[Closed] Electric cars are ace!

 Price wise it’s no more expensive to lease than a Fiesta

Where have you seen it that cheap?

I was looking at one of these recently as it would be perfect for my commuting but the best lease prices I could see were £350+ per month. Fiestas were <£200 per month so quite a difference.

Someone will be along in a minute to tell you that as soon as you buy one you'll want to spend every weekend towing a boat to India or something and therefore they are rubbish.

I agree with you though. Enjoy your new car!

We have a Zoe which is quite possibly the slowest EV you can buy right now but the instant burst of acceleration you get from flooring it is still ace.

Possibly the very best thing about all EVs though is being able to heat them up and defrost them before you go outside... on a cold winter's day when it's blowing a gale, freezing cold, sleeting and dark getting into a car that is already warmed up, windows cleared and ready to go is great. You won't get that on an otherwise similarly specced petrol or diesel car.

Sounds good, but what if you want to tow your boat to India or something?

Electric cars are ace!

Only for charging.

They're deece for driving.

I'd get one but you can't drive them in the rain.

We’ve a new shape Leaf and we concur; ace. My other half hasn’t been to a petrol station since. Lovely to drive, too; as mentioned, the instant acceleration is a bit addictive, made even better by the lack of noise or fuss as it happens. And whilst it’s set to do about 16k a year in our ownership, we’ve only charged it away from home once, and that was just for the novelty of it. Perfect for us.

My other half hasn’t been to a petrol station since.

Where do you get sweeties and machine coffee from then?

Can i charge it for free in a hotel while I buy a pint of coke?

Possibly the very best thing about all EVs though is being able to heat them up and defrost them before you go outside…

I do that with my petrol car in winter. Start it up with temp at 25 degrees and air con on, go back indoors to get ready for work and 10 minutes later the car is warm and ready to go.

Do you also realise that if you drive it in a lightening storm you'll not be able to stop it going really fast and crashing.

Applauds perchy panther

Start it up with temp at 25 degrees and air con on, go back indoors to get ready for work and 10 minutes later the car is warm and ready to go.

a) you've had to go outside
b) it takes longer than an EV, which starts kicking out heat pretty much instantly
c) unless you have a car specifically designed to do this you are greatly increasing the risk of theft

Unless you need to tow a boat to India, of course.

I guess the convenience of getting the car to warm itself up from your phone app may be outweighed by the need to go out and plug it in every night/few nights.
Not that it would put me off, I think/hope my next car will be electric and its good to hear a "real world" review like that. I always think the range anxiety is overplayed...

If range anxiety is a real factor for some people, **** knows how they would manage in my car, it doesn’t even have a range calculator.

Only for charging.

They’re deece for driving.

Dr Seuss to the forum!

I guess the convenience of getting the car to warm itself up from your phone app may be outweighed by the need to go out and plug it in every night/few nights.

Which is outweighed by drivingv to a garage then standing holding a pump every few days.

Which is outweighed by driving to a garage then standing holding a pump every few days.

This is a big problem; we don't drive our other car much these days, neither of us wants to be the one who has to faff about going to a garage to put fuel in it, so it is often running on fumes before one of us cracks 🙂

Where have you seen it that cheap?

I was looking at one of these recently as it would be perfect for my commuting but the best lease prices I could see were £350+ per month. Fiestas were <£200 per month so quite a difference.

I should qualify that by saying it was a Fiesta Active I was looking at so not the cheapest but the BMW comes fully loaded so is comparable. The lease would be through Salary Sacrifice at work via Zenith.

They must be getting a good deal on the i3 as the only fully electric cars cheaper are the VW Up or Smart four2. The Leaf, Ionic, Zoe etc are all considerably more.

For those looking at a small car and who can charge at home as long as the figures work out I really can't see why you wouldn't go electric, it was that good. Just drove the manual diesel Kuga and pined for the i3. Son was also disappointed at the mode of transport back from school.

As for towing a boat to India, the other car can do that!

We have new model leafs at work and they are brilliant. I feel a bit of a dinosaur driving my 2.2lt SUV. I hope and expect my next car to be electric.

