Posted 9 March 1 hour ago, yesterday said: -The speed of transition will cause many problems for people without much money, who may be priced out of the market, look on autoscout24, you do not find any BEV for sale at less than 30,000 Euro for a 10 year old machine, except leaf etc, how are the poor going to afford that ? and you know all the problems with a 10+ years old cars get. Looking at mobile.de, I see over 4000 listings for undamaged EVs under 5 years old in Germany for 7.000 - 20.000€ : https://suchen.mobile.de/fahrzeuge/search.html?cn=DE&damageUnrepaired=NO_DAMAGE_UNREPAIRED&fuels=ELECTRICITY&grossPrice=true&isSearchRequest=true&maxPrice=20000&minFirstRegistrationDate=2018-01-01&minPrice=7000&sortOption.sortBy=specifics.firstRegistration&sortOption.sortOrder=ASCENDING Typical listings: - VW e-Golf - Smart fortwo - Renault Zoe - VW e-Up / Skoda Citigo / SEAT Mii - Dacia Spring - Fiat 500e - Renault Twingo - Renault Kangoo - Nissan Leaf - BMW i3 If you search for 20 - 30k that are less than 5 years old, you get an additional 7600 listings. A few high-km Tesla's under 30k are also starting to show up. As for autoscout24, there are currently 3.200 5yo EVs under 20k and 9.000 under 30k which that represents 3.5% of their total offerings in that price segment. 0 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted 9 March 59 minutes ago, murphaph said: The thing I don't like about the Tesla is the inside. I just don't like that minimalist vibe. I like buttons. For towing capacity hard to beat...for the moment. I doubt Tesla has made any design changes to the Y to enable towing of heavier trailers, so it was a "just because" thing. I wonder can owners of older Model Ys have their Fahrzeugschein updated with the new towing limit. Or maybe I was wrong all this time. I googled and 1600kg has been the limit all the way to 2021, maybe longer. And my interest on the Y only picked up after they reduced the price. My big issue with the Y is that I find it fugly. But you can't win everything. I don't buy the "minimalist" approach either. Nor the lack of a driver screen in the usual position. It is all just ways to save money sold as features. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted 9 March 10 minutes ago, circuits said: Typical listings: - VW e-Golf - Smart fortwo - Renault Zoe - VW e-Up / Skoda Citigo / SEAT Mii - Dacia Spring - Fiat 500e - Renault Twingo - Renault Kangoo - Nissan Leaf - BMW i3 1 hour ago, murphaph said: All those cars are either not truly EVs, or you are renting the battery, or they have horrible outdated technology, or they made the early design error or making them look very alien, or they just suck. Those cars are the bestest example of "For that price is much better to buy a decent second hand ICE". 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted 9 March 1 minute ago, Krieg said: All those cars are either not truly EVs, or you are renting the battery, or they have horrible outdated technology, or they made the early design error or making them look very alien, or they just suck. Those cars are the bestest example of "For that price is much better to buy a decent second hand ICE". I just scraped the site and less than 20% are battery rentals. Given your personal criteria, there are still thousands of used EVs for sale under 30k. Just nothing that would suit you. As for new "real" EVs, the MG4 for 30k (after adding shipping costs and deducting the BAFA Prämie) is the cheapest and can tow a wee 500kg trailer. 0 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted 9 March I think the Dacia Spring has been well received as a budget EV. I believe it's the cheapest BEV in Germany at the moment (it's very new to the market) and it's from the Renault group who have arguably more experience than any other European manufacturer in BEVs. It is a city car. It really is not a car you'd want to road trip in of course, but that applies to many small ICEs as well. 0 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted 9 March When moaning about the lower range of cheaper EVs, it's worth repeating this stat: "On average, a car in Germany is driven for only 43 minutes per day. On average, 2 journeys are made, each of which is 15 kilometers long. Only one percent of all trips are longer than 100 kilometers." https://umwelt-fragen.de/durchschnittliche-autostrecke-in-deutschland/ 3 minutes ago, murphaph said: I think the Dacia Spring has been well received as a budget EV. I believe it's the cheapest BEV in Germany at the moment (it's very new to the market) and it's from the Renault group who have arguably more experience than any other European manufacturer in BEVs. It is a city car. It really is not a car you'd want to road trip in of course, but that applies to many small ICEs as well. The crash test dummies didn't receive the Spring very well: https://www.euroncap.com/en/results/dacia/spring/44197 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted 9 March 41 minutes ago, circuits said: I just scraped the site and less than 20% are battery rentals. Given your personal criteria, there are still thousands of used EVs for sale under 30k. Just nothing that would suit you. As for new "real" EVs, the MG4 for 30k (after adding shipping costs and deducting the BAFA Prämie) is the cheapest and can tow a wee 500kg trailer. The lower price of these cars is linked with a lower quality of battery. Tesla's use nickel and caduim and other rare earth materials while the cheaper batteries do not. The up shot of all of this is you get batteries that do not last as long and the cars do not have the same range as cars using these better batteries. The Tesla model 2, is mainly delayed because they do not want to put out cars that have this feature. I know a guy who bought a Nissan leaf second hand, after a couple of years it could not make it from Blackpool to Preston ( in the UK ), distance about 20 miles. Its known as one of the worst EV on the market. Basically a ot of cars you found on autoscout are junk, for good money. 