Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms Electric Cars

Can any of those on here who have full electric cars or vans tell me if they have any experience of towing or continental driving in particular both at the same time.

A recent study by the Italian consumer association has established that the cost to owners of running a full electric car exceeds the cost of running a diesel car. This is based on current energy costs.

It should be noted that the Italian Government has reduced the excise on fuel (which in turn reduces VAT) in order to reduce the inflationary effect of high fuel and transport costs.

What is not taken into consideration is the fact that there is no excise on the supply of electricity for cars so other than currently being more expensive to run than a similar diesel car they are also subsidised by the tax payers.

I also remember the moves to diesel were actively promoted some years back to reduce the emission of CO2. Now that most of the pollution issues have been reduced by catalytic converters, fine particle filters, Ablue, etc I think that diesel is still a viable option for a car that is often used for longer distances, even with today's pressure to reduce the generation of greenhouse gases. One needs to keep in mind that the majority of electricity is still produced thermally.

An issue is the construction of EV's where the battery is integrated into the chassis. I recently heard of one just a few months old written off after relatively minor shunt. So few garages are willing to touch them given the high voltages within and unpredictable electrical situations engendered when damaged. Ditto fire services.

Totally agree with the diesel scenario outlawed on one hand by the UK government whilst currently allowing zero VED on latest new diesel cars due to their outstandingly low emissions. Even our seven year old Mini Cooper D attracts only £30 VED.

I read a recent study that shows that the overall energy impact of producing an EV compared with a ICE car means that they do not break even in terms of emissions until both cars have covered at least 100,000 miles of driving. That does even begin to take in to account the other environmental costs associated with the physical production of EVs and the elements required to create the batteries and how we dispose of these at the end of their operational lives.

There was a very interesting video posted on another thread on this forum about the creation and use of biofuel for older, high performance vehicles which would appear to pose a credible solution whilst acknowledging it does not have the same political benefits as EVs. We worth a watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxsDxZmidtg

I looked into towing approx 1500kg (braked) with an electric BMW iX and the dealer advised against it due to rapid consumption of stored power. I went for an X3 instead.

There are 2 major issues that one has to take into account when considering the various Break Even point estimates from the numerous studies that are produced.

1: It hugely depends on the basis for calculating the carbon impact of generating the electricity in the first place. As this Reuters report points out, if you use the Argonne model (which is pretty widely used) you get a break even point of 13,500 miles in the USA, were there's loads of fossil generation whereas in Norway where there's loads of renewable gen, tit's more like 8,500 miles

https://www.reuters.com/business/au...e-cleaner-than-gasoline-cars-2021-06-29/

Another view compares the break-even point for EVs in the US (1.5 years) against those in China (6.2 years):

https://about.bnef.com/blog/the-lifecycle-emissions-of-electric-vehicles/


2. There are a fair few studies around (which tend to be sponsored by the pro-fossil lobby) which attempt a degree of legerdemain in their presentation. The most obvious is that they start with the apparently very sensible claim that to understand the true environmental impact of EVs, one has to consider the damage caused by mining the raw materials and manufacturing the batteries, together with the actual manufacture and operation of the vehicle itself including generating the power.

What these studies leave out however is the environmental impact of prospecting, drilling, extraction, transport, refining and distribution of petrol/gasoline. This is why you sometimes see the hugely inflated break even points bandied about.

Here's a proper scientific study from the University of Eindhoven which is worth reading, in which the break-even distance is calculated to be around 30,000km when comparing a Tesla 3 to a Mercedes 220D :

https://www.avere.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/englisch_Studie-EAuto-versus-Verbrenner_CO2.pdf

Months ago, before deciding to buy the Land Rover, I tested other models. Amongst them, the Porsche Cayenne, the Macan and the full electric Taycan. We were a small group of potential clients and we drove in the beautiful roads not far away from Madrid, with a couple of professional drivers / pilots and changing cars at every stop.

I had a very interesting conversation with those professionals. I told them that I needed a car to tow a trailer with my Morgan 3-Wheeler in it, so with a total towed mass of 1,2 tons. They immediately told me to forget about the Taycan. Despite the huge torque of the electric motors, towing a big mass behind you will consume the battery in a very short time, reducing dramatically the mileage you can do with a full charged battery. They also said that the hybrids (Cayenne) may be more appropriate, but still not the ideal… that today for towing the best is still a classic ICE, preferably a diesel for the torque. They insisted – they told me Porsche tested a full electric Cayenne, that may never come into production for this reason - that today a full electric heavy SUV doesn't make sense as this type of car is supposed to have a certain towing capacity that can't happen with the present batteries' technology.

I think the important point is reduced range, as Marmota said.

As far as I'm aware our Mini SE isn't approved for any sort of towing, and for stuff like caravans or horse trailers I would think the use case is well outside the design envelope of current EVs - although the capabilities of American stuff like Rivians and the Ford F150 Lightning might be different.

Driving EVs on the continent is no more of a problem than it is in the UK regarding accessibility of charge points and the need to put a bit more thought into route planning. Here's a ZAP Map article that gives a good impression of the realities of doing a long European trip.

https://www.zap-map.com/ev-driving-in-europe/

So if one needs a single vehicle that is both capable of towing heavy things and travelling for long distances without stopping to charge, I would say that EVs do not currently offer a good solution and one is better sticking with diesel. But that is not to say this will always be the case, neither is it typical of most people's vehicle usage nor of the likelihood of a family only owning a single vehicle that is required to do everything.

BEVs are not a complete answer to providing personal transportation with lower environmental impact, and I don't think anyone is claiming that they are. Our Mini SE is very cheap to run, and easily supports well over 90% of our transport needs. On the days when we need to fetch a tonne of logs in our trailer we use the Land Rover, and on the days when we want to do a long journey without having to plan for recharge breaks we use the Morgan.

In the 11 months we've owned it we've done about 5200 miles at an average 4.7 miles/KWh, of which I would guess about a third has been directly sourced from our solar panels at zero cost. So that's 5 thousand miles of zero tailpipe emissions put into the environment at a cost of about 1MWh, only about 600KWh of which we'd had to pay for. We're on a relatively expensive pure green tariff from Ecotricity, so in financial terms it's been about £350 or so. It was cheaper to buy than an equivalently specced Mini Cooper S, and the only servicing costs are brake fluid and cabin filter replacement every 2 years.

This reflects my fabricator pal's experience with the Tesla SUV where adding a modest trailer with a few metal farm gates on it (so no great weight) had it struggling to complete a 150 mile round trip to the galvanisers .... he had it for a test weekend and didn't buy it on the strength of that .... went back to a Diesel Disco.

K