So he hadn't done his research then? I don't have an ev but I know where the best, most reliable and cheapest chargers are near my house, school and onnthebway to my dads because I am intereted in them. Anyone buying an EV and complaining about either range or infrastructure simply hasn't put the required time into researching their choice. Why buy an EV if there was a chance he had to do long journeys at short notice, and if he owned one, why try to take it? The ID has a decent range from memory but I take about 50miles off quotes range of anything I read jist as quoted mpg figures are farcical.

Well thanks for the laughs, I've now got an image of this poor chap having to abandon his car walk to his meeting (in an office which will be shut due to the power being cut off), but in my minds eye he's doing it bare foot because in the context of national power cuts the shoe shop was closed too, just proving shoes are so over rated.

No George , I disagree.

Sometimes in life the unexpected happens.

When he bought it he had no idea that a set of ongoing serious family emergencies some 240 miles away were going to occur. They had never do so in the past. Kid's eh? :confused_smile:
The EV suited his needs when he bought it but he hadn't reckoned with the totally unexpected situation that arose.
He has a new £95k motorhome. It would honestly have been faster taking that to London.
I prefer to stop for a cuppa when it suits me , not the car.

My view with EV's is that if they fit your needs ie regular commuting well within their claimed range such as Rocinate's example then there is a very strong case for them and much to like.
I'm not anti EV per se what I do have an issue with is that we are being herded down a route in terms of EV being the only new option shortly and the infrastructure will not be in place to match the demand irrespective of what people say.
As for Benzines Electric motorbike?
Great if you never go far or do a regular work commute but how would it cope with my crowd in May when we go to France Spain and Portugal for the best part of 3 weeks.
How much time would be wasted each day sitting around waiting for his bike to recharge again. It's not unusual for us to do 400 miles a day.
The latest Harley Livewire has a claimed range of about 145miles city and 95 on the open road. Performance is impressive though with a 0-60 of 3 seconds.

To summarise, it's all about Horses for courses. If an EV fit's your remit then why not?

I will politiely disagree with you. Yes, life throws curveballs, but why didn't he know the vehicle and or infrastructure was unsuitable for the trip? I'd have known that and I don't even live there!!! I'm astonished he had an alternative ICE vehicle and chose to take the more compromised option!!

That's fine George, have a nice day. :regular_smile:

I agree 100% that for the minute the majority of EV are less 'useful' than even the simplest ICE car for the reasons you mention. Take care auld yin, have a great weekend.

No no no no no no! you've got to tell it right or not at all...

Having ran out of battery power having wasted 20 miles worth listening to Radio 4 outside of the local minimart the man was forced to strip to a loincloth and break out a huge cross that he had in the boot of the EV, he'd no sooner tied the cross off when his mum appeared and crowned him with a daisy chain crown she'd made earlier and said to him "your not going out you've been a naughty boy!" he wasn't barefoot at all he had his sandals on and although quite worn they eventually got him to Smoggyland before he was forced to wave down an Uber where he then tried to convert the driver to an EV owner but the driver was having none of it having read a thread on VoC forums in the Motoring section :icon_smile_lachuh:

As it's a fair link you can have a fair answer.

It says they can be recycled 3 times, what they don't say is how they do it, a lot of the time it's the cells are recharged in a manner we don't have to be able to do it at home, they are then re-insulated and wrapped and put in something less demanding than a car. A Li ion cell that was otherwise alive and healthy can shut itself down simply by being over discharged.

The other option is the cell pack repair, this is where individual dead cells are removed and replaced with new cells, it's a less wasteful way to do things rather than having to buy a whole new sledge of cells but both things end in the same spot, dead and no further cycle use.

Watch last night's Fifth Gear Recharge, three old EVS all with plenty left in the tank. Why not unless you are worried that you might see something that challenges your preconceptions?

I'll have a look for it as the show does actually focus on real world cars vs TG's everything we can't afford approach.


I know you think I'm reckless but I do actually take an interest in "what makes the world go round" I'm also although not a disciple of CC GW or whatever new name the suits want to give it this year I would if it was up to me start a program to replant the world with as many and as many species of trees as I possibly could because trees are our lungs as well. Having watched the ignorance of man in the past and his disposal techniques is why I'm not behind the lithium route, if new battery tech that doesn't involve (a) minerals that are obtained through others misery and (b) can be recycled fully or disposed of like water soluble hence why natural absorbents and filtration are the way forwards imo, granted there's always going to be some sort of "dirt" in anything we make and the making of somethings is as essential as avoiding creating the "dirt". If it hasn't already leaked we have to ask ourselves what we've ordered up for ourselves in the future with all the spent nuke fuel that's sitting in the deep trenches of the oceans in degrading barrels, if that gets out which it will the first things to potentially go will be the undersea farms and then the fish and how will we deal with Cod & Chips becoming Raddock & Chips, next will be the birds and as clouds form from the seas we'll be showering in Radioactive water eventually, maybe it's half life might not be as bad as first thought and Chernobyl & ***ushima studies may show instead of semi permanent wastelands the land either returns to harmless within 100 years or we adapt to be able to live healthy lives with enhanced levels of radiation.

