Rising Energy Costs and Electric Vehicles

[stuzbot]

It just struck me the other day that-- what with all these energy price hikes [60% since last year and another 50% apparently on the way] and a lot of people barely able to afford to put the heating on in the depths of winter-- the much vaunted economic benefits of EVs must be starting to pale a bit.

I'm just curious as to what the numbers might be. I've recently started checking our leccy meter every day around the same time and have set up a spreadsheet in Google Sheets where I put in the reading and it tells me how many units I've used and how much it's cost me. Even with barely anything electrical on, we seem to be averaging between £1,50 - £2,00 a day. Which will presumably be going up to around £2,00 -£2,50 a day, when the prices rise again by this threatened 50%.

That's with us being really frugal. No heating on [we've got a wood burner], so only leccy being used is things like lights, comps on standby, phone chargers, oven on for half an hour to cook the dinner, etc. So, I'm wondering what the damage is for someone topping up an EV at home overnight?

That must take a lot of juice. anyone on here got one and worked out the sums?

And, in addition, for people using a charging point; I presume the cost there will be going up too, to reflect the steeper wholesale leccy prices --unless the likes of Tesla etc are subsidising the fuck out of the cost, to try and 'bait'n'switch' people in?

Speaking of 'bait'n'switch'. Another point on the whole EV thing. Unrelated to leccy costs, but while I'm on the subject...

A wee while ago, someone was on the radio singing the praises of EVs --their lower running costs, cheap [or is it free?] road tax, etc. "How naive can you get?" --I thought handsomely. "Do people really think that, once everyone has switched to EVs, the road tax will still remain at those incentivising low levels?"

The government will still need to raise the cash to pay for the road infrastructure which, at the moment comes from tax on fossil fuels and from road tax. When no-one is using fossil fuels any more and everyone is paying tuppence a year road tax, do you really think the government will go "Whoops! --We didn't think that through, did we?" stick their hand in their own pocket, to make up the shortfall? Of course they won't. Some [probably 'Green'] justification will be found for slapping a load of tax on EV recharging costs and the road tax will be raised to what it used to be on fossil fuel vehicles, if not more.

It will be interesting to see how all this pans out. Fast forward a dozen years and I reckon everyone will be driving round in EVs whingeing about the road tax and 'fuel' costs. Maybe just in time for a future campaign to get everyone buying 'greener', 'more economical' hydrogen-powered cars.

 

[Shayne]

Electricity tax - because they need more nuclear power stations

 

[Rob Cowell]

The government will still need to raise the cash to pay for the road infrastructure which, at the moment comes from tax on fossil fuels and from road tax.

Roads are paid from general taxation. Everyone funds them irrespective of how they use them or what vehicle they travel in. Clearly VED and fuel duty is part of this, but it's a pretty small part (all fuel duty + VED is about £28B pa, out of £800B pa in general tax revenue, so 3.5%).

Personally I think electric cars are just taking all the congestion and delays we have today and doing it with electricity. The unpalatable truth for many people is that "the answer" is not electric cars. It is fewer cars, or at least cars used less frequently.

 

[Rob Cowell]

Electricity tax - because they need more nuclear power stations

We have that. It's called VAT. The trick would be making that a higher rate for EVs. Sort of the opposite of red diesel. Although, fold your tin-foil hats everyone, smart meters!

 

[Juddian]

They'll be coming for you Stuzbot, all that common sense isn't supposed to be broadcast.

I've been seeing some videos of Teslas queueing at Tesla only charging points for hours at a time and we've only just started down this EV road, anyone fancy their chances of a recharge at Leigh Delamere or Michael Wood when a boiling summer Saturday queue for the M4/5 Bristol bottleneck can stretch back to a 10 or more mile crawl on both motorways.
Or the misery of being stuck in a tailback in the depths of winter trying to keep warm and watching your battery level dropping rapidly, everyone desperate to get recharged at the first point available.

