I have a EV charger but don't own a EV yet.

The Fiesta and FL2 are currently costing us so little it doesnt make sense to change them, at the moment.

A friend used our EV charger for the first time last week - to check that it actually worked, when he visited in his Tesla Model 3 - which he bought through his business with the tax incentives. Jules

If the money people have decided we’re having electric cars that is what they will tell the government of the day what is going to happen. The government will then first offer the people who have got money, subsidies, grants, tax breaks to buy said stuff. Then those who don’t want to or can’t afford to , they will use the big stick. That’s how all governments work. So looking like we will all have electric cars at some point, just a matter of when.

The oil companies don't want everyone driving EVs, as they'll loose billions in income.
The government will also have to find a way to replace those taxes that currently come from fuel sales.

It'll take 20 or 30 years for everyone to move over to EVs, so there's no rush for those that don't want an EV to get one. Hyundai Ioniq 5 Ultimate. The family car.
2009 Rimini Red SE TD4. Gone.
2006 Tonga Green i6 HSE. Gone.
Audi A5 convertible, the daily driver.
1972 Hillman Avenger GT, the project.

jules wrote:

I have a EV charger but don't own a EV yet.

The Fiesta and FL2 are currently costing us so little it doesnt make sense to change them, at the moment.

A friend used our EV charger for the first time last week - to check that it actually worked, when he visited in his Tesla Model 3 - which he bought through his business with the tax incentives.

The EV bubble will have definitely burst in the next 20 or 30 years.
Manufacturers are abandoning them.

Aveling wrote:

The EV bubble will have definitely burst in the next 20 or 30 years.
Manufacturers are abandoning them.

Nodge68 wrote:

Yes there's probably better alternatives, and I personally don't believe HGVs are the right choice for an EV drive train, but for last mile deliveries they are perfect.
However Amazon plan on having 700 EV HGVs and over 10,000 EV vans on the road in the UK by the end of 2025, so if Amazon believe they are a worthwhile investment, then they are.

There will be a government change before 2030, 5 years is an age in politics, and this government is very flip flop, I suspect there will be new fossil fuelled cars until 2040, and EV's may well have been superseded maybe not completely but an option. my PC is slightly to the right of Genghis
2012 HSE SD4 In Orkney Grey now gone, best car ever.

Just watching YouTube, one of the caravan ones with an electric car. He had his account hacked and they are racking up thousands on his account and he can’t get hold of anyone to get it stopped. Had 3 cars charging at once at the same time in London and he is in Nottingham. You can not beat cash and a gallon of diesel, no hacking

I had a trip (of about 13 miles) on one of Bristol's new EV Buses, it was impressively smooth and vibration free. To confirm my impression, I came home by Diesel Bus and it jolted and rattled as normal.

As far as the EV/Net Zero discussion goes, this is the BBC's latest.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cqjqzj8rnvyo FL2 XS SD4 Auto 2010 2012-2017 (21k - 91k miles) (MY2011)
FL2 Metropolis SD4 Auto 2014 2017- (16k - 85k+ miles) (MY2015)
Metro in its 12th Year of (Extended) LR Warranty / Full LR Service History
(Expensive, but Trouble/Worry free - hopefully?)

Ah but don’t you miss those old route masters , wondering when it gets to a hill will it get up it. 🤣

The Routemaster buses were the first that could get up a steep hill near where I lived as a kid, however I did see one drop the rear prop shaft universal joint and a quite hairy bit of unwanted reversing before coming to a stop. The funny side was when the driver got out to see the damage and old lady passenger got off the bus and started to wallop the driver with her umbrella because she had a bumpy ride!

The predecessor to the Routemaster was the Regent (the type Cliff Richard used in that dreadful Summer Holiday film) which could not get up the steep hill so had to make a two mile detour around the steep hill. But it still had to go up a hill, although not so steep, and on the return trip from the weekly school swimming lesson some of us would go to the back of the bus and jump up and down in unison and this would cause the bus to stall on the hill. This had two results; the cane and a good lesson in swearing from the bus driver. Here endeth the lesson from us little angels!

