Random EV thoughts.....

Was that the agricultural stuff :) ?

Whatever about worrying about the impact on efficiency of a full tank of fuel, what I don't get is the regularly made point about having to go to a petrol stn being such a waste of time and used as a stick to beat ICEs but still act in a manner which requires you to visit a stn more often.

If time is so precious, above all else, fill the bloody tank each time you make a special round trip from home to squirt a bit of fuel into the car. Of course with even the most cursory planning youd drop into a stn to fill up en route so saving even more of that most precious time.

Heres an answer - Yes.

I have an EV that is a company car doing 40,000km+ per year so a lot of long trips all over the country. Company pays for charging so I am not worried about cost.

The reality is if your driving an ICE or an EV, you should take a break after a couple of hours driving if for nothing else than to reduce fatigue and avoid falling asleep at the wheel. So I simply plan those stops with charging and no time is wasted.

If I'm doing shorter journeys, then i'm charging up at home nightly or at the hotel Im staying at ( I never stay at a hotel that doesn't have charging facilities).

And I dont miss the smell of fuel & exhaust at fillings stations or having to take time off to get my car serviced twice a year.

Plenty of others here do trips in the summer over on the mainland crossing several countries in an EV.

I appreciate where you are coming from, but in reality your questions are based on assumptions rather than a lived experience.

A small bladder and tiredness are common symptoms easily fixed by owning an EV, the shorter the range the better.

Yeah, EV for me all day long...

We still have our diesel BMW, and almost had to take it down the country last weekend due to an issue with the EV, and I was honestly dreading it.. but luckily the EV issue was sorted and I was able to take that instead.. Stopped on the way down for a toilet break, and a 7 minute charge (to ensure I had enough to get back to that same charger later that day), and proceeded to my destination where I found an available charger next to the restaurant we were visiting, so topped up enough to get us all the way home later that night... mind you I was bursting for a tinkle by the time I got home... so a stop would have been fully warranted.

I've done 300-400km drives in the BMW in a day and felt wrecked/drained afterwards (I dunno, maybe because it's an M-Sport? and on run flats), and I've done 600-700km drives in a day in the EV and felt I could have easily done another few hundred km afterwards if I wanted...

The (running) cost benefit of driving an EV is great, but it's not the main or even close to the main reason we bought an EV... We just knew that at some stage we wanted to get one for environmental reasons... We were actually on the verge of importing either an A6 or e220 from the U.K. before we decided to just jump straight to an EV (as the Model 3 had just arrived, and to date was the only EV out that could adequately replace our 3 series).

Funny story: We went out to Tesla Sandyford and sat in a Model 3, and ordered one a week later having at that point never driven an EV (or even been a passenger in an EV)... The 1st time either or us ever drove an EV was when we test drove a Model 3 about 2 weeks before collecting ours...

Higher initial cost: yeah, didn't really bother us.. we paid something like €49k for the car (March 2020), but by paying off the mortgage early we saved roughly €49k in interest, so I see the car as cost neutral in a funky maths kinda way...

Bonus: when we got Solar PV in Oct 21 (before it all went mad!), and the ability to fill up the car from the sun is just fcuking amazing... From April 1st - July 5th, 100% of the electricity that went into the car was solar excess.

I need to fill up the BMW before the weekend, and it'll be a pain in the hole to do it (move EV out of driveway, drive cold BMW up to garage (so wear jacket), fill up, pay (probably about €70-€80), drive home, wash hands, put BMW back in driveway, put EV back in drive).

EV all day long.

Did the summer drive last year in an EV instead of the 2.0TDi. Enjoyed the trip a bit more than the diesel. Worked out 25% cheaper but that wasn't a factor in your question. We covered the same distances on driving days as we would have in the diesel. The car was a nicer, quieter place to be. One downside was that charging stops often were co-located off-route with mid-high range hotels rather than motorway services stops. Not ideal if you're looking to eat and get back on the road within half an hour. Destination charging at hotels tended to be hit or miss, they were often occupied when we arrived or (some) not working and hotels don't give a. I think I'd still choose the EV for a long trip over an equivalent autobahn-cruiser. But it would be a closer decision than for pottering about locally.

yeeees but of course. Green and kero mix. My shed was full of the stuff.

>I've done 300-400km drives in the BMW in a day and felt wrecked/drained afterwards

indeed possibly down to that particular cars configuration where you have a sports suspension plus a more tuned engine, and its a diesel so easily imaginable that for longer spins it could be a trudge. Ive a friend who had a Merc AMG spec car as a company car (presume a petrol as who chooses a diesel if youre not paying) and he hated it for actual proper long drives. It was nice in cities to make farty noises and impress the people you are annoying with its racket but on motorways too twitchy and suspension too harsh.

in comparison, I do long spins in the petrol 125ps focus and find it grand . I’ll actually be doing 850 km tomorrow, and 500 -ish the next day for the Christmas drive home and not dreading it in the slightest. It’s quiet even at high speeds, relatively economical, seats comfy, stereo really good, interior is spot on and even has these novel things called buttons which do things straight away when you press them.

Maybe when people give out about “noisy dirty ICE”s they really should replace the term “ice” with diesel.