The Electric Future of Motorhomes and Camper Vans

[Coolcats]

Although the increase in proportion of electric cars actually driving about will be much quicker. Most mileage is done by relatively new cars (which are more likely to be electric than older cars). And for these newer cars, the highest mileage ones have a particular incentive to be electric due to the way Total Cost of Ownership pans out. ICE cars will be much more likely to stay on the drive due to the economics. Or, alternatively you could express this as low mileage drivers will select ICE cars (both new and older) due to the economics.

and stats such as these would give an indication of what and how many cars will be about 20 years after they were built https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/number-of-cars-in-the-uk-over-20-years-of-age

 

[Ian Bosman]

I’ll not be bothering with an electric Motorhome because it will be beyond my price range
I don’t see it happening for a long time
It’s not as if diesel and petrol will disappear in the next 5 years so to be honest I don’t care

I am seeing more and more commercial electric vehicles, at least two today just in the few streets around where I live. It will happen and as the technology is improved so will the range which is the major cynicism at the moment. However there are also a lot of Tesla cars about. which are not exactly sluggish. What concerns me is the amount t of rare resources which are being used for the batteries, so they are not exactly devoid of non renewable materials.

 

[Tony50]

I think Electric vehicles are a stop gap , not a long term mode of transport, Possibly Hydrogen will come on stream when produced cheaply , that would solve 2 problems 1. the Government will save face because it knows the Electric supply won't be there , can you imagine what rewiring the country would cost when all this power is wanted all the time . 2. The government knows also it costs them nothing for us to pull up at a filling Station to Fuel up .
Boris's lot is also like all other Governments , when the time comes they will probably backtrack on petrol and diesel vehicle bans

 

[Coolcats]

I think Electric vehicles are a stop gap , not a long term mode of transport, Possibly Hydrogen will come on stream when produced cheaply , that would solve 2 problems 1. the Government will save face because it knows the Electric supply won't be there , can you imagine what rewiring the country would cost when all this power is wanted all the time . 2. The government knows also it costs them nothing for us to pull up at a filling Station to Fuel up .
Boris's lot is also like all other Governments , when the time comes they will probably backtrack on petrol and diesel vehicle bans

Agreed I do think Hydrogen has a place in future vehicles

 

[dunnah01]

With the reaction from the fossil fuel big hitters to the COP26 report I suspect carbon capture will be the immediate and medium term future so we can relax with our IC engines for a while yet.

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[Ejaydee]

its not just the vroom vroom noise, it is also balance, poise, response, smell, it involves all the senses in a way an EV does not. But I get it if you have no passion for Ice Cars, I understand that you wouldn't think that a Car can have a soul....

Ah, but you completely misunderstand me.

I have had a passion for cars (and bikes) since I was a boy in the 1950's and proud owner in the 60's, probably as strong as you do, the difference between us is that for my everyday transport in 2021, I want something that gets me from A to B, as smoothly, quietly and efficiently as possible on our crowded roads, whilst making as small an impact as possible on the environment in which we all live.

I do not have the space (or cash) to have a classic or performance car tucked away somewhere for weekend and holiday trips, but if I did have, I would probably try to find if my Mk 2, 3.8 litre, Ice Blue, Jaguar with wire wheels from yesteryear (1970's) was still on the road or tucked up in a barn somewhere. If it was I would buy it and throw money at it. Regretably that is just a pipedream, because I would never have that sort of money (or space)!

Or perhaps I would go for the completely mad Saab 900 turbo I also had, or the Alfa Romeo, or, or, or.........??? You get my drift?

balance, poise, response

EV's do have these qualities aplenty too, but no, they tend not to have a smell of oil, diesel or grease, to which some would say "thankfully"

 

[Davb]

I wouldn't want a Hydrogen car, far too inconvenient. I come home park up and plug in. The charger comes on at 00.30 and goes off at 04.30 or earlier if the car is charged and I pay 5p per KW. In the morning I come out unplug the car and go.

 

[joe and sue]

I think Electric vehicles are a stop gap , not a long term mode of transport, Possibly Hydrogen will come on stream when produced cheaply , that would solve 2 problems 1. the Government will save face because it knows the Electric supply won't be there , can you imagine what rewiring the country would cost when all this power is wanted all the time . 2. The government knows also it costs them nothing for us to pull up at a filling Station to Fuel up .
Boris's lot is also like all other Governments , when the time comes they will probably backtrack on petrol and diesel vehicle bans

Costs them nothing for us to fill up with fuel, and brings them in £billions in taxes,
Never going to stop

 

[Coolcats]

Ah, but you completely misunderstand me.

I have had a passion for cars (and bikes) since I was a boy in the 1950's and proud owner in the 60's, probably as strong as you do, the difference between us is that for my everyday transport in 2021, I want something that gets me from A to B, as smoothly, quietly and efficiently as possible on our crowded roads, whilst making as small an impact as possible on the environment in which we all live.

