Petrol Head?

[Upside Down]

In reality the solution to reducing the pollution caused by the amount of cars on the road is to reduce the number of cars on the road.

Massive public transport infrastructure needs to be put in place and restoration of things like tramways, which were ripped out at the behest of oil companies to make way for motor vehicles.

Normally I wouldn't hold my breath but since the air of the future looks set to be completely toxic, maybe it's a good idea to do so.

 

[ChrisyG]

31 minutes ago, Upside Down said:

In reality the solution to reducing the pollution caused by the amount of cars on the road is to reduce the number of cars on the road.

Massive public transport infrastructure needs to be put in place and restoration of things like tramways, which were ripped out at the behest of oil companies to make way for motor vehicles.

Normally I wouldn't hold my breath but since the air of the future looks set to be completely toxic, maybe it's a good idea to do so.

 

How would you reduce the amount of cars on the road? I think it's quite a leap to presume better public transport links will automatically mean a reduction in car use. People like cars and the freedom they provide. 

[Upside Down]

7 minutes ago, ChrisyG said:

How would you reduce the amount of cars on the road? I think it's quite a leap to presume better public transport links will automatically mean a reduction in car use. People like cars and the freedom they provide. 

There's more to it than just public transport, you'd have to do a lot of rezoning to ensure that there are necessary services close to where people live. There's a movement of people campaigning for the 10 minute city etc.

There needs to be major changes made, people liking their cars is not a good enough reason for the annihilation of the very atmosphere and environment that we all require to survive.

I'm not exactly optimistic about anything positive happening tbf.

[Mattyblue]

10 minute city 🚨 

[bluebruce]

On 29/05/2024 at 22:27, ChrisyG said:

There is some good info in this video on the EVs that depreciate most and the ones to avoid.

 

Personally, I think depreciation is only really a big deal if you're the sort of person that likes to (and can afford to) buy new cars and switch them out for another one a few years later. If you look at your EV as a long-term investment you plan to drive for at least 10 years, and you don't feel the need to buy new cars, then instead you should look for what is the best actual car, and in particular how likely it is to need maintenance or battery replacements (newer battery chemistries won't need that inside 10-15 years, maybe much longer in some cases), and efficiency per kWh. If you're the sort of person that buys used cars, I'd say the large depreciations on some EVs are actually a huge plus as you can take advantage of them when buying.

[bluebruce]

On 29/05/2024 at 22:48, Upside Down said:

In reality the solution to reducing the pollution caused by the amount of cars on the road is to reduce the number of cars on the road.

Massive public transport infrastructure needs to be put in place and restoration of things like tramways, which were ripped out at the behest of oil companies to make way for motor vehicles.

Normally I wouldn't hold my breath but since the air of the future looks set to be completely toxic, maybe it's a good idea to do so.

 

In the case of tramways, they need to be much better value than the one Blackpool Council put in near where I live...I'm struggling to find the exact length of it for some reason, all I can find is planning permission from 2017 that said it was for 422 metres, so well under half a KM. It's definitely not very long, stretching from near the train station Blackpool North to the promenade, so 422 metres sounds about right. The cost? £23.4 million! Just to appease lazy fuckers who can't walk 10 minutes or less to the train station. A couple of years ago I was told it was the most expensive tram track per metre in Europe. Obviously this country has lots of issues with planning permission, bureaucracy etc, and we need to improve those to improve our infrastructure. Oh not to mention, it massively affected footfall for businesses in the locality for quite a long time.

But overall I do agree public transport infrastructure improvements are massively needed. Before I could drive about 7-8 years ago, if I was going from Blackpool to Darwen, I had to go to Preston, then Blackburn, then Darwen. The connect at Blackburn was a brief window, so if one of my first two trains was delayed by about 5 minutes, I would have to wait at Blackburn for nearly an hour to get the next train to Darwen. Even though it's a very short journey and the towns virtually bleed into each other. A total joke and one of the things that made me finally learn to drive. The train tickets for this bullshit journey also cost similar or more than the petrol. Future battery techs reaching scale production in the next few years should enable buses to go electric, and that could really help without any need for new tracks laying down.

