EV opposition in the media is ramping up

chowbenter said:
What's going on lately? I watch a lot of EV centric videos on youtube & over the past week or so I've started to get almost as many anti EV video suggestions as pro EV videos. 🤨 I'm not going to give these click bait rubbish the time of day.
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I usually select the three dots next to the title and click 'don't recommend this channel again', vain hope that it will just push them further down the algorithm for others.
 
chowbenter said:
What's going on lately? I watch a lot of EV centric videos on youtube & over the past week or so I've started to get almost as many anti EV video suggestions as pro EV videos. 🤨 I'm not going to give these click bait rubbish the time of day.
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I think the algorithm just looks for electric cars, which could mean there are more anti EV videos being posted.

A lot of Youtuberes go for clicks, and anti EVs gets them a lot of those. Also, I wouldn't put it past the oil giants to fund a few of their own.

P.S. I don't normally give them the time of day. The Mac Tw@t was the last one I looked at with his John-O-Groats to Land's End fiasco, just in case he'd changed his spots.
 
Ruislip Resident said:
My goodness. The DM is really ramping it up. I continue to fight the good fight on their discussion boards but get absolutely battered with red arrows and abusive comments. I will still keep going though as I believe changing just one person's mind is a success.
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Recently seen several press articles blaming EVs for increased road wear/potholes quoting a study by Leeds University which says they cause 2-3 times more wear/damage than equivalent ICEs due to being 20/30% heavier. This is true if you apply the recognised formula W1/W2 to the 4th power. Eg. a 1ton ICE compared to a a 1.3 ton ICE = 1.3 to 4th power = 2.856 However a 5 ton lorry = 625 times the amount of wear so the EV/ICE comparison is regarded as a negligible difference. Even the AA site says by far the most damage is caused by HGVs & buses.

When I asked Leeds University about this here is there reply:
Thank-you for your email. Just for the record, the University has not published research into EVs and potholes - that is the result of analysis by journalists. The University was involved in other research which included data on the weight of EVs. As part of their investigation, the journalists used the data on vehicle weight to do their own calculations about damage to the road surface. So you are right - there is more nuance to this story than is reflected in media reports?
 
There's some staggering ignorance out there. I have a good friend who would never dream of getting an EV - until he heard that I could fill mine up for £5 at home on the cheap rate.

That single fact has completely changed his view, he had no idea.

He has asked about a few of the common misconceptions (battery life, tyres) and I put him right.

If you think about it, you wouldn't know about the advantages of EVs unless you looked for them.

And if you think that we've had 30% inflation since 2017, EVs are also not all that expensive as people make them out to be.
 
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On one of the MacMaster threads one of his Luddite acolytes asked me what the advantages of EVs were. I gave him this answer.

Very simple construction with far fewer complications and moving parts than an ICE. Doesn't need nearly so much servicing, so cheaper to run. Fuel costs much lower than an ICE if you use cheap off-peak electricity most of the time, as most people do. Incredibly convenient to fuel up most of the time, just get home, plug in and forget about it. Start every day with a full tank as if the house-elves did it. (This carry-on Lee likes to showcase at the big DC chargers is something most people seldom if ever need to worry about.)

Really efficient in city traffic and traffic jams. It will simply inch along forever without consuming much power or overheating or running its 12v battery flat. Similarly, you can camp in it, keeping the heating/aircon on overnight, listening to the stereo, without running an engine or using too much charge.

EVs store a lot of electricity which is available for use. On a picnic you can plug in your kettle or your microwave or your barbecue. You can use power tools from it in locations where there is no mains power. During a power cut you can run your house from your EV battery, with the right wiring. (Even if you don't have the right wiring, you can keep vital appliances running using an ordinary extension lead.)

Really simple to drive. No gears at all. And even modest EV models have the sort of torque that will leave an ordinary ICE standing at the lights. Great, planted handling thanks to the battery in the floor conferring stability.