I do not have the space (or cash) to have a classic or performance car tucked away somewhere for weekend and holiday trips, but if I did have, I would probably try to find if my Mk 2, 3.8 litre, Ice Blue, Jaguar with wire wheels from yesteryear (1970's) was still on the road or tucked up in a barn somewhere. If it was I would buy it and throw money at it. Regretably that is just a pipedream, because I would never have that sort of money (or space)!

Or perhaps I would go for the completely mad Saab 900 turbo I also had, or the Alfa Romeo, or, or, or.........??? You get my drift?



EV's do have these qualities aplenty too, but no, they tend not to have a smell of oil, diesel or grease, to which some would say "thankfully"

You can have an EV that has great performance such as the Lotus Evija however I doubt EV’s will stir the same passion as ICE cars and it will be very hard to find songs written about them
Such as Chris Rea’s Daytona
“Diamond dream when the sun don't shine
I close my eyes to see
Twelve wild horses in silver chains
Callin' out to me”

EV’s are here to stay but highly unlikely to envoke the passion of a fire spitting performance car.

 

[cmcardle75]

Sorry but £30,000 for a poxy little hatchback is not like for like...

They need to be half that to become 'Normal'.

You might be missing some of the trends in car pricing. The petrol equivalent of my £34,995 Kona is listed at £23,600. You also get the plug-in grant, taking the cost down to £32,550. So the electric premium on list price is £8,950.

If the car lasts ten years, there will be a £1,515 difference in car tax. Ignoring the cheaper servicing, there is a £7,435 shortfall to make up. If you charge at home on an EV tariff, break-even point is after 60,450 miles, which would represent only 6045 miles per year of driving. If you drove 12,000 miles a year, at the end of 10 years, you'd be about £7,325 richer than had you chosen the petrol version. That's assuming that both cars are worthless after 10 years and 120,000 miles, which they won't be. The electric car would likely have a much stronger residual value at this time.

Many people lease their new cars. The improved residuals are reflected in the lease price. I only paid a £75 per month premium over the petrol version, which is very comfortably covered by not paying for fuel.

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[SpeedyDux]

I wouldn't want a Hydrogen car, far too inconvenient. I come home park up and plug in. The charger comes on at 00.30 and goes off at 04.30 or earlier if the car is charged and I pay 5p per KW. In the morning I come out unplug the car and go.

Not for much longer, given the rise in energy prices for generating electricity I expect that tariff is doomed.

At times your EV is effectively running on imported coal ...

 

[SpeedyDux]

You might be missing some of the trends in car pricing. The petrol equivalent of my £34,995 Kona is listed at £23,600. You also get the plug-in grant, taking the cost down to £32,550. So the electric premium on list price is £8,950.

If the car lasts ten years, there will be a £1,515 difference in car tax. Ignoring the cheaper servicing, there is a £7,435 shortfall to make up. If you charge at home on an EV tariff, break-even point is after 60,450 miles, which would represent only 6045 miles per year of driving. If you drove 12,000 miles a year, at the end of 10 years, you'd be about £7,325 richer than had you chosen the petrol version. That's assuming that both cars are worthless after 10 years and 120,000 miles, which they won't be. The electric car would likely have a much stronger residual value at this time.

Many people lease their new cars. The improved residuals are reflected in the lease price. I only paid a £75 per month premium over the petrol version, which is very comfortably covered by not paying for fuel.

The flaw in that assumption is the inevitable degredation of the HV battery and cost of its replacement.

When we consider the Bangernomics aspect the EV is in unknown territory escpecially the 1st generation EVs. I doubt that things like G-Wiz are still holding their value. Old Nissan Leafs at £5k are cheap because they are perceived as low range money pits.

At 120,000 miles the ICE vehicle is in its prime. Yesterday I saw an article about the most common car models that have passed the 750,000 mile mark and are still going strong. Even includes Astras and Fiestas.

 

[Puddleduck]

Which is exactly why Amazon, DPD, UPS, etc are gearing up with leccy yvans.
Do we think its because they are all eco warriors, nah, (ok incentives) but mainly it is down to bottom line $ and gearing up for the future.
here is another delivering in North Wales yesterday.

If Electric cars, vans, and whatever were not cheaper to run and own long term no government could survive throwing all the population onto them. This is why they give "incentives" "grants" in the early days , and when the production grows, tech improves and prices come down the incentives wil be removed

View attachment 549593

Saw one of those on our local main (B) road. Waiting for someone to come with a genny to recharge it. I took the driver a drink. The first delivery hadn't been made and already out of charge (wet, cold and foggy day).