Similarly, the Tesla Semi and other developing electric lorries are a very important step. Goods transportation is a huge driver of emissions, so this could take a lot of pollution out of the equation. They can also save businesses huge amounts in the medium to long term due to the fuel savings on those beasts. The Tesla Semi has been tested with Pepsi, who have been very happy with it. I think one estimate I saw said the extra initial investment in one of them vs an ICE truck would be recouped in about 1-2 years, depending on Tesla's final launch price not changing too much.

Edited June 7 by bluebruce

[bluebruce]

On 01/06/2024 at 14:09, Mattyblue said:

10 minute city 🚨 

A very misunderstood concept. Conspiracy theorists seem to have latched onto it and spread a lot of false information, suggesting the idea is for the government to trap you in a small zone of a city. Which is bollocks. The idea is that you can get nearly everything you need within a 10 minute drive of your home, not that you must. I don't see anything whatsoever to find objectionable about that, it's just good planning instead of the ad-hoc approach we currently have.

[ChrisyG]

38 minutes ago, bluebruce said:

Personally, I think depreciation is only really a big deal if you're the sort of person that likes to (and can afford to) buy new cars and switch them out for another one a few years later. If you look at your EV as a long-term investment you plan to drive for at least 10 years, and you don't feel the need to buy new cars, then instead you should look for what is the best actual car, and in particular how likely it is to need maintenance or battery replacements (newer battery chemistries won't need that inside 10-15 years, maybe much longer in some cases), and efficiency per kWh. If you're the sort of person that buys used cars, I'd say the large depreciations on some EVs are actually a huge plus as you can take advantage of them when buying.

Yes, it would require a change in approach and maybe even the way EVs are financed. The most popular form of car finance is personal contract purchase (PCP), which involves changing a car every 3 to 4 years, depending on the length of the contract, with a guaranteed future value at the end of the term. If the car price is high and GFV low, the monthly costs become expensive. If dealers offered finance over longer terms it may become more do-able for many.

I'm currently spending a lot of time on AutoTrader, weighing up my options for a little runaround. It's interesting to watch used petrol cars rise in value while some EVs are depreciating quite sharply. So, you're right, they are now on my radar cost-wise, and I would consider one.

I think the car industry is getting into a bit of a pickle regarding the mandated transition to EVs. Last month, the boss of Stellantis, which owns Vauxhall and others, warned that the UK's electric vehicle policy threatens to bankrupt car makers. I'm keeping my eye on things to see how it all pans out!

I decided to keep hold of my family bus and pay off the finance. That should give me a few years to decide on my next move with the bigger vehicle.

[bluebruce]

29 minutes ago, ChrisyG said:

Yes, it would require a change in approach and maybe even the way EVs are financed. The most popular form of car finance is personal contract purchase (PCP), which involves changing a car every 3 to 4 years, depending on the length of the contract, with a guaranteed future value at the end of the term. If the car price is high and GFV low, the monthly costs become expensive. If dealers offered finance over longer terms it may become more do-able for many.

I'm currently spending a lot of time on AutoTrader, weighing up my options for a little runaround. It's interesting to watch used petrol cars rise in value while some EVs are depreciating quite sharply. So, you're right, they are now on my radar cost-wise, and I would consider one.

I think the car industry is getting into a bit of a pickle regarding the mandated transition to EVs. Last month, the boss of Stellantis, which owns Vauxhall and others, warned that the UK's electric vehicle policy threatens to bankrupt car makers. I'm keeping my eye on things to see how it all pans out!

I decided to keep hold of my family bus and pay off the finance. That should give me a few years to decide on my next move with the bigger vehicle.

Sorry, what requires a change of approach and financing?

