Ducato e has arrived

[Gromett]

I wouldn't touch any van that is a EV version of an ICE van. So the e Ducato is using the same chassis as the Diesel Ducato. It is not making best use of EV technology.

Look out for vans from new providers like Arrival. That is where the competitive vehicles will come from with useful range and payloads.

 

[Guigsy]

I wouldn't touch any van that is a EV version of an ICE van. So the e Ducato is using the same chassis as the Diesel Ducato. It is not making best use of EV technology.

Look out for vans from new providers like Arrival. That is where the competitive vehicles will come from with useful range and payloads.

I'm not convinced it makes as much difference for vans as it does for cars. Vans have a ladder chassis that's trivial to convert to roller skate type architecture. No need to squeeze batteries under seats and into a monocoque that was expecting all the weight up front.

The Arrival vans aren't looking massively better than the Ford or Stellanis cargo vans. 150 mile range and less than a tonne of capacity in a 6m vehicle isn't that compelling.

 

[beachwomble]

...has arrived and going nowhere!!

Council ‘can’t charge’ new £8m electric-powered bin wagons

York Council has been accused of failing to build facilities to charge the vehicles in time.

www.yahoo.com

 

[Gromett]

I'm not convinced it makes as much difference for vans as it does for cars. Vans have a ladder chassis that's trivial to convert to roller skate type architecture. No need to squeeze batteries under seats and into a monocoque that was expecting all the weight up front.

The Arrival vans aren't looking massively better than the Ford or Stellanis cargo vans. 150 mile range and less than a tonne of capacity in a 6m vehicle isn't that compelling.

The problem is the vans are designed and built with very little consideration to weight. Just enough to get the payload and no more.
Once you add "enough" batteries back in you are struggling for payload. Vans based on ICE vans have to balance payload vs range much more so than a custom designed one.

The arrival vans look good not only due to being an EV but their big box style construction ideal for motorhome conversions.

 

[Guigsy]

The problem is the vans are designed and built with very little consideration to weight. Just enough to get the payload and no more.
Once you add "enough" batteries back in you are struggling for payload. Vans based on ICE vans have to balance payload vs range much more so than a custom designed one.

The arrival vans look good not only due to being an EV but their big box style construction ideal for motorhome conversions.

The Arrival vans appear to have less payload than the e-Ducato. Especially if you put your larger battery in.

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[Gromett]

The Arrival vans appear to have less payload than the e-Ducato. Especially if you put your larger battery in.

Think you may want to check your facts there?

source: https://insideevs.com/news/492523/arrival-electric-van-over-200-miles-range/


Fiat E-Ducato payload capacity

Both GVWs are available with both battery sizes – and under certain conditions, both are legal to drive on a standard UK driving licence (but only because the E-Ducato is an electric van).


As a result, the E-Ducato has a whopping 1,885kg maximum payload for the smallest 4,250kg panel van with the smallest battery pack – a higher payload than any other large electric van currently on sale.


Minimum panel van payload is 690kg for the 3,500kg model with the bigger battery and the largest bodywork, with every model in between rated differently, depending on size, trim level and fitted equipment.


source: https://www.parkers.co.uk/vans-pickups/fiat/ducato/2021-e-ducato-dimensions/

 

[Gromett]

Also if you are wondering about the 4,250KG rather than 3,500KG

Gross vehicle weight increased for electric vans

Drivers who hold a standard car licence will now be able to drive a van weighing up to 4.25 tonnes if said van is an alternative fuel vehicle

www.parkers.co.uk

 

[Wack]

Never was a vehicle more unsuited to be a motorhome than any electric van, range, weight & cost are all prohibitive


I'm 240 miles from Dover so even if it did the claimed 150 miles I'd need to charge it twice so I could get off the boat fully charged, I suppose on board charging will become a revenue stream for the ferry companies if it isn't already

Realistically it's likely to be 100 miles so 3 charges, the only advantage I can see is I won't need to spend £20 in Starbucks like most EV car owners appear to be doing.

I just went through a typical chassis cab configuration
XLWB
4250kg big battery, airbags, £90,000 before it goes to the body builder assuming the £74500 is plus vat

 

[Jonno1103]

Never was a vehicle more unsuited to be a motorhome than any electric van, range, weight & cost are all prohibitive


I'm 240 miles from Dover so even if it did the claimed 150 miles I'd need to charge it twice so I could get off the boat fully charged, I suppose on board charging will become a revenue stream for the ferry companies if it isn't already

Realistically it's likely to be 100 miles so 3 charges, the only advantage I can see is I won't need to spend £20 in Starbucks like most EV car owners appear to be doing.

