British households could miss out on savings of more than £800 a year on running costs if they choose a hybrid car over an electric one, amid concerns that recent government rule changes open the door for manufacturers to sell more polluting cars.
Owners of hybrid cars only save an average of £13 a year compared with drivers of petrol vehicles, but could save as much as £850 annually if they buy electric rather than petrol, according to analysis by the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU), a thinktank.
They’re not a think tank. They’re a propaganda tank.
They never do actually think. They only ever play with slide rules to create propaganda.
Are we by any chance ignoring depreciation or the value of the time spent waiting to charge?
We are living in the Age of Bullshit, where it’s OK to tell huge lies if you feel like it:
Quentin Willson, the founder of FairCharge, which campaigns for policies that support electric vehicles, said: “Government extending the sales of new hybrids to 2035 is a grave misstep. Well-intentioned drivers are being misled by the alleged benefits of hybrids, which are neither significantly more economical than combustion cars nor better for urban air quality.
“The softening of the ZEV mandate allows carmakers to build combustion engines for longer and ease back on EV targets. The UK is currently Europe’s most successful market for EVs, but succumbing to pressure from carmakers to dilute the mandate threatens that success and will allow Chinese carmakers to dominate. This is shortsighted, disappointing and ill-judged government policy.”
If you don’t force people to buy electric cars, Chinese carmakers – who predominantly sell only electric cars – will dominate.
Why not? Ed Miliband keeps saying your electricity bills will come down.
They’re not a think tank. They’re a propaganda tank
Their Advisory Board is a Who’s Who of cunts.
Rushanara Ali MP
Lord Howard of Something Night
Various useless grinning wankademics
Rear Admiral Neil Morisetti
Golgafrincham is missing a million idiots.
All that money I could save by paying £20k more for the car
It’s a bargain, where do I sign up?
A friend has installed solar panels on his house (it’s where he plans to retire to next year so he’ll be in it for quite a while)
ROI is still about 8 years even at millibrain’s inflated electricity prices. That’s after decades of ‘improvement’ and ‘efficiency gajns’
I looked at it ten years ago for my house and it was about that then
Quentin Wilson is the annoying twat who used to be on Top Gear uttering pompous nonsense.
He is now a full time EV propogandist.
For him the stake and faggots treatment is too good.
Starfish – ROI is still about 8 years even at millibrain’s inflated electricity prices.
Higher electricity costs make EVs more expensive to run. For ROI purposes they also assume you’ll only charge your car at home, between midnight and 5AM. (Which is currently when our cheapest electricity is generated, precisely because we *don’t* have millions of EVs being charged at that time.)
Nobody understands basic arithmetic anymore, and they’re proud of their ignorance, but snce home charging tops out at 7KW/h and an average* sized EV battery is about 64 KWh…
*Average battery sizes are increasing rapidly, but you’ll still only get 7KW/h at home. This isn’t like broadband where they can keep increasing the bandwidth to your property.
Otto – Tonight, on Shit Gear…
I find it best to nip into the time machine and go back to medieval times and picture the reaction of people unaccustomed to being lied to by everyone all the time.
It’s market day at Sodding Chippingbury. An immaculately dressed gentleman steps down from his magnificent golden coach to stand in Market Square. Locals ask “What have you got to sell?” CF (for such is his appearance and, coincidentally, his name) announces “Nothing, old boy”. “How do you afford such a coach, sir?” they inquire. “You bought it!” he proudly replies. The locals mill around restlessly. “I don’t remember that!” they cry. “Well, the King gave me millions in gold for nothing, out of your incredibly high taxes, so I can easily afford this magnificent coach. I make this wonderful magic power called EElectricty but the gods that provide it are fickle so I have convinced the King to pay me millions even when I haven’t got it. So I get millions all the time, non stop!”. That’s the end of my little parable for this morning. You have to guess what the locals do next…
Quentin? Jasper? They are worse even than Justin or Jeremy.
And the fuckers can’t even write simple unambiguous English, to wit: “to sell more polluting cars.”
Is gaslighting an infringement of zero emissions?
Quentin Wilson is powered by bitter rage that his house is smaller than the guest bathroom in James May’s third home.
39 million road vehicles. Can someone please explain where they are going to get all the leccy to charge that lot up, and when the upgrades to the infrastructure to support that amount of current being drawn in every street is going to happen? And cost?
Madness on stilts.
Average petrol cost for a year is typically quoted at about £2000 so a £13 saving is 0.65%
I can’t see car manufactures increasing the cost of a cars drive train by £5k only to get a 0.65% reduction in running costs to make their car more attractive to customers. Given that the majority of car manufacturers sell a lot of hybrids it looks like the ECIU is missing something.
I just bought a hybrid minivan to replace a gas powered one. My mileage immediately went from 20 MPG to 30 MPG. In two months, I’ve already saved more than the £13 quoted in the article. Price was about the same as the non- hybrid model. The article is gaslighting.
Mohave Greenie,
“I just bought a hybrid minivan to replace a gas powered one. My mileage immediately went from 20 MPG to 30 MPG. In two months, I’ve already saved more than the £13 quoted in the article. Price was about the same as the non- hybrid model. The article is gaslighting.”
I guarantee you that they’ve thrown some numbers in to make it work. I don’t buy the PHEV number of £117 compared to £850.
