Don't get an electric car without watching this...

[Cornishman]

Had a weekend family gathering.

Sister's electric car (Zoe) needs an hour on a charger at West Bay on each leg of the journey from West Devon to central Dorset. So it's a 3 hour journey each way (taking it steady), extended by an hour to charge. So, 1/4 of your journey time on a long trip will be spent plugged in!

She has to run 5 different charging aps and carry numerous cables to be sure of getting a charge.

Why can't a common plug, chargers etc be mandated by govt, and why can't you simply 'pay at the pump' with a credit card?

You can't imagine a situation where if you had a Ford you could only fill it at a BP station. Or you had to set up an account with every company whose petrol you might wish to buy. Ot you could find yourself stranded if you broke your mobile phone.

Is anyone in Govt or industry taking this seriously?

I can see no evidence that they are.

She loves her car...has a home charger and it does her 20 mile each way mixed commuter run in town, city and rolling countryside at low cost, but as a medium or long-distance tool ...forget it.

Any Zoe should be able to cover the distance from Plymouth to Bournemouth on a single charge. On a warm day some o& them would manage the return journey. In Europe there are chargers that work using a debit card but a smartphone app can be useful to locate them.

[Richard Simpson Mark II]

That might be what the manufacturers will tell you.

In 'eco' mode, in today's warm weather, her car has an estimated range of 109 miles on a full charge.

It's not the newest model, but the batteries are owned by Renault and will be changed when their performance declines below what Renault says is an acceptable level, so this is their real life performance.

She loves the car fo day to day use, but think before you buy.

[Oop North John]

She loves her car...has a home charger and it does her 20 mile each way mixed commuter run in town, city and rolling countryside at low cost, but as a medium or long-distance tool ...forget it.

If I had an electric car, then for the long journeys I currently do, ie 6 hours plus of driving, I'd hire a car. Not really helping the environment 100%, but ...

[Richard Simpson Mark II]

She commutes...and the electric car is ideal for that.

Her husband's got an old diesel Toyota, which gets used for dump runs and long journeys.

Electric cars are great if you've got regular short journeys to do, room for a home charger and a second car (or can hire a car) for long journeys. But they aren't a viable alternative to internal combustion at the moment.

[Scott_rider]

Seems like we've got a long way to go (pardon the pun) if we're all going to be using electric cars beyond 2030 because the proportion of them being used on the roads in the whole of Europe at the moment is only about 1%...and about 10% of all new car sales are electric...I bet the proportion is lower for the sale of used electric cars...

[Magnusson]

It will probably not affect us much in Europe but I saw in the news that coal power plants in India are running dangerously low on coal. Some of them might go offline and electricity might be rationed (blackouts). I hope it's just exaggerated news and won't be bad but it does show electric vehicles in a different light.

[fatowl]

She loves her car...has a home charger and it does her 20 mile each way mixed commuter run in town, city and rolling countryside at low cost, but as a medium or long-distance tool ...forget it.

If I had an electric car, then for the long journeys I currently do, ie 6 hours plus of driving, I'd hire a car. Not really helping the environment 100%, but ...

You won't be able to do that soon, as petrol and diesel vehicles will be outright banned from 2035.

[Snaf MKII]

You won't be able to do that soon, as petrol and diesel vehicles will be outright banned from 2035.

Is that true? I thought it was only new sales.

[Cornishman]

You won't be able to do that soon, as petrol and diesel vehicles will be outright banned from 2035.

Is that true? I thought it was only new sales.

Me too. I was going to ask for a link to any suggestion that ICE vehicles were going to be removed from the road by then.

[catcitrus]

An outright ban in 15 years--utter nonsense--road haulage will still be diesel powered and who can afford 35k for a new NONE GREEN electric vehicle! I had to search a bit over the weekend to find E5--some smaller stations with fewer pumps are just E10 and diesel--and we all know that Ethanol production and addition is certainly not green--they are struggling on the water and power usage in the production process to make it anywhere near fossil fuel processing. They are finding ways of making the stuff from none food based harvests--but thats a way off yet--so banning fossil fuels is going to scupper that whole industry anyway. However, there are ships at sea running on pure ethanol instead of HFO.