 

[Puddleduck]

I'd change to electric tomorrow if I could find a suitable vehicle I could afford

 

[tonyidle]

Yesterday on LBC, the Business Secretary said that at the moment we are installing 500 charging points per month, that makes 6000 per year. That’s going to help, we better get a move on.

Also, let’s talk about charging manners. Let’s say your street of ten houses has two charging points, who goes first and do you get up during the night to unplug and let somebody else have a go.

It doesn't have to work like that. Your notional 10 users all connect to a single charger with 10 connection points. You tell your car when it is next required. The charger determines which vehicle(s) is/are charged and in what order. Most vehicles are unlikely to need a full charge and that information too can be used by the charger.

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[Coolcats]

You might be missing some of the trends in car pricing. The petrol equivalent of my £34,995 Kona is listed at £23,600. You also get the plug-in grant, taking the cost down to £32,550. So the electric premium on list price is £8,950.

If the car lasts ten years, there will be a £1,515 difference in car tax. Ignoring the cheaper servicing, there is a £7,435 shortfall to make up. If you charge at home on an EV tariff, break-even point is after 60,450 miles, which would represent only 6045 miles per year of driving. If you drove 12,000 miles a year, at the end of 10 years, you'd be about £7,325 richer than had you chosen the petrol version. That's assuming that both cars are worthless after 10 years and 120,000 miles, which they won't be. The electric car would likely have a much stronger residual value at this time.

Many people lease their new cars. The improved residuals are reflected in the lease price. I only paid a £75 per month premium over the petrol version, which is very comfortably covered by not paying for fuel.

The Car Tax benefit will be removed or replaced with a per mile charge, so as a benefit its a good one for the moment as you say EV's may have a stronger residual at the moment but there is a bath tub effect as and when the market fills the only thing that will happen to EV prices is like all goods they become of little value.

Energy (Electricity) costs are going up which means EV's whilst cheap(ish) to recharge this will increase at a % with is currently at higher rate than petrol (per Kw is around 23-25p compared to 17p a few months back, its also amazing how we all justify additional costs as a benefit (We all do it) only £75 a month extra is £900 per year or £9,000 over 10 years in addition to the £000,000 you are already paying.

EV's running costs per mile were approx 55% lower at around 5p compared to Petrol at around 12p per mile, it is possible that gap could close further.

There may be some saving regarding servicing but that £75 per month more than makes up for it.

I am not saying EV's are bad but maybe only 'cheaper' if your out in the market for a new ish vehicle and have the disposable cash lease or otherwise to do this.

 

[joe and sue]

It doesn't have to work like that. Your notional 10 users all connect to a single charger with 10 connection points. You tell your car when it is next required. The charger determines which vehicle(s) is/are charged and in what order. Most vehicles are unlikely to need a full charge and that information too can be used by the charger.

Therefore even more control over what we do where we go and when we can do it,
There are times when i get up in the morning not knowing when i will need to use the car, let alone the night before!!
Also what';s to stop someone un-plugging your car and plugging theirs in.
And again I ask, Where is all this electricity coming from, and where are all these charging points for the masses.
Only 9 years to go before we all have to have these "wonderful / Green" EV's

 

[Tombola]

Possibly Hydrogen will come on stream when produced cheaply

Possibly is a bog word.

Agreed I do think Hydrogen has a place in future vehicles

been abandoned by other countries as too expensive to produce, store and get to where is needed

 

[Tombola]

Saw one of those on our local main (B) road. Waiting for someone to come with a genny to recharge it. I took the driver a drink. The first delivery hadn't been made and already out of charge (wet, cold and foggy day).

you took the driver for a drink? did you stay over like

 

[tonyidle]

Only 9 years to go before we all have to have these "wonderful / Green" EV's

Probably nearer 19 years given the useful life of the average car. Plenty of time to solve the problems.

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[Coolcats]

been abandoned by other countries as too expensive to produce, store and get to where is needed

Never say never, there are technologies in place today that were once considered not feasible.

I can produce my own Hydrogen in small quantities its easy clean and efficient

 

[tonyidle]

Possibly is a bog word.

been abandoned by other countries as too expensive to produce, store and get to where is needed

EV technology will not be wasted even if hydrogen can be used. It is not being considered for ICE engines (with rare exceptions) and will be used in fuel cells. Thus requiring batteries and electric power trains.

 

[cmcardle75]

The flaw in that assumption is the inevitable degredation of the HV battery and cost of its replacement.

When we consider the Bangernomics aspect the EV is in unknown territory escpecially the 1st generation EVs. I doubt that things like G-Wiz are still holding their value. Old Nissan Leafs at £5k are cheap because they are perceived as low range money pits.

At 120,000 miles the ICE vehicle is in its prime. Yesterday I saw an article about the most common car models that have passed the 750,000 mile mark and are still going strong. Even includes Astras and Fiestas.