I just went through a typical chassis cab configuration
XLWB
4250kg big battery, airbags, £90,000 before it goes to the body builder assuming the £74500 is plus vat

View attachment 706564

And that's without any thoughts of AL-Ko, if that will even be an option for converters.

I've said all along the simple drop in replacement of HVO100 fuel is the way forward.

 

[tonyidle]

And that's without any thoughts of AL-Ko, if that will even be an option for converters.

I've said all along the simple drop in replacement of HVO100 fuel is the way forward.

Simple drop-in replacement??

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[Wack]

And that's without any thoughts of AL-Ko, if that will even be an option for converters.

I've said all along the simple drop in replacement of HVO100 fuel is the way forward.

I suppose it depends where the battery pack is, if it's where the engine was but if it's between the chassis rails they're stuffed

The price of vans is nuts these days

In 2001 I imported a xlwb transit pickup from Belgium, it was brand new with AC fitted £12000+ vat

2008 I bought a 3.0 iveco daily pickup in the UK, that was £14,000, + vat

The ducato these days is 36k without a body 74k for an e ducato plus vat

If that's the future nobody running a business is doing it with a van

 

[2GB Racing]

Slightly tongue in cheek and rather long and stolen from a mates face book page, but as your talking Jag I Pace

Why I’ve pulled the plug on my electric car

As I watch my family strike out on foot across the fields into driving rain and gathering darkness, my wife holding each child’s hand, our new year plans in ruins, while I do what I can to make our dead car safe before abandoning it a mile short of home, full of luggage on a country lane, it occurs to me not for the first time that if we are going to save the planet we will have to find another way. Because electric cars are not the answer.

Yes, it’s the Jaguar again. My doomed bloody £65,000 iPace that has done nothing but fail at everything it was supposed to do for more than two years now, completely dead this time, its lifeless corpse blocking the single-track road.

I can’t even roll it to a safer spot because it can’t be put in neutral. For when an electric car dies, it dies hard. And then lies there as big and grey and not-going-anywhere as the poacher-slain bull elephant I once saw rotting by a roadside in northern Kenya. Just a bit less smelly.

Not that this is unusual. Since I bought my eco dream car in late 2020, in a deluded Thunbergian frenzy, it has spent more time off the road than on it, beached at the dealership for months at a time on account of innumerable electrical calamities, while I galumph around in the big diesel “courtesy cars” they send me under the terms of the warranty.

But this time I don’t want one. And I don’t want my own car back either. I have asked the guys who sold it to me to sell it again, as soon as it is fixed, to the first mug who walks into the shop. Because I am going back to petrol while there is still time.

And if the government really does ban new wet fuel cars after 2030, then we will eventually have to go back to horses. Because the electric vehicle industry is no readier to get a family home from Cornwall at Christmas time (as I was trying to do) than it is to fly us all to Jupiter. The cars are useless, the infrastructure is not there and you’re honestly better off walking. Even on the really long journeys. In fact, especially on the long journeys. The short ones they can just about manage. It’s no wonder Tesla shares are down 71 per cent. It’s all a huge fraud. And, for me, it’s over.

Yet the new owner of my “preloved” premium electric vehicle, fired with a messianic desire to make a better world for his children, will not know this. He will be delighted with his purchase and overjoyed to find there are still six months of warranty left, little suspecting that once that has expired — and with it the free repairs and replacement cars for those long spells off road — he will be functionally carless.

He will be over the moon to learn that it has “a range of up to 292 miles”. No need to tell him what that really means is “220 miles”. Why electric carmakers are allowed to tell these lies is a mystery to me. As it soon will be to him.

Although for the first few days he won’t worry especially. He’ll think he can just nip into a fuel station and charge it up again. Ho ho ho. No need to tell him that two out of three roadside chargers in this country are broken or busy at any one time. Or that the built-in “find my nearest charge point” function doesn’t work, has never worked, and isn’t meant to work.

Or that apps like Zap-Map don’t work either because the chargers they send you to are always either busy or broken or require a membership card you don’t have or an app you can’t download because there’s no 5G here, in the middle of nowhere, where you will now probably die.

