MPG, costs per month.

[markjay]

Edit

I was looking forward to your input... what did I miss?

 

[clk320x]

I was looking forward to your input... what did I miss?

I was just saying that if he bought the M3P that he was considering, the ‘fuel’ cost for 600 miles/month would under £20. Didn’t want to upset the anti-EV brigade though.

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

I don’t understand this “downhill, with the wind behind me, at a steady 55mph I can get 60 mpg” stuff.

All that matters is monthly or longer mpg to reflect your typical town and country life.

Long distances: diesel.
Town driving & short runs: small petrol
Real driving: V8

Company car or IT technophile with a driveway: EV

 

[markjay]

I don’t understand this “downhill, with the wind behind me, at a steady 55mph I can get 60 mpg” stuff.

All that matters is monthly or longer mpg to reflect your typical town and country life.

Long distances: diesel.
Town driving & short runs: small petrol
Real driving: V8

Company car or IT technophile with a driveway: EV

Well, going downhill, my EV is actually charging the battery, and the remaining range becomes unlimited

 

[clk320x]

Well, going downhill, my EV is actually charging the battery, and the remaining range becomes unlimited

Good point actually!

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

Well, going downhill, my EV is actually charging the battery, and the remaining range becomes unlimited

There's a guy in the States (or Canada) who has developed Hybrid / EV HGV's off the back of his logging business.

He was an independent haulier delivering logged trees off the mountains on vertiginous, fragile mountain roads.

He worked out - early on - that he wouldn't need to charge the trucks much. By driving down from the mountains, he charged up the batteries sufficient to get him back up the mountain unloaded...

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[DanE350cdi]

Decided to do the brim to brim test on my 2011 350 cdi 265 bhp C207, but mapped to 300 bhp.
Filled up on the 12th Nov, cost £90. Did 291 miles fuel light came on today 24th Nov, so filled up again, cost £90. So doing the maths that's 23 mpg.
So based on that, works out at approx £225 a month on fuel.
Is that good, bad, average?

Thats pretty close to mine tbh mate. Although mine is lucky if it does 120 miles a month. I mainly use the company van.

 

[Phil1968]

About the same as I get in my 17 year old V8 in mixed driving. In fact my 2020 Vito 114 with the 2.2 4-pot turbodiesel & auto transmission only gets the mid 30s average.

 

[philnewmerc]

Yes, cold weather is not a friend of mpg of IC cars or range in EVs. The fact that we think of them in those ways means they are rarely directly compared.
There are also so many factors involved in this reduced efficiency for both types of car, but the EV haters speak like it is something that only EVs suffer from

Very true. But, in an EV we're going from an advertised range of say 240 to real 160 if driving carefully or 120 driven like an ice, and then take off the fact that most people don't want to run the battery too low... In an ordinary diesel ice we're going from an theoretical range of say 800 to real 600, and that's without driving carefully. That's not hating EVs (for me personally) it's just numbers.

I hate Evs for two main reasons
Depreciation as the battery replacement well cost as much as a newer car
Range is a lie based on experience and based on answers of EV owners.

Had an emergency and needed to drive to Portsmouth on Thursday. I was almost on reserve and drove 30 miles to a station. This scenario doesn't play well if you have a low charge on your EV.
If your journey is less than 10 miles a day then go for it.

Good points. I'd like a luxury EV once they've depreciated a fair bit more but I wonder if the risk of catastrophic battery failure would make it a too risky purchase (engines don't fail these days, batteries do).

I also would worry about an emergency drive where I'd have to keep charging when actually i just wanted to go hell for leather to the [insert important event] !

 

[Londonscottish]

I don’t understand this “downhill, with the wind behind me, at a steady 55mph I can get 60 mpg” stuff.

All that matters is monthly or longer mpg to reflect your typical town and country life.

Long distances: diesel.
Town driving & short runs: small petrol
Real driving: V8

Company car or IT technophile with a driveway: EV

I got 29 mpg from my E500 from London to Leeds and back the weekend before last. 90% of that was M1 and a big chunk of that was speed restricted.