I've run an i3 for just over 3 years now!

Bought it, ex-demo, for less money that it's worth today! Almost certainly the best car BMW make.....

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(Smug mode) I’ve had an electric cars for just under 3 years now, would never go back to diesel.

Where do you get sweeties and machine coffee from then?

S’allRight, I’ve got a dinojuice burning car that fulfills those needs. As reasonably priced as electric cars are, they still can’t compete with the bangernonics of a £750 fiat panda!

I test drove an i3 a couple of years ago - loved it. Put an order in for the model 3 a few weeks ago, hopefully should be here in a month or two. By all accounts it should be rather good.

We have tried - and liked - an i3 but still worried about 2 bikes and 2 people squeezing in to it so any info from @maxtorque appreciated.

I really really want an electric car but we do 10,000 miles per year of which 9,000 are in trips of 100 miles plus (Lakes, Scotland, Wales, Somerset from Yorkshire) as neither of us drives to work.

Every time we go camping or to an event the conversation in the car is ‘how would we do this in an electric car, where would we charge and when?’. Obviously Tebay figures in these conversations but then there’s charging at destinations (campsites etc don’t have chargers) or friends’ houses (is it cheeky? will the cables blow their fuse box?) to consider - or stopping twice so that you are charged up before you arrive which adds quite a bit of journey time and isn’t great if you’re trying to get to an event and pitch a tent before it gets dark...

We just had the i3 plugged in to the mains via a normal 3 pin plug this weekend. No blown fuses, it didn’t even really heat up. I plan to plug it in at work when I get one.

Bloke who dropped it off said he had just stopped at a recharge point and it had taken 30 mins while he had breakfast. The BMW app apparently tells you where the charge points are too.

As for fitting bikes in I can’t imagine it’ll be any worse than any other similar sized car. Certainly seemed more leg room in the back compared to the Fiesta.

Nice that the bloke who dropped it off could a) find a recharge point and b) wanted breakfast, so handily found one of those rarities next to a (hopefully decent) cafe. That'd get expensive quick tho.

I won't be towing boats to india any time soon but I second @Clover's opinions:

200 miles and a 40 minute wait (for best-in-class teslas) make plenty of my weekend dart-from-work-on-friday jaunts totally untenable from a timing perspective. (Not to mention that I live a long way from family, so if there was an emergency I couldn't rely on things being ready.)

The timing for me is the difference between getting to a destination in time for check-in/pitching the tent and last orders and turning up after midnight. Not to mention I can't charge an EV in a camping field in the middle of wales.

And a south of france or scotland trip? Even though you budget more time for stops, eff that - I don't want to be stopping for 45 minutes every three hours, and hunting for charge points that may or may not be on-route.

Coupled with the fact that the infrastructure isn't there yet (especially in remote destinations) and the lolzrofflez prices of EV's which would mean I couldn't afford to go away any more if I owned one means that no, even the best of electric vehicles aren't good enough for my purposes yet.

3 minutes to fill up 500+ miles at a network of already-existing pumps? I might fill up on a Friday, then on a Tuesday night after a big round trip weekend and a couple of jaunts to work.

I'd love an EV, but until they get the tech right there's just no point in being an early adopter. *for me*.

As a second car if you only had to go local? Well - doesn't work for me either. If I have to go somewhere local I go on my bike. 🙂

There's a lot of people an EV doesn't make sense for but there's likely a lot more for who it does - at least from a usage perspective, I certainly agree the financials aren't clear-cut for a lot of those people.

Anyways the latest Model S is up to 370 mile range now, surely that plus maybe charging at work or a quick 20 minute super-charge boost mid journey is enough for your weekend jaunts (not sure about all chargers but super-chargers charge much faster up to a certain battery percent before throttling back so figures for a full charge vs what you actually need to do in reality can be a fair bit different).

a) you’ve had to go outside
The car is literally 5 metres from my door

b) it takes longer than an EV, which starts kicking out heat pretty much instantly
It takes 10 minutes and I am getting ready in that 10 minutes so not lost time

c) unless you have a car specifically designed to do this you are greatly increasing the risk of theft
Only if somebody forces the lock on my gate in a very quiet village at 7 in the morning

So as I said, I do it in my petrol car so not really a massive benefit of an electric car. I am however for electric cars and as soon as they become a price that is the same as petrol equivalent I am buying one. That is estimated to be around 2024.

