Summary
I purchased an EV in August 2019 – a second-hand Tesla Model S 75D and decided to share my experience of owning an EV, why I purchased, answer some of the most asked questions, and concerns, provide useful advice for people buying an EV, and try and persuade more people to go EV. While my experience is with a Tesla, most of what I have learnt, the research, and my thoughts apply to any kind of EV.
There were three main reasons why I went EV:
- Climate Change – Its clear climate change is real; it is having drastic effects now and is going to get a lot worse if we don’t take major steps, and fast. Going EV is one of the bigger things we can do individually. According to this Independent article it’s one of the major carbon footprint contributors for the average UK house
- Technology – I love gadgets and an EV is a gadget on wheels!
- Fast Car – I’ve always loved fast cars and the Tesla is the quickest car I’ve owned!
I would argue that for most people going EV is a practical choice and something you should consider if you care about climate change, when you come to replacing your car look at going EV. There are a few exceptions that I explain below. Yes, it can be a little less convenient than an Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) car, but I’d argue that a little bit of inconvenience is worth it, and the inconvenience is largely down to the amount of EV chargers which is improving rapidly – get an EV now and it keeps getting more convenient!
I do feel the government needs to more to accelerate the transition, something I explore in more detail below. In summary they need to drive a faster rollout of charging infrastructure, provide stronger financial incentive to buy EV vs ICE, particularly for smaller cars, and bring forward the date when sales of new ICE vehicles is banned to 2025, or 2030 at the latest.
This is quite a lengthy article; you can click on the content’s icon at the top of the page and choose sections that are of most interest to you.
Range and Charging
By current Tesla standards, my early 2017 car has quite short range, rated at 235 miles compared to a new Model S that is rated at over 400 miles. This is partly because the battery is 25% smaller (75Kw vs 100Kw) and partly because efficiency has improved on the new models. Its range is quite similar to typical new EV range, although this varies a lot depending on model, there is a useful list of EVs with range.
Charging an EV is DIFFERENT from refuelling and ICE. You plug in at home and the car always starts the day with a “full tank”, so you only need to charge anywhere else on longer journeys. I cover later how EV ownership can work if you can’t charge at home.
The cost to “fill up” at home is less than £7.50 for me, I pay <£0.10 per KW off peak, when I charge. I’m fortunate to have a Tesla that came with lifetime free Super Charging, so pay nothing when I use Tesla Super Chargers on a long journey. If I did have to pay, they charge £0.24 per KW, so “filling up” would cost £18. In case you are wondering on the journey’s below many have a cost of £8 even though the distances vary, this is because the cost to fill up at home is around £8, the extra costs for most of the longer journeys is £0 due to the free Super Charging.
For my home charging I use Ovo Energy who only use renewable sources. In the EU Tesla uses over 85% renewable sources for its Super Charger network, as do many public charging networks. Therefore, driving creates little if any CO2.
Long Journey Experiences
Here my experiences of longer journey’s and charging. The savings are compared to my previous car, an Audi A5 3.0TDI (Diesel) that averaged around 45MPG.
The Tesla, like many EVs, has charging and SatNav integrated. You put in the destination and if required it will include charger stops in the journey. So, you can easily plan out your journey and know when you will arrive, including any time required to use a charger. There are also great services from www.zap-map.com, www.plugshare.com and https://abetterrouteplanner.com/ that help plan a journey and find chargers.
While more of a Tesla than EV advantage I would highlight how great AutoPilot is on a long journey. The car drives itself on motorways, dual carriageways, and A roads where there are clear lane markings. You set the maximum speed you want to go, and it sticks with this unless there is a slower car in front, in which case it follows that car. It steers around bends and on motorways and duel carriageways it will even change lanes itself, you just tap the indicator to tell it to move – the car is actually capable of doing this fully itself, but UK law doesn’t permit this, in the US it does this very well. You do need to remain in control of the car, so hands lightly on the wheel and pay attention. But it still makes a long journey very relaxing. The government has announced that in spring 2021 they will be allowing full autonomous driving on motorways, meaning you can be fully hands off while in a lane, but looks like you would still need to flick the indicators to change lanes. Expecting that will be something my Tesla will be able to do with an over the air software update.
Devon Regular Visit
I visit my elderly mother twice a month, it’s a 210-mile round trip from Cotswolds to Devon, mostly motorway, I tend to drive at a “good speed” on the motorway, which isn’t so good for range, which means I do need to charge to make the return. If I stay overnight, then I simply plug into a 13A socket. But if it’s just a day trip the 13A socket isn’t fast enough. Initially I was either stopping at a Super Charger on the return journey for around 20 minutes or my mother’s neighbours let me plug into their EV charger. More recently we’ve installed a 32A “Commando” socket at my mother’s house, this isn’t as sophisticated as a full EV home charger, but still much faster than an 13A socket and allows me to charge enough for the return journey on the same day.
Occasionally we do more driving around Devon on the same trip. I did nearly get caught out with this once – we were running a bit late and had a cinema booking in Swindon, so we left the Super Charger near Exeter sooner that we should have had. We got the Cinema OK, but didn’t have enough to get home, resulting in having to plug into a slow charger at a BP petrol station and hanging around for 30 mins!
Savings
- Money: £17 per visit (£8 electric vs £25 Diesel), around £400 per year.
- CO2: 55Kg per visit, 1,300Kg per year
Work Commute
When I first bought the Tesla, I was still commuting to work, typically 3 days a week. I’ve since setup my own business, so thankfully don’t have this commute anymore. The office was in Staines-upon-Thames, near London, it was a 163-mile round trip, mostly motorway. The landlord of the building was due to put in chargers, but this didn’t get complete while I was there. This meant I did have to charge on the return at a Super Charger on the M4, to add enough range to get home for the overnight charge, this added about 15 minutes to a journey that normally took around 1 hour 30 mins, depending on traffic.
Savings
- Money: £12 per journey (£8 electric vs £20 Diesel), around £1,700 per year.
- CO2: 43Kg per journey, 5,900Kg per year
London Meetings
I have meetings with one of my clients in the West End of London periodically. It’s a 190-mile round trip. The closest car park that also has a great £10 for the day parking deal is NCP. Unfortunately, while they did have EV chargers, they are currently out of action, looks like they are changing suppliers. This meant I need to stop at the Super Charger on the way home for about 15 mins, on top of a 2-hour journey.
This journey is inside the London Congestion Charge zone. This is normally £15 per day for typical car, higher for more polluting cars. Its £0 for EVs. If you do take advantage of this remember you have to register your EV on the TfL congestion charge site, you don’t automatically get the discount. The registration costs £10 per year.
Savings
- Money: £30 (£8 electric vs £23 Diesel + £15 Congest Charge)
- CO2: 50Kg
Exeter Long Weekend
We had a long weekend holiday at hotel in Exeter, we travelled around Devon to visit family and friends and visit the beach. The round trip was 230 miles and we did around 100 miles while there. No charging required on the journey. I charged for free in a public car park next to the hotel, so the car was always full the next day. Exeter City council have installed two chargers, free to use, in each of the main car parks. Right now, that seems to be enough, but they will obviously need to expand as more people get EVs. One day I did return to the car park and both spaces were used by other EVs, so I popped back later (5 min walk) to move the car into a free EV slot in the evening.