Or that the Society of Motor Manufacturers said this week that only 23 new chargers are being installed nationwide each day, of the 100 per day that were promised (as a proud early adopter, I told myself that charging would become easier as the network grew, but it hasn’t grown, while the number of e-drivers has tripled, so it’s actually harder now than it was two years ago).

There are, of course, plus sides to electric ownership. Such as the camaraderie when we encounter each other, tired and weeping at yet another service station with only two chargers, one of which still has the “this fault has been reported” sign on it from when you were here last August, and the other is of the measly 3kWh variety, which means you will have to spend the night in a Travelodge while your stupid drum lazily inhales enough juice to get home.

Together, in the benighted charging zone, we leccy drivers laugh about what fools we are and drool over the diesel hatchbacks nonchalantly filling up across the way (“imagine getting to a fuel station and knowing for sure you will be able to refuel!”) and talk in the hour-long queue at Exeter services about the petrol car we will buy as soon as we get home.

We filled up there last week on the way back from Cornwall, adding two hours to our four-hour journey, by which time Esther wasn’t speaking to me. She’s been telling me to get rid of the iPace since it ruined last summer’s holidays in both Wales and Devon (“If you won’t let us fly any more, at least buy a car that can get us to the places we’re still allowed to go!”).

But I kept begging her to give me one last chance, as if I’d refused to give up a mistress, rather than a dull family car. Until this time, a couple of miles from home, when a message flashed up on the dash: “Assisted braking not available — proceed with caution.” Then: “Steering control unavailable.”

And then, as I inched off the dual carriageway at our turnoff, begging it to make the last mile, children weeping at the scary noises coming from both car and father: “Gearbox fault detected.” CLUNK. WHIRRR. CRACK.

And dead. Nothing. Poached elephant. I called Jaguar Assist (there is a button in the roof that does it directly — most useful feature on the car) who told me they could have a mechanic there in four hours (who would laugh and say, “Can’t help you, pal. You’ve got a software issue there. I’m just a car mechanic. And this isn’t a car, it’s a laptop on wheels.”)

So Esther and the kids headed for home across the sleety wastes, a vision of post-apocalyptic misery like something out of Cormac McCarthy, while I saw out 2022 waiting for a tow-truck. Again.

But don’t let that put you off. I see in the paper that electric car sales are at record levels and production is struggling to keep up with demand. So why not buy mine? It’s clean as a whistle and boasts super-low mileage. After all, it’s hardly been driven . . .

 

[Jonno1103]

Simple drop-in replacement??

It's fuel made from food waste, McDonalds used deep fryer oil etc and specifically farmed none food grade rapeseed, corn & sunflowers which can simply replace diesel especially in Euro 6 Final engines. Zero emissions, no Sox or Nox and negligible CO2 so it's fully ULEZ complaint etc and has a 10 year shelf life. Starting to be rolled out in forecourts in Ireland and should begin to be available over here last quarter of 2023.

Many fleet users such as logistics, skip hire etc have already switched to it.

 

[Landy Andy]

My local charge point. Been like this for well over a year now. Never worked since installed.

 

[Jonno1103]

I suppose it depends where the battery pack is, if it's where the engine was but if it's between the chassis rails they're stuffed

The price of vans is nuts these days

In 2001 I imported a xlwb transit pickup from Belgium, it was brand new with AC fitted £12000+ vat

2008 I bought a 3.0 iveco daily pickup in the UK, that was £14,000, + vat

The ducato these days is 36k without a body 74k for an e ducato plus vat

If that's the future nobody running a business is doing it with a van

Yep, even a standard panel van is now £50k + VAT, makes me wonder if the converters are actually making money on them when the cost of a workforce and utilities is also considered. No wonder they're switching to the cheaper Ford.

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[2GB Racing]

Very good video on JCB Facebook page re Hydrogen powered site wheeled loaders are virtually ready for production and most of the engine is the standard JCB unit, same with gearbox and hydraulics etc. No wonder Lord Bamford has put his money where engineering expertise lies.

 

[Guigsy]

It's fuel made from food waste, McDonalds used deep fryer oil etc and specifically farmed none food grade rapeseed, corn & sunflowers which can simply replace diesel especially in Euro 6 Final engines. Zero emissions, no Sox or Nox and negligible CO2 so it's fully ULEZ complaint etc and has a 10 year shelf life. Starting to be rolled out in forecourts in Ireland and should begin to be available over here last quarter of 2023.

Many fleet users such as logistics, skip hire etc have already switched to it.

