Thinking of going Electric? Some things to think about…

[Leslie]

Good progress but with big ev demand nowadays and part supply problems I thought the dates would slide . probably easier to get a petrol car now !!! As everybody wants electric not easy is it

[sapphireblack]

Let's hope the car actually materialises to warrant this expense

[X5Sport]

It certainly wasn’t cheap. Just over £2k all done. As you say, the car had better turn up now!! Interestingly though, adding a charge point could well increase the value of a property by more than the installation cost. It’s not why we did it however a couple of colleagues have and have seen increases of £3-4k. Installation cost will fall (they need to) as demand picks up. The firm who did mine are doing 6-10 a week and their ‘service area’ is within 1 hour around Cambridge.

[X5Sport]

So a bit more to add.

Going solar? This one isn’t going to happen with me for a while. If you’re at home during the day then solar charging will work, but if you’re a commuter then it’s going to be a bit more of a challenge.

A 4kW/h solar array with good quality cells and proper control hardware is going to set you back around £10k. Going above that level means needing additional consents from your energy supplier and local grid operator. They may decline!

If you want to store the daylight power then you need a battery system (and the space for it inside the house) and those are also serious money. You might be OK for about £6k, but you might need more capacity and that means cost. Some battery systems are nearly £10k on their own, and the battery itself has a finite life (typically 10 years).

This being said, at current electricity prices (May ‘22) a complete system will probably pay for itself in 6-7 years. That’s great if you can afford the upfront costs and have (ideally) a large south facing roof space available. If you fancy feeding power into the grid, the rates are awful! As low as £0.015 (1.5p) per kW/h!! Some are a bit better (£0.05) but still well below what you pay to get energy.

Going ‘green’ is far from cheap especially if you want to go all-in.

Costs are falling all of the time and are half what they were 10 years ago. Decent solar panels (LG, Samsung etc) retain >93% efficiency at 25 years guaranteed. You also need to factor in cleaning of the array and that could mean scaffolding or a cherry picker if access is difficult. It can be done from the ground too with the right kit (not a jet washer please note ).

[StuBeeDoo]

Autocar reports, today, that secondhand EV values have fallen 18% since this time last year.

[X5Sport]

I saw the same. Infrastructure is one problem along with a sharp rise in the cost of leccy and a 25% fall in the price of diesel/petrol.

Another problem is that repairing batteries in many EVs is impossible due to some manufacturers making the whole pack structural and non-repairable. BMWs are all modular and therefore fixable. The issue is the manufacturers won’t share construction data with accident repair centres. Insurers want to use their own choices rather than main dealers. In know Tesla battery packs (as an example) are loaded up with cells and then filled with some kind of foam.

I’ve seen the TIS for changing the i4 battery and it’s about a two-day job and requires special tooling and processes. That and you need someone trained to deal with 400/500/800V power systems. My local Dealer has only two ‘technicians’ approved for working on any EVs. It will change over time, but early adopters will struggle. It’s why I’m not buying it outright (at present) and will keep our ICE cars as well.