Savings
- Money: £28 savings (£8 electric vs £36 Diesel)
- CO2: 87Kg
South Coast Beach
We did a day trip to the lovely West Wittering beach on the South Coast, 234-mile round trip. Unfortunately, no charger at the beach carpark. So we had to stop at the Portsmouth Super Charger on the way back, this is about 5 mins round trip off the motorway and we charged for 20 mins, so it added 25 minutes to what turned out to be a nearly 4 hour drive home, due to the terrible traffic (nothing to do with the EV), without traffic it would have been a 2 hour 15 min drive, so ignoring the traffic the EV made it a 2 hour 40 min drive.
Savings:
- Money: £19 savings (£8 electric vs £27 Diesel)
- CO2: 61Kg
Edinburgh Fringe Festival
The day after I picked up the Tesla, we had our annual trip the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, certainly a good test! This is 361-mile one way, 722 round-trip. We’d done this journey a few times before in our previous car. It typically takes around 7 and ½ hours including two stops of around 30 mins each for food, break and refuel. The Tesla Sat Nav plotted a journey including three charging stops of 30 mins each, so added 30 mins to the journey, very little compared to the total.
When we arrived we didn’t need the car, there wasn’t a charger near the flat we had rented, so one day I left it in a public car park and filled it up from one of the many chargers the Scottish government has installed across the country.
Savings:
- Money: £68 savings (£8 electric at home + £10 Electric and parking in Edinburgh vs £86 Diesel)
- CO2: 191Kg
Categories and Types of Charger
There are three types of places you can charge:
- Home: There are two main types of charging, both intended for charging up your car while you aren’t using it, typically overnight, so that you always start the day with a “full tank”
- 13A Socket (Slow Charger): You can simply plug into a standard 13A socket at any house. This is slow, about 6 miles of ranged added per hour. This is often called a “granny charger”, because its as “slow as a granny!”. Use this at home while you are waiting for your 7KW charger or if you are visiting a house
- 7KW Charger (Fast Charger): You get these installed by an electrician or your electricity supplier. For my car they add over 20 miles of range per hour, so easily fill the car up overnight on a cheap off-peak tariff. The government gives a £350 grant towards this, they typically cost a few £100s. I got mine free from my electricity supplier as part of a bundle deal. Some car manufacturers include them for free when buying a new EV.
- Destination: As the name suggests these are at destinations where you would stop your car for an extended period, for example restaurants, shops, hotels, car parks, the office, etc. They typically vary in power from 3KW to 22KW. For example, get a top up while shopping or “refill the tank“ at work. 3KW is called a slow charger, similar in speed to plugging into 13A socket. 7KW to 22KW are called Fast Chargers
- Journey: These are installed along major roads, such as motorway service stations. They are normally range in power between 50KW and 350KW. Up to 100KW are called Rapid Chargers while those above 100KW are termed “Ultra rapid chargers”. They are intended for people to stop at for 10-60 minutes to quickly add charge along a journey. Depending on the car and charger they can add up to 1,000 miles of range an hour. Meaning by the time you’ve had a coffee and break you have enough range added to continue your journey. On my car, which is now an older model, I get around 260 miles of range added in an hour. This means I tend to stop for between 15 and 30 mins on a long journey.
Home Charging
If you have off street parking this is straight forward and gives the lowest cost. Many electric suppliers offer EV specific tariffs. It’s worth shopping around. https://octopus.energy/ has a particularly good reputation. I use Ovo who have a good EV tariff. The charger is connected directly to your fuse box by the installer, like how your cooker connects. Typically, the charger is put on an outside wall, but it is possible to run the cable underground to a detached garage. Occasionally the installer will also need to swap your main house fuse to a higher rated one, but this takes little extra time or money. You can have more than one charger; this will almost certainly need a new house fuse. It’s very unlikely you will need new wiring into your house.
You should get a proper smart charger, as above, for your home. However, there is a useful intermedia solution that is useful at houses you visit regularly, for example I’ve had one fitted at my mother’s house. It charges much faster than plugging into a 13A socket. This is a “Commando socket”, you may have seen them at outdoor events or caravan parks, they are used for providing high current electricity supplies outdoors. They aren’t as good as a proper EV charger, but much cheaper as they are essentially just a special sort of socket. Depending on the complexity of the installation its likely to cost between £100 and £200. You might also need a cable for your EV with a commando connector, or it may come with the car, it does with Tesla. Like a full smart EV charger this requires a dedicated connection to your fuse box. There are actually two power levels available, for example Tesla provides the connector for 16A (3.7kW), but you can buy the 32A (7.4kw) for around £40. The difference in speed of charging depends on your car, but typically around 14mph and 25mph, respectively.
Even if you are good with electrics you are strongly recommended to have a qualified electrician install both a full EV charger or commando socket. The installation should follow specific regulations and obviously very high currents outdoors could be fatal if done wrongly!
Charging with No Off-Street Parking
An obvious question if you don’t have off street parking is how practical it is to own an EV. The answer is it depends! It depends on how often you will need to charge; how much is it going to cost, and how convenient it is:
- Mileage – if you don’t normally do many miles then you won’t need to charge often. If you regularly do a lot of miles, then it might be a regular pain that is too much inconvenience. This is of course also affected by the range of your EV
- Charger – Best case your council has installed on street chargers, if not press them on this as many are planning. They can be even be installed in lamp posts. If not available, then take a look on www.zapmap.com to find nearby chargers. If you can find one that is in walking distance, then easy to leave it there from time to time. If you are going to need to drive, then you probably need a nearby rapid charger so you can charge while you wait.
- Price – Check out the price per KW of the nearby chargers, they will vary a lot, and this makes a big difference for the cost of an EV without your own charger. You could get lucky and have a free council charger on your doorstep, or unlucky and the nearby charger is an expensive one – but even the most expensive aren’t going to make it more expensive to run than fuel. Of course, any parking fees could also be a factor
Home Solar Energy
If you have the capital and space available, you can go a step further and install Solar Charging and a home battery. This will charge the battery as well as supply the house during the day, and at night it can charge the car and even power the house if there is a power cut. You get paid for any excess electricity you generate and send to the grid as well as saving on your own energy costs. Octopus Energy has a Tesla specific solution, there are also plenty of options for non-Tesla.
Destination Charging
There are over 12,000 charging locations across the UK, compared to around 8,400 petrol stations, and this is growing rapidly:
Most of Europe is similar, so you can easily drive abroad with an EV.
The good news is with so many chargers you should never be too far from one, so you are very unlikely to ever run out and be stranded.
The bad news is this isn’t enough to be truly convenient all the time. You might not find a charger right at your destination. For example, we visited Exmouth in Devon, no chargers in any of the car parks, only at Tesco which is a long way from the beach we were visiting. This wasn’t a showstopper, just inconvenient – I had to stop at a Super Charger on the way home. If there had been a destination charger the car would have been filled for the return journey.
