Diesel & Petrol Cars Banned

[Arryhall]

Oddly enough, and to my chagrin, I know little about wind and wave energy other than what I've heard from various people over the years. Ironically, my son-in-law in America works for a company that does something with wind turbines. He used to repair them and now does...something else, in an office, or something. I'll be honest, I didn't understand and wasn't mightily concerned. Still, he said they were good but just unappreciated in America on the whole. I know of a solar farm in Arizona that completely powers a town, but, you know, desert; insane heat; death valley and all that. England is....wetter. Apparently we are in "summer" right now, which consists of blistering heat for a week, then rain, mizzle, drizzle, thunderstorms and rain.
I'd heard that when the wind gets too strong, the wind turbines have to be switched off else they burn out. Don't know if that's true or not, but when I drive past them, there's always loads that aren't moving no matter how windy it is. Again .
My main concern right now is the lifespan of batteries. Take my phone for example: I've always taken care to fully discharge it, then fully charge it as per the instructions. The battery now doesn't really hold a charge for more than half a day whether it's used or not. Now I read that the advise is to plug a phone in and charge it bits at a time. I don't know. All I know is a 4 year old phone (yes, it is a Galaxy SII, which is ancient technology now, but the phone itself is still okay!) with use, has a battery in need of replacement. I can get a new battery for next to nothing on eBay, although most are pretty rubbish and unreliable if you read the reviews. A proper replacement battery is rather more expensive and let's face it, how much longer will it live? It's got a built in end-of-life, I'm sure of it! Cars are somewhat bigger, more complex, and more expensive, as are the batteries. I don't know enough about them yet to know if the batteries will last very long. A well taken care of engine may last many, many years, but batteries are a bit of an unknown so far, so it will be interesting to see the re-charge shelf life after 10 years or so. It might be that the battery(ies?) is (are?) knackered after 8 years or so to the point of making the car unserviceable if the battery type changes over that period or the cost is prohibitive to replace it (them?).

It's an exciting, albeit worrisome, time. At least I have my motorbike, which is also worthless and silly and pointless and noisy and smelly and hilariously fun. I can't imagine an electric version, yet the Isle of Man TT now has electric categories, and they don't half shift!

[sworks]

Originally Posted by murphyv310

Those working in electronics (myself in days gone by too) may disagree. Most catastrophic failures now on fossil powered cars are electronic issues, an EV is even more electronically complex. EV's have more than 10 times the amount of sensors than conventional cars.
Braking reclamation systems are complex and very few dealers actually have a motor engineer that has a scooby of what is going on. Fortunately at this point there isn't enough EV's about to show up the weaknesses of service. I bet you though any electronic issue will be big bucks to fix, no doubt due to the inadequacy of the electronics industry to accept repairs to component level by the use of non repairable panels in virtually everything now.

The manufacturer I work for insisted that at least one tech was EV High Voltage trained before a car even arrived at the dealership. Nissan is the same with the Leaf

[murphyv310]

Originally Posted by andymc

The cheapest Nissan Leaf I've seen on ebay so far was £4335 for a 2014 Acenta (mid-range) model. Here it is.

They were around £16000 in 2014 so a used one at £4335 is a bargain, very high depreciation though in 3 years.
I wonder if this will be the norm?

[Dallas]

Originally Posted by andymc

The cheapest Nissan Leaf I've seen on ebay so far was £4335 for a 2014 Acenta (mid-range) model. Here it is.

It's a fact that just as with other cars, prices for used EVs will continue to drop to a level that for some people, they become a realistic option, especially as a second car - even one with more limited range such as the one I've posted.

As an example - my other half drives 20 miles a day to work & back, with the occasional extra 10-15 miles. So her maximum daily drive is about 35 miles. If she were ever to leave home with low capacity, there is in any case a standard charge point within half a mile of her workplace. When (not if) the price of a used Leaf drops below £3500, it becomes a viable option for her daily commute even if it had by that stage lost say a third of its battery capacity (however unlikely that is).

If we do choose that option, for the lifetime of the car we won't have to pay for oil changes, we probably won't have to pay road tax, and the majority of electricity will be free as we have a solar panel array and will be able to charge the car at home for anywhere between 2-3 hours before or after work in late spring/early autumn, plus during the daytime every weekend. And there is also that free charge point near her work.

With the savings on fuel, tax and servicing, we worked out that a used Leaf (or any other EV) costing under £3500 with just 50 miles of range would not only meet her needs but would also have paid for itself in under 4 years, despite her low annual mileage. We'd still be able to keep a diesel in the meantime, but four or five years from now a used EV with longer range might also have moved into affordable territory for us.

Ideally though I'd still convert a 75 for that!

I hear what you say Andy, this is how we first approached buying an EV, it sounded good on paper.

