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Certainly will look into it. Was looking at getting an Astra Van in the next few months but if the price is right then I'd be up for an electric. Been slowly converting tools to rechargeable electric and been very pleased so far.
They may be offering a £8k grant but the electric vehicles are extortianatley priced to begin with. Even the Peugeot Ion is over £30k while the 107 which is a better vehicle is only about £9k. IMO you'd have to be mad to buy one.
The Renault van is roughly £21k before any handouts from the government. If you could get that down to around the £15k mark with a grant then you're in the same bracket as a diesel.
The running costs will probably work out no cheaper than a diesel anyway - I think you're buying one of these because you're into the whole electric thing, it's going to be a while before they're considerably cheaper.
I'm sure I'll end up with a used old oil-burner for the foreseeable future.
If you pay the huge premium for leasing new vans all the time, replacing every couple of years, then it might work out. Electric vehicles are an expensive technological cul-de-sac; we need to think about hydrogen as an alternative to oil, and the electric schemes merely push research in to this more effective alternative back by years.
I've known "early-adopters" with hybrid cars who've been forced to chop them in for peanuts when the warranty has run out; the batteries cost a huge amount to replace, and guess how open the manufacturers are to helping with the cost! The whole-of-life financial costs are far higher, and it's not hard to argue that they are actually worse for the environment.
Its a shame they cost so much and the ones that are in the grant scheme are'nt really big enough.
Perhaps it would be worth it in an urban situation using a smaller van for a maintenance round .
Hydrogen ain't gonna happen. The technical barriers are huge and the costs are ridiculous:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_economy#Costs
Paul McNulty said:
It was only £45k plus vat. In the end I paid £12.5k plus vat for a brand new one of the same specification except diesel (2,2l 110hp).
It is a shame but the cost difference is massive even with government incentives.
The technology around hydrogen is difficult, but already workable. The issue is that you need the infrastructure in place before you get manufacturers making the cars, so it's a case of finding the money from somewhere.
Electric is a dead-end technology; expensive, range-limited, and the already high costs (both financial and environmental) don't include the generation of the electricity needed to charge them nor the hideously dangerous chemical batteries.
We all know that we can't expect our current petrol/diesel vehicles to cost less to run as the fuel becomes more scarce, and it's being sold to us by some very unstable countries. As is our gas for our central heating, and the fuel that runs the power stations that re-fuel electric cars. The solution might be greater efficiency rather than expensive, dirty new technology?
We need to travel less; so more working from home, less flying abroad for £5 per ticket, that sort of thing. We need to insulate our homes, and wear more clothes rather than turn the heat up. We need to drive less, and in smaller, lighter vehicles that the current safety-first culture and our expectation of powered-everything and DVD players in the seat backs aren't encouraging. All things that high fuel prices will force us to address through our wallets.
As someone who's business depends on fuel, and who's hobby is a sports car, I have a vested interest. But, I'm not convinced that electric vehicles are worth bothering with unless you live in the centre of a metropolis.
Tim Haywood said:
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