27.5 last weekend from London to the Norfolk Broads and back. Lots of roundabouts in Norfolk and the temptation to boot it on the next stretch of dual carriageway is too strong.

Toying with the idea of moving there when I retire. In which case I will most definitely be buying something with a large supercharged V8 to play around in. Paired with a couple of more sensible cars. Something VAG with a 2.0 turbo petrol maybe (Golf GTI?) and some tiddler for local stuff.

Meanwhile, the wife's Fiat 500 1.2 goes weeks between fill ups. Don't know what it gets - mid 20's maybe - but the miles are so low it barely registers. That would be a good candidate for a 500e. Except I'd have to pump in at least £10k to make the move which doesn't make a whole load of sense.

It might actually make more sense in Norfolk if I had lots of solar panels and could do a Mactech. The 500e would be more usable on the open road, too.

Food for thought.

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

I got 29 mpg from my E500 from London to Leeds and back the weekend before last. 90% of that was M1 and a big chunk of that was speed restricted.

27.5 last weekend from London to the Norfolk Broads and back. Lots of roundabouts in Norfolk and the temptation to boot it on the next stretch of dual carriageway is too strong.

Toying with the idea of moving there when I retire. In which case I will most definitely be buying something with a large supercharged V8 to play around in. Paired with a couple of more sensible cars. Something VAG with a 2.0 turbo petrol maybe (Golf GTI?) and some tiddler for local stuff.

Meanwhile, the wife's Fiat 500 1.2 goes weeks between fill ups. Don't know what it gets - mid 20's maybe - but the miles are so low it barely registers. That would be a good candidate for a 500e. Except I'd have to pump in at least £10k to make the move which doesn't make a whole load of sense.

It might actually make more sense in Norfolk if I had lots of solar panels and could do a Mactech. The 500e would be more usable on the open road, too.

Food for thought.

If it's any encouragement, the A&E at the Norfolk and Norwich is very good,

The Consultant I know there reckons that they get a constant flow of practice coming in from the A140... It's that kind of road.

 

[Smiley]

I hate Evs for two main reasons
Depreciation as the battery replacement well cost as much as a newer car - but still lower depreciation than a CL500 of the same age
Range is a lie based on experience and based on answers of EV owners. - the range is the range depending on what you buy and how you drive it

Had an emergency and needed to drive to Portsmouth on Thursday. I was almost on reserve and drove 30 miles to a station. This scenario doesn't play well if you have a low charge on your EV. this is definitely a disadvantage of EVs
If your journey is less than 10 miles a day then go for it. All EVs will do more than 10 miles on a charge. Might be better to say if your journey is less than 10 miles a day then definitely avoid a V8 petrol

You are clearly not speaking from experience. The biggest drawback of EVs is not the depreciation caused by requiring new batteries every x years - the batteries are holding up much better than most people expected - the biggest drawback is the public charging infrastructure which is fragmented and unreliable - and sods law says it won't work just when you need it most - such as in an emergency when it is pi**ing with rain and blowing a gale and you are outside trying to get a charger to work.....no thanks.
If you can charge at home and have a ICE car as well, then EVs are really really good and much better than a big petrol car for most journeys. And a used one, which has suffered the massive depreciation makes them a bargain buy. IMHO.

 

[clk320x]

the public charging infrastructure which is fragmented and unreliable - and sods law says it won't work just when you need it most - such as in an emergency when it is pi**ing with rain and blowing a gale and you are outside trying to get a charger to work.....no thanks.

The car won’t route you via a charger that’s out of order. BTW in the case of Tesla the supercharger network boasts a 99.95% uptime.

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

You are clearly not speaking from experience. The biggest drawback of EVs is not the depreciation caused by requiring new batteries every x years - the batteries are holding up much better than most people expected - the biggest drawback is the public charging infrastructure which is fragmented and unreliable - and sods law says it won't work just when you need it most - such as in an emergency when it is pi**ing with rain and blowing a gale and you are outside trying to get a charger to work.....no thanks.
If you can charge at home and have a ICE car as well, then EVs are really really good and much better than a big petrol car for most journeys. And a used one, which has suffered the massive depreciation makes them a bargain buy. IMHO.