32 minutes ago, murphaph said: from the Renault group who have arguably more experience than any other European manufacturer in BEVs. It is a city car. I would have said VW, has the most experience of EV in Europe, ever heard of the ID3 and4, I see them almost every day on the road. Quote It really is not a car you'd want to road trip in of course, but that applies to many small ICEs as well. I drive a small car, but to some very far away places, I like small cars, these days they are quite refined and low noise Think it was 2018, I drove from Rimini to Munich, on a full tank, did not have to stop for fuel at any point, only for a toilette stop, you try doing that in a Renult Zoe, and watch a whole day go by. I think it has a range of about 300km, no fast charging, the linked cars are junk, as a do 99 % of things you can do in a small car. 0 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted 9 March The Zoe predates the VW BEVs by like a decade. The Leaf is also from the same group, Renault-Nissan. Renault group definitely has much more experience in BEVs than VW right now. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted 9 March I would beg to differ The Renault Zoe uses an air cooled battery system, same as on the Leaf, this has been shown time after time to be very crap.. But yes you are correct the E Zoe, is older than VW's offerings' although the e-gold was produced around the same time as the Zoe. But these are all relativily speaking bad e cars, when compared to a modern ID3. When VW went for EV's they went for internal battery cooling and warming just like Tesla. The difference in battery life times is night and day. See here Renault Zoe - Wikipedia Sure Result has been making EV's for longer than VW, but at least VW has learned from the Renaults mistakes, While Renault have not. Looking after an EV's battery is the key to long life and good performance. Here you can see sales for the different car manufactures around the world Global EV Sales 2022: Tesla’s Model Y remained the best-selling model - Dazeinfo You can see VW is a head of Stellantis, Renault. is part of Stellantis. It should also be noted that the ID 3 gets 5 stars for crash protection Official Volkswagen ID.3 2020 safety rating (euroncap.com) 0 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted 9 March 3 hours ago, murphaph said: (Wrong quote, I'm on the phone) If you buy a Zoe you mostly don't care about the battery technology, the battery is not yours, you are renting it. (Most Zoes are sold without the battery and you have to pay every month for its renting) 0 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted 9 March 4 hours ago, Krieg said: - Most EVs can't tow to save their lives. Well, some EVs can tow the 750kg bare minimum towing entry level limit that even a tiny ICE would do. And this can be problematic to fulfill because it seems only in Europe we tow with normal (family) cars. But at the moment many EV trucks can't properly tow and that's embarrassing. Not sure what the problem is, maybe chassis construction? Because in theory EVs should be even better at towing than ICEs. Tesla Model 3 can tow 750kg. Model Y I think 1300kg. Model X over 2200kg. AFAIK the VW iD4 can also tow above 1200kg. There is no intrinsic problem with EVs and towing, Quote - Winter and heating. I think it is still mediocre, the best option is the Teslas, and while they are actually better at heating in the early stages (For the first minutes after you switch the car on), they still are not there yet in the long term. I am not sure if this can be improved, Tesla's current technology is impressive, but I think they are already close to the best that can be done on this. In order to heat you need energy, energy density from batteries is bad, and the best you can do is a heat pump to multiply the little energy you have. I see nothing much else you could do, except inventing something revolutionary. It can't be much improved, because all cars suck in the cold. The difference is that ICE are so ineffective, that the waste heat actually heats up the car. It's just the matter of having a larger battery to offset the losses. There are tricks for daily commute, like scheduling your charging to match your departure time, therefore having a warmer car when you leave. Quote - Vehicles for work, like vans, midsize and small lorries, and so on. Logic says they will need even bigger batteries, so the price would be even a bigger problem for the normal people who need a vehicle for work. There is one Nissan, I think. And Tesla hinted they will announce a van soon. Quote - Roughed up vehicles, because not everyone who needs a vehicle lives in the city. We need proper off-road vehicles. 