EV opposition in the media is ramping up

[siteguru]

I thought you were getting All Season tyres not Winter tyres?

 

[Rolfe]

Yeah, correct. Just a manner of speaking. I've brought the stock tyres home, Andrew says, you never know, you might want them back on in the summer. But I'm hoping not.

I think I'll keep thinking of these as the "winter tyres" until they prove that they're summer-capable as well. Roll on May.

 

[EVsince2016]

I don't even need to watch this to know that it'll end up being fixed so that EVs get a bad press. ?

I have driven long trips on the same routes to Spain / Portugal many times by Petrol, Diesel and EV.

What have I learnt?

Lesson 1 - Petrol cars struggle on the hills and need twice as many fuel stops compared to a diesel on long haul with a full load.

Lesson 2 - Up to 200 miles (or real world range), there's no difference at all; 200-400 miles, yes the Diesel is a clear winner; over 400 miles tiredness takes it's toll driving a diesel and the EV allows longer days / miles safely. My daily EV record is 625 miles relaxed versus 508 miles in a Diesel & knackered!

For that trip the EV would win for me.

 

[johnb80]

I am thinking of replacing my electric car (not) with a petrol car and have some questions.

1. I have heard that petrol cars can not refuel at home while you sleep? How often do you have to refill elsewhere? Is this several times a year? Will there be a solution for refuelling at home?
2. Which parts will I need service on and how often? The car salesman mentioned a box with gears in it. What is this and will I receive a warning with an indicator when I need to change gear?
3. Can I accelerate and brake with one pedal as I do today with my electric car?
4. Do I get fuel back when I slow down or drive downhill? I assume so, but need to ask to be sure.
5. The car I test drove seemed to have a delay from the time I pressed the accelerator pedal until it began to accelerate. Is that normal in petrol cars?
6. We currently pay about 1.2p per mile to drive our electric car. I have heard that petrol can cost up to 10 times as much so I reckon we will lose some money in the beginning. We drive about 20,000 miles a year. Let's hope more people will start using petrol so prices go down.
7. Is it true that petrol is flammable? Should I empty the tank and store the petrol somewhere else while the car is in the garage?
8. Is there an automatic system to prevent gasoline from catching fire or exploding in an accident. What does this cost?
9. I understand that the main ingredient in petrol is oil. Is it true that the extraction and refining of oil causes environmental problems as well as conflicts and major wars that over the last 100 years have cost millions of lives? Is there a solution to these problems?
10. I have heard that cars with internal combustion based engines are being banned to enter more and more cities around the world, as it is claimed that they tend to harm the environment and health of their citizens?? Is that true??

I may have more questions later, but these are the most important ones to me at the moment. Thank you in advance for your reply.

 

[Tommy]

This is so good ... should be all over the EV deniers pages

 

[Rolfe]

I was very surprised to realise how much less tiring it is to drive an EV than an ICE car, but I soon found out. Showed up at friends' house 450 miles away bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

 

[Tommy]

Yeah, that's what the ICE-age drivers don't understand, EVs are so much easier to drive and so much fun to drive what with all that instant torque. What they also don't realise is that the ICE-age is over ...

 

[Ruislip Resident]

Yeah, correct. Just a manner of speaking. I've brought the stock tyres home, Andrew says, you never know, you might want them back on in the summer. But I'm hoping not.

I think I'll keep thinking of these as the "winter tyres" until they prove that they're summer-capable as well. Roll on May.

I thought they were summer tyres with winter tyre capabilites.

 

[Gadget Geek]

I was very surprised to realise how much less tiring it is to drive an EV than an ICE car, but I soon found out. Showed up at friends' house 450 miles away bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

I think charging stops have something to do with that as well. We've all heard those anti-EV drivers saying they want to drive 500 miles without stopping. Good luck to them I say.

 

[maskull]

I think charging stops have something to do with that as well. We've all heard those anti-EV drivers saying they want to drive 500 miles without stopping. Good luck to them I say.

At it's best ,I could drive over 700 miles without refuelling in my hybrid . Never did though...old age bladder put that to bed

 

[Archev]

Yeah, correct. Just a manner of speaking. I've brought the stock tyres home, Andrew says, you never know, you might want them back on in the summer. But I'm hoping not.

I think I'll keep thinking of these as the "winter tyres" until they prove that they're summer-capable as well. Roll on May.

I certainly found them to be excellent all year round On my diesel Citroens. Especially in the rain.

 

[Rolfe]

At it's best ,I could drive over 700 miles without refuelling in my hybrid . Never did though...old age bladder put that to bed

I used to drive that 450-mile journey with only one 5-minute stop to fill up. Starting after work and getting in about midnight. Somebody should probably have stopped me. But the thing is, if I'd stopped just for me I would have been like a cat on hot bricks wanting to get on. Either that or I'd have relaxed enough to get dangerously sleepy. But when you have to stop for your car, you make a virtue of it. You relax until the SoC is where you want it, then you get going. And not sitting over a piston engine (and being able to hear the stereo) is such a relief.

 

[Rolfe]

I thought they were summer tyres with winter tyre capabilites.

They're the same tyres as @QLeo got for his MG4. They had better be able to drive over piles of snow, that's all I can say. (QLeo's road to his nearest charger would have me fitting caterpillar tracks, so I'm hoping he made a good choice.)

 

[Tweed98]

I used to drive that 450-mile journey with only one 5-minute stop to fill up. Starting after work and getting in about midnight. Somebody should probably have stopped me. But the thing is, if I'd stopped just for me I would have been like a cat on hot bricks wanting to get on. Either that or I'd have relaxed enough to get dangerously sleepy. But when you have to stop for your car, you make a virtue of it. You relax until the SoC is where you want it, then you get going. And not sitting over a piston engine (and being able to hear the stereo) is such a relief.

