My car is in limping mode and the garage says it might cost a lot of money to get it fully back up to speed (literally). But after 254,000 miles, the last 190,000 of them in our care, it certainly doesn’t owe anyone anything.
Given that we last put fuel in the car over two months ago and we still have a third of a tank to play with, it can limp around these parts for a while longer.
The lack of fuelling demonstrates that I have not visited my relatives in County Durham – even though I miss them (nor have I visited those in Edinburgh either – just in case my kids read this post). It also demonstrates that local businesses haven’t seen much of me or my credit card for 10 weeks.The consequence for them is that they have less of my money to call their money, and so something called the economy has suffered (and I dare say, some people have too). The consequence for the atmosphere and global warming must be that I have contributed far less than usual to making the world a worse place.
Another consequence is that I have more money in my bank account – noticeably more. And so I have increased my monthly direct debit to the World Land Trust (of which I am the Chair of Trustees) and have given a little more freely to others too.
I am going to have to get another car though – there aren’t many options really if you live in a rural area with poor bus services and away from other forms of public transport. If there were a car-share scheme here in this small east Northants town I’d consider it very seriously. Actually, more than that, I’d make use of it and try to manage with taxis, and public transport and car share. But there isn’t, and the time of coronavirus seems the wrong time to attempt to start one up, otherwise perhaps I would.
It’s difficult to know what to do, so I’ll do very little for a while except keep on limping (which is fine). When will social distancing end and it be easier to get taxis and travel on the public transport that does exist? How long will my car survive? Should I lease or buy an electric car? I will sit in the garden, not going anywhere, and figure it out.
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Go electric Mark. You know it makes sense.
Check out fully charged on both YouTube and podcast for all things electric car. I reckon the Tesla supercharger network is still very tempting even though the cars are pricey. You could even invest in solar panels and battery storage to charge the car.
Your car has actually done remarkably well Mark considering the mileage. I would not buy electric, yes there will be those who disagree. The climate change expert in the family says that in the long term the current technology in electric cars is Not the answer to the ICE ( internal combustion engine) because of the energy costs in making the car and particularly its batteries. Then there is both the range and charging facilities/times to take account of, especially on journeys to Durham or Edinburgh. They are also grossly overpriced. I might be tempted in your situation to look at hybrids.
Paul, your family climate change expert needs to do a bit more research., I’m afraid. The energy costs of manufacturing electric vehicles (EV) is slightly higher than for an ICE vehicle, mainly due to the battery manufacture. But over the lifetime of the car an EV wins hands down, particularly if you charge from renewable energy sources. Just think about how much fuel and oil (and the attendant environmental costs of producing those) will be consumed (I use that word advisedly) over, say 100,000 miles compared to renewable recharging an EV over the same mileage. Oh, and before you attack the keyboard, the earth elements (lithium, etc) in the EV batteries are not consumed and are recoverable for re-use. Finally, EVs are not “grossly overpriced”. They are more expensive, as is an commodity that is low-volume. Once more people buy them the price will drop.
I’m sure he doesn’t need to do more research as it is what he does for a living and is very keen the world as a whole does a great deal to tackle climate change. However he still believes that the electric car is not a long term solution for a whole host of reasons.
Buy an Austin Maxi. any Austin Maxi still running in the current day and age is one which has had all the breakdowns worked out of it and will run forever, plus it has already paid back all its environmental cost of making it. Also the seats fold down into a double bed for… whatever takes your fancy.
Don’t buy a Tesla though, don’t support Elon.
Could you just explain how it has “paid back the environmental cost of making it”? Has it been planting trees and cleaning the air as it has been driven around? Can you also explain how it will repay the environmental cost of “running forever” – the exhaust pollutants, the oil changes, and probably loss of oil in an old engine, etc?
And try Motorpoint. Nearly new models. We have had three cars from them. Very reiiable firm. Good value.
I’ll be interested to hear about 2nd hand electric car options. When I bought my current car, which was some time ago, there were basically no electric cars on the 2nd hand market (I did look!). My impression is that this is still true, certainly at my end of that market (say under £10k) .
If like me you cannot ever afford a new new car, then I suspect that hybrids or electrics remain out of reach for now.
Before anyone asks, having my own car will remain essential where I live and work.
Plenty of used EVs for under 10K. Drive Green currently has 9 for sale under that price and there will be many more around the country. You could try Jonathan at eco-cars.net here in Orkney. He obtains EVs to order and will deliver anywhere.
EVs are the way to go for the future, that or hydrogen, but the very best car of all is the shared car as mentioned by Mark. Then people would realise how little they actually need their car. Would only work in a larger town of course as per the bikes in London.
Sadly only a pipe dream due to vested interests and power of the lobbyist.
Car clubs – which are effectively shared cars – are well established in various large towns. They offer a practical solution for people who may need to drive occasionally but don’t need to on a daily basis.