What is quite elegant about the PHEV is that the battery is big enough for a general day’s motoring. You get 30 miles, which is enough for going to work, taking the kids to football, doing some shopping. For the average MILF, she does no more than that on over 90% of days. Now and again, they go and see their sister who lives 100 miles away. Which pollutes and costs money, but if you think of someone doing 700 miles/month and 150 are on petrol, you are still on 80% electricity. It’s not perfect but it’s a huge win without spending a colossal amount on batteries.
“but if you think of someone doing 700 miles/month and 150 are on petrol, you are still on 80% electricity. It’s not perfect but it’s a huge win without spending a colossal amount on batteries.”
It’s only a win if the electricity is produced by a “clean source” and even then probably not if you take into account the total lifetime emissions (building windmills in the middle of nowhere and then connecting them to the grid is now without emissions / consumptions, same applies to batteries).
I just bought a mild hybrid diesel. The kind of mileage I get from it is amazing and I don’t need to plug it into anything.
The saving is tax evasion. Petrol/Diesel is 50p/gallon. Plus tax.
All road traffic fuels must pay duty. Even if chemically identical to the LPG in the tank to heat your home.
Except electricity. For now…
If EV ever become significant, you will be forbidden from charging them with ‘red’ electrons…
With a PHEV is there a risk of using the petrol engine so rarely that you are risking engine damage? Or does a large, red, flashing light remind you to do a few miles on petrol?
“ Energy and Climate Intelligence …”
Three words that have no place in the same phrase.
Last month I got rid of the Volvo PHEV. The last straw was unrelated to the drivetrain. Granted, it was a first-generation PHEV and newer ones offer more power and range on battery, but from my experience with it, I don’t think a newer one would solve the biggest problems: long-distance refinement and efficiency.
I use enough daytime electricity at home that an EV tariff was out of the question. Plus getting one would have necessitated a “smart” meter, and some days I’d need to charge it during the day to have enough juice to use it again later. My ‘leccy is 24p/kWh. A full charge (6kWh into the battery, 7kWh out the mains) gets 12-15 miles, so call it 12p/mile. Plus the auxiliary heater uses about 4p/mile worth of petrol. 16p/mile for fuel.
The new car, a 3.3l diesel Mazda is returning 38mpg on similar suburban journeys. With diesel at £1.35 a litre, that’s 16p/mile. However, on longer journeys the Volvo would struggle to do 35mpg while the Mazda gets north of 55. Granted, petrol vs diesel, but the price differential is negligible when the difference is that stark.
With a PHEV is there a risk of using the petrol engine so rarely that you are risking engine damage? Or does a large, red, flashing light remind you to do a few miles on petrol?
If I don’t use any petrol for 3 months, my PHEV starts to run the ICE until I put a gallon of petrol in. This actually happened to me once, during COVID.
3 months, eh? I suppose that covers you for the seasonal changes in the composition of petrol.
Starfish has half of it:
“All that money I could save by paying £20k more for the car”
Catastrophic depreciation can cost another £12k per year.
“British households could miss out on savings of more than £800 a year”
YCMIU
I am in Shanghai right now. About 50-60% of cars, all scooters and busses are EV . Air is now clean, and noise level very low. Population of the delta probably around 150,000,000. Seems to work oK. Having plenty of electricity available probably helps. Licence plates for ICE vehicles are very expensive, EVs free.
Approx 20% of cars in Shanghai are EVs, probably a higher proportion in the CBD. Cheap, coal-fired electricity must help make them work economically but I do wonder where people charge them and what the charges are.
For the UK, PHEVs seems to be an easy win. Cheap, clean and quiet around town, no battery worry on longer trips. As long as you have a driveway…
Marius, I had an interesting chat here yesterday with a NIO owner, showed me the available nearby sites for battery swaps on his phone. We were near theBund, plenty available, also shows any delays . Battery change time 3 minutes . A happy owner. Petrol here is about the same as Australia. Electricity very cheap
I’ve seen a youtube saying that depreciation of EVs in China is terrible, the reason being people think of them as cellphones, to be replaced every year or two and the old one practically worthless. Further, if the rumoured replacement of lithium batteries by cheaper just-as-dense safer sodium batteris take place (any day now..) then anything with a lithium battery will be even more worthless (?). It won’t be a case of getting less for it but having to pay for its disposal.
Semi-OT: what do we think of zonal electricity pricing?
https://archive.ph/O8exK
Norman, I know nothing about zonal electricity pricing and barely skimmed the article, but my bet is that anything promoted by the civil service, considered by Milibrain and supported by parasites like Octopus Energy will bring nothing but pain, misery and a total failure to achieve its stated goals.
Also, the article refers to a study by FTI (a PR firm) claiming it will save money, which is obviously lies and bullshit, because that is what FTI is paid to produce.
China is mostly cities, nobody drives between them because it’s too far. EVs are a sensible solution for them.
“China is mostly cities, nobody drives between them because it’s too far. EVs are a sensible solution for them.”
The USA is mostly cities, nobody drives between them because it’s too far. EVs are a sensible solution for them.
Europe is mostly cities, nobody drives between them because it’s too far. EVs are a sensible solution for them.
Australia is mostly cities, nobody drives between them because it’s too far. EVs are a sensible solution for them.
Funny how that ….doesn’t reflect reality, innit?
If you live in a city (and have access to charging) an EV is a sensible solution. But then, if you’re in that position, you don’t really need a car for most purposes (and when you do you just rent one).
No Dutch city is large enough to qualify as a village in China.