Electric Car Disaster

[admin]

I had an interesting conversation with a chap today. It was down at one of the local e-car charging point I passed by when out for a walk.

To cut a long story short he told me buying an electric car is the worst thing he has ever done. No only  is the quoted range vastly overstated, finding a charging point that actually works reliably is a lottery. At least half of them don't work properly. His car, a Vauxhall Corsa will not do a round trip from Arbroath to Aberdeen  on a single charge. It is a nightmare. He is not alone, others he knows with e-cars say much the same.

His solution? He  is trading it in for a petrol car.

[Fishtales]

It was bound to happen. The infrastructure for the highlands isn't there and Australia is already using diesel generated charger points to compensate

[admin]

This guy was certainly  not impressed anyway Sandy. I don't even know him and could hardly get away.    Stories of his wife being out and not being able to get the car charged, terrified she was going to be stranded in the middle of nowhere.  Electric cars are  kind of totem - the epitome of middle class wokery. Fine for the run around town, hopeless for anything else, in Scotland anyway.

[Bobfly]

A recent report from the independent car safety testing people NCAP (?? or similar) gave a zero safety rating to a Renault Ecar. This was only the third car model to have zero out of many thousands of models over 25 years.
In Stirling they have large covered charging areas with dozens of charge points but there is now only a poor park and ride service from this huge new facility and the toilets are now shut !

[admin]

It's already becoming clear that the current level of tech makes e-cars useless in a country like Scotland. What I would expect though is no-go areas in towns for internal combustion engines and that will be enough of a disaster. 

[Laxdale]

On the subject of combustion, I was reading that e cars have a habit of going on fire when charging.

[Bobfly]

Kind of reminds me of why airlines are untra cautious about goods with lithium batteries being in the cargo holds.

The charging points problem also links to payment systems as you not only have to locate a working charge point but you have also to have an account with that provider. So you need accounts on your mobile phone with four or more providers to make the charge point work. All a bit tricky for the frazzled driver.

[Crawhin]

With zero emissions vehicles it's all about investment in infrastructure. The vehicles/batteries have come a long way in the last few years but central and local authorities haven't caught up.  A good contact in Dundee Council has got a really good story to tell about regional investment in ZEVs infrastructure (public as well as council fleet) but this needs to be incentivised by central government if the promises from COP26 are to be even nearly met.     

[Noddy]

There was an item on a daytime consumer program where the guy bought an electric jag.  He went on holiday from somewhere i the Midlands to Cornwall.  He found that he would need accounts with at least 3 charging point companies. Planned his route on the way back to find the charging point his route was not working. He then had to go back several miles to another charging point.  That was the end of his electric car experience.  Just imagine a snowy winters day on the A9 or M74 stuck in traffic due to the weather and wondering how long will the charge last and how long will I be warm! 
It must add  to more traffic chaos due to vehicles running out of charge.  It would appear that recent new local electric buses a few of them have run out of charge. 

Jim

[Bobfly]

Piece in The Sunday Times today regarding the huge costs gap in charging prices between home rates for those parking off road into their house supply and those who cannot. Home rates at maybe 6p per unit off peak during the night but up to 69p at chargers on London streets and about 35p at fast chargers on roads. People want fast chargers otherwise you could be parked up for 2 to 12 hours, but at 24p. All bringing about to electric tribes between home chargers and public chargers paying way more. About a third of car owners do not have their own driveway for charging so must keep using public charge points.