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

191–200 of 297 posts

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

#191

Post by jeffbee »

alistairSH wrote: post #108
moepstar wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which ones? A colleague drives a BMW 3something hybrid and as far as i know has a 14kWh battery.. Thats good for about a 100km, but i very much wouldn't consider that a "fully" electric car by any means (edit: did you edit your post? couldve sworn you said "fully electric" instead of "mediocre range"?)... Also, what most people don't realize: if you're only (or mostly) driving it electric, you're putting many more cy…

The latest Honda Civic Hybrid (and its Prelude cousin). The ICE is a generator under most use cases - it's decoupled from the drivetrain most of the time. That said, the battery capacity isn't great - you aren't going to complete many trips out of your immediate neighborhood on EV power alone.

That's because hybrids aren't designed to do so. The battery is small in terms of both energy and power. Sometimes, if the car is initially pointed the right way, you could complete a very short downhill trip at low speeds without the engine starting. But hybrids are designed to run the engine often. The batteries are sized to capture approximately the kinetic energy of the moving vehicle when stopping, and discharge the same energy when starting to move again, and that's it. It's a great system, they all get 45+ MPG.

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

#192

Post by traderj0e »

bobthepanda wrote: post #190
traderj0e wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The F-150 Lightning is definitely not the best selling vehicle in the US. Maybe best-selling EV pickup truck.

https://www.fromtheroad.ford.com/us/en/articles/2025/ford-f-...

That lists the Ford F-series as #1, not the F-150 Lightning which is 1.3% of that per https://www.fromtheroad.ford.com/content/dam/fordmediasite/u... . I've seen about 3 ever.

Even the F-series popularity is kinda overstated by this because other cars are more fragmented.

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

#193

Post by KaiserPro »

Chaosvex wrote: post #180
KaiserPro wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

its £77 a week. so its not going to buy you a top end car, you'll need to top up. if you want something "decent"

I'm not talking about that. The government waives multiple taxes for the scheme. Off the top of my head, no VAT on the car purchases, no luxury tax on vehicles worth £40k+, no insurance tax, no VED (road tax). The scheme has cost billions in lost revenue and it's the only reason it can exist. The exact accounting is up for debate because it's complex but nonetheless.

> no VAT on the car purchases

You can't buy the car, and your limited on miles to 10k, and VAT is now payable, along with insurnace tax. plus you can't lease a landrover.

but like I just don't get it. its not like you have a choice to be on PIP. its fucking humiliating to get on PIP, and keep on it.

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

#194

Post by yread »

rsync wrote: post #146

Imagine how much faster electric car adoption would be if incumbent auto makers weren’t using them as dumping grounds for experimental, half-baked, and unsafe design experiments? We never wanted their “electric cars” … we wanted their cars, but electric .

I don't know. Kia Niro is now 10 years old and looks completely normal and you could buy it as HEV, PHEV or EV

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

#195

Post by Gibbon1 »

mrob wrote: post #55
Oras wrote: post #18

Doesn’t increasing fuel price affect the electricity prices, which increases the charging cost?

The UK is well suited to wind power, already has many wind turbines, and continues to install more. We have a good amount of solar panels too. Renewables provide the majority of electrical power when conditions are good and the share will only increase. Electric vehicles avoid the biggest weakness of renewables (unreliable base load), because they can be set to charge unattended when cheap electricity is available. E…

You start running numbers the cost of solar and wind capacity to power an electric car is about 10% of the purchase price. And considering they have a battery that can store a weeks worth of energy and spend 95% of the time just sitting. Basically not a problem.

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

#196

Post by mytailorisrich »

KaiserPro wrote: post #187
mytailorisrich wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, "higher salaries" as in higher tax band (median salary is 39k, higher tax band starts at 50k), which impacts 16% of people. That's why it has an notable impact on sales and also on the used cars market (salary sacrifice schemes are usually PCP/leasing over 3-4 years). Perhaps it is the "London bubble" on HN as I feel that no-one is registering that 100k+ is a really, really small minority...

according to the IFS 100k+ is top 10% earner in the UK. Which does feel a bit bubbly to me

Yes, seems a bit generous. What I found most often is ~4-5% with up to 18% higher tax payers (>50k) in latest tax year (threshold being frozen...).

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

#197

Post by martythemaniak »

neogodless wrote: post #145
martythemaniak wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's actually dead simple: there are battery electric EVs and internal combustion cars. That's it. ICE cars come with a variety of add-ons and schemes to improve efficiency: fuel injectors, ECUs, braking energy capture systems (aka hybrid), small batteries for short trips that no one plugs in (aka plug in hybrids), etc.

You forgot EVs that come with an add-on that generates electricity by burning fuel!

AKA container ships and locomotives, lol.

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

#198

Post by 0cf8612b2e1e »

philipallstar wrote: post #160
bluGill wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe, in the best case, your gas engine is maybe 45% fuel efficient, but realistically, you're probably getting closer to 20-25%. By contrast, a combined cycle power plant gets over 60%. But that's assuming we're just running power plants off of petrol and fuels. Coal is much cheaper than petroleum in some cases. There's also a lot of people who get their power from nuclear, hydro, solar, and wind. In many cases, yo…

> By contrast, a combined cycle power plant gets over 60%. Over 25% of this is then lost in transmission and distribution[0] (down to 45%). Then 10-25% of that lost in charging the car[1] (down to 40%). Finally, the car itself loses about 10-15% of that[2] (down to 35%). [0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/322834/transmission-dist... [1] https://go-e.com/en/magazine/ev-charging-losses [2] https://evreporter.com/u…

That first chart is in absolute units, not percentage.

25TWh annual distribution losses off of ~300TWh usage per year is 8% loss.

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

#199

Post by izacus »

thrownawaysz wrote: post #186
Zigurd wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of the German car makers, plus Hyundai, are very serious about making really good mainstream electric vehicles because they all believe that will be their core of their business sooner rather than later.

> All of the German car makers The basic Seat Leon combi is currently 22.000€ on promotion. And that's a spacious family car. No EV car exist at that price point in that size with a range that most people would be comfortable with it. Yes they will exist in the future but we are still a decade away from that at least.

Average price of sold new car in EU is around 45.000 so what exactly is your point?

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

#200

Post by mrob »

londons_explore wrote: post #175
mschild wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only somewhat impractical. Most people don't end up charging their battery because it still has an ICE so why bother? So now they have the worst of both worlds. Complex ICE machinery that needs regular service and heavy battery that doesn't end up being used.

Still gives decent efficiency improvements. You can always run the ICE at most efficient RPM. Never need to idle it, etc. You can also have a much smaller engine for a much bigger car, since you only need to cover average not peak power usage. You also in most designs eliminate the gearbox.

Only true for a plug-in hybrid with a series drivechain (a.k.a. "extended range electric vehicle"). The more common type has two parallel drivechains linked with clutches, so you still have all the drawbacks of a conventional internal combustion engine drivechain when you're using it.
Post reply on HN