Electric vehicles

[woodieallen]

. I’ve have range anxiety many time getting in the car to discover the needle on empty.

Surely that’s just being careless and not realising you were getting near empty last time you were out driving?

 

[johnb80]

"Between now and the end of 2026, the Chinese domestic market is on track to achieve nearly 100% EV market share. The intense levels of competition are driving the Chinese EV manufacturers to continuously innovate and reduce prices at a rate that the Western manufacturers (except perhaps Hyundai and Kia) cannot keep up with. The result will be a domestic market nearly totally dominated by Chinese EV manufacturers, with levels of efficiency, innovation and tight profit margins unheard of in the West."

Absolutely, we need to get our act together. In the late 60's / early 70's the Japanese made inroads into the UK motorcyle industry resulting in decimation of it.

All manufactured using 1200 coal fired power stations.

Actually 3092 coal fired power stations BUT 35% and rising of their electricity is now from renewables.

 

[johnb80]

I think you have hit the nail on the head. The UK is transitioning and that’s what motor engineers will need to do as demand shifts.

 

[johnb80]

Surely that’s just being careless and not realising you were getting near empty last time you were out driving?

and ignoring all of the vehicle warnings which in my experience are plentiful.

 

[paulrbarnard]

"Between now and the end of 2026, the Chinese domestic market is on track to achieve nearly 100% EV market share. The intense levels of competition are driving the Chinese EV manufacturers to continuously innovate and reduce prices at a rate that the Western manufacturers (except perhaps Hyundai and Kia) cannot keep up with. The result will be a domestic market nearly totally dominated by Chinese EV manufacturers, with levels of efficiency, innovation and tight profit margins unheard of in the West."

All manufactured using 1200 coal fired power stations.

China is the largest producer of green energy in the world.

 

[paulrbarnard]

Surely that’s just being careless and not realising you were getting near empty last time you were out driving?

It’s not me….

 

[Lons]

Prior to my EV's I had always favoured German cars (VW, AUDI) and finally a Range Rover. The build quality of the German cars was second to none, absolutely excellent. The Range Rover was a very nice place to be, mechanically it was great but the build quality and design was dreadful. For a £80,000 + car it was completely unacceptable. We ventured into EV's with a Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV, this suited our needs and was utterly reliable for the 180,000 miles that we had it. My Range Rover I sold and bought my BMW i3, back to German Engineering. We eventually sold the Mitsubishi and looked for a pure EV to replace it. I booked a test drive of the MG5 having seen excellent reviews of it online but I told myself that I had to remember this was a budget car and not to expect too much. I was amazed when I first sat inside, it could have easily been from Mercedes, BMW, VW, Audi etc, the quality was really up there with them. Driving was good, plenty of bells an whistles if that floats your boat, the seats are amongst the best I've sat on, very comfortable indeed. Exterior, panel fit was as good as I've seen, way better than Range Rover. A warranty of 7 years / 100,000 miles makes it a package to be considered and currently available for £19k!! I accept some of the earlier models were typically plasticky and poor quality but their latest offerings like the MG4 and MG5 are in a completely different league.

Maybe it would be worth another look with an open mind when youre next in the market for a car?

I don't have a closed mind and as I said and certainly not anti EV. It's almost certain that I'll be in one at some stage though if it was the near future then far likely to be a PHEV.

I've owned German cars exclusively for the last 20 plus years all BMW, Audi and my current Merc for the same quality reasons as you but it's strange how we all have different perceptions as it's only a few months ago I drove an MG4 and I certainly wouldn't describe it as you did in fact it looked good value for the money but that was all so my opinion is based on fairly recent cars.

My car is coming up 6 years old with 32K on the clock, very high spec and runs like a sewing machine, at the minute, it also is reasonably economical and now out of the £40k extra road tax band so financially buying similar doesn't stack up financially, by a long way so it will be a while yet.

My wife is on her 5th Mini and I looked very closely at the electric version, that didn't stack up either.

Each to his own, I'm happy enough with my decisions but wouldn't want to influence anyone either way.

 

[Agent_zed]

In my experience, if there are gloves at a forecourt the diesel pumps are really nice and clean. If there are no gloves, the pumps are basically swimming in diesel.

I still keep a hand sanitiser in the car; not for sanitising, but to try to mask the smell of oily dinosaur juice

when I got a diesel I couldn't bare to waste a plastic glove each time for filling. Instead, I have a pair of cheap gloves like this https://www.toolstation.com/super-grip-gloves/p85720. I just keep them in the door pocket and roll them in on themselves after use. Had them for years now. No stinky hands and don't have to worry about looking for the disposable ones at the station.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

... all BMW, Audi and my current Merc for the same quality reasons as you ...

In reliability tables now they tend do do badly.