Finally, if you have the misfortune to drive into a flood, you will probably get through OK in an EV unless it's so deep the car is swept away. It doesn't have the vulnerable air intake that kills ICE engines in floods, the battery and electrics are well sealed against water (have to be, for driving in wet conditions) and the battery underneath prevents water coming up through the floor so quickly. The car behaves like a wheel-propelled raft. Watch some of the flood videos on YouTube. Never seen an EV break down. (I'm not saying it's a good idea to try this, you could soak your carpets and uphlstery with river water, but you almost certainly won't break down and write your car off.)

And did I mention that they drive like a dream?
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He's gone all quiet all of a sudden.

I think a lot of people don't understand that the issue of poor public DC charging infrastructure is irrelevant to most drivers most of the time. If you're in a position where you'd need to use them a lot then maybe you need to think about how and whether you want to manage this. But most people don't need them. If you have some way of keeping your car charged up on an AC charger on a daily basis you're laughing.

Home charging - wall box or even granny charger, you're laughing. (Even if you can get the council to let you run an extension across the pavement safely and legally, you're laughing.)
Charging at work, still laughing, especially if it's subsidised.
Availability of AC charging with long or no time limits within walking distance of your house, you're at least smiling, and this is getting commoner and commoner.

If none of these apply to you then maybe an EV is not yet for you, but keep an eye out for the appearance of new AC chargers near you. You may be surprised as a friend of mine was recently - four new connectors suddenly appeared within 15 minutes walk of her house, and they're free.

Even when it comes to long trips and having to use public DC chargers, people often forget that they'll have been driving for two or three hours by the time they get there, and very much ready for a break. Point out that modern cars will usually do the business in half an hour or less (if they choose the right model) and they start to see the point.
 
Rolfe said:
On one of the MacMaster threads one of his Luddite acolytes asked me what the advantages of EVs were. I gave him this answer.



He's gone all quiet all of a sudden.

I think a lot of people don't understand that the issue of poor public DC charging infrastructure is irrelevant to most drivers most of the time. If you're in a position where you'd need to use them a lot then maybe you need to think about how and whether you want to manage this. But most people don't need them. If you have some way of keeping your car charged up on an AC charger on a daily basis you're laughing.

Home charging - wall box or even granny charger, you're laughing. (Even if you can get the council to let you run an extension across the pavement safely and legally, you're laughing.)
Charging at work, still laughing, especially if it's subsidised.
Availability of AC charging with long or no time limits within walking distance of your house, you're at least smiling, and this is getting commoner and commoner.

If none of these apply to you then maybe an EV is not yet for you, but keep an eye out for the appearance of new AC chargers near you. You may be surprised as a friend of mine was recently - four new connectors suddenly appeared within 15 minutes walk of her house, and they're free.

Even when it comes to long trips and having to use public DC chargers, people often forget that they'll have been driving for two or three hours by the time they get there, and very much ready for a break. Point out that modern cars will usually do the business in half an hour or less (if they choose the right model) and they start to see the point.
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Absolutely superb piece of work. Well said !
 
Some of the effects of scaremongering/ ignorance:

www.wired.co.uk

The Real Reason EV Repairs Are So Expensive

Insurers are demanding perfectly good EVs be scrapped, or hiking repair bills from $1,000 to $15,000 for seemingly no good reason. There’s a solution, and it’s in the hands of car companies.
www.wired.co.uk www.wired.co.uk
 
Rolfe said:
On one of the MacMaster threads one of his Luddite acolytes asked me what the advantages of EVs were. I gave him this answer.



He's gone all quiet all of a sudden.

I think a lot of people don't understand that the issue of poor public DC charging infrastructure is irrelevant to most drivers most of the time. If you're in a position where you'd need to use them a lot then maybe you need to think about how and whether you want to manage this. But most people don't need them. If you have some way of keeping your car charged up on an AC charger on a daily basis you're laughing.

Home charging - wall box or even granny charger, you're laughing. (Even if you can get the council to let you run an extension across the pavement safely and legally, you're laughing.)
Charging at work, still laughing, especially if it's subsidised.
Availability of AC charging with long or no time limits within walking distance of your house, you're at least smiling, and this is getting commoner and commoner.

If none of these apply to you then maybe an EV is not yet for you, but keep an eye out for the appearance of new AC chargers near you. You may be surprised as a friend of mine was recently - four new connectors suddenly appeared within 15 minutes walk of her house, and they're free.