Having a toddler also means I have to stop every two-three hours or someone in the back gets shouty!

I do find my 5 to be an easier drive when I go up to Dads in East Yorks but I wonder how much of that is down to having the lane keep, ACM and no gears. Would a petrol car with an auto box and the same tech be as relaxing?

We took the wifes Puma up North this time, which has LKA and ACM but a manual 6 six speed box. It is a nice drive on the lanes, a bit loud as the only way to get a decent spec Ford now is to go for a ST-Line so they make the noise but don't have the power.

Any road up to Halifax, we got stuck in the Storm Babet mess around Retford so we had 6 hours drive and being stuck in slow-moving traffic with a gear stick and no TJA was horrible. I already don't enjoy being in the car as it is quite small inside and I now hate gears with a passion! The only benefit was being able to swap drivers half way through the 6 hour drive (should have been 3.)

 

[Rolfe]

I do find my 5 to be an easier drive when I go up to Dads in East Yorks but I wonder how much of that is down to having the lane keep, ACM and no gears. Would a petrol car with an auto box and the same tech be as relaxing?

I'm sure that's a significant part of it. I don't use LKA, but I was using ACC (and wondering where to put my feet), and that was contributing to the lack of stress.

My previous car was a DSG automatic, so I was used to no gear-change, but on the motorway you're in top gear anyway.

I do think that the electric motor is inherently more relaxing to drive than sitting on top of a piston engine, though. And the lack of engine noise means you can hear the stereo.

 

[Gadget Geek]

Well, the results are in;



And as expected, the MacMaster (I think MacTwat would be a better name) drove it like a Daily Fail journalist, and as though it was an ICE car. They stopped overnight at Kendall, and the MacTwat didn't even try to charge while he was sleeping.

They make some good points about the charging infrastructure though, I begrudgingly give them that one.

 

[siteguru]

I did warn you all .... ?

 

[Tommy]

Like I said, pointless waste of time ... not in the slightest bit scientific (they didn't even take the same route), or insightful ... guy on the right clearly no clue about optimal EV driving, charging etc.

Taycan can do 270 miles on a single charge, so why did he charge up so many times?
Should've only needed to charge 3 times maximum if he started with a full battery.

Full battery, drive 225* miles, charge 1, drive 225 miles charge 2, drive 225 miles charge 3, drive the rest ... what have I missed, shouldn't cost him more than £180, even at Instavolt prices**.



* Could drive more but 900 divided by 4 is 225 miles, and you'd want a buffer.
** which I think is the dearest rapid charging network at £0.85 ppkWh

 

[Rolfe]

I quite enjoyed it! They're an engaging pair of rogues, It was so obvious the game was rigged against the EV, especially when they stopped at Killington Lake for the night. My first reaction was, noooo, not Killington Lake, because it only has a couple of Gridserves that charge very slowly. In terms of distance it would be my preferred stop on the way south, but not with these facilities. (Greenlands Farm Shop has an ultra-rapid Instavolt, and a better restaurant.) But actually, if they were staying all night, time didn't matter, and he could have got charged up. I don't know where he charged, maybe that Porsche garage, but it was silly.

The first thing you do on a trip that length is make sure you book a hotel with destination chargers (preferably pre-bookable) so you're fully charged the next morning without doing anything. But no. I did suggest in the comments that Geoff had booked a hotel without this facility on purpose.

I did like the bit where Lee gained a ton of time by taking the electric Porsche along flooded roads the diesel car couldn't risk driving though.

It was a foregone conclusion, and it was probably going to be a foregone conclusion even if they hadn't had their fingers on the scales. But that's all down to charger availability. Once chargers are available where and when we need them, they should run that again. And hope for better weather.

 

[Rolfe]

Having watched the beginning of the second part, that was hilarious. I have to assume they knew the Killington Lake Gridserves are very low-power, and chose them for that. And the timing!

They went to a Thai restaurant in Kendal for dinner. There are Instavolts at Booths in Kendal where Lee could have left the Porsche charging while they ate. Or he could simply have left the car on a 40 kW Gridserve at Killingron Lake, it would have charged in about two hours, maybe two and a half, on one of these, and it would have been sorted.

But instead, they took the BMW to Kendal because "Lee's car was out of charge" and just left the Porsche sitting at the Killington Lake Roadchef without plugging it in! Lee went to bed without attempting to charge his car. Then in the morning he expected to get charged on a 40 kW "rapid" charger before setting out.

It's as transparent as museum glass.

Lee knows all about these ultra-fast chargers at the Porsche centre, he goes there in another video I watched. Maybe he didn't know about the 160 kW chargers at Greenlands Farm Shop, a couple of miles away, if waiting at a car showroom for your car to charge isn't your thing, but he should have. They're on ZapMaps. But no, he chooses the ultra-slow "rapid" Killington Lake charger, after having passed up on the possibility of charging on it when he actually had the time to kill.

They knew they were going to spend the night there. None of that was unplanned. Similarly, I knew I would need to charge there when I set off on my road trip in the summer. When I saw the time ABRP was predicting I would have to spend at Killington Lake if I stopped there I scrubbed it in double-quick time, also scrubbed the Porsche showroom because I couldn't see any lunch there, and found Greenlands Farm Shop and its Instavolts. Sorted.

But that wasn't the object of the exercise. Honestly, it's a laugh a minute.