Would you still buy a new EV?

In the longer tern, public transport has to be the standard way forward. The private car blights all our lives, yet provides transport to less than half the population. It has become a sort of religion, so this clear fact will be denied by car believers.

I think that green hydrogen created using spare solar power will take over, but there is a lot of vested interest to fight before then.

In the meantime, EVs are offered as a stopgap, but good hybrids (that means Toyota hybrids) are probably a better alternative.
 
I like the self-charging hybrid we have (not so much the car), but the idea, but you should be able to force it into EV mode if enough charge when in towns etc, as it is, it is normally running the engine.
 
Does that automatically with a Toyota hybrid.

Unless it is trying to heat or cool the cabin a lot. That tends to cause the engine to run.

Pressing the EV button does work, but it rarely makes sense.
 
Geek said:
In the longer tern, public transport has to be the standard way forward. The private car blights all our lives, yet provides transport to less than half the population. It has become a sort of religion, so this clear fact will be denied by car believers.

I think that green hydrogen created using spare solar power will take over, but there is a lot of vested interest to fight before then.

In the meantime, EVs are offered as a stopgap, but good hybrids (that means Toyota hybrids) are probably a better alternative.
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TBH, I doubt that public transport will ever be workable in anything other than conurbations. For many people, using public transport involves a walk of miles in either direction and/or a hotel room and/or a multi-day trip. For example, It's now just before 5:00pm. if I want to go to a town that's only 20 miles away by road, I can't go today because there's no public transport until tomorrow unless I break the journey mid-way and stop at a hotel. If I go tomorrow, it'll take me over two hours to get to the destination but there's no public transport for the return journey until the following day -- so it's a hotel room again. By car, I can go there and back today and it'll take just over half an hour in each direction. If a friend wanted to go to the same place, they'd have to walk three miles in each direction to and from the nearest bus stop; and still have to spend one or two nights in a hotel room!
If you include taxis in public transport, it might be better. However, when I 'did' the Falmouth Shanty Festival, we got taxis to and from a campsite about three miles outside Falmouth town and even then the taxis proved unreliable enough that one of my band members had to fetch us from the campsite one day and take us back on another. For many people, public transport = confined to home...

Meanwhile, back to EVs. There was carnage on the M5 today because a transporter carrying EVs went up in flames at some time before 07:30 this morning and the M5 remains partially closed with the fire service monitoring the cargo almost ten hours later. According to Cornwall Live, fire stations attended the incident! It isn't clear whether the lorry itself or one of the cars initially caught fire, but the fact that the cargo was EVs didn't help. Reports say that lane one will remain closed 'for some time' because the carriageway needs to be replace...
www.cornwalllive.com

M5 closed as HGV and electric vehicles catch fire on motorway

Explosions were heard and the motorway is closed in both directions
www.cornwalllive.com www.cornwalllive.com
 
GeoffL said:
TBH, I doubt that public transport will ever be workable in anything other than conurbations. For many people, using public transport involves a walk of miles in either direction and/or a hotel room and/or a multi-day trip.
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That's the point. If people used public transport by default, there would be enough passengers to make rural routes and off peak routes viable.

Because there are no buses, people go by car, or don't go. If there were no cars, there would be buses.

Getting to that position won't be easy, but it is possible. Andy Burnham.has shown the way, getting nearer to what London has by using political will and good organisation.

GM buses (and bus stations) are vastly better than they were, in only a few months.
 
Geek said:
That's the point. If people used public transport by default, there would be enough passengers to make rural routes and off peak routes viable.

Because there are no buses, people go by car, or don't go. If there were no cars, there would be buses.

Getting to that position won't be easy, but it is possible. Andy Burnham.has shown the way, getting nearer to what London has by using political will and good organisation.

GM buses (and bus stations) are vastly better than they were, in only a few months.
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Sorry, but no. There simply aren't sufficient people in many rural areas for a bus service to ever be viable. Getting Manchester nearer to what London has is a far cry to getting a workable service working in (say) mid-Wales, Cornwall, etc. In an attempt to 'catch' sufficient passengers, public transport tends to meander all over the place, taking hours to complete a journey that's less than half an hour away by car. Even then, people often have to walk considerable distances (sometimes miles) to get to and from bus stops. All too often, public transport takes people from where they aren't to where they don't want to end up and at a time they'd rather not travel, while a car takes them from where they are to where they want to be at a time convenient to them. Then there's the issue that you can't take a boot-full of stuff on the bus. For buses to be anywhere near convenient enough in rural areas, the number of buses required would be enormous and most of them would be going around empty (just as they're doing in rural Cornwall right now). Buses might work in cities and large towns, but not 'out in the sticks'.
 