Think Kerleys focussing on the wrong issue...

Petrol/ diesel fumes from cars idling in traffic (or whilst “defrosting” )are damaging our kids lungs and contributing to climate change.

More generally

Electric cars make a lot of sense for a load of people who are commuting daily for up to an hour and a half or so. If everyone who was doing this had one I’m sure the air pollution in our village, and outside my kids school would be significantly better. Problem is that they are a luxury choice at the moment as they are more expensive that their petrol equivalent for the most part and for most people.

Long trips, fine, at the moment a diesel is prob best. Especially out in the Countryside or battering down through France full of bikes, pulling trailers etc. I don’t see a lot of people in the queues outside my house every morn8ng pulling trailers or looking like they’re off on a road trip!

I'm picking up an i3 on Friday! Very excited.
2nd hand seem very popular at the moment, especially for the pre-2017 luxury car tax models and prices are pretty static. I'm a bit worried about depreciation with the new EVs coming on the market over the next couple of years. So I'll either keep it for a couple of years, or drive it into the ground, which is a bit of an unknown with EVs. Hopefully there will be battery replacement options in the future so I can upgrade the range.

At the moment the Tesla is the only one that makes sense for our travel (and has a delivery date this year). I’m still scrabbling down the back of the sofa to find all the spare change though...

I keep looking at REX i3s though as they’re second hand, affordable and *might just* be able to do the stuff we do.

I was riding up the long drag between Keighley and Haworth. It stank of fumes and I just don’t want to be part of that any more.

Think Kerleys focussing on the wrong issue…

Don't think he is. I didn't raise it as a benefit of having an electric car, just said the same can be done with petrol so not a big bonus of having an electric car.

There are two big issues with electric cars
Price - same car is about £10k more than petrol equivalent. For small low cost cars (~$15K) that £10K is a massive proportion of price that will never be returned (compared to a petrol car doing 60mpg at 10,000 miles a year)
Range - an issue for some but when typical range gets to around 200 miles the number genuinely impacted is going to be very small

By 2024 when prices should be same as petrol equivalent and range has increased there will be no point in getting a petrol or diesel car for 95% of people.

There’s a lot of people an EV doesn’t make sense

Really? How many? What proportion of the UK drive more than 130 miles a day? That's getting on for 50,000 miles a year. I suspect a very small percentage of the population are driving those distances regularly based on the fact the average annual mileage is around 8k a year and can get away with an EV the majority of the time...making a full charge last a good couple of days, so not really massively inconvenienced. For big journey's people are just going to have to accept the fact you may need to stop once or twice for 20 minutes or so, but ultimately technology will progress that will speed this process up or make it unnecessary. But to perpetuate the use of diesel and petrol cars indefinitely is not going to be an option, or it will become a very expensive option. Of course for some people, a minority, who need a car for their jobs and a full EV might not work for them then that's what hybrids are for. We need to change. The sooner we suck it up and jump on the bandwagon, the sooner prices will come down, technology will improve, convenience will get better and before we know it we'll have adapted and a lot of these excuses being bandied around wont even be recognised. The transition will take time of course as people will hopefully transition next time they come to change their current cars, but people need to make that leap and accept it will require some minor changes to the way they use their cars and plan longer journeys.

Every generation has its challenges they have to step up to meeting. Previous generations had to fight wars. Ours is saving the planet by changing the kind of car we drive. So complaining about having to stop off for 20 minutes on a camping trip to Scotland is not really going to garner much sympathy.

the same can be done with petrol so not a big bonus of having an electric car.

Only by people who live in a quiet village with secure car parking, which I think is a pretty small proportion of the car driving population. Also, with an EV you could heat and defrost it outside work, the shops or wherever for the journey home too 🙂

I'd love one!

However, I spent £900 on my last car so it will take a while before I can afford an eCar.

