[Soul_Glo]

I'm in no hurry to buy another car but I did say to the boss lady.. my next car will be electric.

I couldn't slag off electric cars enough on here a while back. Became a bit of a keyboard warrior too about them.

The more I see my neighbours Tesla Model S.. especially around winter... didn't even have to warm it up. No engine temperature or oil to worry about. I spoke to her about maintenance and the only things so far have been brakes and wipers. Updates and diagnostics have been done over the air.

The i3S looks ugly in my view but it's an incredible effort by BMW. I'd have range anxiety with that as I can cover 250 miles in a day sometimes.

So... this is my shortlist so far in no particular order:

1. BMW ix3
2. Ford Mach-E
3. Tesla Model 3 / S
4. Jaguar iPace
5. Lucid Motors - Lucid Air
6. Volvo Polestar 2
7. Mercedes EQC
8. Peugeot 208 GTi - if zee French ever release it - hohn hohn pepe le pew voice.
9. BMW i4 - estimated to arrive in 2021

Anything worth keeping an eye on or considering?

Cheers

[335dMSport+]

A Prius so that you can double up as an Uber driver in your spare time?

[isleaiw1]

Originally Posted by Soul_Glo

I'm in no hurry to buy another car but I did say to the boss lady.. my next car will be electric.

I couldn't slag off electric cars enough on here a while back. Became a bit of a keyboard warrior too about them.

The more I see my neighbours Tesla Model S.. especially around winter... didn't even have to warm it up. No engine temperature or oil to worry about. I spoke to her about maintenance and the only things so far have been brakes and wipers. Updates and diagnostics have been done over the air.

The i3S looks ugly in my view but it's an incredible effort by BMW. I'd have range anxiety with that as I can cover 250 miles in a day sometimes.

So... this is my shortlist so far in no particular order:

1. BMW ix3
2. Ford Mach-E
3. Tesla Model 3

Anything worth keeping an eye on or considering?

Cheers

Polestar 2

[cfm56d7b]

At least on paper, BMW i4 could be worth waiting for. Yet it's another year to wait.

[Soul_Glo]

Originally Posted by cfm56d7b

At least on paper, BMW i4 could be worth waiting for. Yet it's another year to wait.

I watched the videos on that. Looks good. The market will soon be flooded with every manufacturer trying to fill a segment. Let's see.

[3-GT]

Originally Posted by isleaiw1

Polestar 2

Good shout with the Polestar. It's like an electric version of a 3 series GT. I like it.

[TimMcC]

If the iX3 floats your boat, consider the Mercedes EQC and the Audi e-Tron. Pretty much identical in format and price.

[pmgreenwood]

Originally Posted by TimMcC

If the iX3 floats your boat, consider the Mercedes EQC and the Audi e-Tron. Pretty much identical in format and price.

and do not forget Tesla Model Y

[NanasBack]

Decent electric cars? Anything to wait for?

A charger?







Sunday evening on a service station in Norway.
They are far and away, better set up for electric cars than we are.

Unfortunate. But I think a bit of a reality?

[Soul_Glo]

Originally Posted by NanasBack

Decent electric cars? Anything to wait for?

A charger?

Attachment 2387656

Attachment 2387657

Attachment 2387658

Sunday evening on a service station in Norway.
They are far and away, better set up for electric cars than we are.

Unfortunate. But I think a bit of a reality?

This is one of my reservations. With gas/liquid fuels you pump them in and within a few minutes you're 100 percent. Another thing that bugs me is when someone down the street had a kitchen fire that spread. One of those strange homes with the kitchen at the front. The electric car was parked outside and dead. Battery explosions to one side... small window open and an outside wooden frame and planters caught fire taking some Nissan paint with it (parked close). I'd hate to be that guy who couldn't get my family to safety or drive them to a relatives/hotel after if we weren't allowed back in the house. We put them up for the night.

Based on that I think I'd try and keep a non-EV car alongside before fossil fuel is banned.

[Soul_Glo]

Shall I compare thee to a summers day?

Welcome to the party Lucid. Although it's not your aim to be compared to Tesla you've achieved something great.


https://interestingengineering.com/n...teslas-model-s

[TimMcC]

Originally Posted by NanasBack

Decent electric cars? Anything to wait for?

A charger?

Attachment 2387656

Attachment 2387657

Attachment 2387658

Sunday evening on a service station in Norway.
They are far and away, better set up for electric cars than we are.

Unfortunate. But I think a bit of a reality?

Oh dear, never seen that before. Did you snap these on holiday?