The other annoyance with destination chargers is they are run by a wide range of different networks and you need to have installed each network’s app and setup and account to charge. But this is just something you do when you first get an EV and it’s getting better, virtually all new chargers accept contactless payments. All the charger networks offer a free account. Some offer a subscription choice with lower charging usage pricing. If you find you use public charging often enough it might be cheaper to buy a subscription.
Reliability can be a bit of an issue with public chargers. However, this is getting much better with many more modern chargers installed. The other issue can be what is called “ICE’ing” – where an ICE parks in an EV parking bay blocking the charger. This should improve over time as there are more chargers, ICE drivers become more educated, and enforcement with fines becomes more common place – parking wardens can ticket cars in public car parks incorrectly parked in an EV bay and private car park operators can also legally issue a collectable charge, provided that they have clear signage.
Journey Charging
Tesla is still the king here. It has a vast network of Tesla Super Chargers that only work with Tesla cars. I can do long journeys across the UK and indeed most of Europe and my Tesla will just include the required Super Charger stops. Most of them have eight or more chargers so I normally turn up, no queuing, charge for a short while and can be on my way. Extremely easy to use, just plug in and that is it. My Tesla also has free Super Charging, which is a bonus. Sadly, they don’t offer that anymore.
For other EVs journey charging isn’t quite so good, but it is improving rapidly. Today there aren’t enough reliable rapid and ultra-rapid chargers. Meaning people need to plan a bit more carefully and have a backup. However multiple charger networks are rolling out lots more rapid chargers that should give similar charge speeds and coverage as Tesla over the next couple of years. Arguably the most exciting is www.gridserve.com who are building over 100 Electric Forecourts across the UK, each of which can initially charge 24 cars with ultra-fast chargers. That is similar in capacity and scale to the total number of motorway service stations currently in the UK!
The Role of Government
Central and Local Governments are already helping with the adoption of EVs through tax incentives, legislation, and infrastructure investment. But there is much more they could be doing. My view is they should:
- Bring forward the ban on ICE new car sales from 2040 to 2025 or at least no later than 2030, more on this below
- Require and help fund local governments to install a % of off-street parking to be equipped with chargers. A % that increases each year. Thus, addressing the issue for people who don’t have off street parking
- Planning rule changes that would allow people to install chargers curb side opposite their house, under the pavement.
- Require and help fund local governments to install a % of public car parking spaces to be equipped with chargers. A % that increases each year. While legislating to require private car parks, including workplace, to do the same – with some exemptions for smaller businesses where this would be a hardship and some locations where this would not be practical. Thus, addressing the issue inadequate destination chargers.
- Add a % pollution sales tax onto the price of new ICE cars and use that money to increase the subsidy on EVs, targeting small family car sized EVs where the price difference vs ICE is currently the highest
New ICE Car Sales Ban
The UK has over 40 million vehicles, over 35 million being cars (source: Car Magazine). Around 2.5 million new cars are sold every year (source: Statista). Meaning it will take around 16 years for virtually all cars to become EVs once a ban on new sales comes into effect. The current ban is 2040, so 2056 before we would become an all EV country.
I believe the ban should be moved forward to 2025 or 2030 at the latest. We really need to move faster to address climate change. I believe this is practical because
- It only effects new car sales, those who can’t afford a new car can continue to own 2nd hand ICE or EV
- Eliminating the price difference between a new EV and ICE of the same size should be achieved by industry by 2025, certainly by 2030. Today it’s a big gap for smaller cars, this is driven by current cost of batteries, but that cost is dropping every year with battery technology improvements, hence it should be possible to reach parity with ICE by 2025 – while some of the traditional car manufacturers might claim this is too hard if they have an aggressive legal target set they will reach it and if they don’t they are other companies that can take their place. Plus, even if an EV is a little more expensive than an ICE the total cost to an owner could be the same or less, due the significantly lower running costs
- The government legislation and investment outlined above should be able to build out the charging infrastructure to support ~2.5m additional EVs per year. They would have until 2041 to have enough infrastructure to handle all 40 million vehicles even if the new ICE ban started in 2025
New EVs and Residual Values
You can view all the EVs available now or shortly in the UK, you can click into any car to see details including range, charging speed, etc, as well as sorting the order by different criteria. As of September 2020, there were 93. They range in price from £17,000 for a small SmartEQ up to £139,000 for the crazy fast Porsche Taycan Turbo S and Tesla Model S Plaid.
If you are looking for an EV and plan to do longer journeys, then two the columns to look at on the EV list are range and Rapidcharge. The range is rated overall, you can click on any car and see its range for different driving conditions, think about how far you want to be able to go before taking a break for yourself as well as the car. For example, 70mph on the motorway is going to take you 140 miles in two hours, you’d probably need a break after than anyway. The Rapidcharge rate is how quickly it will charge at peak rate on the fastest charger the car supports, click on the car and look at the Battery and Charging section to see how it performs on different types of charger, its Fastcharge that is important for long journeys. Let’s look at a couple of examples:
Here is a Tesla Model 3 Long Range
It’s going to travel between 200 and 265 miles on the motorway between charges, which is between 2 and 4 hours, much longer than you should drive without a break!
This shows that it will take 22 minutes to charge from 28 to 224 miles range. This is charging from 10% to 80% full. Its recommended to charge when quite low to up to 80% on a long journey as charging is fastest. Taking my Cotswold to Edinburgh trip I could in theory do this with one 22-minute stop, in reality I’d need more breaks than that!
Let’s compare that it the Mini, which isn’t really intended for long journeys:
On the motorway it will go between 80 and 105 miles between charges, so a bit over 1 hour.
It will take a 29-minute break to fill up. On my Cotswold Edinburgh drive I’m probably going to need to stop at least 4 times for 30 minutes each. That isn’t terrible, as it’s a long drive and I’d need breaks, but its more breaks, more often, than many people would want. Obviously, I’m comparing cars at two ends of the spectrum on range and charging speed.
EV Pricing
How the price of an EV compares to the price of an ICE depends on the type of car. The mid to high end tends to be very similar, but for smaller cars the difference is significant.
Some examples:
- Super Mini: VW e-Up starts at £20,000. A VW Up starts at £12,000
- Family car: VW ID3 start at £38,000. A VW Golf 8 starts at £25,000. Although the similar Nissan Leaf eV starts at £27,000 and there is a lower specification VW ID3 coming in 2021 for around £25,000 and MG have recently launched a family estate EV starting at £25,000
- Small SUV: MG ZS starts at £25,000. A Nissan Qashqui starts at £21,000
- Mid-range luxury car: Tesla Model 3 Standard Range Plus starts at £41,000 a BWM 3 Series of similar specification (330i) is £45,000. You could get an entry level BMW 3 series for around £31,000 but with a much lower specification
- Mid-range sport car: Tesla Model S Performance starts at £56,000. A BWM M3 starts at £60,000
- High end luxury car: Tesla Model S Long Range starts at £78,000. A BWM 5 Series M550i starts at £70,000
This means if you are fortunate enough to be in the market for a new mid-range luxury car, or above, there little financial reason for not choosing an EV and you will save money on the running costs. If you are in the market for a mid-range family car or small SUV then you would pay a bit more for an EV, but likely this would be offset by the running cost savings. The bigger issue is with small cars where the difference is a big %. Here you need to be willing to pay more to help the climate, at least for now, until battery technology developments remove the extra cost.
