Are EVs finally about to breakthrough?

[gangzoom]

Maybe it's just me but it seems like the number of production EVs coming is really about to take off...

2nd car I bought with my own cash was a Peugeot 106, and it would be great to see a 208 GTI EV.

https://insideevs.com/electric-peugeot-e208-detail...

Porsche now confirming one of their best selling products will be EV only from 2021/2022....Which just happens to time in perfectly with my wifes 7 year car switch cycle .

https://www.evo.co.uk/news/22349/confirmed-next-ge...

Since getting the Leaf in 2015 every year it seems manufactures have been promising to bring more EVs to market, but all we get is show cars and tech demos. Ive almost given up on seeing any other EVs on the road apart from Tesal/Leaf/Zoes. But given we are only in the first 2 months of 2019 these confirmed production cars seem like great news!!

Maybe soon we will see alot more EVs on the road .

[anonymous-user]

gangzoom said:

Maybe it's just me but it seems like the number of production EVs coming is really about to take off...

2nd car I bought with my own cash was a Peugeot 106, and it would be great to see a 208 GTI EV.

https://insideevs.com/electric-peugeot-e208-detail...

Porsche now confirming one of their best selling products will be EV only from 2021/2022....Which just happens to time in perfectly with my wifes 7 year car switch cycle .

https://www.evo.co.uk/news/22349/confirmed-next-ge...

Since getting the Leaf in 2015 every year it seems manufactures have been promising to bring more EVs to market, but all we get is show cars and tech demos. Ive almost given up on seeing any other EVs on the road apart from Tesal/Leaf/Zoes. But given we are only in the first 2 months of 2019 these confirmed production cars seem like great news!!

Maybe soon we will see alot more EVs on the road .

As you say, maybe it’s just you. I still see nothing that makes sense for us in terms of cost and range.

[SOL111]

My green side would like to see more on the roads.

However my selfish side is happy with the slow uptake as it means less demand for charge points and low tax.

I do 18k miles pa and my i3 is perfect, except for the occasional time I want to make a long trip, when I have to make more use of the Rex.

[Witchfinder]

Polestar 2 reveal today. Looks *very* good.

[granada203028]

Yes it is just you. Everything is still years away, £50K plus and only 5000 being made.

Where is the big investment in battery manufacture? Car plants just shutting in the UK.

I don't want hear about yet another Testla rival

Looks like it's 100K miles plus for the Leaf and I will end up running it into the ground like dear old MK2 Granny, best car I've ever had.

I wish I could turn off all this internet adverting of all the rubbish which is actually available (non EV).

[Nickbrapp]

I really hope so, I don’t think it will be fully there for quite a few years yet, but for 85% of people I think now they could switch with no real problems, live on a estate, travel less than a hour to work, never drive more than 150 miles in one non stop trip.

I would get one now, our main car isn’t my choice and this time round it was a Audi A3, would have got a etron but they don’t make it in the saloon.

The majority of the population won’t miss petroleum and diesel, no one wakes up in the morning goes on their commute and goes wow I really like the 4 pot diesel in this golf.

[EddieSteadyGo]

granada203028 said:

Yes it is just you. Everything is still years away, £50K plus and only 5000 being made.

It isn't yet at the tipping point, I agree. And we are some way off.

However, if this announcement from Porsche is as reported, it is a very significant step. The Macan is Porsche's most popular model, and it generates a good portion of their profit.

Changing this model to be exclusively EV only would indicate the big car makers are starting actually now to get limbered up.

[raspy]

No, EVs are not about to breakthrough. Tiny market share, and will continue to be tiny for some years.

[sjg]

There was an interesting paper I saw mostly focused on US market but talked about car purchases being delayed - i.e. a small but growing chunk of people being interested in EVs, but some combination of budget / range / suitability / availability being not quite there yet for them, so they plan to hang on to their current car until the right electric one for them comes along.

The UK & European market has the added factor of unwinding years of enthusiasm for diesel - I know a few people putting off purchases (in some cases buying the car at the end of PCP) because they don't want to sink new-car money into a diesel (even though it's Euro 6 etc), or go petrol and pay more to fuel it. The general assumption is that in a couple of years there will be way more choice and availability so they'll look again then.

[Kewy]

I'm all for EVs – would quite happily daily an EV and save my ICE for weekends and fun trips.

However, can anyone explain to me how charging will work in terraced housing residential areas?? Or more to the point, how the owners of said vehicles are going to charge their cars at home?

I'm not fortunate enough to own a garage or driveway, and on a bad day I end up parking 5-10 min walk from my house. Even if I could park outside my house, would it involved running cables out the front window, or will they fit hundreds of thousands of charging points down residential streets?

I actually look into an EV for my daily now if it wasn't for this problem.

[rscott]

Kewy said:

I'm all for EVs – would quite happily daily an EV and save my ICE for weekends and fun trips.

However, can anyone explain to me how charging will work in terraced housing residential areas?? Or more to the point, how the owners of said vehicles are going to charge their cars at home?

I'm not fortunate enough to own a garage or driveway, and on a bad day I end up parking 5-10 min walk from my house. Even if I could park outside my house, would it involved running cables out the front window, or will they fit hundreds of thousands of charging points down residential streets?

I actually look into an EV for my daily now if it wasn't for this problem.

There have already been some trials of installing charging points in streetlights.

Other options might be destination charging - where is your car normally parked during the day?