Synthetic fuels will probably offer a lifeline for performance engines and maybe some niche diesel applications. But I suspect it's going to be expensive. It's going to take quite a lot of energy to make each litre of fuel, which is kind of wasteful. It'll still make NOx as that comes from burning anything in air. And diesel replacements will probably still make particulates as it's still burning long chain hydrocarbons (biofuels are sometimes worse in this area). It won't be a silver bullet.

 

[2GB Racing]

Rape seed oil and derivatives off have been used for prob 30 + yrs as a diesel substitute, several bus company’s made the switch for in town buses as a slightly cleaner burn, Shame that Methane from sewage plants can not be collected efficiently as every town has a sewage plant, just like in the Mad Max movies but again could never supply demand but could end up like LPG just the odd pump and tank around.
All of these ideas like Electric, Methane, Hydrogen and petrol with steam injection are all 100 + yrs old nothing is really new, What we need is the currently unavailable, but soon it will be.

 

[Wack]

I suppose it depends where the battery pack is, if it's where the engine was but if it's between the chassis rails they're stuffed

The price of vans is nuts these days

In 2001 I imported a xlwb transit pickup from Belgium, it was brand new with AC fitted £12000+ vat

2008 I bought a 3.0 iveco daily pickup in the UK, that was £14,000, + vat

The ducato these days is 36k without a body 74k for an e ducato plus vat

If that's the future nobody running a business is doing it with a van

Even peugeot chassis prices are crazy

Come 2030 prices to get anything done in a house are going to be astronomical if it's £60k for an electic builders pickup and diesel isn't an option because you can't drive it anywhere without a £100 a day ULEZ charge.

 

[gus-lopez]

I just went through a typical chassis cab configuration
XLWB
4250kg big battery, airbags, £90,000 before it goes to the body builder assuming the £74500 is plus vat

I was looking at tat in brighton. Maxxus ev chassis cab I think it was near 40k & looked like i had welded it on a bad day with one eye shut.
2 other panel vans , wind pour own windows up, 68k +vat.
they're dreaming.

The price of vans is nuts these days

In 2001 I imported a xlwb transit pickup from Belgium, it was brand new with AC fitted £12000+ vat

2008 I bought a 3.0 iveco daily pickup in the UK, that was £14,000, + vat

The ducato these days is 36k without a body 74k for an e ducato plus vat

If that's the future nobody running a business is doing it with a van

On here Ralph , of Ralph-n-Bev , converted his own new Peugeot Boxer 2.2 XLWB van bought new in 2015.
& I quote from the build thread

**So you know the conversion was on a new Peugeot Boxer 2.2 Extra long wheel base.
We specked up the van adding some extras. So glad we did, never had some of them
before but wouldn't be without them now.
Here is a list.....

Cruise Control / Speed Limiter
Reversing Camera linked to central radio system screen
Satellite Navigation
Bluetooth Radio
Cab Air Con
Uprated Alternator 180A
Reinforced Battery
Engine under-Tray Protection
Front and Rear Mudflaps
Uprated Tyre's 16" Four Season
Alloys
LED day running lights
Rear Suspension Upgrade
Metallic Paint

Base vehicle with extras and Vat £ 21,788.00***

So tell me how we have got to 50k + for basic vans now? & no it isn't wages, cost of anything, inflation.

My local charge point. Been like this for well over a year now. Never worked since installed. View attachment 706596

& that VW still can't park between the lines.

Yep, even a standard panel van is now £50k + VAT,

As above look at the price .look at the extras. nothing has gone up that amount in 7 years.
& there van was fitted with state of the art ,no expense spared fittings, elctrics etc & still came in a tad under 40k ,if I remember correctly?

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[Wack]

I was looking at tat in brighton. Maxxus ev chassis cab I think it was near 40k & looked like i had welded it on a bad day with one eye shut.
2 other panel vans , wind pour own windows up, 68k +vat.
they're dreaming.

On here Ralph , of Ralph-n-Bev , converted his own new Peugeot Boxer 2.2 XLWB van bought new in 2015.
& I quote from the build thread

**So you know the conversion was on a new Peugeot Boxer 2.2 Extra long wheel base.
We specked up the van adding some extras. So glad we did, never had some of them
before but wouldn't be without them now.
Here is a list.....