However, if you use finance to purchase a new car the gap closes significantly. For example, using figures from Vauxhall for the smallest Petrol Corsa vs the smallest eCorsa the difference is about £82 per month extra for the EV. This is based on 8,000 miles a year and includes the cost savings of charging at home vs petrol. At higher milage the gap closes even more.
Good news is there are a couple of significant government incentives you may be able to take advantage of via your work that could eliminate the delta. If you are employed any company, including public sector, you can take advantage of the government salary scarify incentive which can dramatically reduce the cost of leasing an EV. If you own your own business you are able to get big tax savings too, as you can write off 100% of the value of an EV against company tax. Read my post for more details on both.
Residual values like with any car varies a lot with model. Overall EVs hold their values very well compared to ICE. This is a good article on twelves EV models residual values.
The future for lower cost EVs is becoming clearer. The reason EVs are more expensive than an equivalent ICE is due to the relatively high cost of battery production. This is a much more dominant factor is smaller cars. In September 2020 Tesla held “Battery Day” where they revealed the next generation of batteries they are developing, which they project reduces battery cost by 56%. While Tesla are the leaders and ahead, others will follow this, meaning we should see even the smallest EVs at a price point similar to an equivalent ICE by 2025, probably earlier for Tesla. Indeed, Tesla said they planned a new smaller model (Model 2?) around $25,000, which is $15,000 less than their current entry level. Meaning Tesla will have a VW Golf / BMW 1 Series ICE priced car. If you are interested in the details here is an interesting article.
This future parity in EV vs ICE car price for smaller cars is going to be critical in getting rid of ICE. As this article from Car Magazine shows a substantial proportion of the UK car market is smaller cars. The good news is its clear that parity will be achieved a long way before 2030, by 2024 according to a UBS recently published an analysis.
Second Hand EVs
EVs tend to hold their value well, although like any car this depends on the particular model and manufacturer. There is a good range of recent, 3 year+ old, EVs. But if you have a smaller budget the options become smaller as there weren’t so many EV models going back a few years. At the entry level you could pick up an older Nissan Leaf from around £4,000 and at the luxury / performance end a Tesla Model S from around £35,000. The buying advice on range and charging for new EVs applies second hand too.
Running Costs
This is an area where EVs beat ICE easily. Indeed, the savings can be so large that the total cost of ownership of an EV can be less than an ICE, even when the EV might have been more expensive to buy.
This recent study found that the cost of running maintenance for an EV was 1/2 that of an ICE over its lifetime and that excluded the huge savings is electricity vs petrol or diesel.
The three major reasons for reduced running costs are:
- The cost electricity is much less than petrol or diesel – around 1/3 the price if you charge at home, the advantage is still there, but smaller, with public chargers
- Service costs are less, as there is less, if any, servicing needed. For example, Tesla’s require no regular servicing. Electric motors are sealed units, there is no oil to change, belts to replace, etc. Brake pads and disks last way longer on an EV since they use regenerative braking most of the time, meaning the electric motor does the braking by charging the battery when you slow down
- Tax incentives such as no road tax for EVs worth <£40,000 and no London Congestion Charge
A recent study by Direct Line concluded that despite a higher purchase cost EVs had a low lifetime cost that a ICE car and that EVs on average hold their value better than the average ICE.
My personal experience has been very positive on running cost savings:
- Huge savings on fuel, as outline in my journey experiences
- No road tax
- No London Congestion charge
- No servicing – Tesla’s require no regular servicing
- Tyres have lasted over 20,000 miles since I bought the car, not yet replaced – not an EV saving, but shows that EVs don’t burn through tyres any faster than ICE
- I had two jobs done under Tesla 4 year / 50K mile warrantee – replaced cracked glass sunroof, known heat stress issue, replaced some suspension links picked up in the MoT
- Funny example – during the MoT they picked up a slight fluctuation on brake pressure, not enough to be an issue, just a notification. I had Tesla look at his and they asked me to use the brakes a bit more as they needed more movement, so now and again I turn down regen. I don’t drive slowly, but most braking is done by regen, where the motors recharge the battery to slow down. The cost savings will be a MUCH longer life on the brake pads and more importantly expensive brake disks
Battery Life
When new, a full charge for my Tesla gave a rated range of 235 miles, now its 230. Losing 5 miles of range in 52,000 miles seems very good. The warrantee is 150,000 miles or 8 years retaining at least 70%. Tesla publishes data on battery life from Model S and X, where they have many years of data, showing at even at 200,000 miles they are retaining ~90%.
Source: Tesla Impact report 2019
There are Tesla’s used as Taxi’s that have batteries that have gone a long way past 200,000 miles.
Other manufacturers offer similar warrantees.
Battery life is primarily about how many miles the car has done, i.e. the number of battery charge cycles, it has little to do with the actual age.
If you did keep a car longer than the battery warrantee and the battery failed it can be replaced. Right now, that will be expensive, for example Nissan offer a replacement battery for the Leaf for £3,920, including a £1,000 trade in allowance. Source: Auto Express. However, as battery technology improves the price of batteries and therefore replacements should drop. Although this is probably a moot point for most people given the length of the battery life vs typical lifespan of a car
Battery Recycling
An obvious concern is what happens to the battery at the end of its life. We don’t want to see future landfill sites full of old car batteries. Good news, they will be reused and recycled!
Obviously, mass market EVs are quite new and battery life is long, so right now there is a more limited recycling market. But it already exists and looks ready to scale.
There are two levels of battery recycling;
- Reuse – batteries do not just die. They degrade so their capacity isn’t good enough to use in the car – the range becomes too short. But they still have use in applications where capacity doesn’t matter. There are companies reusing old batteries in static storage, for example storing solar energy. They simply use more old batteries to achieve the required capacity, in an environment where having more batteries doesn’t matter, particularly as they would be cheap old batteries. For example, UK start-up Second Life EV Batteries
- Recycle – batteries contain lots of valuable elements and there is a rapidly developing recycling industry, both standalone companies already recycling and some manufacturers such as Tesla have announced they are developing inhouse recycling so they can recycle batteries right back into new battery production (source: Tesla 2019 impact report)
Whole Life Carbon Footprint
A common question people as is “does an EV reduce carbon emissions when you consider everything across the whole life of the car, including manufacturing, powering during use and recycling at end of life?”
The answer is a clear yes – there are many studies that clearly show EVs produce far less CO2 over their lifetime than and ICE. For example:
EVs take a lot more CO2 to manufacture because of the energy intensity of manufacturing batteries. How much depends on the car in two main respects
- Battery size: The bigger that battery the more CO2 to manufacture
- Who and where its manufactured: How much CO2 is generated by the power used by the manufacturer will be dramatically different depending on where they get it? For example, Tesla seeks to buy most of its energy from renewable suppliers as well as generating solar energy at its factories, which will reduce CO2. Worst case would be a manufacturer using the standard supply mix in Asia where a lot of power is generated from fossil fuels. But in all cases an EV is much lower carbon footprint than an ICE. This is of course getting better over time as more power is generated from renewables. Indeed at the September 2020 Battery Day Tesla announced their next generation of battery tech that will generate far less CO2 in production
The other major consideration is the carbon footprint of the electricity used to power the car during its lifetime. Are we just moving the CO2 from the tailpipe of the car to the exhaust of the power station? Fortunately, the answer is a very resounding no, as shown in this diagram, the yellow is the CO2 from power generation for the EV:
The variation is due to the average mix of power generation in each country. However, this is worst case assuming the charger networks and EV owners just buy their power with the standard mix. Many of the charger networks buy all or most of their power only from renewables. If you own an EV you have the same choice, for example I use Ovo who source 100% from renewable sources. You can easily make the yellow bar look like Norway!