The prices of EV's will drop because their batteries will become unusable over time, manufactures can only guarantee these batteries upto 8 years, or 100,000 miles, in the meantime the performance continues to drop with each year (Leaf's start with 12 bars, or is it 15)?

To renew a EV's battery will cost you around £5,000+ for a new one. If you lease the battery, you will have a warranty and service cover for any repairs the battery may need. If you own the battery, then these charges will be at your expense.

You can pick up a used EV for as little as £4,000, at this price the car will most probably come with the lease to hire the battery, prices start from £50 per month.

The Leaf in your link doesn't state whether the battery is owned or leased, most used EV's at that price will be Battery Lease, so you will need to factor in a minimum of £50 per month for the basic annual mileage package.

When looking for a 'Used' EV, you need to check whether the battery is 'Owned' or 'leased', it makes a difference regarding the asking price and obviously the running and maintenance costs.

EV's still require maintenance, they still use coolant, they still need brakes that require brake fluid, they still have suspension, and they still rust etc. The battery still needs maintaining, all the electrics can still suffer faults, even the electric motor.

[guru]

Originally Posted by murphyv310

Those working in electronics (myself in days gone by too) may disagree. Most catastrophic failures now on fossil powered cars are electronic issues, an EV is even more electronically complex. EV's have more than 10 times the amount of sensors than conventional cars.
Braking reclamation systems are complex and very few dealers actually have a motor engineer that has a scooby of what is going on. Fortunately at this point there isn't enough EV's about to show up the weaknesses of service. I bet you though any electronic issue will be big bucks to fix, no doubt due to the inadequacy of the electronics industry to accept repairs to component level by the use of non repairable panels in virtually everything now.

Sensors are a good thing and more is better. By the car having the intelligence and data it can effectively self diagnose and small problems can be flagged up before they become anything serious. It also makes day to day motoring easier, if Mrs Guru was driving my car and there was a problem all she has to do is press the spanner button and she's connected to MB directly with the car transmitting all of its data including location to them meaning that she doesn't have to spend half an hour on the phone before they do anything.

Anyway electric cars are inherently simpler then internal combustion engine cars. If you want really complex then have a look at my daily driver which is a hybrid. Two power trains that have effectively been cobbled together, trying to understand how it works is mind boggling even for Mercedes themselves! When the hybrid system failed a while back it took almost 2 weeks and lots of intervention from MB in Germany to get it fixed and even then it was only properly sorted on the second attempt!

[topman]

Originally Posted by Dallas

The prices of EV's will drop because their batteries will become unusable over time, manufactures can only guarantee these batteries upto 8 years, or 100,000 miles, in the meantime the performance continues to drop with each year (Leaf's start with 12 bars, or is it 15)?

To renew a EV's battery will cost you around £5,000+ for a new one. If you lease the battery, you will have a warranty and service cover for any repairs the battery may need. If you own the battery, then these charges will be at your expense.

You can pick up a used EV for as little as £4,000, at this price the car will most probably come with the lease to hire the battery, prices start from £50 per month.

I don't think because the warranty only lasts 8 yrs/100k that the batteries will only last that long. They'll degrade over time but so does the performance of a petrol, test the bhp at new and then at 100k they'll be a drop.
Plenty of taxis in japan are toyota hybrids and they'll have plenty of miles on. I bet most are fine.
Pricey to replace of course but I bet a similar high technology petrol or diesel engine change at a main dealer won't leave you much change from 5grand.

The monthly charges put me off at the moment as well tbh, they'd eat into any savings that we'd make with one. But there don't appear to be very many used without the battery on a lease.

[murphyv310]

At £50 a month to lease the battery I'd be paying more for that than I do on petrol now. Plus of course the electricity to do a charge makes them totally uneconomic for me.
What if a battery fault occurs, then there is more expense, unfair if you lease or rent the batteries, in the old days if telly rental repairs were included in the price
With regard to sensors, the more there is the more there is to go wrong. Cars of the 90's had simple electronic ignition and often a carburettor and less breakdowns the more electronics the more issues you'll have.

[topman]

Originally Posted by murphyv310

At £50 a month to lease the battery I'd be paying more for that than I do on petrol now. Plus of course the electricity to do a charge makes them totally uneconomic for me.
What if a battery fault occurs, then there is more expense, unfair if you lease or rent the batteries, in the old days if telly rental repairs were included in the price.

I've not read the small print but from what I've seen the lease includes a warranty for the battery for as long as you pay the lease.

[murphyv310]

The roof could also be a large solar panel to aid charging.

[topman]

Originally Posted by murphyv310

The roof could also be a large solar panel to aid charging.

I remember that was tried by a few manufacturers but it didn't work. I think there isn't enough charge provided to make it worth it.