I'm not one who would want to buy a car on finance personally, although I do see the appeal and I'll never say never. Just think you tend to get a raw deal overall, and I'd rather buy an older car outright much cheaper. However, I'm not close to being able to afford a half decent EV for the 2k or so I could probably afford if my Peugeot conks out tomorrow (which is always a danger, it's had a lot of issues). I could spend more than that but that's about the size portion of my life savings I'm willing to give up for moving A to B at the moment, given all the extra costs of running a car and my very low income.

But this kind of drop in the used EV market is important for bringing lots more people, similar to myself but maybe earning more or willing to do finance, into EV ownership. Which has knock-on effects in pushing demand for EV infrastructure, in turn making the whole thing more viable.

Yes, lots of legacy automakers are going to become bankrupt from this market disruption. That's what happens when a game-changing technology comes along, a paradigm shift. A lot of the earlier adopters who have continued developing (especially Tesla) are doing well enough from it, but due to the race to the bottom encouraged by the great ecological need for EVs, and their currently high price forcing it to need to come down to hit larger markets, many car makers are struggling to make and sell EVs at a profit. As far as I've seen, it's only really Tesla and the Chinese companies (the latter getting huge subsidies and cheap labour) cracking the code on that for now. I think one of the main problems has been legacy car makers not committing fully to EVs, meaning they're not developing the technologies nor building the economies of scale required to build profitably en masse whilst keeping the price competitive. Increasingly lower battery prices may help with this, but most of those batteries are produced in China, some of them by car makers.

If governments and companies aren't careful and clever, most of the Western, Korean and Japanese carmakers could end up out of business, with Tesla and Chinese companies dominating. And then with tarrifs slapped on the EVs too so they're not as affordable here as they are for the Chinese. Subsidies and tarrifs need to be intelligently managed, and companies need to invest in the future before they become the past.

On the flip side, that loss of legacy companies means lots of space for new startups etc to innovate and compete, perhaps growing into the giants of the future. Thing is, the Chinese production behemoth is reaching such alarming cost efficiency that it becomes hard to see how we overcome the advantage we have surrendered to them through inaction. And as we've seen with Russia, allowing an autocratic state to have majority control over a crucial resource is a very risky proposition. A bit scary to think Russia dominates oil and gas, and China dominates EVs and renewables, which are a key part of the alternative. We need to step up.

[only2garners]

On 03/06/2024 at 17:32, ChrisyG said:

On 03/06/2024 at 16:58, bluebruce said:

The idea is that you can get nearly everything you need within a 10 minute drive of your home, not that you must.

Actually the 10 minute city (5 minute or 15 minute) is designed so that you can get to everything you need within a 10 minute walk, cycle or public transport journey, not a car journey.

On 03/06/2024 at 17:32, ChrisyG said:

Last month, the boss of Stellantis, which owns Vauxhall and others, warned that the UK's electric vehicle policy threatens to bankrupt car makers.

I've just been listening to the latest version of The Bottom Line on Radio 4. The British boss of Vauxhall was on and he was pretty bullish about the transition to TVs. he said that Stellantis would have an EV version of all their produce range by the end of this year.

It's not so much the 2035 date by when every new car sold in the UK will have to be electric. It's the scaling up from now that will change the market much quicker than that - this year manufacturers will have to sell 22% of total sales as electric cars and it continues to ramp up every year - by 2030 it's 80%. By then it will be pretty difficult and probably expensive to buy a new ICE car.

Whilst there are as yet not enough very cheap used electric cars there is already a healthy market at the mid level. we sold our first EV last September for £6.7K. Not a bargain but within the range of a great many car buyers.

 

[bluebruce]

1 hour ago, only2garners said:

 

Apologies yes, ten minute walk etc. All this talk about cars must have distracted me!

