QOTW: Will your next car be electric?

[HEXUS]

Petrol and diesel appear to have fallen out of favour, but are you ready to go electric?

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[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Nope.

[hellig]

Depends on the price, but after looking into it, more than likely if i buy a new car again.

[Wozza63]

I was hoping so, but I may have to have another car in between as they're currently too expensive. I would love to get a Tesla, but even the cheapest would be way out of my price range at this time. Maybe if they get cheaper to produce I could push for one.

[Ttaskmaster]

Nope. Not until they are affordable, viable replacements for what I have and actually look like something I'm happy spending my time in and money on. But you knew all this, anyway...

[1stRaven]

It already is. Picked up a 30Kwh in April this year, trading in my Jag XJL. It is costing me around £2 to charge it up and a charge is lasting around a week at the moment.

Cant understand why more people dont have them. The cost savings cover the cost of the car, to a point where I have a car with no mot, covered under warranty for around £100 per month.

Granted, longer journeys can take some planning but I have ended up borrowing a free car from Nissan for one holiday and renting another car for £100 for a week's holiday. Good chance to test drive other vehicles.

[Wozza63]

Cant understand why more people dont have them. The cost savings cover the cost of the car, to a point where I have a car with no mot, covered under warranty for around £100 per month.

Most still can't afford the jump to buy even the cheapest electric car. And many also can't get most electric cars because of the range. I do 150 mile trips regularly, meaning a brand new Leaf would barely cover it and probably won't after a year or so.

[QuorTek]

Absolutely not, but if we get stuff with Hydrogen Fuel cells and the likes am all game for it.

[Gerrard]

No, because the saving on them isn't worth the extra cost in buying one. I spend around £40/month on fuel, so let's say £500/year. If we assume that servicing costs are the same (which looks to be the case) and even assuming it was free to charge, it would take 4 years to cover a premium of £2000; it would be 10 years for a £5000 premium. That's not to say I wouldn't like one, just not at the moment.

Cant understand why more people dont have them. The cost savings cover the cost of the car, to a point where I have a car with no mot, covered under warranty for around £100 per month.

If you don't have a driveway, then you will struggle to charge it regularly. If you are lucky, you might be able to charge at work. Otherwise, you would have to go and find a service station and sit there for 30mins+ maybe once a week to charge it. So it is just isn't convenient for a lot of people, regardless of range issues.

[outwar6010]

Yes, it just makes sense.

[Biscuit]

Yes, it just makes sense.

Depends where you live and what your journey is. I mostly do long journeys so an electric car would be useless for me. The range of electric cars needs to basically double, or there needs to be a huge innovation in fast charging.

[peterb]

I am, but the cars and infrastructure aren't (yet).

[philehidiot]

Is the grid ready? Is the environment ready (they currently pollute as much, if not more than a petrol and on top of that with compression ignition petrol engines coming soon (2019) they'll be far outmatched in the environmental stakes - all they do is move the emissions to the nearest power station) and is your wallet ready? Make sure you do the maths and ensure that this is going to be cheaper for you as, a lot of the time, it just isn't. For some people it is, and that's fine but you need to ensure you know what your charging times are going to be like (night rates, etc) and that 10 minutes with a calculator could save you a lot of money.

EDIT: I'm talking about a total cost of ownership calculation - there's an initial cost, possibly battery replacements within ownership period and so on and that may or may not be balanced out by your fuel savings.

[LSG501]

ooooh let me think about it....nope.

2 problems and they're pretty big problems to me.... I live in the countryside, petrol stations can be 20-30 miles apart and we can't even get a decent mobile signal over my entire county so the odds of getting a decent network of electric refilling stations is well pretty much non existent lol

Second is the time it takes to charge the car up without specialised expensive equipment (which in a lot of cases isn't even standardised yet).

What I would however look at buying is a hybrid where you still have the electric motors but you also have an engine which can both drive the car AND charge the battery when you're stuck in the middle of nowhere. If for example I was out and ran out of energy or fuel I can call out the AA and say I need petrol to get going again, there being an electric charger alternative is still pretty rare.

[adidan]

Ha, when the National Grid says you can't boil a kettle while charging your car at home then no. What am I supposed to drink while waiting for the thing to charge?

Hybrid - yeah. Electric - only when they have the infrastructure sorted and a better battery system with better storage/efficiency and recharge times.

[philehidiot]

Ha, when the National Grid says you can't boil a kettle while charging your car at home then no. What am I supposed to drink while waiting for the thing to charge?

Hybrid - yeah. Electric - only when they have the infrastructure sorted and a better battery system with better storage/efficiency and recharge times.

Here here. I wish everyone was as educated on "green" tech as apparently Hexus users are.