So, looking at the month of November, if you’d been running an EV, how often would YOU have needed to use a public charger network away from home?

I wouldn’t have needed to, and would have started every day with a “full range,” as would all of my neighbours, and close friends. I did one 300 mile return journey to Birmingham which “might” have been close to needing 15 minute top up, but which could easily have been done, as it was mainly motorway, obviously.

 

[philnewmerc]

The car won’t route you via a charger that’s out of order. BTW in the case of Tesla the supercharger network boasts a 99.95% uptime.

Will it route you to chargers that are under cover to protect you from the elements (99% of petrol stations are under cover)? Genuine question, no EV hate here, just EV caution

 

[philnewmerc]

So, looking at the month of November, if you’d been running an EV, how often would YOU have needed to use a public charger network away from home?

I wouldn’t have needed to, and would have started every day with a “full range,” as would all of my neighbours, and close friends. I did one 300 mile return journey to Birmingham which “might” have been close to needing 15 minute top up, but which could easily have been done, as it was mainly motorway, obviously.

EVs make great sense if you can charge mainly overnight. I can't at my present address.
What EV do you have that'll do 300 miles at motorway speeds please? (Will make mental note for purchase c ~2030 )

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

EVs make great sense if you can charge mainly overnight. I can't at my present address.
What EV do you have that'll do 300 miles at motorway speeds please? (Will make mental note for purchase c ~2030 )

Exactly, so that’s more than 50% of uk households who don’t have a problem with charging overnight, so why do you think it’s a problem for them ?

Any EV can do motorway speeds. Look around you. But you can’t drive 300 miles to Birmingham and back at 70mph. I averaged 50mph on my trip which is why I know I could have done the journey in an EV - at a third of the cost - or in an EV with a short 15 minute top up. I broke my journey, three times: at the destination, where there were chargers, and twice of the motorway where there were empty chargers

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

So, looking at the month of November, if you’d been running an EV, how often would YOU have needed to use a public charger network away from home?

Once again, looking at the month of November, if you’d been running an EV, how often would YOU have needed to use a public charger network “away from home” i.e. your usual local one on the street, at work, at the shops, in the car park, or wherever?

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

We all understand that people are scared of the future. Why give up a landline to use an expensive mobile phone which has to be charged everyday? Why stop spending £500 a year on newspapers and magazines to read articles on a screen?

But it makes sense to look at how these things are actually used rather than agonising about ways that they aren’t being used.

Half the country drives less than 8,000 miles a year, and mainly locally. Convert them, and we’ll make a great deal of progress. Most people buy cheap and nasty ICE’s purely on cost of ownership. Convert them and again the pressure comes off the rest…

 

[philnewmerc]

Exactly, so that’s more than 50% of uk households who don’t have a problem with charging overnight, so why do you think it’s a problem for them ?

Any EV can do motorway speeds. Look around you. But you can’t drive 300 miles to Birmingham and back at 70mph. I averaged 50mph on my trip which is why I know I could have done the journey in an EV - at a third of the cost - or in an EV with a short 15 minute top up. I broke my journey, three times: at the destination, where there were chargers, and twice of the motorway where there were empty chargers

Not sure why my question was perceived as anti EV. The question was in the spirit of 'what EV do you have as it sounds ideal for me ?! '

Yes of course EVs can do motorway speed and more, but apart from the SE where you can't get above 40 mph very often the rest of the country goes at 70-85 on motorways and you can't do that for long in an EV... That's presumably why on long trips to the SW from the SE I see so many doing 55-65 (or those drivers hate cars and driving, which I'm sure you'll agree is a core EV demographic: see all VW ID owners for evidence Okey that's an incendiary joke, I don't hate EVs!)

I won't be at my non-driveway property for ever so an EV or hybrid may be on the cards by 2030 but obviously it will be a heavily depreciated luxo barge .