About your other part (btw you can use the multi-quote option instead of writing within your quote...not sure how you did what you did, what just press the '+' next to the Quote text and you can stack them then type under each. Lets anyone who is quoting you subsequently keep your comments intact unlike when I've just quoted you...apologies if you already know this) I think part of the problem for these legacy automakers is they're not committing wholesale to EVs, which is understandable given their existing infrastructure and markets, but means they're doing what you just said. Making EV versions of ICE cars. The problem with that is they're not purpose-built to be EVs, and their architecture therefore has unnecessary parts to it when converted to an EV, meaning waste and inefficiency in the design. When you look at the most successful EV makers who actually make profit on their EVs, like Tesla and BYD, they're committed fully to electric, and lots of the other successful Chinese brands are either fully EV or primarily EV, rather than simply adjusting existing combustion cars to have a battery etc.

Again it's understandable, because they're already making the ICE cars and cracking the EV market is still very tough because it's a nascent market and technology. Their economies of scale are geared towards ICE, but if they take too long achieving economies of scale for EVs, they'll end up too far behind to catch up. Of course, some of them do have purpose-built EV cars and are building factories just to churn out those cars, and they're probably the ones with the best chance of competing longer term. Currently some of the Japanese firms in particular are in real danger of dying out or being bought out by someone who wants to use their badge and brand.

Good point about the scaling up of EV percentages. I hate our current government but I do think they've gone about this in the right way. Pushing the requirements year on year is a better idea than expecting everyone to go cold turkey in 2035. It gives firms, customers, the market and infrastructure time to adjust without overnight disaster that could have resulted in the plans just being abandoned when it was clear uptake wasn't high enough. For those who don't know, companies will be fined for every combustion car they sell above the threshold. It's a huge fine, too - 15k I believe, or 9k for vans. It should force better price parity between ICE and EVs, though admittedly it's not good for consumers and car companies in the short term, but should get firms progressing with the transition. I hope the fines will be used to subsidise EVs or other green initiatives that could help the transition be affordable for consumers, but you never know with politicians.

6.7k for a decent used EV with decent remaining range and longevity would be very good and could be a bargain. But I suspect if you're selling one at that price in the current market it's something like an old Nissan Leaf? Not a particularly good car and whilst it would suit for some people, wouldn't suit me very well and I don't drive all that far. When you can get something like a Tesla at that price, which will eventually happen, you're probably on for a real bargain.

[only2garners]

It was an early version Renault Zoe, which it had to be as it was 6 years old. It had a range of over 200 miles in the Summer and had hardly lost anything, but it could only charge on a type 2 charger. Never a problem for us when it was a second car and we could charge at home but a bit more chalk when we went down to one car and had a couple of long journeys. Hence our change to a more modern, longer range and faster charging car, an MG5.

[chaddyrovers]

On 29/05/2024 at 23:20, ChrisyG said:

How would you reduce the amount of cars on the road? I think it's quite a leap to presume better public transport links will automatically mean a reduction in car use. People like cars and the freedom they provide. 

Exactly. I don't want to use to public transport at all. Using a car is faster, easier and I like my own space and freedom. 

[Upside Down]

1 hour ago, chaddyrovers said:

Exactly. I don't want to use to public transport at all. Using a car is faster, easier and I like my own space and freedom. 

I'd like the freedom to breathe air that isn't polluted with your smog. Regardless of how good your MPG rate is.

[bluebruce]

8 hours ago, only2garners said:

It was an early version Renault Zoe, which it had to be as it was 6 years old. It had a range of over 200 miles in the Summer and had hardly lost anything, but it could only charge on a type 2 charger. Never a problem for us when it was a second car and we could charge at home but a bit more chalk when we went down to one car and had a couple of long journeys. Hence our change to a more modern, longer range and faster charging car, an MG5.

That's not half bad. Another 50 miles and it would suit for any journey I care to make, and the price is borderline affordable for me (would be a big chunk of my savings though). Currently having to pump 500-800 a year into fixing issues on my 08 reg Peugeot, plus the fuel, so when you factor in savings that sort of car would almost pay for itself after a few years.

What was it like in terms of things needing repairs, replacement etc?

