Electric cars

At this time Spain is definetely not the place for electric vehicles. Normal household power is limited to 10A, hence insufficient for recharging a vehicle in resonable time. Distances are large and (Murcia-Madrid) cannot be made w/o loosing a few hours for recharging on the way. KIA/Hyunday seem to have a cosntruction failure consisting in disalignment  engine/gearbox that cannot be repaired, and leads to premature malfunction of a bearing. Not for me.

We have three electric cars in our household. They all work well and we don't want anything else. For longer distances, we use the Tesla. The Supercharger network is now well developed in Spain and the rest of Europe. Most of the time we charge at home on our PV system using surplus control. This means that the operating costs of the cars are pleasantly low.

Is there a source for the problem at Kia? We have an eNiro and it has not caused any problems so far.

New EV’s with a long driving range can be pricey, anything less won’t take you very far on a charge & infrastructure to provide enough viable recharging points is decades away. For many living in streets & apartment blocks it may never work out well. The fear of being stuck in a traffic jam with the battery failing causing the dreaded “range anxiety” is too much for many. 

Agreed. UK government doesn't seem very committed to electric cars now that they've dropped purchase subsidies and charging VED. Personally I think fully EVs in current form are dead in the water. Why ? 1. Because in full life cycle they're not substantially greener when battery materials and battery lifecycle are taken into account. 2. Infrastructure problems, not just public chargers as in Tebay but for folk without driveways and living in flats. 3. Cost and availability of electricity. UK is warning folk to reduce their usage this winter but also buy an electric car. Eh? Govt has also said that all home charging points need to be smart so that they can be disabled centrally if there's a power shortage. So you plug your car in and then come out to find your charger has been disabled. This is real issue because electricity supply in UK already under pressure with small number of EVs. System would break if we all bought EVs over next few years. 4. Battery performance still poor. Batteries constantly leak charge. Leave your car at the airport for 2 weeks and battery may be empty on return. Battery performance can reduce by 50% in cold weather, just when you need lights, heater, wipers etc. Range is improving but still worse than petrol/ diesel. I'm not philosophically opposed to EVs but current battery power is not the answer. Hydrogen Fuel Cells are the future and battery powered EVs will be consigned to history. 

I own an electric Hyundai Kona. Last year drove from Alicante to Manchester and back. No major problems. Plenty of electric charging points, except in the centre of Spain. Final cost of thr journey less than 1/2 the cost in fuel than my previous diesel car. So far my monthly charging cost is around 30 euros, I was paying 180 euros in diesel a month. I had no problems in the UK with charge points pretty readily available everywhere I went and only place I experienced a queue was 1 motorway services. I charge at home now overnight. I think you mean 10kw not 10 amp as my initial fuse in my consumer unit is B45 (45 amps).10kw is more than ample to charge overnight and a fast charger at .45 euros per kwh and charge to full in approx an hour, paying around 15 Euros to travel 500kms seems pretty good to me.

Hydrogen has already been discontinued by the few manufacturers thar were experimenting with the idea and is not seen as the way forward. 

But with electricity prices doubling since last year, I guess that pricing advantage will have disappeared now? The other interesting thing about your journey is how many times you had to stop and charge (and for how long) as opposed to wanted to stop. I can't see these as the same thing.

Don't disagree but interesting developments elsewhere such as marine and HGV. JCB for example are burning liquid hydrogen instead of diesel in standard engines. I'm glad you're having a good experience but still don't believe battery power is way forward. Front page of Sunday Telegraph today warning about electricity supplies in UK. Government has no strategic plan to address or overcome EV problems.

The costs I have given are at the new (doubled) prices. My current tariff at home is 0.18 euro per kwh plus the gas concession at 0.12 euros per kwh, so 0.30 per kwh total. Before April last year my tariff was 0.15 euro per kwh. I am saving an absolute fortune on diesel costs from my last car. What I will say is that around town the car is perfect and cheap to run. On a long journey you have to plan your route carefully. I have to stop quite frequently anyway as I have a dog who travels with us. I had to stop 3 times between Alicante and Santander, one being our overnight stop at a hotel (with a charge point). Each stop roughly an hour, so 2 hours plus the overnight stop. Between Portsmouth and Manchester 1 stop on the services to grab something to eat. The UK was far better availability of chargers being on pretty much every services. My total electric charge cost a mix of sterling and Euros but converted to Euros was 185.78 Euros, My diesel car at its factory average mpg would have cost 594.44 Euros. The diesel car was Landrover size, so quite a bit bigger than my Kona. The size is my only real compromise as I'm used to a larger car. Agree with the UK electric though. The government should have got to grips with this sooner, but I suppose the energy company bosses and shareholders support the Conservative government.