More on electric cars.

[harryagain]

Drove an electric car today. Uncanny experience but good.

[Andy Cap]

... and the batteries last how long and cost what to replace?

Andy C

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

Twice? Recharged it, did you?

[Tim Streater]

Moron electric cars, did you say? Uh, huh.

[tony sayer]

Well it sez a 93 mile range which I suppose would suit me a lot of the time but anything else its just that if I say decide or have to go to London then I must know were there is a charging point or for any other long journey.

Its a nice idea especially the transmission but until we get that ideal liquid powered fuel pack it'll have it wait.

Just also thinking here it'd be fine for home charging but there are a lot of places where when you park it on the street even tho your home is nearby, still no charging at home for you and then you'd need to rely on charging elsewhere if you can find a point and don't mind waiting..

Problem is there still not practical for most drivers....

[John Rumm]

[Dave Liquorice]

My round trip working tommorow will be >110 miles. Monday's is around

240.

I'd need to know where there are 4 if not 5 fast charging points along the route, on the basis that the fast charge only gets to 80% in 30 mins= .

Yep, barely enough range to do the weekly shop.

I can think of several cars I'd much rather have for the =A328 grand the= y want for that.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Not as a first car, not as a cheap second car either.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

The quoted range and performance of electric cars appear to be quoted as if from different vehicles. It may well have a calculated range of 93 miles - but not under normal UK traffic conditions.

[Andy Burns]

How many yards would it get on the average daily output of your solar panels?

[Brian Gaff]

I think battery life in this case meant when do they start to lose their range and or generally deteriorate so they need replacing.

Brian

[Andy Cap]

Yes, that was what I meant. I guess servicing would be quite a bit less, so it would be difficult to get a fair comparison. If it's anything like boilers though, where price, reduced life and higher maintenance costs negate any savings, it's just another con job.

Andy C

[tony sayer]

Well it does say range 93 miles, but how expensive is that to run compared to petrol?..

It gives a consumption figure that looks like miles per watt hour which doesn't seem right?..

Mind you if thats 28 K to buy then thats all rather academic..

[AJH]

...but the american site reduces this to 62 on average

AJH

[AJH]

Yes they seem to have that the wrong way around but 84Whr/mile is impressive, given a litre of fuel has about 45kWhr/impgallon and allowing about 30% thermal conversion to the wheels that would be in the region of 300Whr/mile.

Especially as I haven't bought a new car since 1971, what does an equivalent small car cost?

AJH

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Treat them? Leave it in the garage on charge but never driven to get the

10 year warranty? And is the warranty free replacement or a proportional cost according to age?

Tesla, for example, won't do a warranty replacement if the car is unused and not on charge for a few weeks - like say left at an airport carpark while on holiday.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Yes - the US tends not to like outright lies in advertising.

Bit like the original Pious claiming 65 mpg as an average. When Autocar tested it by driving it round a mixture of suburban London roads, they got

38 mpg. Worse than a diesel BMW of the same size which has much better performance.

Toyota were forced to change this claim in the US - but not in the UK.

[The Natural Philosopher]

TCO is still very poor on electric.

[John Williamson]

£8K upwards. And it won't need £4K worth of replacement batteries every few years. And it will do over 200 miles without having to stop for the night.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Other thing is anyone who finds an electric car practical will by nature do a lowish annual mileage. Which means the fuel cost may not be the biggest part of overall new car ownership.