[gangzoom]

Originally Posted by isleaiw1

Look on the bright side, it’s not a mumsy SUV powered by the devils fuel...

At least it’s white though

You forgot nothing can compare to a raised up, over weight, 'life style' 3 series powered by a tractor engine, those things are even quicker than an Enzo Ferrari didn't you know.

[MashinBenzin]

Great write-up, thanks for taking the time to do that.

FWIW, I think you are doing the right thing in taking a punt on the things that are worse than BMW vs. the things that are better. Tesla definitely makes the most sense as an EV and I think the Model 3 is reasonably priced and not too far out of kilter on the quality issues.

If I had the money, I'd probably be trying to replace my wife's car with a Model 3 or Y in a year or two. Couldn't quite convince myself on the X as my recent purchase, but more about interior quality/luxury than the drivetrain which I really loved.

[Jeff123]

Originally Posted by pdk42

Actually the battery tech is much more sophisticated than you might think. There are Teslas over 3 years old with hundreds of thousands of miles on them and still at 90%+ of original range. All new long range Model 3s come with an 8 year 120000 mile warranty, including the battery remaining at 85% of original capacity.

Ok, I see that.

My thought was that if a Tesla (or similar) does a "real world" 200+ miles between charges when new, if battery tech or hydrogen really moved on to say double that range, the depreciation on the older cars would be pretty steep.

If prices also fell on new EV's, that would also impact upon the depreciation curve of current models.

[tjlees]

cheers for that!

The model 3 is appealing given the M3 like performance ... but the quality, total cost of ownership and reliability makes me swing to ICE.

After 3 years you have a 80% chance of it breaking down with an average 5.4 days to repair - not good for me but providing you lease and replace frequently you should be ok.

[Rhino at Work]

I think it would be fascinating if we were all organised enough to bookmark this thread and set a diary reminder for 5 years time.

My predictions would be that

1. All the major manufacturers will be selling sensibly priced EVs with 300+ mile ranges.
2. We'll all still be moaning about the lack of charging infrastructure.

It's the second point that I think will really slow the take up of EVs. It's fine if you have a house with a private driveway but huge numbers of UK houses and flats don't and I just don't see, with our record on infrastructure projects, things changing that fast.

I suspect I will have at least one more ICE or perhaps a hybrid before an EV.

[gangzoom]

Originally Posted by Jeff123

My thought was that if a Tesla (or similar) does a "real world" 200+ miles between charges when new, if battery tech or hydrogen really moved on to say double that range, the depreciation on the older cars would be pretty steep.

If prices also fell on new EV's, that would also impact upon the depreciation curve of current models.

Hydrogen is dead in the water, for HGVs it might work but for small cars its too expensive.

As for EV range in 2008 the Tesla Roadster had an EPA rated range of 240 miles, a 2018 Jaguar iPace has an EPA range of 240 miles, a 2020 Taycan will have an EPA rating of 240 miles.

Range for EVs will not go much above 300 miles, lithium ion tech cannot deliver more range without more weight. There is better battery tech coming but stuff in the labs wouldn't hit mass production for a decade at least.

As for price, our Model X had a starting price of £64k in 2016, a Nissan Leaf in decent spec is now £40k+, and a Model X starts at £83k now. Prices on EVs are actually only going one way and its not down!

Also bare in mind for every 2 EV sold today another 98 combustion cars are been sold. Brimingham is introducing a £8 a day charge effecting diesels as new as 2015 cars, can anyone seriously say a diesel been sold today wouldn't be hit with similar charges come 2025? And possibly for every single city in the UK? I would say you have to be nuts to buy an expensive diesel at present, an EV by comparison is pretty future proof.

Finally there is the fact its only a car, if you buy one and don't like it just sell it. Its hardly a life changing decision some people make it out to be. We all change cars all the time, so whats the worry?

I've seen/heard/read all kinds of worries/concerns people have about EVs since getting one in 2015. I've now done 54k in various EVs, no regrets and have yet to run out of charge. The choice of EVs are growing all the time, I've seen hardly anyone regret getting an EV, though a few people do go back to combustion cars for the vast majority people dont want to switch back.

Life is for living, and if your remotely interested in car I just cannot see why you woudlnt want to try one of the most exciting developments in the automotive industry in living memory.

[JD6]

Originally Posted by gangzoom

Life is for living, and if your remotely interested in car I just cannot see why you woudlnt want to try one of the most exciting developments in the automotive industry in living memory.

Almost everyone on a forum like this wants more from a car than getting from A to B, so we choose a car that we will enjoy. Along with quite a few others, I'm not yet convinced that I would enjoy one of the current crop of EVs.

Having driven a few, including a Model S, there is always an ICE car which I would prefer at the price. I would take an M5 over a Model S by a huge margin for example.

