[P962c]

I have been leasing a Hyundai Kona EV for the last three years and have been thoroughly satisfied with the experience so far. The car is a delight to drive.
The primary reason for leasing rather than purchasing was:

1. High Price of the vehicles
2. New technology with limited data on battery design and life and recalls.
3. Fast progression of battery technology to improve design and charging times and range.
4. Data on depreciation which is nullified by leasing.
5. All maintenance costs are included in the leasing contract.
6. Higher specification cars are more affordable.

Charging Point:
I am fortunate that my house has a private driveway so I could easily accommodate a charging point. I was also able to take advantage of a government grant which significantly reduced the cost.
The Car:
The car is a Hyundai Kona Premium SE with a 64kWh Battery (204BHP) with 7kw Charger with a 300-mile range.
The car is of high specification with such things as emergency braking assist, lane assist, front and rear facing cameras and blind spot warning lights in the rearview mirrors and the like.
However, with concerns over the range of electric vehicles one of the most useful features is the three-setting recuperative charging. This feature uses the vehicle braking and normal slowing down to put charge back into the battery on the move. The settings increase the charge rate to a maximum where the charging almost does all the braking for you (good around town). The settings can be changed while on the move via paddles behind the steering wheel.
On a recent journey to mid Wales, I managed to put a charge back into the battery equivalent to 25 miles on each leg of the journey on the minimum setting.
The inbuilt Sat Nav does indicate the nearest charging point while on the move.
The stated range is about right for normal driving but is affected by having the AC or heating on and in my experience, it takes around 10% of the range. Freezing weather also affects the range.
It is like a petrol car in that the fuel consumption goes up when AC is on. It is a lot more visible on an EV.
The lights have a small effect, being that they are all LED.
Charging time at home for a full charge is around 6 hours with a cost of around £12.
Fast charging points will put a significant percentage of charge into the battery in a lot shorter time.


Route planning:
There are still concerns over the number and frequency of charging points around the country. Although this is changing. I found that it is best to plan routes using available apps such as Zap Maps which selects a route with the best number of charging points. Some of the apps also allow you to prebook a slot at charging points in advance.
Overall:
My feeling is that if you are someone who does a lot of miles in a day then an EV may not be an optimal solution at the moment.
I think that EVs are not going to be the only solution to emission free driving.
I can say that for me driving an EV has, so far, been a good experience and is probably going to get even better as technology and infrastructure progresses.
Hopefully the price of EVs should start to come down in the near future so they become more attractive for potential buyers.

[WizzyWigg]

The EV is almost certainly the vehicle of the future but concerns certainly in my neck of the woods (Lancashire) is the lack of public charging points. At the moment there is 520 registered for the whole of Lancashire. With there being approximately 10,000 vehicles, in this county, it means there's 1 public charger for every 19. The predicted figures for EVs registered in Lancashire by 2030 is approximately 250,000. 🤔 Food for thought. 👴

[P962c]

Indeed it is food for thought. Things are progressing just not fast enough

[WizzyWigg]

@P962c

Very true. It's like a lot of things at the moment. Great ideas but the infrastructure isn't in place to support them. 👴

[retrotecchie]

@WizzyWigg

I think Lancashire has more public charging points than the whole of Wales.

My nearest one is a nearby (5 miles) National Trust property and that's just a weatherproof outdoor 13A (3kW) socket with a coin-operated timer. The nearest 'proper' public charger is in a supermarket car park some 23 miles away from here.

I only know three people with EV's. Three different makes and they all came with a standard charging cable that plugs into a 13A socket. They just plug them in to their garage or, in one instance, run an extension lead through a front room window.

They have just removed the charging points from a local authority site in England I work at regularly. Only one of them has ever been used and that was by me to run an extension lead for an electric drill as it was the only handy outdoor socket I could get access to!

[WizzyWigg]

@retrotecchie

According to the Electric Vehicle charging statistics April 2023 published May 2023 Wales had 53 public chargers per 100,000 of population as opposed to 33 per 100,000 in the North West 😊.

Really looking forward to seeing the latest figures this month. 😂

Can't wait. 😂

[retrotecchie]

@WizzyWigg

Did it say how many were actually operational?🤣🤣🤣🤣

And how many were in the urban conurbations along the M4 corridor compared to the remote bits of West and Mid Wales?

Population of Ceredigion, about 70,000 permanent residents but increasing to about 90,000 in t'holibobs. 4 Tesla Superchargers at a hotel in Aberystwyth (I've never seen a Tesla using one in ten years), one fast charger in Morribobs car park and the 3kW charger at the NT place, usually hogged by a Nissan Leaf. There may be others, perhaps one or two in Cardigan, but I've certainly never seen them.

Even Cardiff City Council are ordering a new fleet of 18 diesel bin lorries as they can't charge their electric ones at the depot because they don't have enough capacity on the nearest electricity substation. And that's Wales's biggest city. Electric cars and charging infrastructure will never take off the way the government plan until the current grid capacity can be upgraded by at least 30% nationally, at a cost of several billion pounds. Probably double that in rural areas reliant on 11kV overhead power distribution. The chargers aren't there because there isn't the power capacity to feed them.

[WizzyWigg]

@retrotecchie

You've got to remember this is a government report, so I think you can guess the answer to your question on does it show how many are not viable. 😂

It's estimated that we need to increase the number of charge points by a factor of 12 fold by the end of the decade, if the predictions are correct, and that's not including Blackpool, Blackburn and Darwen. 🤔
That doesn't take into account the seasonal (holiday) demands 😯.

The poor old Grid is definitely going to have to find a lot more juice and that's just us 😂.

[meldrewreborn]

@P962c

A useful and insightful post.

While the transfer to electric vehicles is absolutely necessary, Drivers are yet to be convinced enough to purchase. But most new cars are not bought by individuals but by companies. what they buy now is sold on into the 2nd hand market later. Manufacturers face imposed quotas on what they make/sell which will force the consumer to adapt.

The switch will be painful for many and rural areas (as usual) will be the hardest nut to crack, given the absence of economies of scale. But if we're not to have rampant temperature escalation the nettle has to be grasped.

[retrotecchie]

@meldrewreborn

A good interim stopgap would be to not ban all sales of new ICE vehicles by 2035 as has been proposed, but to ban sales of petrol vehicles and restrict private diesel vehicles to a maximum of 2 litres. Sure, some diesels have problems with particulates, but they have lower carbon dioxide emissions for the same miles driven than petrol. There has to be some give and take because it will be impossible for everyone to switch overnight.