The EV fact thread

[BTB 500]

The average car on UK roads is just eight years old.

Well 8.4 years old, back in 2021. But obviously that means there are many millions of much older (and much newer) cars on the roads.

Cars are scrapped because of the need for panel repair, general repair, servicing and tyres, not because of their drivetrain.

Historically perhaps, because major drivetrain failures were (a) rare and (b) not necessarily ruinously expensive to resolve if they did happen. Which may well not be the case with older EVs.

A bump to either of your cars will result in an automatic insurance write off.

But not necessarily in them being scrapped.

 

[davymead]

I believe that it will happen sooner than you think.

Young people starting a family will see ICE cars as dinosaurs, and will be very conscious of ensuring clean air for their children.

Just look at the insane number of public chargers in some London boroughs. If you are right, then voters would be unhappy to see their council tax money spent in this way, but this is clearly not the case.

Of course, poorer councils and rural areas will have to accept ICE car usage for longer, but many boroughs will be implementing air quality measures in the near future.

If you look at the London ULEZ extension for example:

Redirect Notice

There's massive support for it in inner London, and massive opposition in outer London. Presumably this correlates with affluence. I think that we'll see a similar pattern when it comes to restricting or banning ICE cars from certain populated areas.

Your Centralised Londonistan view on life and your predictions for our future on propulsion are at best pure conjecture.
I guess if you constantly preach something for long enough, you believe it’s reality.
On this brilliant forum it’s your view, only that.

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

But then again i wager Inner Londoners would object most strongly if their endless international air travel was in some way restricted to also 'save the planet'.

Spot on !!

Restricted, or at least properly taxed... to save the planet.

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

But not necessarily in them being scrapped.

Older vehicles are insurance write offs if the cost of the repair exceeds their market value.

It's a rare cove that will spend £7k fixing the Aluminium body of a £3k Audi A2, or £7k fixing the dented hatch or rear door of a SAAB estate.

 

[markjay]

Your Centralised Londonistan view on life and your predictions for our future on propulsion are at best pure conjecture.
I guess if you constantly preach something for long enough, you believe it’s reality.
On this brilliant forum it’s your view, only that.

You could equally argue that people living in rural areas (the other extreme) can only see Britain through their own glasses, and they can't fathom what is all this nonsense about clean air.

But the fact is that 80% of the UK population are living in urban areas, and 15% of those are living in London. You can't just ignore this large body of people by dismissing their views as 'London-centric'.

 

[ALFAitalia]

But a full passenger load on any modern airliner gets more mpg (so more carbon) per passenger than an individual in a car.....so they would produce more pollution/carbon if they drove to their destination!!!....but obviously a car with 3 or 4 people in it is better mpg per person. So families should drive to their hols and a solo businessmen should fly!!

EDIT....it should be noted that driving across the Atlantic can have problems of its own.

 

[markjay]

Older vehicles are insurance write offs if the cost of the repair exceeds their market value.

To be precise, they are written off well before the repair cost reaches market value. The insurer needs to take into account additional costs (actual and potential), and if the car has some value as scrap, then they will also consider what they'll get for it from COPART as a write-off. As an example, a car with a market value of (say) £10k, will likely get scrapped of the repair estimate reached £8k, sometimes even less.

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

You could equally argue that people living in rural areas (the other extreme) can only see Britain through their own glasses, and they can't fathom what is all this nonsense about clean air.

But the fact is that 80% of the UK population are living in urban areas, and 15% of those are living in London. You can't just ignore this large body of people by dismissing their views as 'London-centric'.

Exactly, the 15% living in London haven't called for a ban on all EV's.

All that's happened is that the Mayor has taxed working class owners of diesels and older petrol vehicles in order to raise £3 billion (over the last five years) to finance his pet vote-earning projects.

Banning 33 million British vehicles, plus many other non-British vehicles, from entering London would be a shot in the Mayoral foot (Wallet)

Politicians make money from taxes, which is why £17 a pack cigarettes haven't been banned.

 

[markjay]

All that's happened is that the Mayor has taxed working class owners of diesels and older petrol vehicles in order to raise £3 billion (over the last five years) to finance his pet vote-earning projects.

I suspect that the vast majority of cars paying the ULEZ charge belong to people not living in London. I can't imagine that there very many "working class" car owner living in London and paying £12.50 each day - most of them have already (begrudgingly, perhaps) replaced their non-compliant cars with compliant ones.

 

[ALFAitalia]

Most cars are compliant that are actually registered in London anyway....in terms of cars, over nine in 10 cars now meet the ULEZ standards. Even car compliance in the expanded outer London area is 96.4%, up from 92.4% in June 2023 and 90% in November 2022. Its quite a small band of cars that don't comply....petrol's after from 1984 to about 2005 for most....diesels from 1984 to about 2015. There will be a few dervs.....but you just don't see many pre 2006 petrol cars around now.....London or not.

 

[clk320x]

Politicians make money from taxes, which is why £17 a pack cigarettes haven't been banned.

I don’t think cigarettes should be banned, but they should be banned from all public places (including outdoor areas).. If people want to shorten their own life then that’s their choice, but they shouldn’t impact others with the ‘second hand’ smoke.