I actually like the concept of EV's tbh, what I don't like is the half arsed effort to bring them in, the power has to come from a source where we're not just moving the bad effect to another area, the waste has to be negated and the creation also needs to "clean" up it's act. The future of an EV and it may come in time is there will be little or no batteries in them and your car will be powered by automatic inductive charging built into the road itself, this will mean the cars are lighter, there will be no cables or bumper car pick up dragging along the floor or overhead, it will also mean no downtime for the car and no range limits. So effectively the car will only carry enough batteries for a 30 mile range and all the motorways and dual carriageways will be inductive tarmac as such.

We need to cultivate algae as well as plant trees. Actually we need to stop chopping down forests to feed EVs with their energy. The ground roots and other matter in ancient forests absorb more co2 than the trees. They also help the water cycle, and water is a more significant greenhouse gas than co2.

A lot of folks really don't realise how much we rely on mother nature to balance us out.

One of the biggest hoo ha's is McDonalds, I'm using them as an example but they aren't alone in this where poor people in places like the Amazon are clearing trees to create livestock area's, there are plenty of already clear area's around the world to do this but the one factor in it is price, McD's and others create these issues purely to make more profit and I'd hazard a guess and suggest the same thing happened in "ancient" Egypt long before the official version of events are set in.

With regenerative braking shouldn't the pads touch the discs LESS often, meaning pads & discs wear less quickly? I thought regenerative braking was done by using the axles as generators, no touching of surfaces required?

Away with your facts and logic. EVs are dangerous, pointless, soulless and expensive to repair, they also break down a lot and are akways running out of charge. Haven't you read ANYTHING about them? 🤣

exactly ... so this may lead to higher corrosion rates than we are used to.

I only use my 242 probably once every 6 weeks on average, and it's still on the original discs & pads I bought ready for first registration in 2005.
Yearly inspections with a brake-test too, so it's not just that I'm clueless about the brakes (not saying I'm not - but the mechanic I got to isn't :)).

Daily or even weekly driven EV's therefore have their discs & pads used more regularly than my car uses it's brakes; so if mine haven't corroded, those EV's ones won't.


There are valid issues with EV's, but not many.
I may miss some, but the only ones which occur to me right now are:
(1) purchase price - they're no more exxy than an Audi, many people have the wherewithal to buy an Audi but many don't
(2) charge availability - this is an issue for some, not for all
(3) the content of current batteries - lithium for example & how it's obtained

Numbers 1 & 2 are improving all the time, and for many they're currently not a problem anyway. Really the only big current problem I see is number 3, and I don't think it's a small problem either ... hopefully it will go away as newer battery tech comes online (eg. "flow batteries"), but there's no solid guarantee that'll happen in the immediate future, I can't see it within 5 years for example.

Environmentally-speaking you're better off keeping your old ICE going than buying a new car of any sort; but a new EV isn't actually any WORSE for the environment than a new ICE vehicle, there're problems with them all.

I am so please to see you walk towards the light on this matter, I thought for a minute I'd have to really work on you to get you to see it but hey as if by magic "Shaaaaaazzzaam!" here you are ready to take on the great fight against evil in the war of electron propulsion.

I have this warm glowing feeling today and it's not because I put new brushes in the reactor cores.


:tongwink::tongwink::tongwink:

Ah here we are, a useful summary: https://about.bnef.com/blog/the-life...tric-vehicles/

A potential game changer

https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/b...-b2272024.html

Maybe, and Solid State batteries are genuinely not far off now. They will make more difference to EVs than small capacity engines and low pressure turbos have done for petrol ICE emissions and MPG.

Watch this space!

Aren't those still lithium batteries. Improving battery technology doesn't help with the problems of electricity generation and distribution. I still believe that EVs are a niche market, and will not have a place for mass adoption. There are too many other energy sources that don't require the environment to be damaged and destroyed in harvesting them.

Cab you name some that have minimal environmental impact. I'd say that hydro, wind, tide and solar electric is pretty light footed? I get that you are talking about the batteries themselves but look at the environmental impact drilling for oil and gas, digging coal and fracking causes the world over? I'd rather we could find something that was genuinely low impact but suspect we may have to concentrate on the 'lowest' impact for the time being. Again, I don't see EVs as being particularly environmentally friendly, I jist love their attributes and one woukd suit my usage needs and preference for serenity and convenience very well.