[ChrisyG]

21 hours ago, only2garners said:

 

Technology is moving fast!

Am I correct in thinking that manufacturers will be fined if they don't sell 22% of EVs?

The price of ICE cars is already on the up. My family bus is worth £10k more than the GFV, and my wife's Seat Leon is currently worth about £5k more.

A few Nissan Leafs and Corsa-e's are starting to come into my price range, as I'll have a 5k deposit. I'll have to research to find out if they're any good.

[ChrisyG]

13 hours ago, chaddyrovers said:

Exactly. I don't want to use to public transport at all. Using a car is faster, easier and I like my own space and freedom. 

Nor do I. I'm in a rural area, so I depend on my car. I like being able to jump in my motor and go where I want. If I could afford one, I would get a loud V8 and drive it like a maniac. I'd like a Triumph Bonneville, too, but my wife won't let me have a motorbike.

[chaddyrovers]

7 minutes ago, ChrisyG said:

Nor do I. I'm in a rural area, so I depend on my car. I like being able to jump in my motor and go where I want. If I could afford one, I would get a loud V8 and drive it like a maniac. I'd like a Triumph Bonneville, too, but my wife won't let me have a motorbike.

I like having that freedom of driving my car when I want and whatever time of the day. 

I don't want to use Public transport at all unless I was going to London for example. I learnt how to drive cos that's what I want to do. 

I don't want to buy electric car. I am more than happy with fuel efficient car and I drive sensible all the time. 

[only2garners]

1 hour ago, ChrisyG said:

Technology is moving fast!

Am I correct in thinking that manufacturers will be fined if they don't sell 22% of EVs?

The price of ICE cars is already on the up. My family bus is worth £10k more than the GFV, and my wife's Seat Leon is currently worth about £5k more.

A few Nissan Leafs and Corsa-e's are starting to come into my price range, as I'll have a 5k deposit. I'll have to research to find out if they're any good.

Yes, the figure is 22% for 2024, gradually ramping up so it will be 80% by 2030. For every car that they fall short of the target they will be fined £15,000. How the manufacturers will react to this no one knows as yet but we soon will. Ford, for example, who only sell one EV currently, have threatened to reduce sales of ICE cars in the UK and sell them elsewhere to avoid fines. I guess other manufacturers, who have enough EV models available may well massage pricing to encourage EV sales and depress ICE sales.

I would be very wary of buying a Nissan Leaf now. It has been around for a long time now and its technology is somewhat dated. But particularly it uses the CHdeMo system for rapid charging. That's effectively the Betamax version of charging - nothing wrong with it but nearly everyone else uses the CCS system so it's going to get increasingly hard to find the right charger on the road. There are lots of other better options now. Have a look at the reviews on electrifying.com for some ideas.

[only2garners]

36 minutes ago, chaddyrovers said:

I like having that freedom of driving my car when I want and whatever time of the day. 

I don't want to use Public transport at all unless I was going to London for example. I learnt how to drive cos that's what I want to do. 

I don't want to buy electric car. I am more than happy with fuel efficient car and I drive sensible all the time. 

Oh well that's all right then, as long as you can do what you want it doesn't matter about anyone else in society.

As I've pointed out above, over time you will have less and less choice about what cars you can buy on the market. It will obviously be a while before used cars become rare or unaffordable but it will happen. In any event, disregarding all the environmental reasons about moving away from ICE cars, EVs are just so much better to drive. They are a complete revelation.

[chaddyrovers]

19 minutes ago, only2garners said:

Oh well that's all right then, as long as you can do what you want it doesn't matter about anyone else in society.

As I've pointed out above, over time you will have less and less choice about what cars you can buy on the market. It will obviously be a while before used cars become rare or unaffordable but it will happen. In any event, disregarding all the environmental reasons about moving away from ICE cars, EVs are just so much better to drive. They are a complete revelation.

It's should be down to personal choice and not force on anyone. 