This is just the physical charging reality for those of who haven't drunk the EV kool aid, yes things will improve just as range witll improve, but the realities of mass travel in private transport ar eye opening.
On those bank hol and summer weekends i'm often returning mid morning in the truck from early morning western regular delivery points, using various routes back M4 M5 A46 A420 A34 etc, unless you are going against the flow on those days you cannot imagine the massive flows of traffic involved or just how many cars are in the MSA's at any one time, its bloody bedlam...as an aside you couldn't pay me enough to go to such holiday destinations at the same time as everyone else, thats no holiday its a self inflicted sentence.

Road rage? we've seen bugger all yet it's going to be utter bloody misery.

 

[SteveJB]

Just heard on radio news that yhe is a BIG BLACK HOLE in govt funds because of these RC cars

 

[Shayne]

I guess we should all join the historic car lobby fighting for recognition and the protection of classic cars . More social segregation .

I do wonder what that rat burger tasted like in Demolition man movie

 

[stuzbot]

The unpalatable truth for many people is that "the answer" is not electric cars. It is fewer cars, or at least cars used less frequently.

This is also true. Remember how, during the lockdowns, almost everyone was working from home and ... surprise! surprise!... the country didn't implode and almost everyone said how much happier they were, having more quality time with their family. And bosses found that people were just as productive, working from home?

And what happened as soon as the lockdowns finished? "Right. You've had your fun. Now, everyone get stuck in traffic, commuting back into the office, to be behind a desk all day again" Where was Greta and co. to protest about that?

I guess we should all join the historic car lobby fighting for recognition and the protection of classic cars . More social segregation .

I can't help but think that, in the not-too-distant future, we'll look back on this purging of ICE vehicles in the same way people look aghast at those videos you can find of lovely old steam trains being broken up, after the railways moved to diesel locomotives.

BTW --I'm not against EVs at all. I think they have a lot going for them --or will have, when the infrastructure to support them is as ubiquitous as petrol stations are today. Although, having said that, I'm not particularly interested in any of them because pretty much all of the current models are the kind of boring saloon cars which do nothing for me whatever is under the bonnet. Wake me up when I can have half a dozen EV 4x4s to choose from.

However, I do get irked by the constant one-sided manipulation of the green agenda by government and press, which is painting a picture of a rosy future, where everyone is driving round in environment-hugging EVs and paying next-to-no road tax or fuel costs.

Add into the mix the advent of the self-driving car, about which discussion is ongoing at the moment about whether the manufacturer [as opposed to the driver] should be responsible for the cost of insuring them against killing someone, considering the car is driving autonomously --and you'd be forgiven for thinking motoring is going to be essentially free of charge, in this Utopian future.

Anyone who thinks about it for more than a nano-second knows that you'll still end up paying the same, if not more, than you do now. They'll just change the name of the blood money, or will take it out of your pocket in some other guise.

 

[Rob Cowell]

@Juddian as someone involved in road haulage, what would be your view of getting more freight onto trains? And then much more local road transport to the delivery point. Not necessarily with today's lines and rolling-stock, but also conceptually?

 

[Juddian]

Rob, for years i've yearned for a properly integrated transport network, similar in many ways to what Freightliner used to do.
At one time one of us would run a container full of parcels into Nott'm Freightliner depot which was then transferred onto the train for Edinburgh if i recall right, when another wagon would meet and swap an empty for that loaded unit.

The trouble is, our rail network is antiquated and the cuts of the Beeching years, when hundreds of miles of tracks were not just mothballed but ripped up and the lines built over meaning any future reasonably simple rebuilding of the network was ruined.
Its what we do in this country we don't hedge our bets or leave options open its one bloody great knee jerk reaction after another, throwing vast amounst of taxpayers money at the project of the moment, which may well have had multiple people in the backfground ready to make £millions from those decisions they helped make to suit themselves, vested interests.

