Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Two millionth electric car registered as market rebounds from tax changes

smmt.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 297 posts

Re: Two millionth electric car registered as market rebounds from tax changes

#91

Post by washingupliquid »

idiotsecant wrote: post #66
washingupliquid wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> this is the exact kind of misinformation that prevents progress. lol > Brazil does not "fuel" cars on sugarcane any more than the US fuels its cars with corn. Brazil has been building cars which can run on 100% ethanol since the 1970s. These are not obscure facts; this is common knowledge the US teaches to schoolchildren. In the US gasoline is a 10% ethanol blend, sometimes 15%. E85 is available only in some midwes…

Ethanol is not a good fuel source for something like a personal vehicle. Corn and rice based ethanol are barely energy positive and can be slightly carbon positive. Sugarcane-based ethanol does have a strongly negative carbon footprint and positive energy but ICE engines are notably less efficient overall that large utility scale cogen plants, even after you factor in transmission and distribution losses. Making suga…

[flagged]

Re: Two millionth electric car registered as market rebounds from tax changes

#92

Post by baq »

giobox wrote: post #72
theginger wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of fast chargers are over $1 per kwh so unless you have access to home charging there isn't much room for savings.

At some stage I wonder if the UK will need to regulate the charger industry. The price gouging is wild in places. If we look at the energy content of petrol, a litre of gas contains about 9kwh of energy, or at average pump prices 1.58/9 = ~18 pence a kwh. For sure, EVs are far more efficient at converting a kwh of energy into forward motion, but if we assume 35 mpg (9.25 miles/litre) for the gas car, we need about 97…

The market should sort this out by itself, not saying regulators shouldn’t watch closely, but competition should be enough to do its thing. Cartel formation especially should be watched for vigilantly.

Re: Two millionth electric car registered as market rebounds from tax changes

#93

Post by benj111 »

washingupliquid wrote: post #12
retrac98 wrote: post #6

Fuel (diesel, specifically) in the UK is getting towards $10/gallon, so not surprising really!

[flagged]

You have half a point here.

Diesel was traditionally the fuel of people who did high miles. Ie not the people that can't have an EV 'just in case they need to do 300 miles on a day's, because they probably legitimately are.

You kind of spoil that point by pull £80k out of your arse without looking at comparable diesels though.

Re: Two millionth electric car registered as market rebounds from tax changes

#94

Post by rootusrootus »

zdragnar wrote: post #64
iso1631 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fuel in the UK is £1.58 a litre (£1.48 at one garage I passed today, £1.61 at another, some garages are certainly profiteering) In 2022 is was £1.89 a litre and spent most of the year over £1.60 a litre Adjusted for inflation that would be most of the year at £1.85, and a high of £2.18 a litre https://www.racfoundation.org/data/uk-pump-prices-over-time From 2011 to 2014 petrol was about £1.30 a litre. Adjusted for in…

Eh, last year I was paying the equivalent of £0.38 per liter over here in the States ($2 a gallon gas, $3.30 or so for diesel). "Insanely cheap" for the UK to feels really strange for those of us way over here who tend to forget how good we have it.

> tend to forget how good we have it

That is an interesting perspective. We do not forget how good we have it, because we choose not to put high taxes on gasoline and diesel. Do drivers in the UK tend to forget that taxes are more than half the retail price they pay at the pump? Sometimes way over half. That is a policy decision.

Re: Two millionth electric car registered as market rebounds from tax changes

#95

Post by asdefghyk »

I expect , data such as ... would be illuminating here ...

Electric cars registered in countries with large land mass?

"..Electric car adoption , ranked by value of government incentives.."?

Eventually I just searched for

    "... graphs relating to EV adoption"

    " ..Relationship between country land mass and ev adoption rate.." ?
I have not posted links, not sure if its allowed.

Re: Two millionth electric car registered as market rebounds from tax changes

#97

Post by rootusrootus »

sensecall wrote: post #96

I’m not surprised with fuel at like £1.80/L and electricity as low as 3.5p/kwh Makes EVs quite appealing. https://carcosttool.com/ev-vs-ice-breakeven

It also helps that they drive nice and are more convenient for most people.

Re: Two millionth electric car registered as market rebounds from tax changes

#98

Post by washingupliquid »

_aavaa_ wrote: post #33
washingupliquid wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

If they have electricity they can charge from a regular power outlet. A large portion of the population is well served by 120V charging and don’t need more than that. And for what it’s worth, parts of Brazil also run on 220V, so they’re even more set in that regard.

[flagged]

Re: Two millionth electric car registered as market rebounds from tax changes

#99

Post by baq »

giobox wrote: post #80
afavour wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But compared to the US home charging via a mains outlet is much more viable because it's 240v vs 110v. If you plug you car overnight you'll typically have enough charge to last you the next day.

This isn't as big an advantage as you might think, as a huge number of US homes have 240v sockets to power the clothes dryer: > https://getneocharge.com/a/blog/identifying-your-240v-dryer-... Almost everyone I know with an EV charging at home just reused the 240v dryer socket to avoid paying for a dedicated fast charger. It's often cheaper too to have an electrician fit a new 240v socket instead of the dedicated char…

Home chargers with dedicated sockets is three phase 400v actually over here in the EU and every single home, and even relatively new apartments have that because of induction stoves.

Re: Two millionth electric car registered as market rebounds from tax changes

#100

Post by idiotsecant »

washingupliquid wrote: post #91
idiotsecant wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ethanol is not a good fuel source for something like a personal vehicle. Corn and rice based ethanol are barely energy positive and can be slightly carbon positive. Sugarcane-based ethanol does have a strongly negative carbon footprint and positive energy but ICE engines are notably less efficient overall that large utility scale cogen plants, even after you factor in transmission and distribution losses. Making suga…

[flagged]

A low cost 120v charged EV is a wildly practical thing for everything other than very long distance travel. They are simple to maintain, require fewer spare parts, and have fewer parts to fail in general. Don't think Tesla, think golf cart and trailer.

There may be places where grid access is impractical, in which case chemical fuels are a decent alternative, but as africa has shown solar microgrids are also quite effective and enable a ton of additional economic activity.

EV utility vehicles match quite well to the second and third world, when they benefit from sufficient economy of scale. I don't know if we're there yet but we're very close. These things are getting quite cheap.

Post reply on HN