Cruise Control / Speed Limiter
Reversing Camera linked to central radio system screen
Satellite Navigation
Bluetooth Radio
Cab Air Con
Uprated Alternator 180A
Reinforced Battery
Engine under-Tray Protection
Front and Rear Mudflaps
Uprated Tyre's 16" Four Season
Alloys
LED day running lights
Rear Suspension Upgrade
Metallic Paint

Base vehicle with extras and Vat £ 21,788.00***

So tell me how we have got to 50k + for basic vans now? & no it isn't wages, cost of anything, inflation.



& that VW still can't park between the lines.

As above look at the price .look at the extras. nothing has gone up that amount in 7 years.
& there van was fitted with state of the art ,no expense spared fittings, elctrics etc & still came in a tad under 40k ,if I remember correctly?

I think its all about making PCP look attractive

£50k for a BMW or £4000 down and £499 a month for 36 months

It gets handed back at 3 years old with 24000 miles on it, immaculate condition or you get billed for repairs that won't happen then it goes off to auction, they probably still make a profit over the factory gate price when they sell it plus they've had 22k out of you and can PCP you another one

Rinse and repeat

If they sold it for 35k and people paid it off over 3-4 years they'd probably keep it far longer

 

[Guigsy]

At the moment, second hand values are very high. Companies like Toyota are even 'factory reconditioning' cars to sell them a second time. Most EVs are expected to have good lifetimes on their batteries, and there are few other parts to wear out. Maybe the model is moving towards the car companies owning more? Therefore the new price becomes less relevant as it's just the lease costs people pay. But this doesn't work for motorhomes though because the whole vehicle needs to be heavily modified.

 

[Wack]

Slightly tongue in cheek and rather long and stolen from a mates face book page, but as your talking Jag I Pace

Why I’ve pulled the plug on my electric car

As I watch my family strike out on foot across the fields into driving rain and gathering darkness, my wife holding each child’s hand, our new year plans in ruins, while I do what I can to make our dead car safe before abandoning it a mile short of home, full of luggage on a country lane, it occurs to me not for the first time that if we are going to save the planet we will have to find another way. Because electric cars are not the answer.

Yes, it’s the Jaguar again. My doomed bloody £65,000 iPace that has done nothing but fail at everything it was supposed to do for more than two years now, completely dead this time, its lifeless corpse blocking the single-track road.

I can’t even roll it to a safer spot because it can’t be put in neutral. For when an electric car dies, it dies hard. And then lies there as big and grey and not-going-anywhere as the poacher-slain bull elephant I once saw rotting by a roadside in northern Kenya. Just a bit less smelly.

Not that this is unusual. Since I bought my eco dream car in late 2020, in a deluded Thunbergian frenzy, it has spent more time off the road than on it, beached at the dealership for months at a time on account of innumerable electrical calamities, while I galumph around in the big diesel “courtesy cars” they send me under the terms of the warranty.

But this time I don’t want one. And I don’t want my own car back either. I have asked the guys who sold it to me to sell it again, as soon as it is fixed, to the first mug who walks into the shop. Because I am going back to petrol while there is still time.

And if the government really does ban new wet fuel cars after 2030, then we will eventually have to go back to horses. Because the electric vehicle industry is no readier to get a family home from Cornwall at Christmas time (as I was trying to do) than it is to fly us all to Jupiter. The cars are useless, the infrastructure is not there and you’re honestly better off walking. Even on the really long journeys. In fact, especially on the long journeys. The short ones they can just about manage. It’s no wonder Tesla shares are down 71 per cent. It’s all a huge fraud. And, for me, it’s over.

Yet the new owner of my “preloved” premium electric vehicle, fired with a messianic desire to make a better world for his children, will not know this. He will be delighted with his purchase and overjoyed to find there are still six months of warranty left, little suspecting that once that has expired — and with it the free repairs and replacement cars for those long spells off road — he will be functionally carless.

He will be over the moon to learn that it has “a range of up to 292 miles”. No need to tell him what that really means is “220 miles”. Why electric carmakers are allowed to tell these lies is a mystery to me. As it soon will be to him.

Although for the first few days he won’t worry especially. He’ll think he can just nip into a fuel station and charge it up again. Ho ho ho. No need to tell him that two out of three roadside chargers in this country are broken or busy at any one time. Or that the built-in “find my nearest charge point” function doesn’t work, has never worked, and isn’t meant to work.

Or that apps like Zap-Map don’t work either because the chargers they send you to are always either busy or broken or require a membership card you don’t have or an app you can’t download because there’s no 5G here, in the middle of nowhere, where you will now probably die.