The modern batteries with well designed thermal management that are now being supplied with new cars have excellent characteristics. I'll bet that the average 120,000 mile electric car will be in better condition than the average 120,000 ICE car if you bought them new today. Modern ICE cars have all sorts of horribly unreliable complex components that are always going expensively wrong. Dual mass flywheels, particulate filters, complex automatic transmissions, swirl valves.

Yes, 1st generation electric vehicles had small batteries with poor thermal management that means they haven't lasted the distance so well. However, these problems have largely now been resolved. Most new cars now have very long warranties on battery life, reflecting the manufacturer's confidence.

Warranties are now typically for 100,000 miles and typical actual usable lifespans often exceed 500,000 miles, if the owner is careful about charging regimes, or 200,000 miles if not (i.e. left to charge 100% every night and taken down to almost empty and frequent fast charging).

 

[Spriddler]

Motoring will never be inexpensive, whether by EV or ICE; revenue from the motorist is too great, too dependable and too easily collected.

 

[SpeedyDux]

Warranties are now typically for 100,000 miles and typical actual usable lifespans often exceed 500,000 miles, if the owner is careful about charging regimes, or 200,000 miles if not (i.e. left to charge 100% every night and taken down to almost empty and frequent fast charging).

I agree that HV batteris can last up to 15 years

The majority of EVs seem to be leased company cars to take advantage of the BIK tax break. Whether the first users will follow careful charging regimes is questionable, because they won't have any long term financial incentive to do that. Anecdotally such abuse seems to be happening a lot with plug-in hybrids. At 2 or 3 years old the residuals may not reflect abuse. Whether the manufacturers continue to honour long warranties on the HV batteries is going to be interesting. Early days.

A bit OT. When I bought ex-fleet cheapies from car auctions for personal use, I balanced the below retail condition against the low price and plenty of life left in the 20,000 mile bargain car even though it might not have had a service in 2 years. Massive savings on the depreciation until the big retail showrooms selling used cars by the thousands jumped into the auction market to source their stock. Such is life.

Never say never, there are technologies in place today that were once considered not feasible.

I can produce my own Hydrogen in small quantities its easy clean and efficient

I can produce methane after a couple of beers. Capturing and storage is tricky.

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[Fontie]

I see no future for electric vehicle's other than possibly bikes or scooters , the future i see is hydrogen powered vehicle's, they will sort the storage and distribution, it's activly being worked on. Give it a few years you'll see !

 

[Puddleduck]

you took the driver for a drink? did you stay over like

LOL

I took the driver a drink - not took him for a drink!!!!! He delivers a lot of my specialist food so we are on first name terms

He got the choice of hot chocolate or a can of pepsi but took both!

 

[Coolcats]

I can produce methane after a couple of beers. Capturing and storage is tricky.

 

[Gromett]

Only 9 years to build the entire infrastructure to charge all of these EV's ?
Never going to happen,

Don't have to build the entire infrastructure in only 9 years. 9 years is when the last ICE comes off the production line, they last on average 13.5 years before being scrapped taking us out to 22 years before most cars on the roads are EV's.
As most people don't do long distance and most people have off road parking (I know not all do) there will be a reduction in the need for charge points vs petrol stations.

 

[Coolcats]

Most streets are crammed with Parked vehicles including new builds where they have no front garden (yes pay £800K for a new build looks flash but limited parking)

This is a rosey view of Parking in London, it is really hard to park outside your own house let alone have an electrical point.

Car ownership
• Two thirds of residents of new developments in London have access to a car, including 19 per cent who have two or more cars. Car ownership is higher in Outer than Inner London (73 and 52 per cent respectively).
Parking provision

• Just over a fifth of respondents lived in developments with less than 0.5 parking spaces per unit, 45 per cent in developments with between 0.51 and 1 space per unit and the remaining third in developments with more than 1 space per unit.
• The amount of parking provided is lower on average in developments with better public transport access and in developments containing flats, particularly conversions. However, parking provision is consistently higher in Outer London than Inner London developments with the same level of public transport access or the same type of properties.
• Across London, 72 per cent of vehicles owned by residents of new developments are parked off-street. A higher proportion of vehicles in Outer London than Inner London are parked off-street (77 per cent compared to 56 per cent). The proportion of vehicles parked off-street is highest in parts of Outer London with the lowest public transport access.
• In Inner London, people living in purpose-built flats are more likely to park off-street (61 per cent) than residents of converted flats (51 per cent) or houses (52 per cent).
• In Outer London, residents of all property types are more likely to be able to park off- street. Residents of purpose-built flats and houses are more likely to be able to park off- street than residents of converted flats (82 per cent and 80 per cent respectively compared to 68 per cent).

This Picture is a car park 30 miles outside of London for two large ex office blocks converted to apartments, So whilst a hundred or so cars can park off road who is going to pay for charging points here?

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