10 years from now, I'll probably have an EV, but I'm having a last ICE fling or two first.

[pdk42]

Originally Posted by Jeff123

I am also quite intrigued as to how the hydrogen cars will develop. In theory, these can be fully fuelled in 5 minutes and then they give you the same range as a diesel. They seem to work in a similar way to EV's, as they hydrogen "engine" powers an electric motor and the emissions are just water vapour. I suppose that the hydrogen engine replaces the EV battery.

The problem with hydrogen fuel cell technology is that it's way less efficient than battery EVs:


https://insideevs.com/news/332584/ef...gen-22-ice-13/

Then there's the challenge of hydrogen manufacture, storage, and transport. I personally don't think hydrogen will make it, but we'll see.

[gangzoom]

Originally Posted by JD6

Having driven a few, including a Model S, there is always an ICE car which I would prefer at the price. I would take an M5 over a Model S by a huge margin for example.

If I hadn't been bitten by the EV bug I would almost certainly be in a F10 M5. But these days I have no interest in even cars like the M5. Upto legal speeds, pretty much any half decent EV is more than quick enough for public roads, and in traffic jams EVs are simply so much nicer to be in - and be honest most of us spend more time in traffic jams than haring around on B roads. Add in 20mpg, £500 VED, 'M' tax servicing and the running cost differential for the same performance is just nuts. Including tyres our sub 5 second to 60, 2.5to + 6 seater SUV has cost us 5p per mile in running costs.

The biggest problem for EVs is still price, if your actually thinking of buying something like a M5 it's actually easier to justify the high initial purchase cost of an EV. I was budgeting around £50k+ for a used M5, so paying £70k for a brand new EV with cheaper running costs wasn't that difficult man maths. Infact SWMBO demanded and contributed to the EV purchase!!!

However as hard as I try I cannot make the figures work on something like a Model 3 for my wife. Her currently car only gets used for commuting, and even though we bought it new latest WBAC figures show its only deprecating at £330/month. So a change to a Model 3 would be far more expensive, even the fuel cost savings dont help. She only does 5k a year, at 10p per mile on fuel (50mpg), that's only £500/year in fuel. The £340/year VED tax alone on the Model 3 nearly wipes out any fuel saving costs!!

My experience is that if your looking at replacing your main family car with a fast, comfortable machine, and have a budget of £50k+ an EV is almost a no brainer. Try to justify an EV purely based on local run around budget and your better off sticking to a reliable cheaper combustion car.

[pdk42]

Originally Posted by gangzoom

My experience is that if your looking at replacing your main family car with a fast, comfortable machine, and have a budget of £50k+ an EV is almost a no brainer. Try to justify an EV purely based on local run around budget and your better off sticking to a reliable cheaper combustion car.

I can't question your financial analysis, but of course the environmental impact should, ideally, play a role in the comparison.

Totally agree on your point about the M5 etc. Even before I did my opinion flip on EVs, I was really getting tired of the car market. Things like the M5 are big, expensive beasts that really don't make much sense on UK roads. Maybe I've just been driving for so long now that I've got a cupboard full of t-shirts for cars like that. In any case, I think the public mood about sustainability will ratchet up over the next few years and will make cars like the M5 irrelevant.

[gippy]

Originally Posted by pdk42

The Environmental Argument

I’m no eco freak, but I’ve got a science background and am totally convinced by the global warming hypothesis. I’m equally convinced that air quality is a massive hidden health issue in nearly all our towns and cities. If you believe those two points, then it’s hard not to look to EVs. EVs reduce tailpipe emissions to zero and that’s a big deal for air quality. Particulates are a massive contributor to a range of health issues. And beyond the tailpipe, there’s the CO2 emissions. Some people will try to convince you that the life-time CO2 costs of EVs are no better than ICE cars. But actually, every properly-conducted study shows that this is just plain wrong. If you look at total CO2 use over a car’s lifetime – so including the energy needed to produce the raw materials, manufacture the car, produce the car’s fuel, and finally to dispose of it – EVs typically consume a quarter or less of the CO2 compared to ICE cars. That’s a long way from zero emissions, but it’s a massive step nonetheless.

i absolutely agree with everything here - but unless mass public transport systems are given serious thought and investment and dramatically improved, as well as made far more cost effective (cough not privatizing sectors which can only operate as monopolies cough) then i dont see how EV can be the future of anything. Cars are one of the most inefficient modes of transport you can imagine, and the only reason why there's so many is because there's no suitable alternative in the UK - when i go to Switzerland or Germany a fair bit, the trains run on time, all the time, and there are plenty of stations compared to the UK, even in remote parts, within walking distances of the villages.