Even when it comes to long trips and having to use public DC chargers, people often forget that they'll have been driving for two or three hours by the time they get there, and very much ready for a break. Point out that modern cars will usually do the business in half an hour or less (if they choose the right model) and they start to see the point.
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Nicely done.

I always like to take to task the ones that say "You have to wait for 2 hours for it to charge". Actually I don't, I go to the cinema / Restaurant / Shops / Bed while refuels, I don't have to hang around with a smell diesel nozzle in my hand waiting for it splash all over me, getting my shoes soiled on the forecourt from dropped fuel. I wait less than any ICE vehicles I know.
 
A large part of the problem is because of this:-

Balance Idiot.jpg
 
johnb80 said:
Nicely done.

I always like to take to task the ones that say "You have to wait for 2 hours for it to charge". Actually I don't, I go to the cinema / Restaurant / Shops / Bed while refuels, I don't have to hang around with a smell diesel nozzle in my hand waiting for it splash all over me, getting my shoes soiled on the forecourt from dropped fuel. I wait less than any ICE vehicles I know.
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I live nine miles from the nearest petrol station, which often meant stopping for petrol at stupid o'clock on the way home from a night out, often on freezing nights or in the rain. I now waft gently past these petrol stations, pitying the poor saps parked up by the pumps, really happy that I won't have to do that again. Even if I was tight on charge to get home I'd go on a destination charger in the multistorey car park in town while I was at the theatre rather than stop at a rapid charger on the way. (The cinema I go to doesn't have chargers but it's only 40 miles away so it's not an issue. Hopefully they'll install some in the future.)

Talking of waiting to charge. In one of Lee MacMaster's videos he does something incredibly stupid, and he still won't admit it.

They're racing to Land's End and stop for the night at Killington Lake, where the DC chargers are rated at between 40 Kw and 25 Kw depending on which app you look at. Really slow anyway, I think because the remote site has supply issues. My first thought was, noooo, not Killington Lake, but then I thought, if you're actually staying the night there then it could be OK.

So what does our hero do? Goes off to dinner in Kendal in Geoff's car "because my car is out of charge." Leaving his car parked back at the service station, not on the charger. Then he goes to bed, with the car still parked up, not on charge. Then in the morning when they're about ready to go he says, better get my car charged then. Hooks up to the Gridserve (which would have been only 50 Kw even in a better location) and affects all surprised when it's only charging at about 35 Kw and is going to take till lunch-time to get charged. He even sat around moaning about this for quite a while before he unplugged and went to the ultra-rapids at the Porsche Centre a bit further down the road - which he of course already knew about, having charged there before.

So of course multiple people in the comments take him to task for this, demanding to know why he didn't charge the car while they were away having dinner. He insisted that it wasn't possible because you can't go away and leave a car on a charger in case you block it for someone else. Duh, what?

I once, in my innocence, thought I would stop at Killington Lake on the way south. It's about 120 miles and two hours from home, and a nice stop. ABRP said fine, you'll be there 2 hours 5 minutes. I said, WHAT???, and that's when I found out about the charger speed. (I found an ultra-rapid Instavolt at Greenlands Farm shop a few miles further on.) But assuming it would have taken that time to charge up Lee's car, he could have been to dinner and back and still have been in no danger of actually blocking the thing. In fact, as he wanted to charge to 100% he'd probably have been charging for about three hours. He kept insisting (and as far as I know is still insisting) that he couldn't do this.

Then at one point he said, well I was tired and just wanted to go to bed. He was racing, determined to win "for the EVangelists", but was too tired to plug his car into the charger in the evening?

In point of fact he could have left the car on the damn charger all night if he'd wanted to. "Oh but what if someone had come in during the night desperate for a charge?" Well, first of all you should have charged while you were having dinner. But then, when you didn't, or if dinner was too short a time to let that God-forsaken charger fill up the Porsche, just go to bed and leave it. There are three CCS connectors there. Even if he's so concerned for a poor benighted driver desperate for a charge who for some reason doesn't know about the problems with these chargers, and that ultra-rapids are available both at the Porsche Centre and Greenlands Farm, the chances of three EV drivers making that mistake in the middle of the same night are lightning-strike improbable.