Mining & processing lithium & it's like definitely screws things up on a localised scale, particularly if it's not managed. There can potentially be some major damage in certain places.
Weigh that against burning fossil-fuels, which we KNOW are 100% causing a disaster (for the human race & most other species on the planet) everywhere all at once.

The problem of electricity generation & distribution is exaggerated, it was a few years ago that some research was done into Straya and we were about 7% short of where we would need to be if all road vehicles were replaced with an EV and used in the same way. I'd put money on the UK having a more resilient electricity infrastructure than here.

You'd like to think so but bear in mind the UK is 3x the population of Aus and a whole lot smaller, ok a vast amount of Aus is uninhabitable but not to machines and panels. In addition to that in case nobody is noticing it the UK is being broken up and asset stripped by the day she will be a wasteland of poverty in the next 40 years, overpopulated and bare of any structure in fact the only hope she has is that she becomes so unappealing that nobody will want to live on her and those that do will migrate elsewhere leaving those that remain to rebuild some pride and infrastructure that's balanced with her sq mileage of land.

A 660,000 niche. Plus a further 450,000 plug in hybrids. Representing 24% of all new car sales.

That's exactly my point ... people clustered together are massive amounts cheaper to deliver a service to!

The dirty secret that the petrol and oil companies don't want you to know about diesel and petrol cars.

Just how much dirty electricity is used to refine your hydrocarbons.

https://youtu.be/BQpX-9OyEr4

I have just sold my Kia ENiro back to the dealer and tomorrow will hopefully be collecting a V60.

Why, did I sell it?

Like you I live in a rural part of the country.

After 14 months of ownership and having no drive, I had to charge it either by running the cable from inside the front door to the car, which involved parking on double yellow lines and across a pavement - had a protective rubber mat over the top. Which to be honest was ok, as I tended to do the charging overnight, when both the road and foot traffic was very low.
Or use the ones at the local supermarket, which incidentally was cheaper per Kw than my own supply.

Initially, I thought that it would not be an issue, but it just got too tiresome.
So, back to a good old ICE and a Volvo to boot.

and that is where you are wrong
we do not have the capacity at all never mind the infrastructure
recently a trial was run to get people in certain area to Not use electricity "much" during peak times, due to the "shortages caused by the war in ukraine/russian something or other" supplying gas/oil/who cares
result ,, it Didnt work, we do not have the capacity/infrastructure to cope now.

Not the case.

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/ne...ectricity-use/

The title of this thread asks "What's the problem with electric cars?"

A previous owner of my first Honda Prelude had fitted a large bore exhaust system. At certain low speeds and revs, the sound was able to set off other car alarms. I could choose whether to go for Jaguars or Citroens.

Electric cars can't do this. That is the problem with them.

Which ICE can do 0-60 in 2.1 seconds?


https://ev-database.org/uk/cheatshee...n-electric-car

Why would anyone in a road car want this kind of accelleration?:confused_smile:

Why would anyone want a car with an exhaust so loud it can set off car alarms?

What is your cut off point? 5secs, 10, 12?

Well they actually could ... I mean it wouldn't sound like a real ICE, but it could certainly be loud enough to scare Jaguars & Citroens. :)

On that topic I saw an aftermarket accessory design for fitment to Teslas, it was an exhaust-pipe looking attachment with a speaker inside. One of the sounds it could make was the noise that George Jetson's flying car used to make.
The ability to have THAT is a major motivation towards having an EV!!!

That aspect is very much overshadowed by them ALL being automatic.
That's really my biggest problem with EV's ... I know it's a bit selfish, my better-half only drives an automatic so for her car it doesn't make any difference.
But I'd very much like my car to be fun if possible, and drag-racing just isn't fun (both types - I'm not fond of running-races regardless of whether I'm wearing my wife's clothes).

Aah, but a couple of big speakers under the car would need to be powered from somewhere and that's mileage coming out of the battery. On a serious note, as a pedestrian I have been taken by surprise on a couple of occasions by an EV gliding up virtually silently, I'm sure there was a suggestion in the early days of EVs that they should have some sort of noise generator for pedestrian safety.

It frightens me that driverless cars can do this. Also, the incidence of drivers having heart attacks is increasing, do you really want a half dead guy accelerating into you at that rate?

I'm not sure if they already do this, but a sensible electric autonomous vehicle would be constantly monitoring driver/passenger welfare. A 'health emergency' would trigger a controlled stop and call the emergency services or even drive them directly to the A&E.

Although change can be frightening one of the greatest human characteristics is the ability to adapt to new situations - not everyone shares your fears or follows a 'Luddite' philosophy.