to have a disproportionate number of people who claim to have to drive hundreds of miles every day. I’d suggest EV technology is not yet appropriate for most of them. But they are a tiny, tiny proportion of users. I’m probably at the other extreme. I drive ~1,000 miles a month (which is of course above average for a UK driver). I got an EV last year as my only car. Before buying it I was apprehensive about all this complexity related to charging types and payments. But in all my time driving an EV I have never even downloaded an app, let alone used one. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve used public chargers — and they were all ionity fast chargers with contactless payment. They were all working. There was always a charger available. They were sited next to either a Costa or Starbucks. They could not be simpler to use. But, like apparently most people, >95% of my charging is done overnight on a home wall box (and like most — but not all — people, I have off-road parking). So, for most people doing +/- average mileage, and living in an average home, charging infrastructure is irrelevant most of the time. Instead, I just plug it in before I go to bed and I wake up the next morning with a “full tank”. On the very rare occasion I need to make a long journey it requires a bit of extra planning (little more than the route planning I’d anyway do), to make sure there are chargers where I need a break. But I also deliberately chose an EV with a range far in excess of my normal requirements. That’s actually not very efficient and next time, knowing what I now do, I’ll be content with a lower range / smaller battery. The point of all this is that it all depends. Choose a technology that works best for you and your use case; but don’t then condemn all EVs just because they are not (yet?) right for you.* YMMV Paul * For the avoidance of doubt, I’m not suggesting the poster I’m quoting has done that…