Whats your strategy for year 2030 / ban of ICE vehicles?

[sgregory124]

Also... for anyone's caring primarily about the financial aspects of car ownership... NOW is the time to have a new EV on a business lease - if your circumstances allow it. Just putting it out there....

That is definitely evident, by the huge amount of base spec, single motor Tesla 3's (usually in black or white) that seem to be on the roads these days. Quite why you'd want one, I can't imagine...

 

[Dryce]

Also... for anyone's caring primarily about the financial aspects of car ownership... NOW is the time to have a new EV on a business lease - if your circumstances allow it. Just putting it out there....

The best time to get a Tesla Model 3 on a business lease was something like 3 years ago. There were some very aggressive deals for a while.

Leases on (nice) non EVs have typically gone up in the last couple of years - so the deals we used to see for cheap C and E and other models have dried up. The headline 'cheap' (nice) EV deals are at similar levels to those of the ICE cars - but AFAICT the mileages on the offers are lower. The lease market for ICEs lacks the certainty and spot supply surplus to get low prices we used to see.

Problem is 'if your circumstances allow it'. If you do a lot of miles then a nice EV might be a bit more expenisve and possibly a lot more cumbersome to own. If you do very low mileage them it could be convenient - but then your mileage amortised against that monthly lease cost won't be so low.

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

Not just taxed out of existence - restricted out of practical existence.

Fair point, my point was directed at the people who think that ICE will be taxed out of existence - which I don't believe at all. No Chancellor is going to kiss goodbye to 10% of UK Government revenue. Fuel taxes, usage fees, parking, VAT, new cars sales yada yada. These idiots who think that they're being given massive tax breaks on their £80k Teslas aren't thinking straight - they're being encouraged to pay 20% VAT on that much larger capital amount.

Completely accept your point, particularly about our overcrowded cities, where any damn fool can now drive wherever she wishes - but is in the process of being crowded / taxed out.

It's a tough one though. When Sadiq and other City Mayors tax and regulates people off the roads and onto bikes and buses, it is still a reflection of the priorities of the local, predominantly young people who voted for them.

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

An EV as a company car is an absolute no-brainer, putting £4,000 a year into the wallets of their drivers compared to using an ICE vehicle. This is a wizard wheeze Benefit in Kind bias in the income tax (avoidance) treatment for those 800,000 company car beneficiaries.

That's why EV's with a capital value under £40k are so much in demand.

So those EV's will filter through to private owners in due course.

But that's a small group, getting smaller every year. Company cars aren't anywhere near as popular (to employers) as they used to be.

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

It's worth remembering that the average mileage driven in the UK is a humble 8,000 miles.

For low mileage drivers, the fuel cost saving isn't anywhere as powerful as the EVangelists mistakenly believe.

Especially if you're charging from charging stations.

 

[Bobby Dazzler]

That is definitely evident, by the huge amount of base spec, single motor Tesla 3's (usually in black or white) that seem to be on the roads these days. Quite why you'd want one, I can't imagine...

The huge reduction in BIK is a major incentive!

 

[Bobby Dazzler]

These idiots who think that they're being given massive tax breaks on their £80k Teslas aren't thinking straight - they're being encouraged to pay 20% VAT on that much larger capital amount.

If you’re buying an expensive new car anyway - and business users will be - then the VAT will be laid regardless.

Some people may choose to contribute to upgrade to a more expensive model (if their employer allows it) as their reduction in BIK means that it’s still less expensive than their previous ICE car. In that scenario it would mean a slight increase in VAT, but not sure it would add up to more than the BIK paid on an ICE in many cases.

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

If you’re buying an expensive new car anyway - and business users will be - then the VAT will be laid regardless.
Some people may choose to contribute to upgrade to a more expensive model (if their employer allows it) as their reduction in BIK means that it’s still less expensive than their previous ICE car. In that scenario it would mean a slight increase in VAT, but not sure it would add up to more than the BIK paid on an ICE in many cases.

Understood, but the Company Car mob are but a small crowd: at best not much more than 10% of annual sales. (There are roughly 800k company car users in the UK)

My comment was about the majority who think that the Government is "giving them" something by way of a £1500 discount, when all the Government is doing is encouraging them to pay give the Government £4k, £6k or £8k (gross) in VAT, plus 10% import taxes obviously, while also raising more in employee-related taxes (income tax, National Insurance etc. on the car industries staff)

A little like the so-called scrappage incentives which end up being discounts on new(er) car sales, and increased tax revenues from the car industry. The tax man makes more money from the public running newer cars.

 

[alabbasi]

Personally I think it's just a mechanism to tax the many by telling them to switch to something that only a few. The goverment knows that they can't keep up with the infrastrucuture needed for electric cars and they're not investing in mass transit so it's doubtful that ICE cars will be banned.

My strategy will be to do what i've done the last 20 years and continue living in Texas

 

[190]

Given the relatively low 3000 annual car miles I'm doing in retirement, my strategy is it will never make sense to spend £40K on a new electric car and have it sit in the garage depreciating on more days than it's being used.

