Battery technology is advancing rapidly and there is a huge amount of research underway across the world, so I have little doubt that this will soon not be a “limiting factor”. Battery costs have come down markedly in the past 5 years, while range has increased greatly. 200+ miles on a single charge is now commonplace, but virtually unheard of 3 years ago. Numerous new EVs will be introduced over the next 2-3 years, prices will come down and charging infrastructure will (ultimately) be improved and become widespread and easily accessible. At the same time vehicles with internal combustion engines will be priced/taxed off the road. Like it or not, massive change is underway and transport will soon be very different. If all vehicles become electric we might have less pollution but we’ll still have the same traffic jams. Consequently car ownership will fall (why own an expensive car that sits doing nothing for 97% of its life??), and there will be more car sharing and use of hailing services like Uber. And then, of course, soon we’ll be able to summon an autonomous vehicle to take use wherever we want to go, at whatever time.
Not progressed enough? They’re already much better than ICE vehicles.
Depends on the ICE vehicle.
I just struggle to see how the capacity for rapid chargers eg at busy motorway services will be met. Driving from Northern England to Southern France in an EV seems to be much more problematic for example.
Visiting my mother 250 miles away and returning home the same day similarly.
800km in a day is a pretty fair day of driving, and I’d never really choose to do that, personally. But our Tesla would work OK for that. Likely charge once each way for about 30 minutes each way if the superchargers were well-spaced. But yeah, peak travel periods here can result in a wait for a charging bay. We haven’t stopped on a trip to charge our car in well over a year (we just charge at home from a standard 120V wall socket), so it’s not currently a big deal for us.
Agree that for some people, with limited patterns of use, that EVs are now a viable choice, but to extrapolate from this that they now exceed the functionality of ICE cars is incorrect. Hopefully the deficiencies - which are a function of range - will be resolved.
Obviously depending on specific models. Certainly some electric cars are extremely impressive (at least to me, not being desirous of the engine noise some people seem to think is a desirable accompaniment to a high performance car) - unfortunately good ones are at a price premium compared to ICE vehicles, and I expect it will be a long time before any reach prices I would consider spending, when the question of battery longevity may be significant.
Very much agreed Electric vehicles are a viable alternative for some people in fact my local Naim dealer does have an EV and gets on very well with it the only thing he said it is not a jump in and drive like a ICE vehicle you have to plan your recharging stops when covering longer journeys.
I retired a bit early seven years ago after spending over forty years in the Motor Industry starting on the spanners in 1970 and over twenty years as a Group Transport/Fleet Manager covering around 35,000 miles a year.
At the moment a Tesla has a maximum range of 402 miles what would that be on a cold frosty morning on a run down from Scotland with all the ancillaries running highly unlikely you would get anywhere near 402 miles ??
My longest journey would be from north of Inverness to home a distance of 573 miles with a ten minute comfort break about halfway through the journey no fuel needed as my VW would cover up to 700 miles on a tankful.
I am pretty sure all this will be achievable with Electric Vehicles in the future but at the moment they are not a viable alternative for some people taking into account the mileage range restrictions in all weather conditions and the lack of high speed charging stations at convenient locations.
As an aside from the topic, that amount of continuous sitting, let alone need constant 100% attention on the road, is not recommended! (Not saying I haven’t done almost exactly the same, though with the break being about half an hour longer - but with hindsight it was probably unwise.)
I think it is what you get used to I didn’t find driving high mileages tiring one thing I don’t agree with is using mobile phones in a car handsfree or otherwise I used to switch my company and private mobile off and put it in the boot when travelling and just concentrate on the driving.
Batteries are lasting a very long time. The first generation Leaf batteries admittedly weren’t very good. Just about every battery ever put in a Tesla is still operating. Some are now just starting to come out of warranty. They’re looking like they last at least 500,000km, and Tesla is talking of a “million mile” battery in development. Battery longevity is not really an issue at all.
I’m so sorry you have to endure such long journeys in your car.
You’d need to stop for 20 or 30 minutes if you did this trip in a Tesla.
I’m so sorry you have to endure such long journeys in your car.
No need to be sorry it wasn’t a problem at the time.
Range is a bit of a complex one. We have a typical use pattern, not a “limited” one, and range is simply not an issue for us at all. We can do long journeys if we need to using the very effective and convenient (and growing) Supercharger network, and otherwise we spend no time at all refuelling. Long journeys can take slightly longer as refuelling takes a 20 or 30 minutes, but we usually take a coffee or meal break while that’s happening.
Average utilization for private cars is less than 10%. They sit empty and unused for 90% to 95% of their lives. The vast majority of refuelling of an EV takes no time at all. We spend far less time overall fuelling our EV than we ever did fuelling our ICE vehicle.
Our car is faster, smoother, quieter, more time-efficient and much cheaper to run than any ICE I’ve ever owned. Just a much better experience. We could never go back. Purchase price was high, but not in comparison to vehicles of similar capability.
I’m waiting for the hydrogen network to get up and running - which it will; 10 years I think. At the moment I would need to keep two cars which, to my eyes, can hardly be very ‘green’. My new car is a diesel… cheaper to buy and better for 500 miles trips to Scotland.
I was talking to a neighbour yesterday who spends a lot of time on the road visiting punters. His last company car was a Yeti. Rather stupidly (despite all the sales men say NO DON’T DO IT!!!), a couple of years ago, the company changed them all to hybrids because they thought it would work out cheaper. He was telling me his average mpg over the last two years is 5mpg WORSE than the yeti and the yeti is hardly a car known for great mpg! The reason is he refuses to pay for his electricity to charge the thing up and, even if he did, the battery only lasts 19 miles. The rest of the time it’s a heavy, large, uneconomic car. That and the fact the vehicle cost a lot more to buy means it’s simply not efficient or economical.
A damn site longer that that.
Just imagine almost every vehicle on a motorway stopping to recharge. The queues would be immense.
Even a single car stopped on the hard shoulder can cause a tailback of several miles as a few cars slow down a bit to rubberneck.
The recharging only works at present because the vast majority of vehicles use the very rapid liquid fuel recharging station
We have dabbled with Hydrogen in the past a bit like the early days with Electric Vehicles butv as we can see with impending legislation changes investment has ramped up on a unprecedented scale this is starting to happen with Hydrogen Technology.
Volvo Trucks and Merdedes Benz Trucks have jointly invested One Billion Euros to develop Hydrogen Powerplants for HGVs. Construction Equipment manufacturers are also looking at Hydrogen for heavy plant operations so this will certainly move down to private vehicles in some shape or form.
Or a accident on the motorway in sub zero temperatures. Lots of flat batteries from people trying to keep warm whilst waiting for the blockage to be cleared.
This is not correct - EVs actually use pretty low levels of power to keep the car warm when stationary.