Talk Morgan Forums Community Vehicle Talk (non-Morgan) Electric Cars

350 KW. I may be wrong (as so often) but isn't that a DC charger? 350kw of dc? Not near me thanks.

I also am led to believe that a small family car (very small, say a VW Up) costs over twice as much as the same spec petrol car, and that's after a hefty taxpayer contribution.

It seems to me there are several highish hurdles to overcome. I really hope the powers that be do clear them but at the moment mass purchase is unlikely, EV's are a rich person's purchase. Perhaps if we taxed expensive petrol cars like Ireland etc. we could fund a real subsidy on VW UP sized vehicles that brought the price within range of average car spend. Then we'd see the big takeup perhaps,
Nick

I guess the 7 year old Leaf that is out of warranty with the 15km range and $34,000 battery replacement quote was just unlucky? Even so it shows that not all batteries reach 10 years old at 90% of health.

What needs replacing on an ICE car probably depends on the quality it was made in the first place, My Nissan's Radiator was 30 years old and still fine until a Kangaroo wrecked it. The exhaust pretty stuffed when I got the car and the Australian fitted CAT to pass import regulations died soon after so I got a good quality new custom made for made 16 years ago - it is still fine. In fact the only stuff that died on that car until the car was crashed was the stuff changed in Australia to get it complied, the cheap replacement cat died after a year, the dimmer switch in the dash burnt out after two years leaving me with no dash lights, the seat belts stopped retracting so I have replaced those. I really feel some good quality Japanese parts were thrown away just because of import rules and replaced with cheap stuff that died pretty quickly.

I know people with the Eunos MX5 which is the Japanese local version and they are close to 30 years of age and still going fine with 300,000km and not much apart from oil, oil filter, spark plugs and timing belts changed. I don't read on here about stock Morgan Radiators lasting 30 years which is a pity because they should.

My experience is a well looked after sensibly designed and well made ICE should easily last 250,000 miles or 25 years for the average driver or is it just the Japanese cars made for the Japanese market that are made to a good quality these days? I find it odd that the Japanese generally squash their cars at about 3 years because the want something new and they think the car is worn out when in my experience the cars that are saved and bought to Australia seem to last a lot longer in Australia than anything we can buy locally including Japanese made cars for our country

But to answer the question I think and hope that EV Lithium-ion batteries last longer that smaller battery appliances because they are temperature monitored during both charging and use and the charging rate and power available varied for each cell to make sure each battery is not over heated or over charged or over discharged.

Why indeed and wise choices by the sound of it. Maybe EV manufacturers should make their customers aware of the changes needed for realistic home charging and likely costs.

There is an interesting site called InsideEvs that I drop into from-time-to-time as I look into EVs . Nissan were having an issue with the degradation on 30KW Leafs, but even 24KW ones were averaging 2.9 -3.3% decline p.a. accelerating as the cars get older. I am sure there are "90% at 10 years old" Leafs, just as there are 1 million miles Volvos, but to my mind there is still a large amount of uncertainty.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-50713616

Looks like we are buying SUV's rather than electric cars !

Yep, I think that's the 'current' reality.

As I said above, if my lottery numbers come up, then I'll get myself a Tesla - although it will be for the 'fun' factor rather than any attempt to be environmentally sound.

However, I can't see that I'll be in any position to afford to buy anything half decent in the next ten years, and then I'll be retiring which will cut my car mileage by 250 miles a week which will further decrease the economic viability of an EV (and or course, my income will be further reduced).

My partner is considerably younger than me and will retire much later. She has a 90 mile round trip to work each day. As she tends to buy a used car every four years (at around £4K) it may be in her interests to look at an EV in the next 5-10 years.

We did enquire about getting solar panels installed a few years ago, through one of those schemes where they'd install for free, but apparently my roof wasn't big enough. The cost of installation however means I'd be dead before I saw any savings on my initial investment.

I also wonder if they'll be a 'recovery' infrastructure introduced by the AA/RAC/Green Flag for when people run out of electricity mid journey. Big vans full of batteries that will come and give you a boost to get you to the nearest charge point. Apparently, in 2015 more than 800,000 people ran of fuel mid journey.......

TBM "I also wonder if they'll be a 'recovery' infrastructure introduced by the AA/RAC/Green Flag for when people run out of electricity mid journey. Big vans full of batteries that will come and give you a boost to get you to the nearest charge point. Apparently, in 2015 more than 800,000 people ran of fuel mid journey......."

Every time you invent a more idiot proof tool someone finds a better grade of idiot. Despite all the extra thought put into the computer displays and range management there will always be someone on their phone and so missing it!

Reality kicks in !

"If the car is kept for several years the overall costs of ownership are way cheaper than ice cars as there’s no engine, exhaust, cat, radiator or other components to need replacing". Dont many if not all EVs have liquid cooling of the battery & thus a radiator? Not that radiators need replacing very often, last time was over 40 years ago. Presumably EVs have electric cabin heating & also use heat from the radiator.
I'm aware of Zapmap showing charging places. Today checking the nearest places to me one has all points working & status updated yesterday. Another has all 7 chargers out of action & reported a week ago. All 3 of other sites have not had status updated for 2 months. Does not give me high confidence I could charge on a journey.
Autocar mag did a report on several EVs taking the same long journey with several charging stops needed & they came across non functioning chargers. Worse the Audi built in guidance sent them to a non existent charge point. The Telsa got there first but a conventional car may have not needed any refuelling. Still many dots to join up in the charging regime for anyone making other than non local journeys.

I agree there with Rob that they are coming and I am really looking forward to it. Once Tesla can get this technology working https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJrsB0MJMsM my greatest fear of a $34,000 replacement battery after 7 years will put to rest as long as Tesla give the battery a million mile warranty as well so I know if I get a lemon I am not going to get stuck with the bill.


Unfortunately I have to agree with Nick, the few people i know with Leafs are not getting a good range and there are a lot of scary stories expensive battery replacements, you could easily replace every moving part in an ICE car for less. Maybe Canberra is just too hot in summer and too cold in Canberra for batteries to last. 43 degrees yesterday and -5 is pretty common in winter.

I think they use a heat transfer pump which is something like a reverse cycle air conditioner. Plus a radiator to cool the battery pack and the excess heat to heat the interior. This article is interesting. https://cleantechnica.com/2018/04/25/heat-pump-helps-audi-e-tron-trump-tesla-performance/

A friend of mine has built an electric motor bike that he races and really enjoys. He has done a great job and a real EV supporter but he still commutes on an ICE bike saying the main reason is the difficulty getting the EV bike registered. Talking to him he also agrees that the cost of batteries and the number needed to get any decent range makes it hard to build a practical EV vehicle for the road, the bike is setup with the least batteries for a short race. But he does try to encourage me to give it a go, I would love to build my own EV car if batteries could come down to a reasonable cost and weight.



Here is a police motor bike rider having a go on his bike, my friend in black is just telling the policeman that it is a 1984 bike with 1984 quality brakes but thanks to the batteries double the weight of the donor bike so don't expect it to stop like a new police bike would.