Or that the Society of Motor Manufacturers said this week that only 23 new chargers are being installed nationwide each day, of the 100 per day that were promised (as a proud early adopter, I told myself that charging would become easier as the network grew, but it hasn’t grown, while the number of e-drivers has tripled, so it’s actually harder now than it was two years ago).

There are, of course, plus sides to electric ownership. Such as the camaraderie when we encounter each other, tired and weeping at yet another service station with only two chargers, one of which still has the “this fault has been reported” sign on it from when you were here last August, and the other is of the measly 3kWh variety, which means you will have to spend the night in a Travelodge while your stupid drum lazily inhales enough juice to get home.

Together, in the benighted charging zone, we leccy drivers laugh about what fools we are and drool over the diesel hatchbacks nonchalantly filling up across the way (“imagine getting to a fuel station and knowing for sure you will be able to refuel!”) and talk in the hour-long queue at Exeter services about the petrol car we will buy as soon as we get home.

We filled up there last week on the way back from Cornwall, adding two hours to our four-hour journey, by which time Esther wasn’t speaking to me. She’s been telling me to get rid of the iPace since it ruined last summer’s holidays in both Wales and Devon (“If you won’t let us fly any more, at least buy a car that can get us to the places we’re still allowed to go!”).

But I kept begging her to give me one last chance, as if I’d refused to give up a mistress, rather than a dull family car. Until this time, a couple of miles from home, when a message flashed up on the dash: “Assisted braking not available — proceed with caution.” Then: “Steering control unavailable.”

And then, as I inched off the dual carriageway at our turnoff, begging it to make the last mile, children weeping at the scary noises coming from both car and father: “Gearbox fault detected.” CLUNK. WHIRRR. CRACK.

And dead. Nothing. Poached elephant. I called Jaguar Assist (there is a button in the roof that does it directly — most useful feature on the car) who told me they could have a mechanic there in four hours (who would laugh and say, “Can’t help you, pal. You’ve got a software issue there. I’m just a car mechanic. And this isn’t a car, it’s a laptop on wheels.”)

So Esther and the kids headed for home across the sleety wastes, a vision of post-apocalyptic misery like something out of Cormac McCarthy, while I saw out 2022 waiting for a tow-truck. Again.

But don’t let that put you off. I see in the paper that electric car sales are at record levels and production is struggling to keep up with demand. So why not buy mine? It’s clean as a whistle and boasts super-low mileage. After all, it’s hardly been driven . . .

I sold a turntable to a guy in Brighton, I live in Warrington, I refused to post it so he came up for it

By 4pm he hadn't turned up, so I gave him a call. it was February and he was in an ePace, the motorway had been a nightmare, he'd run out of charge twice because heater, wipers, lights and queues

Third time he stopped to charge he had 10% so daren't leave the motorway services, 2 of the chargers were broken and there were 4 cars waiting for the 2 that were working so he checked into the hotel.

He was on my doorstep at 8am but potentially had the same journey back

 

[Gromett]

Slightly tongue in cheek and rather long and stolen from a mates face book page, but as your talking Jag I Pace

Why I’ve pulled the plug on my electric car

As I watch my family strike out on foot across the fields into driving rain and gathering darkness, my wife holding each child’s hand, our new year plans in ruins, while I do what I can to make our dead car safe before abandoning it a mile short of home, full of luggage on a country lane, it occurs to me not for the first time that if we are going to save the planet we will have to find another way. Because electric cars are not the answer.

Yes, it’s the Jaguar again. My doomed bloody £65,000 iPace that has done nothing but fail at everything it was supposed to do for more than two years now, completely dead this time, its lifeless corpse blocking the single-track road.

I can’t even roll it to a safer spot because it can’t be put in neutral. For when an electric car dies, it dies hard. And then lies there as big and grey and not-going-anywhere as the poacher-slain bull elephant I once saw rotting by a roadside in northern Kenya. Just a bit less smelly.

Not that this is unusual. Since I bought my eco dream car in late 2020, in a deluded Thunbergian frenzy, it has spent more time off the road than on it, beached at the dealership for months at a time on account of innumerable electrical calamities, while I galumph around in the big diesel “courtesy cars” they send me under the terms of the warranty.

But this time I don’t want one. And I don’t want my own car back either. I have asked the guys who sold it to me to sell it again, as soon as it is fixed, to the first mug who walks into the shop. Because I am going back to petrol while there is still time.