[Kewy]

rscott said:

There have already been some trials of installing charging points in streetlights.

Other options might be destination charging - where is your car normally parked during the day?

Mmm streetlights wouldn't be a bad idea, but again there are probably 50 houses on our block, and only 3 street lights on each side of the road.

Currently I try not to drive my car to work, unless the weather is bad, at which point I drive to work and unless I'm lucky and get a space in the car park, then I'm parked on yet more residential parking down the road

[danp]

IMO the “game changer” will be the VW ID - if they’re churning this out next year in the hundreds of thousands p.a. at a similar price to a Golf diesel then they will have made a huge breakthrough.

https://www.topgear.com/car-news/electric/heres-wh...

[coldel]

Im all for EV for my normal driving duties (drop the lad off at school, shopping etc) but clearly fun driving with the noise and mechanics is reserved for the petrol engine In terms of EV, yes it will eventually take over, if not organically then by the government having dictated so with the ban of ICE cars sales in 20 years time.

The numbers though can help give an idea of time span. So give or take a bit:

30 million cars in the UK (which remains relatively static)
2.5 million new cars sold each year
2.5% market share in 2018 of EV

If new car sales were 100% market share for EV starting next year and given the 30 million cars isnt changing much, it will be 12-15 years before we see an all EV UK. You could say in very simple terms the share of EV increases in a liner fashion until say 2040 when all new car sales will be EV so 100% market share of new car sales. Actually for fun did a very basic excel spreadsheet...



OK it was very basic and I am ignoring the current EVs that are out on the road so add a few % to the final percent of EVs out on the road so maybe circa 80% of cars are EV by 2040. Obviously if companies can drive down the entry prices of things like the Model 3 (not everyone wants a Leaf) you can accelerate the share of new car sales curve.

[RizzoTheRat]

Kewy said:

I'm all for EVs – would quite happily daily an EV and save my ICE for weekends and fun trips.

However, can anyone explain to me how charging will work in terraced housing residential areas?? Or more to the point, how the owners of said vehicles are going to charge their cars at home?

I'm not fortunate enough to own a garage or driveway, and on a bad day I end up parking 5-10 min walk from my house. Even if I could park outside my house, would it involved running cables out the front window, or will they fit hundreds of thousands of charging points down residential streets?

I actually look into an EV for my daily now if it wasn't for this problem.

I live in the Netherlands and they seem to be a bit ahead on the infrastructure here, but it proves it's easily doable. I live in an area of apartments and terraced houses with on street parking and there's probably about a dozen charge points within 100m of my apartment.

They have a post on the pavement with a parking space either side of it which is reserved for electric or hybrid cars. Can't remember what the charges are but I did look it up and it's a bit more than domestic electricity but still a fraction of petrol/diesel cost per mile. I believe they're operated by private companies not the council, but presumably licenced through the council.

The council here ask owners to register with them so they know how many EV/PHEVs there are and are trying to match supply to demand.

[coldel]

I have seen a couple of lamp-post chargers go up around near where I live. Clearly there are many more cars than lamp-posts but its a start. I cannot wait for the 'fell over an EV charger cable claim with us no win no fee' companies to start up though! Trailing charging cables all over the place out of every lamp-post seems like a very cumbersome solution. For me the best would be a box you charge in the house, stick it in the car and transfer the charge so it say gives you 20% charge on the car, then drive the car and charge somewhere more practical like in the lines of chargers in supermarket car parks. There has to be a mindset change for EV owners that they do not have to charge the car to 100% each time.

[gangzoom]

coldel said:

There has to be a mindset change for EV owners that they do not have to charge the car to 100% each time.

I charge our EV to 80% max and only charge when the SOC is below 30%. On long trips I charge to 100%.

If you have dedicated parking/driveway running an EV is easy.

If you haven't than thats why local councils have step in and provide appropriate charging in residential areas. Your cannot be much more than 10 meters away from a power point in any major UK city, it's a case of making it more accessible.

My parents are lucky, they live in an end terrace house in Zone 3 which has it's own driveway!!! Up untill now they haven't used it, but this summer they are getting it resurfaced and getting a charge point installed. I suspect houses with dedicated driveway/parking will command even more of a premium soon.

[RizzoTheRat]

coldel said:

I have seen a couple of lamp-post chargers go up around near where I live. Clearly there are many more cars than lamp-posts but its a start. I cannot wait for the 'fell over an EV charger cable claim with us no win no fee' companies to start up though! Trailing charging cables all over the place out of every lamp-post seems like a very cumbersome solution.

The thing about lamp posts though is that in order to supply electricity to them the cable tends to run underground between them so it's pretty easy to add extra points.

No need for anyone to trip over cables if the charge points are close enough to the road.

Here's one of my local ones
https://www.google.com/maps/@52.1094514,4.2787806,...

[coldel]

RizzoTheRat said:

The thing about lamp posts though is that in order to supply electricity to them the cable tends to run underground between them so it's pretty easy to add extra points.

No need for anyone to trip over cables if the charge points are close enough to the road.

Here's one of my local ones
https://www.google.com/maps/@52.1094514,4.2787806,...

That demonstrates my point, the yellow cable from point to car is where the claims will happen.

[RJG46]

I think the real game changer will be when we run out of petrol. Which isn't predicted to happen for at least 50 years and we are still coming up with new ways of finding oil. Why spend a fking fortune on stuff like lamp post charging points when it just isn't needed.