But you guys keep buying them and once they get down to a £2k second hand or something, I am in!

My shortest trip to work is 97 miles, the next is 160 - either will mean all but the Tesla are out unless I plan on adding another 30-60mins to the journey for charging.
Very few short trips ever so rips apart the arguments above.
Even the Golf GTE only does "up to 103 miles".
A hybrid could work but when you have VW (for example) spouting about how good the new Passat GTE is but it only has a 37 mile EV range - whats the point?

Even the Golf GTE only does “up to 103 miles”.
A hybrid could work but when you have VW (for example) spouting about how good the new Passat GTE is but it only has a 37 mile EV range – whats the point?

Golf GTE is a hybrid do you mean E?

Hybrid is funnily enough not just about using electric it's about using both to maximise mpg, my current long-term is over 80mpg. On long journeys it'll return about 71mpg.

I kind of disagree on 2 levels -

1) I don't use mine to commute. I genuinely do use it very frequently (compared to how often I use it at least) for distances that would cause range anxiety if 150 miles was the range.

2) I don't think they're the right solution to the problem. Yes, they generally seem to be less polluting, but you're still carrying round a living room with you just to get from a to b. Cycling/walking/living closer to work are the solution. Maybe not owning a car is the solution (although I can't see a shared car arrangement that would allow me/bikes/kids to make the mess we do without severe financial consequences).

I'm sure they're great to drive though, and they'll form part of the solution - they're just not there yet. And you need changes to behaviour alongside them.

There’s a lot of people an EV doesn’t make sense

Really? How many? What proportion of the UK drive more than 130 miles a day?

Range isn't the only criteria when selecting what makes sense. Cost, ability to charge, shape/size for what you need,... are also factors.

Not everyone lives in a 2.4 bedroom sub-urban semi with a driveway. I would need an extension lead from my 3rd floor apartment kitchen, across the floor, up out the skylight window, down across balcony, down 1 floor, across neighbours roof, down 1 more floor, along the length of an 8 car carport, down to my car.  And that's only feasible cos I now rent a parking space in view of my kitchen.

Possible, but doesn't make sense.  Couple of charging points at work (in a 6 floor multistorey). 1 in the street near work that might do 2 cars.

And the newest semi's in my village back home have driveways so small that you'll only ever get 1 on the drive at any one time. So 2 car households will be history, or jiggery pokery swapping cars about before bed time to get the other one on charge.

If I have to move house for it to makes sense, then it doesn't make sense. More than happy to stand for 5 minutes and pour some electrons in to the battery.

They are A solution, or part of the solution, but not THE solution (yet). Maybe one day every parking space that's not a driveway will have charging.  I'll happily keep paying for 98 octane until then.

So 2 car households will be history,

Not exactly a bad thing.

The future isn't car ownership at all, the times we are in of owning your own car will be looked back on as a tiny blip in human history. Not too far off will be all electric vehicles called to your home with an app or similar to take you on your journey. Driving yourself will be a hobby for the rich. I work in the EV industry and after EV cars comes autonomous cars, it's no more than 50 years away before private ownership is a thing of the past.

The future isn’t car ownership at all, the times we are in of owning your own car will be looked back on as a tiny blip in human history. Not too far off will be all electric vehicles called to your home with an app or similar to take you on your journey. Driving yourself will be a hobby for the rich. I work in the EV industry and after EV cars comes autonomous cars, it’s no more than 50 years away before private ownership is a thing of the past.

Taking cabs everywhere would be cheaper for most people than the full costs of car ownership - and yet only the poorest don't own a car for financial reasons. Unless it's forced in some way, I don't see this prediction coming to pass. Sure it would be environmentally beneficial, but I just don't see it happening by itself.

Oh and we can start talking about autonomous cars when they start to exist on the general market. I we're a lot further away from an autonomous car that can cope with unusual events as effectively as a human than this sort of thinking would have us believe.

interesting to see the predicted date of 2024 bandied about. That's roughly when I reckon my 2009 petrol Mazda might be coming up for replacement.