And if the government really does ban new wet fuel cars after 2030, then we will eventually have to go back to horses. Because the electric vehicle industry is no readier to get a family home from Cornwall at Christmas time (as I was trying to do) than it is to fly us all to Jupiter. The cars are useless, the infrastructure is not there and you’re honestly better off walking. Even on the really long journeys. In fact, especially on the long journeys. The short ones they can just about manage. It’s no wonder Tesla shares are down 71 per cent. It’s all a huge fraud. And, for me, it’s over.

Yet the new owner of my “preloved” premium electric vehicle, fired with a messianic desire to make a better world for his children, will not know this. He will be delighted with his purchase and overjoyed to find there are still six months of warranty left, little suspecting that once that has expired — and with it the free repairs and replacement cars for those long spells off road — he will be functionally carless.

He will be over the moon to learn that it has “a range of up to 292 miles”. No need to tell him what that really means is “220 miles”. Why electric carmakers are allowed to tell these lies is a mystery to me. As it soon will be to him.

Although for the first few days he won’t worry especially. He’ll think he can just nip into a fuel station and charge it up again. Ho ho ho. No need to tell him that two out of three roadside chargers in this country are broken or busy at any one time. Or that the built-in “find my nearest charge point” function doesn’t work, has never worked, and isn’t meant to work.

Or that apps like Zap-Map don’t work either because the chargers they send you to are always either busy or broken or require a membership card you don’t have or an app you can’t download because there’s no 5G here, in the middle of nowhere, where you will now probably die.

Or that the Society of Motor Manufacturers said this week that only 23 new chargers are being installed nationwide each day, of the 100 per day that were promised (as a proud early adopter, I told myself that charging would become easier as the network grew, but it hasn’t grown, while the number of e-drivers has tripled, so it’s actually harder now than it was two years ago).

There are, of course, plus sides to electric ownership. Such as the camaraderie when we encounter each other, tired and weeping at yet another service station with only two chargers, one of which still has the “this fault has been reported” sign on it from when you were here last August, and the other is of the measly 3kWh variety, which means you will have to spend the night in a Travelodge while your stupid drum lazily inhales enough juice to get home.

Together, in the benighted charging zone, we leccy drivers laugh about what fools we are and drool over the diesel hatchbacks nonchalantly filling up across the way (“imagine getting to a fuel station and knowing for sure you will be able to refuel!”) and talk in the hour-long queue at Exeter services about the petrol car we will buy as soon as we get home.

We filled up there last week on the way back from Cornwall, adding two hours to our four-hour journey, by which time Esther wasn’t speaking to me. She’s been telling me to get rid of the iPace since it ruined last summer’s holidays in both Wales and Devon (“If you won’t let us fly any more, at least buy a car that can get us to the places we’re still allowed to go!”).

But I kept begging her to give me one last chance, as if I’d refused to give up a mistress, rather than a dull family car. Until this time, a couple of miles from home, when a message flashed up on the dash: “Assisted braking not available — proceed with caution.” Then: “Steering control unavailable.”

And then, as I inched off the dual carriageway at our turnoff, begging it to make the last mile, children weeping at the scary noises coming from both car and father: “Gearbox fault detected.” CLUNK. WHIRRR. CRACK.

And dead. Nothing. Poached elephant. I called Jaguar Assist (there is a button in the roof that does it directly — most useful feature on the car) who told me they could have a mechanic there in four hours (who would laugh and say, “Can’t help you, pal. You’ve got a software issue there. I’m just a car mechanic. And this isn’t a car, it’s a laptop on wheels.”)

So Esther and the kids headed for home across the sleety wastes, a vision of post-apocalyptic misery like something out of Cormac McCarthy, while I saw out 2022 waiting for a tow-truck. Again.

But don’t let that put you off. I see in the paper that electric car sales are at record levels and production is struggling to keep up with demand. So why not buy mine? It’s clean as a whistle and boasts super-low mileage. After all, it’s hardly been driven . . .

That is not a facebook post sorry. It is an article written by a "journalist" for money.

2 points. It was a Jag, not exactly a brand of car known for reliability. These faults could have happened to any brand or model of any car by any manufacturer.

It was written by Giles Coren for The Times. He has to big up the story to earn the money.