Look at how they've not mothballed exsiting coal fired power stations at least for a few years which could have been economically brought up to date by any incorrupt govt in short order, would have been handy now wouldn't it seeing as we're sitting on hundreds of years worth of coal, which would be loaded onto trains for tranfer to those power stations which almost always have rail links direct in.

How do we end up with such utterly useless bloody leaders, they don't elect themselves (well the party leaders do up to a point) but why do people keep electing such rubbish parties in the first place.

Anyway as the voice of reason says, that wasn't why you called.

Our problem with road/rail freight is that it costs a fortune to set up properly with benefits years decades ahead, govts are here today and gone tomorrow and they want instant gandiose schemes for kudos and bragging rights, hence HS2 which should be running for the current govt to bask in the glory of, money no object.
A fully integrated network should have been built from the start, 60's onwards, as it is now where the hell would you site the distribution points, the amount of land used for adequate road and rail links is huge as is the cost.

Then you have this just in time system we've saddled ourselves with, where you can order up to midnight i believe with Next (not as i can afford their clobber) and enjoy next day delivery, that just isn;t going to happen if the parcel industry and us consumers want next day deliveries to be the norm.

We've all painted ourselves into this corner.

My own work involves tanker food deliveries, requiring total traceable security and cleanliness and being pressurised tanks even a roll on roll off train for trailers alone the chances of vehicle damage etc it almost certainly wouldn't happen, the slightest dent could mean contamination let alone danger from vessel once pressuried, and i'm not even sure if standard vehicles like ours on railtrucks would clear the rail bridges...in the USA they run containers double stacked on trains but then the distances involved are huge in comparison.

My previous work on car transporters they used to bring trainloads of cars in direct from the continent to RDCs in the middle of the country, but increasing vandalism and illegal immigrant issues saw that no longer being viable so they are all now typically shipped in.

Its way above my head working out what could be done, the elephant in the room that no one will talk about is that our country is now overcrowded and overbuilt and both issues are gettign worse by the day, land now too valuable for dedicating to mere transport when its probably worth 50 times as much to the all powerful building lobby.
Something will have to be done because the roads are not far off total gridlock, if anything since the lockdown farce ended the roads have been busier than ever, not with lorry traffic as such but with cars, i've really never seen anything like the volumes involved, amost never see a coach now and from what i see the number of people using public transport has dropped dramatically, which would have been fairly predictable folloing two years of operation fear.

Those who use the M25 past Maple Cross (jct 17 if i recall) may have noticed the huge HS2 construction work going on there, whether that's intended for a road/rail interchange i don't know.

 

[TonyP]

I've owned a EV for 2 years now, and will typically do 150miles a day (outside of COVID). Costs is about £40pw to charge the thing every night for 5 days. Doing that in my 120 for the week that is 2.5 refills so around £200pw.

Add in VED servicing etc, I'm even better off.

I have done 22k miles in the EV, no service yet, brakes are good, just tyres need replacing.

Will be interesting to see what the costs look like post April increases, good thing due to COVID I no longer do the trip 5 days a week, so it will balance out.

Are EVs the answer, well if we do not have sufficient electricity, then no. I can't comment on the actual green credentials as I am not clever enough to figure out the impact of all the special materials needed for the batteries etc compared to my 17 year old 120...

All things being equal, I still prefer the roar of a ICE and for that I have my weekend toys, which I'll keep till the .gov force me out if them

 

[Lorin]

I've owned a EV for 2 years now, and will typically do 150miles a day (outside of COVID). Costs is about £40pw to charge the thing every night for 5 days. Doing that in my 120 for the week that is 2.5 refills so around £200pw.

Add in VED servicing etc, I'm even better off.

I have done 22k miles in the EV, no service yet, brakes are good, just tyres need replacing.

Will be interesting to see what the costs look like post April increases, good thing due to COVID I no longer do the trip 5 days a week, so it will balance out.