I'd love a leccy car, but since there's nothing wrong with my car, and I live in a terraced area where I can't always park on my street let alone outside my house, and MrsDoris (who mostly uses the car anyway) doesn't have chargers at work, it'll be a while.

Roll on 2024 🙂

Taking cabs everywhere would be cheaper for most people than the full costs of car ownership – and yet only the poorest don’t own a car for financial reasons. Unless it’s forced in some way, I don’t see this prediction coming to pass. Sure it would be environmentally beneficial, but I just don’t see it happening by itself.

This - about 10 years ago my parents' car was coming up for replacement, so dad did some sums and realised that it would actually be cheaper to take cabs everywhere instead.

He bought a car anyway. Preferred the convenience, and would have felt silly getting a cab to Snowdonia to go for a hike...

Seems that some people think that pre-heating car via electricity is EV-only thing but it is very common accessory to any car particularly in Scandinavian market.

The idea is to heat engine to minimize cold weather consumption and reduce engine wear in low temps but it improves efficiency even at +5C. Typically there is small extra heater in cabin too and sometimes a battery charger too - the system is usually powered via external outlet post with timer.
Cost for the system is ~ 150EUR without installation costs, running costs depend on how long the system is run. Engine block heaters are typically 500W and cabin heaters are 750-2000W.

They're a factory fit option for lots of cars, are they not?

Meh to much of the above. They won't work for every one atm but will for me which is why I tested one.

For those that it does work for go for a spin. As I said in the title, they're properly ace compared to normal hatchbacks regardless of any other reason than the actual driving experience.

We’ve had an i3Rex for 2.5 years. Bought it originally for dad taxi trips to and from swimming/rugby/football etc. But it quickly became the car of choice 95% of the time.

Since September the kids have gone to a school over 25 miles away, so I’ve been racking up over 100 miles a day extra on school days.

I have hardly used the Rex, but do find it comforting to know it’s there and makes it easy to push the range. My brother got a non Rex and doesn’t us it as much as we do.

Up until this weekend I’ve only charged it at home, but did a 280 mile round trip on Saturday. I was a bit concerned about using the chargers, it turned out to be unfounded and I was very impressed with them.

Currently also run a discovery sport as well, but I think I’ll be putting a deposits on a Model Y as soon as they become available.

They are A solution, or part of the solution, but not THE solution (yet)

There's never going to be one single solution, just as there isn't one single problem.

I like the I3, and would have an electric car if I could, but it just really didn’t work yet. I do tow, up to about 3tons, and I go off road with the trailer on. I regularly go 400miles in a day although my regular commute is 25miles. I also like blatting down to the alps in a day, which might preclude me from having one unless I want to add several day to each holiday. So, they don’t work yet but it’s coming and I’m all for it as soon as I can!

Seems that some people think that pre-heating car via electricity is EV-only thing but it is very common accessory to any car particularly in Scandinavian market.

I am fully aware of externally powered heaters in colder climates but they aren't a patch on what EVs can do; EVs can warm up without being plugged in, so you can do it wherever the car is, especially if you are at a location where you cannot plug it in.

I used to absolutely love the heated windscreen in my old Focus, but the various methods of clearing a windscreen just aren't needed when an EV can clear it before you've got in or much quicker when you have.

For anyone who wants a 48hr test drive of an eGolf
https://insideevs.com/news/353880/48-hour-test-drive-vw-e-golf/

VW Marketing:

The charm of the e-Golf is it has all of the talents of the familiar Golf hatch, with the simple addition of an electric powertrain

funny as that's what I don't like about the e-Golf... it's just another Golf

134 bhp and 393 lb-ft of torque

not sure about that torque figure

2 car households will be history,

I dunno, there might be a sort of stop-gap period where two car households have a leccy job for daily local journeys, and a big old IC or hybrid for longer-range family missions at the weekends that probably sits in-used for 95% of its life just because of range anxiety, lack of infrastructure and maintaining a bit of status... The parking limitations and car shuffling shenanigans you describe don't currently stop people owning more cars than they absolutely need so I can't see that changing...