For example, here is the effect of improving average UK electricity mix historically and projected to 2030:
This does raise the question “If I keep my new car for less miles than the break-even should I buy an EV?” The answer is yes since your EV purchase means there is one less ICE on the road, it will still reach its breakeven point, even if it is after you sold it. If you’d bought an ICE that would continue to spew CO2 after you sold it!
There are quite a few good reports if you want to read more on this:
- Polestar published a detailed Lifecycle assessment showing how their new Polestar 2 compared to a Volve XC40 ICE. They concluded break-even was 31,000 miles if you used charger networks and home electric suppliers sourcing from renewables, or 48,000 miles using European average electricity (UK is a bit better). The report also covers recycling energy at end of life
- Tesla’s 2019 Impact Report covers a lot about CO2 emissions
- CleanTechnica explains where some other studies had wrongly calculated lifetime footprint
- The Carbon Brief report is the source of the diagrams above
Other Environmental Considerations
It’s clear EVs help address the number one environment issue – climate change, through CO2 reduction. But does it help in other areas and does it have a bad impact on other aspects of the environment and people?
EVs do help reduce general air pollution, which is a major health concern in cities. The main and obvious help is they produce no tailpipe emissions, something that diesels are particularly infamous for. Air pollution from cars also comes from micro particles from things like tyre and brake pad ware, the latter is reduced by EVs since they use regenerative braking, which makes much less use of conventional brake pads. Some of this is discussed in the European Environment Agency study.
In summary:
The main environment concern with EVs is effect of mining for the raw materials used in batteries. Particularly Lithium and Cobalt.
A Wired article explains some of the pollution issues with Lithium, essentially water pollution and shortage in the areas of the world its produced, especially China and Latin America. Interesting at Tesla Battery Day they announced new Lithium mining techniques that should dramatically reduce the impact of Lithium mining and allow them to extract it from the Nevada desert.
The main concern with Cobalt is much of it comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where there are significant issues with child labour, as explained in this Amnesty International article – the article actually talks about mobile phones, they use batteries that are very similar to EVs. Again this is an area where Tesla are leading change and others will follow, even if a little later. At Battery Day 2020 they announced their next generation batteries won’t use Cobalt at all.
It’s worth remembering the EVs don’t suffer from some of the other bad environmental impacts from ICE, most notably:
- The production of oil and from that petrol or diesel causes a lot of damage, including toxic compounds, greenhouse gases, oil spills and environment destruction from shale oil mining. See the Environmental impact of the petroleum industry and Environmental impact of the old shale industry
- Disposal of engine oil
Performance
EVs generally have higher performance than their ICE equivalent, particular in acceleration, where the instant 100% torque of an electric motor wins out. But of course, like with all car’s performance depends on the specific model. Tesla, Porsche and Lucid EVs battle it out for the fastest accelerating EVs in the world and are being joined by more super car brands who are going EV. There are lots of YouTube videos of Tesla Models at drag strips beating super cars and drag racers costing MUCH more.
My personal experience with my Tesla Model S is its really fast, accelerating away from the lights, down a motorway slip road or overtaking. Its rated at 0-60mph in 4.2 seconds. It also handles well, even though it’s a big heavy car. In comparison to some previous cars:
- Audi A5 3.0 TDI: Tesla is way faster and better handling, night and day!
- Porsche Cayenne S 4.6: Tesla is way faster accelerating, similar handling – big cars, but well controlled
- Porsche 911 (993 Model, so quite old): Tesla is noticeably faster accelerating, particularly from standing start. Not as good handling, the 911 was much lighter and more of a sports car
A good rounded, comparison is the Top Gear test of the Tesla Model 3 performance vs BWM M3. The Tesla beat the BWM in acceleration and time around the track.
At the top of the ranges the performance is staggering. Porsche is getting fantastic reviews for its Taycan Turbo S. Tesla is taking orders for the new Model S Plaid, with deliveries late 2021. It has three motors, 1,100 horsepower, can hit 200mph and most impressively accelerate 0-60 in less than 2 seconds and ¼ of a mile in less than 9 seconds. At £130,000 it’s an expensive car, but to put this in perspective take a look at the list of the world’s fastest accelerating cars, the £130,000 Tesla EV beats everyone on the list, many costs £Ms.
It’s not just fast in a straight line, the Laguna Seca race circuit is frequently used to benchmark cars for overall performance, the production car lap record is 1 minute 27.6 seconds, held by a McLaren Senna, price £750,000. The prototype Tesla recorded 1 minute 30.3 seconds and they expect to take up to three seconds off that for the production model. There is a list here of the lap times around Laguna Seca for many cars.
Other Types of Vehicle Power
I believe Battery powered EVs (BEVs) are the future and that the alternatives have too many downsides.
Hybrids
These have both traditional ICE and a battery with electric motor. Some of the traditional car manufacturers are trying to push these as a good steppingstone. They are not for most people; they are there for the car manufactures who have been slow to move to EVs! They will save a bit of CO2 compared to a pure ICE, but nothing like as much as pure EV.
There are two type of hybrid; Self Charing and Plugin.
Self-Charging Hybrid
This is a marketing name. What this really means is they have an exceedingly small battery which is charged from two sources; the ICE and regeneration (regen) from braking. They can’t generate energy from the car moving, so most of the energy is just generated from the ICE running, which of course produces CO2. Energy from regen is “free”, but it is significantly offset by the extra weight of dragging around both an ICE and batteries and electric motors. They are only likely to be more efficient than an ICE when most journeys are very stop start, such as city driving. The benefits from regen and some efficiency gain from letting the engine run at lower power when accelerating, by using the battery to assist. But a small capacity EV would be much more efficient in a city. On long journey’s the battery’s only source of energy is the ICE, so it’s no better than ICE, potentially worse due to the extra weight.
Here is a comparison of the most economic Hybrid, the Toyota Prius Eco with a much higher end Tesla Model 3, even here on the UK average mix the Ev is around 2x lower CO2 and if you used electricity from renewables then it becomes >3x better.
Plug In-Hybrid (PHEV)
These have both an ICE and small battery and electric motor. They can typically travel for 20-30 miles on the battery and the electric motor can assist the ICE during acceleration, which combined with brake re-gen improves efficiency a little. If most of your driving is short distance and you don’t accelerate to hard, so on battery, you do get a lot of the benefits of an EV. The big issue is once you go beyond the battery range not only are you driving an ICE, but you are driving a very heavy one, dragging around a flat battery and unused electric motor. So, on a long journey you will be generating more CO2 and spending more on fuel that if you have a pure ICE. For example, one of my friends changed his BWM Diesel to a similar BMW plug-in hybrid and does a lot of long business trips. He is actually getting less MPG, so his carbon footprint has actually gone up!