Jimbo

I'm a petrolhead. When I was 12 I bought my first car for $25 from the service station where it had been towed with a fender-bender crash. Took me five months of lawnmowing to pay it off and tow it home.

Since then I've owned over 75 cars including
* Yank Iron (1963 Buick Riviera, Corvairs, lots of boring stuff I can't remember), Chevy Suburban (pig), pickups.
* the best of British (Bristol... 7 of them... rarest was a 405 drophead), and a Ford era Jag X350 I sold today
* German (BMW 2002/320H&B, Merc W124... first year, and several G-Wagons including a W460 1982 LWB I still own and use to haul rocks on the farm... it's odometer is in miles, and at fill up its running $1.30 per mile so its not driven a lot.
* Italian (Alfa 105 & 115 Spiders, and I still have a 1969 US Spec 1750 I've been meaning to get running again)
* Japanese when we moved to NZ - all boring except the Honda RD7 CR-V that I still have, but am selling soon because a couple of hours ago, I bought a 2008 Freelander 2 to replace it.

But as this is an EV thread, a few years ago a wealthy cousin gave me a 2017 Nissan Leaf and then paid to have 53 solar panels installed on our farm (yeah, everyone should have a rich and generous cousin). Visually, the car is utterly boring - reminds me of the cars the world saw floating in the Fukushima tsunami. Inside is big and airy. And on the island were we live, there are more Nissan Leaf's per capita than anywhere else in New Zealand.

Why?

We have limited distance, 12 km end to end, moderate temperatures - never freezing, never over 25C (80F) and top speed is 50 km/h (30 mph). Being a Nissan it is reliable. It's as quiet as a Rolls Royce. Everyone charges at home, and we have a lot of sunlight so a lot are run on solar power. They say Waiheke is where Leaf's come to die and its true

The deep flaw of EV's right now is the battery life. A 2012 Leaf is at end of life, and is worth nothing. Mine still charges to 160 km but when it gets to charging every night, I probably will pull the battery out, connect it to the solar array and use it for storage. Newer EV's have bigger batteries and may last longer, but we are definitely in the model T stage of EV's.

As a classic collector, I'm expecting there will come a day when petrol is no longer available in the village. But by then I may have turned in my driver license, and I'll gam on about the good old days when cars had personality.

[/list]

Yes, we are definitely in the early days of EV development. ICE vehicles had over a century of development, yet they remained horrifically inefficient and lacking in power.
Imagine what EVs will be like after 100 years of development.
Batteries of 10 -15 years ago had a limited life, but today they are designed to outlast the vehicle. Many manufacturers are giving 7 and 8 year battery warranties, so they're confident that the battery will last at least that long. ICE vehicles only have 3 year, 60k miles warranties, which shows that they're not designed with reliability in mind. In fact many newer engines are failing long before the warranty runs out, even Ford have produced an engine which just fails, with Citroën, Peugeot and Nissan all making engines that fall well short of expectations for a modern product.

EVs on the other hand should be more reliable, and most are, although some do seem to be suffering 12 Volt battery issues.

The main advantage of EV is being able to charge at home for very little cost or even free for a majority of the driving being done, making them very appealing.

Me, I'm looking forward to see what advances are made in the next decade.
I'm even looking at the possibility of converting a Freelander 2 to electric power. I've helped a friend convert a Freelander 1, which is working well, so a Freelander 2 EV would make a nice advancement over the FL1. Hyundai Ioniq 5 Ultimate. The family car.
2009 Rimini Red SE TD4. Gone.
2006 Tonga Green i6 HSE. Gone.
Audi A5 convertible, the daily driver.
1972 Hillman Avenger GT, the project.

Jonny Smith has just bought a free electric Tesla. ?si=9jY2H6txT_afgC7F Hyundai Ioniq 5 Ultimate. The family car.
2009 Rimini Red SE TD4. Gone.
2006 Tonga Green i6 HSE. Gone.
Audi A5 convertible, the daily driver.
1972 Hillman Avenger GT, the project.