If you look at the timescales involved and the tipping points, and the carbon budget the globe has got before reaching those tipping points, we are chewing into that carbon budget at such a rate of knots that by the time your average punter in the UK on a median wage is able to buy an EV for the same price as he could a 5 year old ford focus, it will be too late. (I've sourced Prof. Kevin ANderson to help form my opinions here...)

It's a doomsday perspective, and i know that's not the point you were trying to make, but thought its worth saying that yes, legislating for EV's will go some way towards shifting perspectives and mindsets, but its not even half the story. Or even a quarter. I've personally given up all hope, hence why i bought a 440i

no doubt if i was doing more than 10k miles a year and had a daily commute i would have stretched budget and tried to get the Tesla 3, it is fantastic.

hasn't the idea of fuel cells made a resurgence recently?

[tjlees]

yep EVs are not as reliable, more expensive to own and the environment argument dubious in general when compared to ICE WLC at the mo.

reliable and relatively cheap public transport is the answer - that would reduce me down to the weekend car, taking the family fleet from 45k miles pa to 3k and lots of fun

bizarrely, if we could hack the 90min commute and price to London, we could do this since trains are every 15mins at peak times.

local transport adds 30mins×2 to journey times and only runs every hour and still requires lots of walking

[pdk42]

Originally Posted by tjlees

yep EVs are not as reliable, more expensive to own and the environment argument dubious in general when compared to ICE WLC at the mo.

Hmmm - I'm not sure any of those statements are true. They should be more reliable (fewer moving parts), cheaper in total cost of ownership (running costs, fuel, road tax, fuel tax), and will produce about 25% of the CO2 that an ICE car would.

[pdk42]

Originally Posted by tjlees

reliable and relatively cheap public transport is the answer - that would reduce me down to the weekend car, taking the family fleet from 45k miles pa to 3k and lots of fun

bizarrely, if we could hack the 90min commute and price to London, we could do this since trains are every 15mins at peak times.

local transport adds 30mins×2 to journey times and only runs every hour and still requires lots of walking

Totally agree with all of that.

[pdk42]

Originally Posted by gippy

i absolutely agree with everything here - but unless mass public transport systems are given serious thought and investment and dramatically improved, as well as made far more cost effective (cough not privatizing sectors which can only operate as monopolies cough) then i dont see how EV can be the future of anything. Cars are one of the most inefficient modes of transport you can imagine, and the only reason why there's so many is because there's no suitable alternative in the UK - when i go to Switzerland or Germany a fair bit, the trains run on time, all the time, and there are plenty of stations compared to the UK, even in remote parts, within walking distances of the villages.

If you look at the timescales involved and the tipping points, and the carbon budget the globe has got before reaching those tipping points, we are chewing into that carbon budget at such a rate of knots that by the time your average punter in the UK on a median wage is able to buy an EV for the same price as he could a 5 year old ford focus, it will be too late. (I've sourced Prof. Kevin ANderson to help form my opinions here...)

It's a doomsday perspective, and i know that's not the point you were trying to make, but thought its worth saying that yes, legislating for EV's will go some way towards shifting perspectives and mindsets, but its not even half the story. Or even a quarter. I've personally given up all hope, hence why i bought a 440i

no doubt if i was doing more than 10k miles a year and had a daily commute i would have stretched budget and tried to get the Tesla 3, it is fantastic.

I agree with most of that, but sorting out public transport to replace cars is a HUGE project that we're miles from. In the interim, EVs do represent a better option than ICE cars when the environment is considered. In that sense, they are a future.

Originally Posted by gippy

hasn't the idea of fuel cells made a resurgence recently?

No, I don't think so. Fuel cells still have very poor efficiency compared to EVs and the logistics of setting up a Hydrogen distribution network are enormous. At least EV charging infrastructure is in principle simple - there are cables and power practically everywhere already.

[fuzzybunny]

Latest update from Tesla made me laugh, have your mates round for a boozy movie night in the car.!
**************************
Introducing Software Version 10.0.

Transform your car into an entertainment juggernaut, with immersive sound so incredible you might consider having your next movie night from your car. Invite friends to sing along or stream your favourite videos while charging with the whole family.


Features include:
• Cuphead: Enjoy this classic run-and-gun action game with the exclusive Tesla Edition
• Tesla Theatre: Experience the most fun you’ll ever have while parked, with your favourite movies, tv shows and videos
• Caraoke: Sing along to your favourite songs and watch backseat drivers become backup singers
• I’m Feeling…. Lucky? Hungry? One tap will send you on a surprise adventure to a local restaurant or attraction


Your driving experience will only get better over time—every Model S, Model X and Model 3 on the road will continue to receive new features and improvements from over-the-air software updates.

[Cootie]

Originally Posted by fuzzybunny

Latest update from Tesla made me laugh, have your mates round for a boozy movie night in the car.!
**************************
Introducing Software Version 10.0.