The BBC article “Plug-in hybrids are a wolf in sheep’s clothing” discusses this in more depth.
Hydrogen Fuel Cell
This looks like it’s going to enable the world to move to Electric aircraft and shipping, which is hugely important as they are such a big source of CO2. For example, Airbus recently announced plans for Hydrogen planes.
However, for cars hydrogen is unlikely to take off as it has too many limitations – very inefficient and therefore expensive, no infrastructure, requiring £Bs to address and very few hydrogen cars.
Hydrogen is only pushed by a few, particularly Toyota who are very behind on EVs. The claim is they are both low carbon footprint and would have the same range and quick refuelling speed as an ICE. They run off liquid hydrogen, which is converted to water in a fuel cell in the car, generating electricity to run electric motors, the only bi product is water. Sounds great? There are a number of serious issues that mean they are neither as good as they seem and very unlikely to take off.
Hydrogen cars are not actually very efficient as lots of energy is lost creating and distributing the hydrogen and converting it to electricity in the car, the picture below shows just how inefficient. Less efficient means much more expensive.
Hydrogen doesn’t occur on its own naturally, it has to be extracted, either from gas or water. Most comes from gas today, which creates a lot of CO2. Water extraction using electrolysis, powered by electricity, is required to make Hydrogen truly CO2 friendly, this will require a lot of investment.
Hydrogen can’t be stored as a gas as its not dense enough, so it has to be compressed to liquid form, which again requires a lot of energy. The liquid hydrogen then has to be transported from production to regional storage and then on to local fuel station storage, again adding cost
In the car the Hydrogen needs to be combined with Oxygen to generate electricity, it also generates a lot of waste heat, which reduces efficiency further.
In comparison with a BEV electricity is generated at source, distributed over the national grid and used to charge the car’s battery. There is little lost from transmission and expensive energy form conversion. The chart above shows the two side by side.
There are hardly any Hydrogen cars to buy, and other the Japanese manufacturers few of the car manufacturers have any firm plans to offer Hydrogen cars and the ones available today are expensive, more than EVs.
The final major issue is lack of infrastructure, there are hardly any Hydrogen fuel stations to fill up from:
Source: ZapMap
Around 15 Hydrogen stations compared to over 12,000 locations and 34,000 connections for EVs. It’s not just a case of putting Hydrogen into existing Petrol stations. They need different tanks and pumps, and tankers to transport and regional storage infrastructure, so it’s a massive task to build out a good network, requiring £Bs of investment.
The other consideration, which potential investors in Hydrogen are going to consider, is that EV battery technology is improving quickly. So, by the time Hydrogen was rolled out for mass adoption its likely it’s advantages in range and refuelling time wouldn’t be that big – by then EV range and charging speed would likely be much closer to Hydrogen. Who is going to make such a massive investment with so much risk and uncertainty, and bet against the £Bs that is being invested in EVs? Remember VHS vs BETAMAX tapes? Hydrogen for cars is most likely the next BETAMAX!
Where Hydrogen probably has a place is to fuel ships, planes and potentially long-distance trucks. For these you only need a relatively small number of regional hydrogen station hubs, so infrastructure is much less of an issue. The extra range and fast fuelling could be more beneficial. For aircraft, the big benefit is Hydrogen currently has a much higher energy density, meaning the weight of Hydrogen needed to fuel a plane is far less that the weight of batteries. Indeed, right now a large passenger plane couldn’t fly with batteries as the weight is simply too large. For example, Airbus recently announced concept plans for a Hydrogen powered planes for around 2030. However, with rapid battery technology innovation it may turn out that batteries could power a plane in future. Indeed, its progressed enough to power smaller, short range planes already, for example the Volocopter Air Taxi that is launching in the next couple of years.
There is good article by Transport for the Environment on overall Hydrogen Transport Strategy, which covers the efficient points and best uses for Hydrogen and battery electric.
I believe for the road’s battery EVs will be the clear winner, while for large aircraft and shipping hydrogen fuel cells will be the winner. Together the two technologies combined with renewable and nuclear power generation will be what lets the world tackle a large part of CO2 driven climate change.
The Future of Cars – EVs, Robotaxis and Transport as a Service
This post has been focussing up to now on moving to EVs, however there is another major area of development that is happening at the same time and that could have a profound effect on cars and car ownership. That development is autonomous driving, and how that will enable Robotaxis. This will mean we won’t simply replace 40m ICE vehicles with 40m EVs in the UK. The total number of vehicles will go down significantly, and society will evolve to a mix of car ownership and Robotaxi’s for personal transport and deliveries – Transport as a Service (TaaS).
Long before we get to a ban on the sale of new ICE cars, even if this happens in 2030, autonomous driving will certainly be progressed to the point that we will have larger numbers of Robotaxis on our streets.
Indeed this is starting to happen now:
- Waymo, a Google Company, are running a Robotaxi service in Arizona with no drivers. There are YouTube videos from passengers
- Tesla started its beta test of Full Self Driving in the US in October 2020, there are many YouTube videos of drivers testing. While this currently still needs driver supervision and some intervention it is a massive leap forward and is learning rapidly. It’s not hard to imagine this reaching Waymo level in 2021, at which point >1M Tesla cars around the world could become Robotaxi’s
Think Uber taxi without the driver. Right now, the most expensive component of a taxi is sitting in the front seat – the driver. Taxi drivers earn around £32,000 per year on average (source Indeed), let’s assume the average new car used as a taxi cost £25,000 and loses 75% of its value over 4 years – an aggressive assumption assuming very high milage. The total cost over 4 years is £146,750, excluding fuel and servicing. Let’s assume a fully autonomous car, a Robotaxi, costs around £50,000 and also loses 75% of its value, so the total cost if around £38,000 – this is roughly the cost of a Tesla Model 3 with Full Self Driving option. That is around 4x less cost, if you factor in the lower running costs of an EV vs ICE then the savings are even greater.
A study by RethinkX estimates that in the US the change to “Transport as a Service” could result in average annual savings per family of $5,600, which is the equivalent of a 10% wage rise. This would add $1T to the US economy. They also estimated that the improvement in productivity from people not being tied up driving would add another $1T to the US economy.
In addition to dedicated Robotaxi’s it’s likely that private owners will let their full autonomous cars be used as Robotaxis when they aren’t using them. Indeed, Tesla have already announced they plan to enable this, allowing Tesla owners to earn income from their cars and Tesla to take a cut. Tesla are claiming the functionality should be technically available soon, while it may take some time for regulations to allow this, it’s certainly going to happen way before the new ICE sales ban.
All this means the cost of taxi journeys will drop dramatically and availably will grow greatly. Meaning Robotaxi’s are a viable alternative to car ownership for many. The result is rather than 40M ICE vehicles been replaced by 40M EVs, what will happen is there will be a significant reduction in the number of cars privately owned. In two main categories:
- 2nd cars that are often owned as a pure transport utility become less common
- Those who either don’t care about owning a car, or who find it a large part of their income, choose not to own
I recently conducted a poll of a UK EV community and 30% said they would reduce their car ownership when low cost Robotaxi’s become available.
