So, I've found myself thinking relatively seriously over the past few days about whether I should buy an electric car. I can't remember now what prompted the stray thought in the first place, but it's kind of lodged so I thought I'd put it down in typeface for a bit of a further think. So far, my pros/cons list basically looks like this.
1) We're on a 100% green energy electric tariff so the ongoing driving emissions would be close to 0. This is good!
2) The vast majority of my driving happens over short distances (e.g. to and from work). This would be no problem.
3) Here's where we get to the cons. It looks like I might make it to Alex's folks in a single charge, probably (although, because it's speed and temp dependent, I'm not certain of that - we might need a top up). To get to my folks, we'd definitely need a charge. That would add half an hour to the journey, and probably more like 45mins once you factor in actually getting the thing plugged in, the minor diversion to the charge point, etc. On the one hand, that's a bit of a pain. On the other hand, I don't actually hate the idea of having a break in the drive if I know I'm going to need it and plan ahead. An annoyance but not a deal breaker, I would say. Those are the long distance journeys I make most often, by quite some way.
4) Longer trips. If we went to visit![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
coalescent, that would involve an extra hour to ninety minutes (two charges) on a very long journey. On the other hand (a) it's such a long drive that it's already borderline whether we do it in the car or on the train - it's only really the fact that we want to take lots of games that tips the balance and (b) we do it rarely enough that it would be totally reasonable/feasible to just hire a car for the one or two occasions in a year we want to take a trip of that length. I wonder if there are car clubs for borrowing long distance vehicles for electric car owners? I don't think I would consider doing the trip in the electric, but that's not necessarily a problem.
5) I would miss manual transmission. Odd, I know, but true.
6) Cost. I'm putting it down but this is a fairly minor consideration. Running cost would obviously be lower, but there would nevertheless be some financial outlay and there's nothing actually wrong with my petrol car right now, so I'm putting it on the list.
I don't know. I feel an odd disinclination, but I suspect that might be status quo bias rearing it's ugly head. What do you think? Am I talking myself into something silly? Or would it be more rational to have a go?
1) We're on a 100% green energy electric tariff so the ongoing driving emissions would be close to 0. This is good!
2) The vast majority of my driving happens over short distances (e.g. to and from work). This would be no problem.
3) Here's where we get to the cons. It looks like I might make it to Alex's folks in a single charge, probably (although, because it's speed and temp dependent, I'm not certain of that - we might need a top up). To get to my folks, we'd definitely need a charge. That would add half an hour to the journey, and probably more like 45mins once you factor in actually getting the thing plugged in, the minor diversion to the charge point, etc. On the one hand, that's a bit of a pain. On the other hand, I don't actually hate the idea of having a break in the drive if I know I'm going to need it and plan ahead. An annoyance but not a deal breaker, I would say. Those are the long distance journeys I make most often, by quite some way.
4) Longer trips. If we went to visit
coalescent, that would involve an extra hour to ninety minutes (two charges) on a very long journey. On the other hand (a) it's such a long drive that it's already borderline whether we do it in the car or on the train - it's only really the fact that we want to take lots of games that tips the balance and (b) we do it rarely enough that it would be totally reasonable/feasible to just hire a car for the one or two occasions in a year we want to take a trip of that length. I wonder if there are car clubs for borrowing long distance vehicles for electric car owners? I don't think I would consider doing the trip in the electric, but that's not necessarily a problem.5) I would miss manual transmission. Odd, I know, but true.
6) Cost. I'm putting it down but this is a fairly minor consideration. Running cost would obviously be lower, but there would nevertheless be some financial outlay and there's nothing actually wrong with my petrol car right now, so I'm putting it on the list.
I don't know. I feel an odd disinclination, but I suspect that might be status quo bias rearing it's ugly head. What do you think? Am I talking myself into something silly? Or would it be more rational to have a go?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Date: September 27th, 2015 07:29 am (UTC)From:Picking a Nissan Leaf as an example and rough equivalent to what you have, it looks like will go from 0-80% charged in 1/2 hour at a rapid charge point, which argues that those second and third charges on a journey will give you 65 or so miles per charge not the 84 for a full charge. Also factor in how much shorter that mileage would be with the heating and lights on (which you will need in winter) but maybe on a cold day (-5) it could go down to 50 miles.
There are some figures for real world here http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1082048_nissan-leaf-range-how-much-does-it-lose-in-the-cold. It's noticeable they didn't get the claimed 84 mile range from full charge even under optimum temperature conditions which suggests you'd get even less out of the 30 minute charge.
As you can probably tell, I've been thinking about it as well but the range issue is nowhere near solved for me, and with the actual real world figures it may not be for you unless you decide to use a hire car for long journeys.
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Date: September 27th, 2015 02:14 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: September 27th, 2015 02:24 pm (UTC)From: