EV opposition in the media is ramping up

[Gadget Geek]

Hi Rolfe,
Thanks for the quick reply, I'll try & answer all the questions, I have to say firstly what an amazing community & resource this is, it's a great help for us as novice EV owners.
We've only had the car a week so it's early days on local charging but I did research it before hand & with my neighbours encouragement I simply accepted that I would have to walk from the car locally or travel to a supermarket & wait. I like walking so it's all good, I get your point it might not be fun in the rain but we used to have a dog so thats just part & parcel of it, I'll happily walk rain or shine now I realise there may be problems chargers not working or I have timing to get back to the car. I'm self-employed & mostly work from home so thats fine, again something I'm prepared to accept as part of EV charging.
We don't have that many CP's in the area but my neighbours says she pops out in the morning and charges, which suites me fine. I did discover a new car park today that has 30 charging points in it, less than a few mins walk from home, however it's in a car park , it was built a few years back but has sat closed for ages whilst re-development of the high street goes on, might not be ideal for us as wed have to pay to park but I've emailed the council to ask if it is in fact open (not sure it is I noticed plenty of non-EV cars sat in the charging points) , but would make a great resource for local residents to charge overnight if we got some kind of parking concession. However it is encouraging that councils are making provision & we have one of the worst in London!
I see your point on your friend with a Polo, thats not encouraging to EV ownership if there is no charging nearby, they should def contact the council or look up their website, I am presuming there must be a government rush for all council to have an EV plan in place now, especially if ours is doing one .Hopefully she can a solution , maybefind a neighbour that might share a driveway etc.
Your right we bought the car knowing my daughters driveway would often be visited by us and they are happy for us to use it. I need to calculate a rough cost so I can pay for the elec I presume people do this all the time.
Sorry long post & a little off-topic, but hopefully encouraging to those without a home charger.

I notice you mentioned you have a dog. Could you drive to a charger and then use the charging time to walk the dog?

 

[Rolfe]

Hi Rolfe,
Thanks for the quick reply, I'll try & answer all the questions, I have to say firstly what an amazing community & resource this is, it's a great help for us as novice EV owners.
We've only had the car a week so it's early days on local charging but I did research it before hand & with my neighbours encouragement I simply accepted that I would have to walk from the car locally or travel to a supermarket & wait. I like walking so it's all good, I get your point it might not be fun in the rain but we used to have a dog so thats just part & parcel of it, I'll happily walk rain or shine now I realise there may be problems chargers not working or I have timing to get back to the car. I'm self-employed & mostly work from home so thats fine, again something I'm prepared to accept as part of EV charging.
We don't have that many CP's in the area but my neighbours says she pops out in the morning and charges, which suites me fine. I did discover a new car park today that has 30 charging points in it, less than a few mins walk from home, however it's in a car park , it was built a few years back but has sat closed for ages whilst re-development of the high street goes on, might not be ideal for us as wed have to pay to park but I've emailed the council to ask if it is in fact open (not sure it is I noticed plenty of non-EV cars sat in the charging points) , but would make a great resource for local residents to charge overnight if we got some kind of parking concession. However it is encouraging that councils are making provision & we have one of the worst in London!
I see your point on your friend with a Polo, thats not encouraging to EV ownership if there is no charging nearby, they should def contact the council or look up their website, I am presuming there must be a government rush for all council to have an EV plan in place now, especially if ours is doing one .Hopefully she can a solution , maybefind a neighbour that might share a driveway etc.
Your right we bought the car knowing my daughters driveway would often be visited by us and they are happy for us to use it. I need to calculate a rough cost so I can pay for the elec I presume people do this all the time.
Sorry long post & a little off-topic, but hopefully encouraging to those without a home charger.

It actually sounds as if people in London are relatively well served. 30 connectors a few minutes walk away is amazing, even if they're not available at the moment - surely they will be. If you have a neighbour in a similar situation then you know it can be done and you have an instant source of advice.

My friend is in Glasgow, where they recently introduced a Low Emissions Zone which flat-out bars older cars from the city centre. I know at least one family who had to sell their old car and bought a hybrid because of this. My friend isn't actually in the LEZ and her car isn't too old to be allowed inside it, but obviously the council are trying to get people to go green. The trouble is that they're not providing the charging infrastructure. The type 2 chargers in the car park where I usually park in the city centre have a 4-hour time limit on them, and there are only eight in a car park with over 800 spaces.