Why are Electric Vehicles so much better then fuel efficient cars? Also how can you charge them at home when you don't have drive way or can't park outside your own home most of the time? 

[Upside Down]

10 hours ago, only2garners said:

It was an early version Renault Zoe, which it had to be as it was 6 years old. It had a range of over 200 miles in the Summer and had hardly lost anything, but it could only charge on a type 2 charger. Never a problem for us when it was a second car and we could charge at home but a bit more chalk when we went down to one car and had a couple of long journeys. Hence our change to a more modern, longer range and faster charging car, an MG5.

I drove one of the MGs we had at work. It was the smoothest car I'd ever driven. It sucked the juice though. That was the only thing that put me off. 

They've also started to charge road users on EVs over here as well so they aren't quite the bargain they were but still a cheap thing to run I'd expect. 

[bluebruce]

On 07/06/2024 at 12:59, chaddyrovers said:

Why are Electric Vehicles so much better then fuel efficient cars? Also how can you charge them at home when you don't have drive way or can't park outside your own home most of the time? 

Charging at home is currently an issue if you can't park outside your home. Likely in the future there'll be charging points in many places you can park (even a lamp-post can be converted to be able to charge a car too), but you probably won't get the savings you can currently get by charging at home. Although if we invest more in renewables we could bring these costs down. However I'm going to answer your first question on the assumption that a buyer can charge at home.

Why are EVs so much better than 'fuel efficient' cars?

• The average combustion engine is only around 40% efficient (60% of the fuel's energy is wasted in heat, friction and emissions). I'm finding it hard to get a proper figure for the most efficient around, but there's an F1 Mercedes engine (which I can't imagine is available to consumers) with about 50%, and a Wartsila 31 engine that apparently can do a little over this. Electric motors convert 85-95% of the energy into the car's motion. So they're roughly twice as efficient.
• Instant torque.
• Because of instant torque, all the sprint records for commercially available cars are held by EVs. In short, they're faster. The Rimac Nevera can do 0-60mph in 1.74 seconds (only 150 made though). The Tesla S Plaid (no production limit) does 0-60mph in 1.98 seconds. Looking at the list of fastest 0-60 on Wiki, you don't find a fully combustion car until 5th place. The ICE cars that do feature on these sorts of lists always need a mega engine that will burn an insane amount of fuel.  The fastest quarter mile is held by the Rimac Nevera, at 8.25 seconds, nearly a full second faster than the next two (all electric Lucid Air Sapphire and the ICE supercar Bugatti Chiron Super Sport which I believe has a massive 8 litre engine! Both tied at 9.1 seconds)
• Less moving parts means less maintenance. Recent research shows that Tesla have the lowest average maintenance costs in the world over both a 5 year and a 10 year period of ownership. When you get a service, a lot less needs doing.
• Can potentially be powered without any emissions at all, including the electricity you provide to the car. In fact if you get yourself enough solar you'll never have to pay anything again to 'fuel' your car, and even without this you can get clever with flexible tarriffs and charge at off-peak hours and pay very little indeed. If you're not using the car the next day you could even (in some cars) export energy back to the grid at peak times and make a profit!
• There are Teslas that have clocked in excess of 450,000 miles without needing their battery or drive unit changing. I doubt there are many ICE cars in the world that have gone that many miles without the engine needing changing, at least not without constant care and maintenance. The average lifespan of an ICE car is apparently 133,000 miles. You should check out the videos showing some of these 450k mileage Teslas, they still look in good shape and are basically as fast as the day they were made. There is a guy who has driven over 1.1 million miles in his, though he's had three battery changes (I don't know if they were necessary or he just wanted full range back).
• They tend to get long warranties. Two of those battery changes I mentioned were provided by the warranty.
• The technology is still relatively new and will only get better. Batteries with close to a thousand miles of range are theoretically possible with batteries currently under development, better drive units etc.
• Despite the scare stories, the newer battery chemistries are actually far safer than ICE cars, as in they're far less likely to set on fire. Even newer batteries are being designed to be even safer still.
• Electricity prices are less dependent on the fluctuating prices of fossil fuels dictated by the whims of Russian and Middle Eastern despots. If we ramp up renewables so we are self sufficient for energy, we can avoid all that instability.
• I'm barely going to touch on this part because it's well known and the details would take too long, but with these cars being cleaner we can also combat climate change, and even if for some reason you don't care about that, we can all breathe clearer air. Air pollution kills over 7 million people globally each year, including nearly 50,000 in the UK. Getting on for twice the population of Darwen, or globally, more than the population of Denmark.
• I'm probably forgetting a few things.