He's always moaning about the amount of coffee and fast food he has to buy while his car is charging, but I don't think I've ever seen him actually go off and have a proper meal with the car on the charger. He just makes a huge performance of hanging around the charger complaining about how long it's taking and what a stress it's putting on his mental health. (By the time I got to Greenlands Farm I was about ready to eat the steering wheel. The service in the restaurant was so slow I was there half an hour longer than I had intended, but when I got back to the car it was still charging at 97%, so I had no conscience - I didn't see anyone waiting anyway. And I saw another three or four chargers next to it waiting to be commissioned.)

It's all a pretty transparent act, but no matter how many people explain in the comments that he's deliberately looking for trouble and making it all look much harder than it is, he'll never admit it. He does give himself away sometimes - like showing his phone displaying the finish time at Killington Lake, although other times he affects not to know how long it's going to take. Like hanging around at Killington Lake wasting time despite knowing about the 350 Kw units at the Porsche Centre (I think his car can charge at over 200 Kw, but he always heads for the 50 Kw and even lower chargers if he can find them.) Like driving aimlessly around Southwaite saying "are there any chargers here? I don't see any, I think maybe there aren't, it's a motorway service station, surely there have to be!" And yet on another occasion showing the satnav in his car which flags up all the chargers within range!

That Southwaite thing was another nonsense. It's another non-upgraded Gridserve site with two chargers, three CCS connectors and a CHAdeMO. Not as slow as Killington Lake but not that fast. He found all four connectors in use (they picked the school half-term for their trip) and hung around wasting time without even getting in any queue or finding out if someone was about to finish. He had previously said he was going for Ionitys if possible because Porsche subsidise charging on these and it would be cheaper. Several people in the comments screaming, there is a site with 12 ultra-fast Ionitys just 12 miles further on, your car satnav will be directing you there, why are you not going there? That was never answered at all. He did drive on from Southwaite without charging (he had let other cars in in front of him when he went to Greggs parked in an ordinary space some way from the charger), but he didn't go to that site, he went straight past it to Gretna. Where he did go for the four old-ish Ionitys (all occupied, of course) rather than the 12 newer, faster Applegreens on the other side of the site. I don't know how he engineered the problems he then encountered with the Ionity he got on in the end.

And yes, it's only adding to his views and income posting comments on this lot, but it's a drop in the ocean compared to what he's getting from the Luddite acolytes. He's coining it. And he obviously likes his car and I don't think he has any intention of going back to an ICE. But there has to be some actual sense in the comments from someone. (Cue all the Luddites saying that EV drivers are in denial and trying to justify the terrible decision they know they made.)

Moral of the story. If you want to be able to afford a £120,000 sports car and swan around Britain in it making a prat of yourself, just get a YouTube channel and make a lot of anti-EV content.
 
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johnb80 said:
Nicely done.

I always like to take to task the ones that say "You have to wait for 2 hours for it to charge". Actually I don't, I go to the cinema / Restaurant / Shops / Bed while refuels, I don't have to hang around with a smell diesel nozzle in my hand waiting for it splash all over me, getting my shoes soiled on the forecourt from dropped fuel. I wait less than any ICE vehicles I know.
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I’ve actually said to a few of these nay sayer parrots never to have a test drive in an EV without checking their bank balance first. Because I tell them they’ll be smitten if they travel a mile in our tyres
 
Archev said:
I’ve actually said to a few of these nay sayer parrots never to have a test drive in an EV without checking their bank balance first. Because I tell them they’ll be smitten if they travel a mile in our tyres
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I know a couple who had a short list of three or four EVs they were going to test-drive. They went to test-drive the one that was top of the list and were so smitten they bought it on the spot without even looking at the alternatives.

Me, I had a short-list of one, because the MG4 was so competitively priced, and came back from my test drive so starry-eyed that the dealer was able to sell me an over-priced type 2 charging lead and floor mats as I more or less drooled over the car.
 
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