Only by people who live in a quiet village with secure car parking

Not really, its par for the course in places like canada along with a sump heater.(was when I lived in Calgary in 1998-99).. and has been for decades with a remote. It’s also available on some premium cars... presumably no-one selling cars in the UK thought this was a marketable feature?

I dunno, there might be a sort of stop-gap period where two car households have a leccy job for daily local journeys, and a big old IC or hybrid for longer-range family missions at the weekends that probably sits in-used for 95% of its life

This is almost exactly us. We have a Leaf that is the other half’s car, used daily for commutes (16miles e/w) and school runs (20miles e/w). It’s perfect for those ubiquitous uses. I own the ‘big old IC’; a chunky Navara that does family camping holiday, MTBing and general fetching and carrying duties, including materials for my many hobbies/projects. I also run a little panda for my commuting and school runs because when it’s just me and a couple of young lads, 2.5 tonnes of diesel car is a bit excessive. We are lucky; we have adequate space to be able to have the right tools for our jobs. Ecars are great, but they aren’t yet the whole solution. Not sure if they ever will be, but that’s okay. An E-Navara would certainly be a very interesting vehicle, but I suspect exorbitantly expensive until batteries get lots cheaper.

Taking cabs everywhere would be cheaper for most people than the full costs of car ownership – and yet only the poorest don’t own a car for financial reasons. Unless it’s forced in some way, I don’t see this prediction coming to pass.

You do realise a big chunk of the cost of a cab ride is paying for the driver's time? After that it's likely the petrol. Autonomous EV cabs make a lot of sense and will be vastly cheaper, the problem is the time it will take to come to fruition (partly capability but mostly legal restrictions). 50 years seems a bit pessimistic to me but I can certainly seeing it being 25 years, and that's still a long long time.

Tesla leasing (or possibly the next version of it anyway) in the US factors  in Tesla then using the end of lease returned cars to create an EV taxi service, with the plan it will be autonomous where locations allow. That's a lot shorter time frame but I can't see it being widespread due to legislation.

This is almost exactly us

And would be us ... 90% of my driving trips and probably 95%+ by time I need to carry 2/3 bikes, be able to lock them inside a vehicle and park in a off-grid field.

Time is usually of the essence ... it’s Jnr’s sleep time
2 weeks ago we drove from Surrey to Rev’s ... then to Cheltenham and stopped in a motel (with no charging so far as I noticed) .. topped up in the morning whilst buying coffee on the way to 417 .. then drove home after for Jnr to jump in the shower and go to bed...
Next weekend ... Surrey to Innerleithen ... refuelled near Penrith and parked in a field then drive back to Surrey in time for me to go to bed... (still caked in mud) ...

These would have been very different weekends with an EV.... probably not really practical ... we usually eat on the hoof etc. To save time and fill-up or top up as part of it.

Most local stuff I cycle...
The OH should have an EV (drives to the same school to teach as Jnr attends for now)... I really need a van but most likely we’d end up with 3 vehicles.

on the cab heating thing, certainly my Amarok had it as an option, and the 5 series we had at work for a demo car had it as standard. I think it's out there more than you think!

Oh, and I do mean, remote control / timer set, non engine start cab heating.

Sure, many premium cars have fuel-powered heating / cooling solution (Eberspächer, Webasto) as a factory option which can be started on timer, remote control or phone. Those heaters can be installed on most cars as aftermarket item, costing around 1500 - 2000EUR here. The electric heater combo is just so much cheaper than those things and completely service free.
My point is that improvement in cabin heating is just a not good enough reason for buying a new car, EV or not.

Sure, many premium cars have fuel-powered heating / cooling solution (Eberspächer, Webasto) as a factory option which can be started on timer,

I wouldn't call the Ford Focus a premium car. Nevertheless, a factory fit fuel powered heater run from a timer was an option.

Nevertheless, a factory fit fuel powered heater run from a timer was an option.

As it also was on a 2003 Rover 75.

I'm sure someone on here has a (petrol) Jag XF that he's mentioned can be preheated from an app while he's having breakfast, so he can get into a nice warm car.