Buses don't work any better than trains for much more than commuting, never will, Beeching took care of it ever being possible. under Labour and the Conservatives, so can't even blame any particular party, although the Tories kicked it off.
 
GeoffL said:
Sorry, but no. There simply aren't sufficient people in many rural areas for a bus service to ever be viable. Getting Manchester nearer to what London has is a far cry to getting a workable service working in (say) mid-Wales, Cornwall, etc. In an attempt to 'catch' sufficient passengers, public transport tends to meander all over the place, taking hours to complete a journey that's less than half an hour away by car. Even then, people often have to walk considerable distances (sometimes miles) to get to and from bus stops. All too often, public transport takes people from where they aren't to where they don't want to end up and at a time they'd rather not travel, while a car takes them from where they are to where they want to be at a time convenient to them. Then there's the issue that you can't take a boot-full of stuff on the bus. For buses to be anywhere near convenient enough in rural areas, the number of buses required would be enormous and most of them would be going around empty (just as they're doing in rural Cornwall right now). Buses might work in cities and large towns, but not 'out in the sticks'.
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There are easily enough people in rural areas to support a good public transport network, given the political will and some funding.

Buses dont run as empty as cars.

The fire service and ambulance service manage it.

OK, it won't be every three minutes, but a usable service is entirely possible and affordable.

Even remote areas can use ring 'n ride services.

You do have a point about parcels. What a pity there are no carriers to take them.
 
When I was a courier in the early 80's jsut after the postal strike, I quite often used Red Star Parels, just pop it on a train and get it picked up at the other end what could bette for the environment, some coach companies offered a similar service for mail and small parcels, not rocket science.

Keighley has a very good local bus service I'm told, but I don't use it.
 
Geek said:
There are easily enough people in rural areas to support a good public transport network, given the political will and some funding.

Buses dont run as empty as cars.

The fire service and ambulance service manage it.

OK, it won't be every three minutes, but a usable service is entirely possible and affordable.

Even remote areas can use ring 'n ride services.

You do have a point about parcels. What a pity there are no carriers to take them.
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Sounds like a typical urbanite POV. You're just plain wrong! There are not "easily enough people in rural areas to support a good public transport network" -- at least, not universally! There are a large number of outlying settlements with fewer than a hundred inhabitants, often at the end of the only road in/out and there's no way anyone's going to provide scheduled buses. Buses often run as empty as cars -- with just the driver, so you're wrong on that count also. Technically, the bus is more empty than a car since the driver is there to work and not to get to anywhere for their own purpose. FWIW, I've checked a few journeys using Google maps and what would take just five to ten minutes by car is quicker to walk (over an hour) than take the bus -- and even going by bus involves a greater distance walking that the bus will take you. You mention "ring 'n ride" -- we have that where I live but there's only one community bus and the last time we collectively used it, the cost was over £75 for a 15-mile-each-way trip. Thankfully, there were ten of us, but even so that's still more expensive per person than the fuel cost by car and offers zero flexibility.
Regarding carriers: they're way too expensive and inconvenient. I regularly take a guitar, fiddle, mandolin, bass uke, a battery powered amplifier and a whole bunch of other stuff to jam sessions. I just asked a broker for quotes: £35; it would take two to three days to deliver, and I needed to be at both ends at the courier's convenience rather than mine. Worse, they wouldn't accept the battery powered amp! That's just not workable. Same with perishable goods -- for ethical and other reasons, many of us use farm shops rather than supermarkets. Often, those farm shops are in the back of beyond. The one I use is a fifteen minute car ride each way or an hour and a half each way by bus (and much waiting around) and involves a half mile walk along a busy road with limited visibility and no pavement or verge -- not really a safe option IMO. Even where you use a supermarket, there's good reason to travel to pick the produce yourself. Lockdown showed why -- I lost count of the perishables that were either spoiled on delivery or had way too little time remaining before their use-by date... so online doesn't work either. Without a car, rural life is difficult to impossible -- plain and simple -- and it'll take more than a little political will for that to change.
 
Where I am, there is a bus service. Runs every hour at peak times, every two hours off-peak and I think two buses on a Sunday? I wonder why people prefer to use their cars?

