191–200 of 231 posts
UK stats are bogus because one in five new cars there are paid for by the government under the Motability scheme. What it actually costs is hard to say because we don't know where they're measuring the price at. Motability could have an agreement, or they might be not counting the motability money spent and so on.
People who receive PIP can choose to use to lease a car from Motability which is an independent scheme
Those people could equally choose to have an ICE car
Meanwhile Ford’s CEO said that if Chinese EVs are allowed into USA it will destroy the US automakers. He is not even hiding the fact US automakers make a more expensive inferior product, but that US consumers should not be allowed have the superior one.
Well, the UK no longer has a domestic auto industry
This was widely predicted by economists at the time, even by the few Brexit supporting economists.
Of course EVs are perhaps a net benefit to society (noise, pollution etc) but at least be honest about the cost trajectory. Any article that doesn't mention the cost of motorway/dual carriage way electric charging is being disingenuous. PAYG is 75-90p/kWh currently. Tesla superchargers with a subscription 57p/kWh (you'll pay with time, due to being busy) And do you think when EV ownership becomes more popular, the 4p…
Of course it does… the UK has tariffs that change by electricity demand and supply capacity
As we build out more renewables there will be more times of excess supply and hence cheaper electricity during these times
The buildout of battery storage and north-south inter-connectors will reduce this fluctuation but it’ll still be there
Over time the UK is going to switch it’s pattern of electricity consumption
Meanwhile in the EU, Chinese EVs face crippling tariffs that make them totally unaffordable.
Which EU countries? I see LOADS of them as taxis in Spain, for example
I can't remember if plug-in hybrids are exempt as well or only conventional hybrids.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It sounds like ICE buyers are subsidizing EV buyers. Given how long we have all been subsidizing ICE buyers, I think it is fair to spread the love around a little.
How are ICE buyers subsidised?
The treatment of our betters regarding "nudged" electrification is borderline misanthropic. For people with a garage or a driveway who can charge at home, EVs are overwhelmingly a better option. The problem is that large swathes of the population are outside of that and you're making their lives miserable by punishing ICE car ownership. Meanwhile, adoption numbers are thrown about ignoring that for those in optimal c…
Eh. A new EV can drive 400-700km on one charge. It takes 20-60 minutes to charge on public chargers depending on the charger. Except that charging on public charges is more expensive than charging at home I don't really see the practical issue. I know many people without charging options at home that will never go back to ICE.
Only when it's one of the more expensive 'long range' models, weather is good and it doesn't exceed 100km/h.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It sounds like ICE buyers are subsidizing EV buyers. Given how long we have all been subsidizing ICE buyers, I think it is fair to spread the love around a little.
How are ICE buyers subsidised?
Funny how their solution was to subsidize burning fossil fuels for car commutes to the office instead of, oh I don't know, MANDATING WFH!, given Germans are such staunched green environmentalists. Sure, let's turn off nuclear and ban plastic straws, but let's also subsidize the generation of diesel, brake pad and tire fine dust particles we breathe in, for commuting by car to work. We can't forget our car industry lobbyists.
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What's funny is the new owners of MG make a pretty nice car (reliable and good looking): https://www.mgcyberster.co.uk
Besides that flagship vehicle, their other more standard cars are also pretty good. We just returned from Hong Kong, and the cars there were the same brands we saw in South America: Maxus et al. with some MGs. To be honest, they seemed very good. Unless something is secretly wrong with them regarding safety or reliability, the American and European car industries are in huge trouble. A friend's dad just restored his…
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Then drive some Schitty Chevy, what do I care. The rest of us need reliable affordable transportation that won't boil the oceans over. The Chinese are willing to make it, that is a good thing (+ they haven't bombed anyone for quite some time to boot).
First it was whataboutisms, now it's trying to disparage me. You're incorrectly assuming I don't want something reliable that's safe for the environment in an attempt to make me look bad because you're defaulting to attacking the person instead of the message.
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The problem is a 50kWh battery in a car is worth more as a battery than a typical £1500 car. The lowest end of the market won’t have electric cars unless the batteries are shagged (early Leafs) And given how insanely cheap petrol is (15p a mile, so £450 for a low mileage runaround) the savings even if electric was free and they weren’t introducing a 3p/mile charge isn’t there.
A £1500 car is £1500 because it's expected you'll need to replace the engine or transmission pretty soon. That can be up to a £4000 job (£2500 on the low end). And, as it turns out, a brand new 50kWh battery costs around £4000 to manufacture. Used will be cheaper.
Really not true at all. Care to share your sources for this claim? Anecdotally, I've (plus friend and family) owned plenty of beater cars in that ballpark price, and none had failures needing to replace engine or transmission. Most of their faults came in the electronics (sensors, actuators, fuse box, wire harness) plus suspension, body rust, etc basically the same parts EVs also have.
Meanwhile, if you look up 'EV clinic' postings online, you'll see they find plenty of design failures with European and Korean EVs that are basically ticking timebombs(sometimes literally, hello Stellantis) where electric motors, inverters or battery packs are guarantee to fail in a short timeframe due to various design faults that were entirely preventable. Most common faults with poor EV designs I saw, seem to be the seal of the electric motor stator cooling which fails quickly leading coolant to flood the motor rotor killing it, needing a rebuild.
From what I gather from their analysis', the crux of this issue seems to be that some modern EVs, especially those less premium ones, are cost cut to the extreme in a race to the bottom to maintain shareholder value, both at manufacturing but also at design phase, leading to cut corners everywhere and such issues being a common occurrence and manifesting en-masse after their warranty runs out. From their analysis, IIRC Tesla's powertrains seem to be some of the most reliable and well designed, with the likes of Audi, VW, BMW, Mercedes being less so and Stellantis being trash tier.
Meanwhile, plenty of older ICEs are largely immune form such massive reliability faults, because they benefited from decades of industrial design and development experience done in a past era where race to the bottom cost cutting and planned obsolescence weren't yet a thing. So I wouldn't be surprised when an older 1500$ ICE car will last longer than a 1500$ EV.