The EV fact thread

[ALFAitalia]

Your ICE car is still WAY more likely to catch fire and they do. But most on here dont bother posting a pic each time they see one.
Here's a derv I passed on my way home a few weeks back.

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

A bad start to the year for this motorist. Did the solenoid that controls the fart noise overheat i wonder?

View attachment 167001

Police confirm 'no criminality' after Tesla car fire in Kilmarnock

A black Tesla was found on alight outside the Beijing Banquet just off Queen's Drive on Saturday evening.

www.dailyrecord.co.uk

The traditional Jewish stocktake more like.

I was blue and twoed to A&E at 1am one April 1st after stopping to help the owner of a Ford Fiesta that was alight on a remote country road.

Stood on the roadside, my friend and I were run over by a drunk chef who didn’t see the fire ahead of him.

It’s an old insurance or finance scam. Got a problem paying or fixing? Just set the thing alight

 

[190]

Ironically I actually had to take a diversion yesterday whilst out driving an electric car, due to a fire bridgade vehicle blocking the road I was travelling down, whilst they were tackling a fire.

It wasn’t a Tesla though. Perhaps I should have stopped and taken a picture

I’m guessing you’ve looked at the stats for vehicle fires though - quite dangerous travelling in a ICE powered vehicle when you think about it

There are a range of statistics out there but it seems EV Fires are already at least 10 times less likely than ICE fires. However if the cost of those fires in terms of firefighting, collateral damage and repairs was taken into account, then the comparison would at the very least narrow and that is perhaps why insurance costs for EV's are still higher than ICE's. When I was looking to change my car recently I compared insurance quotes for an ICE Golf and and EV Golf. The premium for the EV was typically 40 - 50% higher.

As with most concerns about EV's the issue will be resolved in time as battery technology improves and turns less incendiary.

 

[BIGDOG]

Thanks for the input Dr Feelgood or is it LewyBoy?

You’re welcome Matt8n or is it CB1965?

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

No Teslas are still catching fire at random it seems. Sad fact. Call it a public service anouncement for the Tesla owners on this Mercedes forum. One positive the Scottish fire brigade acted swiftly and prevented the fire spreading to the battery pack.

While the police, fire service and insurance industry believe that ICE are statistically more prone to fire than EV’s

But that said, remember ICE’s are still generally younger and less exposed to poor amateur maintenance

How much of a fire risk are electric vehicles? | Autocar

We look at why EV fires are so hard to extinguish, how fire services are handling it and how to minimise risks

www.autocar.co.uk

 

[ChipChop]

The traditional Jewish stocktake more like.

I was blue and twoed to A&E at 1am one April 1st after stopping to help the owner of a Ford Fiesta that was alight on a remote country road.

Stood on the roadside, my friend and I were run over by a drunk chef who didn’t see the fire ahead of him.

It’s an old insurance or finance scam. Got a problem paying or fixing? Just set the thing alight

Jewish stocktake. Never heard that expression before. Anyhoo "police confirm no criminality" would rule out a finance scam i would have thought if they bothered to investigate. But who knows.

 

[ChipChop]

You’re welcome Matt8n or is it CB1965?

Thanks for confirming you are indeed Dr Feelgood aka lewyboy.

Banned multiple times and back again trolling the forum.

 

[BIGDOG]

Thanks for confirming you are indeed Dr Feelgood aka lewyboy.

Banned multiple times and back again trolling the forum.

People in glass houses Matt

 

[ChipChop]

People in glass houses Matt

ChipChop is the only user name i have ever had on this forum. My name is also not Matt.

 

[BTB 500]

.I would support pay per mile - it’s the fairest way I can think of. People who drive more or use vehicles at peak time should pay more than those who only use vehicles occasionally.

Agreed, though, as said, we'll need to overcome the camera vandalists and the conspiracy theorists first.....

Pay-per-mile is fairer for private drivers, but high mileage businesses (taxis, delivery companies, etc.) would need some sort of exemption or discount or they'd just pass it on to their customers.

ANPR cameras would be hugely expensive to roll out nationally and could never cover all areas/roads. GPS trackers (reliable and tamper-proof) for every existing vehicle in the UK would also be very expensive, unless maybe owners were made to pay for them ...

Both plus the cost of developing the systems to pick up and process the data of course, and handle the billing.

But obviously they have to do something to replace lost duty & VAT from fuel forecourt sales. As an aside non-UK vehicles pay this now, but presumably couldn't be charged per mile.

 

[Will]

Would you rather EV fires were not reported at all? Kept a secret for the greater good of the energy transition.

If they were as common as you suggest, then there would be no need to report.