Why I’ve pulled the plug on my electric car

As I watch my family strike out on foot across the fields into driving rain and gathering darkness, my wife holding each child’s hand, our new year plans in ruins, while I do what I can to make our

www.thetimes.co.uk

 

[Gromett]

It's fuel made from food waste, McDonalds used deep fryer oil etc and specifically farmed none food grade rapeseed, corn & sunflowers which can simply replace diesel especially in Euro 6 Final engines. Zero emissions, no Sox or Nox and negligible CO2 so it's fully ULEZ complaint etc and has a 10 year shelf life. Starting to be rolled out in forecourts in Ireland and should begin to be available over here last quarter of 2023.

Many fleet users such as logistics, skip hire etc have already switched to it.

It is not a suitable replacement for ALL usage. We do not generate enough waste VO. and would have to convert most of our food growing land over to it pushing up food prices. It would also be very expensive once demand picked up as supply would always be an issue. Then the second a bad year happens in farming......

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[Gromett]

Rape seed oil and derivatives off have been used for prob 30 + yrs as a diesel substitute, several bus company’s made the switch for in town buses as a slightly cleaner burn, Shame that Methane from sewage plants can not be collected efficiently as every town has a sewage plant, just like in the Mad Max movies but again could never supply demand but could end up like LPG just the odd pump and tank around.
All of these ideas like Electric, Methane, Hydrogen and petrol with steam injection are all 100 + yrs old nothing is really new, What we need is the currently unavailable, but soon it will be.

Methane is not a suitable fuel for engines. When you burn it you produce lots of CO2 and NOx. That is what we are trying to get away from.

 

[Guigsy]

I sold a turntable to a guy in Brighton, I live in Warrington, I refused to post it so he came up for it

By 4pm he hadn't turned up, so I gave him a call. it was February and he was in an ePace, the motorway had been a nightmare, he'd run out of charge twice because heater, wipers, lights and queues

Third time he stopped to charge he had 10% so daren't leave the motorway services, 2 of the chargers were broken and there were 4 cars waiting for the 2 that were working so he checked into the hotel.

He was on my doorstep at 8am but potentially had the same journey back

My brother lives just north of London. A few years ago he drove to Scotland and back in the last gen Leaf with the small battery. Took a few stops and it wouldn't fast change after the first stop because the battery was still too warm. So it took all day. He drove 60k miles in 3 years in that car, it was good as long as you knew it's limitations.

Did the same trip in his new Tesla Y last year. Took three 20 min stops (and arrived with a good amount of charge). Driven at 70mph. No worries.

 

[nicholsong]

That is not a facebook post sorry. It is an article written by a "journalist" for money.

2 points. It was a Jag, not exactly a brand of car known for reliability. These faults could have happened to any brand or model of any car by any manufacturer.

It was written by Giles Coren for The Times. He has to big up the story to earn the money.

Why I’ve pulled the plug on my electric car

As I watch my family strike out on foot across the fields into driving rain and gathering darkness, my wife holding each child’s hand, our new year plans in ruins, while I do what I can to make our

www.thetimes.co.uk

Do you think The Times(Rupert murdoch) paid for what he lost on changing his car?

 

[Gromett]

Do you think The Times(Rupert murdoch) paid for what he lost on changing his car?

Don't know, Don't care and don't understand the point.

 

[SpeedyDux]

I was looking at tat in brighton. Maxxus ev chassis cab I think it was near 40k & looked like i had welded it on a bad day with one eye shut.
2 other panel vans , wind pour own windows up, 68k +vat.
they're dreaming.

On here Ralph , of Ralph-n-Bev , converted his own new Peugeot Boxer 2.2 XLWB van bought new in 2015.
& I quote from the build thread

**So you know the conversion was on a new Peugeot Boxer 2.2 Extra long wheel base.
We specked up the van adding some extras. So glad we did, never had some of them
before but wouldn't be without them now.
Here is a list.....

Cruise Control / Speed Limiter
Reversing Camera linked to central radio system screen
Satellite Navigation
Bluetooth Radio
Cab Air Con
Uprated Alternator 180A
Reinforced Battery
Engine under-Tray Protection
Front and Rear Mudflaps
Uprated Tyre's 16" Four Season
Alloys
LED day running lights
Rear Suspension Upgrade
Metallic Paint

Base vehicle with extras and Vat £ 21,788.00***

So tell me how we have got to 50k + for basic vans now? & no it isn't wages, cost of anything, inflation.



& that VW still can't park between the lines.

As above look at the price .look at the extras. nothing has gone up that amount in 7 years.
& there van was fitted with state of the art ,no expense spared fittings, elctrics etc & still came in a tad under 40k ,if I remember correctly?

I wonder what bulk discount the big MH converters get from Stellantis.

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