There are various vested interests and lobbies with different perspectives on car ownership and usage. Car manufacturers want to sell lots of cars and retail businesses like people to be able to park near their stores but on the other hand many larger town councils are keen to reduce the amount of traffic running through their city centres. They have introduced schemes to achieve this including charging schemes, priority lanes for buses, priority lanes for multi-occupancy vehicles, parking bays for car-club vehicles, pedestrianised areas, bike hire and so on.
Various ride-share schemes (i.e. where two or more people travelling between the same places link up and travel together in a single vehicle and share costs) exist , some very informal and others more organised. The success of these schemes depends on users finding them convenient and being able to synchronise their journey times with others but I am unclear how any other interested parties can significantly interfere with their operation.
For many of us it will remain a necessity to travel for work and the car (with one form of propulsion system or another) will also remain a necessity for many journeys not easily achieved on public transport. Having said that, one of the impacts of the lock-down is that people have really got much more adept at using video-conferencing technology – Zoom, Teams, etc – for both work and social purposes and I believe that once we emerge from this pandemic these new habits will remain much more important in working life than they were pre-lockdown.
Companies and other organisations have clear evidence that meetings can be successfully managed on-line and so will be less prepared to pay travelling expenses for people to travel far and wide for meetings that could be done via a video call. Their employees will be less ready to spend hours travelling – by whatever mode of transport – if they feel they can achieve the same results from their usual place of work and then be home in the evening at a normal time. I don’t expect business travel will cease altogether as there will remain lots of reasons why it is necessary for a person to physically travel to a meeting or assignment but I’d be very surprised if a lot of formerly essential travel is not seen as being somewhat less essential in the future.
I would do some research. No type of car is beneficial to helping stop climate change as all cars have manufacturing costs. However, electric vehicles are hugely more efficient than fossil fuel cars (and hybrids) even after taking the manufacture of both into account. UK electricity generation is getting more and more renewable each year. Battery tech is improving greatly. Yes, EV’s are pricey but remember to take off the cost of fuel. Prices will come down as more are sold. Lastly they are lovely cars to drive, so smooth and less local air pollution. 7k gets you a used Nissan Leaf (80 miles range) – great car, have one. 35k gets a used Tesla which could get you anywhere in Europe.
Electric scooter.
Well, as there’s plenty of advice, thought I’d chuck in mine too. Get an e-bike. Straightforward style or small wheeled cargo that will take passenger, small children, family shopping for the week, and the effort out of shifting any of that. Tern (appropriate name too) make a great ebike that will do all the above and fit in the same space as an ordinary bile. Promotion over.
And hire whatever you want for the longer trips.
This scenario is likely to be less expensive and potentially better for the planet, than owning and running your own car.
Bimbling – I’d like your advice on how to sell this idea to my 94yo mother and mother-in-law when I offer to give them a lift somewhere…
Ahh, you need an e-rickshaw. Now where’s that smiley face emoji.
More seriously, we can all, and I include myself find reasons not to make lifestyle changes. I was only trying, against a background of “get this car, or that car” to suggest thinking anew.
Good luck anyway. Just back from a bike ride (no ‘e’ sadly) were I heard my first (and possibly last) cuckoo of the summer. This is not really cuckoo country and it was quite distant. Helped by the absence of human noise I guess.
I have a great ebike, it has cut my local car use (under 15 miles) by 80 percent. Great for exersize, birding, fun riding, shopping, trails etc.. no need to worry about hills and wind any more. I have found lots of ‘new’ wildlife hotspots too.
Where is the electricity for all these electric cars going to come from?
de – I’d have thought it would come from smashing up atoms, sunshine and wind power – where do you think it wil come from?
Erstwhile curlew breeding habitat.
Petrol is so cheap now I can save a fortune by leaving my jamjar outside with it’s engine running so that I can fill up with this cheap stuff
The tiny minority of people who work in the countryside do actually need cars. Whether it’s electric or fossil fuel, the real problem throughout most of Britain is public transport – close to non- existent in Bristol which has just spent £200 million on a ‘metrobus’ which has some dedicated route – but spends most of its time stuck amongst the cars of people who aren’t using it because it is useless. Most people live – and travel to work – in towns and cities – that is where the problem, and the failure to invest, is.
Public transport relies on hub and spoke travel paradigms first mooted in the 19thC, and it is completely obsolete in terms of people getting about. Even airlines, the last big hub and spoke investors, have now abandoned it [see the reason why the Boeing 747 and Airbus A380 pretty much vanished from the skies even before the pandemic] as no longer fit for purpose. Going from hub-to-spoke-to different spoke-to hub, and sometimes doing so across multiple forms of public transport, to get somewhere in the rough area of where you need to be, just no longer works.
Direct routes, door to door, is how people want to travel and until public transport catches up somehow it is doomed to failure. We can’t turn back the clock, we can only adapt to the future. And frankly even those hub and spoke routes haven’t adapted in decades to new locations. I know one town in Scotland which still has buses detour past where a large factory which was killed by Bloody Maggie used to be, and goes nowhere near where a 24/7 operating new business park is. And that is without getting into the operating hours of the bus routes which still thinks people work nine-to-fine and have weekends and Bank Holidays off…