It’s just food for the hungry anti-EV brigade.

Sensationalist journalism - nothing new.

Seems like the bait worked for you

 

[Will]

Pay-per-mile is fairer for private drivers, but high mileage businesses (taxis, delivery companies, etc.) would need some sort of exemption or discount or they'd just pass it on to their customers.

ANPR cameras would be hugely expensive to roll out nationally and could never cover all areas/roads. GPS trackers (reliable and tamper-proof) for every existing vehicle in the UK would also be very expensive, unless maybe owners were made to pay for them ...

Both plus the cost of developing the systems to pick up and process the data of course, and handle the billing.

But obviously they have to do something to replace lost duty & VAT from fuel forecourt sales. As an aside non-UK vehicles pay this now, but presumably couldn't be charged per mile.

Don’t business users pay tax on fuel already though?

ANPR is already in widespread operation. As are ‘black boxes’ and other telemetry systems in many new vehicles anyway. And almost everyone has a phone too.

In the grand scheme of things, I don’t see this as an insurmountable problem.

 

[BTB 500]

How busy are those motorway charger points this morning? Well here's Moto, down at Exeter: 36 out of 38 chargers are not being used.

How long can the companies that built and operate these sites continue with low usage/revenue (many EV owners also comment on how nice and empty sites are)?

In the news this week that Pod Point (mostly owned by EDF) are having problems due to low demand:

MSN

 

[Will]

^^^I see these reports mentioning ‘weak EV sales’, but then read just yesterday that they accounted for around 20% of all new cars sold last year.

Is that weak, for an emerging market?

 

[markjay]

Pay-per-mile is fairer for private drivers, but high mileage businesses (taxis, delivery companies, etc.) would need some sort of exemption or discount or they'd just pass it on to their customers...

This is precisely the advantage of pay-per-mile - the software can be tweeked any which way you like.

It can take into account the road, time of day, type of vehicle, as well as whether the driver is disabled, a tradesmen, whether the car is a taxi or an ambulance etc etc.

 

[markjay]

...ANPR cameras would be hugely expensive to roll out nationally and could never cover all areas/roads. GPS trackers (reliable and tamper-proof) for every existing vehicle in the UK would also be very expensive, unless maybe owners were made to pay for them...

I agree that it's not obvious how the technology can be implemented. ANPR cameras could have the undesirable result of traffic being diverted onto small unmonitored B-roads, and a mandatory GPS tracker (or other type of 'black box') will be open to manipulation by the criminaly-minded.

 

[BTB 500]

Don’t business users pay tax on fuel already though?

ANPR is already in widespread operation. As are ‘black boxes’ and other telemetry systems in many new vehicles anyway. And almost everyone has a phone too.

In the grand scheme of things, I don’t see this as an insurmountable problem.

I'm assuming pay per mile would be set at a level to get reasonable income from lower mileage drivers too (as it would presumably replace road tax as well), so high mileage drivers would likely end up paying more than they do now.

ANPR covering a relatively small number of entry/exit points around a zone is different proposition to reliably covering all movement within a zone, let alone on all roads nationally.

Are current black boxes and phone apps secure and tamper proof enough to replace road tax?

These things aren't insurmountable, just potentially expensive. As would be the system to collect/process/bill ... major government IT projects like this don't have a great track record.

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

How long can the companies that built and operate these sites continue with low usage/revenue (many EV owners also comment on how nice and empty sites are)?

In the news this week that Pod Point (mostly owned by EDF) are having problems due to low demand:

MSN

Exactly my point. The Energy companies that built charging sites need to be realistic about prices that they can charge, as well as peak rate pricing.

Yes, they’re anticipating the acceleration in EV numbers, but they’re competing with home charging at a tenth of the price and car parks which can easily undercut them.

On the other hand, the heads of BP and Shell retail have been saying for years that they’re running rather nice cafes and shops with a petrol station on the side.

 

[BTB 500]

This is precisely the advantage of pay-per-mile - the software can be tweeked any which way you like.

It can take into account the road, time of day, type of vehicle, as well as whether the driver is disabled, a tradesmen, whether the car is a taxi or an ambulance etc etc.

True but if trackers were used there would be a big incentive for finding a way to move these from one vehicle to another!

 

[ChipChop]

If they were as common as you suggest, then there would be no need to report.

It’s just food for the hungry anti-EV brigade.

Sensationalist journalism - nothing new.

Seems like the bait worked for you

The prevalence of sensationalist journalism is a given surely when the subject is justifications for/against the energy transition. A notion predicated on there being a climate emergency with mass extinction just around the corner. Doesn't get much more sensationalist that that imo.