The real cost of EVs

[Barry Townsend]

Hi Andrew
Certainly on mine it can be switched off, but I can see no reason so to do.

I see there are various comments regarding the acceleration, I, for one, am conscious of the speed I'm doing and am aware without continual looking at the speedo. I would have thought that the majority of A7 owners by virtue of their age and experience would be similarly aware.

I've yet to see a negative comment about the recent decision by the OPEC cartel reducing production to jack up the price of crude oil. How long are we prepared to be held to ransom by the Arabs and Russians. I also note that some of our politicians are promising a block on new North Sea oil and gas exploration should they gain power, let's all be held to ransom and ridicule.

I'm more concerned with the boy racer BMW drivers who continue to blight my journeys. In the meantime enjoy your motoring whatever you drive whilst we still can.

[Steve Clare]

In the interest of balance, I run a new Nissan Leaf. Fantastic bit of kit with good range, and whirs at low speed for safety of pedestrians- but the downside is that the totally crap charging infrastructure across the UK is a bloody nuisance on long journeys.
 
My son runs a twin motor Tesla, it's very fast, (munches petrol supercars), very relaxing on long journeys, and the Tesla rapid charger infrastructure means that long journeys- Spa for the Grand Prix twice,  and northern Scotland repeatedly in the last year, as well as many journeys Somerset to London and back are a piece of cake. But it does need a new mindset and getting to grips with the technology for journey planning, which he's good at, and I'm definitely not.
I can't fault that motor in any way, it's a belting piece of kit.
EVs are great in my book.

[Dave Mann]

As a member of he Institute of Marine Engineers I regularly receive their journal which is full of articles on safety & the environment but there has been no comment on the loss of the Felicity Ace a car carrier with 4000 cars on board which leads me to conclude that all bad EV news is censored out.

[Nick Salmon]

Apparently went down over a year ago and was by no means carrying mainly EVs...? https://www.thedrive.com/news/45085/thes...cargo-ship

[Dave Mann]

Quite right but the crew, who were all rescued, stated that an EV was the cause of the fire which they couldn't extinguish. Soon after an insurance company commented that the carrying of EVs and their batteries on ships needs to be looked at to prevent a similar accident.

[Nick Salmon]

Ah, now I understand the signifcance. Thanks Dave.

[Barry Townsend]

I looked through the published ships manifest and unless I'm mistaken there wasn't an EV aboard

[Andy Bennett]

There will always be scare stories about new technology, some justified, but mostly overstated and generally no worse than existing. Remember those in favour of the horse and trap, and so wanting to keep cars out, forced in a 2mph speed limit and a man walking with a red flag in front of the first cars... Personally electric cars and the charging network aren't yet where they need to be for me but am sure they will get there.

There may be an occasional fire in a battery powered car but I have a feeling an electric supercar wouldn't do this to itself:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N44icPfGi1M

[dickie65]

And how long did the electric car Richard Hammond crashed on a hillclimb burn for ??? was it three days and could not be put out.

[David Stepney]

I understand that, to equip a workshop to repair EVs commercially, one needs to install a water filled pit large enough to completely submerge one in the event of fire.