If there was a lifetime warranty on batteries, it would certainly change the game. I have an EV, not because I am a fan, but because it made economic sense last time I renewed the car with the low BIK. I do like the car and I would quite happily hang-on to it (Jag I-Pace). But, - Tech is a bit old now and 240 miles is a dream on a charge, especially if using motorways. It pretty much rules the car out for the annual trip skiing or summer holidays in France. - The charging speed is a bit random. It is supposed to do over 100kw/h on fast chargers but last time I used a 50KW, it was trotting at about 22Kw. I have done more on other chargers like 70Kw/h but never seen over 100 - After using a fast charger, I had an issue and the battery would only go to 75% - Got it fixed under warranty, but the garage told me that it would have been a £7k job. Apparently it take 12Hrs to drop the battery. I cannot see why it should take so long?? - I was chatting with my independent garage and they were telling me that the economics didn't add up for them to support EVs. As most cars are under warranty or part of fleets, they are maintained by main dealers and they cannot recoup the investments in tools and training. So, when the lease is up, I think that I will let the car go. And as much as I am not reluctant to another EV, the BIK is going up massively and the Road Tax is going to apply to them, with most decent EVs getting in the £40k luxury add-on tax. So, I am thinking about going older rather than newer next.
(for me) most useful E.V. post so far ^ not that i have first-hand experience with batteries this size, but already suspected that constant "fast-charge" use could be problematic.
Useful post, thank you. I just checked out the ‘luxury car tax’, we don’t have such a thing here yet. Feck me, it applies to any car new or used that originally had a list price of >£40,000 (pretty much anything decent, EV or ICE) and is applied at a rate of an extra £425 on the road tax for the first 5 years of the vehicle’s life. Can’t venue blame Labour for bringing that one in. Still, that’s not as bad as the VRT (vehicle registration tax) our Govt applies on every vehicle, new or old, coming into the country. It’s roughly 13.3% of the list price . Anyway, what about Ducati in a post VW world?
Best buy a bevel while they are still affordable. Prices will go through the roof when everyone turns electric. I've already got mine though!
Just to get the Hydrogen thing out of the way. I worked on a Hydrogen fuel-cell project ~6 years ago and at a UK Hydrogen conference there was a plan for mains piping to be in place for the next generation of domestic CH boilers in the Netherlands somewhere. I never followed up on this, but people were taking it seriously at the time. Edit - Just found this: https://www.sgn.co.uk/news/visiting-hydrogen-home-netherlands
UK gov cancelled a a proposed trial of piping 30% mix of hydrogen in the gas main to a small number of properties, think ( I could be wrong) the NIMBYs won out
For balance though, why should there be a lifetime warranty on batteries to get ‘people interested’? Most don’t have a clue that the batteries degrade, even less have a clue that a ICE engine after 50k miles is probably only at 75% of its original efficiency, so measured in a a true like for like the difference isn’t huge but probably an ICE levels out at 75% efficient for maybe the next 75k… either way I don’t believe the infrastructure is why people aren’t buying them. It’s purely cost, and stupid gimmicks and ugly design. I went to Exeter in an I4 last month and thought ‘what a lovely car’ I couldn’t even really tell it was electric, but it’s built on an ICE platform. Most others look absolutely foul… the people who aren’t buying them (like me) aren’t buying any new car, because they are ugly and full of crap I don’t need. I’ve got a 10 year old BMW that costs £35 a year to tax and does 45mpg so why do I want a new car?
Sadly jaguar have an appalling reliability record for EVs. The internet is littered with people with the sorts of problems described. For a premium brand it’s unforgivable and stinks of bringing a product to market with insufficient testing. The issues you describe have not occurred across several hundred EVs on our fleet, except that charging rate can be variable to some degree (usually based on how many are sharing the points at one time) but even then nothing like the drop you are describing. We don’t have any Jags on our fleet, and the lease company we use don’t even offer one (but offer several more expensive cars so not just a price issue) which I think speaks volumes.
"Out of a fleet of EVs of approx 700 I haven’t heard of a single battery related issue - however we do give back at 4 years." After reading the above, what are the vehicles in your EV Fleet TBay? - it would really help the reader if you could nail a few flags to the mast and try and build some positives here.
We have a wide range as lease car company allows most things. But to save writing it all out again, here is a message I sent to someone who PMed me about EVs, but did forget to mention that electric minis are shite, there were a few on fleet but they were so bad most were returned and one is used as a pool car now and sits unused in a corner as people would generally rather walk than use it. At the moment the popular ones seem to be the MG4, Kia EV6 (bit more expensive) and the Hyundai Ioniq. We have a budget of £40k and anything over that we have to pay over the four years. So a £50k car would cost you about £200 a month but a £40k one is zero of that makes sense. That tends to bias people to the low 40s as you may as well get the best you can without paying extra. The Kia’s were on offer for a while and are bloody stunning motors. I would have one in a second if I could. I went for the MG4 as it had the longest range at the time - mine is the extended range one, stated figures are exp mile range but I find about 280 on the motorway and have had up to 350 on A roads. I visit a lot of sites that are in the middle of nowhere because of what they do so cover a lot of A roads and it’s perfect. All three of those will do 300ish miles on a full charge. Other cars that are common are the MG5 - more traditional estate but lower range ~250, Kia Niro - ok but range of ~270, ID3 ~ overpriced and range of 240 max is unless you go for super expensive models, ID4 - awful fat SUV thing with a range of 140-180 depending on model, Nissan Arriva - were cheap at first and big SUV thing with ok range. A couple of Ford explorers have just been bought but not seen enough of them to know what they are like yet. We can charge at work which helps. I think probably 10% just charge at work, 70% have a home charger and about 20% rely on public network. On mine a full charge on slow charger is about 8 hours, fast about 90 mins and on a super rapid (type you find at services and becoming more common now everywhere) I can get a 70% boost in about 15-20 minutes. Last few % always takes longer. Present running costs for me are approx 1.9p per mile at last calculation but I am very careful to take advantage of our cheap overnight tariff at 6.5p per kilowatt.
just a quickie on the hydrogen thing. today i had a DELPHI rep in to discus some future training needs for one or two of the lads. they are now offering courses on hydrogen powered vehicles. they are expecting it to be big business in the fairly near future.
Is there still a massive BIK waiver for choosing an EV as a company vehicle? If that were removed or, at least, put on a level playing field with ICE would that perhaps change the dynamics of the fleet mix?
Yes there is. It’s the sole reason EV’s are viable and you would rarely see one without it. Every one of them is subsidised by the rest of the taxpayers. I don’t mind the technology at all, it’s interesting and effective. But I do resent the massive unbalanced way the market is shaped by HM government with its large incentives for only some and the ludicrous time frame on implementation. The whole thing should be market led. We all bought smartphones because the products were great not because we were legislated into them.
It is increasing year on year but still low. I don’t think it would affect our fleet as the company made a decision to go all electric across everything possible. So now there is only big plant stuff left that is ICE. Assuming the accountants are correct it’s saving an absolute fortune on running costs. For other companies it might have more of an effect. For us the £40k budget drives most peoples decisions I think. There are a few Polestars (really nice) and Tesla (overpriced tat) and more exotic stuff but that’s mostly senior managers who are happy to splash the cash.
