One of the things I’ve noticed about the mileage available indicator is that, immediately after a charge it might be reading, say, 81 miles, but the next morning, with no usage at all, the mileage available now says 79 miles.
How can this be? It uses no electricity overnight.
Conversely, if I park up with some charge used so that, say, there are 45 miles left, then the next morning it still says 45 miles.
Is it to do with a so-called full charge being one only just there, whereas a partly charged battery still has plenty of oomph before it ‘uses up’ a mile? If you see what I mean.
Richard of Sheffield

“Electric cars are here, now, and selling in increasing numbers. They are getting better and cheaper each year to the extent that they are typically on
[See the full post at: How and When Will Electric Cars Replace Fossil-Fuelled Cars? Part 1]”

I can see the logic, but the devil is in the detail. Firstly, I don’t understand the numbers noted on the x-scale you are working to – the rate of change of market segment would be in units of, e.g., %/year.

Secondly, the inference is that the new technology *can* replace the existing. Usually for this sort of technology penetration, the new product improves on the performance of the old. That is not true of EVs and I do not think it is yet known when we will know if it can do that at all.

The problem is petrol – if you were to design the most energy dense means of carrying energy that is easy to liberate from the energy vector, you would not end up with a battery! You would design a hydrogen-rich fuel that is liquid at STP. You have this as a moving goal-post after that because as you increase the attractiveness of EVs then you incentivise the selling of hydrocarbon fuels at lower and lower prices because if it isn’t wanted then it will be sold for less to keep up a customer base.

Ultimately, if electricity and petrol competed head-to-head without Government biases, then you have pre tax/duty costs of 58p/litre (approx 6p/kWh) for petrol and double that for electricity at ~12p/kWh. Now the EV can make better use of that energy in summer, but ultimately if it wasn’t for the tax/duty then the per mile costs are comparable.

Anyhow, my point is that an EV cannot yet replace an ICE because it just can’t compete on range and refuelling rate, so the concept that the whole national fleet of ICEs will be replaced with EVs is not yet a reality that could happen.

I think what we will see is a pause, as you describe, followed by a fairly rapid uptake of EVs by multi-car owning households with off-road driveways. In actual fact, this is a significantly large fraction – I have read around 50% of households have at least two cars.

So I imagine your blue curve will show some interesting characteristics around 25% or so (that is, the percentage of cars in the 50% of multi-car households where one is replaced with an EV) and then the take up of EVs will stagnate for a while before then increasing at a more glacial pace to a total take up yet to be determined by how far it is really possible to get a maximum take-up of EVs.

The whole of the prediction curve beyond 20% take-up is, I would say, predicated on the introduction of technology that is not yet available, let alone ready. That doesn’t make it impossible to predict if larger take-up will happen, but it does make it impossible to say ‘when’.

Are other people still having trouble with the ZE services website not updating, and not allowing scheduled charges? At present we have the situation where the website:

NEVER updates the battery charge information at the time the car is started.
DOES NOT RECOGNISE that the car is plugged in if a scheduled charge is attempted (so the charge does not happen at all).
When attempts are made to DEACTIVATE A SCHEDULED CHARGE, starting the car does not necessarily deactivate the schedule. A large time lapse and repeated starts may be necessary before manual charging can be used as an alternative.
Last time we tried to schedule a charge, IT FAILED but later STARTED CHARGING by itself WHEN WE HAD NOT ASKED IT TO (ie outside any scheduled period).
May state that THE CAR IS NOT PLUGGED IN even when a manual charge is taking place successfully at that very moment.
May not update for two or three days, even during a period when the car has been used repeatedly and/or manual charging has taken place, so what it says is absolutely useless.
When it does update, what it shows MAY ALREADY BE OUT OF DATE, because the data apparently takes a long time to get through.
Has instances of TIME ERRORS, for example at 12:58 on 2/4/14 the data shown was for 16:04 on 1/4/14, yet at 15:15 on 2/4/14 it claimed that it had updated at 12:04 on 2/4/14 (and showed later data than that at 12:58).

regarding the battery lease – i had a very interesting chat with RCI finance the other day.

Firstly i am NOT recommending anyone else to do this on purpose becuase technically i suppose this is ‘cheating’…

But I called RCI to increase my mileage and monthly payments, only to be told “why do this now” and that i could wait until 3 months before the end of my term and increase the mileage then. and this would cover me for the entire 3 years… I think this is a lopphole…

The mileage indicator is just an estimate based on your energy usage in the last few miles. Don’t stress about it too much! The battery level is a better indicator.
The best thing I’ve found about the Zoe over other EV’s is the speed the charger sucks up power. Connect it to a charge station and it takes the absolute most it can provide. Even on a standard public charge post you can have a full battery from virtually flat in under 4 hours.
As far as driving goes it’s a doddle. The Zoe is basically an electric Clio so it drives and handles like one. Its nippy, sporty and handles really well as the weight is all under the floor. I’ve got the 17″ wheels as I think they suit the car better. They say it reduces the range but I can’t say the difference is noticeable.
The only issue I’ve found is that the speed seems to be limited to 59mph in Eco mode. Is easy to switch eco off to go faster but I prefer to drive in Eco to keep the range in check.
It is possible to tweak things such as fitting LED headlight bulbs as the dip/main is a single lamp with an electorally operated dip screen. Treat the screen with Rain-X so you don’t need the wipers as much. Use pre-heating and wear a coat in winter lol