VW Marketing:

The charm of the e-Golf is it has all of the talents of the familiar Golf hatch, with the simple addition of an electric powertrain

funny as that’s what I don’t like about the e-Golf… it’s just another Golf

That's exactly why we like (and have) an e-Golf. We find it a brilliant car - family of 4 and 2 dogs no problem. Great fun at traffic lights too 🙂

The Tesla annual shareholder meeting yesterday was pretty interesting. I know Elon has a rep for being very ambitious with his timelines when predicting things but he reckons with the v3 hardware Tesla's will be capable of autonomous driving by the end of the year (but still require driver supervision) and by the end of next year would be capable of working driverless (but that obviously needs agreement from regulators to). I think 2 years is optimistic but maybe 25 is pessimistic.

Some interesting insights into the problems with the car park summon feature to (that car parks are actually very complicated places and running people over isn't a good thing :p ).

As it also was on a 2003 Rover 75.

You come from a class above me, perchy. I could only dream of a 75.

I’m sure someone on here has a (petrol) Jag XF that he’s mentioned can be preheated from an app while he’s having breakfast, so he can get into a nice warm car.

That would be me. All current model JLR vehicles with an automatic gearbox include remote start and climate control from an app on your phone.

Tesla’s will be capable of autonomous driving by the end of the year (but still require driver supervision) and by the end of next year would be capable of working driverless (but that obviously needs agreement from regulators to). I think 2 years is optimistic but maybe 25 is pessimistic.

But he gets the headlines. I think we are on the cusp and there are already driverless cars on "some" roads. Still a lot to do to overcome complex situations but I think the pace of development is exponential so a small number of years is my guess. The challenges will be less technical and more behavioral IMO.

All current model JLR vehicles

A weeny bit more expensive than the lowest spec Zoe (itself the cheapest EV) which has had it as standard since 2012, no?

I never thought id say this but i'm looking forward to the day that cars can drive themselves (whether or not they are electric) as anything that makes my MS easier to live with is a bonus,  Just got a new VW Tiguan DSG (motability scheme vehicle) and that comes with advanced cruise control, lane assist and automatic/emergency braking amongst other electronic wonders, on decent A roads and above i can set the cruise control and the car will speed up/slow down, come to a stop,set off when encountering traffic. On a recent drive to glasgow from galloway i only had to cover the brake a handful of times for the occasional roundabout, never once touched the accelerator, obviously you have to pay attention to other traffic and steer but the car can do an amazing job at maintaining lane position and is effortless to drive for distances.

Coming from a previous life in which i entertained myself with old school cars such as mk2 sciroccos/corrados/mk1/2 golfs all running daft but fun stages of tuning etc it's a bit of a learning curve to trust the electronics but i'm getting there considering the first vehicle I've ever owned with electric windows was my previous 2013 VW Caddy, technology is great!...roll on the future.

PS : i still want the hover boards we were promised though.

All current model JLR vehicles

A weeny bit more expensive than the lowest spec Zoe (itself the cheapest EV) which has had it as standard since 2012, no

Zoe from 22 to 28 grand, Jaguar E-Pace from 29.

But I wasn’t comparing cost, I was simply making a statement about functionality. And it’s not apples to apples, comparing a mass market brand with a premium marque.

FWIW I’m a big electric car fan, and can’t wait to swap my XF for either an I-Pace or a Model S.

Until there's a body kit to make the Honda EV look like the prototype did I'll stick to my fuel guzzler (and ride to work as I do now anyway).

I also like blatting down to the alps in a day

I'd hire a car for this if I could make it easy and painless, and not too expensive.

Drove Swansea to Newcastle the other day in a Hyundai Kona. One charge strategy which involved a stop at a holiday inn express off the M1 near Notthingham. One hr to charge, 3 hrs to get food from a local pub from which i caught a case of the squits. Make of that what you will.

It is a downside of doing longer EV journeys - that you're forced down the route of spending time/money at low quality/overpriced establishments like motorway services or certain hotels.

Was reading about the idea of using battery banks to service peak demand with cheaper leccy in charging locations. Certainly be looking at grants for that sort of thing if I owned a cafe/restaurant/hotel with some spare land for parking and chargers.