There is a "bus on demand" service, called "Pingo" but I have never used it. Occasionally considered it but it won't go any further west than where I am, so not that useful.
I could use it to say go to the garage I take my car and motorhome to if I had left overnight say, but to get the Pingo bus, I would have to get a bus to start with to go to the nearest town where the 'Pingo' will pick me up from. Then if you are paying for the ride, it is £2.20 + 40p/mile, so a return trip on the 'Pingo' would be around £17. Taking a second car in convoy there and back twice (drop off and then collect) would be around £7 - so less then half the cost for twice the distance and far more convenient.
I wonder why I prefer to use my car?

The idea that "There are easily enough people in rural areas to support a good public transport network" is a bit of a laugh. I am in an area where the population density is half that of the least populated county in England.
When I lived in Hertfordshire, I used to use public transport a lot. I'd come out the house and walk 25 yards to the bus stop (around 10 buses an hour) to the train station and then get a train into Kings Cross (6 trains an hour).
I could be waiting for a bus to arrive here for a longer time than it would take me to go door to door from my House in St. Albans into the centre of London.
I wonder why I prefer to use my car?
 
Geek said:
......

They are 69p per KWh, which is one of the cheapest round here, but you still would only use them if charging at home wasn't available and your battery was unacceptably low.

......
There's no cafe or even a coffee dispenser in lidl, so you'd end up sitting in the car for the duration. Somewhat unappealing, I expect.
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"69p / kwh." Leccy at home is 46p / kwh. Or, free if you have solar panels as I do.
Sitting in the car for three hours at Lidl will cost you £70 in a fine from the over-2 hrs parking limit.


And watch out if you have solar panels at home as I do. I had a Nissan Leaf, new. When the sun shone directly on to the solar panels I would plug the car in and get free charging. After 2 years and 8000 miles the PCP was up. Nissan wrote to me and said do I want to buy it for £18,000? No thanks, the battery was not much good - 35 mile range. It was on a no up-front payment and no end of contract payment, just £185 / month pcp. So I just gave the car back, and said to Nissan you can keep the wretched thing.
Later I had a call from the guy who bought it at an auction for £6,000. He noticed the battery was goosed, and it has a 5 year warranty. He took it to a Nissan dealer and said new battery please, its rubbish. Nissan dealer plugged their computer in and it logged each and every time the battery had been charged. "The previous owner plugged it in to recharge it when it was already 80% full. That voids the warranty". Was I told that when I bought it? Not on your nelly. So the new owner had to pay out £5000 for a new battery.
So if you do get an electric car the range (since you must not, apparently let the battery go below 20% nor recharge it if it is 80%) is actually 60% of the actual range, which in turn at best is 80% of the claimed range.
 
GeoffL said:
Sounds like a typical urbanite POV. You're just plain wrong!
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That would be down to the fact that I live in a tiny village in a rural area.

We do have a bus service. But it's less than once an hour and doesn't go where people want to travel to.
They say the other road is too small for a bus, though huge tractors find it OK.

As for numbers, you are just plain wrong. If we even had the per capita subsidy that London gets, we'd have a superb service.
 
gasgas said:
"69p / kwh." Leccy at home is 46p / kwh. Or, free if you have solar panels as I do.
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It is 69p at our local Lidl.

At home it'd be 25p, but even if you have solar panels it isn't really free. You lose the benefit of that solar power.

EVs benefit from avoiding road tax, low VAT rates and cheap off-peak tariffs. All of which may come to an end.
 
No wonder they are pushing ev my home leccy is 23 p per kwh , just thinking if you are waiting to top up and the power gose down you could have a very long wait .
 
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Geek said:
It is 69p at our local Lidl.

At home it'd be 25p, but even if you have solar panels it isn't really free. You lose the benefit of that solar power.

EVs benefit from avoiding road tax, low VAT rates and cheap off-peak tariffs. All of which may come to an end.
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If you have got a cheap off-peak tariff it means you must have an expensive peak tariff. Unless you have a system where you get cheaper leccy delivered to your outside car charger, in which case of course you could just divert that supply into your house ring main and get permanent cheap rate.
I have solar panels and I have a system whereby all the excess leccy that they generate but is not used by the house, goes into my immersion heater. I give hardly anything to the grid, but I get paid for every kwh I generate whether I use it or not. So I don't have the gas boiler on at all for at least 6 months of the year, and never on to feed the hot water tank. One result is that my energy supplier has now reduced my monthly payments from £53 a month to £25 a month. That's for both mains electric and gas which I use in the winter for the boiler, and for the hob in the kitchen.
 
 
The front is about the ugliest I've ever seen, but the rest is nice, and you can't see it from inside.
 
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