According to ZapMap there are a couple of 75p/unit Instavolts about a mile from my friend's house, and a couple of type 2 connectors (apparently free) nearly a mile in the other direction. There are also some type 2 chargers at the hospital half a mile from her house, but she believes these are only for staff (she used to work there, and walked to work, but she's now retired). That's it. I don't see how anyone in that area can even contemplate an EV unless they have off-road parking, and most properties don't have that.

(I don't think this is off topic, because this is exactly the situation the FUDs are exploiting in their propaganda.)

 

[Gadget Geek]

This columnist who was interviewed on the BBC program is an idiot!

"When Times columnist Giles Coren wrote about how his expensive electric car died during a family holiday it became his most commented-on article. (Surprise, surprise)

He described how his wife and children had to "strike out on foot across the fields in the driving rain and gathering darkness" while the car was "a lifeless corpse blocking the single-track road"."

Like that's never happend to a fossil fuelled car. Has he not heard of breakdown cover?

This is a synopsis of the program; Electric cars are the future, but is the UK ready?

 

[Rolfe]

Here's a non-paywalled copy of the Times article.

Interesting article in the Times about electric cars from Giles Coren

Why I’ve pulled the plug on my electric car. As I watch my family strike out on foot across the fields into driving rain and gathering darkness, my wife holding each child’s hand, our new year plans in ruins, while I do what I can to make our dead car safe before abandoning it a mile short of...

www.maggotdrowning.com

He was getting quite short shrift on Twitter when I looked. "Shock, man buys unreliable car!" He was hinting that his problems were caused by running out of charge, but he didn't actually say they were and I seriously doubt that. I question whether anyone is actually running out of charge these days, unless they've got an old EV with about 50 miles range on it. If they are, just how idiotic were they? He moaned plenty about public chargers, but I can't believe he doesn't live in a house with off-street parking, so most of his motoring was surely done without public charging. He moaned about the car only having a practical range of 220 miles when on paper it says "up to 292 miles". Shock, man who believed official fuel consumption figures for his car is disappointed! (I was clued up enough before I bought my MG4 to ask the dealer if the supposedly 218-mile SR would in practice manage a 100-mile round trip in the dead of winter.)

But mainly he seems to have bought a lemon that keeps breaking down. Like that can never happen with an ICE car.

 

[Gadget Geek]

Here's a non-paywalled copy of the Times article.

Interesting article in the Times about electric cars from Giles Coren

Why I’ve pulled the plug on my electric car. As I watch my family strike out on foot across the fields into driving rain and gathering darkness, my wife holding each child’s hand, our new year plans in ruins, while I do what I can to make our dead car safe before abandoning it a mile short of...

www.maggotdrowning.com

He was getting quite short shrift on Twitter when I looked. "Shock, man buys unreliable car!" He was hinting that his problems were caused by running out of charge, but he didn't actually say they were and I seriously doubt that. I question whether anyone is actually running out of charge these days, unless they've got an old EV with about 50 miles range on it. If they are, just how idiotic were they? He moaned plenty about public chargers, but I can't believe he doesn't live in a house with off-street parking, so most of his motoring was surely done without public charging. He moaned about the car only having a practical range of 220 miles when on paper it says "up to 292 miles". Shock, man who believed official fuel consumption figures for his car is disappointed! (I was clued up enough before I bought my MG4 to ask the dealer if the supposedly 218-mile SR would in practice manage a 100-mile round trip in the dead of winter.)

But mainly he seems to have bought a lemon that keeps breaking down. Like that can never happen with an ICE car.

Thanks for the link. I knew it, a complete and utter idiot with an agenda against EV's. Did you read the comments below his tirade? All a bunch of anti EV conspiracy theorists.

They might as well have interviewed Jeremy Clarkson on the show. Why do they never interview people with a balanced point of view? Robert Llewellyn, Jack Scarlett, Quentin Wilson are a few which come to mind.

 

[boomish]

I notice you mentioned you have a dog. Could you drive to a charger and then use the charging time to walk the dog?

I think you skipped a word , "used to have a dog" Am afraid we lost him last year I did get an estate for a reason though One day we shall get another & yes a charger near a park would be perfect, In fact that's such a good idea, I'll have to have a look for some & mark them. We kinda see having an EV as a good excuse to explore

 

[Gadget Geek]

Something I've just thought of, if you take the word "electric" out of this article;

"When Times columnist Giles Coren wrote about how his expensive electric car died during a family holiday it became his most commented-on article." Interesting article in the Times about electric cars from Giles Coren

. . . there would be no interest in this story. Some poor sod bought an expensive car and it broke down . . . so what?

Put the word electric in the mix and suddenly it's every car in the country. I think I'm having a mini rant.