At the moment so much of EV ownership depends on your circumstances. I drive around 70 miles every day, and I've got a charger at home on my drive way.

For me it's actually more convenient than petrol/diesel. When I had the 430d I had to visit the petrol station every week. Usually this would be at an inconvenient time when I was running late, or had the kids in the car. It would always mean at least 20 minutes out of my day to drive out of my way to the petrol station, fill it, and pay for it. Thankfully the station I usually use has 6 pumps and no supermarket so you don't need to queue very often.

These days I take about 5s to plug the car in when I get home, and I every morning I have 180 miles of range (indicated). So for me it's actually far more convenient most of the time.

I've had the car since March 2019, and so far I don't think I've charged it more than 10 times. I've never had to queue, but I did come up to a broken charger once which meant I had to drive 2 miles down the road to the next one which did work. Wasn't too bad for most of those, as I'd planned to eat at the same time. There are some lovely gastropubs with chargers outside them! There has been at least one occasion where it has been a bit of a pain having to charge at around 10pm. Left reading a book for 30 minutes. Not great.

Usually I take the 530d still on trips where I think I'd need to take on an inconvenient charge. Although when the lease is up on that we will definitely be replacing it with another EV - something with a claimed 300 mile range will be sufficient as I find I want to stop around 200-250 miles anyway.

[TimMcC]

Originally Posted by Soul_Glo

Shall I compare thee to a summers day?

Welcome to the party Lucid. Although it's not your aim to be compared to Tesla you've achieved something great.


https://interestingengineering.com/n...teslas-model-s

They are nice, but depends how much they'll be!

Forgot to mention the Jaguar i-Pace. Also worth a look if you don't need something particularly practical. Claims to be an SUV, but to my eyes it's more of a fancy hatchback!

[anielsen71]

Fisker automotive is another upcoming EV

https://www.fiskerinc.com

[TimMcC]

And don't forget Rivian!

I'll be putting a deposit down for an R1S when they're available to pre-order I think: https://rivian.com/r1s

[saltyamigo]

The Lucid looks nice but I think it will be quite a while before we see any in the UK, the factory is not even built yet and Covid will no doubt delay it further, they also have to sort out a sales & service network from scratch. I think the price for the Air will be more in the Tesla S / Taycan range than Tesla 3 / Polestar.

I'm not sure about the i4, not too keen on the exterior design of the latest concept (the first ones looked fantastic) but it may look good in the final flesh. If they can keep it under the £50K mark as rumoured then it will be a huge hit, great range, performance, BMW build quality with a large sales and service network to back it up. Just not sure how they can do that with the spec they are suggesting, price is not much more than a high end petrol 3 series.

[saltyamigo]

If you are serious about an EV and do high miles look at your normal routes and see what chargers are available. The charging network seems a bit of a mess due to the many different suppliers, it's not like petrol where you just roll in to BP, Tesco or Shell and fill up in 5 minutes and pay. Some have monthly subscriptions, require apps on your phone, many are frustrating and unreliable, and can range anywhere from £0.00 to £0.70 per kw, top end pricing is higher than the cost of petrol per mile. There is a push to make all chargers accept contactless payment to make life easier for users. The Supercharging network is Tesla's trump card at the moment, you don't appreciate how important a quick reliable charging network is until you need it. If you have access to a home charger or work charger this may not be so important to you.

[lethbridge]

Personally I wouldn't contemplate it for many years - probably at least 10 - the EV choices today are really poor and expensive - none get me remotely interested aside from perhaps the Taycan. Once they are mainstream and someone has fathomed out how to deliver a network of high speed chargers it may be different. If you live in or around a city, can charge it overnight and get there and back on a charge it does make sense (if you can find a car you like at a price that actually makes financial sense). If you can't charge it yourself (I suspect the majority of the population couldn't) then it becomes quite a challenging/inconvenient solution to getting from a-b.

For me I now have a car to take a blast in the countryside or travel long distances - I don't commute. So for me EVs are fundamentally flawed for what I want from a car. When I did use my car for business (which I don't anymore) there is no way an EV would work for me either without massive inconvenience as a typical journey would be around 200 miles each way and I'm not a fan of wasting time sitting around/taking a break for a coffee/hunting for and queuing for an elusive charge point compatible with my particular choice of car. I think that is the issue though - an ICE works for everyone, an EV is perfect for some now but not for the majority and is actually quite divisive if not elitist (if I'm right in assuming they are not practical if you don't have a drive so you can charge them yourself).

One positive for EVs is they don't suffer from ever enlarging grilles...