At first sight a plug in hybrid with a 30 mile electric range would seem to work as all the short trips could be done on battery power but a concern is that the IC engine might not get fired up for months on end and would the E10 in the tank survive without degrading for such long periods between refills. With much less* to degrade in storage an EV is probably better suited to occasional use so I'll wait and get a used one when the price seems reasonable.

* EV's are not immune to degradation in storage. All batteries have a self discharge rate just sat there and on top of that there will be systems that continue to draw current when the car is not in use. In the test below a car put away with 51 miles range was reduced to 45 miles in only 8 days of storage.

How Much Range Does Your Leaf Lose If You Unplug It For 8 Days?

 

[Deleted member 55947]

I intend to stick with ICE at the moment. Nothing fills me with confidence about EV’s and the infrastructure around them and the fiasco with the time length of power cuts due to Storm Arwen just enforces that opinion.

 

[clk320x]

Ditto - I’ll drive my existing vehicles as long as I can (from a physical ability & reliability of the car perspective), let the early adobters pay for the learning curve on EVs with all the battery, charging point & range issues and hopefully by 2030 (I’ll be pushing 80 & hopefully still alive) there will be something sensibly priced that does the job.

I mentioned elsewhere that my son is taking delivery in May of a Taycan to replace his E53 and he is saying that he will have to use the family Q8 to do trips to their subsidiaries that are further away...... Go figure - ticking his eco warrior box with the Taycan but doing long trips (solo) is a huge diesel powered SUV.

Surely he can charge at one of the hundreds of rapid chargers up & down the country….

 

[clk320x]

I intend to stick with ICE at the moment. Nothing fills me with confidence about EV’s and the infrastructure around them and the fiasco with the time length of power cuts due to Storm Arwen just enforces that opinion.

What about the fuel ‘shortage’ which arguably affected far more than the power outage.. where you’d still be able to drive to an unaffected rapid charger and top-up.

 

[Dickster]

I’m sticking with ICE. I’m also, reluctantly, going EV (on a business lease) purely for tax reasons. And it most definitely won’t be a Tesla, more likely a Jag. If they remove the tax incentives I’ll not bother.

I do believe ICE will become more and more expensive. Why hasn’t fuel prices come back down? I paid £1.60 for premium recently, it’s a disgrace.

 

[Rich764089]

I think a watch and see approach at the moment.

I mean, fine, if you spend (in actual costs and depreciation) £20k+ on a car every 3 years, then why not go electric now because you can get fuel at (simplification) untaxed energy prices.

But some of us are much poorer, so, as a poorer, past engineer from a power generation/manufacturing/infrastructure company (you will all have heard of), I can only wait and see with no other option.

Major question marks for me around the whole electric car thing are:
- Massive (child) slave labour for battery raw materials (but people can reconcile their clean conscious because they are 'green').
- Untaxed electric which need to make up for fuel duty will need to be an increase of £1-2k per driving adult per household (based on 12k miles a year).
- The electrical generating capacity in the UK is on the verge of blackouts, so how will it keep up with rising electric demand for massively power hungry cars without? answer;
- A big rise in fossil fuels to generate electricity for all of the 'green' cars, at which point we get to the major elephant in the room;
- The physical electricity distribution infrastructure is creaking at the seams and I don't expect will be able to cope with 10% pure EV car ownership. Let alone a total ICE ban.


So to understand this we have to start to interrogate the politics behind any dubious decisions pushed to us by government, at which point this becomes a forum off topic subject so I will stop there.

Excellent post I agree entirely!

I think some forgot that banning coal use to make power, doesn't mean the steel for their shiny new EV can be manufactured without coal, for example.

 

[Rich764089]

I’m sticking with ICE. I’m also, reluctantly, going EV (on a business lease) purely for tax reasons. And it most definitely won’t be a Tesla, more likely a Jag. If they remove the tax incentives I’ll not bother.

I do believe ICE will become more and more expensive. Why hasn’t fuel prices come back down? I paid £1.60 for premium recently, it’s a disgrace.

I'll be hanging on to ICE for as long as possible too. Personally, I can't see it being a "problem" to own one for a couple of decades. EV infrastructure will take that long to fully develop, there will be the hybrid "loophole" that sees petrol/ diesel needs persist, and a HUGE remnant of ICE cars for many years. What better tech may also come along, and what political whims masquerading as environmentalism?

 

[sgregory124]

Lest not we forget the synthetic fuels either, if the companies doing the R&D (Porsche and Mazda to name but two) ramp things up then its a viable option in the future. EV's are not the panacea people think they are...

 

[Deleted member 159894]

My strategy was built yesterday:

 

[Deleted member 55947]

What about the fuel ‘shortage’ which arguably affected far more than the power outage.. where you’d still be able to drive to an unaffected rapid charger and top-up.

I think we have far more power outages than fuel shortages, in fact I can’t recall the last time we had a genuine fuel shortage.
Remember what is feasible and workable in an urban environment is not necessarily so in a rural one.

 

[Bobby Dazzler]

My strategy was built yesterday:

View attachment 121886

Love it!

Looks like it’s being folded into a great big cardboard box! Now that can’t be good for the environment.