1. Subaru 90.66%
2. Tesla 90.55%
3. Kia 89.35%
4. Porsche 89.16%
5. Citroen 88.22%
6. Peugeot 88.03%
7. Mazda 88.01%
8. Toyota 87.74%
9. Jaguar 87.72%
10. Land Rover 87.63%
11. Honda 87.56%
12. Lexus 87.17%
13. Alfa Romeo 86.86%
14. BMW 86.69%
15. Nissan 86.54%
16. Volvo 86.48%
17. Hyundai 86.36%
18. Cupra 86.28%
19. Suzuki 86.26%
20. MINI 86.26%
21. Mitsubishi 86.09%
22. Dacia 86.01%
23. Skoda 86.00%
24. SEAT 85.84%
25. Mercedes 85.55%
26. Vauxhall 85.50%
27. Audi 85.43%
28. Renault 85.30%
29. Volkswagen 84.80%
30. Ford 84.58%
31. Fiat 84.13%
32. MG 82.01%

 

[sploo]

... all BMW, Audi and my current Merc for the same quality reasons as you ...

In reliability tables now they tend do do badly.

1. Subaru 90.66%
2. Tesla 90.55%
3. Kia 89.35%
4. Porsche 89.16%
5. Citroen 88.22%
6. Peugeot 88.03%
7. Mazda 88.01%
8. Toyota 87.74%
9. Jaguar 87.72%
10. Land Rover 87.63%
11. Honda 87.56%
12. Lexus 87.17%
13. Alfa Romeo 86.86%
14. BMW 86.69%
15. Nissan 86.54%
16. Volvo 86.48%
17. Hyundai 86.36%
18. Cupra 86.28%
19. Suzuki 86.26%
20. MINI 86.26%
21. Mitsubishi 86.09%
22. Dacia 86.01%
23. Skoda 86.00%
24. SEAT 85.84%
25. Mercedes 85.55%
26. Vauxhall 85.50%
27. Audi 85.43%
28. Renault 85.30%
29. Volkswagen 84.80%
30. Ford 84.58%
31. Fiat 84.13%
32. MG 82.01%

Quite surprised with that table; given that Tesla have a reputation for legendarily poor build quality.

 

[johnb80]

I don't have a closed mind and as I said and certainly not anti EV. It's almost certain that I'll be in one at some stage though if it was the near future then far likely to be a PHEV.

It's a good first step.

I've owned German cars exclusively for the last 20 plus years all BMW, Audi and my current Merc for the same quality reasons as you but it's strange how we all have different perceptions as it's only a few months ago I drove an MG4 and I certainly wouldn't describe it as you did in fact it looked good value for the money but that was all so my opinion is based on fairly recent cars.

What in particular made you feel the build quality wasnt good?

My car is coming up 6 years old with 32K on the clock, very high spec and runs like a sewing machine, at the minute, it also is reasonably economical and now out of the £40k extra road tax band so financially buying similar doesn't stack up financially, by a long way so it will be a while yet.

My Audi Allroad managed 270,000 miles and my VW Touareg 190,000 and still wanted for nothing, running sweet as a nut, no issues. Prior to these cars I had a Mercedes Sprinter van, 500,000 miles, never touched other than routine maintenance, ran solely on Supermarket Diesel and the DIY bio diesel for the last 300,000 miles. The German Diesels are absolutely amazing in my opinion, good quality oils and filters are all thats needed on a regular basis, I always chose to do 10,000 miles fixed servicing rather than the variable servicing they generally default to. With 32k on the clock you should be good for a few years yet.

My wife is on her 5th Mini and I looked very closely at the electric version, that didn't stack up either.

The Mini Electric isnt the best in it's class, the i3 is a much better choice, especially the later 120A/h ones.

Each to his own, I'm happy enough with my decisions but wouldn't want to influence anyone either way.

Absolutely, having choice is great for everyone.

 

[Spectric]

There are a hell of a lot of cars older than 10 years on the road already and that's likely to be the case for a long time. The biggest killer, rust is no longer the problem it was and suggesting cars older than 10 years won't be repaired or serviced is guess work at best.

Many people will try and continue to run older cars but although rust is not the car killer it once was we now have complexity and electronic's that make many cars not economically viable to repair and hence why in the vehicle scrap yards you see cars that look good enough to still be on the road but it is what lurks beneath that has finished it off. With EV's they need to get battery commonality and some design where they can easily be swapped out and use a common charging interface before we end up with dozens of different interfaces.

 

[johnb80]

... all BMW, Audi and my current Merc for the same quality reasons as you ...

In reliability tables now they tend do do badly.