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

I suspect that the vast majority of cars paying the ULEZ charge belong to people not living in London. I can't imagine that there very many "working class" car owner living in London and paying £12.50 each day - most of them have already (begrudgingly, perhaps) replaced their non-compliant cars with compliant ones.

Of course. It's a crucial tax on the working class who can't afford newer cars but still have to occasionally come through London.

Although the real money is made from the fines - tee hee - suckers !! Driving to visit someone in a cancer hospital without paying the ULEZ !!

In the end we all pay the congestion charge and ULEZ, through the prices that we pay for goods and services bought and sold in Central London.

 

[GrahamT]

All fair.
Another theory is that EV's will naturally "fall" into the hands of higher mileage drivers and those looking to drive around cheaply, with ICE elbowed into the grave earlier.

From the student to the pensioner, given the choice between fuelling a £5k used A180 (15p / mile - £1500 a year ) or a £5k used Nissan Leaf (4p / mile - £400 a year) , which is the cheaper car to run? )

The Leaf, by a country mile.

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Would I prefer to drive an 'A class' or a 'Leaf' ? Now that's a tough one

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

I don’t think cigarettes should be banned, but they should be banned from all public places (including outdoor areas).. If people want to shorten their own life then that’s their choice, but they shouldn’t impact others with the ‘second hand’ smoke.

Exactly: £10 billion a year. No politician would want to lose that bunce

One year's profit from smoking will cover almost the entire cost of renovating Parliament - if that ever gets voted through. (Six years on from when it was first proposed)

Like petrol, diesel, obesity and alcoholism, they're taxes that the working class will happily pay.

Ban tobacco, like any other drug, and the trade just goes into the black economy.

That's why no politician will ban ICE vehicles in London for at least 20 years.

 

[SmartAmg]

Would I prefer to drive an 'A class' or a 'Leaf' ? Now that's a tough one

You, yes. Plenty of others a definite No.

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

Would I prefer to drive an 'A class' or a 'Leaf' ? Now that's a tough one

The issue is what will people who are strapped for cash do?
Folks who know that they'll save at least £100 a month running the Leaf. (And more if they can take electricity from someone else's bill - and there's a lot of that to be done)

You and I know that a A class or a Leaf is something that we just give to Nanny or The Gardener to use, while we drive an E class, Range Rover, or 911.

We don't mind petrol at a couple of quid a litre. A few grand a year is neither here nor there.

But not everyone is that comfortably off, especially as Starmer and Khan increase their tax pull - to get the revenue and to push people onto the unionised, and state owned, buses and trains.

 

[SmartAmg]

The issue is what will people who are strapped for cash do?
Folks who know that they'll save at least £100 a month running the Leaf. (And more if they can take electricity from someone else's bill - and there's a lot of that to be done)

You and I know that a A class or a Leaf is something that we just give to Nanny or The Gardener to use, while we drive an E class, Range Rover, or 911.

We don't mind petrol at a couple of quid a litre. A few grand a year is neither here nor there.

But not everyone is that comfortably off, especially as Starmer and Khan increase their tax pull - to get the revenue and to push people onto the unionised, and state owned, buses and trains.

Or they just don't like or want an A class, they want an EV.

 

[markjay]

Of course. It's a crucial tax on the working class who can't afford newer cars but still have to occasionally come through London.

The other day there was an article in the Daily Mail about a lady who couldn't convince TfL that her 2000 Peugeot cabrio is ULEZ compliant, in spite of sending them a copy of the CoC, and so she decided to scrap the car, only to receive a letter in the post from TfL days later accepting that her 24 years old petrol car is (or, rather, was...) indeed ULEZ compliant...

But more to the point, how many "working class" living in Lobdon can't afford to buy a 24 years old car? I think that what you are referring to are not "the working class who can't afford newer cars", but those Londoners who are enamoured of their pre-AdBlue Diesels, which is a different proposition altogether.

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

Or they just don't like or want an A class, they want an EV.

That's true - and a fault in my comment - there are a lot of people out there who are more than happy - on principle - to have a £5k 8-10 year old BMW I3, or Nissan Leaf rather than an A class or Golf

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

The other day there was an article in the Daily Mail about a lady who couldn't convince TfL that her 2000 Peugeot cabrio is ULEZ compliant, in spite of sending them a copy of the CoC, and so she decided to scrap the car, only to receive a letter in the post from TfL days later accepting that her 24 years old petrol car is (or, rather, was...) indeed ULEZ compliant...

But more to the point, how many "working class" living in Lobdon can't afford to buy a 24 years old car? I think that what you are referring to are not "the working class who can't afford newer cars", but those Londoners who are enamoured of their pre-AdBlue Diesels, which is a different proposition altogether.

Why are you obsessed with the idea that this is just about taxing the working class living in London?

These are greenwashed taxes on the working class travelling THROUGH ULEZ or the Congestion zone.

Obviously, Diane Abbott's voters in Hackney have been forced to change or lose their cars.

The millions really come from the tradesmen, nurses and public who live out of the zone but who have to go through the zone occasionally. The parent driving a 2014 BMW X3 to visit an aged parent, or a child in hospital with cancer, or just shopping in the West End.

Some money coming as straight payments, but with the majority of the revenue coming from the suckers who didn't realise that they had entered the zones so caught a fine.