4x4 should be no problem in theory. But you need to replace a big range of vehicle types, from the small cheap but very off road capable (like the Suzuki Jimny and similar), to the midsize true off-roader like some Jeeps, to the big truly hardcore off-roader like the Toyotas, Nissans and Mitsubishis. So far the only thing we have now is the big extremely expensive SUVs that might be 4x4 but they are fake off-roaders. Cybertruck, Rivian, F150 Lightning... Quote P.S., And what will happen with utilitarian vehicles? When is the garbage collection EV truck coming? The construction vehicles? The heavy vehicle machinery? Bulldozers? Loaders? Tractors? Concrete truck? Are those even included in the ban? If the ban will make benzine not easy available what happen to those vehicles if they stay as ICEs? So many questions. This is actually moving fast. CAT and others are making huge bets on electrification. There are huge benefits. The battery costs get diluted in the huge price these specialized machines cost. And offer many advantages, like working underground without poisoning the air. Or working submersed. Electric vehicles scale extremely well, better than ICE. https://www.cat.com/en_US/by-industry/mining/mining-responsibly/electrification.html 0 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted 9 March 1 hour ago, yesterday said: The up shot of all of this is you get batteries that do not last as long and the cars do not have the same range as cars using these better batteries. The Tesla model 2, is mainly delayed because they do not want to put out cars that have this feature. Tesla Model 2 schedule has nothing to do with batteries, it is dependent on two things: 1) they are still ramping up Model Y. Basically they can't make new production lines faster 2) Model 2 will use the next generation platform, independently of battery technology Cybertruck and the upcoming Model 3 refresh will already have several next-gen platform improvements, but Model 2 will be, AFAIK, the first to use them all 0 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted 10 March 11 hours ago, yesterday said: But yes you are correct the E Zoe, is older than VW's offerings' although the e-gold was produced around the same time as the Zoe. But these are all relativily speaking bad e cars, when compared to a modern ID3. Sure Result has been making EV's for longer than VW, but at least VW has learned from the Renaults mistakes, While Renault have not. Huh? Renault Group engineers passed on their experiences from the Leaf and Zoe to VW and decided not to learn from these (vast) experiences themselves? Sounds, well bizarre. In fact we can clearly see, especially in the Leaf, a developmental process of Renault Group realising the thermal management (or complete lack of it) in the early Leaf was a mistake. Later Leafs have thermal management and owners of these cars report very good battery capacity after several years. Renault Group effectively committed their resources to BEV research and abandoned fuel cell stuff a long time ago. The new Megane looks a far better car than the ID3 to me. It also has a 5 star NCAP rating. It has a super fast Android Automotive OS, not that laggy UI VW has. 22kW AC charging as standard, heat pump as standard. Range and all that seems comparable to the ID3. The ID3 allows you to mount a bike rack. The Megane allows you to tow a 900kg trailer. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted 10 March 11 hours ago, MikeMelga said: There is no intrinsic problem with EVs and towing, This AFAIK I agree. That's why I wonder why there are so many EVs that can't tow. Hopefully it changes soon. 11 hours ago, MikeMelga said: Cybertruck, Rivian, F150 Lightning... The Cybertruck does not exist (yet). It is actually very sad that the best off-road EV option you can find in the market is the Rivian, pretty sad. This is a market that need more EV development soon. And except for water submersion I would think EV would do good and maybe better than ICEs (the Rivian allegedly can already drive on up to 90cms of water, so that's positive). But to be honest, EVs are too expensive to take them for real real off-roading. Suggesting a Cybertruck, Rivian or F150 as a replacement for a Suzuki Jimny is one of the most hilarious nonsense you have written here. It is like suggesting a Hummer to replace a Mini. 11 hours ago, MikeMelga said: This is actually moving fast. CAT and others are making huge bets on electrification. There are huge benefits. The battery costs get diluted in the huge price these specialized machines cost. And offer many advantages, like working underground without poisoning the air. Or working submersed. Electric vehicles scale extremely well, better than ICE. https://www.cat.com/en_US/by-industry/mining/mining-responsibly/electrification.html Maybe hydrogen would be a better solution for the heavy machinery. Some need huge amounts of energy and the low energy density from batteries probably won't cut it. 0 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted 10 March This is good start towards more democratic access to reasonably priced charging: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-64887387 In Ireland the building regulations now force developers of all forms of housing to include conduit between the electricity meter and the parking space(s) for that unit. This includes apartment buildings. This allows future owners who decide to buy an EV to simply push the cable through the conduit when they want to install a wallbox for their car. I believe some developers were already selling this as a feature, but now it's comoulsory. I believe that public AC chargers should allow you to access electricity at whatever rate you pay at home. You should be able to "roam" with your car, possibly even across EU borders. I mean, Telecoms companies have different cost bases in different EU countries but roaming is still compulsory. On the subject of heavy machinery...a lot of semi stationary heavy machinery is just plain electric (no battery) already. Especially in mining applications you will find these "tethered" beasts at work: https://s7d2.scene7.com/is/image/Caterpillar/CM20220818-99db6-9ed98 Battery locomotives also exist and are in service with the likes of Union Pacific Railroad. For the moment they are limited to shunting (yard switching as the Americans call it) but the railway is actually a "relatively" easy place to go the BEV route. You can erect overhead line equipment at passing loops and in yards so that locomotives can recharge at strategic locations. This technology already exists and is being deployed. As the research goes into locomotives, it can trickle down to heavy road vehicles, but to be honest I believe this is really where hydrogen should play its trump card, for now at least. 