1. Subaru 90.66%
2. Tesla 90.55%
3. Kia 89.35%
4. Porsche 89.16%
5. Citroen 88.22%
6. Peugeot 88.03%
7. Mazda 88.01%
8. Toyota 87.74%
9. Jaguar 87.72%
10. Land Rover 87.63%
11. Honda 87.56%
12. Lexus 87.17%
13. Alfa Romeo 86.86%
14. BMW 86.69%
15. Nissan 86.54%
16. Volvo 86.48%
17. Hyundai 86.36%
18. Cupra 86.28%
19. Suzuki 86.26%
20. MINI 86.26%
21. Mitsubishi 86.09%
22. Dacia 86.01%
23. Skoda 86.00%
24. SEAT 85.84%
25. Mercedes 85.55%
26. Vauxhall 85.50%
27. Audi 85.43%
28. Renault 85.30%
29. Volkswagen 84.80%
30. Ford 84.58%
31. Fiat 84.13%
32. MG 82.01%

It depends on how the table is scored. Many of them are customer satisfaction scores rather than real reliability scores. I have to say from all what I have read, MG UK is dreadful for customer service, then again so is JLR and many others. On the Range Rover forum for instance, a lot fo 405 model Range Rovers are suffering cracked suspension ball joints resulting in the front wheel detatching (a tad inconvenient). Owners have contacted JLR to be told theres no known issue, no recall etc. In America, same car, same issue, recall being done. All of this on a £100k car, not good enough.

 

[Agent_zed]

With EV's they need to get battery commonality and some design where they can easily be swapped out and use a common charging interface before we end up with dozens of different interfaces.

This.

All EV cars should be designed to be dead easy to swap out motors and batteries. It should be far easier than an ICE engine swap.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

It depends on how the table is scored. Many of them are customer satisfaction scores rather than real reliability scores. I have to say from all what I have read, MG UK is dreadful for customer service, then again so is JLR and many others. On the Range Rover forum for instance, a lot fo 405 model Range Rovers are suffering cracked suspension ball joints resulting in the front wheel detatching (a tad inconvenient). Owners have contacted JLR to be told theres no known issue, no recall etc. In America, same car, same issue, recall being done. All of this on a £100k car, not good enough.

I don't doubt another table will have everything recorded differently. The German brands don't appear near the top of many, though.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

This.

All EV cars should be designed to be dead easy to swap out motors and batteries. It should be far easier than an ICE engine swap.

The problem there is that while it sounds obvious it could well stymie future improvement.

 

[Rhossydd]

With EV's they need to get battery commonality and some design where they can easily be swapped out and use a common charging interface before we end up with dozens of different interfaces.

It's on it's way and would solve the two big objections to EVs; high purchase price and range anxiety, also make ownership more viable for those without home charging.
If it gets widespread adoption it'll leave the first generation of fixed battery cars looking pretty worthless.

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/...s-will-change-ev-batteries-under-five-minutes

 

[johnb80]

Many people will try and continue to run older cars but although rust is not the car killer it once was we now have complexity and electronic's that make many cars not economically viable to repair and hence why in the vehicle scrap yards you see cars that look good enough to still be on the road but it is what lurks beneath that has finished it off.

Some of that is true but not to such a great degree these days, lots of third party companies that can rebuild / repair ECU's etc. There are a lot of mechanical failures that will condemn a car to scrap - Ford Wet Belt engines are a complete disaster, Ford Powershift DSG Gearbox likewise so not all electronic issues.

With EV's they need to get battery commonality and some design where they can easily be swapped out

That already exists, the battery housing contains industry standard cells to make up the battery pack. The cells can be replaced individually. Many people have concerns over EV batteries yet with one exception, theyre not an issue at all, the one exception being the Nissan Leaf which has poor thermal management of the batteries and battery damage occurring when rapid charged.

and use a common charging interface before we end up with dozens of different interfaces.

We already have that, CCS2 is the main one, CHAdeMO is falling from existence.

 

[johnb80]

This.

All EV cars should be designed to be dead easy to swap out motors and batteries. It should be far easier than an ICE engine swap.

They already are.

 

[johnb80]

It's on it's way and would solve the two big objections to EVs; high purchase price and range anxiety, also make ownership more viable for those without home charging.

Battery swapping would increase the cost of EV's due to the additional equipment needed. The practicalities of it dont add up. You cant simply slide in and out a battery pack of these weights without some serious engineering in both the car and the site equipment. The problems associated with connecting and disconnecting the high voltage/high current cables would be a nightmare. The battery condition could also be a very major factor, your 99% health battery gets swapped out and one with only 70% health due to abuse gets loaded = not a happy bunny. Many EV's have the battery as an integral part of the structure EG Tesla, VW etc.

If it gets widespread adoption it'll leave the first generation of fixed battery cars looking pretty worthless.

It wont happen.