Transform your car into an entertainment juggernaut, with immersive sound so incredible you might consider having your next movie night from your car. Invite friends to sing along or stream your favourite videos while charging with the whole family.


Features include:
• Cuphead: Enjoy this classic run-and-gun action game with the exclusive Tesla Edition
• Tesla Theatre: Experience the most fun you’ll ever have while parked, with your favourite movies, tv shows and videos
• Caraoke: Sing along to your favourite songs and watch backseat drivers become backup singers
• I’m Feeling…. Lucky? Hungry? One tap will send you on a surprise adventure to a local restaurant or attraction


Your driving experience will only get better over time—every Model S, Model X and Model 3 on the road will continue to receive new features and improvements from over-the-air software updates.

Guess it makes sense as it’s all geared towards entertaining driver and passengers when they might be sat waiting for the car to recharge whilst midway through a journey somewhere.

[tjlees]

Originally Posted by pdk42

Hmmm - I'm not sure any of those statements are true. They should be more reliable (fewer moving parts), cheaper in total cost of ownership (running costs, fuel, road tax, fuel tax), and will produce about 25% of the CO2 that an ICE car would.

opinion and instinct would think that, however detailed surveys, such as which? give tesla a reliability of just 20% after 3 years and an average of 5.4 days to repair due lack of service infrastructure.

for whole lifecycle emmissions, the official info I've seen from Germany give the break even point at 116km for EV v ICE - though fully charged, engineering explained etc utubers give differing figures.

On leasing the deals between EV and ICE are significant - for me £200/m difference and that's before I've looked at insurance - around a £1500/pa difference - given I have under 25s on.

once the main manufacturers get involved and 70% r&d kicks this will change.

however, the main 'save the planet' reason for adopting EV is dubious at best for someone swapping cars out every 3 years.

if you put some of 5.7 trillion usd tax breaks given to the oil industry world wide into public transport I'd be alot better off, still allowed to drive my fun ICE car and be saving the planet in a big way.

[JD6]

Originally Posted by tjlees

On leasing the deals between EV and ICE are significant - for me £200/m difference and that's before I've looked at insurance - around a £1500/pa difference - given I have under 25s on.

What is the insurance cost difference between a Tesla (Model 3 presumably?) and your 335d?

[QUiKSR20]

Awesome un-biased review, It was a great read.. For me being a car enthusiast "the reason im on this forum in the first place", EV's just dont do it..

A - B , 100% But for an Enthusiast, not so much outside of laptimes and pure acceleration numbers....

I look fwd to wrenching on my car, ie mods / time in the garage etc ( its a hobby ). I also look fwd to hearing the engine rev through the gears and the pops and noises as I downshift through a turn / offramp / track day etc..

The EV's are fast no doubt but they dont give me ( my personal opinion only ) the enjoyment as a car enthusiast.. I wanna hear a snarling inline 6, I wanna hear the shifts whether manual or a dct... If you take away the wrenching, whether it be minor maintenance or mods such as an intake / exhaust and you take away the sound.. You truly are just left with an appliance that fits the bill for A-B but not for a person who truly enjoys cars like the enthusiast.

[pdk42]

Originally Posted by QUiKSR20

Awesome un-biased review, It was a great read.. For me being a car enthusiast "the reason im on this forum in the first place", EV's just dont do it..

A - B , 100% But for an Enthusiast, not so much outside of laptimes and pure acceleration numbers....

I look fwd to wrenching on my car, ie mods / time in the garage etc ( its a hobby ). I also look fwd to hearing the engine rev through the gears and the pops and noises as I downshift through a turn / offramp / track day etc..

The EV's are fast no doubt but they dont give me ( my personal opinion only ) the enjoyment as a car enthusiast.. I wanna hear a snarling inline 6, I wanna hear the shifts whether manual or a dct... If you take away the wrenching, whether it be minor maintenance or mods such as an intake / exhaust and you take away the sound.. You truly are just left with an appliance that fits the bill for A-B but not for a person who truly enjoys cars like the enthusiast.

I sort of agree - but I've got a 3.2 v6 Audio TT 6-speed manual for that. I don't use it much, but it's a great experience when I do. As a daily driver car though, the Tesla is ideal.

[QUiKSR20]

Originally Posted by pdk42

I sort of agree - but I've got a 3.2 v6 Audio TT 6-speed manual for that. I don't use it much, but it's a great experience when I do. As a daily driver car though, the Tesla is ideal.

Glad you got what I was trying to say, Didn't want it to come off negative.... Sounds like you have the best of both worlds cause when I rode in a model 3 the sport twin motor one I was kinda blown away by the acceleration. So in your situation I think you nailed it and to think this is a new car mfr is even more impressive.

PS... The VR6 is prob one of the best sounding engines out there..