0 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted 10 March 10 minutes ago, murphaph said: I believe that public AC chargers should allow you to access electricity at whatever rate you pay at home. You should be able to "roam" with your car, possibly even across EU borders. I mean, Telecoms companies have different cost bases in different EU countries but roaming is still compulsory. That would be my wish as well, but I do not think it will happen, specially not at the same price. Charging infrastructure is complicated and at least how it is implemented in Europe there are several players in place for a charger to start operating and someone has to pay for that. Quote On the subject of heavy machinery...a lot of semi stationary heavy machinery is just plain electric (no battery) already. Especially in mining applications you will find these "tethered" beasts at work: https://s7d2.scene7.com/is/image/Caterpillar/CM20220818-99db6-9ed98 I saw the tethered option in Mike's link. Interesting, as well the one running on air "rails". But I was thinking more in construction than mining (for the latter I have zero idea). In big construction sites most things are diesel and they run their own "gas station", they bring the fuel in in a tank truck to the site. If the construction is in the middle of the nowhere there might be no electricity yet and they rely on generators for the small machinery. All that will need a solution as well, no idea if alternatives exist already. 0 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted 10 March 20 minutes ago, Krieg said: But I was thinking more in construction than mining (for the latter I have zero idea). In big construction sites most things are diesel and they run their own "gas station", they bring the fuel in in a tank truck to the site. Is there a real need or indeed any plans to ban the use of diesel engines in heavy construction? I don't see a practical alternative. 0 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted 10 March 22 minutes ago, Krieg said: That would be my wish as well, but I do not think it will happen, specially not at the same price. Charging infrastructure is complicated and at least how it is implemented in Europe there are several players in place for a charger to start operating and someone has to pay for that. I saw the tethered option in Mike's link. Interesting, as well the one running on air "rails". But I was thinking more in construction than mining (for the latter I have zero idea). In big construction sites most things are diesel and they run their own "gas station", they bring the fuel in in a tank truck to the site. If the construction is in the middle of the nowhere there might be no electricity yet and they rely on generators for the small machinery. All that will need a solution as well, no idea if alternatives exist already. idk, I mean when I roam on a foreign network there are several companies involved too. They all claimed that EU roaming would devastate their business but none of that happened and we take roam like at home for granted in the EU today. I think at the very least it should be possible to roam within your own country and pay a set fee for AC charging. DC charging I see as a "premium product" that requires really significant investment. I see an argument for letting the market figure those prices out but I would like to see forced competition in DC charging sites along the Autobahn. No one company should be handed over a given rest area for their sole use. The rest area should be divided up into plots, at least 2, that independent operators should operate, so that no single company has a monopoly at a given site. Of course this would only apply to publicly owned land like rest areas. If a private land owner wishes to set up DC charging he or she should be free to charge whatever they like. Eventually the market will regulate that too, like with petrol station prices. In big construction sites right now I would say there is not yet a viable alternative to ICEs but Hydrogen is probably going to be it, or possibly battery packs that can be swapped in and out. These vehicles don't typically cover large distances in a day though, often they are actually idle on site, so batteries may be an option and for sites with no electricity yet, well, in that case a dirty diesel generator would have to do the job, or perhaps a clean hydrogen one. We cannot ban construction vehicles running ICEs so long as there is no viable alternative however. The amount of pollution compared to general transportation must be minimal though so I think we can let those emissions slide for a while longer. By that time the far greater evil will be emissions of methane from agriculture to be honest. They already are a massive problem as methane is much worse a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide AFAIAA. 0 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted 10 March 7 minutes ago, keith2011 said: Is there a real need or indeed any plans to ban the use of diesel engines in heavy construction? I don't see a practical alternative. Can't be a major source of emissions really. Nothing in comparison to farming animals for meat (I eat meat, but I think we are probably going to need to eat less of it to reach our emissions goals, i.e save the planet from runaway global warming) 0 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