I believe the technology will be ready for 2021. The two primary areas that could slow things down are:
- Regulation – Governments allowing autonomous driving and Robotaxi services, particularly if lobbying by those with a vested interest against prevails
- Public Perception – How quickly will people adapt to such a tremendous change and feel about the risks – even if a human driver is more likely to have an accident people are likely to be extremely nervous of autonomous driving
There is a report from Mckinsey and another from RethinkX that examines this is more detail. If you want to get really deep the changes to society from EVs and autonomous driving are just the beginning of the technology driven transformation of humanity, take a look at the RethinkX Humanity eBook for more.
Common Questions and Objections
Here are some of the questions and objections I’ve heard for EVs and my answers.
Will Banning new ICE sales harm the poor?
This is untrue in two respects
- It’s a ban on new car sales, people will still be able to buy 2nd hand ICE as they do today for many years
- By the time the ban happens the price of a new EV will be the same, or potentially less, than an equivalent ICE and these will be as affordable second hand as an ICE of the same age
If the UK switched to EVs could the grid cope?
In a word, yes!
The national grid itself have confirmed this as it was a common bit of “fake news”.
Can EVs only be serviced and repaired by main dealers?
EVs can be serviced by non-main dealers or even competent DIYers could. This isn’t an issue for multiple reasons:
- Many EVs don’t require any regular service, there is no oil to change etc.
- Much of the things that independent garages and individuals do on ICE are the same on EVs, for example suspension, brakes, windows, door locks, lights etc.
- Independent EV garages are already appearing, for example Cleverly EV and EV Link, the market will adjust, as there are more EVs more garages will skill up to service them
- The major complex EV parts, mainly battery and drivetrain, are covered under long warrantees and aren’t items that can be fixed at component level, they are swapped out if they fail. When EVs get old enough for these to be out of warrantee its very likely independent garages will have skilled up to replace them and as well as buying new parts things like electric motors could be purchased from a scrap yard.
- It is true there are some very complex electronics on EVs, such as driving assist features, that few could work on, but that isn’t unique to EVs it’s the case with modern cars
Do EVs have less range in cold weather and high speed?
Yes, on average EVs lose around 18% of their range in cold vs warm weather. But it does vary by model, how cold, and what you do to mitigate.
You should consider range at motorway speeds and cold weather in your choice of EV if you are doing longer journeys. If you are mostly doing shorter journeys, such as city driving, then range even in the cold won’t make much difference, if you charge at home. If you can’t charge at home and have to rely on public chargers, then city range might be a more important consideration in your choice of EV. Take a look at the EV guide for range information, I talk about this in the New EV section.
Here is an example of the Tesla Model 3 Long Range data from the EV guide. You can see the range on the motorway goes down from around 265 miles to around 200 miles in cold weather, still more than 2 hours of non-stop motorway driving.
The reason EVs lose more % range than ICE in cold weather is because ICE cars product a lot of heat as a by-product, it’s one of the reasons why ICE is so inefficient. But it does mean ICE cars can use the excess heat to warm up the cabin. EVs produce very little by-product heat, so have to use the batteries to run heaters to warm up the cabin and in very cold weather the batteries too.
Some EV models are more efficient in how they generate heat, using heat-pump technology, for example the Tesla Model Y and Renault Zoe. There is an article that compares different models in the cold.
However, you can mitigate some of the impact of cold weather and your comfort benefits too! Most EVs allow you to pre-heat the car, either by setting a departure timer or their App. This will warm up the cabin and battery while the car is still plugged in. It’s the initial warming up that takes the most energy. This also means you step into a nice warm defrosted car!
The reason motorway speeds reduce range is the same as why an ICE uses much more fuel – the car has a lot of air resistance to overcome at high speed.
Could I run out of power if I got stuck in traffic for a long time?
Very unlikely unless you were almost out of charge when you first got stuck – nearly all the power requirements for an EV driving the motors to moving it. Running aircon or heating uses a small amount of power in comparison. For example, running the heater while stuck in traffic would probably consume around 3KW of power, so if you sat in traffic for two hours you would use 6KW, about 8% of a Tesla Model 3 Long Range battery. This is actually an EV benefit compared to an ICE which needs to keep its engine running to drive the aircon or heating.
Can I tow with an EV?
Yes, with the medium and larger EVs. No with the smallest ones, which isn’t dissimilar to ICE. To check look at EV guide, click “More Options” and click on “Towbar” to filter to show only EVs that can tow:
You can also click on any car and look in the Dimensions and Weight section for maximum towing capacity.
As is the case with ICE towing will reduce range, so you will need to stop more frequently on a long journey. The extra wind resistance is a big factor, not just weight, so for example a tall caravan will reduce range more than a big flat trailer.
If you tow a lot and will be using public chargers frequently, you might also want to consider the charge plug location on the EVs you are considering. It will be easier if you can drive into a charger and plug in, which is possible with charger ports nearer the front. Those with charger ports nearer the back might mean you have to unhitch your caravan / trailer to allow you to reverse your EV into a public charger.
Can I carry bikes with an EV?
Yes of course. You can get bike racks to either fit on the roof or boot. Because EV range is affected most by wind resistant a bike rack on the back of the car will likely reduce range less than on the roof.
Can an EV be towed?
The depends on the model, check with your manufacturer. Some can’t be, so need to be either flat bedded or use a tow truck that lifts the drive wheels off the ground. Others do have a tow mode that disconnects the motors. A few will even charge their batteries if towed but be careful to confirm this before trying!
The reason it depends on the manufacturer is because all EVs have break regen from the wheels, so this needs to be controlled if the drive wheels are moving from being towed. Indeed, some EVs can be recharged by towing them!
Can I go off road in an EV?
Yes, but like with an ICE how good it is off road will depend a lot on the model and tyres fitted. Those with four-wheel drive and adjustable air suspension will likely do best. From a grip perspective the more sophisticated EVs like Tesla’s do well as they can control each wheel and may have adjustable ride height.
How will an EV do in snow?
Like with an ICE this depends a lot on the model. Generally, they do well compared to ICE as they are heavier and the weight is evenly distributed so the driving wheels should get more grip. The reverse can be seen with rear wheel drive ICE cars, like BWMs, which are notoriously terrible in snow as they have little weight over the drive wheels.
Models with four-wheel drive will naturally do well. As I noted in the off-road section Tesla’s have good individual wheel control so are particularly good in snow.
As with any car fitting winter tyres will make a significant difference.
Are EVs more likely to catch fire than ICE cars? Are they safe in a crash?
They are far less likely to catch fire than an ICE – remember an ICE has a tank full of highly combustible fuel!
It is possible for an EV to catch fire if a battery is severely damaged in an accident or there is a serious battery fault. While there have been news stories on this it is far less likely to happen than an ICE catching fire. For example, in the UK there are over 20,000 car fires per year. Tesla publishes data on vehicle fires in the US, this shows a Tesla EV is 9x less likely to suffer a fire than the US average.
Fire departments are getting training on how to respond to EV fires and accidents. The EV manufacturers also issue specific guides for first responders, for example here is Tesla’s.