 

[Rolfe]

Thanks for the link. I knew it, a complete and utter idiot with an agenda against EV's. Did you read the comments below his tirade? All a bunch of anti EV conspiracy theorists.

They might as well have interviewed Jeremy Clarkson on the show. Why do they never interview people with a balanced point of view? Robert Llewellyn, Jack Scarlett, Quentin Wilson are a few which come to mind.

I hadn't read the comments, but I am now! I'm pretty sure that isn't true about the Amazon vans - if only because I read elsewhere that the sharks insist that the delivery drivers buy and maintain their own vans.

So much ignorance. What if you want to use the lights, how much battery will you have left then? Do they even have heaters and windscreen demisters? The batteries need to be all the same and then swapped out to refuel. Where do they find these ideas?

Something I've just thought of, if you take the word "electric" out of this article;

"When Times columnist Giles Coren wrote about how his expensive electric car died during a family holiday it became his most commented-on article." Interesting article in the Times about electric cars from Giles Coren

. . . there would be no interest in this story. Some poor sod bought an expensive car and it broke down . . . so what?

Put the word electric in the mix and suddenly it's every car in the country. I think I'm having a mini rant.

Rant away.

He makes a big deal about the public charging network, but he seems to be exaggerating rather a lot. And how many days do you really need to drive more than 220 miles? Mostly, his car broke down. Quite a lot. When it was almost new. If they all did that, nobody would buy them. Go figure.

 

[JimD]

Just finished watching the BBC programme. I thought it was mainly fair and accurate - EVs are better and are the future, but there are still big challenges to be overcome in a short time and our glorious leaders are asleep at the wheel. I can't argue with those conclusions.

 

[Rolfe]

No, can't argue with that at all.

 

[Gadget Geek]

It was that idiot Giles Coren which really wound me up. He mentioned the 10 chargers at Exeter (if you look on Plugshare there are double that number) and 40 people in a queue. Within a mile of the services at Exeter there are numerous CCS chargers available. That kind of sensationalism really isn't helpful.

 

[Rolfe]

I really doubt that story of 40 people in a queue. Do you think he would lie so blatantly though?

 

[gus]

Just read an article today about a car transporter catching fire in the North Sea, guess what they are blaming it on yep an EV….

reuters - fire starts near an EV
Daily mail - EV starts fire

 

[Ruislip Resident]

I really doubt that story of 40 people in a queue. Do you think he would lie so blatantly though?

Yes

 

[Gadget Geek]

I really doubt that story of 40 people in a queue. Do you think he would lie so blatantly though?

Yes. He's an idiot.

 

[Rolfe]

Forty cars take up a hell of a lot of space. Where were they all parked? What was the queueing system? Show me 40 drivers who're so clueless that they haven't worked out alternative charging stops if Exeter is fully occupied...

 

[Mitch AC DC]

I agree, but given the need to queue often for the rapids (our local Tesco Extra has one rapid and 6 22kw posts) I imagine they think, let's just stick with the rapid. I did ask a cab driver if he would mind connecting to one of the 5 available 22kw chargers as he was at 90% and he just gave me a look and got back into his car.... I guessed the answer was no with some expletives not expressed

As an Ex-Cabby, I can say how most cabbies think, Can`t have too much fuel, Put it in while you can, Never know when your next long-job is going to be dropped on you, Time is money. Wish these bloody civilians "learnt how to drive" "get out the bloody way" "Fares what it says on the Meter mate/no discount for cash mate" "Yes I`ve been busy tonight" "Please don`t slam the door".

Just seems a bit selfish and "not playing the game" tho

not a game, working for a living

 

[JimD]

It was that idiot Giles Coren which really wound me up. He mentioned the 10 chargers at Exeter (if you look on Plugshare there are double that number) and 40 people in a queue. Within a mile of the services at Exeter there are numerous CCS chargers available. That kind of sensationalism really isn't helpful.

The BBC guy wasn't presenting those views as the truth though. He was using the interview to illustrate the damage to public opinion being done by that kind of journalism (as he made clear in his comments after the interview).

 

[Gadget Geek]

The BBC guy wasn't presenting those views as the truth though. He was using the interview to illustrate the damage to public opinion being done by that kind of journalism (as he made clear in his comments after the interview).

Completely agree with that. However, what will be the takeaway for non EV drivers watching that program? They will brush over the fact that it was emphasising the urban myths, and take it as gospel. And the anti EV lobby will say "told you so". The program could have been structured much better to emphasise public perceptions of EV's, telling the few horror stories and then showing the majority of "normal" journeys as the truth.

 

[JimD]

@Gadget Geek yes, I agree that there weren't enough balancing opinions from happy EV users.