[chaddyrovers]

2 hours ago, bluebruce said:

Charging at home is currently an issue if you can't park outside your home. Likely in the future there'll be charging points in many places you can park (even a lamp-post can be converted to be able to charge a car too), but you probably won't get the savings you can currently get by charging at home. Although if we invest more in renewables we could bring these costs down. However I'm going to answer your first question on the assumption that a buyer can charge at home.

Charging at home is a major problem cos people can't parked outside their own property. 

When I change my car in 2 years time, I will be look fuel efficiency diesel car looking to pay around £8,000 for my money. 

What are the prices for electric cars these days?  

[bluebruce]

15 minutes ago, chaddyrovers said:

Charging at home is a major problem cos people can't parked outside their own property. 

When I change my car in 2 years time, I will be look fuel efficiency diesel car looking to pay around £8,000 for my money. 

What are the prices for electric cars these days?  

It is a major problem, for the people who can't park outside their own property. Are you one of them?

Apparently around 70% of UK homeowners have their own off-street parking (finding it a little tricky to get the exact figures). So this means a driveway or a garage. A lot of the rest will be able to park outside their home, but on the street. Meaning they might be able to run a cable (could be a health and safety issue though), or as I said in my other post, charging points can be fitted to lamp-posts, or just built there. They wouldn't generally be super-chargers, so they'd charge slower but cost less than a supercharger, and you could just charge overnight fairly cheaply (but I imagine a bit higher than at your own home).

A lot of the people who don't have off-street parking etc are concentrated in the cities, where public transport is often excellent, and plenty of people use that or bikes. Towns and rural areas have less issue with it. That said, I do think it's a problem that could do to be addressed (probably with street chargers, but it'll take time to build enough) by 2035 when all new cars have to be EVs.

But it should be noted, this is in no way a game-ender for owning an EV. It just means you can't charge at home. This lowers one of the main advantage of EVs (cheaper 'fuel' and not going to petrol stations), but you can still charge it at charge points. Again, newer technologies are making this quicker all the time, and the cost is usually similar or a bit cheaper than petrol or diesel. And Tesla have it cheaper still for Tesla owners.

I notice you didn't reply to any of my extensive points about what makes EVs better, I hope you at least read and digested them.

Electric car prices vary just like combustion cars. At the moment, the used market is getting a lot cheaper. At the roughly £8k you mention, there are EVs available. Some I'd recommend, some I wouldn't (I'd swerve a Nissan Leaf). I saw a video where a guy managed to buy one of those 450k mileage Teslas for I think it was just under 9k (he had to negotiate, the asking price was about 11k I think). There didn't seem to be a lot wrong with it and it drove very well. Typically though, a used Tesla about 4 years old seems to sell for about 18k-20k. But there are other brands, I just think Tesla have a very good record for reliability, effiency and charger access, and I know the most about them so I mention them a lot as examples.

In 2 years time when you come to change your car, the used market may have shifted again. Especially if cheaper new EVs come along as is expected. I strongly recommend that when you come to choose your next car in 2 years, you assess the market again as you might find a better value EV at that point than any Diesel, and it could save you a fortune in the long run. Perhaps also test drive an EV so you can see what the fuss is about. I haven't yet, but if I could afford one I certainly would, a lot of people rave about their performance.