Fire is the main risk in an accident that could be different to an ICE. As described above this is less likely than a fuel fire. In other respects, the safely depends on the specific car and its safety features, both active safety, such as automatic braking and collision avoidance and the passive safety of the car construction. For Tesla specifically the active safety is very effective, Tesla’s accident date for Q2 2020 shows they are 9 times less likely to have an accident when driving themselves (Autopilot engaged), nearly 5 times less likely when being driven with active safety features on and 3 times less likely when all the optional safety features are turned off. Source: Tesla Safety Report.
EuroNCAP 2019 data placed Tesla Model 3 at the top of this list for crash safety.
Are EVs more expensive to insure?
Yes, they tend to have a higher insurance group than their non-EV equivalent. However, this is more than offset by the many other savings EVs provide over ICE
Are EVs more expensive to repair in case of an accident?
No, the cost should be similar for most types of crash damage including bodywork and suspension which are much the same as an EV. If the accident damaged the batteries or motors that would need more specialist manufacturer repair, however an accident bad enough to damage those components would very likely write off any car.
EV repairs should be done by repair centres that are trained to fix EVs as there are some considerations around electrical safety and heat, but that just requires a repair shop that is trained, not necessarily the manufacturer / dealer.
Are EVs safe in the rain and to drive through standing water?
They are safe to charge; the electronics are well insulated and have safety systems that make them safe to charge in the wet.
EVs are better than ICE cars in standing water. The batteries and drive train are sealed, and they have no air intake to the engine. So, the main concern would be water getting into the cabin and the electrics. There is more on this and some fun videos in this article, covering several different EVs. Reputedly Tesla’s will float for a while, but not recommended to try!
From personal experience I know BMWs can be bad; I drove through about 1 foot of water and discovered the air intake is mounted very low. The car ingested water and it destroyed the engine, fortunately the insurance covered, it cost over £6,000 for a new engine. It was during a time with a lot of floods, when I was in the BMW garage they had lots in for repair, they admitted it happened a lot and I was lucky the car was quite new and water hadn’t got into the cabin, apparently a lot of others had been written off by the insurance companies.
What happens if I run out of power?
Firstly, this is very unlikely, most EVs link charge level to their Sat Nav, so would warn you and navigate you to a charger. If it did happen a breakdown company could either flatbed your car to a charger and increasingly recovery companies have roadside charging in their vehicles, for example RAC EV recovery charging. It is true that they would need to flatbed rather than tow many EVs.
Are EVs dangerous to pedestrians because they can’t hear them?
Since 2019 all new EVs must emit a sound below 12mph, which ensures pedestrians can hear them!
If all new cars are EVs can we produce enough batteries?
The short answer is yes.
There are two parts to this. First factories manufacturing batteries and second the mining of the raw materials.
Battery factories are simply a matter of more being built to meet demand, combined with developments to make them more efficient, there is already huge growth of both independent battery manufacturers that many car companies use, and Tesla is increasingly moving to build its own battery manufacturing. Indeed, at the September 2020 Battery Day they announced plans for a massive expansion of battery manufacturing and innovative new techniques that make this far more efficient and scalable. While Tesla is leading on this, other will be able to do similar, even if a bit later.
Battery raw materials supply of course requires increasing dramatically. However, we aren’t going to run out of the elements (unlike oil where there is a very finite supply), but we do need big increases in production and changes in battery technology:
- Lithium should be easy to scale as it’s a very plentiful element. The WiKipedia article on Lithium production includes studies projecting a strong supply
- Cobalt is the most expensive element in batteries, projections suggest we are unlikely to run out of Cobalt, especially as additional sources are developed. The main issues with Cobalt are its cost and reliance on 60% coming from the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has ethical concerns. Battery technology development will likely reduce or even eliminate the need for cobalt in future. There is a New Scientist article discussing this. However, it’s likely that batteries will move away from using Cobalt, Tesla announced in September 2020 that their next generation batteries would be Cobalt free
- Nickel is a key element in batteries and is expected to grow as new battery technology reduces or eliminates Cobalt. Production will certainly need to scale, and Elon Musk has been vocal asking for this. There are many sources and it already has very large-scale production as it’s used to create stainless steel (68% of Nickel production is currently used for this). There is a detailed article here.
- Silicon is an increasingly important component of batteries, it is plentiful, it’s the 2nd most common element in the earth’s crust and of course has a very mature supply chain as it’s a key component of electronics – silicon chips!
Recycling will also be a key part of long term supply – fortunately the majority of the raw materials in batteries can be extracted as part of recycling so once the majority of cars are EVs a large amount of the raw materials for new car batteries will be able to come from recycling old batteries, indeed at the September 2020 Battery Day Tesla talked about much of the their mining needs eventually going away because of this!
This is very different to ICE where oil cannot be recycled and estimates are around 50 years of supply remaining.
The government earns a lot of Tax revenue from fuel, how will they replace this if we all have EVs?
In the medium term this is something they will need to address. It will of course be a phase over – there are 40M vehicles in the UK and around 2.5M new cars sold per year, so a ban on ICE sales will take around 16 years to “flush” most ICE cars from the road. Therefore, the government needs to adjust taxes to cover around 1/16 of fuel tax per year. Around £28B is generated from fuel duties, this equates to around £700 per year per vehicles or around £1,000 per household in total or £44 per vehicle / £63 per household per year of adjustment required.
This will require significant changes to tax structures each year, but they are changes that are very manageable. It could be an opportunity to make the tax fairer. Right now, the tax an individual pays relates a lot to how much they drive, not so much about their income or ability to pay. The government could also elect to distribute the tax burden beyond vehicles – right now they generate far more income from vehicles that they spend. Whatever the solution the key point is this is a surmountable problem and not a reason to delay moving to EVs.
On the flip side EVs should save the government money. ICE is a major contributor to air pollution, a study from Imperial College estimates that this could cost the UK up to £5.3B by 2035 without action. More indirectly EVs are part of limiting climate change and without action climate change will have an increasing cost to the government and economy.
Could an EV be destroyed by lightening?
While driving EVs are as safe as an ICE in lightening, in the unlikely case the car was struct the metal bodywork acts as a Faraday cage, which conducts the electricity around the car body, not through it. You might get some bodywork damage, but it’s not going to destroy the electronics. There are more details here, if you want a bit of fun here is a video of Richard Hammond sitting in a car being struck by lightning.
The other, very unlikely, situation is your house is struck by lightning while the car is plugged in. Most likely this is going to blow the fuse, but there is a small chance of a massive surge through your house wiring, which will wreck anything plugged in and much of your houses wiring. This might possibly get through the charger and damage the car as well. But very unlikely and most fully comprehensive car insurance policies would cover this, see this article by The Guardian.
EVs don’t sound as nice?
OK, perhaps a bit of a silly objection. But I can appreciate for some the roar of a nice engine is part of the pleasure of owning a car. I’ve enjoyed this myself in the past!
This mainly applies to bigger faster cars; four-cylinder engines found on most cars sound fairly rubbish, particularly diesel.
I thought I was going to miss this, but what I found was the combination of amazing acceleration and a “high tech motor whistle” soon grew on me and I didn’t miss the engine roar.
