The EV Apocalypse

[Barry]

So best case for your Golf vs worst case for the Tesla, right? That’s a good scientific basis for comparison

Question for the EV guys - Do EVs ever do better than their predicted range?

Not to my knowledge so far, and I imagine it's intentional. Better to underestimate than over.

Don't forget they perform worse in extreme temperatures too, winter or very hot has a notable effect on range. Mine seems to use 1.5x the claimed miles to do actual miles at the moment, at least until the battery has warmed up. Roughly 4miles/kWh showing on the dash. Should be more like 5 miles in warmer weather.

[NotoriousREV]

Can you pre-warm the batteries when it’s plugged in, Baz?

[scotta]

Can you pre-warm the batteries when it’s plugged in, Baz?

The I-Pace will do this if you program a time to leave. It will save the last part of the charge overnight and use the heat from charging to pre condition.

[Barry]

I can schedule starts, it'll do some preheating I think yeah, but my mornings vary from 6am-9am and I CBA with that at the moment. Cold, wet and windy is all bad for these things, kills range. I'm just getting into the habit of plugging in every few days, charger hopefully going in on Thursday too, which will help.

[mik]

[NotoriousREV]

So we’re scrapping, sorry I mean recycling, new Golfs after 125,000 miles now, are we?

[V8Granite]

I wonder if the amount of cars being scrapped is much higher than 10 years ago due to such easily available credit ?

Dave!

[Barry]

So we’re scrapping, sorry I mean recycling, new Golfs after 125,000 miles now, are we?

Does this include the carbon footprint of the fuel industry that supplies the Golf for those 70k miles?

Stats are fun.

[V8Granite]

So we’re scrapping, sorry I mean recycling, new Golfs after 125,000 miles now, are we?

Does this include the carbon footprint of the fuel industry that supplies the Golf for those 70k miles?

Stats are fun.

I suppose it all depends on how deep you go. The oil industry is pretty much all operating on old sites with regards to petrol stations etc. So we should include the transport of the fuel and refining it definitely. Refining uses huge amounts of electricity which if we adopted EVs would probably go into the charging side of the grid instead.

The electric side of it digs up for HV cabling, metals which take a massive amount of copper, aluminium etc, but that will be there for 20 years much like petrol stations.

I think if you compare cars it should be simply a vehicle by vehicle base as the infrastructure for both is pretty damaging.

Also it can be a direct comparison as depending on where in the country you are will depend on your impact. Lots of people, easy to fit charging stations, things are ready. Middle of nowhere in a village, far harder to increase capacity.

Dave!

[Barry]

This is my point, is easy to make a point for ignoring an aspect of both sides to make your point stronger, but the EV world is improving its carbon footprint year on year, so current comparisons aren't going to be fair next year. The rare metals in EV batteries are being reduced with every iteration for example, phones and laptops are far worse. Lithium isn't even that rare, cobalt use is minimal already (and oil industry is a bigger user remember).

[Swervin_Mervin]

So we’re scrapping, sorry I mean recycling, new Golfs after 78,000 miles now, are we?

EFA

[NotoriousREV]

So we’re scrapping, sorry I mean recycling, new Golfs after 78,000 miles now, are we?

EFI

200,000km isn’t 78,000 miles.

[Mito Man]

Probably, new cars are designed to last their warranty period, by which point they’ve depreciated so much that a gearbox or engine issue will scrap them if you use the main dealer

[mik]

So we’re scrapping, sorry I mean recycling, new Golfs after 125,000 miles now, are we?

Not personally, but it seems to be what VW is proposing. For reasons unknown.... maybe that is their expected battery life?
<shrugs>

[Swervin_Mervin]

So we’re scrapping, sorry I mean recycling, new Golfs after 78,000 miles now, are we?

EFI

200,000km isn’t 78,000 miles.

Doh

[Rich B]

What is the average lifespan in miles of cars? Including those that are written off etc. Presumably that’s the numbers VW have used?

[integrale_evo]

Yep, sounds about right really. Sure, plenty of cars if still alive will keep going a lot longer, but a lot will get crashed or mechanically written off well before then.

[NotoriousREV]

A quick Google suggests average mileage at scrappage is 106,000 miles and 14 years old.

[Rich B]

So we’re scrapping, sorry I mean recycling, new Golfs after 125,000 miles now, are we?

nope. Only 106k on average.

[Mito Man]

And people say the 100k mile barrier is just a joke. It’s no joke. When you roll past 100k miles you’re merely driving towards the scrapper.