Are EVs the answer, well if we do not have sufficient electricity, then no. I can't comment on the actual green credentials as I am not clever enough to figure out the impact of all the special materials needed for the batteries etc compared to my 17 year old 120...

All things being equal, I still prefer the roar of a ICE and for that I have my weekend toys, which I'll keep till the .gov force me out if them

Wow! If my maths is correct your EV ‘fuel’ costs are essentially just 1/5 of your 120.

Put another way, for 22k miles the total fuel (i.e., electricity) cost for the EV is just under £1,200 compared to a diesel cost of just under £5,900 for the 120.

The cost of electricity would have to go up by 400% for your EV to cost the same per mile in fuel as your 120 and this is assuming diesel costs don’t rise, which of course they will.

I don’t want an EV but those are some pretty sobering numbers given I spend around £150 month on diesel just in leisure miles in my 80, not to mention the servicing and maintenance costs to keep it in good shape.

 

[stuzbot]

The cost of electricity would have to go up by 400%...

Shhh! --don't give them ideas!

 

[Shayne]

Makes more sense to go back to the future

Ellie (Austin Mini) | Fuelly

www.fuelly.com

 

[Tractionman]

What is the life expectancy of an EV likely to be, given the costs of replacement batteries ?
What is going to be the cost of 'getting rid' of said batteries/vehicles, and places to do that ?
All factors outside of the 'normal' running costs for one, that will surely have to be factored at some point. Someone's got to pay for it, perhaps thats where another tax will hit those owners.
No EV's will outlast a landcruiser that's for sure.
I can't help wondering, in the situation of people with no off road parking, take London as an example, but it doesn't have to be a big city.
No chance of recharging overnight at home or any other time !
Say you set off for work with a full charge, there and back is within range, - unless you stop at a recharging point for hours on the way home after a days work, you ain't gonna make it the next day, - and so it goes on. I can't see any employers investing in charging bays for staff, unless the government buys into that with our cash, and then only large employers.
Road transport, that is just pie in the sky, with payload available and range, regardless of any prototypes or research/development.
As more discussions take place between average Joe, more and more disadvantages are thrown up, that were never considered by the powers that be in their race to push green.

 

[TonyP]

Yes defo saves me a lot. Although it's a company car, its over my allowance so I have a monthly payment, but even with that, I'm still better off just on the fuel costs.

I do think for shorter journeys EV does make a lot of sense, for longer journeys where I have to stop and charge for 40-50mins it's a real drag.

 

[Shayne]

The only logical reason i can possibly imagine for people moving into cities is that can't that they afford to commute for work .

So even if the concept worked its just not financially viable for the vast majority of people .

Oh no - and perhaps a new maximum speed limit !

Electric Car Crusaders Must Acknowledge Problems Or The Revolution Will Fail

While electric car sales continue to boom in Europe and politicians say the technology wins, there’s a steady drumbeat of dissatisfaction from those actually driving the things which needs to be addressed. Unless these problems are confronted and solved, the electric revolution will fail.

www.forbes.com

 

[TonyP]

Not sure on replacement batteries, but is this any different to the current throw away society that change cars every 3 years? Disposal and actually fire risk is a big problem.

Home charging is a issue for many with no off street parking, fortunately I have that luxury. Employers are providing chargers in the office and I know a few years ago there was a gov incentive to do this, not sure if it still exists.

 

[chadr]

The last 3 companies I've worked for, all had "free" charging points in their carparks - you just had to join a "club" or rota and I believe pay a nominal amount to join, as charging was free.

What's not to like?

The mention of Back to the Future reminded me, when are they going to invent hoverboards/cars? Potholes - what potholes?

 

[Higgy]

That's the most Informative bit of 'Blurb' iv read in a while Shayne.... Interesting was the false claims of manufactures regarding Range, Did they learn Nothing from the VW Scandal a while back.......