[Dave911]

Last week I was stranded in a Jaguar i pace 60 miles from home with a range of 30 miles. Travelled to 7 different charging point all which were broken. By the time I got to one I had 2 miles left.

Took nearly 2 hours to add 30 miles and got home with 1 mile to spare. Was a disaster.

The jag is nice to drive and quick but maximum range is 200 miles for a full charge which is pretty pathetic. I won’t be in the market for one for a long time.

[TimMcC]

Originally Posted by saltyamigo

If you are serious about an EV and do high miles look at your normal routes and see what chargers are available. The charging network seems a bit of a mess due to the many different suppliers, it's not like petrol where you just roll in to BP, Tesco or Shell and fill up in 5 minutes and pay. Some have monthly subscriptions, require apps on your phone, many are frustrating and unreliable, and can range anywhere from £0.00 to £0.70 per kw, top end pricing is higher than the cost of petrol per mile. There is a push to make all chargers accept contactless payment to make life easier for users. The Supercharging network is Tesla's trump card at the moment, you don't appreciate how important a quick reliable charging network is until you need it. If you have access to a home charger or work charger this may not be so important to you.

It isn't really that bad. All chargers are already required to provide Ad-hoc charging capability, meaning no membership needed. For some that means using an app, for many it means a debit/credit card.

The government are already driving this to 100% debit/credit card for all new charger installs:

https://fleetworld.co.uk/all-rapid-c...yment-by-2020/

[gangzoom]

Our main family car has been an EV since 2015 when I sold the 335i.

In the last 3.5 years and 46k on I have no issues with our 200 mile range EV interms of family duties. Day to day I don't keep it charged beyond 50%. Looking at the data only 6% of our tirps in the car has required enroute charging (DC charging).



Pre COVID there was a case for us to have a car that could do 300 miles in all weathers/speeds for day return work trips, but actually login into Teams is much easier for everyone rather than driving, and I suspect we'll never go back to doing those kind of trips. I suspect pending funds we will be going fully electric very soon.

Running costs of our 6 seater, sub 5 second to 60 SUV has been 3.5p per mile including fuel/servicing/tyres.

The current EV will be with us for a while yet, it does everything we need from a family car perfectly (including trips to Europe). I'll probably replace around 2025-2030 depending on our need for large family car interms of children/grandparents etc. If I didn't need a family wagon I would probably have bought a Taycan already, living with a 24kWh Nissan Leaf through winter gives you a different perspective on EV range when you are talking about the current crop of new EVs on sale today.

If you don't want an EV that's fine, but very few people who buy an EV go back to a combustion car.

[TimMcC]

Originally Posted by lethbridge

Personally I wouldn't contemplate it for many years - probably at least 10 - the EV choices today are really poor and expensive - none get me remotely interested aside from perhaps the Taycan. Once they are mainstream and someone has fathomed out how to deliver a network of high speed chargers it may be different. If you live in or around a city, can charge it overnight and get there and back on a charge it does make sense (if you can find a car you like at a price that actually makes financial sense). If you can't charge it yourself (I suspect the majority of the population couldn't) then it becomes quite a challenging/inconvenient solution to getting from a-b.

For me I now have a car to take a blast in the countryside or travel long distances - I don't commute. So for me EVs are fundamentally flawed for what I want from a car. When I did use my car for business (which I don't anymore) there is no way an EV would work for me either without massive inconvenience as a typical journey would be around 200 miles each way and I'm not a fan of wasting time sitting around/taking a break for a coffee/hunting for and queuing for an elusive charge point compatible with my particular choice of car. I think that is the issue though - an ICE works for everyone, an EV is perfect for some now but not for the majority and is actually quite divisive if not elitist (if I'm right in assuming they are not practical if you don't have a drive so you can charge them yourself).

One positive for EVs is they don't suffer from ever enlarging grilles...

66% of car owners have off-road parking and could therefore have their own charger installed. There are also various companies installing charging bollards and upgrading lampposts to offer on-street parking for the rest:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-42944523

Compatibility issues are becoming a thing of the past. The UK standardised on CCS for rapid charging and type 2 for fast (aka slow) charging. It is no longer possible to get type approval for a new EV without providing this. With regard to the current fleet of cars it's only really the Tesla X and S, Renault Zoe and Nissan Leaf which use anything else.

If you don't want one that's fair enough. But you might not have any choice 10 years from now. Shell certainly seem to think it's a good idea:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...le-ban-to-2030

My view is that EVs will work today for most people with either a little or no compromise. But there are clearly some for whom it'll be more challenging.

I think a small bit of inconvenience is worth not spilling toxic fumes into the air around my house, workplace, and other places I go.